IBM files for patent on offshoring jobs

[blue97keet]

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090330/BIZ/903300315

Monday, March 30, 2009
Record Online

IBM files for patent on offshoring jobs
Seeks to protect tax incentives

Christine Young
By Christine Young
Times Herald-Record
Posted: March 30, 2009 - 6:00 AM

As IBM was firing thousands of American workers last week, the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office published Big Blue's application to
copyright a computerized system that calculates how to offshore jobs
while maximizing government tax breaks.

In their application to patent a "method and system for strategic
global resource sourcing," five Hudson Valley IBMers describe how it
weighs such plans as "50 percent of resources in China by 2010,"
against such factors as labor costs, infrastructure and the "minimum
head count to qualify for incentives."

The five Westchester County inventors, Ching-hua Chen-ritzo, Daniel
Patrick Connors, Markus Ettl, Mayank Sharma, and Karthik Sourirajan,
submitted the application to the patent office in September 2007, but
it took a year and a half for that patent to be published online.

None could be reached by telephone Sunday except Ching-hua Chen-ritzo
of Mahopac, who declined to comment, and attempts to reach IBM were
unsuccessful.

Lee Conrad, national coordinator for Alliance@IBM, a group trying to
unionize Big Blue, was stunned to learn of the application.

"This is obviously outrageous -- a patent on how to offshore U.S.
jobs," Conrad said. "IBM is obviously doing all it can to decimate the
U.S. work force, and it is all the more reason why IBM should not get
any tax breaks or stimulus money. They clearly are abandoning the U.S.
work force."

The application says the system weighs moving into or out of a
particular country against criteria such as wages, political systems,
"incentive contracts" and the economic impact of "violating and/or
satisfying those incentives."

In January, IBM reported that about 115,000, or 29 percent, of its
global work force of about 400,000, is in the United States.

[e-mail]

http://www.implu.com/patent_application/20090083107

Mon, 30 March 2009.

* Patents > 2009-03-26 > SECTION G PHYSICS > CONTROLLING; REGULATING
> CONTROL OR REGULATING SYSTEMS IN GENERAL; FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS OF
SUCH SYSTEMS; MONITORING OR TESTING ARRANGEMENTS FOR SUCH SYSTEMS
OR ELEMENTS

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR STRATEGIC GLOBAL RESOURCE SOURCING

Abstract

Method and system for strategic global resource sourcing in one aspect
incorporates concurrently a plurality of qualitative and quantitative
attributes that influence performance of sourcing strategy with respect
to one or more quantitative measures, quantifies an impact of said
qualitative attributes using said one or more quantitative measures,
and optimizes the sourcing strategy with respect to said one or more
quantitative measures subject to one or more constraints.

Filed on: 2007-09-24; Application Number: 11860336

Applicant(s)

Daniel Patrick Connors
Markus Ettl
Ching Hua Chen Ritzo
Mayank Sharma
Karthik Sourirajan

Agent

SCULLY SCOTT MURPHY PRESSER P C

[Deja Q]

1. ROTFLMAO

I'm surprised Microsoft, or at least the first person displaced by offshoring, didn't submit the "patent" first.

What can't be patented anyway? Peeing in a toilet or behind a tree in a cemetery? And if not, how long before that's patented, after which we'd really be taking the piss every time we had to pee.

[DS1]

2. Ahh. Going back to their "efficiently counting and getting rid of people" roots

Heil!

[apnu]

3. Our fucking patent system is retarded

Really, if there's anything that needed change for the longest time, its the patent office. Last time there was legal changes to the U.S. Patent system the Cubs were World Series Champions.

[cliffordu]

4. You can make all the money you can count if you can successfully create

a couple of patents a year there...HUUUGE cash prizes if it's easy to enforce....


I worked there in 2000 and they offered to give me a window view if I could......

[OhioChick]

5. K&R

:kick: