Der_Trihs:
That would be easy enough; that congressman could send them a few bucks in the mail.
The PTO is entirely funded by user fees; and that is the reason why it is willing to grant a patent to anyone waving money at it. You can’t expect anything resembling judgment or principle out of something like that; it’s tailor made for corruption.
Actually, I am fairly certain that’s not true, and would like you to find a cite for it. I beleive the fees go into the general fund and then congress approves the budget for the PTO in a completely different process.
Indistinguishable:
I’m guessing that patent was filed specifically with the intention of producing said chuckle/near-strokes and not in earnest?
ETA: Well, I suppose it’s not just a simple linked list; there is all this business about auxiliary pointers and traversing in different orders. Which makes it less implausible that it was filed in earnest. Still, pretty straightforward stuff, not really the sort of thing I’d like considered patentable…
Doesn’t it cost a packet to file a patent? It’s even less patentable if you’ve heard of skip lists!
Wesley_Clark:
Is there a real risk they will start intimidating (free) competitors into shutting down? What about Windows vs. Linux, or IE vs Firefox? Why hasn’t MS patented something to shut down Linux, Firefox, or Google documents, or something like that?
Amazon started paying Microsoft license fees for using Linux on their servers last week (seriously).
Wesley_Clark:
I don’t know tons about computers or software, so I’m confused. Why would they having a patent allow them to intimidate all competitors, spy removal software has been around for years. How could they patent a form of software that has been around for years?
Is there a real risk they will start intimidating (free) competitors into shutting down? What about Windows vs. Linux, or IE vs Firefox? Why hasn’t MS patented something to shut down Linux, Firefox, or Google documents, or something like that?
It’s not a real, honest threat exactly. Rather, it’s a vaguely “legal” way of threatening to sue someone if they don’t pony up some dough.
crazyjoe:
Actually, I am fairly certain that’s not true, and would like you to find a cite for it. I beleive the fees go into the general fund and then congress approves the budget for the PTO in a completely different process.
This is true insofar as it describes the allocation procedure (though I’d argue the process is related, so not “completely different”), but in practice the PTO budget is tied to its revenue from user fees and is usually (if not always) set to a level lower than the userprojected fee revenues. That’s true for the current fiscal year, according to USPTO Director David Kappos :
In addition, in the last two years, Congress had provided the USPTO a buffer of $100 million above our appropriation, which we were authorized to retain and spend to the extent fee income exceeded our appropriation (up to the $100 million buffer amount) . That provision was removed from our fiscal year 2010 appropriation, due (we have been advised) to changes in Congressional Budget Office accounting which made it more difficult for our appropriators to provide the $100 million buffer this year.
The good news is that fee collections have begun to increase, and our current FY10 projections are more than $100 million above the $1.887 billion appropriations amount. We are actively working with Congress and the Administration to find ways to retain funds in excess of the $1.887 billion spending cap so that we can begin to backfill departing employees, improve our infrastructure, and continue to implement reforms.
For anyone interested, the Institute for Policy Innovation has a good discussion of USPTO funding here .
smiling_bandit:
This will not end well for someone, although they are likely to come up against somebody who will fight until the patent is destroyed. Frankly, I don’t see how this can possibly stand up to even the most rudimentary analysis in court no matter how much money is thrown at it. It would be like trying to patent fire .
Working on it. In the meantime, you owe me eight cents, because i own the rights to the word fire when it’s italicized.
