Slashdot Mirror
USPTO Rules Fogent JPEG Patent Invalid
fistfullast33l writes "Groklaw has reported that the USPTO has ruled the broadest claims of the JPEG Patent held by Fogent to be invalid. PUBPAT, the organization that requested the review, released the news earlier today. According to PJ, the ruling will be hard to overturn as the 'submitters knew about the prior art but failed to tell the USPTO about it.'"
Wow... it's nice to know that they are at least looking at things better.
Even if they didn't know about the prior art, why should it affect the ruling if prior art was involved? Since they knew about prior art but didn't report it, they should be fined.
These days you could probably get a patent for a "process of expelling excess gas generated by metabolic processing of protein and accumulated in the large intestine and colon."
Now we can look at the many other invalid patents and have them overturned. Just wish I had more time to research them and present why they are invalide the the USPTO.
"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm." - S. G. Colette
Why does it take them so d@mn long to accomplish this in the first place? Even when a patent is finally ruled invalid -- and should have never been granted in the first place -- it seems it happens only after years of legal damage. No one is served well by this, except the lawyers.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Considering Microsoft's new graphics file format, an unencumbered JPG format is a rather handy thing to have out there.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
I vote for jailed. Fines are just a part of doing business, and do not appear to be much of a deterrent these days.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Especially if you promote it as a new Energy Source.
Heck, you can probably get VC funding for it as well.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Judging by the current overflow of prisons, jail isn't much of a deterrent either. The punishment should fit the crime. I think a fine would be the best option. If you REALLY want to punish them, then jack up the fine.
What they should have done is patent "Web 2.0"....
all the money they've been paid in licenses, plus interest?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The patent has not been completely ruled invalid. Some of the claims have not been addressed by the USPTO according to Forgent
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
US Patent office makes competent ruling! News at 11!
I just burned all my JPEGs...
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Or revoke their corporate charter and bar the executives from doing business again. I'm all in favour of invoking this sort of punishment - it beats the hell outa fines, and ensures fewer repear offenders. Call it a corporate "death penalty", and I'm sure that it'll find support in the conservative parts of the US :-)
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Speaking of image file formats, what has ever happened to JPEG2000? Wasn't that supposed to sweep away everything before it with a much improved format? It doesn't even seem to have made a ripple, and now Microsoft is coming out with PIC to replace everything that came before. How about it?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
All things considered, I'd rather jack them where it hurts a bit more.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
How many times do we need to go through this before it is clear that the patent system, wrt software, is broken. I am *NOT* necessarily against patents for software, but it is just about impossible to do prior art, becuase there is so much out there for a few years and then gone. Worse, the examiners don't have enough background to do the job, etc.
The peer review system that is being discussed sounds like a step in the right direction. There also needs to be some significantly less costly way to deal with claims of infringement and the ndefense than the Courts. Small companies can't afford to defend their patents or to challenge someone with deep pockets trying to enforce a patently bogus patent!
Don't forget that the primary purpose of corporations is to avoid personal liability and responsibility. It is both difficult to jail a corporation or jail individuals working for a corporation for corporate misbehavior.
It's Forgent, not Fogent.
Linux: Free if your time is worthless.
After we convert our cars to run on this new energy source will there be a public outcry each time the price of a slider goes up at whitecastle?
This thoroughly details which claims of the patent have been rejected (page 5) and which claims were found patentable (page 26). http://www.pubpat.org/672OA060525.pdf
are you saying you would like to sadistically jack them off? you sick, sick individual
Yeah. Freudian slip. I was thinking about forgery and how the name forgent is aptly suited for such company. Anyway, Im really confused now. The patent office said they should not have granted the patent in the first place. Is it just the fact that the other claims haven't been examined yet or do they stand on their own merits? Is this patent still dangerous with the parts that havent' been rejected yet or is the patent nerfed?
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
If the broadest claims of the patent are invalid, do the remaining claims have any teeth?
*sigh* back to work...
1. Yes, the patent system is severely broken, and it's flawed. Yes, the European version is better. Yes, patents (my grandfather had a few) should only last 17 years period, as the intention is to force publication of such information/concepts/executions so that everyone may gain from such public knowledge through a time-limited license, and the extensions we currently grant work against such concepts. But, let's face it, unless you have a few billion dollars, they will ignore what we say on this matter, for they are corrupt.
2. We need more public patents - and we need places like universities and colleges and publicly-funded institutions to file them, or at least on renewal reclassify the patent as a public patent but administer it, with a portion of revenues being used to reform the patent system.
3. Software is not, nor should it every be, patentable. Copyright? Sure. I published freeware and shareware at the dawn of public computing (70s/80s). But not patentable, nor should business processes nor conceptual methods be patentable. It is just plain wrong.
I don't expect you to agree with me, but I think this latest USPTO ruling brings up the issue on the public JPEG usage. JPEG is from the publicly-funded Jet Propulsion Laboratories - which we pay for with taxes. Open source depends on public patents, or at worst private patents signed over to OSF and other groups to administer.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I really don't think I want to know how a handjob would be punishment.
http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ti cker=forg&script=410&layout=-6&item_id=861407
No, the core problem wasn't with the patents, although those were bad enough. The core problems are ignorance (most people don't know what options exist), inertia (those who do often won't take advantage of them because it requires change) and stagnation (sufficient inertia kills all incentive to further develop alternatives). I would not be against compulsary education on how to be versatile, for this reason.
It is hard to blame Fogent alone, when the entire national attitude is based so firmly on milking every old idea for what it's worth, whilst the populace make no effort to avoid being bilked. As with those in Dilbert who have met the "world's most desperate Venture Capitalist", it becomes hard not to just take the money and run.
This isn't to say such conduct is good or acceptable - it isn't, in my opinion. Rather, it is to say that we should be addressing the whole problem, not merely a selection of the symptoms.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Maybe you should read the summary again and pay attention to phrase "broadest claims", dipshit.
Heh, I thought he was just being a little creative, though I use that in the sense of "A Small Talent for War"
The overflowing jails are in large part filled with those who can't afford quality lawyers. (Oxymoron? You get my gist.) The college educated crowd loses houses, cars, wives and children when they get sent up so, it would be a deterrent.
Another poster mentioned that the purpose of a corporation was to protect risk takers from liability: this is true but, it only refers to civil liability. Criminal behavior is NOT protected. Admittedly, failure to report prior art seems minor if compared to Ken Lay or a serial killer, I would still try to prosecute.
so it's Forgent not Fogent. I managed to do it in the title and the summary. [pats self on back]
Does this mean that Linux can now support JPEG, since it's now unencumbered by patents? Hurray!!
That may get you an all-expenses-paid trip to Gitmo, though. Only terrorists use non-oil-based energy sources!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
sandpaper gloves. sandpaper gloves, MooUK.
hey, here is a thought; start looking for a pattern esp. where the same person is modding somebody down. It should be obvious that fitten is being chased and modded by a personal deamon. There is NO way that the first post is modded redundant.
Yes, the meta moders should work, but there is way too much politics involved. Instead, put do simply check over the mods that notices if somebody is targeting another.
What we need is something similar to Digg Spy, but for patents. An interface which would allow you to view patent applications as they come in. Anybody could then pick one based on their expertise and start hammering away at it. If prior art exists, add a comment which highlights the fact.
This would take a huge burden off the patent office, which could then focus solely on (in)validating the claims.
I'm not too sure if the social networking side of things would work (i.e bunch of geeks doing it for the greater good), but you can bet that large corporations would start playing the game. They could hire entire departments whose sole job would be to invalidate competitor's patent application.
A million monkeys and this is the best sig they could come up with...
Does VC still stand for Viet Cong in the US or does it mean something else?
Jonathanjk.com
"Don't forget that the primary purpose of corporations is to avoid personal liability and responsibility. It is both difficult to jail a corporation or jail individuals working for a corporation for corporate misbehavior."
Talk to Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling about that, I'm sure they'll be glad to hear.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
PJ did not say anything about prior art. She said "PubPat's Executive Director, Dan Ravicher, says that the submitters knew about the prior art". Please at least try to pretend that Slashdot is a credible news source.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Stands for Venture Capital or Venture Capitalists. Though similar in practice to the Southeast Asian guerillas of the same name, these are native mostly to California.
Having worked with a few, I can understand the confusion.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The company is Forgent, not Fogent.
The primary purpose is to encourage entrepreneurism. They are extremely good for the economy.
If I decode this correctly, I guess you could say their claims have been 'compressed'. Get the picture?
Har har... yeah they're bad but hey it's Friday, cut me some slack. I gotta go decompress...
We will always have to go through this. As far as business interests are concerned, patents are simply assets, and sometimes extremely valuable ones. I doubt that such interests would risk the loss of such valuable assets.
For the record, I am against software patents. I'll give you an example of why.
I have the Microsoft Office 2007 Beta. The new "Ribbon" interface is perhaps the most brilliant thing to come out of Microsoft in quite a long while. It alone will likely drive sales - read upgrades - of Office if only because it exposes functionality that has been there since Office 97, but has been hidden behind a bewildering array of menus, toolbars, and dialog boxes.
Is it entirely new? No. I have seen similar interfaces on web sites.
But here is the problem: there are several programs that I could think of that would benefit from the "Ribbon". Adobe Photoshop comes immediately to mind. Imagine having a tabbed toolbar, with a tab for "Home" containing the basic tools, a tab for "Masks", one for "Channels", etc.
Of course if - or more likey, when - Microsoft patents the "Ribbon", only users of Microsoft software will benefit from it. Regardless of how much users of software from other brands might be able to benefit from it.
Copyright should be good enough for software. Patents truly stifle innovation.
The words white, chocolate and raspberry have no place on a bag of coffee.
The proposal you're arguing against was a suggested Punishment to be levied once Convicted of a crime...what are you arguing for?
No Comment.
I figured the Microsoft alternative to jpeg wasnt going very far, but this seems like the final nail in the cofin.
Nathan Friedly
The difference there is that certain corporate offices have a specific personal legal responsibility for the corporate information that goes out over their signature. That was one of the core arguments against Lay and Skilling and it appears to have stuck.
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
"The primary purpose is to encourage entrepreneurism."
Actually there were far more individuals (proportionaly) running their own businesses before the rise of corporations than after, so I guess they failed.
trademark != patent
*shudders*
I did say I didn't want to know!
I'm not particularly arguing FOR anything... merely arguing against the premise that the executives be somehow barred from starting up another, possibly identical, business.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's hard to vote for something that isn't on the ballot. :)
If Forgent deliberately withheld this info about prior art, that's a good case for fraud. Is a patent application equivalent to a sworn legal statement under oath?
Penalties like these have been levied against corporate officers or otherwise arranged by the SEC several times. For example, lifetime bans for Al Dunlap of Sunbeam and Sam Waksal of ImClone. Frank Quattrone had a lifetime securities industry ban but that was overturned when his conviction was overturned.
Zero tolerance equals zero intelligence
Perhaps, like me, the individuals incorporated their businesses.
-h-
There's a name on the patent. Jail that person.
Then maybe when a company tells one of their programmers that they need to patent something blatantly stupid, they'll show some backbone and say "no, its not patentable. It would be a waste of money and time."
blog
That is not what you stated though.
You stated that this would be unreasonable punishment if they weren't convicted of a crime, that is precisely what you stated. Which is very strange since what was proposed is a punishment that could be levied in just such a case.
Of course it would be wrong to bar people from jobs in certain industries for no reason. But the idea of preventing someone convicted of a crime from doing so again, where's the problem?
Let's put it in some perspective via an example: Should a cop that abuses his power and is convicted of doing so to commit a crime be able to continue being a cop? Why shouldn't an executive convicted of something like fraud on a large scale be barred from continuing to do business in the industry they purported the crime in in the first place? Wow, a punishment that fits the crime, how novel.
No Comment.
I'm not particularly arguing FOR anything... merely arguing against the premise that the executives be somehow barred from starting up another, possibly identical, business.
Why not? Medical doctors who compromise their patients' safety for their own gain can lose their license to practice. Lawyers who break the rules of their profession can be disbarred. Stockbrokers who trade illegaly on insider information lose their license and go to jail. Scientists who plagiarize or falsify their results become pariahs in their fields, and although they are not necessarily sanctioned by the law or a licensing body, nevertheless they effectively can no longer practice. Ditto perhaps for artists, musicians, writers, etc. All of these people find some other way to make a living.
The problem, I suppose, is that in the business world, flaunting the rules without getting caught is something that one's peers often admire because it can increase profits. I'm not saying businesspeople gone bad should always be banned for life from their fields, but some kind of progressive punishment that includes a professional sanction is, I think, appropriate.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Okay, great. But hey forget JPEG. Drum it up for IW44 and DJVU. I just converted a 3.5MB .jpg to a 400K .djvu and can't tell the difference.
:T:R:A:N:S:
"Let's put it in some perspective via an example: Should a cop that abuses his power and is convicted of doing so to commit a crime be able to continue being a cop? Why shouldn't an executive convicted of something like fraud on a large scale be barred from continuing to do business in the industry they purported the crime in in the first place?"
Not really sure I agree with either one of you guys, however perhaps I'm just an optomist but I'd rather not think of the poliece as an "industry" per se.
"Personal ownership is a hallmark of conservative capitalism. And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did n
I've half-followed PUBPAT since its creation. I don't think I fully grasped how useful it would be when it first emerged.
It's since showed itself to be absolutely vital in the midst of this software patent madness. It's good that there's lawyers out there ready to go in to bat for us developers. No matter how smart we think we are, and regardless of how much we'd like the system to just go away and stop bothering us, it isn't going to just yet. So PUBPAT are there for us, fighting a fight that must be fought, even if it is crazy that things have got to this stage in the first place.
Assuming PUBPAT continues its fine work, it will rapidly find itself as a sort of guardian angel of the software developer -- be they OSS, FS, or even commercial writers.
What's the frequency, Kenneth?
No, no, no, that doesn't go nearly far enough. There's only one way to send a clear message to all the other patent trolls: community service... service for the open source community, that is. That or capital punishment...
I'm not really solidly on either side of the fence, there are problems both ways. There's reality for you ;)
Police are not an industry no, but that's kind of the point. What's been suggested is that a person, even if convicted of illegal activity in a particular industry, should not be barred from working in that industry. That doesn't make complete sense to me.
People do things, corporations do not. Period. The idea that people can get away with doing bad things by hiding behind a corporate veil simply disgusts me. Unfortunately, it happens every single day. In fact, you could pretty much say it's part of the American Dream.
No Comment.
PNG is intended specifically to replace GIF. TIFF is a general purpose container for lossless image data in a variety of formats and lossless* compression methods. TIFF is the defacto standard for exporting/importing data between different applications.
*TIFF was originally to have included JPEG compression and the spec mumbles some vague things about it, but no implementation that I know of actually supports it.
Not really sure I agree with either one of you guys, however perhaps I'm just an optomist but I'd rather not think of the poliece as an "industry" per se.
It doesn't matter what you call it -- an "industry", an "estate" of society, an "institution", whatever -- the point is that individuals who have been handed authority must also accept the other side of that coin: responsibility.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
The overflow you see in prisons is not because of the hordes of lying patent applicants.
There's a name on the patent. Jail that person.
I personally think this is a good idea... that person, by putting their name on the patent, claims responsibility for the contents of the patent. Of course, I'm all for a re-introduction to the value of personal responsibility for this country, which seems to go against the political viewpoints of both brand-names of leadership we have these days.
You shouldn't be using the two on the same kinds of images. They are uncomparable compression techniques.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ti cker=forg&script=410&layout=-6&item_id=861407
i.e. They see this as something positive for them... amazing.
Note that 26 of the 46 claims still stand. Only 19 were rejected. JPG isn't out of the infringement woods unless these 26 claims are narrow enough that they don't apply to it.
Also note that the PTO did not conclude that the applicant knew of this art and failed to disclose it. That's just PUBPAT's opinion so far. The inequitable conduct issue would have to be heard by a judge in a lawsuit. If the judge found inequitable conduct, that would kill the entire patent. But that hasn't happened yet.
PUBPAT is doing a fine job of spinning this decision their way, but this is far from a total victory. Yet.
YIIAPLBIANYPL. GYOGDPL. YMNO.
Especially if you promote it as a new Energy Source.
Well with the right kind of seat, you could have the first hybrid car that ran only on gas.
Just watch out that you don't increase the Smug emissions to dangerous levels.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Jail isn't much of a deterrent because jail isn't much of a punishment. Jail would be a far more-effective deterrent if they threw everyone into Supermax prixons.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell.
You sure can pack a lot of flawed logic into a single sentence. A few points to ponder:
You know what? Never mind. That you think what you said is reasonable is a strong indication that you are immune to logical thought, so I'm not going to waste my time.
I vote for jailed. Fines are just a part of doing business, ...
I vote beating them on the bottom of their feet like a Singapore graffiti sprayer.
And that was the nicest thing I could think of.
"My God...it's full of trolls!"
They're often called Vulture Capitalists.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Sorry. When a person doesn't want to waste their time, they just don't post. When they post and all they say is "never mind", I just assume that they don't have an argument.
No, its better than that: Enron execs.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
"Originally created by the company Aldus, jointly with Microsoft" ...and this thing is patent free? There is a God, and he has a sense of humour.
so what about all the companies sued by Forgent? do they get their money back? how about companies that went under due to Forgent suing for patent infringement? do they get restitution?
Corporations are not gtranted patents in the U.S., people are. The corporations get an assignment from their emplyees, which essentially means that the company owns the patent, but the Applicants are always one or more individuals. However, no one goes to jail over this, the patent just gets invalidated.
What Dan Ravicher was referring to is the duty to disclose any known prior art found prior to, or during patent prosecution. Courts have frequently punished patent holders for knowing failing to disclose prior art by invalidating the entire patent. This usually only happens in court when someone gets sued for patent infringement, or when a party takes the issue to court to get a declaratory judgment finding the patent invalid. Surely no one out there wants to spend the money it'd take to get this invalidated in court.
When the issue gets brought up before the PTO, they generally just invalidate the broadest claims, and narrow the scope of the patent until it's worthless.
What the fuck is that all about? Where do you think 99% of this patent crap comes from? California, arguably the biggest haven of liberals outside of France.
If you think "conservative states" have a problem, why don't you tell California to start first?
Blaming conservative states for crap like this proves to me that bleeding heart liberals don't have a fucking clue, they just have an agenda.
You're exactly right... Let's compress them until they are unrecognizable from their original image.
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
huh?
If a lawyer breaches the bar's code of ethics he's disbarred. If a doctor misuses his professional status his license is revoked. If a school teacher abuses his position of power he's forbidden to ever teach again. Why should business people be different? If you commit a crime (if lying to the patent office isn't a crime it should be) in a professional capacity then you should be barred from that profession.
Four and a half years later, after a 108 day trial for the most well-known corporate malfeasance, they were found guilty. Boy, that wasn't difficult at all!
Even their name's a dime store joke. It's got the first four letters of the work Forgery in it's name. Seriously, what's the follow-up to the to the "Rembrandt found in the attic" analogy. Their "majority of the claims upheald" comment sounds just like Darl's "we are pleased with the numbers comments after each successively worse quarter.
--- http://davidnehme.blogspot.com
The purpose of a corporation is generally to do pursue (usually economic) activities beyond the scale of what individuals or small groups can accomplish. To do so, coporations need to have some legal rights and responsibilites to operate in society as an entity, as such they are a "virutal individual" in the legal sense. Corporations can be for-profit or not-for-profit. Shielding owners from liability is somewhat inconsequential, and in fact only very specific types of corporations shield their owners from legal or financial liability. See references here and here.
Stands for Venture Capital or Venture Capitalists. Though similar in practice to the Southeast Asian guerillas of the same name, these are native mostly to California.
I think that's a completely inappropriate and insensitive comparison. One group acted in a completely vicious and amoral fashion: causing great suffering, imprisoning people for years, and acting with a callous disregard for human life. Whereas the other group was just a bunch of communists rebels.
It's Forgent, not "Fogent".
If they can't even get the name of the company right, I doubt they got the story right. I'll wait until this is covered elsewhere and then pay attention to this story.
No, I don't want to explore the Recycle Bin.
The primary purpose of a corporation is the shield the owners from liability and responsibility.
The original concept idea was to encourage people to put money into business, because if it failed the owners would not be liable for any debts it left. Your liability was limited to however much you had put in.
Individuals working for a corporation are still responsible for any criminal offenses they commit or conspire to commit.
Even if the people involved are the owners their limited liability for debts was never intended as a shield for criminal behaviour.
Yes, I know what Freepay has become and the new terms of service are bad. I currently have the 10 refs I need for Mac Minis and am waiting for approval. I'm just hoping to get 1 or 2 extra refs for insurance in case any are disqualified. After that I'm done with Freepay. It does still work though, assuming you can complete their super-strict requirements.
Ditto perhaps for artists, musicians, writers, etc.
No "perhaps" about it.
War is peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
k?
If you think TIFF is better for lossless compression than PNG, you're misguided. Not that TIFF is a bad format, just that its best lossless compression, deflate (which is essentially LZ77 + Huffman encoding), is EXACTLY the same compression algorithm used in PNG.
Some of the compressions supported by TIFF, like LZW (based on LZ78 - our favorite now mostly* expired patent) and packbits work best on images containing lots of similar data. CCITT fax 3 and 4 are really only useful on black and white images, so I've never actually used them.
Most photo editing software programs support JPEG compression on TIFFs, even - GIMP:
Launch GIMP. Create an image. File->Save. Name the file image.tif. Click Save. Notice
your compression options are:
O None
O LZW
O Pack Bits
O Deflate
O JPEG
JPEG actually works quite differently than the non-lossy algorithms. It divides the image up in a quadtree like manner (maybe it is a quadtree - I forget) and achives better compression by reducing the aspects of the image the eye doesn't notice as much, like saturation. The advantage of a quadtree structure is that similar colors are usually next to other similar colors in all directions, not just linearly, which is valuable when trying to decide what data to lose during compression.
* - IBM still has a patent on LZW that expires August 11, 2006, but the earlier Unisys patent would likely invalidate it if they tried to enforce it - see the footnote http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html
I think you just proved his point.
How about pubic humiliation? That used to be a damn good way to punish people who broke the law but their crimes are relatively minor or not worth the prison time. In the old days they locked you in the stocks in the middle of town square public drunkeness.
Today we could fine them an ammount they tried to defraid people out of. I don't know how much a jpeg patent would be worth but I can imagine a shit load there. Then we could inflict the modern version of public humiliation on them by posting their names, faces, and crimes to magazines, tv, and public airwaves.
OR a bullet in the back of the head would work just as well.....
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Flexable cheese grater. o.O
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
What point?
Wow, that was quite the leap to conclusions. I make one crack about death penalties and suddenly I'm a bleeding heart california liberal. A bit quick tempered are we? Perhaps next time I'll make a bushism - that should really get a reaction outta you :-) How about a fox news joke?
Anyway you missed the subtext. Conservative states tend to favour the death penalty, and stiff punishment for crime in general, on the grounds that it acts as a deterrant and prevents a convict from getting a second chance to commit more crimes. The idea of a corporate death penalty is likewise grounded in that idea - make it unattractive enough to break the law as a CEO, and I'll guarantee that you'll see fewer corporate criminals.
Why I specified consevative states is simple; one of the two parties has to get the ball rolling, and it's easier to sell the republicans on the idea of cracking down on crime. Not the current administration, who are a bit to comfortable with big corrupt businesses, but rather the republican voters. Of course, it's always foolishly optimistic to try and use politicians against people who make large campaign contributions, but hey, a guy can dream...
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
We already apply this idea to more than just proffessional misconduct. It's not "just" lawyers, doctors, etc who are barred from their proffesion when the do wrong; it's also sex offenders, theives, and other harder criminals who get barred, either by convention or law, from the jobs that are linked to their crimes in some way. The idea isn't just to punish the convicted person for proffesional misconduct, but also to prevent people from being put in a position where they can cause immense damage, and are a likely risk to do so.
Given the logic of barring someone from certain types of work to remove them from disasterous temptation, why would it be strange to apply the same idea in the corporate world? If an executive breaks the law, then he has shown himself to be a risk when running a business. We can either slap the corporation or the wrist, which does nothing (they'll see it as the cost of doing business), or we can dissolve the corporation by revoking their charter, which runs the risk of letting the executives resposible find new jobs and reoffend, or we can go straight to the core of the problem and bar them from the corporate world once they show themselves to be crooks. I favour the last two options when the offense is serious enough - it would be a way of both removing repeat offenders from the hiring pool, and detering people in power from misusing it.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
TIFF has a problem: it's too flexible.
Saying you can read TIFF is like saying you can read XML. You can read some TIFFs. You can parse them all, but can you decode the data in them usefull? Often, the answer is no.
Look at a program that supports TIFF and they'll say [JPEG, LZW LE, blah blah] after it because TIFF can include nearly any type of data, and no program can support all types of data, only the ones that it knew about when the program was written (at most).
The problem is it becomes a dicey proposition to archive stuff in TIFF because you don't know for sure if other programs will be able to read them.
Also, TIFF supports JPEG, although it was not "originally to have included it" since TIFF predates JPEG by many years. Photoshop will save a TIFF-JPEG file, or at least it would at one time (since JPEG predates JFIF).
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I can tell by your account number that you're new here. This is slashdot: no company is a good company, and the bigger they are, the worse they are. Finally, we slashdot readers only like to see facts when they fit in with our world view (Linux: Good. Windows: Bad.). Otherwise you can just stuff it.
To a certain agegroup, probably yes it does, but otherwise it's Venture Capital.
;) How's gamegossip these days?
Cheers CB
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Policy authority comes from the government, from the state.
The authority of a CEO is mostly his own creation. Hiring people, getting capital, doing business.
JPEG is a great format. At about 0.8 quality it is pretty hard to tell the difference between lossless and lossy. 0.9 is practically lossless. There is also a lossless part of the standard though I don't know if it is ever implemented. Of course if you are reprocessing an image all the time then I can understand people's concern, it should be in another format (TIFF). But there is a vast difference between an image of 0.2 and 0.8 quality for most purposes. If it starts at 0.8 is converted and manipulated in a lossless format and then converted back to a 0.8 JPEG then I don't think you would be able to tell.
Also PNG was devised to circumvent the GIF patent.
Bitter and proud of it.
Incorporations are the domain of each of the individual 50 states.
No agency of the federal government can infringe upon a state's right and revoke an incorporation.
The discussion of this particular punishment is null and void, as it is unenforceable.
I think it could be great to have a licensing body that provided a sort of branding confidence to business executives. But it should not be mandatory.
Mine is Good
It is both difficult to jail a corporation
I don't know if it's possible in the US, but here in Japan, a common range of punishments for corporation is to forbid them from bidding for public contracts for a period of time; forbid taking on new customers for some period; or, the most serious, forbid any business activity at all.
For instance, recently one consumer loan shark^H^H^H^Hcorporation was found guilty of breaching rules regarding non-payment of customers, and had their operations partially stopped for a couple of weeks (which becomes very expensive, especially since they still need to pay salaries and all other business costs). And PriceWaterhousCooper's Japanese office has been found guity of cooking the books on some large corporations and has been suspended for a couple of months, leaving clients like Sony scrambling to find a replacement (and quite possibly killing the accounting firm altogether here in Japan).
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
. . . and if submitted via snail mail, isn't it mail fraud?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Policy authority comes from the government, from the state.
The authority of a CEO is mostly his own creation. Hiring people, getting capital, doing business.
Irrelevant. And specious.
You missed the point of my post: Authority, whether it's earned, seized, delegated, or acquired by acclamation, is still one side of a coin. The other side is responsibility. One means nothing without the other.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
It should be illegal to file fradulent patent applications like this.
I agree with you. So, how to enforce it? How about a licensing scheme (akin to the Bar Association, perhaps) where if someone holds an upper-level corporate position (CEO and its kin, BoD, upper-tier management, department heads, and possibly major shareholders who also hold a position within the company), they MUST also hold a valid "corporate license". This need not be onerous or expensive to get, or even require any prerequisites, as it's really just a "Certificate of good corporate citizenship".
And if they're convicted of a corp-related offense, they should lose their CorpLic. -- with the effect that they lose their job and have to start over, climbing the corporate ladder from the bottom again. This provides both a substantial penalty (they're back on entry-level salary) and gives them a second chance, to hopefully show they've learned their lesson. Yet the company doesn't lose their expertise (if any).
Since culling evil but very highly paid executives could save some companies significant cash (and perhaps legal issues and fines), there would be at least some internal motivation to catch and punish malefactors -- making the scheme at least somewhat self-enforcing.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Nonsense. In fact, I'll do the job on their hand myself! Want to watch??
[waving meat cleaver and chopping block]
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
MPEG-1/2/4/? MPEG Audio Layer-3? ...
Or . . . File one patent or trademark app with false info and you can never get a patent or TM again.
Chris McElroy aka NameCritic http://www.blogs.pn
I remember you Neo, I hardly ever go and when I do its to the movie forum. Surprised we haven't met up here before. Anyway, see you around!
Jonathanjk.com
Public humiliation is what you're talking about, but I prefer it your way.
This is a good idea. The SEC could probably fold this into its other duties, assuming federalizing it is the right way to do it. This would limit its applicability to public companies, but it's good to start small and they're the low-hanging fruit.
There are already corporate positions identified by SOX as "responsible management types" so those could probably be re-used.
As to resistance, it's probably sufficient to mention that the guy who replaced your roof last year needed to be licensed and stands a chance at having that license revoked, but Ken Lay didn't need anything.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Applying it to publicly-held companies is likely the way to start -- indeed, it may be all that's needed, since private companies don't have the almighty stock price driving their every move -- nor legions of management who all have substantial shareholdings that in turn drive their behaviour.
:)
Which leads to this thought -- requiring a CorpLic might be applied to anyone who is both an employee and is more than a 1% shareholder. That would hit most of the management, upper-level dept. heads, and certainly the entirely BoD set, but wouldn't penalize the working joes who may hold a relatively tiny fraction of the company stock as part of their benefits package. It would also make trying to duck the CorpLic requirement difficult.
Related notion... when someone's CorpLic is revoked, they could be penalized by confiscating some or all of the stocks they own from the misbehaving company, with the percentage depending on how grievous their offense. These confiscated stocks could then be sold by the SEC, perhaps with provisions making them easier for small investors to acquire -- thus the effect of a misbehaving company is to spread some of its wealth among average folk. Kindof like a fine, except someone other than the gov't can benefit from it.
If CorpLic is tied to stocks per above, that makes implementation and enforcement relatively simple, as the machinery for tracking stocks is already in place.
As to privately-held companies, I suspect the problem is not so great there, as one is answerable to the owner, not nonexistent shareholders. But another type of CorpLic could easily be worked up to fit that situation.
(I keep typoing it "CorpLice"
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Which leads to this thought -- requiring a CorpLic might be applied to anyone who is both an employee and is more than a 1% shareholder. That would hit most of the management, upper-level dept. heads, and certainly the entirely BoD set, but wouldn't penalize the working joes who may hold a relatively tiny fraction of the company stock as part of their benefits package. It would also make trying to duck the CorpLic requirement difficult.
:)
A good idea though the number might need to be tweaked. I'd expect the COO of GM doesn't own 1% of the company. Percentages might be harder in smaller companies, perhaps a scale based on Market Cap.
Related notion... when someone's CorpLic is revoked, they could be penalized by confiscating some or all of the stocks they own from the misbehaving company, with the percentage depending on how grievous their offense.
Interesting - didn't something like this happen in the WorldCom case without new provisions? The easiest sell is to make it just like an architect's or physician's (or tatoo artist or costmetologist or roofer's) license.
As to privately-held companies, I suspect the problem is not so great there, as one is answerable to the owner, not nonexistent shareholders. But another type of CorpLic could easily be worked up to fit that situation.
Yeah, but later if ever. Badly behaving private companies already tend to go away all by themselves, which is good.
(I keep typoing it "CorpLice"
Freud would be proud.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Baloney! If the definition of "the power to regulate of interstate commerce" includes anything, it probably includes the power to set national commercial policies. It would simply require an act of Congress.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Regulating interstate commerce may be the domain of the Federal government, but creating new entities such as corporations, partnerships, and LLCs are powers reserved to the state legislatures.
You've obviously never created a corporation, partnership, or LLC, have you? You would then know that the you'd have to apply with your state's Secretary of State department, not with the Federal government.
Rights enforced by the state include the following - right to vote, right to drive, right to work, welfare laws, workers comp and unemployment insurance, creation of corporations, partnerships, and LLCs, public education, etc.
Some of the above may be guaranteed by the Constitution, its Amendments, and/or acts of Congress and the President, but the authority to enforce these items have been relegated to the state legistlatures.
I agree with your point, but I was responding to the poster's assertion that the federal government can't regulate corporate chartering. It's true that they currently (mostly) don't, but all it would take to change that is an act of Congress.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Corp execs are more like a doctor or lawyer than a plumber, so was thinking in terms of penalties assessed in addition to mere loss of license. As to percentage of stock they'd get "fined", some BoD members own millions of shares, which has got to be a significant chunk of the company's total shares. My idea here was to penalise malcreants in direct proportion to their vested interest in their company.
:)
Tying it to market cap might be a way to prevent other shennanigans, tho (am wondering if this might help prevent hiding stocks behind dummy owners).
As to private companies, that was my thought too -- if they misbehave, generally they just pretty much shoot themselves in the foot.
Too bad none of this will ever happen... tho if there's another big scandal, that might be a good time to suggest it to the SEC.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
yeah and tiffs most common compressed format uses LZW (as used by gif).......
but in any case lossless compressed formats really aren't suitable for photos on the web etc.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
all the known ones for the basline JPEG2000 format are under some form of free to use (but not nessacerally free software compatibile) license. but the area in general is a patent minefield.
tranditional JPEG is a known quantity, its been arround for years and is currently being hit using ONE probablly invalid and nearly expired patent in a last ditch grab by the patent holder.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register