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PTO Requests Working Model of Warp Drive
aborchers writes "According to Patently-O: Patent Law Blog, the PTO has requested a working model of a Warp Drive for which a patent was recently applied. From the article, "Among other rejections, the Examiner has asserted a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 for lack of utility -- finding that the invention is inoperable." At least one examiner is paying attention!"
If they actually turn something in..
Too bad they didn't also answer a working model for many software that's patented, as well as some business methods, such as the RIAA's...
Now I've got some time to finish mine.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
I have a working model, but unfortunately it's stranded a couple of galaxies away. I can give you directions though, would that suffice?
This would be an example of a useful patent, if only it were true.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
.... that way we won't get harrassed with frivolous lawsuits when it becomes a reality 20 years + down the road.
Essay: A Violent Protest Against Patents
Thank you for this useful insight into my online rights. Keep up the good work, slashdot! :)
Note to mods: I'm probably being sarcastic.
spelling:0 composition:0 see me.
Warp engine designer: it's nice to see the time cube guy has a day job.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
Hello Earthlings,
I'd like to inform you, that ony of my many clients has in posession the MWOCPT titles to all kinds of warp drives. I think that if you where to see the patent, you'd understand we've got everything covered. Obviously, you (Earth) haven't developed gravity control yet... so, because of evolutionary "process" clauses in the Federation, we can't show you the patent. Besides... it's a 18.65TB PDF.
It's quite obvious that all your human efforts will fail, until you attaint a little bit of element 115. I'll leave you with that. Just so you know, the Orion Confederation doesn't take lightly to violations of Intellectual Property.
Thank you very much for your attention, and I hope this doesn't repeat itself,
-Stitch
Presently @ MilkyWay.Sol.3 (aka, Planet Earth)
BTW: If you want to survive the next galactical gravity fabric quake, we suggest you hurry up your nanotechnology advances...
Wait, can they DO that?
If it ain't broke, it needs more features!
Here's a dumb question from a non-lawyer: how long do patents last? Forever? I ask because if a patent only lasts 15 or 50 or 100 years or whatever, what sense does it make to patent something - even if it's essentially just an idea - if your protection is likely to expire before you take anything to market?
A-Bomb
Dear Friend, I am Mr Andrew Peter Worsley and I have an important business proposition for you. On December 12th, 2001, while testing my Warp Drive (patent pending) transport, the ship was stranded in Galaxy N37 due to technical difficulties. The patent office is now demanding that I show it to them before they will approve my patent. But unfortunately, I spent my last penny developing the prototype! As you can see, this patent would be very valuable, and recovering my ship would be a good business investment. I am currently lookinging for investors to gather the $35,273,000 needed to recover the ship. etc, etc, etc... Awaiting your urgent reply. Thanks and regards.
1. It should be no problem building a working prototype of this thing -- once they find a supply of dilithium crystals.
2. Cap'n, she canna work in her current condition. Impulse is the best I can give ya!
3. ?time warp engines these mean you do What
Take it away ...
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Just speculating on the availability of appropriate test facilities, to prove that the device actually works. Good try on the part of the alledged inventor.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Well, it's nice to see that at least someone applied some brain before passing a patent. Unfortunately, it's not always so easy.
My guess is that normally, the patent clercs simply shake their heads, say "don't understand it, but since they wanna patent it, it's prolly working" and pass it. In this case, though, at least "warp drives" are so well known to be science fiction and far from a working model, that it rang someone's alarm bell.
I wonder, though, if a quantum singularty drive would have been shot down as well. It's not really common knowledge anymore that those don't work (yet) either. Worse yet, they won't be used in Federation starships.
I really sometimes wonder what kind of approval course a patent has to go before becoming patent. Does anyone who has a clue take a look at all?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Just call it a software warp drive, or even just include the word software somewhere in the application. Just watch the bastard fly throught the application process.
Remember, it takes 42 muscles to frown and only 4 to pull the trigger of a sniper rifle.
seems a bit overdone, I think they pretty much explained freshman quantum physics in the first part... but if you skip down to the bottom, it makes a smidgeon of sense.... I wouldn't doubt that the actual solution is something similar to this, but the problem they would have is that (if the whole electron bit is true) is the immense forces on the armatures and the internal superconductor. Theres a problem is that if you try to push strong magnetic fields into a superconductor, they tend to break down (the property of superconductivity, not the actual ceramics).. so when this thing (if its even possible) starts to lift, it will likely collapse the superconductivity of the internal sphere, and it would fail to lift. You'd still see the difference on a scale, but I would doubt you'd ever get off the "launch pad" in the next 50 years.
meh
Where you rotate a superconductive sphere 1 meter in diameter 1,500,000 rpm. That'll work.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
that clerk is a /. reader.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Hmm....either the PTO is waking up and doing something it should do for a majority of it's patents (NTP vs RIM anyone??) or NASA has looked at this and said....WOW....we could USE THIS!
On the otherhand, I don't believe for s second that this guy really has invented a WORKING FTL drive.
Gorkman
Based on my experience with the Patent Office, even if they were presented with a working model it would still take them four years to process it.
-- Scott
...was not submitting a patent request for 'one-click Worsley-Twisting'.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
Anything that might get you frigging humans off my planet is worth trying.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
to the phrase "spin up the FTL drive."
hi - at my company, we hold a lot of patents. In fact, there's a program in which people at the company can submit patent ideas and our legal department checks them out and sees if they exist/are viable/etc. I submitted one last year (that already existed - damn) and while speaking with one of the lawyers he mentioned, quite empatically, that whatever is being patented does not actually have to exist. According to him, you can patent a process or software or hardware that has no working proof of concept. I think the idea of submitting a patent on something that can never exist is pretty lame, but on the other hand, I don't think that people should be allowed to call dibs on patents just so they can wait for somebody else to do the work and then sue them. It's tough to find a same medium. how close is too close (or too far) from the realization of an idea for it to be patented?
calling all destroyers
I have no problem with people getting a patent on an "idea" or software concept as long as the person can
1. Show no prior art
2. Has intent to use said patent.
Patents are meant to protect a inventory from LOSS due to stealing of a persons idea. They where never meant as a profit center.
I should not be able to think up and idea and then just sit on it until someone else decideds to try and use it.. Wait even longer then sue them for using it once they are worth money.
Personal Website
While I was reading that, apart from my brain melting I half expected the post to end in a "YOU ARE eduCAATED STUPID FOUR EARTH DAYS IN TIME CUBE ".
Whatever happened to the guy who submitted football diagrams for inventing the first CPU before everyone else? He's one of those "I got a patent after the fact and you're gonna give me money to avoid a lawsuit" type.
There is actually a term for this...
Word Salad
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
The Phantom of the Opera wants a warp drive?
So I suppose my patent for the flux capacitor will be expected to come with a working model?
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
'stealing of a persons idea'
<pedantic>
It's not "stealing" because when you copy someone else's idea, you do not take that idea away from them. They still have the idea after you have copied it.
</pedantic>
I'll probably be modded down for this...
There is an interesting article on this guys site about software patents [Math You Can't Use]: http://patentlaw.typepad.com/patent/2006/02/book_r eview_mat.html
This is the same way Art Bell kept mechanical kooks off his radio show. Anyone who claims to have a perpetual motion machine design is told to send a model. When he gets a toy which runs forever then he'll gladly discuss it.
What's that skip? Timmy's trapped down the well?
James P. Barrett
I got nothing.
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
"most of the examiners in the electrical arts know more about electronics than you guys."
/. falls into that category too, but I'm including you in that analysis.
Why do you that, because they can tell a ceramic cap from an electrolytic?
In any event, no, their knowledge is limited and laughable. I agree most of
No offense.
... but he can use his device to go back in time and kill the examiner.
Just grant him the patent. Then, if there's anything real there, the patent will have expired by the time anyone has to worry about it.
Back in the beginning this was a requirement, i think.. You brought in a shoebox to show them along with your filings
---- Booth was a patriot ----
At least one examiner is paying attention!
They'll probably submit it a few more times, with different titles and slightly different wording, until they hit a patent examiner who's not paying attention. Then they'll withdraw the others.
Or maybe they won't withdraw them. If I have N slightly differently-worded patents on the same thing, can I sue someone N times for violating all of them, and collect N x damages?
IANAPL, but it'd be nice to know such things, to get an idea of just how absurd the patent law thing has gotten.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
....to how this space drive patent application was treated. When this earlier patent was discussed on Slashdot I made a comment discussing how the patent just sailed through without a single question being raised about operability.
The difference? I can't really determine the exact reasons, not being privy to the cirumstances surrounding the prosecution of each application, but one fact is that each was examined by a different examiner. I can speculate on the disparity of treatment, however. It is another fallout from PTO management's 30+ years of emphasis on meeting production and timeliness goals over substantive quality aspects of examination, quality meaning finding and applying relevant prior art and passing judgement on issues such as operability (I don't include aspects such as including software and business methods as patentable subject matter or creating a high standard of proof to support obviousness rejections, since these have been imposed externally by the courts).
The PTO's response to issues of quality has been to establish an entire subbeaurocrocy dedicated to "Quality Review", which has all the pitfalls of centralizing such essential values outside of the main operation. The main failure is how one expects a small core of people, no matter how expert they are in the examination process, to possess the same depth of knowledge as even a mediocre examiner in a give art. PTO management then compounds this with a punitive aspect; if QR "kicks back" an application the examiner will get charged with an error, yet the QR reviewer doesn't have the same kind of production pressure as the working examiner to grind out cases; telling someone "you should have spent more time searching this case" isn't particularly helpful if it doesn't explain how one chooses the other applications from which this time should have been taken.
The negative publicity concerning examination quality has, finally, reached the attention of PTO's upper level management, but, it is an open question if they will recognize that just heaping more "review" on the process will not actually result in an improvment, but that a fundamental return to the ethic of a genuine quality examination is the way to go.
...that is, warp drive ? Hell, let them work on it if they want. We should patent the software and its interfaces that would control a warp drive, from every possible angle and aspect. That way it won't matter if they can patent a warp drive, they won't be able to use it unless they pay you bucks/engine :) learn from MS, and you shall be rich :P
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
When they finally bring in the Working model and those comedy Dollar signs replace their pupils ..
just at that moment some Vulcans will come to earth and we will enter a new era of utopian communism .
Thus any point the patent had will be worthless , they simply can not win.
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
you are not a company we recognise as one of our sponsors, so of course we're going to check if your 'invention' is real
You can't patent the same thing twice. If they passed the patent today, by the time the warp drive is invented it would be expired and nobody would be able to patent the drive then.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Come on, IBM and Microsoft must have already patented that, they already are up to Borg technology and Transporters.
I wonder how many times a patent application has resulted in men in black suits showing up at the door of the person applying for the patent? For example, let's say someone files a patent application for some new type of weapon or something that could be of interest to the military. I could imagine a scenario where men in black suits show up and confiscate all data and information related to someones patent then threatens them with their life if they continue any related work. But even if you were granted a patent for a new weapon, would the details of the patent be kept under wraps?
spelling:0 composition:0 see me.
Posts like this, I wish I had Mod points...
e.g. a warp drive becomes possible in say 2046 - and the patent on the warp drive expired in 2023 because it was granted in 2006.
Voila!
[ReidNews]
What possible benefit would there be to occlude the Patent Office with "working models" of things for which there is no serious question whether it can work, other than to take up space and add expense to the legitimate independent inventor's efforts to secure an invention? The reason for doubting whether a warp engine can work is wholly legitimate, you know, because faster than speed light of macroscopic massive objects is -- well -- contrary to most modern physical theories.
In general, the office is frequently inundated with inventions that would violate the laws of physics or thermodynamics. Not that laws aren't meant to be broken, but in such cases the Office is well within its rights and duties to ask the inventor to put up or shut up. It should be noted that they do not do this, even of most cutting edge inventions, because they recognize that independent inventors rarely have the financial resources to realize their "working models."
Sure, bring in your working model atomic bomb, let's take a look. . .
...That said, 1.5M rpm for 1m diameter gives a tangential velocity of ~4,712 km/min = 282,74 km/s
How did you get that?
If I did my math right, 1,500,000 revolutions per minute X 3.14159264 equals 4712388.96 meters per minute, which equals 78539.816 meters per second, which equals 78.539816 kilometers per second.
20 years + Extensions
I can' speak about patents in other fields, but when it comes to drug patents, 20 years is not the end.
While there are many possible reasons to get extensions, the easiest one for most companies is to run a trial ftheir drug on children. Instant 3 yr extension.
And, if all else fails, a company can try to get Congress to pass a law extending their patent. It's legal.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
There was a previous slashdot article (about four months back, I believe) where it was mentioned that the NSA had applied for a patent for a gravitic drive. The patent application itself was so broadly worded that it basically covered every concievable implementation of how such a device could possibly work, even though it was shooting in the dark in every possible direction.
It doesn't matter anyway. If anyone ever came up with a reactionless drive, the USTPO could just issue a secrecy order if they wanted to cover it up badly enough.
BTW, does anyone remember an article here from a long time ago where some researcher developed a super-efficient electric motor? He -claimed- he had a test rig set up where a 9 volt battery was running a household fan with the same work output as a regular AC driven fan. None of my search efforts turned up anything.
He did not try to patent the Illudium P-38 Explosive Space Modulator!
Would that be a WMD?
Why would the MIB want you to *stop* developing a weapon that they'd find useful?
The MIBs would show up at your doorstep bearing a check with more zeroes than you can count, if you finish the device and grant them exclusive use of the resulting IP.
the nice mr cochran can just shoot the vulcan with his shotgun and loot the ship and start a galactic empire
The Simpsons already did it.
u had me reaching for my checkbook ;)
hahahaha
"Dear Friend, I am Mr Andrew Peter Worsley and I have an important business proposition for you. [...]"
THIS IS AN OBVIOUS FAKE!!!! EVERYBODY KNOWS, THAT ANY SERIOUS BUSINESS PROPOSAL WOULD BE IN CAPITAL LETTERS (and if weren't for that darn Slashdot-"Lameness-Filter" this joke could actually have worked the way I intended it),
YOURS FAITHFULLY,
DR. CLEMENT OKON
(CURRENTLY USING THE SLASHDOT ACCOUNT OF MY GOOD FRIEND ATROCIOUS COWPAT)
sig? Oh, that sig...
Just as one example I'm personally familiar with, a friend of mine invented and received a patent on a process to electrochemically deburr gun barrels after machining. Prior to this, said deburring was a lengthy, expensive mechanical process. Of course, he invited out representatives from the military to check out the process as part of having it certified for mil-spec work. Within the week his company was seized and shut down, and all of his equipment as well as the process was deemed classified. He was eventually compensated for the seized equipment, but never for the patent or the potential profits he would have made from it.
Have you read the application? Should be easy to build and test this as it does not demand anyhting to special. Looking at this though, its a US patent, so being based in the UK we could get the jump on them.
Who knows, spinning disks with a current flowing through may just work. Shame they had to claim it as a warp engine though.
How about a Slashdot for Patents???? Given the knowledge and interest I've seen displayed here, and the fact that the SlashCode is available, I really think this could work!
Features: Here's a rough, back of the envelope, sketch of how it could work:
Getting patents A demon could periodically check the USPTO site, and create an article for each new patent application it finds.
Categorizating Patents would be categorized into different "departments". Hmmm, could a Bayesian filter come up with a short list of recommendations? These could be attached to the article as options for "High-Karma" users to select (or offer something better). As soon as some threshhold (say 10 votes) is reached, the article is moved from the NEW department to the selected department.
Moderating This could procede as it does here on slashdot, but the comments' focus could be to examine the patents:
Benefits Offhand, I see this would:
What have I missed? I know there has to be SOMEthing! Thoughts? Ideas?
So finally we have proof that the 9-year-old Slashdotter is not just a stereotype.
I was going to file my Warp Drive patent tomorrow. Now I guess I'll have to file my patent for the Varon-T Disruptor. Or even better, a phasing cloak. If they asked for a proof-of-concept, I'd simply say, "it's invisible!"
The applicants are not American
PTO has requested a working model of a Warp Drive for which a patent was recently applied.
Please don't test it in my country.
Table-ized A.I.
They should grant this one! If the theory is sound and it works, it is unlikely we'll see an operable FTL engine before the patent runs out - which means that ANYONE can offer an FTL drive based on this design when they become feasible. This would be a patent working against itself because they will not be able to patent the same thing again later on. :)
:(
Of course, if Disney gets involved, expect "limited time" to be equated to "eternity" where patent terms are concerned.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Imagine what was going thru the PTO's clerk's mind when they first opened this. He/she probably spent the week reviewing solar-powered nose tweazers, auto-flushing toilets, ant nip, neon fishing bait, and a new envelope that seals via earwax instead of saliva. Then you grab the next packet and see warp drive...
Table-ized A.I.
Physicist Bruce DePalma's "N-Machine"
http://www.mufor.org/nmachine.html
Perhaps he's the reincarnation of James Joyce.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
How nice it would have been if they had done this for wireless email.
I think Seagate is already working on 1,500,000 RPM drives. ... Seagate Warp Drives ... .
application 20030114313 Worslet and Twist - then nearly all of this is a rehash of physics equations - 388 paragraphs of this stuff, then 12 paragraphs of claims, and a hundred paras of examples.
I'd love to be there when these guys show up with a couple of pringles cans, a car battery and some carefully made "flux capacitor" labels.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
You forgot about dupes of course! We'll end up with duplicate patents using your method.
You don't have to provide a working prototype. However there are many reasons an examiner can reject an idea. One of these is lack of novelty (you get a rejection citing a reference and you can resubmit showing how your invention is different and unique). Another is have to provide a demonstration of sorts to show that it would work. For example, warp drives and perpetal motion mechanisms are likely to be rejected as impossible. If you can provide a demonstration that overcomes the examiners objection then you're back in the game. Start Trek reruns will probably not be sufficient.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Tomorrow I will lodge my application to patent God.
Since in the USA "In God We Trust", they must approve the patent.
I will then claim licence fees on all derived works.
Mod parent up, as this was a most excellent post.
Why don't I ever find these gold nuggets of information when I have mod points . . .
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
+5 Informative is the only appropriate moderation for the parent.
maybe someone in the future has come back to the present via the device in this recently published JP patent application. ;-)
I wonder if this one will be granted..
*swiped from a mailing list I'm on* - translation credits to Paterra.com
JP2006-050900A, published 2006-2-16, Wormhole time machine
Claim 1
A device-embodied space wormhole time machine that sees
worm anomalies (future) and is guided by the following theory:
i) Pulses of negative energy only are fired into an
artificial, electrified mini blackhole.
ii) Since pulses of negative energy are invariably followed
by pulses of positive energy, these are cancelled with a negative
electrode to yield only pulses of negative energy.
iii) Thus, a place where a worm anomaly (future) can be
viewed at length arises.
iv) Furthermore, since only pulses of negative energy are
taken out, one can make a space wormhole time machine.
No IPC or FI classification was assigned.
Inventor:
Isao KAJISA
2-9-1 Nagao, Kokuraminami
Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, Japan
No, no, no. There's no need to turn anything in. The patent submitter simply needs to clarify that this is a business model for computer usage that he's patenting.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
This is like the eighty pound woman who takes a man's job in a place that requires heavy lifting, cannot do the work, so she finds 'nice men' to do the work for her. Again and again and again.... This is bull. If software is 'assumed to be able to do whatever job is given a bye by a patent office and hardware must answer a higher standard, then a fraud of monstrous proportions is being commited on the people of this nation these software companies. One needs ask a question that seems everyone is afraid to ask. Software is by definition on its own 'End User Lie-sense-ing Aighhreement not worth the media it is coded on. Read your EULA's! Any of them! They ALL deny any and all of even the most basic of promises to perform, even the basic common law promise of merchantability or fitness. No software product that I know of agrees on its EULA to perform to its claims on the sealed and uninspectable box in which it was packaged when sold to you. None of them promise to refund any more than the cost of a blank CD except a few games whose publishers know beforehand that those games are only contracted legally to be sold in outlets that do not refund software purchases under any circumstances, like Wal-Mart. Court action to compel a fifty dollar refund from such a company would be a multimillion dollar futility with the likes of the corporate whores now sitting as judges on our higher courts before whom the cases would ultimately have to be decided a generation of obfuscations and legal maneuverings hence. Again the question everyone is afraid to ask! The five hundred pound turd in everybody's living room the we all pretend is not there!
Why is'nt software held to a quality standard? Why is'nt software held liable when it fails? Why do the stupid
and blind British continue to use an operating system like windows to operate its capital ships in the face of repeated crashes resulting in some of their most expensive and newest capital ships being dead in the water and virtually defensless in the face of any enemy, time after time after time. What does it take to drive the point home to people that software cannot be given a bye on performance. What does it take to stop idiots from persecuting quality investigators trying to bugs in some 'copyrighted wonderous version One-point-Oh(no)' that has never worked but you better not try to find out why? What great tragedy of bibical proportions has to happen before someone will demand the same reliability of software and the acceptance of the same in the shrinkwrapped 'agreements' accompanying those 'packages'? When will the extortion of the world's software consumers end.
And the biggest question of all. Why do we lie to ourselves by continuing to have faith in the present systematic shakedown of the world's software consumers? If we are going to naturally assume some fellow's 'warp drive' is not real until a working model is given to a patent officer who as far as the history of the patent office in this country goes may well be a microsoft employee, then why do we accept software patents that are so general that they could as well patent all the vowels in the Roman Alphabet and deny three thousand years of prior use and work? Einstein was a poor patent clerk when he published his theory of electrodymanics and relativity. He published mathematical constructs, and his e=mc^2 is imcomplete as there are other terms in that equation. This fellow's warp drive rendered in hardware may be exceedingly expensive to build and require highly skilled persons to test if it were real, and it is by no means automatic that he/she is a crackpot any more than the crackpot idea of Wal-Mart to patent the lazy susan checkout turnstiles. Do we then say that only the wealthy can patent expensive devices? This person's warp drive may well be dangerous to use near a planet. Do we then say that along with his device hardware he must also invent a space shuttle able to transport his device to a safe operating distance from Earth and/or any nearby affectable body? A black-ligh
In cases like this, I think it's the duty of business to donate the required technology to governmental organisations, so that they can keep up. If you want to prove your case to the patent office with software they don't have, then you should provide them with an unlimited license to that software. But then, I also think that any software technology that enables people should be available to all members of society. Otherwise, those "Joe Inventor"-types "working in a garage" are being limited, and so society and technology is being held back. I'm NOT pointing fingers here, but to finish my point... those who use intellectual property to do that don't deserve the protection of our society's intellectual property laws.
Step 1: File patent
Step 2: Profit
This is actually a pretty sad state of affairs, when you think about it. It makes the news when the PTO actually rejects a ridiculous patent, because the rejection of ridiculous patents has become so unusual. Just think - the idea has to be as outlandish and insane as a *warp drive* to get the patent office to say "no", and even then the act of saying "no" has become so rare that it's now newsworthy.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Where's my Moron to English / English to Moron dictionary?
* rustle *
Ah - here it is.
U sUx0rz n00b.
The Blackberry was a working model. The patent on the technology had no working model. So ....
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Just because someone objects to the improper use of the English language doesn't make them an anti-copyright fanatic or an anarchist. By using the terms "theft", "stealing", and "piracy" when talking about violations of the copyright laws you are doing a disservice to everyone.