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IBM's Wishlist Includes A Patent On Avatars' Wishlists
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| theodp writes "In 2006, IBM boasted it was 'holding itself to a higher
| standard than any law requires because it's urgent that patent quality is
| improved.' On Thursday, the USPTO revealed that IBM was seeking a patent for
| Controlling and Using Virtual Universe Wish Lists. The product of six IBM
| inventors, Big Blue explained that a 'virtual wish list device determines an
| item in a virtual universe that is desired by an avatar.' Led by Chief Avatar
| Sam Palmisano, IBM is still drinking the virtual world Kool-Aid, dropping
| $80,000 to host a recent Second Life-based conference for 200 or so members
| of the IBM Academy of Technology. IBM indicated the virtual venue was chosen
| to avoid sending 'the wrong kind of message' (pdf) that something like a
| $400,000 real-world meeting might send during troubled economic times."
`----
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090421/1152534596.shtml
Recent:
IBM Patents Removing Leading/Trailing Blanks
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| theodp writes "With its example of how ' John Doe ' could be saved in a
| database as 'John Doe' (i.e., without leading or trailing blanks), purported
| patent reformer IBM dazzled the USPTO enough to earn Big Blue a patent last
| Tuesday for Automatically removing leading and trailing space characters from
| data being entered into a database system . The three IBM 'inventors' are
| also seeking a related patent for Retrieving data from a database system
| without leading and trailing space characters. Hey, if the patent system
| ain't broke, don't fix it!"
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090108/0230453331.shtml
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