[geek][politics] Boy, they'll let anyone patent anything, won't they...

Would you believe... the venerable PB&J sandwich? Please. Read that again. It'll sink in, I promise... J.M.Smucker has a patent on the m0th3r-fscking PEANUT BUTTER AND FSCK ME GENTLY WITH A CHAINSAW JELLY SANDWICH!!!! There isn't a font big enough to convey how wrong I think this is. There aren't enough electrons in the known Universe to display the exclaimation points (and the profanity) that this merits. Turns out, for once, the Patent Office is having second thoughts about protecting this, uh, industrial marvel. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... the "Uncrustable":

The company says it's worth U.S. government protection because of the way it keeps its famous jelly from leaking out. How do they do it? They surround the jelly completely with peanut butter, then put that on two pieces of bread, cut off the crusts and crimp the edges together. Smuckers actually has a patent on the peanut butter shield, to stop the jelly from soaking into the bread, unlike a sandwich with peanut butter on just one side, which gets soggy when the jelly gets through.

Finally, though, a glimmer of hope from the Feds:

Putting the jelly inside the peanut butter, the U.S. Trademark Office now says, would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill.

No kidding... Now if we can just get them to look at, oh... business process and software patents with that same incisive, laser-like moral and intellectual clarity. But I'm not holding my breath. Catgories: geek; politics