Tony, please don't believe everything you read about patents. You should consult a lawyer who specializes in the subject. I think that a lot of the information posted above is wrong, at least as regards US patents, but I'm not a lawyer either, so ... talk to a lawyer.
On another issue, given your hints, I'm curious to know if you came up with the same solution to this problem as I did. If you did, then since I'm just an amateur then the idea probably isn't worth much and is probably either already patented or public domain. I'll send you a private message with my solution and you can tell me.
