The charging for taking a breath was a joke in a Carl Barks Donald Duck story "The Golden Helmet" (Four Color Comics #408) in 1952. However, would only be charged to people in North America. He who possessed The Golden Helmet was the owner of the continent or something along that line.
I recall another instance where the Patent Office denied a patent to someone because the idea was used in a Uncle Scrooge comic (sorry can't be more specific) where ping-pong balls were pumped into a sunken ship to raise it from the sea bottom. Bart Fong -----Original Message----- From: Doug Fuerst [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 4:19 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: No Subject I personally am planning on filing a patent tomorrow on the transfer of air to blood through the lungs. I will file a claim that I have invented this transfer, and have imparted this to mankind and you all should be paying me a residual for every breath you take. I will prove this beyond my doubt (and evidently the doubt of the USPTO) thus establishing myself as the supreme being. You will then all pay me rent for living on my planet, and pay me every time you eat something grown on my planet. Further, I will then prove that as the supreme being, that I did indeed invent air, and will require another gratuity not only for it's use but it's transfer in the lungs. I think a buck a breath is about right, a buck for the air and a buck for the transfer. I take Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover and PayPal. Send me the money!!!!!! BTW, my patent for oil, gas, all minerals, steel, etc. will follow in a few days. I will have many patents pending, and plan on vigorously defending all illegal uses of my property. Where does this crap end????????????????? At 08:01 PM 7/24/2003 +0100, you wrote: >On Iau, 2003-07-24 at 18:59, Jim Sibley wrote: > > "I own copyright over code that 95% of the Windows code out there > > infringes on. I refuse to show it to you or anyone, because it's a > > trade secret. But I demand that each and every one of you who have ever > > so much as *seen* a computer running Windows immediately pay me $1000. > > PER COMPUTER. Or else I'm going to sue. So just Paypal it to me, OK?" > >You probably don't but judging by the DRM patent initial judgements from >the intertrust case MS customers might want to be wondering if >Intertrust will go after customers too and if so what the MS insurance >is really worth > >Use any of these ? > >http://www.intertrust.com/main/ip/accused.html
