Jan,
> Now they have a "patent" on their system of rental subscription service.
> I wonder how much the guy in the patent office got paid for that. If he
> claims he got nothing, IMHO he simply claims he's less smart than a
> piece of toast ... for granting such a rubber band patent you have to
> get paid or you're as stupid as it gets.
Actually, the main problem is that Congress is currently looting the patent
office of funds (i.e., patent fees are used to subsidize the US Treasury,
instead of the Patent Office being subsidized by the government). As a
result, each patent clerk is required to review about ten times as many
patents each month has they were required to in 1990.
With that kind of workload, and no penalties for mistakes, you can imagine
that the patent clerks just rubber-stamp a fair amount of applications so
they can go home.
And, IMNSHO, business method patents are one of the stupidest ideas to come
out of Congress in US history.
--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco