Marriage proposal as patent application

Ryan Thomas Grace of Omaha filed this patent application with the USPTO as a means of proposing to his girlfriend:

The purpose of this invention is to provide an improved method of proposing marriage to an individual. The method of proposing to an individual generally comprising the steps of meeting the individual; exchanging names with the individual; dating the individual (not necessary); drafting a government document having a proposal to marry the individual incorporated therein; and showing the government document to the individual. The government document may be a patent application. The patent application may claim the method by which the proposor will make a marriage proposal to the individual. The proposor could then use the method claimed in the patent application to propose to the individual. The patent application could be the actual marriage proposal.

Link (via Neatorama)

• [PeaceRant]

  This story is a stub. Did she say yes or what?

• [Kyle Goetz]

  @#7 Peacerant:

  She said yes. If you’ll read the second-to-last claim:
  “In the ideal situation where Ellie accepts the diamond ring, Ryan should sign the patent application and deposit the patent application with the United States Postal Service.”

  His filing the patent application was contingent upon her saying yes. Seeing as how he filed the application, she must have said yes.

  Also, I’m a huge IP dork for reading the entire application. Jiminy Schneikies, it’s awesome.

• [noen]

  I’m going to patent a method for divorce. I got that part down.

• [jrishel]

  so, does that mean their marriage is reproducible by others after a 14 year government granted monopoly?

• [knodi]

  @ #2 – Hey, Cory and Crew: Maybe a change to the engine, so that when a comment is deleted, it keeps its number, but just shows the word “deleted”? Or maybe it doesn’t show up at all?

  But considering how many people respond to other comments by comment #, it’s confusing to renumber the rest of them.

  But, re: the patent application proposal: Original ideas are getting harder and harder to come by! No matter how silly this guy’s plan is, you gotta give him props for that.

• [kahomono]

  THIS finally got my wife to acknowledge that I am officially NOT the geekiest person in the world.

  Also, quoth she, “I hope she said ‘No.’”

• [Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator]

  Knodi @5, we’d do it if we could, but that’s not how Movable Type handles things.

• [butfirst]

  At first I thought, “Odd, but kinda sweet and at least original.” But then I started to think of mail-order brides as having an EULA and I made myself sad. I’m going to go play with something shiny now to make myself feel better.

• [dculberson]

  @#2 (Ft Myers, etc): I think you mis-typed! You meant to say “We are Ft Myers Spamming Photographers!”

• [Kaiguy]

  Wow, this is almost as self-referential and metafictional as David Foster Wallace’s “Octet.” Also, I got a mail order bride after reading this story. The Czech’s in the mail.

• [3Pac10]

  While this is sweet, it immediately got my patent agent/soon-to-be patent lawyer mind got rolling. It’s probably novel, useful and nonobvious, but if you’re going to the trouble to propose marriage via patent application, at least you’d write some cleaner claims.

• [qubex]

  Nice way to tie up our patent office with even more trivial bullshit. I mean, romantic in it’s own retarded way, much like people at sports games who get the camera to zoom in as they go down on one knew with a panicked look on their face and the soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend nodding and saying yes so that it doesn’t ruin the game you’re seeing.. But still.

  In case you’re wondering about the patent submitter, here is his profile: http://www.merchantgould.com/attorney-profile-244.html