IBM Snags Patent On Half-Day Off of Work Notifications

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday January 10, 2012 @03:48AM from the looks-like-you've-been-missing-a-lot-of-work-lately dept.

theodp writes "The USPTO appears to have lowered the bar on obviousness, awarding a patent to IBM Tuesday for its System for Portion of a Day Out of Office Notification. 'Out of office features in existing applications such as Lotus Notes, IBM Workplace, and Microsoft Outlook all implement a way to take a number of days off from one day to many days,' acknowledges purported patent reformer Big Blue. 'Yet, none of these applications contain the feature of letting a person take a half-day or in more general terms, x days and x hours off.' Eureka! And yes, the invention is every bit as obvious as you can imagine."

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It's time by cmdr_klarg · 2012-01-10 03:51 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's time for pitchforks and torches at the USPTO...

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THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
Re:Imagine.. by envelope · 2012-01-10 03:57 · Score: 5, Insightful

He probably has a quota of patent applications he has to file.

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Re:Imagine.. by El+Torico · 2012-01-10 04:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's probably a bunch of guys sitting around, trying to "one up" each other on who can get the most outrageous patent.

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In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.