Absurd Software Patent of the Week

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As part of the Software Patents effort, I’d like to highlight a few bad/absurd software patents that make our jaws drop every week.

I’d like to begin with this classic US6185590B1 - Process and architecture for use on stand-alone machine and in distributed computer architecture for client server and/or intranet and/or internet operating environments - Google Patents

An image viewer process views at least one document image including an electronic document image, and performs viewing operations to the electronic document image. The process includes the step of selecting, by the user, one of a plurality of image viewing perspectives. Each of the plurality of image viewing perspectives provide the user the capability of viewing the document image in accordance with a different predefined user perspective. The process also includes the steps of selecting, by the user, using the image viewer process the document image to be viewed, and retrieving, by the image viewer process, the document image. The process also includes the step of displaying, by the image viewer process, the selected document image in accordance with an image viewing perspective selected by the user.

Simply put,

He said, if you hook up a scanner and e-mail a PDF document—we have a patent that covers that as a process

Take a look at Patent trolls want $1,000—for using scanners | Ars Technica for more information.

When Steven Vicinanza got a letter in the mail earlier this year informing him that he needed to pay $1,000 per employee for a license to some “distributed computer architecture” patents, he didn’t quite believe it at first. The letter seemed to be saying anyone using a modern office scanner to scan documents to e-mail would have to pay—which is to say, just about any business, period.

If he’d paid up, the IT services provider that Vicinanza founded, BlueWave Computing, would have owed $130,000.

Thankfully that specific patent expired in 2017 (20 years from when it was originally issued in 1997) but it makes you wonder, if this could be patented, what else was.

If you come across an absurd software patent, please consider posting on this thread and telling us about it.

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@rahulporuri would you be able to share a copy of the software patent study SFLC did? That has a bunch of absurd software patents filed in India.

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My favorites are (1) Method for exercising a cat with a laser pointer and (B) Method for swinging on a swing. The first one is self-explanatory. In the second case, the “inventor” claimed that normally one swings on a swing in a forward and backwards motion. He has “invented” a method to swing sideways. Therefore, (to use patenting terminology) it is novel, inventive, and “non-obvious to a skilled practitioner of the art.”

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software patent study SFLC

As far as I am aware, the report is still in a draft stage and not yet published by SFLC. @Venkatesh_Hariharan , please correct me if I am wrong. I’m unable to find the relevant link on the SFLC website.

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There is one minor fix needed to the SFLC study. I will share it after that is done.

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Title: IOT BASED METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR AUTONOMOUSLY MANAGING AGRICULTURAL EQUIPMENTS

Abstract: ABSTRACT IOT BASED METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR AUTONOMOUSLY MANAGING AGRICULTURAL EQUIPMENTS The present disclosure relates to Internet of Things (IoT) based method and system for autonomously managing agricultural equipments. One or more receiver device (101) is configured to receive a plurality of information from a plurality of input sources. A cloud server (102) is configured to receive the plurality of information from the one or more receiver device (101). The cloud server (102) processes the input plurality of information to determine a plurality of set of instructions. One or more end device (103) are configured to receive the plurality of set of instructions. The end devices (103) include on-field devices and personal computing devices. The set of instructions are transmitted for autonomous management of the on-field devices. It is a comprehensive system of agricultural management which takes in account overall farming conditions and input to autonomously manage on-field farming. It provides an integrated technology solution available to increase overall crop yield. Figure 1 is the reference figure

Complete Specification
…
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
[0009] It is an object of the present disclosure to provide IoT based method and system for autonomously managing agricultural equipments.
[0010] It is an object of the present disclosure to provide a comprehensive agricultural resource management with accurate real-time and future operational control of agricultural devices.
SUMMARY
…
[0014] One should appreciate that although the present disclosure has been explained with respect to a defined set of functional modules, any other module or set of modules can be added/deleted/modified/combined, and any such changes in architecture/construction of the proposed system are completely within the scope of the present disclosure. Each module can also be fragmented into one or more functional sub-modules, all of which also completely within the scope of the present disclosure.

Published and Granted in 2023

To read the entire patent, please visit https://iprsearch.ipindia.gov.in/PublicSearch/ and enter the Application Number “202311052655”

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