On 1/11/06, Jochen Schulz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > But you definitely have to come up with some soft of working > implementation, be it hard- or software, I agree.
Actually, that requirement was dropped awhile ago. You only have to roughly describe an implementation. There are actually a lot of patents that have been issued for "inventions" that won't work. The USPTO specifically disallows patents on alleged perpetual motion machines, but has been known in recent years to grant patents on perpetual motion machines masquerading under different names. "Zero-point energy" is a particularly popular one. Rest assured, software isn't the only area in which the US patent system is somewhat askew. -- Michael A. Marsh http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~mmarsh http://mamarsh.blogspot.com