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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.
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.
Claim 976 : The Spanish Inquisition
Didn't expect that..
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
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.
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 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: