[Fractal Trader]

So this hasn't yet been approved yet, but with the way patent law is changing, maybe we will eventually get to the point where people succeed in patenting their stories. People who write Zombie stories may have to be on the defensive if this patent is granted.

Sounds like a strange, new world to me.

[Maceman]

I'm going to patent the Blues chord progression.

[ladtx]

Sounds like a Scrappleface story.

[flashbunny]

so I guess he's trying to make some kind of statement with this?

[dirtboy]

They say you can't copyright an idea.

But apparently you can now patent one.

This is more screwed up than the patent given to the onco-mouse years ago that utilized existing processes.

[null and void]

Huh? A Patent expires in 20 years. A Copyright lasts MUCH longer...

[twigs]

Well, his storyline sounds like one I could do without reading or seeing for at least 30 years. Isn't he borrowing his idea a bit from Washington Irving, but with a modern twist?

[CharlesWayneCT]

That sounds too close to the storyline for the movie "13 going on 30", so I would say he doesn't meet the criteria of originality.

[gondramB]

This problem really started with software patents and seems to be getting out of hand.

It's one thing to protect Lotus123 its different to patent one click purchasing (like Amazon did) and now people are claiming patents for linking to a web page and fictional stories... it's going to stifle innovation if we are not careful.

[JamesP81]

There goes my nascent career in writing.

[z3n]

By the time the information age and intellectual propery has run it's course, you will not be able to breathe without violating someone else's claims.

I getting really sick of the bastardization of what was once a method for protecting the creative and innovative. "Intellectual Property" is fast becoming a tool to generate false scarcity on everything conceivable in order to create new forms of profiteering.

[robertpaulsen]

"... tells of an ambitious high school senior, consumed by anticipation of college admission, who prays one night to remain unconscious until receiving his MIT admissions letter."

Damn! I had the same idea, but he was waiting for a letter from Harvard.

That's different enough, huh?

[MortMan]

desperately seeks to regain 30 years’ worth of memories lost as an unconscious philosophical zombie.

Sounds like a democrat.

[Lil'freeper]

Interesting.

[hershey]

Not good at all.

[tallhappy]

I saw a movie with essentially the same story the other day -- 13 Going on Thirty.

What a waste of time and effort.

[Centurion2000]

He consciously awakes 30 years later when he finally receives the letter, lost in the mail for so many years, and discovers that, to all external observers, he has lived an apparently normal life. He desperately seeks to regain 30 years’ worth of memories lost as an unconscious philosophical zombie.

He was a democrat.

[js1138]

Art Buchwald successfully sued Paramount for stealing the idea for "Coming to America".

However, I believe this hinged on the fact that Buchwald had submitted his script to Paramount and been rejected. It's pretty cold when you submit a story to a publisher, they reject it, then get someone to do a rewrite.

[Phsstpok]

This is nothing

I hold the patents on one (1) and zero (0) used in any electronic context.

I am owed trillions!!!! Bwahahahahahahahah!

Seriously, my family has always claimed that we owned the land that Washington D.C. was built on and that it was taken from us without fair compensation. One of my relatives actually pursued the matter and learned that we were, in fact, right. However, he was also informed that whatever we were owed from the government, the back taxes would be $1 more.