[Haskell-cafe] Re: US Patent for the idea ...

[Murray Gross]

On Sat, 17 Apr 2010, Brian Hulley wrote:

>> see the patent 6,368,227. The search site is here:
>> http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm
>> Best regards.
>> Jerzy Karczmarczuk
>> ...

It's really almost not fair to cite that particular patent, since, if I 
recall the story correctly (I may be wrong in small detail, but I am sure 
of the general picture), that patent was filed by an attorney as a 
demonstration to his son how the system works. It was never filed as a 
serious patent. Yes, it may show how poorly the examiners are doing their 
job, but I think this particular patent really doesn't reflect on the poor 
service we are currently receiving from the entire patent system--I would 
like to think that the examiner knew perfectly well that this patent was 
not serious and was willing to play along.

Murray Gross