* * * * *
                                        
 A method and aparatus for obtaining quantities comprised of groups of smaller
            quantities grouped and counted for the larger quantity.
                                        
> It was never the object of patent laws to grant a monopoly for every
> trifling device, every shadow of a shade of an idea, which would naturally
> and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic or operator in the ordinary
> progress of manufactures. Such an indiscriminate creation of exclusive
> privileges tends rather to obstruct than to stimulate invention. It creates
> a class of speculative schemers who make it their business to watch the
> advancing wave of improvement, and gather its foam in the form of patented
> monopolies, which enable them to lay a heavy tax on the industry of the
> country, without contributing anything to the real advancement of the arts.
> It embarrasses the honest pursuit of business with fears and apprehensions
> of unknown liability lawsuits and vexatious accounting for profits made in
> good faith.
> 

–U.S. Supreme Court, Atlantic Works vs. Brady, 1882 

Via Technocrat.net, [1] this article [2] about software and business patents.
One of these days I'll get around to patenting a method and aparatus for
obtaining quantities comprised of groups of smaller quantities grouped and
counted for the larger quantity.

Or as translated from patent-speak, addition.

[1] http://technocrat.net/
[2] http://www.techreview.com/articles/ma00/shulman.htm

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

.