Comment by beautifulfreak
6 years ago
If the author pops in here, I hope he takes a look at this patent, because it might be prior art: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8512151 I complained about it to the "Stupid Patent of the Month" attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (here: https://www.eff.org/issues/stupid-patent-month) and got a nice response agreeing that it looks obvious.
I think the author is a she.
True, but I didn't see that she identified herself, or her gender, in the article. So what's a commenter to do? That's an honest question. Mangle to use "they"? Use some genderless pronoun that'll piss off x% of readers?
> Mangle to use "they"?
Mangle? "They" is perfectly fine to use in this situation, it's not mangling at all.
6 replies →
1. Use “they”
2. Take the time to use a search engine to look up her name, which is referenced at least two times in screenshots of emails she provides.
3. Click-through to the blog post she links, also written by herself: https://patentpandas.org/stories/crowdfunding-backer-patente...
> "So what's a commenter to do"
Simply don't assume? It's not hard.
> True, but I didn't see that she identified herself, or her gender, in the article. So what's a commenter to do?
Simple.
1. Assume an ostensibly correct pronoun of your own choice (like you did)
2. If someone corrects you, optionally acknowledge the correction and apologize if applicable, then use the correct pronoun henceforth
3. Ignore the overly gender-obsessed people who tell you that you should have used ugly or cumbersome constructs such as "they" or, even worse, "s/he" and variants thereof.
4. Don't worry too much about it; everybody can make an honest mistake.
6 replies →
Alternatively you can write s/he I believe?
Anyway, "they" is probably the correct way.
I used to work in the online slot machine business and saw some of the patents related to slots. Most of them seemed trivial but it did affect how we could design our games. Certain features of the reels bouncing or paylines being awarded were patented. There were other ideas like connecting players to each other that seemed like they shouldn't be patent-able.
With that perspective, this board game patent actually looks very good. It certainly isn't an idea that I've thought of before or seen.