There are problems with software patents and patents in general. The first problem is this ability to patent something as an idea with no intention of productizing it. I think to combat this the initial patent application should contain a much shorter duration unless the applicant either markets a product or licenses the patent to another company which is marketing a product. This would severely reduce submarine patents as the applicant can't just sit on the patent waiting for someone to accidentally trip it.
You cannot patent ideas. A patent must instruct those who are skilled in the art as to how something novel, useful, and non-obvious is reduced to practice. There must be a working example that is available to instruct and demonstrate the patent. In the absence of such a reduction to practice the patent can be easily challenged.
Such challenges are quite common in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries and frequently are at the heart of major litigation involving products worth billions of dollars/year.
The software industry could learn quite a bit about how patents are structured by looking at big pharma and how they operate, how to defend patents and how to break competitors' patents. Perhaps the first challenge that ought to be raised in any instance is to challenge on the grounds of non-enablement. This puts the patent holder in the position of having to demonstrate that their claims have actually been reduced to practice. If they can't, the patent is invalid.
Well, if you don't own a computer already, what is the likelihood that you will be reading \.?
All kidding aside, for a number of years I swore by PC's (almost as much as I swore at them). I bought the last one about four years ago; a Dell Precision portable workstation that was maxed out with RAM and disk space. Price, > 5K. The motherboard died while en-route to SF to give a lecture at an international conference. Dell was supposed to swap out the motherboard in my hotel room and get me back up and running, but couldn't get me back in operation in time. My hotel was less than a block away from the Apple store. I bought 12" PowerBook and cinema display on the spot, finished up my lecture and never looked back.
As for the Dell, it took four attempts to get the hardware back in operation, with a new replacement being delivered after several months of delay. I don't fault Dell for trying. They certainly lost money on that machine. In the end, it just seemed that machine (and perhaps the whole product line) was flawed from the outset.
Do you get what you pay for? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. While I've had to replace some parts on the original Mac (and I now six; 3 portables and 3 iMacs) I have found the machines to be considerably more stable and reliable. The software costs about the same as for a PC, so I don't think that the argument about additional cost is really supported, especially if you factor in your time and effort dealing with all the problems associated with keeping a PC up and running. The big difference is whether you want to by a product from a vendor that maintains strict quality control or if you want to buy the cheapest product available, whether or not an semblance of quality control was applied during the manufacturing process. It's a bit like asking whether you'd rather drive a BMW or a Hundai. Both will get you where you are going, but one is much more fun to drive.
Nonsense. To be aspirational means that you aspirate (presumably your own saliva or other bodily fluid). To be aspirational means you choke on your own spit..
But stop and tink about it for a moment. There are already thord party microphones out there for iPods. What it really could be, if we're lucky, is a Nokia N800, done right.
What you need to consider is the investment that any of these companies might have or be planning to have in China. For a company to take such a stance they need to be prepared to forfeit their assets in the "offending" country (whether it be China or some other targeted country du jour, as well as current and future sales. Those costs could be huge and violate the legal obligations that the respective board has to their shareholders.
To paraphrase the Chinese proverb, we live in interesting times. The interests and obligations of multi-national corporations are no longer in synch with national interests. Perhaps the real problem is that the political entities we all pay homage to are outmoded and obsolte and we are on the cusp of a new political reality. Political entities exist to serve economic needs (access to and control of resources). Those needs are no longer served by entities that are defined by geographic boundries. Like the Internet, there are no longer distinct physical boundaries that separate us. New tactics will be required to survive and rise in the emerging global economy.
The question is whether or not their actions could be consider tortious interference and legal remedies pursued under that legal doctrine. While I am not an attorney, it seems that RIAA and it's subsidiaries are interfering with the rights of artists to pursue their own business interests and attempting to extract royalties under the terms of a contract to which those artists are not signers. It does seem like more of a shakedown tactic of a criminal syndicate more than the dealings of a real business organization.
It also raises a second point that the RIAA ought to consider. Internet radio stations provide an important marketing function for their artists and labels. I regualry expand my collection of music when I hear something I like on various internet stations. The fact that the artist, song title and other information are broadcast with the music makes this easy, especially in iTunes. I can switch from the radio to the iTunes store in seconds. As much of the music tends to be artists and genre that are less popular, it generates sales that simply wouldn't have occurred with the traditional store-front CD arrangement. This is all a part of the long-tail phenominon that accounts for > 50% of sales for Amazon and Rhapsody.
The guys at the RIAA are shooting themselves in the foot. While I can understand that they are aligned with companies that have invested heavily in the old model of doing business, the Internet has radically changed the way sales of content and music are distributed. It's a disruptive technology- just like the printing press and movabe type was long ago.
The problem is much deeper than most of the discussants on this board realize. In reality the situation regarding health care in general is not one that has an easy solution, especially with regard to pharmaceuticals. Perhaps that is because the majority of folks who participate in these discussions are enamored with the "sound of their own voices". This is always dangerous.
Good luck to you in your career, where ever it takes you.
During my stay in the US, teaching at a respected US university, trying to make people understand that $ 12,500 for an AIDS cure was a death sentence for many patients was a nearly hopeless task.
So, why is it that this discussion hasn't focused on the issue of prevention. The spread of AIDS in Africa, the Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia is largely the result of unprotected sex. Why is it that public health measures (e.g. use of condoms) is more actively promoted? Why is it that some of the govenments of these countries actually promote misinformation?
First,most of my student and of senior faculty thought that property right = property, which is factually, not only ethically, wrong.
Property rights vary from on country to the next- however, the rights for the owner of property (real or itellectual) to do with the property as they see fit, within the scope of local, national, and international law are transferred along with the property. What is unethical about that?
Second, most of them thought that drug companies invested a lot in research (again, wrong, all they do is contribute to some university research, but not as much as they would have us believe).
This is total rubbish, and typical of the naieve thinking of a junior level academic who has never worked in the private sector. The amount of spending on research by any public company is disclosed in their SEC filings and dwarfs what is spent by the NIH.
Third, they thought that property was holier than life, which is the basis of the peculiar US notion that you can shoot a thief as soon as he has one inch inside your property (in Europe, this would be manslaughter, in fact, and the happy trigger pusher would end up behind bars). Sad, isn't it? No, am not trolling, nor thinking Europe is better. Am just so bloody glad we have the Atlantic ocean between us!
Obviously, you never acquired any property real or intellectual) while here. Otherwise, you would have a much better understanding of how US law actually works. Too bad your stay didn't enrich you better.
exactly right. business needs to stay well out of health care, because it's the ultimate conflict of interest. and don't think for a second that drug companys wouldn't opt for an expensive treatment rather then a once off cure. Just remember, it wasn't the pharmaceutical company that prescribed the drug- it was a physician. Do you know what his/her motives in selecting a particular drug were? Do you know what relationships your physician has with the representatives from each and every pharmaceutical company, every pharmacy? In the US, physicians in private practice are also the owner/operators of small businesses and face all the same pressures that any other business owner does (payroll, fringe benefits for employees, insurance, utilities, debt servicing, etc.). If your logic follows, they also have conflicts of intrerest.
Likewise, so do insurance carriers. Their corporate motivation is to hold down costs and to deny treatments that are off schedule, or off formulary.
Of course, the list can go on. There are lots of players who have "conflicts of interest" based on you logic.
Because pharmaceutical companies don't sign Hippocratic oathes. What a world that would be if they did, though... Perhaps not, but if you ever look at the cost of medical care in teh US, pharmaceuticals represent a portion that is typically less than 10%. The majority of costs are associated with the non-pharmaceutical component of health care.
Along the same vein, drive around any region of the US and look where the physicians and hospital administrators live. Also, take a look at average income. The annual income of a gastroenterologist (eg. scoping for dollars) is 3-5 time that of most scientists working in big pharma and 5-10 times that of scientists working in biotech.
But the patent laws need to be better at distinguishing ideas and knowledge from methods and objects. Ideas are not patentable. Neither are genes, unless they can be tied to a particular product or application with utility.
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There are problems with software patents and patents in general. The first problem is this ability to patent something as an idea with no intention of productizing it. I think to combat this the initial patent application should contain a much shorter duration unless the applicant either markets a product or licenses the patent to another company which is marketing a product. This would severely reduce submarine patents as the applicant can't just sit on the patent waiting for someone to accidentally trip it.
You cannot patent ideas. A patent must instruct those who are skilled in the art as to how something novel, useful, and non-obvious is reduced to practice. There must be a working example that is available to instruct and demonstrate the patent. In the absence of such a reduction to practice the patent can be easily challenged. Such challenges are quite common in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries and frequently are at the heart of major litigation involving products worth billions of dollars/year. The software industry could learn quite a bit about how patents are structured by looking at big pharma and how they operate, how to defend patents and how to break competitors' patents. Perhaps the first challenge that ought to be raised in any instance is to challenge on the grounds of non-enablement. This puts the patent holder in the position of having to demonstrate that their claims have actually been reduced to practice. If they can't, the patent is invalid.
Well, if you don't own a computer already, what is the likelihood that you will be reading \.?
All kidding aside, for a number of years I swore by PC's (almost as much as I swore at them). I bought the last one about four years ago; a Dell Precision portable workstation that was maxed out with RAM and disk space. Price, > 5K. The motherboard died while en-route to SF to give a lecture at an international conference. Dell was supposed to swap out the motherboard in my hotel room and get me back up and running, but couldn't get me back in operation in time. My hotel was less than a block away from the Apple store. I bought 12" PowerBook and cinema display on the spot, finished up my lecture and never looked back.
As for the Dell, it took four attempts to get the hardware back in operation, with a new replacement being delivered after several months of delay. I don't fault Dell for trying. They certainly lost money on that machine. In the end, it just seemed that machine (and perhaps the whole product line) was flawed from the outset.
Do you get what you pay for? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. While I've had to replace some parts on the original Mac (and I now six; 3 portables and 3 iMacs) I have found the machines to be considerably more stable and reliable. The software costs about the same as for a PC, so I don't think that the argument about additional cost is really supported, especially if you factor in your time and effort dealing with all the problems associated with keeping a PC up and running. The big difference is whether you want to by a product from a vendor that maintains strict quality control or if you want to buy the cheapest product available, whether or not an semblance of quality control was applied during the manufacturing process. It's a bit like asking whether you'd rather drive a BMW or a Hundai. Both will get you where you are going, but one is much more fun to drive.
Nonsense. To be aspirational means that you aspirate (presumably your own saliva or other bodily fluid). To be aspirational means you choke on your own spit..
But stop and tink about it for a moment. There are already thord party microphones out there for iPods. What it really could be, if we're lucky, is a Nokia N800, done right.
Indeed! They get substantially better milage than the cars with wheels that turn less than 360 degrees.
What you need to consider is the investment that any of these companies might have or be planning to have in China. For a company to take such a stance they need to be prepared to forfeit their assets in the "offending" country (whether it be China or some other targeted country du jour, as well as current and future sales. Those costs could be huge and violate the legal obligations that the respective board has to their shareholders.
To paraphrase the Chinese proverb, we live in interesting times. The interests and obligations of multi-national corporations are no longer in synch with national interests. Perhaps the real problem is that the political entities we all pay homage to are outmoded and obsolte and we are on the cusp of a new political reality. Political entities exist to serve economic needs (access to and control of resources). Those needs are no longer served by entities that are defined by geographic boundries. Like the Internet, there are no longer distinct physical boundaries that separate us. New tactics will be required to survive and rise in the emerging global economy.
The question is whether or not their actions could be consider tortious interference and legal remedies pursued under that legal doctrine. While I am not an attorney, it seems that RIAA and it's subsidiaries are interfering with the rights of artists to pursue their own business interests and attempting to extract royalties under the terms of a contract to which those artists are not signers. It does seem like more of a shakedown tactic of a criminal syndicate more than the dealings of a real business organization.
It also raises a second point that the RIAA ought to consider. Internet radio stations provide an important marketing function for their artists and labels. I regualry expand my collection of music when I hear something I like on various internet stations. The fact that the artist, song title and other information are broadcast with the music makes this easy, especially in iTunes. I can switch from the radio to the iTunes store in seconds. As much of the music tends to be artists and genre that are less popular, it generates sales that simply wouldn't have occurred with the traditional store-front CD arrangement. This is all a part of the long-tail phenominon that accounts for > 50% of sales for Amazon and Rhapsody.
The guys at the RIAA are shooting themselves in the foot. While I can understand that they are aligned with companies that have invested heavily in the old model of doing business, the Internet has radically changed the way sales of content and music are distributed. It's a disruptive technology- just like the printing press and movabe type was long ago.
Finally, some reasoned discussion.
The problem is much deeper than most of the discussants on this board realize. In reality the situation regarding health care in general is not one that has an easy solution, especially with regard to pharmaceuticals. Perhaps that is because the majority of folks who participate in these discussions are enamored with the "sound of their own voices". This is always dangerous.
Good luck to you in your career, where ever it takes you.
So, why is it that this discussion hasn't focused on the issue of prevention. The spread of AIDS in Africa, the Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia is largely the result of unprotected sex. Why is it that public health measures (e.g. use of condoms) is more actively promoted? Why is it that some of the govenments of these countries actually promote misinformation?
First,most of my student and of senior faculty thought that property right = property, which is factually, not only ethically, wrong.
Property rights vary from on country to the next- however, the rights for the owner of property (real or itellectual) to do with the property as they see fit, within the scope of local, national, and international law are transferred along with the property. What is unethical about that?
Second, most of them thought that drug companies invested a lot in research (again, wrong, all they do is contribute to some university research, but not as much as they would have us believe).
This is total rubbish, and typical of the naieve thinking of a junior level academic who has never worked in the private sector. The amount of spending on research by any public company is disclosed in their SEC filings and dwarfs what is spent by the NIH. Third, they thought that property was holier than life, which is the basis of the peculiar US notion that you can shoot a thief as soon as he has one inch inside your property (in Europe, this would be manslaughter, in fact, and the happy trigger pusher would end up behind bars).
Sad, isn't it? No, am not trolling, nor thinking Europe is better.
Am just so bloody glad we have the Atlantic ocean between us!
Obviously, you never acquired any property real or intellectual) while here. Otherwise, you would have a much better understanding of how US law actually works. Too bad your stay didn't enrich you better.
Perhaps not, but if you ever look at the cost of medical care in teh US, pharmaceuticals represent a portion that is typically less than 10%. The majority of costs are associated with the non-pharmaceutical component of health care. Along the same vein, drive around any region of the US and look where the physicians and hospital administrators live. Also, take a look at average income. The annual income of a gastroenterologist (eg. scoping for dollars) is 3-5 time that of most scientists working in big pharma and 5-10 times that of scientists working in biotech.