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Xybernaut Patents Collar Computer
igargoyle writes "Wearable Computer manufacturer, Xybernaut, has encouraged the kludge that is the patent office by patenting collar based wearable computers. Besides being extremely vague, the whole thing sounds likes the Slashdot article, 'A Linux Machine For Your Collar.' There are many references to this idea, and computer collars have been used as nomadic radios and animal tracking devices before. Please help encourage this company to stop wasting taxpayer's money and encourage innovation instead of preventing it."
What does this mean??? It can be summarized as 'We are good at doing jobs'.
-Kz-
Don't know why anybody would be surprised. The patent system is absurd and the concept of obviousness is a concept the USPTO doesn't seem to grasp.
Corporate counsels are recommending that their companies attempt to patent everything they can think of. Like it or not it makes good business sense if your company can afford to do it.
Note that 60% (or so) of granted patents don't withstand serious challenges. Of course, they can still be used to threaten competitors.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
The U.S patent office just doesn't get it to do with hardware/software patents (i.e: allowing microsoft to patent sudo). The patent office needs a rethink of how they handle technology patents. Half the time, the patents are given out to companies/people who didn't come up with the idea, that just heared it somewhere else and got involved with it.
They need a rethink. A major one.
"With Microsoft, you get Windows. With Linux, you get the full house" - unknown
So, if I wear my laptop bag over my shoulder, am I almost infringing this "patent"?
These ridiculous patents not only make the patent offices look inane, but also somehow lessen the validity of genuine ones.
"Please help encourage this company to stop wasting taxpayer's money and encourage innovation instead of preventing it."
This is like asking corporations to pay their fair share of taxes without passing a law that requires it. If there's one lesson in the success of capitalism as an economic system, it's that people are basically greedy and that what's not forbidden will be done and genrally accepted, even if it's not right.
We need to curtail patents, not shame individual piecemeal patent holders. Get in touch with your legislators or spred the word through publicity stunts that patents are bad, but this sort of rear guard action helps no one.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Every single time there is a patent story we get the masses biching and complaining about the patent system, yet EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU are too farking lazy to write letters to your senators, represenatives, president, governor, etc.. explaining the problem and how it is something bad.
It's time, I'm calling all you asshat's out.
Shit or get off the pot. I.E. if you do not write those letters, and become a patent reform supporter then you need to shut the hell up and be happy.
If you are so lazy that you can not be bothered to get away from slashdot for 20 minutes towrite those letters or make those phone calls, then you are nothing but a waste of space and need to sut up.
> stop wasting taxpayer's money
Patent applications are not free. And neither are the patent maintenance fees (if the patent is issued).
The USPTO collects so much in fees that the government takes some of the money collected by the USPTO and spends it elsewhere.
Instead of complaining about companies voluntarily PAYING fees to our federal government, we should complain about HOW that money is spent--for example, complaining about the USPTO not being able to use all the collected fees to improve itself would be the smarter thing to do.
If you read the patent laws and policies, you'd see that innovation isn't hurt, but actually helped by "correct" patents. The problem is with patents being granted that do not meet the legal requirements in the first place. But then, those scenarios can play out in court later on and the patent will get killed if it was undeserving of a grant.
You can blame a company who obtained an asinine patent for doing what is perfectly legal. If it doesn't do it, some other company would, and than that Xybernaut would be screwed.
If you have a problem with what Xybernaut did then you should move to change the law. To expect corporations (and citizens) to follow laws which do not exist is as asinine as the patent that Xybernaut obtained.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
There are many slashdotters who think patents are needed because without them the little guy is screwed. However, there is a much more fundamental problem here. Patents basically prevents someone from using his own knowledge even if the knowledge came from someone else initally.
Tell me, if preventing someone from using his own knowledge (it is his knowledge since it is in his mind) by force is not slavery then what is it?
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
How is it clever?
Is it the fact that its portable? Or the fact that its worn on the body? Or is putting a computer around a neck really clever?
Could I get a patent for putting a bicycle wheel around my neck? How about a millstone?
This isn't a patent, its somebody talking out of their ass.
That's right, much in the same way that what used to be called an 'illegal occupation' is now called 'establishing democracy'.
Trial by combat didn't end ... it just moved from the arena into the courtroom.
Don't make the mistake of believing right will triumph. It helps a lot in the courtroom, but is no means a guarantee, by itself, of victory.Is it novel? Eh. I can't think of anything like what is described, but there are lots of things under the sun.
Is it useful? Probably to someone.
Is it non-obvious? Yeah, in the patent kind of way, because it specifically describes a method of developing a head mounted display that would have been developed by others multiple times over if it were obvious. Lots of people are working on head mounted displays, all of which specifically mount to the head. This mounts to a collar around the neck. I think it's a lame idea, but I also think it's a meaningful patent.
RTFP!
"Uh... yeah, Brain, but where are we going to find rubber pants our size?" --Pinky
I read the patent, and to me it's a wide-ranging catch-all. A neck computer that's also a cellphone, or maybe it's a radio, possibly has a display, maybe you can listen to music on it.
Hey! I know! Let's work all conceivable notions into the patent for what a neck computer could be, so if anybody else wants to make one, they gotta pay us.
Patents like this make patenting seem like a racket.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
Patents are bad?
Why is China stepping up their IP laws and enforcement policies as we speak?
Is it because they know that they have the world's best priced engineering talent pool and realize that it will never lead to a viable, self standing technology industry unless their weak IP protection is buttressed?
The people that think patents are bad are not the same people that bootstrap innovation by putting the rubber to the road and funding a research based concern.