The four silly patents of 2015 aim to

Applying for a patent is a good thing, but many companies have taken advantage of loopholes of licensing agencies to apply for silly licenses, confusing content to "eat" any company that has bit related.

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a specialized agency for reviewing and removing ideas for copyright registration . However, from here, there were many bad jokes and EFF even had the Award for stupid inventions to " honor " the abundant and half-season ideas . Below is a list of nominated 4 silly inventions of 2015 voted by EFF:

White Knuckle: Update more " green grass " to make video games more lively

The White Knuckle Invention updates the image of green grass in video games.

One of the most abundant ideas ever patented with the EFF is " The method and system for enhancing the realism of video games ", named White Knuckle . The owner of the patent once filed an Electronic Arts lawsuit because it allegedly violated its patent in January of the beginning of the year.

Going back to " inventing " White Knuckle, the EFF itself asserts that this idea is completely absurd because it is merely a series of common concepts about computers, video games and access. Software update from a server. However, since it did not violate any of the rules, naturally, " the author " still received a patent for the "half-season" idea.

Many video games, especially sports games often take place as real events, so updating the game is necessary to reflect more realistic events. The nature of White Knuckle's " invention " is based on the same principle: Game software needs to be updated automatically. Even, White Knuckle gives examples such as the need to add more grass on the stadium in the game as a basis for determining the legality of the patent. The EFF compares this silly invention like trying to figure out the differences between inventing a San Franciso-driven car compared to a car driven in Los Angeles.

NoelPoint Tracking: Giving meaningless phrases to define GPS positioning functions

NovelPoint Tracking invents GPS positioning function.

GPS navigation technology was born in the 1970s, but it was only really commercialized and widely used in the 1990s. This is the result of numerous inventions related to GPS technology, and one of That is the idea of ​​" Automatic methods and devices for determining vehicle location, collision notification and synthesized voice ". It is worth mentioning that this " invention " does not give anything new to GPS technology except to list a multitude of rambling concepts and give cryptic word combinations to readers like: Location Comparator ( Location comparator) or Indicator Module (Module indicator).

It is through the " advantage " of the confusion that the owner of " NovelPoint Tracking " has sued more than 90 companies for alleged copyright infringement, even though the defendant itself cannot understand that the patent what NovelPoint got about. Most recently, Subway fast food brand has also been sued for using NovelPoint technology in mobile applications without the consent of the author.

Eclipse IP: Updating order information is also recorded as " invention " and has a patent

To illustrate the absurdity of this idea, the EFF gave an example: " Suppose you were a delivery worker and were on the way delivering a beer to a customer. However, before you knocked on the door Then the boss will text you and announce that the customer wants 2 barrels of beer (not the original one), so it is highly likely that you have to change the schedule or somehow earn 1 more barrel After finishing the beer delivery task, you continue with other orders ". In this case, the good part is that you are judged to be a conscientious delivery agent but on the other hand you may be sued for violating the patent of the Eclipse IP patent, one of the silly ideas ever. license. Although the EFF itself granted the patent to Eclipse in April 2015, the agency also evaluated the idea of ​​changing the amount of ordering information on the system to be excessive and absurd.

Microsoft with patent slider on the screen

Creative slider on the screen of Microsoft.

The most silly patent award of December 2015 was awarded to Microsoft when it sued Corel for intellectual property violations, including a violation of design patents since 2006 for a slider with code. registration number D 554,140 S.

The design invention that described in detail by Microsoft in its complaint is " a part of the user interface screen " and claims that the new company is the true " owner ". The funny thing is that Microsoft thinks the slider design on the computer screen is its own copyright. It is unclear how much money Microsoft will be compensated for if it wins the lawsuit, but according to the current Federal Circuit law, the entire profit of this product will belong to Microsoft if Corel is allegedly infringing the department. Intellectual property in design patents.

Unlike patents for inventions and utilities, patents for design are a completely new concept, because basically the design is not functional but only used to decorate products and articles. or objects. It is because of this ambiguity that it is difficult to identify true copyright, and the " scenario " of Microsoft suing Corel is similar to the persistent dispute between Apple and Samsung.

The famous dispute between Apple and Samsung also stemmed from a violation of part of the product patent, specifically the design of some details but the loser will be required to return all profits from the product. Currently Samsung has asked the Supreme Court to review the case. In his complaint, Samsung pointed out the absurdities of the rules in the law. For example, Samsung explained that under federal law, the entire profit of a car, even a truck like a truck in the " 18 wheel of justice " movie, will be returned to anyone. Patent property of a coffee cup tray in the car. Moreover, this will allow many products with decorative details that may relate to many design inventions that may encounter a series of court decisions for all profits earned. In fact, this problem is also the " concern " of the EFF to " hold " to decide to patent. And so far, the agency still has to "defend" by sending its own employees to review and eliminate silly ideas.