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IBM becomes the first company to be granted 5000 US patents in a single year
- juiceandjuice 16y agoIt's pretty tempting to rattle something off about the patent system with a story like this, but given that IBM has so many research facilities and an R&D budget rivaling the NSF's, I'd guess IBM has more legit patents (non-frivolous) than other company.
- corin_ 16y agoIt took IBM 50 years to get its first 5,000 patents and that milestone was hit 40 years ago back in 1961. <pedantic> That was 50 years ago, not 40. </pedantic>
- iwwr 16y agoJust imagine all the legal and administrative budget be put toward developing new products (or even adding to IBM's bottom line).
- nitrogen 16y agoYeah, imagine hard drive capacity growth being delayed by a few years. But, at least we wouldn't have had to deal with the Deskstar click of death.
- fierarul 16y ago"Toward developing new products"... which would be killed because someone else patented something remotely related to them. I don't imagine playing a game at that level and not use patents so I don't blame IBM.
- yock 16y agoI especially love the comment regarding the USPTO as "efficient." As if there is any metric measurable by an outside source that can distinguish between "efficient" and "just grant the damn things."
- sharjeel 16y agoIs that a matter of pride or a matter of shame?