Slashdot Mirror
IBM Flushes Restroom Patent
jdkane writes "As reported in this CNet news article IBM has quietly eliminated a patent it received on a method for determining who gets to use the bathroom next.
I say Kudos to IBM because it is a relief (no pun intended) to see some common sense prevail in the patent news.
A funny quote from the article is "But just because the patent office granted this and other questionable patents doesn't mean the system is broken".;)"
In the article it describes what has been used in low tech meat counters ever since I can remember.
Stupid things kids do.
No, we know who allowed the patent; that's right on the front page (follow the link).
What she was referring to was the Request for Reexamination. I forget when they are made public, but, as of about 12 years ago, they were open to the public until a decision to Reexamine the patent was granted. After that. there was would be no public participation in the proceedings.
The requester should be identified when the public notice is filed identified, but it looks like IBM mooted this pretty quickly, so, perhaps, it never got to that stage.
off topic warning...
Being swedish I do have to disagree with you on one point. The (state) liquor store or more accuratly the swedish state liquer monopoly is a good thing.
Take this the right way. Not good in the sense that it's a monopoly, but in the sense that they have "everything".
And being one of the worlds largest players they can get a pretty good price.
Take for example the Denmark. Small nation with good beer. But if I want something other than Carlsberg or a Tuborg you would have to pay almost twice the amount I would have to pay in Sweden. And If you want't a wine, forget it...
So just to inform you. Systembolaget is a blessing to me and every other beerlover out there in Sweden and if you don't belive me take a look yourself.
Important words in swedish...
Beer - Öl
Wine - Vin
>> We dedicated that patent to the public so that we could continue focusing on our high-quality patent portfolio.
> Seem to be in conflict.IBM and patents seem to me to be a issue of quantity not quality.
I used to work for a large corporation (not IBM) who was among the top five companies issued the most patents annually in the US. The culture there encouraged us to apply for as many patents as possible, and granted cash awards to people just for filing. We filed many patents of questionable utility. Apparently it was more important to try to be #1 in patents than to make money. I'm sure the culture at IBM is the same.
The company I now work for also encourages many patent applications, but they will only file patents that have a clear revenue generation opportunity. Otherwise, it's a waste of money to pursue and maintain the patent.
A funny quote from the article is "But just because the patent office granted this and other questionable patents doesn't mean the system is broken".;)"
It is tremendously important to understand that it is NOT the mission of the patent office to issue 100% valid and fully examined patents. Such an effort isn't possible, given the definition of validity. Nor is it even possible to issue 100% decent, not obviously invalid, patents. The cost of such examination would be prohibitive, and neither the government nor inventors would be willing to subsidize it.
A novelty search (which is all the office can do for the sub-thousand dollar fee it receives and examination doesn't review all, or even the best, prior art -- just what can be found with a decent, reasonable review of the search databases. Examiners in some art areas get quite good at it, because they become quickly familiar with a narrow area of art -- and in others (business methods in particular) cannot get good at it because the scope of their examinations is so wildly broad and uncategorized. The office adapts and does ok.
The system isn't broken, it is acting pretty much as designed. Some places it works better than others, but that is the nature of a human process. The question is not whether bad patents exist (they do), but whether bad patents cause more bad, on balance, than good patents cause good. While that is a reasonable question for debate, it is different from observing from the failure of a few individual examples the supposed bankrupcy of a system at large.
This is something like saying that the entirety of a Unix system is bad, because it contains a single design failure or because it contains a single bug. We know it has both -- and yet we use it because it is an excellent environment in which to work and be productive.
(By the way, tha vast majority of spectacularly whacky patents issue, in part, because they are deemed "harmless" or "mostly harmless" by the examiner -- and unworthy of substantive waste of government resources. )