Raw Matter

Of course, when I write about stupid patents, most of the time, I write about the U.S. manner of doing things... So in the Blackberry patent case: Apparently, consequences of the patent issue between Blackberry maker RIM and NTP might even kill Blackberry's email service. But the U.S. government (remember, these are the folks who are responsible for setting up the whole patent system...) thinks that it should take action to ensure that this doesn't happen, because it uses Blackberry a lot.

I'm just shaking my head. Yes, there may be important (security/safety related) reasons where the state must be able to act outside its own legislative systems, but these should be minimized to a minimum. This here is not such a case, I think.

Ok, now some would think this would further inspire my latent anti-americanism. But I'd like to thank Mr. Knight and his crew - you've made my day, it's hilariously funny. Here's the abstract of the patent:

A process of relaying a story having a timeline and a unique plot involving characters comprises: indicating a character's desire at a first time in the timeline for at least one of the following: a) to remain asleep or unconscious until a particular event occurs; and b) to forget or be substantially unable to recall substantially all events during the time period from the first time until a particular event occurs; indicating the character's substantial inability at a time after the occurrence of the particular event to recall substantially all events during the time period from the first time to the occurrence of the particular event; and indicating that during the time period the character was an active participant in a plurality of events.

I think PJ of Groklaw went a bit over top on the paranoid side in her analysis - for me the funny side absolutely wins. But then, I'm not living there, and I feel confident that this particular patent will never trouble any author outside the U.S.A.