Obama's Director Of Citizen Participation Patents Displaying News With Financial Info
from the participation-indeed dept
theodp writes "Ex-Googler and now White House Director of Citizen Participation Katie Stanton, who's charged with promoting open public dialogues, snagged a patent on displaying financial news Thursday with her former employer. The patent for Interactive Financial Charting and Related News Correlation (as seen on Google Finance), which Google explains is an invention designed to 'facilitate and encourage the user's use and understanding of financial information,' expires in the year 2027."To be fair, Google has only been a defensive, rather than offensive, patenter, so I wouldn't read too much into this. However, it does seem a little ridiculous to patent the process of displaying news with financial information. It's a neat UI concept -- but deserving of monopoly protection for decades?
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Filed Under: displaying news, patents
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Yeaaaah
Oh, wait, I get it. These guys aren't any more concerned about me than the last guys. Well, good to know. I'll feel that much less guilty about my contraband activities.
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What's wrong with our patent system? Oh yes, people like Katie Stanton who are on the advisory committee.
Sheesh.
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If you can demonstrate that they have "been doing this for years" (for all values of 'this' where 'this' is what's actually covered by the patent claims instead of an imprecise, hand-waving explanation of them, and for values of "years" including times prior to February 24, 2006) then you can invalidate the patent.
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Re: Yeaaaah
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and don't assume that just because our broken patent office grants a patent it means that something has never been done before (ie: someone got a patent on swinging sideways on a swing and someone else got a patent on the wheel).
Oh, and to overturn a patent costs resources (ie: time, lawyers, money), even if it's a bogus patent.
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Sorry, patents != capitalism. Patents == government granted monopoly != capitalism
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The patent was filed February 24, 2006, almost 4 years before Obama was elected and likely about the same amount of time before Katie Stanton came on staff. The patent has nothing to do with Obama, it is something that would be mentioned in passing, not as the up front issue - unless you are trying to create an issue where none exists.
The patent isn't hers, it is assigned to Google, and was likely part of her "work product", along with the others listed. I suspect she will receive no benefit from the patent, not will she in any way control it.
The story reads more like another slap at Obama, rather than anything informative.
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Er, Bloomberg?
http://www.moaf.org/exhibits/financial_markets/exhibit_pics/Bloombergterminalweb.jpg
ht tp://www.kalliwoda.net/bilder/TMY_04_09_2006_sg550053.gif
And this classic
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/files/bank_jamaica.JPG
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Of course, if you had actually read beyond the title, which you didn't, you would see that Obama is mentioned exactly 0 times beyond the title, and that the post focuses on Google.
But don't let your inability to read more than a few words before going on your predictable rants stop you from trying to make a point where none exists.
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