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Explosives Detection Breakthrough Via Green Laser
retiarius writes "In keeping with celebrating the USA's
National Chemistry Week (aside from watching the hitcount
for Tom Lehrer's very chemical music video at
CD Baby), I'm duly impressed by an amazingly simple new way to
detect explosives at a distance -- just use a store-bought
presentation green laser pointer and some dimestore
infrared night vision glasses! The (alas, patentable)
details are in
this week's EE Times."
What's worse is if they pull you out of the line because of a false positive, and then bring out those big, nasty bomb-sniffing dogs and YOU smell like MEAT.
Yikes!
Now I can't take bacon on planes. Oh well, it's for security.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
So the physical fact that green lasers and NVGs can be used to detect explosives, of resideue, (or soap), is now a patentable process.
Never mind all that stuff about physical phenomena being unpatentable. Here at the USPTO we grant with prejudice to trifling things like gross obviousness, unoriginality and indeed patentablity itself.
Applicants for patents on Earth, Air, Fire and Water are now currently being considered.
P.S.
If anyone, including all you foreigners, doesn't like it, be prepared for our lawyers to WIPO you into povert^H^H^H^H^H^Hsubmission.
May the Maths Be with you!
A lot of people think of dogs like that as really ill-tempered, aggressive animals,
;-)
In other words, people think dogs are like people.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Crap. I was just gonna try and buy a house in Kandahar, and now land mine sensors come along and drive the freaking price through the proverbial mud roof... Just what I needed.