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Forgetting about having written code is possible ... | 167 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Forgetting about having written code is possible ...
Authored by: nsomos on Tuesday, October 23 2012 @ 03:09 PM EDT
Parent suggests that the rubber band patent inventor might
have forgotten about code they wrote earlier.

While I can believe having forgotten about writing code,
forgetting about a Patent is a little bit different.

It is unfair to equate forgetting about written code,
with forgetting about patents either issued or pending.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Probably the "inventor" did not write any code
Authored by: FreeChief on Wednesday, October 24 2012 @ 12:25 AM EDT
My guess is that someone wrote some code, the legal department took it and wrote a patent application, the manager of the manager signed it and forgot about. A few years later the same thing happened again when somebody else had a similar idea. Nobody who had anything to do with the first patent application even saw the second one, except for the manager, who just signs the form and takes the credit.

The inventor was dispossessed long ago. An ignoramus is the absentee landlord of this "intellectual property".

 — Programmer in Chief

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

I don't think that's a good idea...
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 24 2012 @ 10:05 AM EDT
applying for patents on throw-away code snippets - things which are so thoroughly immemorable that the original developer might actually not remember having done it before
Applying for patents on everything under the sun is one thing (and one reason I don't blaming Apple for doing it). The USPTO granting all of the junk patents is the real issue at hand.

It's the same thing as a lawyer asking for everything under the sun. It's a great tactic because you never know when a judge is going to say yes.

~ukjaybrat - IANAL

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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