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E-The-People petition against overly-broad patents
Peter Leonard writes "
EThePeople.com has
put up
an electronic petition for all of you to sign opposing all
the lame patents the USPTO has given out recently such as
MS getting a patent on CSS."
This is perfectly relevant in an open source /.
venue like
Patents as they are structured today are
a major problem world wide, with everything
from bio to software to computer bus patents
being abused. I'd suggest you read up on the
subject before making gratuitous coments like
this in future.
Yeah, but what if you invented that twisted door hinge and wanted credit for it? What you would do is patent it. If you wanted to make money off of your idea, then you'd be able to sell it and no one would be able to copy you and make money for your idea. And if you wanted everyone to be able to make one for themselves and manipulate them as they wished, then you would simply say so and you still would get credit for your idea and everyone could use your idea. So, we should just be gratefull that Microsoft isn't charging us. And if you are so unhappy about this, then make your own version of what they have done, but in a different way so that it does not infringe on the patent (keep in mind that I am agains the broad patent thing, but there is always a way around a patent no matter how broad).
Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's sensible. The USPO is demonstrating a level irresponsibility that's mind boggling when you consider how many people are affected.
It's time that anonymous USPO employees were stopped from making bizarre decisions costing we the people millions of dollars.
I want to apply for a patent on selling anything
as a downloadable file. I thought of it long before
anyone started doing it....
I'll license it to the people who want 1% off
of d/l able music for 99% of their profits, or
50% if they'll use half their share to fight the
big record companies who are trying to kill mp3s.
Whaddya think?
If it wasn't Microsoft Corp. getting the patent, you kids wouldn't be complaining. Get over it.
Prosecute Microsoft To The Gills
anyone notice the "leave microsoft alone" petition?
Rather than petitioning against patents that are "too broad", which is amazingly vague, why not establish a peer-review system, where pending patents are posted online and commented on? I think the main item that rankles me about SightSound's submarine patent is just that -- SightSound did practically nothing to foster the creation of a music distribution system, but rather sat back and waited until someone else put it together -- out of standard components, yet. Publicizing new patents and patent filings would stimulate their development rather than let them languish and submerge.
One step at a time...
Actually programs such as PageMaker and QuarkXpress have been using style sheets for quite some time. I believe even before the filing date of July 17, 1995.
This orgaization is just crappy self-promotion by a gaggle of open-source parvenues. You know the type: they don't really know anything substantive about the issues and especially not the technology, but simply try to ride others' ideas and hard work out of vanity. A kind of P.R. gimmick clothed by the mantle of fad-driven moral outrage. Pay no attention to them.
I have to add in my $.02 to say that patents are not all bad. Certainly they have the effect of granting a limited monopoly and usually only a large company has the resources to defend a patent. On the flip side, patents only grant exclusive rights for a few years (given the accelerating rate of technology I think 17-20 years is too long). The patent system is structured so that inventors (individual or corporate) are given an incentive to disclose their invention to the public.
If inventors were not given exclusive license to profit from their inventions, profit minded inventors would keep their inventions secret and the public might potentially never benefit from their patents. The inventor could go out of business or die and their invention may be lost forever to the public.
Where the US patent office fails is in its application of the concepts of 'novel' and 'unobvious' these concepts are subject to
abuse by patent filers. At the patent office these concepts are applied by people to whom basic software techniqes are unobvious.
I am going stop now before this turns into a disseration of Katzish proportions.
by doing this they're just denying the core issue, the problem isn't patents that are too broad - it is the entire concept of intellectual property all together. how about a petition against all intellectual property!! (psst copyrights included)
I hope that your post was in saracasm - as we all know that ANY single vendor who controls a standard will suck folks in, and then charge. It's in their nature. The only 'standards' that matter are those blessed by Standards organizations - yes these take time, but that is in part to assure that the proposed standard makes sense to all. The Microsoft Patent Issue actually goes even further to demonstrate that they are double-dealing weasels, who cannot be trusted - ever. They are more than happy to work on a 'standard' if they have a shot at bleeding everyone dry later on down the road.
Yes, this is a perfectly legal patent. And even though many of us (including me) don't like Microsoft all that much, we should be happy that they are allowing all of us to use this technology freely. If they start charging for it, that is a different issue.
Have a petition which calls on Congress to make
Microsoft an illegal organisation, or something.
What the hell is going in the US ! you can patent everything now !
I have a patent to browse the Web, everytime time you view a page you owe me a fee !
Yes and while I am at it, I intend to to get a patent for breathing fresh air, another one for leaving under the sun, and even one for f***ing, since no one though of these before.
This is getting really awfully stupid !
If you'd read this forum for more than a week you'd know that it being MS is almost irrelevant.
You're either a child who doesn't have a life and thinks it's actually entertaining to bait others. I'd suggest you get a life.
Or you're an MS employee trying to pollute open discussion. Life is short; why don't you get a job you can be proud of?
Gee, does anyone think that these "e the people" folk may have tried to obtain a patent for "e-petitions"?
I bet Sen. Hatch and quite a few other people like Nader would very interested in this subject. Does anyone know if anyone has started writting letters and sending email to them informing them just what is going on?
How long has that Leave MS Alone petition been up? A day? 11 votes? Wait until normal business hours when the suits arrive at Redmond. There will be some activity... The brains of the monster is sleeping. Be very, very quiet...
Mr. Anonymous, for whatever reason wrote:
>Yeah, but what if you invented that twisted door
>hinge and wanted credit for it?
That's the point. Who makes money off these patents? The individual, or the inventor? I have assisted with a patent search for a sugar substitute for an individual. It was 2000 times sweet compared to sugar gram per gram. Patent granted. Sold to a big corporation that could bring it into market? No way.
However, that patent it did good on her resume and got a job at a big drug company. Guess who has the patent now and no, that invention never made it to market. Granted, it would have cost much in FDA approval, but it is NOT in public domain.
>So, we should just be gratefull that Microsoft isn't charging us.
And the non Jewish residents of Germany should have been grateful that they were not Jews.
Thanks for the comment. Since I was the one who started the petition, let me state (for your edification, if not your education) that 1) I most certainly understand the issue, and especially the technology, 2) I have nothing to do with "E-the People" -- they simply run a site that met my needs, 3) my outrage is hardly "fad-driven" -- I assure you, it's genuine, and is driven not by a desire to "ride others' hard work" (I work quite hard myself, thank you) but to guarantee that hard work is not circumvented by silly legal tricks and tactics, 4) if you're going to try to dissuade folks from expressing their opinion, perhaps a solid argument on the issue would be more appropriate.
Kythe
(Remove "x"'s from
Kythe
Well duh! I'm in the UK and can file US Patents, and Patents in half the countries across the world.
;-/
This vote should be open to non-US citizens. Stupid bloody form insists on a ZIP code... and UK post codes don't quite fit...
PS: You should check out Sun's Java(TM) Patents...
Petitions to US government representatives only have force proportional to the number of US citizens signing the petition.
Good point. Actually, most of the points in this thread are good ones. Yes, the policies of the US patent office have a direct impact on companies and users in the rest of the world. Yes, we Canadians in particular do a lot of business with the US, and so are especially affected.
But yes, US politicians can more easily ignore petitions with a bunch of "foreigner's" names on them.
The was also a "prosecute Microsoft to the gills" petition. It was started after the "leave Microsoft alone" one, and has more signatures.
SteveM
Perhaps. But the people accessing the site can make their own petitions also, so it isn't that bad. Very few of the petitions have more than 20 signatures (except of course the ones that get posted on slashdot) -- it hasn't been a very effective forum so far, but it could be...
Yeah, but you don't have to be from the U.S. to file for a patent at the U.S. patent office. It is often advantageous for Canadians to do so because that way they gain access to a monopoly in a bigger market. The USPTO's policy will stifle innovation in many places, not merely the states.
Of course, the fact that the "Leave M$ alone" petition only had 10 signers is probably a good sign...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Hmmm...What do you think 1% of MS's gross
receipts is?
;)
"It sure was strange to see something on Usenet about me that didn't involve Klingon gang rape." -- Wil Wheaton
Looking back at my comments I suppose they could be considered a bit "biased and unfair" as you put it.
However, the thread of discussion to which I was posting to was revolving around Microsoft (Note that I spelled just the way you *like* it!)
I do however, think that the government should regulate what is being patented and not granting any 'ol ya-hoo ( I hope Yahoo! doesn't have a patent on that word) a patent who applies for the patent.
There has to be a way to discourage such behavior. One way to do it is to impose somewhat of a high penalty for such inappropriate practices.
This is analogous to the punishment criminals face when they commit a crime. You steal a car you face x number of years in prison. You steal a car by forcing the driver out at gun point (ie. commit a car-jacking) you face y (where y > x) number of years in jail. And so on and so forth...
If you didn't have this type of system in place and a government which inforced the system you'd have chaos. Since there would be no repercussions to face up to. Say, I see you driving a nice lexus and I like the colour of it... hell I'll drag you out of it and drive off ... of course I'll only possess the lexus until a bigger and badder guy pulls me over and takes off with it.
Are you getting the picture I am trying to paint for you?
There has to be measures taken to prevent such behavior in the real world... and hence, there should be such measures in place in the US Patent Office.
sidster--
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I wonder if this post and this other one are the type of posts we've been reading about on /. lately.
You know, Micro$oft employees getting on the web and posting annonymously defending their anti-everything and everyone company!
I think the US government should review all the patents granted to Micro$oft and for every patent that they find which is either too broad in scope or is a "twist" on a public-domain idea they should fine Micro$oft say $5,000,000? (USD)
sidster--
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Vlad
I noticed that the pulldown menu for states has no Canadian provinces.