The USPTO let loose with another laugher, granting a patent (filed in 2003) for podcasting. Read Write Web reports:

VoloMedia, a podcast analytics, advertising, and distribution company, just received a patent for "providing episodic media," including podcasts. According to the company, which filed for the patent in November 2003, U.S. Patent 7,568,213 covers all episodic media downloads, not just the RSS-dependent downloads that power today's podcasts. VoloMedia CEO Murgesh Navar says that the company doesn't plan to go after individual podcasters, but that the company plans to "work collaboratively with key participants in the industry." We do wonder, however, if VoloMedia can really claim to have invented podcasting in 2003, given that the concept was already under development by Dave Winer and others in late 2000 and early 2001.

It's just awesome that we have such obviously connected with reality people in charge of granting patents. Here's a cost saving idea: assign the job to a group of monkeys. Every application can be determined based on whether the number of insects groomed each day is an even number or an odd number.

The sad thing is, it would reach the right conclusion at least as often as the patent office does...

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