Posted by
michael
on from the patent-office-fails-the-turing-test dept.
gondaba writes "The US Patent and Trademark Office has
granted an all-encompassing patent to ActiveBuddy that covers every step of
IM botmaking technology. According to internetnews, ActiveBuddy now plans to
enforce
the patent, even though the existence of prior art is well-known and documented."
Re:I'm patenting ass slapping!
by
NanoGator
·
· Score: 0, Troll
"I want to patent ass slapping while having sex. I know people have been doing it for a long time, but I am the first to patent, so I am going to enforce my patent!"
I really hope you're not expecting the Slashdot community to be a goldmine then. You're gonna be seriously let down!
Couple of comments re: IMBot Patent
a) There was no prior art for what we patented - we looked. And it wasn't obvious either.
b) We considered free intellectual property concerns prior to applying but as officers of a corporation we were obliged to do whatever we could to protect our shareholder's rather significant investment in the company - and protecting the firm's IP was tops on the list.
c) There are companies out there (and you and they both know who they are) that would have tried to overtly rip off AB if it had no such protection.
d) I'm willing to bet that my co-founder - Tim Kay - has contributed as much code to the open source movement as most of you (AB certainly utilizes plenty of open source stuff in its development and operations)
e) we allow people to download BuddyScript for nothing - and nothing in the license agreement prevents anyone of you from cloning an interpreter for the language (remember PostScript Clones?)
I strongly advise that the members of the Open Source community grow up, smell the coffee and use their rather significant intellectual engergy to create change from within the system rather than whining like little girly-men every time somebody patents a new idea.
On a related note - an article in the Financial Times this morning pointed out that one of the casualties of the burst tech bubble is casual clothing - apparently the bankers and entrepreneurs are climbing back into their suits for the next round of financings... my guess is engineers may have to do the same thing. Maybe I should patent ties with Penguins on them and sell them through/.
Robert Hoffer
Founder
Chairman
ActiveBuddy
Slashdot Mirror
"I want to patent ass slapping while having sex. I know people have been doing it for a long time, but I am the first to patent, so I am going to enforce my patent!"
I really hope you're not expecting the Slashdot community to be a goldmine then. You're gonna be seriously let down!
"Derp de derp."
Couple of comments re: IMBot Patent a) There was no prior art for what we patented - we looked. And it wasn't obvious either. b) We considered free intellectual property concerns prior to applying but as officers of a corporation we were obliged to do whatever we could to protect our shareholder's rather significant investment in the company - and protecting the firm's IP was tops on the list. c) There are companies out there (and you and they both know who they are) that would have tried to overtly rip off AB if it had no such protection. d) I'm willing to bet that my co-founder - Tim Kay - has contributed as much code to the open source movement as most of you (AB certainly utilizes plenty of open source stuff in its development and operations) e) we allow people to download BuddyScript for nothing - and nothing in the license agreement prevents anyone of you from cloning an interpreter for the language (remember PostScript Clones?) I strongly advise that the members of the Open Source community grow up, smell the coffee and use their rather significant intellectual engergy to create change from within the system rather than whining like little girly-men every time somebody patents a new idea. On a related note - an article in the Financial Times this morning pointed out that one of the casualties of the burst tech bubble is casual clothing - apparently the bankers and entrepreneurs are climbing back into their suits for the next round of financings ... my guess is engineers may have to do the same thing. Maybe I should patent ties with Penguins on them and sell them through /.
Robert Hoffer
Founder
Chairman
ActiveBuddy