Slashdot Mirror
Supreme Court rules algorithms can be patented...
Josh Baugher wrote in
telling us that the Supreme Court on Monday left intact a
decision saying that
mathematical algorithms used in computer programs can be patented
The judges were actually refering to a formula used in a particular domain.
Am I the only one that worries about everything becoming
owned by the wealthy 2 percent of people?
Why are you worried that the wealthy %2 of people will own everything? Developing algorithms takes smarts, not necessarily cash. This is great for computer scientists everywhere! It really moves us higher up the ladder, since this sort of intellectual property is so valueable these days.
The point here is that it restricts freedom.
Personally, I enjoy freedom. I'm not so sure about
what you think.
Is it just me, or are Americans morons and their country a joke?
Next thing you know and merkins will be carrying guns as self-defence.
Funny that an article about yet another aspect of programming succumbing to IP tyranny would be on a web page requiring some stupid authentication procedure to read the article.
Anyone have a link to a free press site?
Heaven forbid we do anything for the betterment
of humankind!
Right now I'd like to state that I own all
rights to the algorithms x++ and x=x+1
where X can be any value or set of values.
Man, I'm gonna be rich!!!
I'm getting out of this country before something extremely bad happens.
Anyone in Europe have an apartment for sale?
l/p: cypherpunk
To view the story (and others on the NYTimes webste) use the login cypherpunks/cypherpunks
This sort of intellectual property..eh? I don't
suppose that you considered that it would be big
fat greedy corporations that would be taking out
patents right left and centre and aiding in destroying the concepts of 'open source'. Far from
empowering programmers, it will make them slaves
to the people they work for.
-kojak
The really interesting questions are what's going to happen when noone else honors US patents.
This isn't nearly as scary as what's already happened in the US with genetics.
Some of this stuff used to be called science a few years ago; the open dissemination of intellectual discoveries. Careers were made by discovering a new algorithm for performing numerical tasks. Prestige and the respect of one's peers was extremely important.
What if the FFT routine was patented? Householder transformations and other matrix/linear algebra related algorithms? Finite element, finite difference methods? Runge-Kutta? Can you image having the guts of Linpack, eispack, etc... patented? Sorting routines?
Science is going down the tubes. I'm idealistic (and I guess naive), but the trill of science is the joy of being the 1st to discover something, the joy of announcing it to one's peers, and the joy of watching one's discovery being accepted and used. Does this sound like a computer OS that we cherish?
Where any real encryption is illegal and punishable by god knows what.
Or Chinese where the wrong set of keystrokes can lead to a death sentence.
The US gov't may be all fscked up but less so than elsewhere.
On the other hand, if a new nation were to spring up under a GNU style constitution...
I personally don't agree with software patents, and I don't think the American system is the perfect system (there could never be such a thing), but it is the best system. How else would we have the highest standard of living in the world, and be such a leading force in the world. I'm proud to be an American. We might be mostly morons, but this whole planet is mostly morons and your country is NOT exempt. Morons are everywhere you go. So I don't see that as a reason to hate America. America was built on the concept of freedom, and I can't think of anywhere in the world were an individual has more freedom. And when I speak of freedom I don't mean being able to leagally smoke marijuana if you want to. I mean be able to succeed if you so choose to work your butt off. That is what makes america great. Why else do you we have so many people who want to emigrate here? And so I stand by her, even when she makes mistake likes this. God Bless America!
Personally, I don't have a problem with 2% of people owning everything, so long as everyone can maintain a reasonable expectation of possibly becoming one of those 2%.
That's what capitalism is all about.
Top 2%? Ok, whatever that is absurd. I can see if you feared the effect it might have on the software industry, and consequently OSS. But your comments make you sound damn near socialist. Do you also object to other forms of intellectual property, or dispute their neccessity. One could easily argue that it is exactly these such laws that has led to the US's growth, and the _lack_ of protection in other countries that stiffled innovation and economic growth. Despite your worries about the top 2%, it is also these 2% that create wealth that trickles down to the other 98%. The fact of the matter is that the average US citizen is far wealthier than citizens of other nations. The US also happens to have some of the strongest laws in support of intellectual property. It is not mere coincidence. Like it or not, such laws are neccessary. There is a basic equation here, it is risk vs. reward. There is little the government can do to minimize risk. However, they can atleast protect your rewards. If you spend days, hours, months, and capital trying to develop something, be it code or some other product, don't you think you're going to want some assurances that your work will be protected. If you allow for people to get raped of their intellectual property, regardless of however noble your intentions are, the end result will be that you stifle innovation and production.
Now I can agree that perhaps improper regulation could be damaging to everyone. But the reality of the matter is that this is not exactly a precedent, only the fact that this is software is what sets it apart. Many of the same issues arise with this, as with other such laws. Perhaps you should try reading the decision.
-Fall
We do. (Texas and Florida)
Always some yankee will talk about his country like its the best in the world (which everyone already decided Canada is -- yipee. thats depressing actually) but lets face it, America is control by money, its politicans are corrupt and its people arn't ever sure exactly what there government is doing, this is better then some places but its not great, so no, your country is not great, its the shits.
The actual Americans (well, most of them heh) are perfectly fine, sometimes overly patriotic (which causes the rest of the world to hate them, that and there bullying tactics) but not a bad or stupid people, just very misguided and convinced of there own greatness they don't often bother to look at how they are living.
I don't have a problem with 2% of the population owning everything, as long as it's the most deserving 2%. I have no problem with the hardest working, most imaginitive, risk-taking, intelligent portion of the population getting more benefits than the less industrious.
The problem is distribution to those worthy individuals. Socio-capitalism is the closest we've gotten to a meritocracy. Patenting (even algorithms) is just one way of protecting one's ideas in an imperfect world.
-ag
--He who wishes to throw heavy stones at me should do so while standing on something other than quicksand.--
You complain to us about how America is a police state, wrapped in absurdity, and then insult the one possible way of preventing your poilitcians from eviscerating you in a country with 250+million people.
Thank you.
What you have to remember is, is that people in power, especially those motivated by greed, are not going to give up that power. And you can be damn sure they're not going to stick within the rules of the free market to do it, or be concerned with your well being.
THAT is what guns are really for. The only thing that america has done right is to permit their citizens to have firearms. Otherwise, corrupt US politicians would already rule the world. As it is, the US citizenry can still keep their politicos on a leash. Stay tuned.
Burn him!
(hehe) Seriously though, thats the mark right there.
Don't confuse capitalism and "trickle down"
with the government artificially granting
monopolies to whoever has the resources to
register their ideas. There's no freedom
in that.
Free minds, free markets, free software.
You're the one repeating trickle-down garbage foisted on us by the over-class, but HE'S the corporate pig? If you think this is will benefit hard-working entrepenuerial individuals - think again - this is only going to benefit the corporate regime and their puppet government currently holding power in the United States. More laws to help big corporations screw everyone and consolidate their power. Genetic code, algorithms, let them own it all. How long are we going to let the wealthy elite and the corporations they retain controlling interests in screw us? All the while we sit around talking about PR Dept created myths like "trickle down" and free markets with no barriers to entry.
Yet another person who didn't read their "work made for hire" clause in their employment agreement.
Or the Intellectual Property policy of the university that they attend.
Ignorant but intelligent information workers are loved and coddeled by corporations the world over (until they become too expensive... at which time they are discarded with the same malice as a coal miner in the 1800s).
Enjoy your life... I hope you find it ironic at some point in time.
...this'd be like saying it was okay to patent the steering wheel... or the clutch...
this is definitely not going to be good for innovation, it's just going to stifle it. look at crypto where everyone is waiting for the patent on RSA to run out...
im all for making money but reality is america is rich because of geographic reasons - no enemies, lots of coastline, great resources (one region produces enough grain to feed the world) etc. so dont get all high and mighty about us being so damned rich okay? theres more than one way to run a country
so back up buddy! =)
like cool linux patent law? who doesnt?
get along?
like kewl linux munitions? who doesnt?
That's pretty selfish, and not very practical. If you were alone with another person, and that person had a heart attack, would you help him? I'd be pretty pissed if I was the one having an attack, and that other person just stood there whistling.
Also, civilization is built upon the idea that people help eachother. I don't think you'd survive very long if you were left all alone somewhere with no equipment.
Johan Jansson
'Reaganomics' did _not_ fail. In fact, most students of economics will in fact credit Reagan with _todays_ strong economy, that Clinton has tried to take credit for.
And Bill Gates is a poor example. It is not the protection of his intellectual property right that is at issue, it is the fact that he holds a monopoly and spits on the law. Which is an entirely different problem. Yes, you could say that if people where able to violate MS's rights this monopoly would infact be destroyed. However, I think this would set a bad example and would injur our economy far more in the long run. We're just going to have to wait for some kind of justice
Hmm...
haven't we gotten just a wee bit tired of the excesses of capitalism yet?
I cannot say that I will be happy to live in a world where not only are algorithms patented, and almost every aspect of commercial softare hidden behind almost impenetrable walls of "trade secrets" and whatnot, but also where genes are patentable.
Where will it stop?
The original idea of the patent system was to promote progress and innovation, and the free disclosure of ideas.
I've been reading Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" which is about a yankee from Hartford, CT (in the late 19th century) being hit by a coworker and getting
transported in time to 528AD.
There he joins King Arthur's court, and overthrows Merlin the Magician as the chief executive of the king. The first thing that the hero does is "establish a patent office - for we all know how a country cannot proceed until there is one".
The American legal system strikes again. What a fucking joke. Once again it's plain for the ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD to see that the US PATENT SYSTEM IS OBSOLETE.
The powers that be
They like a tough game
No rules
Some you win, some you lose
Competition's good for you
They're dying
to be free
They're the powers that be
They like a bomb proof cadillac
Air conditioned, gold taps,
Back seat gun rack, platinum hub caps
They pick horses for courses
They're the market forces
[Nice car Jack]
They like order, make-up, lime light power
Game shows, rodeos, star wars, TV
They're the powers that be
If you see them come,
You better run -
run
You better run on home
Sisters of mercy better join your brothers
Put a stop to the soap opera right now
They say the toothless get ruthless
You better run on home
You better run - run
You better run on home
The powers that be
They like treats, tricks, carrots and sticks
They like fear and loathing,
they like sheep's clothing
And blacked-out vans
Blacked-out vans, contingency plans
They like death or glory,
they love a good story
They love a good story
Sisters of mercy better join with your brothers
Put a stop to the soap opera state
They say the toothless get ruthless
Run home before its too late
You better run - run
You better run on home
Without protection for intellectual property, there are still many rewards for labour. That is what this whole bloody free/open software movement is about man.
Linus, for example, doesn't make a cent out of locking away his intellectual property in Linux. He does make a fortune (if all the press is to be believed) out of his skills as a coder. There are many people out there that are making money out of open software by providing services, support, coding skills and the like to customers with money. Open Software is partially about showing that the traditional way of looking at software (and work, and capitalism in general) may not be the complete story.
True, it is a good thing that patents don't last for as long as copyrights do, and they also do have the positive effect of putting algorithms and suchlike out into the open (even if one cannot use the algorithms for 17 or so years without paying royalties.) It might be interesting to see what would happen in OpenSoftware types started patenting their work, and then granting the non-exclusive right to use the algorithms and suchlike under the same system as GPL'd code. At least it would prevent the MicroSofts and IBMs of the world gobbling up patents for intellectual property.
The bad aspect of the system of patents is that it does prevent innovation, and the system can be abused by companies (such as our favourite monopoly), to prevent competition by smaller 3rd parties in particular markets. While i am not sold on the whole notion of progress, I fail to see how such behaviour benefits people who are not shareholders in those companies. (We have seen similar behaviour from oil companies in times past, buying up patents for more efficient engines to ensure that they can maintain a captive market)
Finally, your last comment assumes that everyone is in a position to 'take the risks and put in the time needed' to get into the top 2%. Unfortunately, for the bulk of the world's population this is not a possibility. It is especially difficult, for example to take the time and risks to get into the top 2% (economically speaking) when you are busy simply trying to scratch up enough food for yourself and your children because there is a drought, or because the only work that you can find is in some shitty factory owned by a multi/transnational, where they have substandard working conditions and pay (relative to what those of us who are fortunate to live in the 1st world would expect)
Economics is not just a question of middle class american asperations. It is a global phenomenon. The 2% don't just make their money in the good ol' US of A, they make it by investing in, working for, or owning companies that cross national borders and who will happily abuse lower working and living conditions in the 3rd world to generate a profit for a very small number of people in the 1st. That 2% (along with the rest of us who have the good fortune to live in the 1st world) are also responsible for an unjust use of the world's resources. Just think of the damage that is being done to South American rain forests by farmers that need to fell trees to find room to graze cattle for your Big Mac, next time you eat at MickeyD's.
so the stereotypes about dumb blondes are untrue?
I don't recall the WHOLE story, but UNISYS holds a (copyright? Patent?) on the LZW compression alogrithim that is used in GIFs. This sort of protection is NOT new, and although I hate to admit it...Necessary for some applications i.e database search alogrithims, etc. It does more to protect the little guy, then the big guy since most innovation is NOT accomplished by the big guys (i.e Microsoft).
OK, let's say I spend a bunch of money on chemistry research and come up with a great new drug. Should I be able to patent that, so that I can make my money back?
OK, now let's say I spent a bunch of money to come up with a great encryption algorithm, should I be able to patent that, so that I can make my money back?
I submit that these are essentially the same question. You must answer both either yes or no. I further submit that if you are answering no, you are being naive and fooling. People develop cool stuff (be it a new drug, or a new algorithm) to make money.
-harry
heymann+@andrew.cmu.edu
OK, so you're trying to argue for freedom or something here and you begin by stating that the original poster is hurting things by posting his opinions on Slashdot? Forgive me for being confused here, but this sounds a bit contradictory to me.
-harry
heymann+@andrew.cmu.edu
It already existed. They just discovered it.
what's wrong with that?
Actually, because the Fed Circuit handles all patent appeals, refusing to review a Fed Circuit decision is practically equivalent to giving the Fed Circuit decision precedential value.
Since all patent (and several other types of IP including Copyright) issues are appealed to the Fed. Circuit, Fed. Circuit patent opinions, unless overruled by the Supreme Court, are good law across the nation. Thus, this refusal to review is important (and quite sad, if you ask me).
(Gabe Wachob - gwachob@aimnet.com)
>Ah. So that should be the primary motivation
>for human development?
Forget "should." Be pragmatic, and think about "is." Neglecting a few minor exceptions, people work hard because they want a better house or car or computer or whatever. Basically they want money. That's life. That's economics.
>And why is it that most patents aren't owned by
> single persons, but large corporations?
What is a corporation? It's a collection of people working together in pursuit of common goals. If the group comes up with the new idea, the group gets the patent. What's wrong with that?
-harry
heymann+@andrew.cmu.edu
Ok, let me take another stab at this. I _love_ linux, but I also think Richard Stallman is unrealistic in many ways. One can reap the benefits of GNU and OSS, without believing in the economics of it. Software, and particularly commercialization of it, seems to be a touchy subject for 98% of the readers.
Lets look at this from a different perspective, one that I happen to actually be _personally_ familiar with. Imagine that you are a business man / scientist who is trying to develop a glucose sensor and injection pump for Diabetics. Such an innovation will have a profound impact on the lives of diabetics, and will also expected to _dramatically_ improve the health of the diabetic user. The fact is though, that such development does not come cheap. Millions, yes millions, of dollars have already been invested at such a detector. Many number of fortune 500 companies have also taken a stab at this, and failed. Your company has already sunk a couple million into the project. A couple million more dollars still must be invested to see this product through to fruition. But you, the businessman, know that you have a fighting chance. No guarantees. The problem is, how do you attract additional investment. You need to convince future investors and creditors that you can return profits. One of the key factors to this is the ability to reap the rewards. For this to happen you must:
a) Have a strong patent
b) Not have 'do gooders', try to pirate your success.
Now lets say, that you succeed in developing your unit, and it works like a charm. The only problem is that you are charging a rather high fee for this unit. Because you know that it is only a matter of time before others learn from your success and imititate your product. This happens all the time in the real world, it is an established economic principle. The patent, however, serves to hold back the flood gates for just long enough for you to get 20x more then what you invested. Now 20x may sound like _alot_, but you must remember that your investors want to avoid risk. If your odds of failure are 1 in 5, your potential payout must be much greater than that. The greater the risk, the higher the rewards must be.
Now I'm sure some of you will say. But hey, what about the 'poor' people. Some of you would probably even suggest that you pass some kind of law, to distribute this new found technology to the masses. This too is a short term solution. While you may make a certain percentage of the diabetics happy, what about the next great invention? What about a cure for AIDS? Who in their right minds is going to risk their own money if they simply cant suceed playing the averages. Some of you might even offer a more reasonable solution. Lets just allow them to 'double' their money, but this doesnt cut it. As the risks are far too great to risk it over only 200% gain, not to mention the time wasted.
You see this all comes down to intellectual property. GNU is a great, and I too believe that MS and the like abuse their position. To arbitrarily redistribute this wealth to whomever, isnt the answer. It might sound harsh, but there is no way around it. Or might you propose government funded research? I dont see you volunteering your dollars. Creation of new technology is about a whole lot more than just a mere bright idea, it takes time, and effort. And most importantly risk, if one chooses to promote it.
Software really isnt all that different, especially innovative software. Lets say if you developed an artificial intelligence algorythm, do you really believe that this would happen through shear surpendipidty. We are a _long_ ways away from this. But such fruits might very well only be reaped if alot of time and money is thrown at it.
~FallLine
There comes a time, when a person must risk his freedom to insure the greater freedom for all and for all time.
We must NOT be opressed by these laws. We must NOT abide by them. WE MUST FIGHT THEM.
In our world today, there is *NO* reasonable legal recourse to fight this, our only fight can be through disobedience! DISOBEY!
OK, now let's say I spent a bunch of money to discover a new fundamental law of physics. Should I be able to patent that, so that I can make my money back?
OK, now let's say I spent a bunch of money to discover a new mathematical theorem. Should I be able to patent that, so that I can make my money back?
OK, now let's say I spent a bunch of money to discover the gene for blue eyes. Should I be able to patent that, so that I can make my money back?
There are currently efforts by lobbying groups in congress to increase patents to 40yrs.
Patents were recently just increased to 20yrs.
Fact is, if anything their lives should be becoming shorter.
It will never stop.
LAND OF THE UNPATENTABLE ALGORITHMS!!! :-)
...
Oh Canada,
Our home and native land,
That is why this happened.
That is the relevent snippet. There is still little precedent for how it applies to software.
Weasels.
Not to mention the feed crops needed to feed the animals... this is one of the many reasons I'm vegetarian (not the feed crops specifically, but the whole thing.)
It would be really nice if there were someone in a country which didn't honor US patents provide web, ftp and anonymous mail services for someone who wanted to ignore nasty things like patents and NDAs in the name of free software.
Is there such a country? Is there such a person?
Of course i don't know these things personally about you(singular). I meant you plurally.
Those who represent companies like microsoft. These evil companies definitely do these things. Perhaps i spoke harshly, but it does nothing to discredit RMS and his genius. In fact, you are the one who invoked his name, and placed it in the context of shit and flies.
You mean the way you're poorly trying to re-write Machiavelli?
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Shut up.
Low five figures. Figure 10K with the lawer
and everything. That's how much we've sunk
in and it's been a year and we haven't heard
back. Perhaps our lawer was a crook!
-AC
So are you a Shadow, or just Drakh?
Um, you can't COPYRIGHT an idea. You can patent ideas; that's the whole point of a patent.
Learn some law... it seems like a survival skill, the way things are going...
Try riting an algorithm without them HA I win!!!
I think Bill G owes me about oh 3 trillion in retroactive patent infingements
Yeah Me!!!
I suppose the 98% of the population that isn't filthy rich is just lazy, right? Bill Gates must work 5000000 hours a day, look how much money he makes!
I'll work my but toff at McDonalds and work my way up to CEO of McDonalds... don't think so. I won't get further than manager of that local McDonalds. If I took the other route (the only real route) and get an education (college) I'd need money for that. I guess that rules out quite a few people. Not to mention genetics... if you're not born smart enough, tough luck (this doesn't mean the smartest people are the richest, but there is a barrier.) Then you'll need to know people to get a spot here and there and so on. Having an extremely wealthy family, or well known family helps as well. Not to mention location of schooling and such.
Then there are issues such as sex and race. Unfortunately, a lot of people are still racist (even if it's just a bit) and sexist. And where all the money is, it is dominated by white males.
My point is, hard work in the way you seem to be saying will only give you self satisfaction. You won't move very far, if anywhere, even if you worked all 24 hours a day. It's a matter of your parents wealth, race, sex, genetics, location, and luck that seperates those people you vision in your american dream and the other 98% of the population.
Every police department in the nation, and their big brother, the U.S. military. 2% of America owns the corporations, the corporations control the government, and the government controls the military and police.
My 7th grade Social Studies teacher once told me we lived in a "Democracy." He lied.
"..without even paying for it. Would this be a
good thing? Of coarse not"
Why not? No, this isn't a trick question.
Think about it. And, please, don't give me
the "easy" answers, the ones you've got from
your dad or grandad or neighbour or lecturer
or whatnot. Do some research, read philosophy,
read socioeconomic history and theory, think
about it, and then you can answer.
The present form of capitalism is not like
a natural law, despite what economists would
like to believe.
I'm not saying it's likely that things will
change to another form of capitalism (there's
pracically infinite variations) any time soon,
it probably won't - greed is s too powerful
motivator in the present system. Especially
when coupled with almost religious belief in the
social-darwinist-type capitalist system of today.
And no, I'm not one of those "darn socialists".
America is a (is supposed to be a) republic, meaning rule by law, with everyone subjected to the same laws. This is no longer true, and hasn't been since they decided to elect the presidents and congressmen directly rather than letting the states select them.
Historically, Democracies live short lives and die violent deaths. Mainly because the poor demand to be supported in return for their votes, and the politicians oblige them by taxing the rich/middle classes. Then, when there isn't enough to go around, persecution of the minorities (rich and middle class) begins, and that spreads until they overthrow rebel, overthrowing the government in a bloody revolution. Great, huh?
Within forty years (at the outside) the US government will undergo a 'dramatic restructuring'
It's so bad at this point that I don't see any way for that to be non-violent.
"..code around the mail algorithm.."
mail algorithm.
right.
Now, do you see how silly this is?
And this _is_ the types of patents given.
Are you a CS person, btw.?
...and if you want to join in hurting everyone else...
"...has nothing to gain..."
How do you know? Maybe he gains amusment from watching Stallmanites over emotionalize the issue ("raping" indeed. Ask someone who has been raped, and see if it compares to having to go through some bureaucracy to get a program written).
FYI: The LZW algorithm and GIF image format was
developed and in use long before UNISYS decided
to patent it.
This is absolutely insane. This was knowledge that existed before these people ever found it. This makes about as much sense as Herschel trying to patent the planet Uranus after he discovered it. Give me a break. Just another steps towards corporatocracy.
>Remove the incentive (all the money Unisys
>makes from patenting GIF) and there is no
>reason to inovate
There you go again. Why is money the only
incentive for innovation?
"There's nothing quite as wonderful as money"
(Monthy Python)
You're so wonderfully money oriented.
A.C.
Hmmm, if only we could eliminate the top 2%. Of course that'd just create another wealthy class, so we'd have to off them. Using a bit of induction, we could conclude that everyone needs to die, for the greater good. Now let's see what large over-powered country with a unbelievable grasp of the term self-righteous could do the job for us? US should do fine. Hey but wait, didn't they already sell most of their war-time technology to the only other country in the world with the resources to readily reincarnate the cold-war? Oh that's right, the US has already begun this global cleansing program, and it even got China to help. I guess the Americans are the most blessed people, see how far their government is ahead of me?
First of all, don't put the word poor in scare quotes. There are poor people. They are poor either because they are unlucky, or because they live by (admirable or terrible) values that our economic system does not reward.
That said, the fundamental problem you're stating here is that people only develop technological advances out of greed. If I can't get any profit out of curing Fred's AIDS, well, fsck him. Certainly this is a reliable force on which to base your economy; unfortunately, it brings with it problems of its own.
An economic system promotes a particular philosophy and moral code; the winners in an economy get the power to reward their own beliefs and perpetuate their idea of Good. Capitalism's philosophy is based on greed and social darwinism; as long as capitalism is the most widespread economic system, greed and narrow self-interest will be taught and rewarded. As a corrolary, suffering and despair will not be eased, as those with the power to help are the ones that learned that easing suffering is not the way to power.
Or might you propose government funded research?
Maybe. I don't have all the answers (if I did, I'd be shouting a lot louder), but I can say that I don't want the advancement of human knowledge and the exponential growth of human power to be in the hands of the greedy and self-interested.
First of all, don't put the word poor in scare quotes. There are poor people. They just don't seem to exist in your world. They are poor either because they are unlucky, or because they live by (admirable or terrible) values that our economic system does not reward.
That said, the fundamental problem you're stating here is that people only develop technological advances out of greed. If I can't get any profit out of curing Fred's AIDS, well, fsck him. Certainly this is a reliable force on which to base your economy; unfortunately, it brings with it problems of its own.
An economic system promotes a particular philosophy and moral code; the winners in an economy get the power to reward their own beliefs and perpetuate their idea of Good. Capitalism's philosophy is based on greed and social darwinism; as long as capitalism is the most widespread economic system, greed and narrow self-interest will be taught and rewarded. As a corrolary, suffering and despair will not be eased, as those with the power to help are the ones that learned that easing suffering is not the way to power.
Or might you propose government funded research?
Maybe. I don't have all the answers (if I did, I'd be shouting a lot louder), but I can say that I don't want the advancement of human knowledge and the exponential growth of human power to be in the hands of the greedy and self-interested.
The word you were looking for is "too" not "to," also the second sentence is a fragment. The third is a run-on. This thread brings back memories of grammar school.
It often amuses me to see someone insult another's grammar badly.
My history teacher told me that I should never use a preposition to end a sentence with. I guess that's why he taught history.
True. There are a bunch of "junk" patents out there that should have never been issued. This does not, however, mean that the whole idea of software patents is a bad one. They just must be issued fairly.
-harry
heymann+@andrew.cmu.edu
I agree that patents and this entire issue sucks, but don't forget how much we all take for granted.
If that is what it takes to develop ground breaking solutions then so be it. I do not know of another way to make it happen. The market allocates resources more efficiently than any governing body can. You say that you dont want it. That is all fine and good, but you cant propose a better alternative. Its a means to and end. I can point to _many_ advances that have filtered down to _everyone_ that are a result of 'greed'. But I can point to damn few that where funded by purely philanthropic interests. I honestly believe that this is the quickest, cheapest, and most efficient way to serve everyone. Even though the poor might not get recieve the benefits as soon as the 'rich' in this scenario, it does NOT mean they would be better served by any other system.
Perhaps in your quest to own the next-great-idea you can take the opportunity to read a "liberal arts" book or two that discusses the debates involved in coming up with our current patent system and who it is supposed to benefit.
Do you think it would work to make copyright and patent non-transferable? That is, the individual human being who creates something can't give or sell rights to another person or organization, but only permit or license others to use it non-exclusively, with no sub-licensing allowed. When you die, it would become immediately free, although patents should still expire after x years.
Chris Nicolai
cnicolai at oberlin dot edu
I basically agree with you. There are plenty of stupid patents out there. But there are also a large number of good ones. Many people here simply seem to be opposed to the idea entirely, and that annoys me.
One more point. Although sure, companies like MS are essentially leeches. But even this transfership of patenting and trademarks is neccessary, it simply provides extra liquidity to the inventor and/or innovator. You can find counter examples for just about everything, but that doesnt make it a flaw concept.
Te> id probably likes this
I disagree. I believe id software is the type of company that is passion driven and does not have a financial need. Business decisions ARE made, but some of the developers there have spoken of what they think of patents before. It's not too positive.
John Carmack has also said, to paraphrase, that he welcomes anyone who wants to make a 3D Game engine to try, and best of luck to them.
// Sludge
Which particular basic human right is in a contradiction of? What are basic human rights? How do you know that they exist?
;-))
Interestingly, money is also non-tangible. Sure... you may be able to hold a handful of dollar notes in your hand (in the same way that I could hold a pageful of notes describing a thought), but it is hard to argue that the wages you earn are those dollars you hold in your hands. When you get paid, increasingly it is simply a decrease of a value in one account and a related increase in a couple of others (yours, and the government's) that happens. Nothing real and physical (except the information) is transferred.
Of course, you might attempt to counter this argument by saying something of the sort "but i could be paid in dollar notes, so therefore money isn't necessarily non-tangible". But i can also point out that a thought or concept that i may hold in my head could be written or otherwise recorded. You may point out that money can have real effects - such as, say, being able to buy goods and services, so therefore it isn't non-tangible. I will be able to point out that a thought or concept could be implemented and thereby lead to effects the physical world.
But i doubt that you'd want to argue that owning money (that is owning a particular intangible abstraction) is also a contradiction of basic human rights. (If you did, i think we could have a good and interesting conversation
People who say things like this are too stupid to ever become part of the 2%.
You are right. 99.99% of the americans are morons. People who follow the Americans and do what they tell 'em to do (Wassenaar) are even worse morons.
You are idealistic and you think everyone should try to save the world. When that is impossible. Just try to help a few people, and help them well. Its like quaility over quantity. Its not selfish not wanting to help everyone. You just can't do it. Just help the few you can, and be satisfied with that.
Did you not notice how often the 'geeks' of /. :)
fight? Imagine a country with these people in it
and you'll imagine a country that develops the nuke
that blows us all sky high.
The notion that the US is the land of the free is just silly. You cant even say 'penis' on the radio without having to go to court (and lose).
scare me
There will always be hackers.
Australia, land of the free, no software patents (or export regulations on crypto, but the might change post wassenaar)
--
JJL
All capitalism is about is investment. You do a
huge investment, so it must be protected by the
law. Individuals and small companies with no power
to make any serious investment must be denied any
protection, as they have no money to back up their
success and create something useful with it. Big
corporations must always take preference, because
they have the money. People doesn't matter. Things
work this way. And it works.
You don't. You're beaten by both Canada and Switzerland. Your educational system barely makes it into the top ten worldwide, and your literacy rate is less than that of almost any other Western nation.
You're kidding, right? You really think you invented electricity?
Even if you'd said discovered you'd be wrong, but to claim to have invented it really takes the biscuit. Let me guess, you guys invented water too, yeah? Probably Edison.
send a man to the moon
Only because you were so embarassed that the Russians got a man into space before you.
I'm surprised to read that "People develop cool stuff (be it a new drug, or a new algorithm) to make money" on a site primarily devoted to linux.
I think that this particular collection of cool stuff shows that generous people can in fact be as capable as greedier ones.
Any law that might preclude the progress of the generous so that the greedy can profit is a bad one.
Also, for many drug researchers, money is only a secondary motivation.
PS. Workers of the World Unite!
I don't want to live in America. I dont't want to live in country where money makes everything. I don't want to have such president as you have. I don't want to live in country with almost no history and this country dreams rule the worlds. Haha.
America sux. Europe rules forever !
i'm impressed that you like your culture so much - it takes a lot of guts to stick only to what you know. get out there and TRY some stuff before you shut yourself into the nihilistic watcher-culture of north america. it's been drilled into everybody from infancy that complacency is sufficient - sit and listen to what's given to you by the nice-looking people on the screen. they must be telling the truth, else how did they get on there? having information pushed at you with no effort on your part is such a dangerous trap. it comes complete with its own set of prejudices and no assembly required! go try something new with an open attitude - you'll be surprised at what you can learn once you unpack yourself from your styrofoam box.
-savage
horse and carrage(sic)
The motor car was a German invention, as was the engine to drive it. Going further back, we see that the steam engine, in itself capable of replacing the horst and carriage, was a British creation.
Has it ever occurred to you to ask why the unit of power is the Watt? Why don't you go find out what he did sometime. Pay specific attention to his nationality.
using an outhouse
Oddly enough, the only place on Earth that I have ever used an outhouse is in the USA. There seem to be a whole lot of them there, but I've never seen one elsewhere.
know about electricity
OK, let's do this the hard way.
Greece, 600BC, Thales of Miletus notices static electricity
Rome, AD 70, Pliny the Elder writes about electric shocks
England, 1600, William Gilbert comes up with an almost complete physics of magnetism
Germany, 1672, Otto von Guericke generates electricity and creates sparks
Germany, 1745, charge stored in a primitive cell at the University of Leiden (hence Leiden Jar)
England, 1746, William Watson improves the Leiden Jar to store enough charge to explode gunpowder. He also carries charge along a two mile wire
England,1753, John Canton discovers electrostatic induction
England, 1753, Henry Cavendish discovers inverse square law for electrostatic charge
Italy, 1780, Luigi Galvani discovers electricity can cause muscle response
Italy, 1782, Alessandro Volta invents the battery
England, 1807, Humphry Davy discovers electrolysis
Germany, 1826, Georg Simon Ohm works out the relationship between current, voltage and resistance.
Denmark, 1820, Oersted discovers electromagetism
England, 1831, Michael Faraday has build motors and generators
Scotland, 1873, James Clerk Maxwell's theories on electromagnetic waves lay the foundation for modern quantum theory.
England, 1897, Joseph Thomson discovers the electron
Canada, 1911, Ernest Rutherford discovers the structure of the atom
Oh yeah, at some point, Benjamin Franklin, who is under the impression that electricity is a fluid, flies a kite in a thunderstorm. Bright move.
The USA didn't get seriously involved in electricity until after the timeline I have given. It's contributions since then have been very significant, but it's clear to see that the world was getting on quite well with the discovery and application of electricity long before America started getting involved.
Q: why are they in prison?
A: the broke the law, obviously.
Q: who made the laws that put those people in prison?
A: the winners of a popularity contest, who like as not have no qualifications for passing laws. laws are meant to be the social embodiment of rationally derived ethical principles. everyone's quick to jump to the defence that laws are just because they reflect the opinions of the majority. everyone's likewise falling all over themselves to say that most everybody everywhere are morons. catch my drift..? if majority rules, and the majority are morons, then you're RULED BY MORONS!
faith in religion as a source of ethics is frowned upon because it is said that the rules encoded (in christianity at least) are based on entirely different social contexts in a different time. how is this different from what laws are being passed now or have been passed a hundred or more years ago that continue to stand?
-savage
"You can't write that play about two lovers from warring families killing themselves! Shakespeare had that idea first!" Wrong.
"You can't reprint and sell copies of Romeo and Juliet for another 30 years because the Shakespeare estate still holds the copyright! (And in 25 years our lobbyists will get the time limit extended AGAIN...)" Sadly, right.
Patents cover new inventions, new ideas. Copyrights cover literal copying only.
>How else would we have the highest standard of living in the world.
;-P )
Typically American sentence... Well you don't have the highest standard of living. Even Cuban women have a superior life expectancy than US ones !
You have the first :
- Criminality
- Obesity
- Cardiac crisis rate
- Lawsuit (mostly for nothing)
- Nationalism
- Stupidity (I agree then is a kind of a redundancy with the above statement
Hence the title.
Maybe it is anecdotal, but several American I know have changed to another nationality, or taken two.
/. is definitely NOT the place for this kind of debate. Let's talk of interesting things, please.
>The only thing that america has done right is to permit their citizens to have firearms.
Yeah right, and how many children lose their lives as a result of this right? Anyone have the numbers?
Beleive it or not, having WAY too many guns available and lots of people getting shoot actually are related in a not that complicated way.
Therefore programmers, scientists, artists, all the people with individual skill and productivity, don't count. They must give up their work to the greater good. "The greater good" being defined as the useless assholes that majored in Econ and went on to become the clueless suit-wearing goons that call computer progams "solutions."
My god, man, what a scam!
That honour I believe lies with certain Scandanvian countries. In terms of quality of living, they also rank highly, along with Aus/NZ. It's just that these countries tend not to be so loud about things.....
"All capitalism is about is investment. You do a huge investment, so it must be protected by the law." ...): patenting everything might lead to demise of the Silicon Valley, and a re-emergence of the European companies.
This doesn't follow. You do an investement so that you'll win more money (or simply stay competitive). If you are stupid enough to do an investement that would not work if it isn't protected by law, then you will get badly burned, and capitalism's darwinism will ensure that you'll disappear. Protecting innovation is a political issue: fairness issue (you invent, thus it is fair that you get part of the issue), economic efficiency (so that the economical development of US companies is greater than European ones).
The Silicon Valley works partly because small companies are created all the time, and the most innovative are bought by giant companies (Cisco, Microsoft,
As an European citizen considering seriously emigrating to US, that kind of idiocy (patenting algorithms), leading to a considerable waste of time (searching for prior art in undecipherable patent claims) and unfairness (since one idea is often the result of the work and influence of 100 people, typically 1 would get the jackpot), is sure a serious drawback.
>Germany, 1745, charge stored in a primitive cell at the University of Leiden (hence Leiden Jar)
I live in Leiden and last time I checked it was in Holland
This is ridiculous and damn right outrageous.
I think however, as I'm outside the US, I can reserve the right to ignore the US Patent office. As long as my products don't get used in the US I don't infringe the Patent. Anyone with more info?
Also - those willing to screw over others
will make more raw profit (at least in
the short term) than those who aren't.
This is a good thing?
errrr.... no
When you work your work generally becomes the property of the company you are working for.
Perhaps in academia this is different, but in the corporate world where the money is you don't own anything you invent. Unless you own the company, in which case you don't invent.
function sum(int a, int b)
{
return a+b
}
Watch anyone write a program without infringing my patent!!!
I can't get to it, as it won't allow people to register who are outside the US!!!
Not even for the online only version!
Kinda dumb huh?
BTW Where do they think all the foreign IT worker come from?
(sigh)
Puma
> Although I am not a fan of I.P. or patents, I am at the same time a believer
:-), but I'd like to see a bit more wealth distributed to the people who actually need it. The more rich _people_ there is, the better.
:-)
> in social darwinism. There is a reason that the strong get stronger and the
> rich get richer. It has nothing to do with evil corporations, but has more
> to do with people's attitudes.
Social Darwinism is not about the "rich getting richer", but simply an explanation of "why" most people are where they are in our society. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it states that 'succesful' people deserve to be where they are because they are more "fit".
The fact that rich people tend to get richer more and more easily is more a casualty of the current economic system than a social fact, in my opinion. I'm clearly not anti-rich, as I am one of them
There is no need for the huge gap between "classes" that have been expanding since the last 10 years. There is also no need for the incredibly akward "distribution" implemented by the welfare systems of some countries. Of course, that's still opinion
> There are some people that seem to have been
;-) However, I don't see why there would be more losers than winners, 50% seems an incredibly high stat for something that cannot be quantified easily anyway. And why only 5% winners ?
:-). Given this _high_ ratio, you're then statically a _perfect_ loser ! ;-)
:-) is one of the most valuable resources on this planet, Yes.. it *IS* !!
;-)
>``born'' winners, and others who seem to have been born losers. You can tell them apart by their attitudes.
>
> Unfortunately, it seems like 5% of the world are ``born winners'', maybe
> 50% are born losers, and the rest are somewhere in between.
Of course, it'd be extremely surprising if one couldn't find a Bell curve for any trait of the human character
If I were to follow the logic of Social Darwinism, I'd say that you demonstrated that you 'know' or 'see' 10x more losers than winners, which clearly indicates that you're certainly *not* "where the succesful people are" (otherwise you'd see more of them
Of course, I'm just kidding, but I want to show that playing with numbers can
be very easily misleading..
Now, let's get back to the regular content of this message, i.e. debunking the accuracy of SD. My idea is that it is a brillant simplification of complex processes.
I agree whole-heartedly that having a 'pro-active personality' (which I usually refer as "being an enthousiast at everything" which sounds less pedantic
Also, I agree that only few people are able to exhibit and use it properly to boost their life in any way they please, but only a few will take the exactly opposite road as well. Most of the people I know want to live a life with the less pain and the most pleasure; they usually try to find something 'in between' which elevates to a "level" that depends very much on their social origin, income and personal philosophy.
SD is an hypothesis that works very well with lab rats, when an applied in a closed environment where each element has the same starting opportunities.
However, human societies are much more complex than that, and the place you were born and the people you know determines so many things that it takes a lot more than enthousiasm to "break through" significantly. It can be for example: hard work, communications skills, real talent but also beauty/sex, a genius for manipulating others or simply lying to them, even incredible luck.
All depending, of course, of your own "field" ( 'hard work' doesn't pay too much in politics today, IMHO
And you'd be speaking Spanish if it wasn't for the Brits.
Shut the fuck up.
I know that's a really wank comment, but no worse than the tripe it's in reply to.
I'd like to patent each way of bombing, burning,
ripping apart, corrupting, drugging employees of people related to, eating, firing
employees of people related to, demolishing, eh
EVERYTHING to break patents. Yes! And then I want
to patent patenting and then I'll patent YOU out there
after patenting the president first of course.
No fucking way. We'll just burn every FUCKING patent.
You really asked for violence this time you stupid corporate bastard!
Is there any chance you have some sort of murder fixation? I mean.. really. I'm not trying to be rude.. but really it seemed odd you even said the word "murder" in the conversation. It's like.. "hey! I think I'd like to go for a walk today."
"you can't go for a walk, because you can't murder people! You can't say you can murder people!"
Okay. Just thought I'd let you know. It's really weird.
And if you're independent, some big corporation will come along and sue the pants off you to try to invalidate the patent claim, or alternatively drive you bankrupt or force you into a settlement in the process.
Yes it's great. Until the Wealthy 2% work out a way of creating designer babies with super intelligence, that far surpasses the greates minds of Today.
Chin up. Thats the boy.
This is not great at all. If you invent something while you are working at a company or university (which you basically must be to invent anything except the most basic stuff since you need to be somewhere with the right equipment) it becomes their property and not yours. The biggest companies are those employing the most scientists and this way they increase their lead all the time.
Patents are more and more used to restrict competition. Big companies are cross licensing their technology all the time. This is leading to a small number of big companies that can create nearly everything they want, while smaller companies are kept out (or have to pay big bucks for the patents).
The days when the patents kept big companies from stealing inovative peoples ideas are not gone, but patents are nowadays mostly used to keep smaller aggressive competitors out of the way.
Tord Jansson
this is realy sad becures it only hitts
open source projects. all comercial software, have licens ageement that forbids reverse enginering,
so to be abel to take some one to cort, you must firs bracke the law making it hard to use against corps.
so even if i don the idea at all, if there shuld be a law, it should only protect from peopel stealing code to make money.
Eskil
Acquire an old tanker or super freighter & park her in international waters. Use wind, water, and solar power to run the computers, sat link, etc...
and learn to like seaweed...
This is quite possibly the most rediulous post I've seen in the year or so I've been reading Slashdot. You're trying to get from the fact that Hitler was a vegetarian to establishing that vegetarianism is bad. While I personnaly eat meat, this logical falicy is as bad as saying "Hitler didn't take LSD, so all of you people not taking LSD better start."
Perhaps it's time to stop researching for a corp, then. Find (or start!) your own privately-held corp, that follows your own ethics and works for you.
Can we say "Red Hat Business Model"? Do we have the guts to start GNOME, Inc? Or GimpCo? Or Insert-Your-New-Snazzy-OSS-Product GmbH?
More power to IP producers means we should demand less NDA/pointy-hair/bureaucratic crap from evil big corporations.
Populist Programmer's Party? You down with PPP?
We should stop whining on /. and start getting all proactive-like, dig?
Millions of 3rd world citizens already die, killed
by the huge fees the drug patent monopolies demand
for their drugs. Every medical patent is legalised
mass murder.
Prior art invalidates patent claims? Not if the Patent Office is clueless (which it is), and not if the courts are clueless (which they are). Witness Wang's patent on bookmarks. Any corporation with a little time and lawyer power can get a patent for just about any cockamamie software concept. At that point, it becomes a legal battle. Guess who can afford better lawyers: the individual researcher, or Big Scary Corporation?
and Fuck you all I am from Florida...
its because of America that your ass is here on this forum you stupid fuck, all the technological advances you enjoy today are because of America, if it wasn't for America your ass would be sitting in some theater watching shakespearean plays with men playing womens roles, instead of being on the net, disrespect my America again and we will turn your glorious fucking country into a parking lot mother fucker.
This mean we have to work on what generates 'profit' or 'money' to be able to survive instead of doing what's great, fun, neat and good for the whole mankind?
No comments...
Agreed.
'Divide and conquer'... If we worked together we could change the world.
they need help to help us all
see lpf.ai.mit.edu
This isn't exaggeration or melodrama, just simple cause and effect. Give it 20-30 years.
The scariest thing isn't patents on algorithms and mathematical formulas and genes... it's patents on "business models", like the one granted to Priceline.com. Imagine if Microsoft had one of those... a legally-protected monopoly.
GREAT idea!
If we REALLY could, that would be awesome.
how about declaring independence on some random city, declaring it an 'autonomous zone'?
Nah, hackers love bashing but when they meet in person they're friends.
They could have such fun at slashdot.
The US itself is a lost cause. But a vigorous containment policy, like the one that opposed the spread of Communism and ultimately defeated it, can be successful in stopping the spread of "patent-abuse disease" to other countries.
Himm... Looks like my little dream is looking brighter every day! My dream is of some island(s) in the south pacific running on a "modernized and refined" version of the US Constitution. There's nothing wrong with the constitution, it just doens't protect the people from huge corperate empires (ex. Microsoft) and government's taking away personal freedoms (ex. COPA).
You really must try reading Adam Smith sometime. You cant seem to distinguish the difference between mere invention, and the hard work neccessary to bring some product out. This takes risk. It just happens to be that the US has one of the most favorable system for the entrepreneur. Inventions only get you so far.
Patents are transferable, its one of the most fundamental aspects of patent law. If you do not allow transfership, you could severely cripple the individual. Furthermore, if you are an entrepreneur, and the company that you found is to
make some innovative product, the law essentially views that company is an individual. It has the same rights. Just because the chief engineer, or president leaves the corporation, does not mean that the invention will, or should leave with it. Although I'm sure you can come up with a few 'bad' examples of companies taking advantage of the law. I can also point to a number of cases where it is neccessary. It simply improves the risk takers liquidity. Or lets say you are a scientist. Who would rather not take those risks. Or perhaps you just feel that your time is better spent in some laboratory. Anyways, who are you to say patents shouldnt be transferable.
Have you ever read any OSS books on linux? Wonder why? How about O'Reilly books? Do you really honestly believe that it is right for them to work hard producing a well written book, and have people essentially copy their hardwork. Do you believe that if their rights wherent protected, that they would keep on producing it? The fact is, our economy depends on this IP. If you dont like it, move to one of the still surving socialist states like Cuba. In such countries when you work hard to create something, the state assumes ownership. And you know what, how many innovations can you point to in the old USSR. Except in perhaps Military hardware, which they really didnt produce all that much. The US had much higher output per dollar.
First off, there is a world of difference between the huge fortune 500 companies and a startup such as this. I can tell you personally that the people who work for the company are given stock options and what not. I can also tell you that in the entreprenuers previous company the 'lower' employees made off with _alot_ of money in the end. There is some reason, why one should redistribute some of the wealth to the other employees. Motivation is one key, another is simple kindness. Now to say this should be split 50/50 is absurd. Most of these entreprenuers dont collect large salaries, their entire lively hood is in producing a good product. Where as the rest of the employees are paid to do their job. Without the entreprenuer this certainly wouldnt happen as soon as it will. The entreprenuer assumes risk, because the rewards happen to be great. If you start arbitrarily chipping away at these rewards, you will hurt innovation.
~FallLine
..and had to pay for it
Several thousand US$. If you want an agressive patent (one which is broad reaching), think 10k+ US$. I was considering patenting something and talks w/ a patent lawyer made me think it had better be a damn good idea to recoup that kind of investment. The actual fee with the US patent office is much lower, like a couple hundred, but to make your patent viable, you'll need a patent lawyer to make it stand up if challenged.
Hmm, I'm thinking that a true meritocracy would require that we all have a similar starting points. Last time I checked, children of the current uberelite are way ahead of me at the starting line in terms of $$ and networking via the family. Not exactly the case in the good ol' USA, eh?
But I'm even more disturbed to see that you don't even care about this at all.
The Constitution is the whole foundation of our (USA) government. It is above Congress. Of course Congress has no power over it -- they derive their power from it. To think that Congress could arbitrarily decide to change it (or to prevent change to it) shows that you aren't overly concerned with your own freedom. These days, that sort of apathy is one of the greatest problems we have in this country.
-- Greg Wooledge wooledge@kellnet.com
Saturday everybody should trow over all patent offices a bunch of tomatoes and send some papers to the News explaining why!
Let's react NOW!
It has nothing to do with democracy. Democracy doesn't work.
Just imagine the average joe running for office, even LESS educated than your average politician. How do you know that a drug store clerk is more responsible or accountable than a current politician.
The bottom line is: people are stupid. We should switch to a technocratic government run by philosopher-kings and engineers.
This is hardly an isolated incident. I.P. rights are being lost across the board, and very seldom are the creators themselves profiting from it. It is, in fact, kind of difficult to see how a creator profits 70 years after their death. All the stuff about author's rights is a smokescreen for large corporations, who, never mind even their own long term interests, smell money and go into a feeding frenzy. It will take a concerted effort to stop them.
Some of us in the etext community are hoping to get something started. See my page at http://users.vnet.net/alight/liber.html for some links and information on the subject. I will try to add some stuff about patents soon. (So far it's mostly about copyright.)
Among other things, note that Eric Eldred is suing the Justice Department to prevent them from enforcing the most recent unconstitutional copyright law. Can't remember the link but it's on my site.
Alan
Think of how you felt in school when you were taught how to do some problem the long and hard way, and nearly went crazy doing it, and then learning a much simpler, easy way the next week. Sure, you may have gotten a better understanding of the concept behind it, but that didn't justify the pain, suffering, and wasted time. Now imagine that you had to do the same thing the hard way for your entire professional career
Actually software patents suck for a very practical reason. They are virtually uninefforceable.
How do you 'prove' in court htat someone stole you patent? There is only one way, and that is through lock step simulation. The problem is that with all but the simplest algorithms, lock step simulation is all but impossible.
So how will this be enforced? Large corporations with money and lawyers will sue anyone who has a piece of software that 'appears' to do the same thing theirs does. Just like SLAPP suits these lawsuits will stifle programs.
Say it can't happen? Remember ZMODEM? Some yahoo, actually working for AT&T got a patent on ZMODEM. Anyone who reversed engineered (not illegal by any means) the protocol, go slapped with a suit. It never went to court, as the dorkhead would lose if it did, but teh threat of a lawsuit kept individuals from being able to write new original software.
Anyone who thinks software patents are a good thing, is just not using their head.
You should note that copyright law protects developers from plagerists already. This is the only protection that is actually reasonably enforceable.
Carmine Mangione
Carmine
Science has never been open? This statement leaves me nearly speechless. One reason why I chose a life in science is because of the openness and relatively high idealism inherent in a free exchange of ideas. I refuse to give up on this quaint notion.
Yes, ppl do not have to patent their discoveries. However, there has been a disturbing increase in number of patent awards and applications for discoveries that once were the staple of basic science; algortithms being patented is now part of this trend.
I have been doing research in science for about 20 years. The joy that it brings me has remained throughout my years as an undergrad, grad, post-doc, and finally gov. researcher. I've seen 1st-hand the many aspects of science. I like the open and free side.
Gee, it was nice of them to grant such a broad ranging, ludicrous patent to an American company.
What a coincidence...
So can you truly say this shocks you?
The little court of america can rule as it pleases in a fashion that niether honours the intent or spirit of the patent system. It is not to protect business but to give access to all to further the well being of all of person kind. Not the US not Corporate America not whites or black or europeans or asians. What morality does the US judiciary and government support. Is that the real problem and this outcome one of the symptoms
5 years would be more approprate -- thats about 10 computer generations.
Umm... the problem isn't copyrights, the problem is in the U.S. Patent Office. The nature of computer software and patents is just plain broken. Considering that the time of protection on a patent is 17 years, and most computer software becomes obsolete in umm... two to five years? Figure out the problems with this yourself. It should be easy.
Kain
If you've taken an algorithms course, perhaps you remember the funky algorithm that can be used to determine the mean value of an array in linear time? (It involves dividing the array into fifths... very hard to explain via text, but a diagram would make it easy to understand)
According to my professor, the guy who invented that spent three YEARS working on it. Can you imagine that? (But wow, what an awesome payoff...)
And the professor remarked how unfair it was that the researcher had spent so long working on the algorithm, and then it only took him 45 minutes to explain it to us. It makes you think that maybe there is something to software patents.
the companies wouldn't have developed the medicines in the first place if there weren't a profit motive... duh!
scenario A (reality): medical companies spend billions on research and develop wonder drugs. they then demand outrageous fees for these drugs. many people don't get the medicine they need, and die. many others do, and their lives are improved.
scenario B (your fascist utopia): since there's no money in these drugs, nobody develops them in the first place... NOBODY gets the medicine they need, they all die.
oooh, which world do I want to live in. difficult choice there!
I didn't make the original post you're flaming, dumb-ass, but to have a few psychological scars comes with the turf of maturity. Further, to sport these scars can sometimes be beneficial for those so unfortunate as to be unscarred by experience.
"In the prickling of thorns comes the fragrance of flowers" - Meher Baba
i thought algorithms are named for al kwarhizmi
that muslim dude, and since
Mohammed was kickin it aroun' 600 AD
that puts him a sight less than 2000 years old my
fine feathered friend.
peace babies
I thought the patent laws were designed to protect expressions of an idea, not the idea itself. Patenting algorithms seems like it shouldn't extend past the raw code itself, rather than it's current implementation where it covers nearly any method where you could obtain the same results. Where would we be now if all the major line drawing algorithms were patented. Or even something as simple as blit operations. All the things you take for granted when writing even the simplest programs. I seriously don't see why software patents are needed when copyright, and trade secrets laws provide nearly any protection a software author could ever need.
Just for amusement, imagine if UNIX's "look and feel" was patented.. Linux, FreeBSD, etc would not exist.
We got it!
Aw, this is a bunch of Chicken-Little-itis. Software has been deemed patentable ever since Merrill Lynch (sp?) patented their software for a "Cash Management System", iow, a system for integrating a brokerage account with cash investing in a money market and with some check-writing privileges. That was in the 1970s, I believe. The case law has steadily expanded the matter since that time. We have patents for chemical recipes and living organisms as extensions of chemical recipes. We have patents for encryption software. My own U.S. Patent No. 4,803,651 looks an awful lot like an algorithm to me, but the patent attorney who I worked with closely on this emphasized that the patentable material was the computer program realizing the technique, not the technique itself. That was 1985, of course, and because at the time I was an IBM serf, IBM owns the thing.
While I, like many, am not in favor of attempts to patent mathematical formulae, in practice the only way someone is going to get sued for infringement is if they are making money with it. In fact, it's probably more restrictive than that. Suppose, for instance, there was a patented formula which was used in arbitrage of money instruments, based upon the Black-Scholes (sp?) derivation, and someone thought it pretty and used it as the background GIF for their Web site. If money was made on that site, could they be sued for infringement? I doubt it: It's being used for a decoration.
I agree software should be free in the sense of not having proprietary claims on it and that there are tangible as well as intangible reasons why it should be free in that sense. But the world doesn't agree with that position and all one can do is state one's position as clearly as one can, protect yourself from infringement, and hope for the best.
Aw, this is a bunch of Chicken-Little-itis. Software has been deemed patentable ever since Merrill Lynch (sp?) patented their software for a "Cash Management System", iow, a system for integrating a brokerage account with cash investing in a money market and with some check-writing privileges. That was in the 1970s, I believe. The case law has expanded the matter since that time. We have patents for chemical recipes and living organisms as extensions of chemical recipes. We have patents for encryption software. My own U.S. Patent No. 4,803,651 looks an awful lot like an algorithm to me, but the patent attorney who I worked with closely on this emphasized that the patentable material was the computer program realizing the technique, not the technique itself. That was 1985, of course, and because at the time I was an IBM serf, IBM owns the thing.
While I, like many, am not in favor of attempts to patent mathematical formulae, in practice the only way someone is going to get sued for infringement is if they are making money with it. In fact, it's probably more restrictive than that. Suppose, for instance, there was a patented formula which was used in arbitrage of money instruments, based upon the Black-Scholes (sp?) derivation, and someone thought it pretty and used it as the background GIF for their Web site. If money was made on that site, could they be sued for infringement? I doubt it: It's being used for a decoration.
I agree software should be free in the sense of not having proprietary claims on it and that there are tangible as well as intangible reasons why it should be free in that sense. But the world doesn't agree with that position and all one can do is state one's position as clearly as one can, protect yourself from infringement, and hope for the best.
All this to say that whatever the scenario, usually cash=patents .. so it's always the 2% that own everything.
I'm sure this won't be the last time the SCOTUS will have to deal with this issue. It never ceases to amaze me, how the courts will make rulings on subjects about which they know nothing, based on arguments from lawyers who know nothing. I think the Borg have assimilated the District of Corruption.
slashdot broke my sig
>I'm getting out of this country before something >extremely bad happens.
>Anyone in Europe have an apartment for sale?
Don't come to The Netherlands. I have the nasty feeling we will be calling eachother "comrade" in a couple of years overhere, and the clock will be put back to 1984.
They just imposed a tax on cdr's which benefits audio artists (yes, even computer cdr's) and I heard they are planning on doing the same thing for harddisks, giving the tax to software companies to compensate for loss of income due to copying. So, when you copy Linux for a friend, you're paying money to the equivalent of the RIAA here, and as soon as the fellow buys a harddisk to put it on, he would pay money to the software companies. The CDR tax is allready in effect, but I hope the source i got the info about the hdd's from was either wrong, or this law won't make it, else the bearded freak you see on tv holding a protestsign, chained to the microsoft hq's will be me.
Perhaps you should try sniffing around in the real world some time.
.nz, but for the fact that US companies will inevitably begin to lean on their allies and trading partners to follow their fucked-up lead in all this.
Most educational institutions require unlimited rights to any IP you create while attentding them. So if you want to learn enough to create IP, you lose. Since most educational instiutions in the US are underfunded, they flog the rights to your work to the Intels, Microsofts, and General Electrics of this world.
Furthermore, in the US, taxpayer-funded government reasearch is a saleable commodity. So your tax dollars, which fund reseach at universities, NASA, and the ilk, are used to underwrite that basic research, which is patented and onsold to private industry - the little guy's tax dollars go to making Bill Gates richer. Moreover, the little guy's dollars go into a scheme which, to all intents and purposes, forever excludes him from benefitting from publicly funded research without paying a private company for the privilige.
Want a job to pay for that? So sad, sign away your IP rights when you sign up.
As it stands, US patent law generally, and in software in particular, promotes the interests of the already wealthy, at the expense of everyone else.
It wouldn't worry me much in
"Supreme Court" and "Rules" in the same sentence? For shame..
OK, let's say I spend a bunch of money on chemistry research and come up with a great new drug. Should I be able to patent that, so that I can make my money back?
Yes -- unless your patent happens to be a new use for existing chemical, and even if you have invented a drug there can be exceptions that disallow you to keep others from duplicating it.
OK, now let's say I spent a bunch of money to come up with a great encryption algorithm, should I be able to patent that, so that I can make my money back?
No because nothing prevents you to implement algorithm and sell software with it -- but if you will prevent others from using it, you will create a non-interoperable thing and disallow others to make anything compatible. You already have a benefit of being first, and giving you more will cause more damage than benefit. Patents aren't rights, they are given by the government (note -- patents are specific to countries where they are issued) to stimulate development of technology, and in cases where they do the opposite (hindering the development of communication programs) there is no justification for them.
What if I am a linguist? Should I take royalties from every use of alphabet?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Forget "should." Be pragmatic, and think about "is." Neglecting a few minor exceptions, people work hard because they want a better house or car or computer or whatever. Basically they want money. That's life. That's economics.
Oh, Americans... :-( People want better life. What they do to achieve that, differs a lot. Some get more money (say, by writing software, getting a better job, robbing banks, etc.) then use those money to buy something. Some make things that they lacked (say, wooden chairs, photographs of flowers, unixlike kernels, HTTP servers, scientific articles with their ideas about prime numbers). Some learn to appreciate what they didn't appreciate before (say, the beauty of stars, art). Some do something to get higher position their person in their organizations/companies/... (improve their hunting, drink more beer, argue on company's meetings, pronounce long speeches before elections, make impressive contributions to software projects), etc. Most of people do things from every of those categories, and only brainwashed modern "cynics" that aren't even really cynical, just fascinated with money, explain everything in the terms of monetary value.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Name any software patent that improved anything.
Counter-examples are countless, and all of them deal with the same interoperability problem -- patent holder refuses to provide interoperability or allow implementation under reasonable license, and the whole world is either stuck because patented algorithm infected too many things around (GIF), or has to develop for free (just to compensate a damage, patent holder is creating) an alternative (gzip, JPEG, PNG).
In all other areas, with nonzero production costs, patent holder is more or less stimulated to constantly invest money into constantly making products containing patented idea. In software the "constantly" part doesn't work well -- patent holder makes something, and while there is a demand for the use of algorithm, the conditions (say, requirement of free license) aren't favorable for him if he will develop things complying to them while existing software produces profits without any further investment.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
OK, you mention GIF so I'll talk about that (actually I beleive it is the LZW compression algorithm that GIF uses that is patented, but that's not really important). I think we can agree that GIF is a good format that filled a need that people had at the time. I argue that the format would not have been developed at all (or would have at least taken longer) if patents were not avaliable. Remove the incentive (all the money Unisys makes from patenting GIF) and there is no reason to inovate.
I have only mentioned the consequences of one, and very damaging, patent -- others things that I have given as examples, are gzip and PNG. You are completely wrong about the possibility that compressed image format will not be created if algorithms were not patentable. Some other compression algorithms and image formats were developed specifically to become non-patentable, and freely distributed, so if GIF and LZW never existed they could be replaced by anything else that would be developed at the time -- neither the idea of compression, nor the idea of image format was new at the moment. There is also a high probability that in this imaginable case moronic indexed 256 colors limit will never be introduced into image formats because most of people who develop image formats would know better than that, and if such thing appeared in the first release, someone will immediately point out that it's bad and should be extended.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Or demand a rewritten contract and get them to sign off on it *before* you take the job. I did that when I was consulting for a bank last year: the IP agreement stated the bank would own anything I produced --- on or off the job --- for the duration of the contract plus some period; I rejected it because I do quite a lot of off-time Linux and OS/2 coding (not that all of it sees the light of day, it helps to have time to *finish* projects...).
They produced a new contract which was acceptable.
-- brandon s. allbery, sysadmin @ cmu electrical & computer engineering "Think, youth, THINK!"
Note that the Supreme Court did not actually agree to hear the case. This is often the case. The court sometimes prefers to let things percolate in lower courts for a while before agreeing to hear a case and render a final decision. This lets the arguments on both sides play themselves out. We can hope for a circuit split, where another appeals district comes to an opposite conclusion. That almost always invites a Supreme Court review. However, since this is a statutory rather than a constitutional question, the court might be saying it thinks this is a minor issue.
Posted by antivert:
Do you think we want this? Do you think we asked for a country where corporations and money rule the lives of the people? I spend my time trying to think of ways to set this place right. As Bill Hicks said, I'm an American because my parents f!$#ed here. Does this make us all morons?
Even our health is dictated by the government. The FDA still allows the greedy corporations to put cancerous poison in our food, and if they have their way ALL will be owned, including herbs. Marijuana is not legal for medical purposes in most places, yet the prescribe thorazine for stress. Yay. Yes, the country is a joke. Is it our fault? No. Will it be our fault if we don't do anything about it? Yes.
It's just so SO damned hard. The corruption is SO complete, the threats to personal freedom come in giant waves. It's pretty easy to feel a bit overwhelmed.
Posted by antivert:
Are you a corporation? =)
Posted by antivert:
Why don't you think the right to grow and smoke a naturally growing plant is an important part of individual freedom?
By allowing the government to take away our right to grow a plant, we are sacrificing our very basic right to property. This opens the door to other tramplings of our freedom. Do not assume that this does not affect you if you have no interest in growing or smoking marijuana. It does.
Posted by antivert:
You believe you are free because the government doesn't prohibit you from doing what *you* want to do. However.. what if, suddenly, praying were made illegal? Those who don't pray will simply say "We are free! When I say free, I don't mean being able to legally smoke marijuana if you want to, or pray in a church of your choice, or drink beer. I mean all of that other stuff we get to do."
You don't see hemp growing and consumption as a right because you have been conditioned not to. You've been made to see it as an illicit act of a fringe group of troublemakers. Therefore, the debate on marijana has been reduced to "high class" vs "no class", and the real issue is effectively obscured. No good will come of this.
Just because a law doesn't directly affect you doesn't mean it isn't wrong.
Posted by antivert:
Patriotism is socially acceptable brainwashing.
Posted by col_panik:
I doubt I'm the first one to suggest:
Somebody needs to throw together a book form of all the algor's they can come up with and GPL them before someobody -else- does otherwise.
Posted by Rumball:
OMG. There is no fundamental difference, at least not as far as your argument is concerned. If you understood what he wrote, there was nothing at all that even remotely implied the possibility that he was implying that a scientist could patent "the right to have blue eyes". Where did you come up with that? He is asking whether the scientist should be able to patent the information gained from his research and use it to make money. It is quite similar to your case of a computer scientist spending time to develope some type of algorithm and then applying for a patent. It is a difficult issue because it hard to distinguish the point when information becomes somebody's property. However, I believe that the similarity between scientific research, such as discovering fundamental laws to the universe, and designing algorithms is greater than you may wish to believe. Implementation of that algorithm is a different story altogether.
Posted by Tejano:
Well once again the supreme court did the unthinkable. Create a law. Hmmm, whats wrong with what I just said. The court creating a law. I thought that the Constitution labeled out the duties of each branch. I guess the country is very close to dissintegration, among other things.
So, in laymans terms, I can basically come up with a "squaring principle" that outlines some basic characteristics of squares. A mathematical algorithm is just that, an equation pertaining to the nature of math using math. So in essence my little "principle" could be patented.
Thats dumb.
My guess is that it would only be useful for M$ or a graphics engine that use long and difficult equations that take up time and energy, except M$s of course. id probably likes this but since Linux is shedding off the skin of software, its copywrites, a move to show your math skills off wouldn't be that bad of an idea.
Posted by antivert:
This murder defense could also be used to explain why we are not allowed to vote, chew gum, run down the street, drive a car, own a dog, use a phone, go to a movie, and type on a computer. Of course.. we are allowed to do these things, but if we weren't, your "murder" defense is still just as relevant. We can't have any rights because the world isn't perfect.
However. The people did *NOT* decide to make marijuana illegal. When we were born, it was already illegal, and the justification for that has been shoved down our throats ever since we were in preschool. The blindly biased scare tactics we get from the money hungry DARE program (and similar programs) caused the country to fall to the illusion that the government has passed this law to protect us. There was no vote.
The people did NOT vote to make "hemp" illegal. William Randolph Hearst, a racist (reportely, he especially hated mexicans) and owner of The Hearst Corporation, a major logging company, had 800,000 acres of timberland taken from them by Pancho Villa's troops mexican speaking troops. The mexicans planned on planting hemp there. William Hearst had had a pretty successful go at replacing hemp paper with more expensive and lesser quality tree pulp paper (which likes to yellow and crumble after a short time), and now his stranglehold was being threatened by these people and their potential crop of non-crumbling hemp paper. He immediately sought to have "marihuana" put on every anti-narcotics bill, even though it's not a narcotic. Not many complained, as they didn't even know what "marihuana" was. It was always called "hemp". They'd made up the word "marihuana".
Marihuana was blamed for rampages of "blacks and mexicans", through the Hearst-controlled newspapers. Through a series of connected events shortly thereafter, "Marihuana" became illegal. The full text is here: http://139.146.247.4/bill/pot/blunderof37.html
Most of this information was pulled from this page.
But you see.. THERE WAS NO VOTE. It's interesting you could say that the majority rules in this situation, seeing as you obviously didn't seek out any information on the subject. You *were* right about one thing, though.. this *is* how our "democracy" works.
Money. Power. Corporation.
Posted by flawed-logic:
When you get down to it, software, and especially algorithms is math. You can't patent a mathematical formula (basically a kind or algorithm), so you can't (well... shouldn't) patent a software algorithm. I'm surprised I haven't noticed anyone say this yet.
Posted by Raymond W. Rowe, ESQ.:
You would not destroy Patent law by doing this. Patent law is designed to work around this problem. What would happen is if the judge felt that it was in the public's best interest for the product to be on the market, he would simply grant you damages equal to a reasonable licensing fee and continue to allow the defendant to market the product.
Posted by Phantom of the Operating System:
can we patent that, in your wisdom?
Posted by Stephen "The Carp" Carpenter:
:)
Ahhh.... well lets pu townership to the test?
Lets assume the Basic Human Rights are "Life,
Liberty and property" (the ideal that our
government claimed to be founded on). Argument
at a level below this becomes even more
pointless
If you have a car and I like it. I take your car.
That is called stealing. The problem is NOT that
I now have a car identical to yours, the
problme is that you don't have you car.
Thus your right to own property is infringed.
If you have an idea for a revolutionary new
way to move dirt (lets call it a shovel), and
I see it and I like it...so I make a copy of it
for myself, then that is NOT stealing. You still
have YOUR shovel. I now have your idea...and so do
you.
The right to own property (and I am counting notes
commonly called money as propery) does NOT
give you the right to have them have any value
or be in nay way unique.
When applied in this way, many of our modern
ideas show up very much broken. However...
maybe that is because they are?
Posted by antivert:
;)
;)
I'm an american, and I *swear* they tell us the real origins of inventions. Really. These people must not have been listening in class.. or, possibly, school was a bit different in the 50's.
Myself, I really don't care which country "produced" a great inventor. Most of the people who talk about "our country invented this, we invented that.." couldn't invent their way out of a paper bag.
I wasn't at the conference (of course), but it was reported on UPD-DISCUSS that the U.S. delegation was the one really pushing for extending those rights, and that independent lobbyists from the USA as well as other countries had to rally support from such far shots as Libya in order to oppose the worst extensions...
Then the U.S. delegates ran back to Washington, asking Congress to upgrade U.S. legislation to come at par with "international standards". Nice touch, isn't it?
And, you are absolutely right about extending the term of copyright protection for already existing works. The authors agreed to write those books under the terms in effect back then, and were duly paid for it. Neither they, their heirs, or their publisher have any ethical standing coming back to ask for more. They shouldn't have any legal standing either.
>America was built on the concept of freedom, and I can't think of anywhere in the world were an individual has more freedom.
No country in the world has nearly as a high a percentage of its population in prison as the U.S.
We're number one!
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
>Do you want to look at the fact that we have a high population of prison inmates, or the fact that we invented electricity or sent a man to the moon.
I want to look at both. The problem with patriotism is that too often, it colors one's views of right and wrong. I want honest questioning of what we do and who we support, and their effects on the world. Unfortunately, in the era of sound bites, this is difficult.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
OK, let's say I spend a bunch of money on chemistry research and come up with a great new drug. Should I be able to patent that, so that I can make my money back?
Ahhh! You have discovered the fundamental flaw in capitalism! It's just about making money. Making money for who, you ask? The people who had money to fund the research in the first place.
As most of you should be capable of realizing, this is ultimately destructive. We need to figure out some way to make civilization work when our interests are simply human progress and personal happiness. Perhaps something like a gift economy, eco-economics, or cooperatives.... sound familiar?
Why it's the very foundation of Free Software!
Lets look at this from a different perspective, one that I happen to actually be _personally_ familiar with.
Me too! I'm a biochemist and my brother's diabetic.
Imagine that you are a business man / scientist who is trying to develop a glucose sensor and injection pump for Diabetics. Such an innovation will have a profound impact on the lives of diabetics, and will also expected to _dramatically_ improve the health of the diabetic user.
And the pump is going to get done _dramatically_ faster if people share their work. The whole cathedral and the bazaar thing applies to more than just software. Obviously there is a higher level of infrastructure needed for biomedical research than kernel development, but there doesn't necessarily have to be.
I'll bet Microsoft would say it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to develop an OS, while we all know that it only takes a lot of motivated people contributing a little of their time.
We can do a similar thing for science in general. The only missing piece is easy access to tools, and at a university, even that isn't too hard.
The greater the risk, the higher the rewards must be.
WHY DOES THE REWARD HAVE TO BE MONEY? Why does the reward go primarily to the person who funded the research, rather than the actual people who did it?
This is competitive and wasteful! We are capable of much more if we would just cooperate. Call me a communist or socialist if you like, but I prefer to call it humanism. As in, let's make things better, not for my personal greed or dreams of excessive wealth, but just in the interests of happiness and greater understanding.
Who in their right minds is going to risk their own money if they simply cant suceed playing the averages. Some of you might even offer a more reasonable solution. Lets just allow them to 'double' their money, but this doesnt cut it. As the risks are far too great to risk it over only 200% gain, not to mention the time wasted.
What kind of fucking self-absorbed, materialistic hell do you live in?
You wouldn't pursue a cure for cancer because you might lose some MONEY?
If you have any new ideas on the topic, let me know, as I can put you in contact with a few thousand people who would be willing to sacrifice everything to research a potential cure.
You see this all comes down to intellectual property.
Yes it sure does. It all comes down to the wasteful, selfish, non-cooperative, proprietary waste of resources known as intellectual property.
But such fruits might very well only be reaped if alot of time and money is thrown at it.
Money is nothing more than our material representation of time, and there are a lot of people with plenty of time. We just need a way for people to work together for once, rather than working for their venture capitalists and stock holders.
>WHY DOES THE REWARD HAVE TO BE MONEY?
Because that's what my mortgage company, grocery store, computer store, and ISP want.
You sort of missed the point.
The problem is just capitalism in general. The reward for all progress doesn't have to be mounds of money, but the nature of our economy requires that. We all work for money. It funds the companies which employ us, and in return we try to repay that investment with interest by succeeding. Tell me you wouldn't work to find a cure for cancer at a mere $70,000 a year, just because you wouldn't make billions off of it if you got it first. What's more important: being rich or making the world a better place?
And no amount of righteous indignation is going to change that.
Perhaps, but then what will? As a civilization, we're on a bad course. I hope we can correct that before it's too late. Doesn't it worry you that a business is only consider successful if it continues to grow? The general belief that capitalism works is grounded upon the misconception that only superior products will make you money. But successful companies can easily succeed just making selling an inferior product to a larger market, and convince that a standard is the way to go. Eventually perhaps, the superior product wins out, but in the meantime, enormous amounts of money, time, and resources are wasted. I vote for progress over commercial success. Maybe the two can coincide, but I'm don't want to bet the future of our species on it.
Given that you equate money and time, are you spending all your free time on a cure for cancer or another equally altruistic goal? No, you're spending at least some of it reading Slashdot.
As only a biochem undergrad, who has not studied cancer in any great detail, I'm afraid I can offer little assistance at this point. However, my comment was in reference to a hypothetical person who has a new, potentially useful idea. And I ask, what kind of person would sit on that until they had adequate confidence they would be able to make a 200% return on the investment of their time and money?
As for my free time, I do not mean to imply that you should dedicate every moment and every dollar to any idea of potential significance. I volunteer. I do lab research. I contribute to free software. And if I can across some idea of unbelievable importance of which I could further, I'm more than prepared to dedicate my time and energy to that end.
Maybe I was too indignant in my first post, but all I'm saying is that we shouldn't be working in the interest of money. Ideally, we would work in the interests of progress, and that resources necessary for our own happiness and health would be provided. It's possible, we just need to change the focus of our economy.
Nostradamous predicted something like this didn't he? someone owning knowledge or some BS like that? Jesus, prophets suck :( anyway, it looks like we are all screwed.
Seen the poverty even in supposedly developed cities such as Paris. There are far more homeless, far more unemployeed.
Ok.. let's see your proof. I don't know whether France has a higher unemployment level than the U.S. or not, but if you're going to ask others for proof, then you should provide proof to support your own statements. Frankly, I don't really care which country has the higher unemployment. There are many more things involved in whether a country becomes successful or not. IP is just one of many, but you talk as if it is the make or break factor.
Lets just review IP quickly. If you where to kill IP as we know it. The following jobs would be destroyed:
Wrong. If IP as we know it was killed, something would take it's place. That's the point here. IP law doesn't have to be killed off altogether. It does however need to be fixed so that it's possible for more than a handful of companies to make real progress in this country.
3) Authors. Companies like O'Reilly would not exist. Tom Clancy, Grisham, Follet, etc either. Any publisher could just steal their work and publish it themselves for a couple bucks. Such work does not come cheap.
Here you're talking about copyright. That's a different subject. Actually, I think that people try to patent AND copyright software. That's just plain stupid. Either it's an original work of art and can be copyrighted or it's an invention of a process or device and can be patented. I don't see how they can have it both ways.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Most winners are winners because they are optimistic, proactive, take-charge kinds of people. They have this attitude in whatever they do, and not surprisingly they usually succeed. Most losers on the other hand are losers because they are pessimistic, reactive, and think the world is out to get them. This attitued gets them nothing but failure, which of course they blame on bad luck.
You talk as if everyone started at the same level. I'd have to dig to see if any research on this has been done, but I'll bet that at least a majority of the top 2% in this country came from wealthy families. The rich get richer. It doesn't even take a whole lot of smarts. You can hire people for that. They'll make you richer just so they can get a little piece of it.
I won't argue that some people get rich through hard work and a good attitude. I just think that alot more get rich because they started off with alot more than most.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Patenting genes is like trying to patent electricity or hair or something else that was never invented. They are discovered. You could patent processes such as forms of gene therapy, but nobody should ever be allowed to patent any gene. Of course I don't know why the government would ever let something like reason stand in the way of making money.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
no this is wonderful: there are huge barriers-to-entry on conventional patents on (say) industrial processes, huge capital is required, massive r&d, blah blah blah
but all you need to create a new algorithm is a brain, a bit of thought and even the most basic kit to play with. so this is one more blow for freedom!!!
please post proof of the allegation you make about gates, otherwise you're just another random bigot ranting.
he *bought*
Yes, but the duplication of a piece of paper money lessens the worth of the money in existence (indirectly via inflation.) Whereas duplication of a piece of paper with an idea written on it makes sod all difference to anybody - save that more people can read it.
> Forget "should." Be pragmatic, and think about "is."
Why?
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
I'm afraid you're the one talking out of his whatever: Trickling down does not exist. Even CNN recognises that the wealth gap in the US is increasing, not decreasing. Patents sure as hell did not build our civilisation based on Greek, Roman, Phoenician, Chinese (paper money), arab (numerals), indian (number 0), etc civilisations. The most important discoveries of this century are not patented (Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, etc). US citizens may be wealthier on average, but not if you get rid of the top 5% of this nation (who own 95% of the stock market for instance). Patents are ABSOLUTELY UNNECESSARY. I've worked for large corporations, and I know damn well that the main reason for failure is inability to sell, internal inefficiencies (like 95% of the company waiting on group X to do something when they could jump in and help), slow time to market, crap implementation, etc. So don't give me your nonsense and read up some REAL FACTS, not just what your economics prof is brainwashing you with.
Bull. It's a few people at the top making inane decisions, often completely misguided and the corporation only survives due to gov't handouts^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Pentagon grants, and people at the bottom who just are employed and want to get on with their lives. Come off it, the chances of firing Mr Normal when he makes a bad decision (or implements one from above) are way higher than the chances Mr High Executive gets fired: "Oh, X did badly... He obviously has incompetent people below him. Let's promote him so that he has a team that can perform his vision". Yah! We're all equal in happy corporations!
Sengan, the whole idea is to _become_ a member of that 2% that worries you so.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Quote from above: "...the wealthy 2 percent of people". You would not have phased your question in the third person if you were referring to yourself.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
On the subject of grammar, I agree and concede.
On the content, I contest.
Do you really trust yourself less than you trust the "other"? While I do not contend that I am perfect for the position of "owning the world", I would much prefer to have my own ass in that seat than some unknown, partially known, or completely undefined "other".
OTO point, sometimes it is good to have a small number of people or even one person in the seat(s) of power. Perhaps now is the time; perhaps it is not. There have been many discussions on forms of government, procedures, options, actions, and such. In any case, there is one straightforward method for both improving your own position and ensuring that the power does not become too concentrated. That is to participate. Read your news sources, vote, campaign, buy stock, sell stock, build your own corporation, live a life, teach your ideals to your kids and neighbors. Hold some of that power in your own hands and dole it out to those that you deem to be fit to wield it. Too many people refuse to exercise the authority that they have. Too many choose to sit around and complain.
Thanks for the post, there were some good threads generated and a refreshingly low AC noise level. Pounce on me here: memore0@yahoo.com if you want to continue this offline.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Even the pun! ;-) teachers.
Too often a jab like that produces no response or just more noise. I am pleased. Congratulations to you and your (history)
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
...and I can see that I am not the only one!
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
The only way to patent an algorithm in Sweden is to build a machine that does the stuff. As a not-so-bad bonus, you get a lot of cute chicks that actually have an IQ that is *not* below a wet brick.
War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
Whatever happened about not being able to patent an idea? That's all software is!
However, there's a loophole. Notice that in order for an algorithm to be patented, it must produce a "useful, concrete and tangible" result. Now, most algorithms produce useful results, and many produce concrete ones. But it is physically impossible for anything tangible to arise from a non-tangible object, including algorithms.
In other words, it looks as though the Supreme Court might just be sticking its foot in its mouth with this one. In effect it renders all software patents invalid because no algorithm can produce a tangible result (well, I suppose you could say printer drivers create tangible results, but that's it).
Eat that, Big Business.
After all, it's the last hope of preventing informational totalitarianism by Big Business (or big Brother).
I think I might go for trying to patent some critical element of a computer and/or software. Then I'd grant free licenses to everyone except Microsoft.
Come to think of it, IBM recently patented the wheel; maybe I'll go patent fire. Or the lever even.
This line made me think that people couldn't win that silly clock game on the "Price Is Right" or they'd have to pay a royalty like five boxes of Rice A Roni.
8O)
Incase you aren't aware of this, software patents are not used by small developers edging into the market. Their purpose is to forward the Microsofts and Apples of the world in squashing the Linuxes and FreeBSDs of the world.
Software patents are all bad, unconditionally. It's stupid to patent a book, a painting, and yes, an algorythm. Imagin paying royalties everytime you added numbers or thought of a squar root in your head.
Let's face it, this is a Microsoft win. The Supreme Court makes some good decisions (CDA) and some that make you question of Supreme Court members are really smarter than the average lab monkey.
No, it's not the court that decides if a law if fair, just interprets that law. And it's pretty damned obvious that patent law doesn't include algorithms, and algorthyms are damned well free speech.
It's a clear contradiction that something can be both patented and copyrighted. It's so obvious, that I'm prone to suspect bribes could have been involved, because generally that court doesn't rule wrongly on incontrovertible cases like this one.
Damn them all. Boycott all companies that ever patented software. That's inexcuseable. To hell with 'em. Maybe we should all move to Sweden, where IQ's are in the positive range on this matter.
Intellectual property is an oximoron. It's a contradiction of basic human rights. Saying one should be able to own a thought, something non-tangible, is a lie planted by a very few who wish to control society.
Intellectual Property... Absolute bullshit.
EXCUSE ME. Okay, our Supreme Court blunders.
I'd like to point out however, we have one of the FEW gov't's in the world that readily accepts freedom of speech, etc... So the SC rules on civil liberty down. How many do you have?
Furthermore, I'd like to point out that you'd be in a horse and carrage, using an out house, and not know about electricity without Americans. You'd be primitive enough not to know what computer algorithms are.
The topic says "Supreme Court Rules Algorithms Can Be Patented." That is not correct. The Supreme Court refused to even look at the case. This means that they have not issued any ruling on it, and means that they may still rule on it in the future.
Actually, things were better in the US until the lastest trade negotiation round where the US
caved in^H^H^H^H agreed to be more like the rest of the world and allow patents on math like the
rest of the world was already doing.
Maybe people should check the laws in their own countries before complaining about the US.
what it takes to get a patent nowdays. It involves multiple thosands of dollars just to submit it. Even worse if you create it and do not patent. Then some big company can patent it from under you and sue you for patent infringement.
For more information as to why the USPO needs to be fscked, see Phil Karn's page.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
Except for those of us who's IP is owned by the
companies we work for. The company I work for
Made me sign a statement that anything I come up with while I work for them belongs to them, if it is in an area that they are or plan to compete in.
Vermifax
Logout
But the copyright owners keep lobbying for longer copyright terms, and more rights to restrict the use of their works. I'm starting to doubt that Disney works like Fantasia and Snow White will EVER be allowed to lapse into the public domain; the lawyers will keep extending the term by 25 years here, 50 years there.
Imagine if all of the great works of literature from Roman times were still copyrighted by big corporations! That seems to be where we're headed, and I don't think it's a good idea.
Eric
I guess now the Patent Office will wind up researching which algorithms are and which aren't prior existing / public domain. I think this is gonna be a goatf**k.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
"It's in Art. 1 of the constitution, and only Congress can change it."
Demand a refund from your law school.
See Article 5 of the Constitution. Two thirds of the State Legislatures can force Congress to call a Convention for proposing Amendments and although Congress gets to chose which one of the two allowed Modes of Ratification is used, both are done by the States, and not Congress.(Caps in the style of the original)
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Without protection for intellectual property, where's the reward for our labor? At least patents don't last 75 - 100 years, like copyrights.
It's easy to complain about not being a part of the supposed 2% class, but few of us really take the risks and put in the time needed to get there.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
It don't the Swedish politicans are that smart, smart and high IQ in this matter is something you can't give them credit for.
The usall way do hadle this matter in Sweden is to create a new lay that are almost the same as the version in the US. With the arguments that US is a leding technology contry, everything they do MUST be right. I recomend that you leave for finland or south-africa instead. They still have a little more clear view in this matters.
We jst got a new nice law over here that sais if I use your name inb this post I have to get a written statement from you that it is ok and you don't mind me using your name in a database.
dude, can't you see that TheMan has bought your soul?
How does it feel to be a soulless human?
intellectual property is for pigs and sheep.
the sheep follow the pigs.
over the cliff.
to death.
D. Alan Hurst
The supreme court needs to have some sense slapped into them.
If you happen to already have enough wealth. If you happen to live in the first world. If you aren't part of the bottom 60% of the population of the world that can never really gain entry into that class.
Your answer is not unlike that of the Inquisitors who told the jews they were torturing that all they had to do was become baptized.
A ridiculous response.
I have becoming frustrated with plutocratic first-world geeks who have absolutely no clue nor care for the effects of their gimme-gimme attitude on the rest of the planet. Every so often, history convulses, and a good chunk of the 98% merrily starts shooting that 2% you envy and justify so gleefully. I think such a convulsion is impending. I can't say that I'll weep for those that are shot.
The truth is that he doesn't "trade-trade"; he accumulates property (such as money) on a "it's mine, I keep *or do what I want with it*" basis, yet if I buy software as it is currently sold, I don't have the same sort of rights.
One of the ironies of a laissez-faireist defense of IP is that IP violates most of the rules of property actually used to defend LF.
then, this'll be on the hof of most responded to articles...
-- adraken
This is a really bad thing methinks. Since my country is part of APEC, that means that these stupid decisions will probably apply to us too. And then we'll have all of the terrible scenarios that the League for Programming Freedom has on their website. Fact is, the power to make laws over the things we care about is in the hands of people who know absolutely nothing about what they're doing, and have no idea of the real consequences of their decisions. "The breaking apart is fundamentally the schizoid and schismatic mental fugue of lawyer-politicians attempting to administrate a worldwide technology whose mechanisms they lack the education to comprehend and whose gestalttrend (sic) they frustrate by breaking apart into obsolete Renaissance nation-states." -- Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, The Eye in the Pyramid
--
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
The court refused to review the case, which is not the same as ruling in favor of algorithm patents. As this stands, the decision changes nothing (except our hopes that an asinine law might be overturned). Also, I'm on my way out to patent "and". It will now be referred to as "AND(tm)". The AND(tm) function will be available for licensing along with the forthcoming OR(tm), XOR(tm), and NOT(tm) by the middle of next year...
Happy programming
0 1 - just my two bits
Not true.
(a) Patents are transferable, and
(b) The patent office do not have the technical knowledge to discover who "really" invented an idea. A glaring example: IBM have a patent on finite state automata. My bet is that a lot of modern mathematics and computer science ( including that which pre-dates the granting of the patent some time in the 90s by more than 50 years ) violates this patent
2.In the broader sense, patents encourage the free distribution of knowledge.
This is nonsense. Contrarily, frivilous patents serve little purpose but to make invention illegal. For example, if mathematicians did not use the "idea" of finite state automata in any of their proofs , a lot of modern mathematics simply wouldn't exist.
--Elflord
unfortunately, no. As you point out, it is possible that the patent is fairly specific. However, it seems somewhat plausible that those working in the patent office would be completely ignorant regarding mathematical ( and comp sci ) academic literature published in the second half of the 20th century.
I agree that patents on hardware aren't as obviously destructive as patents on algorithms. Most of my arguments about algorithms don't apply as obviously to other things ( the fact that patents on algorithms can act as obstructions to scientific reasoning don't seem as applicable to a patent on hardware processes. )
Well, you should be able to patent the drug itself. No one here wants to argue that. You have every right to do with it as you see fit, since it is your creation. Just like software licensing.
But you should _not_ be able to patent the processes that led you to making this product. For example, if you used an advanced filtering technique to purify one of your chemicals used in the drug, then you should not be able to patent that. Boy, that sounds like an algorithm.
Before you say "If I gave away the secrets to creating my drug then someone will recreate it". Well, if they used the same techniques to produce the same drug, then they wouldn't be able to do much with it. You've got the patent for the drug.
Thus you make your money and the algorithms are free. That way others can take the algorithms you used and create a different product.
Read the Constitution of the United States. Nowhere in it will you find that patents were meant to allow people to make money.
is -- yipee
Ah yes. Canada. That's that bit of natural resources were keeping in reserve to the North. Thanks for keeping it in order though.
-- This is not a signature.
Reminds me of the classic "Onion" article
I don't think software patents, "business model patents," or patents on mathematical algorithms will increase the pace of innovation. It doesn't take a lot of capital to make a new algorithm, and people don't do this sort of computer science because they plan to patent it. This sort of patent simply lines the pockets of companies that would have made the same "inventions" anyway.
I'm really afraid of what the effects of increasing use of software patents will be on the rate of progress. Programmers come up with new algorithms continually as they work, but now they are going to have to be constantly looking over their shoulders to see if they are infringing on anyone's patents. All the big companies will have cross-licensing agreements with each other, but small companies and individual developers will be left out in the cold. This isn't good for programmers, users, or the economy in the long run.
Free software is screwed the worst, since it has no revenues to cover patent licensing fees.
What makes it even worse is that the patent office has no hope of weeding out patents for ideas that have prior art or are obvious. (Any competent computer scientist can get a better job than patent clerk.) This is why we get patents on things like "Save As" and web spiders (i.e. depth-first search). Even if the patent is bad, there's no way that individuals and small companies can afford to defend themselves in court.
Whatever happened to the League for Programming Freedom (an anti-software-patent lobbying organization)?
If a thing is not diminished by being shared, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned & not shared. S. Augustine
The big software companies have too much influence on Congress for them to change the patent legislation on their own. My only hope is that other countries don't allow this sort of patent, and that competition from them will force the US to change its laws to match.
If a thing is not diminished by being shared, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned & not shared. S. Augustine
All the courts are supposed to do is interpret existing law. If they decide that existing law makes software patentable, then it is the court's duty to enforce it (even if it is bad for the economy, and for a host of other reasons).
On the other hand, my impression is that judges "legislating from the bench" are what got us into this mess. Patent legislation hasn't changed--the courts have only recently decided to "interpret" it to cover software etc. If they just went back to a strict interpretation we'd be fine, but it would be better if the law's wording were black and white on this issue.
If a thing is not diminished by being shared, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned & not shared. S. Augustine
IP rights are founded on the notion that competition feeds growth in sciences and arts. A fundamental value in our laws is that people are self-interested and not altruistic. No Supreme Court decision could change that. Organize and revise the constitution. It's in Art. 1 of the constitution, and only Congress can change it. One thing is for sure, no amount of complaining on slashdot will change anything. I don't like it either, but it is not an issue that directly effects my industry, I'm more concerned and am active in the criminal law area. The point is, it takes action; action takes organisation; organisation takes planning; planning takes initiative; initiative takes concern. All we have so far is concern. There is a long way to go.
you willing to do for me? Probably nothing. You'd probably get mad if I asked for compensation say if I spent one year of my life defending your rights in court. Lawyers have a bad rap, buy many will work day and night on a single case for years. Some lawyers care. You don't hear lawyers hating you? Y'all are a bunch of bitch ass player haters fashow...
Ya Canada is cool if you want a quiet boring life, with people that act kind of American and kind of British. Get an identity... What's your favorite TV show, don't watch TV. All your favorite musicians are canadian right?
I like Hip Hop (American), Jazz (American), and computers (American), light bulbs (American), peanut butter (American), etc. America has problems, but they are big baller problems, not little sucker problems. Oh my God, Quebec might separate. Who gives a shit. You know so much about America. I know more about Mexico (which is very cool). Canadians are more pompous than british if that is possible. I usually do not engage in stereotypes, I have cousins in Vancouver, but I'm tired of bitchy complainers from countries with no sun.
I'm in sunny California baby, surf's up dude, the killa kali breaze, etc...
Ya Canada is cool if you want a quiet boring life, with people that act kind of American and kind of British. Get an identity... What's your favorite TV show, don't watch TV. All your favorite musicians are canadian right?
I like Hip Hop (American), Jazz (American), and computers (American), light bulbs (American), peanut butter (American), etc. America has problems, but they are big baller problems, not little sucker problems. Oh my God, Quebec might separate. Who gives a shit. You know so much about America. I know more about Mexico (which is very cool). Canadians are more pompous than british if that is possible. I usually do not engage in stereotypes, I have cousins in Vancouver, but I'm tired of bitchy complainers from countries with no sun.
I'm in sunny California baby, surf's up dude, the killa kali breaze, etc... biiiiaaaaaayyaach
That was a pretty good try, but the tangible results outcome is not used by the court anymore, no matter what this article said. That requirement is not part of the statute, and the court dropped it because it was judge-made law. Now they effect the clear letter of the law "any process"... may be patented.
Highest % of the total population in prision.
Highest % of minorities in a prision population.
Highest % of juveniles in prision.
I love living in the land of the free.
You know, thanks to various substances being illegal, we probably have the highest % of criminals outside of prision too.
A certified hippy...
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Do you really think that the scientists actually have patents on the stuff they create? It's the companies which the scientists that own what's produced most of the time. The scientists dont get shit, and most of the time, they really dont care that much. Scientists are, for the most part, more concerned with research and development of concepts than trying to greedily milk every last penny out of an idea.
;)
It's the companies who will benefit, and thus, the stockholders, and thus, the economy. If it benefits the economy, then how can it be illegal? It's really sad the way the world goes today, disregarding all considerations in pursuit of the sacred cow of economic prosperity. Oh well, I'm sure there'll be some revolution before it gets that bad.. and you just wait, heads will roll
- Laxitive
Maybe you need to read the GPL. it sounds to me like you don't believe in it. If you don't, you are obviously a corporate pig and have nothing to gain, but plenty to hurt, by being on slashdot.
You say it is bad to be raped of your ideas. I agree completely. But patents are all about government protection for raping of ideas. In the course of developing a piece of software, I come up with an algorithm. If I didn't have to invent a new algorithm, then I could just buy another program that implements that. UNfortunately, any aspect of my program has the possibility of being owned by someone else, even though I created it. The patent owner got the patent office first. That doesn't mean they invented it, or they should have the right to rape everyone else in the entire world of this invention.
In short, go shoot yourself, you are a pimple on the otherwise freedom-fighting slashdot.
Hamsters are at least as feathery as penguins. HamLix
Sure, you may make intellectual property. More likely you steal it from employees or secretly from a gpl'd program.
But you certainly do not trade. You 'trade' ungodly amounts of money for the priviledge of letting them use a copy of the program on their hardware.
In short, you have gained money, but given away nothing. If you were really trading you would hand over all rights to the program instead of merely the right to use a copy. Obviously that would be idiotic, thousands of people could benefit from the one program, why make a new one each time? Well, if you aren't giving something you shouldn't expect money in return. Yes, i know there are costs involved in the box, manuals, and cd's, but that isn't near the price of software. So you would say, how about the price of developing the software? Well, since people can choose to ignore the laws, this kind of law isn't really enforceable when done privately in ones own home. Therefore, when you create intellectual property, it is owned by everyone, you only created it.
Hamsters are at least as feathery as penguins. HamLix
This is to announce that I've just patented the algorithm that describes the double helix layout of DNA. If all you people out there pay me the standard royalty fee of $100,000 a head, I won't have to take action. Otherwise, my associates will be over shortly to remove every strand of DNA from your body that infringes on MY patent.
Have a nice day...
Uh-huh, yep, that's right, America invented electricity.
Hello?
Okay, so maybe electricity was discovered by an American, but what was the nationality of the scientist who discovered how to produce electricity?
"Canadians are more pompous than british if that is possible..."
"I usually do not engage in stereotypes"
Well there's two for you and if you're prepared to dismiss two entire nations of people as being pompous in one sentence, then I think you might well be inclined to stereotyping.
Doubtless the suggestion that Brits are pompous is based on shitty American T.V. series/films with badly portrayed Brits in, or based on the fact that you're an American and you find that Brits slag you off on a regular basis. Hey, that ain't just Britain, mate, that's the rest of the world.
And why is it that most patents aren't owned by single persons, but large corporations?
What is a corporation? It's a collection of people working together in pursuit of common goals. If the group comes up with the new idea, the group gets the patent. What's wrong with that?
You're assuming that the entity that created the idea is the one who holds the patent; the original comment wasn't that large corporations are creating all of the ideas that are being patented, only that they hold the patents to those ideas.
Isn't this what everyone accuses Microsoft of doing -- buying up smaller companies that have products or technologies they can implement?
Jay (=
..cause my thesis research has potentially very, very interesting algorithm for investment people...
..of course University lawers can screw it up, I signed up something..
.. but I can do it like a year later.. so no prior art for them..
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
The essential thing of it is, you cannot own an idea, and merely defining laws which claim ownership don't change this fact. Look at software piracy for proof. In fact, asserting legal ownership over information merely provokes others to prove that they can access the information equally, patent notwithstanding. Witness software piracy, or DSS hacking. Let 'em keep adding weight to the whole IP system, it'll just collapse sooner.
Signed,
One with ordinary skill in the art.
> I don't think the American system is the
... I can afford my airplane here and I couldn't in Europe, because Europe erroneously thinks flying should be for the rich. OK, so I can't afford a car and a plane -- goodbye car. At least here I have the choice.
:-)
> perfect system (there could never be such a
> thing), but it is the best system
Don't get out much, do you? Out of the country, that is. The American system (USofA that is) is adequate for many things. It is not only not perfect, it is a far cry from the "best" system worldwide. Depending on your criteria a number of other places come to mind (Western Europe, Australia, Japan, etc., depending on your personal criteria).
Pros of America:
1) Things are cheap and plentiful
2) Laws are kind to private pilots
3) Economy is booming -- I can make lots of money as a technically proficient individual, despite my poor spelling abilities. This may change, but right now it rocks to live here financially.
4) More individual freedom -- if being allowed to own and carry a gun is an important criterion (depends on the state -- for me this is a non-issue, but for others a virtual religion)
5) Less history -- less of a morass for us to fall into a la' Bosnia and Kosovo. Of course, if we don't put an end to racial hatred this will eventually change.
6) Peope are good -- for the most part.
Pros of living elsewhere
1) More individual freedom (if not being arrested for drinking beer in a park or smoking marijuana in a coffee shop, and not being put in prison for engaging in unusual but consentual sexual activities is important to you)
2) More ready access to "high" culture -- in the form of pervasive architecture (not too many strip malls in Europe for example), widespread theater and arts (these exist in America of course, but are restricted to a far smaller percentage of the polulation than in many other places), and so on.
3) Better food and better beer/wine (again, on average -- the elite in America can get the good stuff too, but elsewhere a DM 5,- of wine is as tasty as a $30.00 bottle in the states)
4) Longer history -- providing an ambience which is hard to describe to those who haven't experienced it. Of course, as noted before this can have a down side (a la' Isreal/Palistine, India/Pakistan, Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Bosnia, etc.)
5) Better mass transit -- cars tend to cost more, but the average person has more mobility for less money in many other places than the States.
6) Better encryption laws -- most places don't persue foolish policies of trying to legislate activities outside of their own boarders. Ditto for patent laws, despite Waasenaar's efforts to the contrary.
7) Lack of Superpower Status -- sometimes it is so nice to reside in a place that isn't perpetually belligerant.
8) People are good -- for the most part.
Cons to living anywhere on Earth:
1) A small minority of loud-mouthed idiots wax selfrighteous about how their country/society/way of doing things is inherently superior to that of the rest of the planet.
2) The population is raging out of control and we're all gonna die anyway.
Seriously, though, it behooves you to get out more and investigate the alternatives, rather than simply spewing the propogandistic dogma we've had drilled into us since childhood. You'll be very pleasantly surprised at what you find out there.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
If you incorporate, where is the income going to come from? You said "Buy stocks", but the tax rates on investment corporations (forget the actual term) are quite high (a result of millionaires incorporating their portfolios back in the 80s). So, you can work for yourself. Personal service corporations have higher taxes as well. So, you go sub-S, and pay taxes just the same as if you earned it.
BD - who owns a corp (it's no solution, but it's nice to work "for yourself")
The House was always directly elected. And the president is elected by the Electoral College (where I got my BA, no, not really)
Well, I read your post carefully. It's rather obvious that you can't have total personal freedom when that freedom impinges on someone else's freedom. I think it's totally irrelevant in an argument about victimless crimes (a crime which the other poster pointed out was created to protect the interests of the wealthy).
end of rant..
Not too remote. It's expensive running that fiber cable underwater ;-)
(love your nick) but I have to disagree. Process ARE patentable. It was the old thought that algorithms (like quicksort) and theorems were NOT patentable. But, by embodying them in a system, some applications of algorithms were patented. And it's been all down-hill on the slippery slope since then.
It would have been nice to have the Supreme Court rule on this one way or the other. But there's still hope they may do that some day (maybe in a more clear-cut case).
No, they havn't ruled on it yet.. but I hope they do someday and that they squash/fix it.
This reminds me of The Tetris Company and how utterly disgusting they are. Their web page (www.tetris.com) is full of nonsense like, "Tetris stands as one of [our] most valuable properties to date." The company doesn't actually do anything but sit on this patent. The company that obtains licensing for tetris is called BPS, but what little software they actually produce is utter crap. ("pipe dream" etc..)
Looking at the list of games that had to get licensing from them... is horrible, most of them are not even related to tetris in the least, but they have to do with blocks falling from the sky (patent _GRAVITY???_) and so they had to get a license.
Actually, most Canadians are nowhere near as pompous as Britains :)
I like life in Canada. Sometimes it's quiet, true but it's never boring. I would prefer quiet too, we don't need all that gun-blazing-craze thank you very much.
The Quebec seperation is a big deal. An entire province of people leaving the country is not some small problem. They're unique, culturally rich and I personally would like to have them recognized and kept that way.
We Canadians like rock (If you ever listened to the Tragically Hip, you'd see that our music kicks ass), classic, jazz, you name it. Not to mention the dozens, maybe hundreds of different music types that immigrants have brought with them. Of all Canadian musicians, the only ones I can't stand are Celine Dion, Shania Twain and a fat cow called Rita McNeil...
Our stereotype is that we're bitchy complainers with no sun? Ummmm, no. The stereotype is that we're all beer guzzling hockey players. If you're going to engage in stereotypes, at least do it right.
Actually, with all the snow on the ground we get quite a lot of sun/light reflecting up that it's hard to see sometimes.
Now, I don't think America is the shits but I think there's a large vocal part of the population that is incredibly closed to new ideas and find it easier to let TV/politicans/media think for them. You'd be surprised how many Americans we met down in the states thought that as soon as you go past Detroit, you'll need a dog sled team.
Oh, BTW, we have Snowboarding, skiing, ice skating and snowmobiles to satisfy those speed/surfing cravings. Suck it down.
There's a place for that. It's called Toronto :)
:)
Yup, our taxes are the worst. Ridiculous taxes, like 15% sales tax in some provinces, tax on CDs, tax on this, tax on that... Time to kick some legislative arse IMHO.
If you haven't heard of the Hip, you Americans should come up here more often
I don't drink beer (much or at all). I do enjoy a recreational game of hockey, and I'm a big alternative fan. I also hate Microshaft and prefer Linux...
Cultural diversity is (supposed to be) one of Canada's better points. Sometimes people lose sight of that though... Then you have to smack them up the head. Well said.
If I were to find a cure for cancer, I would patent it and then refuse to use it to make the cure to help people. And if someone tried to copy my cure I would sue them out of existance. That would serve as an example and get the courts to seriously look at their ``intellectual property'' laws and see what happens when they are abused. They would be forced to choose between re-evaluating I.P. or letting cancer patients die for the sake of I.P. hoarders.
Although I am not a fan of I.P. or patents, I am at the same time a believer in social darwinism. There is a reason that the strong get stronger and the rich get richer. It has nothing to do with evil corporations, but has more to do with people's attitudes. There are some people that seem to have been ``born'' winners, and others who seem to have been born losers. You can tell them apart by their attitudes.
Most winners are winners because they are optimistic, proactive, take-charge kinds of people. They have this attitude in whatever they do, and not surprisingly they usually succeed. Most losers on the other hand are losers because they are pessimistic, reactive, and think the world is out to get them. This attitued gets them nothing but failure, which of course they blame on bad luck.
Unfortunately, it seems like 5% of the world are ``born winners'', maybe 50% are born losers, and the rest are somewhere in between.
I'm no doctor, but my theory is it has alot to do with people's upbringing. Were they made to be responsible as a child? Were they encouraged to start things? Or were they told to blame their problems on others and told their highest aspirations would be to ``survive''.
Every time I hear the words ``those greedy 2%'' or ``those rich bastards'' I wonder how many slashdot readers fall into the ``born loser'' category.
Yes, AZT is a good example.. It's sad but true.
Yes, and Japan had the highest savings, look at them now. The US dollar is also stronger and more stable. The median income in the US is still alot higher.
Secondly, Europe is not completely socialist. Those countries with the strongest socialist policies also tend to have inferior economies. Take France for example.
> THE SUPREME COURT SHOULD BE OPEN SOURCE!!!
Absolutely cracked me up.
Plus he's right. (Assuming they didn't hear it. I didn't actually read the article.)
Frank
Good call. Nationalism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Anyways, being american is cool (the idiots sometimes make me want to slap my forehead) but I still can't understand bashing on people based on the random geographical region that they were born in. No sense it makes.
NK
"However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation."
The fact that patents have a limited time span doesn't mean shit when an algorthym is outdated 2 years after it's made
YOUR OS SUCK!!
SUCK..SUCK...
The world would not be good if someone patented the binary search algorithm or one of the other heavily used ones.
We are where we are now because algorithms are open.
HOORAY!
http://www.yellow5.com/pokey
æeee!
Hell.... I'll patent E=mc^2 and then nobody can exist without my consent...
~~Kev
We're currently in a patent lawsuit with another company. We have eight employees. Our whole business is with a software program that has a pantented algorithm. (A program I should continue porting instead of reading /.)
Papa
Just another lost for the people, and a win for the big corps. Hopefully people will fight this, and there will be some chance that it will be changed/overturned.
Force Recon Half-Life TC: Check it out
mcox.com - Useful Information re: IT, Running, Fitness, Finance, or Ann Arbor!
I am afraid you missed the whole point. The 2% that owns the IP is not the people creating the IP.
Heck, they probably don't even "own" the creator of the IP. They just bought the idea (or patent) for a symbolic sum of $.
The creators "owner" (the company or institution employing) gets little and the creator probably nothing.
Thus, patents do in no way promote creating new and better ideas.
Sorry dude,
The highest standard of living is in Canada. The US comes a fair bit down on the list...
I am proud to be part of the best country, even though it is not perfect either.
It is not just you :-)
They refused to hear the case, that's all. It lets the lower court ruling stand in this case, but doesn't give it any additional approval. In particular, it creates no precedence outside of the circuit it was from.
The SC, with few exceptions, chooses its own cases, based on importance, disagreements between lower court rulings, and their caseload. Declining to hear a case doesn't even necessarily mean they agree with the ruling.
Okay, so my post couldn't be used verbatim in a law. Go with the spirit of it and give them equal voting rights to decide licensing etc., and an equal share of the profits.
As far as selling things, they can sell the right to use it, but they shouldn't be allowed to sell the right to deny its use to others. It's even sketchy to allow the originating person to keep others away from using it, but it would take a lot bigger change to fix that. We could avoid most trouble by not allowing exclusive licenses, or at least restricting them like monopolies.
p.s. all you ACs out there do like I just did and sign up for a name. Rob and company are honest--they won't sell your e-mail or otherwise exploit you.
Suppose intellectual property laws were abolished
tomorrow. According to your reasoning Intel
would stop innovating and go on selling
the same old PII's forever.
Of course, if they did that, AMD & Cyrix would
eat them for breakfast.
Software patents are just plain wrong!
- -- - --
:P
It is unethical.
Patenting software algorithms is exactly the same as patenting a truth.
e=mc^2 (actually it is e=m(naught)c^2)
1+1=2
Bubblesort:
-----------------------------------------------
Description of the Bubble sort procedure that will
lead to a sorted list for example
-----------------------------------------------
All describe truths.
Imagine someone owning a patent to 1 + 1 = 2, or the e=mc^2 formula, or maybe to the fundamental theorem of calculus, or the bubble sort algorithm,
and anyone using those "truths" would potentially owe royalties to the patent holders...
Just because you discover a fact of life or a truism of the universe before I do, does not give you the right to keep me from also discovering and using that truth.
For a real example: I resent the fact that RSA Data Security has a so called "patent" on the RSAREF algorithm library that is used in the PGP encryption software.
In fact I do NOT use the USA version of PGP (that is forced to use RSAREF) but instead the international version that contains a much better reimplementation of rsaref, and using the other library means I am breaking the law... because it does not have a license to use the 'RSAREF' algorithm... even though it is a total reimplementation, using NO original code from RSAREF!
HEH, but RSA can BITE ME!
I want to use the best product, and the international verion of PGP uses the *better* implementation of rsaref... w/o RSA's permission to do so... and I use it too... w/o their permission... because it is better and it benefits the consumers when a better product appears and can compete with the other offereings on the "market".
PGPi is better than PGPus and therefore I use it.
I'm very very sorry Misters Rivist, Shamir, and Adelman!
Software patents are wrong! and hurt the economy, and the consumers.
Boy, I bet RSA wishes it was the first to have discovered sunlight... I bet they would have tried to patent that too.
I wonder if any men in black coats will be knocking on my door anytime soon now???
Or maybe RSA would like me to pay them backpay for the royalties? Sorry buddies.
An algorithm is a truth, a truism. It is something, that with enough thought, anyone can derive and discover, and therefore should not be restricted with a patent.
R. Brock Lynn
--------------------- PGP key ID: FED76A3D 4 / 5 / 1999 __ _ Debian GNU R. Brock Lynn /
I'm an artist, and it's my experience that copywrite is something that big businesses use to restrict one's ability to produce new work.
example--an artist tried to purchase ad space for a mural at Penn Station, NY. The mural featured a Coors beercan streaking towards a village in Central America, with the text "Coor's Light--Is it the Right's Beer Now?" Amtrak denied the artist the adspace, claiming that the work was political. But also, Coors threatened with a suit, claiming that the beercan was a trademark of the brewery.
(example culled from "Commodify Your Dissent," a collection of essays from "The Baffler," a magazine.)
Even though this should fall under the heading of fair use (it's equivalent to quoting a source in an academic paper), what is important is that the artist was in no position fianancially to argue his case before a court. Unless he could find a good IP lawyer with a lot of free time willing to work pro-bono, he was SOL.
If individuals want to be able to control the content of their enviroment through more than choosing between Coke or Pepsi, big company A or big company B, then all monopolistic publishing/manufacturing rights should be abolished. There are other ways for companies to make money besides selling a product. (like creating a product, or even supporting a product would be nice...)
The biggest problem with these systems is that they force all competitors to work with the same flawed system. Many companies copywrite/patent simply to avoid having their research stolen by a rival who beat them to the copywrite/patent. They aren't worried about their competitors imitating them--they're worried about the monopolies of copywrite/trademark/patent being used as a hammer to cudgel them out of the market. They seeking protection from the system itself. And the situation now is, the companies large enough to afford to protect themselves and take advantage of others are the ones benefiting.
let's not hear anymore odes to the lonesome programmer/writer/business, desperate in his/her need for legal protection. Copywrite protects publishers, not authors. Patent protects manufacturers, not inventors.
1 + 4 + 2^5 * X
and
1 + 6 * X + Z
Just thought everyone would like to know.
This ruling is uterly rediculous. I'd imagine several old computer pulblications now hold copyright to most of the mathematical algorithms used in computing.
Give us maybe another 5 years.
Why don't all geeks unite,go/buy a remote island,
:)) :))
declare independance,and make their own laws?(eg.
free bandwidth/cryptography/whatever for all?)
PS:We can use gimp to create our new flag
PS2:Now that I reread it,it sounds so absurd,that
I think it is atainable
The problem with this idea is that any software product that is in question must release its source to the gov't to be checked by them. Not many companies will be willing to do so...
I wrote a toy distributed web server two years ago while working for a -hardware- company that shall remain nameless. Reading the IP agreement I signed, I thought "They can't possibly claim this"... so I asked my boss to see if he could get me a letter disclaiming any interest in it.
Three weeks later my boss' boss called me in his office, his face just red with rage. Apparently legal was going to get our VP to take time out and evaluate my program for any possible value to the company. It pissed off the entire management chain... and legal settled on just sending copies of the application out to every single department in the company, asking if anyone wanted it. I never got my letter. They figured out they couldn't claim it and had absolutely no interest in an employee's peace of mind.
Really goddamn fair if you ask me. I'm -very- wary of any IP agreement these days... and I am doing IC work because of that. I'll give up rights in stuff I work on if I have to... but if there's any text about "concepts or ideas you have while working on the project" the IP agreement is returned. Sometimes they change it, most times I just have to walk away.
I like the basic rules of work-for-hire in IP law... Most IP agreements I've seen are just about opening up alternative revenue streams.
Darron
WHAT??
Last time I checked, the only reason EU is thinking of changing the relevant directives to allow software patents was pressure from the US. At the moment, it is impossible to get a patent on an algorithm in Finland (a solid fact) and AFAIK in the rest of EU as well (I have not studied EU patent law but I am under the impression that EPO does not grant software patents).
Frankly.
This is just more evidence of the fact that lawyers are who are corrupting and desecrating the constitution and therefore, the entire functional fabric of this country.
You think more people would know by now that the old addage of "Money talks and bulls#$% walks" holds very true. If you ain't got it, take a walk!
Geese, how do you think OJ got off???!!!!
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.