Re: Patent breakthrough- maybe we don't need them after all?

From: hal@finney.org
Date: Sun Mar 12 2000 - 23:25:22 MST


Daniel Ust writes:
> Speaking of that... How about patents and copyrights on bad ideas to keep
> them out of circulation?:) Pruning the meme tree? Sounds like an idea for
> science fiction farce....

I recall a famous case of this a decade back, when someone patented a
machine to keep a human head alive. The head would be hooked up to a
heart-lung machine, the blood would go through dialysis, etc. The stated
intention was to make sure this horrible-sounding technology would never
be used (at least not for 17 years).

Unfortunately in my searches of the web and of patent databases I have
not been able to come up with keywords to locate the patent. Does anyone
know the number or name, or any more details?

Hal



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:04:58 MDT