IBM’s But-I-Only-Got-The-Soup Patent
theodp writes “In an Onion-worthy move, the USPTO has decided that IBM inventors deserve a patent for splitting a restaurant bill. Ending an 8+ year battle with the USPTO, self-anointed patent system savior IBM got a less-than-impressed USPTO Examiner’s final rejection overruled in June and snagged U.S. Patent No. 7,457,767 Tuesday for its Pay at the Table System. From the patent: ‘Though U.S. Pat. No. 5,933,812 to Meyer, et al. discussed previously provides for an entire table of patrons to pay the total bill using a credit card, including the gratuity, it does not provide an ability for the check to be split among the various patrons, and for those individual patrons to then pay their desired portion of the bill. This deficiency is addressed by the present invention.’”
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Original post by CmdrTaco