THE SOURCE of cynicism about society increasingly becomes the USPTO, which grants patents (monopolies) on things that make one wonder if it's a hoax of not.
These were collected in the course of other research by Azeen Ghorayshi and put online as a slide show by Mother Jones magazine link here.
My favorite is #6 in the slides called "method of concealing partial baldness" patented on May 10, 1977. Here is the illustration for the patent which should have been denied on the grounds that it was already in wide use among the balding.
A Deeply Flawed Infographic: Most "Innovative" Countries and Industries
[...]
Measuring an intangible like "most innovative" is tricky, at best. At worst, it's a complete disaster, like measuring "most innovative" by using patents as a measure, like this infographic from Good and Column Five Media.
"If you're the giver or recipient of presents gift-wrapped by Amazon, you may want to take a gander at U.S. Patent No. 8,060,463, granted to Amazon last month for Mining of User Event Data to Identify Users with Common Interests. Among other things, Amazon explains the invention can be used to identify recipients of gifts as Christian or Jewish based on wrapping paper. From the patent: 'The gift wrap used by such other users when purchasing gifts for this user, such as when the gift wrap evidences the user's religion (in the case of Christmas or Hanukkah gift wrap, for example.)'"
Comments
Michael
2011-12-29 00:04:26
Do you have any ideas to fix it?
XFaCE
2011-12-29 00:12:54
Michael
2011-12-29 00:40:09
Your rant is very emotional. I merely asked if Roy (or others who read this) have ideas on how the legal system can deal with such plagiarism other than through patents. Apparently the answer, for you, is you do not. Perhaps it is this lack of any real answer that has you so clearly wound up (making accusations of passive aggressiveness, accusing others of ignorance, trying to put me on the defensive with other insults and accusations and stories about me and my motives that have nothing to do with me or this topic, etc.)
In the end, though, I commend you for acknowledging you think the politicians and law makers should answer this question... not because I agree that they should be the ones with the answers but because you make it clear you do not have the answer. I admit I do not either.
Roy's idea to just stop trying to prevent such plagiarism is rather silly though... the problem is hard and neither he nor I nor you have an answer... but his idea of just giving up on even trying to come up with a reasoned answer is not better than the current situation, not unless you want to be very pro-plagiarism, which I am not. Sadly, the idea of being pro-plagiarism is pretty common in the "free" community - they think it is fine to copy others even if others do not want to be copied. Then they back pedal on that and say those that copy them must follow *their* rules (generally those defined in the GPL).
dyfet
2011-12-29 10:19:27
Michael
2011-12-29 13:55:20