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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.
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