As numerous people have pointed out, this is an *application* only. Which means there is a huge chance that the claims, as issued, will look nothing like the original submitted claims. Not only that, if the slashdot readers all know of prior art out there that anticipates or renders obvious the claims in the current form, they should just send those prior art references into the patent office! The whole point of the process of publishing patent applications before issuance is so that the public can contribute to the prosecution process by submitting relevant prior art. Instead of sitting on your collective butts complaining, why not take positive action and do something? Just remember that the references submitted must be in a clean form, i.e., no notation, highlighting, comments written on margins, etc. The patent office will remove all extraneous comments, and if there are too many extraneous comments, the PTO will definitely chuck out the reference. Of course, we don't want that to happen now, do we.
Maybe that would stop this spam madness. Mailing lists can be sold only if the entity owning the lists is bought-out; and mailing lists are purged when a company goes into insolvency. And while the legislature is at it, maybe they can make "opt-out" features illegal too.
I've taken to using different email accounts to sign up on different websites (and actively opting out of the stupid mailing list option) just to see who is selling my info to whom despite the opt-out. I figure, at the end of the day, when I get enough names of companies that think nothing about violating the privacy policy, I'll just sue all of them for intentional infliction of emotional damage and laugh myself to the bank.
Slashdot Mirror
As numerous people have pointed out, this is an *application* only. Which means there is a huge chance that the claims, as issued, will look nothing like the original submitted claims. Not only that, if the slashdot readers all know of prior art out there that anticipates or renders obvious the claims in the current form, they should just send those prior art references into the patent office! The whole point of the process of publishing patent applications before issuance is so that the public can contribute to the prosecution process by submitting relevant prior art. Instead of sitting on your collective butts complaining, why not take positive action and do something? Just remember that the references submitted must be in a clean form, i.e., no notation, highlighting, comments written on margins, etc. The patent office will remove all extraneous comments, and if there are too many extraneous comments, the PTO will definitely chuck out the reference. Of course, we don't want that to happen now, do we.
Maybe that would stop this spam madness. Mailing lists can be sold only if the entity owning the lists is bought-out; and mailing lists are purged when a company goes into insolvency. And while the legislature is at it, maybe they can make "opt-out" features illegal too.
I've taken to using different email accounts to sign up on different websites (and actively opting out of the stupid mailing list option) just to see who is selling my info to whom despite the opt-out. I figure, at the end of the day, when I get enough names of companies that think nothing about violating the privacy policy, I'll just sue all of them for intentional infliction of emotional damage and laugh myself to the bank.