| | From-
http://www.forbes.com/business/2005/08/15/patent-movies-scripts-cz-df_0812script.html
NEW YORK - It's the kind of plot twist that will send some critics screaming into the aisles: Why not let writers patent their screenplay ideas? The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office already approves patents for software, business methods--remember Amazon.com's patent on "one-click" Internet orders?--even role-playing games. So why not let writers patent the intricate plot of the next cyberthriller?
That's the idea of Andrew Knight, a recent Georgetown Law graduate and bona fide rocket scientist (he has two patents on rocket motors) who has submitted several movie plots to the Patent Office for approval. Like countless other would-be screenwriters working as cabbies and plumbers in Southern California, Knight may not yet have his own hit movie, but he worries about providing the bones for somebody else's Matrix.
"My hope is that the skeptical public will someday look back and say, 'I really didn't think this would have come out at all, if it hadn't been for a patent system protecting the idea of the creator,' " says Knight, who in his day job works as a patent agent helping inventors shepherd their applications through the Patent Office.
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