Are patent office employes bored? Do they as a result of their boredom find / think up of new things to patent?
It now emmerges that the US patent office want's to patent, wait for it...Numbers!
I can understand that mathematical discovery and research has to be protected, especially for the benefit of all those mathematicians hard graft but Patenting numbers! Oh come on, this is going from bad to worse.
Next thing we'll know is that US style number patenting will be adopted everywhere, after all the US does "lead" the way is so many areas.
I only hope this is all a big joke, the author being Verity Stob it may well be.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/34179.htmlhttp://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/34148.html