Patent Humour, Baidu Adds Patent Search to Its Engine
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2007-12-29 11:34:50 UTC
Modified: 2007-12-29 11:35:59 UTC
The following 2-minute video contains many figures. These were extracted from real patent applications covering very silly inventions. We have covered such amusing things before.
With its habit of throwing out random upgrades, Google's always demonstrated a certain ability to surprise us. Now its Chinese competitor, Baidu, has achieved the same effect by launching a patent search service.
Approximately 200 companies have already purchased licenses to use the patents in question, which cover a range of interactive services ranging from automated prescription refills to securities trading, and home shopping to teleconferencing.
Eastman Kodak will receive royalties from Matsushita Electric Industrial through a settlement of a July patent infringement suit, according to a regulatory filing Thursday.
Such patent settlements have become quite routine, but they needn't be. In many cases, patents don't come under scrutiny; instead, they are honoured blindly. A pointless settlement might simply be cheaper than a trial. This beats the purpose of a patent system. ⬆
Alyssa Rosenzweig is the graphics witch behind the reverse-engineered drivers for the Apple GPU. She previously led Panfrost, the free drivers for Arm Mali GPUs powering devices like the Pinebook Pro. She graduated in 2023 with a Computer Science degree from the University of Toronto and now writes free software full-time.
Now we have a project started primarily by Red Hat (and managed by Microsoft GitHub, which is proprietary) being managed by Microsoft and primarily serving Microsoft and IBM