IBM Snags Patent On Half-Day Off of Work Notifications 163
theodp writes "The USPTO appears to have lowered the bar on obviousness, awarding a patent to IBM Tuesday for its System for Portion of a Day Out of Office Notification. 'Out of office features in existing applications such as Lotus Notes, IBM Workplace, and Microsoft Outlook all implement a way to take a number of days off from one day to many days,' acknowledges purported patent reformer Big Blue. 'Yet, none of these applications contain the feature of letting a person take a half-day or in more general terms, x days and x hours off.' Eureka! And yes, the invention is every bit as obvious as you can imagine."
Huh (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Imagine.. (Score:4, Funny)
It's probably a bunch of guys sitting around, trying to "one up" each other on who can get the most outrageous patent.
I sense a new drinking game!
Re:Obvious question ... (Score:5, Funny)
"Method and system for taking a crap on a computer."
1. Eat food (see our related patent application for "Method and system for eating food";
2. Wait. (period of time depends on food eaten and any contamination such as salmonella, see our related patents and our "brown paper" on "Montezuma's Revenge")
3. Do what comes naturally on a computer.
Excellent, I shall file this immediately.
Re:Imagine.. (Score:5, Funny)
It's probably a bunch of guys sitting around, trying to "one up" each other on who can get the most outrageous patent.
I sense a new drinking game!
Sorry, that was the second patent they filed.
Re:Huh (Score:5, Funny)
Cool! My patent is in the mail to the USPTO .. (Score:4, Funny)
.. a system to deliver quarter-day off notices ..
Re:Huh (Score:4, Funny)
I work in IT :)
You can't tell if I have taken a half a day off or not.
Boss: Uh why were you not at the office between 12 and 4?
Me: I had to go to the datacenter.
Boss: For what?
Me: The EPS conduits were all gunked up because the flux capacitor in the power converter was 3 degrees out of phase.
Boss: Ok. Isn't that what happened to my laptop last week?
Me: Yes, but this was not caused by porn.