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Keep your air filter clean and don't buy junk gas.

You can't buy junk gas in the US. The EPA dictates that certains "engine cleaners" are added to all gasoline regardless of the octane rating (which is *not* a quality rating any more than shoe size is a quality rating).

Don't believe me, believe the FTC:
The Low-Down on High Octane Gasoline

uce@ftc.gov

I'm just saying -- our country SUCKS
Interesting.

Corporations have rights that citizens do not
That's not true.

if I write a program that takes over your computer and spies on you -- I'm a hacker/terrorist
If it takes over your computer against the will of the user, than you are a "hacker" (well, that's not a real world, but still). If you did this with the intent of causing terror, you are a terrorist. If you did out of a sense of malicious intent, you are a criminal. Please show me three csaes were a "hacker" writing a virus/trojan was called a "terrorist" by a government offical.

A company does it -- its legit (spyware/adware).
If a company does it - to show ads or collect personal information - they've bundled it with a software package/website/service. The provider of the software/service has made an arrangement for money. The user is a willing party. In cases were the user is not a willing party the FTC will investigate. It is decidedly not legit. Congress has 4 bills on its next-term docket to deal with the issue. Several bills came up during the current Congress but were drawn too widely and were sent back for refinement.

Have you seen on TV advertisements for drug companies now selling drugs whose purpose is to "Provide positive energy?"
No, I haven't. I couldn't find any single reference by any major drug maker that claims this. However, somethngs to note. If a drug maker makes a claim of efficacy, it must be backed up in clinical trials. Side-effects must be disclosed. If the research is faulty the drug-maker is liable for damages, and in past cases these have caused billions. Now, if the trug you are talking about is consider a "homeopathic" treament, it does not require certification by the FDA. This means the drug must be of certain chemical potency and must not contain certain ingredients. The company is still liable, but does not have to prove efficacy. You are by law able to sell these same exact drugs.

Yet if I want to do the same thing with marijuana I'm the criminal?
Yes, you are. That's the law. You can't sell marijuana. Why? Because first off, you smoke it. Second off, it has a negative effect on youth. Third off, it has a long-history of causing all kinds of performance and health issues, not the least of which is motor control and driving deficienes. Countries with legal or nearly-legal marijuana have myraid problems with it. Parts of Amsterdam, for example, are very dangerous not least of the reasons being the drug culture. Beyond that, you make seem like corportions are out selling pot but you can't. And we know that's false.

For the record, selling bootlegs is wrong
Profiting against someones will off their work is wrong, regardless of the venue.

And so is everything the RIAA does.
No, thats provably false. The RIAA is validated by the massess. The music industry sells millions of records and is rather profitable. Logically that means something they are doing is filling a marketable demand. The RIAA does not profit against someones will from their work. Everything they sell has been contracted for legally. I am not a big fan of the RIAA, but you claiming they steal or whatnot is garbage. Everything the RIAA does you can legally do on your own just fine.

Sorry for the bile -- I've just had it with our country right now.
You haven't presented a single argument that makes any sense as to why.

For the record, this case is bad news. The situation is question is bound for an appeal that could rule in favor of more copyright. It is not a good sign when a court overrules law with a non-symapathetic plantiff. This issue has largely been decided in Ashcroft v. Eldred, and the appeals courts are unlikely to intervene for such an unworthy case.

Based on you've posted here, I am guessing you are a

It's not the school administrators information to give away. This information must go through the parent.

• Section 1. Trusts, etc., in restraint of trade illegal; penalty

  Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy hereby declared to be illegal shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $10,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $350,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.

What part of "restraint of trade" didn't they understand?

Take a look at the FTC Guidelines on horizontal agreements among competitors. There's a good chance that the FTC could challenge this. Even under the Bush Administration, the FTC regularly takes antitrust enforcement actions.

I can't help but wonder is maybe somebody explained to him that his service is inherently illegal for collectio agencies to use, since lying is specifically illegal under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act:

15 USC 1692e:

A debt collector may not use any false, deceptive, or misleading representation or means in connection with the collection of any debt.

I know Google prides itself on not dirtily manipulating its search results, but I think they should make an exception in this case. I would like to see a search for this astroturfing corporate website (that is, www.tableausoftware.com) return these results:

• Questions Not Asked in Tableau Marketing Meetings
• Create Your Own Tableau Ad Here (Must Contain a Google Reference)
• Share your stories about Tableau

They should do their research. There are very strict laws about debt collectors calling. They cannot contact you outside 8AM-9PM, for example. If they call you, they are legally required to provide a mailing address if you ask, and if you send them a letter requesting no further contact, it is illegal for them to continue to contact you (except one call saying they received the letter). They can still sue your ass in court, and you can get served with papers, etc, but the debt collector themselves cannot contact you. Additionally, if you have an attorney, they must call the attorney, not you.

Most importantly, they are also prohibited from misrepresenting themselves. I'd say falsified caller id falls pretty clearly under misrepresenting. (They can block caller-id, that's fine, but they can't say they're Joe's Pizza, for example). I sincerely hope these guys get sued into oblivion for encouraging slimy debt collection processes. It's not clear the service itself is illegal, but debt collectors using it to identify themselves as someone else very clearly is. I predict some attorney general is going to have a field day with this. I plan to write to mine about it.

More info: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/fdc.htm

Yes. You can find the FTC notice here. Basically telemarketers must provide a real number (and name if technically able). This name/number must be either theirs or the company they're calling on behalf of and it must be a number that is answered during normal business hours.

Politicians limiting themselves? Yeah, right...

This is false. Congress held hearings in several locations on the topic of software patents.

I read the 600K+ of transcripts from hearings they held in California (talk about dull reading). Almost to a person, there was a stark division between two camps: the developers opposed software patents, largely arguing that "copyright and speed of innovation is sufficient"; the lawyers argued that patents were absolutely required.

The time is fast approaching when the developers should form a single voice (hello ACM, IEEE, are you there?) and say "we told you so, change it." This is and always will be an inherently political process.

You don't remember that little 9-11 thing?

We remember it. We remember that the hijackers all had legitimate, government issued IDs in their own names. We remember that knowing who they were didn't give the government any capability, or desire, to stop them. We remember that a few of them (five?) were on a watch list, but the vast majority of them (certainly more than enough to bring down the WTC) were not.

We also remember that our government has killed far more Americans than Al Qada ever dreamed of killing. See this page. Al Qada may be more ambitious, but our government has more opportunity. Even if their intentions are good, just by accident, our government is going to do a lot of harm, so we would need to limit their power. We certainly have no reason to believe that our government's intentions are good, or that, if they were good, that they would remain that way.

Finally, trivially, we have the fact that the ID requirements allow the airlines to practice price discrimination.

If the FBI arrested fifty spammers a year, we'd see a big drop in spam.

Like the grandparent poster said, why would the 'littke guy' want to share their discovery if, in all likelihood, a corporation with more capital and marketing clout could take that idea, leverage it for profit, and leave the little guy with nothing to show for his hard work. There needs to be a system that lets the little guy profit from their work.

Copyright and not patents protect the small developer's work: when he brings his product to market, there is no danger that suddenly another company will forbid him to sell his product because he supposedly infringes on one or other patent of theirs.

However there needs to be a real tangible incentive for innovation (REAL innovation, not the bullshit that makes up a good part of Amazon.com's business model), with protections in place to prevent abuse of the system.

Like the grandparent poster said, why would the 'littke guy' want to share their discovery if, in all likelihood, a corporation with more capital and marketing clout could take that idea, leverage it for profit, and leave the little guy with nothing to show for his hard work. There needs to be a system that lets the little guy profit from their work.

Copyright and not patents protect the small developer's work: when he brings his product to market, there is no danger that suddenly another company will forbid him to sell his product because he supposedly infringes on one or other patent of theirs.

However there needs to be a real tangible incentive for innovation (REAL innovation, not the bullshit that makes up a good part of Amazon.com's business model), with protections in place to prevent abuse of the system.

For the record, I do not think that software patents are intrinsically evil. I believe in my heart-of-hearts that algorithms are just as much an invention as a better mousetrap, and I disagree with the article author's assertion that the copyright protection granted to an implementation is sufficient protection for this inventive process.

My observation is that patents have not been a positive force in stimulating innovation at Cisco. Competition has been the motivator; bringing new products to market in a timely manner is critical. Everything we have done to create new products would have been done even if we could not obtain patents on the innovations and inventions contained in these products. I know this because no one has ever asked me "can we patent this?" before deciding whether to invest time and resources into product development.

Plus, you forget that one of the Principles of Free Software, transparency, is fundament in the patent process. The wisdom of the patent system is, In exchange for exclusive right-to-use on your invention, for a limited time, you must fully disclose that same invention.

You might also be interested in the testimony of Robert Barr (word doc) (VP at Cisco and their head of intellectual Property) at the FTC hearings in 2002:

My observation is that patents have not been a positive force in stimulating innovation at Cisco. Competition has been the motivator; bringing new products to market in a timely manner is critical. Everything we have done to create new products would have been done even if we could not obtain patents on the innovations and inventions contained in these products. I know this because no one has ever asked me "can we patent this?" before deciding whether to invest time and resources into product development.

[...]

The time and money we spend on patent filings, prosecution, and maintenance, litigation and licensing could be better spent on product development and research leading to more innovation. But we are filing hundreds of patents each year for reasons unrelated to promoting or protecting innovation.

[...]

Moreover, stockpiling patents does not really solve the problem of unintentional patent infringement through independent development. If we are accused of infringement by a patent holder who does not make and sell products, or who sells in much smaller volume than we do, our patents do not have sufficient value to the other party to deter a lawsuit or reduce the amount of money demanded by the other company. Thus, rather than rewarding innovation, the patent system penalizes innovative companies who successfully bring new products to the marketplace and it subsidizes or rewards those who fail to do so.

http://www.ftc.gov/os/caselist/0323223.htm

One of the major features touted in the article is security, as in "you can't remove the fasteners without the secret code". As in "you can't install replacement parts unless you buy them from the original maker".

Forget DMCA tricks. This will force you to get all your parts and service from a single source, the company that originally made the product.

There's already a law on the books that prohibits them from doing that.

Federal law requires the collection agency to cease attempting to communicate with you except for a limited number of circumstances, if you request them to do so.

Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

See 805 (c).

Get the address of the debt collection agency (they are required to tell you, if asked). Send a certified, return-receipt-requested letter to the agency stating the facts of the case (that you paid the debt, that it is still under dispute, etc.) and demand they no longer attempt to contact you except under the provisions of the applicable federal law.

I had the same name as the (ex-?)husband of a deadbeat in my area and got persistent calls from an out-of-state collection agency. When I tried to set the record straight during one of those calls, they copped the same kind of obnoxious attitude.

Since I wasn't the creditor, I don't think I had the protection of the the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. But, I sent a letter informing them that I would consider any further calls concerning the matter to be harassment and cited the applicable state law. And, I copied the Attorney General in their state and my state.

I haven't heard from them since then.

It encourages an innovation race, which should mean more innovation more quickly.

My observation is that patents have not been a positive force in stimulating innovation at Cisco. Competition has been the motivator; bringing new products to market in a timely manner is critical. Everything we have done to create new products would have been done even if we could not obtain patents on the innovations and inventions contained in these products. I know this because no one has ever asked me 'can we patent this?' before deciding whether to invest time and resources into product development.

The "clock" on your obligation to ship or take other action under the Rule begins as soon as you receive a "properly completed" order. An order is properly completed when you receive the correct full or partial (in whatever form you accept) payment, accompanied by all the information you need to fill the order.

Luckily, my vigilance paid off, and Brian Silverman, aka "electro_depot" was caught and charged by the FTC for his crimes.

Dozens upon dozens of people were scammed by Brian over the course of a year or two. Many of them went to google to find out more about him, because he failed to return emails and phone calls. At that time, my Advogato diary entry was the only hit that google returned, and over 80 people contacted me directly via email to ask if I had ever received my laptop (at the time, I hadn't).

I had an officer, Det. Mike Gischner from the NYC "Computer Crime Squad" division call me directly, based on that same Advogato diary entry (the only one mentioning "Brian Silverman" by name at the time), asking me if I had heard of anyone else that had problems with Brian. I asked him if 120 people was enough. Silence on the phone. He thought I was kidding. I forwarded him all of the emails I had received at the time, and proceeded with his end of the case. He had no idea that there were that many people being screwed by this jerk.

As time went on, several web sites popped up to try to track the fraud from Brian Silverman, based on my original "collection" of users and emails that I had received. I take full credit for bringing enough evidence to bring him to justice.

I did eventually receive my laptop... the last one he actually sent out to anyone. I managed to track him down, at his home address, and called him one night asking (no no, demanding ) my laptop, or I would be at his front door the next morning. The laptop arrived a couple of days later.

As an aside note, the laptop, which I am typing this reply on right now, has been back to IBM 7 times for repair in the last couple of years, for repairs and replacement of almost every part, several times. Its definately a lemon, but it works well now.. and is basically brand-new again.

Basically his scam was as follows:

• Put "several" laptop models online on eBay for sale (note: He never actually has these laptops at all, he has never even purchased them). Let's use 10 laptops as an example; 5 IBM laptops and 5 Sony laptops.
• Get several dozen bidders on the laptops, raising the price around normal MSRP
• Take the highest bidders on all of the auctions, and demand that they send the payment within 5 days of auction close
• 10 people send in their payments for the "10" laptops (remember, he hasn't ever purchased a single laptop)
• Keep the money as long as possible, in a bank account, until people start complaining about shipment
• Delay delay delay, using whatever tactics are necessary. I've heard dozens of his excuses from various bidders.
• Delay some more, making sure to keep that bank account interest rolling in (more profit in his pocket)
• When people get heated enough to start threatening, send 8 people back their money (leaving the highest 1 IBM and 1 Sony buyer waiting) (more profit in his pocket)
• It is now 2-3 months later, and the "top-of-the-line" laptop is now no longer top-of-the-line.
• He purchases the laptops, wholesale, from the absolute-cheapest place he can find, having them shipped ground, factory-direct. At this point, since it is 1/4 of a year later, the laptops cost anywhere from 20%-40% less than the original auction price (more profit in his pocket).

Eventually, he decided that the whole "Ship the laptop" thing was just too much trouble, and he started keeping the money, never purchasing any laptops at all, for any bidders.

I'm glad he's rotting in a federal prison right now, getting 60 months (from what I understand), for his crimes, and an enormous $600k fine and penalties.

Tell me, which is more an incentive to innovate (to the innovator):

A) You come up with an idea and we'll let you fight it out in the marketplace with four other companies OR

B) You come up with an idea and everyone in the U.S. will have to come to you for the solution. And it will be you and only you for the next 20 years.

well? OK.

You are missing several things of the big picture:

• Once someone has a monopoly on something, he will be much less inclined to keep on innovating, since the competition is very much restricted in improving what he did. Therefore, this monopoly is only justifiable if without the outlook to this monopoly, the innovation would never have happened. At least in the software world, this is highly unlikely, since competition is the main drive there to innovate (if you don't innovate, you can as well close up shop). That's confirmed by, among others, this study (presentation slides, see especially slides 15-16) by the Fraunhofer and Max Planck institutes and the FTC report on the effects of patents on innovation.
• An innovator does not live alone in the world. Once he gets a monopoly, he will without a doubt hinder other innovators with this patent. If generally this hindering effect causes more innovation not to happen than the amount of innovation that happens thanks to the fact that patent protection is available, it's also better that you have no patents. Again, the FTC report notes that this is the case in the software field. The main reason is that innovation in the software field is mainly incremental (improving things that other people have done before) instead of revolutionary (doing completely new things).

Patents increase innovation by forcing you to tell the world about your invention. Once the patent is up, ANYONE can take you patent and solve the problem you solved.

That's the theory. In practice, programmers can barely understand the legalese of software patents. And since software patents do not even include source code, it's even arguable whether they really contain a usable solution in many cases. Finally, (and this goes for all patents) companies are actively discouraged to go looking in patent databases looking for solutions. The reason is that, even if they did not find a solution and came up with something themselves, if they are sued afterwards, they can be ordered to pay tripple damages, because in that case it's considered "willful infringement".

The quid pro quo though is that in exchange for the disclosure, as a "thank you" for innovating and telling the world, you get the right to prevent others from implementing your solution. Which is a bigger thank you? that you get to fight it out in the marketplace, or that you and you alone can practice the invention?

It has nothing to do with "thank you", but everything with "if we didn't give you this monopoly, we would be even worse off, because we wouldn't know how to solve that particular problem". This monopoly can thus only be justified if there is a very low chance of independent rediscovery by other people and if the original innovator would very likely not have done the innovation himself without the incentive of getting a 20 year monopoly.

Please explain to me how the patent system benefits society as a whole, as you've asserted, other than the quid pro quo I stated above i.e., the patent tells anyone how to solve a given problem, in exchange for which, you get the limited monopoly.

The theory is that the disclosure of the innovation benefits society more than that the 20-year monopoly hampers it. This theory may have held back in the 15th century, when you usually had "on

So a better suggestion is to simply abolish software patents, since then you lose a lot of unnecessary and even hampering juridical overhead.

Bottom line: crappy patents will fall quickly if they are crappy enough, barring unclean hands on the part of the challenger.

They are mostly just bartering tokens, traded among themselves by the big companies and extorted by them from the small ones and from the mythical lone basement inventors. These large companies don't defend a patent because the patent earns them so much money, but because it gives them control over the other party. They can effectively control who can enter the market and who can't, and that's what the strategic patenting is all about.

And no, that's not just some nutty conspiracy theory of mine, it's part of FTC study on the effects of patents on innovation. And I sincerely hope you, as upcoming patent lawyer, will not dismiss this like your colleagues at IPO who bluntly state that they do "not support the FTC recommendation concerning considering potential harm to competition in deciding upon the scope of patentable subject matter" and do not "support expanding economic considerations in patent law decision making. ".

I really don't understand that stance. Patent law is a purely economical law for X sake, so why shouldn't economical effects have precedence?

No, patents draw a line between creators and imitators.

It is to be expected that part-time amateurs come up with ideas years after professional innovators invented them and file them with USPTO.

spam should go to...an authority who can fine the sender

You mean like uce@ftc.gov?

{Whistling innocently....}

(Unfortunately, sending "legit" marketing crap to that address would probably not really help, even if we (the general public) don't want it. All the FTC is interested in is v1agr@ and Kathmandu Temple Kiff crap.)

spam should go to...an authority who can fine the sender

You mean like uce@ftc.gov?

{Whistling innocently....}

(Unfortunately, sending "legit" marketing crap to that address would probably not really help, even if we (the general public) don't want it. All the FTC is interested in is v1agr@ and Kathmandu Temple Kiff crap.)

"Supreme", "92 octane", "premium", whatever you call it- is not *better*. It has a higher octane rating. Oddly, that just means that it's more difficult to ignite it.

If you're getting better gas mileage with it, that means your engine is probably suffering from pre-ignition, aka "pinging", without it. It doesn't mean the higher octane gas has more energy, just that you don't have a cylinder or two working against the rest of the engine. I used to have a jeep that was terrible with pinging unless I used 92 octane, so I am familiar with the situation.

But for most cars, the 87 is just fine. Note that the 92 doesn't have more cleaners or anything else in it. For the vast majority of cars, 87 works fine and there is no reason to get ass-raped by the filling station for 92 octane. It's like shoe size: a size 13 shoe isn't "better" than a size 8, unless your feet are size 13. If your feet are size 8, however, the size 13 doesn't offer you anything more.

The FTC has considered regulating the oil industry by disallowing any terminology suggesting that higher octane is better.

The Low-Down on High Octane Gasoline

There are so many many variations possible when driving, that 2 trips hardly counts as a test case. A/C, out door temperature, speed limit, construction delays, stops, traffic, change in air pressure, passengers, tire air pressure, temperature of fuel, humidity, rain on the road, wind speed and direction. And yes these will all give variations - some more then others of course.

In fact just filling up the tank can give you variations - how do you know how accurate your gauge is? I can overfill my tank by 5 gallons, it won't register on the needle (still just F), but the fuel is there. The temperature of the gas can change how much volume equal amounts (mass) of fuel will take. Colder temperature you'll get more gas in the tank.

But octane will not make the slightest difference in milage for a vehicle that is designed for 87. If your vehicle is designed for 92 or can advance the timing then maybe - but then you are not supposed to use 87, so again not a comparision.

Howstuffworks "What does octane mean?"
Federal Trade Commission: Are you tempted to buy a high octane gasoline for your car because you want to improve its performance?
You can find more links on your own.

It looks like you have chosen the degenerate case here, and one in which really wasn't part of the article, and isn't part of the court decision here.

From the article:
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a law meant to punish pornographers who peddle dirty pictures to Web-surfing kids is probably an unconstitutional muzzle on free speech.

This law and article is not about rape. Is not about kiddie porn. Is not about child rape. Is not about making kiddie porn of child rape.

That much being said, your comparison of immorality is flawed. because what you brought up isnt being discussed here. as for being kosher yes it is one of those social mores, however it is a religious law of orthodox jews. And like I said the government has no place implementing religious laws or beliefs. Im afraid you deserve as slashdot RTFA citation.

Usually, these scams involve some marginal "billing service" provider. Integretel, eBillit, Payment One, and Verity International are some of the names that come up.

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/warranty/

97 comments were filed publicly. Everyone from RMS to IEEE to, well, me.

Basically, software warranties would make Free Software illegal. The model wouldn't work if we were held to quality expectations. Read the comments to educate yourself.

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/warranty/

97 comments were filed publicly. Everyone from RMS to IEEE to, well, me.

Basically, software warranties would make Free Software illegal. The model wouldn't work if we were held to quality expectations. Read the comments to educate yourself.

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/warranty/

97 comments were filed publicly. Everyone from RMS to IEEE to, well, me.

Basically, software warranties would make Free Software illegal. The model wouldn't work if we were held to quality expectations. Read the comments to educate yourself.

In California, the cash value doesn't expire period, but it's the same thing where it comes to employee ignorance, the person working the register usually doesn't know the law.

In order to enforce your consumer rights, you have to know them in the first place.
For a good starting place to learn your rights --> look here.

Remove excess weight from the trunk. Avoid carrying unneeded items, especially heavy ones. An extra 100 pounds in the trunk reduces a typical car's fuel economy by one to two percent.

So let's assume he gets 25mpg. At minimum he's losing 200lbs * 1% per 100 pounds * 25mpg = 0.5mpg and the maximum is 200lbs * 2% per 100 pounds * 25mpg = 1mpg.

Not much, but it still doesn't make any sense!

FTC's statement on the enforceability of privacy policies

FTC's suit against Toysmart for attempting to violate their privacy policy. And the settlement.

FTC's statement on the enforceability of privacy policies

FTC's suit against Toysmart for attempting to violate their privacy policy. And the settlement.

FTC's statement on the enforceability of privacy policies

FTC's suit against Toysmart for attempting to violate their privacy policy. And the settlement.

That's odd, toothless legislative spam fixes never got vetoed in the past just because they'd do nothing to stop the problem - or make it worse. Wonder what makes this one so special?

free/open source software or 'community' development

But that does NOT make it F/OSS! The F/OSS movement does not have a lock on terms like "community" or "non-profit". In fact, these terms had meaning long before RMS started getting fed up with a proprietary printer driver.

It doesn't sound to me like this CRM system came with a F/OSS license. Your complaint seems to be that the CRM system is being sold by a non-profit corporation that is just a front for a for-profit corp. That is a completely different matter that has nothing to do with F/OSS. I think that non-profits fronting for for-profits is definitely something to complain about. But unfortunately it seems to be (currently) perfectly legal. Debt counseling services seem to be the worst exploiters of this legal situation.

My point is that the rationale used by the author of the parent post in support of the proposition that IP should be "rejected" as property could just as easilly be applied to other forms of property.

And my point was that he wasn't arguing for rejecting IP as a whole, just that software patents create a climate where someone who could normally set up a business on his own (with the only required investment being a computer), now potentially needs an enormous amount of money to either defend himself from software patents (at least $US1.5-2 million per case), or to obtain a portfolio of defensive patents (not free either, and not a guarantee for not being sued).

Something that impedes the free market like that, needs quite good hard data in favour of it for it to be defendable from a macro-economical point of view imho.

our rationale could also be applied to other types of IP, not just software, which come about in rapidly developing fields. The same "sky will fall" arguments were made in the past (some over 100 years ago) and they proved to be dead wrong or wildly exaggerated.

I'm not saying the sky will fall or that software development will come to a halt. Microsoft, IBM and friends will happily go on. It's just that you create a climate where the big players can more or less control who can join the club and who can't, buying out or suing to bankruptcy the ones that don't play according to their rules. A bit like in the telecom sector. Where are all the small time businesses there that don't have to base their business on patenting stuff to license it to the big players?

Also, I'm not claiming patents only have a mainly negative effect on software, it wouldn't surprise me if the case is similar in certain other fields. However, I have not studied them there, so I can't make any statements about that.

Software patents have only been arround since 1998 (date of the State Street decision) so I don't really give much credence to your conclusion that they "do not result in more prosperity or innovation." There just hasn't been enough time to develop evidence in support of such a proposition.

Software patents have been around since quite a bit earlier, even in Europe (the base patent on mp3 compression dates from 1985 or 1986). As far as enforcement in courts is concerned, the slippery slope in the US started already with Diamond vs. Diehr in 1981. And it's not my conclusion, it's the conclusion of those studies (see below for a few).

I could respond by saying that the US leads the world, by far, in the software industry and is the only country that allows software patents. But that would be an oversimplification of the complex issues involved.

Absolutely, since the US dominance started well before there was any talk of software patents. However, it's not the only one that allows them, at least Japan has them as well.

For every one of the "studies" you refer to, I can probably point to another "study" that says the opposite.

Here are some of "my" "studies". I'd love to see yours.

• Study by the Federal Trade Commission from October 2003 (extracts with the software patent related stuff from that report). Conclusions: many indications that software patents hamper innovation because of, among others, patent thickets.
• Empirical study by Bessen&Hunt on the effects of software patents in the US. Conclusion: software patents have resulted in a transfer of R&D money to patent departments and has not resulted in increased R&D. Because of the incremental nature of software development, patents hinder instead of encourage innovation.

Well I was a bit lax with the term "any losses". The fact is that you are liable for at most $50. The credit card company almost always eats the whole amount though.

And to respond to the person differentiating between credit cards and debit cards, I was very specific in only mentioning credit cards. The same protections do not apply for debit cards, which is the reason you are much safer with a credit card you pay off in full every month rather than a debit card.

The FTC issue here is that the FTC has some antitrust responsibilities, and there are situations under which antitrust law can overcome patent law. A crucial issue here is patents which cover de-facto standards. Anyone can get a very narrow patent by narrowing the claims. Normally, a narrow patent isn't useful, because it's easy to do the same thing in some other way. But if, say, Microsoft comes up with a unique way of doing something, makes it a de-facto standard, and patents it, such a patent can prevent interoperability.

But enforcing such a patent may be an antitrust violation. That's where the FTC comes in. If a patent is only useful if you're the dominant player, the patent is valid but enforcing it is a violation of antitrust law. It's not a patentability issue; it's a restraint of trade issue, which is the FTC's area.

If antitrust enforcement hadn't been out to lunch since the Carter administration, we'd have more cases on this and the obnoxious use of narrow patents by dominant players would be far less of a problem. Maybe the FTC is waking up. It seems unlikely from the Bush administration, but some good stuff has actually been happening over there.

Old news too.

FTC already looked into this.

FTC spent months last year looking at patents and innovation.

Their final report came out in Oct 2003.

FTC will probably make recomendations to congress which may or may not make changes to law.

If you read some of the reports, you will notice that the recomendations are not anti-patent as a whole but most are merely concerned with patent quality.

Old news, misquoted into another typical slashdot misleading headline.

• Study by the Federal Trade Commission from October 2003 (extracts with the software patent related stuff from that report). Conclusions: many indications that software patents hamper innovation because of, among others, patent thickets.
• Empirical study by Bessen&Hunt on the effects of software patents in the US. Conclusion: software patents have resulted in a transfer of R&D money to patent departments and has not resulted in increased R&D. Because of the incremental nature of software development, patents hinder instead of encourage innovation.
• Study ordered by the European Commission in preparation of the European software patents directive. It did not suit their goals however, so they avoid referring to it. Quote: "Unless this fundamental lack of knowledge is addressed in a more structured manner, any proposal to optimise the patent system in respect of software-related inventions is based on nothing more than wild guesses or wishful thinking."

They may also address the issue of "patent trolls

Does this mean that I should now look at the FTC Website with a -1 setting in Mozilla? :-)

First you accuse me of mischaracterizing the FFII.

That can happen with a comment title like the one above...

If you read carefully (I believe the first parenthesis in my response) I clearly wrote that this was the view of the one cambridge ffii presenter.

Who was that? James Heald? I'd be extremely surprised if he'd say something like that (though not impossible I guess, we all make mistakes).

Next, you attempt to equate a sound bite's use of the word "trivial" with "nonobvious", which sounds to me like a bit spin-doctoring by you.

How else is the patent system supposed to stop trivial patents, other then through careful application of the novelty and non-obvious conditions? Without software patents, there's still the "technical character" test in Europe, but that one has been completely eroded by the EPO so it doesn't mean squat anymore... Virtually everything has become "technology" in their eyes. See the page I referred to in my previous post.

But, even if you were right, the fact is that airplanes crash occasionally too, and yet it's still better than walking.

I argue that patent law is so unfit for advances in abstract reasoning, logic and mathematics that you can't but end up with tons of trivial and/or very broad patents if you allow software patents. The end result is that the resulting monopolies hamper innovation much more than they encourage it.

Some studies to back up my claims:

• Study by the Federal Trade Commission from October 2003 (extracts with the software patent related stuff from that report). Conclusions: many indications that software patents hamper innovation because of, among others, patent thickets.
• Empirical study by Bessen&Hunt on the effects of software patents in the US. Conclusion: software patents have resulted in a transfer of R&D money to patent departments and has not resulted in increased R&D. Because of the incremental nature of software development, patents hinder instead of encourage innovation.
• Study ordered by the European Commission in preparation of the European software patents directive. It did not suit their goals however, so they avoid referring to it. Quote: "Unless this fundamental lack of knowledge is addressed in a more structured manner, any proposal to optimise the patent system in respect of software-related inventions is based on nothing more than wild guesses or wishful thinking."

Many more are linked on the page I gave you earlier.

Your comment about no software patents being the default argument position is dubious at best as the counter argument (which in fact you allude to using the term 'intertia') could be made quite easily - patents have worked quite well for many years.

No software patents is the default position in Europe. The European Patent Convention excludes them, and so did the European Patent Office until it started with its creative interpretation claiming that "a computer program executed by a computer" is not the same as "a computer program as such". When you change the law, and on top of that adapt it to accomodate the behaviour of the people that started breaking it, then you have to provide quite convincing arguments (preferably in the form of macro-economical studies) that this is a good thing.

Yes, i agree the system has been flawed and needs reform, but the fundamental idea is sound. Why should software be any different? To claim that you have absolutely the default position is nonsense; it's