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Using the USPTO Against Itself

Posted by timothy on from the wife-beating-machine dept.

fidget42 writes: "This article in the LA Times tells of how a scientist went about using the patent office as a mechanism for trying to force a change in that office's rules. To quote from the article: 'Nearly 10 years ago, a friend called Stuart Newman with an intriguing challenge: Could he think up a new form of life that would be scientifically useful and possible to patent--yet so disturbing that the public would recoil?' Could the same be done with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) concerning software patents? I know some companies have used the rules of the USPTO to 'spoof' it, most notably Despair, Inc.'s trademarking of the frowney."

5 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. frist psot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    hoo! haa!

  2. Chewbacca dies in That Vortex Novel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Lucas and RA Salvatore kill off everyone's favorite wookie in the sadest EU novel!

  3. What about the obvious? by xenocide2 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Patent stem cell processes. There's allready many different people working on it, and I'm sure they're all ready to find patents wherever possible.

    --
    I Browse at +4 Flamebait

    Open Source Sysadmin

  4. Re:But You're Missing The Main Objective by glitch! · · Score: 2, Offtopic

    Why are my tax dollars being wasted on proprietary stuff like HP-UX when they could be running BSD or Linux for free?

    One has to pay for the hardware in any case, so I presume you are refering to the cost of the OS? I got my copy of HPUX 10.20 without charge... Remember the Y2K unpleasantness? At that time, HP was offering HPUX 10.20 upgrades free to anyone with a 700-series workstation. Maybe they are charging for HPUX now, but it was free at one point.

    Now whether you or I actually _like_ HPUX is another matter :-) Personally, I despise their "depot" package system. It sucks the snot out of a dead dog's nose...

    --
    A dingo ate my sig...
  5. Natalie Portman is Jewish by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    The latest People magazine confirms it: Natalie Portman is jewish.

    Let's ignore the wishful thinking and naked/petrified fantasies and look at the facts.

    First off, Portman isn't her last name. It's Goldberg, a name no self-respecting Christian would ever be identified with.

    Second off, she was born in Jerusalem, where her father was a tax collector, and her mother sold goats to be sacrificed for Passover, a Jewish holiday.

    She played the role of the Jewish girl "Anne Frank" in "The Diary of Anne Frank", and the role of [Jewish American] Princess Amedalia in Star Wars I and II.

    And finally, she doesn't celebrate Easter, Christmas, Arbor Day, or the 4th of July, the 4 most important Christian holidays.

    Until such time as she denounces her Jewish ways, I suggest we all stop masturbating while looking at doctored nude pictures of her.

    Thanks your time