6,950,791

In the interests of full disclosure, since I have often fulminated in this space about the gravely-disordered software-patent landscape, I should state that I recently learned that, well, I now have one: Method for describing objects in a virtual space. The application was a condition of receiving venture-capital funding for my last startup, Antarctica Systems. As I review the patent, two things strike me: First, how hard it is to read through the lines of legal jargon to see what the essential technical point is. And second, how bad the drafting is; I spot lots of egregious typos and misspellings that apparently nobody caught. These must have crept in during the process because the submission was clean. Hmph.