" no individual patent has that requirement. See Juicy Whip v Orange Bang."
So now we are to look to Juicy Whip v Orange Bang for supporting evidence that "no individual patent has that requirement".
Upon examining Juicy Whip v Orange Bang, it turns out that SCOTUS does NOT support your assertion at all. It does NOT say that "no individual patent has that requirement".
So the evidence for your assertion that no patent has that requirement , the Juicy Whip v Orange Bang case, does not support your claim after all.
OK I take it back. You're not a lawyer unless by "lawyer" we accept "graduate of Liberty University".
You claim that in 2 that:
" no individual patent has that requirement. See Juicy Whip v Orange Bang."
So now we are to look to Juicy Whip v Orange Bang for supporting evidence that "no individual patent has that requirement".
Upon examining Juicy Whip v Orange Bang, it turns out that SCOTUS does NOT support your assertion at all. It does NOT say that "no individual patent has that requirement".
So the evidence for your assertion that no patent has that requirement , the Juicy Whip v Orange Bang case, does not offer any evidence to support your assertion after all.
OK I take it back. You're not a lawyer unless by "lawyer" we accept "graduate of Liberty University".
False. The Juicy Whip decision did NOT say that just because something is not advancing the arts it is not patentable.
Theaetetus said:
Yeah, I never said it did. I said that it's irrelevant. You can tell that's different from "because something is not advancing the arts it is not patentable" because it has a lot fewer letters.
Yet earlier in the same thread Theaetetus said:
Let's try it once more, for the slow kid: 1. The purpose of the patent system is to promote the progress of... useful arts.
2. No individual patent has that requirement. See, Juicy Whip v. Orange Bang.
3. Thus, it is only required that the patent act as a whole promotes the progress of the useful arts. The Patent Office does not need to judge an individual patent's deservedness or amount of advancement of the art as a whole. Only whether it's useful, novel, and nonobvious.
This is all you do, this kind of BS.. That pretty much makes you a completely worthless internet troll. You know it's true. Accept the truth about yourself, life will be less confusing and painful.
Everything you just wrote is a total distortion of the record including that idea that *this* question is somehow a new question.
You have a problematic relationship to the truth. You must be a lawyer, and not a very good one at at that.
Here is a list of the new untrue things you've said:
And that question is irrelevant. See, e.g. Juicy Whip.
False. The Juicy Whip decision did NOT say that just because something is not advancing the arts it is not patentable. What it said was just because the utility of the invention is the utility of deceit, it is still useful.
The Constitution says nothing about useful and novel and non obvious. Those ideas are the ideas through which the Congress implemented the idea of "advancing the useful arts and sciences" as laid on in the Constitution.
They are therefore synonymous in this context .
Therefore it is FALSE that Juicy Whip was found to not have advanced the useful arts and sciences.
If SCOTUS had wanted to express the idea that advancing the useful arts and sciences was NOT a requirement for patent worthy inventions, then they could have done so.
Once again, you're merely reading into the Juicy Whip decision whatever is convenient for your argument, not what Juicy Whip actually said.
Clearly if Congress banned a category of things from protection, then Burger's statement is false. The two are incompatible because of the extremity of Burger's statement.
Yet you continue to assert it's true. Burger's extreme statement is NOT the law of the land. Done done and done. If you want to go on saying it is when you know full well it isn't then that's up to you
Once again you need to learn to read, I never called you a liar. Please find for me where I used the word liar. I never did. Done done and done.
You do have a propensity for deceit. It is willful? Who knows? Maybe you're delusional and deceiving yourself. These are questions for your therapist, not me.
You're a certain kind of internet troll dirtbag. You make false statements about the subject matter. You make false statements about your opposition. Your statement that "this is a new question" is false- it's the only question that everyone else it discussing.
You have been shown conclusively to have said contradictory, misleading and false things on the subject and about what I said, yet no apology is forthcoming. You do however acknowledge your honest opponent's apology, however technical the offense. You're a dirtbag sociopathic personality type. Case closed.
In the future, i'll have no trouble dealing with you since I have all sorts of wonderful techniques and tactics I use with scum like you, as soon as I realize that's what I'm dealing with.
I do look forward to talking with you in the future and I am *quite* happy to let the record stand where it is.
Thwe whole question of whether method patents and software patents should even be permitted is wide open. I see Jeff Sessions immunized his banking buddies from a perfectly normal method patent. I see where attorneys have similarly immunized their own profession from the same.
I think we all know what we're looking at here. It's special interest predating upon ordinary people using lawmaking and lobbying and bought and paid for Senators like Sessions as their tools.
You're going to lose this war, you are losing this war. Your assertions that you've won it have as much credibility as Bhagdad Bob's assertions that there are no Americans in Iraq. It's just another scumbag tactic for people with no real arguments.
Now that I know who and what you are, I'm going to *quite* enjoy engaging with you in the future.
Respectfully, you're misreading the Constitution. It doesn't say that patents will be awarded to those who advance innovation.
1) I never said it did. SO you falsely claimed I said something I never said. That's called a red herring. You're arguing a point no one made. This is a form of deceit and the first place people with no real argument go.
2)
Well actually, it says
It says that a patent law system shall be created to encourage innovation... each individual patent doesn't have to encourage innovation, rather the system as a whole must.
Yeah actually, it doesn't say that at all. So you don't even bother to look up what the Constitution says before you quote it. Here's what it DOES say:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Here's some more from you:
And in fact, there has never been a requirement for a patent than an invention be "deserving".
Except I never said that, as I clearly explained and others have explained to you
So again, a red herring and a also a diversionary tactic so the topic of the conversation becomes some claim about something I never said rather than the essence of the issue which is - should mere the application of common , or uncommon, sense to any given situation in order to achieve some useful ends be patentable?
That's the question.
The reason you've talked about everything except that question is because it's obviously absurd.
The "everything under the sun" quote has never ever ever been implemented or even come close.
In fact it's just the opposite.
An entire class of "man made things under the sun" has been explicitly banned:
http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/web/20114591.htm
Which pretty much means that Congress is telling SCOTUS that Burger's reading of Congressional intent was dead wrong .
That's pretty much what is known as "one SCOTUS judge shooting off his mouth".
If you're so up on patent law, then why don't you know about this?
If you know about it, then why did you pretend that "everything under the sun" was the accepted law of the land?
Is it because you hoped to deceive readers of this topic with false claims that the issue of the patentability of so called method patents and the like was settled law when you knew it was anything but? Is that the reason why? Is it? Because you're a deceiver who uses every form of diversion, logical fallacy and deception in order to attempt to ram your eccentric and radical point of view down everyone else's throat?
Is that because you know that if the topic is discussed on its merits , you'll lose and lose badly?
You entire series of post is highly irrational, starting with the post that's rated -1 for being a troll.
The reason I mistakenly, I admit, claimed that you said patents didn't have to be useful was because you said that no individual patent had to advance the useful arts.
In the same breath you said they did have to be useful novel etc.
The confusing part is- these are exactly the same thing as CLEARLY intended by the above passage written by the Founders.
The concepts of being useful and novel are an IMPLEMENTATION of the concept of "promoting the useful arts".
Every patent has to be useful and novel. Every patent has to promote the useful arts.. has to be some advance in some small way, otherwise it's obvious and not patentable.
My mistake was to assume you wouldn't contradict yourself in your own sentence. So you did say it has to be useful, even as you denied the same point.
It's a joke and you're a joke. I'll deal with trolls like you in a whole new, more effective way going forwa
Let's go through this again.
OP claims that patenting use of facts is somehow beyond all reasonable bounds for patent material.
False. No such claim was made. What the OP said was just what SCOTUS has found- a mere fact is not patentable, even if it's useful. Many common facts are useful in that they can be used to decide various things.
I can decide how to run an election based on some fact about my electorate.
I can decide how to run an advertsing campaign based on a specific mix of demographic and other propietary information
I can discover that a certain way of presenting calculus is more effective than some other way, given some variety of factors such as age, gender etc.
There is literally an infinity of such facts which could be put to some useful ends. And they're not patentable and the "processes" and "methods" are not patentable.
I point out that all patents in fact must cover use of facts for the patent material to actually work.
You reply patents can't cover facts.
No actually I pointed out that facts are necessary but NOT sufficient for 101 status. Now you are claiming you did, I suppose because you're embarrassed and you want to now rewrite history. i refer interested readers to the record.. You hope they don't actually read it but instead accept your quoted snips of it.
Big difference.
Why should we restrict patents from covering a use of a fact that was hitherto useless knowledge? If some person was clever enough to discover a new fact and find a use for it, OR was able to find a use for a previously useless fact why should we punish him for his cleverness because nobody else was able to find a use for this fact? Aren't patents supposed to be based on novelty and un-obviousness? By making this restriction you eviscerate the idea of patents encouraging progress by restricting them to using facts for which there are already other uses. Now all of a sudden you can't use previously un-useful facts to build patentable inventions.
My reply to this question appears above. It leads to absurdity, does not promote anything but lawyering and pointless monopolies.
It is a nonsensical idea.
Finally something we can agree on. It's a totally absurd idea and all that has to happen for this whole pathetic edifice of so called method patents to collapse is some SCOTUS is stupid enough to take it seriously and let it go just where it will inevitably lead
It's not that in the end we're going to lose this war. We aren't It's what will intervene in the meantime.
Exactly. Patents and copyrights have to promote the useful arts and sciences or they should not be issued and if any such patent has been issued, it should be null and void.
You have as much trouble reading court records as you do anything else. Juicy vs Whip did NOT say that each patent doesn't have to be useful or promote the arts.
That it said was there is no basis for declaring a patent has no utility MERELY BECAUSE because it said patent's only utility is to fool the public in some way.
Your confused on the Constitution, as I demonstrated above. You're confused on what I said during this conversation, as I demonstrated above, and finally your confused on the meaning of the supporting evidence you cite for your own side.
If the court had found that patents don't have to have utility, then that court would have been overriding the Constitution.
People subject to excessive excitement on civil matters would do well to not take anything you say seriously and be sure to actually verify what you merely assert
Yo0u're one of these sad people who mar our democracy by being incapable of processing information accurately and simultaneously greatly interested in holding forth on public affairs.
I encourage everyone to participate in our democracy. Some people would be best served by starting with a reading comprehension course however
.
As to the "everything under the sun created by man", no SCOTUS before or after has acted as though that were true, and in fact has found otherwise, for instance tax dodges are not patentable even though they're clearly created by man and also under the sun.
.
So this amounts to the grand fact that one SCOTUS justice once shot his mouth off in a way that even SCOTUS didn't take seriously.
I have no idea what you're talking about, but neither do you. I'm talking about a Supreme Court decision from 30 years ago. You appear to be responding, "well, that's just, like, your opinion, man."
You have severe problems with reading comprehension and following the thread of a debate. Just that.
I have nothing more to add to what I said and I can see that arguing with you is pointless if the goal is to communicate with you.
If the goal is to draw you out and have you serve as a foil for the benefit of those reading this thread, then maybe some benefit can derive from continuing the conversation.
As it stands now, I'm well satisfied with the record of this argument and have nothing to add to it at this time and recommend it to anyone who wants to see firsthand what level of clarity, in both issues and arguments, each side has to its credit.
How is this clarifying? It's not. The "use" of facts is the only way "facts" could ever figure into a patent. So that facts are "used" in patents is not what's disputed by any of the parties.
The baseline we all agree on (except the IP fundamentalists) is that patents fashioned so as to "defacto" monopolize "facts" are not patentable subject matter and that not all methods of doing just anything are patentable subject matter.
For instance, you can't patent a useful courtroom technique.
See lawyers understand the issue when it threatens THEIR livelihood.
Please.:You want an opinion to attack? Let me help you out.
We all know this is a CLASSIC case of of special interest pleading to the courts and legislature to give big businesses a way of making money while excluding underfunded competitors, which also happens to hack away at the base of what makes the US great. This is bought and paid for government / special interest pleading in every derogatory sense of that expression.
It's just another sad manifestation of the toxic mixing of a very few fundamentalist ideologues and very many lobbyists for big business which is taking this country down its present, sad road.
And I intend to fight it every inch of the way through every means at my disposal.
I have a question for you - you have expressed a opposition towards the current system in the US. And you have expressed disdain towards those who think democracy should be a spectator sport.
OK, HAVE YOU ACTIVELY PARTICIPATED IN A POLITICAL PROCESS TO CHANGE THE STATUS QUO.
Yes, yesterday regarding the Defense Authorization Bill which would permit a future US President to disappear a US citizen in this country by his or her mere assertion that they were connected in some way to al QUeda.
Thanks for asking.
Regarding the software patent mess, I also contacted my Congressional representatives, repeated..
I also participate in pubic forums , both online and in person.
I also showed up at my Congressperson's office with a complaint about the jacking of the labor market through false claims of labor shortages by companies seeking to subvert the free market system in the US.
And so on and so forth over the years.
Oh and I've also attended my local OWS , which I found undirected and disappointing even if on the right side of things generally.
Finally, talking on Slashdot and other public forums, especially ones that permit long form back and forths, is a fine example of participatory democracy and I for one am thankful for Slashdot and other web forums for this reason, amongst others.
Long ago the court decided that mere facts and laws of nature are not patentable.
What else is there to say?
Let me debug your thinking. You're mixing up "necessary" with "sufficient".
All useful inventions have to confirm to the laws of physics and logic, that is, the facts of the universe.
That doesn't mean that every fact or set of facts is patentable.
So yes, there are no inventions without facts. It's necessary to, broadly speaking, deal with facts, logic and , implicitly, laws of nature either directly or indirectly in any patent application.
But for any patent application, it's not sufficient.
Well, except one constructed in such a way to claim monopoly power of such facts.
In that case, it is sufficient. Sufficient to get it rejected.
What extension are you referring to? 35 USC 101 states that patent eligible subject matter includes processes. 35 USC 100 says that "process" includes "method". So what's being extended when we say that methods are patentable?
The words "process" and "method" in both these are meant to be the subject of interpretation and ultimately restrictive delineation. If not, then ANY process and ANY method whatsoever could be patentable and no one believes that.
Laws are written to be interpreted by courts. Yes, it sometimes functions in a "pass the buck" way, but that's to the general good. If it were otherwise then we'd require that legislators at any given point in time be omniscient about all future developments and take them explicitly into account when making a law .
So you're begging the question- a logical fallacy.You're just pointing to 100 and 101 and saying "see it says "method" right there".
But the question at hand is just exactly what SHALL qualify as a protectable method.
In YOUR definition in YOUR opinion, the method under review qualifies for protection. To then argue that because you are of that opinion therefore the matter is settled is known as "assuming the consequent", yet another logical fallacy.
In fact, another source of some authority on US law, the U.S. Constitution states that patents will be granted for the purpose of ADVANCING the useful arts and sciences. Failing that, no patent is deserving.
Respectfully, you're misreading the Constitution. It doesn't say that patents will be awarded to those who advance innovation. It says that a patent law system shall be created to encourage innovation... each individual patent doesn't have to encourage innovation, rather the system as a whole must.
Respectfully, you're misreading both my quote and the Constitution.
I never said that Constitution said patents will be awarded to those who advance innovation.
What I said, and what it does in fact say, is that patents are to be issued FOR THE PURPOSE of advancing the useful arts and sciences.
Patents are not an inalienable right, they exist only to serve a larger purpose. If they don't serve that purpose, then they should not be issued. It goes without saying that if they positively work against that purpose, they will not be issued.
So the question remains- does this claimed "method" promote or retard the advancement of the useful arts and sciences, or is it perhaps neutral?
By your reasoning , we should not contemplate whether each extension of subject matter into patentability is wise, so along as the system en toto and on balance tends to promote innovation more than it impedes it.
I would not want to be reduced to making that argument before SCOTUS. It's a career ender, not to mention a ham-fisted definition of the word "promotes".
And in fact, there has never been a requirement for a patent than an invention be "deserving". Novel, yes. Useful, yes. Nonobvious, yes. But "deserving"? "Advancing the arts"? No.
You're giving a twisted version of what I said, and also, you're materially wrong.
First what I said was IF the invention does NOT promote the useful arts and sciences THEN it is not deserving of patent protection.
The word "deserving" in the above was never proffered as a requirement, it was merely how I characterized subject matter which was conformant to the requirements set forth in the Constitution.
Secondly, you're just wrong.
"Advancing the arts"? No.
The Constitution uses just those words:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
I'm sorry what aspect of law would you be referring to? The law the Supreme Court makes? By that measure, they're always right, irrespective of how they decide an issue. In logic, we call that a "tautology"
The aspect of the law I am referring to is its "justness" and "advisability". The extension of patent "rights" into methods and software is not only inadvisable, but also unjust .
In fact, another source of some authority on US law, the U.S. Constitution states that patents will be granted for the purpose of ADVANCING the useful arts and sciences. Failing that, no patent is deserving. Advancing the useful arts and sciences is not synonymous with advancing the material welfare of corporations or individuals, despite what Ayn Rand claims.
You talk as though citizens whose rights and livelihoods are going to be directly affected by their own judiciary's decisions ought to somehow stand meekly aside and permit the "experts" in law decide what the law shall be.
I have two words for you: Dred Scott.
Actually, your "tut tut" attitude might make some sense if the law in question was only concerned with measurable facts , like say theoretical physics., or the effect of excess carbon on the planet's temperature.
But it makes exactly zero sense when the subject matter is what a people shall declare a normative law- which will rule them all- shall be.
Maybe you're an IP lawyer. Maybe you're a lobbyist. Maybe your a bureaucrat. Maybe you're a patent holder. Really, those are the only categories of people I know of who would take the attitude that democracy should be a spectator sport and the people should not involve themselves, much less get worked up about, the morality or advisability of their own laws.
This is as basic as it gets. Can companies patent the use of facts? Let's see if they can get this right. If they do, at least we know there's an upper limit to their ignorance.
If they can't , then it's the end of innovation in the US and the beginning of a stampede of smart, motivated people who want to do Good Things out of the US and into the EU or elsewhere.
It's just that simple. Either we're free to innovate in this country, or we leave our country in favor of a land that offers more freedom and opportunity.
Just like our forefathers did.
And is your population isn't stable or growing then the money you made off the times it was would go a long long way to patching you over when it's not.
That is, if you don't raid it.
And if finally there IS any negative difference between needed and on hand, then you raise taxes to pay for that difference because THIS IS WHAT CIVILIZATION IS- not telling the poor and old and inform-"tough luck- you're on your own and thanks for all your hard work and law abiding contributions to society".
If you want THAT kind of "civilization", I have a one way ticket to Somalia for you.
Too big to fail.. that was a deliberate joke right?
When are we going to learnt hat when companies fail, there are no consequences to the corporate officers and that's all that matters. No matter what happens, they'll be very rich for the rest of their lives.
This is a non trivial point. They can literally afford to be blase, indifferent, lazy, ego maniacs, crazy for power, for money, for status, or delusional ideologues who shit on the law and your privacy or the security of your data for their "cause" or just to collude with your competitor or to serve as a bride in a quid-pro-quo with same.
There are no societal constraints on their behavior. Their company being caught out for criminal, civil or moral wrongdoing, even on a grand scale, means nothing to them.
These are the facts of life that we all know to be true.
Anyone who puts their data, their life's blood data, their crown jewels on a cloud, gets exactly what they deserve. Screwed.
..to take ownership of the copyrights, and deny the creators compensation at all and bribe Congressional members with promises of campaign contributions , er I mean lobby Congressional members to extend the copyright protection even further into the future ala Mickey Mouse / Sonny Bono fiasco.
Working in another field, Stephen McIntyre does have expertise on the application of statistical methods to inflated conclusions and he elucidated flaws in the approach to the tree ring analysis which notable statisticians have commended as very astute.
"More than a dozen subsequent scientific papers produced reconstructions broadly similar to the original graph, and almost all agreed that the warmest decade in the last thousand years was probably that at the end of the 20th century"
In fact, Mann's findings have been independently verified by independent teams using alternate methods and alternate data sources.
Michael Mann defended weaknesses in his statistical methods on the basis that this paper survived peer review, despite the peer review failing to include a statistician with expertise on the statistical methods employed.
That statement is a lie.
from:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/09/hockey-stick-michael-mann-steve-mcintyre
Working in another field, Stephen McIntyre does have expertise on the application of statistical methods to inflated conclusions and he elucidated flaws in the approach to the tree ring analysis which notable statisticians have commended as very astute.
That statement is a lie.
"At the request of Congress, a panel of scientists convened by the National Research Council was set up, which reported in 2006 supporting Mann's findings with some qualifications, including agreeing that there were some statistical failings but these had little effect on the result."
You're like the guy in class who never did his homework, cut class all the time and after 15 weeks of not paying attention starts showing up in class asking the most moronic questions and wasting everyone's time.
Scientists long ago established that the earth was warming beyond any doubt. This study was taken on the researcher's own initiative to refute- not once and for all but yet again- the denier talking point that the earth is not heating up.
Researchers haven't been pondering IF the earth is heating, they've been investigating WHY the earth is heating at the accelerated rate we see. For years they've been doing this. The answer to that question is also clear, again for a long time- because of greenhouse gases.
Now people like you show up to the party and effectively start saying things like "OK OK OK so it's heating up.. but WHY is it heating up, eh? Have you thought of that? Because that's the REAL question!!!".
Global warming is only partially a engineering problem. Mostly, it's a stupid human problem.
"(loans are crucial to a functioning economy, despite what those "occupy" protesters tell you)"
What the occupy protesters are telling you is not that loans are evil, but that UNBANKRUPTABLE LOANS are evil, and in that they'd be correct.
No corporation or enterprise is going to accept a loan from an loaning entity in which the possibility of bankruptcy protection has been removed (and not just because such terms would be illegal). Why? Because if the company can't meet it's obligations, it HAS to have the option of re-org- where only a part of the debt is repaid or chapter 7, where the company is relieved of the debt entirely and goes out of business, leaving the company's officers and board members free from financial obligation. Once the company is "dead" a theoretically unbankruptable debt can only have the meaning that any and all future enterprises of officers and board members would get attached until all debts are repaid in full.
No one is going to take the risk of starting a business with those terms. There wouldn't BE business, period and Republicans would be screaming bloody murder about an " unfriendly regulatory environment" making it impossible to do business in the US.
Yet when someone takes out a student loan, that loan IS unbankruptable. This turns getting an education- a precursor widely accepted as necessary fro economic participation- which is a nice way of saying eating and maintaining a roof over your head- in the economy into a high risk gamble in which the cost of losing is the lifetime indentured servitude to rich lenders by poor students.
Unbankruptable debt is not a concept that exists anywhere in the world outside of 18th century England and its debtor's prisons. The reason is clear. Everyone who is stuck trying to repay unbankruptable debt falls permanently out of the economy and stays poor. This is bad for the individual and bad for the larger economy.
The personal and financial cost of having a bankruptcy appear on your credit rating is punishment enough to deter people from gratuitously dumping their debts. There was never a rash of student loan defaults by people really able to repay just as there were never any WMD in Iraq; it was a fiction with no data to support it. It was an excuse to make the loans unbankruptable and thus suitable to act as a kind of "super" security which the holders could then sell to investors, making themselves super rich in the process.
Banks and their employees with sophisticated knowledge of the legislative process and the cash to influence legislators can achieve whatever ends they want irrespective of the long term consequences to the country. They act as a unit under the direction of a small set of individuals- the officers and boards- who will be made so rich they are beyond care or want if they are just able to succeed at distorting the law to suit them and their goals.
The purpose of patents is to "promote the useful arts and sciences" . That's in the Constitution- if they don't DO that, then there is no "right" to a patent. Patents aren't there so people can profit, they're there to serve a societal good, as defined by the Framers.
In the case of software, we know for a fact that patents are NOT needed for software to be created. The virtual entirety of all software prior to 1994 or so- including operating systems, databases, word processors, the internet- everything you use on a regular basis and forms the backbone of computing, was invented without patent incentives.
The strongest proof possible is an existence proof- the thing stands there, so the argument over its existence is done. So it is with software and the need for a "patent incentive". No patents are necessary to incentivize software development.
The fact that corporations have their valuations deeply intertwined with "intellectual property" in the form of software patents is not an argument for their legitimacy. That's just another form of Too Big To Fail. We've built this mess, not it must be sustained no matter what ! It's too big to permit change !
Software patents are a tax on development and a drag on innovation- both prices consumers must bear. They favor existing billion dollar players- who can afford the millions to acquire and defend them- over entrants and reduce competition.
We're a CAPITALIST country, not a CRONY CAPITALIST country. The capitalist system is to work for the benefit of the People not corporations. Obviously, people get confused on this point. Systems that align themselves with specific business interests and arrange incentives to benefit those interests are not capitalist- they're crony capitalist plutocracies.
Wikipedia is not working? This is so 2005. Have you been there lately? Wikipedia works very well indeed because it's reached a critical mass of "social seriousness" that experts want to partake .
What keeps us from going extinct is our diversity? That is so 50 million years BC. What keeps us from "going extinct" is we haven't unleashed nukes and we haven't destroyed the environment, yet If either of those two things happen, then it's not going to help that we're "diverse".
Everyone gains from the scientific commons. Everyone gains from public roads and the publicly supported military. Everyone gains when corporations are stopped from polluting us into oblivion for their local, personal gain-including, by the way, those corporations and the people in them.
You have to look at reality as it is, not as your libertarian, Ayn Rand preconceived philosophy says it SHALL be.
Slashdot Mirror
" no individual patent has that requirement. See Juicy Whip v Orange Bang."
So now we are to look to Juicy Whip v Orange Bang for supporting evidence that "no individual patent has that requirement".
Upon examining Juicy Whip v Orange Bang, it turns out that SCOTUS does NOT support your assertion at all. It does NOT say that "no individual patent has that requirement".
So the evidence for your assertion that no patent has that requirement , the Juicy Whip v Orange Bang case, does not support your claim after all.
OK I take it back. You're not a lawyer unless by "lawyer" we accept "graduate of Liberty University".
You claim that in 2 that: " no individual patent has that requirement. See Juicy Whip v Orange Bang." So now we are to look to Juicy Whip v Orange Bang for supporting evidence that "no individual patent has that requirement". Upon examining Juicy Whip v Orange Bang, it turns out that SCOTUS does NOT support your assertion at all. It does NOT say that "no individual patent has that requirement". So the evidence for your assertion that no patent has that requirement , the Juicy Whip v Orange Bang case, does not offer any evidence to support your assertion after all. OK I take it back. You're not a lawyer unless by "lawyer" we accept "graduate of Liberty University".
False. The Juicy Whip decision did NOT say that just because something is not advancing the arts it is not patentable.
Theaetetus said:
Yeah, I never said it did. I said that it's irrelevant. You can tell that's different from "because something is not advancing the arts it is not patentable" because it has a lot fewer letters.
Yet earlier in the same thread Theaetetus said:
Let's try it once more, for the slow kid:
1. The purpose of the patent system is to promote the progress of... useful arts.
2. No individual patent has that requirement. See, Juicy Whip v. Orange Bang.
3. Thus, it is only required that the patent act as a whole promotes the progress of the useful arts. The Patent Office does not need to judge an individual patent's deservedness or amount of advancement of the art as a whole. Only whether it's useful, novel, and nonobvious.
This is all you do, this kind of BS.. That pretty much makes you a completely worthless internet troll. You know it's true. Accept the truth about yourself, life will be less confusing and painful.
You have a problematic relationship to the truth. You must be a lawyer, and not a very good one at at that. Here is a list of the new untrue things you've said:
And that question is irrelevant. See, e.g. Juicy Whip.
False. The Juicy Whip decision did NOT say that just because something is not advancing the arts it is not patentable. What it said was just because the utility of the invention is the utility of deceit, it is still useful.
The Constitution says nothing about useful and novel and non obvious. Those ideas are the ideas through which the Congress implemented the idea of "advancing the useful arts and sciences" as laid on in the Constitution.
They are therefore synonymous in this context .
Therefore it is FALSE that Juicy Whip was found to not have advanced the useful arts and sciences.
If SCOTUS had wanted to express the idea that advancing the useful arts and sciences was NOT a requirement for patent worthy inventions, then they could have done so.
Once again, you're merely reading into the Juicy Whip decision whatever is convenient for your argument, not what Juicy Whip actually said.
Clearly if Congress banned a category of things from protection, then Burger's statement is false. The two are incompatible because of the extremity of Burger's statement.
Yet you continue to assert it's true. Burger's extreme statement is NOT the law of the land. Done done and done. If you want to go on saying it is when you know full well it isn't then that's up to you
Once again you need to learn to read, I never called you a liar. Please find for me where I used the word liar. I never did. Done done and done.
You do have a propensity for deceit. It is willful? Who knows? Maybe you're delusional and deceiving yourself. These are questions for your therapist, not me.
You're a certain kind of internet troll dirtbag. You make false statements about the subject matter. You make false statements about your opposition. Your statement that "this is a new question" is false- it's the only question that everyone else it discussing.
You have been shown conclusively to have said contradictory, misleading and false things on the subject and about what I said, yet no apology is forthcoming. You do however acknowledge your honest opponent's apology, however technical the offense. You're a dirtbag sociopathic personality type. Case closed.
In the future, i'll have no trouble dealing with you since I have all sorts of wonderful techniques and tactics I use with scum like you, as soon as I realize that's what I'm dealing with.
I do look forward to talking with you in the future and I am *quite* happy to let the record stand where it is.
Thwe whole question of whether method patents and software patents should even be permitted is wide open. I see Jeff Sessions immunized his banking buddies from a perfectly normal method patent. I see where attorneys have similarly immunized their own profession from the same.
I think we all know what we're looking at here. It's special interest predating upon ordinary people using lawmaking and lobbying and bought and paid for Senators like Sessions as their tools.
You're going to lose this war, you are losing this war. Your assertions that you've won it have as much credibility as Bhagdad Bob's assertions that there are no Americans in Iraq. It's just another scumbag tactic for people with no real arguments.
Now that I know who and what you are, I'm going to *quite* enjoy engaging with you in the future.
Respectfully, you're misreading the Constitution. It doesn't say that patents will be awarded to those who advance innovation.
1) I never said it did. SO you falsely claimed I said something I never said. That's called a red herring. You're arguing a point no one made. This is a form of deceit and the first place people with no real argument go. 2)
Well actually, it says It says that a patent law system shall be created to encourage innovation... each individual patent doesn't have to encourage innovation, rather the system as a whole must.
Yeah actually, it doesn't say that at all. So you don't even bother to look up what the Constitution says before you quote it. Here's what it DOES say:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Here's some more from you:
And in fact, there has never been a requirement for a patent than an invention be "deserving".
Except I never said that, as I clearly explained and others have explained to you
So again, a red herring and a also a diversionary tactic so the topic of the conversation becomes some claim about something I never said rather than the essence of the issue which is - should mere the application of common , or uncommon, sense to any given situation in order to achieve some useful ends be patentable?
That's the question.
The reason you've talked about everything except that question is because it's obviously absurd.
The "everything under the sun" quote has never ever ever been implemented or even come close.
In fact it's just the opposite.
An entire class of "man made things under the sun" has been explicitly banned: http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/web/20114591.htm Which pretty much means that Congress is telling SCOTUS that Burger's reading of Congressional intent was dead wrong .
That's pretty much what is known as "one SCOTUS judge shooting off his mouth".
If you're so up on patent law, then why don't you know about this?
If you know about it, then why did you pretend that "everything under the sun" was the accepted law of the land?
Is it because you hoped to deceive readers of this topic with false claims that the issue of the patentability of so called method patents and the like was settled law when you knew it was anything but? Is that the reason why? Is it? Because you're a deceiver who uses every form of diversion, logical fallacy and deception in order to attempt to ram your eccentric and radical point of view down everyone else's throat?
Is that because you know that if the topic is discussed on its merits , you'll lose and lose badly?
You entire series of post is highly irrational, starting with the post that's rated -1 for being a troll.
The reason I mistakenly, I admit, claimed that you said patents didn't have to be useful was because you said that no individual patent had to advance the useful arts.
In the same breath you said they did have to be useful novel etc.
The confusing part is- these are exactly the same thing as CLEARLY intended by the above passage written by the Founders.
The concepts of being useful and novel are an IMPLEMENTATION of the concept of "promoting the useful arts".
Every patent has to be useful and novel. Every patent has to promote the useful arts.. has to be some advance in some small way, otherwise it's obvious and not patentable.
My mistake was to assume you wouldn't contradict yourself in your own sentence. So you did say it has to be useful, even as you denied the same point.
It's a joke and you're a joke. I'll deal with trolls like you in a whole new, more effective way going forwa
Let's go through this again. OP claims that patenting use of facts is somehow beyond all reasonable bounds for patent material.
False. No such claim was made. What the OP said was just what SCOTUS has found- a mere fact is not patentable, even if it's useful. Many common facts are useful in that they can be used to decide various things.
I can decide how to run an election based on some fact about my electorate.
I can decide how to run an advertsing campaign based on a specific mix of demographic and other propietary information
I can discover that a certain way of presenting calculus is more effective than some other way, given some variety of factors such as age, gender etc.
There is literally an infinity of such facts which could be put to some useful ends. And they're not patentable and the "processes" and "methods" are not patentable.
I point out that all patents in fact must cover use of facts for the patent material to actually work. You reply patents can't cover facts. No actually I pointed out that facts are necessary but NOT sufficient for 101 status. Now you are claiming you did, I suppose because you're embarrassed and you want to now rewrite history. i refer interested readers to the record.. You hope they don't actually read it but instead accept your quoted snips of it.
Big difference.
Why should we restrict patents from covering a use of a fact that was hitherto useless knowledge? If some person was clever enough to discover a new fact and find a use for it, OR was able to find a use for a previously useless fact why should we punish him for his cleverness because nobody else was able to find a use for this fact? Aren't patents supposed to be based on novelty and un-obviousness? By making this restriction you eviscerate the idea of patents encouraging progress by restricting them to using facts for which there are already other uses. Now all of a sudden you can't use previously un-useful facts to build patentable inventions.
My reply to this question appears above. It leads to absurdity, does not promote anything but lawyering and pointless monopolies.
It is a nonsensical idea.
Finally something we can agree on. It's a totally absurd idea and all that has to happen for this whole pathetic edifice of so called method patents to collapse is some SCOTUS is stupid enough to take it seriously and let it go just where it will inevitably lead
It's not that in the end we're going to lose this war. We aren't It's what will intervene in the meantime.
Citizen's United was the case that did it for me.
Exactly. Patents and copyrights have to promote the useful arts and sciences or they should not be issued and if any such patent has been issued, it should be null and void.
That it said was there is no basis for declaring a patent has no utility MERELY BECAUSE because it said patent's only utility is to fool the public in some way.
Your confused on the Constitution, as I demonstrated above. You're confused on what I said during this conversation, as I demonstrated above, and finally your confused on the meaning of the supporting evidence you cite for your own side.
If the court had found that patents don't have to have utility, then that court would have been overriding the Constitution.
People subject to excessive excitement on civil matters would do well to not take anything you say seriously and be sure to actually verify what you merely assert
Yo0u're one of these sad people who mar our democracy by being incapable of processing information accurately and simultaneously greatly interested in holding forth on public affairs.
I encourage everyone to participate in our democracy. Some people would be best served by starting with a reading comprehension course however
. As to the "everything under the sun created by man", no SCOTUS before or after has acted as though that were true, and in fact has found otherwise, for instance tax dodges are not patentable even though they're clearly created by man and also under the sun.
. So this amounts to the grand fact that one SCOTUS justice once shot his mouth off in a way that even SCOTUS didn't take seriously.
Done done and done.
I have no idea what you're talking about, but neither do you. I'm talking about a Supreme Court decision from 30 years ago. You appear to be responding, "well, that's just, like, your opinion, man."
You have severe problems with reading comprehension and following the thread of a debate. Just that.
I have nothing more to add to what I said and I can see that arguing with you is pointless if the goal is to communicate with you.
If the goal is to draw you out and have you serve as a foil for the benefit of those reading this thread, then maybe some benefit can derive from continuing the conversation.
As it stands now, I'm well satisfied with the record of this argument and have nothing to add to it at this time and recommend it to anyone who wants to see firsthand what level of clarity, in both issues and arguments, each side has to its credit.
Good day Sir.
The baseline we all agree on (except the IP fundamentalists) is that patents fashioned so as to "defacto" monopolize "facts" are not patentable subject matter and that not all methods of doing just anything are patentable subject matter.
For instance, you can't patent a useful courtroom technique.
See lawyers understand the issue when it threatens THEIR livelihood.
Please. :You want an opinion to attack? Let me help you out.
We all know this is a CLASSIC case of of special interest pleading to the courts and legislature to give big businesses a way of making money while excluding underfunded competitors, which also happens to hack away at the base of what makes the US great. This is bought and paid for government / special interest pleading in every derogatory sense of that expression.
It's just another sad manifestation of the toxic mixing of a very few fundamentalist ideologues and very many lobbyists for big business which is taking this country down its present, sad road.
And I intend to fight it every inch of the way through every means at my disposal.
I have a question for you - you have expressed a opposition towards the current system in the US. And you have expressed disdain towards those who think democracy should be a spectator sport. OK, HAVE YOU ACTIVELY PARTICIPATED IN A POLITICAL PROCESS TO CHANGE THE STATUS QUO.
Yes, yesterday regarding the Defense Authorization Bill which would permit a future US President to disappear a US citizen in this country by his or her mere assertion that they were connected in some way to al QUeda.
Thanks for asking.
Regarding the software patent mess, I also contacted my Congressional representatives, repeated..
I also participate in pubic forums , both online and in person.
I also showed up at my Congressperson's office with a complaint about the jacking of the labor market through false claims of labor shortages by companies seeking to subvert the free market system in the US.
And so on and so forth over the years.
Oh and I've also attended my local OWS , which I found undirected and disappointing even if on the right side of things generally.
Finally, talking on Slashdot and other public forums, especially ones that permit long form back and forths, is a fine example of participatory democracy and I for one am thankful for Slashdot and other web forums for this reason, amongst others.
Long ago the court decided that mere facts and laws of nature are not patentable. What else is there to say? Let me debug your thinking. You're mixing up "necessary" with "sufficient". All useful inventions have to confirm to the laws of physics and logic, that is, the facts of the universe. That doesn't mean that every fact or set of facts is patentable. So yes, there are no inventions without facts. It's necessary to, broadly speaking, deal with facts, logic and , implicitly, laws of nature either directly or indirectly in any patent application. But for any patent application, it's not sufficient. Well, except one constructed in such a way to claim monopoly power of such facts. In that case, it is sufficient. Sufficient to get it rejected.
What extension are you referring to? 35 USC 101 states that patent eligible subject matter includes processes. 35 USC 100 says that "process" includes "method". So what's being extended when we say that methods are patentable?
The words "process" and "method" in both these are meant to be the subject of interpretation and ultimately restrictive delineation. If not, then ANY process and ANY method whatsoever could be patentable and no one believes that.
Laws are written to be interpreted by courts. Yes, it sometimes functions in a "pass the buck" way, but that's to the general good. If it were otherwise then we'd require that legislators at any given point in time be omniscient about all future developments and take them explicitly into account when making a law .
So you're begging the question- a logical fallacy.You're just pointing to 100 and 101 and saying "see it says "method" right there".
But the question at hand is just exactly what SHALL qualify as a protectable method.
In YOUR definition in YOUR opinion, the method under review qualifies for protection. To then argue that because you are of that opinion therefore the matter is settled is known as "assuming the consequent", yet another logical fallacy.
In fact, another source of some authority on US law, the U.S. Constitution states that patents will be granted for the purpose of ADVANCING the useful arts and sciences. Failing that, no patent is deserving.
Respectfully, you're misreading the Constitution. It doesn't say that patents will be awarded to those who advance innovation. It says that a patent law system shall be created to encourage innovation... each individual patent doesn't have to encourage innovation, rather the system as a whole must.
Respectfully, you're misreading both my quote and the Constitution. I never said that Constitution said patents will be awarded to those who advance innovation.
What I said, and what it does in fact say, is that patents are to be issued FOR THE PURPOSE of advancing the useful arts and sciences.
Patents are not an inalienable right, they exist only to serve a larger purpose. If they don't serve that purpose, then they should not be issued. It goes without saying that if they positively work against that purpose, they will not be issued.
So the question remains- does this claimed "method" promote or retard the advancement of the useful arts and sciences, or is it perhaps neutral?
By your reasoning , we should not contemplate whether each extension of subject matter into patentability is wise, so along as the system en toto and on balance tends to promote innovation more than it impedes it.
I would not want to be reduced to making that argument before SCOTUS. It's a career ender, not to mention a ham-fisted definition of the word "promotes" .
And in fact, there has never been a requirement for a patent than an invention be "deserving". Novel, yes. Useful, yes. Nonobvious, yes. But "deserving"? "Advancing the arts"? No.
You're giving a twisted version of what I said, and also, you're materially wrong.
First what I said was IF the invention does NOT promote the useful arts and sciences THEN it is not deserving of patent protection.
The word "deserving" in the above was never proffered as a requirement, it was merely how I characterized subject matter which was conformant to the requirements set forth in the Constitution.
Secondly, you're just wrong.
"Advancing the arts"? No.
The Constitution uses just those words:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Let's hope that settles that.
Actually, my "tut
The aspect of the law I am referring to is its "justness" and "advisability". The extension of patent "rights" into methods and software is not only inadvisable, but also unjust .
In fact, another source of some authority on US law, the U.S. Constitution states that patents will be granted for the purpose of ADVANCING the useful arts and sciences. Failing that, no patent is deserving. Advancing the useful arts and sciences is not synonymous with advancing the material welfare of corporations or individuals, despite what Ayn Rand claims.
You talk as though citizens whose rights and livelihoods are going to be directly affected by their own judiciary's decisions ought to somehow stand meekly aside and permit the "experts" in law decide what the law shall be.
I have two words for you: Dred Scott.
Actually, your "tut tut" attitude might make some sense if the law in question was only concerned with measurable facts , like say theoretical physics., or the effect of excess carbon on the planet's temperature.
But it makes exactly zero sense when the subject matter is what a people shall declare a normative law- which will rule them all- shall be.
Maybe you're an IP lawyer. Maybe you're a lobbyist. Maybe your a bureaucrat. Maybe you're a patent holder. Really, those are the only categories of people I know of who would take the attitude that democracy should be a spectator sport and the people should not involve themselves, much less get worked up about, the morality or advisability of their own laws.
This is as basic as it gets. Can companies patent the use of facts? Let's see if they can get this right. If they do, at least we know there's an upper limit to their ignorance. If they can't , then it's the end of innovation in the US and the beginning of a stampede of smart, motivated people who want to do Good Things out of the US and into the EU or elsewhere. It's just that simple. Either we're free to innovate in this country, or we leave our country in favor of a land that offers more freedom and opportunity. Just like our forefathers did.
And is your population isn't stable or growing then the money you made off the times it was would go a long long way to patching you over when it's not. That is, if you don't raid it. And if finally there IS any negative difference between needed and on hand, then you raise taxes to pay for that difference because THIS IS WHAT CIVILIZATION IS- not telling the poor and old and inform-"tough luck- you're on your own and thanks for all your hard work and law abiding contributions to society". If you want THAT kind of "civilization", I have a one way ticket to Somalia for you.
Too big to fail.. that was a deliberate joke right? When are we going to learnt hat when companies fail, there are no consequences to the corporate officers and that's all that matters. No matter what happens, they'll be very rich for the rest of their lives. This is a non trivial point. They can literally afford to be blase, indifferent, lazy, ego maniacs, crazy for power, for money, for status, or delusional ideologues who shit on the law and your privacy or the security of your data for their "cause" or just to collude with your competitor or to serve as a bride in a quid-pro-quo with same. There are no societal constraints on their behavior. Their company being caught out for criminal, civil or moral wrongdoing, even on a grand scale, means nothing to them. These are the facts of life that we all know to be true. Anyone who puts their data, their life's blood data, their crown jewels on a cloud, gets exactly what they deserve. Screwed.
Working in another field, Stephen McIntyre does have expertise on the application of statistical methods to inflated conclusions and he elucidated flaws in the approach to the tree ring analysis which notable statisticians have commended as very astute.
That statement is a lie.
From:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/09/hockey-stick-michael-mann-steve-mcintyre
"More than a dozen subsequent scientific papers produced reconstructions broadly similar to the original graph, and almost all agreed that the warmest decade in the last thousand years was probably that at the end of the 20th century"
In fact, Mann's findings have been independently verified by independent teams using alternate methods and alternate data sources.
That statement is a lie. from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/09/hockey-stick-michael-mann-steve-mcintyre Working in another field, Stephen McIntyre does have expertise on the application of statistical methods to inflated conclusions and he elucidated flaws in the approach to the tree ring analysis which notable statisticians have commended as very astute. That statement is a lie. "At the request of Congress, a panel of scientists convened by the National Research Council was set up, which reported in 2006 supporting Mann's findings with some qualifications, including agreeing that there were some statistical failings but these had little effect on the result."
You're like the guy in class who never did his homework, cut class all the time and after 15 weeks of not paying attention starts showing up in class asking the most moronic questions and wasting everyone's time. Scientists long ago established that the earth was warming beyond any doubt. This study was taken on the researcher's own initiative to refute- not once and for all but yet again- the denier talking point that the earth is not heating up. Researchers haven't been pondering IF the earth is heating, they've been investigating WHY the earth is heating at the accelerated rate we see. For years they've been doing this. The answer to that question is also clear, again for a long time- because of greenhouse gases. Now people like you show up to the party and effectively start saying things like "OK OK OK so it's heating up.. but WHY is it heating up, eh? Have you thought of that? Because that's the REAL question!!!". Global warming is only partially a engineering problem. Mostly, it's a stupid human problem.
What the occupy protesters are telling you is not that loans are evil, but that UNBANKRUPTABLE LOANS are evil, and in that they'd be correct.
No corporation or enterprise is going to accept a loan from an loaning entity in which the possibility of bankruptcy protection has been removed (and not just because such terms would be illegal). Why? Because if the company can't meet it's obligations, it HAS to have the option of re-org- where only a part of the debt is repaid or chapter 7, where the company is relieved of the debt entirely and goes out of business, leaving the company's officers and board members free from financial obligation. Once the company is "dead" a theoretically unbankruptable debt can only have the meaning that any and all future enterprises of officers and board members would get attached until all debts are repaid in full.
No one is going to take the risk of starting a business with those terms. There wouldn't BE business, period and Republicans would be screaming bloody murder about an " unfriendly regulatory environment" making it impossible to do business in the US.
Yet when someone takes out a student loan, that loan IS unbankruptable. This turns getting an education- a precursor widely accepted as necessary fro economic participation- which is a nice way of saying eating and maintaining a roof over your head- in the economy into a high risk gamble in which the cost of losing is the lifetime indentured servitude to rich lenders by poor students.
Unbankruptable debt is not a concept that exists anywhere in the world outside of 18th century England and its debtor's prisons. The reason is clear. Everyone who is stuck trying to repay unbankruptable debt falls permanently out of the economy and stays poor. This is bad for the individual and bad for the larger economy.
The personal and financial cost of having a bankruptcy appear on your credit rating is punishment enough to deter people from gratuitously dumping their debts. There was never a rash of student loan defaults by people really able to repay just as there were never any WMD in Iraq; it was a fiction with no data to support it. It was an excuse to make the loans unbankruptable and thus suitable to act as a kind of "super" security which the holders could then sell to investors, making themselves super rich in the process.
Banks and their employees with sophisticated knowledge of the legislative process and the cash to influence legislators can achieve whatever ends they want irrespective of the long term consequences to the country. They act as a unit under the direction of a small set of individuals- the officers and boards- who will be made so rich they are beyond care or want if they are just able to succeed at distorting the law to suit them and their goals.
THAT is what the occupy movement is protesting.
http://www.amazon.com/Student-Loan-Scam-Oppressive-History/dp/0807042293
The purpose of patents is to "promote the useful arts and sciences" . That's in the Constitution- if they don't DO that, then there is no "right" to a patent. Patents aren't there so people can profit, they're there to serve a societal good, as defined by the Framers. In the case of software, we know for a fact that patents are NOT needed for software to be created. The virtual entirety of all software prior to 1994 or so- including operating systems, databases, word processors, the internet- everything you use on a regular basis and forms the backbone of computing, was invented without patent incentives. The strongest proof possible is an existence proof- the thing stands there, so the argument over its existence is done. So it is with software and the need for a "patent incentive". No patents are necessary to incentivize software development. The fact that corporations have their valuations deeply intertwined with "intellectual property" in the form of software patents is not an argument for their legitimacy. That's just another form of Too Big To Fail. We've built this mess, not it must be sustained no matter what ! It's too big to permit change ! Software patents are a tax on development and a drag on innovation- both prices consumers must bear. They favor existing billion dollar players- who can afford the millions to acquire and defend them- over entrants and reduce competition. We're a CAPITALIST country, not a CRONY CAPITALIST country. The capitalist system is to work for the benefit of the People not corporations. Obviously, people get confused on this point. Systems that align themselves with specific business interests and arrange incentives to benefit those interests are not capitalist- they're crony capitalist plutocracies.
Wikipedia is not working? This is so 2005. Have you been there lately? Wikipedia works very well indeed because it's reached a critical mass of "social seriousness" that experts want to partake . What keeps us from going extinct is our diversity? That is so 50 million years BC. What keeps us from "going extinct" is we haven't unleashed nukes and we haven't destroyed the environment, yet If either of those two things happen, then it's not going to help that we're "diverse". Everyone gains from the scientific commons. Everyone gains from public roads and the publicly supported military. Everyone gains when corporations are stopped from polluting us into oblivion for their local, personal gain-including, by the way, those corporations and the people in them. You have to look at reality as it is, not as your libertarian, Ayn Rand preconceived philosophy says it SHALL be.