Swing Patent Belongs To Seven Year Old
from the that-explains-some-of-it... dept
Last week we mentioned the ridiculous patent for a method for swinging on a swing which later made its way to Slashdot and suddenly everyone was talking about. It turns out that the patent was granted to a 7 year old kid (though, it was filed when he was 5). It was filed by his lawyer father who wanted to teach his son how the patent process worked (or, doesn't work, apparently). He says that his son will not be going after lucrative licensing deals with anyone caught swinging side to side on swings.
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Oh, isn't that just soooo cute!
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Re: Oh, isn't that just soooo cute!
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who knows...
While I think this patent _is_ pretty useless and stupid, I also think that maybe we have to adjust what we think patents are. I think I'm convinced now that patents are more just marketing tools to "prove" your company has a track record. The side benefit of being able to have your inventions protected is secondary....
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There is hope
All someone has to do is go show that someone was using that process before the kid's date of invention.
Someone has filed a petition and it has gone for reexamination. At least that is what I think this means:
http://pair.uspto.gov/cgi-bin/final/home.pl
And put in patent number 6,368,227.
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