U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Patent 5443036 is entitled "Method of
exercising a cat", and described as follows: "A method for inducing cats to
exercise consists of directing a beam of invisible light produced by a
hand-held laser apparatus onto the floor or wall or other opaque surface in
the vicinity of the cat, then moving the laser so as to cause the bright
pattern of light to move in an irregular way fascinating to cats, and to any
other animal with a chase instinct."
episis:
Richard Stallman says:
The most outrageously absurd software patent of all covers using "exclusive
or" (an operation of Boolean arithmetic) to modify the image on a bit-map
display screen.
This technique is so basic that it was done with just one instruction on the
PDP-10 computer I used in the 1970s. I'm told this patent was upheld twice
in court.
giannis bouchlis
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