It has been quite a while since I last wrote for the web-site. Time does fly, last time I wrote, it was 1999. Now it is 2000. Although I made the
mistake of writing 1999 on the checks many times; the world, or America at
least, survived Y2K without any noticeable problem. I wonder what are the
people (survivalists) with their can food, bottled water, ready cash, and guns doing now. Do they feel stupid in preparing themselves to receive the
year 2000 that way? I did not find anything from the public library, Channels 28 and 50, to show that in 1899, people were doing the same for
1900. One obvious reason is that they did not have computers, and no two last digit short-cuts to represent the four digit years. If one extends
this line of thinking, one might be able to jump the gun and file a patent
application for the software to take care of the last of four digit year, 9999, automatically to the first five digit year, 10000. This could be a
gold mine for our descendents, although none of the Lighters will live to reap any worldly rewards. I know there are quite a few Lighter lawyers, but
any patent lawyers? The utility patent is good for twenty years. Assuming
no additional maintenance fees, and the filing fee by young patent lawyers
is $ 10,000 without inflation's, it will cost four million dollars to keep
the patent current. With inflation's, this figure can be much larger. I,
myself, definitely have no means to capitalize on this idea for the benefit
of my children and beyond. If other Lighters are interested, I'll be glad
to discuss this matter further. Goon Hay Fat Choy!
Some time ago, I read or heard from somewhere that a Frenchman, either
registered "Y2K" as a trade mark or patented the same as a design patent. He collected many millions around the world from people using "Y2K" on
sweatshirts, stationery items,...etc. More recent samples along the same trend is that quite a few of the Presidential hopefuls have to pay somebody
to use algore.com, or xyz.com to collect contributions. Who knows, we will
not get anything from "Y3K" to "Y10K"; but the nth generation Lighters will!
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