BountyQuest CEO Patenting Lighting Toilet Water

theodp writes "Charles Cella, CEO of the widely-hyped Jeff Bezos and Tim O'Reilly funded patent reform vehicle BountyQuest, has filed for a number of patents since BountyQuest's demise, including one that covers illuminating water in a toilet bowl (see FIG. 7). Cella's co-inventors include principals of Color Kinetics, which has come under fire for strong-arm patent tactics and whose Board colorfully likens its IP to nuclear weapons."

Comments

Is there an invention here?

[russotto]

Or is it just a bunch of blue-skying about lighting things up?

I think this is the sort of patent Justice Bradley described as the "foam" of the "advancing wave of improvement".

1) People like things lit
2) There's lots of ways of lighting things now.
3) Here, we'll broadly patent lighting up a whole bunch of things.
4) PROFIT

Though I think the "inventor" must have been forced at gunpoint to write this patent... consider the line "Example: as your tidy bowl reached the terrifying point of not flooding the sewer lines with chlorine at every flush, your tiny tricolor LED would pulse RED hues to alert you."

don't mix claims no. 6 and 12 together!!!

[capsteve]

look at the ingredients they intend to illuminate... i hope it's not all together...

6. A method of claim 5(container contains a fluid), wherein the fluid is selected from the group consisting of water, ammonia, bleach, window cleaner, insect repellant, insect killer, lotion, soap, liquid soap, kitchen cleaner, bathroom cleaner, shaving gel, cleaning fluid, lighter fluid, furniture polish, wood treatment, paint, primer, drain cleaner, disinfectant, room deodorizer, carpet deodorizer, room scent, perfume, cologne, shaving foam, toilet cleaner, aerosol, skin care fluid, suntan lotion, shampoo, surface cleaner, and liquid wax.

12. A method of claim 1(lighting a product), wherein the household product is selected from the group consisting of a pencil, a pen, a fork, a knife, a spoon, a kitchen utensil, a whisk, a broom, a bottle, a glass, a mug, a coffee maker, a toothpaste tube, a dispenser, a shampoo bottle, a soap holder, a razor, an electric razor, a hair dryer, a picture frame, a marker, a jar, a makeup facility, a perfume dispenser, a brush, a lipstick, and a candle.

IMHO the USPTO is giving out too many highly specific applications patents. maybe if i specify that my lighting system only illuminates the "toiletbowl-bound stream of urine just before surface impact, thereby creating a firework like display" i'll get a patent for lighting a toiletbowl too! then i can sue anyone who turns the light on to pee!

Two actual bona fide applications for this patent

[G4from128k]

A couple of "real" uses for this patent include:

1. Spectroscopic analysis of waste products to determine the health of the depositor. There has been some serious R&D on home healthcare monitoring system that analyze waste products (glucose in urine, fiber or blood in the stool, etc.). One scheme is optical or fluorescent spectroscopy of the bowl contents and LEDs could be the light source.
2. Germicidal lighting: if they use a UV-C LED (280 nm wavelength), then this system could help kill bacteria and viruses in the bowl (And give a nice oval tan on the sitter's butt).

Re:Here we go again

[tepples]

We need patents that compromise the US's national defense. Patents that prevent the IRS from doing its job.

Those wouldn't help, as Congress could just authorize eminent domain and expense a token "just compensation".

Re:Full of shit

[back_pages]

Surely the requirement for inventions not to be obvious would prevent this patent from being granted.

I've said this countless times and my goal is to be eventually moderated Redundant instead of alternating between Troll and Informative.

[Crash course]"Obvious" as regards a US patent means that you can produce multiple pieces of prior that can be combined to produce the claimed invention, AND you have documented motivation in the prior art (very preferably in one of those references).[/Crash course]

See for yourself: MPEP 2143

Many people seem to think that "obviousness" as regards patents has to do with "how hard it was to come up with", "how stupid the idea is", or "how trivial the invention is". This is complete fantasy.

"Obviousness", as regards the US patent system, merely means that no single piece of prior art teaches the entire invention (that would be an issue of novelty). In this case, you would need to find prior art references that teach something along the lines of illuminating a toilet as well as WHY ON EARTH someone would want to illuminate a toilet. That hurdle crossed, illuminating with LEDs would be the easy part, as there are numerous sources documenting the advantages of LEDs over other light sources.

I'm not trying to rant on you, but I've posted this little (extremely well) known secret about the US patent system at least 25 times in the last 5 months. It's not you, it's me ;)

And I'm not saying that this won't be rejected under 35 USC 103 (obvious), but I'm definitely not an expert in the shit-bowl illumination technology. Actually, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if somebody from Japan invented this exact same thing 10 years ago. Something about this idea strikes me as distinctly Japanese, no offense intended to our robot-dog-making schoolgirl-anime-loving generally-culturally-insane Japanese friends.

I like the recursive nature of this item though, maybe the guy is a GNU fan.

That's a trivial issue under 35 USC 112, second or fourth paragraph (depending on how the examiner chooses to deal with it) for an improper dependent claim. If he can figure out what it's supposed to depend upon, he'll probably use fourth paragraph and require correction. If he can't figure out what it's supposed to depend upon, he'll probably use second paragraph to basically say, "I cannot figure out WTF you are trying to claim, correction is respectfully required."

See, the patent system is so easy to understand, everybody CAN be an expert.