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Intel Sued for Patent Infringement
mfh writes "All Computers Inc. has filed suit against Intel for infringing on US Patent (5,506,981). Apparently Intel utilized patent-conflicting circuitry to determine the frequency of the input signal to the microprocessor, including Pentium processors. All Computers is asking for the tidy sum of $500 million USD."
We need one. Please!
You know what I miss? Leeches.
Because someone will own a piece of every idea.
And people will wonder why the US falls behind in tech.
> As a Christian I find the idea that humans invent knowledge to be ludicrous and offensive. Copyrights can encourage creativity, patents just encourage people to make a product then rape and pillage their industry.
I agree with both of these sentiments. The universe has existed far longer than humanity, and therefore it is totally impossible for us to invent anything beyond method, and all methods are available to us since the dawn of time. While I may be Christian, I am a science-based one; ie: the Bible is a good reference for parable and theories for understanding, and I believe that is the purpose of the tome.
That said, the patents seem to go against the scientific flow of time, by blocking inventions that build on the history of human science and discovery.
Why we have to reinvent the wheel every time we want to build a useful product or service is why we are evolving slower than we could. Darwin said that impediments in evolution, or road blocks, must be removed for a species to adapt and overcome. Are we going to adapt? To me, patents infringe on life and our chances of survival as a species.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I think this is symptomatic of having every rich kid's parents pay for them to do law, and many of them not ending up in law... but business.
So what you have is alot of "legally aware" a-holes who love to try and push every "business advantage".
They are the other side of capitalism. On one side of capitalism you have inefficient state intervention. On the other you have vested interests who don't want to have to face dynamic markets, they want everything to be wrapped up, safe and secure, for them.
It's funny that the same people outsource, and yet they are afraid to compete on price with other companies. They are the high priests of globalisation, and it's about time they were recognised as anti-capitalist. These people don't believe in the free markets, they are just on whatever bandwagon it takes to make a profit. The minute someone starts doing something more efficiently than they do, they have a huge cry and resort to the law.
That isn't capitalism, that's just greed.
I for one would like to see more economists speaking out against these people as anti-capitalist anti-innovation leeches. We all get to where we are in science because we stand on the shoulders to giants who contributed their work for free to the public domain. Now these leeches make minor alterations and claim they should have a monopoly on the one logical solution to a problem for scores of years. Fuck that.
That's not innnovation and that's not capitalism. That's the logic of daddy's little little lawyer, who got their job through family connections, corruption through fraternities or a degree from one of the "elite" institutions which allows these smacktards to identify each other.
There needs to be a capitalist revolution whereby all these people and their anti-capitalist practices are smashed. Because if you aren't a well meaning socialist and if you aren't a well meaning capitalist, I can only thing of one more catergory: criminal.
What people want is a section like Apache, Apple, Games, etc. for legal items. That way, if the talk of lawyers, lawsuits, etc. nauseates them, they can block that section.
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
You can view it as greed if you like, but the language of business is money.
That aside, not all lawyers come from rich families or go to Yale because their Dad's a senator. Some are working class schmoes that had to take out $100,00 loans to go to school and end up working in the county DA's office pulling in only $30k (guess how long those loans will take to pay off) because they want to keep the drug dealers off the streets.
Not all lawyers are bad, not even all IP lawyers are. What are your opinions on Lessig and the EFF's law team?
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
IANAL but..
From reading the patent, It appears to Me that this patent was on a method of installing CPU upgrades to a computer. For example those cards that took a 386 to a 486 or allowed you to exchange the CPU for a faster one and increase the clock speed. These types of cards are about useless anymore! Besides, this patent was applied for in 1993 - I am VERY sure there is prior art. I can remember these types of upgrades as early as 1986. Hell, NEC was offering upgrades as early as 1981, albeit not this type, but it DID upgrade the CPU and increase the clock speed. It was that old V20 CPU and a clock crystal to upgrade your 8088 PC and increase the clock from 4.77mhz to 8mhz. (Hmm.... I* wonder who else on here actually used one of those besides Me?)
It'll be interesting to see how this playes out, but seems to me that this is a poor attempt by a company that has no market anymore to get a few quick bucks. --- Hey, I wonder if any SCO people are thier relatives ?!?