Re: 1-Click, Short-Click, Long-Click, More-Clicks (New Microsoft Patent)

[Christopher C. Stacy]

>>>>> On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 20:10:43 +0000 (UTC), Rahul Dhesi ("Rahul") writes:
 Rahul> both the USPTO and the courts continue to treat published and
 Rahul> granted patents as if the USPTO was indeed doing thorough
 Rahul> searches of prior art.

As far as I can tell, USPTO will grant a patent for any damned
ridiculous thing now, without any consideration as to whether
it's a new idea, an obvious idea, or whatever.  For example,
I did some work for a company a little while back that had been
recently patented the following: a database representing customers, 
where each customer has a unique ID number ("PIN") that will be 
issued to them for use as their email address.

Once fully granted, is it possible for a patent like the one above 
to be somehow overturned?  (If this is even possible, I am sure 
that it costs big bucks.)

Patents today are issued willy-nilly today, because there is just 
no hope that the Government could ever actually do the work to
determine if the patent is reasonable.  And nowadays you can even
patent the mere idea of how to operate a business, for example.
It's totally out of control, in so many ways.