[OT] Patents in the USofA

[Don Tillman]

Here's one you'll like...

I was interviewing an engineer for a job at my company a couple of years
ago.  His resume mentioned that he had a patent, so I looked it up on
the patent server:
  http://www.delphion.com/details?&pn=US05659164__

"Method of and system for apparatus for two-way automatically
creating, identifying, routing and storing digitally scanned
documents."  

It involves the task of scanning a stack of multi-page documents.  The
first page of each document has a UPC sticker in the corner, and
during the batch scanning process some software detects the UPC code,
notes that this is page one of a new document, and does something
appropriate with it (outputting to a file, email, whatever).

The funny thing is that if you look at the image of the patent
itself (you can see this coming...) there's a UPC sticker on page
one.  

During the interview I asked the guy about the patent; first to check
that I understood what it was about, and secondly I was curious if he
knew of anybody using the patent.  Yes, that's what the patent was
about, and no, he didn't know of anybody using the patent.

I'm not sure when the US Patent office started scanning patents, but
I'm picturing somebody walking into the office and saying "I'd like to
patent that stapler sitting on your desk right there."

  -- Don

-- 
Don Tillman
Palo Alto, California, USA
don at till.com
http://www.till.com