
Coffee delivery drone patented by IBM - leonagano
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45289281
======
ruffrey
Perhaps I have become jaded or a conspiracy theorist, but I see this as the
following:

\- the drone space is increasingly easy to enter into \- IBM sees non-tech
companies might get into drones \- they identify potential markets where
drones would be useful \- they spend minimal resources developing a
"prototype" and file for a patent \- Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts come along
with coffee delivery drones ~3 years later \- IBM shakes down Starbucks and
Dunkin Donuts for $x.00 per delivery, now has new stream of extortion
recurring revenue

~~~
ChuckMcM
My evil(?) plan is to create a society of engineers that sits around and
dreams up patentable ideas, and patents them, creating a portfolio which we
could market to big companies ($$) as a defense against trolls, and to small
companies (free) who want to build cool stuff and not worry about trolls.

~~~
existencebox
I realize you may be saying this tongue-in-cheek, but that's such a
hilariously compelling idea (speaking as an engineer pipe-dreaming about ideal
jobs) that I'm making this rather unsubstantive comment to both encourage and
say "give me a ping if you do"...

(the mental dissonance for me is that while I'm no fan of software patents,
and even broader patents as they stand now, attempting to motivate that change
in parallel with capitalizing on the existing state of affairs seems
pragmatic, if hypocritical; I've had to bang my head against this due to
filings through work already)

~~~
ChuckMcM
To be honest, the discussion started out as a hack so that we could use a
'company' to share health care costs rather than the exchanges. As the
population in the Bay Area ages there are those who still like to talk about
tech, draw on whiteboards, write code, and build stuff. While at the same time
having accrued enough wealth such that actually working for someone isn't
required. So we asked ourselves, "What are the good things about working at a
company?" and the answer was smart people to exchange ideas with, facilities
that you could leave "set up" while working on a project, and for some, an
absence of interruptions by others. The "bad things" you don't benefit
proportionally from your work effort, usually they want to own what you do and
not let you share that, and if you take too many days "off" they ask you to
leave.

From that the 'League of Extraordinary Engineers' was born :-). Basically
membership dues covers the cost of the facility, patent filing, and
healthcare, and as the patent portfolio grows (the 'endowment' if you will)
those costs go down.

~~~
existencebox
This is where I respond "And my axe."

The downsides you list resonate really strongly with me; compounded by the
"all or nothing" nature of most employment in that I've noticed even
negotiating a sabbatical for most of my line-engineer peers is a non-starter.
(Story is different for those in management/very senior) God knows the
pittance you get for filing at most bigCos doesn't align incentives/value, as
well.

My only concern for feasibility would be as you say, "having accrued enough
wealth such that working isn't reqired", seeing as the current
healthcare/social safety net situation becomes prohibitive even to those who
might be upper-middle, begging the question of potential conflict of interest
for those who don't have true "fuck you money," to put it crassly. (Clearly
I'm speaking selfishly here)

~~~
ChuckMcM
Completely understand. And it is within that discussion which is the 'hard
bit'.The spreadsheets get a bit thick too. Understand this has been
percolating for over a year at this point.

Feel free to contact me off list if you (or anyone else for that matter) is
interested in the thinking that has been done so far on this concept.

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schiffern
Following Dan Shapiro's advice[1] for how to read patents,

”What is claimed is:

A method for delivering a drink to an individual, comprising:

connecting the drink to an unmanned arial vehicle (UAV);

flying the UAV, the one or more sensors connected to the UAV, the one or more
sensors connected to an electronic processing circuit which identifies an
individual among the people that may have a predetermined sleepy cognitive
state including determining a confidence level corresponding to a probable
desire of the individual for the drink including a stimulant which reduces a
sleepy cognitive state, based on the sensor data and using sleep data
pertaining to sleep experienced by the people when selecting the individual
that may have the sleepy cognitive state;

accessing sleep data pertaining to the sleep cycle of the individual
determined by motion detection of the individual during a sleep period, and
adjusting the confidence level in accordance to the sleep data; and

if the confidence level reaches a predetermined level, flying the UAV to the
individual that may have the sleepy cognitive state to deliver the drink
including the stimulant to the individual.“

Headline should read " _Sleep tracking_ coffee delivery drone patented by
IBM."

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11586448](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11586448)

~~~
jfoutz
Sorta wacky they want to deliver mostly hot water by air rather than caffeine.

Far smaller, lighter package would do wonders for flight time and reloading.

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foreigner
IBM pays employees a $500 bonus if their patent proposal gets past an internal
review board, and another $500 if the patent office actually awards the
patent. The internal review board's only concern is if the patent application
is likely to be successful. They don't care if the idea is silly or has no
bearing on the company's business.

A small subset of employees file the vast majority of IBM's patents. These are
awarded the title "Master Inventor". Many Master Inventors earn more from the
patent bonuses than they do in actual salary. In theory the title is an
accolade but in practice Master Inventors are sometimes shunned because they
spend all their time thinking up silly patent ideas instead of doing "real
work".

Source: I used to work for IBM and collected a handful of those bonuses before
I realized how silly it was.

~~~
Retra
>They don't care if the idea is silly or has no bearing on the company's
business.

That's not entirely true. They do, perhaps approximately, require that the
idea be within a market that IBM could consider moving into if they wanted.

~~~
foreigner
I recall a coworker patenting something to do with sailboats.

~~~
Retra
Hence the usage of words like "not entirely" and "approximately".

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harshulpandav
While the technology is great, I am not sure of its use case. People summoning
for coffee is fine. But for people who look tired and distressed, I think
coffee is just a 'quick fix' for that. How about drone reporting it back to
the person's manager (as a feedback) to indicate if management rework needs to
be done (sometimes one person in team ends up doing most of the work). Or
drone sending an automated email giving suggestions to the employee to either
take a break, go for a walk, drink water, or give recommendations of meeting
other people who are in the same state. Maybe the drone can even take into
account the project which the employee is working on and help him socialize
with others who are working on other projects, which ultimately might give
rise to a brand new project idea. Just my two cents!

~~~
WilliamEdward
Ok cool, but the patent is for the technology itself? They can use it for
whatever they want, coffee is just a filler.

~~~
lisper
Actually it's not. The patent claims really are specifically about delivering
coffee (well, about delivering a beverage containing a stimulant). And not
just that, it's about delivering it to sleepy people, where sleepiness is
determined by an algorithm. It's completely nuts.

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mosselman
This shows how idiotic the patent system is: you just generate a random
combination of words, select 10 combinations that make remote sense and create
some half-baked implementation on paper for it and suddenly you have the right
to money from people who happen to actually implement it properly later.

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chris_mc
If I were the CEO of IBM, I'd wonder what jagoff spent 10 grand (average
patent cost, with lawyers and other services) to make a coffee drone joke.

~~~
rabi_penguin
This was my exact thought -- I'm stunned by how earnest the comments are here
when my troll-dar is going off heavily right now. I guess I should be glad
they didn't find some harebrained way to include the blockchain. There's
nothing wrong with drone delivery, but the "innovation" of trying to address a
people ops problem with coffee is so woefully wrongheaded that it really begs
the question of whether it was intended seriously.

~~~
jpwright
"System 100 can utilize monetary or digital currency bids, but can also enable
the trading of coffee drinks." -pg.13

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asn0
Clearly part of IBM's evil plan to take over the world with Watson. After
replacing game players, retail associates, financial advisors, scientists, and
doctors, the only challenge left is the office intern.

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tcfunk
> IBM suggests the drone could be equipped with technology to detect blood
> pressure, pupil dilation and facial expressions and judge whether people are
> drowsy.

Why waste the time on brewing coffee? Just have it fly around and administer
routine caffeine injections.

~~~
bsamuels
injections would require too much articulation, finding veins, etc

loading a tranq dart with caffeine and shooting them at drowsy people would be
much more cost effective

~~~
lev99
If the dart is filled with caffeine I don't think it's called a 'tranq dart'.

~~~
bsamuels
that kind of detail isn't terribly important when you're trying to move fast &
break things

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lev99
I'd like to see the same technology be used to deliver alcohol to the least
drunk person at a party.

~~~
znpy
Quick, file a patent!

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sandworm101
Nobody else disturbed by the idea of a computer identifying under-performing
employees and delivering them a shot of a stimulant? Coffee is rather tame,
but this is a step towards many a scifi trope.

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kevin_b_er
I fail to see what is novel about "delivering X via drone". Is delivering a
new thing via truck patentable?

What, specifically, did they invent? Its the same patent landgrab as software
patents where it is "do X, but on the internet".

I'd call this as IBM trying to lay down a patent minefield against those that
would actually engage in commerce. In this sense, the patent does not advance
the arts or sciences and should fail the sniff test for granting an absolute
monopoly to a corporation on some action.

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reilly3000
Have the figured out how to stop downdraft from the props to not blow away
paper off people's desk?

Does the drone not embark with hot coffee payload if battery is not enough to
complete the journey without spinning blades and scalding liquid crashing on
people or computers?

Can they make it operate at >60dB so people can work?

If those questions don't have satisfactory answers, how could it possibly be
that this invention "expresses a specific, credible, and substantial utility"
such that it is deserving of patent protection?

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sungju1203
what's the point of patenting technology and not really producing it? I think
they just want to sue potential innovative companies and not taking any risk.

~~~
gweinberg
1) prevent anybody else from patenting it. 2) collect royalties of somebody
else decides to build such a thing. 3) bump up their patent count.

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akshayB
This is so counter intuitive when patents like this are awarded. So if someone
wants to make a drone that delivers tea/coffee they pay royalty to IBM but is
it ok if they deliver paper supplies or food?

In future this has total implications for drinks/soda companies and ironically
IBM manufactures none. This is a perfect example of how patent system is
totally broken and needs some kind of change.

~~~
trukterious
_> is it ok if they deliver paper supplies or food_

On the subject of paper, aren't the papers on my desk going to be blown around
as a result of drones delivering compulsory coffee?

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myth_drannon
IBM is always chasing the latest hype, but their ability to execute is
lacking. Just looking at how they are all over blockchain tech with so many
talking heads. The same with drones I imagine. They truly believe with enough
screen time people will start taking a notice of this Potyomkin village type
company.

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mentos
Ha as the owner of a few drones who has dreamed up a few ideas like this I
think the biggest issue is noise. Can’t realistically have one of these flying
in an office or social setting without irritating a bunch of people. Would be
curious to see what can be done to make drones quieter though.

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ram_rar
Having seen both sides of patents vs non-patents arguments. The only sane
conclusion I have come to is, to have a validity for a much shorter duration
for tech patents like 10 years or so. If the company cannot extract value from
it in the next 10 years or less, then let someone else do it.

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rpoconn1
Flying hot coffee. What could go wrong?

~~~
7952
It could burn someone _and_ it could get cold.

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kevdragon6
Link to the patent
[https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170174343A1/](https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170174343A1/)

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nathanaldensr
Limitless human ingenuity being used...to deliver coffee to tired people.

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new_here
SAP must be kicking themselves for not thinking of this one.

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_0ffh
So, we gonna have a distinct patent for every X-delivery-Y where X is a kind
of item to be delivered and Y is a method of delivery?

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reilly3000
Is IBM just a marketing company now?

~~~
gruez
>marketing

you mean patent troll

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grillvogel
does IBM even do anything anymore other than these stupid meme-technology
ideas to generate headlines?

