1) Pretty much, not sure what you can do about it though, consult a lawyer
2) It depends on what area they are in. Some units have backlogs of 3-4 years before a patent is even picked up by someone and looked it. It can take a few years for the examination process sometimes.
- Having a look at who is sponsoring it (Hatch and Leahy) alone, it is obvious that this is a matter of legislation on behalf of the large media conglomerates.
It is generally bad practice and usually weakens your posisiton if you attack the people who are presenting an arguement (in this case the bill in question) rather than the argument itself.
1) Did you sign anything to apply for these patents? Each patent application requires the signature of every inventor listed on the patent, so if you didn't sign anything to that effect, you aren't listed as an inventor.
2) Which database are you searching? It may be possible that the applications haven't been issued, in which case they would only show up in the published applications database (and only 18 months after they have been applied for assuming they were applied for after November 29, 2000), which is a separate database from the issued patent database.
3) Are you sure they would be assigned to your compnay? Some patents will be assigned to holding companies which own the companies that actually applied for the patents, while some other companies will leave the assignment with the inventors (although this is rare).
Their search engine (at least for patents, not sure about trademarks) is actually very powerful. Assigne and inventor searches are both readily availible online and quite simple to use if you know what you are doing. For example:
Asignee Search = an\[assigne name here] Inventor Search = in\[inventor name here]
Because they are under absolutely no obligation to defend their patent unless they want to. As long as it is still valid, they can choose to enfore it at their will.
Patents don't require enforcement like trademarks do.
The patent in question is a continuation of an application which was filed in April of 1993, so they are well ahead of the public beta release in 1994. It is pretty rare for companies to screw up on the 1 year grace period for filing.
Good idea... I think the our criminal justice system should implement the same idea where they only get paid for the criminals that they convict. We don't need a lot of guilty people running around making this world an unsafe place to live in.
That should at least give them some incentive not to let dangerous criminals walk our steets.
The term of a patent is 20 years from the filing date assuming it is granted. It used to be 17 years from the issue date, but they changed it precisely because of that reason.
If capitalism was allowed to operate then there would be multiple sources for Britney CDs and the market should set the price. But there is only one vendor for Britney (RIAA member, Jive Records). They set the price because they're the only supplier of Britney's recordings.
There is nothing about CDs from certain artists only being availible form certain vendors that is against capitalism per se. To bring in the standard practice of bad slashdot analogies: You can't get a BMW 745i from any vendor other than BMW, but you don't see anyone complaining about a breakdown of capitalism in the automobile industry. If you can't afford a 745i, you buy a cheaper model.
The same should hold true in the music industry. If you don't want to shell out the big bucks for a Britney CD, then you can go find something else that you like that is availible from a cheaper vendor or buy nothing at all. If you have your heart set on Britney, then you will go buy her CD at the price they charge. The RIAA member labels can charge whatever they want and if people will continue to pay it, then they can continue to charge it just as BMW can charge whatever they want even though not everyone who wants one may think it is a fair price.
The same holds true in almost every other industry under the sun: comparable products are sold from multiple vendors, but very rarely are completely identical products sold from multiple vendors. I don't know why you expect the music industry to be any different.
I don't know which high school you went to but I don't know of any high school that teaches economics.
My high school required a basic economics class for graduation (usually taken in 9th or 10th grade) and also offered a AP (100 level college course) economics class for those who wished to to take it.
I am in the same boat musically. For the most part I am starting at the 60's and just working my way back through rock 'n roll, blues, country, folk, classical, etc...
There is an amazing amount of good music released before the beatles, bee gees, run dmc, guns n' roses, nirvana, boyz 2 men, britney spears or whoever people may point to as the great turning point in music today.
If anyone is interested in some of the music that layed the foundation for "classic rock", I'd reccomend these box sets (they may be better out there, but I own these two and am quite happy with them):
Most of that power is probably eaten up by the LCD. I would expect that by using a small CMOS image sensor and some low power storage of some kind it wouldn't be too hard to power the thing for a 24 hours straight and still make a nicely portable system.
This is were the provisional application comes in. A US provisional application is basically a filing date holder where you can file what usually amounts to a draft of your application to lock in the earlier filing date. After the provisional is filed you have a year to file the real application.
The claim of priority to the previously filed provisional application gives this application an effective filing date of July 30, 2002 which beats the October 23, 2002 cut off date for when the first Ipod can be used against apple as prior art.
However, if they did not claim priority to the provisional application, then the original Ipod could be used against them as prior art because the application itself was filed 5 days after that cut off date.
To copy and paste a previous post of mine which replied to an AC which brought up the same point:
Actually this claims priority to US provisional application No. 60/399,806 which was filed July 30, 2002.
US Patent law also gives the inventors a year after the invention is made public to file an application without the public knowledge of that invention being held against the inventors. After 1 year, the invention would be rejected under 35 USC 102(b).
Warning: IANAL, but have had some exposure to patent law.
You only have to violate one claim of a patent to be infringing, but as I'm pretty sure that the more claims you are infringing upon, the more you may have to pay if you are found to be infringing.
It is important to note just for the sake of clarification that dependent claims contain all of the limitations of the claims that they depend on. For example if you have a claim set which contains:
Claim 1: A system including A, B and C.
Claim 2: The system of claim 1 further including D.
Claim 2 actually includes A, B and C from claim 1 as well as D from claim 2. To be infringing upon claim 1, you only have to have A, B and C, but to be infringing upon claim 2 you have to have A, B, C and D.
Another important thing to note when talking about infringement the preamble of a claim. Claims usually start with something like "A system for X comprising", "A system for X consisting", etc. The section before consisting/comprising is called the preamble, and many times it doesn't carry any legal weight when determining the scope of the claim. The general rule is that if the rest of the claim does not refer back to the preamble in any way, the preamble is ignored.
Another important point is the word which follows the preamble, which is usually consisting, comprising, or including. Comprising and including are open-ended, which means that in the previous example if you had a system with A, B, C and E you would be infrining upon claim 1. Consisting is close-ended meaning that if you had the A, B, C, E system you would not be infrining upon claim 1. Basically in closed-ended claims you can avoid infringement by adding features, while in open-ended claims you can not.
As far as examination goes, each claim is treated independently and a subset of the claims that are filed can be allowed even while the others are rejected.
Please don't read the summary. The summary doesn't get any legal protection and is just there to give a general idea what the patent is about. If you want to know what they are trying to patent READ THE CLAIMS!!
It's times like this that I wish the flash tag was still around...
Actually this claims priority to US provisional application No. 60/399,806 which was filed July 30, 2002.
US Patent law also gives the inventors a year after the invention is made public to file an application without the public knowledge of that invention being held against the inventors. After 1 year, the invention would be rejected under 35 USC 102(b).
they call this invention a property right to the first person in line at the patent office.
Sorry to jump into your little lovers quarall, but you are just plain wrong here. The US system is based upon first to invent, not first to file. So if you invent your AIDS drug before someone else, you can choose how you wish to deal with it. Also...
For example, if everyone looses controll over 10K worth of copyrights, but gains access to everyone elses 10K worth of copyrights - then that is a massive effective net gain.
Nice example, unfortunately not everyone has an equal amount of copyrights to lose control of, making your example useless for the real world.
If your on windows, I highly suggest trying out foobar2000. It does a good job with playback of most audio formats under the sun and is very customizable.
Just because Microsoft has money, and this patent has initially been rejected (though the finality of that rejection remains to be seen), does not mean that Microsoft's money had anything to do with that rejection.
Plus, even under your analogy, both you and the parent poster have failed to show any track record of this type of ruling happening in the past which has been effected by the amount of money the winning party had availible.
So, I ask again: What evidence is this conclusion based on?
You have any proof to back this statement up? Or are you just making conclusions based on the very limited amount of information given in this story and your preconceptions about corrupt governments that you heard about once on TV?
Damn those lazy NASA engineers. The February 29th cut off date has come and gone and they have yet make an official declaration of an ocean on Mars. What the hell have they been doing over there? Moving the rover 10 ft at a time, spending days just to get the damn thing off the landing platform, pathetic. There must be some shady deal going on between them and Long John Silver's to move really slowly to not have to tell the world that they found an ocean so they can share all of the free giant shrimp between themselves. This article just confirms it. Obviously they have enough evidence to proclaim that Mars is a big ocean, yet they don't because it would cut into their giant shrimp profits. Scandal I say!
Usability. Linux simply isn't that user friendly for the common office drone. Chances are the IT monkeys who are doing the rollout are the same monkeys that supported the previous windows setup and aren't that unix savy as well.
Microsoft has a definite edge in the usability category while Linux has the edge in the security category. They both have their places, but as far as I am concerned for the average business Linux is a better choice for the server side and Microsoft is a better choice for the client side.
If Apple would aggresively sell their OS for x86 hardware they would probably make a killing since they have found a very good balance between the two sides.
Slashdot Mirror
1) Pretty much, not sure what you can do about it though, consult a lawyer
2) It depends on what area they are in. Some units have backlogs of 3-4 years before a patent is even picked up by someone and looked it. It can take a few years for the examination process sometimes.
Three points:
1) Did you sign anything to apply for these patents? Each patent application requires the signature of every inventor listed on the patent, so if you didn't sign anything to that effect, you aren't listed as an inventor.
2) Which database are you searching? It may be possible that the applications haven't been issued, in which case they would only show up in the published applications database (and only 18 months after they have been applied for assuming they were applied for after November 29, 2000), which is a separate database from the issued patent database.
3) Are you sure they would be assigned to your compnay? Some patents will be assigned to holding companies which own the companies that actually applied for the patents, while some other companies will leave the assignment with the inventors (although this is rare).
Their search engine (at least for patents, not sure about trademarks) is actually very powerful. Assigne and inventor searches are both readily availible online and quite simple to use if you know what you are doing. For example:
Asignee Search = an\[assigne name here]
Inventor Search = in\[inventor name here]
Because they are under absolutely no obligation to defend their patent unless they want to. As long as it is still valid, they can choose to enfore it at their will.
Patents don't require enforcement like trademarks do.
The patent in question is a continuation of an application which was filed in April of 1993, so they are well ahead of the public beta release in 1994. It is pretty rare for companies to screw up on the 1 year grace period for filing.
Good idea... I think the our criminal justice system should implement the same idea where they only get paid for the criminals that they convict. We don't need a lot of guilty people running around making this world an unsafe place to live in.
That should at least give them some incentive not to let dangerous criminals walk our steets.
See 35 USC 154, specifically section (a)(2).
The term of a patent is 20 years from the filing date assuming it is granted. It used to be 17 years from the issue date, but they changed it precisely because of that reason.
On the subject of getting fired, check out this move over at apple: Farm Sluts. Funny stuff
The same should hold true in the music industry. If you don't want to shell out the big bucks for a Britney CD, then you can go find something else that you like that is availible from a cheaper vendor or buy nothing at all. If you have your heart set on Britney, then you will go buy her CD at the price they charge. The RIAA member labels can charge whatever they want and if people will continue to pay it, then they can continue to charge it just as BMW can charge whatever they want even though not everyone who wants one may think it is a fair price.
The same holds true in almost every other industry under the sun: comparable products are sold from multiple vendors, but very rarely are completely identical products sold from multiple vendors. I don't know why you expect the music industry to be any different. My high school required a basic economics class for graduation (usually taken in 9th or 10th grade) and also offered a AP (100 level college course) economics class for those who wished to to take it.
I am in the same boat musically. For the most part I am starting at the 60's and just working my way back through rock 'n roll, blues, country, folk, classical, etc...
There is an amazing amount of good music released before the beatles, bee gees, run dmc, guns n' roses, nirvana, boyz 2 men, britney spears or whoever people may point to as the great turning point in music today.
If anyone is interested in some of the music that layed the foundation for "classic rock", I'd reccomend these box sets (they may be better out there, but I own these two and am quite happy with them):
Mercury Blues 'n' Rhythm Story 1945-1955
Roots N' Blues: Retrospective 1925-1950
If anyone has any other good reccomendations for older music I'd love to hear them as well.
Most of that power is probably eaten up by the LCD. I would expect that by using a small CMOS image sensor and some low power storage of some kind it wouldn't be too hard to power the thing for a 24 hours straight and still make a nicely portable system.
This is were the provisional application comes in. A US provisional application is basically a filing date holder where you can file what usually amounts to a draft of your application to lock in the earlier filing date. After the provisional is filed you have a year to file the real application.
The claim of priority to the previously filed provisional application gives this application an effective filing date of July 30, 2002 which beats the October 23, 2002 cut off date for when the first Ipod can be used against apple as prior art.
However, if they did not claim priority to the provisional application, then the original Ipod could be used against them as prior art because the application itself was filed 5 days after that cut off date.
To copy and paste a previous post of mine which replied to an AC which brought up the same point:
Actually this claims priority to US provisional application No. 60/399,806 which was filed July 30, 2002.
US Patent law also gives the inventors a year after the invention is made public to file an application without the public knowledge of that invention being held against the inventors. After 1 year, the invention would be rejected under 35 USC 102(b).
You only have to violate one claim of a patent to be infringing, but as I'm pretty sure that the more claims you are infringing upon, the more you may have to pay if you are found to be infringing.
It is important to note just for the sake of clarification that dependent claims contain all of the limitations of the claims that they depend on. For example if you have a claim set which contains:Claim 2 actually includes A, B and C from claim 1 as well as D from claim 2. To be infringing upon claim 1, you only have to have A, B and C, but to be infringing upon claim 2 you have to have A, B, C and D.
Another important thing to note when talking about infringement the preamble of a claim. Claims usually start with something like "A system for X comprising", "A system for X consisting", etc. The section before consisting/comprising is called the preamble, and many times it doesn't carry any legal weight when determining the scope of the claim. The general rule is that if the rest of the claim does not refer back to the preamble in any way, the preamble is ignored.
Another important point is the word which follows the preamble, which is usually consisting, comprising, or including. Comprising and including are open-ended, which means that in the previous example if you had a system with A, B, C and E you would be infrining upon claim 1. Consisting is close-ended meaning that if you had the A, B, C, E system you would not be infrining upon claim 1. Basically in closed-ended claims you can avoid infringement by adding features, while in open-ended claims you can not.
As far as examination goes, each claim is treated independently and a subset of the claims that are filed can be allowed even while the others are rejected.
The link in the story is straight to the app. Here's another one to save needless scrolling as you read this: 2004/055446A1
Please don't read the summary. The summary doesn't get any legal protection and is just there to give a general idea what the patent is about. If you want to know what they are trying to patent READ THE CLAIMS!!
It's times like this that I wish the flash tag was still around...
Actually this claims priority to US provisional application No. 60/399,806 which was filed July 30, 2002.
US Patent law also gives the inventors a year after the invention is made public to file an application without the public knowledge of that invention being held against the inventors. After 1 year, the invention would be rejected under 35 USC 102(b).
they call this invention a property right to the first person in line at the patent office.
Sorry to jump into your little lovers quarall, but you are just plain wrong here. The US system is based upon first to invent, not first to file. So if you invent your AIDS drug before someone else, you can choose how you wish to deal with it. Also...
For example, if everyone looses controll over 10K worth of copyrights, but gains access to everyone elses 10K worth of copyrights - then that is a massive effective net gain.
Nice example, unfortunately not everyone has an equal amount of copyrights to lose control of, making your example useless for the real world.
If your on windows, I highly suggest trying out foobar2000. It does a good job with playback of most audio formats under the sun and is very customizable.
I am guessing you don't know what MO actually means, so heres a link: Modus Operandi
correlation does not imply causation
Just because Microsoft has money, and this patent has initially been rejected (though the finality of that rejection remains to be seen), does not mean that Microsoft's money had anything to do with that rejection.
Plus, even under your analogy, both you and the parent poster have failed to show any track record of this type of ruling happening in the past which has been effected by the amount of money the winning party had availible.
So, I ask again: What evidence is this conclusion based on?
You have any proof to back this statement up? Or are you just making conclusions based on the very limited amount of information given in this story and your preconceptions about corrupt governments that you heard about once on TV?
Damn those lazy NASA engineers. The February 29th cut off date has come and gone and they have yet make an official declaration of an ocean on Mars. What the hell have they been doing over there? Moving the rover 10 ft at a time, spending days just to get the damn thing off the landing platform, pathetic. There must be some shady deal going on between them and Long John Silver's to move really slowly to not have to tell the world that they found an ocean so they can share all of the free giant shrimp between themselves. This article just confirms it. Obviously they have enough evidence to proclaim that Mars is a big ocean, yet they don't because it would cut into their giant shrimp profits. Scandal I say!
Usability. Linux simply isn't that user friendly for the common office drone. Chances are the IT monkeys who are doing the rollout are the same monkeys that supported the previous windows setup and aren't that unix savy as well.
Microsoft has a definite edge in the usability category while Linux has the edge in the security category. They both have their places, but as far as I am concerned for the average business Linux is a better choice for the server side and Microsoft is a better choice for the client side.
If Apple would aggresively sell their OS for x86 hardware they would probably make a killing since they have found a very good balance between the two sides.