Boneheaded Patent Office
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rose to new heights of idocylast week (January 22, 2008) issuing a patent for "a mobile entertainment and communication device" that is "cellular or satellite telephone" which has memory card sockets and can play music. The patent also includes that the device has a camera and microphone for "recording images and sound". That sounds like about half the telephones on the market at the moment. Not surprisingly the company awarded the patent made some interesting use of the patent almost immediately. The patent troll known as Minerva Industries (www.gigatec.com) filed suits against 33 cell ...
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