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I'm no DRM fan (not that this story really has anything to do with DRM) but I gotta break in on this little mutual admration society you've got going.

First, my main bitch is with the blog being pimped. The dude hot-linked the authors image (New Scientist) in the posting. To me, that's bigger news than this Smart Clothing patent. Comedically it looks like the author from NS showed up in comments to give a smackdown.

Second, if you read the actual article or maybe even the patent app. itself, instead of the POS submission, this is pretty much a lot of hand waving and acronym throwing over nothing.

They want to make a sensor and clothing combo that can tell if the sensor is in the right place. To me that's pretty simple and even seems patentable compared to a lot of things I've read.

Last, for this to be "bad", shouldn't this harm the "shoe sensor market" or "smart clothing market' if there even were such things? I don't see how this is going to stop anyone from making other systems or other sensors. Patent licensing is another opening for competition even if someone else produce from Apple's patent.

Lame story. Now go harass that guy for hot-linking New Scientist's image. It's 2008 for crying out loud! :-)

-Matt

If Google uses user comments to affect search, massive attempts would be made by the "search engine optimization" people to game the system. If you thought link farms were bad, phony user farms would be worse. Google won't be able to identify the phonies; they can't even More fundamentally, there's a scaling problem. As I've pointed out before, the number of raters per site has to be large for rating to work. Rating for movies and TV shows works fine. Hotels might get enough ratings to be useful. Joe's Plumbing will be rated only by Joe, Joe's relatives, and Joe's employees.

CustomizeGoogle and GiveMeBackMyGoogle have some good ideas, although GiveMeBackMyGoogle is probably violating Google's terms of service by redistributing Google search results as a web site. Google lets you annotate their search results via their AJAX API, but you're not allowed to add or delete from their results list. If you want to delete items from Google search results, you have to do that via a browser plug-in. (Note, by the way, that Google's Chrome doesn't allow non-Google browser plug-ins. That's a form of DRM, when you think about it.)

With our SiteTruth SiteTruth system, we're addressing the problem by looking at off-web sources of legitimacy. The first question is always "can we find a name and address for the business behind the web site"? We have about four ways to do that. If none of them work, and they're selling something, they get moved down in our search results. If they do have an address, we look them up in various business databases. Considerable data is available about a business, once you can identify it. Ultimately, we want to make the business's credit rating affect their search results. It's necessary to reach out to those hard off-web data sources to separate the real companies from the bottom-feeders. Yes, the "affiliate" crowd will scream. Tough.

As for bottom-feeders, I really like this site, where someone in Brooklyn, NY, took pictures of the storefronts of every Brooklyn photo company he could find that advertised online. It's very funny. Now that's what Google should be doing with StreetView.

Here's our master plan for cleaning up the Web.

Each time I hear stories like this, it makes me think it's time for a patent moratorium in this country. Look at the the number of patents awarded each year in the U.S. From 1962-77, there were about 1 million patents granted; from 1977-92 there were just over 1 million. Since then, patents have grown seemingly exponentially; it took only 8 years (1992-2000) to get to 6 million and less than 7 to get to 7 million. Extrapolating for the number given for Jan. 1, 2008, the next million will be granted by the end of 2011. Something tells me the number of reviewers at the patent office isn't growing nearly as fast as the number of applications.

I don't think we've gotten that more inventive in the past decade. We're now seeing applications to patent business models, genes, and devices that seem to have ample prior art to deny a patent. I think we're seeing lawyers with too much time on their hands trying to patent anything under the sun. Patents have their purpose in inspiring innovation, but when they are abused as arms in an IP race they become counterproductive. Up-and-coming businesses shouldn't need to worry about hiring a world-class legal team before ramping up their engineering and sales forces just to make sure some minor detail of their generally revolutionary new widget doesn't fall into the purview of XYZ Corp's giant IP repertoire.

I say it's high time to suspend the issue of new patents for a couple of years to let everything that's in the pipeline now get a decent review. And after that make the application more transparent to allow those who see prior art relative to an application to make their beliefs known to the patent office. The way we're going, it won't be long before we see patents awarded for "brand new" materials like oxygen, carbon, and iron.

If the amount of BS in the patent system continues to grow, eventually patents will become useless in terms of truly fostering innovation. Already, some people don't see any moral objection to infringing copyright since they feel the copyright holders aren't living up to their side of the bargain by allowing their IP to become public domain. People will start infringing patents on moral grounds if they're viewed as simply an artificial barrier to entry in a market rather than a means to allow limited-term profit from a truly groundbreaking invention.

Keep in mind that the scope of what's patented is contained entirely within the claims of the patent, not in the rest of the specification. (Although, anything in the specification, once published, can be considered "prior art" over future applications.)

In this case, the independent claims get extremely specific, including an indication of the particular formula being used to calculate the amount to scroll. Compare this to the claims as originally filed.*

(* If that link expires, the application publication number is 20060200764, and you can enter that here.)

Keep in mind that the scope of what's patented is contained entirely within the claims of the patent, not in the rest of the specification. (Although, anything in the specification, once published, can be considered "prior art" over future applications.)

In this case, the independent claims get extremely specific, including an indication of the particular formula being used to calculate the amount to scroll. Compare this to the claims as originally filed.*

(* If that link expires, the application publication number is 20060200764, and you can enter that here.)

At least read the summary next time. If you had you'd have noticed it's quite clearly not a patent for the keys themselves, but the practice of scrolling a specific amount regardless of the current view settings (eg. zoom). As such your keyboard is irrelevant, a peice of software that implements those keys in the standard way however is absolutely relevant.

To quote the patent text itself (emphasis added):

Briefly, the present invention provides a method and system for scrolling a substantially exact increment in a document, such as a row height corresponding to a row of one or more pages of a page set, so as to display a next page set from the precise vertical location into the page that the previous page set started, regardless of the current zoom percentage. For example, if the middle of a page set is at the top of the viewing area, after scrolling, the middle of the next page set is at the top of the viewing area. This operation occurs on receiving specific user input, e.g., a Page Up or Page Down key command.

Notice that the use of the Page Down/Up keys is an example of input that would be used in concert with the patent, so it's crystal clear that they're not trying to patent the keys themselves.

Not that what they're patenting is any less ridiculous, but let's at least get straight what ridiculous thing we're talking about.

Why BBC would translate trademark->patent for no apparent reason is a good question though.

A single government agency handles U.S. patents and U.S. trademarks. Might that have something to do with it?

If your employer is still enamored with the idea of filing documents with the patent office, suggest a Statutory Invention Registration. This will confer the positive aspects of patents -- protecting you from being sued over use of the "invention" and adding the invention to the public record -- without the negative aspects of patents -- stifling the industry or putting the company in the position where it is fiscally obligated to bring suit to 'protect its assets', and thereby run up expensive legal fees and create a public relations nightmare. Also, the filing fees for a SIR are cheaper than a normal patent application.

No consent necessary. Check the bloody law before you spout off. Insightful my ass.

So is the US Patent and Trademark Office, as part of the process of using PAIR, the Patent Application Information Retrieval system, which lets the public look at information about patent applications that have been published.

A patent on putting a sticker on a card. I have a better idea. I'm gonna patent the Flux Capacitor, which is what makes time travel possible. Oh, wait, someone beat me to it. Shucks.

And here I thought that only happened with patents.

As usual, Apple made pioneering efforts in the industry by trying to multi-touch out from under Jeff Han, and now Dell is trying to play catch-up.

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=d21in9.5.6 Midori linux is trademarked by Transmeta as: "G & S: COMPUTER OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARE."

Ok, excuse me while I spend my Sunday afternoon (and allocate a day every week from now until the end of time) downloading this week's 154.2Mb Trademark Official Gazette and then going to find equivalents in all the other jurisdictions I care about (which probably means the 80 members of the Madrid system, given a grant in any of them can be ratcheted up to a 'global' trademark within 6 months).

Either the USPTO has to do their job or the community has to do it for them - in the latter case I would suggest that we need something like feeds of the new applications and something like the Wikipedia New Pages patrol. Good luck with that...

Microsoft trademarked "windows."

Which only applies to operating systems, computers and related crap. It does not cover the use of the word for sheets of glass.

Trademark law seems a little less insane than copyright. At least, to a layman.

Microsoft trademarked "windows."

Which only applies to operating systems, computers and related crap. It does not cover the use of the word for sheets of glass.

Trademark law seems a little less insane than copyright. At least, to a layman.

Microsoft trademarked "windows."

Which only applies to operating systems, computers and related crap. It does not cover the use of the word for sheets of glass.

Trademark law seems a little less insane than copyright. At least, to a layman.

who knows of or sees these things in order to oppose them?

Anybody. The marks are published weekly for opposition. The latest few are available as PDF downloads free of charge; follow the link and you can even subscribe to the paper copy (for merely $1,536/year).

Here is the U.S. Patent and Trademark listing: CLOUD COMPUTING

The first comment to the article links to the USPTO page for the applicatoin where the status shows that the opposition period went by without anybody noticing, so the mark is one step closer to being validated. It appears only the dependable USPTO is left to block this thing on its own.

You can get patent results ad-free from Google or straight from the USPTO.

Show me a company that hasn't been able to release a key piece of software because a competitor has a patent on it.

We'll never know, will we?

Show me a software company that has folded, or even scaled back operations, because of an adverse patent infringement judgment (AND where the patent was invalid due to novelty/non-obviousness, etc.)

I'm sure RIM wasn't happy having an injunction against them.

Show me any area of software research that has been crippled by any software patent.

Video compression. Unless you're one of the big players, you're effectively not allowed to participate.

Wrong again. Microsoft has actually argued for expanding software patent rights in Europe. Why would it do that if it regarded software patents as a loathsome burden?

Of course! Right now software patents can only be used to attack American companies. I'm sure they'd love to level the playing field.

Ridiculously incorrect. Enforcement of a U.S. patent involves a patented item or activity existing in the U.S. The nationality of the company is completely irrelevant.

If a Chinese company opens an American office and patents a software concept, they can pursue American companies that violate it. It is basically impossible for an American company to sue a Chinese company on their own turf.

In fact, non-U.S. companies have obtained patents in greater numbers over the last 15 years - both in terms of raw numbers (50,000 in 1994; 90,000 in 2007) and as compared with U.S. companies (from 43% in 1994 to 49% in 2007.)

You're bragging about the fact that we're unilaterally increasing risk to our companies at an increasing rate?

Riiiiight. Any evidence of this? Besides, y'know, a million posts on Slashdot asserting the same thing (also without evidence?)

Show me a company that hasn't been able to release a key piece of software because a competitor has a patent on it.

Show me a company that has admitted to staying out of a particular sector of software because of competing patents.

Show me a software company that has folded, or even scaled back operations, because of an adverse patent infringement judgment (AND where the patent was invalid due to novelty/non-obviousness, etc.)

Show me any area of software research that has been crippled by any software patent.

Hell - show me a Slashdotter who has not written a particular piece of software primarily because of a patent concern.

I'll bet that, aside from a few minor and tangential examples, you can't. Know why? Because that's not how patents are used - particularly in software. Licenses, cross-licenses, consortium arrangements, claim-centric design-arounds, and even old-fashioned "let's invent another way to do it"-ness abound. So do compulsory licenses (licenses granted to patents by a court against the will of a patentee) and business realities that discourage suing a small-fry competitor over a particular product.

-----

Do you think Microsoft really wants Joe Troll in Texas coming after them for 20 billion dollars because he patented spreadsheets? No! They see them as an evil that they have to put up with...

Wrong again. Microsoft has actually argued for expanding software patent rights in Europe. Why would it do that if it regarded software patents as a loathsome burden?

-----

American companies, or at least the intelligent ones, hate software patents because they're only useful against American companies. They don't do jack against the 95% of the world's population that doesn't live here...

Ridiculously incorrect. Enforcement of a U.S. patent involves a patented item or activity existing in the U.S. The nationality of the company is completely irrelevant.

In fact, non-U.S. companies have obtained patents in greater numbers over the last 15 years - both in terms of raw numbers (50,000 in 1994; 90,000 in 2007) and as compared with U.S. companies (from 43% in 1994 to 49% in 2007.)

- David Stein

You can't copyright a game, but you *can* copyright a game board.

You also apparently can patent game mechanics.

This calls for a Kermit full-waving "YAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!"

Err... not so fast.

The PTO is an administrative body, not a legal body. It has no authority to state, "these types of inventions are patentable, and these aren't." It cannot impose new substantive requirements on inventions, including "physicality."

The PTO has taken this position a dozen times in the past - and it has been repeatedly rejected by the federal courts. The federal judges must be tired of having to explain to the PTO that "physicality" is not, and never was, a requirement of patentability.

So what we have here, once again, is the PTO exceeding its authority. The federal court has already hammered the PTO once this year for this (relating to its imposed requirements on continuation rules.) Expect this to occur again when the federal court decides In re Bilski.

Look, guys - nothing's gonna change. IT is one of the only consistently thriving segments of the U.S. economy, and the drivers of that market - Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo, Adobe, eBay - all utilize and support software patents. If anything, they're pinning an increasing emphasis and reliance on software patenting. And they all have great lobbyists, so expect Congress to step in with new patent legislation if it looks like software patents are in jeopardy. (They've done it before, folks. Consider 35 USC 103(b) for a specific instance where Congress changed the law to support biotech patenting.)

- David Stein

If the patent is really like that it is useless

Ding ding ding! PageRank's patent is simply one of thousands upon thousands of useless patents exactly like this. Take, for instance, this lawsuit over this patent. Read the line items there, and tell me how one would go about creating a "video codec" using "a single semiconductor chip". I'm almost willing to bet that this "Advanced Video Technologies" couldn't tell me either, but I'm sure they thought that it sounded like it would be a good idea.

other search engines can legally use PageRank

That's where Google's pal "Trade Secret" comes in, after all, it's not like they list the algorithm they use to rank pages on their front page. Their patent reads more like "PageRank exists and we use it to order results from most relevant to least relevant and then display those results with links to the user, doing so is hereby patented" i.e. business process at its finest, with not a word that can be used to actually implement PageRank.

Please, show me an non-lethal howitzer. Show me how you can effectively propel 20lbs of unguided metal at a speed that doesn't kill somebody. Not to mention the fact that howitzers are typically used to fire high-explosive shells, because large rounds aren't particularly better than small rounds at actually hitting things. Marketers, please, speak with your engineers someday.

That said, I'd also like to point out that this uses distinct lethal and non-lethal rounds, so nothing terribly radical (Here is a more interesting patent, for a system which does include a switch on the gun itself. What's most interesting about Lund's system is the (apparently) rocket propulsion. It's been used before, in the Gyrojet, and it will be interesting to see if they manage to fix its problems (My bet: no, and it's even less likely to offer such an improvement over existing weapons that it actually gets adopted.)

http://www.uspto.gov/go/taf/reports.htm

Total Patent Applications in 1991: 177,830, Granted 106,696, 40% Approval Rate
Total Patent Applications in 2006: 452,633, Granted 196,404, 43% Approval Rate
Total Patent Applications in 2007: 484,955, Granted 182,901, 37% Approval Rate

If the average patent costs $10k to file, that represents a budge of almost $5 BILLION for 2007.

Take out 10% of the budget to the general fund.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USPTO

8,913 employees, of those 5477 are patent examiners, $489,688 per employee, but lets cap the "support staff" at $75K or $258M of the budget, leaving the average patent examiner salary at just a tad under $800K!

I think we definitely need a Congressional Criminal Investigation into the USPTO.

But we can see the $10K *pittance* fees could easily be changed to $100K to bringing the USPTO budget to $50B per year. None of those patent applications would be for "small change" advancements expected to add less than $100K to the economy so its doubtful there would be any effect on the number of applications (or it would be tiny).

Let's say each patent examiner averages 200 days of work per year, each patent examiner is averaging 88 patents reviewed per year, or gives each patent an average attention span of 2 and a third working days.

I'm sure you could also search an estimate for average number of billable lawyer hours spent per patent application. But let's guess it's one month, or 120 hours, billed at $200/hour, or $24,000 per patent (which sounds really low), but that's an additional $11.6B in lawyer fees for fiscal 2007.

So when is the FBI going to start investigating the lawyers the way they investigate mortgage brokers? How come no charges for fraud are filed for any patent applications?

I've been waiting 4 years now. Patent Publication Document #20040051913 March 18, 2004

First one, where using multiple batteries with a cooling system, might have been quite hard on them.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6255015.PN.&OS=PN/6255015&RS=PN/6255015

Ovonic Battery Company, Inc. was bought by texaco not long after they got the first patent I just described, and successfull patent application shows it up.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6969567.PN.&OS=PN/6969567&RS=PN/6969567

First one, where using multiple batteries with a cooling system, might have been quite hard on them.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6255015.PN.&OS=PN/6255015&RS=PN/6255015

Ovonic Battery Company, Inc. was bought by texaco not long after they got the first patent I just described, and successfull patent application shows it up.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6969567.PN.&OS=PN/6969567&RS=PN/6969567

Prove it. Find 5 patents that are owned by "Big Oil". Also, define "Big Oil".

Okay, Big Oil should be pretty easy. From this wikipedia page, you'll get ExxonMobile, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Total S.A. And they don't register these patents under their own names- they use subsidiaries. For example, Chevron owns Cobasys, a NiMH battery maker.

5 Patents? Hell, I can find you at least 40.

Do I get a cookie?

Prove it. Find 5 patents that are owned by "Big Oil". Also, define "Big Oil".

http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html

If Microsoft get their hands on Patent 6,269,361 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,269,361.PN.&OS=PN/6,269,361&RS=PN/6,269,361 there might not be an elsewhere for them to go to.

See, that is more along the lines of what I've been thinking also. I think that the search is a significant part of the deal, but not all of it by a long shot-more like icing on the cake.

Yahoo! has an interesting patent portfolio that may be a bigger target than just the search.

I also have to wonder if MS had anything to do with Carl Icahn stepping into the picture to 'stir the mud puddle' and help push Yahoo! towards MS.

It will be interesting to see how the dust settles on this one.

Internet-enabled central irrigation control PN/6,823,239

My guess is that nVidia will put a stop to this pretty quickly. PhysX is covered by at least a couple of patents. There may be others pending or that were assigned to nVidia.

I don't know if PhysX is covered by patent protection in Israel, but it's possible. In any event, don't count on official PhysX support from ATI any time soon.

But then again no one looks at the patents because if you did and then implemented the invention, you're liable for willful infringement. And as we all know, you can get patents for pretty trivial things.

Patents might as well be secret until they expire.

It's a pretty common misperception that somehow humans would have to pay license fees for use of DNA.

What was being patented was a purified sequence of DNA for use in a diagnostic test. It's not the DNA itself--there's 10 million years of prior art for that--but the use of a particular sequence of DNA for diagnostics.

The total human genome is over 3 billion base pairs. Companies were racing to figure out which small sequences (100 or so pairs) would be useful in diagnostics and possibly in therapy. The use of DNA for that purpose was completely new at the time.

For example, check out this DNA patent application. The application refers to a specific DNA sequence, but the patent itself is for the use of that particular sequence for a specific kind of therapy.

It's still perfectly legal to reproduce, sell your DNA in a bottle, and so forth. The only thing the patent covers is the use of one very short sequence in a particular kind of therapy.

It might still be bad policy, but it's not as if you don't own your DNA.

This of course means I'm biased. This lady (Lesley) is the most awesome programmer I have ever met. She was able to learn a new language (C) and write a functional system in three months. This was for a completely new system which involved encryption ,telephony datacom, graphics and peripheral control (scanner and plotter). She was the sole C programmer on the project with one other assembly language programmer who wrote a scale to gray viewer for the system.

As for touchy feely code.... nope almost no comments in the code. The Assembly language programmer on the project was scared that something would happen to her and he would need to take over the code and didn't understand it at all.

She has recently gone back to college (UCF) to update her knowledge. Her group in web development class consists of 3 men and two other women. I have been conversing with some of them because we have been hosting some of the group members project pages. She is the leader of the group and so far the men and women seem even in skill so far. None of the others seem anywhere near her skill level for programming however.

That having been said, after working in the computer field since 1980 have not encountered many women. It does seem to be a GUY thing.Programming seems to be even more heavily a GUY thing as I have never seen another one of these Unicorn like mystical beasts.

Her project home page:

http://lpeterson.cet4583.cyberstreet.com/

Patent page for the above mentioned project

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5222138.PN.&OS=PN/5222138&RS=PN/5222138

> What they are claiming is more fantastic than a
> perpetual motion machine and the Patent Office
> stopped bothering to examine perpetual motion
> applications decades ago.

The US Patent office has already issued approximately 20 patents related to water powered cars. That big automakers are in bed with big oil and still cranking out gasoline powered cars is where the real scam and scandal is.

Read 'em and weep, buddy.

US Patents issued to Stanley Meyer:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=0&f=S&l=50&d=PTXT&Query=IN%2F%22Meyer%2C+Stanley%22

US Patents issued to Dennis Klein:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=0&f=S&l=50&d=PTXT&Query=IN%2F%22Klein%2C+Dennis%22

Obviously Genepax also knows something you don't.

Suzanne.
I'm at http://www.suzcorner.com/

> What they are claiming is more fantastic than a
> perpetual motion machine and the Patent Office
> stopped bothering to examine perpetual motion
> applications decades ago.

The US Patent office has already issued approximately 20 patents related to water powered cars. That big automakers are in bed with big oil and still cranking out gasoline powered cars is where the real scam and scandal is.

Read 'em and weep, buddy.

US Patents issued to Stanley Meyer:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=0&f=S&l=50&d=PTXT&Query=IN%2F%22Meyer%2C+Stanley%22

US Patents issued to Dennis Klein:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=0&f=S&l=50&d=PTXT&Query=IN%2F%22Klein%2C+Dennis%22

Obviously Genepax also knows something you don't.

Suzanne.
I'm at http://www.suzcorner.com/

Here. You make it sound like patents are a big secret or something.

My guess: Ethanol can easily be turned into aromatic chemicals like benzene, toluene, xylene. These have very high octane when burned as fuel in a gasoline engine. (Both web pages state that this technology will first be used to replace aviation gasoline, which is higher octane than automotive gas and still uses lead.)

No they are all facts.
The US has the worlds 2nd largest stockpile of chemical weapons. We have less than Russia now, because we have been slowly destroying our supplies, but only since 2006 have we dropped into second place.. We still have 15,000 metric tons of nerve agents and mustard gas.
The CIA has been training terrorists since the 1950s. Most of the anti-American sentiment around the world can be traced to CIA operations attempting to influence foreign politics.
In 2006 the US Army patented A rifle-muzzle launched payload delivering projectile ...5. The projectile of claim 4, wherein the aerosol composition is further selected from the group consisting of smoke, crowd control agents, biological agents, chemical agents, obscurants, marking agents, dyes and inks, chaffs and flakes.
The US government ignores the UN whenever it is convenient. The US has used it's military on foreign soil 70 times since 1980.

To prevent future moral failings, we must first as a country acknowledge the failings of the recent past. To hide our heads in the sand and pretend that US hasn't earned the animosity of the terrorists and insurgents we fight is to ensure our failure both in the battles we fight and in our rapidly eroding position as a world leader. Ignorance is unpatriotic.

here's the stupid design patent.

The people who posted the ad must be missing a few numbers for their patent. Using the patent number supplied you get a patent issued Jan 17 1888.

My apologies for replying to my own post, but I found his patent application as well. (This should allow some comparison between the methods involved.)
SWELLABLE SOL-GELS, METHODS OF MAKING, AND USE THEREOF