Slashdot Mirror
Patent Databases Complicate Life For Inventors
karvind writes "New Scientists is running a story about how the move to electronic record-keeping is making it harder to check if a device has already been invented. From the article: '.. even though most online patent archives are incomplete, parts of the paper-based collections that preceded them are being destroyed.' We ran a story earlier on how to fix U.S. patents. Maybe I can patent the wheel again."
If the online databases are incomplete, why are the paper-based archives being destroyed? Mismanagement? The article doesn't get into the details, so I'm left to ponder the stupidity of it.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Does this mean that there will be a lot more funny patent rights law suits I can read about??? I generally found them quite interesting and really funny. Also, does that mean I can try to patent the "eletronic patending system" by calling it the "patend facilitation device" ??? lol
Maybe they should burn the Declaration of Independence while they're at it, after all, I saw a copy online somewhere.
"May be I can patent the wheel again."
May be you can al so pa tent inno vative spell ing meth od, who knows?
And then they'll patent it...
if a massive sun ejection of magnetic field bathed the earth with a high magnetic dose, we would be ok but would we lose all of mankinds knowledge ?
digital data storage so far has proved itself to be unreliable (cd rot,hard drives failing after 1-3yr etc etc)
yet we want to depend even more on it ?
you have to laugh at the stupidity and short sightedness of humans at times, can you imagine if Da Vinci or Einstein or even the Wright brothers had encrypted their stuff with 4096bit 1 time pad or quantum encryption
or do we always have to put our hands in the fire to find out its hot ?
erase the online storage
Those patent which have some idea can prove with a device, or physical object that they do, those who cannot provide such thing shouldn't be there in the first place.
I wish it would be this easy...
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
It would be much harder to change a paper record. First, you would have to get inside the building it is housed in. Second, with some of the older documents, you would have to match the type face. And you would have to match the ink. And you would have to make it look like it aged right. And there are finger prints on the original documents. There are more ways to verify that a paper document is an original than a computer record.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Hard disks. Lots of hard disks.
Want to solve the patent problem right away? Everyone converge on the Patent and Trademark office. Bring magnets.
Big magnets.
Surely no-one here on Slashes' Dot would make such a mistake.
Patent, what patent? The computer tells us that you don't have a patent. I even think your company does not exist anywhere in the patent office, could you please tell me your companyname?
"Microsoft"
Clicke-ty-click. Nope, sorry, not one patent.
Remember, some geek has to maintain that database, all we need is to get a BOFH in there.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.