IBM Ditches Outsourcing Patent

"IBM has dropped their controversial outsourcing patent, both withdrawing the application and placing it into the public domain. Apparently, it was filed eight months before they implemented more stringent reviews of their patent applications so as to avoid filing for obvious patents, especially business method patents. The notice also says that they would like to thank the community for bringing it to their attention."

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/05/0449218


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IBM Seeks US Patents For Offshoring US Jobs

"IBM and other corporations are seeking patents for inventions covering the offshoring of US jobs. The USPTO is considering IBM's patent application for Outsourcing of Services, a 'method for identifying human-resource work content to outsource offshore of an organization' to 'countries where cheaper labor prices and/or cheaper materials are available.' Then there's Big Blue's Electronic Marketplace for Identifying, Assessing, Reserving and Engaging Knowledge-Workers for an Assignment Using Trade-Off Analysis, which provides a handy-dandy IBM calculator that drives home the point that you'll pay less for IGS India workers, whether onshore or offshore. And with its System and Method of Using Speech Recognition at Call Centers to Improve Their Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction, IBM describes how to operate in 'low cost foreign countries' with 'support people not having good English language skills, or having an accent that makes it difficult to understand them' by exploiting technology developed for students who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as other accent reduction techniques."

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/29/1734209