You are really trying hard to excuse Sun's lying about allowing open source independent Java implementations. They promised that they would allow them. Then they refused to allow them.
Yes, the Java API that Harmony has is a clean room implementation of the Sun ones, so the implementation is not a copyright infringement, but it's still an implementation of a spec that someone else designed and refined and improved over the years
Yes, a spec that Sun promised that others could freely and independently implement. That turned out to be a lie, since their patent license requires that those implementations pass a test suite that Sun refused to make available.
Programmers don't earn $425,000 for eight months of work.
Programmers generally don't take speculative jobs where they only get paid if the product is a success, and they generally don't have a staff working on the program with them that they are paying. Taking into account that likely staff size involved in a case of this type, and the fact that lawyers taking cases on contingency need to make from the wins enough to cover the cases they don't win, the hourly rate is in fact reasonably comparable to that of a good programming consultant.
Plus you don't have to hire programmers. You can just pick up a book and learn programming yourself. The same can't be said about legalese. Programming languages are designed to be readable (except perl;), while legalese is designed to be as unreadable as possible.
As someone who has had occasion to read many a programming book (programmer for 30+ years, dealing with everything from embedded systems to consumer software to enterprise back end stuff), and has had occasion to read the law (took a break a while back from programming and spent 3 years in law school), it is clear to me that you have never actually seriously tried to read the law. It is no more difficult than any other material that is written at an adult level and that assumes that the reader is intelligent.
What idiots are moderating that as "interesting". He's making a joke, people. Moderate it as funny. (Section 3 has 1 paragraph, and it doesn't say "Don't be evil").
16:10 computer displays were great for watching 16:9 video on a computer. They had room outside the video for playback controls or status information. With a 16:9 display, you can't reasonably have any permanent status or controls without them overlapping the video.
There are various treaties in place between pairs or groups of nations that cover much of the civilized world and prevent you from escaping debt by fleeing the country in which you incurred the debt. As long as the debt was incurred in a way that is recognized as legitimate in the country you are now in, they will treat it just like any other debt.
Thus, in a case like this pretty much all the Canadian court would ask itself is whether or not, under Canadian standards, the US court legitimately had jurisdiction over the Canadian. If they did, then the judgement is a debt that the Canadian owes, and the Canadian justice system will help the creditor collect it.
BTW, this is also why it is bullshit when some company moves to some other country and claims they did it because product liability lawsuits cost them too much money in the US, but they continue to sell their product in the US. Generally the country they move to will enforce US product liability judgements. The real reason they are moving is for cheaper labor, but saying "we moved to Mexico because we wanted near-slave labor" is a lot worse from a PR point of view than blaming it on trial lawyers. If any company REALLY leaves because of product liability lawsuits, they will also stop selling in the US.
And even better if they sorted it out so that the arrows didn't overlap..
Assuming I didn't miss an arrow or misread the direction of an arrow, here's a planar version, courtesy of OmniGraffle's automatic layout and a little but of manual tweaking to remove a couple overlaps it still had.
It's like saying there's something wrong with banks because so many bank robbers are found in banks. Trolls chose EDT for the same reason non-trolls chose EDT: (1) patent litigation is complex so you want a court system that has experience with patents, and (2) there aren't a lot of drug dealers in EDT.
Probably Red Hat gets a perpetual free license and Acacia does not get their patent tested so they can pursue targets with fewer resources to protect themselves.
Nope. If for some reason Software Tree thought that Red Hat would be able to get the patent invalidated, Software Tree would simply withdraw the suit. There would not be any kind of settlement.
Consider the fact that IBM has licensed this patent from Software Tree, and Oracle has settled last year when Software Tree sued them, and it is much more likely Red Hat decided that either they would not win, or the cost of litigation would be more than the cost of a license.
A lot of people seem to be overlooking something. Software Tree Inc is an established company that has been selling products based on their patent for a long time. Software Tree LLC is a subsidiary of Acacia that is handling licensing and enforcement of Software Tree's patent for Software Tree. Sure, Acacia also does patent troll cases (acquiring patents that aren't being used and then suing people), but that's not all they do.
One may argue that there should not be software patents in the first place, but given that they exist, this appears to be a legitimate use of them--a company actively developing and marketing technology based on a patent of its own, going after infringers of that patent using another firm to handle the details of licensing and litigation.
But given that the case settled, there's little chance those judges had much to do with it. Also, the reputation is that the court is extremely plaintiff-favorable - so it would not simply be that the judges are well versed in patent law. The implication is prejudice.
The judge had plenty to do with it. A lot happens involving the judge before an actual trial occurs. In particular, the parties argue claims construction, and then the judge rules on the meaning of the claims. That ruling came down on June 1, 2010 in this case. You can get a copy of that ruling here if you are curious.
The claims construction ruling can be a major turning point in a patent case, as that is when the parties find out what they are actually dealing with. Cases can be won or lost on claims construction.
As for prejudice, the fact is that EDT isn't even in the top 5 districts when it comes to favoring plaintiffs.
Note that everything after the first sentence in the summary is not backed by any cites to any sources. It is purely the speculation of the anonymous submitter.
The previous X Prize challenges have all been in areas with obvious practical benefits. For instance, private space flight will open up a lot of industrial applications. High fuel efficiency cars are clearly of great benefit.
Are there any known expected benefits to a private vehicle that can reach the Challenger Deep, or is any benefit purely speculative? Considering that this will be one of the more dangerous X Prize challenges, I'd hope they have some serious benefits in mind.
How much did the Trieste cost to build? When it was sold to the Navy, it was sold for a quarter of a million, but I haven't found anything that says whether or not that was at a profit or a loss.
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You are really trying hard to excuse Sun's lying about allowing open source independent Java implementations. They promised that they would allow them. Then they refused to allow them.
Considering that they shut out Apache long before Google came along with Android, you are in error to assume that it had something to do with Android.
Yes, the Java API that Harmony has is a clean room implementation of the Sun ones, so the implementation is not a copyright infringement, but it's still an implementation of a spec that someone else designed and refined and improved over the years
Yes, a spec that Sun promised that others could freely and independently implement. That turned out to be a lie, since their patent license requires that those implementations pass a test suite that Sun refused to make available.
Programmers don't earn $425,000 for eight months of work.
Programmers generally don't take speculative jobs where they only get paid if the product is a success, and they generally don't have a staff working on the program with them that they are paying. Taking into account that likely staff size involved in a case of this type, and the fact that lawyers taking cases on contingency need to make from the wins enough to cover the cases they don't win, the hourly rate is in fact reasonably comparable to that of a good programming consultant.
Plus you don't have to hire programmers. You can just pick up a book and learn programming yourself. The same can't be said about legalese. Programming languages are designed to be readable (except perl ;), while legalese is designed to be as unreadable as possible.
As someone who has had occasion to read many a programming book (programmer for 30+ years, dealing with everything from embedded systems to consumer software to enterprise back end stuff), and has had occasion to read the law (took a break a while back from programming and spent 3 years in law school), it is clear to me that you have never actually seriously tried to read the law. It is no more difficult than any other material that is written at an adult level and that assumes that the reader is intelligent.
The money came from the kids! They would have had the extra $425,000 if the lawyers didn't take the cut.
Wrong. They would have $185,000 less than they got if the lawyers didn't take a cut.
Saying that all lawyers do is fill out a little paperwork is about as accurate as saying that all programmers do is a little typing.
What idiots are moderating that as "interesting". He's making a joke, people. Moderate it as funny. (Section 3 has 1 paragraph, and it doesn't say "Don't be evil").
16:10 computer displays were great for watching 16:9 video on a computer. They had room outside the video for playback controls or status information. With a 16:9 display, you can't reasonably have any permanent status or controls without them overlapping the video.
There are various treaties in place between pairs or groups of nations that cover much of the civilized world and prevent you from escaping debt by fleeing the country in which you incurred the debt. As long as the debt was incurred in a way that is recognized as legitimate in the country you are now in, they will treat it just like any other debt.
Thus, in a case like this pretty much all the Canadian court would ask itself is whether or not, under Canadian standards, the US court legitimately had jurisdiction over the Canadian. If they did, then the judgement is a debt that the Canadian owes, and the Canadian justice system will help the creditor collect it.
BTW, this is also why it is bullshit when some company moves to some other country and claims they did it because product liability lawsuits cost them too much money in the US, but they continue to sell their product in the US. Generally the country they move to will enforce US product liability judgements. The real reason they are moving is for cheaper labor, but saying "we moved to Mexico because we wanted near-slave labor" is a lot worse from a PR point of view than blaming it on trial lawyers. If any company REALLY leaves because of product liability lawsuits, they will also stop selling in the US.
And even better if they sorted it out so that the arrows didn't overlap..
Assuming I didn't miss an arrow or misread the direction of an arrow, here's a planar version, courtesy of OmniGraffle's automatic layout and a little but of manual tweaking to remove a couple overlaps it still had.
It's like saying there's something wrong with banks because so many bank robbers are found in banks. Trolls chose EDT for the same reason non-trolls chose EDT: (1) patent litigation is complex so you want a court system that has experience with patents, and (2) there aren't a lot of drug dealers in EDT.
You don't like to let facts get in your way, do you?
Probably Red Hat gets a perpetual free license and Acacia does not get their patent tested so they can pursue targets with fewer resources to protect themselves.
Nope. If for some reason Software Tree thought that Red Hat would be able to get the patent invalidated, Software Tree would simply withdraw the suit. There would not be any kind of settlement.
Consider the fact that IBM has licensed this patent from Software Tree, and Oracle has settled last year when Software Tree sued them, and it is much more likely Red Hat decided that either they would not win, or the cost of litigation would be more than the cost of a license.
A lot of people seem to be overlooking something. Software Tree Inc is an established company that has been selling products based on their patent for a long time. Software Tree LLC is a subsidiary of Acacia that is handling licensing and enforcement of Software Tree's patent for Software Tree. Sure, Acacia also does patent troll cases (acquiring patents that aren't being used and then suing people), but that's not all they do.
One may argue that there should not be software patents in the first place, but given that they exist, this appears to be a legitimate use of them--a company actively developing and marketing technology based on a patent of its own, going after infringers of that patent using another firm to handle the details of licensing and litigation.
I want to add a clause to the GPL forbidding use of software in the State of Texas
The GPL doesn't allow that.
But given that the case settled, there's little chance those judges had much to do with it. Also, the reputation is that the court is extremely plaintiff-favorable - so it would not simply be that the judges are well versed in patent law. The implication is prejudice.
The judge had plenty to do with it. A lot happens involving the judge before an actual trial occurs. In particular, the parties argue claims construction, and then the judge rules on the meaning of the claims. That ruling came down on June 1, 2010 in this case. You can get a copy of that ruling here if you are curious.
The claims construction ruling can be a major turning point in a patent case, as that is when the parties find out what they are actually dealing with. Cases can be won or lost on claims construction.
As for prejudice, the fact is that EDT isn't even in the top 5 districts when it comes to favoring plaintiffs.
Must someone make that same dumb observation every time a patent story is posted to Slashdot?
Note that everything after the first sentence in the summary is not backed by any cites to any sources. It is purely the speculation of the anonymous submitter.
And then raise taxes to pay for the Federal funds they likely will not get because their roads do not conform to national standards?
Go to school or not. Go to graduate school or not. Go to IBM or not. Go to Sun or not. Stay at Oracle or not.
It looks like he's had under 10 career moves total, so by definition aren't all of them in the top 10 worst? (And also all are in the top 10 best).
Gold is the creationism of economics.
No, I have been a card carrying open source evangelist since 1997.
Do you keep the card the same place Homer Simpson keeps his crayon? That would explain why you think iPhone is a dying platform.
Sales taxes are ideal - they reward those who are fiscally responsible by not tasking them and take from those who will need the most social support
So you think the ideal form of tax is the one that puts the highest marginal rates on the people with the lowest incomes???
The previous X Prize challenges have all been in areas with obvious practical benefits. For instance, private space flight will open up a lot of industrial applications. High fuel efficiency cars are clearly of great benefit.
Are there any known expected benefits to a private vehicle that can reach the Challenger Deep, or is any benefit purely speculative? Considering that this will be one of the more dangerous X Prize challenges, I'd hope they have some serious benefits in mind.
How much did the Trieste cost to build? When it was sold to the Navy, it was sold for a quarter of a million, but I haven't found anything that says whether or not that was at a profit or a loss.