I am a patent agent (lawyer soon). The problem with obviousness is that when expressed in general common terms you cannot understand it. What is obvious? And to who? Its a very subjective standard and leads to very inconsistent decisions. Even as the law is now, the decisions are arbitrary if the person doesn't have a thorough view of the law. Everybody likes to jump up and scream its obvious, but have you ever thought at the time it was created, it *wasn't* obvious. Hindsight is 20/20 - so this alone makes the obvious standard really difficult.
With that said, they are not challenging obviousness. They are challenging the motivation-suggestion-teaching requirement of obviousness. Basically, the reference has to motivate/suggest the inventor to combine the references (and both have to be before the date of filing the patent application). And thats a quick 2 second version, its not an easy area of law and a lot of people get confused, including patent attorneys.
The whole area of "obviousness" combines 2 references and says this combined with that teaches each and every element of your invention. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine these two to achieve the result you obtained. Do you see how tricky that is? What does any of that really mean?
Now Cisco and Microsoft have valid points, but the standard as is set now is at least workable. But if you throw out the "motivation" requirement, which was created by the CAFC because the obviousness standard was completely arbitrary in the 80's, then - the whole area of law becomes pretty much arbitrary once again. Its not going to cut down the number of patent applications, all its going to do is cause more appeals and more work for the USPTO.
There are *other* changes that need to be made. For example, make the burden for a patent higher by requiring industrial applicability (as in, capable of being made). Create the utility model patent for simple inventions. Getting rid of business method patents (already worthless because first office action is generally at least 5 years after filing).
I think it's colloquially called "reinventing the wheel" in these boroughs.
No, I think you missed the point. You can easily get around a patent by using a little creativity. For example, Barnes & Noble was able to get around Amazon's (stupid) one-click patent by adding a confirm page. If you are creative, then there is going to be a way around the patent.
With that said, I agree that there are a lot of absurd patents. And I think business method patents aren't even worth the paper they are printed on. There is a large backlash against these types of patents that is currently ongoing though (thank god).
This is a good patent. It tells how to grow a layer of gallium nitride crystals on silicon substrates (disclaimer: I am a former employee). While it may not seem like a lot, silicon power transistors for wireless applications only work to about 2.5 GHz. Gallium Nitride power transistors work at higher voltages, higher temperatures, and higher frequencies. And the company has spent over $50M developing this technology.
Now before you ask where its implemented, realize that high power RF transistors technology take a long time to even get designed into a system. And thats a long time before there is even actual implementation. And a long time before you most likely even consider buying into the implementation.
Look, there needs to be patent reform. But dismissing patents outright achieves no results. I only hope that one day people will realize that all patents aren't all created equally.
I believe not at all. Rights are granted for the benefit of the whole of society, not single individuals: otherwise you might as well reintroduce slavery, as it was very beneficial to a few guys. Having a monopoly on something that can be reproduced indefinitely such as business or programming methods, and knowledge in general, means unfairly harming everybody else. You are not damaged by someone else who's using your methods (this does not block you from using them), unless you mean by competition, and last time I checked there is quite a load of legislation that actually protects competition, as it is demonstrated to improve product quality for society.
Its easy to suggest solutions to problems you don't understand. Patents are for the general public because they are vested to the public after a term of years. Otherwise, the idea might have never been released. This is the tradeoff, you disclose your novel idea to the public, and you get a limited monopoly on the idea. Its not unreasonable at all, especially if you spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing the idea.
Just imagine how cheap Coca-Cola would be if they patented the formula in 1920.
You cannot steal a method or an idea. You can only copy it. The original author still has it.
What about modify it? Improve it? Remove steps that are unimportant? Use it on a different subject matter? Apply it in different way?
From the whole society's point of view (that is, our point of view), if Netflix wins we are going to see worse service from Blockbuster and less competition.
But society appreciates ingenuity and creativity. There is going to be a design-around for the patent, you just have to use your wits to figure it out. And when its figured out, how much competition will there be?
This is typical slashdot flamebait. A lot of accusations and no intelligent discourse. I think business method patents are absurd too, but the whole anti-patent attitude lacks any true discussion on the merits of the patent system. Maybe from your software-developing perspective patents are absurd, but have you ever thought outside of the box and realized that its a good for other industries?
There are plenty of ways this could happen. Most likely, Microsoft was not publicly traded at that point in time, so the question is who is the market for buying Microsoft shares? Its not publicly traded after all, so who sets the price for buying and selling shares.
Most likely, their strategy would be to buy the shares from the people who inherited them from Paul Allen. This is the best way because Paul's heirs would most likely have been his wife. And what is she going to do with the shares? They would pressure her to selling the shares because she doesn't know the value of the shares and its going to be the only offer she gets. Its 1982 and computers are still stuff in science fiction movies at that point in time.
There are plenty of other ways to dilute the shares. And I can't think of any right now.
The primary function of the constitution wasn't to define "rights" it was to restrict the power of the government. The bill of rights was an afterthought. Just to make double sure certain things were really clear.
My understanding is that the amendments were literally proposed during the ratification process. The amendments were literally debated during the ratification process (okay I could be wrong here). The framers literally ran out of time (harvest time was upon them) and they left the amendments unfinished (see Amdt 9). The key is that the amendments in view of the constitution have a structure that have a different interpretation than just a textual reading (this is where the right to privacy is found). This was their intent, not some accident.
Alright, we have a fundamental right to marry. If you want to debate me on that, I'll friggin' pull out a stack of Supreme Court cases that will make your head spin. Is this fundamental right in the amendments or the constitution? Fuck no.
And so what does it mean to be a fundamental right? The government cannot burden the right unless it has a substantial reason for the burden (which means the statute is always held unconstitutional).
It would be nice except Slashdot has been posting something about software radio for years and still nothing. Other factors to consider:
1) Power consumption on software radios will be much less efficient than their analog counterparts 2) band limited to certain frequencies - relevant because higher powered transistors at higher frequencies are becoming available, pushing beyond the 2.5 GHz limit we have right now (compliments of Gallium Nitride and Gallium Arsenide).
Spot on - but couple additions might be added. Namely that the court previously held in Griswold v. Connecticut that there is a fundamental right to privacy in the marital bedroom, and as such, a statute banning contraceptives violated the constition. This is the beginning of the right to privacy and extends through Roe v. Wade and onward. Its implied by combining the due process clause and some other parts of the constitution.
Many people who believe that the constitution should be interpreted strictly don't believe in a right to privacy. But then you ask them, do you have a right to be left alone? Answer is almost always yes. Thats the heart of the right to privacy - the right to make your own decisions and live your own life.
See the lil' secret that all middlemen don't want people to know is that they have no discernable skill of their own, other than profiting off the backs of others...(see patents & copyrights -- it's the middleman fighting for protections). The creators don't need middlemen, but middlemen sure as hell need the creative...
So an engineer designing a drug to combat a new disease doens't need a layer of management to provide him money for the equipment, testing, technicians, other engineers to help? An engineer designing a new processor doesn't need somebody to help him fabricate the chip, invest in capital, hire technicians to help him test his designs, etc?
Put yourself on the other side of the equation, you provide $20M in capital funding to startup to help design a new drug. Somebody comes along and copies it which is a right you have, subject to another's property rights. Are you saying you don't the right to exclude others from copying the work you helped fund?
IP rights, just like any property or even marital rights, has benefits and detriments.
The problem is that USPTO isn't supposed to allow patents like this through. 35 USC 101 specifically states that the invention must have utility. If its physically impossible, such as a cure for cancer, or a perpetual motion machine, the invention lacks utility. There is a special section in the MPEP for this.
This is just more proof that the USPTO's system for patent examination is flawed. That, and this patent examiner should be fired for being a total idiot because he could have saved himself some time by issuing a final rejection instead of allowing it.
Read the facts of that case and you'll find out that (1) the burns were 3rd degree - thats really really fucking hot, (2) McDonalds was trying to hide the fact that they settled over 100 cases in which a person had severe burns because the temperature of the coffee. The judge did find that the woman was partially at fault, but slapped it to McDonalds for their conduct. On appeal, the court properly reduced damages - enough so the woman was able to pay for something like 80% of the medical costs.
Correct, but invention is when you have either reduced it to practice or reduced it conceptually. Conceptual reduction is generally filing the patent application. Actual reduction to practice means conception then actually reducing it to use with diligence. A break from working on the invention of only 2 days destroys diligence.
Except Wickard v. Filburn has been severely limited in Lopez v. ???andUS v. Morrison. In Morrison, Congress made violence against women a federal crime because it had significant (BILLIONS of $) effect on the economy. Rehnquist found that violence against women was not economic and congress did not have the authority under the commerce clause to regulate violence against women. Gonzalez v. Raich does undermine some of Lopez and Morrison, but it all comes down to the next justices vote because each decision was 5-4, with 2 justices from the majority of each case (O'Connor and Rehnquist) stepping down. (Note: Gonzalez was unique because it dealt with medicinal marijuana, so Kennedy and Scalia switched sides to allow federal regulation)
Also, Wickard set the stage for another case that allowed for national labor standards (ie, no child labor). Imagine the horror, suddenly you can't have a child of 12 years old working because its illegal. Don't you feel ashamed of such a case?
IMHO they POSSIBLY could patent their search algorithim to find such numbers, but not the display method of placing a box around them, since that could be considered 'obvious'.
Obviousness in the sense that a lay person uses the term is not the standard used to examine the application. A prima facie case for an obviousness rejection is (1) a suggestion or motivation, either in a reference or in the art to modify or combine the teachings, (2) a reasonable chance for success in combining the teachings, and (3) the prior art reference teaches all the claims.
Ultimately, the purpose for a patent is to reward a limited property right to an invention for the disclosure for the product of human ingenuity. However, I don't see how the public really gains from this disclosure because its rather embarrassing, not genius.
I am honestly dismayed when people ask questions like this.
I'm just trying to make a point - not defend the system. The reality of the situation is if you don't meet the quota, you don't have a job. So you work within the system and do as best you can. Even you admit you've done that.
FWIW, I would absolutely do my job correctly, which would to investigate them throughly and take the required time (especially if I was doing something that was publically funded). I think it's a poor reflection on character to take the easy way out when the right thing to do ought to be clear.
I agree. See above reasoning. BTW - the PTO isn't publicly funded. Its funded from the patent fees (and a good portion is then siphoned off into the government).
I'd be a very poor engineer if I didn't do my job properly just to please management and make them look like they are on top of things.
This isn't about doing a good job. This is about having a job. It should be about doing the best job you can. But as long as there are too many applications and the threshold for a patent is so low, the low quality of patent examination will persist. There are solutions out there for these problems, and maybe in due time they will be implemented.
I think most people here are primarily getting pissed off when they don't uphold their own guidlines (which they do not appear to follow consistently).
The Patent examining procedure is actually fairly consistent. There's a 3000 page manual available on the PTO website if you want to read it.
Where the inconsistency is when the examiner has a 100 page application and must make the decision quickly (several hours). What would you do if somebody dropped off a box of papers that contained a DNA sequence and said "read this, understand it, search for prior art, and see if we can reject this guy." At the end of 8 hours, what would you do if your job depended on getting enough applications examined?
They should not be allowed to simply rubber stamp patents when they are supposed to be investigating them properly and for that matter they should not be granting patents for things that are 'patently' trivial or otherwise in conflict with the established regulations.
I agree, but current case law says you can patent anything under the sun as long as it is the product of human ingenuity. Until that case law changes, or Patent lawyers hike their costs so high nobody wants to pay them, the number of applications being filed will not go down.
You are probably about half right. CDMA in theory is a good standard. But theory and actual implementation is totally different. SIM cards are nice, but its not the reason CDMA lost to GSM.
I am a firm believer that GSM won because it was a more mature technology that CDMA. At the same time Qualcomm was trying to push CDMA, companies were still on the D-AMPS bandwagon for 3G. But the D-AMPS handsets were friggin' hand grenades because the chipsets were maybe on their 3rd generation and there was more chips than you could shake a stick at (but GSM was on their 7th). Enter Nokia with a small, sleek GSM phone with an internal antenna - and the rest is history. Even now, CDMA phones still are huge when compared to GSM phones.
And don't forget the power of battery life. GSM handsets still have much better efficiency because the amplifier does not need the linearity CDMA phones required because GSM is essentially phase modulation with a little time division thrown in (less linearity means higher efficiency). Yes, CDMA phone do now compete because the amplifiers are much more efficient now, but the decisions for 3G were made several years ago.
Funny. I just had an interview with the USPTO. They are actually in the middle of expanding from 3000 to 5000 examiners and have added 900 this year alone.
God, what a blind asshole you are. bin Laden is a tyrant. Radical islam's plan for the rest of the world is his plan, and Afganistan before the U.S. invaded was a taste of it.
This statement sums up the rest of your argument: its a gross assumption based on your subjective beliefs and reinforced by your gut reaction.
If you believe that people should be executed for not espousing your point of view, such as it is, you're with bin Laden.
Doesn't this happen at abortion clinics?
Cave men like bin Laden are afraid of the world, much less their corner of it, opening up to things like literacy, commerce, free speech, and an improved quality of life in general.
Funny, UBL is actually a smart guy. Its a stretch to call somebody educated in the west a cave man. Now maybe his ideals are, but it doesn't mean that he isn't interested in literacy or improving the quality of life for other muslims.
But the U.S. is not the reason for the "tyrants" of which you speak, unless you're talking about the current Iraqi government
US is very much responsible for tyrants and in general, creating our own problems. Saddam used to have close ties to the US. UBL was provided training and weapons by the CIA. There are tons of examples out there.
The people klinging [sic] to power in the Soviet Union were also afraid because that [sic] also wasn't a part of their idea of paradise.
Huh? No, the Soviets were clinging onto their power for the same reason all people cling onto their power: they don't want to give it up!
Okay, since I am starting to produce music. The sounds are so broad its hard to start breaking it down. There are way more genre's that the highly moderated posts (techno/gabber/hardcore/trance/techno). Music is music. There was a post on "you need to buy this", and it was right on in the recommendations.
But what I've noticed is that everybody focuses on albums. Since I'm a DJ/producer also, I learned many years ago that you can pick up something based on the record label. That said, here is a list of labels I always tend to pick up. For the record, I am a downtempo/organic (as in...not digweed and crew - think thievary corporation) head.
Yellow - Anything on yellow is generally good. Generally house, but there is a good selection. Dimitri from Paris, Bob Sinclair and more. Lately, they've been pushing more latin flavors.
Africanism - Not sure exactly the connection, but they are linked to Yellow somehow. Latiny/more ethnic oriented house.
Chocolate Industries - Next flavors of hip hop/trip hop. Definitely pushing boundaries with cats like Prefuse 73 (check out his new one...dope as hell), Caural, RJD2.
Warp - Glitch, electronica type stuff. If you are into listening to electronic music, this is the label. Its not dance, but think symphonic records made from electronics. Includes the likes of Aphex Twin, Autechre, and more.
Ninja Tune - More trip hop. They've branched out some, but are getting back to good releases. Check out last year's Bonobo album, real chill.
18th Street Lounge - Downtempo (thievary corporation's record label...but its also a club up in DC). They vary from drum 'n bass to all out trip hop. Lately they've been getting into more broken beat/mid tempo house.
Stud!o K7 - Check out the DJ Kicks mix cd series. This is Kruder & Dorfmeister's record label, a bunch of germans who produce dope downtempo tracks. I recommend any of the DJ kicks series. They range from Drum 'n Bass to Neosoul/mid tempo house. Whatever you want to call it. If you like Jazz, pick a copy of last year's album by Koop. f*cking unbelievable.
Compost - More germans in the vein of K&D, but I have to say...I love me some Rainier Truby Trio. Real good stuff.
Further more, there are several places you can listen to this stuff online. Go to dublab.com and they have mixes from lots of people like Dr. Alex Patterson (Orb), Pole, Ursula 1000, and more. There was one I used to go to a while back, but I forget what it was called. All kinds of mixes ranging from progressive to turntabilism.
Other classics that I recommend to all people who get into the genre: Underworld - Dubnobassinmyhead man, Orb - UF Orb, Any of the Journey by DJ's series, any Ken Iishi mix you can find, any Luke Vibert mix you can find.
[snip] In all honesty they've done a better job than anyone else at creating a useable desktop OS good for a wide range of activities on a large variety of hardware.
I'll agree to some extent on that statement. The large variety of hardware, but then again they are a monopoly so everybody has to work on windows or you are dead in the water. Ever heard of a computer device that couldn't work with Windows? They exist, but how many devices?
Useable OS? BeOS blew windows usability away, it was faster, it was stable, the only problem they had was competing against MS. They even gave it away. While their hardware support was smaller, so was their development staff.
As usual, everybody tends to oversimplify spread spectrum and it "magically" works. Nope. Not at all. I wish it were so simple, just like CDMA was supposed to be. Well, because the signal is supposed to look like noise, at least in a CDMA cell phone, you have to effectively manage all the power levels of the users on the system so they don't step on each other. Thats why you have specs like ACPR (Adjacent Channel Power Ratio). Well, power control is a bitch. And you wonder why CDMA cell phones are much larger than their GSM counterparts.
In theory, the real sell on CDMA is spectrum reuse (and security), but thats theory. Its still better than GSM, but like a friend of mine told me once: people only develop complexity to hide mediocrity. And the academics might love the spread spectrum stuff, but its academics... not the people working in the field who have to deal with all the nasty issues academics don't deal with.
I'm not a know-all of spread spectrum issues, and it definitely has some great uses. But I don't think it would be very useful for 1 way communications like radio(unless it needs to be secure - like say...a cruise missile). It really peeves me off when somebody writes about something they no idea about.
Okay, I totally took your comments in the wrong way.
One of the problems with CDMA phones is the simple fact that its more complicated (frequency hopping plus more complicated linear modulation) compared to GSM's simplicity (time division with GMSK - frequency modulation basically).
GSM is very simple, extremely well researched, and been in development for a very long time. Ericsson and Nokia are on their 6th or 7th generation of platforms, far ahead of 2nd or 3rd generation CDMA handsets. Thats why the GSM phones are smaller, not because its a market thing. Even the Samsung phones are huge by GSM standards!
By 2G standards, GSM won in the US (even though its still in development). GSM is easily upgradable to GPRS (2.5G) and then switch out to WCDMA.
The article is some respects is retarded anyway. Its not the radio circuits that take up all the real estate, its the processors and integrated circuits. Most of the filtering is done by DSP anyway. Oh yeah, and the radio only takes up a fraction of the space anyway.
Its not rocket science when you consider what they have done to shrink the size of cell phones: put everything in integrated circuits and software. There is a reason why phones are now using zero IF heterodyne receivers (even though they are a forking pain in the ass). Now RF MEMs ACTIVE circuits will make a *huge* difference - but not on circuit real estate - but on actually being able to make a good 3G radio without sacrificing quality.
True, but techniques for antennas have improved vastly. You can't solve the wonderful attennae equations for the fields without using finite elements. As computational power has increased dramatically, so has the analysis of antennaes. Have you ever tried to integrate the a sine of a cosine (or is it a cosine of a sine...i forget). And you still have to broadband match because 800 MHz and 1900 MHz have very different quarter wavelengths. And remember, a VSWR of 2:1 is GOOD.
Sounds nice in theory, but the largest problem with software radio is power consumption. You have to run a sampler at really high frequencies, than have a DSP downconvert at really high frequencies, then you have to cleanup the signal....and then you have all your baseband to process still.
And remember, the part that consumes the most power cannot be replaced by software (power amplifier)...so you'd have a phone with a 3 hour life. Not very useful. Sounds like a commercial winner right? Eventually they will make it useful, but energy storage techniques are slow to advance.
CDMA2000 is US! You must be mad! GSM won the 2G standard war in the US because its a simple upgrade to GPRS (18 month life probably), then a simple upgrade to W-CDMA. EDGE has a better chance of survival than CDMA2000 (and remember, EDGE roadmap leads to UMTS/W-CDMA).
btw, EDGE isn't anything new, its just multi-slot TDMA with pi/4 dpqpsk modulation (damps is TDMA with single-slot, pi/4 dpqpsk). And DAMPS didn't work worth a shiznit.
Slashdot Mirror
I am a patent agent (lawyer soon). The problem with obviousness is that when expressed in general common terms you cannot understand it. What is obvious? And to who? Its a very subjective standard and leads to very inconsistent decisions. Even as the law is now, the decisions are arbitrary if the person doesn't have a thorough view of the law. Everybody likes to jump up and scream its obvious, but have you ever thought at the time it was created, it *wasn't* obvious. Hindsight is 20/20 - so this alone makes the obvious standard really difficult.
With that said, they are not challenging obviousness. They are challenging the motivation-suggestion-teaching requirement of obviousness. Basically, the reference has to motivate/suggest the inventor to combine the references (and both have to be before the date of filing the patent application). And thats a quick 2 second version, its not an easy area of law and a lot of people get confused, including patent attorneys.
The whole area of "obviousness" combines 2 references and says this combined with that teaches each and every element of your invention. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine these two to achieve the result you obtained. Do you see how tricky that is? What does any of that really mean?
Now Cisco and Microsoft have valid points, but the standard as is set now is at least workable. But if you throw out the "motivation" requirement, which was created by the CAFC because the obviousness standard was completely arbitrary in the 80's, then - the whole area of law becomes pretty much arbitrary once again. Its not going to cut down the number of patent applications, all its going to do is cause more appeals and more work for the USPTO.
There are *other* changes that need to be made. For example, make the burden for a patent higher by requiring industrial applicability (as in, capable of being made). Create the utility model patent for simple inventions. Getting rid of business method patents (already worthless because first office action is generally at least 5 years after filing).
I think it's colloquially called "reinventing the wheel" in these boroughs.
No, I think you missed the point. You can easily get around a patent by using a little creativity. For example, Barnes & Noble was able to get around Amazon's (stupid) one-click patent by adding a confirm page. If you are creative, then there is going to be a way around the patent.
With that said, I agree that there are a lot of absurd patents. And I think business method patents aren't even worth the paper they are printed on. There is a large backlash against these types of patents that is currently ongoing though (thank god).
This is a good patent. It tells how to grow a layer of gallium nitride crystals on silicon substrates (disclaimer: I am a former employee). While it may not seem like a lot, silicon power transistors for wireless applications only work to about 2.5 GHz. Gallium Nitride power transistors work at higher voltages, higher temperatures, and higher frequencies. And the company has spent over $50M developing this technology.
Now before you ask where its implemented, realize that high power RF transistors technology take a long time to even get designed into a system. And thats a long time before there is even actual implementation. And a long time before you most likely even consider buying into the implementation.
Look, there needs to be patent reform. But dismissing patents outright achieves no results. I only hope that one day people will realize that all patents aren't all created equally.
I believe not at all. Rights are granted for the benefit of the whole of society, not single individuals: otherwise you might as well reintroduce slavery, as it was very beneficial to a few guys. Having a monopoly on something that can be reproduced indefinitely such as business or programming methods, and knowledge in general, means unfairly harming everybody else. You are not damaged by someone else who's using your methods (this does not block you from using them), unless you mean by competition, and last time I checked there is quite a load of legislation that actually protects competition, as it is demonstrated to improve product quality for society.
Its easy to suggest solutions to problems you don't understand. Patents are for the general public because they are vested to the public after a term of years. Otherwise, the idea might have never been released. This is the tradeoff, you disclose your novel idea to the public, and you get a limited monopoly on the idea. Its not unreasonable at all, especially if you spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing the idea.
Just imagine how cheap Coca-Cola would be if they patented the formula in 1920.
You cannot steal a method or an idea. You can only copy it. The original author still has it.
What about modify it? Improve it? Remove steps that are unimportant? Use it on a different subject matter? Apply it in different way?
From the whole society's point of view (that is, our point of view), if Netflix wins we are going to see worse service from Blockbuster and less competition.
But society appreciates ingenuity and creativity. There is going to be a design-around for the patent, you just have to use your wits to figure it out. And when its figured out, how much competition will there be?
This is typical slashdot flamebait. A lot of accusations and no intelligent discourse. I think business method patents are absurd too, but the whole anti-patent attitude lacks any true discussion on the merits of the patent system. Maybe from your software-developing perspective patents are absurd, but have you ever thought outside of the box and realized that its a good for other industries?
There are plenty of ways this could happen. Most likely, Microsoft was not publicly traded at that point in time, so the question is who is the market for buying Microsoft shares? Its not publicly traded after all, so who sets the price for buying and selling shares.
Most likely, their strategy would be to buy the shares from the people who inherited them from Paul Allen. This is the best way because Paul's heirs would most likely have been his wife. And what is she going to do with the shares? They would pressure her to selling the shares because she doesn't know the value of the shares and its going to be the only offer she gets. Its 1982 and computers are still stuff in science fiction movies at that point in time.
There are plenty of other ways to dilute the shares. And I can't think of any right now.
My understanding is that the amendments were literally proposed during the ratification process. The amendments were literally debated during the ratification process (okay I could be wrong here). The framers literally ran out of time (harvest time was upon them) and they left the amendments unfinished (see Amdt 9). The key is that the amendments in view of the constitution have a structure that have a different interpretation than just a textual reading (this is where the right to privacy is found). This was their intent, not some accident.
Alright, we have a fundamental right to marry. If you want to debate me on that, I'll friggin' pull out a stack of Supreme Court cases that will make your head spin. Is this fundamental right in the amendments or the constitution? Fuck no.
And so what does it mean to be a fundamental right? The government cannot burden the right unless it has a substantial reason for the burden (which means the statute is always held unconstitutional).
It would be nice except Slashdot has been posting something about software radio for years and still nothing. Other factors to consider:
1) Power consumption on software radios will be much less efficient than their analog counterparts
2) band limited to certain frequencies - relevant because higher powered transistors at higher frequencies are becoming available, pushing beyond the 2.5 GHz limit we have right now (compliments of Gallium Nitride and Gallium Arsenide).
Spot on - but couple additions might be added. Namely that the court previously held in Griswold v. Connecticut that there is a fundamental right to privacy in the marital bedroom, and as such, a statute banning contraceptives violated the constition. This is the beginning of the right to privacy and extends through Roe v. Wade and onward. Its implied by combining the due process clause and some other parts of the constitution.
Many people who believe that the constitution should be interpreted strictly don't believe in a right to privacy. But then you ask them, do you have a right to be left alone? Answer is almost always yes. Thats the heart of the right to privacy - the right to make your own decisions and live your own life.
See the lil' secret that all middlemen don't want people to know is that they have no discernable skill of their own, other than profiting off the backs of others...(see patents & copyrights -- it's the middleman fighting for protections). The creators don't need middlemen, but middlemen sure as hell need the creative...
So an engineer designing a drug to combat a new disease doens't need a layer of management to provide him money for the equipment, testing, technicians, other engineers to help? An engineer designing a new processor doesn't need somebody to help him fabricate the chip, invest in capital, hire technicians to help him test his designs, etc?
Put yourself on the other side of the equation, you provide $20M in capital funding to startup to help design a new drug. Somebody comes along and copies it which is a right you have, subject to another's property rights. Are you saying you don't the right to exclude others from copying the work you helped fund?
IP rights, just like any property or even marital rights, has benefits and detriments.
The problem is that USPTO isn't supposed to allow patents like this through. 35 USC 101 specifically states that the invention must have utility. If its physically impossible, such as a cure for cancer, or a perpetual motion machine, the invention lacks utility. There is a special section in the MPEP for this.
This is just more proof that the USPTO's system for patent examination is flawed. That, and this patent examiner should be fired for being a total idiot because he could have saved himself some time by issuing a final rejection instead of allowing it.
Read the facts of that case and you'll find out that (1) the burns were 3rd degree - thats really really fucking hot, (2) McDonalds was trying to hide the fact that they settled over 100 cases in which a person had severe burns because the temperature of the coffee. The judge did find that the woman was partially at fault, but slapped it to McDonalds for their conduct. On appeal, the court properly reduced damages - enough so the woman was able to pay for something like 80% of the medical costs.
Ridiculous? Hardly.
Correct, but invention is when you have either reduced it to practice or reduced it conceptually. Conceptual reduction is generally filing the patent application. Actual reduction to practice means conception then actually reducing it to use with diligence. A break from working on the invention of only 2 days destroys diligence.
Except Wickard v. Filburn has been severely limited in Lopez v. ??? and US v. Morrison. In Morrison, Congress made violence against women a federal crime because it had significant (BILLIONS of $) effect on the economy. Rehnquist found that violence against women was not economic and congress did not have the authority under the commerce clause to regulate violence against women. Gonzalez v. Raich does undermine some of Lopez and Morrison, but it all comes down to the next justices vote because each decision was 5-4, with 2 justices from the majority of each case (O'Connor and Rehnquist) stepping down. (Note: Gonzalez was unique because it dealt with medicinal marijuana, so Kennedy and Scalia switched sides to allow federal regulation)
Also, Wickard set the stage for another case that allowed for national labor standards (ie, no child labor). Imagine the horror, suddenly you can't have a child of 12 years old working because its illegal. Don't you feel ashamed of such a case?
IMHO they POSSIBLY could patent their search algorithim to find such numbers, but not the display method of placing a box around them, since that could be considered 'obvious'.
Obviousness in the sense that a lay person uses the term is not the standard used to examine the application. A prima facie case for an obviousness rejection is (1) a suggestion or motivation, either in a reference or in the art to modify or combine the teachings, (2) a reasonable chance for success in combining the teachings, and (3) the prior art reference teaches all the claims.
Ultimately, the purpose for a patent is to reward a limited property right to an invention for the disclosure for the product of human ingenuity. However, I don't see how the public really gains from this disclosure because its rather embarrassing, not genius.
I am honestly dismayed when people ask questions like this.
I'm just trying to make a point - not defend the system. The reality of the situation is if you don't meet the quota, you don't have a job. So you work within the system and do as best you can. Even you admit you've done that.
FWIW, I would absolutely do my job correctly, which would to investigate them throughly and take the required time (especially if I was doing something that was publically funded). I think it's a poor reflection on character to take the easy way out when the right thing to do ought to be clear.
I agree. See above reasoning. BTW - the PTO isn't publicly funded. Its funded from the patent fees (and a good portion is then siphoned off into the government).
I'd be a very poor engineer if I didn't do my job properly just to please management and make them look like they are on top of things.
This isn't about doing a good job. This is about having a job. It should be about doing the best job you can. But as long as there are too many applications and the threshold for a patent is so low, the low quality of patent examination will persist. There are solutions out there for these problems, and maybe in due time they will be implemented.
I think most people here are primarily getting pissed off when they don't uphold their own guidlines (which they do not appear to follow consistently).
The Patent examining procedure is actually fairly consistent. There's a 3000 page manual available on the PTO website if you want to read it.
Where the inconsistency is when the examiner has a 100 page application and must make the decision quickly (several hours). What would you do if somebody dropped off a box of papers that contained a DNA sequence and said "read this, understand it, search for prior art, and see if we can reject this guy." At the end of 8 hours, what would you do if your job depended on getting enough applications examined?
They should not be allowed to simply rubber stamp patents when they are supposed to be investigating them properly and for that matter they should not be granting patents for things that are 'patently' trivial or otherwise in conflict with the established regulations.
I agree, but current case law says you can patent anything under the sun as long as it is the product of human ingenuity. Until that case law changes, or Patent lawyers hike their costs so high nobody wants to pay them, the number of applications being filed will not go down.
You are probably about half right. CDMA in theory is a good standard. But theory and actual implementation is totally different. SIM cards are nice, but its not the reason CDMA lost to GSM.
I am a firm believer that GSM won because it was a more mature technology that CDMA. At the same time Qualcomm was trying to push CDMA, companies were still on the D-AMPS bandwagon for 3G. But the D-AMPS handsets were friggin' hand grenades because the chipsets were maybe on their 3rd generation and there was more chips than you could shake a stick at (but GSM was on their 7th). Enter Nokia with a small, sleek GSM phone with an internal antenna - and the rest is history. Even now, CDMA phones still are huge when compared to GSM phones.
And don't forget the power of battery life. GSM handsets still have much better efficiency because the amplifier does not need the linearity CDMA phones required because GSM is essentially phase modulation with a little time division thrown in (less linearity means higher efficiency). Yes, CDMA phone do now compete because the amplifiers are much more efficient now, but the decisions for 3G were made several years ago.
Funny. I just had an interview with the USPTO. They are actually in the middle of expanding from 3000 to 5000 examiners and have added 900 this year alone.
God, what a blind asshole you are. bin Laden is a tyrant. Radical islam's plan for the rest of the world is his plan, and Afganistan before the U.S. invaded was a taste of it.
This statement sums up the rest of your argument: its a gross assumption based on your subjective beliefs and reinforced by your gut reaction.
If you believe that people should be executed for not espousing your point of view, such as it is, you're with bin Laden.
Doesn't this happen at abortion clinics?
Cave men like bin Laden are afraid of the world, much less their corner of it, opening up to things like literacy, commerce, free speech, and an improved quality of life in general.
Funny, UBL is actually a smart guy. Its a stretch to call somebody educated in the west a cave man. Now maybe his ideals are, but it doesn't mean that he isn't interested in literacy or improving the quality of life for other muslims.
But the U.S. is not the reason for the "tyrants" of which you speak, unless you're talking about the current Iraqi government
US is very much responsible for tyrants and in general, creating our own problems. Saddam used to have close ties to the US. UBL was provided training and weapons by the CIA. There are tons of examples out there.
The people klinging [sic] to power in the Soviet Union were also afraid because that [sic] also wasn't a part of their idea of paradise.
Huh? No, the Soviets were clinging onto their power for the same reason all people cling onto their power: they don't want to give it up!
But what I've noticed is that everybody focuses on albums. Since I'm a DJ/producer also, I learned many years ago that you can pick up something based on the record label. That said, here is a list of labels I always tend to pick up. For the record, I am a downtempo/organic (as in...not digweed and crew - think thievary corporation) head.
Further more, there are several places you can listen to this stuff online. Go to dublab.com and they have mixes from lots of people like Dr. Alex Patterson (Orb), Pole, Ursula 1000, and more. There was one I used to go to a while back, but I forget what it was called. All kinds of mixes ranging from progressive to turntabilism.
Other classics that I recommend to all people who get into the genre: Underworld - Dubnobassinmyhead man, Orb - UF Orb, Any of the Journey by DJ's series, any Ken Iishi mix you can find, any Luke Vibert mix you can find.
In all honesty they've done a better job than anyone else at creating a useable desktop OS good for a wide range of activities on a large variety of hardware.
I'll agree to some extent on that statement. The large variety of hardware, but then again they are a monopoly so everybody has to work on windows or you are dead in the water. Ever heard of a computer device that couldn't work with Windows? They exist, but how many devices?
Useable OS? BeOS blew windows usability away, it was faster, it was stable, the only problem they had was competing against MS. They even gave it away. While their hardware support was smaller, so was their development staff.
As usual, everybody tends to oversimplify spread spectrum and it "magically" works. Nope. Not at all. I wish it were so simple, just like CDMA was supposed to be. Well, because the signal is supposed to look like noise, at least in a CDMA cell phone, you have to effectively manage all the power levels of the users on the system so they don't step on each other. Thats why you have specs like ACPR (Adjacent Channel Power Ratio). Well, power control is a bitch. And you wonder why CDMA cell phones are much larger than their GSM counterparts.
In theory, the real sell on CDMA is spectrum reuse (and security), but thats theory. Its still better than GSM, but like a friend of mine told me once: people only develop complexity to hide mediocrity. And the academics might love the spread spectrum stuff, but its academics... not the people working in the field who have to deal with all the nasty issues academics don't deal with.
I'm not a know-all of spread spectrum issues, and it definitely has some great uses. But I don't think it would be very useful for 1 way communications like radio(unless it needs to be secure - like say...a cruise missile). It really peeves me off when somebody writes about something they no idea about.
Okay, I totally took your comments in the wrong way.
One of the problems with CDMA phones is the simple fact that its more complicated (frequency hopping plus more complicated linear modulation) compared to GSM's simplicity (time division with GMSK - frequency modulation basically).
GSM is very simple, extremely well researched, and been in development for a very long time. Ericsson and Nokia are on their 6th or 7th generation of platforms, far ahead of 2nd or 3rd generation CDMA handsets. Thats why the GSM phones are smaller, not because its a market thing. Even the Samsung phones are huge by GSM standards!
Okay, you must be smoking crack on GSM vs CDMA.
By 2G standards, GSM won in the US (even though its still in development). GSM is easily upgradable to GPRS (2.5G) and then switch out to WCDMA.
The article is some respects is retarded anyway. Its not the radio circuits that take up all the real estate, its the processors and integrated circuits. Most of the filtering is done by DSP anyway. Oh yeah, and the radio only takes up a fraction of the space anyway.
Its not rocket science when you consider what they have done to shrink the size of cell phones: put everything in integrated circuits and software. There is a reason why phones are now using zero IF heterodyne receivers (even though they are a forking pain in the ass). Now RF MEMs ACTIVE circuits will make a *huge* difference - but not on circuit real estate - but on actually being able to make a good 3G radio without sacrificing quality.
And CDMA power control sucks!
True, but techniques for antennas have improved vastly. You can't solve the wonderful attennae equations for the fields without using finite elements. As computational power has increased dramatically, so has the analysis of antennaes. Have you ever tried to integrate the a sine of a cosine (or is it a cosine of a sine...i forget). And you still have to broadband match because 800 MHz and 1900 MHz have very different quarter wavelengths. And remember, a VSWR of 2:1 is GOOD.
Sounds nice in theory, but the largest problem with software radio is power consumption. You have to run a sampler at really high frequencies, than have a DSP downconvert at really high frequencies, then you have to cleanup the signal....and then you have all your baseband to process still.
And remember, the part that consumes the most power cannot be replaced by software (power amplifier)...so you'd have a phone with a 3 hour life. Not very useful. Sounds like a commercial winner right? Eventually they will make it useful, but energy storage techniques are slow to advance.
CDMA2000 is US! You must be mad! GSM won the 2G standard war in the US because its a simple upgrade to GPRS (18 month life probably), then a simple upgrade to W-CDMA. EDGE has a better chance of survival than CDMA2000 (and remember, EDGE roadmap leads to UMTS/W-CDMA).
btw, EDGE isn't anything new, its just multi-slot TDMA with pi/4 dpqpsk modulation (damps is TDMA with single-slot, pi/4 dpqpsk). And DAMPS didn't work worth a shiznit.