Microsoft now owns your body – pay up!
In one of the more bizarre things I’ve seen in technology, Microsoft has a patent on your body! See the story at TechDirt by clicking to them at the story HERE. Or read the patent at the U.S. Patent Office at this link HERE.
By the way, I’ve tried to negotiate contracts with Microsoft, I can assure you it is a one sided conversation. Get your checkbook ready!
(Foot Photo courtesy of HotShoe’s Photos, used under Creative Commons License, modified by the caffeine driven creative team at Beck’s Cafe)
Apparently, MS only owns you if you use your body as part of a communications network.
Next thing, they’ll be filing for a patent for resistors, wires, capacitors, and diodes.
I suppose the worst part is really the fact that the USPTO let’s things like this through.
Is it asking too much that the USPTO have staff on-hand to check for “basic obviousness” of a patent claim? Years ago, I learned in Basic Electronics that the human body is effectively a resistor. Something like this “patent” should never have been granted.
Hi Brenda,
Thank you for leaving your comment. I wonder if this opens the door to Cuisinart patenting the human body for food processing? I’m kidding but I think your right when you wrote above regardingn the USPTO letting this kind of thing through. It’s like, as long as there is a logical argument then it’s okay, no matter how absurd the premise.
I bet Microsoft has a bevy lawyers waiting in the wings ready to defend their human body patent at all cost!
Thank you again for leaving your comment!
Becki