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In December, retail sales of sedans, multipurpose vehicles and sport utility vehicles plummeted 19% -- the seventh straight monthly drop.

Those WFOE rule changes for automotive don't kick in until 2022 - if ever (China is famous for slow-walking regulatory changes). Current rules ban WFOE status for automotive factories. Since this factory is breaking ground, the controlling entity already exists - and that means it is majority owned by Chinese entities. By law.

As far as the ICE rules - read it yourself. There is an exemption for investment projects. Guess what - nearly every large Chinese company is considered an investment project, and the local Government (as well as the Provincial, usually) invest cash into the project and benefit from employment. Pretty much any company that would get Provincial level-or-higher investment would be considered an investment project - and exempt from the rule.

The companies dodging the most tax are not the "digital companies" but the old style hardware companies.
Germany thus also subsidizes this way Siemens, Daimler, etc...
This problem has to be solved first.

https://www.industryweek.com/c...

Can you be more specific? i.e. actual union names?

My experience with teaching unions is that they are among the most militant. Where I live, in the last couple of weeks they had a 5 day strike at the end of the school year breaking their contract terms because the legislature hadn't yet gotten to voting on what the governor promised them in terms of a future pay raise.

My experience with nursing unions is that they spend a lot of effort co-opting other groups, like home health care workers, attempting to force their employers to become union-only shops.

I'm not as familiar with engineering unions, but here's the first Google result I found, which doesn't sound very promising...

Counterfeits can come from trashed or recycled products as well as inexpensive products that are spiffed up and made to look like the new, higher-end products on the market.

More and more counterfeit parts are showing up in consumer, automotive, industrial, and any other industry that relies on electronic components. Federal law has been passed to confront the problem at the supplier end, but only for the military industry.

Actually, there is already a way to measure one's impairment at the time of measurement and is an alternative to substance screening. It is more effective than drug screening and also indicates when one is too fatigued to be performing their job safely.

http://www.industryweek.com/public-policy/impairment-tests-drug-screen-alternative

They should close Moffett Field and redevelop the land. I suspect nobody could afford to operate it without subsidies, especially if the land value was assessed properly.

I like how the chart at the end actually looks a lot more like a peaking temperature. They set up a strawman to make "skeptics" look ridiculous by having them "believe" that temperature was flat while it was rising. That ridiculous fake argument masks the fact that they are doing a linear extrapolation, and that that extrapolation is pulling away from the moving average. And we all know how linear extrapolation always works as a predictor, right? That's why the DOW is now at 72,000 and Pets.com is the powerhouse of the world economy. Also why my Dad has 11,300 wives.

Of note is that that temperature chart looks a LOT like a log chart of planetary industrial output, which has leveled off in recent years. Almost as if the warming hasn't come from a persistent gas who's concentration continues to rise even as production falls, but by a transitory gas that is forced into higher concentrations by continuous industrial output, but which falls quickly with falling production and actually works as a significant greenhouse gas. You know, water vapor. The other product of combustion.

But that doesn't mean that CO2 isn't a problem. It is a world-killing problem, but not because of some stupid idea like global warming. It is OCEAN ACIDIFICATION that will destroy us all, not balmy temperatures and poorly defined "increases in violent weather". Might want to stock up on canned tuna.

I don't think it adds up now either. But in 50 to 70 years I believe may be worth the cost. Global steel consumption is projected to be 1.359 billion metric tons this year and 1.441 billion metric tons in 2012 (source). Emerging economies are investing heavily in infrastructure and this trend will continue for some time. Then what about the next round of emerging economies? I don't claim to be correct but I think it is a likely scenario.

This is indeed a troubling trend -- the fact that MacroSolve and Lodsys are filing patent enforcement actions against one-person app development shops, rather than against the "deep-pockets" targets like Google and Apple, does not bode well for the future of innovation. Such lawsuits will inevitably discourage some small-scale developers from continuing their work, which will in turn deprive consumers of technological advances. What a shame.

From the language used in this patent enforcement action,it sounds like Lodsys just wants to settle and nab some licensing deals. Honestly, it probably would have been smarter for them to go after Apple and/or other deep pockets, if money's all they want, instead of pursuing one-man development shops; after all, you can't bleed a stone.

Since Intellectual Ventures started filing patent enforcement lawsuits, I now completely disbelieve the claims of any business entity that it is buying up patents for "defensive purposes only." Now everyone seems to be buying membership into these supposedly-"defensive" patent aggregation companies. What will happen when OIN and other aggregators (inevitably) start to sue each other? Could be interesting.

This brings to mind a quote I once heard from (former Van Halen frontman) David Lee Roth: When asked how you know when you've "made it," Roth responded: "When you can spell 'subpoena' without thinking about it." The abundance of copyright and patent litigation volleyed against Android is testimony to its success. Time will tell whether or not it will be able to survive the onslaught.

The increasingly complex web that's developed from all of the mobile patent enforcement actions is truly mind-boggling. What's more, it all seems rather wasteful, when one considers the fact that the likely result of all these lawsuits will be settlements and cross-licensing deals. How anticlimactic.

The increasingly complex web that's developed from all of the mobile patent enforcement actions is truly mind-boggling. What's more, it all seems rather wasteful, when one considers the fact that the likely result of all these lawsuits will be settlements and cross-licensing deals. How anticlimactic.

The recent Intellectual Ventures suits present just one example showing that the NPE (“patent troll”) business model is fast becoming dominant in the world of IP. Thomas Edison held over 1,000 patents, but practiced none of them. He invented, which is what he did best, and let others manufacture products from his inventions. If an inventor cannot sue for patent infringement and recover damages, they why should anyone invent anything? Only vigorous patent enforcement rewards inventors for their inventions and incentivizes others to invent.

One big problem with a patent enforcement suit like this one is that the court is bound by patent law not to review claims for how obvious they seem now, but rather for how obvious they were at the time of filing. That's one of the difficulties raised by this kind of case, which asks a judge and/or jury to determine what might or might not have been obvious 20 years before. However, it's up to the court to determine the validity of the patents involved, and Allen has every legal right to use the system to his advantage.

Even so, I expect Allen either to file an amended complaint or to appeal the ruling on this case. Someone like him doesn't tend to bring a suit like this unless he thinks he has a reasonable chance of winning. At the very least, he can use his billions to harass the tech companies via endless patent litigation, until the two sides work out some kind of settlement.

This should give Apple a run for its patent enforcement revenue on those new 3D TV screens. I wonder which Goliath will win this war over TV-you-can-touch.

If I were you I would consult a patent litigation attorney or other patent professional, to learn more about your legal options. Sometimes a request for reexamination can invalidate an issued patent. If a challenger can prove that a patent holder didn't actually "invent" the item it has patented, then that may serve as a basis for invalidation of a patent. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem likely that you can sue on the basis of patent infringement, since you never patented your program. But there are ways to challenge issued patents. And, in the future, you might consider applying for patents on your inventions. By the way, Microsoft's acts are not "patent troll" behavior. In common usage of the term, a "patent troll" is a company that doesn't make its own products, but purchases patents owned by inventors, and then sues (usually large) corporations that have used the technology protected by the patents it purchased.

Yes, the nearly-five-year lag in issuance of this patent seems to have rendered it little more than quaint. However, it may still prove useful as a piece of the puzzle in the growing movement toward full-body motion-based computer interfaces. As one aspect of this, Microsoft's technology may prove valuable, and could even earn it significant sums in patent enforcement.

This is a great idea, and most likely it will pull in substantial revenue from patent enforcement. I hope this product hits the market soon, and only wish it could have been around for many of my Christmases past. It's annoying to have to choose between re-gifting and pissing off Grandma ... or, worse, doing both.

Unless Amazon is claiming a patent on a specific technological invention, I'm not sure how well their product will fare, in either the application or in later patent enforcement. The concept of advertising in ebooks seems to be in itself no more than a means of "organizing human behavior," or an "abstract idea" -- exactly the kind of specious "business method" patent that was invalidated in the recent Bilski decision.

The US is still the world's largest manufacturing nation and many manufacturing companies are based in the US. http://www.industryweek.com/research/iw1000/2010/iw1000rank.asp Can we put this myth to rest at least until the US slips to second or third.

This invention provides a great answer to anyone arguing against the existence of the patent law system as a necessary incentive for spurring innovation. This example of the intersection of patents and the public interest shows that intellectual property law is beneficial not only for profit margins, but also for the public interest.

I don't know why this myth continues to persist. We, in the USA, manufacture a whole ton of crap. In fact, we're still tops in the world for manufacturing output!

How did you get modded up? America is still a manufacturing powerhouse (we're #1 in the world in manufactured goods ). However, we employ less people due to automation and other efficiencies.

It's known by names such as The Arrogance of Ignorance or consider reading a research article on being Unskilled and Unaware (Google HTML translation of a good PDF to download)

The patent office says the new rules would speed up the patent process, but critics say they hurt inventors.

Inventors? Or just multi-billion-dollar transnational conglomerates?

Multi-billion-dollar transnational conglomerates tend to hire a lot of inventors. Some of them do use patents as a key part of their business model. It is likely that efforts that undercut such business models would mean that such companies would be less effective at capitalizing on the innovations produced by their inventors, which could mean that they would hire fewer inventors or hire them at reduced salaries. Some small companies also use patents, sometimes to collect money for sales lost to powerful players and sometimes just to deter competition and potentially become a big player too. Undermining these business models can also lead to reduced demand for inventors.

Eliminating or minimizing the drawbacks that come with a patent system may create enough opportunities for inventors to maintain demand, but it can also shift money away from inventors towards craftsmen and marketers. After all, if you can't make more money by protecting something that's new, why not just make something that's old better and invest in branding it to artificially stimulate demand?

The population has leveled off in China because the dictatorship there has decreed that couples may only have one child each. It has little to do with the economy there 'booming.' The booming economy may, however, be a result of the 'one child' dictate. That's one of the benefits of the 'one child' policy that the government explicitly cites.

While China's one child per family has had an affect, the booming economy also has a part in reducing the reproductive rate. India has no such law mandating only one child per family yet their population has leveled off as well. In both cases the economy has had a big impact. And in the west, the developed nations of North America and Europe, if it weren't for immigrants their populations would be falling:

"Developed countries usually have a much lower fertility rate due to greater wealth and their individualistic culture. Mortality rates are low, birth control is easily accessible, and human beings are often deemed (by other human beings) as nothing but an economic drain, specially when they cannot produce income: because of education costs, clothing and feeding. Longer periods of time spent getting higher education often mean young people have children later in life. The result is the demographic-economic paradox."

In case you don't accept the wiki article, which was the first result from Google of "population 'replacement rate' economy", here's more:

"In Mexico and India, for instance, rates have fallen, respectively, from 6.7 and 6 children per woman in 1950 to 2.2 and 3.1 today. Of course, fertility in the most advanced nations (in terms of wealth) such as in Europe and Japan is now below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. The spread of wealth, education and urban living contributes to lower fertility almost everywhere."

First, this is not a dis against InPhase. If they are able to release it to market, I salute them. I wish they can get this released, as it would be a major boon to the computing community as a whole for backups.

Holographic storage announcements seem to be popping up every so often, with a release date later that year. However it never arrives. For example, Tamarack had a product in the early 90s, made some very good announcements... then never heard anything from them publically.

Hopefully someone will release a reliable, rugged, decently fast holographic storage system, but I sometimes wonder if Duke Nukem Forever and perhaps a sequel will be released before anything like the "terabyte on a card" ever hits the consumer market.

Link here to article about a similar announcement:

http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?Artic leID=269&SectionID=38

Another link:

http://colossalstorage.net/eetimes.htm

http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?Artic leID=9128

http://www.industryweek.com/CurrentArticles/asp/ar ticles.asp?ArticleID=1400

While I have grown to "trust" IBM more, they are still far from being in the ranks of the "free as in freedom" crowd. In fact the article implies that as far as IP goes they are going in the other direction. On the other hand this 500 patent overture may be their way of having their cake and eat it too. If OpenSource really does take over the world IBM is in a great position to capitalize. They lose at most $1billion/year from IP but gain untold billions from consulting.

Note as well that IBM's 500 patent give away only applies to OSI approved licenses, they can still sue their competitors. This is great for OS because IBM's competitors fight back against IBM but not OSI projects. Consider SUN's move with the 1600 patents, they tried a quick bait-and-switch but people caught them on it. Now SUN only has two choices, 1) really open OpenSolaris or 2) watch OpenSolaris die and whither along with SUN's formerly good name.

The difference between the two is like this, for SUN we have a case of "The emperor isn't wearing any clothes." With IBM it's "The emperor may not be wearing clothes but he's gone to the laundry to see if there's anything there that fits." In other words I am cautiously optomistic with IBM, but I think SUN is outright trying to game the OS system. In fact, for me personally, SUN has shown themselves to be totally devoid of any redeeming qualities. They had a chance and blew it, I don't buy at all their little act that they are working the kinks out of their CDDL. SUN knows EXACTLY what they want and it totally conflicts with 71% of the OSI world(this is the percentage of OSI projects on sourceforge using either the GPL or LGPL, 67% use straight GPL). So SUN is trying to make "overtures" in the hopes that we will let them slide by. They have reams of lawyers, they don't need us to tell them what is wrong with their CDDL, hell they already distribute loads of GPL software with their proprietary stuff. At the very least their first attempt should have been better than it was.

Real cheap solar cells plus cheap transportation to orbit probably means a very cost-effective solar power satellite system is possible which can make power available 24/7/365 without concerns about storage.

A network of orbital power satellites or putting a big solar cell farm in the L5 position is probably cheaper than the $16,000,000,000 the International Energy Agency says we need to spend to continue our fossil fuel habit.

Clearly not everyone believes Snopes, because I found both the "pinto/penis" and the "nova/no go" stories mentioned here, here, and here. All cite the same usual suspects, so who can tell which are true, and which are false. However, the BBC does mention the "pinto" story here. We all know the BBC never makes anything up...

According to this the demise of IP rights has granted them the ability to proudly cheer "We're number six! We're number six!" :)

Yes, and numer 5/6 means higher than Hong Kong, Germany, Canada, the UK and Japan. To name a few.

According to this the demise of IP rights has granted them the ability to proudly cheer "We're number six! We're number six!" :)