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Burst.com Sues Apple Over Patent Infringement
AWhiteFlame writes "Techdirt is reporting that Burst.com has filed a lawsuit against Apple for Patent Infringement. From the article, 'Burst.com is known for having patented a method for moving large pieces of content online at faster speeds [...] Last year, they approached Apple, suggesting that the company pay it 2% of iTunes' revenue. Apple then went on the offensive in January, proactively asking a judge to either invalidate Burst's patents or declare that Apple wasn't infringing. Just to make the litigation circle complete, after a few months of trying to reach a middle settlement ground, Burst has now gone ahead and sued Apple on its own.'"
1) vanilla load balancing
2) automatically resuming a download
3) playing a download while the entire file is saved to disk (regardless of how much is actually viewed?)
4) caching downloads (and/or partial downloads) on disk instead of asking the server again
I can't bring myself to actually read the patents since my Patentlawyerese-to-English translator is broken but they have a list of them here (pdf).
So some speculator pooled together the [cough]bullshit[/cough] IP of several defunct startups and hopes to sue everybody.
Another company gets sued. Happens every day, and it's getting old. Can we wait an just post news when XYZ Corporation actually loses a lawsuit?
What are you doing now, you lazy drunken obscene unsayable son of an unnameable gipsy obscenity?
I hate to burst their bubble, but it looks like the apple of their patent portfolio's eye may soon be plucked.
Someone kill me.
because I'd be a bajillionaire.
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
f*ckedcompany.com is going to list itself soon if this keeps up! All we have to do is look at which companies are suing large money making companies over stupidity patents and you know that companies is going to sink soon! :) Just look at the track record: Rambus? NTP? SCO? I know they're not completely gone yet, but they sure seem headed that way. I'm sure there are more, but they don't come to mind at the moment. It always seems like it's a company's last ditch effort to remain relevant. Sue your way back to profitability. :)
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
Hot/profitable product = Lawsuit That is American way of sharing the pie.
From the article, 'Burst.com is known for having patented a method for moving large pieces of content online at faster speeds [...] ... there's nothing like software patent, just sit back and let the lawyers cash in.
aaahhh
For whatever it's worth, back in January Cringely wrote that Burst does have something worthwhile:
The reason Apple changed its MacWorld announcements at the last minute was because the company sued little Burst.com a few days before, trying to invalidate the Burst patents. But since Apple sued Burst, Burst shares have gone UP by 30 percent. The market is rarely wrong. Suing Burst was an enormous mistake for Apple, casting a pall on their video strategy and potentially costing the company strategic alliances with networks and movie studios. Apple realizes this now and is struggling internally to find a way to change course and put a positive spin on the course correction. Apple will lose and Burst will win, and Apple won't be able to afford to wait for the courts to decide anything, since time is critical in staking out Internet video turf. I predict that Apple will eventually take a license from Burst, that is UNLESS SOME OTHER COMPANY (Google? Real? Yahoo?) doesn't snatch up Burst first.
Here's something I've noticed lately: Big companies believe in patents as long as they are talking about THEIR patents. Because Burst is three guys in an office in Santa Rosa, companies like Microsoft and Apple tend not to take them seriously. They forget that Burst spent 21 years and $66 million developing that IP, and the company has code that is still better than anything else on the market -- code not even Microsoft has seen. Unless someone buys the company first, Burst is going to win this and eventually license the world. They are in the right, for one thing, and in practical terms they now have as much money for legal bills as any of their opponents. Apple can't win this one.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Boy will they be upset when they find out Apple doesn't make any money on iTunes. Might set a bad precedent for future endeavors though.
It is a little ironic to look at how Microsoft initially started the litigation spree for Burst by settling for $60M which makes a litigation warchest for Burst to pursue Microsoft's major competitors in multimedia distribution, i.e. Apple Computer & Akamai.
It's kinda like how Microsoft initially bought a license from SCO several years ago, and then watched as SCO attempted to IP-attack the Linux community, again a upstart competetitor for Microsoft for Server Operating systems.
Is there a pattern emerging here, where Microsoft throws in the towel against a lowly firm IP software patents, which indirectly supports Microsoft's ultimate goals. The old adage: The enemy of my enemy is my friend!
I went and read some of their docs and went through their technology presentation. What their incredible solutions is: redundant server setup with a separate distributor server that "tells" the client software which of the servers is least loaded, and buffering of video (or what they call it is faster-than-realtime "bursting" and "caching"). That's it.
They have their right to offer their products on the market, but there's totally nothing worthy of patenting and licensing there, so no wonder both Microsoft and Apple turned them down.
This is the sad story of a company with an actual product that turned into a patent troll, simply since being a patent troll pays better.
It may seem like Burst.com is simply another NTP or patent troll, but I don't think that's really true. They actually did have a product but were driven out of the market by MS and WMP
And while their technologies may seem obvious now, they may not have been so obvious when they patented them. In fact, during the tech bubble, many though Burst would be another hot company. In fact, they argue that they were driven out of business because windows media player purposely was built to be incompatible with their technology (this is second hand information not verified by me.)
I'm not sure if Burst.com actually deserves to have these patents or win these lawsuits, but it definitely seems more justified than NTP in suing MS and now Apple
The USA will fall behind because ever more intellectual property will be locked up behind a multitude of corporations and individuals effectively ruled by lawyers who are more interested in earning legal fees rather than bothering to actually manufacture anything.
Other Governments and Europe's bureaucracies will not hesitate to forcibly acquire the necessary intellectual property needed get things done for large projects
Other countries and even Europe's parliament will also not hesitate to adopt more liberal intellectual property structures if you demonstrate that doing so will better benefit their economies as a whole, instead of just a few major corporations.
The USA administration and even more myopic major corporations will continue to let more and more manufacturing, service industry and development to be off-shored resulting in importing permanent poverty into the USA.
You want to see the future of the USA? Visit the remnants of Detroit motor city works, Ye Mighty, and despair
This is a good thing: Every time some little company pisses off some big player like Microsoft, IBM or Apple with some inane patent thing, it pushes the big companies (and their army of Washington lobbyists) one step closer to realizing just how screwed up the American patent system is. Of course it would help if the people in Congress had a clue, but every little bit helps.
>You want to see the future of the USA? Visit the remnants of Detroit motor city works, Ye Mighty, and despair
It's tragic when you lose an empire, isn't it? The Brits used to rule a quarter of the globe and now.. Let's hope the US decline can be managed as peacefully. Somehow, though, I fear there is going to be a lot of thrashing about militarily and people are going to get hurt.
K.
The way I see it is that there are currently just too many patentables in computer software. Some reform is needed, such as not allowing companies to patent "operation X, which is old, *applied to* market Y which is new" type patents, which are the real stupid ones. However, the majority of annoying patents like this will go away, because such a mass of prior art will exist, that you can be pretty much guaranteed that someone will have done something like it before unless it is truly inventive. That's not to say that bad patents won't be granted, but it will become pretty easy to get lawsuits like this dismissed with a little research.
Does anyone else see this optimistic view of the future? Am I just naive?
Uh if the code is so super secret where how does Cringley know it's superior? And if the code is so much superior to everyones elses including Apple, then obviously apple must not be infringing much since their code is so allegedly sub par. Cringley wants it both ways.
If this IP is so dramatically enabling and un obvious then apple's quicktime should also be vastly superior to microsofts viewer and it's not. (it's more polished and seemless, but does not have any earthshaking superiority in gapless playback or compression--(with the exception of the new data formats)).
If the IP is so obvious that everyone has it, then one might argue it's also not a worthwhile patent either.
If it's actually secret then no one has copied it at a high level implmentation.
They forget that Burst spent 21 years and $66 million developing that IP
21 real years? or 21 man years? either way, if the claims are true they had plenty of time to get this to market ahead of apple and MS so how can they argue they were injured by unfair competition.
It looks to me that the success of itunes is built on a lot more than some sort of streaming technology. So maybe they should get some royalties on the actual product they were competing against, quicktime, and not on the applicaitons it was put too. If apple had built itunes on top of a transport layer based on Windows Media player under the hood it would still function the same.
Now all that being said it's not impossible that apple did go ahead and knowing filtch methods and put them in quick time. Take for example, Stacker going into windows/DOS. I don't think Stacker technology really had anything to do with the success, short or long term, of windows. Still it was proven MS stole the technology. So maybe Apple is also capable of stealing someone elses IP. But the damages out to reflect the harm done. Stacker probably could have made a pile of money in the short term selling their code but would they deserve an ongoing percentage of MS gross sales???
These guys may deserve something if it can be shown their prior art was first, patented, and the methods actually infringed. (remember patents are supposed to be strictly for methods of implementing the actions of an idea not the idea itself. e.g You cant patent the idea of swinging but you can patent a specific method of propelling yourself.) But these guys are being one-click greedy on the scale of NTP.
Here's something I've noticed lately: Big companies believe in patents as long as they are talking about THEIR patents
Finally, cringley has his head up his ass there. As general rule big companies DON'T use their patents as weapons. They use them as defense and act on the tiniest fraction of their portfolio. Witness IBM which patents everything and sues infrequently. They whip those out when people sue them to turn it into a case of mutually assured destruction: if the plaintiff chooses to persue they could well end up paying IBMs court costs for their infrindgment of IBM counter-patents. The same is true of Apple. Cases like Windows Mouse Pointer Look and feel suit against MS and the Rotary dial suits against MP3 Players are the exception not the rule.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Hmm.. Are you lying?.. ;P
You mean the detroit with $1.64 billion in construction projects going on right now?. You fail to understand the American nature to adapt and change. Detroit was wounded, seriously, but is recovering. The US economy as a whole is similarly reactive and resiliant. We're not some pissy little island dependent on resources, we've adapted once and we can do it again.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
Bill Gates: Your Internet ad was brought to my attention, but I can't figure out what, if anything, Compuglobalhypermeganet does, so rather than risk competing with you, I've decided simply to buy you out.
Homer: I reluctantly accept your proposal!
Bill Gates: Well everyone always does. Buy 'em out, boys!
[Gates' lackeys trash the room.]
Homer: Hey, what the hell's going on!
Bill Gates: Oh, I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks!
Tell that to Iraq.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Google Detroit "tax break" OnStar
Google Detroit "tax break" Saab
Detroit's financial woes.
Yeah, unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Companies like IBM and Microsoft [for instance] are proud of their patent portfolios and even have hall of fames for people with the most patents. They patent every incremental improvement to any process they perform just as a means to screw over any possible competitor.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
If this were a patent squatter company then you would think that they would hoard all that cash that MSFT gave them in the settlement. They didn't and infact gave most of it away to their shareholders as a special dividend. You wanna know the yield? 45.45 %! The reason why MSFT settled is because they didn't want to have to fork out billions to BURST. I expect apple to come to the same conclusion.
MSFT almost put this company out of business. They went from hundreds of staff to just 2 staff, over the course of their patent litigation suit against MSFT. This company ain't no SCO.
1) vanilla load balancing
2) automatically resuming a download
3) playing a download while the entire file is saved to disk (regardless of how much is actually viewed?)
4) caching downloads (and/or partial downloads) on disk instead of asking the server again
----
since zmodem did 2 of these before shitbag incorporated, does that mean that zmodem can sue them?
Cringely wrote about Microsoft vs. Burst back in June 2002 and August 2003. This provides some background on Burst and their lawsuit against Apple:
. html>. html>. html>
s ting-people/200309/msg00116.html>
s ting-people/200309/msg00123.html>
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020620
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030821
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030828
Also some "Cringely vs. Microsoft" discussions:
Microsoft responds to Cringely:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/intere
Cringely responds to Microsoft's response:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/intere
Okay, can anyone explain why software has 2 forms of Intellectual Property protection? What other "invention" has both copyright and patents? If every single program is just a series of algorithms, built on top of digital logic circuits. What is the invention, the computer or the software? If it's the software, why does it need copyright if it's every single new piece of code is possibly patentable, and if not probably infringinging something somewhere?
No, this is exactly the problem with the system being date and prior art obsessed - patents are supposed to be about INNOVATION, not discovery (i.e. Einstein, not Columbus).
Burst may have been the first to suggest those ideas, but mostly because they were (among) the first to LOOK at those problems - that does NOT make it novel Intellectual Property. When *everyone* else looked at the same problems, they arrive at (basically) the same solutions.
--
graphicallyspeaking
graphically speaking
In 2001 I worked with a software engineer that had just left Burst.com after they shut down. He had put his entire 401k (~$200k) into the company in exchange for interest (stock) in the company. As I recall, he said that Burst was working with Microsoft and they were going to use Burst's streaming media technology. Microsoft, in the end, decided not to go with Burst and implmented their own streaming media technology.
I do recall that he said that they had some great technology. Too bad it took so long to sort this out. I doubt this guy ever will get back the money he put into Burst.
-b
How about reducing the patent time from 17 years to something more reasonable? (2 Years? 5 Years?) 17 years in the current marketplace is forever. In 17 years the underlying technology will be replaced...
3) playing a download while the entire file is saved to disk (regardless of how much is actually viewed?)
4) caching downloads (and/or partial downloads) on disk instead of asking the server again
So, why are they asking for a cut of iTMS? iTMS doesn't allow for the playing of songs or movies during download (the files are grayed out, probably due to DRM issues). And, if you've ever had a video download hang or crash, you'd know that the option for retrieving incomplete downloads involves first connecting to the iTMS. So neither 3 nor 4 actually apply to the business model they want to take money from.
Ah, that old chestnut. The USA has been "falling behind" for, what, 30 years now? Yet somehow, we always seem to end up back out front. Strange, that...
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Revenue is ALL the money you make before expenses.
If you sold 100 glasses of 1$ lemonade, you made 100$ revenue.
Now if that lemonade was licensed lemonade and you had to pay a 50cent licensing fee per glass.
You still had 100$ revenue
50$ in expenses
50$ in profits
It doesn't matter a flying flip what apple has to pay to the record labels, they (Apple) collected the money at a sale and therefore it is revenue.
Current account balance ? 150th out of 150, United States $ -829,100,000,000 2005 est.
Lowest external debt ? 205th out of 205, United States $ 8,837,000,000,000 30 June 2005 est.
The look on a redneck's face when he finally comes to the realization that President Bush has screwed over his life savings : Priceless.
I worked for a consulting company that helped write their first patents and developed their demos. I wrote one of the first versions of their streaming video server back in 1997 and the patents were submitted before that by my employer. Remember folks, this was way - way back before anyone was even thinking about streaming video or music over the internet, as a matter of fact, back then, you had special video hardware to do the mpeg decoding. In 97 it was impressive to be able to stream multiple video streams on a LAN. I think we had 10 clients streaming full video from our server over 10baseT. Ah, the good ole days of startups.
And you really think that if it's these huge corporations that finally push for patent reform it will be a kind of reform that puts the small inventor on equal footing with them? Everytime this sort of patent suit comes up someone posts "Oh goody, when the big players feel the sting they will change the system!" This is kind of a circular defeatist argument. You admit that the status quo won't change until the big companies that in reality hold the power push for change, but at the same time think that change will benefit anyone other than those big companies? The attitude needs to be that the patent system is broken, we ALL are feeling it and WE THE PEOPLE whom it is supposed to serve, not "we the corporations" need to revise it to work for everyone.
And more than anything else what the patent system needs is a way to successfully use it without having to spend thousands to millions of dollars on third party consulatations and lawyers. Forget all the actual lawsuits you're seeing, those come after a patent is granted; the fact is just to apply for and receive a patent you practically have to feed a family of lawyers. What a joke. I don't need a personal attorney with me at the RMV to successfully apply for a new drivers license, why should I need to do the same just to use the patent system with any chance of success up front?
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
but konfabulator is the widget engine, which is an idea that WAS ripped off of system 6.
s html
http://www.randommaccess.com/articles/1088610260.
But on to the main point: They had widgets beaten too. You say "The System Applets are NOT desktop components that pull live information from the Internet and can be constructed with an image and a few likes of DHTML."
No, but you know what was goddamn close? Hypercard. Go look it up.
Just because you're too young to remember it doesn't mean it never existed.
Burst.com is known for having patented a method for moving large pieces of content online at faster speeds
<bad car analogy>Guess it's time for me to file a patent on a method for making people go faster in cars.</bad car analogy>
As an aside, I always find it morbidly fascinating to watch others rooting for their own demise. You do realize, I hope, that the American economy is the engine that drives the world, producing 25% of world GDP. Combine that with how deeply tied into the US economy are the economies of the remainder of the world - that US dollar you despise so much accounted for 3% of the Kiwi GDP last year, by the way, through exports to the US - and the proposed impending collapse of the US economy is actually the impending collapse of the world economy. I realize there's a certain amount of schadenfreude on the part of furriners rooting for the downfall of the United States, but the reality is, you'll be on the bread lines with us. See ya there.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Hopefully the courts will see Apple's ITMS and iTunes/iPods as a monopoly that locks out competition (after all, no other music download service comes close to Apples) and force them to open up or shut down. Will be great to be able to use another manufacturer's players on iTunes and ITMS.
I remember having an extensive conversation with the Burst folks at Comdex back in 1991. At the time, I was working at Philips, in the CDI development group, working on streaming video off CD's. During this conversation, I could tell that what they were doing was fundimentally different from what everyone else thought was the correct way to stream data. Reading about the case lately, I think they have a valid claim...
According to the CIA's own figures the USA's world share of GDP (purchasing power parity) has fallen to 20%.
I'm over forty years old. I have lived though, vividly remember and fully comprehend the late 1970s oil crisis, New Zealand's own 1984 balance of payments crisis and the 1987 share market crash. My Father was born a year after the 1926 stock market crash and is well acquainted with the effects of the resulting depression. I have repeatedly seen fools and so called wise men throw their fortunes on various markets and schemes based upon expected high return on investment. Eventually and inevitablely the pyramid schemes -- for in the end that's all the revolving investment schemes are -- collapse.
I am fully aware of attempts to prop up and explain away the current US deficits, but, if you bother to read though the texts you will find the same language and faulty logic that was used to explain away the sustainability of pre-1987 junk bonds. It did not work then, and without radical adjustments, the system will fail again.
Ok, I'll keep it simple for you...
Applets were driver based applications, designed because of the Mac's inability to multi-task applications. PERIOD. (Multi-tasking OSes made this concept dated)
There is a difference between an application an a widget that co-exists on desktop space.
There is a difference between a static application like HyperCard and applications that pull information from a live network.
If Hypercard was what you suggest it was, there would NEVER have been HTML or a NEED FOR IT or HTTP.
But since I am posting this to an HTTP Server and viewing it in HTML, I would bet that you are probably wrong.
What is it with people thinking Apple created everything, I really want to know how people get such a skewed view of reality. What is it? Maybe the kool-aid from the marketing department at Apple tastes really good?
Try reality for a minute, pretend Apple isn't wonderful all the time, and they didn't create everything in the computer world. (Just for a Minute, you can hold your breath that long if you need to, heck even leave your tinfoil hat on.)
And then Mac users wonder why engineers, developers, and technically minded people, even the ones like myself that use Macs, hate the average Mac user as the average Mac zealot knows so little about the technology they use, and are so smug about what they think they know.
Instead of reading Apple's marketing, try a book on computer science or even take a class on CIS...
I'm sorry for being so blunt, but my patience for arrogance with ignorance has ran thin this morning...
>>I don't need a personal attorney with me at the RMV to successfully apply for a new drivers license, why should I need to do the same just to use the patent system with any chance of success up front?
Ok, troll, why don't *you* try to pass the patent bar?
"Visit the remnants of Detroit motor city works, Ye Mighty, and despair"
...
... ..."
I just the other day read in the Onion "Detroit Sold for Scrap".
"Detroit, a former industrial metropolis in southeastern Michigan with a population of just under 1 million, was sold at auction Tuesday to bulky scrap dealers and smelting foundries across the United States.
Once dismantled and processed, Detroit is expected to yield nearly 14 million tons of steel, 2.85 million tons of aluminum, and approximately 837,000 tons of copper.
According to scrap dealers, Detroit is an aging city in fair-to-poor condition, with "substantial wear and tear." It also bears the marks of extensive fire and rust damage, and it may not comply with current U.S. safety and emission standards.
There's more, but you get the idea.
We need a way to stem the tide of bullshit and odor emanating from the USPTO and the complement of turd-nugget companies and individuals abusing the beleaguered system. Also, it's not helping that IBM and msoft and others are filing somewhere around or over 2,000 patents a year. The filing threshold should DEMAND that if this thing will be TECH and not a physical product, and if current software or emulation tools will nullify it, then you can earn money from it, BUT IT WON'T BE PATENTABLE, in the interest of cutting out all these g*ddamned lawsuits. But, I suppose such changes (above and below) would somehow cripple to good 'ole US economy and free enterprise...
But, the US patent system is irrefutably f*cked mainly because it seems you have to be big or have a warchest to fight an infringer. Worse, you can be litigated to DEATH by some a*hole troll or warped people and businesses who failed to IMPLEMENT, not just FILE an idea/product design. And, while you can get a provisional patent filing, it isn't much protection other than getting you a date. Moreover, since just about anything tech is full of legalese an bullshit/jumbo self-congratulatory mumbo jumbo, it's virtually impossible to make heads or tales just by reading the text. I sometimes am aghast and amazed that a patent was granted. some of the stuff I read made me want to destroy furniture and go puke in a corner. It's appalling how the USPTO sucks up to money in a LOT of ways.
They USPTO should require and provide "faster and easier", not just their current searchability (I think Lotus Approach the database has better user-friendly searchability) AND pictures you can actually **USE**. Some of the pictures I saw were USELESS, and hard to download onto my Linux-based system because of some bullshit file/graphics plug-in they REQUIRE. I suppose they don't know about PDF, or they're in bed with the industry to make it hard for small people to QUICKLY dig thru the database to find something.
The dry, boring, overly-broad language I've perused in many patent filings is worthy of the most scathing and condemnatory language that can be continually devised, and the USPTO needs to be overhauled. If $5,000,000 can't resolve their problem, they should lose their status as a government enterprise and be replaced with a better database and the staff replaced by business-averse, non-bullshitting people who DEMAND the product work, be in the market at least 6 months, and not be based on an overly-broad patent.
I'm getting a damned headache just THINKING of this problem. Little people like myself have ideas (not on my computer) but face the filing cost hurdle. The price of filing a patent could and SHOULD be based on the ability to pay so that we could "get the show on the road". Instead, coughing up at LEAST $300 just to get into the system, then needing all the lawyers and other costs is daunting and discouraging. It should be a matter of "if you file and it does or doesn't exist, then you can get a patent as long as you don't do 100% of WHAT *and* HOW they do it; just be different and better, not inferior or trolling for patent litigation..."
So, while I wou
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
my patience for arrogance with ignorance has ran thin this morning
Pot meet kettle.
You realized that most of the results in those google searches had nothing to do with tax breaks in detroit, right? Or that any reinvestment plan relies on giving incentives to companies to move back, with the city planning to make its money on taxing secondary effects, like sales tax revenues and income tax revenues, right? Detroit is rebuilding; the town is not as bleak as it was a few decades ago.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
Oh, you mean tell that to France and Germany, who were bitching about the US actions because they were getting sweetheart oil deals from Sadam's regime, right?
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
If Burst.com crashes and burns and burns a lot of people in the process, they will be known as.... (get ready...)
curst.bom
(Cursed.bomb)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
"How a patent like that got granted in the first place is absolutly beyond me."
Probably because is absolutely beyond your ability to pay for it? (I'm assuming you can't cough up the cash to get a patent AND the investors AND the manufacturing and the rest of the entourage that keeps many people from filing...)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Monopoly rights serve only those who can use capital and legal clout as leverage, most notably those who already have money and relations to power, and they're solidly stacked against anyone else.
Sometimes they can be helpful to the little guy. As an example I recently looked at starting a business making a food additive that would be a great success and much healthier than the current market alternatives. The chemical process was patented in the late 70's but didn't catch on because the manufacturing technologies weren't available until recently.
The reality of this business would be that before I could get FDA approval, significant manufacturing capability up and running, the product marketed and formed business relationships with food manufacturers - at the first sign of success any of the big agro companies could throw a fistful of millions at doing the same product and probably beat me on price, capacity, and logistics.
But they're not going to because the market is unproven. They don't take those kinds of risks largely because they're a big company - taking risks is largely the province of small companies in today's American economy.
Potential investors look at this and say, boy that would be great - is there something you could patent and license? There are too many modern manufacturing methods to gain any kind of monopoly status worth licensing.
So, basically this company probably isn't going to happen, which means less economic growth on however a micro scale, and people are going to continue to eat some sketchy food additives. This isn't a case of a new patent and there are plenty of BS patents being issues which screw the little guy, but there are some cases where, done correctly, they can help.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The US economy is a hollow shell now, with almost 40000 dollars owed to the rest of the world for every single person in the country. Borrowing more every time you hit your overdraft limit is not "reactive and resiliant", it's stupid.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Its called buying more upstream!
I have just patented Masturbation since the prerequisite to patent violation litigation does not require another entity has actually violated my patent, just the fact that if your doing it, you owe me becasue I patented it, regardless of how its done.
So if your a righty or a lefty or even use the overhand grip, Robotic Device or Biomechanical system, Get Ready to Pay!
Yes, I'm a troll clearly because I have come up with something I wanted to patent and found that to patent it would cost nearly as much in lawyer/patent company consultation fees as would starting a business from scratch! The point is not that patent attornies aren't needed at all, there are valid times to use the legal system to protect a patent. The problem is that so much lawyering has been introduced into the system that right off the bat an engineer with a detailed production-level diagram of a new and novel invention can't fill out a patent form along with that diagram and have a reasonable expectation of getting the patent, or having the patent actually protect the invention. Patent applications need to be done a certain way, I expect one to have to do some research, read a book or two, but you should still be able to use the system without having to pay thousands of dollars to a third party. Having looked into it I have found - and in the past others here have agreed - that this is simply not the case.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Does anyone know if a copy of the complaint [against Apple] is available online?
So, your ability to capitalize on your invention would be tied very strongly to your active efforts. If you see someone else building the same product based on the novel parts of yours, you can sue them to stop them from eating up your market share. (Their inventive process can't be novel - your machine is thoroughly documented and publicly available at the patent office after all.) Then (and here's the kicker), aside from paying your legal fees, any profits the infringing company made in the process will not go to you, they will instead go to the patent office, or the National Endowment for the Arts. Which allows you exclusive access to the market for your invention, but not to the money-making efforts and infrastructure of would-be competitors. At a stroke, that rule would eliminate the leech-like nature of patent law.
(Of course, there's absolutely no chance in a million years of this happening, short of an out-and-out revolution, but there you go.)
The Rolling Stones went live on the Internet in 1994, and they weren't even the first...
Oil wasn't really the primary reason for the invasion. The invasion's got to do with the fact that France and Germany weren't willing to take action against Iraq because they were afraid of getting their own spigot shut off. It's got to do with the fact that the UN is toothless and allows issues to escalate because it's full of crooks and liars. Iraq would not have happened if the UN had taken action when Sadam had first kicked out the inspectors. And the US's debt is in large parts not owed to the rest of the world. A lot of it is internal debt -- debt one department owes to another -- and treasury bills. Also, the debt figure doesn't take into fact inflation, and economic growth. Look here for a more accurate picture.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
No, it was the only reason for the invasion.
It's got to do with the fact that the UN is toothless and allows issues to escalate because it's full of crooks and liars.
Putting aside the fact that one reason the UN is toothless is the obstruction of the US, what issues? That he was a dictator that was killing his own people? The US knew that when Rumsfeld was selling him West Nile virus and sending CIA agents to help him calibrate the effects of nerve gas on Iranians. The mass graves in Iraq all date from the period when the US was helping him most. That's not an issue that would make the US care, any more than it is in Zimbabwe or China today.
Wolfowitz, Chaney, Rumbsfeld, Rice, and Bush are all obsessed with oil and have been for decades. They have written about how important it is to control the oil supply. Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld even SAID that an excuse to invade Iraq should be found as soon as possible, in order to secure the oil supply. Yet you actually think that the invasion was to do with...in fact, what are you saying it was to do with, exactly? Democracy? Give me a break. Jealousy of the tiny amount of oil France and Germany were getting from Iraq? (and I do mean tiny, the right-wing American Heritage Foundation claimed that France had made a whole 3 billion in 7 years out of the various deals - a whole 420 million per year. Nice if you can get it, but hardly a big deal in national terms). What are you claiming was the US's "issue" with Iraq?
Iraq would not have happened if the UN had taken action when Sadam had first kicked out the inspectors.
Yes, and it wouldn't have happened if America hadn't hired Saddam to assassinate the previous leader in Iraq. And Iran would not be happening today if America and Britain had not replaced its democratically elected leader with a Nazi simply because the former leader nationalised the oil industry.
US foreign policy for the last 90 years has been about economics (which isn't actually unusual) and since it has historically been very inefficient at conserving oil, that means it has tended to revolve around ensuring that the oil flows. Whether it's in Afghanistan where the big pipeline is, or Saudi and Iraq where the big deposits are, or Venezuela where there's big deposits AND a leader who wants to move the oil markets onto the Euro, which would kick a huge whole in the US's foreign exchange balance.
Funny thing is, Iraq did exactly that shortly before it was invaded (after which it was put firmly back onto dollars). So has Iran and North Korea. Now there's a list that has a familiar ring to it.
But the invasion wasn't to do with oil. No.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I like your solution, it helps fund the patent office - which many admit is a source of some of the problems - and also removes the incentive to use a patent portfolio soley for litigation income. Nice and direct, and yeah, therefore unlikely to ever be used.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Wait a minute, you're saying that France getting a "paltry" $3 billion in oil had nothing to do with its refusal to support any action against Iraq, yet the US action was all about the oil? Hypocrite.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
No, I never said that. In fact I never said that oil had nothing to do with why France did not support the invasion of Iraq, although 3billion over 7 years is, as you say, paltry. Basically, you just made that up to avoid dealing with what I did say.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"