For anyone who may be confused about the term “sandwich” or how to make one, fear not, for McDonald’s has you covered. They have applied for patent WO/2006/068865: “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MAKING A SANDWICH“.
Yes, Kathryn V. Proper, Henry T. Ewald, and Paul G. Simmons have come up with the novel idea of “making a sandwich, which may be a hot or cold sandwich, quickly by pre-assembly of various sandwich components and simultaneous preparation of different parts of the same sandwich.”
From the description:
The methods may include one or more of the use of preasseribled [sic] sandwich fillings, assembly of garnishes in advance of a customer’s order or while ether [sic] portions of the sandwich are being heated using the sandwich assembly tool, the simultaneous heating of a bread component and the sandwich filling, placing the bread component over the tool containing garnish, and inverting the tool and bread combination to deposit the sandwich garnish onto the bread component.
Is that a really long-winded and terribly-spelled way of saying “we make it before you order it so it can sit around until we microwave it”? What’s wrong with using your hand to put the “garnish” on? And what sandwiches have an ether portion? I must be ordering the wrong thing.
Oh, and FYI, from BitLaw:
Section 101 of the U.S. Patent Act sets forth the general requirements for a utility patent:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvements thereof, may obtain a patent, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
In other words, for an invention to be patentable it must:
1. be statutory,
2. be new,
3. be useful, and
4. be nonobvious.
Does it stack up?
November 24th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
McD’s stock is up like 20% right now… I don’t think the govt is going to deny them anything.
November 25th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Sounds to me like Proper, Ewald and Simmons might be trying to position themselves to be sue some deep pockets for patent infringement…bad spelling and all.
Patent squatters piss me off.