Patently absurd

From Slashdot.

“If you’re the giver or recipient of presents gift-wrapped by Amazon, you may want to take a gander at U.S. Patent No. 8,060,463, granted to Amazon last month for Mining of User Event Data to Identify Users with Common Interests. Among other things, Amazon explains the invention can be used to identify recipients of gifts as Christian or Jewish based on wrapping paper. From the patent: “The gift wrap used by such other users when purchasing gifts for this user, such as when the gift wrap evidences the user’s religion (in the case of Christmas or Hanukkah gift wrap, for example.)”

And then there’s this (also from Slashdot):

“You have to love a case where Warner Brothers, copyright maximalist extraordinaire, gets sued for ‘piracy,’ in this case for using a knock-off Louis Vuitton bag in a recent movie. This lawsuit has been described as ‘awkward’ for Warner; I have to agree with that characterization. Louis Vuitton’s 22-page complaint (PDF) alleges that Warner Bros. had knowledge that the bag was a knock-off, but went ahead and used it anyway. Apparently Warner Bros. takes IP rights seriously only when its own IP rights are involved.”

Groucho Marx, where are you when we need you?