Basically all crimes require an element of "mens rea." This usually means a form of guilty mind or knowledge that one's actions are illegal or wrongful. It usually means it has to be intentional. Accomplice and conspiracy liability can be a bit trickier, but usually entail further requirements such as an overt act in furtherance of the crime.
But this 'knowledge' element is something embedded deeply in our criminal justice system, and will hopefully work to avoid findings of guilt such as in the above poster's scenario.
Um, am I the only one that doesn't want the government preparing my tax return to itself? You don't see any possibility for abuse here?
Now, rather than just having the job of correcting poor people's tax returns, the government gets to write them? I think it would be better to simplify the returns and drop this program.
As for Lawyers, they may want to keep their jobs like anyone else, but citizens also want to keep their money. It makes sense, if you can afford it, to have someone unaffiliated with the opponent (the government) fighting for your interests.
Being able to prove the date of prior art is essential to weeding out invalid patents. Most coders keep track of versions, but versions are not always tied to dates... They should be.
First, I'm a law student - this is not legal advice.
Well, most of those things would be weeded out as obvious or old at this point anyway. But even under current law, a question or problem is not what's patentable. It's the product, process, etc. that's patentable.
Of course, this all depends on how you define the problem and the invention.
It is possible that a patent can cover all possible solutions of a problem if it's the first to identify the problem and provide a solution for it. This is because at that point, it's the only solution to the problem. So it can claim very broadly because it's effectively only claiming the solution the inventor created (again, because that's the only existing solution). Thus, as people invent further solutions, it's possible that new solutions will fall within the original inventor's claims. It's possible they won't too, and this is a very tricky area to grok in patent law.
But if Bezos is the first to ever think of and implement a solution to one-click shopping, his claim can probably be broad enough to encompass (eventually) more than just his particular implementation.
The question here in real life is simply whether the patent was or wasn't obvious in the first place.
I see where you're coming from, but I disagree because even where an invention costs nothing to discover, it may cost a lot to actually create and market. At some point between time 0 and the time we can actually buy a product implementing the invention, costs will be incurred.
The idea of allowing such 'trivial' or 'flash-of-insight' inventions is that investors will be able to protect their investments under the patent, so it's more likely to actually get implemented and sold.
In fact, how much more likely is it that a flash-of-insight invention will be forgotten, or merely jotted down, because of the costs involved in getting it to market? If someone has the wherewithal to get at least a provisional patent, they may be able to sell or license it and not worry about the larger investments required. This could mean the difference between something that gets made and something that doesn't.
Find out what happened to China with opium, and then consider whether it's a good idea. I myself am worried about a scenario wherein drugs become as widely abused as television. In our extreme consumer society, is that not a possibility?
There are many things that cause people to fail: laziness, mental illness, addiction...
We can do something about the addiction. The laws are not perfect, and will never make drugs disappear. But they make most people avoid them most of the time. At least enough to keep us productive.
And life is not any less worth living because cocaine is illegal.
Unfortunately, that would not work, because as in the case of the one-click patent, sometimes the problem is the invention.
In other words, what if no one else ever even thought there was a need to buy things with one click? Bezos or someone at Amazon thought about it and realized that this could be an advantage to them or to their customers, even though it's actually counterintuitive -- most people want confirmation screens, and most sites assume they want them.
So just because the solution to a problem may be obvious, it does not mean that the invention as a whole is obvious...
Re:Only going to work if it became standard
on
Advocating Dvorak
·
· Score: 1
I switched during college and still use both, although dv is my primary layout.
It's not a problem. It's really just like speaking another language, but easier. It just takes a minute or two to get back into it.
So you don't have to hunt and peck when you use someone else's machine...
First, let me say, I use paper because it makes me PROACTIVE. Counterintuitively, polling is often more efficient for humans because it makes us proactive rather than reactive. It makes us plan ahead rather than wait for a bell to ring.
Now, even if you use a paper calender, as I do, you can use email or something like outlook to handle the things they do best.
Finding a free spot in time for a meeting is a one-time task. Once it's set, all you need to do is write it in your calendar.
The vast majority of meetings are between 2 people. Where there are more, often it's because someone's visiting a place on a previously set schedule, so basically the time has to be set for their itinerary (e.g. a client).
Furthermore, most of the time the meeting has to be done in the space of a few days or a week anyway, to avoid blocking other tasks, so there's not that big a problem space anyway.
The few remaining cases where you need to schedule a meeting for more than 3 people can be solved by:
0. plan ahead so people's schedules are not full when you ask for a meeting.
1. emailing the people and asking if time x is ok, and if not, what ranges are best.
2. if that doesn't work, poll them with your free times and let them choose, via email or other system (e.g. outlook, evite).
3. if that doesn't work, choose the best time and ask the others to change their plans.
People in high school, college, grad school, or academia have enough time to futz around with this stuff.
People who work on open source code or work in linux day-to-day are paid to futz around or buy a preconfigured system.
But people who are not in the above categories do not generally have the TIME to deal with crap like this. Heck, I put together my own machine a few years ago, and still haven't had time to back it all up and reinstall it, even though I've needed to, for over 3 years. These people would much rather pay for something to work than spend their time trying to make it work. This is the issue. TIME.
Modern civilization without constant war would basically be impossible without complex laws. Witness the prerequisite legal system to any historically successful nation or empire.
By the way, it's lawyers, not the government or the courts, who have put forth the most effort to SIMPLIFY the law, e.g., with restatements, uniform codes, etc.
It is the interacting influences of democracy itself in legislation, the complexity of modern society, and the attempts of courts to do equity, that make law complex.
I hate to break it to you, but there are a LOT of people out there, including myself, and probably most at WIPO, who honestly believe that IP law is a good thing.
Can you really say that promoting a view is 'FUD' when the speaker believes in the message?
I agree that their ultimate source is in the ideas that led to their codification in law, but I draw the distinction between a right and a theory or doctrine at that legal line...
I interpret 'inalienable' simply to mean that such rights cannot be alienated, i.e., that they may not be sold or divided in any way. For instance, one cannot sell one's freedom and become a slave.
But I think most people and the founders imbued this term with some religious (at least from a deist perspective) meaning -- that people somehow have been granted the rights by God. Yes, they said 'Creator', but they didn't mean evolutionary pressures and random mutation, which are the real creators.
It's fine that such rights are inalienable because they serve as the basis for our dignity and autonomy, which thereby are the basis for individual action and economic development. But to my mind, the fact of the matter is that these rights were granted because of that document and the ideas in the minds of its authors, not by any creator.
It probably helped a great deal for these rights to have the backing of religious sentiment, in order for them to gain legitimacy in a dog-eat-dog world. Maybe religion was the only way we could have discovered that these rights were so beneficial to humanity -- we needed a reason to try them, and Christianity was the reason for the beginning of the doctrines of equity in England.
Fundamentally, the founders held a perspective based on Christian concepts -- man was created by some sort of God, and held a special place in the world, as explained in the Bible; therefore, he deserved some rights.
My perspective is that of evolution and economics: Man is a ridiculously clever hairless monkey who has engineered a complex social system that allows him to feel reasonably free and safe, and allows him to create and trade, and reap the concomitant benefits.
After dispensing with God, this all gets into what your basis for morality is. Mine is instinct, personal autonomy, and economics. For others, it is secular humanism, empathy, tradition, or some other basis... Most of these can justify the rights in the Constitution...
(I am not a lawyer; I am a law student. This is not legal advice.)
Yes, there is doubt.
Copyright usually resides in the actual author unless they assign it to someone else. Parts of the file modified by Tweedie, van Riel, Sarcar, etc., are actually authored by them, so unless they assigned their copyright to Linus, I would tend to think that this file is a joint work, and they are joint authors in the work.
Joint works require the permission of more than half of their authors in order for an author to license them. So this does matter quite a bit.
I would bet that most contributors would gladly assign their copyright in contributed code to Linus, if it would help clarify things, but I'm not so sure they have done so. Assignment can't be done 'impliedly' AFAIK; it can't just be assumed by the fact that they contributed to an open source project. And these are not "works for hire", for which copyright would usually lie in the employer.
It seems to me that all contributors probably have to agree to assign the copyright in their contributions to the entity you want to be managing and enforcing the GPL.
I should add that I do think fair use is probably inherent in the first amendment; therefore, it will likely have legal force as soon as a court recognizes that it is required by the first amendment... Nowadays, the Constitution seems to act more as a source of 'common law' doctrines than as a statute.;)
But as I'm not religious, I don't agree with the founders that there are God-given rights; only rights granted by the state, and consequences (good or bad) that ensue.
I think rights are legal protections granted by the state, yes. However, the rationales for them do come from other sources, e.g. equitable doctrines, etc. I just wouldn't consider those doctrines rights at that point; inchoate sources of rights, maybe.
Slashdot Mirror
If that's true, that's horrible. Tell me where you heard about this case...
Basically all crimes require an element of "mens rea." This usually means a form of guilty mind or knowledge that one's actions are illegal or wrongful. It usually means it has to be intentional. Accomplice and conspiracy liability can be a bit trickier, but usually entail further requirements such as an overt act in furtherance of the crime.
But this 'knowledge' element is something embedded deeply in our criminal justice system, and will hopefully work to avoid findings of guilt such as in the above poster's scenario.
Um, am I the only one that doesn't want the government preparing my tax return to itself? You don't see any possibility for abuse here?
Now, rather than just having the job of correcting poor people's tax returns, the government gets to write them? I think it would be better to simplify the returns and drop this program.
As for Lawyers, they may want to keep their jobs like anyone else, but citizens also want to keep their money. It makes sense, if you can afford it, to have someone unaffiliated with the opponent (the government) fighting for your interests.
1. People will buy less. This is a drag on the economy.
2. Income tax is more economically efficient than sales tax because sales taxes twist people's buying patterns and create dead-weight loss.
Being able to prove the date of prior art is essential to weeding out invalid patents. Most coders keep track of versions, but versions are not always tied to dates... They should be.
First, I'm a law student - this is not legal advice.
Well, most of those things would be weeded out as obvious or old at this point anyway. But even under current law, a question or problem is not what's patentable. It's the product, process, etc. that's patentable.
Of course, this all depends on how you define the problem and the invention.
It is possible that a patent can cover all possible solutions of a problem if it's the first to identify the problem and provide a solution for it. This is because at that point, it's the only solution to the problem. So it can claim very broadly because it's effectively only claiming the solution the inventor created (again, because that's the only existing solution). Thus, as people invent further solutions, it's possible that new solutions will fall within the original inventor's claims. It's possible they won't too, and this is a very tricky area to grok in patent law.
But if Bezos is the first to ever think of and implement a solution to one-click shopping, his claim can probably be broad enough to encompass (eventually) more than just his particular implementation.
The question here in real life is simply whether the patent was or wasn't obvious in the first place.
I see where you're coming from, but I disagree because even where an invention costs nothing to discover, it may cost a lot to actually create and market. At some point between time 0 and the time we can actually buy a product implementing the invention, costs will be incurred.
The idea of allowing such 'trivial' or 'flash-of-insight' inventions is that investors will be able to protect their investments under the patent, so it's more likely to actually get implemented and sold.
In fact, how much more likely is it that a flash-of-insight invention will be forgotten, or merely jotted down, because of the costs involved in getting it to market? If someone has the wherewithal to get at least a provisional patent, they may be able to sell or license it and not worry about the larger investments required. This could mean the difference between something that gets made and something that doesn't.
Find out what happened to China with opium, and then consider whether it's a good idea. I myself am worried about a scenario wherein drugs become as widely abused as television. In our extreme consumer society, is that not a possibility?
There are many things that cause people to fail: laziness, mental illness, addiction...
We can do something about the addiction. The laws are not perfect, and will never make drugs disappear. But they make most people avoid them most of the time. At least enough to keep us productive.
And life is not any less worth living because cocaine is illegal.
Unfortunately, that would not work, because as in the case of the one-click patent, sometimes the problem is the invention.
In other words, what if no one else ever even thought there was a need to buy things with one click? Bezos or someone at Amazon thought about it and realized that this could be an advantage to them or to their customers, even though it's actually counterintuitive -- most people want confirmation screens, and most sites assume they want them.
So just because the solution to a problem may be obvious, it does not mean that the invention as a whole is obvious...
I switched during college and still use both, although dv is my primary layout.
It's not a problem. It's really just like speaking another language, but easier. It just takes a minute or two to get back into it.
So you don't have to hunt and peck when you use someone else's machine...
Yep.
And if you want to have Asian clients, you shave and wear a suit. That's that.
First, let me say, I use paper because it makes me PROACTIVE. Counterintuitively, polling is often more efficient for humans because it makes us proactive rather than reactive. It makes us plan ahead rather than wait for a bell to ring.
Now, even if you use a paper calender, as I do, you can use email or something like outlook to handle the things they do best.
Finding a free spot in time for a meeting is a one-time task. Once it's set, all you need to do is write it in your calendar.
The vast majority of meetings are between 2 people. Where there are more, often it's because someone's visiting a place on a previously set schedule, so basically the time has to be set for their itinerary (e.g. a client).
Furthermore, most of the time the meeting has to be done in the space of a few days or a week anyway, to avoid blocking other tasks, so there's not that big a problem space anyway.
The few remaining cases where you need to schedule a meeting for more than 3 people can be solved by:
0. plan ahead so people's schedules are not full when you ask for a meeting.
1. emailing the people and asking if time x is ok, and if not, what ranges are best.
2. if that doesn't work, poll them with your free times and let them choose, via email or other system (e.g. outlook, evite).
3. if that doesn't work, choose the best time and ask the others to change their plans.
You want to know the real issue?
People in high school, college, grad school, or academia have enough time to futz around with this stuff.
People who work on open source code or work in linux day-to-day are paid to futz around or buy a preconfigured system.
But people who are not in the above categories do not generally have the TIME to deal with crap like this. Heck, I put together my own machine a few years ago, and still haven't had time to back it all up and reinstall it, even though I've needed to, for over 3 years. These people would much rather pay for something to work than spend their time trying to make it work. This is the issue. TIME.
Actually, it works fine for this.
You just scroll until the link you want is near the top of the page, then search for it with
He who is obliviously WHOOSHED in making a technical point is the true geek.
Huh.
I find it much easier and quicker to hit "/" and the first couple of letters of a link (in firefox) than to move the mouse to the link and click it.
Yep. And think about what this means for companies that use open file formats versus closed file formats. Same issue.
This is BS.
Modern civilization without constant war would basically be impossible without complex laws. Witness the prerequisite legal system to any historically successful nation or empire.
By the way, it's lawyers, not the government or the courts, who have put forth the most effort to SIMPLIFY the law, e.g., with restatements, uniform codes, etc.
It is the interacting influences of democracy itself in legislation, the complexity of modern society, and the attempts of courts to do equity, that make law complex.
I hate to break it to you, but there are a LOT of people out there, including myself, and probably most at WIPO, who honestly believe that IP law is a good thing.
Can you really say that promoting a view is 'FUD' when the speaker believes in the message?
I agree that their ultimate source is in the ideas that led to their codification in law, but I draw the distinction between a right and a theory or doctrine at that legal line...
I interpret 'inalienable' simply to mean that such rights cannot be alienated, i.e., that they may not be sold or divided in any way. For instance, one cannot sell one's freedom and become a slave.
But I think most people and the founders imbued this term with some religious (at least from a deist perspective) meaning -- that people somehow have been granted the rights by God. Yes, they said 'Creator', but they didn't mean evolutionary pressures and random mutation, which are the real creators.
It's fine that such rights are inalienable because they serve as the basis for our dignity and autonomy, which thereby are the basis for individual action and economic development. But to my mind, the fact of the matter is that these rights were granted because of that document and the ideas in the minds of its authors, not by any creator.
It probably helped a great deal for these rights to have the backing of religious sentiment, in order for them to gain legitimacy in a dog-eat-dog world. Maybe religion was the only way we could have discovered that these rights were so beneficial to humanity -- we needed a reason to try them, and Christianity was the reason for the beginning of the doctrines of equity in England.
Fundamentally, the founders held a perspective based on Christian concepts -- man was created by some sort of God, and held a special place in the world, as explained in the Bible; therefore, he deserved some rights.
My perspective is that of evolution and economics: Man is a ridiculously clever hairless monkey who has engineered a complex social system that allows him to feel reasonably free and safe, and allows him to create and trade, and reap the concomitant benefits.
After dispensing with God, this all gets into what your basis for morality is. Mine is instinct, personal autonomy, and economics. For others, it is secular humanism, empathy, tradition, or some other basis... Most of these can justify the rights in the Constitution...
(I am not a lawyer; I am a law student. This is not legal advice.)
Yes, there is doubt.
Copyright usually resides in the actual author unless they assign it to someone else. Parts of the file modified by Tweedie, van Riel, Sarcar, etc., are actually authored by them, so unless they assigned their copyright to Linus, I would tend to think that this file is a joint work, and they are joint authors in the work.
Joint works require the permission of more than half of their authors in order for an author to license them. So this does matter quite a bit.
I would bet that most contributors would gladly assign their copyright in contributed code to Linus, if it would help clarify things, but I'm not so sure they have done so. Assignment can't be done 'impliedly' AFAIK; it can't just be assumed by the fact that they contributed to an open source project. And these are not "works for hire", for which copyright would usually lie in the employer.
It seems to me that all contributors probably have to agree to assign the copyright in their contributions to the entity you want to be managing and enforcing the GPL.
I should add that I do think fair use is probably inherent in the first amendment; therefore, it will likely have legal force as soon as a court recognizes that it is required by the first amendment... Nowadays, the Constitution seems to act more as a source of 'common law' doctrines than as a statute. ;)
But as I'm not religious, I don't agree with the founders that there are God-given rights; only rights granted by the state, and consequences (good or bad) that ensue.
I think rights are legal protections granted by the state, yes. However, the rationales for them do come from other sources, e.g. equitable doctrines, etc. I just wouldn't consider those doctrines rights at that point; inchoate sources of rights, maybe.
Well, maybe I'm just more of a legal positivist than you are, but IMHO, there's no 'right' until it's legally enforceable.