The Patent Office Is About To Make Bad Patents Untouchable

Comments

• A_norny_mousse@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Yeah this is bad, seeing what some people patent, apparently just hoping it will stick and make them some money down the line.

  I was going to put some particularly egregious examples here, but there’s too much choice - just search “worst dumb us patents” or some such.

  OK, this article focuses on dumbness, not weirdness, which is what I was going for:

  2. A stick. Seriously, in 1999, someone received a patent for a toy made of “any number of materials including rubber, plastic, or wood including wood composites” for “an animal, for example a dog, to either fetch, carry or chew” and including “at least one protrusion extending therefrom that resembles a branch in appearance.” While the description is bad enough, you have to look at the image submitted to fully appreciate how ridiculous this one is. USPTO actually granted a patent on a fake stick.

  3. My all-time favorite dumb patent is Apple’s design patent for… a rectangle with rounded corners. Granted in 2012, Apple received a patent for the shape of its product, which is pretty standard. It’s a rectangle. It has rounded corners. The entirety of the single claim reads, “The ornamental design for a portable display device, as shown and described,” with several pictures of what looks to be the shape of an iPad.

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  • FatCrab@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    What is described in the second point is literally how Design Patent claims work. They don’t work the same way as utility patents. Anyway, yea, people not knowing how patents actually work aside, leadership at the USPTO is currently fucked.

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    • chaogomu@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      The point is that design patents are fucking stupid and should not exist in the first place.

      Apple has sued other phone manufacturers over them making a rectangle with rounded corners.

      And it’s fucked.

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• Septimaeus@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  It seems like the US patent system today is rarely anything but a solution to its own problem. In most cases a patent is little more than an expensive troll ward or a way to demonstrate due diligence to investors. What’s taken its place is time to market. If that’s true, the patent system should either be replaced with something that serves its intended purpose or that office should stop accepting applications.

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• limer@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Software patents… under some circumstances this would cripple many small USA companies, or legalize protection rackets where they must pay money

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