Economic
and Game Theory
Hall of Shame
from the US Patent Office:
The "toast" patent number 6,080,436
seems to be real. The patent results at http://patft.uspto.gov are so absurd that I wonder if this is a
real site or some sort of parody.
[Posted at 04/16/2002 07:25 PM by David K. Levine 
]
from the US Patent Office:
"A method of swing on a swing
is disclosed,
in which a user positioned on a standard
swing suspended by two chains from
a substantially
horizontal tree branch induces side
to side
motion by pulling alternately on one
chain
and then the other. "
[Posted at 04/09/2002 07:26 PM by David K. Levine ]
from www.boycottadobe.com
"Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov
was arrested by federal agents in Las Vegas,
Nevada. His crime: pointing out major security
flaws in Adobe PDF and eBook software."
Special shame to Adobe and the FBI for this
one. If you want to find out more about this
latest exhibition of copyright absolutism,
visit Dmitry Sklyarov's company at www.elcomsoft.com
[Posted at 07/16/2001 07:26 PM by David K. Levine ]
Too good to pass up: you may have heard that
J. M. Smucker recently patented the peanut
butter and jelly sandwich. But did you know
that toast has been patented? The patent
number is supposedly 6,080,436. I cannot
currently check on this. Delphion who used
to provide patent information now requires
a subscription (seems fitting); and the US
Patent offices reports that its search system
isn't working and it doesn't know when it
will again
[Posted at 06/20/2001 07:26 PM by David K. Levine ]
Article at Gamasultra.com:
"Worlds.com, a 3D virtual reality entertainment
portal on the Internet, today announced that
it was awarded U.S. patent 6,219,045 for its scalable 3D server technology from
the United States Patent Office. The
Company
believes the patent may apply to currently,
in use, multi-user games, e-Commerce,
web
design, advertising and entertainment
areas
of the Internet. " What a great
idea:
patent stuff that is already in use...Saves
the cost of inventing something new,
and
the risk that no one will make use
of the
idea
[Posted at 04/25/2001 07:27 PM by David K. Levine ]
Press release from PumaTech:
"The new patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,219,818)
applies to the use of checksum comparisons
to determine whether Internet documents have
changed. The Company filed for the patent
on February 18, 1999." And it isn't
even April Fools Day. Nor a glorious day
for the Patent Office - they should have
read section 9.4 of the HTTP 1.1 Specification from January 1997...
[Posted at 04/23/2001 07:28 PM by David K. Levine ]
From The Register:
You may recall the SDMI sponsored a public
challenge to crack their watermarking technology.
Edward Felten's team at Princeton cracked
the watermarking, while refusing to enter
the contest in order to avoid signing a non-disclosure
agreement. Here is SDMI Foundation mouthpiece
Matthew Oppenheim response to the planned
presentation of their research at an academic
conference: "Any disclosure of information
gained from participating in the Public Challenge....could
subject you and your research team to actions
under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act."
If you are interested in what the SDMI is
so eager to suppress, click here
[Posted at 04/21/2001 07:28 PM by David K. Levine ]
From the Australian Sunday Telegraph:
"FORWARDING an e-mail to friends, family
or colleagues without permission from the
sender is illegal from today and could result
in severe penalties. New laws set out maximum
penalties of five years' jail or fines of
$60,000." (This is denied by the Australian Attorney General.)
[Posted at 03/04/2001 07:29 PM by David K. Levine ]
From pigdogs:
Concerning Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,
a public domain work recently reformatted
for the Adobe e-book reader: "A set
of restrictions was attached to the reformatted
edition of the book. One may not copy, print,
lend, or give the book away. But best of
all, one is forbidden from reading the book
aloud."
[Posted at 12/13/2000 07:30 PM by David K. Levine ]
Commentary by James Randi:
"I was inundated by notices about yet
another ridiculous decision on the part of
the US Patent Office...The present invention
takes a transmission of energy, and instead
of sending it through normal time and space,
it pokes a small hole into another dimension,
thus, sending the energy through a place
which allows transmission of energy to exceed
the speed of light." The mirror image
of patenting stuff already in use: patent
stuff that can't possibly work...Wonder what
the licensing fees are?
[Posted at 03/27/2000 07:27 PM by David K. Levine ]
