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Most people here are mistaken. Apple never patented the scroll wheels found on the iPod or this D-cube. (however the D-cube looks like so much of a knockoff that it may be infringing Apple's design patent.) Apple did apply for a patent on a mouse having something similar to the combination scroll wheel/D-pad which made its way to the iPod Mini, however this patent has not been granted.

See all Apple patents here.

And I could make a portable music player with a plastic fish pasted onto it that lip-synched all the songs played on it, and that would be unique too, but it doesn't mean I get to patent the stupid thing.

Abstract
A word-processor that provides a freestyle-editing environment for editing an XML document while monitoring the XML document for well-formedness. The word processor monitors the XML document to determine if the XML document is well-formed and to automatically correct the XML document to maintain well-formedness.

The USA is a great example for many, many things. Copy our constitution, copy our legal system, and even copy our original copyright law if needbe. But for the love of inventing, do not copy our patent system or our modern copyright law!

We even let the swingset be patented for goodness' sake!

Patent# 6,466,967

Looks like it should be easy enough to block:

TABLE 1
ADVERTISING TAG
<SCRIPT SRC=http://unicast.com/loadad.js>
AdServer="http://AdManagement system"
</SCRIPT>

One portion of the advertising tag (SRC=http://unicast.com/loadad.js), when executed by the browser, downloads a JavaScript file (named loadad.js) from the agent server. This file, in turn, is then interpreted and executed, as a script, by the browser. The effect of executing this script, as symbolized by block 200 shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B, is to substitute applet tags, dynamically written by the script, into the referring web page in lieu of advertising tag 40 so as to form a modified web page, here referring content page 35', residing in the browser disk cache. The script, by invoking a feature associated with dynamic writing, completely hides these tags from view should the user then display HTML source code for page 35' with his browser. This, in turn, hinders the user, to a certain degree, from readily ascertaining the source of the agent and ad management systems. Collectively, these applet tags form Transition Sensor applet 210. This script, as described in detail below and is reproduced in Table 2 below, when interpreted and executed by a Java virtual machine (Java interpreter) resident in the browser persistently loads and then instantiates the Transition Sensor itself which, in turn, loads and instantiates the remainder of the agent in the client browser.

TABLE 2
TRANSITION SENSOR APPLET
<applet code="com.unicast.adcontroller.tools.TransitionSen sor"
codebase="http://www.unicast.com/java/classes/"
align="baseline" width="0" height="0" name="TransitionSensor"
archive="adcontroller.jar">
<param name-"adURL"
value="http://www.unicast.com/media/fireworks_01_a d_descriptor.txt">
<param name="cabbase" value="adcontroller.cab">
</applet>

I wouldn't say as strongly. The system has its faults in extremely high initial investment cost. Particularly, the infrastructure has to be built ground up based on not having tracks. At a distance of 750 miles, that is quite a large sum of faith. The 9 year project has already cost an arm and a leg. I'm not so sure I would be willing to fork over such large sums of money like that when other technologies exist that have proven themselves, are cheaper, and almost as fast (~300km/h).

A study done by a railway consultancy group in Germany has postulated through computer simulation models the efficiency of a Transrapid system is about equal if not less of a "standard" (not maglev) railway. In fact, their conjectures show two to three times more energy required over the marketed ramblings of Transrapid. However I can't speak for the validity of this company, and this study was done more than four years ago from which there have been about 50 patents issued since the published article, and there have been 29 patents filed (but not issued), I'm guessing the situation is more like the situation featured by MegaRail Transportation Systems Inc which is still a year and a half lagging.

I know for certain though that maglev has not become drastically cheaper in initial construction. It is only in the chance of longer term fuel and cost efficiencies it may pay off to invest in it. This is why I think 750 miles is a bit far at this point and would be much better suited for changing over the city subway system network in the richer parts.

As of this moment, in rural areas, the Chinese people live in squandor. It really is a depressing sight and the awareness of such situations will spread with the ease of transportation to such areas. When people have more and more free time to devote to issues that they may otherwise glance over in effect to pay a bill, priorities may not always be akin to someone who lives in a more relaxed state. Given a Transrapid system would cost quite a bit, one trip costing roughly 1/20th of one person's income for a month, there should be more attention focused on that of the 1 billion or so population that does not live in the top 1% of wealth for the country. It is not the United States there, and people are not often exuberantly wealthy as they may be in the good ole' west. It is usually governemnt officials yes, but they also have insight into making their lives filled with more power and that of their family and descendants. As a result, the country must prosper the same and it would not be able to do as much through this system.

Of course I am not making China out to be concerned about their people because they generally are not except in the image they may portray to their trading partners, or at least in any public news stories. Rather, the social implications are only a sidestep to other motivations which I have only briefed upon, namely control and power distributed through their descendants. It should be understood that this method values is prevalent all the way to the lower classes except of those in

I wouldn't say as strongly. The system has its faults in extremely high initial investment cost. Particularly, the infrastructure has to be built ground up based on not having tracks. At a distance of 750 miles, that is quite a large sum of faith. The 9 year project has already cost an arm and a leg. I'm not so sure I would be willing to fork over such large sums of money like that when other technologies exist that have proven themselves, are cheaper, and almost as fast (~300km/h).

A study done by a railway consultancy group in Germany has postulated through computer simulation models the efficiency of a Transrapid system is about equal if not less of a "standard" (not maglev) railway. In fact, their conjectures show two to three times more energy required over the marketed ramblings of Transrapid. However I can't speak for the validity of this company, and this study was done more than four years ago from which there have been about 50 patents issued since the published article, and there have been 29 patents filed (but not issued), I'm guessing the situation is more like the situation featured by MegaRail Transportation Systems Inc which is still a year and a half lagging.

I know for certain though that maglev has not become drastically cheaper in initial construction. It is only in the chance of longer term fuel and cost efficiencies it may pay off to invest in it. This is why I think 750 miles is a bit far at this point and would be much better suited for changing over the city subway system network in the richer parts.

As of this moment, in rural areas, the Chinese people live in squandor. It really is a depressing sight and the awareness of such situations will spread with the ease of transportation to such areas. When people have more and more free time to devote to issues that they may otherwise glance over in effect to pay a bill, priorities may not always be akin to someone who lives in a more relaxed state. Given a Transrapid system would cost quite a bit, one trip costing roughly 1/20th of one person's income for a month, there should be more attention focused on that of the 1 billion or so population that does not live in the top 1% of wealth for the country. It is not the United States there, and people are not often exuberantly wealthy as they may be in the good ole' west. It is usually governemnt officials yes, but they also have insight into making their lives filled with more power and that of their family and descendants. As a result, the country must prosper the same and it would not be able to do as much through this system.

Of course I am not making China out to be concerned about their people because they generally are not except in the image they may portray to their trading partners, or at least in any public news stories. Rather, the social implications are only a sidestep to other motivations which I have only briefed upon, namely control and power distributed through their descendants. It should be understood that this method values is prevalent all the way to the lower classes except of those in

I believe that our entire patent, copyright, and trademark system has reached the point of ridiculous.

Consider these examples from Overlawyered.com:

Can you own common words? "In one of the broadest crackdowns ever issued against a domain name holder, a federal judge has ordered eReferee.com to stop using the word 'referee' in all of its domain names. ... In issuing the court ruling, Wisconsin federal [j]udge C.N. Clevert sided with Referee magazine, a periodical holding the trademark to the word 'referee' for the purposes of publication." David Post, an associate professor of law at Temple, called the ruling "unbelievable", saying that regardless of whether eReferee.com had violated trademark law, as was alleged, by using a logo confusingly similar to its rival's, "You just don't want to let someone own the word 'referee'". (Lisa M. Bowman, "Judge approves domain name penalty on eReferee", CNet, Feb. 16; Gretchen Schuldt, "Referee Enterprises Seeks to Halt Competitor from Using 'Referee' in Web Name", Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/Corporate Intelligence.com, Feb. 23).

Using his own name a legal risk. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Bill Wyman shares his name with a somewhat well-known musician who played bass with the Rolling Stones. He was nonetheless unprepared when he received a letter from the musician's lawyer suggesting that he might be violating the other guy's rights by ... well, by going on using his own name (Bill Wyman, "Will the real Bill Wyman please tune up?", Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"'Let's Roll' Trademark Battle Is On". Why'd she have to hire that lawyer? No sooner does the widow of Flight 93 hero Todd Beamer set up a foundation to honor his memory than its lawyer announces that he's having it apply for a trademark on the now-famous phrase "Let's Roll", so that anyone who wants to use the words on hats or t-shirts will have to fork over a royalty. Since September 11 numerous other individuals have also sought to copyright the phrase, although it was in common use before that date. (AP/Las Vegas Sun, Feb. 1)

Someone might get confused. "Just when you think the battle over domain names and trademarks can get no more ridiculous, Pillsbury goes and ups the ante. Universities and companies as large as Sun Microsystems received cease-and-desist letters this week ordering engineers to stop holding what the [giant flour maker] considers illegal 'bake-offs.' But it's not as if the engineers are huddling together around the oven trading stolen recipes -- in techie lingo, a 'bake-off' is a get-together in which software programmers test their creations against network protocols to see if they will work correctly. ... No matter: The geeks are infringing on Pillsbury's 'bake-off trademark,' the letters argued." (Damien Cave, "Pillsbury Doughboy mauls techies", Salon, Jan. 20)(Slashdot thread)


It is becoming ever more apparent that the entire system needs to be evaluated and rewritten. But, as easy as this is to blame on an outdated system, this case (the parent post) shows that even when a policy is in place, it will be abused and ignored. Perhaps before Trademarking anything, they should read their own Trademark policy or, in the case that they don't recognize playmate as an English word, perhaps they should spend a little time reviewing the dictionary.

What next, Microsoft finally succeeding in Trademarking "Windows"??? Playboy goes after the children's toy industry because they unashamedly use the term "playmate" in many of its toys?

It makes no matter that these advertisers were using the popularity of these words to boost their services. Capitalizing on things is not a crime. Especially when the terms they are capitalizing on are not trademarkable. If anyone

Well, with technical diagrams as complex and ingenious as this it's no wonder the patent office was impressed.

And here!

I think there's obvious prior art here.

That's very true. Back in my highschool electronics class one of the projects I did was the Larry's Casio calculator to PC link cable. The guy who has the patent on it is really nice, and his patent (apart from being technical) is straitforward and understandable. And his whole purpose for patenting it was to share his knowledge. He also provided me with a rare part needed that I was unable to find locally. That's the type of person who makes the world a better place.

Accoring to the USPTO website, there are three types of patents:

Utility patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or compositions of matters, or any new useful improvement thereof;

Design patents may be granted to anyone who invents a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture; and

Plant patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plants.

I fail to see how an extra dot is a new idea, unless it is some wacky new ornament, or maybe the plan to asexually reproduce the dot . .. .... ........ sigh, etc

The Patent was issued on November 23 1999.

Somehow I don't think its going to take a miracle to find prior art here.

I think the USPO could really do with being staffed by people with Common Sense(tm).

Definitely. Plan 9 has wonderful ideas however it is covered by the following patent which may affect a development that uses its best ideas.

they were afraid of violating this patent

As one of the inventors mentioned on the Yahoo groups PJ-100 list, it seems that HP is actually going to pay Apple to use their own patented technology.

I really think that HP is just at the beginning of a long decline with this brilliant move.

They already had a trademark on GTA so the democrats would have to have been using them all along. Try using TESS to search Trademarks. You might also want to check out the difference between a Trademark, Patent, and copyright here.

They already had a trademark on GTA so the democrats would have to have been using them all along. Try using TESS to search Trademarks. You might also want to check out the difference between a Trademark, Patent, and copyright here.

That's unfortunate, but true. Just like Pat 5182823 which is a clock in a toilet seat. Oh yeah, that deserves a patent.

Echostar has a DVR patent too - it can be viewed: 6,490,000. Gee, how could the patent office issue them a patent when "prior art" existed with the Tivo unit? (hint: patent office is clueless with high-tech developments)

"Only if you commercialize it. You are explicitly allowed to copy something in a patent for your own personal and/or research use. It's when you sell it that you need a license."

Really? Where does it say this? I don't disbelieve you, but I've never heard of this provision. Fair Use is a copyright issue, not a patent one. The consolidated rules explicitly say:

(Page 54, 271)
"Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States, or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent." (Emphasis mine)

I browsed through the exceptions in the law, and I couldn't find any for personal use.

Of course, companies are unlikely to sue people who rolled their own and used it, but that's not the point. The point is they are legally entitled to, and now have a lever against you that they can utilize whenever they wish.

Looking at the patent in question, at least 90% of it is quite obvious, even if the execution is difficult to program. The fact that it's difficult to program does not make it non-obvious though. They, of course, list out every minute step, as the patent process requires them to do, but all this does is obfuscate what the system actually does. Quite simply, it converts the incoming video stream (which could be in any of several formats) into an MPEG file on a hard drive. That file can be manipulated by the user through their interface (play, pause, rewind, FFW, etc.). So, while their system is nifty, the patent is, at the very least, very overbroad. While there may be some part of it that is deserving of a patent, the patent is very bad as it stands right now.

Please - not another 'Tivo is just a VCR' Luddite. :) Tivo's patents (specifically 6,233,389) uniquely describe a process that they were first to bring to market. For example, the patent I cite describes pretty much the entire Tivo experience. It describes using MPEG2 technology to replace the tape mechanism in a VCR. They were the first to patent this and the first to truly bring it to market. They beat Replay devices to the mainstream market and put a friendly face on what is a slightly tricky technology to describe to non-Tivo experienced folks who don't "get it". My wife was incensed when I bought our first Tivo because she thought it was "just a fancy VCR" - now you'd have to pry it out of her cold dead hands!

I used an MPEG capture card and software to record my home-made videos onto my computer. Just out of curiosity, I opend the MPEG file with a player at the same time the capture card was writing to the file.

It woked just fine (except that the CPU was VERY active)- I was timeshifting just like TIVO does.

1. A process for the simultaneous storage and play back of multimedia data, comprising the steps of:

accepting television (TV) broadcast signals, wherein said TV signals are based on a multitude of standards, including, but not limited to, National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) broadcast, PAL broadcast, satellite transmission, DSS, DBS, or ATSC;

tuning said TV signals to a specific program;

providing at least one Input Section, wherein said Input Section converts said specific program to an Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) formatted stream for internal transfer and manipulation;

providing a Media Switch, wherein said Media Switch parses said MPEG stream, said MPEG stream is separated into its video and audio components;

storing said video and audio components on a storage device;

providing at least one Output Section, wherein said Output Section extracts said video and audio components from said storage device;

wherein said Output Section assembles said video and audio components into an MPEG stream;

wherein said Output Section sends said MPEG stream to a decoder;

wherein said decoder converts said MPEG stream into TV output signals;

wherein said decoder delivers said TV output signals to a TV receiver; and

accepting control commands from a user, wherein said control commands are sent through the system and affect the flow of said MPEG stream.

I realise it is Slashdot custom to bash patents and patent litigation at every opportunity but my reading of this patent (and IANAPL, of course) gives me the impression that the patent is very specific.

Trick Play Patent No. 6,327,418

Time Warp Patent No. 6,233,389

Trick Play Patent No. 6,327,418

Time Warp Patent No. 6,233,389

invented? thats a strong word. patented may be closer to reality. I havent gone through each patent but its likely that only iBiquity can say who makes these new HD-FM radios.

If the FCC is going to be blessing a new standard for radio, it should be a free and patent unencumbered standard.

Well, unless it contains a copyrighted name, but even that's iffy (ex: walmartsucks.com).

That'll never be an issue, since you can't copyright a name (in the USofA, anyway). Names are protected by trademarks.

Unless they have patents, there is nothing they can do to stop someone from building a microscope using their plans. The only thing they can do is stop you from copying the plans themselves (under copyright law).

John D. Alexander, the inventor of the disk scanner, also has a 'free' STM design on the web. Incidentally, this guy took out a patent on the disk scanner, then withdrew the patent application! Now that's a smart way to make sure others cannot lock up a design with patents (or he just ran out of money).

A company has one year (365 days) from the time they first sell an invention to get their FAT axes into the patent office and make an application for a patent. If they blow it by even one day, their bright idea is prior art and can never be patented.

What is in those four patents that wasn't in WIN 95? Here is the link to the USPTO patent number search page: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/srchnum.htm

Plug in those patent numbers M$ has on their web page and look at the dates. Are they less than 365 days after WIN 95 was released? Or are they more?

Even if M$ ever had a patent on FAT (which they never did), every patent prior to mid 1987 has expired. They have a lifespan limited by law, and old patents before 1995 had 17 years lifespan from the day the USPTO received the patent application. Most patents are not granted until 18 months of examination, so the date of issue is not the date the clock starts ticking. Therefore FAT would be public domain by now even if it ever had been patented (which it wasn't because M$ didn't invent it).

M$ is charging $250,000.00 for something in the public domain. That is legal, but there is nothing illegal about you, or me, selling the same thing if we can find damn fool suckers willing to pay us a quarter-megabuck for it.

The trademark is currently registered to "U.S. Robotics, Inc", which I believe is still a subsidiary of 3Com.

Sean

No need to go down to your local pub, you can get this fresh taste by getting a can of Guinness from you local super market. It is charged with nitrogen when you open the can. The process for the 'nitrogen cakes' in the can is described in U.S. patent no. 4,832,968 .

A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or a combination of words, phrases, symbols or designs, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.

You must list the specific goods/services for which registration is sought

There's few things you have to know about viruses and cancer to understand this thing:

First: The viruses (adenoviruses to be specific) work by infecting the host (human) cell and by forcing the host to replicate the viral DNA and to produce the proteins coded in the DNA. After few days of this, a lot of new viruses form inside the host cell and the cell gets broken up (lysed) relasing a lot of new viruses to infect the nearby cells.

Second: Cancer is uncontrolled replication of cells. Actually quite many genes must be deactivated (like p53) and activated (like telomerase) to produce a bad type (neoplastic) tumor. The telomerase is needed in the cancer cells because it extends the ends of the chromosomes in the cell after each replication, thus allowing a cell to replicate more.

Prior art: Some people have taken the promoter (DNA sequence that activates a gene) from human telomerase and put it in an adenovirus (that was mutated to be non-replicating) together with cell-suicide inducing gene. By infecting a cancer cell with this virus, you can kill it nicely if the cell expresses telomerase (i.e. is replicated i.e. is a cancer cell)

The problem with the prior art is that producing non-replicating viruses is difficult and expensive and you have to infect all of the cells more or less individually.

Invention: Use the telomerase promoter to drive a gene required for the DNA replication in the virus. This way the virus will kill (by lysis) the cancer cells and infect the other cells nearby but will not lyse the healthy (telomerase-deactive) cells.

Even though this is not a major scientific breakthrough I still hope this works and think it's clearly worth a patent.

Method of exercising a cat

For those interested:

Intertrust holds alot of United States patents. Those are listed at the USPTO office

They also have a patent litigation against Microsoft covered by Slashodot earlier

According to the link to the patent it was actually filed on April 7, 1995. It's not exactly like they just decided to file this one yesterday. It appears that they are only now choosing to try to enforce their patent claim.

Why does their patent's number appear on this page at the USPTO website:
http://www.uspto.gov/go/og/2001/week46/patexpi.htm ?

How can they enforce an expired patent?

As far as my own opinion of this debacle, I'm confident that prior art will be found to invalidate the patent, whether it's expired or not.

But if Roxio settles, this company is going to come after small companies. You bet they won't tangle with Microsoft or Dell or anyone like that.

Wow, did CmdrTaco do a search for any prior art before posting this? Maybe he should get a job down at the USPTO.

"Wow! Doesn't look like anybody has ever implemented this article before. Approved."

Or maybe he's just trying to set a new record.

United States Patent Application
20020027173 Apparatus and method for circular vortex air flow material grinding

To download it as a pdf document try pat2pdf

This isn't specific to you but I am going to make one more post to clear up all of my threads and you happen to be the latest one. Here is my complete analysis:

Trademarks server two purposes - to protect a company's "Brand Image" and to protect customers from confusing product selection.

First, I want to state that it is not at issue whether a company can use a dictionary word for a trademark. That is allowable under the law and you are not going to reverse that anytime soon. There are thousands of companies that use common terms as their name and I have listed out many in other posts. I am not debating the theoretical "rightness" of this.

In 1983 when Microsoft announced Windows 1.0 it appears (but is difficult to prove legally) that a window represented an area of information with a graphical interface*.

The patent that I could find (74090419) that related specifically to the OS was dated August 20, 1990. There are others but that is the one at issue. The question is whether Microsoft should be allowed to trademark a term that was supposedly industry standard at the time.

Title 15 Section 1052 (e) states that no trademark shall be issue " when used on or in connection with the goods of the applicant is merely descriptive or deceptively misdescriptive of them." That is the issue here. Is Windows a description of what an operating system is? It would at least seem that it is part of an operatin g system.

However, the law was amended to specify that a "...mark which would be unregistrable by reason of 2(e) of the Act" can be registered if it "is said to have become distinctive of applicant's goods by reason of substantially exclusive and continuous use in commerce thereof by applicant for the five years before the date on which the claim of distinctiveness is made." In 1990 when the trademark was issued was the term Windows distinctive to Microsoft's product when referring to operating systems? I am not sure how anybody could argue against that. Based on that amendment it would seem that USPTO was right to grant Microsoft its trademark.

Why did the lawyers not bring that up? Why did the judge say that Microsoft took a risk by trademarking the term? Well he is right. They did take a risk but it paid off. The trademark was issued and based on what I said above it is valid. Notice that the judge never said that Microsoft's trademark was not valid. He only said that Lindows is taking the same risk that Microsoft did. By preventing an injunction he did not rule against Microsoft trademark but allowed Lindows to continue using the name until the case went to trial in March of next year.

Having established that I think Microsoft will keep its trademark - what will happen in this case. This gets back to the two purposes of trademarks. Is the name so similar as to be deceptive to potential buyers? On this site it is easy for everybody to say no but having experienced first hand the average user I can tell you that I am not sure. I can't tell you how many times I have asked people what version of Office they have and they say 98. Now Office 98 did exist but only for the Mac. They confused Office with Windows and those two terms aren't even similar. If I am an average person going into a store and seeing a computer that is cheap and quickly glancing at what it has would I catch the distinction of Windows vs Lindows? Would I know to look for the distinctive Window symbol?

This is a tough case. It is hard for me to say because I know the difference. I would never confused the two but when I can see someone like my mother buying her first computer and not really knowing even what Windows is saying to herself "Was it Windows or Lindows?" and then asking a 16 yr old snotty clerk who wouldn't know the difference. The good thing is that it is up to 1 jury of average people who will get to hear all of

a) - Did you even look - Apple has several trademarks on just the word Apple - 74660120, 74527910, 73201697, and 73120444.

b) I made no comment on Macintosh so I am not sure why you brought it up. Apple does have 3 trademarks on just the word Macintosh and several on Mac (including .Mac).

There are two links I recommend. TESS which allows you to search trademarks and Basic facts about trademarks. Trademarking telephone would be fine as long as it is for a specific purpose (and not selling telephones obviously since American Telephone & Telegraph would have a fit). You can also not sell travel or insurance since there is already a trademark for Telephone issued to a travel agency in Wisconsin (78201645) that also sells insurance (78201637).

I hope that clears thing up and I hope I don't sound condescending. Trademarks are very confusing and I am just trying to make it a little easier.

a) - Did you even look - Apple has several trademarks on just the word Apple - 74660120, 74527910, 73201697, and 73120444.

b) I made no comment on Macintosh so I am not sure why you brought it up. Apple does have 3 trademarks on just the word Macintosh and several on Mac (including .Mac).

There are two links I recommend. TESS which allows you to search trademarks and Basic facts about trademarks. Trademarking telephone would be fine as long as it is for a specific purpose (and not selling telephones obviously since American Telephone & Telegraph would have a fit). You can also not sell travel or insurance since there is already a trademark for Telephone issued to a travel agency in Wisconsin (78201645) that also sells insurance (78201637).

I hope that clears thing up and I hope I don't sound condescending. Trademarks are very confusing and I am just trying to make it a little easier.

WRONG! MS has many trademarks on the word Windows alone. Here is one of them.

From the Scientific American web site: an article describing the following patent:

Method of Treating Chest Pain, Patent 6,457,474, Carl E. Hanson of St. Paul, Minn. This inventor has patented lime juice to replace nitroglycerin as a treatment for chest pain such as angina pectoris. Making the patented invention requires only modest skill. "Limeade in non-concentrated form," according to the document, "was prepared by opening a can of the Minute Maid brand Premium All Natural Frozen Concentrate for Limeade, removing the contents and placing it in a pitcher, adding approximately 52 fluid ounces (about 4.5 cans) of tap water to the frozen concentrate and stirring.

"The pitcher was placed in the refrigerator so that the contents would cool. I drank approximately 2 to 3 glasses of limeade daily and did not notice the reoccurrence of chest pain." The lime juice can also be administered intravenously or by the angina sufferer's placing the frozen concentrate directly into his or her mouth. "The present invention is advantageous in that a patient can easily determine if the medicine is properly ingested. Lime juice has a very noticeable taste that disappears after it leaves the mouth. Since the juice is regularly stored in the refrigerator or freezer, it can be quickly located by the patient, particularly at nighttime where the refrigerator light plays a helpful role."

The gales of laughter must have reached the Patent Office, because the Director ordered the patent to be re-examined, which I assume means that it will be revoked. It is now apparent that you can file a patent on a ham sandwich and the Patent Office will issue it.

From the Scientific American web site: an article describing the following patent:

Method of Treating Chest Pain, Patent 6,457,474, Carl E. Hanson of St. Paul, Minn. This inventor has patented lime juice to replace nitroglycerin as a treatment for chest pain such as angina pectoris. Making the patented invention requires only modest skill. "Limeade in non-concentrated form," according to the document, "was prepared by opening a can of the Minute Maid brand Premium All Natural Frozen Concentrate for Limeade, removing the contents and placing it in a pitcher, adding approximately 52 fluid ounces (about 4.5 cans) of tap water to the frozen concentrate and stirring.

"The pitcher was placed in the refrigerator so that the contents would cool. I drank approximately 2 to 3 glasses of limeade daily and did not notice the reoccurrence of chest pain." The lime juice can also be administered intravenously or by the angina sufferer's placing the frozen concentrate directly into his or her mouth. "The present invention is advantageous in that a patient can easily determine if the medicine is properly ingested. Lime juice has a very noticeable taste that disappears after it leaves the mouth. Since the juice is regularly stored in the refrigerator or freezer, it can be quickly located by the patient, particularly at nighttime where the refrigerator light plays a helpful role."

The gales of laughter must have reached the Patent Office, because the Director ordered the patent to be re-examined, which I assume means that it will be revoked. It is now apparent that you can file a patent on a ham sandwich and the Patent Office will issue it.

Here's a link to the Patent Office web site where I put in a query for the term "razor" in any patent with Gillette as the assignee: Gillette Razor Patents I am one of the 13 patent examiners who would ever examine a patent for a razor (among other things), so I am all too familiar with slogging through a bunch of crap to find decent prior art. As far as the 37 patent on the Mach 3, a bunch of those are design patents and another bunch are older technology that may apply to the Mach 3 tangentially at best. As for a patent examiner's take on the present state of affairs here at the USPTO, I'll just say that things are pretty messed up, and it looks like it is only gonna get worse. Then again, Rogan just "stepped down," so who knows what's gonna happen.

Here.

The patent basically covers: (from the claims)

1. Read the file, check it is HTML. If so, then turn in into a bunch of rendering instructions. Otherwise, don't. (seriously - that's 1(a)-(iv))
   
2. Claim 2 is claim 1 - nothing to see here.
   
3. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the method recited in claim 2.
   
4. See above, only for claim 1.
   
5. Identical to claim 1, more or less. Only this time its an "apparatus", not a "method". Whoopdy-freaking-do.
   
6. Claims 7-9: Continue based on what this computer or another computer says. Sometimes write data to a storage medium.
   

The BULK of the patent is the idea that HTML can contain Javascript that does stuff. Doesn't everyone and their kitten have prior art on this?

As if it isn't obvious enough, Claims 1-6 are covered by HTML 2.0. Claims 7-9 are covered (and this is a trivial example, others will surely find better ones) by HTML 4.0 and cousins. And the only reason I don't have earlier references is that they're so bleeding obvious!

Sigh. Muppets from space.