←back to thread

Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview

(patentpandas.org)
1798 points jerryX | 3 comments | 30 Nov 18 05:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.407s | source
Show context
beautifulfreak ◴[30 Nov 18 06:32 UTC] No.18567190[source]▶
If the author pops in here, I hope he takes a look at this patent, because it might be prior art: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8512151 I complained about it to the "Stupid Patent of the Month" attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (here: https://www.eff.org/issues/stupid-patent-month) and got a nice response agreeing that it looks obvious.
replies(2): >>18567233 #>>18569186 #
neonate ◴[30 Nov 18 06:42 UTC] No.18567233[source]▶
I think the author is a she.
replies(1): >>18567490 #
mirimir ◴[30 Nov 18 07:56 UTC] No.18567490[source]▶
True, but I didn't see that she identified herself, or her gender, in the article. So what's a commenter to do? That's an honest question. Mangle to use "they"? Use some genderless pronoun that'll piss off x% of readers?
replies(5): >>18567518 #>>18567640 #>>18567878 #>>18567914 #>>18568115 #
JimDabell ◴[30 Nov 18 08:04 UTC] No.18567518[source]▶
> Mangle to use "they"?

Mangle? "They" is perfectly fine to use in this situation, it's not mangling at all.

replies(1): >>18567654 #
mirimir ◴[30 Nov 18 08:41 UTC] No.18567654[source]▶
In this case, you're right. Or at least, it's what I'd have done. Still, when I learned English, "they" wasn't singular. I guess that it's the norm now, but it still feels odd. And sometimes using it does require mangling. I'd rather have a set of gender-neutral pronouns, but hey.
replies(2): >>18567827 #>>18567862 #
rincebrain ◴[30 Nov 18 09:23 UTC] No.18567827[source]▶
Singular they dates back over 600 years, while the criticism of it dates back only a hundred or two.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

replies(1): >>18567883 #
1. Veen ◴[30 Nov 18 09:36 UTC] No.18567883[source]▶
True, but it has no bearing on what this person was taught when they learned English. It's entirely plausible that some English teachers, influenced by the criticism that arose in the 19th Century, teach that singular they is to be avoided.
replies(2): >>18571263 #>>18574095 #
2. rincebrain ◴[30 Nov 18 18:27 UTC] No.18571263[source]▶
Sure, I'm not attempting to say that this person was not taught that singular they was not a proper usage, just that it has been a proper usage for longer than any of us have lived.
3. mirimir ◴[01 Dec 18 00:27 UTC] No.18574095[source]▶
I learned English in the context of a native language with lots more structure about genders, forms, cases and tenses. So I guess that it was something my teachers missed. And I went from that to immersion in American culture.