Microsoft Seeks Latitude/Longitude Patent

theodp writes "Q. What does Microsoft feel is unpatentable? A. Apparently nothing! On Thursday, the USPTO published Microsoft's patent application for the Compact text encoding of latitude/longitude coordinates, in which the software giant explains how a floating-point number can also be represented as a less-precise integer that's displayed in base-30 notation!" If ever I have seen a silly patent, this is it.

Comments

Re:Is it entirely MS's fault?

[tambo]

If my memory serves, both the USPTO and the EPO are receiving money for each granted patent as their funding. Hence, neither patent office is very eager to reject any application.

Nonsense.

You are correct in asserting that the USPTO makes money from issance - as per their fee schedule, they get $300 (plus extra fees for various things like multiple independent claims) when the app is filed, and $1,400 when it issues.

But the examiners - the people who make the allow-vs-reject decision - aren't responsible for the fiscal well-being of the USPTO. Were that the case, virtually every application would slide through to issuance with barely any examination. We'd be back to the patent registration scheme of the early 1800's, where you got a patent simply by filling out the right paperwork.

We don't have that system - in name or in practice. The examiners do a hell of a lot of rejecting, with backing references to other patents, journal articles, etc. They don't have the resources for an exhaustive search - but the typical application garners at least two separate rejections from the examiners.

But this is a classic catch-22 example: people often examiners for spending too much time on examination, and thereby contributing to the 2.5-year average pendency of patent applications.

- David Stein