From NewScientist (30 April 2016) comes news of a boomerang for use on patent trolls:
ALEX REBEN came up with 2.5 million ideas in just three days. Nearly all of them were terrible – but he doesn’t mind. He thinks he has found a way to thwart patent trolls by putting their speculative ideas in the public domain before they can make a claim.
Reben, an artist and engineer, trawls the US patent database with software that splices existing sentences into phrases describing new inventions. His project, called All Prior Art, has come up with some odd contrivances: a robotic phone book; 3D-printed soap that kills pests on strawberry plants; and a temperature-regulating adult nappy with a hood.
Although I am forced to wonder if this is also damaging to legitimate companies and individuals who have a good idea, only to find it shot down by Reben’s quixotic project. And, yes, this approach may not work, according to lawyers noted later in the article – but I’m still giggling.
