This is disgusting. It's disgusting that just the other day I saw kids probably no older than 6 violating this very patent in a public playground of all places. Six year olds violating patents, what has society become? They were smiling and giggling with their friends swinging on the swingsets, hopefully the criminals responsible for violating this patent are dealt with to the full extent of the law.
In all seriousness though, it's patents like this that are the reason the patent system is as broken and messed up as it is. You can patent anything if you use enough convuluted words in a couple of paragraphs it would seem.
It will however require the services of a competent patent attorney at a cost of around $1mm and approximately 3 years in a court in Eastern Texas to prove that they are in fact "okay".
Don't worry, we can start out by getting a judge to enjoin the probable infringement. We'll make sure no kids are allowed to attend elementary school during those 3 years.
Exactly. The very fact it was approved in the first place proves the system is massively flawed. If it took bad press for it to be revoked, that just makes the patent system look even worse.
Those monsters. Have they no sense of the society they are spitting on.
As you said though, this really is the perfect example of what's wrong with the patent system. There needs to be an overhaul of what can be patented and how to go about it, but the companies with the influence to do so have no real incentive to do so, as most of them own the patents that they need.
In all seriousness though, it's patents like this that are the reason the patent system is as broken and messed up as it is. You can patent anything if you use enough convuluted words in a couple of paragraphs it would seem.