{"id":180132,"date":"2017-07-13T17:07:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-13T22:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/07\/13\/keep-the-uspto-away-from-toilet-paper-they-will-sign-anything\/"},"modified":"2017-07-13T17:07:00","modified_gmt":"2017-07-13T22:07:00","slug":"keep-the-uspto-away-from-toilet-paper-they-will-sign-anything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/07\/13\/keep-the-uspto-away-from-toilet-paper-they-will-sign-anything\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep the USPTO Away From Toilet Paper, They Will Sign Anything"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
What the F%$# was the USPTO Thinking?<\/i><\/div>\n

Case in point, they just issued a patent for using a computer to count calories<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This month’s stupid patent, like many stupid patents before it, simply claims the idea of using a computer for basic calculations. U.S. Patent No. 6,817,863<\/a> (the ‘863 patent) is titled “Computer program, method, and system for monitoring nutrition content of consumables and for facilitating menu planning.” It claims the process of using a computer to track nutrition information like calorie or vitamin intake. It is difficult to think of a more basic and trivial use for a computer. <\/p>\n

The ‘863 patent is owned by a patent troll called Dynamic Nutrition Solutions, LLC. Dynamic Nutrition filed a lawsuit<\/a> this month in the Eastern District of Texas<\/a> accusing Australian company Fatsecret of infringing the ‘863 patent. Dynamic Nutrition had filed four other lawsuits. Consistent with a pattern of nuisance litigation, each of those earlier suits settled very quickly. <\/p>\n

What “invention” does the ‘863 patent purport to cover? Claim 1 of the patent is reproduced in full below (with comments in brackets): <\/span> <\/p>\n

A computer program comprising a combination of code segments stored in a computer-readable memory and executable by a processor to provide nutrition content information related to consumables, the computer program comprising: <\/span><\/p>\n

a code segment operable to receive and store an input related to consumption of consumables, and to associate the input with a calender [sic] date [i.e. program a computer to track daily food intake]; and <\/p>\n

a code segment operable to generate an interactive display screen, wherein the interactive display screen includes\u2014 [i.e. include some kind of user interface] <\/p>\n

one or more lists of consumables and related nutrition content information, and [i.e. list food options and nutrition information] <\/p>\n

a summary section of past consumption of consumables. [i.e. list past food intake] <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, program a computer to help people keep track of meals and calorie or vitamin intake. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The USPTO may be more dysfunctional than the Pentagon, and that is saying a lot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What the F%$# was the USPTO Thinking? Case in point, they just issued a patent for using a computer to count calories: This month’s stupid patent, like many stupid patents before it, simply claims the idea of using a computer for basic calculations. U.S. Patent No. 6,817,863 (the ‘863 patent) is titled “Computer program, method, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[817],"class_list":["post-180132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180132"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}