Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 21:39:49 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Q: What do you call two MDs who travel back in time to cure pivotal figures and protect the timeline?
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 07:47 PM 4/11/05 -0400, Colleen Cahill wrote:
>Yes, Copyright has some interesting things in it.  At
>http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/ my favorite question is "Can I protect
>my sighting of Elvis?"  Answer at
>http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html#elvis.

When it comes to the PTO, never say never.  Given some of the patents they
are issuing these days that violate the most basic requirements for
patentability (such as obviousness to one skilled in the art, or prior art,
etc.), particularly in the area of software patents, who knows what they
will get up to when it comes to copyright?  Though in that case the courts
would have to play a bigger role than they do with granting patents.  I can
copyright anything for a fee...enforcement is another matter.  Patents are
supposed to be prevented unless they are really patentable, but aren't always.

Maybe one episode of Ernest's new series can have one of the doctors trying
to cash in on patents by registering medical equipment far enough in the
past to beat the true inventors.  Stuff like the refrigeration system used
in medical instruments to keep them well below room temperature, those
"gowns" that are sized to fit everyone poorly regardless of body
configuration, or those particularly nauseating shades of green and yellow
that they use to paint the insides of hospitals.

-- Mike B.
--
There's an answer to every question.  Sometimes it's "No."