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Chip Firm Hit By 45-Year-Old Patent
JPMH writes "The Register is reporting that a Taiwanese chip foundry is being sued over two chemistry patents, one over 45 years old. The patents at issue were filed in 1957 and 1964, but are still in force because they were not granted until 1987 and 1992 respectively. The first patent, 4,702,808, details an apparatus and method for initiating chemical reactions by focusing "radiant energy, such as a laser" onto streams of particles. The second patent, 5,131,941 also details an apparatus and method for initiating chemical reactions, but this time radiation is used to provide the energy kick needed to get the compounds to interact."
Dear Engineers,
Somebody power up one of the lasers and aim at the plaintiff's attorneys.
Thank you,
Geeks for Tort Reform
--
Closing Windows. Opening Eyes.
Linux-Universe
Freedom Is Universal
Linux-Universe
I wonder if my "Collection and use of energy originating from a hydrogen based nuclear fussion reaction by radiation energy or via potential energy" would pass in the US?!
Patent the world and I'll patent YOU!
GPLv2: I want my rights, I want my phone call! DRM: What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak?
just goes to show that they'll dish out patents for ANYTHING these days!! I mean, who had even heard of lasers in 1957 anyhow? let ALONE 1964!
If I had a nickel for every time I had a nickel, I'd be richcursive!
Sorta funny that it took them 45 years to actualy get a patent and just recently enforce it. Oh well, guess that's how the world works.
General Motors is suing competing manufacturers of the so-called `horseless carriage' for infringing their patent 236635849, which specifies a way in which the `wheel' - a flat, cylindrical object - can be used for the motion and transportation of people and inanimate objects.
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
With the Korean chip maker Hynix and this story now from Taiwan, seems like someone is trying to kill those dudes from making anything...
We're talking about patents that were put in when? Since before the space race?
How can it be make good business sense to have these patents still applicable now? Why the hell were they put in limbo for so damn long?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Prior art that!
What? You mean Jiffy Pop popcorn wasn't the first one to patent this technique?
This may be a death rattle for Lemelson's submrine patents. The dead "inventor" recently had suits thrown out on this issue. Basically, under prosecution laches, they are charged with gaming the system deliberately or without any reasonable reason. Fortunately, this old trick is harder to perform now that patent terms run from the date of filing (with some possible adjustments) instead of date of issuance.
Aside from the fact the Description of the patents makes them sound like a patent on FIRE and if its held up I want the wheel, isn't there enough out there to show our patent system is completely broken ?
The primary purpose of the patent system seems to be allowing those that don't plan on developing technology, improving technology or doing any of the work needed to advance technology to practise legal extortion on those that do.
See, before the 1990's, patents took decades to be approved. They've now gone and made things work the other way, approving them too fast now.
Can someone *PLEASE* find a happy medium between friggin fast and damned slow?
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
I understand how most people here reject the ideas of patents infringing development, and would automatically argue this is some "unjustice." But, this is a legitimate application of law. It seems this artice was biasly submitted knowing how a "45 year old patent" striking down current development would affect readers.
Now, if patents do infact hurt productivity enough, it would be reasonable to augment/abandon patent laws. Nevertheless, one must keep in sight the nature of patent laws: protection of developers.
I thought issue dates were backdated to the time of filing? Maybe I've been misinformed..
This quote is from Yale Office of Cooperative Research
You know, you can make a lot of money off of patents. I know that was a story just a little while ago here on ./, but I just heard the other day that one of my grandpa's friends sold a patent to a big company back in the 20's and got tons of money for it. Just goes to show you that if you get lucky you don't necessarily have to work for your money. :)
"radiant energy, such as a laser" (or sunlight?? how about burning a dead tree??)...sorry, thought that was funny.
Sounds like the patent office or patent holders (due course) are at fault on this one. I see big bucks in the counter suit if there is one. This kind of intimidation of anothers customer base be nipped in the bud now before it becomes a big problem.
I'm bloody sick of SHIT made in turd world countries....
Third world countries are defined as being export-only, pre-industrial nation states. If things werent made and exported from third world countries, they wouldn't be third world countries, now would they?
Go read a book.
and as for the wheel...
So far we have patents for Fire and the Wheel.
I'm going to claim the patent for Baked Bread.
I guess the first company I'm going to SCO is McDonalds. They have untill Friday to stop making hamburger rolls. Otherwise I'm going to revoke their license.
Then after I take out the big guy, I'm going to go after Wonder Bread.
Huh?
Taiwan should just fire the fricken' "lasers" anyways. Screw the patents
1) A patent filed in the 50s wasn't granted until 1987? What a bureaucratic nightmare.
2) Yet another patent which 'protects' an absurdly obvious technique.
3) The patent holder tries to sue, even though technology has made the patent long obsolete.
Why do I have to share the planet with such idiots?
So they patented the use of a magnifying glass to start a fire.
You avoid any patents on anything you have dreamed up by PUBLISHING IT, even on the internet!
No matter how stupid it sounds, put it in writing, crude drawings or both.
Once you publish, it's PRIOR ART and unpatentable!
The irony which you have to admire is that US citizens hate importing shit cuz they lose jobs. But US industry loves it because instead of paying a skilled labourer say 15$/h or whatnot they can get a way with "we won't kill your family today" as a wage in a third world asian country.
What I don't get though, aren't US industry leaders also US citizens? So basically they steal jobs from their neighbours to support slave labour. And we admire these people as "famous CNN headshots" because???
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
99% of Patents are just wasted money, the other 1% are from years of work or just good luck.
If it was easy, everyone would be doing it!
a flat, cylindrical object
Well, you could play off the semantics of "flat" and say that their patent only applies to objects that fit within the 2-d plane. However, the judge might not buy that. Instead, they may choose the more common definition of "flat" which is that the object has a surface that appears flat to the naked eye, or can be verified flat within some industry standard number of angstroms.
The more obvious workaround?
Mill all your wafers into N-sided objects.
If N is sufficiently large, you don't lose much viable surface and you void the patent. I say, choose 69-agons. You know. To screw their patent.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
It was my understanding that U.S. patents were only applicable within the U.S. Can someone please clarify?
Later,
Phil
I've been researching my own patent recently so this is interesting.
Wow, so they managed to keep it pending for 40 or so years. Most impressive. I understand it's actually better to do it that way because once you patent the technology becomes available for reverse-engineering. I thought you could only keep it patent pending for about six years though.
It appears that you can but that the legal ground is a little shaky. Current jurisprudence appears to indicate that this'll get thrown unless unless the chip company caves and settles.
Ever notice that most of those people who are in power are ex-lawyers?
Ever notice that contract language has grown increasingly more complicated over the years, as a means of ensuring lawyer income?
Ever notice the increase in responsibility-declaiming lawsuits over the years, as lawyers take any bullshit to court as a means of ensuring their income?
Ever notice that judges are allowing more and more of these cases, as a means to ensure their continued employment?
It's the slow death of a society, crushed by the weight of a useless population of lawyers who can only feed off the harm they cause to others.
We want to save ourselves, we gotta fire up those frickin laser beams already. Time for some BBQ!
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Another patent infringement lawsuit has been filed by Wonder, Inc. against Orowheat and Kilpatrick's. Wonder alledges that the firms violate it's patent which covers presentation and packaging of bread products that have been uniformly cut into what they call "slices."
yesterday waiting in line for onion ring sauce for my onion rings and this little kid came up behind me and asked for a simpsons watch and i was like "hey punk where are you goddamn manners" and his dad came up behind me and he thought he was a tough ass because he was driving a ford f150 with the calvin windows decal pissing on the dodge logo and i said "look motherfucker my pythons are registered weapons with the federal government" and he said "yeah sure" so i socked him in the gut then in the face and then stomped on him about 672 times while his kid and girlfriend watched and then i ran off with his boots
What I don't get though, aren't US industry leaders also US citizens?
They are, but don't forget social stratification. US industry leaders identify with a class much higher than blue color workers, so it is easy to understand how they might forget about the pains suffered by American workers--not to mention unemployed American workers.
they steal jobs from their neighbours to support slave labour is that this sort of system consequently instigates the Marxist concept of wage-slavery, making domestic workers more and more dependent on their job to survive--taking check advances, bouncing checks, typical "robbing peter to pay paul" elements of lower-middle class family economics-- while the fear of losing their jobs resinates in the backs of their minds!
Its disgustingly unfair, but what would be?
Where do people like you come up with such rubbish. These people who applied for the inventions were "way" ahead of their time. Look at the year of their filing. Unbelievable!
Things are obvious to you because someone else did the hard work and showed it to you. Go and do something original just once in your life.
It's the patent office's fault for taking so long to approve the patent that is the real problem.
Patents are not the source of all evil.
Patents are the only reason large companies invest money in researchers instead of just building whatever widget everybody else is building.
This is a perfectly valid exercise of intellectual property rights. Yes, the point in this case is probably to get money from a competitor, but that's business. The patent was forced into a pending status to increase its lifetime, but who cares? That loophole was closed. Frankly, I'd be more concerned about this patent applying to laser printers than some taiwanese chip manufacturer, but maybe it doesn't apply. IANAL.
"Its disgustingly unfair, but what would be?"
Job localization makes sense though. The US needs more chips then say food, [insert third world nation] needs more food than chips. So why not have the US make the chips they themselves need and have other "third world nations" make things they need [infrastructure, food, etc.]
Not only does this model address the direct needs of the people [e.g. food is nice] but it also fulfills the employement needs. As more US citizens use tech stuff they will have jobs available to make the tech stuff they use.
Of course this doesn't make any short-term business sense so I guess that's why companies are willing to degrade their country for the almighty buck...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Problem with that is McDonanlds does not make their own bread. You would have to go after the suppliers. But you could try to patent the process for delivering two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sessame seed bun (*) if I hadn't filed that patent.
(*) Patent Pending since 1987
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
But I have to get to Crucial and place an order for some DRAM before the prices take off.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
Do YOU ever read? The patents issued at the end of along chain if continuation applications filed in the 1957 and 1964. So the article is correct. Sometines you have to read more than the abstract ... oops, I forgot this is slashdot!
So, there's this Russian guy, and he like files this patent, and then, y'know, he's like told that it'll take 45 YEARS for the patent to come through, and so he, uh, asks the Patent Office if it'll be the morning or the afternoon, and they say "Why?", and, he like goes, "Well, I've got a whole bunch of LAWYERS coming round in the afternoon."
...and just about everything else.
Except he's not Russian, he's American. So I guess in CORPORATE AMERICA, lawyers patent YOU!
It's been over 24hrs since my last major SCO fix.
I am going threw major withdrawal!!!
The ability, on the otherhand, to acquire a monopoly on an algorithm is demonstratedly detremental to innovation. There is a large body of software out there, for instance, that cannot implement functionality because of patent encumberance and the cost penalty incurred thereof.
Monopoly grants, because this is what patents are, are dangerous for many reasons. Prior to when they were opened up to a "free for all" the purpose of patents was to provide a means for bringing into the public domain -- real inventions -- whose creators otherwise would want to keep secret and never reveal.
What programmers need and already have is control over who can copy their code/product. Preventing the rest of the world from re-implementing any process or idea of something based on the debatable notion of who registered it first is a farce in any analysis.
Monopolies are bad for business, bad for the consumer, and bad for capitalism. The government has no business authorising them except in extreme/public-interest cases wherein they should also be closely regulated.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
Did they lose them under a filing cabinet or what? I thought there was a time limit between filing and granting ...
It seems to make sense, however when you say, "So why not have the US make the chips they themselves need and have other "third world nations" make things they need [infrastructure, food, etc.]" you run into a fundamental problem: Third world countries lack the means of organized production and funding for such production to manufacture the things they need. In the global economy, the only option that exists for them to approach industrialization is to export for x ammount of years until they've allocated enough capital to develop themselves as an industrial state. But when that happens, they rely on some other existing third world country for the raw materials suitable to their particular production.
Have any other suggestions?
2 posts? karma whore :P
If you have to ask, you'll never know.
Flat == 2D; Cylindrical == 3D
Flat can be generalized to 3D objects by metonymy. To me, if the dominant surfaces of a 3D object are flat to within tight tolerance, then the object is "flat". Paper is 3D, but most people consider it "flat". A table can be "flat". A CD is "flat". Any other disc or washer with a radius much larger than its thickness can be "flat".
Will I retire or break 10K?
Actually the wheel was patent #2, not #23663589.
Patent #1, of course, was "a method of rapidly oxidizing combustible materials using concentrated heat and oxygen."
And the "wheel" came before patent #3, which was "A method and appararatus for creating regular rectangular subdivisions of a yeast byproduct-enhanced grain based matrix."
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
Lemelson "the Patent King" was notorious for abusing the patent system. Articles discussing his abuses can be found in many publications. Perhaps the most comprehensive article on him is in Fortune: http://www.fortune.com/fortune/investing/articles/ 0,15114,373291-3,00.html
Defenders against these frivolous patents have a website at:
http://www.lemelsonpatents.com/
No shit, but what do the original patents say? They could be completely different. My guess is that he had an idea, tried to patent it, but the technology wasn't there yet, then he revised repeatedly until it was. This is a very standard practice
No offense, but countries like china have existed for thousands of years before the West came about.
It seems only after the west has tried to "modernize" [re: exploit] nations like china that these "sudden problems of infrastructure" have appeared.
Also from a "nature" standpoint if a piece of land cannot sustain human life, maybe, just maybe, humans shouldn't live there.
However, if the land cannot sustain life because urban sprawl [re: Canada] or Nike Factories [re: China, Taiwan, etc] have sprung up then that's hardly a problem of the country.
Essentially the solution is two pronged. Both sides have to simultaneously cut off dependencies for this to work. If say the US cuts off from the other nations before they setup farming, etc then they're screwed.
What it really boils down to is greed.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
These patents were created by Jerome Lemelson "The Patent King" Fortune Magazine ran a very long article on his exploits two years ago:
Ok, firstly, please read the patent. It is not as trivial as it may appear from the few lines description.
It doesn't strike me as earth shatteringly novel, but then, most patents never have. It's written in usual obfuscated patent speak, which doesn't help.
The workaround: It is quite specific about collimated beams of radiation. So stick a lens in the way, de-collimate your beam, and the patent no longer applies.
If you are putting the laser through a window, then a couple of lenses, to de-focus the beam, and then focus it in the reaction zone will do the trick.
I'm not sure how this related to chip fabriacation, but I'm going to hazard a guess that it's in a CVD style deposition stage. The only time that precise focus would be needed is if your etching by laser onto a surface. In which case, you don't have a flow of matter.
This will not work if you are reflecting a collimated beam around so that it crosses the reaction zone multiple times.
Any fabiration engineers want to elucidate on where this patent might apply? Specifically, would a lens (I'm thinking of a power of around -1 uD) stop the system from working?
However, working around the patent may be considered a tacit admission of it's validity, and thus is a tatic in opposition to the legal challenge.
It seems only after the west has tried to "modernize" [re: exploit] nations like china that these "sudden problems of infrastructure" have appeared.
and
Both sides have to simultaneously cut off dependencies for this to work.
Let me ask, what would happen if as a post-industrial nation we cut off our dependencies from third world exporters, but gave them aid (ie. financial, humanitarian, and training to rebuild their infrastructure)? Although its unlikely, would this be a merritorius persuit--long term speaking--as if we were ensuring a future trade partner that owed us for helping them out?
I dunno, it sounds a lil' too idealistic to several degrees.
is the history of these patents. There are techniques that can be used to keep patent applications open for long periods of time until somebody is deemed ripe to be sued. You can also continue to create derivative patents with very similar claims as long as you are willing to pay an attorney to continue filing apps.
the robber barons of the 21st century.
Honestly now, how can we go about allowing people to patent methods of causing chemical reactions? This is rediculous. I thought patents were suppose to protect the developer/artist by ensuring that they get credit (i.e., recognition) for their original works or discoveries but not to ensure ongoing "profit streams". This is similar to whats happening with SCO vs. Linux and the recent Slashdot article on Blizzard vs. Freecraft.
So I guess your not allowed to write your own programs and give them away for free if they could in any way shape or form interrupt the profit stream of a company who has enough money to invest in expensive lawsuits. I can understand suing someone who say, writes a bunch of cracking software to bypass the licensing scheme of your commercial software (and even then only if the software in question is not in End Of Life mode). But suing people over fricking ideas and having a reasonable chance of winning? IDEAS. I'de say that I would rather throw the whole idea of intellectual "property" out the window instead of being held hostage by corrupt government and industry. Yes there would be a downside to it, but is it really worth the downside we have now of enforcing IP? People can always make a profit from manufacturing physical objects unless people actually steal those physical objects in question, because then you dont have them and they do. Trying to commoditize thoughts (or sequences of bits) will just never work and a lot of already less well-off people will get screwed over by the already more well-off.
END IP FASCISM
You know, you should never verb a noun.
:-)
Lemelson never invented anything, his method was to figure out where technology was going and throw up a patent in that path. Legalized robbery, I'd say. He claimed to have invented machine vision and lots of other stuff too. He never demonstrated any of "his technology".
Ever notice that most of those people who are in power are ex-lawyers?
Ever wonder why marxists call capitalist democracy the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie?
Okay...so if the patent is 45 years old (1958) but was patented in 1987, I see a big catch-22.
If the patent does not start until 1987, then anything doing this from before 1987 should now be prior art.
If anything from before 1987 is not considered prior art because the patent was created in 1958, then the patent should be enforced from that date, not the 1987 date, and therefore expired.
Oh...sorry Government and sense...my bad
These actions are almost universally seen by practitioners as abuses of the patent system, NOT as appropriate uses. Thankfully, in most instances current PTO procedure prevents these abuses. However, this type of prosecution tactic, even though it resulted in a patent issuing, still may not ultimately be successful because of a doctrine called "prosecution laches."
Generally, the doctrine of laches applies to protect a defendant when a plaintiff has sat on its rights for too long. The doctrine of prosecution history laches, very simply put, states that a patentee who has delayed prosection for too long may not enforce its patent once it issues. I am not saying that this is the case here; that is for a court to decide. But I do feel the need to note that this doctrine was recently "revived" by courts after a long period during which the doctrine was never even discussed, much less applied.
You may wonder who the patent holder was in the case that recently "revived" the doctrine of prosecution history laches. His name, I believe, is Jerome Lemelson.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
I have no problem with TEACHING un or under developed countries to care for themselves.
But I'm totally against taking MY tax dollars and GIVING them away to said countries under the guise that we are HELPING them to build themselves up. TEACH THEM HOW, don't GIVE it to them.
Abraham Lincoln said about buying railroad rails from England, "If we buy the rails from England we get the rails and England gets our money, but if we MAKE the rails HERE, we get our rails and we keep our money here."
That's not a precise qoute but it's damn near the same thing he said. And he was right!
is it morally ethical to file a patent 45 years ago and sit on it until you feel you can screw the infriger to the maximum and then surprise them, but during the whole time you sat on the patent you knew about the infringment?
if it was me, i would sue the patent filer for not acting on the patent in a timely fashion...
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
The first patent is so broad it effects almost every laser initiated chemical reaction. 3d printers, "santa claus" machines (what are these called anyway?) a machine that uses a UV laser to harden a chemical to make 3d objects. I assume the printers use the same tech. Also laser seperators do this as does any chip making process that uses a laser.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
The wheel was patent #3,
Fire was patent #2,
#1 was "a method of pissing people off by way of allowing the filing of patent for ideas not yet implemented".
I've been maxed out on karma since 3 days after starting my account, but I really meant to post the addendum anonymously.
This is a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 592,968 filed 3/23/84 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,666,678 and a continuation of Ser. No. 737,446 filed 10/29/76 which is a continuation of Ser. No. 05/165,445 filed 7/26/71, now abandoned and a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 05/012,082 filed 2/17/70, now abandoned which is a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 04/710,518 filed 3/5/68 now U.S. Pat. No. 3,566,645 which is a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 04/501,395 filed 10/22/65 (now U.S. Pat. No. 3,371,404) which is a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 03/668,561 filed 6/27/57 abandoned.
From patent 5,131,941:
This is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 07/376,378 filed Jul. 7, 1989 as a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 921,286 filed Oct. 21, 1986 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,251,438 as a continuation of Ser. No. 643,883 filed Aug. 24, 1984 (abandoned), which was a continuation of Ser. No. 571,188 filed Apr. 24, 1975 (abandoned) which was a continuation of Ser. No. 163,203 filed Jul. 16, 1971 (abandoned), which was a continuation of Ser. No. 849,013 filed Aug. 11, 1969 (abandoned) as a continuation of Ser. No. 422,875 filed Nov. 25, 1964, now U.S. Pat. No. 3,461,347 which was a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 710,517 filed Mar. 5, 1964.
Those are some severely long sentences
I have no problem with TEACHING un or under developed countries to care for themselves.
But I'm totally against taking MY tax dollars and GIVING them away to said countries under the guise that we are HELPING them to build themselves up. TEACH THEM HOW, don't GIVE it to them.
Yet your government has no problem giving billions of dollars a year in military aid worldwide.
Israel alone gets $4 billion a year in military aid from the US. And with those US-built and financed F-16 fighters, Apache gunships and M1A1 Abrams tanks, Israel's armed force drop bombs, fire rockets and launch explosive shells at civilian population centres in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. These bombs, rockets and shells don't just kill members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad, they kill innocent men, women and children too - including US citizens.
Yet, somehow, nobody in Dubya's government can join the dots between this US intervention in the Israli/Palistinean conflict and the actions of muslim extremists against the US.
Seriously, your government is already giving your money away so that someone else living in near poverty can suffer some more. Wouldn't it be better if they gave your money away so that people living in poverty were given a hand up instead?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Out of the thousands of patents filed around the world each year we hear about what 40 or 50. What % do you really think fall under the legal extortion banner.
1.require that anyone filing a patent show a completly working example of whatever it is they are patenting. (and the patent should provide all details necessary to re-create that working example)
2.once a patent application has been filed, that application cant be amended. If it gets approved, it gets approved as-is. If it gets rejected, tough.
3.remove all the "loopholes" that allow patent holders to get longer than they should out of a patent.
and 4.implement a "enforce it or lose it" rule for patents like there is for trademarks.
Basicly, if you dont enforce your patent for anyone who is violating it, you could lose it. This will mean:
A.patents like the LZW patent will come to light straight away (if the GIF people had known about the LZW patent, would they still have used LZW? I think not.)
B.since companies with potentially shaky patents (like PanIP) have to take on everyone and cant pick on the small fish, they might be less likely to risk this (since when they take on a bigger fish with money, they may lose in court & lose thir patent)
and C.since there will be many more patent violations happening, mabie something will give and there will be changes to just what can be patented.
- Matter/electron/atom enters interaction,
- Photon enters interaction,
- Electron absorbs photon,
- Matter/electron/atom leaves interaction
Ultimately we seem to end up with a patent on quantum electrodynamics (electrons interacting with photons).Okay, you could probably use that argument on quite a few patents when you get down to the basic physics. It's interesting to ask how will patents deal with molecular/atomic nanotechnology. As manufacturing scales get smaller, and fewer particles are involved, will patenting a 'manufacturing method' turn into an attempt to patent basic chemical/physical processes?
Sorry if this is redundant, I don't really have time to read all the replies at this moment but I would really like to know.
Could someone explain to me exactly HOW one can patent something as "natural" (for the lack of a better word) as aiming a laser at particles to create/accelerate chemical reactions? It seems to me that this is falls under "discovery" more than "invention"...it seems as absurd as patenting the process of harnessing solar power.
I can understand patenting the plans for the laser machine in question, but this is way too broad. I mean, what's to stop me from patenting "the use of Helium 3 to create fusion power", and prevent mankind from using it?
I believe you were referring to this.
"Verbing words weirds language."~Calvin
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
This is an artifact of the old patent system. You had a patent from 17 years after the date of issue, therefore, keeping the thing barely alive on life support until the technology became worthwhile was a game. If either of these had issued, without continuations when applied for, they would have been worthless.
Now, patents are timed 20 years from the date of filing. That means it is never good for the applicant to delay as far as term extension. (There may be other reasons, such as figuring out what you really want, to take your time.)
the use of radiation to initiate a chemical reaction has been around for quite some time... namely, since the first phototropic organisms first started to appear. i'd say that patent has prior art based back several billion years ago.
:/
can you say chlorophyll? last i checked, light was a form of electromagnetic radiation, in a particular bandwidth, and the energy is used to create simple carbohydrates out of carbon dioxide and water.
they'll grant patents to anything these days.
now, if that was specific to a particular TYPE of radiation (which it would have to be, since it'd be taking radiation at a particular energy level to cause the correct reaction, then perhaps the patent is a little more valid, but only barely, and changing the chemicals involved would invalidate the apparatus's likeness imo
still, glad to know the patent system is still doing it's rediculous job
ashridah
You are totally right. My government does support terrorism in the middle east by supporting the genocidal holocaust being waged in Palestine by Israel against the Palestinians.
I don't support DuMbya or his policies. The US government is not of the people, by the people or for the people. It's for friends of the elite.
And people wonder why the Muslims hate Amerikans so much.
Well, gee, could it be because Amerikan $$$$ and Amerikan hardware is GIVEN to and used by the Israelis to murder innocent civilians??
Naw, not according to Shawn Hannity and pals at FOX News. It's because "They hate our freedom"...
Right... (wave that flag now!!)
"I bet what happened was, they discovered fire and invented the wheel on the same day. Then, at night, they burned the wheel."
If it's patented then they have to pay licensing as required. Every other day there's another whine about patents. Am I the only one sick of hearing about it? Slashdot articles don't change anything. Get a clue guys.
Has anyone thought about the possibility that these guys went throught the wringer in trying to get this patent? After, almost a half decade, they finally succeeded? If this is, in fact, the case, we should be commending them on their dedication, and determination. Personally, I have no idea, but one should evaluate the possibilities before passing judgement.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Prior art means prior to the application, not the granting of the patent. And anyone who modded this as 'insightful' is pretty much a bonehead also.
I, of course, know that the patent agency today will grant anything to anyone as long as they have some abbreviation after their name and, coincidentally, I'm sure, alot of money.
But who knew they were stupid farking idiots so long ago? I always thought at *some* point in the past they had to not all be tards...
I didn't realize this is a common thing, but I agree it should be stopped, and soon.
Are boxes too big these days? In Oafland, they use them for software and hardware, and for extra puzzling fun, the modern Oafland specification crafter will happily mix the two schemas together in one neatly-drafted oafish scribble. Cheezy oafish fun!
... heck, they probably don't even know anything but the proprietary (even to them) VLSI IDs or CAD systems used to generate them.
.... everywhere looks like Oafland.
The perpetual oafish primary directive forbids that if it's a software box, they give up the source code automatically, and forbids that if it's a hardware box, they spec to basic component level and show all connections
Funny
After reading dsgrntlxmply's post above, I'm think the patent should be back dated and expired in one hit !
So basically I agree.
Some companies actually do this intentionally. File a patent, delay the paperwork, then when a competitor starts selling something with the patent-pending tech, allow the paperwork to finish and the patent to be granted. Then torpedo the competition with patent claims.
This practice is common enough to have a name: "submarine patents".
lemelson, the patent originator, should be well known to the slashdot crowd, but on the internet, institutional memory is an oxymoron
the delay in patent filing is not due to USPTO ineptitude. rather, this is classic lemelson tactics:
for an example, google for "lemelson" and "machine vision." (here's a link for the google impaired.) briefly, lemelson patented the idea that some sort of machine could do quality inspection of items coming off of an assembly line. he had no invention, he had a wish. he ammended and ammended and ammended that patent for 30 years before it was accepted. in the meantime, laser bar code readers had been invented (by someone else), and he had changed the wording on his patent application to include that technological development. Viola! he invented laser bar code readers, ex post facto, and his estate went on a suing spree.
FWIW, the USPTO changed the policies that allowed this in the mid 90s. still sucks.
Fermat's other theorem: "I have a simple proof, but I can't write it down as I fear it's a DMCA violation to discuss it"
are tires (when properly pumped up, heh) flat?
Early wooden wheels were flat discs. Then came spoke construction, which lightened the load. Then came rubber tyres with balloons in them, which remain the most common to this day.
The word "flat" when referring to an inflatable tyre refers to one whose inner tube (essentially a balloon) has lost most of its air pressure difference vs. atmospheric pressure.
And no, a "Pump It Up" machine at your local video arcade will not inflate your vehicle's tyres any more than a "DDR" machine will dispense double-pumped PC memory.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Does anyone know whether its legal to sell intelectual property on ebay?
You'd think people would at least check the Nobel prizes for prior art. This sort of stuff was the subject of work by Norrish and Porter around 1950, for which they received the Nobel prize in 1967 (together with Eigen). More info here.
An approx 50-year-old American patent is going to be pressed again a Taiwanese foudry.
I mean, c'mon... not even a chance that they ever would have heard of this... and not really a huge chance America succeeding in patent litigation that is plainly retarded again a company not even on native soil.
Complicated contract language is just legal code bloat. Show me any 200 year old system that has never been rewritten or refactored and doesn't have a bunch of ugly looking hacks in it's extension modules. Would you expect someone to write an custom extension to the system (contract under law) without somewhat extensive training or knowledge?
Somehow I knew who the inventor was on these patents before I even looked -- Jerome Lemelson. Lemelson is infamous in the patent world as the "king of the submarine patent." Back when Lemelson was active, he would file applications and delay prosecution until he had defendants to sue. He would then prosecute the patent and sue when it issued. Because patent applications are held confidential while pending, others using the technology claimed in Lemelson's patents would have no idea that the patents existed until issuance, thus the submarine analogy.
These actions are almost universally seen by practitioners as abuses of the patent system, NOT as appropriate uses. Thankfully, in most instances current PTO procedure prevents these abuses. However, this type of prosecution tactic, even though it resulted in a patent issuing, still may not ultimately be successful because of a doctrine called "prosecution laches."
Generally, the doctrine of laches applies to protect a defendant when a plaintiff has sat on its rights for too long. The doctrine of prosecution history laches, very simply put, states that a patentee who has delayed prosection for too long may not enforce its patent once it issues. I am not saying that this is the case here; that is for a court to decide. But I do feel the need to note that this doctrine was recently "revived" by courts after a long period during which the doctrine was never even discussed, much less applied.
You may wonder who the patent holder was in the case that recently revived the doctrine of prosecution history laches. His name, I believe, is Jerome Lemelson.
Dear sir,
Please shut the fuck up.
Thank you.
Those patents were applied for many, many years ago. Therefore, patent pending protection has been in affect for decades. The net result is to effectively extend patents by decades. This is wrong. The patent clock should be retroactive to the day the patent was filed, because the protection effectively is. These are extreme examples of that...but I've got to wonder how many other unexploded 'time bombs' like these are still out there.
But in theory at least, you need some way of proving that you published it on a particular date. There are digital notary services, at least in theory, and to ensure that your idea was properly established - you would need to ensure that the page was 'notarised'.
See my journal, I write things there
In case anyone is actually curious, US Patent #1 was issued to Samuel Hopkins in 1790 for a new apparatus and process to make potash.
#2 was something about candles, and #3 was a flour mill
The patent was signed by George Washington himself (government was much smaller back then; that same year, Washington and Hamilton personally reviewed the bids for the first ever Federal construction project, a lighthouse near Norfolk, VA).
All's true that is mistrusted
I went to the U.S. Patent Office's website, and looked up patent number 1... its some sort of 'Traction Wheel', which was patented in 1836. ;-)
I was living long before you filed this patent. Prior art, sucka' ::Continues living just to piss kmahan off::
yeah yeah. it's the lawyers' fault. they're the evil money grubbers. and everyone else is just in it for the satisfaction of a job well done. oh wait no.
what about those fancy shmancy computer programmers. they made it so we need to hire an entire technical staff to run our business. before the programmers shoved their computers onto everyone's desk, you didn't need an IT department. Just keep your records in trusty books. Paper filing. that's always been the best way to do things.
and don't get me started with the three letter acronym. RAM, CPU, LCD... it's their secret code they use to make sure we can't get rid of them. they're always scheming to get more money.
email is just how they get you to buy antivirus software. But you don't need it. You want to talk to someone, call them. But the phone company's milking all your money away with their long distance charges and their hidden fees. So you'd better go see them in person. But you'd better walk because the airline and car companies all have their own weird language and strange charges...
rant rant rant. woop dee doo. what else is new?
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
So when can we expect to see lawyers hired to hack the legal system to close any loopholes?
There is a group in control that only has allegience to their own kind. This group has opperated this way throughout history. What occurances seemingly don't make sense; when put into this context, things fall into place.
One thing I have to wonder, if it was such a great idea for a patent, why did it take so long to get a patent issued? Glitch, or curruptions?
IANAPL but...
It sounds like the (old) stupid US patent laws and the "technique" known as "submarining". It allowed the patent holder to effectively delay the final publication/release of the patent until they found someone they could sting.
Thankfully, AFAIU, the US patent office has now caught up with the rest of the world and has brought their patent laws (for new patents) into line with everyone else. IIRC, patents now become 'public' after a set amount of time and they only are valid for a fixed period after the initial filing.
Simon
"It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural
and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable
to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is
derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary
right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no
individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an
universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in
common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the
occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given
late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation
of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If
nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the
action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long
as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of
every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that
no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea
from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine,
receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the
globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to
have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible
over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe,
move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions
then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the
profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility,
but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without
claim or complaint from anybody. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England
was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right
to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and
by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these
monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the
nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.
"Considering the exclusive right to invention as given not of natural right, but for the benefit of
society, I know well the difficulty of drawing a line between the things which are worth to the
public the embarrassment of an exclusive patent, and those which are not. As a member of the patent
board for several years, while the law authorized a board to grant or refuse patents, I saw with
what slow progress a system of general rules could be matured."
- Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson, 13 Aug. 1813
The first thing that crossed my mind is that CD recorders use these patents..more specifically the dye in blank cd-recordable disks is excited by a laser causing a chemical reaction.
I know of a few others but I can't remember them at the moment. It could also apply to photographic chemicals being excited by a laser or concentrated sunlight. Or does that sound too goofy. What do you think?
this sig is classified..how about yours?
Christ, thats even slower than the rate that paperwork gets past *MY* desk...
smash.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
There is an easy solution to this.
We need a law saying that it is illegal to import goods manufactured using working practices {unfair wages, lack of union representation, health and safety breaches &c.} that would be illegal in the importing country.
Also a law saying that it is illegal to import and export the same kind of goods across the same frontier. {I'm thinking here of the British meat industry. We were told we couldn't vaccinate animals against F&MD because we would lose our export market. But the supermarket shelves were full of imported meat. Go figure.}
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
But you have no problems taking their money off them? Poor countries have paid back their original debts many times over, but of course inflation has meant that they now owe more than they ever did. And countries, unlike individuals or companies, cannot declare themselves bankrupt.
actually, the laws were changed after these patents were issued precisely because of patents such as these....
before 1995, US inventors were allowed to file a continuation application claiming priority to the original patent application, but claiming different subject matter.
inventors, such as jerome lemmelson, used this procedure to file strings of patents covering slightly different aspects of the inventions originally claimed in the application.
as long as an application in the chain was pending, lemmelson would watch what was being done in industry, file a new application with slightly different claims and covering what other people were doing. if he could convince the USPTO that the claims were distinctly different from those of all previous patents, he was granted a new patent valid for 17 years.
ergo the submarine patent.
rhetorically, the argument was that inventors had a "right" to claim at a later date inventions disclosed in the parent application and not claimed in the original patent.
in practice, the process was easily and often exploited by unscrupulous individuals and companies. while legal, it was widely seen as an abuse of public's good will.
in 1995, after enormous pressure from inside and outside the US, the US congress passed a bill whereby US patents filed after 1995 (with some exceptions) would be valid for 20 years from the earliest date of priority. Bill Clinton, the last US president elected by a majority of American voters, signed the bill into law.
the syndia patents are spin-offs of the original lemmelson submarine patents, and since they were filed prior to 1995, they are valid for 17 years from the date of issue - despite the early filing date.
syndia's licensing efforts, while entirely legal, are nothing more than legal extortion. the US district courts should uphold the law, but not allow themselves to be tools of extortion.
an equitable resolution would be for the court to find the patents valid and infringed - because they ostensibly are - and award 1 dollar to syndia in damages.
fortunately, thanks to bill clinton and a democratic congress - who took action to end this particular abuse of the US patent system - this problem will soon disappear as these remaining submarine patents expire.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Hey if enough Slashdot users try to patent ridiculous concepts/ideas/the letter I/etc we can break the US patent system since I bet it only uses a 32-bit unsinged interger for storing the patent number in the USPO database.
Enough patents get filed and *wham* no more patents can get filed until the USPO upgrades their computer systems to handle it. Knowing how long it takes government agencies to approve a computer purchase plan and then tender bids from competitive vendors in the market we could easily shutdown the USPO for at least three years! This would give us, the EFF, and other sane people some breathing room to try and enact sensible laws to restrict the ridiculousness of these patent lawsuits we keep seeing!
Ever wonder why Socialism and its ilk are responsible for more deaths at the hands of government than all the wars in modern history, combined?
Socialism failed. Its time to move on.
That is an optimistic view of the situation. However, the inventor here, Jerry Lemelson, was well known for submarine patenting, a practice that even the most ardent supporters of the patent system (I being one) admit is an abuse of the patent laws in effect when all this happened.
You are correct, this was a standard practice. It is now forbidden by the patent laws. There is a reason for that (it was deemed to be abusive). In addition, most recently courts have refused to enforce these patents under the legal theory of prosecution latches.
1957 - Can we have this overly broad patent? No!
1964 - How about this other broad patent? No!
1967 - No.
1974 - No, it's not specific enough
1977 - No, we said more details!
1984 - Go away, we're busy.
1987 - Oh here, just take this and leave us alone.
1992 - Fine, we really don't have time to argue.
2000 - Hey, anyone want this patent on silicon?
2005 - We'll pay you to take this patent on an electron...
The solution is to revamp jury selection.
Now only the people too stupid to avoid jury
duty get put on juries.
The only 12 people on the planet to never hear
of OJ Simpson, were the ones on the jury.
So what do you expect. We must limit the number
and reasons for juror disqualification.
If a chemical engineer with a phd in epoxy tech
was in the pool for this case, he/she would get
the boot first round.
if it werent for bad karma Id have no karma at all
I still dont get why patents can be used when the second person comes up with the invention on it self at a later time then the first person. I believe the only legitimite use of patents would be in those cases where the idea was stolen.
I'll have to disagree. We should do with them what they did in the Hitchhiker's Guide of the Galaxy series.
Continuation-in-part of Ser. No. US 1989-376378, filed on 7 Jul
1989 which is a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. US 1986-921286,
filed on 21 Oct 1986, now patented, Pat. No. US 4851438 which is a
continuation of Ser. No. US 1984-643883, filed on 24 Aug 1984, now
abandoned which is a continuation of Ser. No. US 1975-571188, filed
on 24 Apr 1975, now abandoned which is a continuation of Ser. No.
US 1971-163203, filed on 16 Jul 1971, now abandoned which is a
continuation of Ser. No. US 1969-849013, filed on 11 Aug 1969, now
abandoned which is a continuation of Ser. No. US 1964-422875, filed
on 25 Nov 1964, now patented, Pat. No. US 3401347 which is a
continuation-in-part of Ser. No. US 1964-710517, filed on 5 Mar
1964, now abandoned
That is quite a remarkable chain of continuations>
Archimedes designed a kind of big parabolic copper mirrors in order to defend Syracuse. :Pg e/DioCassius.html
just read that 2nd century piece of text
http://www.mcs.drexel.edu/~crorres/Archimedes/Sie
"And when once Marcellus, the Roman general, was assaulting Syracuse by land and sea, this man [Archimedes] first by his engines drew up some merchantmen [ships], and lifting them up against the wall of Syracuse dropped them again and sent them every one to the bottom, crews and all. Again, when Marcellus removed his ships to a little distance, the old man gave all the Syracusans the power to lift stones of a waggon's size, and hurling them one at a time, to sink the ships. When Marcellus withdrew them a bow-shot thence, the old man constructed a kind of hexagonal mirror, and at an interval proportionate to to the size of the mirror, he set similar small mirrors with four edges, moving by links and by a kind of hinge, and made the glass the centre of the sun's beams--its noontide beam, whether in summer or in the dead of winter. So after that, when the beams were reflected into this, a terrible kindling of flame arose upon the ships, and he reduced them to ashes a bow-shot off. Thus by his contrivances did the old man vanquish Marcellus."
This sounds like a "method for initiating chemical reactions by focusing radiant energy", doesn't it?
This practice, called "submarine patenting" was, in part, the reason. By the way, the inventor of thios patent, Jerry Lemelson, was famous for doing this (he is now dead)
Clearly he was not able to exploit any loopholes in God's technology system then...
Did you ever noticed that that the people representing the folks contaminated by asbestos, nuclear waste, glass in food, etc. are lawyers?
Did you ever notice that the people fighting the hardest to ensure you have ANY civil liberties and civil rights at all are lawyers?
Didn't think so. The tired argument that lawyers are the source of all evil is complete, utter, "I'm incapable of original thought" bullshit.
Greed has done, and will continue to do, far more damage to this world than any country of lawyers could ever dream of accomplishing.
What lawyers do is ensure that the laws we hold so dear in the U.S. are subject to continual review and re-interpretation. Ask yourself this simple question: Could you live your life under the same rules that someone in say, 1890, did? Do you even know what those rules are? Maybe you'd prefer who ever was in power to just decide for us who is right and who is wrong? That'd be easy, and nobody'd have to think - I would so love a world filled with even more stupidity.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
That wasn't the failure of socialism, that was the failure of large scale military dictatorship. There are capitalist military dictatorships that are just as abusive as Stalin ever was, the only thing they don't have is as many people to pick on.
While I agree that there have been and are abuses of the patent system by holders of so-called "submarine patents", not every patent that takes years to be issued is one of these. For example, I hold several patents in the fields of heat transfer and dielectric materials. In some cases, my patent applications preceeded those of my mega-corporate competitors (for very similar products) by many months. But because I am a small businessman and do not have unlimited legal or research monies, it takes me longer to procesecute my application through the USPTO. Patent lawyers are $250 an hour, folks. Even if I do all the writing, you can figure that it will take $500 - $700 in legal fees each time the patent office rejects your claims. Laboratory and computer time to perform thermodynamics and fluid flow models and experiments cost much more than that.
So refining a patent application and countering USPTO objections are costly. By the time my patents have been granted, my competitors have had theirs for months or years.
There is still room for small business and individual research and patent-holding. But making patents active from the date of filing rewards large companies who have the advantage of deep pockets for legal and research work.
No. It's because muslims cant stand anyone being better than them. They're just backwards people. Look at their pedophilistic prophet.
Ever notice that most of those people who are in power are ex-lawyers?
I'm assuming by 'people in power', you mean the government. A government's job is to create, enforce, and interpret LAWS.
Do you see an affinity between the two lines of work there? No? Look closer.
Ever notice that contract language has grown increasingly more complicated over the years, as a means of ensuring lawyer income?
No, I haven't. Can you cite examples?
Ever notice that judges are allowing more and more of these cases, as a means to ensure their continued employment?
Yes, because without frivolous lawsuits, the courts would be so empty that all the judges and lawyers would have to be laid off.
Have you SEEN the backlog that the courts are facing these days? Even legitimate criminal cases alone are enough to tax the judicial system.
It's the slow death of a society, crushed by the weight of a useless population of lawyers who can only feed off the harm they cause to others.
Sorry to invoke Godwin's law so soon, but Hitler claimed pretty much the same thing about Jews.
If the patent is truly 44-45 years old it's nolonger a valid patent.
It automaticly defaults back to common law regaurdless of actuall granting date. Thus this patent case has little to no chance of survival in court.
They also admit the patented technique is now such a widely used lithographic technique, it's unenforceable
Do you know how many people US foreign policy has killed?
Do you know how many people are sentenced to die of AIDS because it's not profitable to help them?
It's capitalism that is the failure. Unfortunatly like the failure that was slavery it may take thousands of years to successfully end it.
No actually the two capitalist wars known as WW1 and WW2 easily killed more people than any stalinist dictator. As usual stupid Americans have a feeble grasp of history, most of which they learned from watching TV shows.
I know that's what Europe would do.
It's bad enough now that I kind of wish that there were professional jurors similar to the way the Romans did. At least then there would be some accountability of the jurors and a system by which to correct gross negligence in that part of the legal system. It's too bad that it would take an amendment to the Constitution to do that...
good grief. For saving Europe from Nazi Germany this is the thanks we get.
Capitalist wars? HAH. We were attacked dumbshit. I suppose it was American foreign policy that killed ~10 million in Soviet Russia? Or the 3 million Jews in Poland/Germany?
Im sure it was American foreign policy in Ruwanda(sp?) where people were butchered with machetes.
Yes capitalism is so violent. Thats why Totalitarian governments like Iraq are so peaceful. Or maybe France(socialism) who just rounded up 'terrorists' who were engaging in free speech(sic).
Also, US just sent 15 BILLION to Africa to fight AIDS. Canada has done nothing EVEN close to it.
If malcontents like yourself had any REAL hardships you may appreciate what Capitalism has given the world.
Oh yes. If capitalism is so bad, why are we fighting the droves of people trying to get into this country?
Im sure it isnt our abundant natural resources, otherwise that would be South America or Africa or the Middle East.
Canada healthcare (and educational history it seems)is a failure. They dont even need a military because of the US and despite all the money savings that entails, it still takes 18 weeks to get a MRI there.
I can get one in the states in 1 day.
In the mean time, the US has incorporated all sorts of socialist ideas. They take the edge off Capitalism which is a very hard, cold philosophy. Neither capitalism nor communism work all that well if you do not make the assumption that those who cannot live under that system will go off by themselves and die quietly and inoffensively somewhere.
Also from a "nature" standpoint if a piece of land cannot sustain human life, maybe, just maybe, humans shouldn't live there.
I too have found it interesting that enormous sums are spent to sustain life in places where it just wasn't meant to be... Case in point:
Remember back when the US was bombing Afganistan? Lots of folks were talking about a humanitarian crisis - since the UN wasn't able to deliver food to the locals while the bombs were dropping. Now, if an unusual flood destroys some farmland I'm all for sending in some aid to help folks in need. Hopefully they would do the same if something like that were to happen in the US. However, most of the UN assistance in Afganistan was to provide baseline life support because the local land is not fertile. The purpose of foreign aid should be to re-establish self-sufficiency. If a millionare wants to live in the middle of a desert and pay exhorbitant sums to import water and food and they're willing to pay it for themselves, I'm all for it. But if you want to receive aid you have to be willing to accept some strings with it - like "why don't you start migrating your tribe over to country xyz where there is actually water to drink?".
When foreign aid must be supplied for decades to a region to provide food, water, clothing, and shelter, it is a good tip-off that this is a bad place to live. In some areas there are trade-offs - maybe they don't have much food but they have oil, or vice-versa. Then they can overproduce what they have and sell it for what they need. But if an area is as inhabitable as the surface of the moon maybe it should be left to those who enjoy scenic vacations and are willing to pay a premium for it...
Do you know how many people are sentenced to die of AIDS because it's not profitable to help them?
Last time I checked the welfare of people with AIDS had little to do with the enconomic style of the nation they lived in, but rather with its overall wealth. The US is capitalistic and folks with AIDS seem to last pretty long there (by comparison).
Besides - there are lots of socialistic countries around the world. Why haven't any of them cured AIDS yet? It shouldn't be a big deal for them since they aren't corrupted by the profit motive. When a disease kills somebody in Africa, why is the blame assigned to some group of people across the Atlantic?
Do you know how many people die every year because it isn't profitable to make people immortal?
Nobody lives forever - them's the breaks. If you can invent a treatment to live a little longer or can afford to purchase treatment to live a little longer, more power to you. Sooner or later your money will run out, and you will die. All you're arguing about is whether folks should be able to help themselves, or if the government should mandate that at some point you're not worthy of medical aid...
Professional jurors are called judges. You don't HAVE to have a jury trial, you know. The reason for jurys is that a man is entitled to have his case decided by his peers - and not by some bureaucrat.
The whole idea is that the government can't just bring up trumped-up charges against you and sentence you to prison without at least the formality of coming up with a case that is strong enough to convice 12 average citizens.
The problem is that the citizens on juries are not average at all - they are those who can most afford to lose a week/month/year of their life. Imagine showing up for jury duty and being asked questions like "Have you ever heard of SCO, System V, AIX, or Linux?". Who in their right mind would want to be assigned to that case unless you were independantly wealthy or had no job and the $40/day federal jury duty sounded like a good deal. Sure, companies aren't supposed to fire folks for being on jury duty - but what company is really going to hold a job for a couple of years. They also don't have to pay you for jury duty - so that $40 a day for federal jury duty has to pay the mortgage for a year or two.
A better system would be to have HUGE fines for companies which manage to lose juror's jobs on them. The courts should also pay jurors based on their previous year's gross income. They should also pay the juror's employer 50% of the juror's income. This would of course raise the cost of a trial astronomically. This should be passed onto the trial parties - either by loser pays or by jury's discretion, or by plaintiff pays, or whatever. Then when person A wants to sue person B for $500 and wants a jury trial they can think twice about whether a $500 dispute is really worth the costs to society of a full trial. If ??AA wants to sue a college student they can consider whether it is worth the huge legal costs should the jury find their suit baseless and allot all trial costs to them. Keep in mind that ??AA is now dealing with IT folks on the jury and not just folks who don't have anything better to do with their time...
Oh, it isn't that bad. My father had a stroke and was scheduled for an MRI within a week. A friend of mine had a growth on his testicle and had a full biopsy as well the MRI the next day. This was in Alberta, Canada. I know there are sometimes holdups, but it's still not as bad as you say. I think the doctor's judgement of the direness of the situation is important in placing people on the priority queue.
ERROR 144 - REBOOT ?
Yeah, it sucks.
Even in real estate, such as rental properties, it was getting absurd. You'd have a lease that was so full of legalese, you didn't know what you were signing unless you hired a lawyer. Even then, it was hard to understand.
Finally, under pressure, some states passed laws forcing the lease to be readable and understandable by "laymen".
I should point out that even lessors (the landlord) were frustrated at the old system. Wanted to add something to the common lease before? Hire a lawyer, waste time, waste money. Now, you can type it in plain language and it would be found acceptable if it is understandable and makes sense, and with far less worry about the typical contract "against the draftee" laws.
Not replying to your post particularly, but I wish that the government would take more of a hand in getting rid of laws. This may seem crazy, but consider this: you have legislatures everywhere making laws, but to get rid of laws you just (IIRC) have the overburdened court system. It would be nice if we had some full-time body of government that would scrap laws with the same sort of get-some-votes abandon that gets us, say, anti-sodomy laws or fines for nuclear devices within city limits.