The "Donald Duck as prior art" case | Hacker News Reader

The "Donald Duck as prior art" case

iusmentis.com

76 pointsshrikant16 comments

More Donald Duck awesomeness: http://www.cracked.com/article_19021_5-amazing-things-invent...

That was awesome! Donald Duck created a chemical before it was actually discovered! Brilliant!

Carl Barks (one of the most popular Scrooge McDuck writers) had an enormous impact on the world. Without knowing chemistry he invented methylene 20 years beforehand. His drawings laid the foundation for Japanese Manga as well as large swathes of Disney artists to follow. You can read more about him at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Barks

He also wrote the story that was the inspiration for the guy who traded the paper clip into a house. http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/

Awesome. I'm starting a comic called "The Adventures of Mathan Nyhrvold" consisting almost entirely of computer software and hardware carrying out the most banal and mundane of tasks for our anti-hero.

"Everything in just one click."

" although surprisingly this confirmation did not give any detail on which patent office or how the Duck story came to its attention"

This may come as a surprise to some, but in the Netherlands certain comics are considered respectable literature and have been for a very long time. Donald Duck, Kuifje (Tintin), Olivier B Bommel and Suske en Wiske are read by people of all ages and social classes. For example Donald Duck magazine is still one of the most popular magazines for college students.

That would suck to come up an idea, put nose to grindstone and turn it into a working invention, and then have the patent for it thrown out because a comic book writer had a similar idea and used it for a gag.

So, if Google actually ever tried to sell an automatic car-driving system, would the patent be voided on the basis of Knight Rider reruns, or would they cite The Love Bug (original version) as prior art?

The car-driving thing would only count if Knight Rider included details about exactly how the automation works.

The Donald Duck comic was pretty specific about exactly what was going on: they were feeding ping-pong balls down a tube into a submerged ship until the boyancy of the balls raised the ship. Knight Rider and friends just say "Hey what if there was a car that could drive itself? Let's make a show about that car fighting crime." Same way (to use another 80s show) MacGuyver doesn't have prior art on the idea of blowing stuff up with improvised materials.

The actual invention didn't use ping-pong balls, nor was it being presented as a feasible solution to a real-world problem any more than Donald Duck filling a car's tires with helium is presenting a serious design for a flying car. It's a cartoony gag.

Invention requires more than, "I bet you could make an X by doing Y." It requires actually getting something to work. It's not writing, it's engineering.

You can define inventions that way. But that does not mean that the patent process requires something that fits your definition.

That would be much of my point in my first post, now wouldn't it?

Indeed.

> Invention requires more than, "I bet you could make an X by doing Y." It requires actually getting something to work. It's not writing, it's engineering.

Yeah, but patents don't, at least, judging by what gets accepted these days.

The patent on using a stick as a dog toy took four years, two prior patents and a reexamination request from the head of the USPTO to get invalidated after being issued.

If someone applies for a patent "to float a sunken ship using ping poll balls", you are free to float a ship using air balloons, plastic globes that aren't ping pong balls, etc. Without infringing on that patent.

Similarly, you could use ping pong balls for lifting a sunken air plane without infringing on that patent.

That is why patents are written in very generic terms.

Given such a very narrowly specified talent, you can get a patent on these alternative solutions of the problem if the 'invention' is deemed a non-trivial variation on an existing prior art. For example, I would think that using an inflatable air bag, inflating it after inserting it into the vessel, could be a patentable variation on this theme. I think freezing the water in and around a sunken ship to float it definitely would be patentable, even though it is based on the same idea (replacing the water in the ship by something lighter than water) [and yes, it isn't practical, either, but that does not prevent it from being patentable]

So Kitt would have to be a software patent then?

Doesn't an idea have to have been implemented for it to count as prior art? If not, there seems to be a problem for the future. When everybody blogs and tweets their most mundane thoughts, the chance that your new invention has already been described (but not implemented) in some form of media accessible by public is very large.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com