Seriously, it seems pretty clear swpat.org didn't even bother to read the 2010 Guidelines, and they even posted them!
The new guidelines don't do anything the summary or TFA say. You can't even get mad at the summary, except for obviously not reading TFA either (at least not beyond the first few lines).
Call me but I smell a website that can't read the fucking 2010 Guidelines.
It doesn't say anything at all about removing any of the rationals. All it says is to be sure to have a solid rational for rejecting a patent on obviousness, and to be sure you have facts to back up that rational. This makes an appeal virtually impossible, and is a very good thing.
If the examiner can reject a claim with a relatively vague reasoning, then the applicant would be forced to justify their claims better.
Actually if the rejections are too vague the patent applicant simply appeals the decision and wins when the court says "why the heck is this ruled obvious?"
When the rejections are strong and grounded in facts with SCOTUS derived rationals behind them, it's really really hard to win on appeal, so the patent applicant amends their claims instead.
There can be no rationale for an obviousness test... ultimately something is obvious just because.
That's the stupidest thing I have heard in at least a month.
If you can't answer the question "why is it obvious" then you have no business declaring something obvious. The fact that nobody else thought of it before is evidence that it is not obvious, so you'd better have a good reason for saying it is obvious.
That's basically what this ruling does. It doesn't eliminate anything, TFA is wrong. The whole thing boils down to "Make sure you have your facts straight and that your rational to reject a patent is based on the law."
That's it, in a nutshell. It even specifically mentions using the seven rational's listed in the 2007 guidelines, so where TFA got the idea that four of them had been eliminated I have no idea.
TFA is wrong, you can see it pretty clearly by reading the 2010 KSR guidlines.
First off, they are administrative rules, and have no force of law and are not enforceable in any way.
Second, they mearly state that the KSR SCOTUS ruling does not replace the old methods of determining obviousness, it simply gives the PTO new lines of reasoning to use when rejecting a patent.
Third, it reminds patent officers that rejections must be based on the law, and that for whatever line of reasoning they follow (specifically talking about the seven rules in the 2007 guidelines here), "appropriate factual findings are required in order to apply the enumerated rationales properly."
I don't know where swpat.org got the idea that this eliminated any of the 2007 rationals, but it isn't in there at all. If anything this makes it easier for patent officers to reject a patent for obvious, because it makes it clear that the new standards (2007 guidelines) don't replace the old standards, they apply in addition to the old obviousness standards (pre-2007 guidelines).
Really, if they bothered to read it the wouldn't be making asses of themselves.
Replying again, I know, but it looks like TFA really jumped the gun big time. I only skimmed it, but it seems pretty clear to me that the 2010 guidelines only frame what patent officers are supposed to do once they've chosen one of the seven rationals laid out in the 2007 guidelines. It's a set of guidelines for applying the 2007 guidelines, it isn't a change in the rules in any way that I could tell.
This is further made clear by the fact that the 2010 guidelines are completely, 100% unenforced. It's nothing more than advice. From TFA:
This 2010 KSR Guidelines Update does not constitute substantive rule making and hence does not have the force and effect of law. It has been developed as a matter of internal Office management and is not intended to create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable by any party against the Office. Rejections will continue to be based upon the substantive law, and it is these rejections that are appealable. Consequently, any failure by Office personnel to follow this 2010 KSR Guidelines Update is neither appealable nor petitionable.
And further down, right after spelling out the seven rationals in the 2007 KSR Guidelines, they make it pretty clear that all those rationals are still in play:
It is important for Office personnel to recognize that when they do choose to formulate an obviousness rejection using one of the rationales suggested by the Supreme Court in KSR and discussed in the 2007 KSR Guidelines, they are to adhere to the instructions provided in the MPEP regarding the necessary factual findings. However, the 2007 KSR Guidelines also stressed that while the Graham inquiries and the associated reasoning are crucial to a proper obviousness determination, the Supreme Court in KSR did not place any limit on the particular approach to be taken to formulate the line of reasoning. In other words, the KSR decision is not to be seen as replacing a single test for obviousness–the TSM test–with the seven rationales listed in the 2007 KSR Guidelines. See MPEP 2141 and 2143 (8th ed. 2001) (Rev. 8, July 2010) (references to the MPEP are to Revision 8 of the 8th Edition of the MPEP unless otherwise indicated).
The document basically just reminds the patent officers to have all their ducks in a row before rejecting a patent, and gives some examples from case law. Given that the new guidelines have only been in effect for three years, it's not surprising they don't have examples for every rational.
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to understand any of the patents behind modern CPUs for instance, unless I spent an awful lot of time reacquainting myself with electronics.
This has always been true. The point of patents is not so that anyone can build the thing in the patent, the point of patents is so that a competent engineer in the same field could build the thing in the patent.
If you are a chip designer for AMD, you would definitely understand Intel's CPU patents. A transmission designer should be able to understand patents on transmissions. An aeronautical engineer should be able to understand a new airplane design.
That's the point of patents. It has always been the point of patents, it isn't something that has developed over the last 50 years. They are not there to tell you, specifically, how to do something new. They are there to tell anyone who has the required background knowledge how to do something new. If you don't have the required knowledge to understand it, then the patent was never intended for you to begin with.
When I said disable I actually meant delete, I hit submit before I realized that mistake. It should be a permanent but freely repeatable transfer.
The B&N and Amazon plans prove that this can work just fine, but instead of doing something that made sense (an actual move), they chose to do this ridiculous one-time temporary copy. It's stupid. Why didn't they just give us the real deal? Like you said, as far as the hardware/software is concerned it's almost exactly the same thing, and is actually less complicated technically speaking than what they are actually doing.
Why the hell would they do it? It's unbelievably stupid.
Their free ebook program has pretty conclusively proven that books that are past their peak sales mark (usually 2-6 months after first publish) see a substantial increase in sales after publishing the ebook for free.
The prime palaver section really details why this works, but the lengthy introduction on the front page is good enough for it to make sense to most people.
This quote really sums up the real problem quite nicely:
Income doesn't derive from preventing theft, it comes from making sales. A certain amount of loss due to theft is simply one of the overhead costs. Obviously, taking simple measures to eliminate as much theft as possible is sensible. But at a certain point -- and much sooner than you might think -- the measures you take to prevent theft can start cutting your income.
If my personal vault of ebooks dies, how do I transfer them to someone?
If your book burns in a fire, how do you get a new one? That's right, you buy a new one
Or, is that the logical equivalent of my house burning down with all the contents?
Yes, it is. If you keep all your books on your ebook reader, and you lose/break/whatever your reader such that they cannot be retrieved, you should be SOL.
Since the rest of your post flows from the above two mistaken (in my opinion) premises, there's no need for me to respond to what follows them.
We need to start treating digital copies like books. We don't own the content, but we should own the copy we purchased, and we should be able to do with them what we want.
Obviously there are some natural limitations that apply to books that would need to artificially applied to ebooks, but we can already apply them, as this piddly excuse for a loan policy proves.
The concept is easy: a function in the software that ties an ebook to the device and only allows transfer to another device if it successfully ties it to another device, and then disables the ebook on the original device. That would make ebooks behave exactly like regular books. Then you wouldn't need a stupid loan policy, you'd just give your friend your copy of the ebook, just like you would a physical book.
I seriously do not understand why this has not been done yet, or why they insist on these stupid "loan" functions. Just move the ebook off the old machine and onto the new! Leave it up to the owner of the book to get their copy back, just like physical books. We've been able to "move" (copy then delete) digital media for ages.
Seriously, it's not that hard. Why the hell are they making it so complicated?
Our definitions of pranks must be different, a DDOS attack sounds as much like a prank as breaking into a jewelry shop and breaking all the glass display cases.
Sure, you may not have stolen anything, but it's hardly a prank.
I think 30 months is pretty standard for a DDOS attack. He was caught pretty quickly because his targets were high profile, but otherwise I don't think there is any miscarriage of justice here.
The wheels spin the propeller to generate a forward pull, the propeller doesn't drive the wheels (acceleration would stop at 0 relative wind speed in that case).
It's exactly the same as tacking from the propeller's perspective, but the propeller allows the cart to move directly downwind instead of at a crosswind.
You do realize that NALSA certified it, right? As in they checked all these things?
They installed a bracket on the shaft to ensure the propeller never drives the wheels, so all the momentum of the propeller is going to be able to do is allow the propeller to continue spinning. It never, ever, drives the wheels.
Anyway, it's way beyond theoretical. The current land sailing speed record is 3.15 times wind speed 126mph in a 40mph crosswind, fast!), set with a traditional land sail in a crosswind. It was set the same day NALSA certified the first DDWFTTW record.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay NBC, Hulu, etc. our new policy: we won't index sites which decide to arbitrarily support devices due to "incompatible business models" ..
That could run them afoul of anti-trust laws, given their market position in search.
Coercion is a no-no. If more people understood what actually triggered Microsoft's anti-trust case we wouldn't see such nonsense.
TL;DR:
What what's your problem with TL;DR? Something about kittens?
I mean it, call me!
It gets so lonely... ;)
Contrary to what TFA seems to think, I'm pretty sure "First Post" is obvious under the 2010 KSR Guidelines.
Sorry bro, your patent just got rejected.
Seriously, it seems pretty clear swpat.org didn't even bother to read the 2010 Guidelines, and they even posted them!
The new guidelines don't do anything the summary or TFA say. You can't even get mad at the summary, except for obviously not reading TFA either (at least not beyond the first few lines).
Call me but I smell a website that can't read the fucking 2010 Guidelines.
It doesn't say anything at all about removing any of the rationals. All it says is to be sure to have a solid rational for rejecting a patent on obviousness, and to be sure you have facts to back up that rational. This makes an appeal virtually impossible, and is a very good thing.
If the examiner can reject a claim with a relatively vague reasoning, then the applicant would be forced to justify their claims better.
Actually if the rejections are too vague the patent applicant simply appeals the decision and wins when the court says "why the heck is this ruled obvious?"
When the rejections are strong and grounded in facts with SCOTUS derived rationals behind them, it's really really hard to win on appeal, so the patent applicant amends their claims instead.
There can be no rationale for an obviousness test ... ultimately something is obvious just because.
That's the stupidest thing I have heard in at least a month.
If you can't answer the question "why is it obvious" then you have no business declaring something obvious. The fact that nobody else thought of it before is evidence that it is not obvious, so you'd better have a good reason for saying it is obvious.
That's basically what this ruling does. It doesn't eliminate anything, TFA is wrong. The whole thing boils down to "Make sure you have your facts straight and that your rational to reject a patent is based on the law."
That's it, in a nutshell. It even specifically mentions using the seven rational's listed in the 2007 guidelines, so where TFA got the idea that four of them had been eliminated I have no idea.
TFA is wrong, you can see it pretty clearly by reading the 2010 KSR guidlines.
First off, they are administrative rules, and have no force of law and are not enforceable in any way.
Second, they mearly state that the KSR SCOTUS ruling does not replace the old methods of determining obviousness, it simply gives the PTO new lines of reasoning to use when rejecting a patent.
Third, it reminds patent officers that rejections must be based on the law, and that for whatever line of reasoning they follow (specifically talking about the seven rules in the 2007 guidelines here), "appropriate factual findings are required in order to apply the enumerated rationales properly."
I don't know where swpat.org got the idea that this eliminated any of the 2007 rationals, but it isn't in there at all. If anything this makes it easier for patent officers to reject a patent for obvious, because it makes it clear that the new standards (2007 guidelines) don't replace the old standards, they apply in addition to the old obviousness standards (pre-2007 guidelines).
Really, if they bothered to read it the wouldn't be making asses of themselves.
Replying again, I know, but it looks like TFA really jumped the gun big time. I only skimmed it, but it seems pretty clear to me that the 2010 guidelines only frame what patent officers are supposed to do once they've chosen one of the seven rationals laid out in the 2007 guidelines. It's a set of guidelines for applying the 2007 guidelines, it isn't a change in the rules in any way that I could tell.
This is further made clear by the fact that the 2010 guidelines are completely, 100% unenforced. It's nothing more than advice. From TFA:
This 2010 KSR Guidelines Update does not constitute substantive rule making and hence does not have the force and effect of law. It has been developed as a matter of internal Office management and is not intended to create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable by any party against the Office. Rejections will continue to be based upon the substantive law, and it is these rejections that are appealable. Consequently, any failure by Office personnel to follow this 2010 KSR Guidelines Update is neither appealable nor petitionable.
And further down, right after spelling out the seven rationals in the 2007 KSR Guidelines, they make it pretty clear that all those rationals are still in play:
It is important for Office personnel to recognize that when they do choose to formulate an obviousness rejection using one of the rationales suggested by the Supreme Court in KSR and discussed in the 2007 KSR Guidelines, they are to adhere to the instructions provided in the MPEP regarding the necessary factual findings. However, the 2007 KSR Guidelines also stressed that while the Graham inquiries and the associated reasoning are crucial to a proper obviousness determination, the Supreme Court in KSR did not place any limit on the particular approach to be taken to formulate the line of reasoning. In other words, the KSR decision is not to be seen as replacing a single test for obviousness–the TSM test–with the seven rationales listed in the 2007 KSR Guidelines. See MPEP 2141 and 2143 (8th ed. 2001) (Rev. 8, July 2010) (references to the MPEP are to Revision 8 of the 8th Edition of the MPEP unless otherwise indicated).
The document basically just reminds the patent officers to have all their ducks in a row before rejecting a patent, and gives some examples from case law. Given that the new guidelines have only been in effect for three years, it's not surprising they don't have examples for every rational.
Damnit, you just had to go and ruin it didn't you?
What with your reading TFA and all. Punk.
Don't bring your stupid facts into this discussion, we don't want them!
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to understand any of the patents behind modern CPUs for instance, unless I spent an awful lot of time reacquainting myself with electronics.
This has always been true. The point of patents is not so that anyone can build the thing in the patent, the point of patents is so that a competent engineer in the same field could build the thing in the patent.
If you are a chip designer for AMD, you would definitely understand Intel's CPU patents. A transmission designer should be able to understand patents on transmissions. An aeronautical engineer should be able to understand a new airplane design.
That's the point of patents. It has always been the point of patents, it isn't something that has developed over the last 50 years. They are not there to tell you, specifically, how to do something new. They are there to tell anyone who has the required background knowledge how to do something new. If you don't have the required knowledge to understand it, then the patent was never intended for you to begin with.
When I said disable I actually meant delete, I hit submit before I realized that mistake. It should be a permanent but freely repeatable transfer.
The B&N and Amazon plans prove that this can work just fine, but instead of doing something that made sense (an actual move), they chose to do this ridiculous one-time temporary copy. It's stupid. Why didn't they just give us the real deal? Like you said, as far as the hardware/software is concerned it's almost exactly the same thing, and is actually less complicated technically speaking than what they are actually doing.
Why the hell would they do it? It's unbelievably stupid.
If publishers were smart enough to get in on this, they could be making an absolute killing.
But apparently they aren't. Their loss.
Their free ebook program has pretty conclusively proven that books that are past their peak sales mark (usually 2-6 months after first publish) see a substantial increase in sales after publishing the ebook for free.
Don't hide it, promote it!
The prime palaver section really details why this works, but the lengthy introduction on the front page is good enough for it to make sense to most people.
This quote really sums up the real problem quite nicely:
Income doesn't derive from preventing theft, it comes from making sales. A certain amount of loss due to theft is simply one of the overhead costs. Obviously, taking simple measures to eliminate as much theft as possible is sensible. But at a certain point -- and much sooner than you might think -- the measures you take to prevent theft can start cutting your income.
If my personal vault of ebooks dies, how do I transfer them to someone?
If your book burns in a fire, how do you get a new one? That's right, you buy a new one
Or, is that the logical equivalent of my house burning down with all the contents?
Yes, it is. If you keep all your books on your ebook reader, and you lose/break/whatever your reader such that they cannot be retrieved, you should be SOL.
Since the rest of your post flows from the above two mistaken (in my opinion) premises, there's no need for me to respond to what follows them.
It's a one time 14 day loan, you can't loan the same book twice. That's absurd.
If it were just a 14 day loan it would be a bit ridiculous, but not completely unacceptable.
We need to start treating digital copies like books. We don't own the content, but we should own the copy we purchased, and we should be able to do with them what we want.
Obviously there are some natural limitations that apply to books that would need to artificially applied to ebooks, but we can already apply them, as this piddly excuse for a loan policy proves.
The concept is easy: a function in the software that ties an ebook to the device and only allows transfer to another device if it successfully ties it to another device, and then disables the ebook on the original device. That would make ebooks behave exactly like regular books. Then you wouldn't need a stupid loan policy, you'd just give your friend your copy of the ebook, just like you would a physical book.
I seriously do not understand why this has not been done yet, or why they insist on these stupid "loan" functions. Just move the ebook off the old machine and onto the new! Leave it up to the owner of the book to get their copy back, just like physical books. We've been able to "move" (copy then delete) digital media for ages.
Seriously, it's not that hard. Why the hell are they making it so complicated?
Are you kidding? The ability to lend a book once for 14 days if the publisher allows it? How is that a good thing?
It's so ridiculously restricted it's essentially useless.
Somebody needs a Xanax.
Fortunately the court cares a lot about intent.
Our definitions of pranks must be different, a DDOS attack sounds as much like a prank as breaking into a jewelry shop and breaking all the glass display cases.
Sure, you may not have stolen anything, but it's hardly a prank.
I think 30 months is pretty standard for a DDOS attack. He was caught pretty quickly because his targets were high profile, but otherwise I don't think there is any miscarriage of justice here.
The wheels spin the propeller to generate a forward pull, the propeller doesn't drive the wheels (acceleration would stop at 0 relative wind speed in that case).
Here's the physics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_faster_than_the_wind
It's exactly the same as tacking from the propeller's perspective, but the propeller allows the cart to move directly downwind instead of at a crosswind.
You do realize that NALSA certified it, right? As in they checked all these things?
They installed a bracket on the shaft to ensure the propeller never drives the wheels, so all the momentum of the propeller is going to be able to do is allow the propeller to continue spinning. It never, ever, drives the wheels.
Anyway, it's way beyond theoretical. The current land sailing speed record is 3.15 times wind speed 126mph in a 40mph crosswind, fast!), set with a traditional land sail in a crosswind. It was set the same day NALSA certified the first DDWFTTW record.
Here's the explanation of the physics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_faster_than_the_wind