FROM HAND TO PALM; RELIEF FROM STRESS

From hand to Palm

The IPKat's friend Miri Frankel has fished up this little piece from the New York Times on patent owner NTP's latest adventure, now that it's the winter and BlackBerries are out of season. A patent infringement suit has been filed in the US against Palm, maker of the Treo smart phone (above, right). Back in March, Research in Motion, without conceding liability, agreed to pay NTP $612.5 million to settle its four-year patent dispute.

Left: NTP: BlackBerry was in a stew over the litigation - but was $612.5 million too high a price to pay?

The IPKat and Merpel agree on one thing: this dispute will run and run ...


Relief from stress

Right: a happily relaxed croissant

The patent system must surely be responsible for a great deal of financial investment (not to mention nervous energy) in the development of new and innovative stress-relieving products and processes. But here's a curiosity - an application for a patent for the relief of stress suffered by croissants, filed by General Mills together with an American team of inventors.

Left: a tightly-coiled, stressed-out croissant, in need of medical assistance

The IPKat is delighted at this sensitivity towards the feelings of inanimate objects and hopes that, in much the same vein, patents will be filed for measures for relieving stress in patent examiners. Hm, says Merpel, another half-baked idea ...

Make a perfect croissant here
Chocolate croissant here
Calories in croissant here
Invasion of the Japanese Croissant here
Hungarian claim to invention of croissants here
Alternative culinary religious symbols to the Islamic crescent here and here