USPTO Unable to Find Top Ten Patent Holders

lelitsch writes "So a journalist tries to interview the top ten patent holders in the US. As he finds out, neither the USPTO, nor the patent processing companies are able to identify them. Even more surprisingly, "America's greatest inventor is apparently an obscure guy in Japan who makes stuff most people can't comprehend. And the nation's greatest native inventor seems to be a man who has come up with 100 different ways to make a flower pot.""

Comments

Yes

[comm3c]

Bureocracy can't find stuff? Whats new.

FP!

Re:Yes

[free space]

someone should invent a way to find those top ten ( and then patent it!)

"A database operator's nightmare"

[I Like Pudding]

Here, let me jump on this mighty grenade for the PTO:

select user_id, num_patents from (
  select
    u.id user_id, count(p.id) num_patents
  from
    patents p, users u
  where
    u.id = p.user_id
    and p.status in ('APPROVED', 'ACTIVE', 'QUITE SILLY')
  group by
    u.id
  order by
    num_patents desc
) where rowcount < 11

To whom do I send my bill?

PATENT APPLICATION #1588003

[dirtsurfer]

Summary: A system for calculating the top 10 US patent holders.

Re:Local zoo...

[raoul666]

Easy. You have an infinite number of monkeys reading it.