Slashdot Mirror
Patents Are A Big Part Of Why We Can't Own Nice Things (eff.org)
An anonymous reader shares an EFF article: Today, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could allow companies to keep a dead hand of control over their products, even after you buy them. The case, Impression Products v. Lexmark International, is on appeal from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, who last year affirmed its own precedent allowing patent holders to restrict how consumers can use the products they buy. That decision, and the precedent it relied on, departs from long established legal rules that safeguard consumers and enable innovation. When you buy something physical -- a toaster, a book, or a printer, for example -- you expect to be free to use it as you see fit: to adapt it to suit your needs, fix it when it breaks, re-use it, lend it, sell it, or give it away when you're done with it. Your freedom to do those things is a necessary aspect of your ownership of those objects. If you can't do them, because the seller or manufacturer has imposed restrictions or limitations on your use of the product, then you don't really own them. Traditionally, the law safeguards these freedoms by discouraging sellers from imposing certain conditions or restrictions on the sale of goods and property, and limiting the circumstances in which those restrictions may be imposed by contract. But some companies are relentless in their quest to circumvent and undermine these protections. They want to control what end users of their products can do with the stuff they ostensibly own, by attaching restrictions and conditions on purchasers, locking down their products, and locking you (along with competitors and researchers) out. If they can do that through patent law, rather than ordinary contract, it would mean they could evade legal limits on contracts, and that any one using a product in violation of those restrictions (whether a consumer or competitor) could face harsh penalties for patent infringement.
Patents are also why we can own nice things.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
The more it governs non-commercial activity the more it will be ignored. We are two generations in raising kids that think copyright is a joke and patents are mere excuses to sue.
Depends on the country you're in. Especially in consumer contract areas, laws in Europe very quickly void anything that could be considered an adhesion contract.
How it is handled in the United Corporations of America, though...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
goodbye jiffy lube hello $60-$100 dealer oil change.
Just be lucky it's not a dealer with an $100 minute change for any service even just to get an estimate.
Look, if I offered to sell you a home, but after putting down a downpayment you read the contract and it turned out to be a hundred year lease, you would be damn upset.
But that's what the software people do. They are actually renting licenses with all sorts of secret provisions while the salesmen are using the word 'buy' or 'sell'.
Every time you 'buy a license', it is you RENTING a license. It may be a 'lifetime' license, but that is what it is.
The only people that actually 'buy' software or music are the people that buy the copyrights.
We need a simple law that clarifies this point. Out law the use of the words 'buy' or 'sell' when dealing with a license - including physical products that include a necessary license, such as those evil John Deere Tractors.
Then when some shmuck tries to sell a John Deere tractor, arrest them for fraud, as they are actually renting it to you for an unspecified amount of time. If they want to use the words 'buy' or sell', they have to include free-as-in-speech software on it. Otherwise, it is fraud, punishable by a fine.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
What are the odds of a 4-4 split on this - and what are the implications? I assume Gorsuch would be a pro-corporate, pro-patent vote. Don't know enough about Merrick Garland to say. But, hey, Hillary had a private email server!!!
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Unfortunately it's still an issue. And it gets a bigger one every day.
Patents were supposed to spur innovation by giving inventors an incentive to show their inventions and how they work instead of guarding them as secrets, so that others could learn from it and use the information learned to create more while the original inventor can enjoy protection for his invention for some time. This has been perverted and warped to mean that non-inventions and trivialities are being patented to stifle competition and ensure that cornering markets becomes a reality.
This has many ramifications for both, customers and competitors. Yes, patents were supposed to grant you a monopoly for your invention for a certain time. What this has been turned into is that manufacturers use that lever to eliminate competition and keep people from actually owning what they buy. If you don't want to sell me something and only allow me to rent it, fine by me, but then call it RENT. With all the relevant obligations on your side that entails. But companies want their cake and eat it too, and that's simply not how our economy works.
If you deprive me of a right I have, I will take that right from you. By force if necessary. If I buy something from you, I own it. And rest assured, I will not only find out how to claim ownership over things I buy, I will do my best to inform anyone who wants to listen how they can wrest their property from your stranglehold.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
John Deere tractors are already there.
The vehicle has to be serviced at the dealer or the warranty is void. Saw that one myself just recently.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How would this affect liability. If an owner uses a product in a way not intended by the manufacturer is the manufacturer liable for the damages? I'm not talking about product defects but the use of products not intended by the manufacturer, i.e. using a lawnmower as a hedge trimmer. It seems like there should be some kind of protection for the manufacturer in these cases. I'm all for using the product as you see fit as long as you don't come after the manufacturer when it cuts your dick off.
So, essentially, "You have food, you have shelter, what are you complaining about? STFU!".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
We need a simple law that clarifies this point. Out law the use of the words 'buy' or 'sell' when dealing with a license - including physical products that include a necessary license, such as those evil John Deere Tractors.
Then when some shmuck tries to sell a John Deere tractor, arrest them for fraud, as they are actually renting it to you for an unspecified amount of time. If they want to use the words 'buy' or sell', they have to include free-as-in-speech software on it. Otherwise, it is fraud, punishable by a fine.
We don't need an additional law for that, we just a need a judge and/or jury to decide that it counts as fraud.
difference is when you buy a house and screw something up it's on you to fix it yourself or pay someone. sometimes you might even get fined by your town or thrown in jail
with a lot of this stuff people buy and then break it with cheap supplies or bad parts and then run to the manufacturer demanding warranty service. i've used cheap off brand toner in the 90's and when i got rid of it my HP Laserjet printers suddenly stopped jamming every other day.
Mag-Moss: Learn it. Love it. Shove it down your lying dealer's throat.
While they are constantly trying to gut Mag-Moss and work around it with special tools that independents can't afford to stay up with, they still have zero legal power to void your warranty for having your car worked on by someone other than the dealer. They do, however, do an excellent job of convincing people that they can do it.
The other one they like to try is convincing you of is that your whole warranty is void because you made some modification (e.g. lowered suspension, replaced the radio, etc..).
Unfortunately it's still an issue. And it gets a bigger one every day.
You are correct, patents and copyrights are both problematic and will continue to be.
Lexmark used the DMCA several years ago to do the same thing against Static Controls and re-manufactured ink cartridges.
They lost then, now they are giving patents a try for the same thing.
If Lexmark wins, we all loose.
This will be just like John Deere is with their tractors, see the article titled "Why American Farmers are hacking their own Tractors" a couple of articles below this one. Spend 150K on a piece of Farm equipment that is not really yours, you are just renting it, if you use it for a purpose not authorized by them they will brick it.
Pretty soon Ford, GM et al will be claiming that the money you paid for that sporty CAR is only for the right to drive it a specific way, on roads they tell you can drive on and you must take the vehicle to the dealer for service since you don't really own it, you are just renting it.
Ever heard of the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act? Per federal statute, if you provide a full warranty at all, you are not allowed to require servicing only at dealer facilities. If the warrantor disclaims coverage due to alleged improper parts or servicing, even self servicing, he must prove that the outside servicing actually caused damage.
That issue is already well covered by terms declaring that such use voids the warranty.
No patent in the world can restrict me from doing what I see fit with the things that I own.
Yeah, I heard the same things about DMCA.
It didn't restrict what you could do, but it did prevent others from building tools to help you do it.
So you do whatever you want with that printer cartridge.
But I hope you can build a custom fireproof printer, because printers you can actually buy will crash and burn trying to use "non-approved" cartridges.
No, they can't. They can make laws against it, but they can't stop me from doing it.
A patent holder, trademark, copyright, or other intellectual property should have to pay an annual tax on that property as if it's an asset. This tax would allow the holder to self-determine the value of the asset (as the tax would be based on it's self-determined value) and thus set the min/max fines for infringement. If a company or person allows the tax to lapse, then the work should enter the public domain. That would do two things 1) fully fund (at least) intellectual property courts, and 2) discourage long term holding of less valuable intellectual property.
Capitalism can become a kind of disease. Just like cancer, capitalism tries to expand its domain and take over everything that it touches. So here we have capitalism using patents to try to restrict the degree of ownership that a purchaser is allowed. The medical industry takes this sort of thing to new depths. The current Hep- C drug costs $80,000 in the US for the usual course of treatment. In India the identical drug costs $200... The fact that people in the US die for lack of that drug does not seem to bother the medical industry one bit. That is what patents and capitalism can do for you.
We've heard all the arguments for and against patents already.
The Supreme Court of the United States hasn't, and that's why this is a big deal.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
This is pretty much what turned me off on IP law in general.
Copyright law and Patent Law are part of a bargain, a deal made where in the general public gives up some fundamantal rights, such as the right to copy things, (which you had the right to do before copyright law limited your rights to do so).
The theory is that in exchange for giving up these rights, on a temporary basis, the good that comes from it is that the public gets access to a much larger library of public domain over time. That is literally the bargain. You give up your pre-existing rights to do what you want with your media and recordings and whatever, in the hope that in the longer term, more such works exist since creators have protection.
This bargain was always supposed to be two sided. You give up your right to copy and a fair bit of tax money that goes into enforcement, and in exchange, after a brief period, the works become public domain.
Look how that worked out. As soon as the public was locked into this deal, powerful IP mills started immediately eating away at their side of the deal, extending copyright duration into infinity, consolodating power, making it incredibly one-sided. At this point I'm willing to say that the old IP deals need complete cancellation, that replacing it with literally nothing would be better for the public.
Look, if I offered to sell you a home, but after putting down a downpayment you read the contract and it turned out to be a hundred year lease, you would be damn upset
Haha, are you making a subtle joke here? Because in the vast majority of this nation, this is literally in the small print of house sales and is actually how it works. If you're surprised at this, then take another look at your small print. :)
Go talk to a lawyer. They will tell you that a) That's not how the law works. b) It works on a buyer be ware basis, c) it would have to be a Supreme Court judge to make it stick and d) laugh in your face.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
You have a solid point. To add to what you say:
A) Patents are anti-capitalism. And so are similar IP issues, such as copyrights. Patents were created under mercantilism, and they were not for inventors, but for friends of the king. Later when capitalism came along, we needed some way to encourage invention in a free market society where competition was essential. They could have set up a simple 10% fee structure, but instead went for an unlimited patent system. Big mistake. But capitalism was strong enough to handle it in most of the early cases. But in time the patent holders expanded their power, particularly in life or death situations (pay what we demand if you want this life saving medicine - or die).
B) The world has changed significantly since those IP deals were created, speeding up. What used to take 10 years now takes 1. The real time that would be appropiate for those licenses is measured in more like 5 years, not 50. I.E. most of the honest profit is made in the first 5 years, after that it's dishonest prevention of innovation.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Excellent riposte.
I, too, frequently cite Bunny v. Fudd (1948), in which counsel for the defense provided the nigh invulnerable "I know you are, but what am I" defense.
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
Yeah, just don't try to claim the insurance if you cut your arm off and burn the house down
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
My Toyota dealer charges $30. Comes with a pretty thorough inspection and a car wash. As far as I can tell, they haven't ever ripped me off. Didn't tell me my battery needed to be replaced until it was 8 years old and failed their load test. Offered to have a guy weld a hole in my exhaust for $200 rather than replacing the entire thing for 5-10x that much.
Not sure if all Toyota dealers are like this, or if I'm just lucky to have found a great one.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
We need a simple law that clarifies this point. Out law the use of the words 'buy' or 'sell' when dealing with a license
I disagree. We need to revise copyright law and adopt more of a copyleft law system. Copyrights do exist for a very necessary reason. If you are willing to invest time and money in making and delivering a product that people want, by all means, you should have a certain right to make back that investment and profit on your product. Nonetheless, copyrights should have a certain timelimit that runs out within a generation unless significant innovation by the copyright holder can be shown to retain that copyright; and no remastering every couple of years does not count.
A society is strong when people are able to act freely in their innovation and creativity. Locking everything down assures that only a few are allowed to rise to the top, which is why they like it that way.
the rent a car places do poor maintenance and bill the renter who is renting the car at the time it brakes down unless you buy that high cost damage coverage.