Friendster gets another patent

forget prior art, what happened to obvious?

The whole patent system in the US needs to be redone. It was originally made up to protect the inventor, but it's not doing that anymore.

It's now merely just a hording system so that those with the money can own stuff they didn't invent and tie you up in legal proceedings if you challenge them.

The other problem is that nobody in the patent office (or legal system for that matter) understands technology. That will change, however it'll probably take 20-30 years, and then they'll only understand today's technology.

At least this isn't one of the most ridiculous. Technically Microsoft owns the != operator with their "a method for comparing 2 variables to see if they are not equal" patent, amazon owns any ajax website with "forms that change based on previous form selections", and I think it's cingular or verizon that has a patent on sending an emoticon over a wireless device.

Ryan,

That's some pretty silly stuff, and yes, I agree about the incompetence of the patent office personnel. But then again, it is a government machine.

It gets even more incredulous with a patent from eHarmony. US patent no. 6,735,568 describes a computer implemented method for "identifying people who are likely to have a successful relationship".

Who has the patents on 0's and 1's or ON/OFF?

What about speak now or forever hold your peace or shut-up and sit down.

Maybe a patient patent. You'll have to wait on this one.

Lets get even more esoteric with definitions for the
Office of the Chief Sinecure. Is there a patent for how to patent a patent lawyer?

JFF juss for fun.

Robert,

As somebody said previously, part of the problem is that the patent office staff are either not knowledgeable enough or have no incentive to find out what already exists and when it did. As it currently stands, a patent is not really effective until it has been proven in court.

I think that if we allowed the public to submit examples of prior art as a kind of peer review we could both help the patent office staff and stop ridiculous or overly broad patents from getting approved.

Then I think we should really look at the patent system as it is. It is getting further from protecting inventors and encouraging development, and more towards protecting big corporations (the ones who can afford a prolonged patent dispute) and making any devolpment more difficult. I have some ideas, but I'll blog about them at some other point ;-)

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