And prior art, I have been working on this very thing, (And it publicly known.) for some ten years now, and have produced several working prototypes, (With out the whiz bang techie gear) and included some tech that they didn't. (Like FLIR, But I ripped that of Cadillac.)
This is becoming my biggest bitch about patents, it is way to easy for the big companies to throw crap on the wall, and because their Microsoft, it will probably stick, and I would have to sue against their gigabuck lawyers to defend it. That or loose all of the work I have put into this. The concept certainly seemed too obvious for me to patent, I mean, of course, Adaptive displays have been for a very long time, so because you put it a car for the same reason they are on other displays in a car, it is now patentable? I didn't think so. But then again, I don't have the gigabuck lawyers to crank these out like crack...
It has gotten to the point that you can just claim anything and sooner or later something will get bitten, and some poor inventor gets screwed again... It's happened to me more times than I can count.
Who cares? Out of a $2.4 trillion budget, less than 0.8% is spent on the entire space program! and the results can't really be judged until well after the event. I mean, Who would have thought how important the Transistor or Velcro would have been at the time? The space program causes creativity and innovation in ways that can rarely be predicted. Some examples from NASA are found http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home.html and from another page http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html The benefits to society are immeasurable, from Baby food, to running shoes, to breast cancer detection to wind shear protection to, Well my Internet connect is a satellite connect today...
The issue I have with NASA is they are still political and the thought of a $450 Billion mars mission in ludicrous and entirely politically motivated. 4Frontiers (http://www.4frontierscorp.com/) has a plan for an entire Martian settlement, complete with labs and manufacturing facilities, sleeping 42 (including some remote habitats.) for a loose estimate of a quarter of that politically driven $450! And this is using tech that is pretty close to current or easily extrapolatable from current tech!
Having said that, the settlement plans count pretty heavily on the probes sent by NASA and ESA...
In any case, we could build a settlement, a nearly self sustaining colony, for less that six month of Combat Ops in Iraq (and soon Iran) - And we'll probably be done sooner...
I know this is too late to get modded, I just hope someone reads it!
Dos, 6.22, The number of weeks it was good for. Win 3.11, The number of minutes it would run reliably before needing a restart. Win95, The hours it takes to get it to work (mostly) right. Win98, The hours it takes to fix the muck up after upgrading from '95 WinNT, New Toast. (What it does to your wallet.) WinME, Mostly Excuses Win2000, What it will cost for the consultant to get it to work (occasionally) right. WinXP, Xtreme Pukage. WinVista, Watch your time go away, and your dollars to float into Bill's pockets. Win7, Years before it actually (Mostly) works as advertised.
Dos, 6.22, The number of weeks it was good for.
Win 3.11, The number of minutes it would run reliably before needing a restart.
Win95, The hours it takes to get it to work (mostly) right.
Win98, The hours it takes to fix the muck up after upgrading from '95
WinNT, New Toast. (What it does to your wallet.)
WinME, Mostly Excuses
Win2000, What it will cost for the consultant to get it to work (occasionally) right.
WinXP, Xtreme Pukage.
WinVista, Watch your time go away, and your dollars to float into Bill's pockets.
Win7, Years before it actually (Mostly) works as advertised.
The Patent System is screwed, but is never going..
on
Patents Don't Pay
·
· Score: 1
away, so, the question is what to do about it NOW.
Whoever says patents were never intended to make money has obviously never run a business. The profit margin on a States sponsored monopoly is whatever the market will bear, not what your competition, (Who didn't endure the original R&D expense) feels like giving it away for. Of course you are going to make money with a patent, if you can keep everyone else off your backs! The only way that will ever happen is if the patent laws are indeed enforced, including by Customs at the boarder. (And I'd like to see sanctions against countries who continuously violate this {Ehhoumf CHINA! Ehhoumf}
As far as pharma patents? Screw them. Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate the billions that go into Pharma research, What I do not appreciate is the lies that come out of that research. (because not only do they own the R&D industry, they own the FDA and the better part of the medical profession also!) Nor do I appreciate that they will take a drug that makes them money (And has made them ALL of their R&D money back.) make one non-functional or trivial difference to it, and re-patent it, and start pushing it as the only drug for a MD to prescribe, at full price! Heaven (And the malpractice insurance company) help an MD that doesn't prescribe this new and "Improved" drug and something goes wrong from one of the "minor" side effects.
At the same time, a great number of software patents are ridiculous. I remember being taught years ago in Engineering school, that if an idea was so simple and obvious that any engineer would take that or a similar approach, the idea was not patentable! That standard alone would toss some large number of software patents out the window. Like one-click-shopping. If that's not an obvious idea, I don't know what is!
What we need there is some people in the patent office who REALLY understand what they are doing, and really understand the market to be able to make some rational decisions on what constitutes a real in ovation, or what is just profiteering at the expense of the community.
While I'm at it, their ought to be a "Quick Arbitration" initial step for patents where, rather than giga-buck liars (Um, Lawyers) who spend years hashing something out, and cost everyone involved the entire GDP of 10% of the worlds countries, the actual inventors (or CTO's If you don't understand your own tech, you shouldn't be able to use it!) sit down with a board of experts in the field for an afternoon, and hash it out. If they can't come to a real conclusion, then it goes to the courts. This will keep a lot of smaller companies from rolling on their backs and peeing on them self when some gorilla starts screaming "Patent Infringement" even when the small company is in the right, simply because they cant afford the first round of expenses, forget a real legal battle.
Patents were supposed protect inventors and their hard work. The system has turned it into a game of lawyers and cheap overseas manufacturing, not protecting the weak and right, but whoever can bring the biggest guns to the table, or who can afford to not show up at all.
Slashdot Mirror
This is becoming my biggest bitch about patents, it is way to easy for the big companies to throw crap on the wall, and because their Microsoft, it will probably stick, and I would have to sue against their gigabuck lawyers to defend it. That or loose all of the work I have put into this. The concept certainly seemed too obvious for me to patent, I mean, of course, Adaptive displays have been for a very long time, so because you put it a car for the same reason they are on other displays in a car, it is now patentable? I didn't think so. But then again, I don't have the gigabuck lawyers to crank these out like crack...
It has gotten to the point that you can just claim anything and sooner or later something will get bitten, and some poor inventor gets screwed again... It's happened to me more times than I can count.
No, The only other SL servers are For some interesting reason, In Brazil, and run by the Brazilians.
Don't ask me, I'm not even a member...
Who cares? Out of a $2.4 trillion budget, less than 0.8% is spent on the entire space program! and the results can't really be judged until well after the event. I mean, Who would have thought how important the Transistor or Velcro would have been at the time?
The space program causes creativity and innovation in ways that can rarely be predicted.
Some examples from NASA are found
http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home.html
and from another page
http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html
The benefits to society are immeasurable, from Baby food, to running shoes, to breast cancer detection to wind shear protection to, Well my Internet connect is a satellite connect today...
The issue I have with NASA is they are still political and the thought of a $450 Billion mars mission in ludicrous and entirely politically motivated. 4Frontiers (http://www.4frontierscorp.com/) has a plan for an entire Martian settlement, complete with labs and manufacturing facilities, sleeping 42 (including some remote habitats.) for a loose estimate of a quarter of that politically driven $450! And this is using tech that is pretty close to current or easily extrapolatable from current tech!
Having said that, the settlement plans count pretty heavily on the probes sent by NASA and ESA...
In any case, we could build a settlement, a nearly self sustaining colony, for less that six month of Combat Ops in Iraq (and soon Iran) - And we'll probably be done sooner...
I know this is too late to get modded, I just hope someone reads it!
I guess Preview doesn't always work...
Dos, 6.22, The number of weeks it was good for.
Win 3.11, The number of minutes it would run reliably before needing a restart.
Win95, The hours it takes to get it to work (mostly) right.
Win98, The hours it takes to fix the muck up after upgrading from '95
WinNT, New Toast. (What it does to your wallet.)
WinME, Mostly Excuses
Win2000, What it will cost for the consultant to get it to work (occasionally) right.
WinXP, Xtreme Pukage.
WinVista, Watch your time go away, and your dollars to float into Bill's pockets.
Win7, Years before it actually (Mostly) works as advertised.
Dos, 6.22, The number of weeks it was good for. Win 3.11, The number of minutes it would run reliably before needing a restart. Win95, The hours it takes to get it to work (mostly) right. Win98, The hours it takes to fix the muck up after upgrading from '95 WinNT, New Toast. (What it does to your wallet.) WinME, Mostly Excuses Win2000, What it will cost for the consultant to get it to work (occasionally) right. WinXP, Xtreme Pukage. WinVista, Watch your time go away, and your dollars to float into Bill's pockets. Win7, Years before it actually (Mostly) works as advertised.
away, so, the question is what to do about it NOW.
.02...
Whoever says patents were never intended to make money has obviously never run a business. The profit margin on a States sponsored monopoly is whatever the market will bear, not what your competition, (Who didn't endure the original R&D expense) feels like giving it away for. Of course you are going to make money with a patent, if you can keep everyone else off your backs! The only way that will ever happen is if the patent laws are indeed enforced, including by Customs at the boarder. (And I'd like to see sanctions against countries who continuously violate this {Ehhoumf CHINA! Ehhoumf}
As far as pharma patents? Screw them. Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate the billions that go into Pharma research, What I do not appreciate is the lies that come out of that research. (because not only do they own the R&D industry, they own the FDA and the better part of the medical profession also!) Nor do I appreciate that they will take a drug that makes them money (And has made them ALL of their R&D money back.) make one non-functional or trivial difference to it, and re-patent it, and start pushing it as the only drug for a MD to prescribe, at full price! Heaven (And the malpractice insurance company) help an MD that doesn't prescribe this new and "Improved" drug and something goes wrong from one of the "minor" side effects.
At the same time, a great number of software patents are ridiculous. I remember being taught years ago in Engineering school, that if an idea was so simple and obvious that any engineer would take that or a similar approach, the idea was not patentable! That standard alone would toss some large number of software patents out the window. Like one-click-shopping. If that's not an obvious idea, I don't know what is!
What we need there is some people in the patent office who REALLY understand what they are doing, and really understand the market to be able to make some rational decisions on what constitutes a real in ovation, or what is just profiteering at the expense of the community.
While I'm at it, their ought to be a "Quick Arbitration" initial step for patents where, rather than giga-buck liars (Um, Lawyers) who spend years hashing something out, and cost everyone involved the entire GDP of 10% of the worlds countries, the actual inventors (or CTO's If you don't understand your own tech, you shouldn't be able to use it!) sit down with a board of experts in the field for an afternoon, and hash it out. If they can't come to a real conclusion, then it goes to the courts. This will keep a lot of smaller companies from rolling on their backs and peeing on them self when some gorilla starts screaming "Patent Infringement" even when the small company is in the right, simply because they cant afford the first round of expenses, forget a real legal battle.
Patents were supposed protect inventors and their hard work. The system has turned it into a game of lawyers and cheap overseas manufacturing, not protecting the weak and right, but whoever can bring the biggest guns to the table, or who can afford to not show up at all.
Just my first