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Alan Cox on Patent Law and GPLv3
tykev writes "Linux kernel guru Alan Cox talks about kernel features, cooperation with hardware vendors, and software patents. From the interview: 'I don't think [Microsoft's patent threats] are the biggest danger. As Microsoft has been finding out recently it is the patent trolls, and organisations with buried patents in interesting areas that are the biggest threat in the USA. The real answer to that problem, however, is to pull the USA back into line with the majority of the world which simply does not recognize patents on software but respects them as literary works subject to copyright law.'"
Patent rants in 5..4..3..2..1..
but some of the shills here on slashdot, bought and paid for by microsoft, will argue that alan cox is proposing a very radical solution. They will suggest the very fundamentals of the freemarket system are at stake; to suggest dissolving what is offered in america would be akin to pullling the pubic hair from a teenage girls blissful nether regions, strand by strand, before she is able to mature. Thus denying her the chance to jump head first and stark naked into Friedman's fantastical whirlwind freemarket extravaganza.
It is the government that is the biggest danger in the USA, not the other parties mentioned.
Now, if you could seize control of Microsoft (or any other patent troll org) by spending a ton of cash to win a popularity contest every four years, then they would be the most dangerous organizations.
Regards.
No s***. But "recently"? Part of Microsoft's stated reason for building up its patent collection over the past 15 years has been to defend against patent trolls Microsoft knew would be coming for Microsoft ASAP. (In fact, I think a near-dup Slashdot story in the past week has Gates quoted around 1993...)
That is the same excuse used to prevent the overhaul of an unfair tax system.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
pull the USA back into line with the majority of the world
I thought the US is the majority of the world...
At least my TV says so.
Microsoft simply can't sue individual OSS developers or users. And anyways, if Samba works the best with Windows, OSX, and Linux, people will still be using MS's "standard". Same goes for Kerebos and any other embraced and extended protocols.
Linux (and OSS) needs to support Windows. To do that, (in theory) they need to infringe on MS patents. It really is in Microsoft's best interests to allow this to happen, as it keeps people on their protocols, and tied in to their software.
The point of the threat was to scare commercial OSS users (the ones that can't take the PR hit of a lawsuit) into buying the Novellisoft "covenant" thingy that people have been bitching about. They never would have even sued those companies the Novell deal targeted. It just doesn't make sense, and would destroy their image even more.
Their plan? They know the power of open-source software. They know how well it works together, and with proprietary software (I think you can even use a Samba server to be a PDC in a Windows domain). They just want to keep people using their software in some form, rather than not at all. (If I didn't want to get sued, I'd force Windows to work with NFS, not Linux to work with SMB, or become an all-ODF shop...) This way, they can still cling on.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
duh!
Then you can't copy paste code , but every time you write a program from scratch you don't end up infringing 2347 vaguely worded patents preventing you from implementing even the most trivial computer tasks.
I think you do not know what patents en copyrights are.
Because that is the closest thing. Paintings, statues, performances(including dance) can all be protected by copyright. Just because a software application has almost no artistic value does not mean it does not deserve the same kind of protection.
If all software were public domain, there would be nothing preventing people from releasing GPL'd software as binary only, and refusing to share the modifications. (because there is no longer anything that holds them to the copyleft license)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
We let manufacturing jobs slip into other countries, and are told to be reassured - we get to keep the good engineering jobs. Yet they also set up the system that does not promote innovation, but rather one that is stacked in favor of the big players but with "good" intentions came the unintended consequences - like how leechers game the system.
How can people stay positive on an economy that seems neither ultimately market-based rather than litigation based and where what used to be virtues (hard work, creativity, taking a chance) are punished by the government and unworthy trolls/big_players get the gains instead?
I think the argument is that the code itself is subject to copywrite law. So I can't copy your code verbatim without your consent. Fair enough -- the GPL, for example, relies on copyright protection. Patents are a whole different beast, though -- if a programme is patentable, not only can't I copy your code, but I can't even independently implement whatever it is that it does. Which is pretty silly.
In the U.S., literary works are one of the categories of work explicitly protected by copyright. Literary works, in that sense, are defined as "works, other than audiovisual works, expressed in words, numbers, or other verbal or numerical symbols or indicia . . ." Cox' point is that copyright protection is enough; you don't also need patent.
How we know is more important than what we know.
What about Pilsner Urquell?
You mean like the American Constitution? Look at the current situation---reject it. Think about what you think should be---write it down. Implement (always a tough bit, difficult to get good program managers).
No, in hindsight, obviously a failure. Time to call it quits and revert to being a colony again.
I'm looking to the satire loophole applying to software - that you can use code in order to make fun of it.
I don't think you know what a patent troll is. Patent trolls usually don't make anything so you can't counter sue them, unless you patented the business idea of buying patents and suing other companies.
Incorrect. Books are also copyrighted. Everything from the latest Stephen King novel to research material. It's the reason we have to use citations when quoting someone else's work.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
We aren't talking about "organically-evolved law", the implication being that such laws evolved over a substantial amount of time and are so ingrained into a society that changing them causes significant disruption. We are talking about recent corruptions/subversions/perversions of organically-evolved law, and such things can be repealed. And they need to repealed soon, before they do become ingrained.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The problem becomes, how many ways can you write a single piece of code? At present, you are fairly limited by the languages available as to what you can and cannot do. This means that you could get several pieces of code doing the same task that look nearly identical. Now is this going to be copyright infringement? Variable names could even come out looking very similar if both programs were coded using the same naming convention. There is a huge problem with treating a software copyright like an "art" copyright.
So, how exactly does a patent collection defend against patent trolls?
The whole idea of the patent troll is that they don't have any business to defend so that they can use their patents offensively without worrying about (non-karmic) retaliation.
*sigh* back to work...
Prohibition.
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
I don't think that patents are an entirely faulty method of protecting software that is innovative. the real reason I feel that they are horrible for software is their 20 year lifespan. compare that to Moore's law. a single lucky patent of the right idea can guarantee you a monopoly for generations of software. 20 years is likely enough to get you sole rights to an idea for all of its useful lifetime. imagine if the patent for the typewriter were to be set to expire next year? as society continues to advance at faster rates the lifetime of a patent needs to get accordingly shorter or it will stifle creativity and slow human advances to a rate set by the lifespan of the patent.
thats right, I rarely use capitals. deal with it. but don't mistake my laziness for stupidity
Horseshit. There's nothing "organically evolved" about the disaster that is US software patent law. There's one ridiculous appellate ruling, from which the rest of this shitstorm has inexorably followed.
The entire history of time until 1998: for the most part, neither algorithms nor business practices are held to be patentable, since they are both held to be "abstract ideas," which are not patentable. There are exceptions, but they are rare.
The State Street ruling, 1998: Hey, let's change the legal test for patentable software from "causing a physical transformation" to producing "useful, concrete and tangible results". Vague enough for ya? Awesome. And while we're at it, let's also apply the same completely meaningless legal test to business practices, too!
The history of software patents since 1998: One patent on Zocor! One patent on Viagra! SIXTEEN patents by Microsoft of movement and positioning of a cursor! Gee whiz, maybe we should fix this problem. Oh, wait... we wouldn't want to "dismantle organically-evolved law from the top-down", because Anonymous Coward says that such actions always result in DISASTER!
"Dismantle organically-evolved law from the top-down". Fantastic. What the hell does that even *mean*?
The problem becomes, how many ways can you write a single piece of code? At present, you are fairly limited by the languages available as to what you can and cannot do. This means that you could get several pieces of code doing the same task that look nearly identical. Now is this going to be copyright infringement? Variable names could even come out looking very similar if both programs were coded using the same naming convention. There is a huge problem with treating a software copyright like an "art" copyright.
Actually, it's not. Copyright pertains to the expression portion of software, but not the underlying ideas, functionality, etc. Ultimately, maintaining this distinction takes priority over copyrightability. For example, where there is only one or only a limited way of expressing a given idea, the idea and expression are considered to have merged, and there cannot be a copyright, lest it effectively protect the uncopyrightable idea. This is known as the merger docrine.
There's also the scenes a faire doctrine, which makes uncopyrightable things like stock story elements. For example, in horror movies, someone originated the routine bit where the mood is set when you see a wolf howling, silhouetted against the moon. But it's unprotectable since it's a common, stock element. The doctrine is used in the software field, both for elements which would be common across much software, as well as for portions of the code which are dictated by external considerations such as efficiency or platform compatability, and so lack some originality.
Finally, there's the fact that copyright infringement has nothing to do with identicality, but rather has to do with originality. That is, it isn't unlawful for Alice's program to be identical to Bob's program, so long as Alice didn't copy her program from Bob. For many works, independent creation -- when it happens -- can still be tricky to show. But for closed source software, it would be tricky for the alleged infringer to have seen the source. The accused would want to have kept some records to help vindicate themselves, and if they did have some kind of access (e.g. Alice used to work for Bob's company and could reasonably have snuck a copy out), they'd have a pretty strong case. Reverse engineering can qualify as access -- e.g. if you decompile the binary -- but again, the underlying functionality isn't protected by copyright, only the way in which it is expressed can be, subject to the limits discussed above. That's why cleanroom reverse engineering is a good strategy to follow.
You might also want to look at the abstraction-filtration-comparison test in the Altai case to see how courts will often compare two pieces of software to see if there has been infringement.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Yeah, I have a response.... Uhhhh... What?
No it's not. The presence of citations in a quote doesn't affect whether it is infringing or not. Rather, it is good practice for purposes of avoiding plagarism (which isn't illegal). Citing others' work, when it is used, is good academic and professional practice. Nothing to do with the law, though.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Sort of. Instruction manuals can also be copyrighted, and that has a very close parallel to software (which is essentially an instruction manual for the computer to follow).
E pluribus unum
Vogon poetry is artistic to the Vogons..
Perhaps I don't like Poe's stuff, that doesn't mean it's not copyrighted.
I didn't know that until recently, actually I still don't - just seen comments on
All implementations of patents are copyrighted. It is the nature of the thing, so let's stop pretending like this is unique to software algorithms. Chemical process patents are fundamentally indistinguishable from software patents in all respects -- including copyright -- yet we ignore them and their long history. I get the impression that posters on slashdot are so clueless about other fields that they think software is special in this regard.
This issue will not be solved until people accept the mathematical truism that hardware patents and process patents are indistinguishable from software patents; one of the accomplishments of 20th century mathematics was proving that fact. Either we accept that algorithms can be patented or not, recognizing that it is *all* algorithms, or we fumble around with broken law that refuses to acknowledge reality (which would not be a first for government).
Copyrights and patents of any way, shape, or form prevents competition of any kind. If someone can't compete without constantly innovating then they deserve nothing.
Could someone explain to me why this is a discussion about "software patents" and not just "patents" in general? You could just as easily have 2347 vaguely worded patents preventing your from implementing even the most trivial non-computer tasks. How many ways are there to compress a fluid? How many patents are there on compressors? How many conflicting patents are there for the same way to compress a fluid?
/. audience has some interest in software vs. hardware, but as someone familiar with the hardware patent world I've never understood why software people think that conflicting, overly-broad patents on the basic process required to achieve some end result are unique to software and not a problem inherent in the patent system regardless of application.
I know the
You inflate the value of M$'s legacy code and misunderstand M$'s goals. This is evident when you say:
Microsoft simply can't sue individual OSS developers or users.
That's obvious, despite attempts to extort and control individuals by our slow learning, MAFIAA friends.
They hope to control distribution and make money that way. Don't believe me? Ask Novel and Xandros.
M$ is a patent troll and a very dangerous one. With M$, software has always been a tool to make money. They owned it, promoted it and charged for it. They want to do the same thing with all free software because they know that the world has changed and non free is out of gas. Back in 1993 when Gates realized how things worked, he knew which way his company would go and has worked to strengthen the very laws he decried. The dangerous part is how such notions have warped morals and US government policies. "Owners" have convinced a large portion of the US government that "IP" is the way to tax the world, to become some kind of thought and idea owners and make everyone else do the dirty work.
Getting rid of software patents takes care of a lot of problems. It forces M$ to compete as a normal software company. More importantly, it restores people's liberty to code. Liberty is something the US needs a lot more of if it's to regain it's former moral character. Software freedom is a small step in that direction but it enables much more. Patents are a huge threat to software freedom and without software freedom there will be no free press or ability to organize and otherwise enjoy every other freedom. With those freedoms, we can start pushing for other and better laws like competitive networks, competitive healthcare, reasonable public schools and so on and so forth. Without those freedoms, we will all eat the current bullies dog food.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Working source code is not part of patent applications. If it were, perhaps software patents would be less vague and less dangerous.
how to invest, a novice's guide
If you are sued on patent violation claims, and you don't have your own patent collection, you are screwed. If you have a fat collection then you counter-sue, because the other party most likely is violating one of your patents; in the end you'll most likely end up cross licensing each other patents and move on.
I know, is stupid as hell, but it's the way it works right now. Thank the US of A for the idiocy of the patent system.
Of course, if the patent troll is nothing more than a bunch of lawyers with a stupid patent, then no patent portfolio will be big enough to countersue, since the troll is just that: a creativeless entity (with no business model besides suit filing) whose only purpose is to stiff innovation (think Eolas).
The system is so stupid and anti-innovative it stopped being funny long ago.
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
The GPL depends on Copyright law. I think you should go and read both - the GPL and the Copyright Act (doesn't matter which state's copyright act, they are all the same).
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I didn't mean to imply that any of those examples are patented, btw, just that innovation is obvious, is human nature. Even rocket science, to other rocket scientists.
Actually, it does. The use of representative excerpts for purposes of analysis, review, or citation is considered fair use and hence doesn't trigger copyright.
So I can quote a few lines from Harry Potter in a review of Harry Potter and then publish that review without getting sued for copyright. If my excepts were excessive though (say I excerpted an entire chapter), then that would no longer be fair use and would get me sued.
And there is no bright line rule as to "how much is too much". It's a judgement call, and that's where lawyers make their money.
> Re:Alan Cox can suck it
... what she has to say, I mean.
Right on! I'm more interested in his sister, Nikki, and her aural contribution
> You can't dismantle organically-evolved law from the top-down; that's never, ever worked in any
society and always results in disaster.
Er, yeah. Ok. zzzzz
Max.
Yes, but that has nothing to do with citing the quoted works. Attribution or the lack thereof doesn't factor into fair use.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I don't think that patents are an entirely faulty method of protecting software that is innovative.
Patents don't protect software, whether it's innovative or otherwise. They protect an idea, whether it was incorporated into the patent holder's software or not, and they also deny use of that idea to others, even if it was obtained independently.
And that's why software patents are bad. They freeze advances in that area for fear of litigation on similarity, which more often than not is nothing more than a malicious attempt to prevent improvements on the idea from creating competition.
If you just want to protect the actual software, that's what copyright does perfectly well, without denying progress to others.
You mean like the American Constitution? Look at the current situation---reject it. Think about what you think should be---write it down. Implement (always a tough bit, difficult to get good program managers).
That only worked because the founders were remarkably principled and selfless individuals. If any of them had been Stalin or Robespierre type figures who believed they should have absolute power, the American revolution would have been a disaster like the French one, or the Russian one. Or pretty much any revolution apart from the American one in fact.
Americans are right to celebrate their founders, particularly George Washington. He could easily have ruled until he died and then found some constitutional device to pass power to his heir. As Jefferson put it
"The moderation and virtue of a single character probably prevented this Revolution from being closed, as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish."
Comparing the first post revolutionary leader to a project manager is disingenous in the extreme. You basically need to have an almost perfect leader in this situation who will allow a system to be set up which will constrain his actions to set a precedent for his successors. It's all to easy to use real and imagined threats to the regime as an excuse to set up a tyranny.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Copyright laws are federal. HTH HAND
Like in the forest, you look for the bears, but it's the snakes and cobras that ultimately get you. You don't see 'em until it's too late.
Everyone looks and waits to be sued by Oracle, AMD, Ford, GM, Union Pacific, Amtrak, United, Fidelity, Morgan, Carnegie, Microsoft, IBM, Boeing, Raytheon, Intel, Nike, McDonalds, Disney, or any other household name.
But it's some un heard of patent troll, some unknown law firm from the middle of nowhere, who will kill you at the end . . . .
The snakes who sneak around the darkness of the floor of the forest . . . .
From the playgrounds of the world, I am nasty . . . . Making kids cry . . . .
The padlocked.swings
the following conditions are true:
- Patents and copyrights must have a limited time frame, and can not be extended (don't make me talk about that mickey mouse thing)
- All copyrighted materials must be registered at a central repository, and accessible to all for perusing. Otherwise, you don't the protection of the law. If you don't register, your work becomes public domain.
- All patented "inventions" must be registered at a central repository, and accessible to all for perusing. If you are patenting software, all your source codes about the patent must be in the repository, and accessible to all. If you are patenting a certain method on chip design, all your schema and related materials must be in, and accessible to all. Same thing for any other patents, regardless whether it is an avionic patent, a chair design, a method on desalinating sea water, etc. If the materials about your patent are not in (or incomplete), then you don't receive any law's protection, all you can do is to consider as industrial secrets, or some such. And anyone with the right skills should be able to use that materials and come up with exactly the same result that is describe in the patent application document. If people can't get the same result, you lose the patent, even if the patent has been issued, and you get slapped a fine for wasting people's time and money.
- There should be a probation period when people can submit prior art related to an application. Just like before you are issued a marriage certificate, it is published in the city hall so anyone can protest if he/she has the evidence. Now, no one can come up with some internal code (or schema) which has has never been published to the public or registered as patent and expect to contest it. Well, you kept it secret, someone came up with another (or even the same way) to do the same thing, and applied for a patent. You can't say anything, you made your choice to keep it secret.
- All copyrights and patents must be no longer than 20 years and can not be extended. The copyrighted materials automatically become public domain as soon as the author is declared dead. I think 20 years is already ridiculously long, given the pace of technology advancement. Setting the protection period to a shorter time can also help to accelerate progress as well, so it's good. Look at the current state of copyrights, a lot of authors are dead, but their materials are still copyrighted. The dead can't create anymore, so what is the copyright protection for anyways? You might say someone might have some dark intention, but that's not what copyright and patent laws should care about.
- Applicants are charged a flat fee for each application, and the fee is indexed to the inflation rate every year.
As long as there are reasonable restrictions, I'm all for copyright and patents. You should be able to copyright or patent anything.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I assume chemical process patents explain how to perform the given chemical process well enough that an expert in the field could reproduce the process (given sufficient funds/equipment). As I understand it, software patents just say what the software does, not how it does it. Is this just misinformation from other Slashdot posters or is there a clear difference between the two?
Centralization breaks the internet.
Someone had earlier posted about the four different types of "intellectual properties" - patents, copyright, trademark and trade secrets. I always find it pretty amazing that software seems to be the only field where all 4 protections could be available on the same piece of code.
A piece of code can be protected by patents, can be copyrighted, trademarked and even held a trade secret (closed source). What's so special about software that it mandates so much protection? I'd love to see just one protection available for software. For instance, if it's trade secret (closed source) then you don't get patent or copyright protection. If it's open source, then you get only copyright protection. For really core and non-obvious algorithms, you can get patent protection, but you will lose copyright protection in that case (say you will need to submit the code as part of the patent application, making it public domain).
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. - Mahatma Gandhi
Chemical process patents are basically algorithms, but done with atoms and molecules instead of bits. The implementation of the abstract process is subject to its own IP protection independent of the patented process. In theory, a more efficient way to move atoms around to achieve a particular result should have no more and no less protection than a more efficient way to move bits around to achieve a particular result.
Software patents are a bit of a misnomer, further polluted by frivolous patents (which all fields suffer from). A software patent, ideally, is a new method/algorithm for doing something in the bit domain e.g. a more efficient method for doing something we can already do. Good software patents generally do not restrict the abstract implementation of a result, just a particular method of obtaining a result that may be more efficient than previous methods in some fashion. I will readily acknowledge that some so-called "software patents" are idiotic, but that is independent of whether or not the idea is valid in the abstract -- no accounting for USPTO incompetence.
Frivolous patents are hardly unique to software, and are one of the main problems with the patent system.
While you are correct, it still doesn't address the problem with software patents: that they aim to patent whole ideas that are obvious simply due to the amount of "innovation" a single programmer must do to produce a working application. Software patents don't patent algorithms, they patent whole classes of algorithms, classes that other programs also must use sooner or later regardless of if a patent was filed or not. Unless you have a good solution for extremely reducing the amount of "obvious" and harmful patents, then for software, its best to just throw them out, as they cause more harm to the industry then good.
And after 20 or so years of seeing their proprietary code reverse engineered and opened up for the public to use, large companies like Microsoft decided that only Software Patents would turn back the rising open source software tide.
Sadly, for all of us, after they subverted the U.S. Patent system for their profit, they still failed to kill open source (is it even theoretically possible to kill an idea?)
The same argument could be applied to every other industry, for better or worse. Which is my only point.
A patent system that is not consistently applied is worse than useless.
You just swapped two letters. That's not an anagram.
Actually we use citations so we don't have to have a huge scope when writing a paper. We cite other authors that may be considered authorities of their field, allowing any debates about those points we quoted be discussed outside the scope of a paper. instead those points can be discussed in in the scope of the paper/book we cited. rAlso it's fair to attribute the work of others, and the academic community frowns on people who do not cite.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Think before you type. A patent-troll is usually defined as a company that makes no product and offers no service, instead existing *only* to extract money from other companies by threathening them with patents. As such, owning a million patents will be no defense against a patent-troll whatsoever. Since they literally do nothing, there is little chance that they will be infringing any of your dear patents.
You fell for my trap.
Who gets to decide what is art and what is not art? Is there any completely fair and honest authority for something so subjective?
The existence of IOCCC indicated to me that at least some people take artistic pride in software programming, how ever warped that pride might be.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
How do you figure ? A patent-troll is a company that produces no product and offers no service. They exist *only* to extract money by threathening with their patent-portofolio. As such, there is little chance that they'll be violating any of your patents. How could they when they literally don't do or produce *anything* ?
The principle you mention, a kind of Mutually Assured Destruction, works when two large companies, both with patents in eachothers fields clach. Microsoft certainly infringes IBM-patents, and vice versa, which means both of them will surely suffer if they figth it out, which means they probably won't.
This, however, doesn't apply to a patent-troll. It doesn't do or produce anything, so it also doesn't infringe anything.
Which is precisely the reason AC thinks they are MORE dangerous than companies like MS.
"That only worked because the founders were remarkably principled and selfless individuals. If any of them had been Stalin or Robespierre type figures who believed they should have absolute power, the American revolution would have been a disaster like the French one, or the Russian one. Or pretty much any revolution apart from the American one in fact..."
Umm, the bunch of murderous rebels who broke away 200 years ago were a disaster - for the native inhabitants. The Brits wanted to stop us expanding west because our defense would cost them, while we wanted to steal Indian land. That was the main reason for the revolt, and it produced a nation of grasping and lying scoundrels, who are world-famous for breaking every treaty they have ever signed.
Exactly. Prohibition was imposed from the top-down, contrary to common law, and failed.
"as someone familiar with the hardware patent world I've never understood why software people think that conflicting, overly-broad patents on the basic process required to achieve some end result are unique to software"
The objection people have to software patents is due to the fact that they cover concepts, not specific mechanisms that embody those concepts. Your example of thousands of different and possibly overlapping compressor designs illustrates this nicely, because applying software patent principles to the hardware world would mean that somebody could hold a patent on processes that reduce the volume of compressable fluids which would (in summary) read something like this:
1) The fluid is drawn or pumped in from a higher volume source.
2) One or more mechanical processes reduces its volume by compression.
3) The resultant compressed fluid is then either used directly, or stored in a suitable compression vessel.
So all those thousands of compressor designs would have to pay royalties to whoever owned that single broad patent on "Compressing Compressable Fluids", even though the patent itself doesn't tell people how to do any of the things it covers, so it's completely useless to anyone who has to design a compressor. Then, when people were breathing a sigh of relief because it's at the point of expiring, the patent office grants an extension because the original owner added some "innovative steps":
4) If used directly, the compressed fluid can distributed via rigid pipes or flexible tubes.
5) In cases where it is stored in a pressure vessel, the vessel may form part of the device.
6) If it is not part of the device, and therefore is a separate component, this component can be placed in a storage facility.
7) Components in storage facilities from step (6) can be given or sold* to others who do not possess a device for compressing compressable fluids.
*Please see separate patent number 8199477728 "A Process For Giving Away Or selling Stored Compressed Fluids"
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
And this gentlemen (points to parent) is what we know as a Patent Troll. (Or was that a Blatant Troll)
Software patents would be like if you could patent a genre music... it's that simple, imagine only one artist could play or license Jazz
Stick it in your ear!
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I am shocked and impressed to see that someone actually understands copyright law on software. You are quite correct that Altai is the proper precedent here. And because of the merger doctrine and scenes a fair, copyright is very weak for software. That also means the GPL is very weak. The part that the FSF does not address is that copyright may protect only a small part of your source code that is considered unique expression not subject to merger. The GPL protects only that part, and only as far as it is expression and not idea.
Copyright courts often point copyright holders to patent protection to save them.
One other note: Cox says that the rest of the world doesn't allow patents on software. That is entirely wrong. Most do, even the European Union allows them, it just depends on what type of claims you are writing in your patent. You have to know how to draft your international patent claims.
Umm, the bunch of murderous rebels who broke away 200 years ago were a disaster - for the native inhabitants.
Well they weren't much good for the slaves either. But that's not the point - the point is that Washington could easily have become a King (or at least Caesar), but he chose not to. And the rhetoric of universal rights eventually caught up with the US and forced it to do something about slavery, even that happened too late for the natives.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
>Just because a software application has almost no artistic value does not mean it does not deserve the
> same kind of protection.
Modicum of creativity is a very low bar, and it is not the defining value of a copyright. Copyright is not really about artistic value in the eyes of the law, it is about protecting fixed expressions from duplication.
In response to your statement, each of the areas you listed is enumerated specifically in copyright statutes. Software is enumerated as well, but not quite in the same way, so it is not protected in the same way. The functional aspects of software are not protected at all, nor are the ideas inherent in the software. As the Xerox and Apple v. Microsoft courts have held, software UI is generally not covered by copyright. Since function and UI are not covered, that leaves source code. And of source code, Altai tells us that only those aspects of source code passing abstraction-filtration are protected.
What you are left with isn't all that much. Obviously verbatim copying is protected, but it wouldn't take much to escape that limitation easily if you put your effort into making changes to the non-mergered parts of the source.
Courts want patent to protect software, not copyright, because copyright is not designed for functional things. I hate to break the bubble, but it's true. This is the legal reality.
>All implementations of patents are copyrighted
Sorry, no. Only those aspects of implementations in source code that are not subject to the merger doctrine (ie. those with limited variation to one of skill in the art) are protected, which in some cases may not be anything at all.
So no. Not all are. Most probably are, but not all.
You, Sir, are a Microsoft shill, trying too hard to sound like an anti-Microsoft zealot, in the hope that sensible people will side with Microsoft. It won't work round here.
> I get the impression that posters on slashdot are so clueless about other fields that they think software is special in this regard.
Surely the more obvious conclusion would be that posters on slashdot are so clueless about other fields that they refrain from judging about patents either way.
For what it's worth, most hardware patents that I've had to come across are pretty stupid too. My company makes hologram printers and we have various patents for stuff like "if you overlap the pixels, you can get what appears to be a higher resolution" and stupidly obvious things like that.
Look, there literally infinite numbers of ways to do the following:
x-y=1
A patent would protect the full million ways to arrive at this result.
Copyright would recognize every different way to arrive at this result.
And since software is nothing else that
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
One reason is that in the non-computer world it can cost thousands of dollars to manufacture even just a prototype. When it comes to software, anyone can do it with a little time and interest. Patents were supposed to make that initial investment worth the risk. Its completely unnecessary with software.
The US revolution a succesful one? Ask a black slave back then, or a Native American.
And I wonder how many of those principled gentlemen had slaves. G. Washington did, I am too lazy to find about others.
As for the success of Revolutions all is relative. You say other revolutios were a disaster, that is clearly bullshit. Revolutions like the Soviet, French and Mexican one allowed hughe swathes of the opressed population to better themselves. You can say whatever you want about Stalin the monster, but once he was gone life in the USSR was immensily better that under Tzarist Russia 100 years earlier, ditto for Mexicans after our Revolution and to a very high degree for France, who became a worldwide power in the 19th century.
The US was in the brink of collapse thanks to a bunch of inhuman racists (whose descendants mantained an apartheid state well into the XXth century. So much for "succeessful" revolutions) defending slavery. The point I am trying to make is tha the US founders were not exceptional, they were flawed as the leaders of any other political movement. The reverence with which they are treated by so many USians reminds me the best days of personality cult in some Eastern BLock countries.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
A patent system that is not consistently applied is worse than useless.
It should be applied to exactly those fields where it translates into bigger growth. Current research indicates that such fields are far between.
This shouldn't about fair. It shouldn't be about what "deserves" protection. It should solely be a matter of what gets the most growth. And every bit of research in this area I have seen indicates that for software, the effect is large and negative. Thus, software would be a good area to abolish the patents as a test balloon.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
You missed the obvious. GP is really an anti-Microsoft zealot (AMZ) trying to sound like a fanboy sounding like an AMZ.
It can be hard in this complex, modern day to detect these subtleties, but I hope that you can draw encouragement from this oversight and press on, soldier.
Because a computer program is a communication of ideas written in a language... much like a book!
In fact millions or even billions of dollars
Given that fair use is just whatever the courts decide and have decided is fair, rather than some particularly well defined principle spelled out in law, I don't know how you can make such hard and fast statements about it. Citation would look a lot more "fair" to most people than plagiarism of the same text.
Warning, Devil's advocate, do not read if you're quick on the "Troll" or "Flamebait" triggers :)
Good software can also take thousands or millions of dollars and 10 years to develop.
Not everything can be reduced to a simple micro-prototype that "anyone" can code "in their spare time".
Barriers to entry in a market exist for a reason. Where none exist, it can be beneficial to impose some.
Being from Europe, where our socialist governments tightly control everything, there are even limits on how many companies you can have in some fields (such as telecoms and tv stations), and you have to deposit at least 5000 euros as "social capital" before starting ANY company, as a guarantee that your creditors and employees will have some money left over if/when you go bankrupt.
The world does not need more crappy little things made by minuscule teams of amateurs.
It is harmful to the consumers when they are lured into buying crap from a tiny "here today gone tomorrow" type of company, that cannot benefit from economies of scale or loss-leader tactics, and so has to impose a higher margin, or has to have a higher turnaround time due to being small, etc.
When you're dealing with public contests (not sure if this is the right term in english), at a national or EU-level, you have to deposit an insane amount of money before even applying, to prove that you have the financial stability required to complete the project in a useful amount of time, absorbing unexpected cost overruns, etc.
Says the guy with the MS Win2k3 page set as his homepage? Shouldn't you be paying your "donations" to the anti-trust officials or something?
Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
ahahahhha haha ha ha
Oh! You mean you weren't joking?? 8-O
Man talk about tunnel vision.
Courts do routinely look at certain factors in making their decision, however.
Does the presence of the citation have an effect on the purpose and character of the use? No, not really. The use of the quoted material is still just as commercial or non-commercial, or whatever, either way.
Does the presence of the citation have an effect on the nature of the work the quoted material comes from? Absolutely not.
Does the presence of the citation have an effect on the amount and substantiality of the quoted material in relation to the entire work from which it is drawn? Again, absolutely not.
Does the presence of the citation alter the degree to which the use of the quoted material affects the value of and market for the work from which it is drawn? I don't see how. Either the quote is going to be a substitute for the work or it won't be. Additional material which is not itself part of the quote won't change that. This isn't to say that the quote can't have an effect; for example, while titles and short phrases are not copyrightable, consider the book 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus' where you've learned all you really need to about it merely by knowing the title.
So while fair use is about what's fair, it's not quite as loose as you seem to think. Proper citations are important for academic and often professional honesty, and for providing thorough information so that readers can go back and verify your material and benefit from your research. But from the standpoint of copyright law, it is irrelevant.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
That's only true if you assume people only patent trivial software and non-trivial non-software. But you could just as easily patent non-software devices with cheap prototypes (think fancy new scissors) or software devices that are non-trivial and have thousands of man-hours behind them.
The patent office requires source to be submitted for software patents* -- that is, requires you to document the implmentation of the claims -- and there are no special exemptions that allow software patents to be granted with more general claims than non-software patents. That doesn't mean that the patent office does a good job enforcing those requirements, but they aren't any different for software and non-software patents.
It's possible that the patent office is really bad at reviewing software patents, but I think software people just tend to ignore how many non-software patents there are that do exactly what you claim is a problem unique to software -- make overly broad claims and don't suppor those claims with specific implementation details. Frankly I'd be suprised if there isn't at least one patent for a compressor that reads very much like the one you invented here, and an owner for that patent hoping to get royalties for every air conditioner, bike pump, and jet engine manufactured.
* I know they don't require complete source where the source is longer than X pages, etc. They also don't require complete documentation for physical processes where the documentation is longer than X pages, etc. It's really no different.
"The objection people have to software patents is due to the fact that they cover concepts, not specific mechanisms that embody those concepts. Your example of thousands of different and possibly overlapping compressor designs illustrates this nicely, because applying software patent principles to the hardware world would mean that somebody could hold a patent on processes that reduce the volume of compressable fluids which would (in summary) read something like this: 1) The fluid is drawn or pumped in from a higher volume source. 2) One or more mechanical processes reduces its volume by compression. .... more simple obvious steps relating to compressors"
I agree with the original poster who says the discussion should be about patents, not software patents, per se. There are two common attacks on software patents. The first is that software patents are "concepts, not specific mechanisms that embody those concepts." That is what is being argued in the first sentence above. But that argument has little merit. All patents are in a sense on the "concepts" behind the invention. The compressor designer can sit down, design his new and unobvious compressor to push air molecules into a tank and file a patent - without ever building it. It's fundamentally the same as the chemical engineer who designs a new reaction for building a new molecule or a software designer who designs a new and unobvious image enhancement, data processing and cancer recognition program for automatically analyzing CAT scan data to find cancer that can't be identified by a human.
The second common argument against software patents is that the quality of software patents is poor - that obvious things are allowed to be patented by stupid examiners. That's the real argument being made in the compressor "example" above - where a list of obvious steps is recited. This "poor quality" argument has nothing to do with the "software is a mental concept and shouldn't be patented" argument. To put this in a different light - the steps listed above for the compressor would be fine in a patent on a compressor if they weren't obvious.
The second argument - that too many obvious software patents are granted has great merit - I'm no fan of the "one-click" Amazon patent, but I think it's a mistake to confuse the two arguments. The claim that software is somehow special and different from all the other fields of technology simply isn't very convincing to anyone who has the power to change patent law.
Please - argue that patents should be abolished or argue that software patent quality should be improved, but don't try to argue that software design has a unique mental aspect not found in other areas of technology.
> Alan Cox is full of shit.
/.? When can we expect to see you nominated for a FSF award?
> The Linux Kernel Guru needs to go back and start guru'ing his kernel and stop telling us
> what is good or bad in the industry from the stand point of patents.
And who are you?
Let me step back and get some perspective, here...
Alan Cox made himself a legend on the basis of sheer productivity. He's repeatedly tackled areas of the kernel that many others thought thankless, difficult, and frankly too damn intimidating. E.g. debugging & eventually taking over the original networking stack; developing the original multiprocessing code; introducing some semblance of order to the ATA driver mess. So yes, I candidly agree with your label of "Linux Kernel Guru"; I'm with you so far.
Alan Cox has for years been a point of contact for large corporates and governments, and has influenced everything from global banking IT systems through to government policy and antitrust legislation. He's campaigned tirelessly against the DMCA, software patents, and other abusive/restrictive legislation & infrastructure. You seem to think that's of little value; I'd say he's eminently qualified to volunteer comment on Linux strategy. But on this occasion, as usual, he didn't volunteer his opinion; he was *asked* for it.
Alan Cox is widely known to be a "regular guy", unaffected by whatever recognition and awards he's given, and generous to boot. I happen to know - and hopefully he won't be too annoyed at me for saying this publically - that the award he was quietly most touched by was the 2003 FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software.
When was the last time you contributed to the kernel? When did you last communicate anything beyond a cheap abusive posting on
You have manifestly exercised your right to free speech & expression; now let me reciprocate :
Stop wasting bandwidth and go and do something more useful instead, you pointless piece of white trash.
Mod parent down more, please. I'm really interested in seeing where this "obvious-bullshit vs do-not-feed-the-troll" curve will minimise.
Cheers,
Conrad
Doesn't matter in the slightest. Copyright law isn't about creating the same solution to a problem, as patents are, it's about copying a solution.
If you and I both independently, without reference to one-another's (or someone else's) work, write identical code, neither of us are in breach of copyright law. Though, of course, the more unlikely the co-incidence, the more difficult it is to defend yourself in court against an allegation of copyright infringement.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Ehrm, no, the EU does not allow software patents, there is simply no (single) rule about them. The EPC (European Patent Convention) does not allow software patents. The EPO* (European Patent Office) issues software patents, but their legality depends on whether the jurisdiction recognizes them as valid or not. In other words, it is up to the individual member states whether to recognize software patents as valid or not. Some states do and others don't.
Software patents were on track to become legally valid across the EU with the now disbanded CII directive, but after it was sufficiently amended to narrow the scope of applicability, the big corporations became afraid that a directive effectively prohibiting broad software patents would be put into law. Thus, they told their paid MEPs to vote the directive down together with the critics. The corporations figured no law would be better than a law prohibiting their beloved patents, making their enforceability up to the individual member country instead.
Note: The countries represented by the EPO is not the same set of countries that are members of the EU. I think that the EPO members are the same countries as those that have signed the EPC, but I'm not entirely sure.
The claim that software is somehow special and different from all the other fields of technology simply isn't very convincing
Well, I think that what's unusual is not software itself, but the software industry (and also the business method industry). Patents are meant to serve the public interest by encouraging the invention and availability on the market of novel, nonobvious inventions, to disseminate and preserve the knowledge underlying those inventions, and to make those inventions free to all as much as possible, as rapidly as possible, still bearing the totality of the goals in mind. Of course, bear in mind that there are other encouragements as well which are independent of the patent system, as well as other mechanisms for dissemination and preservation. Also remember that the most immediate freedom is to not have patents at all.
I don't think that software patents are actually encouraging invention or bringing-to-market, dissemination or preservation of knowledge about them, and they are certainly interfering with making the inventions free to all. I think that if we abolished software patents, we'd see the industry thrive just as much as it is now, and possibly more so. This might not be true forever, and so I would only put a moratorium on software patents, to be revisited periodically, but for the time being, we ought to abolish them as they are simply not doing what patents are supposed to do. They're not promoting the progress of the software arts, and may very well be impeding them. Let's take a pragmatic view, rather buying into the 'everything under the sun' dogma.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Ehrm, no. That is the case with joint stock companies, i.e. companies that are owned by shareholders. The reason why you have to pay this amount is because of the limited liability this type of company gives. Other company types make the owners personally liable if the company cannot pay their bills. I would be very surprised if the US does not have such a requirement on joint stock companies (known as business corporations in the United States).
I suggest that you read up on corporations, especially the part about limited liability.
The world does not need more crappy little things made by minuscule teams of amateurs.The giants of today haven't always been large. Every one of them started small. Most people agree that having a thriving small business sector is vital to the economy. Making it hard to start new businesses is not a good thing for society.
So while nothing is perfect, even in the US, I do think that we are doing it quite right.
So please, let's start respecting patents and lets stop violating them at every opportunity.
Please make up your mind before posting. What is it, you are doing quit right and should go on violating patents at every opportunity? Or you are doing badly and should change that as soon as possible?
That depends. I think that some patents are pretty specific, such as the RSA patent or the LZW patent. They cover a specific algorithm to do a certain task. Such patents are acceptable if we must have software patents. What is unacceptable are the "concept patents", that are overly broad and cover ideas, not algorithms. The Acacia Technologies patent on streaming media over a network is a prime example. When you have a network and a digitized media file, it is trivial to "invent" streaming media over the network, and thus is not novel enough to warrant a patent.
Software patents could be allowed to exist if the patent office really shaped up and started rejecting patents that are overbroad and doesn't cover specific inventions that are truly innovative. But since they have already granted tens of thousands of patents that does not pass these requirements, it does not suffice to just shape up from now on. The software field would still be a legal minefield for the next 20 years, unless they would actually start rejecting already granted patents. If this cannot be done, prohibiting any software patent is the only solution. If this also turn out to be "impossible", I see no other way than to dismantle the entire patent system.
Exactly. This was a problem in the process to ram the EU CII directive through the accepting process. Many corporations argued that they were necessary for continued growth in the software industry, but no economic research showed such a prediction. Many well-known economists actually argued that software patents would harm the software industry by stifling innovation and harming small and medium-sized businesses in favor of the large multinational corporations.
Or a book/film genre. Like if someone patented the drama, action or police procedural, to name a few popular movie/television genres. That each of those could have an element of the others just make it a better analogy (one invention is often covered by multiple patents).
"...pull the USA back into line with the majority of the world which simply does not recognize patents on software but respects them as literary works subject to copyright law."
That'd be beyond beautiful. If anyone wants to muster up ammo for the debate, please consider reading (late) Phil Salin's amazing article:
http://www.philsalin.com/patents.html
"If all software were public domain, there would be nothing preventing people from releasing GPL'd software as binary only, and refusing to share the modifications. (because there is no longer anything that holds them to the copyleft license)"
I think that statement nicely illustrates the attitude of GPL proponents. The idea is to compel everyone to release all code modifications, ever. You explicitly state that you prefer compulsory code release, under legal threat, to public domain. Works in the public domain are free for everyone, without restriction.
Consider this suggestion: in this hypothetical situation, if you want to release all modifications to the code (and, as established, all published code is public domain), do so. Don't whine when others exercise their freedom of choice differently from you. I've got news: I don't approve of your choice either, and you'd probably blow a capillary if my views were forced upon you. You're about forcing others to live/code according to your beliefs, and that's wrong.
"The patent office requires source to be submitted for software patents* -- that is, requires you to document the implmentation of the claims -- and there are no special exemptions that allow software patents to be granted with more general claims than non-software patents. That doesn't mean that the patent office does a good job enforcing those requirements, but they aren't any different for software and non-software patents."
Unfortunately, there are so many patents that (a) cover concepts rather than implementation, (b) are vague rather than merely broad, and (c) include no source code, that the requirements you cite effectively do not exist for software. A requirement that is routinely ignored might as well not be there.
"It's possible that the patent office is really bad at reviewing software patents, but I think software people just tend to ignore how many non-software patents there are that do exactly what you claim is a problem unique to software -- make overly broad claims and don't suppor those claims with specific implementation details."
Perhaps you're right in that software's simply a symptom of a much larger problem that stems from patent offices (in the plural here rather than just being the US PTO)making money from patent applications, and therefore having a vested interest in passing as many as possible. This became rather evident in some of what are now termed "biopiracy" cases, where the US PTO decided that common knowledge which is sometimes so ancient that it was first written in long-dead scripts such as sanskrit don't count as prior art because they weren't published in an academic journal, leaving them free to grant patents on things that people had been using for the same purposes since time immemorial.
Finally, I think most people object to over-broad / vague / stupid patents with software especially because 20 years is an incredibly long time in computing. If software patents had been around since the beginning, Apple's ones on GUIs and the various different types of apps that they host would have expired in 2001 (20 years since Lisa), Dan Bricklin's VisiCalc patents would have expired in 1999, and IBM's patent on SQL databases would have persisted until 1995. We'd be living in a very different, and much poorer IT world if these and other patents could have been used to smother BSD Unix, Linux, programming IDEs, virtual machines, interpreters and compilers, software optimisation techniques, RAM disks, rich media, every type of computer game we now have, everything we take for granted on the Internet, etc., etc., etc.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
AC, Anonymous Coward? ;)
All implementations of patents are copyrighted. It is the nature of the thing, so let's stop pretending like this is unique to software algorithms. Chemical process patents are fundamentally indistinguishable from software patents in all respects -- including copyright -- yet we ignore them and their long history. I get the impression that posters on slashdot are so clueless about other fields that they think software is special in this regard.
How utterly and completely wrong! The vast majority of "implementations of patents" cannot be copyrighted. And that includes chemicals. You can't copyright a chemical, you can't copyright a transmission block, you can't copyright a transistor radio. You can, however, copyright software, and that right there makes it different.
This issue will not be solved until people accept the mathematical truism that hardware patents and process patents are indistinguishable from software patents; one of the accomplishments of 20th century mathematics was proving that fact.
Oh really? So we mathematically proved that there's no difference between a change-sorting machine and "the concept of sorting", because I can pick up either one and beat you over the head with it until you understand the difference between a concept and a physical object?
The enemies of Democracy are
Aaaaaiight, she says the US revolution was indeed successful, and that you need to get a grip on current reality.
Historical injustices cannot be infinitely redressed. It's more important that we get our CURRENT political situation in hand than carp about irremediable mistakes of the distant past. Stop worrying about freeing the slaves and start worrying about rigging of elections.
Maybe. But bear in mind that software patents are quite new, yet we had software industries before that were thriving much like they are now. Software patents are less common and often unavailable elsewhere in the world now, yet there are plenty of inventive developers worldwide. We have pretty good evidence that software patents aren't providing a public benefit which outweighs their costs. I'm not averse to looking into other fields as well, but we can start with this one, where it is particularly evident.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
"How utterly and completely wrong! The vast majority of "implementations of patents" cannot be copyrighted. And that includes chemicals. You can't copyright a chemical, you can't copyright a transmission block, you can't copyright a transistor radio. You can, however, copyright software, and that right there makes it different."
You apparently do not even understand the concept. You do not copyright the chemical, you copyright the implementation that produces it AND you can patent the abstract process used in the implementation. Patents are for algorithms, copyrights are for implementations. There are hundreds if not thousands of cases that have been adjudicated for copyright cases that you are apparently claiming cannot exist.
You apparently do not even understand the concept. You do not copyright the chemical, you copyright the implementation that produces it AND you can patent the abstract process used in the implementation. Patents are for algorithms, copyrights are for implementations. There are hundreds if not thousands of cases that have been adjudicated for copyright cases that you are apparently claiming cannot exist.
No, copyrights are for written works or other forms of expression, not implementations of arbitrary ideas. The "implementation that produces" the chemical is also not copyrightable. A document which describes the implementation is copyrightable, the process for making the chemical is patentable at best.
Whatever copyright cases you are referring to are obviously about appropriation of a document which can be copyrighted, not of a process or chemical which cannot. A chemical process is not copyrightable, an engine transmission is not copyrightable, many, many things which are patentable are not copyrightable. If you think they are because of a lawsuit that mentioned copyright, then you simply misunderstand the lawsuit.
The enemies of Democracy are
You missed the point. The real purpose of Patents is to slow the rate of innovation to the point where society (and Law) can keep up. The Patent time frame is set to allow around a generation to adapt. Many people (including lawyers and judges) need that much time to come to grips with the many ramifications of change. That is why the only things a patent holder can really do (forbid use, or liscense use at restrictive rates)act to limit others from using an idea. It's all just a delaying mechanism. It might even be a necessary one. Future Shock and all that.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
"No matter what laws you enact, they will be abused in ways you do not approve of."
That is a truely important lesson to learn if you want to improve the Public Situation. It's a shame that Legislators seem never to understand that.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
No; Prohibition was, IIRC, the only Constitutional amendment to ever come UP from the state legislatures, rather than originating in Congress. It was dismantled from the top down due to great unpopularity.
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
Prohibition was religious in nature, and also was a law completely foreign to any previous common law or lex mercatoria. There is no question it was imposed in a top-down fashion. The fact that this occured at the state level prior to federalization is tautologous!
"No, copyrights are for written works or other forms of expression, not implementations of arbitrary ideas. The "implementation that produces" the chemical is also not copyrightable. A document which describes the implementation is copyrightable, the process for making the chemical is patentable at best."
Definitely incorrect. There have been numerous copyright infringement suits, rather large ones, for cloning hardware implementations. Or at least, this has been true in the US for a very long time. There are many types of technical hardware that you can buy overseas that is not sold in the US because it was copied from US-based designs. In many such cases, it is not a matter of patent protection or even trade dress but e.g. the circuit board layout being copied.
Copyright covers a hell of a lot more than "written works". Forms of expression included, broadly, implementation.
The US revolution a succesful one? Ask a black slave back then, or a Native American. And I wonder how many of those principled gentlemen had slaves. G. Washington did, I am too lazy to find about others.
Evidently you are unaware of historical fact about slavery, the African diaspora and ultimately where those slave ships sailed to from the African coastline! Quoting http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/feature/ethnic/bv/s pec0303.html:
BTW. Mexico did not officially abolish slavery until 1829. Mexico did in fact have a particularly dark involvement in the transfer of enslaved Africans to other parts of the Americas.
You can say whatever you want about Stalin the monster, but once he was gone life in the USSR was immensily better that under Tzarist Russia 100 years earlier,
A few million dead Ukrainians may beg to differ with you. Look up 'Holodomor'.
ditto for Mexicans after our Revolution...
Quoting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Revolution#Th e_Mexican_Revolution_and_its_place_in_world_histor y:
With some sucesses in the late 1700's and very early 1800's maybe...however there are a few big historical events which suggest something totally opposite. France may have perceived itself as a world power in the 19th century and beyond, but French blunders and failures in/at Waterloo, WW I, and WW II seem to indicate otherwise.
Integrity is what you are when nobody is looking.
How many sci-fi scripts and tv/movies are similier in sroty plot? Mostly are the alog the lines of the good guys are effected by the bad guy(s) in some way and have to solve the situ. the details are fodder for sake of the story.
"the US is basically Number 1 at just about everything"
/is/ best at getting its inhabitants to believe it is the best. And at greenhouse gas emissions per person. I'm sure at other things, too.
Apart from educational achievement of its kids, amount of press freedom, GDP per person, productivity per worker per hour, gdp growth per annum...
It