Hard Drive Imports to be Banned?

Arathon writes "Apparently the International Trade Commission is beginning an investigation that could lead to the banning of hard drive imports from Western Digital, Seagate, and Toshiba, among others, on the grounds that they fundamentally violate patents held by Steven and Mary Reiber of California. The patent apparently has to do with "dissipative ceramic bonding tips", which are important components of the drives themselves. Obviously, a ban would be unthinkable, and yet the ITC has 45 days to settle on a fixed date for the end of the investigation. If the patents are found to be violated, and the Reibers do not allow those patents to be bought or otherwise dealt with, the importation of almost all hard drives would actually be ceased."

Comments

useful arts

[Speare]

And this is promoting the Progress of Science and useful Arts, how, again?

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[Bert64]

Well, it could spur drive makers to create a replacement technology to get round the ban.
But more likely they'd just revert to some older non infringing technology, resulting in inferior drives for any country which enforces the patent.

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[Salgat]

Unfortunately many foreign companies love to sell the US patent infringing goods that can be produced legally overseas in countries like China, because they know that when they are finally told to stop due to infringements, that these companies can move on to the next profit and know they made a cheap buck out of it. As much as we all depend on Hard Drives, companies need to stop this crap and start paying the people who actually helped to bring about this technology. As much as I hate patents, the idea of patents and protecting patents can serve as an incentive to bring about new inventions(why bother investing time and money into inventing something that you know will just be stolen by other companies).

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[gravesb]

Ideally, if these two people actually invented the technology, then they should get paid for it. If people get paid for inventions, then they are more likely to continue to invent, as are others. A patent allows them to shop the technology around and sell it. Without patents, large companies could steal the technology and there would be no monetary reward for small inventors. I'm not sure that's what happened in this case, and the patent system has swung too far in one direction. But that's why there were three SCOTUS cases on patents last term, a few this term, and a bill in the Senate to overhaul the system. Hopefully it will move the system back in the other direction.

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[Daniel Wood]

I don't know the validity of the patent nor do I know if it was a submarine patent, so I can't comment on that aspect. While the ban would have severe financial impact on most of the magnetic storage industry, if not the entire economy, this could be the real kick in the pants that SSD's need. This has the potential massively increase density and lower costs of SSD's in a very short timeframe. If they can cram 16GB on a SDHC card(Due January 08), imagine how much storage they could put in a 3.5" or even a 1.8" SSD. That said, this ban will not be enacted. The federal government will not allow a ban on imports of magnetic HDDs. Not only because of the financial devastation it has the potential to cause, but because it would severely inconvenience the government as well. Remember the whole BlackBerry patent suit?

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[mpe]

Ideally, if these two people actually invented the technology, then they should get paid for it. If people get paid for inventions, then they are more likely to continue to invent, as are others.

At least this is the theory behind patents existing in the US. AFAIK this has never actually been tested.

A patent allows them to shop the technology around and sell it.

Assuming that anyone wants to buy the "invention" and the patent was correctly awarded in the first place.

Without patents, large companies could steal the technology and there would be no monetary reward for small inventors.

This can easily happen even with patents. Either large company says "see you in court" or they say "you might have a patent, but we have 20 applicable to your invention"...

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[aurispector]

This kind of smells like a patent mugging to me. If all these companies were using the patent, why did it take so long to file suit? Did all these companies ignore due diligence? Is there some sort of standards that were hashed out while the patent was kept underwater like in the Rambus case?

I really think there needs to be some sort of limit on how and when patent holders can do this sort of thing, coupled with some way standards bodies can file public notice regarding intent to use a particular process or design. First to file is not a bad starting point, but prior art could come into play in the context of such a public notice process, e.g. standards board says we are making stuff like this...public period to comment...patents not claimed by 180 days invalid for this case...NO profit for patent holders!

The muggings gotta stop

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[arivanov]

Or the country simply voiding the patent on national security grounds. Same way USA voided the Right's brothers patents on aircraft design when they proved to be insufficiently cooperative in WWI. Case of been there, dunnit will do it again. While the congress and administration critters could not quite justify that in the RIM case, in this one they may end up doing it.

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[ubrgeek]

Not to worry. The platters are round and hold digital media. The RIAA is bound to get involved somehow ...

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[Timothy Brownawell]

Ideally, if these two people actually invented the technology, then they should get paid for it. If people get paid for inventions, then they are more likely to continue to invent, as are others.

That's the general idea, yes. But on the other side of it, ensuring that everyone gets paid for "their" inventions seriously increases the overhead of trying to do anything new and useful. You can't just say "hey, that's a useful idea, let's do it that way", you have to track down everyone who came up with all the different parts of the idea and pay them off first. Even if you came up with the idea yourself, you still have to find out if anyone else came up with it first. So the benefit in one area (more inventions) comes with a cost in another area (harder to actually use those inventions). Which effect is actually larger?

There's also the basic assumption that getting paid is an essential motivator for inventing things. Presumably it's actually about as essential for getting people to invent things as it is for getting them to write software... which could make patents a net hindrance, since they increase overhead to the point that the fun of inventing things is outweighed by the annoyance of paperwork and having to pay up to random people.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. Patents distort the motives for invention, so that people work on stuff that will give monopolies instead of based on necessity. Thus, we have endless cures for invented cosmetic "diseases", and little spending on malaria. The patent system should be destroyed and patentists shot.

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[Sique]

Without patents, large companies could steal the technology and there would be no monetary reward for small inventors.

This can easily happen even with patents. Either large company says "see you in court" or they say "you might have a patent, but we have 20 applicable to your invention"... That's why people and companies have resorted to not manufacture anymore, but sit on patents and sue infringers. Because they don't sell any product themselves, they are not infringing on anyone else's patents. Patent Trolls are a direct reaction to patent warchests of big patent holders.

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[dalleboy]

Who are these Right's brothers you mention? If they where right extremists I think it was the right decision to violate their patents rights right away.

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[CRCulver]

At least this is the theory behind patents existing in the US. AFAIK this has never actually been tested.

How exactly would you test it? The only thing we can go on is anecdotal testimony by inventors, which generally supports the view that the system is working as it was intended. Wilson Greatbatch, inventor of the implantable cardiac pacemaker and over a hundred other inventions, openly states that his goal is to get patents and make money from licensing them, otherwise he wouldn't have invented anything.

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[The Lord of Chaos]

I remember the US government (current administration) hemming and hawing about what it would do about the potential injunction of Blackberries. In the end they didn't have to make any touch decisions because RIM bit the bullet and shelled out $612 M to license some useless patents that were later invalidated.

Thus I severely doubt the US government will do anything in this case except hope it all works out.

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[monkeySauce]

You mean Wright brothers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers

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[Anonymous Coward]

I think their the guys hew think they invented the plain, though in fact it was George Ceilidh.

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[east coast]

Yeah, the Wright brothers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomeansno

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[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention - If all these companies were all using the same technology, why haven't THEY tried to sue each other for violating their patents?

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[Znork]

"why bother investing time and money into inventing something that you know will just be stolen by other companies"

Because otherwise the other companies will produce better products than you and you'll go out of business.

It's called competition. It's considered a good thing.

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[mumblestheclown]

Complicated things made up of a lot of complicated subsystems are expensive. Hard drives are a multi-billion dollar business. patents ensure that each person who does hard work for each small part gets a just reward. I don't quite unedrstand your point otherwise, unless you think that it's a good thing that giant companies with the ability to productize complex items should not have to pay the actual inventors.

As for your 'basic assumption', there is nothing stopping any given inventor for releasing his novel invention into the public domain.

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[bstone]

The patents here appear to be for the tools used to build the drives. IANAL, but I thought that patents covered only the end product. In this case, the patented tool can be claimed, but not everything ever built with the patented tool. This claim would need to be filed in the country where the tool was used, assuming that country has issued a patent on the invention.

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[Goaway]

Guy don't know how to write Wright right.

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[Ed Avis]

Surely they should get paid for it in the countries where it is used. If someone in Taiwan is using their patented process to manufacture hard disks, they should sue and receive royalties in Taiwan. Unless the patent is infringed by merely using a finished disk, banning the import of disks seems inappropriate. The import rule looks like a fishy attempt to make the US patent system apply to other countries.

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[Fred_A]

But more likely they'd just revert to some older non infringing technology, resulting in inferior drives for any country which enforces the patent. Woohooo, I hope I still have that box of blank punch cards. I'm going to make a killing on eBay !

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[rbanffy]

If you _know_ about a patent you infringe, you may have to pay three times as much as if you can say you never saw it. This effectively forbids engineers to read patents and that, in turn, limits the value of patents as a tool to promote the progress of science and useful arts. Unless the research gets published in a journal, nobody that should see it will ever get to it.

If the Reibers actually did invent something that is non-obvious and used in hard-drives, I think a reasonable fee could be reached, perhaps, raising drive prices in the US by a couple cents and giving them plenty of rewards for their effort.

Not all patents are bad and the idea of patents is not completely without merit. There must be a way for the small company to defend their inventions from the huge ones while preventing the patent trolls from extorting a quick buck from those who are really inventing something.

Perhaps a monthly or yearly patent tax should be implemented - the more patents you have (fractions included), the more you pay. If it's done right (exponentially?) there will be an incentive to keep the practical ones while rendering submarine patents unpractical to keep submerged for long.

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[Salgat]

I'm talking about individuals, not corporations.

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[phobos13013]

Two wrongs do not a wright make, good sir...

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[Alzheimers]

No, but three Rights make a Left.

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[Dunbal]

If people get paid for inventions, then they are more likely to continue to invent

      But if people get paid even more for patent trolling, they are more likely to continue patent trolling.

      How easy is it to invent something completely new, research it, manufacture it, market it, and try to profit from it? Now compare this to doing a bit of research, slightly modifying an existing process in a fairly obvious manner, patenting it, quietly waiting for a few years for big corps to adopt this fairly obvious advance, and then suing the crap out of everyone?

      The basic idea behind patents is sound. However we MUST take into account the REALITY of the situation - patents are NOT helping progress, they are obstructing it. The world has changed. Now you can't be expected to become rich just by inventing something. You have to also figure out how to APPLY it.

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[jabuzz]

Hum. except if it is none obvious and the engineers don't read patents how come the engineers skilled in the art (aka those working for hard drive companies) invented the same thing again. The only conclusion you can draw if you ask me is that it was obvious. So regardless of whether the Reibers invented it or not it fails the obviousness test and is not worthy of a patent.

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[halber_mensch]

That's too damn funny. I wish you hadn't posted AC.

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[mks113]

You heard about the Chinese brothers who built an airplane?

Two Wongs made a Wright.

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[Znork]

"Ideally, if these two people actually invented the technology, then they should get paid for it."

If you think inventors should get paid, then lobby for actual payments to inventors. Monopoly rights are neither good for the industry nor for the small time inventor; they're notoriously hard to convert into actual cash, and they're exceedingly rarely a profitable proposition.

If anyone really wanted inventors to get paid we'd have an incentive system structured like any other modern incentive system; a tax on something appropriate (like a 1% invention tax on goods that use inventions, or better, on older, less efficient products, thus encouraging adoption of better technology), and then we'd pay out to inventors according to measurable performance targets, like inventions used or products sold with invention in it, etc, to ensure we actually got the taxpayers moneys worth (as opposed to, for example, the pharmaceutical industry situation in which a minimum 80% of the money paid is wasted, ie, we'd get more than 5 times the research if we just outright paid for it, instead of having the patent system).

No, the current system has its roots in medevial aristocratic indirect taxation; the crown delegating taxation (equivalent to monopoly) rights to its friends in exchange for services. And it shows.

"Without patents, large companies could steal the technology and there would be no monetary reward for small inventors."

And with patents, large companies can spread patent minefields to keep the smaller competition out, and usually get away with stealing the technology anyway.

And again, a patent is not a monetary reward, it's a monopoly right of dubious economic prospects. The only ones for which it is an actual monetary reward is the lawyers.

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[Dunbal]

Well, it could spur drive makers to create a replacement technology to get round the ban.

      Causing them to reinvent the wheel in a wasteful manner, instead of building on today's technology to develop tomorrow's technology.

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[DRJlaw]

Without even delving into the facts of the dispute, it's clear that you've misconstrued "progress of science and useful arts" to mean "progress of your [the consumer's] ability to get anything in existence right now." However it's abundantly clear that the former does not necessarily entail the latter.

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[Anonymous Coward]

If people get paid for inventions, then they are more likely to continue to invent

I am very doubtful of that. In the days of global markets, most inventions are either worth millions or they are mere application specific continued development. The really novel and useful inventions leave their owners with no financial reason to continue and the others are only useful in staking off monopoly markets against people/companies who would otherwise have developed the same technologies on their own.

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[Kadin2048]

Corporations pay for most of the research that generates patents (and products). The individual inventor, tinkering in his garage to produce a patent that he'll use to get rich, is mostly a myth and has been for years. For every one person like that, there are probably ten thousand patents ground out by IBM Research or Intel or Microsoft, purely as weapons in an ever-escalating war.

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[Mr.Intel]

You mean like this: Hybrid Drive?

No thanks, I'll just wait for my quantum computer with holographic crystal storage. In the meantime, I'm buying a thousand 160 GB Raptors before the ban hits. My ebay account is "mrintelhasallthedrives" when you need one.

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[billcopc]

That's a great idea, but how are we going to spin the use of hard drives as military weapons ?

This country's real quick at making stuff happen when it involves war efforts, and real slow at everything else.

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[gstoddart]

Ideally, if these two people actually invented the technology, then they should get paid for it. If people get paid for inventions, then they are more likely to continue to invent, as are others.

Well, my question is a "Dissipative ceramic bonding tool tip" an invention, or a material property? We all know ceramic gets used in lots of contexts because it's got great thermal properties.

I've skimmed TFA, and I ever so briefly read the opening paragraphs of the patents they linked to.

Admittedly, I know next to nothing about how to actually make one of said devices, but I'm struck with the question: are they are asserting the simple idea of using ceramic as a heat dissipator is being patented, or if the specific technique of making one is alleged to have been infringed?

If their specific technique is being infringed, for how long and why are they coming out with this now? If the mere concept of using ceramic for its thermal properties is being asserted, I would say you probably can't legitimately patent a material property.

Is anyone qualified to comment on the actual underlying science of these patents capable of saying if this seems like valid set of patents?

Cheers

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[Anonymous Coward]

I predict this abuse will stop the day something like the import of harddrives is actually forbidden by a court and the economy would take a blow as a result. Then the governemnt will probably tell the legal system to "hold it's horses" a bit. I wouldn't care about this stuff so much if a lot of this shit didn't get overseas to Europe, though, Americans can rot for all I care.

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[Anonymous Coward]

The trouble is that testimony is thoroughly biased towards inventors who have profitted from the system. They tend to shout much louder than follow-on-innovators who are stuck in a corporate day job, unable to escape because some git has a patent on some piffling thing.

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[BLKMGK]

Yes because it's so much better to sink piles of money into R&D only to have some other company copy the technology and sell it for less due to their not having to recoup the R&D costs.

Get a clue.

This is how China is taking many American companies (and others) to the cleaners. Why bother to innovate or invent something when you can simply copy what someone else has done at little to no cost? Done often enough and the folks who do the innovative things are going to find themselves bankrupt - then what? I'm all for patent reform and I think software patents need to be rethought but you make it sound as if ALL patents are somehow "bad" and that's just naive. Yes, a limited monopoly can be had with the right patent and this is why they need to eventually expire - and do! The drug industry, abusive as it is, is a good example of this. If you've EVER bought a generic drug than you've seen this process at work. Sadly the drug companies have combated this not by striving for better research but my making minor changes to existing drugs and re-patenting and by spending more on advertisement than they do R&d. Why do we allow them to advertise prescription only drugs to the public exactly?

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[Anonymous Coward]

The patent is about a chip bonding technology, so replacing a spinning disk with more chips may not be helpful. (Actually the patent looks like a shotgun blast of dozens of material combinations which can be used in chip-bonding.)

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[billcopc]

Then you get rid of the patent system, and the so-called "inventors", if they're too puny to start their own business, well they can do what people used to do, which is meet with the established companies and try to sell your invention.

The way the system works right now, someone can mail in an application without ever doing anything tangible, sit on an idea for 20 years and wait for the right victim to come along, then sue them for way too much money thanks to the wonderfully broken legal system we have. Those same quacks would have gotten a fraction of the payout had then been honest from the beginning and sold/licensed their idea. The patent system just gives them too much power.

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[perlchild]

Encryption's been classified as munitions, so wouldn't a hard drive be classifiable too?

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[Heir Of The Mess]

So you think there aren't a whole bunch of submarine patents waiting for Solid State drives to become main stream? They'll wait their moment, sitting still so as not to get attention, then Phoomp! they'll pop up and wage war. All they need is for someone to put in lots of effort in development and marketing, then just as that hard worker starts to get their money back WHAM! They'll rob em like a filthy barbaric Bill Sikes (from Oliver the movie).

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[geeknado]

I suspect that, if this /is/ a valid patent(big if really), we're more likely to see increases in HD costs as fallout rather than an overall ban. I'd imagine the government would probably stay the order immediately. Business as usual should continue.

I too am excited by the idea of a shift towards bigger, better SSDs, but I think that that's an unlikely outcome unless things go in a really wacky direction. I am not an engineer, but I'd imagine that the infrastructure necessary to produce SS drives would be quite a lot different than that required to create magnetic drives-- an abrupt shift of direction would seem to be prohibitively costly to the hard drive manufacturers.

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[hey!]

Actually SCOTUS has essentially ruled that that particular phrase is "dicta", which means it regards those words as having no binding legal force.

To address your (rhetorical) question, the first approximation is that as things stand patent laws do not have to have anything to do with promoting progress in the useful arts. Even if they had to they are not constitutionally bound to be completely successful all the time. A patent regime would only have to be on balance more good than bad. This duality is built into the very concept of a patent: every patent granted retards further progress by discouraging others from taking an idea, incorporating it in their work, and improving on it. On the other hand, it hopefully motivated the patent holder to create the innovation in the first place.

The dual nature of patents leads me to a counterintuitive position. I actually think patents should be weak in fields that enjoy lots of innovation, and strong in fields that lack innovation.

In fields enjoying strong innovation, there is less reason to incent more innovation, and the negative effects of restricting an ideas use are greater. In such fields innovation is driven by a combination of competition and technological opportunity. The software field over the last two decades is an example. Anybody involved in this field knows that patents are at best marginal. People create their copyrighted software, then look to see if they can't guild the lily by getting a patent. By in large most innovations are either not patented, or patents are not enforced. Patents do sometimes play a marginal role in entrepreneurial exit plans, but rarely does everything hinge on them, and in most cases those kinds of startups fizzle out. On the other hand, a patent -- even the possibility of a patent existing -- is more likely to be a disincentive to develop an innovative product.

It's clear to anyone without a vested interest in software patents that they are best ineffective, and are more likely to be amassed as legal armaments than as productive assets.

The automotive field has also been innovative, but innovation is intrinsically harder, and therefore patents have more value. The trend toward spinning off low margin parts of big auto companies probably means that those new companies need patents to incent them to do more than compete on price. If you go further down the scale to some relatively low tech industry, or one that is technologically stable, or one that competes almost entirely on commodity price, there is no negative effect of a patent on future innovations because those innovations are not forthcoming. On the other hand, the prospect of a patent that would seal a competitive advantage for a decade or so has considerable attraction. It could make the difference in taking a risk on an idea, and the time proven measure of plowing that money into courting customers so they'll buy more volume of an average problem at a price/volume that gives you a sliver more margin than average.

I think storage technology is on the software end of the scale, like the automotive industry, but not off th scale like software. Patents do make a real difference in the effort companies put into developing storage technology. Therefore we probably are better off tolerating an occasional situation like this, although much depends on the facts of this case. Still I think that a better patent system would make threatening to bring an entire industry to a halt harder than simply filing a claim. It's too easy in a highly innovative field, and too hard for vendors to avoid in good faith. Perhaps in cases where an invention had not yet been produced under and official license, the law would provide for a reasonable and mandatory license rather than granting injunctive relief.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, you realize that this very case we're discussing is of TWO INDIVIDUALS who own a patent used by all hard drive manufacturers, so your argument is specious.

Didn't see that one coming, did ya!

Take THAT!

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[Anonymous Coward]

You get a clue. You're deeply naive, having bought the "patents reward innovation" Big Lie hook, line and sinker.

sell it for less due to their not having to recoup the R&D costs. That's the risk of R&D. the innovator still has first-mover advantage. Patents allow the risk-averse to compete unfairly with risk takers. You're committing something akin to the broken window fallacy. In reality, EVERYONE is better off if innovations can be freely built upon, even other innovators. No innovator stands aloof. Frankly, I'm disgusted by the american infofascistic "dream", it flies in the face of millenia of human progress dependent on open sharing of information.

Why bother to innovate or invent something when you can simply copy what someone else has done at little to no cost

First mover advantage. COMPETITION. The essence of free market capitalist economic theory - the only way to stay in business would be to innovate continuously. Patent monopolies exist to slow innovation to levels manageable by the establishment of bankers and lawyers and such social parasites.

and re-patenting This is only possible because the patent system exists. Destroy the patent system, and they won't be able to do that.

(The drug industry specifically also has other problems - overzealous FDA regulation for instance.)

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[smurfsurf]

No. "Not obvious" does not mean that multiple person cannot come up with the same idea if they think hard about a problem themselves. It is just that the solution must not be apparent. Like using the back of a piece of paper to double its storage capacity.

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[jsight]

... but two wrights make an airplane!

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[Rogerborg]

First they came for the magnetic hard drives, and you said nothing, because you didn't use magnetic hard drives...

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[russ1337]

The patents here appear to be for the tools used to build the drives. IANAL, but I thought that patents covered only the end product. In this case, the patented tool can be claimed, but not everything ever built with the patented tool. This claim would need to be filed in the country where the tool was used, assuming that country has issued a patent on the invention.

Your post is the most informative point against this whole article. It almost needs to be pasted into every thread to stop the ridiculous arguments going on, over what is a non-issue.

(This article is almost in the same camp as that article in the New Zealand and Australian newspapers about 'Banning Plasma TV's' *OMG!!??*... turns out they're just as likely to ban incandescent lightbulbs... and these were all just ideas that the press ran with after reading an energy efficiency proposal.)

Good post though.

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[bleh-of-the-huns]

Actually, in many cases they do not make any changes to the drug at all, but rather find a new purpose that allows them to refile (ie initially a cold medicine, then repurposed to include allergy medication).

I would not be surprised if they know exactly what a medication can cover, but choose to only advertise it for one purpose till the patent is about to expire, then miraculously find a new problem to solve and get the patent extended...

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[ta bu shi da yu]

Awesome.

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[God'sDuck]

Encryption's been classified as munitions, so wouldn't a hard drive be classifiable too?

That depends on the velocity of the hard drive.

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[Salgat]

I'm speaking about inventors such as those at Universities.

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[Dhalka226]

Why do we allow them to advertise prescription only drugs to the public exactly?

I suppose the direct answer to your question would be that we consider it free speech, and do not see a consequence of allowing it that is so bad that we should curb that right to avoid it (as we do in the oft-cited "fire!" in a theater example).

More philosophically though, why not? If there is a drug that might be able to help me out with some problem, I'd like to know about it. And since it is prescription, I can't just go to the store blindly to try it out without thinking about consequence, adverse reactions, drug reactions or side effects; I have to discuss the issue with my doctor who has the ultimate authority of whether or not to prescribe that drug.

What bothers me more is the list of side effects on all drugs these days that we seem content to allow. For that matter, there is a drug out right now with ads running on TV--I'm pretty sure it's an allergy medication, but I can't remember the name; Veramyst maybe?--where among the fine print on the bottom is: "The way [this drug] works is not fully understood." If we don't know how a drug works, can we have enough confidence that it's not doing something bad that we should be approving it?

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[MBGMorden]

Why do we allow them to advertise prescription only drugs to the public exactly? Probably because not allowing it would be one of the biggest first amendment violations in history.

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[jamstar7]

You must be new here(tm). That's what mod points are for.

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[fattmatt]

from Patent #6,651,864:

wire bonding electrical connections to bonding pads on integrated circuit chips and packages from Ars Tec Article:

These parts are used to bond electrical wires within the hard drive Seems as though the patents are not specific to "magnetic" drive featuress but the electric connections, which may be in both magentic and SSD drives.

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[jamstar7]

Encryption's been classified as munitions, so wouldn't a hard drive be classifiable too?

That depends on the velocity of the hard drive.

I'm wondering if there's ever been a comparative study of the ballistics of hard drives and thrown chairs. Which would hit harder?

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[pthor1231]

Chances are the University already owns the patent, if someone produces it there, in their employment.

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[Bob-taro]

Why do we allow them to advertise prescription only drugs to the public exactly?

Maybe because of "free speech"? Why shouldn't they be able to advertise prescription drugs? It might give you the chance to (as they say in the commercials) "ask your doctor" about a new drug he may never have thought to prescribe you. Doctors are not perfect or omniscient. And doctors watch TV, too.

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[Anonymous Coward]

He probably would still invent it (you can't just shut up your brain), but he probably wouldn't bother to tell anyone, or to refine it further then "conceptual idea". However, most inventions would still had been invented by those who already were in business of manufacturing and marketing similar products.

"Professional inventor" is undistinguishable from "patent troll". In fact, the latter is just pejorative name for one. It is the same mind set as one behind "domain parking" - I poke my nose into your core business, I find your weakness and exploit it, without ever risking so much as I can gain, in order that I could get to some point in your future before you do and collect from you, because the law protects me in doing so. Thus, you (including your immediate competitors) are an easy target for me.

No amount of beautiful wording about "gifts to humanity" is going to change that. Inventors are granted place of predators in food chain. However, they themselves are being fooled by the system, because like lottery players and gold prospectors, most of them are wasting their efforts and resources, doing unpayed (for most of them) parallel search of problems' solutions, whereas only some of them will get to reap the rewards.

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

You should read his post again. He is saying that there is overhead associated with having to figure out if the thing your engineers thought up is the same as some other company's engineers. Pretending that this cost does not exist is not an effective argument, and neither is saying "don't you want inventors to get paid?" The question is a matter of cost/benefit tradeoff.

Patents do two things:

1. They take away your right to use someone else's ideas.
2. They take away your right to use your own ideas if someone you have never had contact with filed some paperwork first.

Most people approve of the first item, but dislike the second item. Yet both are inextricably linked, and any patent argument has to explain why either both or none of these statements are acceptable. You don't get to pick.

Re:useful arts

[jon287]

Yes because it's so much better to sink piles of money into R&D only to have some other company copy the technology and sell it for less due to their not having to recoup the R&D costs.
Yes because it is so much better to sink piles of money into R&D only to have some patent troll extort all of your profits because he bought a decade old patent for $100 that reads like "doing something cool using a COMPUTER!"

There, I slashdot-ized that for you.

Re:useful arts

[DrgnDancer]

"Then you get rid of the patent system, and the so-called "inventors", if they're too puny to start their own business, well they can do what people used to do, which is meet with the established companies have them steal your invention."

Fixed that for ya.

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

What a load of crap. Am I the only one who thinks these people are in the right?

If these people invented something, and the hard drive manufacturers used their idea to get rich, without having to do their own research on it, how is that fair?

Imagine this scenario: Couple uses their life savings to invent something. Hard drive manufacturers say "Wow, that's just what we need, but these guys will never know we're using it" and use it without paying. Hard drive manufacturers make shitloads of money, while the couple makes nothing. How is that fair?

Sometimes Slashdot really disappoints me with the groupthink conclusion jumping.

If it were Microsoft accused of ripping off IP from some small open source company, you'd all be calling for Microsoft to be shutdown.

Re:useful arts

[jbeaupre]

You risk extreme ridicule for:
a) having read the article
b) having read the patents
c) having a rational post concerning patents

This is Slashdot, where Chicken Little is an optimist.

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously he needs a procedure for this.

A Write Wright Right Rite.

Re:useful arts

[jabuzz]

Don't agree, if multiple people skilled in the arts all independantly come up with the same idea, as far as I am concerned it was obvious. It is the definition of obvious.

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting rid of patents might cause a flurry of innovation at first, but when companies slow down their innovation due to the insufficient intellectual resources (you are a fool if you think the same company can constantly innovate with product cycles so small) and have no way to protect their previous inventions, they will die. Who will step up to continue to innovate, knowing that all of their R&D is only good for a few months at best before somebody else can get a duplicate to market? That's a stupid risk. It would be safer to not innovate at all and just wait for somebody else to do it.

Re:useful arts

[SQLGuru]

I'm sure those SSHD's don't use the infringing technology.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_state_drive

Layne

Re:useful arts

[SQLGuru]

Actually, more like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_state_drive

Hybrid drives still have hard drives in them......just with memory up front.

Layne

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

I concur. Large companies should stop mugging small inventors, profiting millions or billions from their inventions, and dragging their royalty claims out in court to the tune of "legal fees well in excess of what small inventors can ever spend or hope to realise in royalty profits".

The guy who invented garden bells? Wal-Mart imported tens of thousands of Chinese knock-offs of them, manufactured FROM THE FILED PATENT, and he will never see a dime of the profits from those, and Wal-Mart filed every continuance and stall it could in the court case that Wal-Mart caused to be brought to the U.S. Legal System, by refusing to even consider a licensing offer after stalling that for over a year.

In short: your proposal presumes that large companies always Do The Right Thing, and never enter into arrangments where their profit is greater when they break the law and screw small inventors, even after court costs, fines, and eventual royalty licensing settlements. You're wrong.

Re:useful arts

[-dhan-101]

This will prevent people from wasting so much time on their computers. All this extra time will obviously be spent on science and art.

Re:useful arts

[Afrosheen]

You're probably asking for a measure of force. If high school physics still works right, Force = Mass multiplied by Acceleration. I would imagine that your average office chair is more massive than a hard drive, therefore the chair wins.

Ballmer should be careful, they'll classify him as a weapon of mass destruction next.

Re:useful arts

[jedidiah]

Yeah, but the harddrive is probably easier to accelerate.

Re:useful arts

[jedidiah]

Ok, then where are the cigarette commercials?

How bout some dynamite commercials?

Mebbe throw in some Anthrax commercials.

If the customer can't buy it without permission or
highly unlikely licensing then it really makes no
sense to allow TV advertisements for it.

Re:useful arts

[p0tat03]

Oh please. For every stupid "procedure improvement method" patent out there there are many others that are quite valid and truly innovative. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, so on and so forth. Innovation needs to be protected - I would know, I'm Chinese and I know many relatives and acquaintances who are directly involved with ripping off innovative products from other countries (and even amongst themselves).

While overly vague and general patents are a problem, legitimate inventions need to be protected. It is also the same reason why, should I ever decide to invent something, I will insist on having it made in a 1st-world, preferably Western nation, despite the increased costs of doing so. At least I can sleep easier knowing that, should someone rip me off I can sue without having to worry about where the judge's new BMW came from.

Re:useful arts

[jedidiah]

...all of which can be done of course without pervasive spam.

Pervasive spam distorts the medical decision making process
by injecting into it hype driven ill informed nonsense.

Re:useful arts

[multipartmixed]

> The only conclusion you can draw if you ask me is that it was obvious.

So, you're saying that because both Leibniz and Newton independently invented calculus, it must be obvious?

Thousands of college freshmen might disagree with you.

Re:useful arts

[Afrosheen]

So is a spitball, but I think we're all aware of the force it'd end up delivering. :)

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

In this case, the patented tool can be claimed, but not everything ever built with the patented tool.

They aren't claiming a patent on the hard drives, they want to get paid by the manufacturers for using their technology. The best way to go about that is getting a ban on items made from the infringed technology.

Re:useful arts

[thegnu]

Who will step up to continue to innovate, knowing that all of their R&D is only good for a few months at best before somebody else can get a duplicate to market?

Someone who will have saves millions of dollars on the R&D of previous companies. In fact, the previous company you're talking about got to save millions of dollars on R&D, too, because they didn't have to spend 3 years coming up with a new way to get to where the original patent holder is already without infringing.

The fundamental difference between you and GP is that you think that people should have some sort of entitlement because they have an idea, and GP doesn't, necessarily. There's a lot that goes into being valuable to society. For example:

I have Idea, and want to get it to market. However, I am terrible at implementing Idea. Idea is a great great idea, but my product is not. OtherCo comes by and sees my shitty product on the market, and thinks they can do better. So they take Idea and use their own ideas to create GoodIdea. GoodIdea is a good product, whereas my product is crap. I start seeing losses in sales, because GoodIdea just makes more sense then Idea. So I take GoodIdea, and add a couple things that I learned while supporting Idea, and come up with VeryGoodIdea.

In the above model creates 2 good products, starting from one good idea that turned out to be a bad product. If my original idea had been really good, I could have coasted on it for a long long time, but it wasn't, so I couldn't.

Where's the crime?

Re:useful arts

[stunt_penguin]

Laden or unladen velocity?

Re:useful arts

[thegnu]

"In the current patent system, the so-called "inventors", if they're too puny to defend their patents in an expensive long-term legal struggle, well they can meet with the established companies have them steal your invention."

Fixed that for ya.

Re:useful arts

[TheMiddleRoad]

Copyright and patent madness are two sides of the same coin, corporate interests that have hijacked the law for their own enrichment at the expense of everyone else. It's just biting them in the ass this time around.

Re:useful arts

[macdaddy357]

They used to market only to doctors, and should go back to that. You don't just go to a doctor and say "I would like to order some of the pills I saw on TV." Any doctor who doesn't flatly refuse such a request should lose his license to practice medicine.

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't make light of his right to not write Wright right.

Re:useful arts

[Schmendr1ck]

The US military uses a huge number of hard drives - c'mon, it's 2007, folks. For instance, many military vehicles contain onboard tactical systems which are just hardened PCs. No hard drives means no tactical systems, which would have a huge impact on battlefield effectiveness.

Maybe they're not weapons per se, but they are incredibly important tools used for day to day military operations.

Re:useful arts

[jedidiah]

A spitball properly accelerated will rip your body apart.

Packing cardboard in some C4 will make a nice homemade claymore.

Re:useful arts

[DrgnDancer]

So the solution is to take away even the flimsy protection that inventors do have? Don't misunderstand me, the current patent system is broken, but to disassemble it completely hardly seems the solution either. It does provide a modicum of protection to small time inventors and a "reward" for bigger companies that choose to develop innovative new products. The fact that it also happens to clunky and practically begs to be abused does point to a need for reform.

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

While George _Cayley_ did contribute massively to the development of aeronautic theory, he never built an aeroplane that was both powered and manned.

The Wright brothers certainly did not "invent" the aeroplane, and I don't think that they would have claimed to have invented it either. What they did, that no-one before them had done, was make the aeroplane a practical device. The Wright's concept of "3 axis control", and its practical implementation, was a huge step forward in aviation and the Flyers benefited from it.

It's not that the Wrights were the first in flight, it's that they were the first in manned, powered, _controlled_ flight. Even Gustave Whitehead's machine, which by most accounts did fly under its own power with a man on board, was not fully controlled. Roll was dependent on the pilot throwing his body around and yaw was only crudely controlled by varying the speeds of the twin propellers. The Wright system of wing warping to control roll, with a coordinated rudder to control yaw, and a movable aileron to control pitch was revolutionary at the time.

Re:useful arts

[Pixel Rider]

Or it could go the other way and spur the refinement of solid state drives...........

Re:useful arts

[tucuxi]

> The only conclusion you can draw if you ask me is that it was obvious.

So, you're saying that because both Leibniz and Newton independently invented calculus, it must be obvious?

Thousands of college freshmen might disagree with you.

... but a few decades later, when math was better understood, it would have been obvious. Obviousnsess as in "apparent to most people with good knowledge of the area". If it's just one step further, its obvious. If it is requires a large leap, it is not. Shoulders of giants and all that.

I guess we will be needing lawyers on this one for the forseeable future.

Re:useful arts

[rbanffy]

If many people skilled in the arts take a couple months and several experiments and tests to find the same idea that happens to be the best way to solve a problem within a given technological framework, it cannot be said to be obvious. Were it that obvious, someone would have figured it out in minutes.

We don't know how long it took for the Reibers to figure it out or how much they invested in it. The same goes with the hard-disk makers - we don't know how many prototypes or technologies they scrapped before arriving at the same answers as the Reibers.

Re:useful arts

[ChrisMaple]

Sure they want to get paid by manufacturers building products in a foreign country with tools patented only in the US. Tough luck. That's not how the laws are written. As long as the tool requiring the patent wasn't built in the US or imported into the US, it's not infringing.

Re:useful arts

[forkazoo]

What bothers me more is the list of side effects on all drugs these days that we seem content to allow. For that matter, there is a drug out right now with ads running on TV--I'm pretty sure it's an allergy medication, but I can't remember the name; Veramyst maybe?--where among the fine print on the bottom is: "The way [this drug] works is not fully understood." If we don't know how a drug works, can we have enough confidence that it's not doing something bad that we should be approving it?

There are many drugs that we don't understand very well. Arguably, given our current level of understanding of how the human body works, we really can't claim to know 100% of how any drug effects a person. If we needed to know how a drug works before using it, we couldn't have used any medicine at all until the late 20th century when we were able to understand the chemical structures of drugs and whatnot. Even aspirin would have had to be banned until quite recently as "not understood." We approve the drugs because a bunch of people ate them, or snorted them, or stuck them where the sun don't shine, or whatever, and their symptoms got less and they didn't all keel over dead. Sure, sometimes a drug makes it past clinical trials and then is found to have a bad side effect that wasn't previously known. It's a shame. But, it'll probably be centuries, if ever, before we can have somebody run a drug's molecular pattern though a simulation in a computer and guarantee that it doesn't do anything bad. And, the only way we could create such a computer simulation is to test it during development by clinical trials and see if anybody keels over dead when the computer says they shouldn't.

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please. For every stupid "procedure improvement method" patent out there there are many others that are quite valid and truly innovative

Bullshit. I've leafed through the USPTO and EPO online patent databases - there are countless stupid patents, and very few that are even vaguely interesting. I bet you're not even chinese.

There is no baby in this bathwater. Down with the patent system!

Re:useful arts

[onepoint]

I thought that Elisha Gray Alexander Graham Bell both filed similar patents on the same day, just hours apart. for me this would mean that discovery's happen when certain things ( basic knowledge) of a very specific field expands.

I wonder how many times similar patents application have arrived within a few days of each other.

Re:useful arts

[klenwell]

Woohooo, I hope I still have that box of blank punch cards. I'm going to make a killing on eBay

A box of blank punch cards is actually the only thing I've ever bought off of eBay. I bought them as a Xmas gift for my grandma. She likes to use them as notecards.

My grandpa worked as a programmer in the aerospace industry for years and so she always had stacks of them around the house. Well, he retired about 20 years ago, and a couple years ago she was down to her last stack. So I bought a box for her. She loved it. Best Xmas gift I ever got for her.

Re:useful arts

[operagost]

Obvious patents? That's a straw man. Patents are not supposed to be awarded for obvious ideas. Indeed, some have been invalidated for just this reason.

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

If people can come up with it independently in a few months, it does not promote the science and the useful arts to grant a government monopoly. That much should be obvious. Now, since the "non-obvious" test, comes from an attempt to define what kind of patent promotes the useful arts, it should be obvious that these patents should fail such a test.

Re:useful arts

[vux984]

The dual nature of patents leads me to a counterintuitive position. I actually think patents should be weak in fields that enjoy lots of innovation, and strong in fields that lack innovation.

How is that counter intuitive? Seems perfectly logical to me. Obvious even.

(Which means you should flesh out your idea, somehow get a computer involved, and patent it.)

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

If they where right extremists

How ironic - making a grammatical error whilst making fun of someone else's grammatical error!

Re:useful arts

[DamnStupidElf]

Done often enough and the folks who do the innovative things are going to find themselves bankrupt - then what?

Then they'll work on open source and open hardware from their basement?

Re:useful arts

[mr_mischief]

I think it's more likely the information being stored on hard drives that could be considered a matter of national security. The Mac was for a time banned from export and the Playstation 2 was banned from re-export from the US to certain countries. Information is power. As the G.I. Joe cartoons used to say, "knowing is half the battle". When you're busy spying on the world, knowing your info means bulk data storage. I guess the NSA could switch over entirely to SSDs, though.

Anyway, as for velocity and weight, velocity and acceleration do matter. I'm pretty sure a bale of hay is heavier than the 5.56mm round from an M16, but damn if I can fit it into the chamber, let alone 30 in the clip. ;-)

From here down is my contribution to making /. a little more silly today. If I made some error somewhere, who cares? It's a nonsensical idea anyway.

Care to figure the linear velocity of the outside edge of something 3.5" across turning 15k rpm? Let's see, circumference is pi times diameter. 8.89 cm * pi is roughly 27.93cm. 418,931 cm per minute, give or take. 4189.3 m/minute. 69.8 m/s or 4.1893 km/minute. 251 or so km/hour. 156 or so miles/hour. 13,744 feet or so per second. That's over 4 times the muzzle velocity on an M16, M4, or K2 using NATO M855 rounds.

p = mv

Since momentum equals mass times velocity, a piece of a hard drive platter can weigh a fourth of what an M855 5.56mm round can and have the same momentum. An M855 round is 62 grains. That's 64.79891 milligrams * 62, or a bit less than 4 grams. So a piece of hard drive platter coming apart could do real damage at, say, 1 gram. A hard drive platter from a 3.5" drive is typically about half a US dry ounce (check scrap dealers or eBay), so say 15 grams on the slightly lighter side.

So about 1/15 of a drive platter breaking off from a 15k rpm drive at full spindle speed has more than enough momentum to seriously injure someone. It might even be deadly if it hits certain spots. Call it 1/7 of a 7200 rpm drive platter. And it doesn't have to stay in one piece after breaking apart from the rest of the platter, either. Flechette ammunition is know to be pretty effective against soft targets, like unarmored humans.

BTW, a round fired from a rifle is effective at quite a range, so even slower or a smaller piece would be dangerous at closer range, like under your desk next to your legs. Thankfully this kind of breaking apart shouldn't happen and the platters are inside a metal casing if it ever does. I've never heard of anyone trying to turn a hard drive into an actual weapon, but I'm sure it'd be more effective to throw one at someone than to try taking the casing off and scoring the platter. That's not to say it necessarily couldn't be done, but it sounds like a major waste of time compared to just putting some explosives inside the computer case. This is especially true since you can't control which direction the break-apart would fling stuff and it'd be difficult to make sure the platter came apart at the right spindle speed. ;-)

Re:useful arts

[ncc74656]

That depends on the velocity of the hard drive.

What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen hard drive? (They all appear to come from Asia anymore, so there's no worrying about whether it's African or European.)

Re:useful arts

[TooMuchToDo]

Firing hard drives using a rail gun. I would've never thought of that as a weapons system.

Re:useful arts

[aurispector]

I am proposing no such thing. Of COURSE big corporations will jack any system to their advantage. However, you have to admit that big corporations make lots of cheap stuff - the processor and hard drive in the computer you are using, for example, so you can't say they are inherently BAD either. Their behavior is quite predictable.

I'm merely suggesting that at some point you need to have some public process by which you can draw a line and say "no, sorry, too late".

I have a feeling you have a basement workshop with a patent for garden bells tacked to the wall.

Re:useful arts

[ndege]

Sadly, at least in the USA, you are wrong about the "...makes no sense to allow TV Advertisements for it."

Our medical professionals, the gate-keeps of the plethora of drugs available, deal with patients who walk in and say, "I have [these symptoms] which I think might be [this condition], and I understand that [this drug] can treat me, and I would like it please."

For lots of reasons more numerous to mention here, most doctors will simply say, "Alright," and move on to the next patient.

As for the drug companies, the direct-to-public advertising creates huge returns for the bottom line.

Right now, this is the system we deal with in the States. Should there be change? Maybe. Is change easy? I don't think so.

In the end, most of this doesn't matter. The problem isn't with the publicly-traded drug companies selling their wares. The problem is the stupid person who can't see through the advertising, turn on their brain, and understand that with everything there is a trade-off; in the case of drugs, side-effects.

I believe the real problem is with our draconian method of schooling. We treat our children and students as simple herd animals that must run the guantlet of education. In public school, we emphasize obeying the rules, but our society blatantly ignores logical, critical thinking, big-picture history, and in general, the sciences.

We are stupid selfish sheep^H^H^H^H^Hconsumers that can't think for themselves. This is why TV advertisements work. This is why our society is so self-destructive and is more interested in who is banging whom in Hollywood than actually looking at the needs of others.

Why don't you step away from the glow of electrons, and go do something positive and uplifting for someone else when there isn't any personal motive or potential gain. See what happens within yourself.

Re:useful arts

[ndege]

Wish I could mod this comment "witty". :)

Re:useful arts

[Hoi Polloi]

They had their patent stolen from them by spelling Nazis.

Re:useful arts

[mini me]

Yes, I think all the hype behind the iPhone cracking is the perfect example of this. Apple creates what seems to be a great idea, the multi-touch interface, but makes a poor product around it because you cannot install your own software on the device. Theoretically someone else should come along and build an iPhone-like device that does allow you to install your own software. Problem is that it cannot happen because of the multi-touch patents Apple has.

Re:useful arts

[Hoi Polloi]

Run! It's a RAID!

Re:useful arts

[Matt Perry]

Ideally, if these two people actually invented the technology, then they should get paid for it.

Ideally, so should people who also arrive at the same solution independently.

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

A Write Wright Right Rite.

Riiiiiiiight.

Re:useful arts

[autocracy]

156 or so miles/hour. 13,744 feet or so per second.

Yeah, not so much. Anybody care to try again?

Re:useful arts

[aurispector]

This is one of the dumbest comments I've ever seen. I'm guessing you are still in college, cuddling up to Marx at night.

If you don't have some way of rewarding people for innovating, why would anyone bother? The Pharma industry is a great example: each marketable drug costs huge amounts of money - no government could possibly fund the research. MOST drugs fail testing resulting in largely wasted money. You have to have some way of allowing Pharmaceutical companies to recoup their expenditure. If it was legal for anyone to start producing a new drug (or any other innovation), your so called "first mover" advantage evaporates in the face of good old price competition and R&D disappears.

The system we have may not be particularly GOOD (as in benevolent), on the other hand how else can you keep the R&D dollars flowing. At least with the present system the profit motive and greed are harnessed to produce something useful, unlike the copyright system in which anyone can pen an inane ditty in a few minutes, copyright it and then own it for a hundred years.

Re:useful arts

[triffid_98]

On the face of it that would seem to be logical, unfortunately doctors are beholden to their HMO overlords not to prescribe shiny new pills when there's an acceptable generic. Moreover, if your plan doesn't cover them they aren't even allowed to tell you that a drug/treatment exists. In your face Hippocratic oath.

They used to market only to doctors, and should go back to that. You don't just go to a doctor and say "I would like to order some of the pills I saw on TV." Any doctor who doesn't flatly refuse such a request should lose his license to practice medicine.

Re:useful arts

[AK Marc]

They aren't claiming a patent on the hard drives, they want to get paid by the manufacturers for using their technology.

If the infringement is in Japan or China, they must file suit there.

The best way to go about that is getting a ban on items made from the infringed technology.

Great, so if that works, then if a cargo truck is found to violate a patent, then they must collect and return everything delivered by those trucks. It may be their only recourse in the US, but it is absolutely stupid to ban an object because it was near something that may or may not have been violating a patent. Did they file internationally? Did they patent the tool in Japan, Taiwan, and China? Why are they not going after the actual tools, and instead going after something that was near them once? The patent laws aren't the same everywhere, and it's possible that it isn't patented in Japan. If it isn't a recognized patent in Japan, can goods made legally in Japan be banned from the US because something used in their construction may have been in violation of a patent in a country the tool has never been in?

I actually hope they win. Crap like this will get the "regular" person to realize that patents hurt consumers much more than they help them.

Re:useful arts

[perlchild]

That would be... at the same acceleration

The hard drive is much easier to accelerate...

Re:useful arts

[NormalVisual]

69.8 m/s or 4.1893 km/minute. 251 or so km/hour. 156 or so miles/hour. 13,744 feet or so per second. That's over 4 times the muzzle velocity on an M16, M4, or K2 using NATO M855 rounds.

[marks paper with a red pen]

13,744 feet per minute, not second, which in turn works out to 229 feet/sec, or less than a tenth of the aforementioned .223 round, or on the slow end of average for an arrow fired from a bow. Still not something I'd want to go out of my way to be hit with. :-)

Re:useful arts

[hey!]

Only if you believe that patents exist to maximize economic utility.

If you believe patents exist to protect property rights, then the most innovative fields need strongest patent protection.

If you discuss patents with somebody and don't get this distinction out of the way, chances are you'll end up talking past them. What is obvious from one point of view is completely illogical from the other.

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

So many words, so very unfunny

Re:useful arts

[Duncan3]

Simple, now we can all move to Solid State Drives. This will drive their cost down FAST, and we'll all be better off.

Death to the spinning disk of latency!

Re:useful arts

[chaim79]

You should also take range into account. While an office chair accelerated to a lethal speed may stay at that speed for approx 20 feet, a harddrive (either in case or drive platter alone, fired edge-on) accelerated at lethal speed should have a range 5x or more then that of the chair simply because of density and drag.

Re:useful arts

[Snospar]

Just as well we write Wright right from left-to-right, right? Or he might have written Wright wrong from right-to-left, then again that might have made is wrong Wright right. I hope his name isn't Wright, it would be just plain wrong for Wright to write Wright wrong...

Must stop, Dr. Seuss overload.

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing you are still in college, cuddling up to Marx at night.

I'm guessing you're an economic illiterate. Have you even read Marx? Patent monopolies are based on quintessentially marxist ideas - that something is worth the amount of work put into it. This is the Marxist Labor Theory of Value in a nutshell (thoroughly debunked by the Austrian School).

The reasoning goes it's hard work innovating, so people "deserve" to get something for it. In reality, it was their own idea to sink the costs into R&D, they gain both the results of the R&D and first mover advantage. They then want to extract monopoly taxes from society for 20 years for it. It's like I decide to make a bunch of ugly pink jumpers. Should I be paid? Hell no, nobody wants ugly pink jumpers.

Society is better served by minimising the cost of R&D. How do you do that? Openness. Free sharing of information. Information is not property.

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

The Rights copyrighted the English language dictionary. If you use any of their words, you owe them moeny.

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

And three rights make a left.

Re:useful arts

[sumdumass]

You could infect the drive data with viruses and Trojans and have a low cost biological weapons program.

Re:useful arts

[dalleboy]

Well, actually I made a grammatical error whilst making fun of someone else's spelling error, isn't that ironic.

Re:useful arts

[hedwards]

It's not that the Wrights were the first in flight, it's that they were the first in manned, powered, _controlled_ flight. Even Gustave Whitehead's machine, which by most accounts did fly under its own power with a man on board, was not fully controlled. Roll was dependent on the pilot throwing his body around and yaw was only crudely controlled by varying the speeds of the twin propellers. The Wright system of wing warping to control roll, with a coordinated rudder to control yaw, and a movable aileron to control pitch was revolutionary at the time. How exactly did they not invent the plane if they just invented every bit that defines a plane? Sure, they didn't invent the glider, people had done that prior to their first flight, but the things that you've listed are the things that precisely define a plane versus a glider.

Presently, we've got gliders, ultralights, and planes. Neither gliders nor ultralights have the entire list of features you've listed. The ultralights only being short wing warping. And gliders only being manned and controllable.

Re:useful arts

[paganizer]

Been there, Done that.
and in afterthought, it would have made a great T-shirt.

Re:useful arts

[sumdumass]

Not necessarily. Many countries outside the US are participants to the berne convention and many other treaties that effectively make a US patent or copyright good/binding in one of the other countries participating in the treaty. Similarly, it would make something patented by those countries enforceable in the US and other countries. Some signators just use US law and patent/copyright systems as their entire programs too.

So it would really depend on where and if those other/outside countries are part of a much larger patent treaties.

Personally, if you were to ask me, I would say this is just one more reason to disband the WTO and start over.

Re:useful arts

[mr_mischief]

At least you got that it was a joke, AC. At least that's something.

Re:useful arts

[PitaBred]

I don't think you'd want to use a hard drive in a military vehicle. You'd barely want to use flash memory. Those things will be abused like nobody's business, and need to be indestructible. Vibrations and shocks are very bad for drives with moving parts.

Re:useful arts

[kcbanner]

sqrt(Wrong) = Right

Therefore: sqrt(Plane) = Wright

Re:useful arts

[P4R0N]

i totally agree with everything you had to say, however, the reality that we live in is that people are uneducated and a lot of them are susceptible to advertising; and it's not going to change, at least in our lifetime. The thing is that these giant corporations know this as well and are taking advantage of it. That's why some of them will spend more on advertising then on r&d. The real question is, should we allow them to take advantage of people who are susceptible and uneducated. I think no, but some might think otherwise.

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest you look at the pirate party's position on this issue. It's backed up with actual, like, facts: http://www.piratpartiet.se/an_alternative_to_pharmaceutical_patents

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on which weighs more: a kiloton of chairs, or a kiloton of hard drives.

Re:useful arts

[ASBands]

Hard drives are a good example of your point, but I would consider them a special market. What can you possibly think of as a way to improve them? The latest "innovation" is perpendicular recording, which was thought up back in the 1970s. Manufacturers are competing not in an "innovation" sense - simply because the product can't be improved unless everybody does it at the same time. Native Command Queuing and Serial ATA wouldn't have taken off if everybody hadn't done them. NCQ doesn't even lead to major performance increases, it just makes storing more data on the same platter cost less. The next step is flash-based drives, which all the major players are working on making cheaply at the moment, but this is just a different way of storing data. In fact, that's all a hard drive will ever do - store data.

This particular patent appears to patent a semiconductor material and is incredibly general. This line makes me laugh at its generality:

...wherein the range of alumina is from 15% to 85% and the range of zirconia is from 15% to 85%.

If you bother reading the whole patent...well, I really can't imagine this claim standing up in court.

Assuming this claim does not stand up in court, then the patent system works. If any of the hard drive companies try to patent a component, four other companies can point to the research they've been doing as prior art. This forces companies to continue researching. Sure, it wastes time and money, but it sure as hell beats the alternative. The alternative, of course, is one company not researching anymore, but simply copying the works of others and selling a cheaper product. OEMs will switch to them (because the majority of them couldn't care less about reliability and they sure as hell don't care about getting the "original" product). Using this advantage, one manufacturer will eventually establish an effective monopoly wherein no innovation will occur.

What about a new company? If they (hypothetically) come out with a truly unique way to do hard drives, then, in a patentless system, all the major players would simply copy that idea. Having the idea first means nothing, as the major players already have the money and the fabrication labs to outproduce you. Your only hope is to be hired by one of the companies that took your idea - but why would they do that? They would have to pay you. Where is the freedom?

I'm all for patent reform, but this is one of many markets where patents actually force innovation, although not in the way that patents were originally intended.

Re:useful arts

[smurfsurf]

There is NOTHING that some second person will not come up with independently. Now what?

Re:useful arts

[JonathanR]

Only if the three rights average greater than 60

Re:useful arts

[aurispector]

I am not trying to claim that the current system is great, just that there needs to be incentive for individuals or corporations to spend money on r & d. As I pointed out earlier, if nothing can be patented then the only advantage a brand can have in the market is price. Since Indian and Chinese labor is paid a small fraction of workers in the US or Europe, the advantage automatically goes to them. Pharma research is so ridiculously expensive AND rigidly controlled that nobody would do it if they weren't able to recoup costs. God forbid anyone should make a profit.

Certainly nobody wants ugly pink jumpers. People want boner pills and stuff to make heart attacks go away so they can be fat and lazy. Besides, once it goes OFF patent, anyone in the world has FREE access to the information. Where's the problem?

Example A: A company dumps $300 million into developing a new, unique molocule that cures a fatal disease for which there is currently no treatment. People are no longer dying and when the patent expires, the minimum cost of production and distribution sets the price due to that magical thing called "free market competition". All of humanity benefits forever more. The company uses profits to develop new drugs. Repeat Example A.

Example B: A company dumps $300 million into developing a new, unique molocule that cures a fatal disease for which there is currently no treatment. Once this is released, Chinese and Indian companies with no R&D budget flood the market with ultra cheap copies. All of humanity benefits forever more. The company that developed the drug goes belly up and the unique nexus of research talent is forever lost. Humanity suffers from the lack of future research since no company in their right minds will do R&D since there is no profit in it. End of cycle.

I read Marx; it was the biggest load of horseshit I ever laid eyes upon. Anyone who has ever run a business or raised a child (I've done both) would immediately recognize the stupidity of Marx's ideas. Go ahead and link a few more academic theories: perhaps some day you will graduate and learn how the real world operates - NOTHING is free.

Re:useful arts

[thegnu]

Excellent post. I came off as a little more anti-patent than I actually am. I think the current patent system is ridiculous. I think that patenting methods is completely stupid, because the way our brains function dictates the 'best' way of displaying something. Patenting a playlist view is like patenting an input system that can be operated by people with 4 fingers and an opposable thumb on each hand.

But I do think they CAN be beneficial. Just make the term shorter, and clarify all the stuff surrounding technology. And shoot Dick Cheney in the face with birdshot, just in case that helps.

Re:useful arts

[aurispector]

The pirate party's position is backed up by a bunch of nonsense. Government is the most expensive and inefficient method of accomplishing anything. Where is the pressure to cut costs? Certainly not from the market. For nonprofitable things like malaria it might make sense but certainly not for the bulk of research.

Look at the cost of generic drugs; They typically cost a small fraction of brand name drugs. Eventually, every drug will become generic and the free market will set the price. In the meantime you have these private companies competing with each other to produce new medications.

Government is no different than a monopoly - costs continually rise with no real incentive for efficiency. Why kill private reseach? Capitalism harnesses greed. Patent expirations mean that eventually everyone benefits.

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

if multiple people skilled in the arts all independantly come up with the same idea, as far as I am concerned it was obvious. It is the definition of obvious.

So then an idea is either so brilliant that only one person could possibly come up with it, or it is obvious?

Re:useful arts

[Paradise Pete]

The guy who invented garden bells?

"We had exhausted the crocodiles, and begun with the alligators, when the garden-bell rang. " - Charles Dickens, 1850.

Re:useful arts

[Anonymous Coward]

I read Marx; it was the biggest load of horseshit I ever laid eyes upon Fine, I'd agree: but because he holds ideas fundamentally like yours

You understand that Example A, based on "free market competition" is impossible while patent monopolies exist, right? No. Thought not.

Go ahead and link a few more academic theories: perhaps some day you will graduate and learn how the real world operates

You fail to even address the criticism. My understanding of how the real world operates is fine, it is YOU who are living in a Marxist fairyland.

Re:useful arts

[Tyger]

The only difference between a glider and an airplane is the glider doesn't have an engine, so it doesn't fly under it's own power. Modern gliders still use the same sort of flight control surfaces as airplanes. They are designed slightly differently to optimize lift at low speeds, but other than that, the only difference is a source of power. In fact, if an airplane (Even a jet like a 737) loses engine power, it just becomes a poor glider, and can still land safely with a skilled pilot.

So, their innovation was the predecessor to modern flight control surfaces. It wasn't exactly what we use now. Wing warping has been replaced by elevators and ailerons. But it is the same basic principal of operation.

Re:useful arts

[BLKMGK]

Not going to change in our lifetime? Hard to change? The hell you say!

I'm old enough to remember when such advertisements were NOT allowed. Heck I remember when alcohol was much more freely advertised and I think I even have dim memories of cigarettes being advertised on TV! If it wasn't done before and is now then certainly it can be stopped. things that were done aren't now - no different.

Unfortunatly the drug reps will still attemtp to sway doctors to prescribe their drugs and offer "incentives". Once upon a time when I was young I worked in a drugstore and I worked with the pharmacy counter. I'll never forget the drug reps coming in to peddle their wares with the pharmacist. The most outrageous thing? Trying to get them to cough up lists of local doctors prescribing their competitor's drugs! Sleazy as all hell and I still see these scumbags sneaking in the door when I visit my local Dr. - talk about crap. :-(

Re:useful arts

[BLKMGK]

Nice to see that you "get it". I know some folks who have put R&D monies into building various car parts for the aftermarket. As it happens the Chinese are a really cheap place to have castings and things done - some of them have had work done there as a result. The others have spent more to have their work cast here. Guess which group very quickly found their competitors offering THEIR parts at prices that will not allow them to recoup their R&D? Yup, the guys who went to China! How? Well, seems if you know who to ask and especially if you can figure out which foundry it is you can purchase the parts for the SAME cost as the other guy who did the R&D. So, he sweats and works and then these guys sell it to anyone who asks no matter who's patterns it is. To read some of the parts in this thread that's perfectly okay. What they apparently have NEVER done is spend the cash to develop something themselves only to have it stolen from under them.

At least when it's cast here the guy who copies it actually has to copy it and not just buy from the manufacturer skipping the whole R&D part - you have that whole first to market thing at least that some of these twits want to quote. Here you have a snowball's chance of suing if the guy backdoors your stuff, not so in China. Not yet anyway, if they want to really get anywhere they will begin stopping this process. Sink $30K+ into dyno time and pattern making and then find out that the speciality part, with it's already limited market, is being sold so low you will *never* get the development monies back. Think you'd do that more than once?

Re:useful arts

[BLKMGK]

Don't like HMOs? Don't use one, I don't. My Dr. is beholden to no one. Yeah, my insurance company might not cover a treatment but it IS offered to me.

Re:useful arts

[Kadin2048]

Of course, you realize that this very case we're discussing is of TWO INDIVIDUALS who own a patent used by all hard drive manufacturers, so your argument is specious. What makes you think that they actually invented anything? All I've seen is that they filed a patent, and one that quite a few people have suggested is meritless and ignores a ton of prior art.

Filing a patent doesn't make you an inventor. It makes you a person skilled at manipulating the system for your own benefit; it doesn't say anything about actual technical prowess.

Re:useful arts

[p0tat03]

I bet you're not even chinese.

Er, since you're wrong on that part, should I assume the rest of your post is bullshit too?

I worked for a short while in an automotive company, and saw many patents go out the door of the office, and perused quite a few of them. All of them were legitimate innovations on existing ideas (patents on top of patents?), and while some were quite trivial in impact, none were really "WELL NO DUH!" cases.

Re:useful arts

[Captain DaFt]

But you can't mix viruses and trojans to create a biological weapon, since trojans protect AGAINST viruses.
(At least that's what it says on the wrapper.) :-)

Re:useful arts

[aurispector]

I love how you completely ignore the fact that PATENTS EXPIRE and that companies compete to patent similar things - look at the plethora of statin drugs on the market. There is still competition! You are simply making stupid assertions without providing explainations.

I can only assume you are an idiot or a troll. Judging from the AC post it's troll, but that doesn't rule out your being an idiot as well. Sophomore in college? Know the definition of that word?

Re:useful arts

[sarathmenon]

Example B: A company dumps $300 million into developing a new, unique molocule that cures a fatal disease for which there is currently no treatment. Once this is released, Chinese and Indian companies with no R&D budget flood the market with ultra cheap copies. All of humanity benefits forever more. The company that developed the drug goes belly up and the unique nexus of research talent is forever lost. Humanity suffers from the lack of future research since no company in their right minds will do R&D since there is no profit in it. End of cycle. You're wrong there. Let's assume that the next big AIDS hits in 2020, in a world without patents. Every manufacturer will see the advantage in getting a drug out that can cure it. If Pfizer or P&G cannot bring out a new drug, because of what each company stands to gain, a Ranbaxy or a Cipla will. That's market economics - pure demand vs. supply. Whichever company that gets the drug out first stands to profit - if they are the only people manufacturing it for the first two months, they will be able to make a handsome margin. It will be peanuts compared to what they will be able to earn if they had patents, but why should they be given an artificial monopoly? It flies in the face of the free market - it leads to market stagnation, artificial pricing, inefficient manufacturing (because companies couldn't care less about making their production lines more cost efficient) and all the bad things associated with capitalism.

And what is wrong with ultra cheap copies of medicines being manufactured? It increases the ease of access to medicines, it brings about a better challenge to make more cost effective manufacturing lines etc ... Patent systems bring in greed, they bring in artificiality, they bring out everything that's fundamentally wrong with human nature. Heck, Einstein or Newton did not wave a copy of their patents saying that they had a "new mathematical model of representing the laws of nature". The greatest scientific progresses happen when information can be freely exchangable, and when its not controlled by a sword or gun. That's what 30+ centuries of history teaches us, and the lesson is more relevant in today's age than ever before.

Re:useful arts

[infidel13]

The original poster is right in stating that a ban would be unthinkable. Have the people who own these patents actually done anything to further improve the technology, or are they merely trying to grab some cash by ruining the lives of American computer enthusiasts? This is just another testament to the sorry state of this country's patent system. Let's see a decision against the patents that sets a precedent against patents that impede the progress of science and the useful arts.

Re:useful arts

[Shadowlore]

The patent system is not about getting paid for inventing something.

You and I without even knowing about the other or the other's work both "invent" the same thing. We both put hours, days, months or even years working on it, and a lot of money, too. We both leave go to patent it. But I get there first. I win. I get the patent. Now, I can prevent you from reaping any benefit or rewards from your own work.

THAT is what the patent system has become, and was destined to do so. The fatal and fundamental flaw is that it precludes independent work as opposed to working against those who "copy", though that options is arguably detrimental as well.

Independent discovery, invention, or work is found throughout history. The patent system is based on the woefully wrong idea that it never happens, or that if it does "too bad so sad".

So don't give me any sob story about how someone deserves to profit from their work, when the system is specifically designed to prevent others from profiting from their work

"Without patents large companies could steal the technology".

As if. News flash: they do anyway. And what is "stolen"? A "right" to prevent others from profiting from their work? No, can't accept that. The notion that inventors big or small can ONLY make money with a patent system is faulty on two significant counts. The patent system, officially, is not about making money, but advancing science. Second, inventors made money before patents, just as writers and artists of other mediums mad money (or a living) prior to copyright invention.

I've tried for nearly two decades, after my first bend-over experience from the patent system to find a compromise between what we have and no patents. All of them suffer the same eventual fate - what we have today or where what we have is headed.

Ideas are not property. Ideas are only "yours" so long as they stay in your head. Patents have demonstrably retarded whole industries, and our entire scientific and technological process. Some could argue they helped, but the arguments are non-falsifiable in that they rely on "well we've done well so far". We did well before them, too. And that destroys the argument they are needed.

And finally, if these two make metric butt-loads of money of this patent, they are most likely to NOT invent anything more. People continue work because they enjoy it or it makes them the money they need to survive. If these people are in the first category, they would continue to invent w/o the patent system. if they are in the second group, well they would not need to work any more, would they?

Re:useful arts

[fractoid]

Because otherwise the other companies will produce better products than you and you'll go out of business. Pardon my ignorance, but why not just copy those 'better products' when they hit market, short circuiting the colossal R&D expenditure that the other companies put forth, and undercutting their break-even point while still turning a tidy profit? Sure, you lose a few weeks of sales, but that's trivial compared to the cost of developing a product, which is usually amortized over expected months or years of sales.

Re:useful arts

[jesboat]

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of hard drives!

Re:useful arts

[definate]

Just because someone invented it, does not necessarily mean they have maximised the inventions benefits to man kind. If they have maximised their benefits to man kind then they would have gotten paid for it, and there would be no need for a patent anyway, as this would merely reduce the overall benefit people could receive from this invention.

So which comes first, benefiting man kind or benefiting individual inventors/lawyers/patent trolls at the expense of everyone?

Re:useful arts

[maxwell demon]

Only if the three rights average greater than 60 No, it's already sufficient if they average greater than about 2.1

injunctions aren't required

[gravesb]

After the eBay v. Mercexchange case, injunctions are not automatic. The ITC could just award damages if it finds infringement, and not stop the flow of harddrives.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[mcelrath]

Better yet, injunctions should be disallowed.

It certainly harms the progress of useful arts to stop sales and/or development. Instead, patent violation should be assessed only in the amount of money owed from one party to another, calculated as a reasonable fraction of the profit earned from goods in violation of the patent.

If the inventor has a great idea, but an incompetent marketing and/or development, the patent should allow others to compete on the basis of marketing and development, using the same idea, but the patentor should get his due in any case.

In other words, I think all licensing of patents should be compulsory. I can't see any argument why any party should disallow any other party from implementing their patents. It seems this is only ever used for anticompetitive purposes, which harms the market and harms consumers, and is illegal when done in other ways.

--Bob

Re:injunctions aren't required

[gravesb]

That's a really good point. The problem comes up with who sets the price for the patented part. The court? The bad-faith infringer who has an incentive to discount its worth? The inventor set a price higher than the infringer, or else there would some agreement. Taking away someone's ability to sell, or not sell, their property has some issues, at least in the US. Same issues that come up under the Takings Clause.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[Zeinfeld]

After the eBay v. Mercexchange case, injunctions are not automatic. The ITC could just award damages if it finds infringement, and not stop the flow of harddrives.

This is an ITC action, not a patent infringement suit. The rules are very different and pretty corrupt.

Back in the 1980s when the US feared it was losing its edge a series of bills was passed to create non-tariff barriers to high tech trade. At the time the US HI-tech companies were complaining that their ideas were being stolen. So they created a kangeroo-court process to allow US companies to block competing imports.

Of course this started long before the effects of Reagans gutting of the USPTO review process were beginning to be realized. At the time a patent actually meant something.

Regardless the drive manufacturers will settle. Just think of it as a private tax.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[TheRaven64]

There is a problem with that. If I want to infringe your patent, I just follow this set of steps:

1. Set up new company to manufacture the goods.
2. License the new company some of my patents in exchange for 100% of profits.
3. New company gets sued, but keeps on trading because there is no injunction.
4. Use SCO-style legal tactics to keep the case tied up in court for a couple of years.
5. Lose case, new company goes bankrupt, but has no assets so the inventor gets nothing from liquidation.
6. Profit (??? not required).
7. Repeat from step one.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[Anonymous Coward]

Patents aren't property, they are limited monopolies. This is just changing the terms of the monopoly. Deciding what the license should be is no more vague and difficult than deciding on the patent in the first place. Both sides make arguments, sides are penalized for over-reaching or unsupported claims, and a decision is made. Patent owner can always choose to license for less, even selectively. The compulsory licensing is only a price ceiling.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[Timothy Brownawell]

That's a really good point. The problem comes up with who sets the price for the patented part. [...] Taking away someone's ability to sell, or not sell, their property has some issues, at least in the US.

Perhaps the problem is with considering knowledge and ideas to be "property" that can be owned by someone. Owning property implies some amount of absolute control over it, which is really quite absurd in cases like this.

For instance, I tend to think that the "compulsory licensing" for music is bad terminology for a good idea -- it shouldn't be "copyright holder must license for $X amount", it should be "copyright holder can demand payment of up to $X amount". ie, only giving limited rights in the first place, rather than giving full control and then taking bits of that away.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[Random832]

The inventor set a price higher than the infringer, or else there would some agreement. This implies everyone has a price.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[evilviper]

Instead, patent violation should be assessed only in the amount of money owed from one party to another,

Patent licenses aren't sold off-the-shelf at the market down the street... The "amount of money owed" could be ANYTHING under the sun. The patent holder could just say they charge $1 million per device, and bankrupt a company. Of course the foreign company could refuse to pay, then an injunction is the only method to prevent future infringement.

calculated as a reasonable fraction of the profit earned from goods in violation of the patent.

Oh, so if I take some patent that took many millions of dollars to come up with, like some major pharmaceutical drug, and instead of paying the $100 fee per bottle, sell illegal generics for $10, I only have to pay some fraction of $10 instead of $100?

Sometimes, the patented technology is worth well in excess the material cost of the end product. With prices on digital electronics ever falling, expect to see that happen more and more often. The cheapest DVD players aren't far from it.

In other words, I think all licensing of patents should be compulsory. I can't see any argument why any party should disallow any other party from implementing their patents.

Preventing a party from using a patent at all is the only possible bargaining tool you have, in negotiating a price.

You could apply the same thing to (physical) property... selling your property, to anyone that offers to buy it, should also be compulsory.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[mumblestheclown]

"It certainly harms the progress of useful arts to stop sales and/or development. Instead, patent violation should be assessed only in the amount of money owed from one party to another, calculated as a reasonable fraction of the profit earned from goods in violation of the patent."

would the inventor also have to pay a percentage for a loss if the item fails to make a profit?

/ SARCASM

Why of why do people like you not believe in the free market? This solves the situation far better than your assinine, ignorant-of-finance-and-economics socialist "profit splitting" suggestion which would basically rely on judges to determine what percentage who is owed... which would itself be insane and require precognition the sort of which is better left to the market.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[yada21]

The problem comes up with who sets the price for the patented part.

If the sale is mandatory, the question is mute; it's one cent - the buyer just needs to outwait the seller.

Put it this way, you want to sell your house and you think it's worth 100k, and that's reasonable based on what similar ones have recently sold for. But we have the wonderful obligatory sale rule in play here. Someone offers you a nickel for it. If you don't have the right to say no, then a nickel it is.

Supply and demand only works if either side can walk away and decise the deal isn't worth it. Grandparent is probably a communist.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[yada21]

wouldn't it be a nice idea if patents couldn't be transferred to others except the common public? That would ensure the ones who file the patent get paid.

not really. Some people are good at inventing, some are good at producing, some at marketing. Not many are good at all. Same for organization's. Allowing patents to be sold/lisensed/transferred allows everyone to do the bit he's best at doing.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[david_thornley]

The reason I, personally, don't believe in the free market here is that there isn't one. There's a monopoly. If there was a free market, then Seagate would be free to shop among several patent holders to make the best deal they could. Monopolies, such as public utilities, are often regulated by the government.

How much of a monopoly depends on how vital the patent is. If this patent covers parts vital to modern disk drives, and there isn't any way around it, that's a pretty impressive monopoly, and the patent holder could charge exorbitant amounts.

The purpose of a patent is to promote advancement in the useful arts, not to allow somebody to invent a technique and prevent advancement for twenty years.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[Glonoinha]

Newsflash - everyone does have a price.
If one person doesn't have a price, there are reams of people that do have a price, a will kill that first guy and his entire family for that price.
The first guy will obviously sell whatever it is he says 'isn't for sale at any price' in order to keep himself and his entire family alive.

Ask that Russian spammer guy. His price was pretty high, but there was one group willing to pay it.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the only remedy available at the ITC is an injunction - they CANNOT award damages. The "Section 337" jurisdiction of the ITC is all about international unfair trade practices, generally patent or trademark violations. If they find unfair trade under the act, they get the Immigration and Customs Enforcement people (formerly Customs and Border Patrol) to stop the import of infringing foreign goods. Some more information is available at http://www.usitc.gov/trade_remedy/int_prop/index.htm.

I am not a lawyer, I am not licensed to practice in any jurisdiction, and this is not legal advice.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[Tony]

Why of why do people like you not believe in the free market?

Why does this sound like a religious question?

Oh. Because it is.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[fast turtle]

In other words, I think all licensing of patents should be compulsory. I can't see any argument why any party should disallow any other party from implementing their patents. It seems this is only ever used for anticompetitive purposes, which harms the market and harms consumers, and is illegal when done in other ways. And based on my moral and ethical decisions, I don't allow you to license my patent, which is exactly my right. Or in other words I don't like your market on religous/personal beliefs and wont share the use of my invention.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[The Lord of Chaos]

"Sometimes, the patented technology is worth well in excess the material cost of the end product."

A patent is worth what the market will pay for it, end of story. If the end customers won't pay a extra 10% or whatever of the cost of the product then the patent license isn't worth that much.

If it costs you more than the market value of the patent to develop the technology, well sucks to be you, do your market research next time.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[mcelrath]

The compulsory licensing idea would obviously require a more technically savvy government entity, capable of quickly assessing the value of patents, and adjudicating on payments...(including punative payments, if necessary). Clearly the litigation that occurs now, with non-expert judges, juries, and lawyers, is untenable for this idea. Such a patent licensing body would be more like the FCC than the Justice Department.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[mcelrath]

Your argument has nothing to do with the "progress of the useful arts", for which the patent code was created. Patents are not true property, they are artificial, and the government should regulate them in such a way as to maximize the advancement and profit for everyone. One should not take the "intellectual property" too literally. (As, I think you have) I don't think anyone deserves the right to invent something fantastic, and then prevent the world from having it.

The idea behind patents is to reward inventors for sharing their invention, because such sharing leads to further advancements. That can be handled entirely with an appropriate transfer of money. No one should be granted the right of selfish hoarding as a reward for sharing their work. Indeed, sharing and hoarding are antonyms...

Re:injunctions aren't required

[WK2]

That's a really good point. The problem comes up with who sets the price for the patented part. The court? The bad-faith infringer who has an incentive to discount its worth? The inventor set a price higher than the infringer, or else there would some agreement.

There are lots of solutions to something like this. A set %, decided by congress, of profit for all patents is one such solution. The best solution I can come up with is, "If you license the patent to one company, you must license it to anyone else at the same price." It would be a little difficult to figure out what that "same price" is, but I think the kinks could be resolved.

Taking away someone's ability to sell, or not sell, their property has some issues

We aren't talking about property. We are talking about patents. Ideas belong to everybody. The money given to an inventor is society's way of saying "Thank you for your hard work. Please continue."

Re:injunctions aren't required

[HeaththeGreat]

Your sig is wrong. You cannot say that if x^2=y^2, then x=y because x^2= +x^(1/2) AND -x^(1/2).

Re:injunctions aren't required

[evilviper]

A patent is worth what the market will pay for it

Of course. But there is always someone that will pay, no matter how ridiculous. The fact you're glossing over is that price determines HOW MANY units will be sold...

DVD players sold fine at $100, and would just sell many, many more at $10. Does that mean DVD players are only worth $10 and the patents on the technology can't be worth more than $1? Of course not.

Re:injunctions aren't required

[mumblestheclown]

You fail Economics 101. The rightholder can shop his invention to the manufacturer willing to pay the highest price for it. Or, he can sell non-exclusive licenses that will get him a higher aggregate sum. He can negotiate one-time licenses or he can negoatiate per-use licenses. The companies that enter into agreements with are competing for this resource, but the rightsholder can only provide the item at a price that the market will bear. as always, considerations of the life-limitedness of the patent as well as the fact that there is a possibility that a suitable alaternate technology may come into existence come into play. This is about as close as you can get to a perfect market solution that does not require the heavy hand of regulation. ANY regulation in this matter would inevitably tip what is otherwise a competitive process where both sides have an incentive to find a fair price into some pointless advantage for one side or the other that artificially skews an otherwise fairly agreed upon price. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find any model situation in the world that is actually better solved by pure market forces than this as a textbook example, even if you tried. Adding a second (alternate) rightsholder may lower the price to the 'company', but it doesnt change the fundamental market dynamic at work here. Man, really. Read a basic economics book or something.

Smuggling

[Dynamoo]

Well, at least it will give the drug smugglers something to diversify into as they try to ship contraband hard drives across the US border. Although I'm not certain how well the "body cavity" approach would work... ouch.

Re:Smuggling

[mrrudge]

Though it would give most techies a little bit of much needed rock-and-roll, 'The servers full, I'm just going out to erm, see a man about a dog.'

Re:Smuggling

[MichaelSmith]

ouch

I can't help thinking that one person who's ...image... is well known to the slashdot community could help in that regard. Now where's that link...

Re:Smuggling

[Nossie]

here you go :) http://hometown.aol.co.uk/JBono117/goatse.jpg SFW! (I think)

Re:Smuggling

[Dunbal]

Poor and gullible females will be trained to swallow an entire RAID array. There's no limit to what you can smuggle if you can find the right size of condom...

Re:Smuggling

[AndroidCat]

Maybe they could ship the hard drives in boxes that are supposed to contain bricks? That would be a switch.

Re:Smuggling

[Anonymous Coward]

sir, you take pr0n to a whole new level.

Re:Smuggling

[couchslug]

"Although I'm not certain how well the "body cavity" approach would work... ouch."

Thanks to the Internet, I'm aware that for some people such smuggling will be painless.

Lead?

[Corporate Troll]

Doesn't the EU mandate lead-free electronics already? I don't know if that includes harddisks though.

Re:Lead?

[Corporate Troll]

Mark "-1, Idiot": didn't even understand the summary.

Re:Lead?

[DoctorDyna]

I think he was trying to insinuate that, due to the fact that there is lead in hard drives, that their importation should already be under scrutiny, before the issue of a patent is even explored, and also playing a little bit with the current mess of products China is already in hot water over for lead complaints.

I'll paste a little bit from Wikipedia's entry on the matter.

"According to the European Union Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) and Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS), lead had to be eliminated from electronic systems by July 1, 2006, leading to much interest in lead-free solders. These contain tin, copper, silver, and sometimes bismuth, indium, zinc, antimony, and other metals in varying amounts. The lead-free replacements for conventional Sn60/Pb40 solder have higher melting points, requiring re-engineering of most components and materials used in electronic assemblies."

Fortunately, however, hard drives should not contain any large amounts of lead anymore, even in solder (follow the link if you are curious to know what is exactly in it.) and unless they begin to be marketed as something that children might want to play with, and have occasion to put in their mouthes, they should be safe from any "contains lead" arguments.

Re:Lead?

[Alioth]

Lead free solder is a bit of a nightmare when making electronics at home. I've been going through soldering iron tips at a furious rate since starting to use it - you have to use a hotter bit temperature, and any slight wear on the tip's plating, and the lead free solder just starts dissolving the tip (and it then erodes amazingly fast).

Still, I can buy new soldering iron tips - I can't buy a new central nervous system, so it's probably better overall.

Re:Lead?

[xeoron]

Just look for the CE logo to see if it is sold in the EU for proof the product meets their stricter safety and health standards.

CE stands for Conformité Européenne, which is French for "European Conformity." A product in one of the controlled product categories cannot legally be sold in the EU unless it has passed the tests to receive the CE marking.

Re:Lead?

[BlueStrat]

Lead free solder is a bit of a nightmare when making electronics at home. I've been going through soldering iron tips at a furious rate since starting to use it - you have to use a hotter bit temperature, and any slight wear on the tip's plating, and the lead free solder just starts dissolving the tip (and it then erodes amazingly fast).

The problem with lead free solder (and why I won't use it) is the problem of "tin whiskers". Tin tends to "grow" these crystalline "whiskers", which can and do bridge connections in electronic circuits, particularly high-density PCBs (printed circuit boards). There have been large industry-wide problems with whisker growth arising from lead-free solder use causing failures.

Here's an interesting list assembled by NASA of some notable failures attributed to the "tin whisker" phenomenon.

http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/failures/index.htm

As to the personal risks of using regular lead-containing solders, simply wash your hands after using or handling. I've soldered as part of my employment for decades, and have experienced no health problems that I could attribute to using lead-containing solder.

Cheers!

Strat

Re:Lead?

[Alioth]

I do have the bad habit of drinking tea while soldering though :-)

My hobby projects are hardly high density though - mostly 0.1in pitch pin through hole ICs, maximum of 2 layer PCBs, and minimum design rules of 10 mil spacing/10 mil tracks, except in the rare instance I need to use something in an SSOP/QFN/TQFP type fine pitch SMD package (which is very slow and labourious to hand solder, so I generally avoid it, however it is satisfying once done because so many people tell me you can't hand solder fine pitch SMD :-))

Re:Lead?

[BlueStrat]

I do have the bad habit of drinking tea while soldering though :-)

My hobby projects are hardly high density though - mostly 0.1in pitch pin through hole ICs, maximum of 2 layer PCBs, and minimum design rules of 10 mil spacing/10 mil tracks, except in the rare instance I need to use something in an SSOP/QFN/TQFP type fine pitch SMD package (which is very slow and labourious to hand solder, so I generally avoid it, however it is satisfying once done because so many people tell me you can't hand solder fine pitch SMD :-))

I've found the 'tin-whisker' problem cropping up in even some point-to-point hand-wired assemblies, mostly around vacuum tube sockets (I build custom vacuum tube guitar amps). I could be wrong, but it seems that the presence of higher voltages seems to encourage whisker growth.

I understand the difficulty hand-soldering SMD components. I've done my share of it using hot-air and even pyro-pen type SMD soldering tools. I've amazed a few bosses and fellow-techs with some of the jobs I've been able to accomplish with even a simple pyro-pen SMD tool. When asked, "How the **** did you do that!?!?" I've simply answered, "Over thirty-five years of soldering teaches a lot if you're not asleep on the job!" Soldering well is truly an art.

Please, although I too enjoy having a beverage handy while working, do try to make sure you keep the tea a few feet away, and wash your hands before eating. A covered travel-cup is advisable to avoid contamination, (and keeps tea/coffee hot, and pop and other beverages cold) and has the added benefit of limiting spills. Just trying to look out for a fellow electron-pusher. ;)

Cheers!

Strat

Re:I can't think of a good troll to put here

[Anonymous Coward]

well, since you live in a land where the "intellectual property" laws are selectively applied against foreign competition, you don't need to troll at all. you just need to suck it up and pay up.

i myself will, on the other hand, enjoy the freedom you don't have.

see -- no need to troll at all.

Be ceased?

[KKlaus]

You mean like... cease?

I'm not usually a grammar nazi... but sheesh.

Re:Be ceased?

[Farmer Tim]

"Ceased" is perfectly acceptable, as is "cessation". The word is being used correctly.

More examples

Re:Be ceased?

[PinkyDead]

I hate to be a Grammar Nazi, but... (nah! I love it).

1. 'Importation', as a word, has been around for centuries.
2. 'Import' has two (or even three) meanings which are completely valid in the sentence you have provided - while the original sentence, with 'Importation' contains no such ambiguity.
3. The first two clauses of the sentence are, rightly or wrongly, written in the passive tense - therefore it is necessary, for consistency, to maintain the same sense in the final clause - hence 'be ceased'.

Re:Be ceased?

[clickclickdrone]

He's probably just a Bush fan - anyone that mangles the language that badly must idolise that guy.

Can you imagine if they did?

[DanielJosphXhan]

That would be good times. The entire supply crashing, as it were, to a halt. The anguished cries of a million geeks raised in prayer. The five 250gb drives I have sitting doing nothing finally worth their weight in gold.

You know what that means, folks...

[darthflo]

... SOLID STATE DISKS FOR EVERYONE!
Maye also 3.5" floppies, but that's just wishful thinking, eh?

Re:You know what that means, folks...

[superpulpsicle]

Conspiracy anyone?

In Soviet Russia...

[churchofthenewepoch]

...patent violates you!

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Opportunist]

What's "In Soviet Russia" about it? Afaik, the joke is that ISR it's exactly reverse than it is here.

Ya know, those ISR jokes get quite stale when you can't see the difference between Soviet Russia and our beloved Free World anymore.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[firesyde424]

How is it that we get an "In Soviet Russia...." quip here, and NOT in the article about a spammer being murdered which ACTUALLY happened in Russia? Incidentally, I didn't know most hard drive's

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[RandoX]

Maybe, but that's not just in Soviet Russia...

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, Joke crawls under you. or something.

Could be good

[Fuzzypig]

I thought most of the big boys like EMC ( 30% of the worlds storage ), SUN, Dell, Compaq and HDS used plants in Mexico, if not then this could be good news other countries to get plants and increase employment in technology industries.

Re:Could be good

[multipartmixed]

None of those guys make their own disks. They buy 'em from Seagate, Hitachi, etc.

Anyone know when hard drive manufacturers started

[The Evil Couch]

using this tech? If they started prior to 2001, the Reiber's should be taken out and flogged.

Dissipative ceramic bonding tool tip
Inventors: Reiber; Steven Frederick (Rocklin, CA), Reiber; Mary Louise (Linclon, CA)
Appl. No.: 10/036,579
Filed: December 31, 2001

Dissipative ceramic bonding tool tip
Inventors: Reiber; Steven-Frederick (Rocklin, CA), Reiber; Mary Louise (Lincoln, CA)
Appl. No.: 10/650,169
Filed: August 27, 2003

Freedom to stop using your brains

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to patent the way the American patent bureau works: "The art to put ideas on paper and granting their 'owner' the right to make others pay him money for (ab)using his/her idea no matter how idiotic the idea might be".

At least it's not a software patent

[hedkandee]

because I've spent enough time whining about those

Just like prohibition!

[loftwyr]

I'll set up an illegal hard drive smuggling ring! I'll be rich!

It's perfect except for them Untouchables that will break open my liquor barrels looking for bootleg hard drives.

Re:Just like prohibition!

[EvenClevererNickName]

Well, I'm going to start up my own illegal hard drive smuggling ring! With blackjack! And hookers! Actually, forget the hard drives and the blackjack..

Re:Just like prohibition!

[Dunbal]

I'll set up an illegal hard drive smuggling ring! I'll be rich!

And my "family" will allow people to encrypt and store their information offshore, via the internet. No hard drive required.

Now, it would be a shame if anything "happened" to your data, wouldn't it? The Don has a little favor he'd like to ask you...

Re:Just like prohibition!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're out there somewhere, disk baron! And I'll find you.

It swings both ways

[Linker3000]

I am an IT Manager:

Oh shit, Maxtor wasn't on the list - PLEASE GOD: please don't make system builders install Maxtor drives, I have enough to worry about without the possibility of random drive failures within the next 6 months - 2 years.

I am an independent computer support engineer:

YES! I look forward to a massive jump in hard disk replacement business within the next 6 months - 2 years.

Re:It swings both ways

[DAldredge]

One would think that an IT Manager (or consultant as line 1 doesn't mesh with line 3) who posts on /. would know that Maxtor was bought out by Seagate who is on the list.

Re:It swings both ways

[hermitd]

well you are out of date for an IT manager. Maxtor was taken over by Seagate.

Re:It swings both ways

[moosesocks]

Is there really a perceptible difference in the rate of failure from one manufacturer to another?

Sure, if you've got a company that specializes in dirt-cheap OEM drives, it's not going to fare well next to one that specializes in uber-expensive Server drives...

I remember there was a post a few years back, where IT managers basically swore off every single brand of drive because "they fail more often than the rest". Apart from single models with awful manufacturing defects (ie. the IBM DeathStars), I wouldn't be so quick to call out any single manufacturer.

Even then.... I've had remarkably good luck with desktop drives over the past few years (knock on wood...), to the point where I don't see drive failure as being a particularly big issue. These days, hard drives don't seem to fail any more often than motherboards or power supplies. Sure, it's still a good idea to keep backups, but I swear that I just don't see nearly as many drives failing these days. (Laptops are another story, but then again, they're also subject to far more abuse)

Re:It swings both ways

[Dunbal]

One would think that an IT Manager (or consultant as line 1 doesn't mesh with line 3) who posts on /. would know that Maxtor was bought out by Seagate

Yeah, hell, even _I_ knew that and I'm just a simple country doc.

Re:It swings both ways

[mgblst]

Really? Have you never had any experience with Managers of Consultants before? They commonly no very little, but talk themselves up a great deal. This guy sounds exactly like both of those.

Re:It swings both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

Seagate owns Maxtor.

Re:It swings both ways

[TheThiefMaster]

Maxtor gained a bad reputation because their 80GB-160GB Diamondmax (desktop line) drives failed more often than normal. I think it was only the Diamondmax 9 series that were affected. All earlier drives, larger drives and server (maxline series) drives failed no more often than normal. My parents' pc (with an old 40GB Maxtor) and my server's boot drive (even older 20GB Maxtor) are both fine, as are all the other Maxtor disks I still have (1x160GB, 1x250GB, 4x300GB). The Maxtor drives I've had fail were 2x80GB and 3x160GB drives. I'm fairly sure all the failed drives were DM9, and the surviving ones are all not DM9 (an DM8, a few DM10 and a few DM11 I think).

So yeah, their reputation was ruined by one series of drives.

Re:It swings both ways

[Linker3000]

I knew, but it was expedient for the joke to not point this out. Thanks for ruining it for everyone.

Re:It swings both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

ummm.... I think he was being facetious and giving 2 scenarios. One would think that a /. reader would know jest when they read it. ;)

Re:It swings both ways

[rk]

Here it comes: You're new here, aren't you? :-)

Re:It swings both ways

[Z00L00K]

But Maxtor is Seagate nowadays... And anyway - WD is way worse than Maxtor... When a friend of mine has had about 80% failure-rate on his 120GB WD disks within 24 months I started to keep a great distance from them...

Re:It swings both ways

[Linker3000]

Here it comes: 'Woosh'

But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[tepples]

Ideally, if these two people actually invented the technology, then they should get paid for it. But should the inventors be allowed to set a prohibitive price on patent licenses so that making hard drives becomes unprofitable? Does that promote the progress of science and useful arts?

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[Ihlosi]

Does that promote the progress of science and useful arts?

It promotes science when everyone suddenly has to find a way to work around the patent.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[mumblestheclown]

the inventors are subject to the same laws of supply and demand as everybody else. they can ask a zillion jillion dollars and they won't get it. they can ask for a large some, commensurate with the amount the market values the hard drives buillt using their technologies by companies. This isn't rocket science, people.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[edittard]

Well if the price is so prohibitive that nobody pays it, and instead everyone chooses to either live with the status quo or invest in developing an alternative, they'd get nothing.

That's assuming it's really a worthwhile patent for a genuine invention, not a wish list item or a codification of common knowledge. And sadly that's by no means a given these days.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[Saunalainen]

It promotes science when everyone suddenly has to find a way to work around the patent.

Your reasoning is an example of the fallacy of the broken window.

This is not good for `science', because in the absence of the patent issue companies would be free to direct their R&D to whatever technology they wanted, rather than solving an already-solved problem.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[Dunbal]

It promotes science when everyone suddenly has to find a way to work around the patent.

      No, that is a silly statement. You think that progress is finding out a hundred different ways of doing the SAME THING? No, progress is finding out how to do something NEW.

      You are merely falling into the Broken Window fallacy.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[tepples]

Well if the price is so prohibitive that nobody pays it, and instead everyone chooses to either live with the status quo or invest in developing an alternative, they'd get nothing. But it's possible to want the status quo. I explain in detail in another comment.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[Tokerat]

It promotes science when everyone suddenly has to find a way to work around the patent.

Your reasoning is an example of the fallacy of the broken window.

This is not good for `science', because in the absence of the patent issue companies would be free to direct their R&D to whatever technology they wanted, rather than solving an already-solved problem.

I find that statement only partially true; while it is good economically for a company to not need to waste money on completed R&D, it's also sad when two people have the power to halt the entire technology sector of one of the largest nations on Earth. Without patents, it'd be awful when I went to sell my idea to Microsoft and they turned me down flat, and then in 6 months my idea is on store shelves. Someone should invent a new type of patent system that works out all these situations. Maybe different types of patents, like small inventor patents and patents for large companies, etc. ...and then Patent their system ;-)

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[BLKMGK]

In a word? YES! They invented it they get to set the price. If it's a valid innovation that's so valuable that everyone copied it then obviously it should be well rewarded. If it was something obvious then it should never have received the patent.

What did these companies do prior to this technology? Did these companies get the technology from these people or discover it separately on their own? It's not cut and dry but if these folks discovered this on their own, patent it, and then have the technology co-opted then yeah they need to be reimbursed for it and the companies spanked. It's not like the rules for IP theft were somehow not understood. The big question becomes, is their claim valid....

As for progress of science and arts, if this process is fenced off and unavailable then these companies will have to come up with something else or license the technology. That's a part of doing business. If it's not a terribly innovative idea it will be worked around - that's an advance. Stealing technology isn't something we ought to encourage or allow.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[Waffle Iron]

They invented it they get to set the price.

Why?

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[nine-times]

Your reasoning is an example of the fallacy of the broken window.

It isn't really. The "broken window" fallacy argues that there will be economic benefit in breaking a window because it will stimulate spending. It's a fallacy because breaking the window constitutes a loss in value, and replacing that window costs money from somewhere, so there is no economic benefit.

However, needing to solve problems, even "already solved" problems, can be of scientific benefit. There are often many ways to solve the same problem, and the discovery of a new solution adds to the total of scientific and engineering knowledge, even if it's economically inefficient.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[pthor1231]

Moving sideways isn't an advance.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[Anonymous Coward]

> > It promotes science when everyone suddenly has to find a way to work around the patent.

> Your reasoning is an example of the fallacy of the broken window.

Your response is an example of the paradigm of the slashdotter missing the sarcasm. :)

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[tepples]

There are often many ways to solve the same problem And sometimes there are not, in which case a neoluddite inventor can hold up a whole industry by 17 years.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[Rolgar]

Because a patent is a limited legal monopoly. Their tech is not the only way of getting things done. If their price is too high, competitors will either pay the asking price or go with a cheaper alternative. This encourages the inventor to set a lower price to stay competitive with alternative inventions. So even in presence of the monopoly granted by the patent, capitalism provides a way to bring down the price to a reasonable level.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[Waffle Iron]

I'm sure that capitalism has a magic way to completely change how hard drives are manufactured on 45 days notice.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[nine-times]

I didn't say that our patent system was good or that this instance is an example of why the patent system is good. I just said that the GGGP post is not an example of the "broken window" fallacy.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[operagost]

For the same reason that anyone who sells anything gets to set the price, rather than have to settle for whatever anyone offers them.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[mini me]

That's the problem with the patent system. The can ask a zillion jillion dollars and when they don't get it they can just halt hard drive sales, leaving us, the consumer, without hard drives until the hard drive manufacturers can reinvent a, most likely inferior, method to achieve the same results.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[mini me]

If the price of your product is too high I will either go to the next guy who also sells the product at a lower price, or start selling it myself at a reasonable rate. The consumer, however, does not have that luxury when it comes to intellectual property.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[edittard]

Nice comment. I particularly liked the wikisource link, I always wanted to know what gitmo looks like. From the inside.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[BLKMGK]

Good point! Perhaps it should have been pondered prior to using someone else's tech?

Mind you I only support that if indeed this was something non-obvious and not a submarine sort of patent or something stupid ala one-click. It's also not yet determined that this DOES infringe. But if someone has indeed worked hard and followed the rules in an above board fashion only to have their work stolen then yeah the drive manufacturers should reap what they have sown...

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[dozer]

Too bad the GGGGP post actually is an example of the broken window fallacy. Here it is, side-by-side:

The baker should have been able to spend those six francs in the most efficient way to benefit his business. He might have chosen to buy new windows anyway (the better to allow customers to see his products). The child, however, *forced* him to spend it on a new window. The baker's loss of freedom is a net loss to the entire village.

Disk companies should be able to spend their R&D budgets in the most efficient way to benefit their business. They might even choose to research new ways of solving this specific problem. This lawsuit, however, *forces* them to spend it on this lawsuit. The disk company's loss of freedom is a net loss to the entire industry.

Re:But do prohibitive prices promote progress?

[nine-times]

You are totally missing my point. The broken window fallacy applies to economic gain, and not gains in scientific knowledge. Forcing someone to replace a window only replaces the window. The new window is going to be essentially the same as the old. However, no one is claiming that forcing someone to abandon existing technology will be of economic benefit, and meanwhile forcing someone to replace a solution by solving it another way might lead to scientific progress.

It won't necessarily lead to a new discovery or method, but it's certainly a possibility. It won't just be a "replacement solution" but will be a new solution, and it will probably have it's own advantages and disadvantages compared with the first solution. That might present new applications for that new solution, and it's possible that humanity will learn something new in the process.

In short, unlike economics, science and engineering thrive on "replacing an existing solution" with one that has different advantages. Since no one is claiming an economic benefit, there is no broken window fallacy. The fallacy is explicitly the claim that the baker will benefit economically.

Can't wait for this to happen.

[scsirob]

Maybe, by allowing these kinds of bans based on claims of litiguous bastards will finally get real patent reform going. It's just plain stupid that patents are allowed to cause damage like this.

Defend patents

[xsarpedonx]

Isn't there a requirement that you actively defend your patents?

Re:Defend patents

[Anonymous Coward]

No. That's trademarks.

Re:Defend patents

[the_doctor_23]

I do believe this is what they are doing...

Re:Defend patents

[LurkerXXX]

No, that's trademark.

Re:Defend patents

[AVee]

As said by others, thats requirement exists for trademarks. I do believe it would be a huge improvement if such a requirement would be added to patent law.
Preferably i'd go one step further, a requirment to actually make use the technology in the patent. That is, any patent which is not actively used (either by the inventor or licensees) withing say, 18 months after fileing it is voided automatically. And I mean automatically, e.g. the patent expires after 18 months unless you prove it is actually used. That will nicely clean the patent database of all the totally useless crap in there and will make sure that all this 'innovation' (thats what patents are suppossed to promote right?) is actualy benificial to society.

well....

[indy_Muad'Dib]

this may be the final push needed to move to solid state drives.

Re:I can't think of a good troll to put here

[YU Nicks NE Way]

Oh. You don't live in Europe or Australia, then? Perhaps Korea..no, not there either.

Nor China.

Oh. Of course! Hey, cool! What color is the sky on your planet?

Non-profit? Zero price?

[tepples]

Instead, patent violation should be assessed only in the amount of money owed from one party to another, calculated as a reasonable fraction of the profit earned from goods in violation of the patent. My emphasis. So would non-profit organizations be allowed to infringe patents wantonly?

I can't see any argument why any party should disallow any other party from implementing their patents. Other than that "any other party" is not charging enough for the finished product? If somebody develops a novel method of data communication, such as a video codec that achieves comparable video quality to previous methods using half the bit rate, should other people be allowed to distribute software incorporating this method at zero price?

Re:Non-profit? Zero price?

[zsouthboy]

They can have a patent on ENCODING all they want. That means anyone trying to encode something in this way, has to pay.

But enforcing a patent against DECODING (as in, the reason I can't simply install Linux and listen to MP3s) is simple douchebaggery.

Follow the law or change it

[tjstork]

This case is a clearcut proof that the patent system doesn't protect the little guy and the little guy hitting it big with a patent is a total myth.

By all rights, the law that the article refers to is designed to ensure that the little guy has another means of recorse to protect his or her patent. But instead, these companies are going to find a judge that kinda agrees with them, and they will be allowed to import these drives despite the patent violation.

Of course, the right thing to do would be to change patent law so that this sort of infringement is something everyone is allowed to do. But oh no, we still want to leave the patent laws on the books, to protect the big guy, from guess who, the small guy.

Re:Follow the law or change it

[Anonymous Coward]

My opinion here is that if ceasing the violation would cause too big of an economic impact,
1. the patent holder should get compensated and violator should be fined.
2. keep the fines low enough so that violator does not get bankrupt right away but high enough to hurt.
3. violation should be allowed to continue only for a fixed period during which the violator must come up with alternative tech.
4. new violations should be dealt in strictest manner.

Re:Anyone know when hard drive manufacturers start

[Arabani]

If you read the prior art sections, it's clear that they are describing an improvement on an existing technology/method used in manufacturing electronics (hard drives, referred to as "magnetic recording devices", are listed as a specific example).

Living in the EU I almost want this to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it would immediately force your Congress to reform your idiotic laws on patents.

The economic impact would be huge and nobody would be able to ignore that.

Your patent regime is now a threat to global economic prosperity and so reform is vital.

Re:Living in the EU I almost want this to happen

[wilsonjd]

just what we need: Congress making knee-jerk reaction legislation about things they don't understand.

Re:Living in the EU I almost want this to happen

[mdm-adph]

just what we need: Congress making knee-jerk reaction legislation about things they don't understand. Bah -- business as usual, ain't it?

As long as we don't put IT purchasing power into the hands of those with little technical expertise, we'll be fine.

Re:Living in the EU I almost want this to happen

[surprise_audit]

Economic impact?? How about if they settle for a $1 "license" per imported disk?? That would quickly add up to a nice retirement fund for the patent holder without being a very big hardship to anyone buying the disks.

How the US became a land of morons

[Anonymous Coward]

The article preceding this one provides an appropriate template here.

The world gazes on spellbound, as the US sinks deeper and deeper into the sheerest idiocy, almost entirely at the hands of lawyers. Politicians used to be the font of all evil and cluelessness, but lawyers (and the people who use them) have surpassed them by lightyears.

Just fricking incredible.

New cartels?

[l33tPr0digy]

You hear all the time about drug runners being busted while bringing in their contraband from Mexico. If this goes through, we'll start seeing a bunch of pasty white guys busted for smuggling in Maxtors.

Re:New cartels?

[Anonymous Coward]

SET: Dark, shady ally behind a bar. Shady Character: "Hey man, you got the goods...I need something more for my money this time...more bang." Smuggler: "I got all sorts of things, I got 100s, 200, 300s, 500s, and a 750.." *Whips open trench coat to reveal harddrives hung everywhere inside. Shady Character: "How much man, I need this stuff NOw..." Smuggler: "50G" *Police cars pull in, guns' pulled* "THIS IS THE POLICe, WE KNOW YOU'RE SELLING ILLEGALS DRUGS, COME OUT" Smuggler: "I'm not selling drugs you fool!" "IN THAT CASE, MY COMPUTER NEEDS A HARDDRIVE, HOW MUCH YOU WANT?!" ...

Re:New cartels?

[MichaelSmith]

You hear all the time about drug runners being busted while bringing in their contraband from Mexico. If this goes through, we'll start seeing a bunch of pasty white guys busted for smuggling in Maxtors.

True geeks know that the best way to smuggle is to build your own UAV's.

Re:New cartels?

[deniable]

They'll just declare a war on drives and form the DEA, the Drive Enforcement Administration. Or they could add it to something else and have the BATFED. I kinda like that one.

Floppy Hell!

[Anonymous Coward]

Maye also 3.5" floppies, but that's just wishful thinking, eh? Yeah, I'd love to have to use 350,000 floppy discs to replace a 500GB drive. At current rates, that'd be about $140,000, around 2000 times more expensive than the hard drive. (^_^)

Re:Floppy Hell!

[jsupreston]

Look at it this way...as long as it would take you to write the whole 500GB to floppy, you could purchase in batches and spread the cost over something like your entire lifetime.

Sounds like...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds similar to the EU flexing about Microsoft.

Re:Sounds like...

[julesh]

Sounds similar to the EU flexing about Microsoft.

Not really, no. The EU were never dull enough to even suggest blocking imports. I suspect they would have gone down the lines of seizing assets instead, which is a much more profitable way to penalize your foreign competitors.

Sounds like a good thing to me

[jollyreaper]

It'll give our domestic hard drive manufacturers a welcome respite from international competition.

Re:Sounds like a good thing to me

[00_NOP]

"welcome"? Welcome to whom? Certainly not the users of hard drives?

America's retreat into merchantilism is a sad sight.

Re:Sounds like a good thing to me

[jollyreaper]

"welcome"? Welcome to whom? Certainly not the users of hard drives? I was being silly. We don't make anything in this country anymore except for celebrities and bad decisions.

Me Either

[bareman]

But my reason was I'd like to see a faster transition to Solid State drives.

Well...

[flajann]

Oh, the high seas of corporate wars, battles, and domination.

Patents are kind of a joke these days -- they are mostly used by big corporations duking it out for leverage in the market place. Rarely are these battles of any merit beyond that.

And well, I should know, being a patent holder... oh well.

Finally

[Nephrite]

Americans shot themselves in the foot. No more cheap drives for you. And there is more to come, just you wait.

Re:Can't wait for this to happen

[dogganos]

I hold the patent for 'An effective way of bonding atoms using strong nuclear force'. You pay me, or I'll bring this to court and tear the cosmos apart!

A couple questions in Irony

[kj_in_ottawa]

While reading this I had a couple questions pop into mind. Hypothetically this case moves forward, and at the end of it, the two patent holders receive a favorable judgement (at least for them). Would the tarrif act also ban the use of the deivices allready imported? If so better make sure the Judge hit print on the notes before he reached the decission, cause chances are his computer has one of these offending drives. It would make for an intersting catch-22;I reached a decission, which was promptly lost. Wouldn't it also be ironic if either the patent office or the Reibers used said offending drives to store their patent claims. These are pre-second coffee thoughts don't hold me liable.

EU

[maroberts]

It doesn't appear at first glance to be an "idiotic" patent and therefore it's probably valid in the EU too. The EU and US may have a mutual patent recognition agreement, or it may be patented in EU countries also.

It's not a software patent, it looks like they are patents concerned with techniques for munufacturing disk drives. Patents are a bit tricky to read sometimes.

The way out of this one, assuming I read this correctly, would be prior art or alternative manufacturing techniques

Re:I can't think of a good troll to put here

[Dunbal]

"intellectual property" laws are selectively applied against foreign competition

      Just another form of protectionism, in a world that has demonstrated rapid advances in technology where protectionism is not applied. God bless America, because nobody else is.

Re:Can't wait for this to happen

[Arabani]

I think God demonstrated prior art on that one.

Doctrine of laches

[gillbates]

States that a plaintiff may not collect for damages compounded by the plaintiff's actions, or failure to act.

Of course, IANAL. But this is /., so...

For example, if a plaintiff knows his patent is being infringed, he cannot simply wait until after the infringer has produced the product for a number of years and then sue for an inordinate sum. In such a case, the court is not likely to grant royalties for past infringement because the plaintiff knew about it and did nothing to stop it. Future royalties may be awarded, but it is unlikely that any loss which was brought about by the plaintiff's failure to act, or caused by the plaintiff's actions, is unlikely to be recoverable in a court of law.

But there is another aspect to this as well. Corporations go to considerable lengths to protect their trade secrets, and it is very possible this was hidden, as best as possible, from the general public. Because a company seldom publishes the designs for their products - even after production has begun - it is difficult for an inventor to discover patent violations, in general. In this particular case, the inventor(s) probably had to buy one of each manufacturer's hard drives and inspect them. The cost for doing this alone probably ran several thousand dollars.

So while inventors should be vigilant, there are legitimate reasons why patent violations sometimes take years to discover. Companies are often very secretive about their product designs (and for good reason), so it makes discovering a violation difficult. Most independent inventors do not have the resources to buy one of every product on the market and disassemble it, looking for violations.

Easier way

[ajs318]

Wouldn't it be simpler just to overturn the patent?

Or alternatively, for the HDD manufacturers collectively to sue the Reibers on the basis that their refusal to licence their patent has cost them business.

Or, of course, to refer the Reibers to Arkell v. Pressdram .....

Re:Easier way

[julesh]

Or, of course, to refer the Reibers to Arkell v. Pressdram .....

Is this going to be the next slashdot meme? If so, I'd like to refer everyone concerned to the reply in Arkell v Pressdram.

Patents are not evil

[iknownuttin]

I'm seeing a lot of posts here about the evils of patents and how they stifle innovation. They don't. And unfortunately, folks forget the story about the inventors of the MRI machine.

These guys spent decades and millions of dollars of their own and investors' money creating this machine. When they get it to market, General Electric and Hitachi just steals the idea and markets it. Pretty much destroying the company that was started by the inventors. They then sued over another decade or so finally getting a settlement. IF they just sat back, others would have profited off of their work. That's an injustice if I've ever seen one!

Without the inventor with the hopes of making it big and getting a return to their investors, they WILL BE NO INCENTIVE TO INNOVATE. Some of the MRI Story. (Wikipedia has some of the business stuff wrong)

more history

I don't care about the very few patent trolls or whatever, I know there's abuse, but we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water.

Re:Patents are not evil

[oni]

Yes, but the MRI was an actual invention. It was something new and took research and hard work to bring it to fruition. What bothers most people are cases like what happened to blackberry. Some company had patented, "email over wireless" which is an absolutely ridiculous thing to call an invention. More likely, the patent company had a grid with buzzwords on the X and Y axis and they just patented every point on the grid. Like this:

Email-X-X
Web-X-X
Usenet-X-X
over-RSS-Wireless

So they've got six patents right there: Email over RSS. Web over RSS. Usenet over RSS. Email over wireless. Web over wireless. Usenet over wireless.

So while you're describing the MRI story, most people here on slashdot are thinking about Blackberry. Right now, we don't actually know if this hard drive patent is an MRI case or a blackberry case.

Re:Patents are not evil

[AVee]

If only it where indeed 'very few patent trolls'. Sad fact is there are more and more of them out there, and they are flourishing. If your MRI story proves anything it's that the system once worked, it does nothing to disprove it's currently totally f*cked up. At the moment the patent system has become a tool used by big corps to kill the competition, as such it kills innovation and we'd be better of without it. The patent system needs a huge fix really soon or it will be FUBAR.

I don't live in the US, but I wouldn't dare to start a software company investing heavily in R&D overthere. Thats largely because of software patents and the ability of large companies to kill you with lawyers. I guess i'm not the only one feeling that way and i'm fairly sure it's holding back a lot of innovation.

Re:Patents are not evil

[DamnStupidElf]

If you want to argue utility, do you suppose that Hitachi and GE would have been able to market MRI machines as quickly and allow them to become as widespread if they had licensed the patent in the first place? Or would they have waited until 1997(!) when the patent had expired just out of spite and good business sense? It's impossible to know how the original inventors would have marketed the device, or if he would have been able to produce them economically, and if the result would have been cheap enough for widespread adoption.

Furthermore, if you bothered to read the entire history you will realize that a lot of the work was done by other researchers, but only Dr. Raymond Damadian filed for the patent. For instance, the fast fourier transform was necessary to compute imaging results from MRI scans, but Dr. Damadian didn't invent that. Look at the autobiographies for the other two researchers in that about.com story you linked to. Why is it fair that a single person should hold an exclusive patent on MRI technology when many researchers devoted their time to it? Frankly, patents don't fit with open scientific research.

Re:Patents are not evil

[iknownuttin]

Furthermore, if you bothered to read the entire history you will realize that a lot of the work was done by other researchers, but only Dr. Raymond Damadian filed for the patent. ...

I've been thinking about your post.
You're right - everyone stands on the shoulders of giants (Newton), but (and there's always but - sadly) that's why there's limits on patents.

I'm not arguing that the patent system is perfect. I'm saying that we shouldn't chuck it out because a few (or several, whatever) assholes abuse it. Everyone I know wants credit for their work. Regardless of rewards. I'm just saying that we should keep the current system, with reforms, to allow for folks who want profit, get recognized, get rich, etc...

I'm not wise enough to understand everyone's motives. I just see that protection of one's ideas is conducive to innovation.

Thank you for something to think about.

Decadence

[WoollyMittens]

It's sad to see a nation litigating itself to death. The rest of the world doesn't care about intellectual property and is doing JUST FINE. In the end it's what you produce that pays the bills. Just thinking about it, however smart, will get you nothing.

Prohibitive patents as used by neoluddites

[tepples]

they can ask a zillion jillion dollars and they won't get it. Imagine this scenario: Inspired by a reading of "Industrial Society and Its Future", two advocates of voluntary simplicity want to rid the world of the evils of inappropriately high tech by attacking high tech from within. They invent a device, apply for a patent, and then work the invention into the supply chain of an essential item of high tech. Then they use the patent system to get the item banned from the United States, not so that they can earn money on royalties but so that they can discourage the use of inappropriately high tech.

Re:Prohibitive patents as used by neoluddites

[Benanov]

And they fail because of Laches--they sat around and let their invention be used without defending it.

The Russian way...

[Devir]

To bad these inane patent disputes cannot be settled in the same way the Russian's recently handled a spammer.

I understand the harsh implications of that one statement. But seriously, this couple is threatening an entire industry because they decided to sit on a patent and do nothing with it.

A simple rule change to our patent system would end all the disputes. "If you file a patent that you do not make use of or license, within the time of a single year, it becomes public domain".

Troll begone.

Re:The Russian way...

[ChrisMaple]

You don't know that they've been sitting on it. Do you think they've been out inspecting foreign manufacturing facilities to see if their patent is being used? From the time a patent is filed, it takes time to

• read and understand the patent
• design a machine to use the patent
• use the machine to made disk drives
• get the drives into use
• discover that the drives require the patented technology in order to be manufactured
• contact the manufacturer informing them of claimed infringement and demanding payment
• get lawyers involved in negotiating terms
• sue
• suit gets public attention

Some of the steps can easily require more than a year apiece.

"If you file a patent that you do not make use of or license, within the time of a single year, it becomes public domain".

There are many reasons why that is unreasonable. Consider the possibility that you invent something that will improve only very large passenger jets, and that it requires substantial changes in the jet design so that it could only be used in a completely new model. You can't afford to build your own, and neither Boeing nor Airbus is going to put out a completely new design within five years, let alone a single year. For this, you should lose your patent?

Or assume you invent something beyond your ability to actually fabricate, and all potential licensees refuse to deal with you. It becomes public domain because everyone refuses to license the idea.

Profit! (everyone but the inventor)

Re:The Russian way...

[Devir]

If you file a patent, but it will take 4 years to develop, and another 2 to inject into the market that still counts as using the patent. You are actively using it by spending research dollars.

Have you heard of the Gif Patent suit? Very famous about 10 years back, which caused a massive change to the png format. THe Gif patent was just sat on for years while it grew in popularity. All of the sudden the patent holders decided to sue everyone for using it. They knew they pretty much could get away with it because the gif was used in pretty much every web site on the net at the time. That was unfair patent abuse.

If you are too small, and can't afford to develop your patent yourself, sell it to a bigger company. Seeking buyers and actively promoting the patent is also a form of utilization.

It's fair to say the US patent system is very messed up. Where else can I patent an Idea or a concept?

When Patents were first started, the country was small and things ran at a much slower pace. Levis held the patent for jeans, and someone held the patent for the rivets to reinforce the stitching. They both worked together and enjoyed many years free of competition.

Times have changed since those humble times. Now we have development and industries growing at a huge pace. It's unfair to hold back new developments for 16 years because of patents and over priced licensing crud.

The test for Breast cancer is so expensive because of the patent on the test. If a doctor upsets that patent holder they can loose the ability to screen patients. This affects public health and insurance. You can't get a cancer screening simply because you are being cautious. It'd cost you $600 a test. $600 that an insruance company wont pay unless you damn well think you're infected, by then there is a damn good chance you're terminal and have a few years to live. You die, All because of patents.

Excellent!!

[kwandar]

If the US stops importing hard drives, the price is going to plummet here in Canada :)

Mmm - petabyte RAID 10!!

Re:Excellent!!

[east coast]

Actually, the price is going to go up as my secret pipeline of prohibited hardware will be fully active. We're going to drain your stockpiles of booze^H^H^H^H^H hard drives.

-Al "Scarface" Capone

Does this affect any other countries?

[inject_hotmail.com]

Thank god I live in Canada, so I'm not affected by the lunacy of the U.S...er...ummm...

Sure the U.S. is the nexus of the planet, but seriously though...would this patent affect any other countries?

So if I personally imported one...

[Jtheletter]

What law would I be breaking, and what would be the possible ramifications, assuming that an injunction were passed on the import of these drives?
I'm not trolling, here, I'm actually curious about what the relevant law is for end-level consumers in a case like this. I'm sure one could always find a smaller foreign store willing to ship one of these drives even if there were a ban. I'm not advocating working around a legitimate patent (assuming it's held up as legitimate) but we know *someone* would want their Seagate, et al badly enough to break the ban, what are the repercussions?

Today on eBay

[ArhcAngel]

I'm dusting off my collection of 40 MB MFM drives for anyone who wants to stockpile before the embargo. I even have the controller cards if you can find a motherboard with ISA slots.

Don't Panic

[Eldragon]

We don't know many facts in this case.

There are still several Hard Drive factories left in the US. In fact, my hometown has a very large one (Hitachi). Even if Imports are banned, we will still have domestic production. Since every hard drive manufacturer on the planet was not listed in the suit, I can only assume the companies not listed are not violating the patent.

Who are the biggest buyers of disk drives?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Google?! They already have container systems that can be dropped and moved. Is that what the US really needs; to move all of the storage off shore because the hardware is overpriced or unavailable? At this rate, we'll all end up with computers using FLASH drives containing integrated DRM and we'll HAVE TO load our apps over the internet because of lack of local storage capacity.

If it goes through......

[pablo_max]

If the ban does go through, those guys better watch their back! I can imagine there are going to be a lot of angry unemployed people out there. 10's or thousands I guess. I can imagine it would be enough to cause a recession. Granted, I do not support such actions, but I can imagine there would be some who would make and attempt to carry out an attempt on their lives. I guess if this were Russia, the problem would have already "gone away".

Re:I can't think of a good troll to put here

[EsbenMoseHansen]

why, blue. what is the sky on yours?

Well, that rules out Denmark, where it is mostly grey with rainclouds. Spain, maybe?

Totally missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't seen a single reply yet that implies that anyone actually
read the article (this is slashdot, after all). It looks like the
patents in question cover the method of assembly of the hard drive,
specifically how wire bonds are made to the chips that make up
the hard drives.

If this is accurate, I say good luck going after a product that may
be assembled using a patented process. They should go after the
company that made the assembly machine, not the final product. And
if this is really about wire bonding, SSD isn't going to save you,
because they use chips that are wire bonded also.

Re:No it shouldn't

[aproposofwhat]

Properly, 'Nazi' is an contraction, rather than an acronym - it's short for 'Nationalsozialismus'. (Wikipedia)

That an AC Grammar Nazi doesn't know the difference between contractions and acronyms is neither surprising nor noteworthy.

Prove it

[Tony]

Without the inventor with the hopes of making it big and getting a return to their investors, they WILL BE NO INCENTIVE TO INNOVATE.

One anecdote about patents and MRI invention does not prove this point. The truth is, there are *plenty* of incentives to "innovate" (whatever that means anymore), not the least of which is just for the sheer joy of discovery.

But even with the MRI: their invention did not spring whole cloth from their foreheads. They too stood on the shoulders of giants, and other pithy phrases meaning, "We all work hard for progress." Humans are curious by nature, and desire to learn and discover and expand. Patents do not drive this curiosity.

I'm not saying that patents weren't a good thing in the case of the invention of MRI. They probably were, in that they helped make back R&D costs. This hardly proves that innovation would cease if patents disappeared. I'd say the opposite is more likely true: patents interfere with R&D and commercialization of a product, as everybody has to be careful not to step on a patent landmine.

You can't ignore the harm patents are doing just because they have done good in one or two situations. At some point you have to ask, "Are they doing more harm than good?"

I submit patents have crossed this line.

That's a nightmare

[Tony]

Or alternatively, for the HDD manufacturers collectively to sue the Reibers on the basis that their refusal to licence their patent has cost them business.

Jesus! I hope that isn't a reason to sue. I don't like patents much, but I loath the idea of a valid lawsuit based on "loss of business."

Re:That's a nightmare

[ajs318]

I hope [loss of business] isn't a reason to sue. I don't like patents much, but I loath the idea of a valid lawsuit based on "loss of business."

I personally think that annulment of the patent in question would be the best outcome for all concerned. It would send a powerful message to the patent trolls of the world: even the finest wine can turn to vinegar.

Yes, please

[Tom]

I sooo hope it happens. That kind of completely over-the-top, ridiculous consequences is exactly what some people in charge need to realize that patent reform is long overdue.

WTO

[nurb432]

This is yet another example why it needs to be disbanded.

The patent has no relation to hard drives at all.

[gmarsh]

I read the patents. There is absolutely nothing in this patent which is related to hard drives in any specific way. And there's nothing that hard drive makers themselves have uniquely done to violate this patent themselves. This patent applies to *ANY* semiconductor chip. What they've patented here is part of the chip packaging process. When chips are packaged, the silicon die is placed in the center of the IC package, and wires are run between the individual leads on the outside of the package to bond areas on the silicon. These wires are welded at each end by ultrasonic welding using a tiny vibrating probe. Now if you've got a probe flying around doing all this welding work, there's a slight chance it might accumulate some static electricity - and since the probe is touching the silicon die directly it might fry the chip you're trying to pacakge. This isn't a good thing so you ground the probe. But that's not a good thing either; if the chip itself becomes static charged, touching it with a grounded probe might fry it too. So you insert a bit of resistance to limit the discharge current - this is why static wrist straps and static mats, the ESD soldering iron on my desk and so forth have a certain amount of resistance. Their patent is "make that resistance in the chip bonding probe out of ceramic". Which I suppose has some advantages. *shrug* So the actual patent violation works like this: - A semiconductor company (eg. ST, TSMC) fabricates semiconductor chips for hard drives. - A packaging company (eg. Amkor) takes these chips, cuts them off wafers and packages them. Perhaps they use a ceramic bond probe to do this, violating the patent. - The semiconductor company gets the chips back and sells them to the hard drive maker. - The hard drive manufacturer then builds hard drives out of these chips. And somehow the hard drive manufacturer is at fault here, and hard drive imports suddenly have to stop. They don't even directly use the patent - I'm sure they don't give two shits about how the wires are bonded in the chips they use and until know they probably knew nothing about it. If the chip reads stuff off the heads and sends it out the (S)ATA interface, what else do they care about? (But of course, I'm sure by some perverted interpretation of the law, hard drive makers are using the patent and they're liable...) Of course, I'm next in line to get sued. I've sold electronics kits on the internet, and the last one used an ATMega48 microcontroller. If that chip was wirebonded in violation of this patent then I'm obviously the one at fault (not Atmel or whoever) and I gotta pay up! And after that, my friend who drives a cab part time will get sued for patent violation - his car's engine computer could contain a chip that was was wirebonded the same way, and he's making money driving the car and "using" the patent, right? fuck...

And formatted correctly... (whoops)

[gmarsh]

I read the patents.

There is absolutely nothing in this patent which is related to hard drives in any specific way. And there's nothing that hard drive makers themselves have uniquely done to violate this patent themselves. This patent applies to *ANY* semiconductor chip.

What they've patented here is part of the chip packaging process. When chips are packaged, the silicon die is placed in the center of the IC package, and wires are run between the individual leads on the outside of the package to bond areas on the silicon. These wires are welded at each end by ultrasonic welding using a tiny vibrating probe.

Now if you've got a probe flying around doing all this welding work, there's a slight chance it might accumulate some static electricity - and since the probe is touching the silicon die directly it might fry the chip you're trying to pacakge. This isn't a good thing so you ground the probe. But that's not a good thing either; if the chip itself becomes static charged, touching it with a grounded probe might fry it too. So you insert a bit of resistance to limit the discharge current - this is why static wrist straps and static mats, the ESD soldering iron on my desk and so forth have a certain amount of resistance.

Their patent is "make that resistance in the chip bonding probe out of ceramic". Which I suppose has some advantages. *shrug*

So the actual patent violation works like this:

- A semiconductor company (eg. ST, TSMC) fabricates semiconductor chips for hard drives.
- A packaging company (eg. Amkor) takes these chips, cuts them off wafers and packages them. Perhaps they use a ceramic bond probe to do this, violating the patent.
- The semiconductor company gets the chips back and sells them to the hard drive maker.
- The hard drive manufacturer then builds hard drives out of these chips.

And somehow the hard drive manufacturer is at fault here, and hard drive imports suddenly have to stop. They don't even directly use the patent - I'm sure they don't give two shits about how the wires are bonded in the chips they use and until know they probably knew nothing about it. If the chip reads stuff off the heads and sends it out the (S)ATA interface, what else do they care about?

(But of course, I'm sure by some perverted interpretation of the law, hard drive makers are using the patent and they're liable...)

Of course, I'm next in line to get sued. I've sold electronics kits on the internet, and the last one used an ATMega48 microcontroller. If that chip was wirebonded in violation of this patent then I'm obviously the one at fault (not Atmel or whoever) and I gotta pay up! And after that, my friend who drives a cab part time will get sued for patent violation - his car's engine computer could contain a chip that was was wirebonded the same way, and he's making money driving the car and "using" the patent, right?

fuck...

Re:Anyone know when hard drive manufacturers start

[hkfczrqj]

Here you have another one from them:

Patent number: 6354479
Filing date: Feb 25, 2000
Issue date: Mar 12, 2002
Inventors: Steven Frederick Reiber, Mary Louise Reiber

Solid State drives?

[KlomDark]

Maybe this is why there's been so much news about solid-state hard drives the last couple weeks. Solid state pretty much negates any use for this patent. Bye bye spinning disks.

Re:The patent has no relation to hard drives at al

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I'm sure they don't give two shits about how the wires are bonded in the chips they use and until know they probably knew nothing about it.

You bet they know how those die are bonded. That's a VERY important aspect of parts reliability, and no hard disk mfr making millions of widgets is going to be cavalier about the parts they use to the point of considering them as commodity jellybeans.

If for no other reason than it's likely that those chips are actually the drive mfrs intellectual property (i.e. custom ASICs).

Sure, the casual low volume user of parts as commodity items (like your kits) isn't going to care, but someone buying them by the million, and concerned about yield, certainly does.

Patent not used in the device.

[random coward]

The patent is used in the constructin of the device, but not used in the device being imported. I thought that US Patent protection did not extend to foriegn countries?

The patent isn't about hard disk drives it is about packaging semiconductor chips and the tool making the wire connection between the chip and the chip package. The wire connection itself(wich is in the chip on the hard drive) isn't covered. The machine making the chip is, but thats not being imported.

Re:Patent not used in the device.

[amccaf1]

I thought that US Patent protection did not extend to foriegn countries?

Two things from the article:

The International Trade Commission (ITC) has announced that it plans to begin an investigation into several companies that either make or use certain hard drives.[...]The two filed a complaint with the ITC in September, saying that the importation of the hard drives violates section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930.

Section 337 of the Tariff Act bars the importation of products into the US that infringe on patents owned by others in the US.

Re:Patent not used in the device.

[random coward]

The device doesn't infringe. The machine making some parts of the device infringes. They aren't preventing the manufacturing machine from being imported. They are preventing the hard disk drive from being imported. Its the machine that packages the semiconductors that the hard disk drive manufactureres use that may be violating the patent. The hard disk drives dont have ceramic resistive antistatic wireing heads. Hard drives dont make wired connections using resistive ceramic machine heads and that is the patent.

Re:Patent not used in the device.

[amccaf1]

The device doesn't infringe. The machine making some parts of the device infringes. They aren't preventing the manufacturing machine from being imported. They are preventing the hard disk drive from being imported

I agree that the device itself does not infringe, but the process that created the device does.

IANAL, but patent law prevents Company/Person X from using or selling something that doesn't belong to Company/Person X. In this case, X is profiting by the use of something patented which doesn't belong to them, and they (the law says) shouldn't be allowed to do that. It shouldn't matter where in the process the violation occurs.

If you use A to make B, and A doesn't belong to you, why should you be able to benefit from B?

Re:Patent not used in the device.

[argent]

If you use A to make B, and A doesn't belong to you, why should you be able to benefit from B?

I'll stop using public roads immediately, sir!

Re:Patent not used in the device.

[amccaf1]

I'll stop using public roads immediately, sir!

You're not a member of the public or a tax-payer?

Re:Patent not used in the device.

[argent]

Why yes, I am, but I'm also benefitting from this patent since I have hard drives in my computers, so I have to do penance somehow.

Property defined

[tepples]

Patents aren't property, they are limited monopolies. In legalese, "property" and "state-sponsored monopoly" mean exactly the same thing: the power to exclude uses. Even a property interest in land is just a limited monopoly on its use.

Native American land mindset

[tepples]

A set %, decided by congress, of profit for all patents is one such solution. Unless a product contains inventions by 40 different inventors, and all the inventors demand their 3 percent.

We aren't talking about property. We are talking about patents. Ideas belong to everybody. Compare to the mindset among the people of North American nations before the Europeans came: "We aren't talking about property. We are talking about land claims. Land belongs to everybody."

Re:Native American land mindset

[WK2]

Unless a product contains inventions by 40 different inventors, and all the inventors demand their 3 percent.

I noticed that problem too. It's why I didn't suggest that one. There are solutions to it though. However, of the ones I can think of, those solutions also have their own problems. It just shows you can't make a law in a day. It is too important, and there are too many pitfalls. But just because a solution has problems, doesn't mean the solution is bad. Just incomplete.

Compare to the mindset among the people of North American nations before the Europeans came: "We aren't talking about property. We are talking about land claims. Land belongs to everybody."

Land has always been here. Patent law was created specifically to benefit everyone. That being said, you can't own land any more than you an own ideas/patents.

Re:Native American land mindset

[tepples]

It just shows you can't make a law in a day. It is too important, and there are too many pitfalls. But just because a solution has problems, doesn't mean the solution is bad. Just incomplete. But has anyone made a public web page that proposes a solution that comes closer to completeness?

Land has always been here. Patent law was created specifically to benefit everyone. Ideas have always been here. Real estate law was created specifically to benefit everyone. But laws become corrupted over time when the corporations that receive benefit from bad judicial decisions pay legislators not to reverse these decisions.

The problem with enforcement limits

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot put arbitrary limits on when patent enforcement can occur. I could see the argument that, if you can prove 'bad faith', where someone knew there patent (or should reasonably have known) was being infringed, and they waited to enforce it, then possibly you could either prevent enforcement, or reduce the damages down accordingly.

But, the problem with arbitrary limits is that, I may have a perfectly valid patent. My patent might not directly have to do with hard drives. I may not be an expert on hard drives. But, someone in the hard drive industry discovered an application for my patented technology to improve their hard drives. I may be completely unaware that my patent is being violated (not being an expert on hard drives and all), and it only surfaces later that my patent was being infringed. Should I not have a right to compensation when it comes to light, since they found my invention useful and realized financial gains from employing it?

Re:The problem with enforcement limits

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, that's the wonderful theory. Now observe reality...

Re:The problem with enforcement limits

[aurispector]

I really don't know. If you invent some widget that can be utilized to make hard drives better, the patent system should benefit you. I don't see why you should be able to file suit 20 years later, though. If you are smart enough to invent said widget you ought to be smart enough to figure out if it's being used. It doesn't seem fair but how else could you do it?

Re:The problem with enforcement limits

[kidgenius]

Well, that's all well and good if I invented something like the Slinky and I see something on a store shelf. But on a hard drive, if what I patented is on there, what would drive me to rip open a hard drive and check it out. Let's say I invented some type of bearing or seal that could be used in a multitude of different applications. How would I know to go and buy all of these different devices, tear them apart, examine them and see if they infringed on my patent. But, let's now say that through the grapevine I read an article ten years later where in an industry publication someone mentions that they have been using my seal or bearing for 5 years. Why should I be faulted for not having the cash to go tear thousands of dollars of equipment apart, looking for infringement? What if the thought hadn't crossed my mind that my technology could be used in a certain application? Should I get screwed over for that? No.

Re:No it shouldn't

[Anonymous Coward]

"That you and others have misused it for 50+ years doesn't make your misuse correct."

Yes, yes it does. Such is language.

You are the pun meister

[__aailob1448]

Congratulations :)

Other conspiracies....

[crhylove]

Like who exactly is producing flash hard drives that don't use said part? Is there some other reason so many different sectors are pushing the flash hard drive on the market, despite less price per dollar? Don't get me wrong, for laptops and other power saving areas, flash hard drives are a great idea who's time has come, but I find it mysterious that so much is attacking the hegemonic technology from all sides at the same time.....

[click]

[l0rd.47hl0n]

It's time for the US to mobilize some Black-Ops resources and terminate those bastards for even thinking about getting between the US and our HDDs. Viva La Seagate!

The Wright Stuff Baby!

[jameskojiro]

Just goes to show the Wright Brothers had the "The Wright Stuff" I think they even helped Teddy Rosevelt and were friends with Harry Houdini!

OT:Garden bell patent?

[sgtrock]

Some guy claims he just invented garden bells? Pray, tell me. What on earth is non-obvious about hanging a bell in a garden????? There's gotta be more to this story. Googling for "garden bell"+walmart+patent doesn't turn up anything useful, though.

Well played sir.

[pragma_x]

:: golf clap ::

Re:Well played sir.

[Anonymous Coward]

:: golf clap ::

Damn, seems you have to wear a condom for *everything* these days...

Was it that complex of a product?

[DaveWick79]

Isn't there some limit on validity of a patent when it is something that many others would have come up with, without any input from the patent holder?

I mean, I should have patented the PBJ sandwich years ago, now I could hold school lunches hostage until they paid me a dollar per sandwich.

My point is, someone (and probably many people) would have just as easily come up with the idea of putting those 3 ingredients together to make a lunch. And likely, many researchers would have developed the same hard disk manufacturing technology without any help from these two people who current hold this patent.

So...instead of magnetic drives...

[Anonymous Coward]

manufacturers start to actually produces large numbers of solid state drives. I can't say that I would be saddened by that.

Lost in Translation

[Hoi Polloi]

...and three lefts make a right, SO THERE!

Sorry,

[iknownuttin]

You can't ignore the harm patents are doing just because they have done good in one or two situations.

You have it backwards. It's more like:

You can't ignore the benefit of patents just because they have done harm in one or two situations.

One emore thing...

[iknownuttin]

Read up on Niloa Tesla's life - paying special attention to his business and private life. If he had a good IP lawyer on his side, things for him and the rest of the World would have been different.

Cool! A Minnie Driver/Anne Hathaway love scene.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> The patent apparently has to do with "dissipative ceramic bonding tips",

Oh, come on! They'll let people patent any stupid, brutally obvious thing nowadays. Patent pending silverware icon! Patent pending silverware icon!

>:(

American propaganda, the Slashdot-way...

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth is, we've put sanctions on your american ass for being a nation of litigation-happy tards.

Kind regards
The rest of the world

Terrorists!!!!

[Roadkills-R-Us]

Doesn't matter. If they refuse to play ball, we just declare them terrorists, claim they pose a "clear and present danger" to America's financial and technologicla security, and send in the marines.

Soon to be a major motion picture!

Re:Anyone know when hard drive manufacturers start

[surprise_audit]

So, this Dissipative ceramic bonding tool tip does exactly what in a hard drive?? Or is it in fact part of the machinery for manufacturing hard drives?? If the latter, how can the drives be banned from import?? Seems kinda ridiculous to ban a non-infringing object solely because it was created using an infringing machine/process. Hard disks can't be the only imports built using patent-infringing machines/processes...

Maybe in the US

[Rob Simpson]

In Canada, this just means that the generic can't be indicated for the new purpose. eg: Zyban is patented for smoking cessation, but Wellbutrin (the same thing) is for depression and is off-patent. Generic bupropion is only labelled for use in depression, but some doctors give it to smokers who "happen" to be feeling depressed. ;)

Obligatory quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, a ban would be unthinkable, You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. --Inigo Montoya

Patents only work in a closed system.

[krunk7]

Here's why. Company Y files a patent in country X. Company A located in country B sees patent, but could give a shit less. Company A copies product adding a few innovations to make it better and then sells the superior product for less to every country except X.

Who loses out in this scenario? Every company in country X except Y. Since there, the technology is completely off limits.

You want a lock on your tech, keep it a trade secret. If it's easily backwards engineered and mass produced, it probably wasn't that huge a leap anyway.

Steven and Mary Reiber are obviously terrorists

[aristotle-dude]

Steven and Mary Reiber should be sent to Guantanamo bay. They obviously are bent on disrupting world economies without offering an alternative. If this sort of extortion is not terrorism, I don't know what is.

Are they Terrorist?

[wdr]

If the U.S. government could show that they don't support the war, then they could be labled as terrorist and the patents null and voided for National Security reasons. Such as any money earned from them could be used to support terrorist. Will... There are million ways the government can get you just for fun.

Shock Therapy

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is great. I hope that HDD imports are actually stopped. It would do wonders to the bottom lines of most technology companies, who would have two options:

1. Stop using hard disks as storage (sure...)
2. Smuggle the hardware (not likely)
3. Get screwed by their own system of mugging musical chairs.

Exactly who's interest is this in?

Re:The patent has no relation to hard drives at al

[vldmr_krn]

If the manufacturer of the end product is not liable for patent violations in third-party components, violating a patent with impunity becomes as simple as forming a puppet company to produce the patent-violating component.