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More Stupid Patent Tricks
CyberLeader writes "Apparently CDNow has patented the ability to create a custom CD over the Web." Insert appropriate sarcastic comment here. And I've actually patented respiration, so if everyone could send me a small royalty fee whenever they breathe, that'd be great.
Makin' a buck, nothing wrong with that.
OK OK OK, Thats it I give up.
I'm going to patent "A method of patenting something completely obvious in an attempt to gain a monopoly on a nich Internet market"
Yeah, thats the ticket!
Fish! LipHo
Does anyone else think that it would be better either to make a patent section on Slashdot, or start a seperate protest website for this stuff?
It seems like the same stuff gets rehashed on a daily basis with this patent stuff, along with 'i've patented pooping, everyone has to let me watch them poop' posts.
Cuz it's hard to write out a check and mail it otherwise. I'd be much obliged.
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Infuriate left and right
I really think it is time for our government to take a look at patent law. It is time that these obviously outdated laws be revised. I think this type of patent could be easily contested, as it is far to broad in scope. Any dolt with a little perl and db knowledge and a CD burner could create something like this. Doesn't really sound like all that much of an accomplishment. Argh. It hurts just to think about these stupid patents.
Apparently CDNow believes that it is impossible for them to make money by delivering goods and services without a legally-backed monopoly on their business model.
The patent system is being used to call "dibs" on specific markets.
Eventually, there will have to be a test case, I imagine. Is there any precedent cases for patents on business models?
This ranks up there with the guy who tried to patent html forms.
tokengeekgrrl
The pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time, to him
Is aristocracy.
I think I am going to patent the process of applying the Internet to existing business models in order to create new patents.
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The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
har har! Slashdot(R) is mine. Pay up, you thieves!
I dont consider this nwsworthy anymore. We get "they patented this and that" postings nearly daily now. How about if you all brighten up a bit and start posting again, when a company actually got sued about patenting something and the verdict is out? For now this is just getting boring.
Ok, so did they patent a method to download a custom iso or is it you configure a cd and they send you a burn? If a competitor were to offer custom cds on the net, could they state that 'we are making the cds differently and thus are not infringing on your patent' or is it that regardless of the technology or technique used, no one other than CDnow can make custom cds over the web.
So does this patent apply in the UK too? Has all our work and investment been totally wasted?
http://www.patents.ibm.com/detai ls?pn=US05930768__
Do you sell customised CDs over the web?
Is this a "stupid patent"(tm) because it's blatantly not a patentable concept, or because it's a patent, and more to do with political/moral beliefs?
I think it's a pretty valid one. Being able to create a customised CD over the web, whilst not being a hugely unique idea (in that no-one else could possibly think of it), sounds reasonably patentable to me.
I'd like to think I'm missing something completely obvious, but it seems more and more of these patent stories are "Boo! Hiss! They patented something!" Whilst, admittedly, some of the patents are stupid - "a one click system"? - this one seems reasonable to me. Have you actually used CDnows system?
Comparing it to "patenting respiration" does you no credit.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
The Patent Office should lose some of their staff, then it can go into Safe Mode like the Hubble telescope. This way it can't patent any more crap for people. Also let's get rid of the patent lawyers since the Patent Office doesn't load em in Safe Mode.
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http://savethelaptop.zzweb.com/: Tips and help for laptop theft
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
You elected into the legislature a bunch of lawyers whose campaigns were financed by large contributions from large businesses. Now you complain about the resulting laws that enrich lawyers and big business!
Cause and effect.
If you post it, they will read.
Could you slashdot guys please make a panel about this topic?
Ask the team of legal experts that are to write about the Microsoft trial if they'd be willing to answer questions about patent follies, too.
Anyway, are there any initiatives in the US to make this patent game a thing of the past? Is there anyone who still thinks that these patents have any use whatsoever?
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You may like my a cappella music
I am going to patent patents!!!
Ill be richer than cmdrtaco i tell you!
while im at it, since microsoft has patented ones and zeros, ill patent the numbers 2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256...
holy cow! what a wonderful world!
icq:=22921393;
CDNOW's US patent No. 5,930,768, "Method and System for Remote User Controlled Manufacturing," covers the process of using the Internet to remotely select songs from a database, burn them to a compact disc or other playback media, and ship them to the customer.
I wonder if they'll end up doing what the GIF people did. Probably not, but I'd just be disgusted if it happened.
-PovRayMan
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Check out my blackbox styles
i have patented a numeric error code system used to give a visual site status across a node of more then one computer. so when going to their website and you see error 404, they owe me :)
If this stupid trend had started 20 years ago, Microsoft would have tried to patent the idea of the operating system.
*******
"What good is science if no one gets hurt?!" - Professor Chromedome
The only way to find anything distressful about CDNow's patent is by misunderstanding patent law. CDNow doesn't have a patent on "any" method of creating CD's over the internet, only on "its [particular] process of creating custom CDs on the World Wide Web." [quote from linked article]That's the nature of how patents work.
I assume that creating a usable process by which custom CD's can be created over the Web is a fairly difficult accomplishment. CDNow, assuming their process satisfies the requirements (among which I believe is a requirement that it not be trivial), is certainly deserving of a patent. But everyone should note that THIS DOESN'T MEAN THAT NOBODY ELSE CAN CREATE CUSTOM CD'S OVER THE WEB WITHOUT INFRINGING CDNOW'S PATENT. All it means is that nobody can use the process that CDNow has developed. There are sure to be lots of different ways to create custom CD's, aren't there?
(I am a laywer, albeit not one well-versed in patent law. It doesn't take much knowledge of the law, though, to realize that if people are getting upset just because CDNow got a patent on creating custom CD's over the web, then they likely don't understand even the basics of how patent law works.)
The patent for making a customized audio CDs was held by Ergon Technology Associates (U.S. Patent No. 5,592,511) and was issued in January of 1997. In late 1997, this patent was licensed by superSonicBoom, a small start-up in the Washington, DC, area that sold custom CDs over the Net. They were acquired by CDNow in mid 1998, along with the patent license.
I have to wonder how useful creating custom CD's really is. It would seem to me that the manufacturing/shipping cost is going to be many times the manufacturing cost of a regular CD and thus the price higher. Since CDNOW has to pay the royalties as well, and just keeping track of those for each CD would increase overhead as well, it seems to me that custom CD's would be substantially more expensive then just buying the CD. Now while it would be nice to be able to pick and choose which songs you want the gain in being able to buy just the custom CD wouldn't offset the increased cost, IMHO. Plus by the time the CD gets to you, you could have downloaded all the MPs anyway. More interesting, and feasable, is the patent for providing custom CDs at record stores as it would tap a market without access to MPs...ect.
It even covers books and paper.
This could be waved as a very big stick
Prior art? you betcha .... how about the batch queue for your local printer for a start :-)
These patent related threads all have a few things in common. A quick summary:
- The patent system (as opposed to the copyright system) concentrates more on purpose, than implementation. If you own a patent, you still control the invention, even if someone writes a "clean room" implementation.
- U.S. courts have more-or-less determined that you can't do much of anything patent-related without an attorney that specializes in patent law. Judges believe that Joe Average can't possibly understand it well enough on his own.
- Patent portfolios are an important part of big business. If you don't patent something remotely related to what you are doing, you risk having someone else grab it.
- Patent requests are not investigated in enough detail before being granted. As shown on Slashdot, many patents are granted for things that are quite obvious, or things that are supposed to be unpatentable (e.g. mathematical algorithms).
- Patent expirations last far too long for the computer industry.
So with that little summary in mind, I can see a few ways to improve the system.
Make patents easily searchable, even by a non-lawyer (reduce redundancy). Make them much more difficult to obtain, not by money, but by scrutiny (emphasize REAL inventions). Give an equal opportunity to the basement inventor and the corporation. It should not require an armload of cash and lawyers to obtain one, if your invention is sound.
If these steps could be taken in good faith, I think the patent system could live up to its original intent, and benefit inventors without harming the public.
Best regards,
SEAL
Let's see...what will they try to do next?
Maybe they'll patent the CD creation process and require everyone who makes a CD to pay them a fine. Or how about patenting do it yourself mixes? Or, maybe, they could patent how you have sex. Or how about patenting the acronym CD? (after all, it IS in their websites name).
Erm, disregard the one about sex. No idea how that got there.
My plan is to pimp before they realize I'm a jackass. Hit 'em hard and fast.
That's it. I'm gonna patent all of the tags.
I am definitely not a lawyer. Can someone help me understand how a patent like this gets granted? I always thought there were people hired by the patent office to examine each document and search for things like prior art, obviousness, stupidity, etc. Lately, it seems like there's a big NT server that just adds APPROVED to the beginning of application bigger than 100 words. Someone should patent that server and rake in the royalties.
So, how many of you actually looked at the patent before denouncing it and making lame "I patented this" jokes?
See the actual patent for details, and note that it was filed over 3.5 years ago...
This also apparently deals with controlling the manufacturing itself instead of, say, faxing a list of songs you want in what order and having some poor schmo burn it for you. The packaging is included within the process -- it looks like it's meant to be completely automated *and* distributed (think: multiple manufacturing sites).
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I am patenting the technique of licensing obvious or prior art, utilizing the mechanism of an attorney and a clueless patent examiner....
Peace and love, y'all
Does anyone with a burner, a bunch of blank CDs, a large-ish MP3 collection, an urge to piss off both the RIAA and CDNow feel like setting up a little webpage where people can select the songs they want, pass this off to a CGI that will start the burn (or just email the page owner), and then have the burnt CD sent out to the customer? I'm sure a small fee would be alright per CD, as the person will likely have lawyers circling :-)
Note: if anyone does do this, good luck..
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Check out this site: www.ktel.com They have been doing this for a LONG TIME! I know of this because I work for a company that was about to sign with K-Tel to offer their CD database on our site. I do not think this will hold up against the lawsuite K-Tel is most likely going to throw at CDNow.
"Out, OUT! You demons of STUPIDITY!" - Dogbert
This patent is actually one of the more legit ones, when you consider some of the stuff we've all read on Slashdot.
I'm patenting posting one liners on slashdot.
the Beastie Boys have, according to CNN, a system whereby their fans can create a custom "greatest hits" CD by mixing and matching old bboys tracks at their website - the resultant cd would then be burned and shipped to the user.
patents are patently stupid.
I think that this type of market manipulation by companies trying to force their competitors to fold under by applying, and getting moronic patents is ludicrous. One thing we as consumers have always been able to do is fight back with our money, by not giving it to a certain company. This is even more so now, with the Internet and E-mail. As a collective group we can show a company what we as consumers feel is right or wrong, and as we have always had the choice of taking our business elsewhere, they have the choice of taking their product elsewhere. I would like to see /. or another site come up that takes an issue, like this CD-Now patent, and takes the collective feelings from consumers and drops in their laps a group of consumers that are willing to say and follow through with telling a company that they will no longer buy a product from that company if they continue with this type of practice. Of course, they have a right to do business and protect their interests, but we as consumers have a right to keep innovation and more importantly prices, down.
I would like to take this opportunity to inform the Slashdot community that I have the following patents pending:
/* ... */, REM ... , // ... , -- ... , (* ... *), { ... }, " ... ".
* Use of special character sequences to delimit human-readable text from program code. The following sequences are covered by the patent:
* Use of right angles to attach lines together, creating formations technically known as "rectangles"; also covers use of "rectangles" to delineate spaces in such technologies as window systems, newspapers and banner ads.
* Use of "patents" to restrict the rights of programmers to use the best and most obvious techniques to "get the job done".
Licensing and royalty details will be forthcoming.
Thank you.
...keeps progress away.
it doesn't even mention the internet .... you could be doing all this by mail - all it sais is that there's a way to communicate the order of what you want - not how it's communicated.
Well, I've patented perspiration.
But I don't plan to enforce my patent, so don't sweat it.
[insert sheepish pun-slinger grin here]
I do believe reading a while ago about a group in England that gave their customers the ability to choose the songs that would go onto a CD.
Also, a while back when MP3's were still pretty new I remember seeing some nice websites where you could ask the person to put up some of his/her mp3's from a list that they provided! Its almost the same concept now with some places and their realaudio feeds!
Having the ability to customize what you want to listen to is not a new concept and i think that it is crap that cdnow would even think of this! and all the jokes aside, this idea of patenting everthing just CANNOT be good for the market!
hell, even microsoft did not try to patent (IN MY KNOWlEDGE) stuff so stupid!!! Hehehe, we all know that the little paperclip with M$OFFICE is a _NEW_ concept for the world to enjoy!
Non-Deterministic Finite Automata
About one a week, the new spewing Slashdot puts out an 'ohmygod someone patented something' story, and it's getting kind of lame. A patent isn't a license to steal, kill, and maim. A patent is only as good as the claims. And while the patent office makes some attempt at finding prior art they are overworked and fallible. So, now what? Instead of new jerk reactions, one can find out if the company is actually enforcing the patent and under what terms, and maybe one can look at good prior art databases. My apologies for the spew of the spew.
Profit motivates invention.
Can I patent "Method of storing a customized purchase order through a network" ? Then amazon, b&n, microsoft, cdnow, mp3.com... wait EVERY company on the interent will be violating my patent! Someone needs to get a hold of the patent office and make them realize what they're doing.
What up foo?
I wonder why people are never seizing to commit senselessly stupid acts like these. Of course meaning that I would probably never file for such a patent, and I would probably dispise anybody who would, or would attempt to.
Sincerely,
Alexander
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
This NEEDS to mentioned on Slashdot (and elsewhere) or it will not stop. You want this to stop right? Why should it stop if nobody thinks its even newsworthy? This must be brought to public attention.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I'd like to request 25c for every ounce of saliva used in the digestion of food, since absorption of nutrients from food is impossible without my miraculous invention.
Next month, I'll be copyrighting the letter "E."
The basic patent has nothing about CDs, music or the internet .... just the ability to communicate the order of some objects to a remote place and have them fixed into an unspecified medium.
According to Ted Hooban, CDNOW's director of digital products, the firm is not out to use the patent as an offensive weapon.
Bullshit! Then why did you go to all the trouble to get a bloody patent? That's the only reason anything gets patented these days. It's not like a web interface to cdrecord is anything earth shatteringly novel that it warrants a patent to protect it. CDNOW want's (needs?) a patent so it can milk a mini-monopoly on customized music CDs. Plus, it makes the company look more profitable -- after all, a merger is pending.
Time to go read the fine print. Does the patent cover track-at-once, session-at-once, and/or disk-at-once recording?
You're absolutely right. I haven't the faintest clue about patent law. However, what myself and many of the posters are commenting on is how trivial the process is. How could something so trivial be patented? The process described in the patent information is so general that it would seem to include not only the CDNow method, but any method of making CDs over the Internet. From http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05930768__ we read: The invention enables persons with Internet (or other similar computer network) connectivity to remotely customize a product to be manufactured. In a preferred embodiment, a customer specifies a variety songs from a stated inventory of electronic audio media stored in a variety of remote databases and a desired playing order. After verification, the customer submits the order to a server. A series of programs located on the server (either physically or virtually) processes the order and sends the order to a production mechanism for the manufacture of the final product by downloading selected songs, writing the downloaded songs to a recording media and shipping the recorded media to the customer.
With much revenue coming in for Mp3.com via the CDs they sell they will likely up the price of the CDs. But this is very, very bad. These are CDs of music created by artist without the backing of a label, which means they don't have that much money or a wide customer base. When the price is up'ed many customers will not want to pay the $10 or whatever to by the CDs. It will be the domino effect, with 1000s of artists on the wrong end. This personally affects me, I manage four bands on Mp3.com. And none of those bands are going to be too happy.
Is it just me, or does it seem that companies word the patents in such a way as to confuse the patent office? So companies can patent anything (even things that have already been patented) as long as they word it in a new and confusing way?
Read the patent yourself, taniwha, this time keeping in mind that it is the claims, and nothing else in the patent, that describes what is legally protected by the patent.
It amazes me how many stupid patents are getting through the patent office these days. I would love to work for the patent office just so I could say, "That's not an original idea. Go do some real research." How hard is it to be a patent officer? Does it really matter? It seems to me that it must be nearly impossible to get a job at the patent office. That office alone has the power to dictate which company or person has the rights to restrict and charge for ideas that many of us feel are simple combinations of fundamental concepts. Large companies must have their fingers in the hiring process of that office. This is all just conspiracy theory, but if the patent office was hiring the best people for the job, would you expect patents such as this? Are these patents being passed because big business is lobbying to put incompetent people in the patent office? Think about it.
And where in the claims does it mention music? the internet? CDs? it doesn't it mentions "entering orders" "transactions" "media" etc etc
For example a 'recording medium' could be a person with a pencil and paper, 'verifying a finacial transaction' could be picking up the phone and calling the bank, or writing them a letter
It does however include a claim involving an "electronic recipt" but that just means they sent you e-mail once they got the order - there's no mention of the order being done electronically
The more crappy patents we have (IMHO the Y2K Windowing one was the best) the more quickly this mess is either going to get fixed or collapse out of it's own idiocy.
The House and Senate already have a set of reform bills on the table - HR 1907 and S.1798. At least S. 1798 includes a requirement that the GAO examine the quality of business model patents, which of course are starting to multiply like crazy right now. Call or write and complain about software patents too.
You folks on the Slashdot there best watch yourselves.. I got patents pending for the microprocessor, the hydrogen atom, condensation, the food chain, the bubonic plague, algebra, the hamburger, the human brain, sex, the automobile, green eyes, extraterrestrials, the motion picture camera, hot dogs, chrome, the cumbustion engine, the planet Mars, the paper clip, Henry Kissinger, the Roman Alphabet, nude women, rug burn, catfish, and the city of Detroit. So watch it or I'll sue you into a paper bag!
spoo
years and years ago.... Im still planning on making a website where you can build and order a cd made up of the linuxware of your choice... If and when I get it done, Ill let you know if I get any enraged phonecalls :) By the way, Im going to patent the idea of turning your computer on with, what I like to call, a *button*. But that wont effect Linux users as Ill have a clause where anyone can do it once a year for free ;)
Simon
The real linux_penguin has Slashdot ID 101961. Anyone else is an impostor. Including Bruce Perens.
Why don't we hire a patent attorney to patent the patent process?
They would have patented the "GUI Interface" to the operating system.. so no other operating system could have a GUI Interface without paying M$.
It is time /. started a new "stupid patents section"
I'm going to patent a way of getting 5 million 60 year old men to pose as 13 year old girls on the internet at one time.. oh wait.. AOL has that one already.. D'OH
How business is now being done is this:
I must patent this idea to prevent others from patenting this 1st, and therefore shutting me out of the market.
No matter how obvious, lame, or whatever the patent may seem, its better to have the un-enforcable patent on your side, than it is to NOT have it there.
Business is all about having an un-level playing field. And the more un-level you can make it, the better for you. Your stockholders demand high returns...and the best way to insure that is to have a government sponsored monopoly. Be it a patent, contract, or other such device.
I guess you can be thankful that to date Microsoft hasn't been the ones filing and getting such patents. I'm betting that Bill is now having them file on almost ANY idea.
And its the abuse of the system that will make it collapse. Be sure to take the time and draft a letter or 2 to your congress-critter about patent abuse....cite these as claims that the system needs to be re-thought.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
I actually did a research project on this very question over the summer at an IP law firm. Your first reaction might be to say "no" because you are not in the US.
But... it is patent infringement to import into the United States a product made with a patented process. Also, an argument could be made that part of the process is actually conducted in the US, when the user (a US customer) orders a CD on the Internet.
My conclusion in the memo I wrote was that there is nothing stopping a US court from finding you guilty for patent infringement except diplomacy and good sense.
So, be careful! Read the patent closely, find prior art, etc...
But it was I who patented the blood-level O2/CO2 exhange performed in the lungs. Since I've given up waiting on the royalties, y'all can stop breathing now.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of unresonable patents!
I know that a bunch of sites have "prior art" on this one--I worked on one myself about 2 years ago. Stupid patents. Sad, really.
-Buff
My god, will the madness end? Honestly, I think the only solution (no, getting rid of patents is NOT a good solution - I don't like software patents, but patents overall are a good thing) is to have a separate department within the patent office for handling software and internet-related patents. And it would be made up, ideally, of people who have some SEMBLANCE of a clue.
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
Take a look at this page on the USPTO's own web site. It allows you to order customized set of patents on their site, and they can either be downlaoded onto your machine or sent to you in the mail.
CD-Now's patent seems to cover the general concept of customizing a product via a website, and automating its manufacture and delivery. The key difference they site between their patent and the (dubious) prior art is that it involves a network such as the Internet. The only thing that ties their patent to burning CDs is that that is the "preferred embodiment."
This whole idea of patenting business models is absurd, and needs to stop.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Hey buddy, I made that joke earlier today, and you know it. That's it, I'm off for court. Your *ss is mine! I'll make M$ look like a small deal, baby.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
We need to institute a death penalty for the lawyers who submit these crazy patents (and the examiners who approve them!)
My $0.02
or start a seperate protest website for this stuff?
The League for Programming Freedom was once upon a time the chief organization that fought software patents. For a time they kind of dissipated, but can now be found at http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/.
The LPF now chiefly appears to be a news site. If there are Slashdotters who have financial, political or legal expertise to throw at this problem, contributing those gifts to LPF would be a wonderful and important thing to do.
I hereby declare that I own patents on the excritory sytem, so any of you who frequently dump, you must now pay me a royalty fee of $5 us for every turd.
is there no end to this idiocy?
del c:\micros~1\*.*
I have to start wondering exactly what is up with the American patent office. Do ANY patents get turned down? Or do they just stamp everything and wait for a court battle (which the defendant might not afford) to decide the validity of a patent.
Politically, I am against the whole idea of patents. I believe that thought should be free, period, and that we should model our society with that at the core, not as an afterthough: but that is not even the issue here. Whether you like patents or not, their purpose is fairly clear: to give back to the inventor of something for the disadvantage he has on spending money inventing the thing.
Medical patents are the best example. Companies spend millions of R&D of a new drug, and the only way they can afford to do that is if they can sell it exclusively for a period. But this? How many millions did CDnow spend thinking up the idea that you could put forms on the net where people can order songs that are then burned to cd?
They should have come to me, I would have "consulted" them on it for only around 100K.
Yes, implementing the system might be difficult, but they don't need a patent to protect them from that. Anyone copying their invention would incur the same costs. No one (well, except a bunch of american lawyers) said patents were around to make the inventors of something rich: only to make it fair. Patents are not an "I thought of this first so I should get rich" thing, they are an "I incured great costs developing this, so I should have a chance to regain them" thing.
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We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
actually I think that a key element of the claims is that you can choose the order in which the things that you order are embedded in the result.
The first part of the first claim seems to say that the user is given a list of things they can order and then they specify which things and in which order - this is frankly the only vaguely novel feature in this patent .... but it also decribes how I order chinese food around the corner and how they produce it for me and put it on the table :-)
Well, almost. Specifically, I have a patent on the missionary and reverse missionary positions in a participant's own abode.
I also have a patent pending on the doggie position and well as six other popular positions.
This means, if you want to have sex, you'll either need to obtain a license from me, work out some obscure new position or do it outdoors.
Since most (all?) of these patents are being made by internet companies, could some sort of an internet based patent watch-dog group be established in some way to monitor companies **enforcing** their patents? I can understand a company filing a patent with no intention of enforcing it, but just to be first so no one else beats them to it and brings lawyers down upon them. However, if CDNow for example was to try to enforce this braindead patent on a competitor, the competitor could bring their case to this de-factt internet watch dog group who could then debate it in a forum like this and if the user community strongly agreed that the patent was invalid, they could highly recommend to CDNow that they cease enforcement of the patent or face the consequences, ie: anything from simple bad publicity (RealNetworks recent privacy problems) to coordinated attacks upon their servers until they see the err in their ways. Of course the debate would have to be a little more professional than many of the discussions we have here at /. but I really think this type of a de-facto watchdog agency could be very effective, despite having no official legal powers whatsoever. Whatdyathink?
It's just a matter of time! Soon you'll be able to order customized Girls over the internet! And I'd like to be the one holding the patent for this kind of business!
Companies, and people, patenting anything marketable is becoming a problem in my opinion.
Think about this, according to the keynote at comdex by Carleton (Carly) Fiorina (CEO of HP), anything can be marketable. And thinking about it, I'm sure anything could.
This is scary, while at the same time, a definite business opportunity to anyone creative enough to envision the next e-service.
I believe this patent was pending when CDNow purchased... argh, can't remember the company's name. Anyways, CDnow inherited the technology and patent from an acquisition. I'm not out to defend 'em, because if they were decent they'd just drop it. But in the interest of accuracy...
If you think about it, CDnow may have done us a favor. What if Microsoft decided they would patent a way of making custom CDs. What if then they said no one can use it. CDnow is willing to let other companies use this process, and I don't believe they will charge them an a huge fee. If you knew someone who might patent (insert bodily function here), wouldn't you want to patent it before it got into greedy hands?
It's not all custom CDs that are patented. It's only a specific way of making them.
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"Insert witty quote here."
I could be richer than Gates taking into account the teen demographic alone!
No one will ever know the first time some email was exchanged arranging for cash or trade in order for a custom-burned CDROM full of MP3's or other files. I should patent software delivery in this same manner, so I can put www.cheapbytes out of business and rake it in. I recently paid a buddy $10 to burn me a CDROM of a bunch of (legally copiable) stuff he had on his HD. Saved me the D/L, and now I got a permanent archive.
i dont care if CDNOW is being 'kinder gentler assholes'.
Don't get your panties in a bind. This is almost exactly the same thing as the Personics system that so many people used years ago.
In other words, don't be jealous that you didn't think of patenting this idea before CDNow.
He he.. I'm just waiting for this one, Maybe I should file and specify a molecular level mechanism.
...Linux!
"I'm sorry, your cells have divided several trillion times. at US$0.01 per use of our patent, you ow us US$10billion. Own, and think twice before having kids, meiosis costs extra. We just patented molecular-encoded data recombination."
Andrew N.
--
"You never know when some crazed rodent with cold feet might be running loose in your pants."
-Calvin
um. Yeeeaaah. I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with you of that one. Patent for respiration? I'm just not too sure about that right now. Yeeeaaah.
If someone would like to establish a presence to report on these kinds of problems, I just checked and there a few domain names available:
stupidpatents.com, org, net
dumbpatents.com, org, net
obviouspatents.com, org, net
Anyone else got a better idea for a name?
Maybe something like:
LosingOurFreedomBecauseOfObviousPatents.com, org, net?
Russ
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
By the should know better department. Change the law for vexatious patents, and award punative damages plus. Make patent office REFUND 100X patent fees as well. If you can't put your hand over your heart and say - i believe, rather than - Cant beleive they would be so stupid to award this patent. Apart from gross abuse - the Director of the Patent office has a serious QA problem. Their duty is not to rubber stamp and take cash. This BS took place in Vietnam - PATENTGATE
using DeCSS technology, and multicasting them on warez channels
Screw the GUI, you're not thinking like Bill. He wants total control. Click on this shortcut link to make Bill a richer person.
Isnt it about time somebody wrote some legaleese for an antipatent and started a repository for such antipatents.
The antipatent should prohibit the patenting of an antipatended idea, and everybody should be able to antipatent whatever idea they had.
Beat them with their own stick!
...I mean it...
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BLiP!
-- BLiP!
Dont these people already do much the same thing. You at home with a mini disc create your own selection. firms selling compilations effectively make a custom CD. Is this what the patent is about, or purely that you can now do it over the net? This is fucking ridiculous.
This patent covers methods of distribution.
This patent covers concepts, as opposed to
any actual hardware, software, or algorhythms.
i think i'll just take out a patent on posting patent stories on slashdot - that'll fix it.
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
I suggest turning the patenters' weapon against themselves and patenting the very idea of patenting the obvious. Obvious, isn't it? That way, nobody can patent the obvious any more without my permission.
This is very simular to the following:
A computer shop which gives you options to select from and then sends you a custom built computer.
A floral shop which takes orders for custom floral arrangements and then sends it to you.
An online dealer which allows you to select the features in a car that you want and then send it to you.
The only thing I see patentable here is that each of the above methods require a person to actively take the order and put it together where this process seems to be completely autononymous.
Just my thoughts...
Plenty of projects, not enough developers...
Everyone who goes to Comdex, please object at their booth to their patent! Embarass them publicly.
BEGIN RANT
... excuse me, congresspersons ... will be forced to address the serious problems patents are causing, and with any luck scrap the system altogether.
It is my hope that the absurd patenting of business models, mathematics, and science continues unabated until business, science, and the software industry is brought to a crawl.
Why? Because maybe when it starts making it impossible to do business or science and the resulting financial and technological losses become so obvious to the powers that be that they can no longer ignore it, maybe the cheap whores
The worst thing for everybody would be a situation in which business as usual would be able to continue unabated while innovation outside of Redmond and other centers of corporate America who can afford to swap patent portfolios is completely stifled. We are rapidly moving in this direction -- the only hope to prevent it is to make sure the patenting system does significant damage to the very industries in which the abusers of the system are profiting. Anything that can be done to encourage the system to eviscerate itself should be encouraged.
END RANT
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy