Prior Art!
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| justme Nov 04, 2005 11:57 AM EDT |
Okay, just off the top of my head, we have: Alice in Wonderland The Wizard of Oz Rip van Winkle That season of Dallas that Bobby Ewing just dreamed. Okay, so maybe ridding our culture of crimes like the last one isn't so bad. ;-) |
| tadelste Nov 04, 2005 5:49 PM EDT |
OK, start patenting as many story lines as possible. You can horde them like people horded domain names. I'm applying for anything with "The Return of", "Love", "Criminal".... I can also think of ones relating to sex but I'll also go with "The Man who" and "The Woman who". I'll start by publishing my old short stories from when I saw in junior high on a new web site. I'll then give each one a title. I'm already working on the logic for a program to generate these. OK. Now, this is a plan. Anyone know any good lawyers? |
| Tsela Nov 04, 2005 6:01 PM EDT |
My sister studies law, but unfortunately she has something called "ethics" that makes her unfit to become a patent lawyer. This "ethics" thing is an annoying little thing our parents taught us ;) . Anyway, she doesn't even plan to become a lawyer ;) . |
| dinotrac Nov 05, 2005 2:37 AM EDT |
OK, OK -- I've got one!! I'm sure the PTO will love this: Boy meets girl, they fall in love. But boy and girl's families are feuding, so love is forbidden. Girl fakes death. Boy finds out, believes death is real. Boy kills self. Girl wakes up, discovers dead boy. Girl kills self. Yup, I think this could be a good one. Seriously, though, considering the absolutely and completely terrible job the PTO has done with software patents -- apparently as ignorant of prior art and the nature of computing as my dog is of quantum physics, this is a recipe for disaster. |
| Tsela Nov 05, 2005 3:42 AM EDT |
A comment on Groklaw explained why this would probably be accepted: in the USPTO, the definition of prior art is:
- something that already exists in the USPTO database (there's already a patent on it)
- something that has been published in one of the technical journals the USPTO recognises. There aren't that many. Of course, you can't find prior art for a storyline patent in those places (and even if there was, the USPTO isn't even good at checking its own database!), and with the money incentive coming from the fact the the USPTO gets paid on the amount of patents it grants, this will probably be accepted. Well, if the USA want to commit cultural suicide, they're on the right way. |
| number6x Nov 05, 2005 4:35 AM EDT |
Tsela, That's good to know. It means that we should try a new strategy. Since the USPTO has expanded the definition of what can get a patent to include 'ideas', intangible things that it never used to patent before, their definition of 'prior art' also has to expand. Their is a large body of ideas housed in the Library of Congress. all registered under copyright, or lapsed into the public domain. Lets consolidate the USPTO and the Library of Congress, get rid of the extra management, reduce government spending and make the USPTO check the LoC for any prior art. I do know that copyrights and patents are different things, but it seems that the scope of what is patentable has changed to include things that were once only copyrightable. The USPTO has made this change, and the change has consequences. In order to protect businesses from frivolous lawsuits, we will have to expand the definition of prior art in parallel to the expansion of what is patentable. Just a thought. |
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