Slashdot Mirror
Patenting RPC Compression?
slantyyz writes "Here's an interesting article in eCompany that talks about a company named TechSearch that buys patents for very common innovations and then chases infringers. One of the patents these guys own involves a remote server compressing and decompressing files. This one is so broad that anyone using a web server/browser is an infringer. Some companies, including United Airlines and Sara Lee have paid the license fees to avoid the legal hassles and costs.
They have even chased a known patent critic for infringing (because he has a web site, which infringes on the patent). This software patent silliness has just got to stop. Only in America..."
First, it would cost you a fair bit just to get this thrown out of court. Most likely, though, it won't be thrown out, it'd come to trial. By the time of the trial date, the prosecution would be citing it as part of their evidence and claiming it's new for some stupid trivial reason. And it'll cost you tens of thousands of dollars to contest.
It's important to understand that being in the right, morally or legally, is barely of the least importance here.
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Xenu loves you!
Slashdot patented the process of suing weblogs under the DMCA? Could they then re-insert the Scientology stuff, and counter-sue for patent infringement, if CoS got nasty?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Wouldn't it be great if BountyQuest were to really get serious about bounties?
I mean, in most parts of the world, bounty=="bring me the head of ____."
Damn straight I'd donate money to that sort of cause! I want bounties put on the heads of spammers and the asses who are trying to extort businesses through shady patents.
I should think after a few heads have been collected, there'd be a whole new attitude of cooperation and reconciliation!
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I now own a patent for "encoding english language characters for transmission over a network". Muhawhaw, everyone on the Internet is an infringer!
o verAndoverAndoverAndoverAndoverAndoverAndoverAndov erAndoverAndoverAndoverAndoverAndoverAndoverAndove rAndoverAndoverAndoverAndoverAndoverAndoverAndover again...
Maybe that's why they call it Andover.net. Because we keep seeing the same damn jokes overAndoverAndoverAndoverAndoverAndoverAndoverAnd
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I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
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Pending the replacement of this system with one that acutally does it's job, we need total removal of the patents on intellectual property.
It's not a good answer, but it would be much less damaging than allowing the current system to remain in place.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I'm starting to think that ascribing these patents to ignorance is unlikely. Some of them maybe. But these are just the kind of thing that one can use with SLAPP suits, to make the defense much more expensive. So should I really believe that it is just coincidence? Or is that cutting them undue slack?
Whatever. The answer is the same. Delete this system and rebuild from scratch. The patent office is so {clumsy|stupid|vile|corrupt} (choose the appropriate categories) that we would be better off without it.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Where do you get your water? Nearly any real popular revolution in the cities of the industrialized countries can be controlled by turning of the water.
How long do you have food for? I understand from estimates after the last earthquake that the area that I live in has food for about a week without outside deliveries.
Large scale revolution may not be totally impossible, but you have no idea of how difficult it would be, or the amount of suffering it would create. Far better would be to think of another approach. If you want it to be successful, you will probably have to think of one that isn't dramatic. The dramatic choices attract "radicals", so they tend to be discovered quickly and guarded against.
Now for the hard question: How can you guarantee that what you end up with would be any better than what you started with?
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
"I could have bought a Harley for the money I've blown on it," he said.
A problem that could easily be fixed with a 'loser pays' court system. There is no way a company like this would survive if they had to pay for harassing people with bullshit claims. As it stands, all they have to lose is a little time.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
With all due respect, what the hell are you talking about?
If that were true, then Unisys wouldn't have the ability to bully the GIMP and webmasters who create images with a non-licensed program. No one's selling anything. Because Unisys owns the patnent on LZW compression, no one else can USE it, period.
If that were true, then Amazon wouldn't have been able to force Barnes and Noble to eliminate their "one-click shopping" capability on their web site. Barnes and Noble doesn't sell anything but books. Amazon is preventing them from USING the IDEA of one-click shopping.
Make no mistake, when someone files a patent, they're claiming exclusive USE of an idea. From lawguru.com:
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First of all wate can always be turned back on if let's say a thousand people broke the doors at the plant. It's really not that big of a deal if the people hit the streets in a big way.
Having said all that a big revolution is not likely to happen here. Instead we will see increased terrorism like Oklahoma City. Right now not enough people are agitated and the Rich and the powerful of this country are very careful to squeeze slowly and constantly bombard the population with the message that everything is cool. The first wave should be to agitate the masses into discomfort. Once you shake them out of their TV stupor then the corpies will might panic and apply overcorrection. Of course this will back fire by agitating even more sheep.
So the next revolution will kick off with mundane stuff like fertilizer, poisoned water supplies, nerve gas released on subways and skyscrapers and of course good old snipers. The west is already agitated beyond belief thanks to Radio Talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh. A huge percentage of the states like nevada, montana, arizona, texas etc are already arming and training. All we gotta do is to nudge them over the edge. Believe me that's easy as these people believe the UN is poised to invade america and that the govt has weather control machines.
"Now for the hard question: How can you guarantee that what you end up with would be any better than what you started with? "
No guarantees. Sometimes you just gotta shake things up and hope for the best. If life is miserable enough then people will tear things down with the hope that what follows can not be worse. The trick is to make life more and more miserable for the sheep. Really your best best to destroy TV receiving satelites or bomb the cable companies. Once you stop the TV the sheep will panic like all hell (man wouldn't that be fun to watch!).
War is necrophilia.
The UK has made their decision and they are not backing down from it. Germany seems to be split and could go either the US way or the UK way. If they go the UK way then the rest of the EU will follow and that might wake up the US.
Each of the links, including Slashdot, violate the patent in question.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
It's bad general wording like this that really bothers me. Yes, the patent is ludicrously broad, but what exactly is defined as remote? I have a gateway for my cablemodem, it happens to be in another room in my house - but still in my house, is that remote? What if I link two business offices that are in seperate rental areas but the same building, or two buildings on different properties that are technically different lots? IMHO if I can read and understand a patent in less than 30 - 45 minutes, it's not a proper patent, because it's not defining its terms well enough.
cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
Back in the '80s CompuServe had GIF files on their servers that were downloaded to a user's computer to be decompressed and displayed. And even if the patent is for a single program to do that (I don't read legalese), the old Compuserve Navigator program did just that.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Those who can, do.
Those who can't, teach.
Those who can't teach, buy patents and sue everyone else.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
... the day someone successfully patents the first legal argument. When the lawyers realize that their bread and butter has many of the same "patentable" characteristics as algorithms, they just might get a clue about the current situation.
Alternatively, someone might try to defend themselves in court by saying that it is impossible to prove two algorithms are equivalent (because doing so is equivalent to solving the Halting Problem), so you can't really prove infringement. This is of course BS in this context (you can often prove equivalence for a particular pair of algorithms - it's the general case that steps in the Halting Problem), but it might confuse things enough to get you out of court.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
[XYZ]modem all predate this patent.
They were specifically designed for compressing data across a slow communications link.
In Unix, ftp sites would use "compress" (.Z files)... long before '91.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
Digital Cable and WebTV better watch out... Not to give these fools any more ideas on who they can sue... but this patent seems to be extremely broad!
This patent seems to cover Digital Cable and WebTV.
>"Secondly, the remote query and data retrieval system can be connected to the remote host via an auxiliary digital I/O line 37. An example of such a line is derived from a commercial FM broadcast station and uses one of its two sidebands to transmit digital data (so called "silent radio"). This is a low bandwidth (under 2400 baud) channel of the type used to provide announcements on "Times Square" like displays."
The Atvef-A data, used by Microsoft's WebTV gets data from TV broadcasts in just this manner, and that data is used to retrieve AV data.
>"Third, as noted above, the EUS 10 can interface the host 11 via a video input line 26a. This type of signal is derived, for example, from the Cable TV (CATV) Adapter's (i.e. Sprucer) 22 identified above. In an operational example, a remote query could be initiated via the adapter remote control 24 which would then be transmitted to the local cable service center 26 which, by prearrangement, will forward it to the server 11. The query, and its associated response, may be preformulated and prestored at the server 11 or even at an EUS requiring only periodic updates via a packeted query answer (i.e. PQA; a Prestored Query Answer). After being cleared via an appropriate security check (e.g. subscriber password), the server 11 may initiate an AV (Audio-Visual) response to the EUS 10. The channel through which the specified AV response is sent to the EUS 10, and as also designated by pre-arrangement, is tuned via the CATV adapter."
This is how Digital Cable works -- which all cable companies are migrating to.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
Actually, this patent is probably never going to be litigated. Those website's who've already paid their $30K-$80K extortion to these guys should have held back.
The patent office is reviewing this patent, and it's expected to be thrown out upon review (which is why TechSearch has offered web sites to pay "just" $10K now, and $60K after the completed review doesn't reject the patent, to save web sites the huge license fee they're going to charge if the patent isn't overturned). Even the thugs at TechSearch know they've lost this one, and they're just trying to squeeze a few more dollars before the end.
During review, 64% of patents have their claims changed -- this patent is expected to be completely overturned by prior art that goes back to the 50's.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
"I could have bought a Harley for the money I've blown on it," he said."
Only a Harley? His lawyer is working pro bono...
Do you recall the old Hayes modem trick of using one second of inactivity before and after the +++ to distinguish it from three plus signs occurring in data so that file transfers wouldn't throw the modem into command mode?
Some coworkers and I invented that.
Not for Hayes, and not that exact procedure, but we did come up with the same general idea, before Hayes patented it. Had the company we did this for not gone under, we probably would have had a legal battle on our hands. We would have won it (IMO, IANAL) on prior art, provided we weren't bankrupted by legal fees (and Hayes was the 800lb gorilla in those days).
The problem here is that we didn't do anything special. Any competent engineer given the same problem would have come up with a similar solution. To me, that fails the novelty test. If you need to challenge a patent, it should be legal to put some random engineer (or even an undergrad) on the stand and tell him or her to solve the particular problem the patent addresses. If their solution is similar enough to the patent, the patent is thrown out.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Interesting points. The origin appears to be Bell Labs. The patent was originally filed, but according to the legal status link, it looks like the maintenance fees weren't paid, and the patent was allowed to lapse. Apparently AT&T didn't think that it was worth keeping. And then something funny happened. A year and a half later, TechSearch found the patent, paid the deliquent fees and started enforcing it.
Hmmm.....
A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
I now own a patent for "encoding english language characters for transmission over a network". Muhawhaw, everyone on the Internet is an infringer!
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Not a typewriter
It couldn't be anything to do with...oh let's see...too much ridiculous litigation/sueing/countersueing/patenting blocking real innovation now could it ???
Nah...
Which leads to a far lower crime rate everywhere in Europe except the UK (which is really just Eastern America anyway), decent public transport, cleaner streets, a truly free press (i.e all points of view not just the corporatist agenda), legal cannabis in Denmark and Holland, and a generally enlightened attitude towards the human body and human sexuality (also not found in the UK).There is a great deal more to the quality of life than money. What good is money if some crackhead can point a gun at you and take it (and possibly your life as well) from you?
How long does an American who can't afford health insurance take to get a decent surgeon? This is the difference. It may take six months to get your knee op in Europe, but at least you can get it. As for America being the land of opportunity, the richest man in America was handed a very nice head start in life. Not to say that Gates hasn't worked for every penny, but if his parents had been rednecks from a trailer park, I doubt he would have amounted to much.
Here is the actual patent, courtesy of the USPTO...
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
TechSearch is totally reprehensible for doing this... even if it's legal.
As an aside, we need some major alterations to the way lawsuits are handled in this country. When a company can choose to attack an innocent individual and ruin them financially, something is clearly wrong with the system.
I've said it before, I'll say it again -- we need the equivalent of a "public defender's office" for civil suits. If someone files a frivolous lawsuit against you you should be able to defend yourself without going bankrupt. A public defender would see to it that you had legal representation, and hopefully they could get the frivolous suits thrown out of court for you, without you paying a gazillion dollars. If you are hit with a NON-frivolous lawsuit, take your chances with the PD or pay for a high-powered team of lawyers.
I think that it would result in LESS lawsuits though. The "attacker" would be more likely to think this way: "Well, since my victim is entitled to free legal representation, he is less likely to cave in and settle out of court with me -- we both know my lawsuit is bogus. I better wait until I have a GOOD reason to sue someone, to make my costly attack lawyers pay for themselves."
And yes, it would take tax money. It would work exactly like a criminal defense -- if you get hauled into court, the state will provide you a lawyer. Normally I am not in favor of more government programs, but I'm down with this idea.
An "English rule" system would probably be great. Man, anything will help at this point.
I have a great respect for the law, and I think people should be able to protect their rights or use the system to get at people who are in the wrong -- but somewhere along the way "the system" went berzerk!
Actually, I did respond. Sent a nice email which answered the questions given. Got a thank you back, and, surprisingly, my name was on the list of contributers on the recommendation.
The sad part is, here I am in the U.S. and I feel like a country 4000 miles away is more likely to take an interest in how I feel about an important issue than my own government. Have you ever heard of Lott, Daschell, Armey, etc.. asking for comments from the general population?
Perhaps a parlementary democracy is the first step towards better representation here in the U.S..
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
These days the way you do it stopping your opponents is by law suits. Or if you are a small time nobody, you call up your local script kiddy and arrange a DDOS of their website. Or if you have a lot of friends, or people in hire, you spread FUD. Later on, you can go ahead and hire the mafia.
After all, how DARE these guys not believe you, go along with your plan, or whatever.
One of the early books that I read long ago that shaped my thinking on this matter is called Faces of the Enemy, by Sam Keen. Long out of print, it even was a PBS one hour show. It is all about demonizing your opponents
However, I think that these guys are not even up to the level of suing someone over principle.
It is over a plain simple buck.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Nahh, MS has probably violated some REAL pattents and copywrites ;) not just these little bull-shit pattents.
Bull-shit. Humm. I wonder if I can pattent the use of the word bull-shit in conjunction with a verb to signify lack of worth.... I'll make millons suing people for infrigning on my pattent!!
You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
They'd better get on this right away before they lose their rights to it.
yeah, we'll kill you! but we'll send you bottled water when there is a drought.
or: Yeah we'll kill you! But we allow our employees to volunteer their spare time for community service.
"just connect this to..."
BZZT.
Liberty.
"just connect this to..."
BZZT.
Liberty.
Several months ago, I posted comments here asking people to help make their views known to the UK patent office, which was running a consultation exercise.
I remember replies to that comment which basically said "Don't bother, it's all about money, you're wasting your time" - and these were modded up quite highly.
Well the war may not be over, but a battle has been won. Perhaps if a few more of the doom-spreaders got off their a[rs]ses and did something (even ten minutes effort from the very seat you're sitting in now) perhaps laws like the DMCA and UCITA in the US would not have been passed (this comment is, of course, addressed to those Americans who don't support those laws).
"Um... Patents have a tendency to be over used..."
Yes this is true, however, we should use the current patent system to our advantage. Open Source folks should start patenting the most ludicrous things as well and making the patent "GPL" if you will. Let's make it ridiculously difficult for them to patent anything that they could use to sue people. Since the implementation would include a GPL type clause, this would definately make them think twice.
Stuff like the "one-click" and this stupid "rpc" patent would not exist if we had gotten to it first. I say, we get into the drivers seat and start patenting. Anyone would be free to implement the idea in our patent as long as they released their blueprints for implementation to the public. Let's give these bastards a taste of their own medicine.
I mean, really, the 'master class' ie., corporations have twisted the laws around until common citizens are little better than French peasants. There will never be another Thomas Edison or Leonardo DaVinci with such intractable legal and finacial restrictions in place. I predict that soon, here in the western world at least, Corporations will step on so many rights that the only recourse for change will be violence. I do not condone this, but it's true. So the next time you make a sloppy or lazy decision at work, in your employers' name, that effects the citizenry, be it through rude costomer relations or anti-piracy measures in your software, you are directly destroying our civilisation.
::I will not moderate my opinions for your stinking karma
In an effort to streamline my efforts and become a more effective troll I have devised a new Do It Yourself (TM) troll, patent pending. The premise should be fairly self evident however in the true spirit of trolling I would encourage you to choose the selection which would build the most offensive troll for your personal tastes.
As a (a: long time computer programmer b: fortune 500 consultant c: linux user since 1994) I feel I must speak my mind here. Normally I sit quietly on the sidelines but my voice must be heard. As most professionals in the field I'm sure will agree, I can safely say that as a technology (a: java b: c++ c: OOP d: Visual Basic) has been a complete and total failure. While fans of (same as last selection) have reached the rabid state of a (a: amiga user b: Apple Mac user c:Debian/GNU/Linux user) that cannot detract from that fact that (same as selection 2) is a (a: bloated convoluted mess b: terrible crime against humanity c: the most braindead idea since (a: Betamax b: freeBSD c: Python))
For (a: God's sake b: Buddha's sake c: fuck's sake) how in the hell can they expect us to (a: use a mouse with only one button b: remember to free all the mallocs c: fight for our freedoms when we can't carry a handgun in public)
I have in fact seen benchmarks which (a: show IIS cruching Apache b: even a scientologist couldn't deny c: Linus Torvalds advocates) when compared with (a: the efficiency of the Nazi regime b: OS/2 c: Fortran 77) Why this data is not readily made available to the public is beyond me. I shudder to think that (a: Microsoft is paying to stop the documents from being published b: the one click patent is not valid c: Debian/GNU/Linux is impossible to install) but that is the only conclusion I can come to. Please post information to the contrary if you posses it. Until then I will maintain my position. If you think I am over-reacting let me assure you that I (a: have written a patch which adds multi-threading to the BSD kernel b: have installed Gnome hundreds of times with no problems c: think KDE r0x hard) and my reputation is un-impeachable.
I would like to (a: thank slahsdot for giving me this forum to express myself b: drink potato vodka and have sex with my cousin c: know if these pants make my butt look big)
Yours,
All the best,
--Bob
But will they hold up in court? After losing lots of cases while still paying legal fees, won't they go under? If the patents are that absurd, then they're most likely invalid.
Funny things you have to look at on this site. They put a charity page to show that they're nice. HAHA
Also aparently owning the patent on webservers also means you don't have to label the title of the page. Unless it's supposed to be "untitled document"
Can't wait, I mean MS has probably violated several patents already, could be an intresting court case. But I got a general question, there are many companies that get featured on slashdot that the general user hates, how come this community doesn't do somthing about it other than bitch?
Oops....you'll know what I'm talkin about in a bit.
I was going to post a pithy quip about how these guys are just like the old mob bosses. But then I read this quote:
That's real inspirational. Al Capone.
It was never the object of patent laws to grant a monopoly for every trifling device, every shadow of a shade of an idea, which would naturally and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic or operator in the ordinary progress of manufactures. Such an indiscriminate creation of exclusive privileges tends rather to obstruct than to stimulate invention. It creates a class of speculative schemers who make it their business to watch the advancing wave of improvement, and gather its foam in the form of patented monopolies, which enable them to lay a heavy tax on the industry of the country, without contributing anything to the real advancement of the arts. It embarrasses the honest pursuit of business with fears and apprehensions of unknown liability lawsuits and vexatious accounting for profits made in good faith.
--U.S. Supreme Court, Atlantic Works vs. Brady, 1882
(from the article--not bad btw)
God may be on your side, but Lady Luck is MY bitch
You're right.. only in America can that business be legal and could there be someone to dream it up. You guys kick ass.
$man microsoft
Crowded elevator smell different to midget. -Chinese Proverb
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office:
Software Patent Institute
Bustpatents.com
invalid/withdrawn/pathetic software patents.
"Software Patents Tangle the Web,"
Chaotic Internet isn't the word. Congress should enact a law that states all judges must know the fruits and details of a technology based case before trying the case in a court of law. If this was the case (judges knowing and understanding whats going on,) there would be an extremely low amount of mockery of broad laws, and companies would suffer severe penalties for attempting to manipulate the justice system.Amazon.com 5,960,411 one-click purchasing
Amazon.com has used its patent to force changes to Barnes & Noble's Web site.
CyberGold 5,794,210 attention brokerage
Patent covers rewarding Web surfers for paying attention to online advertisements.
E-Data 4,528,643 download-based sales
A judge blocked E-data's attempts to enforce this pre-Internet era patent.
Netcentives 5,774,870 online incentives
One of several recently issued patents covering reward systems for Internet purchasing.
Open Market 5,715,314 electronic shopping carts
This patent may be infringed by many e-commerce sites on the Internet.
Priceline.com
5,794,207 buyer-driven sales
Priceline has sued Microsoft and its Expedia travel site for copying its patented business method.
Sightsound.com 5,191,573 music downloads
Sightsound is demanding a 1% royalty from all online music sellers, and has sued Time Warner's CDNow.com music site for infringing its patent.
And the winner is.... Sightsound who can now sue the entire Internet and 95% of students on campuses worldwide for patent infringement.
An OpenSource company should teach one of these companies a lesson and misconstrue the GPL just to piss these abusers off.
more Patent infringments
360 degrees of Karma
Only a lawyer would quote Al Capone as a role model and then be upset when someone suggests he is in the extrotion business..
The company's counsel of choice, a tough-talking trial attorney named Ray Niro, insists that he prefers not to sue, but that sometimes companies leave him with no alternative. "It's unfortunate that you have to litigate," he says. "But as Al Capone said, 'You go a long way in this world with a bouquet of roses. You go farther with a bouquet of roses and a gun.' "
(Meanwhile, TechSearch is suing Intel for libel and slander because an Intel spokesman remarked to the Wall Street Journal that "[TechSearch] exists solely for the purpose of purchasing patents and extorting funds from another company.")
>/i>
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
TechSearch is an Ambulance Chaser for the information age.
First, we should kill all the lawyers - Shakespere
"This one is so broad that anyone using a web server/browser is an infringer."
Anyone USING a web server/browser? No. Patents don't keep anyone from USING something, they keep someone from SELLING it (as their own).
I was going to explain who it really WOULD hurt, but it brings up a question for the lawyers: Let's say someone patented a system for something like "server-based calculations that are sent in an OS-agnostic and standardized format which is then interpreted and displayed on a client PC". Then Adam Aadvark comes along, starts a company called Association A that makes software S1 that runs on a server and can spit out any data you want. Bob Bankroll starts Business B that sells a standardized format F that works with Assoc A's software S. And Charlie Cookie starts Company C whose software S2 displays the data transported by Business B's format F.
There is no collusion between the companies and the founders don't know each other. The system just evolves by natural market forces. Who is infringing on the patent?
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324006
At least the EU is being sensible about this (they don't allow this kind of silliness, you know) Too bad we can't take their example. All this patent chasing is bound to make people scared to create anything, lest the army of lawyers descend upon them.
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
I have no idea why this post got modded as insightful, but I'm getting sick of reading "Only in America" as an explanation for some recent display of stupidity concerning patents, licensing, copyrights or whatever. I don't know of any country that does not have to deal with individuals or groups that engage in unethical practices for personal gain without fear of repercusions because of some clever loophole or a vacuum in existing legislation. Our laws are not set in stone. They are shaped and changed as necessary according to legal precedents and new legislation. In the US, the best way to eliminate this kind of legalized extortion is through your legislative representation. As far as I can tell every other country has similar issues and similar methods for resolving them. That stated, someone else can have the soapbox now.