These people are the Belgian economical inspection. They only have jurisdiction over Belgium. Inundating them with US viagra mails and offers from Nigerians will only slow down their work.
Just stop wasting your time modding yourself funny and making yourself appear even more stupid than you already are. I'm glad I was able to assist you in making your day, however.
See it as an attempt to clean up your own neighbourhood. I don't see anything wrong with that idea (whether the implementation of that idea is good, is another question obviously).
Here we can mail spam sent by Belgians (or spamvertising Beglian website) to the economical inspection, and they do investigate (they even called me once for more information). Foreigners getting Belgian spam (not many of those, I guess) can report them as well, fwiw. Their address is inspec dot eco at mineco dot fgov dot be
Students = research animals
on
WiFi Gone Wild
·
· Score: 1
They have only tested the moving version on a group of students.
"We have done this on a few research animals but it is not quite ready for prime-time," explains Butler. The technology appears to be working, but stimulus is not deterring the animals.
You can't do that, because the US made it illegal in the international TRIPs treaty to create special conditions for certain kinds of patents. Either you allow patents on something and these patents are exactly the same as all other patents you allow, or you don't allow patents on something (and then you have to argue that this something can either not be an invention, or does not belong to a field of technology).
The title "Task list window for use in an integrated development environment" and the summary and the first couple of lines of claim one: "1. A computer-implemented method for managing development-related tasks, the method comprising: during an interactive code development session, " shows pretty clearly that the patent is about an IDE.
The title and the summary are completely irrelevant as far as what the patent covers, only the claims are. IDE simply means "Integrated Development Environment" (and not "Interactive Development Environment", as you seem to think). The phrasing "interactive code development session" does not mean anything, unless you know more than I do and have experience with "non-interactive code development sessions".
Secondly, the patent consists of 75 claims, many of which DO say a lot about syntax errors, including dynamically altering the priorities of tasks depending on whether syntax errors are present or not.
That doesn't matter, they can sue you as soon as you violate one of those claims.
Lastly, using the term "TODO comments" is a generic way of referring to comments formatted a specific way to indicate comments that define tasks to be carried out.
I did not contest that, I contested that the patent would only cover cases where the name of a task is automatically extracted from those todo-comments or if they are assigned priorities.
Microsoft's "double click" patent you all keep going on about does NOT patent
the double click. It patents differentiating between different lengths of time
holding a button on a PDA,
Not on a PDA, but on a "limited resource computing device". Unless you have some unlimited resource computing device in your closet, this can apply to anything.
What THIS new patent covers is, and if you go PAST the f**king summary and
actually read the PATENT:
Seems like you are the one that didn't read the claims.
In an IDE (interactive!), adding/* TODO */ comments or suchlike are
automatically, and in real-time, added to a task list. When comments are removed
or the task is clicked off on the GUI (and possibly in combination with revision
control) you can see what stuff has been done and has not been done. In real
time. From an IDE.
This is the first claim:
1. A computer-implemented method for managing development-related tasks, the method comprising:
during an interactive code development session, evaluating source code to determine whether a comment token is present;
in response to determining that the source code contains a comment token, inserting a task into a task list; and
in response to completion of a task, modifying the task list during the interactive code development session to indicate that the task has been completed.
Now, as for your remarks:
It nowhere specifies the use of an IDE. It says "interactive code development session". Unless you know a way to passively develop code, this does not limit anything. It does not say you have to use an IDE to interactively develop your code.
The task list does not have to be a GUI.
It does not have to be in "real time". Scanning your source files periodically (or even when it's manually triggered!) is enough as far as the first claim is concerned.
ote that manually running "grep" does not act in real time as you type, display
it in an IDE or generally do anything listed in the patent.
The only thing that grep does not do, is removing stuff again from your todo list (so I was wrong in a previous comment claiming that just running grep is enough to violate the patent). The first claim does not say things have to happen in real time, just that the process has to occur during this "interactive code development session".
Before we get started on this whole patent argument: yeah I think Amazon's
one-click shopping thing is a bit rich. But that's different, it's a feature we
can all remember using since the dark ages when cookies first arrived, the
current batch of MS patents are actually quite original thinking from people,
and generally well thought-out well-defendable inventions.
Patents were devised in the 15th century for allowing monopolies on physical inventions in exchange for the divulgation of information. Software patents are a complete anachronism and completely fail to obtain the goals of the patent system (encourage innovation/economy). The patent lawyer economy is the only one that benefits as a whole, which is probably why virtually only patent lawyers are in favour of them.
The patent is on a relatively complex system that I've never seen or heard of before.
That says more about you than about the quality of the patent.
It's about an IDE tool
Wrong, it does not have to be an IDE tool. It could even be a daemon that works constantly in the background, or -as other people pointed out- even something like "while true; do sleep 1; grep... >...; done"
that dynamically identifies syntax errors
The first claim does not say anything about syntax errors. Besides, you might have heard of this complex tool called a "compiler" which does exactly that, among other things.
and TODO comments throughout your code, associates them with named tasks and gives them priorities.
The first claim says nothing about the naming of the tasks (simply using consecutive numbers would be enough to violate the patent) nor about assigning them priorities.
If there's someone misrepresenting the situation here, it's you. If someone against software patents wrote such an uninformed and plain wrong comment, he'd be toasted by you and your colleagues in follow-up comments.
That depends on how the claims are structured. Claims can stand alone or depend on another claim. Dependent claims only apply when the claim they are dependent on are also implemented.
That's besides the point. The grandparent was quoting the summary of the "invention", not a claim.
My point is that the rationale used by the author of the parent post in support of the proposition that IP should be "rejected" as property could just as easilly be applied to other forms of property.
And my point was that he wasn't arguing for rejecting IP as a whole, just that software patents create a climate where someone who could normally set up a business on his own (with the only required investment being a computer), now potentially needs an enormous amount of money to either defend himself from software patents (at least $US1.5-2 million per case), or to obtain a portfolio of defensive patents (not free either, and not a guarantee for not being sued).
Something that impedes the free market like that, needs quite good hard data in favour of it for it to be defendable from a macro-economical point of view imho.
our rationale could also be applied to other types of IP, not just software, which come about in rapidly developing fields. The same "sky will fall" arguments were made in the past (some over 100 years ago) and they proved to be dead wrong or wildly exaggerated.
I'm not saying the sky will fall or that software development will come to a halt. Microsoft, IBM and friends will happily go on. It's just that you create a climate where the big players can more or less control who can join the club and who can't, buying out or suing to bankruptcy the ones that don't play according to their rules. A bit like in the telecom sector. Where are all the small time businesses there that don't have to base their business on patenting stuff to license it to the big players?
Also, I'm not claiming patents only have a mainly negative effect on software, it wouldn't surprise me if the case is similar in certain other fields. However, I have not studied them there, so I can't make any statements about that.
Software patents have only been arround since 1998 (date of the State Street decision) so I don't really give much credence to your conclusion that they "do not result in more prosperity or innovation." There just hasn't been enough time to develop evidence in support of such a proposition.
Software patents have been around since quite a bit earlier, even in Europe (the base patent on mp3 compression dates from 1985 or 1986). As far as enforcement in courts is concerned, the slippery slope in the US started already with Diamond vs. Diehr in 1981. And it's not my conclusion, it's the conclusion of those studies (see below for a few).
I could respond by saying that the US leads the world, by far, in the software industry and is the only country that allows software patents. But that would be an oversimplification of the complex issues involved.
Absolutely, since the US dominance started well before there was any talk of software patents. However, it's not the only one that allows them, at least Japan has them as well.
For every one of the "studies" you refer to, I can probably point to another "study" that says the opposite.
Here are some of "my" "studies". I'd love to see yours.
Study by the Federal Trade Commission from October 2003 (extracts with the software patent related stuff from that report). Conclusions: many indications that software patents hamper innovation because of, among others, patent thickets.
Empirical study by Bessen&Hunt on the effects of software patents in the US. Conclusion: software patents have resulted in a transfer of R&D money to patent departments and has not resulted in increased R&D. Because of the incremental nature of software development, patents hinder instead of encourage innovation.
Lets face it, we live in a capitalistic society and our system has helped this country to develop into a very prosperous nation. It is very easy for another country to reject anything as property (why stop at IP, lets reject land as property) when it doesn't own it and has not invested anything to develop it.
Being against software patents is not the same as being against all forms of (intellectual) property. Most studies show that software patents do not result in more prosperity nor innovation. In some cases (such as software/maths), other factors are much more important to spur innovation and investment than the foresight of being able to get a monopoly (and these patent monopolies aren't generally used/necessary to win back investments, but simply to block others from entering the market or making sure you're not block from the market).
The fact that other can get a monopoly on some small component of your work allowing him to basically block your entire investment, may even hamper the willingness to invest more than it helps. I know at least one company that went from writing software for other companies to pure consulting, because of the fear that a software patent owner could render their work suddenly worthless/useless. And that's even a European company...
You are wrong in thinking that all large corporations are in favour of software patents, or that there is even an economical majority (in Europe) in favour of software patents. In Germany, 80% of the people employed in IT work for SME's, in Belgium 60%. As for large corporations against software patents, have a look at this letter written by the ObjectWeb Consortium, representing these companies. Some names you might recognise are Dassault Aviation, France Telecom R&D and the Thales Group.
Further, the current Commission stance on software patents is mostly dominated by Bolkestein, an extremely conservative "liberal" who longs for a European Microsoft (and failing that, just Microsoft: a few all-encompassing companies as "backbone" for the economy). Bolkestein is now leaving the Commission. Of course, his people will most likely remain, but it will still be interesting to see whether this will bring any change. And failing that, there's still the Parliament and more and more to some extent even the Council that could help us.
I do not entirely agree with you. Minor companies can play that game as well and perhaps even better. When a minor company has a patent on a groundbreaking (or little less) invention, it can be a major pain in the *rse of a big company(with a proper sponsoring for the small one, ok), especially when that small company has no product portfolio to which the big company can assert its patents.
Not just especially, but only if the small company has no product portfolio. In other words, if the small company is a patent parasite, which contributes virtually nothing useful to society (name one software company that turns to the patent database to find new ideas for stuff to put in its applications)...
All it does is sue the companies which do contribute something useful to the economy (a product that can be sold and which people can use). Yes, it's a great way to make money, and in the end it's those big companies who always argued for unlimited patentability who are now on the wrong end of the stick, because some smart people simply optimized their business model to maximise their profit in the system created by the patent junkies.
So now the big companies start whining and complaining, accusing those parasites of being "patent trolls" and play the innocent third party harmed by the bad practice of the USPTO... While it's the fault of their own patent trolls (IP lawyers who wanted more influence in the company) it came to this in the first place.
he push should be to limit software patents to 2-3 years so that we don't sound like anti-business commies.
You'll sound like an anti-WTO commie that way. WTO TRIPs requires that if you allow patents in a certain field, the conditions for patentability and the resulting granted monopoly must be the same as in all other fields where you grant patents.
Taken from another post of mine in a previous story:
Study by the Federal Trade Commission from October 2003 (extracts with the software patent related stuff from that report). Conclusions: many indications that software patents hamper innovation because of, among others, patent thickets.
Empirical study by Bessen&Hunt on the effects of software patents in the US. Conclusion: software patents have resulted in a transfer of R&D money to patent departments and has not resulted in increased R&D. Because of the incremental nature of software development, patents hinder instead of encourage innovation.
Study ordered by the European Commission in preparation of the European software patents directive. It did not suit their goals however, so they avoid referring to it. Quote: "Unless this fundamental lack of knowledge is addressed in a more structured manner, any proposal to optimise the patent system in respect of software-related inventions is based on nothing more than wild guesses or wishful thinking."
Not being an Apple owner or user, this is about the first time I've ever been in an OS X discussion. But the fact is that even as a non-user, I know a MAC has to ne a limited subset of hardware meaning a smaller, more optimised kernel, fewer drivers, etc. etc.
But that has nothing to do with any of the techniques discussed in the article. Those are completely generic and can be applied to any OS, regardless of the amount of hardware you support.
First you accuse me of mischaracterizing the FFII.
That can happen with a comment title like the one above...
If you read carefully (I believe the first parenthesis in my response) I clearly wrote that this was the view of the one cambridge ffii presenter.
Who was that? James Heald? I'd be extremely surprised if he'd say something like that (though not impossible I guess, we all make mistakes).
Next, you attempt to equate a sound bite's use of the word "trivial" with "nonobvious", which sounds to me like a bit spin-doctoring by you.
How else is the patent system supposed to stop trivial patents, other then through careful application of the novelty and non-obvious conditions? Without software patents, there's still the "technical character" test in Europe, but that one has been completely eroded by the EPO so it doesn't mean squat anymore... Virtually everything has become "technology" in their eyes. See the page I referred to in my previous post.
But, even if you were right, the fact is that airplanes crash occasionally too, and yet it's still better than walking.
I argue that patent law is so unfit for advances in abstract reasoning, logic and mathematics that you can't but end up with tons of trivial and/or very broad patents if you allow software patents. The end result is that the resulting monopolies hamper innovation much more than they encourage it.
Some studies to back up my claims:
Study by the Federal Trade Commission from October 2003 (extracts with the software patent related stuff from that report). Conclusions: many indications that software patents hamper innovation because of, among others, patent thickets.
Empirical study by Bessen&Hunt on the effects of software patents in the US. Conclusion: software patents have resulted in a transfer of R&D money to patent departments and has not resulted in increased R&D. Because of the incremental nature of software development, patents hinder instead of encourage innovation.
Study ordered by the European Commission in preparation of the European software patents directive. It did not suit their goals however, so they avoid referring to it. Quote: "Unless this fundamental lack of knowledge is addressed in a more structured manner, any proposal to optimise the patent system in respect of software-related inventions is based on nothing more than wild guesses or wishful thinking."
Many more are linked on the page I gave you earlier.
Your comment about no software patents being the default argument position is dubious at best as the counter argument (which in fact you allude to using the term 'intertia') could be made quite easily - patents have worked quite well for many years.
No software patents is the default position in Europe. The European Patent Convention excludes them, and so did the European Patent Office until it started with its creative interpretation claiming that "a computer program executed by a computer" is not the same as "a computer program as such". When you change the law, and on top of that adapt it to accomodate the behaviour of the people that started breaking it, then you have to provide quite convincing arguments (preferably in the form of macro-economical studies) that this is a good thing.
Yes, i agree the system has been flawed and needs reform, but the fundamental idea is sound. Why should software be any different? To claim that you have absolutely the default position is nonsense; it's
I don't know who the right-wing MEP was (since it wasn't a mail to me). Probably either Toine Manders or Elly Plooij-Van Gorsel, but note that they (especially Plooij) aren't that bad (especially not compared to McCarthy and Bolkestein). Plooij's ITRE report for the EP was in fact quite good, but she seems to have been misguided by other people later on.
Best wait for the original poster to reply and tell you who it was.
Johanna Boogerd from D66 is an extremely strong and active supporter of our fight against software patents. She's also a public signatory of our Call for Action II
Both Labour (Arlene McCarthy) and Conservatives (Malcolm Harbour) are heavily pro-swpat. The LibDems are against swpat at the national level, but voted in favour in the EP. Only the Greens seemed to be really against in the UK.
Both McCarthy and Harbour claim there are against "pure" software patents, but that's misleading. To them, a "pure software patent" is a patent on the source code or object code of a program, and a patent on a "computer-implemented invention" is a patent on a "computer executing a computer program that performs some calculation".
Slashdot Mirror
These people are the Belgian economical inspection. They only have jurisdiction over Belgium. Inundating them with US viagra mails and offers from Nigerians will only slow down their work.
Just stop wasting your time modding yourself funny and making yourself appear even more stupid than you already are. I'm glad I was able to assist you in making your day, however.
Fucking idiot.
See it as an attempt to clean up your own neighbourhood. I don't see anything wrong with that idea (whether the implementation of that idea is good, is another question obviously).
Here we can mail spam sent by Belgians (or spamvertising Beglian website) to the economical inspection, and they do investigate (they even called me once for more information). Foreigners getting Belgian spam (not many of those, I guess) can report them as well, fwiw. Their address is inspec dot eco at mineco dot fgov dot be
The font problem is something that was fixed in XFree86 after the fork (and which apparently hasn't been merged back into x.org yet).
You can't do that, because the US made it illegal in the international TRIPs treaty to create special conditions for certain kinds of patents. Either you allow patents on something and these patents are exactly the same as all other patents you allow, or you don't allow patents on something (and then you have to argue that this something can either not be an invention, or does not belong to a field of technology).
- It nowhere specifies the use of an IDE. It says "interactive code development session". Unless you know a way to passively develop code, this does not limit anything. It does not say you have to use an IDE to interactively develop your code.
- The task list does not have to be a GUI.
- It does not have to be in "real time". Scanning your source files periodically (or even when it's manually triggered!) is enough as far as the first claim is concerned.
The only thing that grep does not do, is removing stuff again from your todo list (so I was wrong in a previous comment claiming that just running grep is enough to violate the patent). The first claim does not say things have to happen in real time, just that the process has to occur during this "interactive code development session". Patents were devised in the 15th century for allowing monopolies on physical inventions in exchange for the divulgation of information. Software patents are a complete anachronism and completely fail to obtain the goals of the patent system (encourage innovation/economy). The patent lawyer economy is the only one that benefits as a whole, which is probably why virtually only patent lawyers are in favour of them.If there's someone misrepresenting the situation here, it's you. If someone against software patents wrote such an uninformed and plain wrong comment, he'd be toasted by you and your colleagues in follow-up comments.
And my point was that he wasn't arguing for rejecting IP as a whole, just that software patents create a climate where someone who could normally set up a business on his own (with the only required investment being a computer), now potentially needs an enormous amount of money to either defend himself from software patents (at least $US1.5-2 million per case), or to obtain a portfolio of defensive patents (not free either, and not a guarantee for not being sued).
Something that impedes the free market like that, needs quite good hard data in favour of it for it to be defendable from a macro-economical point of view imho.
I'm not saying the sky will fall or that software development will come to a halt. Microsoft, IBM and friends will happily go on. It's just that you create a climate where the big players can more or less control who can join the club and who can't, buying out or suing to bankruptcy the ones that don't play according to their rules. A bit like in the telecom sector. Where are all the small time businesses there that don't have to base their business on patenting stuff to license it to the big players?
Also, I'm not claiming patents only have a mainly negative effect on software, it wouldn't surprise me if the case is similar in certain other fields. However, I have not studied them there, so I can't make any statements about that.
Software patents have been around since quite a bit earlier, even in Europe (the base patent on mp3 compression dates from 1985 or 1986). As far as enforcement in courts is concerned, the slippery slope in the US started already with Diamond vs. Diehr in 1981. And it's not my conclusion, it's the conclusion of those studies (see below for a few).
Absolutely, since the US dominance started well before there was any talk of software patents. However, it's not the only one that allows them, at least Japan has them as well.
Here are some of "my" "studies". I'd love to see yours.
The fact that other can get a monopoly on some small component of your work allowing him to basically block your entire investment, may even hamper the willingness to invest more than it helps. I know at least one company that went from writing software for other companies to pure consulting, because of the fear that a software patent owner could render their work suddenly worthless/useless. And that's even a European company...
Further, the current Commission stance on software patents is mostly dominated by Bolkestein, an extremely conservative "liberal" who longs for a European Microsoft (and failing that, just Microsoft: a few all-encompassing companies as "backbone" for the economy). Bolkestein is now leaving the Commission. Of course, his people will most likely remain, but it will still be interesting to see whether this will bring any change. And failing that, there's still the Parliament and more and more to some extent even the Council that could help us.
All it does is sue the companies which do contribute something useful to the economy (a product that can be sold and which people can use). Yes, it's a great way to make money, and in the end it's those big companies who always argued for unlimited patentability who are now on the wrong end of the stick, because some smart people simply optimized their business model to maximise their profit in the system created by the patent junkies.
So now the big companies start whining and complaining, accusing those parasites of being "patent trolls" and play the innocent third party harmed by the bad practice of the USPTO... While it's the fault of their own patent trolls (IP lawyers who wanted more influence in the company) it came to this in the first place.
Then again, TRIPs and WIPO also forbid software patents and the US doesn't care about that either...
FYI, it's Mac, not MAC
That can happen with a comment title like the one above...
Who was that? James Heald? I'd be extremely surprised if he'd say something like that (though not impossible I guess, we all make mistakes).
How else is the patent system supposed to stop trivial patents, other then through careful application of the novelty and non-obvious conditions? Without software patents, there's still the "technical character" test in Europe, but that one has been completely eroded by the EPO so it doesn't mean squat anymore... Virtually everything has become "technology" in their eyes. See the page I referred to in my previous post.
I argue that patent law is so unfit for advances in abstract reasoning, logic and mathematics that you can't but end up with tons of trivial and/or very broad patents if you allow software patents. The end result is that the resulting monopolies hamper innovation much more than they encourage it.
Some studies to back up my claims:
Many more are linked on the page I gave you earlier.
No software patents is the default position in Europe. The European Patent Convention excludes them, and so did the European Patent Office until it started with its creative interpretation claiming that "a computer program executed by a computer" is not the same as "a computer program as such". When you change the law, and on top of that adapt it to accomodate the behaviour of the people that started breaking it, then you have to provide quite convincing arguments (preferably in the form of macro-economical studies) that this is a good thing.
I don't know who the right-wing MEP was (since it wasn't a mail to me). Probably either Toine Manders or Elly Plooij-Van Gorsel, but note that they (especially Plooij) aren't that bad (especially not compared to McCarthy and Bolkestein). Plooij's ITRE report for the EP was in fact quite good, but she seems to have been misguided by other people later on.
Best wait for the original poster to reply and tell you who it was.
Johanna Boogerd from D66 is an extremely strong and active supporter of our fight against software patents. She's also a public signatory of our Call for Action II
Both Labour (Arlene McCarthy) and Conservatives (Malcolm Harbour) are heavily pro-swpat. The LibDems are against swpat at the national level, but voted in favour in the EP. Only the Greens seemed to be really against in the UK.
Both McCarthy and Harbour claim there are against "pure" software patents, but that's misleading. To them, a "pure software patent" is a patent on the source code or object code of a program, and a patent on a "computer-implemented invention" is a patent on a "computer executing a computer program that performs some calculation".
Strange, my language is set to English as well. Maybe try going directly to http://www.ffii.org/index.en.html?
There are language-specific versions of most pages. To what language is your browser/OS set?