Slashdot Mirror
Regifting Not Just A Seinfeld Gag -- It's Patented
theodp writes "While the jury's still out on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' gifting patent, the USPTO has given thumbs-up to a patent for regifting. The electronic regifting patent, which cites a Seinfeld episode and Bezos' pending patent application as prior art, was awarded to an individual who also holds a patent for exchanging online gifts."
I'm predicting online fruit-cake gifts that will be "regifted" around the net for all eternity....
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
1) Take someone else's idea
2) Add "on the internet" to the end of it
3) Get a patent????
4) Profit!
...look for the following patents in the near future:
1) Women's names rhyming with female body parts.
2) Superman.
3) Entering a room in a wacky manner.
4) Nothing.
May be we could re-gift the object in question to ourselves first, before re-re-gifting it to others.
More than mere navel gazing.
This patent applies to online gifts only, which are indeed convered by this guy's earier patent. Why someone would opt-in to a system that allows the recipient of a gift to trade it for something else without even recieving it is beyond me.
Though since it wasn't patented, only broadcast on tv, the USPTO would probably issue a new patent on it anyway.
Hmm, I wonder if I could just patent John Cleese? The list of claims would probablyfill quite a large volume.
Claim 1: A silly walk. This walk consists walking stiff legged with legs raised to an angle of at least 20 degrees from the vertical. See diagram 1 and enclosed video. This claim applies to all silly walks involving stiff legs. Optionally the Silly Walker may make a faux moustache with horizontally held fingers - however this addition is not a Fundamental part of this Claim.
Claim 2: A silly turn. In conjunction with Claim 1, the Silly Turn involves pivoting on a stiff leg and turning the body more or less rigidly about any turn of any number of degrees ranging from 0 to 720 (both left and right terms falling within the scope of this Claim.)
Claim 3: A Silly Walk.....
Claim 976 : The Spanish Inquisition
1) Notice Slashdot Post that follows format seen before
2) Warn poster that said format violates existing awarded patent:
Hey, your post violates my patent on "Method for Specifying a Sequential Series of Steps in Electronic Format for Achieving Profitability for Use as a Business Plan Where the Step Immediately Prior to Profitability May Be Ambiguous, Omitted, Incomplete, Unclear, Stupid, Foolish, Humorous, or Otherwise Unlikely-to-Work-in-the-Real-World".
3) Threaten to sue:
Pay up NOW or we'll see you in court!
4) ???
5) PROFIT!!!
I think there's a reference to old 'gifts' called mathoms(?). Whoever had one would give it to the next person who was due a gift, and so on.
Yada Yada Yada
A patent like this actually being granted... dearest Lord in Heaven... rain fire from the sky and end this madness.
I absolutely would not believe that such a basic, obvious concept would be granted twenty years of patent protection if I didn't see it with my own eyes.
If Thomas Edison was around today, he wouldn't have to patent the light bulb. He could patent light itself, and could then sue those who allowed the sun to shine into their homes.
Really. Honestly. What's next? What other totally obvious, ridiculous things can the USPTO issue patents on? How about a patent on punching an extra hole in a waist belt to avoid having to buy a new one? How about twenty years of protection for the idea of catching fireflies in a jar?
I think the US Patent system was a wonderful thing and has really helped to make the USA a technological leader in many areas, but the system appears to be flat-out broken. It's flopping around helplessly like a squirrel injured by a passing car, spewing insane patents all over the place. Patent experts know how badly broken it is and they're exploiting it to no end. This latest insanity is just a single snowflake sitting on the top of the tip of the iceberg.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
I had a partnership, we were going to do "Mystery Gift" for chat friends -- the ones you do not know their name or address, just some hokey name like "Anonymous Coward" or something.
The way it worked, you picked a gift (from a short list) and you paid with a credit card. The credit card was debited immediately.
Then, in return, you got a "Token"-- a password similar to the Greeting card claim number. you could then forward the "token" to the recipient and they could claim the gift you picked out.
If the gift was not claimed in 90 days, you could get a refund (minus 20% for "handling"). This is necessary because some recipients would not give shipping information to us.
The shipping address was not known to the giver, allowing anonymity to be kept. Most of the "Stuff" was flowers or coffee/candy gifts that i could order when the information arrived. Overpriced by that 20% that was non-refundable (that is what paid us for doing the work.)
I believe we had about 4 customers and wound up actually shipping one florist arrangement.
We thought it was a good idea but we never put the work into promoting it.
Took my family out to dinner on the first order -- i made $3 and the dinner was $50. Oh well - flawed business model.
"The electronic regifting patent, which cites a Seinfeld episode and Bezos' pending patent application as prior art"
So now citing prior art in your patent application actually helps you GET the patent? Or did they just cite to all this prior art and then say "we're doing that, but just add the word 'internet' to it." I'd think citing prior art to your own idea in a patent application would be the one way to actually get them to stamp 'denied' on the application. That, of course, presumes that they actually still do have the 'denied' stamp. Chances are they lost it sometime in the early 1990's and never bothered to order a new one (would be a waste of taxpayers money to do so).
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
I have been thinking about theese patents fo awhile now. Copyrights and patents seams like a way to make something obvious and commonly used profitable. The question one must ask oneself is just why governments is so keen to accept patents as an end-all solution to keeping markets up in their never ending incline in profit. I think especially the US has confused development of products and goods with making money easily.
Because development = money they have gotten it backwards and think that money = development wich is infact quite the opposite IRL.
If there are shortcuts to money companies will use them instead of putting money on R&D. If you can get a patent on an obvious solution to a common problem you will be the gatekeeper to that problem. Imagine the state of the economy today if someone had patented the internet, the electricity or the cars?
Development would stand still and prices would have been up the roof.
The key to balance between progress and the ability to profit from progress is short timespan of governental subsided monopoly. I.E someone given a patent should have a short limited time to cash in on the patent. Thus making the development and implementation of patents the goal instead of like today, finding the patent with the most "users" and then just collect money.
Patents as stupid as theese isnt nothing but a nuicence until they are extended for 10 years. If it only held up for a couple of years it wouldnt matter. The timeframe that copyright and patents stands is what must be changed. Patents should not be something you pile and then just sit back. The original idea about patents is NOTHING like what we see today.
HTTP/1.1 400
It seems that prior art doesn't matter much in this case but it certainly helped in the Eolas case.
Has anybody thought about creating competition to USPTO? Imagine a site (like freshmeat) accepting ideas with a prototype implementation (perl, python, Lisp, etc.) - nothing general (other than the description of the idea). This would constitute a library of prior art for trivial ideas - The Prior Art Library (TPAL).
Here are some quick thoughts about TPAL:
It seemed to me this was all about internet gifts! Sounds like a local business - http://surprise.com/ But I was wrong...
-- If an artist saw things as they truly are, they would cease to be an artist.
Ok, I dont really understand the american humour about fruitcakes, in australia fruitcakes are considered a food by most people, and taste pretty deceint.. from what i gather they are given as gifts alot in america... whats the problem with them? do you guys have really dodgy fruitcakes? or just some "inhouse" american joke im not privy to :(
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
Hey Patent this idea! quick!