IBM Files Application to Patent The Patent

By Dr. Matthew Watson

Ever heard of people getting obnoxious amount of money to conduct research or get a PhD for pointless research. Thats what came to my mind when I first came across this news from IBM.

Just remind these were some of the winning ideas that funded by Government in US for Research papers and PhDs

1. the National Science Foundation once gave $100K grant to research why American players go to greater lengths to mod the popular MMO than do Chinese WoW players.

2. Pressures Produced When Penguins Pooh — Calculations on Avian Defaecation”, Polar Biology, 2004

3. Suicide rates are linked to the amount of country music played on the radio, , Medicine, 2005

4. Rats can’t always tell the difference between Japanese spoken backwards and Dutch spoken backwards, winner, Linguistics, 2007

As much as I stand to loose a chance to get a job at IBM by this post, its so hard not to think loud, and ask IBM what the heck was wrong with your brains, when you made the decision to patent the patent.

The Original Post Pasted from http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ibm-patents-the-patent,11868.html

IBM Files Application to Patent The Patent Process

6:40 PM – January 3, 2011 by Douglas Perry – source: ConceivablyTech

Reading through IT patents these days requires patience and tolerance. When you can patent common sense, there is clearly something wrong with the system. But as long as no changes are being made, you are inviting people to exploit what is available and IBM has just demonstrated what may be possible, if one of their most recent patent applications is accepted by the USPTO.

The company felt it would be beneficial to patent the patent strategy process all the way from training inventors, to competitor monitoring and protecting (i.e. suing someone) a patent from infringement. This patent does not describe anything new, but a strategy that is being pursued by anyone who owns a patent and especially patent trolls or people like Paul Allen, who is just taking another shot at suing Google for patent infringement.

The patent application could mean that IBM in fact is working on a software that automates patent management or the company simply felt it was necessary to patent the idea of filing a patent and treating it in the way it could be considered common sense. It is especially revealing how much focus the inventor put on a “defend” module that implies a lawsuit strategy. It would take a genius to figure that out.

Reading through this patent is a good lecture how a patent these days should not look like. IBM is the natural place for this idea as there is no other company that files for as many patents (and receives as many patents) as IBM does. But if the patent idea gets approved