Actually, they're trying to patent "A system for providing real-time validation of text input fields in a Web page comprising:a validation-enhanced text input element configured to contain an attribute for a validation expression for a text field in a rendered Web page, wherein the validation-enhanced text input element is contained within a source code document corresponding to the rendered Web page; andan input text validator configured to validate a user-entered character of the text field against the validation expression in real-time and visually indicate invalid user-entered characters," and "A method for providing real-time validation of text input fields in a Web page comprising:receiving a user-entered character in a text field displayed in a Web page;immediately validating the user-entered character against a validation expression contained within a validation-enhanced text input element associated with the text field, wherein the validation expression defines a set of acceptable characters and character positions for the text field; andwhen the user-entered character is determined invalid, visually marking the user-entered character," and "An input text validator for validating a text field of a Web page in real-time comprising:a partial input expression generator configured to generate an expanded version of a validation expression, wherein the expanded version of the validation expression defines a set of acceptable characters and character positions for a text field of a Web page; andan invalid text highlighter configured to visually highlight a user-entered character in the text field when the user-entered character is determined as invalid for the expanded validation expression."
Remember, patents are all about the claims. You don't know what they're "trying to patent" until you have read and understand the claims.
Also, from discussions with my attorney, it's really hard to get away with the "bloody obvious" software patents anymore after all of the blowback from things like the Amazon 1-click patent.
Somebody mod parent up. The days of the patent office just rubber stamping software patents (if there ever were such days) are over. Those guys have gone absolutely freakin' nuts with KSR. Seriously, you could send them an application for a working FTL drive, and they'd just shoot back an obviousness rejection combining one of Einstein's publications with an episode of Star Trek. I'm not saying it's bad to treat obviousness as a hard fact question where we have to actually use our heads rather than mechanically use the Teaching/Suggestion/Motivation test. But these guys have gone totally the other way. They don't use their heads. They just mechanically reject everything as obvious if they can find the pieces in any prior art, regardless of whether it was obvious to put them together (and for those who think this is a good thing, the result of this line is there's no such thing as an invention, because everybody builds on what's already there).
And now with Bilski, the examiners are all hot to reject any software claim as not patentable subject matter. Really, the landscape has changed. Anybody sitting around posting on Slashdot and grousing about the USPTO rubber stamping software patents really has no idea what they're talking about.
Not true. It is legal to make unauthorized copies under the fair use doctrine, for example.
Additionally, the liability involved is very much in question.
Please tone down your hysteria.
Downloading a copy of a song you have not paid for is not fair use. The liability is not much in question. NYCL and others have raised due process questions with the level of damages, and I hope they win, but that's always an uphill battle. And I'm not hysterical because I don't download music illegally. But people here are not doing themselves any favor by clinging to misguided theories of copyright infringement that simply aren't true. If you're going to download, I can't stop you. But don't delude yourself into thinking it's legal. It's not. If you don't like the laws, work to change them. Don't pretend they're not there.
I've read the statutes, and the cases. When you copy the bits to your hard disk, you have made a copy. In fact, in most U.S. jurisdictions, just copying the bits into RAM constitutes making a copy (though there are some recent cases going against that trend).
Yes, I can just see the stunning, Law & Order-inspired jury argument. "Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Shorty did not illegally download U2's then-unreleased album. In fact, he had a legally-obtained copy of the Joshua Tree album, and he renamed all the tracks to the names of the tracks of the upcoming albums so he could fantasize about listening to the new album.
I don't think I could even pull it off with a straight face.
This is absolutely not true. Any unauthorized copy is a copyright violation, whether or not you upload or download, whether or not you knew it was an illegal copy, and even whether or not the person you got it from purported to give you a license. Civil copyright infringement is a strict liability offense. That means they don't care what you were thinking. The fact that the copyright owner has to prove is that you copied protected elements of their copyrighted work.
I see this theory on Slashdot a lot, and while I can see why it's so popular, that doesn't make it true. If any of you are sued for copyright infringement, please don't go in and tell the judge, "I wasn't infringing. I was just downloading!" In fact, don't say anything. As soon as you get served, hire a lawyer.
Sorry, but it really is the law. If you copy the work without permission, it is a copyright violation, regardless of whether you thought you got a license from the purveyor. At best, you would have a cross-claim against the purveyor. But that's between you and him. The copyright holder can still sue you.
I know almost nothing about Australian law, but in the U.S., downloading a copyrighted work without a license is a copyright violation, and in some cases may be a crime. For civil copyright infringement, the law does not care whether you actually knew you were infringing the copyright. So you absolutely are the one who has to check for this.
I'm well aware of section 117. It was a direct response to the holding that a copy in RAM is a copy of the program. But I disagree that it applies to an MP3 file. The canons of statutory construction would require you to give the term "program" its ordinary meaning in most cases. So if you're in court arguing the "spirit of the law" (or in other words, begging the court to exercise its equitable powers), you've pretty much already lost the case. And the law is full of "fuzzy lines" where we are required to (and do) classify things. I think MP3s fall firmly on the "data" side of the line, even if it's sometimes fuzzy. And finally, even if you somehow manage to convince a judge that section 117 applies to an MP3, it expressly only applies to the "owner of a copy." If you downloaded an MP3 illegally (which is what the GP was talking about), you are not the owner of that copy. So section 117 does not apply to you.
It's not the forensic expert looking at the files. It's an automated tool. Carried to its extreme, the same logic would say the tool can't look at the filename. The tool has to look at all the files. The person only gets to look at the ones that are music files.
I guess while I'm being smug, I should be precise. Only one person gets to choose the judge, but the Senators still have to confirm him. But I'd like to see the nominee that this president can't get past this Senate.
That's cool, except there's only one vote that counts when electing a federal judge. And the evidence points to him being pretty firmly in the pocket of Big Media.
Some groups are using their own pathetic morality to suppress Africans who otherwis don't know any better.
And how bad would the AIDS epidemic be (in Africa or elsewhere) if people followed "oppressive" Christian teachings like keeping the sex in marriage (I'm no expert on Islam, but as far as I know, they too at least theoretically believe the same)? Granted, even many professed Christians don't follow those teachings, but that doesn't make the principle itself less effective. It would also have a profoundly positive effect on the welfare system, and abortion would very nearly be a non-issue. But nobody wants to talk about it, because we don't want to look like we gave in to those right-wing wackos, depsite the fact that there are huge benefits and nobody has ever shown me an actual drawback to it.
Mock and flame away. I'll pay attention when somebody proposes an actual drawback to monogamy (and no, Sarah Palin's daughter is not one. That again is an example of a problem of not embracing monogamy. I want somebody to point out a disadvantage of monogamy itself).
More precisely: the people who know how to use LaTeX to create attractive, professional documents can almost universally use Word to create kludgy, craptastic inkjet excrement. But the converse is not remotely true.
I have yet to meet anyone who knows how to use Word to make anything remotely professional-looking.
This is why legal documents are, for the most part, hideous. If I could get my firm to switch to TeX, I would do so in a minute. How wonderful it would be to just WRITE my documents without having to either (1) Format it myself to make sure it gets done right, or (2) Dictate it and give it to my secretary and go through 2 -- 3 revision cycles to get it the way I want it.
On that note, if anybody comes across a really good "patentapplication.sty" or "litigationpleading.sty," let me know.
Apparently not the entire scientific community, which I was told all unanimously agreed that our models are infallible because they were blessed by His Holiness Al Gore.
Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.
on
Phoenix BIOSOS?
·
· Score: 1
Thanks. I've spent the last couple of years conscientiously trying to forget everything I know about torts. Now you have to go and remind me of something I had completely, totally erased from my memory.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, they're trying to patent "A system for providing real-time validation of text input fields in a Web page comprising:a validation-enhanced text input element configured to contain an attribute for a validation expression for a text field in a rendered Web page, wherein the validation-enhanced text input element is contained within a source code document corresponding to the rendered Web page; andan input text validator configured to validate a user-entered character of the text field against the validation expression in real-time and visually indicate invalid user-entered characters," and "A method for providing real-time validation of text input fields in a Web page comprising:receiving a user-entered character in a text field displayed in a Web page;immediately validating the user-entered character against a validation expression contained within a validation-enhanced text input element associated with the text field, wherein the validation expression defines a set of acceptable characters and character positions for the text field; andwhen the user-entered character is determined invalid, visually marking the user-entered character," and "An input text validator for validating a text field of a Web page in real-time comprising:a partial input expression generator configured to generate an expanded version of a validation expression, wherein the expanded version of the validation expression defines a set of acceptable characters and character positions for a text field of a Web page; andan invalid text highlighter configured to visually highlight a user-entered character in the text field when the user-entered character is determined as invalid for the expanded validation expression."
Remember, patents are all about the claims. You don't know what they're "trying to patent" until you have read and understand the claims.
Also, from discussions with my attorney, it's really hard to get away with the "bloody obvious" software patents anymore after all of the blowback from things like the Amazon 1-click patent.
Somebody mod parent up. The days of the patent office just rubber stamping software patents (if there ever were such days) are over. Those guys have gone absolutely freakin' nuts with KSR. Seriously, you could send them an application for a working FTL drive, and they'd just shoot back an obviousness rejection combining one of Einstein's publications with an episode of Star Trek. I'm not saying it's bad to treat obviousness as a hard fact question where we have to actually use our heads rather than mechanically use the Teaching/Suggestion/Motivation test. But these guys have gone totally the other way. They don't use their heads. They just mechanically reject everything as obvious if they can find the pieces in any prior art, regardless of whether it was obvious to put them together (and for those who think this is a good thing, the result of this line is there's no such thing as an invention, because everybody builds on what's already there).
And now with Bilski, the examiners are all hot to reject any software claim as not patentable subject matter. Really, the landscape has changed. Anybody sitting around posting on Slashdot and grousing about the USPTO rubber stamping software patents really has no idea what they're talking about.
the Linux Kernel itself replaces Boardwalk, because it's the most important piece of software in a Linux distro
Somewhere in a basement beneath MIT, Richard Stallman just peed his pants in exasperated fury.
Not true. It is legal to make unauthorized copies under the fair use doctrine, for example.
Additionally, the liability involved is very much in question.
Please tone down your hysteria.
Downloading a copy of a song you have not paid for is not fair use. The liability is not much in question. NYCL and others have raised due process questions with the level of damages, and I hope they win, but that's always an uphill battle. And I'm not hysterical because I don't download music illegally. But people here are not doing themselves any favor by clinging to misguided theories of copyright infringement that simply aren't true. If you're going to download, I can't stop you. But don't delude yourself into thinking it's legal. It's not. If you don't like the laws, work to change them. Don't pretend they're not there.
I've read the statutes, and the cases. When you copy the bits to your hard disk, you have made a copy. In fact, in most U.S. jurisdictions, just copying the bits into RAM constitutes making a copy (though there are some recent cases going against that trend).
Yes, I can just see the stunning, Law & Order-inspired jury argument. "Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Shorty did not illegally download U2's then-unreleased album. In fact, he had a legally-obtained copy of the Joshua Tree album, and he renamed all the tracks to the names of the tracks of the upcoming albums so he could fantasize about listening to the new album.
I don't think I could even pull it off with a straight face.
This is absolutely not true. Any unauthorized copy is a copyright violation, whether or not you upload or download, whether or not you knew it was an illegal copy, and even whether or not the person you got it from purported to give you a license. Civil copyright infringement is a strict liability offense. That means they don't care what you were thinking. The fact that the copyright owner has to prove is that you copied protected elements of their copyrighted work.
I see this theory on Slashdot a lot, and while I can see why it's so popular, that doesn't make it true. If any of you are sued for copyright infringement, please don't go in and tell the judge, "I wasn't infringing. I was just downloading!" In fact, don't say anything. As soon as you get served, hire a lawyer.
Sorry, but it really is the law. If you copy the work without permission, it is a copyright violation, regardless of whether you thought you got a license from the purveyor. At best, you would have a cross-claim against the purveyor. But that's between you and him. The copyright holder can still sue you.
I know almost nothing about Australian law, but in the U.S., downloading a copyrighted work without a license is a copyright violation, and in some cases may be a crime. For civil copyright infringement, the law does not care whether you actually knew you were infringing the copyright. So you absolutely are the one who has to check for this.
I suspect Australian law is similar.
Man, if only I'd thought to reply to myself and give a more complete answer, specifically pointing out that the Senate has to give the President's choice a thumbs up. I guess I'll just have to turn in my constitutional law geek card now.
I'm well aware of section 117. It was a direct response to the holding that a copy in RAM is a copy of the program. But I disagree that it applies to an MP3 file. The canons of statutory construction would require you to give the term "program" its ordinary meaning in most cases. So if you're in court arguing the "spirit of the law" (or in other words, begging the court to exercise its equitable powers), you've pretty much already lost the case. And the law is full of "fuzzy lines" where we are required to (and do) classify things. I think MP3s fall firmly on the "data" side of the line, even if it's sometimes fuzzy. And finally, even if you somehow manage to convince a judge that section 117 applies to an MP3, it expressly only applies to the "owner of a copy." If you downloaded an MP3 illegally (which is what the GP was talking about), you are not the owner of that copy. So section 117 does not apply to you.
It's not the forensic expert looking at the files. It's an automated tool. Carried to its extreme, the same logic would say the tool can't look at the filename. The tool has to look at all the files. The person only gets to look at the ones that are music files.
When you load it into RAM, you have made a copy for purposes of copyright law. When you write it to disk, you have made another copy.
I guess while I'm being smug, I should be precise. Only one person gets to choose the judge, but the Senators still have to confirm him. But I'd like to see the nominee that this president can't get past this Senate.
That's cool, except there's only one vote that counts when electing a federal judge. And the evidence points to him being pretty firmly in the pocket of Big Media.
Why not? I've never seen a fairy bringing world peace, but I know a lot of monogamous people, myself included.
Some groups are using their own pathetic morality to suppress Africans who otherwis don't know any better.
And how bad would the AIDS epidemic be (in Africa or elsewhere) if people followed "oppressive" Christian teachings like keeping the sex in marriage (I'm no expert on Islam, but as far as I know, they too at least theoretically believe the same)? Granted, even many professed Christians don't follow those teachings, but that doesn't make the principle itself less effective. It would also have a profoundly positive effect on the welfare system, and abortion would very nearly be a non-issue. But nobody wants to talk about it, because we don't want to look like we gave in to those right-wing wackos, depsite the fact that there are huge benefits and nobody has ever shown me an actual drawback to it.
Mock and flame away. I'll pay attention when somebody proposes an actual drawback to monogamy (and no, Sarah Palin's daughter is not one. That again is an example of a problem of not embracing monogamy. I want somebody to point out a disadvantage of monogamy itself).
More precisely: the people who know how to use LaTeX to create attractive, professional documents can almost universally use Word to create kludgy, craptastic inkjet excrement. But the converse is not remotely true.
I have yet to meet anyone who knows how to use Word to make anything remotely professional-looking.
This is why legal documents are, for the most part, hideous. If I could get my firm to switch to TeX, I would do so in a minute. How wonderful it would be to just WRITE my documents without having to either (1) Format it myself to make sure it gets done right, or (2) Dictate it and give it to my secretary and go through 2 -- 3 revision cycles to get it the way I want it.
On that note, if anybody comes across a really good "patentapplication.sty" or "litigationpleading.sty," let me know.
I'm curious to see what analysis leads you to the conclusion that the Russian press is more free than the U.S. press. Please do elaborate.
I really hate this PC era
I know. Seriously, give me a mainframe(1) in my office, and maybe I could get something done.
(1) How a mainframe would help me be more efficient writing patent applications and legal briefs, I don't know. But it sure would be neat.
Apparently not the entire scientific community, which I was told all unanimously agreed that our models are infallible because they were blessed by His Holiness Al Gore.
Thanks. I've spent the last couple of years conscientiously trying to forget everything I know about torts. Now you have to go and remind me of something I had completely, totally erased from my memory.
Ah, so you were probably playing cards, and he cheated!
You should have left it alone. I probably would have modded you funny if I had points.