the people aren't going to be pleasurable to work with because they're also clueless in almost all other
matters as well.
I wouldn't go that far - it's more likely that some dickhead lawyer has advised the company to do this and the senior executives at the company have no idea just how inappropriate this sort of thing is - and may not even understand just what it is that the contract is trying to do. Remember it's been written to try, as much as possible, to look innocent so the employee or contractor will sign it. It may look innocent to the executives who are viewing it from the company's perspective rather than yours. On the other hand if the company is refusing to waive clauses like this, run, run as fast as you can.
IANAL. TINLA...I've solved this in the past by making sure that their ownership of my ideas is restricted to items produced in the course of (as opposed to during the term of) working for them.
You probably haven't solved it as well as you think you have - "in the course of" can be construed a lot more broadly than a non-lawyer would expect.
IAAL but TINLA, get legal advice from a paid lawyer, etc,
My advice on these causes is "no way, no how". These clauses seek to preempt the real facts in any dispute, and if you are the sort of person who comes up with commercially exploitable ideas it is extremely likely that any list you provide will be incomplete - especially if you are in software development. Unless you are certain you will never exploit any of your prior ideas, you need to be treating clauses like this as a deal-breaker.
If that clause is in there, the rest of the contract is likely to be bad for you as well. Most likely it will try to lay claim on every idea you have during the term of the contract (although this may be hidden in terms that make it seem less severe), include confidential information provisions that are way too broad or define "confidential information" way too broadly, and include non-compete clauses that are also way too broad. If you see one of these "list your prior inventions" clauses, treat it as a gigantic red flag being waved violently in your face - retain a lawyer to review the thing and properly advise you.
More simply, these things were written by lawyers advising the customer/employer, and not only will they not be looking after your interests, they are professionally forbidden from doing so when acting for the customer or employer. If you don't get your own legal advice, expect to be screwed.
Or machines? Gears are just physical manifestations of equations and math
The difference is that many things that are not patentable are treated as patentable simply by adding the words "by means of a computer" at the end. That probably sounds like exaggeration, but it is the literal truth. You can quite literally submit one patent to the examiner describing everything that happens without explicitly mentioning the computer, and it will be denied. Amend the patent by adding "by means of a computer" to each claim (or to some claim in the dependency chain for each claim) and the patent will be allowed. It sounds paranoid to say that, but that is quite literally the rule the patent offices are applying and they will admit this.
What is being patented is not the equations and math - what is being patented in most software patents is the problem, not its solution.
To a layperson the Z4 patent may even appear like it is patenting a "solution", but it is not. To somebody with both IP law and software development training, it is fairly clear that what is being patented here is a well travelled problem space. I was doing most of the things claimed in this patent in 1991. I figured only a complete idiot would fail to come up with the same approach when presented with the same matrix of business requirements. The claims in that patent that I wasn't doing were inappropriate then because the global infrastructure to do them was not in place, but they are obvious extensions once the new infrastructure is added into the mix.
When you lodge a patent application, you are declaring that every single numbered claim made in the patent is something meriting a patent - that it is both novel (no prior art) and involves an inventive step (is not obvious). Most of the claims in the Z4 patent would fail both tests on their face when evaluated by a suitably qualified expert, and the others would have no chance of surviving a serious analysis by such an expert. The problem is the patent examiners are not qualified to evaluate software patent claims. The judges are not qualified to evaluate software patent claims. And here's the kicker - generally the experts used in software patent cases are not qualified to evaluate software patent claims since they only have software expertise (and sometimes not even that), when what is required is software expertise, legal expertise and a dash of business expertise.
Moreover, the lack of expertise on the part of the examiners has consequences that are truly diabolical. Once a patent is granted, the law states that they are presumed valid. This puts the onus on the alleged infringer to establish invalidity, and that is hard - near impossible - when the court and its experts lack the necessary skills to evaluate the claims. Get it past the examiner and you are normally home free.
The facts in patent lawsuits should not be evaluated by judges. They should be evaluated by arbitrators who are skilled in the art covered by the patent (or by specialty patent courts requiring qualifications in the art as well as qualifications in law). Where the arbitrator of validity is satisfied that the patent contains even one claim that could not have been declared to be novel and involving an inventive step by a person acting honestly and reasonably, every patent made by that applicant should have the burden of proof reversed (if not be struck out entirely) on grounds of fraud - because that is what a lot of these patent claims are, and certainly most if not all of the claims in the Z4 patent. On top of the reversal of the burden of proof a large fine should be imposed if not a term of imprisonment. Given the damage these fraudulent patents do, this is not over the top - we lock people up for stealing cars worth tens of thousands, yet patent fraudsters (and this is what we should be calling patent trolls) steal millions at a time with the assistance of the legal system.
They've asked him about whether he has a criminal record, about ex-wives, etc. and they have four hours in which to do so
Unlikely - I'm sure the rules of evidence still apply to a deposition, so these questions would still be impermissible on grounds of lack of relevance. The Groklaw article does not say they have asked these things, but that they could - on the latter it seems to me Groklaw is likely wrong.
Groklaw also makes some allegations of abuse of process that don't appear to be matched by the record. If there has been such flagrant abuse of process this may be subject to disciplinary proceedings against the lawyers involved.
If they actually wanted to kill as many infidels as possible, they wouldn't have anything to do with blowing up airplanes; they'd blow up backpack bombs in the lines at security checkpoints, where the same people who end up on planes are packed together and there's no security.
It has been pointed out elsewhere that bombs in relatively open areas (like check-in areas) tend to be a lot less effective than bombs in enclosed spaces (like aircraft), although some of the extra-large backpacks and suitcases could hold a much larger bomb than you could possibly smuggle onto an aircraft, and a bomb packed with lots of shrapnel can kill people in open spaces much more effectively than a straight explosive.
An effective check-in attack would probably involve detonating relatively small devices in the entrances to the check-in area so as to block exits simultaneously with large backpack shrapnel bombs further inside.
Sporting stadiums, however, are perhaps the ideal non-aircraft target, since there are limited exits to disable. You wouldn't even have to kill that many people directly - just detonate the exit-blocking devices first, then detonate the in-stands devices one-by-one so as to demonstrate a continuing threat - the crowd will take care of the rest by crushing people to death in the blocked exits.
Never?... There are many instances when using 4 bytes to store a zip in an int would be preferrable
You're right - you can store postal (ZIP) codes in an int if you can guarantee that your application will never have to deal with foreign postal codes that use letters (such as in the UK), or use the extended ZIP codes that have been available in the US for 15 or so years now. So provided the business you are writing the application for will never have a foreign customer, never have a use for extended ZIP codes, will never grow to be an international company or be acquired by one, and provided you're certain the USPS will never expand the range of characters in the ZIP code, an integer may be an appropriate choice.
This set of circumstances approximates well to "never".
Just because something looks like an integer when it's written down, that doesn't make it one. By using an integer you build in an assumption that may require extensive work later on to fix, when using a more appropriate data type up front may have avoided all that for no real cost. This is similar to the Y2K problem, caused by idiots who did not consider the true nature of the data they were dealing with. Unfortunately in that case the rest of us had to deal with the dumb questions from people wanting additional "certification" and "testing" for a problem we'd dealt with long ago.
It is, however, wrong to say that you should never use floats for financial calculations - it all depends on the degree of tolerance for error in the application. I suspect people who say not to use floats are familiar enough with them to know they have rounding errors, but not sufficiently familiar with them to know how to deal with them - that is, to them, a person who sees a floating point rounding error and does not recognise what it is looks stupid, but to others with more knowledge and experience in numerical methods the person who treats floats as anathema looks just as stupid. Numerical methods is a separate subject in Comp Sci degrees for a reason - it's a shame it's not a compulsory one in many.
Before you could be forgiven as merely a victim of a common ignorance, but having had the opportunity to educate yourself you have demonstrated yourself to be a fool. plonk
When one places information in the public view, any right to privacy is forfeited.
You do not understand the true meaning of the word "privacy". I have explained this to some degree in other messages in this thread - I suggest you go do a little more reading.
If you broadcast into the public, you have no right to privacy regarding that matter.
You are making the same mistake the teacher did - only looking at one aspect of privacy (secrecy). It is also an invasion of privacy to interfere with others without having any particular information about them. Even Webster's shallow and incomplete definition encompasses this (see 1(b), and to some extent 1(a)). You seem to be limiting your concept of privacy to the paragraph 3 of the definition, so placed because it is not the most important part of the term.
If you spend any time seriously studying privacy this is all second nature. The great writers on the subject would never consider the issue of privacy as being so narrowly constrained, and would regard themselves as not having dealt with the issue at all if they only looked at secrecy - see, for example, the writings of Brandeis, Warren, and Douglas. It is only common ignorance that allows people to get away with thinking of only "secrecy" when they hear (and use) the term "privacy".
Most people may have an excuse, but educators should know better. It is their ignorance that leads to mass ignorance, and while others can be excused for not knowing these things, an educator is rightly called a moron for propagating such stupidity.
The more I think about this, the more I feel like some arch-conservative, since most of my views fall on the liberal side. But maybe I'm just turning into a libertarian rather than a rightist...
No, you're still a liberal - liberalism does not tolerate governments interfering in the lives of individuals without a compelling State interests. If you are somebody who worries about what other people are doing when their activity does not affect anybody else, you're not a liberal, but if you think people should be allowed to do whatever the hell they like as long as it does not harm anybody else, then you are either liberal or libertarian.
A libertarian is a liberal who doesn't understand the idea that if somebody seizes resources beyond their needs and thereby deprives others of resources, then they are harming those others and depriving them of liberty. Liberals will accept the need for welfare payments because they recognise that original possession is no longer possible and the deprivation of the opportunity for original possession amounts to harm since it impedes the person's capacity for independent survival, and welfare payments mitigate this. Libertarians do not accept the need for welfare payments because raising revenue for this purpose is an interference in the liberty of the taxpayer.
It can still be an invasion of privacy to be monitoring blogs depending on what the purpose is in doing the monitoring. Privacy is not just about secrecy - secrecy is merely one facet of privacy, and is not even the most important one. Privacy is a much broader concept and is about being left the hell alone. The monitoring in this case appears to be planned for the purpose of the school district systematically interfering in stuff that is none of their damned business, and so it can still be an invasion of privacy even though the information being monitored is publicly available.
There's no oxymoron, but it's clear the spokesperson is a moron.
why should they? Like any sane thing to do is show all the cards you're playing with.
Because if they don't, the Court may take the view that they invited the litigation and award costs against Apple even if Creative otherwise drops the suit.
A logo can be protected under both trademark and copyright laws. In the US it gets copyright protection as a "graphic work" (17USC102(a)(5)), provided it is an original work in the sense that "original" is used in copyright law.
I'm going to go slow, because I'm talking to some slow people:
It [Griggs v Duke Power] says ***IQ*** tests are not relevant to jobs and as such should not be used.
You are obviously not a lawyer. I am a lawyer, and I can run rings around 99% of lawyers, already a fairly intelligent group. As a lawyer I can tell you it says no such thing. Now an idiot (and I choose this term carefully over fashionable terms like "moron" and "imbecile") like you may think you can understand a case, but you clearly cannot.
You may even have been given dumbed down advice by a lawyer who told you to just avoid the IQ test because it is too difficult to explain to people who are, relatively speaking, idiots, the finer details of the rules, and who will almost certainly get the application of them wrong.
There are some jobs for which an IQ test will be an accurate predictor of ability to do the job. The reasoning in Griggs v Duke Power actually makes it quite clear that any test that is a reasonable measure of job performance is acceptable, it is just that in the particular facts of that case the tests actually given were not "significantly related to successful job performance" and "operate to disqualify [a protected discrimination category] at a substantially higher rate than white applicants". The result holds no surprise to a lawyer because, as I said, it is merely the application of a more general rule that equal treatment can constitute discrimination where it takes into account irrelevant differences, or where it fails to take into account differences that are relevant to the treatment given.
The reasoning does not even mention "IQ tests", although it does mention "intelligence tests".
The reasons given are actually extremely plain and simple as legal reasoning goes, so I am sorry it is beyond your limits.
If you want more correct responses, please take a few assessment courses.
Sure, because what I really need is to get into trumped up pseudo-science in order to understand a legal judgement.
OK, but that's not the same as IQ tests being banned - it's merely a special case of the more general rule that equal treatment that discriminates on grounds that are irrelevant to the capacity to do the job, and that fails to take account of differences between groups where differentiation is prohibited, is unlawful discrimination. Where "IQ" as measured by the particular test is relevant to capacity to do the job, then in principle the IQ test should remain permissible.
Correlation of course doesn't necessarily mean relevance, especially if the correlation does not apply across prohibited differentiation boundaries.
The better tests in these categories do not assume much knowledge. If you are looking at a test that assumes you should know the capital cities of all the States of the United States, the result is useless unless the test is for somebody working as a geography teacher, but if it is used for another purpose then the problem is not that standardised tests are bogus, it's that the test does not correspond to what you are trying to measure.
How many people with more than a passing knowledge of technology want to put it to work at the US Patent office?
If they are willing to pay enough, they will get people with the requisite skills. I'm sure they could cover the additional cost by, oh I don't know, increasing the patent application fee.
Slashdot Mirror
the people aren't going to be pleasurable to work with because they're also clueless in almost all other matters as well.
I wouldn't go that far - it's more likely that some dickhead lawyer has advised the company to do this and the senior executives at the company have no idea just how inappropriate this sort of thing is - and may not even understand just what it is that the contract is trying to do. Remember it's been written to try, as much as possible, to look innocent so the employee or contractor will sign it. It may look innocent to the executives who are viewing it from the company's perspective rather than yours. On the other hand if the company is refusing to waive clauses like this, run, run as fast as you can.
IAAL but TINLA etc
IANAL. TINLA...I've solved this in the past by making sure that their ownership of my ideas is restricted to items produced in the course of (as opposed to during the term of) working for them.
You probably haven't solved it as well as you think you have - "in the course of" can be construed a lot more broadly than a non-lawyer would expect.
IAAL but TINLA, get legal advice from a paid lawyer, etc,
My advice on these causes is "no way, no how". These clauses seek to preempt the real facts in any dispute, and if you are the sort of person who comes up with commercially exploitable ideas it is extremely likely that any list you provide will be incomplete - especially if you are in software development. Unless you are certain you will never exploit any of your prior ideas, you need to be treating clauses like this as a deal-breaker.
If that clause is in there, the rest of the contract is likely to be bad for you as well. Most likely it will try to lay claim on every idea you have during the term of the contract (although this may be hidden in terms that make it seem less severe), include confidential information provisions that are way too broad or define "confidential information" way too broadly, and include non-compete clauses that are also way too broad. If you see one of these "list your prior inventions" clauses, treat it as a gigantic red flag being waved violently in your face - retain a lawyer to review the thing and properly advise you.
More simply, these things were written by lawyers advising the customer/employer, and not only will they not be looking after your interests, they are professionally forbidden from doing so when acting for the customer or employer. If you don't get your own legal advice, expect to be screwed.
The difference is that many things that are not patentable are treated as patentable simply by adding the words "by means of a computer" at the end. That probably sounds like exaggeration, but it is the literal truth. You can quite literally submit one patent to the examiner describing everything that happens without explicitly mentioning the computer, and it will be denied. Amend the patent by adding "by means of a computer" to each claim (or to some claim in the dependency chain for each claim) and the patent will be allowed. It sounds paranoid to say that, but that is quite literally the rule the patent offices are applying and they will admit this.
What is being patented is not the equations and math - what is being patented in most software patents is the problem, not its solution.
To a layperson the Z4 patent may even appear like it is patenting a "solution", but it is not. To somebody with both IP law and software development training, it is fairly clear that what is being patented here is a well travelled problem space. I was doing most of the things claimed in this patent in 1991. I figured only a complete idiot would fail to come up with the same approach when presented with the same matrix of business requirements. The claims in that patent that I wasn't doing were inappropriate then because the global infrastructure to do them was not in place, but they are obvious extensions once the new infrastructure is added into the mix.
When you lodge a patent application, you are declaring that every single numbered claim made in the patent is something meriting a patent - that it is both novel (no prior art) and involves an inventive step (is not obvious). Most of the claims in the Z4 patent would fail both tests on their face when evaluated by a suitably qualified expert, and the others would have no chance of surviving a serious analysis by such an expert. The problem is the patent examiners are not qualified to evaluate software patent claims. The judges are not qualified to evaluate software patent claims. And here's the kicker - generally the experts used in software patent cases are not qualified to evaluate software patent claims since they only have software expertise (and sometimes not even that), when what is required is software expertise, legal expertise and a dash of business expertise.
Moreover, the lack of expertise on the part of the examiners has consequences that are truly diabolical. Once a patent is granted, the law states that they are presumed valid. This puts the onus on the alleged infringer to establish invalidity, and that is hard - near impossible - when the court and its experts lack the necessary skills to evaluate the claims. Get it past the examiner and you are normally home free.
The facts in patent lawsuits should not be evaluated by judges. They should be evaluated by arbitrators who are skilled in the art covered by the patent (or by specialty patent courts requiring qualifications in the art as well as qualifications in law). Where the arbitrator of validity is satisfied that the patent contains even one claim that could not have been declared to be novel and involving an inventive step by a person acting honestly and reasonably, every patent made by that applicant should have the burden of proof reversed (if not be struck out entirely) on grounds of fraud - because that is what a lot of these patent claims are, and certainly most if not all of the claims in the Z4 patent. On top of the reversal of the burden of proof a large fine should be imposed if not a term of imprisonment. Given the damage these fraudulent patents do, this is not over the top - we lock people up for stealing cars worth tens of thousands, yet patent fraudsters (and this is what we should be calling patent trolls) steal millions at a time with the assistance of the legal system.
Unlikely - I'm sure the rules of evidence still apply to a deposition, so these questions would still be impermissible on grounds of lack of relevance. The Groklaw article does not say they have asked these things, but that they could - on the latter it seems to me Groklaw is likely wrong.
Groklaw also makes some allegations of abuse of process that don't appear to be matched by the record. If there has been such flagrant abuse of process this may be subject to disciplinary proceedings against the lawyers involved.
It has been pointed out elsewhere that bombs in relatively open areas (like check-in areas) tend to be a lot less effective than bombs in enclosed spaces (like aircraft), although some of the extra-large backpacks and suitcases could hold a much larger bomb than you could possibly smuggle onto an aircraft, and a bomb packed with lots of shrapnel can kill people in open spaces much more effectively than a straight explosive.
An effective check-in attack would probably involve detonating relatively small devices in the entrances to the check-in area so as to block exits simultaneously with large backpack shrapnel bombs further inside.
Sporting stadiums, however, are perhaps the ideal non-aircraft target, since there are limited exits to disable. You wouldn't even have to kill that many people directly - just detonate the exit-blocking devices first, then detonate the in-stands devices one-by-one so as to demonstrate a continuing threat - the crowd will take care of the rest by crushing people to death in the blocked exits.
Hence the use of base 60 by the Babylonians - easy representation of division by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30 and 60.
You're right - you can store postal (ZIP) codes in an int if you can guarantee that your application will never have to deal with foreign postal codes that use letters (such as in the UK), or use the extended ZIP codes that have been available in the US for 15 or so years now. So provided the business you are writing the application for will never have a foreign customer, never have a use for extended ZIP codes, will never grow to be an international company or be acquired by one, and provided you're certain the USPS will never expand the range of characters in the ZIP code, an integer may be an appropriate choice.
This set of circumstances approximates well to "never".
Just because something looks like an integer when it's written down, that doesn't make it one. By using an integer you build in an assumption that may require extensive work later on to fix, when using a more appropriate data type up front may have avoided all that for no real cost. This is similar to the Y2K problem, caused by idiots who did not consider the true nature of the data they were dealing with. Unfortunately in that case the rest of us had to deal with the dumb questions from people wanting additional "certification" and "testing" for a problem we'd dealt with long ago.
It is, however, wrong to say that you should never use floats for financial calculations - it all depends on the degree of tolerance for error in the application. I suspect people who say not to use floats are familiar enough with them to know they have rounding errors, but not sufficiently familiar with them to know how to deal with them - that is, to them, a person who sees a floating point rounding error and does not recognise what it is looks stupid, but to others with more knowledge and experience in numerical methods the person who treats floats as anathema looks just as stupid. Numerical methods is a separate subject in Comp Sci degrees for a reason - it's a shame it's not a compulsory one in many.
It's nice to know at least one of my former employees is reading Slashdot.
In related news, Victoria Beckham is expected to become the planet's first inter-stellar traveller.
It has been.
Before you could be forgiven as merely a victim of a common ignorance, but having had the opportunity to educate yourself you have demonstrated yourself to be a fool. plonk
You do not understand the true meaning of the word "privacy". I have explained this to some degree in other messages in this thread - I suggest you go do a little more reading.
You are making the same mistake the teacher did - only looking at one aspect of privacy (secrecy). It is also an invasion of privacy to interfere with others without having any particular information about them. Even Webster's shallow and incomplete definition encompasses this (see 1(b), and to some extent 1(a)). You seem to be limiting your concept of privacy to the paragraph 3 of the definition, so placed because it is not the most important part of the term.
If you spend any time seriously studying privacy this is all second nature. The great writers on the subject would never consider the issue of privacy as being so narrowly constrained, and would regard themselves as not having dealt with the issue at all if they only looked at secrecy - see, for example, the writings of Brandeis, Warren, and Douglas. It is only common ignorance that allows people to get away with thinking of only "secrecy" when they hear (and use) the term "privacy".
Most people may have an excuse, but educators should know better. It is their ignorance that leads to mass ignorance, and while others can be excused for not knowing these things, an educator is rightly called a moron for propagating such stupidity.
No, you're still a liberal - liberalism does not tolerate governments interfering in the lives of individuals without a compelling State interests. If you are somebody who worries about what other people are doing when their activity does not affect anybody else, you're not a liberal, but if you think people should be allowed to do whatever the hell they like as long as it does not harm anybody else, then you are either liberal or libertarian.
A libertarian is a liberal who doesn't understand the idea that if somebody seizes resources beyond their needs and thereby deprives others of resources, then they are harming those others and depriving them of liberty. Liberals will accept the need for welfare payments because they recognise that original possession is no longer possible and the deprivation of the opportunity for original possession amounts to harm since it impedes the person's capacity for independent survival, and welfare payments mitigate this. Libertarians do not accept the need for welfare payments because raising revenue for this purpose is an interference in the liberty of the taxpayer.
There's no oxymoron, but it's clear the spokesperson is a moron.
Because if they don't, the Court may take the view that they invited the litigation and award costs against Apple even if Creative otherwise drops the suit.
A logo can be protected under both trademark and copyright laws. In the US it gets copyright protection as a "graphic work" (17USC102(a)(5)), provided it is an original work in the sense that "original" is used in copyright law.
Buying into Micro$oft as your gaming platform will only cost you your soul.
It [Griggs v Duke Power] says ***IQ*** tests are not relevant to jobs and as such should not be used.
You are obviously not a lawyer. I am a lawyer, and I can run rings around 99% of lawyers, already a fairly intelligent group. As a lawyer I can tell you it says no such thing. Now an idiot (and I choose this term carefully over fashionable terms like "moron" and "imbecile") like you may think you can understand a case, but you clearly cannot.
You may even have been given dumbed down advice by a lawyer who told you to just avoid the IQ test because it is too difficult to explain to people who are, relatively speaking, idiots, the finer details of the rules, and who will almost certainly get the application of them wrong.
There are some jobs for which an IQ test will be an accurate predictor of ability to do the job. The reasoning in Griggs v Duke Power actually makes it quite clear that any test that is a reasonable measure of job performance is acceptable, it is just that in the particular facts of that case the tests actually given were not "significantly related to successful job performance" and "operate to disqualify [a protected discrimination category] at a substantially higher rate than white applicants". The result holds no surprise to a lawyer because, as I said, it is merely the application of a more general rule that equal treatment can constitute discrimination where it takes into account irrelevant differences, or where it fails to take into account differences that are relevant to the treatment given.
The reasoning does not even mention "IQ tests", although it does mention "intelligence tests".
The reasons given are actually extremely plain and simple as legal reasoning goes, so I am sorry it is beyond your limits.
If you want more correct responses, please take a few assessment courses.
Sure, because what I really need is to get into trumped up pseudo-science in order to understand a legal judgement.
Correlation of course doesn't necessarily mean relevance, especially if the correlation does not apply across prohibited differentiation boundaries.
The better tests in these categories do not assume much knowledge. If you are looking at a test that assumes you should know the capital cities of all the States of the United States, the result is useless unless the test is for somebody working as a geography teacher, but if it is used for another purpose then the problem is not that standardised tests are bogus, it's that the test does not correspond to what you are trying to measure.
This seems unlikely. Under what law are they claimed to be illegal?
If they are willing to pay enough, they will get people with the requisite skills. I'm sure they could cover the additional cost by, oh I don't know, increasing the patent application fee.
A patch to make sure a virus runs gives a whole new meaning to the term "bug compatible".