
Patent US6368227 - Method of swinging on a swing - gojko
http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US6368227
======
jchung
To be fair, the patent was filed by a five year old whose patent-attorney
father was trying to educate on how the patent process works.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/13/business/patents-patent-
of...](http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/13/business/patents-patent-office-faces-
huge-backlogs-extremely-technical-inventions-absurd.html) Perhaps he taught
his son even more than he expected.

~~~
antiterra
It's also expired due to nonpayment of fees.

~~~
ctdonath
Confirmed; the US Patent Office says "Patent Expired Due to NonPayment of
Maintenance Fees Under 37 CFR 1.362".

------
DigitalSea
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.

~~~
calvinlough
This patent is for side-to-side swinging. IANAL, but if they were doing the
traditional forward-backward swinging they should be okay.

~~~
noonespecial
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".

~~~
marshray
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.

------
curveship
It's a tongue-in-cheek troll, and a beautiful one at that. Someone filed this
on behalf of his/her son. Check out the last lines of the application, with
emphasis added:

\-- snip --

Lastly, it should be noted that because pulling alternately on one chain and
then the other resembles in some measure the movements one would use to swing
from vines in a dense jungle forest, the swinging method of the present
invention may be referred to by the present inventor _and his sister_ as
_"Tarzan" swinging_. The user may even choose to produce a Tarzan-type yell
while swinging in the manner described, which more accurately replicates
swinging on vines in a dense jungle forest. _Actual jungle forestry is not
required._

 _Licenses are available from the inventor upon request._

\-- end snip --

edit: formatting

------
scott_meade
There is nothing patented in this patent. Note that "Claims 1, 2, 3 and 4 are
cancelled". That's all of the claims.

~~~
monochromatic
Wait, where does it say that?

~~~
jryan49
Last page.

~~~
monochromatic
Ah, I didn't realize it'd gone into reexam. That seems like a silly waste of
money.

------
alphaBetaGamma
I rather like this one. Though to be fair, it was probably correct to award
it: it's definitely inventive, and I doubt there is prior art.

<http://www.google.com/patents/US3216423>

~~~
Zimahl
I don't know a better word to describe that except to say it is _disturbing_.

------
abcd_f
It's a mock patent.

I worked for a company whose on-staff lawyer was friends with the person who
authored this patent. He too was (is?) a lawyer and he filed this application
to demonstrate how ridiculous the patent legislation was. It was never meant
to be a serious patent.

------
ChuckMcM
I cannot help but think this patent and others like it would be good test
cases for a summary reversal mechanism. I would use them as follows:

1) Create a policy whereby a patent can be identified as being 'issued in
error' (to be clear the case is made that at the time of filing the patent
basis was already unpatentable)

2) Provide a framework for describing the unpatentability and the evidence
standards for elements in the framework (so you have to show it was obvious
for example and have other indpendent inventions at a similar time, or prior
art, etc)

3) Establish what rights the patent holder has in defending against this
allocation (what rules of evidence are needed, what standard does that
evidence need to meet)

4) Establish an appeal process, if any, and its rules.

5) Establish a way of introducing these disallowed patents as evidence of
unpatentability in current office actions.

Then start with patents like this one and run them through that process.

Part of the problem here is that the challenge process is really broken and it
needs to be fixed in order to balance out the inevitable human failings on the
approval process.

------
blktiger
What I want to know is why does is this patent referenced by a Microsoft
patent that is completely unrelated?

<http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US8181265>

Does Microsoft think the patent system is a joke?

~~~
bhavin
I went through both Samsung and MSFT patents that 'refer' to this patents.
This patent, in both cases, is cited by the examiner. So, my idea behind that
is the examiner either didn't like his job or had a good sense of humor about
whole patent process!

~~~
DigitalJack
Or it was a form of protest. Those patents are now tied to absurdist humor
forever.

------
dctoedt
When you think about it, patent examiners make industrial policy that affects
the entire United States for up to 20 years. To be fair, the USPTO takes that
responsibility pretty seriously. Still, examiners are human --- and a lot of
them aren't experienced enough to have signature authority: their actions must
be signed by their supervisors, who have to oversee multiple junior examiners.
In many fields, the examining corps is pretty buried by the workload and
doesn't have the time or other resources they'd like to have. [EDIT: In
response to 'dkhenry, I agree, there's no excuse for the patent being
discussed here.]

This examiner burden is exacerbated by three things:

First, patent examiners' performance is graded in part on the basis of a
"count system," which provides at least some incentive for examiners to allow
at least some claims [1].

Second, the statute mandates that a patent be issued unless the examiner can
demonstrate that the application is _not_ patentable.

Third, there's no requirement that a patent applicant conduct any kind of
patentability search. An applicant and his patent attorney must disclose any
"material" prior art _of which they're aware,_ but the applicant need not do
any kind of literature search. [EDIT: When you apply for a patent, you pay
filing fees in part to help cover some of the cost of having a patent examiner
do a search.]

Just imagine if a PhD candidate wasn't required to do a literature survey as
part of her dissertation work, but instead her advisor and thesis committee
were required to approve her degree unless _they_ and their TAs could
affirmatively demonstrate that her research was insufficiently novel. That's
not unlike the way it works in the patent system. And now think of how much
more national impact can result from the issuance of a patent compared to the
issuance of a PhD degree.

Inventors and patent attorneys tend to fiercely oppose any proposal that
patent applicants be required to conduct prior-art searches, on grounds that
it would increase the cost of a patent application. But if an inventor wants a
national industrial policy to be made in his favor that will last for as much
as 20 years, it doesn't seem _per se_ unreasonable for society to require him
to do some due diligence first.

(Of course, as long as the law is what it is, patent applicants, including my
own clients, will quite properly abide by the law as it is and not as some
might think it ought to be.)

Richard Stallman once asserted, in testimony at the USPTO [2], that:

\--snip--

 _Some years ago a professor I know patented Kirchoff's current law, which
says that the electric currents flowing into a junction equal the currents
flowing out. He did this to confirm, privately, his suspicion that the PTO
could not handle the field of electronics. He never tried to enforce the
patent which has since expired. I will disclose his name if you give
assurances that he and his lawyer will not get in trouble for this._

 _Kirchoff's laws were formulated in 1845. If the PTO couldn't understand
electricity after a century, how can we expect it to understand software in
another decade or two._

 _(applause)_

\--snip--

[1] [http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2010/02/26/usptos-new-examiner-
cou...](http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2010/02/26/usptos-new-examiner-count-system-
go-into-effect/id=9310/)

[2]
[http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/hearings/software/sanjo...](http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/hearings/software/sanjose/sj_stallman.html)

~~~
dkhenry
If you were commenting on a patent on a complex technical subject then fine,
this is on swinging. There is nothing other then gross negligence that can
explain why this was approved.

~~~
nh
Claim 1 states:

"A method of swinging on a swing, the method comprising the steps of: a)
suspending a seat for supporting a user between only two chains that are hung
from a tree branch; b) positioning a user on the seat so that the user is
facing a direction perpendicular to the tree branch; c) having the user pull
alternately on one chain to induce movement of the user and the swing toward
one side, and then on the other chain to induce movement of the user and the
swing toward the other side; and d) repeating step c) to create side-to-side
swinging motion, relative to the user, that is parallel to the tree branch."

Now go find prior art for this where it shows steps a, b, c, d. Not easy
anymore is it?

Obviously, common sense should have played a huge part. But common sense by it
self is not patent law. You still need evidence to support your common sense.

dctoedt is right. Humans make mistake.

~~~
lurker14
> Now go find prior art for this where it shows steps a, b, c, d. Not easy
> anymore is it?

Go out side. Turn left. Walk to the park. Look at the 11-year-old boys on the
swingset.

~~~
masterzora
Even ignoring the tree branch I'd be surprised if you found a single one of
those 11-year-old boys employing the method described within.

~~~
talmand
Can I be considered prior art? Because I did that very thing as a kid over
twenty years ago. In fact, I would say the method in question was common
knowledge on the playground. Parents didn't like it because if the kid next to
you did it then you stood the chance of bumping into each other unless you
could get a matching rhythm going.

I also "discovered" that if you use your feet to twist the ropes around each
other as you sit in the swing you eventually can cause a spinning motion in
the opposite direction by lifting your feet from ground. Is there a patent for
that? Did I miss my chance?

EDIT: oh wait, it seems the patent was either not granted or lapsed due to
non-payment. I guess I don't have precedent for my twisting swing patent idea
after all. Feel free to try it with my blessing.

~~~
pwg
> Can I be considered prior art?

Short answer: yes.

Longer answer: yes, but only if the one single examiner handling this patent
at the time had known of you, known how to contact you, and been able to
obtain any information from you (and mind you, he/she likely could not have
told you why he/she wanted the information).

The other problem is that while you did this over twenty years ago along with
the others on the playground, where did any one of you publish anything
describing your alternate swing method? Because to make a rejection stick, the
patent examiner has to find some publication by you or one of your playground
mates from twenty years ago disclosing to the public your new swinging method.
This is because the position of the courts is that an applicant deserves a
patent __unless__ the us patent office can prove otherwise (and "prove" pretty
much means "prove to the level of a civil trial in court").

If the system were reversed, i.e. that applicant did not deserve a patent
unless they (the applicant) could prove it was sufficiently new to deserve a
patent, there would be far less of these "swinging on a swing" type patents.

------
jorgeleo
The patent it self is so simple and basic, that mind as well be someone
teaching exercise into the patents world.

What it is making me "uncomfortable" is that patents from Microsoft (Secure
machine counting) and Samsung (transistor substrate) refer to them...

~~~
bhavin
No they don't. In both cases, this patent is cited by the examiner, who
probably had good sense of humor.

~~~
dctoedt
If a patent examiner cited the swinging patent in an application involving
actual technology, I would guess the examiner might have intended the citation
as a red flag, a signal to future judges and juries that the examiner regarded
the application as bogus but couldn't prove it.

------
ciphersson42
I find it hilarious there is even a debate in these threads about this. I
think it's pretty well established the patent system is entirely screwed. Alas
very rich people have a good reason to keep it screwed. To stay rich.

The only thing that suffers is inovation. There is also a trending story
floating around lately were some one posted a bogas story created by SciGen to
a spammy security magazine. Look at the person who filed these patents...
TL;DR just skim them...
[http://www.google.co.uk/search?tbo=p&tbm=pts&hl=en&#...</a><p>One would
almost think he used the equivalent type script but for patents. HA!

------
jryan49
Look at the last page. The claims are "cancelled". I'm guessing that makes the
patent invalid.

------
bbeaudoin
Apparently the burrito (or is it a canoli?) was invented 12 years ago:
[http://www.google.com/patents?id=YlkIAAAAEBAJ&printsec=a...](http://www.google.com/patents?id=YlkIAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&source=gbs_overview_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false)

~~~
tsahyt
Don't worry. The EU recently standardized Pizza Napoletana[1]. Among some of
the regulations are:

* The flour used has to have a deformation energy between 220W and 380W

* The dough has a pH-value of 5.87 and a density of 0.79g/cm³

* The salt has to be applied with a spiral motion on top of the tomatoes

* The olive oil has to be applied with a spiral motion as well, totalling at 4-5g of oil with an allowed error of 20%

* The baking time is 60-90 seconds. The dough has to reach 60-65°C

That's not just a patent. This is a legal ordinance. This is law. This is
taxpayers money at work!

EDIT: edit for formatting and source

[1] [http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=0J:L:2...](http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=0J:L:2010:034:0007:0016:DE:PDF)
(German)

~~~
DanBC
I'm not sure what your point is. TSGs exist and are useful, as are PDOs etc.

([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_indications_and_tr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_indications_and_traditional_specialities_\(EU\)))

([http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2...](http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:034:0007:0016:EN:PDF))
(English).

------
Zenst
Are we allowed to discuss this without violating Patent number: 6715762

<http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US6715762>

Maybe this is a way to avoid parking tickets, who knows, anything is viable
with the right lawyer these days.

------
bockris
IIRC this was a joke patent that they put forward just to see what they could
get away with.

~~~
smoyer
Or maybe not so much a joke as an absurdity used to prove a point? I actually
wish there were more patents like this as it would lead to tighter
examination.

I also don't think it's an accident that the inventor and filing attorney have
the same last name. It's hard to justify the cost of doing this unless you can
get the lawyer for free. It's not the filing fees that are expensive so much
as the rest of the process.

------
manaskarekar
Have you seen this patent on 'refreshing a bread product by heating ...':

<http://www.google.com/patents/US6080436?hl=en>

~~~
yk
To be fair, that patent claims:

    
    
      b) setting the temperature of the heating elements 
      between 2500 F. and 4500 F
    

So it is using light bulbs to heat the bread. Which is somewhat imaginative
compared to using an oven.

------
dkersten
I spent a lot of the day yesterday doing patent and publication searches and
I've come to the conclusion that patents are written both by and for retarded
monkeys.

------
damoncali
Even better: <http://www.google.com/patents/US4022227>

------
ThomPete
So let me ask this totally noob question. Is this where one could claim "prior
art" or does that no apply in this case?

------
astangl
I looked at costs of filing a patent awhile back. Seems relatively cheap to
file, if you do as much work yourself as possible, however the maintenance
fees they require you to pay at 3.5 yrs, 7.5 yrs, and 11.5 yrs, to keep the
patent in effect, get progressively steeper.

I wonder if this guy has paid any of the maintenance fees?

------
philh
I actually never realised that a swing could be used like this. I always just
went forwards and backwards.

------
gojko
and here's another one. Wheel patented (in Australia) as a "circular
transportation facilitation device"
[http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn965-wheel-patented-
in-...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn965-wheel-patented-in-
australia.html)

~~~
jprobitaille
The Australian Innovation Patent isn't really a patent. When an application is
filed a formalities check is completed, but no prior art search is conducted.
Also, the inventor and assignee of an AIP can't litigate. If one wanted to,
the Australian Patent Office would need to examine and issue an allowance as a
standard patent.

From the perspective of the US patent system, the AIP is more like a
provisional patent application than anything else.

[http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/get-the-right-
ip/patents/types...](http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/get-the-right-
ip/patents/types-of-patents/innovation-patent/)

------
bromley
If anyone fancies suing the Whitehouse to make a point, here's a picture of
what appears to be a relevant violation:

[https://www.acclaimimages.com/_gallery/_image_pages/0519-090...](https://www.acclaimimages.com/_gallery/_image_pages/0519-0907-3019-0022.html)

~~~
andreasvc
No. This patent was for sideways swinging.

------
protomyth
I think the original swing patent is pretty interesting. It is different from
just a piece of wood held by two ropes / chains. Heck, there seems to be a lot
of different types of swings that got patent protection. Must of been a
competitive field.

------
dkhenry
The real question is why do Primary Examiner: Kien T. Nguyen and Attorney:
Peter Lowell Olson

Still have jobs at the patent office ( if they do ). We should be able to
demand the termination of public servants who do not do their jobs.

~~~
sliverstorm
_Inventor: Steven Olson

Attorney: Peter Lowell Olson_

------
mey
Of note is the Microsoft patent (US8181265) that cites it for "Secure machine
counting"

<http://www.google.com/patents/US8181265>

I assume as joke or hidden egg.

------
plam
in one of the water cooler rooms in the canadian patent office, we have a wall
of shame for patents like this. I remember one patent for a stick, and another
for patenting the patent process.

------
jimworm
I'm waiting for the self-referential patent "A method to defend against patent
lawsuits" that patents patenting the act of filing patent lawsuits in order to
defend against patent lawsuits.

------
LVB
More patents should reference Underdog:

 _"Young children often need help to climb onto a swing and may need a push
(sometimes even an "underdog" push) to begin swinging."_

------
RileyJames
Startup idea: crowd sourced prior art search?

I remember performing this swinging procedure as a child. Surely there is some
video evidence of someone doing it somewhere.

------
webosdude
I'm going to patent See-Saw balancing on a tree stem. That's just the
beginning, I'm headed to Children's Park to get more ideas now...

------
sthu11182
A great collection of patents - <http://patently-useless.tumblr.com/>

------
drharris
Has nobody noticed there is no issue date? You can file any patent you want,
but if it's actually issued, that's another problem.

~~~
DigitalSea
Better prepare yourself, on the left hand side there is in-fact an issue date,
"Issue date: 9 Apr 2002" which is beneath the filing date "Filing date: 17 Nov
2000"

------
utf8guy
Upon re-examination, all the claims for this patent were cancelled (see the
last page.)

------
TwilioJosh
This gives me hope that my patent for "Going to the Bathroom" is going to be
approved!

------
OllieJones
It's been a while since Albert Einstein worked in the patent office, eh?

------
forgivegod
I wish I was a troll with a law degree.

------
QuarkSpark
This just made my day!

