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To be fair, the patent was filed by a five year old whose patent-attorney father was trying to educate on how the patent process works. http://www.nytimes.com/2
by jchung 14y ago
To be fair, the patent was filed by a five year old whose patent-attorney father was trying to educate on how the patent process works. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/13/business/patents-patent-office-faces-huge-backlogs-extremely-technical-inventions-absurd.html http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/13/business/patents-patent-of... Perhaps he taught his son even more than he expected.
- antiterra 14y agoIt's also expired due to nonpayment of fees.
- ctdonath 14y agoConfirmed; the US Patent Office says "Patent Expired Due to NonPayment of Maintenance Fees Under 37 CFR 1.362".
- danielweber 14y agoAnd as scott_meade points out, all the claims were canceled.
- innguest 14y agoGood! I can finally swing from side to side again.
- sailfast 14y agoThank you - this article was a key piece of the puzzle and should certainly temper any severe rage over patent trolling on swings.
- MartinCron 14y agoWhen I explained the patent system to my young child, he came up with an invention for a marshmallow roaster that roasts from the inside. I was tempted to go through the steps of filing a patent for him so we could both learn from the process, but the time effort wasn't worth it. No, we have no working prototype for this world-changing device.