IBM's But-I-Only-Got-The-Soup Patent

theodp writes "In an Onion-worthy move, the USPTO has decided that IBM inventors deserve a patent for splitting a restaurant bill. Ending an 8+ year battle with the USPTO, self-anointed patent system savior IBM got a less-than-impressed USPTO Examiner's final rejection overruled in June and snagged US Patent No. 7,457,767 Tuesday for its Pay at the Table System. From the patent: 'Though US Pat. No. 5,933,812 to Meyer, et al. discussed previously provides for an entire table of patrons to pay the total bill using a credit card, including the gratuity, it does not provide an ability for the check to be split among the various patrons, and for those individual patrons to then pay their desired portion of the bill. This deficiency is addressed by the present invention.'"

Comments

Go to restaurant

[Colourspace]

1. Eat food.. 2. Split bill.. 3. ??? 4. IBM Profits!!!

FTL travel

[Psmylie]

It may sound silly, but this is a first step for IBM to patent and control the world's first Bistromathic drive, as first theorized by Douglas Adams.

Bistromathics

[McWilde]

Sure, you people can laugh at it now, but someday this patent will make interstellar travel possible.

Re:Actually that's not a bad idea

[aliquis]

But the question is: Should it be patentable?

We live in a world filled of porn now, there threesomes have become much more acceptable. Just think about how it would had been if you had to pay a license fee each and every time you joined up in a threesome. Yeah, that's right, for a grand total amount of $0. Totally unacceptable.

Re:Actually that's not a bad idea

[lansirill]

PS: There is also a lot of really bad software out there that can't do such things.

So, what you're saying is that there are a lot of POS POS systems out there?

Re:NO IT'S NOT!!!! Damn...

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

If IBM hasn't already patented the below, I sure plan to!

private decimal IBMPatentValue()
{
   Patent newPatent;

   foreach (Patent oldPatent in PatentOffice.Patents)
   {
      newPatent = oldPatent.Clone();

      //here is the inovative part!!!!!!
      newPatent.Text += " with a computer.";

      newPatent.Submit();
   }

   return decimal.MaxValue;
}