I don't know the story, but I'd honestly believe just about anything coming out of the USPTO. They granted a patent on being a middleman in a financial transaction (but do it on a computer), so the sky is pretty much the limit despite what the statutes say. Besides, laws are changeable, and can be different in fictional worlds. Heck, in some universes, tomatoes are legally vegetables.
The thing that makes me lose suspension of disbelief the most is when I have to ask "are the characters honestly this stupid?" Are they so unsavvy about their genre that they continue to make stupid mistakes to generate repetitive plots? If the answer is "yes", as it is in Ranma 1/2, then by all means proceed. But if the Ph.D. character can't think of the solution to a simple problem that I thought of two chapters ago, I just can't believe. OOC with respect to the original source bugs me a little, but OOC internal to a story bugs me a lot.
The other thing that takes me out of a story are patently aphysical things being passed off as "science", like magical DNA fairies that make you the chosen one. But that's just another form of bad writing, and Bob listed a lot of those already.
-- ∇×V
The thing that makes me lose suspension of disbelief the most is when I have to ask "are the characters honestly this stupid?" Are they so unsavvy about their genre that they continue to make stupid mistakes to generate repetitive plots? If the answer is "yes", as it is in Ranma 1/2, then by all means proceed. But if the Ph.D. character can't think of the solution to a simple problem that I thought of two chapters ago, I just can't believe. OOC with respect to the original source bugs me a little, but OOC internal to a story bugs me a lot.
The other thing that takes me out of a story are patently aphysical things being passed off as "science", like magical DNA fairies that make you the chosen one. But that's just another form of bad writing, and Bob listed a lot of those already.
-- ∇×V