I own the sky. I own the water. I own all the money.

Pay up. If you don't know, I have both patented and trademarked air, water and currency. For this reason, you must now pay me royalties for their use. Specifically, I have patented the use of:

1. All known forms of gaseous oxygen (O2) utilized by carbon-based lifeforms for essential cardiovascular functions, and

2. All known forms of di-hydrogen oxide (H2O), a method of sustaining life by diluting ionized liquids in the human body by transferring di-hydrogen oxide from a residential source, via a smoothed glass semisphere, through the esophogus and into the human Gastrointestinal subsystem, and

3. A method of exchange utilizing a recognized basis for trade based on printed notes of various denominations and flat, stamped circular metal objects of various weights, sizes and metallic composition, utilized in various forms in countries throughout the world

There. That oughta do it. I demand from you a per-use fee of $1.00 for every incidence of use of each of items #1 through #3 above. In short, every breath you take, every move you make, every sip you take and every coin you shake belongs to me.

Sound absurd? It should. But given the insane patent and trademark system of the United States, it's just a matter of time before some attorney who leaves a trail of slime larger than most giant snails gives it a whack. That is, if Bill Gates hasn't beaten them to the punch. What's sad is that this insanity is being visited upon us on a daily basis. Like the attorney in San Diego who claimed to have invented the Internet and thus should be able to patent it. Based on a patent he filed and got accepted, he started suing Internet service providers across the country demanding either payment or to cease and desist immediately.

It gets worse.

A company by the name of SCO is taking on IBM in the courts to prevent them from using the Linux operating system. It's pretty convoluted, arcane and downright technical, but SCO basically claims to own all the licenses to Linux and Unix, if I have th story straight. Essentially, SCO, if I understand things correctly, really don't make products per se. They just own licenses and sue people. They have launched an attached on IBM, demanding Billions in reparations. In short, we don't do anything, we don't make anything, but we own the rights to things we neither make or develop. Interesting.

Then there's InterTrust. These guys have the balls to go after Microsoft for patent infringement, demanding that the Redmond Giant pony up for illegally using over 50 InterTrust in its products. In turn, InterTrust wants Microsoft to pay up big-time or if successful, demand that Microsoft cease immediately all sales of just about every product they make.

To say that this has kicked up dust is an understatement. The ubergeek site Slashdot ran a story on the lawsuit, prompting a torrent of replies both pro and con, including:

At its pre-bubble height, InterTrust (founded in 1990) employed 376 people and marketed its own software and hardware products; today it consists mainly of a patent portfolio, 30 employees, and this lawsuit.

We're now seeing the inevitable result of a system wherein the unequal playing field forces companies to do battle in the intellectual property realm rather than in the marketplace. Rather than come to market first with the best products, it's now about building up an intellectual property portfolio and torpedoing whomever surfaces first.

The business climate that Microsoft helped to engender has rebounded back on them with a vengeance. But that doesn't make InterTrust the good guys. They're just slimy opportunists who have elected to go along with the prevailing attitude, which is "Build up a company the old fashioned way? Screw that! Let's sue instead!"

My advice: crack open a beer, get a comfy chair and sit back to watch one helluva dogfight. Perhaps there's no honor amongst thieves and when it comes to the grand prize over control of valuable intellectual property, it couldn't get much more ugly. Regardless of who is right or wrong (that's best left for the courts), my take-away from all this is that our patent and trademark system is completely out of control. My feeling is that if you are to patent something, then you should back it up by actually making it too. To see the system abused by attorney exploiting loopholes speaks not only about their lack of a moral compass, but also to a broken system.

Which gives me an idea. I'll patent patents. And I'll trademark all trademarks. I see a buck in all this. Oh, that's right, I already own all the money.

So pay up already! Breathtaking, no?