Patent Application to Claim a Fictional Storyline. (via Neil Gaiman) This is the most asinine thing I've heard in, well, a long time. Patent a story idea? Pshaw! No story idea is original. Somebody somewhere, sometime has thought up the idea you're thinking of before. The trick is the actual execution of the story. Let's say the storyline is about aliens taking over the government. You would write a different story about the premise than I would. And we would both have different stories than Joe Schmoe next door. Individual books are already copyrighted. What would patenting a storyline accomplish except to bilk people of money and generally stifle creativity? (Unless that's exactly what they want...)
