Slashdot Mirror

if I remember correctly, patents *only* apply to commercial use for sale. They do not apply to making a thing for yourself and using it. Is this correct?

By law, a patent owner can " exclude members of the public from making, using, or selling the claimed invention".

It's very hard to claim damages from noncommercial use, and traditionally lawsuits from that were rare. However, pre-internet, commercialization was just about the only way someone could spread an invention widely. So today, it's possible that a project like Debian may be claimed as damaging a company by infringing it's patents and distributing the results.

What a patent holder cannot do is stop someone from discussing or analyzing the invention. Even it they use full duplicates of the patent text to do so. (Patents are unlike copyrights in that way). But the age of the internet has muddled this point as well. Now that patents are handed out for software, what happens to the kind of person (and they do exist) that can execute source code in his head? (or just on paper?)

it would seem a form of feudalism with petty kings will be next.

The end result of a "free market" process will always be feudalism or totaltarianism, unless some force outside the market acts to maintain the "freedom".

GameTab - Game Reviews Database

If you look at their bandwidth stats,
who's gonna pay the bill?
According to http://www.rric.net/faq/speeds.htm, the subscribers pay for usage; slashdot users should be billed to suck up that much bandwidth, eh!

Welcome to the Ruby Ranch Internet Cooperative Association The Ruby Ranch Internet Cooperative Association ("the Coop") is a member-owned and operated provider of high-speed Internet connectivity to homes in the Ruby Ranch neighborhood in Summit County, Colorado.

• contact information
• information for Ruby Ranch subscribers and potential subscribers

The Coop was founded in 2001 because no one offered DSL or cable modem Internet access in our neighborhood, and because the voice telephone service to the neighborhood is of such poor quality that it is not possible to get modem connections faster than about 26K bits per second. The Coop is a Colorado nonprofit corporation and is federally tax-exempt under 501(c)(12).

The Coop has by now accomplished almost everything that is needed to be able to launch service. The Coop has obtained a DSLAM (DSL access multiplexer) and the subscribers have their DSL modems. The Coop has tested the DSL equipment and has confirmed that it will do what we need. A point-to-point microwave link needed to connect the DSLAM to a frame relay T1 line has been designed, constructed, and placed into service. Cabinets and protective equipment have been installed in a barn where the DSLAM will be located. You can see a system diagram and description. Nearly all of the subscribers have arranged for inside wiring work as well as installation of DSL modems and DSL routers, and several subscribers have installed local area networks permitting two or more computers to share the DSL connection. The DSLAM and associated routers have been configured and a block of IP addresses has been obtained and routed. A monitoring system has been set up to monitor the DSL connections, and a second monitoring system has been set up to monitor the UPS (uninterruptable power supply) and the cabinets. The Coop has acquired spares for some of its equipment, with the goal of reducing down-time in the event of equipment failure.

By far the biggest challenge faced by the Coop, a challenge that dwarfed any of the Coop's technical and financial challenges, was gaining access to subloops from Qwest under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. (The subloops are needed to connect the DSLAM to the subscriber homes. The buried telephone cable in our neighborhood has some three times as many subloops as are actually needed for voice service, and the subloops we wish to rent are among the hundreds of spare subloops which otherwise would generate no revenue for Qwest.) The course of negotiations was such that the Coop found it necessary to file an informal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission and subsequently found it necessary to pursue arbitration before the Colorado Public Service Commission ("CoPUC"). In the arbitration, the CoPUC found that "all of [the Coop's] proposed equipment is compatible with the Qwest network," and that "Qwest is technically able to accommodate [the Coop's] proposal." The CoPUC found that the Coop is entitled to pay "wholesale" rates for the subloops rather than much higher retail rates. Finally, the CoPUC found that because the Coop will be providing only data services (not voice services) and because the Coop will be offering its services to everyone in its service area, the Coop does not need to be a CoPUC-licensed telephone company. (This is very good news, since being a licensed telephone company would impose prohibitive accounting and record-keeping burdens.) After the CoPUC's arbitration decision there were further negotiations with Qwest, and a signed Interconnect Agreement between the Coop and Qwest has now been submitted to the CoPUC for approval.

The chief remaining action items are:

• Burying cable between the barn and the cross-connect box, also called a Feeder Distribution Interface (FDI) or Serving Area Interface (SAI).
• Working with Qwest to get a Field Connection Point (FCP) installed at the cross-connect box. Qwest is obligated to have it ready for service no later than Friday, June 21, 2002, but has agreed to make best efforts to have it installed sooner.
• Working with Qwest to get subloops connected between the FCP and subscriber homes.

Barring unforeseen difficulties, the Coop expects to be able to launch service by June 1, 2002, and perhaps sooner.

This page is http://www.rric.net .

This kind of thing has been happening with increasing frequency recently, and in many instances the subsequent holder of the domain name is a porner trying to catch those who go to the name thinking that it's still what it used to be.

When the name previously was used for childrens materials my guess is that a case could be made that the second person is intentionally targeting children - and the existing legal system has plenty of cauldrons of boiling oil for those kinds of folks.

There are several useful resources: There's Carl Opendahl's "Considerations for innocent domain name owners"http://www.patents.com/dno.htm

And then there's the collection of things by Ellen Rony at http://www.domainhandbook.com/media.html In particular see: Pornography Takes Over Financial Site for Children http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/26/technology/26NET .html

A law firm (Oppedahl & Larson LLP) owns patents.com. There is actually some good stuff there. And of course, there is always Freepatents.org, IBM's Gallery of Obscure Patents, and O'Reilly's list of Controversial Patents.

A friend of mine who runs SearchEngineWatch has been very interested in the meta tag lawsuits and has actually been an expert witness for Terri Welles in Playboy's meta tag lawsuit against her.

He has a very interesting page listing Meta Tag Lawsuits which summarizes some of the recent cases, whether they have been settled, and the importance of the settlement.

My understanding is that the courts have ruled that you cannot use trademarked meta tags if you are attempting to deceptive with them (see Oppedahl & Larson v. Advanced Concepts) or attempting to "hijack" another web page. But if you have a legitimate reason to be using a trademark term to properly catalog your site then its use would be legitimate.

I don't think the courts have made a definitive ruling on the legitimate use of trademarked terms in meta tags yet. But that might happen in the Terri Welles countersuit. And she did win her original case allowing her to use trademarked terms on her site. And Playboy was denied an appeal.

I'd say Pez fan sites have a legitimate reason to use the term in meta tags based on the Playboy vs. Terri Wells case. But the sad thing here is that PezCandy has a right to sue and small players without the resources to fight back will simply back down.

Hopefully we'll get a definitive ruling on this soon from somebody who can afford to fight back.

Joachim

I was reading these just before this story popped up.
http://www.bitlaw.com/internet/index.html
http://www.bitlaw.com/internet/linking.html
http://www.bitlaw.com/internet/webpage.html#linkin g
http://www.bitlaw.com/links/articles.html#Internet
http://www.patents.com/weblaw.sht#lo
http://www.bitlaw.com/hot/totalnews.html

Here's why I was reading about this:
http://libertyonline.hypermall.co m/copyright.html

And for more fun, view the source of this one:
(extracted from a frameset)
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/4446/con tent.html