Patents

I can't decide whether this is absolutely unbelievable, or the inevitable result of current legal trends:

(extract from a c|net article)

Patent turns playtime into pay time By Reuters April 17, 2002, 4:55 PM PT

A 7-year-old Minnesota boy has patented a method for swinging side to side, meaning he could conceivably take playmates to court if they try his new trick without permission. U.S. Patent #6,368,227, issued April 9, describes a method for swinging "in which a user positioned on a standard swing suspended by two chains from a substantially horizontal tree branch induces side-to-side motion by pulling alternately on one chain and then the other."

Wired News reports on a case that might provide prior art to contest British Telecom's claim of a patent on hyperlinking.

Nobody should be more outraged over British Telecom's claim that it owns the patent to hyperlinking than Bob Bemer, who believes he may be the world's oldest, living computer programmer. Bemer, 82, isn't just taking a political stance against the recent legal filing by British Telecom that claims the company owns a patent on hyperlink technology. In 1960, Bemer -- whose coding contributions form the foundation of many modern computer systems -- came up with a critical coding concept that is now used in hyperlinks.

BBC News reports British Telecom is pressing forward with their claim that a 1980 patent on an "information handling system and terminal apparatus" (see the USPO page [note: I haven't resolved the numeric domain address and can't verify that it's actually a USPO site].)