There is a company that used to have a product called CarCop that combined a cell phone, GPS system, with monitoring and control of the vehicle systems to detect theft, breakdowns, etc. The system has access to all of the data carried on the vehicle buses and control of all of the vehicle systems accessible via the buses. So they can tell when the car is running, whether it is moving when the engine is not running, and can disable the ignition switch, lock or unlock the doors, etc.
After failing to sell this in the public sector they switched to fleet sales where it is a big hit with corps needing to monitor vehicles.
It is also making a comeback as the OnStar system
They also made the sale to mortgage and leasing companies specializing in high risk loans and leases. The deal the leasing company makes with the consumer is that they will approve the lease or loan if this special module can be installed in the car. The module is used to track the car to prevent theft and to disable the car should the consumer get behind in payments.
This article from Fortune gives some great insight into the practice of a company that is nothing more than a patent hound, sniffing out and litigating patents as a strategy for generating income instead of using the patent system as it was intended.
This magnet company might be ligitimately defending unique developments, but it might also be using the same Lemelson techniques to snare other companies and extract undue license fees.
Mr. Bush is correct in keeping federal education policy narrowly focused. The U.S. Constitution, from which the Federal Government gets all its authority, does not grant it the power to dictate eucational policy to states or individuals.
This case is not surprising given the 1996 change to the Trademark law:
Quoting from a Ladas & Parry bulletin on the Federal Trademark Dilution Act of 1995:
Definition of Dilutiuon
The new act defines the term "dilution" as "the lessening of the capacity of a famous mark to identify and distinguish goods or services, regardless of the presence or absence of
(1) competition between the owner of the famous mark and other parties,
or
(2) likelihood of confusion, mistake, or deception."
Courts have previously found that dilution can occur as a result of either "blurring" or "tarnishment". "Blurring" typically refers to the "whittling away" of distinctiveness caused by the unauthorized use of a mark on dissimilar products; while "tarnishment" involves an unauthorized use of a mark which links it to products that are of poor quality or which is portrayed in an unwholesome or unsavory context that is likely to reflect adversely upon the owner's product. The legislative history suggests that both of these concepts are encompassed within the new law. In addition, the legislative history cites, as examples of the uses which would fall within the new law, the mark DUPONT for shoes, BUICK for aspirin and KODAK for pianos.
Well, technically stuff that you do on your own time is yours, and you own the copyright to it.
This depends on what is stated in your employment agreement or consulting contract with the company. If the agreement contains a clause something like "the Company gets the full benefit of the employee's efforts" during the time employed then even work you do 'on your own time' can be considered as belonging to the company. The argument is that if you had time or energy to work on anything then it must have been for the company.
If this were true then C++ code could not be copyrightable since it simply used to generate the actual machine code representation of a program (and is hence a type of markup language for machine code).
The requirement to add location information to cell phones does not mean that cell phones will have GPS systems on board. The existing cell system can be used to locate the caller with reasonable accuracy by triangulating from signal strength information in adjacent cells: For each cell that records a signal from the phone (the same data that is used to determine when to switch cells), draw a circle at the estimated distance represented by that signal strength (calibrated occaisionally), the location is in the region where the circles overlap.
Everything for this to work is already in place and has been used to locate people (one the most notable cases was the woman trapped in a car by a snow storm a couple of years ago). Adding GPS to the system would not gain much and raise the would cost of phones.
The hard thing in these programs will be balancing the usefulness of the device to the students against the cost of support and replacement.
I think it is unreasonable to think that primary and middle school students (grades K-7) can be expected to lug about a relatively fragile piece of hardware without it getting lost or damaged at a fairly high rate. Given this , you have to assume that a number of the students will need replacement machines each year. The schools should own and maintain the machines and provide replacements as needed (or out-source the service). Even if the school does not take this approach it will be forced on them as many parents will assume the school will have support, maintenance, and replacement programs in place. You take things to the point of purchase for support, and, given the excess of non-libertarians in this country [U.S.A], I would not be surprised to find that a large number of the parents assume a mandatory purchase includes infinite free replacements (few will read the purcahse agreement).
Up through at least 7th grade, what the student needs mostly is a research library (WWW, etc.) and tools to generate homework results (reports, graphics, music, etc.). For that age range having machines availaible in the class room and library is adequate (it should be as many as the school can afford, more is better).
At all ages, machines provided by the school system for the express purposes of aiding homework and research should be owned by the school system, maintained by the school system (they will end up supporting them in any case), and limited to the purposes for which the school system intends. I do not see it necessary (or desirable) for a school to be required to provide machines adequate for all needs; providing machines adequate to the purpose at hand is more that enough of a challenge.
At grades above 7th, I would support purchase plans sponsored by the schools for general purpose machines that also happen to be capable of being connected to the school's systems. The power of group purchasing to reduce the individual cost is the point here, not providing a fixed-purpose machine. Once the machine is purchased, the school system should have no responsibility for it. This would help people get a break on the cost, but still allow them to select a computer that suits what they see as the needs of their child.
I do not think it is reasonable at grades below college to require a student to have a laptop computer. I think it is enough to provide several (many) in the school and libraries, to encourage parents to purchase machines for the students, and to aide the purchases through group purchase plans and other means.
On a related note: I recall a laptop system that was being marketed to some of the school systems locally (near Atlanta, GA) that had a security system that required it to connect to the school network every so often (i think it was a several-day limit). If it did not connect, it shut itself down and required an admin to re-enable it. This was its main theft prevention measure. I do not think colors and logos will stop any theft, disabled rugged tamper-resistant construction, and limited usability after theft will.
I think that way down underneath this feature there is an engine from CheckFree. I am not sure that PayTrust has anything to do with it. They certainly don't mention it on their web site.
I did some consulting with Checkfree (on one of its other products) 2 years ago when the bill payment and yahoo deals were first getting going.
Certainly registration of a domain name should be a single set price. Domain registration should be handled by an independent not-for-profit organization (or a collection of such).
Once registered, the name is property and should be controlled only by its owner. The owner should be allowed to enter into a mutual contract with any other entity. Period.
Brokerage is not a bad thing (but fraud is).
The Free market is good (government restrictions are not). Greed is good (theft is not). Liberty is good (anything less is not).
I also think ticket 'scalping' should be unregulated.
It needs little governance: be the first to register and let the market rule from there. The domain name governance we had 3 years ago was all that was needed (although I'll grant it needed to be expanded beyond the single point of failure).
If gramps enjoyed the view, and the view was empty of anyone else taking a dump, he could well have squatted and claimed the land. This is exacly how the country was settled up until the era of the Oklahoma land rush. After that almost all of the land had been claimed by either individuals, the states, or the U.S.A gov. and was on the free market (for the most part). [Yes, the Native Americans were done wrong during the course of this; their original claims to the land (also from squatting) should have held. This injustice was because the country was not settled by Libertarians.:) ]
Domain names are now at the land rush phase and will be for some time (there are more names than land parcels and the 'land mass' is expandable). Squatting is easier than building a sod shack, but the mere fact of holding the name (having registered it) should suffice as a proper claim of ownership.
A clear example of the way it can go if we leave it to laws like the anti-CyberSquatting garbage can be seen in the examples of the applications rule of 'eminent domain' applied to homes and farms and used literally to steal property from the current owners to keep from having put a bend in a train track of pipeline. For domain names the bends will be tenuous trademark and service mark infringement claims.
The 'eminent domain' of domain names looks to me to be the 'good faith intent' rule.
The original purpose of domain name allocations is irrelevant to the current state and usage of the Internet. It has moved beyond a research arena and playground for acolytes and into the demesne of capitalism. Supply and demand will (and should) set the pace and cost of the registrations. These cost will be either be the upfront price set by the free market or will be the buried costs of willy-nilly litigation. Domain names are now real estate as far as the Internet is concerned and should be marketed in the same way. Speculative domain registration should be governed in the most part just as speculative land purchases are governed. In the beginning land was 'owned' by the person who got there first and laid claim to it. Once claimed it was sold as other property. Domain names should follow suit. I am completely convinced that the anti-CyberSquatting laws along with the expansions of trademark and copy right protections are unnecessary and will ultimiate inflict more damage and limitations on more people and on the system than would the free market.
I just heard a person from Trend Micro being interviewed in The News Hour with Jim Leherer state that the only real solution to this and other attacks is to require the internet backbone services to scan all data being transmitted and to reject anything that is tranmitting 'malicious' code. Of course, that was a relatively non-technical interview and he could not take the time to explain just how that would or could work or who would decide what constitutes 'malicious code.'
Slashdot Mirror
There is a company that used to have a product called CarCop that combined a cell phone, GPS system, with monitoring and control of the vehicle systems to detect theft, breakdowns, etc. The system has access to all of the data carried on the vehicle buses and control of all of the vehicle systems accessible via the buses. So they can tell when the car is running, whether it is moving when the engine is not running, and can disable the ignition switch, lock or unlock the doors, etc.
After failing to sell this in the public sector they switched to fleet sales where it is a big hit with corps needing to monitor vehicles.
It is also making a comeback as the OnStar system
They also made the sale to mortgage and leasing companies specializing in high risk loans and leases. The deal the leasing company makes with the consumer is that they will approve the lease or loan if this special module can be installed in the car. The module is used to track the car to prevent theft and to disable the car should the consumer get behind in payments.
This article from Fortune gives some great insight into the practice of a company that is nothing more than a patent hound, sniffing out and litigating patents as a strategy for generating income instead of using the patent system as it was intended.
This magnet company might be ligitimately defending unique developments, but it might also be using the same Lemelson techniques to snare other companies and extract undue license fees.
Mr. Bush is correct in keeping federal education policy narrowly focused. The U.S. Constitution, from which the Federal Government gets all its authority, does not grant it the power to dictate eucational policy to states or individuals.
Is this book in print anywhere? I've looked in the obvious places (local libarary, BN, Chapter11, Borders, even that 'A' company).
So they just should summarize the bug report and include the link to the microsoft web page for the full report.
Quoting from a Ladas & Parry bulletin on the Federal Trademark Dilution Act of 1995:
Definition of Dilutiuon
The new act defines the term "dilution" as "the lessening of the capacity of a famous mark to identify and distinguish goods or services, regardless of the presence or absence of
(1) competition between the owner of the famous mark and other parties,
or
(2) likelihood of confusion, mistake, or deception."
Courts have previously found that dilution can occur as a result of either "blurring" or "tarnishment". "Blurring" typically refers to the "whittling away" of distinctiveness caused by the unauthorized use of a mark on dissimilar products; while "tarnishment" involves an unauthorized use of a mark which links it to products that are of poor quality or which is portrayed in an unwholesome or unsavory context that is likely to reflect adversely upon the owner's product. The legislative history suggests that both of these concepts are encompassed within the new law. In addition, the legislative history cites, as examples of the uses which would fall within the new law, the mark DUPONT for shoes, BUICK for aspirin and KODAK for pianos.
Well, technically stuff that you do on your own time is yours, and you own the copyright to it.
This depends on what is stated in your employment agreement or consulting contract with the company. If the agreement contains a clause something like "the Company gets the full benefit of the employee's efforts" during the time employed then even work you do 'on your own time' can be considered as belonging to the company. The argument is that if you had time or energy to work on anything then it must have been for the company.
Been there, been done by that...
If this were true then C++ code could not be copyrightable since it simply used to generate the actual machine code representation of a program (and is hence a type of markup language for machine code).
The requirement to add location information to cell phones does not mean that cell phones will have GPS systems on board. The existing cell system can be used to locate the caller with reasonable accuracy by triangulating from signal strength information in adjacent cells: For each cell that records a signal from the phone (the same data that is used to determine when to switch cells), draw a circle at the estimated distance represented by that signal strength (calibrated occaisionally), the location is in the region where the circles overlap.
Everything for this to work is already in place and has been used to locate people (one the most notable cases was the woman trapped in a car by a snow storm a couple of years ago). Adding GPS to the system would not gain much and raise the would cost of phones.
The hard thing in these programs will be balancing the usefulness of the device to the students against the cost of support and replacement.
I think it is unreasonable to think that primary and middle school students (grades K-7) can be expected to lug about a relatively fragile piece of hardware without it getting lost or damaged at a fairly high rate. Given this , you have to assume that a number of the students will need replacement machines each year. The schools should own and maintain the machines and provide replacements as needed (or out-source the service). Even if the school does not take this approach it will be forced on them as many parents will assume the school will have support, maintenance, and replacement programs in place. You take things to the point of purchase for support, and, given the excess of non-libertarians in this country [U.S.A], I would not be surprised to find that a large number of the parents assume a mandatory purchase includes infinite free replacements (few will read the purcahse agreement).
Up through at least 7th grade, what the student needs mostly is a research library (WWW, etc.) and tools to generate homework results (reports, graphics, music, etc.). For that age range having machines availaible in the class room and library is adequate (it should be as many as the school can afford, more is better).
At all ages, machines provided by the school system for the express purposes of aiding homework and research should be owned by the school system, maintained by the school system (they will end up supporting them in any case), and limited to the purposes for which the school system intends. I do not see it necessary (or desirable) for a school to be required to provide machines adequate for all needs; providing machines adequate to the purpose at hand is more that enough of a challenge.
At grades above 7th, I would support purchase plans sponsored by the schools for general purpose machines that also happen to be capable of being connected to the school's systems. The power of group purchasing to reduce the individual cost is the point here, not providing a fixed-purpose machine. Once the machine is purchased, the school system should have no responsibility for it. This would help people get a break on the cost, but still allow them to select a computer that suits what they see as the needs of their child.
I do not think it is reasonable at grades below college to require a student to have a laptop computer. I think it is enough to provide several (many) in the school and libraries, to encourage parents to purchase machines for the students, and to aide the purchases through group purchase plans and other means.
On a related note:
I recall a laptop system that was being marketed to some of the school systems locally (near Atlanta, GA) that had a security system that required it to connect to the school network every so often (i think it was a several-day limit). If it did not connect, it shut itself down and required an admin to re-enable it. This was its main theft prevention measure. I do not think colors and logos will stop any theft, disabled rugged tamper-resistant construction, and limited usability after theft will.
When the article says this cases was settled does it mean that the UK Court found for the plantiff or that the parties settled out of court?
In U.S.A. law a case settled (out of court) carries no weight of precendence for future cases. Is this the same in UK law?
I think that way down underneath this feature there is an engine from CheckFree. I am not sure that PayTrust has anything to do with it. They certainly don't mention it on their web site.
I did some consulting with Checkfree (on one of its other products) 2 years ago when the bill payment and yahoo deals were first getting going.
We call them 'Gores' because everyone knows Al actually invented the AC motor.
Certainly registration of a domain name should be a single set price. Domain registration should be handled by an independent not-for-profit organization (or a collection of such).
Once registered, the name is property and should be controlled only by its owner. The owner should be allowed to enter into a mutual contract with any other entity. Period.
Brokerage is not a bad thing (but fraud is).
The Free market is good (government restrictions are not).
Greed is good (theft is not).
Liberty is good (anything less is not).
I also think ticket 'scalping' should be unregulated.
It needs little governance: be the first to register and let the market rule from there. The domain name governance we had 3 years ago was all that was needed (although I'll grant it needed to be expanded beyond the single point of failure).
:) ]
If gramps enjoyed the view, and the view was empty of anyone else taking a dump, he could well have squatted and claimed the land. This is exacly how the country was settled up until the era of the Oklahoma land rush. After that almost all of the land had been claimed by either individuals, the states, or the U.S.A gov. and was on the free market (for the most part). [Yes, the Native Americans were done wrong during the course of this; their original claims to the land (also from squatting) should have held. This injustice was because the country was not settled by Libertarians.
Domain names are now at the land rush phase and will be for some time (there are more names than land parcels and the 'land mass' is expandable). Squatting is easier than building a sod shack, but the mere fact of holding the name (having registered it) should suffice as a proper claim of ownership.
A clear example of the way it can go if we leave it to laws like the anti-CyberSquatting garbage can be seen in the examples of the applications rule of 'eminent domain' applied to homes and farms and used literally to steal property from the current owners to keep from having put a bend in a train track of pipeline. For domain names the bends will be tenuous trademark and service mark infringement claims.
The 'eminent domain' of domain names looks to me to be the 'good faith intent' rule.
The original purpose of domain name allocations is irrelevant to the current state and usage of the Internet. It has moved beyond a research arena and playground for acolytes and into the demesne of capitalism. Supply and demand will (and should) set the pace and cost of the registrations. These cost will be either be the upfront price set by the free market or will be the buried costs of willy-nilly litigation. Domain names are now real estate as far as the Internet is concerned and should be marketed in the same way. Speculative domain registration should be governed in the most part just as speculative land purchases are governed. In the beginning land was 'owned' by the person who got there first and laid claim to it. Once claimed it was sold as other property. Domain names should follow suit. I am completely convinced that the anti-CyberSquatting laws along with the expansions of trademark and copy right protections are unnecessary and will ultimiate inflict more damage and limitations on more people and on the system than would the free market.
Fair to whom? Why is open important? Hold it or sell it any way that gets the greatest profit.
I just heard a person from Trend Micro being interviewed in The News Hour with Jim Leherer state that the only real solution to this and other attacks is to require the internet backbone services to scan all data being transmitted and to reject anything that is tranmitting 'malicious' code. Of course, that was a relatively non-technical interview and he could not take the time to explain just how that would or could work or who would decide what constitutes 'malicious code.'