A beautiful story about the inner workings of a patent-pending species-specific insect repellent based on a small strip of magnetic strip. As one might guess, it involves encoding the words "FLEA" and "TICK" on the strip. Or maybe "AELF" and "KCIT" to properly actuate the quantum polarity? The story was written in 2010 while the patent was still pending. But surely it's been rejected by now. Nope. Also as one might guess, the patent was granted by the USPTO with the the main claim intact: https://www.google.gg/patents/US8382001
Have you ever thought to yourself "Sure, this advertisement says 'patent-pending', but that only means that someone was able to scrape together enough money to file a patent. It's not like someone has vetted the technology and actually granted them a patent." Well, now you see that you can safely shorten that to "Sure, this advertisement says 'patented', but that only means that someone was able to scrape together enough money to file a patent. It's not like someone has vetted the technology."
This is probably not surprising to anyone who understands the role of patents. They aren't designed to act as evidence that a technology is useful, or even possible. Instead, they are designed to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", which seems to be interpreted as to "create a secondary market for dubious patents". I was surprised though to see that they had been granted a second patent, covering the ornamental design of the tag: http://www.google.com/patents/USD626704
I was aware that design patents existed to cover essential innovations such as the rounded corners of a "portable display device" (http://www.google.com/patents/USD670286), but I hadn't realized how broadly they could be applied. Is there a threshold that needs to be exceeded when determining how much the grant of a design patent will "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts"? Or can one expect to receive design patents for any design variation you can dream up?
The article is from 2010. Amazingly shootag is still on sale at Amazon. $35 for two! They have 150 reviews. 42% 5 star, 12% 4 stars and 31% 1 star.
The reviews seem to have many genuine people who absolutely believe these work - even though these things clearly can't work. Reading the reviews makes me a bit angry and a bit sad.
It's really sad to see this company taking advantage of all those poor people who want to help their animals but have had problems with other treatments. Taking advantage of these gullible people does a lot of harm, because now they think their animals are protected and don't seek out actual effective treatments. I wonder how many pets might have avoided lyme disease if their owners hadn't been swindled by these ass-holes; and I wonder how much cash these criminals are taking home :(
I'm actually more worried about the anti-mosquito tags for humans. And not because some clueless tourist may go unprotected into mosquito-transmitted diseases. With those two patents and their marketing, I worry someone will get a grant for deploying those tags in malaria-ridden places, meaning a lot of money that could save actual lives will go down the drain, further reducing both effectiveness and trust in charitable efforts.
Running a business like this while knowing the product is bullshit is what I would call sociopathic.
It's already happening. Austin based ShooTag maker Energetic Solutions is supplying earthquake survivors and relief workers in Haiti with their odious cards.
I'd be inclined to agree it's sociopathic except I've met too many woo-believers that are just loony.
Rational wiki points out that it is vaugly possible they do work, although not by the mechanism claimed. if they were heavily coated with chemicals they might work... while possibly poisoning the pet they are being used on.
Some of those Amazon reviews suggest that the tags only work when "fresh", which might support that theory. Still I expect confirmation bias is more likely.
> shoo!TAG is a revolutionary chemical-free way to protect your pets from fleas and ticks
I don't think so. But I highly doubt the card is actually chemical-free, so they're lying either way. Also, I think they would be more afraid of lawsuits by people whose pets were poisoned than for false advertising.
Frankly, he sounds dangerous. If he honestly thinks a magstripe can repel insects, do you really want to use other biomedical tech he's had anything to do with?
I guess Texas A&M give degrees out like candy... can I have one? Need firelighters.
Have you ever thought to yourself "Sure, this advertisement says 'patent-pending', but that only means that someone was able to scrape together enough money to file a patent. It's not like someone has vetted the technology and actually granted them a patent." Well, now you see that you can safely shorten that to "Sure, this advertisement says 'patented', but that only means that someone was able to scrape together enough money to file a patent. It's not like someone has vetted the technology."
This is probably not surprising to anyone who understands the role of patents. They aren't designed to act as evidence that a technology is useful, or even possible. Instead, they are designed to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", which seems to be interpreted as to "create a secondary market for dubious patents". I was surprised though to see that they had been granted a second patent, covering the ornamental design of the tag: http://www.google.com/patents/USD626704
I was aware that design patents existed to cover essential innovations such as the rounded corners of a "portable display device" (http://www.google.com/patents/USD670286), but I hadn't realized how broadly they could be applied. Is there a threshold that needs to be exceeded when determining how much the grant of a design patent will "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts"? Or can one expect to receive design patents for any design variation you can dream up?