Scientific American On Bad Patents

dltallan writes: "Scientific American has a short article in which Gregory Aharonian presents his picks for the four worst patents granted. I like the patent for training with manuals (1998)." The Bustpatents site is worth spending some eye-rubbing time on.

Comments

You thought those were bad.

[Marcus Brody]

Check these patents:

Silly patents

Really silly patents

Really Very silly patent

Plain absurd patent

Even law firms admit many patents are silly

Are you getting bored of all this silliness yet?

I can go on

And on

And on. Even in Spanish

Incidentlly, I have just made my own patent application:
Method of recieving Karma Points from www.slashdot.org utilising process of relying entirely on external sources and/or hyperlinks - "Karma Whoring".

What not go European ?

[MosesJones]

These patents that only get granted in the US don't happen in Europe. Certainly in the UK this is because other people can challenge the acceptance of a patent, and the people investigating it put it out to experts in that field.

Sounds all to simple, but why not just switch to a system that has worked elsewhere.

Pointing out a potential misunderstanding

[yerricde]

If you don't do anything with a patent, then (a) it's officially invalid

Technically, that's correct; patents expire after 3 1/2, 7 1/2, and 11 1/2 years after grant unless the holder pays periodic maintenance fees. If you don't do anything, not even pay the maintenance fee, the patent becomes invalid.

However, most people would take this to mean "an unenforced patent becomes worthless." That's not patents; that's trademarks.

(b) you're depriving society of technology which they would otherwise have had, for no good reason

No good reason except your own bottom line. For any for-profit corporation, that's reason enough. (Corporations that claim to have ethics do so in order to build goodwill, that is, the value of their trademarks, and that can be measured in dollars.)