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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.
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!!!
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.
If only we could convince the mother-in-laws of the world to accept this. A lot of guys would be a LOT happier come the holidays.
(Damn, I should have posted this as an AC...)
People couldn't type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this.
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.
In Lord of the Rings, it says that a mathom is a thing that you have no use for but can't bear to throw away, so you send it to the Mathom House in Michel Delving, the capital of the Shire.
Bow down before my superior LOTR knowledge!!! Bwahahahahaaaa!!!! Oh yeah, the laydeeeez are gonna be so impressed.
evil math within Nature's Cubic Creation!
actually, i own the patent for stamping denied on patent applications. it hasn't paid off though, as it seems all patents are approved these days. note to self: patent the approval of dumb ideas, make made loot!