Slashdot Mirror

Please read the actual patent claims themselves before declaring prior art. The fact that the Slashdot headline boldly proclaims "Microsoft Patents Foot Computing" doesn't mean that the patent covers every manifestation of foot-controlled computing. Every single time a patent is discussed in Slashdot, we go through the same song and dance about how there's prior art. And yes, I know it's Slashdot and nobody actually reads the primary sources, but jeez, it gets old.

For a readable primer on how the US patent system works, read Schechter and Thomas' Principles of Patent Law

Care to back that up?

Sure. Read the definitions of Black's Law Dictionary http://west.thomson.com/store/product.aspx?product _id=40231642&promcode=520963, the definitive source of such definitions in American jurisprudence. (Hint: Reiser is held in an American facility facing American charges in an American court. Thus, American definitions words apply.)

In England (where I expect you sourced gaol from), jails == prisons; the same facilities are used for both unconvicted inmates "on remand" and those who have been duly convicted and are serving out their sentences.

In America, jails (except for Texas, which has "state jails" for sentences up to 2 years, and the federal system, which often houses in BOP "prison" facilities pre-trial) are used for pre-trial detention and for sentences up to a year. Prisons are much larger facilities exclusively for sentenced inmates serving a year or more.

They don't have to be, but it is the State that creates these secrets, not the company. Without ridiculous laws against reverse-engineering, and ridiculous patent laws, anyone would be able to dissassemble any file format and then write software to use that format. Your State prevents you from doing this and entering the market, hence prices go up and service goes down, dig?

Further, the Commission was anxious not to extend its patent proposals into the field of copyright, which protects computer programs as 'literary works'. The Commission states that it wants to preserve and ensure the continuation of the copyright provisions whereby software developers are free to reverse engineer another's program without infringing copyright.

In re Napster, 377 F.Supp. 2d 796 (ND Cal 2005)

The above wishes for you to check volume 377 of the Federal Suppliment, 2d, page 796.

The decision on the case was made in 2005 by the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

What is dangerous is jumping to the conclusion of why it is changing. If we were to "accept" the opinions of a few climatologists that human nature is what is causing the climate change...

I beg to differ. In a recent study by Science Magazine, a search of the ISI database on the keyword "climate change" yielded 928 peer-reviewed papers, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF WHICH disputed the conclusion that global warming is caused by man-made changes to the atmosphere.

The so-called "debate" only exists in the popular press, where (in a misguided attempt to provide "balance",) 53% of articles express doubt on global warming. Red-staters may not like this article very much either, but I challenge any of them to find a respectable counterargument.

> Last time I looked the US was the 1st on the list of scientific
> papers published by countries with more than 60% of the papers.

Then you must not have looked since about 1960. As of 2005, the US published only 33% of world science papers, significantly less than the EU (38%) and only half again more than Asia-Pacific (25%). source, more detail

What's interesting to note is that the EU's share of world publications has increased by almost 20% in the last 20 years (from 32%) and Asia's by almost 100%, but the USA's has fallen by almost 20% (from 40% to 33%).

In other words, the US has been losing its tech edge for at least the last 20 years.

Thomson Gale's parent, Thomson, does own Thomson ISI, which produces the Web of Science.

Yes there are. They have a regime even more lax than the US. From Thomson Scientific:

"To date, software has been protected through patents by law if its computer program is stored on physical media such as a CD-ROM or floppy disk. However, under the terms of the new law (2002), it is no longer necessary to store computer programs on such media to ensure patentability.

The new bill will allow greater protection of computer programs. Software associated with computer programs will be treated as a tangible 'thing' and can therefore be considered as a patentable item. So the law will protect computer programs not stored on media such as CD-ROM, allowing intangible computer programs stored on a network to be protected as well."

I stand corrected. Almost everyone agrees. Or maybe "almost all reasonable people".

Who cares about stealing numbers from the phone book? That would be RURAL TELEPHONE SERVICE CO.. At least they cared enough to spend a lot of money on legal fees.

And FYI, there are two BIG web publishers of Legal info: West/Thompson (used to be just West) and LexisNexis and a few smaller ones, like VersusLaw (where I work).

Not a sig, but my fav--
There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who don't.

Both Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis are subsidiaries of foreign corporations. Westlaw belongs to Thomson Corporation, which is Canadian. Lexis-Nexis belongs to Reed Elsevier, a UK-Netherlands corporation.

You'd think this would make it easier for legislators to loosen the grip these companies have on public law. But who would lobby for that? The lawyers who have to pay for subscriptions? Hah! Lawyers support any obstacle keeping citizens away from direct contact with the law. The price of a database subscription is, to them, a small price for their exclusive access to the law, and for the dependence upon them by their fellow citizens (if I can so loosely use the honorific, "citizen," to include persons without ready recourse to law).

And by the way, I AM a lawyer, but I don't practice anymore. I prefer writing software, because software systems, unlike legal systems, can be improved with ease and satisfying success.

Ontario Securities Commission: Enforcement: Statements of Allegations

My reading is that the crimes alleged here are very similar to U.S. law (trading on material non-public information).

Cowpland could argue that his company didn't actually trade -- that would be an idiotic defense. The OSC would just display the trading records from the exchange.

Cowpland could argue that the information he knew was not material -- that other investors would not care. Just about as idiotic. The OSC would argue that the market did react by slamming the price of Corel stock the day the news did come out. Just about any jury in the world would see the connection by the time a prosecutor got done laying it out.

Cowpland could argue that the information was already public. He would have to introduce evidence, such as a press release or a newspaper article or a government-mandated public filing, and he would have to establish that this evidence had been disseminated to the public before his holding company sold 2.4 million shares.

It's quite unlikely that any such evidence exists.

Finally, Cowpland could argue that even though he was in possession of material non-public information, and even though he traded Corel stock, he did not do so because of the information. For example, he could produce records that show that he regularly sold 2.4 million shares of Corel during the second week of *every* month for the past two years.

Or he could argue that he had large debt payments due to a contract he entered into long before he came to know this specific material fact, and he was motivated by a desire to pay those debts. In other words, as you say, he could argue that he really needed the money.

Case in point in United States law:

Stock Trading by Insider in Possession of Inside Information Not Per Se Illegal

And finally, here is a simple introduction:

Insider Trading