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I wrote a TCP client/server app along these lines to let me use Dragon Naturally Speaking on my Linux box. Basically, you run Dragon and the server on Windows in a small VMware (or whatever) window. You connect to the server via a client on the main PC, running Linux and X. The server app displays a text window in the virtualized Windows window, and whatever text you enter there (via Dragon) is sent via the TCP connection to the Linux client app, which enters virtual keystrokes accordingly. It is a bit of a pain to set up but works great. http://foss.eepatents.com/WinDictator

If you google him, you will find that Edwin Suominen is a patent agent who studied RF at university and assigned some patents there. Despite his name (Suominen), he doesn't seem to have any Finnish connection (Suomi, is the Finnish name for themselves). I had wondered at first whether he had any connection to another well known Finnish company which was heavily involved in the original research. What is unusual is that he seems to have acquired a number of patents (about 4) whilst studying as an undergraduate at University.

The thing is that the original BT work done in Finland/Sweden (mostly the latter) was done some time ago. It has taken a very long time to catch on in the US but started appearing in the mid nineties. Simple implementations appeared a little later and it may be interesting to look at the history of this patent against when the first single chip implmentation appeared (about 98). It could well be that some existing technology leaked.

Then Microsoft eventually adopted the mouse, and made the design decision they often do, that if one is good, more is better, and two-button mice became common. As GUI applications adopted contextual menus off the right mouse button, Apple adopted CMs via control-click. Now the complaint from Microsoft users was that Apple required you to keep one hand on the keyboard. (Assuming they didn't need two hands to use the mouse, I wonder what they needed the other hand for.)

It's human nature to respond to put the best possible light on a negative situation that doesn't appear to be changeable.

This may be somewhat OT, but I think it's a good example of this cognitive dissonance phenomenon: I am a social conservative (strongly support the right of an armed citizenry, believe abortion should be illegal during all 9 months, for example) who is not voting for either the Republican or Democrat presidential candidate. I simply can't see myself voting for someone who has proven himself as incompetent as Bush has, even though I actually agree with him on most of the issues I find important. (The Iraq war and the environment are exceptions.) I found it at turns amusing and exasperating so see how my conservative friends tried to defend Bush's "puzzled chimp" performance in the first debate: "It was 9PM Eastern time, and that's late at night for him," "I don't think he did that bad," "He's a plain-spoken man," etc. Imagine their reaction if things had been switched and Kerry had performed that dismally. There would have been a lot of gloating and pointing out that his fate was sealed.

Now, back onto the topic: Good luck with your theory that only programming grunt work is going to be offshored. Yeah, that's what we said about manufacturing some years back, maintaining that the real "brain work" will stay in the U.S. Not a chance.

Just take a look at what Google says about the topic. I found one of the first hits, "Offshore Outsourcing World" to be particularly interesting, and chilling. Ironically, the article talks about google itself.

I actually don't see any alternative to free trade, and firmly believe that capitalism is the only way to go (conservative there, again). But with the last barriers to global competition rapidly coming down, a re-distribution of wealth is in progress on a global scale. That means painful adjustments for those who have gotten used to having more of it than most of the world's people.

I am a registered patent agent, licensed to practice law in patent matters before the U.S Patent & Trademark Office. To get to where I'm now at, I've had to get a four-year technological degree, pass a really tough exam, and learn how to write by working under some experienced patent attorneys for that past five years or so. (Self-promotional but generally informative info here.)

So, does that mean my career is safe? See for yourself.

I write for a living. I have a license to Office 97, but I've been using OpenOffice for my work for nearly two years now. I've never found Word 97's grammar checker good for much of anything but a good laugh. Maybe things are better now, but I've never been inclined to "upgrade" to a version that seemed like it would need every motherboard change to be registered with Redmond.

The near-universal assumption of Word's dominance can have interesting effects. I once exchanged exported-to-Word copies of a document with a client a couple of times until we discovered that we were both using OpenOffice, both of us importing what we had exported to Word format for the other guy!

The House bill is H.R. 1561.

I'm a registered patent agent, so this bill is obviously important to me. (Before I get modded into oblivion for having that occupation, please note that I am also an open-source software author. You can see something I wrote about that topic on one of my project pages. I watched the bill being enacted on C-SPAN. It stands alone, and is not any sort of a rider.

It is also a Good Thing (sorry, Martha) because the USPTO is desparately in need of funding to keep up with the flood of applications. The only thing I don't like about it (other than the fee increases it includes) is that it opens the door to outsourcing (not offshoring) searches to private contractors, something I think really is the patent examiner's job.

While that is true for U.S. patents, I would very surprised if Amazon didn't have an application pending already, before doing the press release. Many if not most countries other than the U.S. have an "absolute novelty" requirement that prohibits filing an application for something after it has been publicly disclosed unless the application can claim priority of another application, e.g., one filed in the U.S.

If Amazon has indeed filed a U.S. application with intent to file overseas as well, that application will be published 18 months after filing.

Ed Suominen
Registered Patent Agent * Open Source Developer (Yes, both...)
+ http://www.eepatents.com
+ Nothing above to be construed as legal advice or the opinion of my firm or any client.

I see a major problem with SCO's case that no is talking about. That is the equitable doctrine of laches, which prevents a party asserting a claim against another too long a time after he could have, i.e., long after the offended party knew about the damage it supposedly suffered.

The source of the Linux kernel has been open for public inspection from its very inception, and SCO has been free to look through it and discover instances of copyright violation. Even more damning against it, SCO's own people have worked with the source, distributing their "own" version of Linux. There's no way they can claim that they couldn't have known about the issue for all these years.

Here's a nice little quote from a N.Y. state court case that failed to find laches due to a short delay of two years:

• "Laches is an equitable doctrine which bars recovery where a party's inaction has prejudiced another party, making it inequitable to permit recovery" (Vickery v. Village of Saugerties, 106 AD2d 721)

Here are some other interesting cites:

• Understanding Basic Copyright Law Has some examples of where laches might be used.
• Kepner-Tregoe, Inc. v. Executive Dev., Inc. (Federal district court, laches defense successful).

P.S. - I am a registered patent agent, not an attorney. This means that I don't practice copyright law, and nothing above is legal advice or the opinion of any client etc. I'm also an open-source software author, which I suppose is a bit like a butcher being a vegetarian...