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Mix-Ansicht- Patent fuer Schaukelstil - XERXES, 18.04.2002, 09:27
Patent fuer Schaukelstil
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON, April 17 (Reuters) - A 7-year-old Minnesota boy has patented a method for swinging side to side, meaning he could conceivably take playmates to court if they try his new trick without permission.
U.S. Patent #6,368,227, issued April 9, describes a method for swinging"in which a user positioned on a standard swing suspended by two chains from a substantially horizontal tree branch induces side-to-side motion by pulling alternately on one chain and then the other."
Users have up until now only swung in a back-and-forth motion, or sometimes have twisted the chains so that the swing spins when unwound, the application says.
But by pulling on the chains one at a time to induce a rocking, back-and-forth motion,"the present inventor has discovered certain other improvements in the art of swinging on a swing," the application says."Licenses are available from the inventor upon request."
St. Paul attorney Peter Olson said he filed the application two years ago to teach his son Steven about the patent process. One rejection and $1,000 in fees later, Steven is a certified inventor.
"It's kind of the best invention a 5-year-old could come up with," said Olson, who handles patent work for 3M Co. <MMM.N>"I can't say I had seen anybody doing it."
Intellectual-property experts said the patent clearly should have not been issued, but that such mistakes were inevitable from an underfunded government agency that issues 3,000 patents each week.
WHAT'S ORIGINAL?
The growth in"business method" patents over the past 20 years -- which provide protections for software and other intangible inventions -- has clouded the picture of what constitutes a new and original invention, said David Maher, a patent attorney in Chicago. International Business Machines Corp. <IBM.N>, for example, won a patent last year for a reservation system for airplane bathrooms, he noted.
"You have to wonder what they're doing in Washington," Maher said.
A spokeswoman for the Patent and Trademark Office said she could not comment on the merits of any particular invention, but pointed out that typically only 400 of the 187,000 patents issued each year come under challenge.
"I would say that our examiners do a very good job," said spokeswoman Brigid Quinn.
Inventors have long grumbled about the Patent Office's backlog -- currently 25 months -- and the fact that application fees go into the general government budget, rather than being used specifically to fund patent examinations.
The Bush administration has proposed boosting Patent Office funding by 21 percent, far above the average non-defense agency increase of 3 percent or so.
The administration has also proposed a one-time surcharge of 19 percent for patent applications, which would generate an additional $45 million for the agency and $162 million for the rest of the government.
Maher said the Patent Office would do a much better job if it was allowed to simply keep all of the fees it generates. Otherwise, dubious patents like the side-to-side swinging method will become more common.
"It will stay on the books and be a joke for 20 years. Maybe the inventor is out to sue every child in America," Maher said.
Olson said kids across the country could breathe easy.
"This is not going to be a patent Steven's going to be in court suing people on," he said.
((Washington newsroom, 202 898 8360, andy.sullivan@reuters.com))
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