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Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview

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1798 points jerryX | 1 comments | 30 Nov 18 05:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.207s | source
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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 #
1. xigency ◴[30 Nov 18 14:09 UTC] No.18569186[source]▶
I used to work in the online slot machine business and saw some of the patents related to slots. Most of them seemed trivial but it did affect how we could design our games. Certain features of the reels bouncing or paylines being awarded were patented. There were other ideas like connecting players to each other that seemed like they shouldn't be patent-able.

With that perspective, this board game patent actually looks very good. It certainly isn't an idea that I've thought of before or seen.