No, you moron. The species isn't found on any other planet. Whales were indigenous to earth. If we were to assume that they were ours just to do with as we pleased, we would be as responsible as those who caused their extinction.
Ok, then let me go through what I was responding to:
Patent issues are Constitutionally a Federal issue, so there's no legal reason for this one court to consistently rule contrary to the Federal standard for patent infringement.
Your plea of federal jurisdiction leads me to conclude that you think there's something wrong with this court hearing federal patent law cases. So I pointed out it's a federal court. It follows federal law. It is competent to hear federal patent law cases. You also assume that it refuses to follow federal patent law. Perhaps you could show me an example of what you're talking about.
Perhaps a higher court should hear an appeal from one of this court's patent infringement cases and make precedent whether they are really following the law or simply "legislating from the bench."
And I responded by pointing out that a higher court does hear lots of appeals from this court's patent infringement cases, and reverses them when they feel it is necessary. They also hear patent cases from all the other district courts. Their decisions on these cases set precedent. This makes as much sense as complaining that "America should elect a black President" or "Apple should sell a BSD-based operating system."
I think the real problem is you are assuming that the Eastern District of Texas just flagrantly declines to follow federal patent law and Federal Circuit precedent. But what would be the motivation? They would just get reversed. Plaintiffs generally like the Eastern District (1) because of the "rocket docket" (local rules that expedite patent cases---which other district courts like so much they are starting to model their own local rules after them) and (2) the potential jury pool is considered favorable. Plaintiffs also like that Judge Ward and Judge Davis are knowledgeable about patents (since they've handled so many cases) and perceive them as "fair" (from the patentees' perspective. Defendants obviously have a different idea of what's "fair." This is the "adversarial system," and it works pretty well). They are not renegades who flout patent precedent. In fact, in many cases, the Eastern District is setting precedent. So I still respectfully maintain that your premise is flawed and that you are complaining about non-issues.
It's an age-old tradition in the law that the first person to court gets first crack at venue. But there are limits, like the court has to be able to exercise personal jurisdiction over the defendants, and even if it can, the defendant can try to get the case transferred if they can prove there is a better venue. The problem is that when you sue 20 defendants that are scattered all over the county and that sell their products in all 50 states, it's hard to identify one single place that would definitely be the "best" venue for the case. So the Eastern District ends up being pretty much as good as any other random place, and that's where the case was filed, so that's where it stays
That said, some recent case law from the Federal Circuit has tightened up the venue requirements, so there actually are more cases getting transferred out of Marshall than there used to be.
Still, it is awfully suspicious that patent trolls seem to be significantly more successful in East Texas compared to other District Courts. Patent issues are Constitutionally a Federal issue, so there's no legal reason for this one court to consistently rule contrary to the Federal standard for patent infringement. Perhaps a higher court should hear an appeal from one of this court's patent infringement cases and make precedent whether they are really following the law or simply "legislating from the bench."
This paragraph does not make a lick of sense. The court in question is the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. It is a federal court hearing matters of federal patent law. And like all federal courts, its decisions are appealable to a Federal Court of Appeals. And since federal patent law is such a specialized area, Congress even gave us a special Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which hears all patent appeals and sets precedent. The CAFC has heard LOTS of cases from the Eastern District of Texas, and has reversed when they felt it was necessary.
Seriously, reading a patent thread on Slashdot is like watching a couple of MBAs argue heatedly about whether it's better to write Linux drivers in AJAX or SCSI.
Um, I have three children, and each time, the only thing I thought about the delivery beforehand was, "Gee, I sure am glad a doctor will be handling this."
Yep, this story.
- Pretty disruptive for people who need a (quick) answer and not your stupid comment.
And now it's in this thread three times. This is all they'll ever get!
Now that it's up to four, whoever googles it is sure to get this informative answer: IF THERE IS AFTERBIRTH ON YOUR LAPTOP, BURN IT AND BUY A NEW LAPTOP. Believe me, I've seen the stuff. There is no other good option.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that if there were something as obvious as the patent freakin' expired already or there was an obvious bar date, Microsoft's lawyers probably would have picked up on it. In fact, I'm betting that before Microsoft payed half a billion dollars to settle the suit, they probably scoured the world for invalidating prior art. If there's any good prior art to use against these patents, it's not likely to be something that the Slashdot Army of Armchair Lawyers is going to come up with off the top of their heads. It's more likely to be some thesis published by the University of Zimbabwe with exactly one copy sitting in their library just waiting to be discovered.
As always, I don't represent you and this post is not legal advice, and does not represent the views or opinions of my firm, or its partners, yadda yadda.
I used to write software (now I write patents) and found it to be exactly the same for me. If you leave me alone, I can be productive. I have my very own office with a door and everything, but if the phone keeps ringing, I will not be productive, and the lost productivity is not just measured in the time I actually spend on the phone. I wear noise-canceling headphones and close my door when I want to get something done (if I really get in a zone, I won't even notice the phone ringing, which is by design). If I really, really need to get something done, I just grab my files and my laptop and go to the library.
The military has been working on what I'd call troop supplement vehicles. Basically, they are small cart vehicles able to carry a couple thousand pounds. They can follow a soldier around, or manually controlled to perform delivery tasks during a fire fight. Beats a 40% increase in strength by far.
They'll need those to carry all the food the new super soldiers will have to eat.
Perhaps theoretically, this could be the case. But also remember that anybody who makes anything is as much a possible patent defendant as a possible patent plaintiff. The only exception to this is the patent trolls, who don't make anything, so they can't get sued by anybody. But they don't have the clout that Disney does. Patents will continue to have a reasonable term because they are a double-edged sword.
Copyright is completely different. Disney wants perpetual copyright because it's relatively easy not to run afoul of copyright---as long as you don't actually copy anything, you're not liable. There may be the odd case, like Microsoft's recent GPL blunder, but for the most part, it's not a problem. So it's a very one-sided analysis. They make huge money with perpetual copyright, and they gain very little by having a growing public domain.
While what you say is theoretically true, the process they describe---send out a bunch of e-mails, see how many didn't get bounced, and then if too many got bounced, send out a bunch more---is really only practical for marketing type mass e-mails. I seriously doubt that your (presumably) legitimate company does anything of the sort when sending out W-2s. The specification really focuses on marketing-type applications, like those web sites that have the "check the categories that interest you" pages so they can semi-legitimately sell you to spammers. The idea is, a marketer pays you to deliver X e-mails to prospective customers, and this ensures they get their full "X" prospective customers.
I guess my broken ethical compass didn't tell me it was evil to bill people when I do work for them. I'm assuming you do all your work for free, but if that's the case, you're probably bumming off the welfare system, which I'm paying for, meaning you're taking money from me and providing absolutely no value whatsoever. So I still don't see where you beat me on ethics.
Or were you talking about the part where I advise clients, "You can pay me $HUGE_AMT, and we can fight this tooth and nail, and we'll probably win. Or you can pay the troll $SMALLER_AMT to settle the case. It won't be a "moral victory," because the bad guys win, and I'll get much less money because I'll spend just a little time negotiating the settlement, but you will pay far less money overall."
That would be insightful if it were remotely true. Patent terms have remained relatively stable for a very, very long time (unlike copyright, which actually is creeping ever towards "in perpetuity"). Expired patents enter the public domain almost every day. In fact, the most recent change to patent terms was around 1995 and was to prevent stuff like Lemelson's shenanigans with the patent term. Before 95, you could keep filing continuations forever to keep the thing alive (which is what Lemelson did). Now you get 20 years from the first filing date.
Well, sort of. The specification mentioned opt-in as the preferred embodiment, but the broadest claims don't require it. It's still a spam patent, it just happens to be useful for opt-in lists too. And opt-in isn't always as innocent as it sounds. Marketers love to play games with what they consider an "opt-in."
A little wounded pride here. How is that an error in the summary? The district court invalidated on three grounds. The Fed. Cir. upheld the obviousness finding. I'm pretty sure that's exactly what I said.
Cut from my summary is a link to Patently-O which has some pretty good analysis.
Slashdot Mirror
[whoosh!]
No, you moron. The species isn't found on any other planet. Whales were indigenous to earth. If we were to assume that they were ours just to do with as we pleased, we would be as responsible as those who caused their extinction.
Ok, then let me go through what I was responding to:
Patent issues are Constitutionally a Federal issue, so there's no legal reason for this one court to consistently rule contrary to the Federal standard for patent infringement.
Your plea of federal jurisdiction leads me to conclude that you think there's something wrong with this court hearing federal patent law cases. So I pointed out it's a federal court. It follows federal law. It is competent to hear federal patent law cases. You also assume that it refuses to follow federal patent law. Perhaps you could show me an example of what you're talking about.
Perhaps a higher court should hear an appeal from one of this court's patent infringement cases and make precedent whether they are really following the law or simply "legislating from the bench."
And I responded by pointing out that a higher court does hear lots of appeals from this court's patent infringement cases, and reverses them when they feel it is necessary. They also hear patent cases from all the other district courts. Their decisions on these cases set precedent. This makes as much sense as complaining that "America should elect a black President" or "Apple should sell a BSD-based operating system."
I think the real problem is you are assuming that the Eastern District of Texas just flagrantly declines to follow federal patent law and Federal Circuit precedent. But what would be the motivation? They would just get reversed. Plaintiffs generally like the Eastern District (1) because of the "rocket docket" (local rules that expedite patent cases---which other district courts like so much they are starting to model their own local rules after them) and (2) the potential jury pool is considered favorable. Plaintiffs also like that Judge Ward and Judge Davis are knowledgeable about patents (since they've handled so many cases) and perceive them as "fair" (from the patentees' perspective. Defendants obviously have a different idea of what's "fair." This is the "adversarial system," and it works pretty well). They are not renegades who flout patent precedent. In fact, in many cases, the Eastern District is setting precedent. So I still respectfully maintain that your premise is flawed and that you are complaining about non-issues.
It's an age-old tradition in the law that the first person to court gets first crack at venue. But there are limits, like the court has to be able to exercise personal jurisdiction over the defendants, and even if it can, the defendant can try to get the case transferred if they can prove there is a better venue. The problem is that when you sue 20 defendants that are scattered all over the county and that sell their products in all 50 states, it's hard to identify one single place that would definitely be the "best" venue for the case. So the Eastern District ends up being pretty much as good as any other random place, and that's where the case was filed, so that's where it stays
That said, some recent case law from the Federal Circuit has tightened up the venue requirements, so there actually are more cases getting transferred out of Marshall than there used to be.
Still, it is awfully suspicious that patent trolls seem to be significantly more successful in East Texas compared to other District Courts. Patent issues are Constitutionally a Federal issue, so there's no legal reason for this one court to consistently rule contrary to the Federal standard for patent infringement. Perhaps a higher court should hear an appeal from one of this court's patent infringement cases and make precedent whether they are really following the law or simply "legislating from the bench."
This paragraph does not make a lick of sense. The court in question is the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. It is a federal court hearing matters of federal patent law. And like all federal courts, its decisions are appealable to a Federal Court of Appeals. And since federal patent law is such a specialized area, Congress even gave us a special Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which hears all patent appeals and sets precedent. The CAFC has heard LOTS of cases from the Eastern District of Texas, and has reversed when they felt it was necessary.
Seriously, reading a patent thread on Slashdot is like watching a couple of MBAs argue heatedly about whether it's better to write Linux drivers in AJAX or SCSI.
Um, I have three children, and each time, the only thing I thought about the delivery beforehand was, "Gee, I sure am glad a doctor will be handling this."
So, guess what comes up when you really do google
Yep, this story. - Pretty disruptive for people who need a (quick) answer and not your stupid comment.
And now it's in this thread three times. This is all they'll ever get!
Now that it's up to four, whoever googles it is sure to get this informative answer: IF THERE IS AFTERBIRTH ON YOUR LAPTOP, BURN IT AND BUY A NEW LAPTOP. Believe me, I've seen the stuff. There is no other good option.
As always, I don't represent you and this post is not legal advice, and does not represent the views or opinions of my firm, or its partners, yadda yadda.
I used to write software (now I write patents) and found it to be exactly the same for me. If you leave me alone, I can be productive. I have my very own office with a door and everything, but if the phone keeps ringing, I will not be productive, and the lost productivity is not just measured in the time I actually spend on the phone. I wear noise-canceling headphones and close my door when I want to get something done (if I really get in a zone, I won't even notice the phone ringing, which is by design). If I really, really need to get something done, I just grab my files and my laptop and go to the library.
I used to have a magnetic monopole, but I lost it while escaping from that black hole.
"Fairness" is Marxism dressed in drag.
Great. This guy in drag is exactly the kind of disturbing mental image I needed today. Excuse me while I go try to sear it out of my brain.
The military has been working on what I'd call troop supplement vehicles. Basically, they are small cart vehicles able to carry a couple thousand pounds. They can follow a soldier around, or manually controlled to perform delivery tasks during a fire fight. Beats a 40% increase in strength by far.
They'll need those to carry all the food the new super soldiers will have to eat.
We have a world food distribution/shortage problem as it is. Imagine SUPER STRONG STARVING Humans.
Michael Bay is on the phone. He'd like to have a word with you.
One drop is all it takes.
-1, Hasn't Aired In US Yet.
"Kijiji (pronounced key-jee-jee) is Swahili for village." -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kijiji
And it's English for "Lame Craigslist Knock-Off With a Stupid Name"
They also had issues with ... acting...
Unlike Star Wars, which featured Mark Hamill turning in a flawless performance as a non-nasally, non-whiny mythical hero.
Perhaps theoretically, this could be the case. But also remember that anybody who makes anything is as much a possible patent defendant as a possible patent plaintiff. The only exception to this is the patent trolls, who don't make anything, so they can't get sued by anybody. But they don't have the clout that Disney does. Patents will continue to have a reasonable term because they are a double-edged sword.
Copyright is completely different. Disney wants perpetual copyright because it's relatively easy not to run afoul of copyright---as long as you don't actually copy anything, you're not liable. There may be the odd case, like Microsoft's recent GPL blunder, but for the most part, it's not a problem. So it's a very one-sided analysis. They make huge money with perpetual copyright, and they gain very little by having a growing public domain.
Well, actually, there are going to be three arks. The first one will have the "middlemen," like telephone sanitizers...
While what you say is theoretically true, the process they describe---send out a bunch of e-mails, see how many didn't get bounced, and then if too many got bounced, send out a bunch more---is really only practical for marketing type mass e-mails. I seriously doubt that your (presumably) legitimate company does anything of the sort when sending out W-2s. The specification really focuses on marketing-type applications, like those web sites that have the "check the categories that interest you" pages so they can semi-legitimately sell you to spammers. The idea is, a marketer pays you to deliver X e-mails to prospective customers, and this ensures they get their full "X" prospective customers.
I guess my broken ethical compass didn't tell me it was evil to bill people when I do work for them. I'm assuming you do all your work for free, but if that's the case, you're probably bumming off the welfare system, which I'm paying for, meaning you're taking money from me and providing absolutely no value whatsoever. So I still don't see where you beat me on ethics.
Or were you talking about the part where I advise clients, "You can pay me $HUGE_AMT, and we can fight this tooth and nail, and we'll probably win. Or you can pay the troll $SMALLER_AMT to settle the case. It won't be a "moral victory," because the bad guys win, and I'll get much less money because I'll spend just a little time negotiating the settlement, but you will pay far less money overall."
That would be insightful if it were remotely true. Patent terms have remained relatively stable for a very, very long time (unlike copyright, which actually is creeping ever towards "in perpetuity"). Expired patents enter the public domain almost every day. In fact, the most recent change to patent terms was around 1995 and was to prevent stuff like Lemelson's shenanigans with the patent term. Before 95, you could keep filing continuations forever to keep the thing alive (which is what Lemelson did). Now you get 20 years from the first filing date.
Well, sort of. The specification mentioned opt-in as the preferred embodiment, but the broadest claims don't require it. It's still a spam patent, it just happens to be useful for opt-in lists too. And opt-in isn't always as innocent as it sounds. Marketers love to play games with what they consider an "opt-in."
Sorry, link's still there, they just didn't mention that it was Patently-O.
A little wounded pride here. How is that an error in the summary? The district court invalidated on three grounds. The Fed. Cir. upheld the obviousness finding. I'm pretty sure that's exactly what I said.
Cut from my summary is a link to Patently-O which has some pretty good analysis.