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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."
if you 'apply appropriate condiments to appropriate compartment
Thank god all of my condiments are inappropriate.
A lot of my compartments as well for that matter
I can has cheezburger patent?
I was just stacking bread without asking myself the tough questions like McDonalds did. My paper hat is off to them.
Other than mentioning a tool there is no tangible apparatus here. What they describe is just a way of doing something, providing a flowchart doesn't make it more impressive. Looks to me like a joke.
How about employees that come up with their own style of work flow? Would this require management to ensure the way staff are preparing food doesn't infringe any patents?
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
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.
The Earl of Sandwich called, and he wants a slice.
If it includes holding the pickle and holding the lettuce, there's prior art.
I wonder if all of the McManuals that cover all of this McStuff
nullify any attempt by McDonalds to patent any of this stuff. I
am sure there are 20 year old Manuals that cover all of this
stuff.
Someone with a franchise archive would be the best person to show
prior art perversely enough.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist."
--Bill Gates, on the motivations of those who seek to reform patent law.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Did any parts of sandwich drop onto floor?
If yes, have fewer than 5 seconds elapsed?
If yes, pick up and continue with procedure...
im in ur patent office
approvin teh obveeyus
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Until they ask for a bailout citing "home cooking is killing the restraunt industry"
Make SELinux enforcing again!
Previous implementations of the so-called "sandwich" were typically composed of what would at least pass for actual food.
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.
Well, there's standard, and there's extra-crispy.
"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
You know what this reminds me of? The Stainless Steel Rat series.
In A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born(1985) there's a chain of restaurants serving Porcuswine(a mix between a pig and a porcupine, as large as a cow). The important thing? It describes a system pretty much as you state - that upon order placement automated systems make a burger, fresh from frozen, using automated equipment. It's so automated the restaurants are unmanned - a cleaning service comes through every so often, and they restock the robotic kitchen around once a week - or as they're notified that it's running short on stuff.
If this is simply a system for automating 'throwing a bun & burger on the grill when the order comes in', I'm sure there's all sorts of automated systems that already do it.
Thing is - that 60 second delay from refrigerated meat patty to cooked* can both reduce waste and increase taste/freshness, improving their product and increasing savings in a time of increasing food and wage costs. Heck, you can have 'anticipated' cooking - where the patty & bun is started when the order is entered into the computer. You don't get cancels that often, and in a busy restaurant, the patty would be usable anyways - at this time McD's only has two different sized patties.
*It currently takes ~90 seconds from frozen patty to cooked patty. With a refrigerated one, you could do it even faster.
I don't read AC A human right
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.
McDonalds is now serving their food in a trough?
I see they have finally acknowledged their food is swill.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
The confusion in that particular situation was exacerbated by the fact that he was clearly trying to up-sell me to a meal when all I wanted was the burger. When you're already experiencing culture shock, having someone pretend they don't understand you is the last thing you need.
How we know is more important than what we know.
(Not that this AC is me, but insert after: "Restaurant says it'll fix it.") Customer orders coffee, set it in lap, since cupholders at the time (early '90's) are non-standard in all but the newest cars. Customer is frail old person (yes old people are allowed to drink coffee), and spills said scalding coffee in said lap from poorly fitting lid. Person gets nether regions (badly) burned by coffee, sues {where it is determined that it is 80% McDonald's fault and 20% hers} and wins {$200,000, damages amounting to her hospital bills and pain and suffering, which were later reduced to $160,000.} Then, punitive damages are assessed totaling $2.7 million, roughly equivalent to about 2 days of coffee (and only coffee) sales, as punishment for continued failure to comply with industry and their own published standards. Get the facts right.
I realize it's considered terribly clever on Slashdot to deride every patent as "obvious", but it would be nice if people realized that the title of the patent does not indicate what the patent covers, but only the topic of the patent. Hence, a patent for making sandwiches does not cover all possible means of making sandwiches, but only a particular procedure having something to do with the making of sandwiches. What the patent *actually covers* is in the claims.
I'd like to thank Slashdot for once again bringing us timely information from.... wait for it... 2006.
"It covers the "simultaneous toasting of a bread component" "
-a.k.a. placing the bread in a toaster.
"The assembly tool contains a "cavity" into which the sandwich-maker places the garnish ("including, but not limited to, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, pickles, chilli, coleslaw, giardinera, peppers, spinach, radishes, olives, egg, cooked bacon and cheese") and the condiments ("ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, sauces, relish, oils, salt, pepper, barbecue sauce, steak sauce, hot sauce, dressings including salad dressings, yogurt, butter, margarine and liquid or semi-liquid cheese")"
-a.k.a. a Spoon or Ladle.
""Typically, a sandwich filling will thereafter be placed in the bread component,""
-a.k.a. Putting the ingredients onto bread.
"A "bread component" is then placed over the cavity and the assembly tool "inverted" to tip out the contents."
-Turning over the spoon or ladle and letting the ingredients fall onto the bread.
"It also describes how to make cocktail sandwiches, by taking a full-sized version that is "cut up into smaller pieces"."
-a.k.a. Cutting up a larger sandwich into smaller pieces.
""Often the sandwich filling is the source of the name of the sandwich, for example - ham sandwich.""
-a.k.a. Naming the sandwich after it's contents.
Wow..... McDonalds *IS* getting desperate.....
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
The theory of relativity gave us atomic weapons, whereas incompetent patent offices give us patents on making a sandwich. It's obvious that Albert Einstein's change of profession was a mistake humanity has suffered from ever since.
Property is theft.
I was thinking about what part of this could be considered unique. The three decisions in the flow chart have certainly been made before.
So I thought that maybe the tool was a custom application:
"Place heated bread product over tool(s) with the crown over the crown cavity and the heel over the heel cavity"
But prior art for this tool = my hands.
I'm still waiting for the "Home F*cking is Killing Prostitution" Bailout.
...that doesn't change the fact that nothing sold for the purposes of oral consumption should be hot enough to cause third degree burns on external tissue, even in one's sensitive nether regions, let alone in a 3 cent cup with a 1 cent lid.
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.
I personally think that the store doesn't need to posts a warning that the coffee is hot. Coffee is supposed to be hot (iced coffee not included). Its called personal responsibility.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
My mistakes are due to knowing more about what patents ought to be than what they are. One need not understand every bit of law to know when its effects are harmful, after all.
Anyhow, I seriously question any claim that there's something 'novel' about this method of making a sandwich. I think lots of people are able to do something else while waiting for something else (like a microwave) to finish cooking. And any time you do something more than once, it's simple enough to break it down into sub-tasks and do each of those before moving on. Lastly, serving the oldest burger first is pretty much exactly as expected.
While you're right that this isn't a purely mental process, it's a rather menial one. Yes, there's a little bit of information buried in there about what "tools" the sandwich maker uses. But lacking very much information about that, even what little is in the claims is pretty damn useless.
So yes, my purpose was mostly to let people laugh at a silly patent. My 'crusade' as you call it, though, is merely to get people to change weird and arbitrary laws to sensible, enforceable ones that respect the Constitutional directive to 'promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts'. I'm too well aware of the fact that it's easier said than done, but it's pretty obvious that some things aren't working.
I did realize that the patent hadn't issued yet. It's the 'rejected' part of 'rejected or invalidated' because the two aren't the same thing. For picking over everything I might or might not realize so carefully, how did you miss that? I guess I'm not the only one whose brain can do short-circuit evaluation of an 'or' clause.
[Pedants, please note that I know that you are only permitted to skip evaluation of the second half if the first half is true. Even so, I am referring back to his complaint that I ignored half of the machine-or-transformation test.]
Also, I do actually know that the claims are more important than the title, it's just that the flowchart is much more comprehensible than the text of the patent. Normal people, who might in theory want to make use of this patent when it expires, have a hard enough time understanding technology of any sort to begin with. You add legalese to that and the patent becomes worthless as a description of anything. Even though it's supposed to help those "skilled in the art" to duplicate the invention (which art? law??).
Patents as they exist now are a profit center for patent lawyers and a business expense for industry. No one I have ever known derives useful information for them (even though we have patents to get people to disclose their inventions...) and even if they wanted to, they'd be liable for triple damages for willful infringement if they were found to have read someone's patent before it expired.
So maybe we should be reversing this line of questioning. What good are patents? They create a huge legal expense. Why are they worth that?
- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property
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.
I feel so much better knowing I can only burn myself to the second degree with their stupid overpriced coffee.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
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?
Somebody set up us the sandwich
We get order
(What?)
Main machine turn on
(It's you!)
How are you, may I take order?
All your burgers are belong to us
You are on the way to construction
(What you say?)
You have no chance to fry, make your time
Ha ha ha
Manager !!
Take off every 'ZIG'
You know what you doing
Move 'ZIG'
For great cheesburgers
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.