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More Stupid Patent Tricks

Posted by Hemos on from the someone's-gonna-have-to-take-my-burner dept.

CyberLeader writes "Apparently CDNow has patented the ability to create a custom CD over the Web." Insert appropriate sarcastic comment here. And I've actually patented respiration, so if everyone could send me a small royalty fee whenever they breathe, that'd be great.

5 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Patents on slashdot by casret · · Score: 5

    Does anyone else think that it would be better either to make a patent section on Slashdot, or start a seperate protest website for this stuff?

    It seems like the same stuff gets rehashed on a daily basis with this patent stuff, along with 'i've patented pooping, everyone has to let me watch them poop' posts.

    1. Re:Patents on slashdot by SimJockey · · Score: 5

      I second that motion. (The patent section bit, not the poop bit.) Patents, copyrights, IP, whatever is a nice cohesive subject a la YRO. And the discussion is getting repetitive.

      A decent IP lawyer could make a cottage industry of all the prior art pointed out on /., although I have no idea how much money could be made from this. Just thinking out loud here, what about a distributed legal support model. There are obviously some very knowledgeable individuals commenting on what is wrong with many of the internet related patents presented on /., I wonder if that knowledge could be organized into putting together the documentation necessary for challenging these patents. Taking care of much of the leg work out of an altruistic sense of community might make it possible to fight these fairly cost effectively.

      Everyone says something should be done about this, anyone want to take the first step?

      --
      Laugh while you can, monkey boy!
  2. so what's wrong with that by hsitz · · Score: 4

    The only way to find anything distressful about CDNow's patent is by misunderstanding patent law. CDNow doesn't have a patent on "any" method of creating CD's over the internet, only on "its [particular] process of creating custom CDs on the World Wide Web." [quote from linked article]That's the nature of how patents work.

    I assume that creating a usable process by which custom CD's can be created over the Web is a fairly difficult accomplishment. CDNow, assuming their process satisfies the requirements (among which I believe is a requirement that it not be trivial), is certainly deserving of a patent. But everyone should note that THIS DOESN'T MEAN THAT NOBODY ELSE CAN CREATE CUSTOM CD'S OVER THE WEB WITHOUT INFRINGING CDNOW'S PATENT. All it means is that nobody can use the process that CDNow has developed. There are sure to be lots of different ways to create custom CD's, aren't there?

    (I am a laywer, albeit not one well-versed in patent law. It doesn't take much knowledge of the law, though, to realize that if people are getting upset just because CDNow got a patent on creating custom CD's over the web, then they likely don't understand even the basics of how patent law works.)

    1. Re:so what's wrong with that by Hobbex · · Score: 5


      Like any large computer system that handles orders, production, and shipments, of course it is rather tricky to implement.

      But that a system is large and tricky doesn't validate the claim for a patent. Are they doing anything new here? People have been taking orders from "'Frisco, Capetown, Chicago, and Auckland, and minimizing things like production and shipping cost/time" for quite some time now, and usually the systems they have been using to manage this have been large and complicated.

      The only new thing about this is that they plugged it to a cdburner, which as the previous post notes, is not that difficult to do. Where exactly is the need for a patent other than an attempt to harass any competition?

      -
      We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.

  3. Is the USPTO infringing on this patent? by Mr+Z · · Score: 4

    Take a look at this page on the USPTO's own web site. It allows you to order customized set of patents on their site, and they can either be downlaoded onto your machine or sent to you in the mail.

    CD-Now's patent seems to cover the general concept of customizing a product via a website, and automating its manufacture and delivery. The key difference they site between their patent and the (dubious) prior art is that it involves a network such as the Internet. The only thing that ties their patent to burning CDs is that that is the "preferred embodiment."

    This whole idea of patenting business models is absurd, and needs to stop.

    --Joe
    --
    --
    Program Intellivision!