Java and Microsoft Windows

[Chris Smith]

That is not how patents work. They never make this kind of determination. All
that they are required to determine is whether or not anyone has come up with
this idea before, and whether or not this idea is obvious in light of prior
ideas.

Unfortunately, you are right that the patent office never makes any kind
of judgement about whether it's a good idea to grant a patent before
they do so. They are supposed to do so; indeed, the constitution grants
them their power only for the purpose of advancing the useful arts and
sciences. Current regulations say that they fulfill that duty by
assessing whether an idea follows naturally from the current state of
knowledge, or is truly a breakthrough. The obviousness standard,
though, has been watered down to the point that it is a joke. This is
partly due to our inability to fund the patent office (in real dollars,
the office spends per patent less than 3% what it did in the first
decade after it was formed, and less than it has at any time in
history), and partly due to the mistaken concept that patents somehow
fit under property rights.

As for your "invention", let's just say that (I didn't realize this when
you first posted here, but have since looked around) you are clearly
something of a crackpot, and your billions of dollars number is hinging
on completely laughable. I didn't look at your patent, but you
apparently didn't publish anything about it so it must not be too
awfully theoretically interesting. Yes, it still appears you are part
of the problem; albeit at least not maliciously so.

 

[Peter Olcott]

Unfortunately, you are right that the patent office never makes any kind
of judgement about whether it's a good idea to grant a patent before
they do so. They are supposed to do so; indeed, the constitution grants
them their power only for the purpose of advancing the useful arts and
sciences. Current regulations say that they fulfill that duty by
assessing whether an idea follows naturally from the current state of
knowledge, or is truly a breakthrough. The obviousness standard,
though, has been watered down to the point that it is a joke. This is
partly due to our inability to fund the patent office (in real dollars,
the office spends per patent less than 3% what it did in the first
decade after it was formed, and less than it has at any time in
history), and partly due to the mistaken concept that patents somehow
fit under property rights.

As for your "invention", let's just say that (I didn't realize this when
you first posted here, but have since looked around) you are clearly
something of a crackpot, and your billions of dollars number is hinging

I thought that this sounded unreasonably high myself until I actually ran the
numbers. It is estimated that my technology will save 1/3 of business computer
users at least 5 minutes a day, there are 75 million business users in the
United States alone (US Census data 2003). This boils down to 25 million people
times 21 hours per year, or 525 million labor hours saved per year. Even at
minimum wage this is billions of dollars. The crucial assumption upon which this
result rests is the estimate of five minutes for 25 million people. I verified a
marketing research time and motion study design with three Ph.D. marketing
research professors, and all three said that the design was good, and would seem
to produce valid statistically generalizable results. I will perform at least
one of these studies before I launch.