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McDonalds Files To Patent Making a Sandwich
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "McDonalds has applied for patent WO2006068865, which carries the title 'METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MAKING A SANDWICH.' John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich, can eat his heart out (unless that's been patented, too). Undoubtedly, some people are contemplating whether there's anything novel in this patent that is somehow obscured by its generic title. Feel free to examine their flowchart for yourself and see exactly how novel their sandwich 'subroutines' are. The good news is that, given that it only mentions generic sandwich making 'tool(s),' rather than any specific machine, it might not survive after the In Re Bilski decision, which was meant to put a stop to absurdities such as this. But until McDonalds's application is rejected or invalidated, make sure you don't use their flowchart when making sandwiches. After all, if you 'apply appropriate condiments to appropriate compartment,' you might infringe upon their IP."
The flowchart is irrelevant; the question is what do the CLAIMS say. Here, the claims are directed to bringing separate refrigerated sandwich makings up to temperature in very short order. Take a look, for example, at claim 1:
A method of filling an order for a sandwich comprising: toasting a bread component for the sandwich for less than about 1 minute in response to the order in a first heating device; and initiating and completing the heating of a sandwich filling for the sandwich from about 4OF or less to about 120F or more in a second heating device, while the bread component is heating, in response to the order.
Now, I CAN do that with my toaster & my microwave. But we don't need to resort to hyperbole to do that, do we?
Moreover, this is a PCT application, based on US application 11/018,989. The US application has been abandoned, for failure to respond to the most basic of office actions.
And seriously, is this news-worthy? If /. wants to publish EVERY bad patent application, it's going to get crowded here pretty quick. There's a lot of chaff out there.
...and this patent was filed three years ago and published two years ago. Oh wait, the article in the Guardian was published two years ago too. Did I accidentally get so bored as to click "yesterday" over seven hundred times... or is it a slow news day? :-)
Methods are statutory subject matter, which means they're patentable in principle, as long as they result in a physical change. They don't even necessarily have to involve a tool at all. Those claims are perfectly valid (though maybe not patentable due to prior art). Business methods aren't necessarily patentable, because they're generally mental processes. The difference seems to be confusing a lot of people.
Americans refer "burgers" as "sandwiches".. reserving the word "burger" to refer to just the patty.
Speaking as a life-long American, no, we don't. America has dialect regions and I've only lived in three, but I've never thought of things this way.
actually, been there done that
(not yet overseas)
Those of us who think they know everything annoy those of us who do.
If you do enough clicking, you will find that there is, in fact, a "gadget" involved here. It's some sort of hinged sandwich assembly tray. This is not just a business process patent.
A year or two ago, McDonald's was testing out deli sandwiches in select restaurants. Based on the patent, this is probably something they came up with for that, not for their mainstream burger business.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
The broken link was meant to go here. I have no idea why Slashdot changed it from the original you can find in my submission. Perhaps they intended to link to a past Slashdot story? Oh well.
- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property
"People complain about scalding hot coffee at specific restaurant. Restaurant has policy that states coffee temperature. Coffee is continually over this temperature. People again complain about scaling coffee. Again, investigation reports coffee outside norms. Restaurant says it'll fix it. Person gets nether regions burned by coffee, sues and wins due to the afformentioned problems. Get the facts right."
--excerpt from Rorschach's Journal, 1985
Just to confuse you further, in the UK and Australia, we refer to anything on a Bun as a "burger". So, for example, we say "Chicken Burger", "Fish Burger" (even if the fish isn't "burger shaped"), etc. In the UK, however, people will often refer to the patty as a "burger" whereas we vary rarely do that here in Australia.. it's typically "burger patty". I order a "fish burger" in the UK and got what Australians would call a "fish cake". Where I live, we will refer to a burger shaped piece of potato that is deep fried as a "potato scallop" whereas our New Zealand neighbors (and some people in the south of Australia) will refer to one of them as a "potato cake". I'm sure all this usage of "cake" is just pissing off the Americans who, as far as I'm aware, only use the word to refer to those sweet things you have at birthday parties. And if you really want to get into dialectal differences of food names, let's talk about "muffins" and "biscuits" and "cookies".
How we know is more important than what we know.
I worked at McDonalds like about 40 years ago and we did special orders all of the time
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
From dictionary.com:
sandwich
[sand-wich, san-]
-noun
1. two or more slices of bread or the like with a layer of meat, fish, cheese, etc., between each pair.
2. open sandwich.
3. something resembling or suggesting a sandwich, as something in horizontal layers: a plywood sandwich.
-verb (used with object)
4. to put into a sandwich.
5. to insert between two other things: to sandwich an appointment between two board meetings.
Origin:
1755-65; named after the fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-92)
Eh, at best you are being overly pedantic and as such myopic. Anyone confused by the association between a hamburger and the generic term "sandwich" doesn't even have the mental capacity to belong on the _other_ side of the Mickey D's chow line.
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
I recall her getting third degree burns, which is why I said third. They may have been second, but it still wasn't pretty.
I always comment on this story because it's always used as an example of out of control lawsuits, when it's actually not. A company was negligent, provided something dangerously hot which was intended for immediate consumption and in an inadequate container.
They then acted like asshats and treated the woman like dirt, so they got sued. That's what lawsuits are for.
The sisters who sued a few years ago because they felt McDonalds was addictive and that it was Ronald's fault they were fat cows, that was a lawsuit out of control. They didn't win though.
You do know that it is impossible to get third degree burns from boiling coffee.
I'm not an expert on conditions that can cause burns, however it seems that in the Macdonalds' case a factor was how long the hot liquid was held against the skin. According to this article, the plaintiff in this case, and others, did suffer third degree burns from the McDonalds' coffee. From the article:
The sweatpants Liebeck was wearing absorbed the coffee and held it next to her skin. A vascular surgeon determined that Liebeck suffered full thickness burns (or third-degree burns) over 6 percent of her body, including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas. She was hospitalized for eight days, during which time she underwent skin grafting. Liebeck, who also underwent debridement treatments, sought to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonalds refused.
During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebecks. This history documented McDonalds' knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard.
And,
Further, McDonalds' quality assurance manager testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above, and that McDonalds coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that burns would occur, but testified that McDonalds had no intention of reducing the "holding temperature" of its coffee.
Plaintiffs' expert, a scholar in thermodynamics applied to human skin burns, testified that liquids, at 180 degrees, will cause a full thickness burn to human skin in two to seven seconds. Other testimony showed that as the temperature decreases toward 155 degrees, the extent of the burn relative to that temperature decreases exponentially. Thus, if Liebeck's spill had involved coffee at 155 degrees, the liquid would have cooled and given her time to avoid a serious burn.
You do know that it is impossible to get third degree burns from boiling coffee. Once the coffee leaves the dispenser it is now in a state of cooling off from ~212F. The worst you could burn yourself is second degree. A third degree burn tends to require an active flame or strong acid, neither of which are available in a cup of McDonalds coffee.
The government says you're full of crap:
Apparently, people who know more about this than you do think it's possible to get a 3rd degree burn from boiling water.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?