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Google Patents Telling Time
theodp writes "Will Google's battle against Microsoft and Apple over their use of 'bogus' patents result in greater scrutiny of its own IP holdings? Take Google's new patent on 'Electronic Shipping Notifications' (please!), which might pique the interest of Amazon.com, UPS, the USPS and others in the shipping business, since providing customers with guesstimates of what time The King of Queens will show up at their door with Christmas presents could now constitute patent infringement. From the patent: 'The broker sends an electronic message, such as an email or text message, to the customer prior to the estimated shipment arrival time to inform the customer of the impending arrival. The customer can thus arrange for someone to be at the shipping address to receive the shipment at the estimated arrival time.' To help the USPTO understand its invention, Google supplied this diagram."
perhaps the useful and novel part of the patent was in steps 1-500?
Perhaps. But where's the non-obvious part?
This is about as close as I've seen to a "System for accomplishing a well known task with a computer".
This patent sounds like complete rubbish. I'm pretty sure that FedEx and several other companies have been giving me an estimate as to when my parcel will arrive for some number of years.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Oh, I see, so when Google patents absurd things, it's a protest against the patent system. Like when they patented changing their logo for special events and holidays back in 2001. Thank goodness Google is rebelling against the patent system by patenting the invention of "periodically changing story line and/or special event company logo to entice users to access a web page."
You mean at the top of the fucking page? Where the toolbar would be?
Well, we could switch to Microsoft's Bing but Google has corrupted those results too. It's too bad because Microsoft is such a big player in the open source world.
I want this account deleted.