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IBM Granted "Paper-or-Plastic?" Patent

Posted by kdawson on from the not-the-onion dept.

theodp writes "On Tuesday, IBM was granted US Patent No. 7,407,089 for storing a preference for paper or plastic grocery bags on customer cards and displaying a picture of said preference after a card is scanned. The invention, Big Blue explains, eliminates the 'unnecessary inconvenience for both the customer and the cashier' that results when 'Paper or Plastic?' must be asked. The patent claims also cover affixing a cute sticker of a paper or plastic bag to a customer card to indicate packaging preferences. So does this pass the 'significant technical content' test, IBM'ers?"

1 of 517 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This won't have an effect in Belgium by MrMr · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    The really amazing thing is that Australians have such a huge oil surplus they're letting perfectly fine fuel rot away in a dump.