Reading (For Dummies)

Software Patent Blues

Weird. I was just IM'ing my dad earlier this evening about Ben Stein's innovation essay when up pops another retarded tort claim. So up I hop on my podium to make an announcement.

Software patents are retarded. Especially this one. Ooh, a patent on drop-down menus (I used to use them). Give me a break. Guess what? Javascript and HTML include to the ability to create a drop down menu for navigation. Guess what else? The people who developed both standards wrote the code needed to create a drop-down menu, and they had this idea in mind when they did it. And guess what else? They tested their code! To make a computer related analogy, this is like someone writing NURB-editing software, and someone else patenting a "Non-Uniform Rasterized B-spline (aka NURB) rendered object."

Please face a wall, sit in lotus position, and chant the mantra with me, "prior art, prior art, prior art, prior art, prior art, prior art......" Repeat the meditation 103 times, or until your mind is cleansed.