RTP-area local music and culture

[Chris Rossi <rossi AT webslingerZ.com>]

sorren AT mindspring.com wrote:
> This is where the fucking patent office should just not grant them a
> patent.  You can't go around handing out patents to every fucking tom
> dick and harry that fills out an application.  ght.
>
As near as I can tell this is pretty much how it works.  Patents are 
granted liberally with the burden on the courts to sort out any 
problems.  I'm reasonably confident that if you went to the patent 
office, you'd find a handful of average schmoes like ourselves having to 
sort through about a gazillion new patents a year.  What would you do 
with a patent for a gizmotron that gweendles a yabbersnifter by means of 
an ingenious grazzlebinding process?  "Sounds good to me!" is what a lot 
of people would say.  I bet to a lot of the folks reading these things, 
these patents make about as much sense.  So Amazon gets away with 
patenting "one click" shopping!  (Nobody ever thought of that before.) 
Anyway, it doesn't appear to be the government's priority to adequately 
staff the office with people with the expertise to make good decisions. 
 Especially in sectors of new technology (re: internet).  From the 
government's point of view, I think, the process of grant the patent now 
and let courts settle any problems probably seems like a pretty good 
one.  It would probably take some concerted activism to change their 
minds.  So get to work!

rossi