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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."
And this is promoting the Progress of Science and useful Arts, how, again?
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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.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
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.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
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.
[ think ]
... SOLID STATE DISKS FOR EVERYONE!
Maye also 3.5" floppies, but that's just wishful thinking, eh?
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.
Windows guys please stop pissing on everyone and the Linux guys stop pissing in the wind, hoping to hit Windows guys!
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
The World's Worst Webcomic!
because I've spent enough time whining about those
Up for it.
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.
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.
AT&ROFLMAO
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.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
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.
Windows has more viruses because linux has more virus coders.
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.
This is my sig.
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).
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.
It promotes science when everyone suddenly has to find a way to work around the patent.
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
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.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
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.
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.
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
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.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
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.
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...
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...
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 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.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.