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US Supreme Court Limits Patent Claims
Aire Libre and other readers noted a unanimous Supreme Court decision that denied LG Electronics's attempt to evade the first-sale doctrine by use of "business method" patents. LG licensed patents to Intel, then attempted to dictate what use Intel's customers could make of the Intel products incorporating LG patents. The decision (PDF) notes how easily patents can be written up as "business methods" to nullify the first-sale doctrine ("exhaustion") and to give the patent owner perpetual control downstream. Aire Libre adds, "That reasoning bodes well for copyright freedom as well, in light of the growing number of copyright holders who seek to nullify the Copyright Act's limitation on the distribution right by claiming the goods are 'licensed, not sold,' or subject to some restrictive EULA."
...that it is the very same conservative US Supreme Court that liberal slashdotters have been damning for years are the ones that strike this blow for freedom.
Haha, actually I've been cheering them because despite being stacked with conservatives, they have still handed Bush his most significant legal setbacks of his entire eight years. Something the majority Democrat Congress has been unable to do. It's the Republicans who have been gnashing their teeth at the Supreme Court for being 'activist judges' when they won't let Congress or the President do something for no more reason than the Constitution says they can't.
Personally, I just take this to mean that in the eyes of the least politically motivated branch of government, even when stacked with conservative opinions, Bush is way out on the right on a great many things. Yet another sign of how our country's "left-right" barometer is currently skewed heavily to the right. So don't worry. Even when some liberal justices get appointed, it won't cause the court to significantly skew to the left. While in some ways counter-intuitive, it's amazing how our least Democratic branch of government is in a unique position to protect our Democracy.
The enemies of Democracy are
The only empirical evidence where data was used to calculate maximum profitability for a creative work was in The Long Tail, and to the authors surprise, he concluded that the most reasonable copyright term would be 4 years, 3 years renewable for a max term of 7 years. Anything longer was pointless and hindered progress.
I have no desire to see copyright widdled away towards something reasonable. It was extended past 14 years through a corrupted process people are recognizing, and it is time for it to be fixed!
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!