Job Offshoring Patent

IBM tries to patent a computer system that will manage job offshoring while minimzing tax liabilities.

IBM files for patent on offshoring jobs
By Christine Young
Times Herald-Record
Posted: March 30, 2009
As IBM was firing thousands of American workers last week, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published Big Blue's application to copyright a computerized system that calculates how to offshore jobs while maximizing government tax breaks.

Update: IBM withdraws its application, calling it an error.

In their application to patent a "method and system for strategic global resource sourcing," five Hudson Valley IBMers describe how it weighs such plans as "50 percent of resources in China by 2010," against such factors as labor costs, infrastructure and the "minimum head count to qualify for incentives."

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