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Is Zynga Trying To Patent Virtual Currency?
sarysa writes "Techcrunch spotted a recent patent application by Zynga, attempting to patent virtual currency purchased with real money for use in a gambling context. It is unlikely that the application will pass due to a plethora of prior art where free MMOs that have gambling minigames would qualify, but Techcrunch also spotted that the application mentions Farmville as an example of embodiment. This indicates that Zynga may be attempting to patent non-refundable virtual currency as a whole. Should be interestering to see how this develops."
The USPTO does not have (any or) enough patent/trademark clerks to really search out all instances of prior-art and because of the large back log are encouraged to just rubber stamp everything they come across if /they/ (who could be below-average in knowledge about a particular field) don't know of any prior art off-hand.
How about making the USPTO pay the legal bill whenever a patent is invalidated through the court system?
That way, there'd be no immediate punishment for granting bullshit patents. Patents that aren't challenged, wouldn't affect the USPTO's bottom line. But (if successful) would make it free for the challenging party to invalidate a patent. It would be a great incentive to watch general quality of issued patents, and perhaps hire enough people / raise fees to cover the actual required effort. If an important patent means a bigger legal bill when invalidated, that would help to pay more attention to patent applications with (potentially) wide impact.
I'm not a fan of patents in the 1st place, but weeding out the many nonsense-patents that are on record, would be a good start. Especially those nonsense-patents that patent trolls uses as beating stick, and that cost society a lot more (down the line) than hiring a few qualified patent clerks.