On Thursday 18 October 2001 10:34, Tommy Johnson wrote:
On Wednesday 17 October 2001 18:47, Andrew Kenneth Milton wrote:
+-------[ Jerome Alet ]----------------------
| On Wed, 17 Oct 2001, Andrew Kenneth Milton wrote: | > There are some bizarre unenforcable patents out there if
you look hard
| > enough. | | The fact is that patent offices, particularly in the US and
AU are just
| plain stupid or very money hungry. | | IIRC an oz patented the wheel last year !
Now that's just creative! d8)
Someone here recently got a copyright on a huge set of the possible melodies produced by a touch-tone telephone. Most of them just happen to correspond to phone numbers. The theory is that you can buy your phone number's melody from them for a trivial fee, and then sue someone for copyright infringement when they "play" your melody without your prior consent (ie. cold-calling marketing companies :)
Hmmmm. Maybe I should patent a mailing list. *Oops - maybe I shouldn't have said anything yet, now I gotta beat all those who are trying to steal my idea.*
I should mention that the person in question was an artist, making a point :) I believe it was the same case with the person who patented the wheel (but not the same person) Richard