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Promiscuous patenting

SWEEPING liberalisation of the US patent laws is having some unexpected effects. Anyone with several hundred dollars spare to pay in official filing fees to the US Patent Office in Alexandria, Virginia, can now file for patent on more or less anything, it seems. Thus Colleen Giles and La’Mont Carmen of Columbus, Ohio, have applied for a patent on an idea which may well look new to the official examiners simply because no one else has had the chutzpah to file for it (US 2005/0057034).

Their Consensual Sex Agreement Kit is intended “to allow willing participants of…

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