Intellectual property Toolkit

Story: Microsoft frowned at for smiley patent

• 
• 

PRIOR ART -- what Microsoft is patenting has already been in use for more than 15 years; just take a look at the unofficial "X-Face" NNTP header that is used in Newsgroups by users to include a small graphical image with their messages.

I view these silly patents as an attempt at abusing the system, but the real problem is the fact that Patent Office is approving these basic things. If they don't improve their processes for getting feedback from others in the applicable industries to find out if such technology either already exists (an excellent reason to deny a patent) or is just something that is an obvious solution (a reason for denying a patent after investigating it), then the system will be at risk of losing credibility and people won't respect patent law -- can you say "black market gaining popularity?"

The author of the article made also pointed out that patent systems were created to encourage others to share their ideas with the world; I don't agree with this entirely. The main reason patent systems were created to make it possible for inventors to protect their ideas for an initial period of time so they can get a "head start" in the market place and profit from their works before others do the same.

For this reason, I believe the patent system is a very good thing for society because it aims to be fair, but when I see silly patents being granted for things that have already been in use for very long periods of time (or other reasons that a patent really shouldn't be awarded), then I start to wonder about the credibility of the patent department.

Randolf Richardson - randolf@inter-corporate.com
Inter-Corporate Computer & network Services, Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
http://www.inter-corporate.com/

• 
• 

• 
• 
• 

Full Talkback thread