Method of Exercising a Cat (Patent System Is Hilariously Broken)

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11 points·jordanbaucke··6 comments

"Method of swinging on a swing" is my favorite; we covered it in my law school patents course: http://www.google.com/patents/US6368227

what was the outcome of the class?

Can I be sued for a patent violation if I swing the way I swing?

The professor (who literally wrote the reference book on patent law used by practitioners) said the patentee was a practicing patent attorney who drafted and filed it as a homework project with his child. The patentee has never asserted it, and almost certainly never will.

> " directing an intense coherent beam of invisible light produced by a hand-held laser apparatus to produce a bright highly-focused pattern of light at the intersection of the beam and an opaque surface"

(Emph. mine)

How does that even make sense? I'm pretty sure people aren't playing with their cats with IR or UV lasers. Not least because it'd be hard to aim them, and you'd need a fluorescent target to even see the target point.

Discussed in this video: The U.S. Patent System is Broken: Derek Khanna on Trolling and Low-Quality Patents https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySUD3X0_Azc

Good thing it expired. Now I can market my laser pointer as a Cat Aerobic-Exercise Tool. Or "CAT" for short.

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