Haliburton to patent patents?

[TheBigotBasher]

This is a real wtf moment in the history of the US patent system.

Halliburton - the Texas-based company famous for pocketing billions from the war in Iraq - hopes to patent the art of patent trolling.

In an 18-month-old application just released by the US Patent Office, Halliburton attorney Clive D. Menezes seeks exclusive rights to "patent acquisition and assertion by a (non-inventor) first party against a second party."

That's right, the war profiteer wants to patent a means of patenting technology that someone else invented but didn't patent. Its application covers patent trolling against inventions that involve some sort of trade secret:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/10/halliburton_patent/

Whatever next? A patent on breathing?

[RandomThoughts]

1. Patents and copyrights were suppose to be to give some profit

to innovators. They have been turned into just being about making money, and not very often for the innovators.

They are to long, and there are errors with being able to use them just for profits, and not for a modest reward for some invention or idea.

[TheBigotBasher]

3. Agreed.

They were a way of protecting the small inventor from the giant corporation, now the rules are reversed.

[NYC_SKP]

5. Actually, patents offer protection but in exchange for disclosure that others may expand on ideas...

That is the duality of the original intentions of the patent: protection in exchange for full disclosure.

Of course what Haliburton is up do does neither.

K and R.

:patriot:

[stranger81]

2. Looks like an unpatentable business method to me.

Not to mention, it's completely obvious and/or anticipated. This application is going nowhere but the trash bin.

[AnArmyVeteran]

4. Yeah, me too. It has to have 'some' useful purpose.