IBM's Where-in-HQ-is-Samuel-J-Palmisano? Patent

from the patents-at-work dept

Fri, Jun 19th 2009 1:58am — Mike Masnick

theodp writes "The next time IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano is late for a big meeting and can't be reached via his BlackBerry, the other attendees will thankfully have a patent-pending way of finding him. In its just-disclosed patent application for a Method for Exploitation of Location Proximity to Derive a Location of an Employee in a Corporation, Big Blue describes an 'invention' of two of its PhDs that could be used to track Palmisano down - call or IM those who sit near Sam's office and ask if they've seen him. By the way, IBM VP David Kappos, who recently lamented the diminished quality of patents in the US, is a frontrunner to be the next Director of the USPTO - perhaps he could comment on the patent-worthiness of this invention."

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Filed Under: location info, patents
Companies: ibm

17 Comments

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Matthew, 19 Jun 2009 @ 3:21am

Calling the people who sit near Sam isn't novel. Identifying those people automatically may be. Cataloging who is a neighbor to whom and having an automated system to poll those people in response to a query about Sam's location is. Moving forward, using records of Sam's last-best location (he swiped his badge to get into the copy center or he sent an email 20 minutes ago), identify the people who are seated near that location and ask them as well as the people who are permanently located near Sam's permanent location.
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mermaldad (profile), 19 Jun 2009 @ 4:15am

Wow
Wow, it took two of IBM's PhDs to come up with that?
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haiku, 19 Jun 2009 @ 4:31am

One of the PABX manufacturers offered a similar system 20+ years ago using smart badges within proximity loops.

No need for call forwarding - the system automatically forwarded your call to the handset nearest your [badge's] location.
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haiku, 19 Jun 2009 @ 4:38am

One of the PABX manufacturers offered a similar system 20+ years ago using smart badges within proximity loops.

No need for call forwarding - the system automatically forwarded your call to the handset nearest your [badge's] location.
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John Duncan Yoyo (profile), 19 Jun 2009 @ 4:46am

I use a similar system with my cat-a bell around it's neck.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Jun 2009 @ 4:59am

Prior art! We use to do this where I worked all the time.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Jun 2009 @ 6:04am

Don't people at IBM have cell phones?
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angry dude, 19 Jun 2009 @ 6:19am

IBM forever
Good news for IBM "inventors" of the toilet reservation system on airplanes and other brilliant breakthroughs coming from Big Blue

IBM lawyer David Kappos just got nominated by Bab-bam as a next PTO director

Heck, why not nominate Bernie Madoff as a head of SEC ?
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- Matt Tate (profile), 19 Jun 2009 @ 7:31am
  
  Re: IBM forever
  Zing!
  
  -I trolled with angry dude-
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Jun 2009 @ 8:27am

lol
wtf
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VX, 19 Jun 2009 @ 8:33am

Is it April 1st again already?
Apparently IBM hasn't been hit to hard by the recession. This is probably just a joke, but applying for a patent is pretty expensive.
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Ron (profile), 19 Jun 2009 @ 8:49am

Ummm...
This is a joke, right?

April fools??

I have GOT to start submitting some patents. I have crap ideas like this all the time.
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Matt, 19 Jun 2009 @ 10:34am

Does prior art in a work of fiction count?
Picard:
Computer, locate Lt Cmdr Data.

Computer:
Lt Cmdr Data is in his quarters.
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ak, 19 Jun 2009 @ 10:36am

wow...inspired me to come up with two great patentworthy ideas
1. call any two random guys in the office....if they know -good, if not, ask them to call another two guys and so on. yes, yes, it might keep th whole office busy-but u wud find the guy for sure

2. leave a voice mail on his cell phone-exactly 12 seconds to be precise (thats novel, isn't it?)-build a system to automatically extract his phone number from the directory

man, i suddenly feel a heightened sense of intelligence
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Dr. Jochen L. Leidner, 19 Jun 2009 @ 5:11pm

Prior art?
Here's a way of tracing somebody in your office building:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/dtg/attarchive/ab.html
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Jun 2009 @ 6:58pm

If I have a business that uses an intercom system, do I have to pay royalties ?
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PrometheeFeu (profile), 20 Jun 2009 @ 6:51am

I assume this is a prank by the IBM people. It has to be. Or IBM should disband and all its employees jump off a bridge!
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