Wednesday, October 1, 2008
A very Bilski (non-technological, non-patentable) patent claims
A patent that issued in 2000 that has a nice set of "non-technological" claims. Ignoring the 102 and 103 (the US patent law paragraphs requiring novelty and non-obviousness) problems this patent has, it is a good example of how general might processes be to be patentable, since they claims can be done purely by humans.
By the way, the following patent is completely utterly idiotic from a 102 and 103 point of view, since the state of Massachusetts, in conjunction with church bingos, were doing much of the claimed steps in the early 1990s).
I highlighted or italicized idiocy.
United States Patent 6,102,395
Method for conducting a lottery game
Filed: May 1998
Abstract
In a method for conducting a lottery game having a plurality of ticket
sets, a master party sells the ticket sets to organizations. Each
organization sells tickets from ticket sets to customers. Each ticket
has hidden indicia which, when revealed, may entitle a customer to
instant winnings paid by the organization that sold the ticket and/or
may entitle the customer to eligibility for a sweepstakes prize. The
sweepstakes prize is funded by the master party from proceeds of
ticket set sales to organizations.
Claims
I claim:
1. A method for conducting a lottery game having a plurality of ticket
sets, wherein each ticket set has a plurality of tickets and wherein
each ticket, when opened, reveals hidden indicia, some of which (non-patent language, vague) will entitle a customer to instant winnings and/or eligibility for a
sweepstakes prize, comprising the steps of:
a) selling, by a master party for proceeds, a ticket set to each of at
least two organizations;
b) allowing each organization to issue individual tickets, from the
ticket set sold to that organization from the master party, to
customers, and allowing each organization to redeem awards for instant
winnings on a ticket issued by that organization; and
c) retaining by the master party a portion of the proceeds from
selling ticket sets to organizations as a pool from which to finance
the sweepstakes prize, thereby allowing said master party to
exclusively redeem awards for a sweepstakes prize on a ticket issued
by an organization by awarding at least a portion of the pool.
2. The method according to claim 1 wherein at least one organization
sells, prior to issuing, tickets to customers.
3. The method according to claim 1 further including the step of
receiving directly from customers those tickets which make the
customers eligible for the sweepstakes prize.
4. The method according to claim 1 further including the step of
determining a winner of the sweepstakes prize from the tickets
received and providing to the winner an award from the proceedings.
5. The method according to claim 1 further including providing to the
organizations a flair explaining the game rules.
6. The method according to claim 5 further including providing to the
organizations a poster for displaying the sweepstakes prize and a last
date for receipt of sweepstakes tickets at a drawing location.
7. The method according to claim 1 including providing to the
organizations means for transmitting the sweepstakes entry to a
drawing location.
8. The method according to claim 7 wherein the means for transmitting
is comprised of a mailing envelope and an entry form for transmitting
the qualifying ticket and the name and address of the customer holding
that qualifying ticket.
9. The method according to claim 1 wherein the organization may be any
one from a group comprised of a charitable organization, a club and a
tavern.
10. The method according to claim 1 wherein the master party may be
any one from the group comprised of a distributor, end user or
manufacturer.
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