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.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Oh, isn't that just soooo cute!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Oh, isn't that just soooo cute!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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....
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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.
[ link to this | view in thread ]