Silly Patent: The Flatulence Deodorizer

https://www.google.com/patents/US6313371?dq=US+6313371&hl=en&sa=X&ei=UNteU523DujJ8wGPtIG4DQ&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAA

Have you ever find yourself in an awkward situation that you are next to someone, close enough for the person to breathe the same air as you do, but you can't help yourself with the desire to fart? Well, now I present you a perfect solution: the flatulence deodorizer!

The name of this patent says everything: the flatulence deodorizer discloses a pad to be worn by a user for absorbing gas due to flatulence. And let me tell you, this is a serious business: it can be purchased at http://www.flat-d.com/. The company has a number of products related to this technology.

Judging from the fact that they have a website up and running, this product, which sounds extremely ridiculous to me, is actually commercializable. Maybe there are people who are willing to wear an adult diaper after all to avoid embarrassing moments.

Now let's run the test of the three criteria for patents:

1. Novel:
I won't argue this point.

2. Non-obvious:
It's probably not as obvious for someone skilled in the prior art to create an adult diaper for deodorizing.

3. Useful:
It is useful, but will people actually be willing to wear them? In my personal opinion, wearing it is more embarrassing than the embarrassment caused from farting in the public itself.

Let me know what you think.

Silly Patent: Animal Ear Protectors

http://www.google.com/patents/US4233942

This invention provides a device for protecting the ears of animals, especially long-haired dogs, from becoming soiled by the animal's food while the animal is eating. And it looks like this:

Will you ever ask yourself, "Is this a reasonable concern that I do not want to have food in my dog's ears?" I mean, maybe as a dog lover, I do sometimes if I don't want my pet get super messy. But do I honestly want the discomfort that my dog has to suffer through in order to be neat? And is this even pretty or at least presentable to the public? Not so much.

Now let's run through the test for validity of this patent.

1. Novel:

To be fair, it is novel that no existing patents is anything like this one.

2. Non-obvious:

Yes, it is non-obvious, simply because I think nobody else would ever bother to even think about     having stuff over dogs' ears.

3. Useful:

Is it useful? Maybe and maybe not. But useful does not necessarily mean commercially viable. I doubt a dog owner would want to have his dog have this on and this might just torture the dog in many ways.

Let me know what you think.

Business Methods Obviousness

For many years, the USPTO took the position that "methods of doing business" were not patentable. However, court’s 1998 decision in State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group opened the doors for patenting novel methods of doing business. The court rejected the theory that a method of doing business was excluded subject matter. The USPTO continued to require, however, that business method inventions must apply, involve, use or advance the "technological arts" in order to be patentable.

So when is a business method non-obvious? In re Bilski is a case dealing with the patentability of business method. Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw applied for a patent on methods for hedging risks for commodities trading via a fixed bill system.

The patent is a method to provide a fixed bill energy contract to consumers. So consumers pay a fixed price for their future energy consumption in advance of winter based on their past energy usage. This way, if any given winter is usually freezing and require more energy for heating, consumers are protected by the fixed bill. However, if any given winter is usually warm and therefore require less energy, consumers would still have to pay for the fixed bill even though in reality they consume less compared to what they paid for.

The examiner rejected the patent on the grounds that "the invention is not implemented on a specific apparatus and merely manipulates an abstract idea and solves a purely mathematical problem without any limitation to a practical application, therefore, the invention is not directed to the technological arts."

Examination Guidelines Regarding Obviousness

Ever since the court’s decision in KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., the guidelines for determining obviousness have changed. Below is a summary of the several reasons an examiner can employ to support an obviousness rejection:

(A) Combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results;

(B) Simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results;

(C) Use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way;

(D) Applying a known technique to a known device (method, or product) ready for improvement to yield predictable results;

(E) ''Obvious to try'' - choosing from a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, with a reasonable expectation of success;

(F) Known work in one field of endeavor may prompt variations of it for use in either the same field or a different one based on design incentives or other market forces if the variations would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art;

(G) Some teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art that would have led one of ordinary skill to modify the prior art reference or to combine prior art reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention.

A patent applicant can challenge the examiner’s decision by arguing:

(1) One of ordinary skill in the art could not have combined the claimed elements by known methods (e.g., due to technological difficulties);

(2) The elements in combination do not merely perform the function that each element performs separately;  

(3) The results of the claimed combination were unexpected," as well as evidence relating to the secondary considerations enunciated in Graham(long-felt need, commercial success, and failure of others). 

In class, I was still confused about (E) – the “obvious to try” doctrine. Hence, I did some additional research and found out that the obvious to try doctrine was originally developed by Judge Rich in Huellmantel, Tomlinson, and O’Farrell. According to Judge Rich, "obvious to try doctrine is relevant when “a prior art suggests the possibility of a claimed invention, but expresses or infers at least some uncertainty that the invention can be made or will function as expected”. The standard to determine whether this doctrine should be employed or not is based on “whether there is a reasonable expectation of success”.

Does any of these doctrines surprise you or confuse you? Why?

Notoriously Famous Trivial Software Patents

Bad patents, also referred to as trivial patents, are “patents that cover either trivial inventions or inventions that would have been obvious to persons of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made.”

Bad patents are especially widespread for the software industry. The reason that bad patents exist is because patent examiners, unfortunately, do not have a comprehensive knowledge set of the software technology they are examining. The humongous amount of software can allow some bad patents bypass examiners even though these patents are only some trivial extensions of existing software patents.

Currently, Apple and Samsung, among many other smartphone manufacturers, are constantly accused of being granted trivial patents.

In the blog post, I want to explore some notoriously famous trivial patents and their obviousness.

XOR flashing cursor

The first one is XOR-draw for screen cursors. The XOR patent covers the use of the machine language XOR (which is short for a logical operation: exclusive or) operator to make a cursor blink in a bitmapped display. In another word, it’s a patent for a flashing cursor on a computer screen using XOR language. This patent is definitely on the top of the list of patent nonsense. First of all, it was actually filled long after almost every computer graphic company already knew how to use it. But firms in the early days simply didn’t bother to file a patent for such a thing that’s so trivial. Any given software program is comprised by numerous pieces of technologies like this one. One critic said, “It would be absurd to grant patent privileges to each such idea.”

However, USPTO did approve this patent, and many tech companies are paying loyalties towards it:

Autodesk had to pay $25,000 to ``license'' this patent;

Amiga CD32, the first 32-bit CD-ROM based video game console, went bankrupt since they were not able to pay $10M in patent royalty for their use of XOR patent.

You can view this patent here: http://www.google.com/patents/US4197590

Amazon 1-Click

“1-Click shopping removes the single biggest friction point for completing an online purchase: the checkout process…In fairly broad terms, it protects any E-commerce transaction executed with one-click using stored customer credentials to validate.”

There is no doubt that 1-Click has generated a huge amount of additional sales for Amazon, since now customers don’t have the time for a second thought before they click through the transaction. And since credit card information is already stored in the system, customers, supposedly, would feel less guilty about spending money on things they probably don’t need.

Within the US, Amazon has sued under it (Barnes and Noble) and they are also licensing it (to Apple, who uses the patent in iTunes store). However, 1-Click never get passed in Europe.

"The Board does not consider that the idea of reducing the number of steps necessary to make an order would contribute to inventive step," the EPO said.

You can view this patent here: http://www.google.com/patents/US5960411

Google Doodles

Doodles are the customized version of the Google logo that the company puts on its home page to celebrate holidays and other events. Well, for this patent, how trivial it is, you go figure.

You can view this patent here: https://www.google.com/patents/US7912915

Can You Patent Software?

Software is a pretty interesting field in the patent world. There has been a lot of debates regarding whether software can be patented or should be patented. Some people argue that software is essentially an algorithm in a programming language which is used to solve some complicated problems, and it should be treated just like math, which is not patentable.

However, software is not equivalent to math if we think about it this way: “the code is a series of instructions written using mathematical logic as its foundation.” Software code is heavily influenced by math, but the nature of its usage is very different. We need to focus on the output of the software code and evaluate whether the output is something sufficiently novel and nonobvious to be patented.  

“Although software functions by using algorithms and mathematics, it may be patentable if it produces some concrete and useful result. However, what cannot be patented is software whose only purpose is to perform mathematical operations. Thus, software that converts one set of numbers to another will not be patentable; but software that converts one set of numbers to another to make rubber will be patentable.”

According to case law, only software that has a “technical effect” can be patented. And this means that the contribution of the patented technology is novel and not obvious to a person skilled in the art. However, this term is rather vague and is ultimately decided by USPTO. Therefore, we have critics argue that many software should not be patented because they are trivial and would have been obvious.