Two years is generally quite reasonable, although it depends on the jurisdiction. Here in Washington state, five years is a pretty standard term that has been upheld in court.
Courts in most jurisdictions claim that they are supposed to carefully scrutinize these agreements for excessive scope, both in terms of time and geography. Although tech workers generally will have a tough time challenging non-competes on the basis of excessive geographical scope (because the tech manufacturing world is essentially global), I am amazed that courts haven't been more critical of excessive time periods given the rate at which these fields advance.
In the US, non-competes are enforceable in almost every jurisdiction exception California. However, there are generally substantial qualifications, the most significant of which is that the agreement cannot prevent competition solely for the purpose of placing restrictions on the marketplace. Instead, employers who use non-competes must generally demonstrate that they have a legitimate protectable interest that is promoted by the non-compete (mere restraint of trade is generally not legitimate). Examples of protectable interests include maintaining secrecy of proprietary methods of doing business (used most frequently by manufacturing businesses) and other secret trade information such as customer lists that are not publicly available.
In general, courts will not enforce non-competes when the worker involved uses a generic set of skills (like manual labor and most retail sales jobs) and doesn't use proprietary information in the successor job.
As alway, the above are gross generalizations and may vary from state to state (and certainly from country to country).
#2 would be pretty much impossible if that were the standard of proof. Although I am not an IP attorney, I doubt that is the standard. Generally, "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" is reserved for criminal offenses (think about being 99.9% certain). For the vast majority of civil cases, the standard is a mere "preponderance of the evidence" (think of 51%). There is an in-between standard of "clear and convincing" evidence that is occassionally used. I'm not going to begin to go into detail about the differences. However, based on the gross generalizations I've just made, it should be obvious that the differences can be tremendous in application.
I'm also not sure what you mean by "explicitly copied." Do you mean intentionally? This is where differences in the burden of proof can be very important because proving intent can sometimes be very difficult and the party with the burden can really benefit from a reduced burden.
The 614 out of 7,000,000 comparison doesn't really offer much useful information. First, the 7,000,000 figure appears to be all patents ever issued by the USPTO. However, it appears that the USPTO has been accepting these re-examinations only since 1981. Further, we're given no idea as to how many requests for re-examination have ever been filed. What would be nice to know is the success rate of having a patent revoked (declared invalid, etc.).
They actually let Soviet citizens in the hotel? When I went over there (a year earlier), Soviet citizens were not allowed in most hotels where westerners stayed (although security was relatively lax and it wasn't too difficult to get people in).
I also worked for a large non-profit health care company (as an attorney, not a programmer, but the observations are still applicable) and I'll tell you that the sisters could drive a harder bargain business-wise than many MBAs. There was nothing more relaxed about that work environment compared to a for-profit corporation. Plus, you always had to worry about your increased chances of going to hell if you forgot to put the cover sheets on your memos.
As many have observed, these rules will likely change little in the workforce and will merely codify what is existing practice (although only time will tell). One of the primary stated motives for the new rules was to update 50 year old Department of Labor rules that made it very difficult to determine exactly who was and was not eligible for overtime because the rules referred to positions that for the most part don't exist anymore (e.g. straw men and keypunch operators).
To put a really cynical spin on these new rules, I believe that one of the groups that will be hit hardest by overtime rules with bright line requirements will be the employment law plaintiffs bar, which will be hindered in its efforts to troll for new highly profitable cases by representing highly compensated former employees who could conceivably still be eligible for overtime under the old rules Representing low-hourly wage employees isn't that huge a business because employee will often settle for some minimal amount that they need just to survice and which employers will often be willing to pay to avoid a trial - and a potential award of attorneys fees if the employee wins.
I had a similar experience. I moved from Tacoma WA (where there are multiple broadband options) to a place called Brush Prairie (hard to get more small town than that). My internet connection is through smoke signals (Qwest has promised the tin cans and twine upgrade sometime next year). No DSL. No cable. And my dial up is screaming when I manage to get 28.8 speeds (forget 56K stuff). It was really painful.
However, I've got 6 acres to mess around on with my wife and dogs. I periodically think about getting a dish (for TV not internet) but always put it off until the next winter (I couldn't justify the cost during the spring and summer when I'm out in the yard all the time). The one thing I truly miss is decent online gaming. However, based on my prior useage in Tacoma, I suspect that having awesome online gaming access would create some problems at home (it is too addictive).
The PC police believe that Jar Jar is an offensive caricature of black people (correction African-Americans). Similarly, the trade federation people were caricatures of Asians. And Watto was a Jewish stereotype.
Of course, all of this could be the result of George Lucas being a mere caricature of a good screenwriter.
If you're wondering about the DLP units that use TI components, I believe it's because TI is the only company that makes the main components for this type of set. Monopoly power is a bitch when the tech is really good. I also seem to recall having read something about Intel developing competing tech which is supposed to drastically reduce the cost of DLP sets within the next year or so.
More than 20 years to develop the next generation of recon helicopter? If they took much longer they would have been forced to admit that it was really a "next next" generation helicopter or that their generational frame of reference was something longer lived than humans (perhaps turtles or parrots).
Sweeping statements that people should not be allowed to own ideas seem very short sighted in a number of applications (especially with products, as opposed to business methods). It is easy (and idealistic) to say that people shouldn't be able to own ideas because they are, at some level, based upon ideas put forth by others. However, that is not entirely the case, since obviously some original thought must have gone into the idea or else it would have been thought of long ago.
The idea behind protecting ideas through a system of intellectual property is merely a balancing act. Without it, many of the best aspects of capitalism will be eliminated. For example, without patents, companies that develop new drugs would quickly disappear (unless someone can offer a reason why anyone would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a new drug knowing you would never be able to recoup your costs). There are any number of examples of products that require high-cost R&D that should be protected by patents to motivate companies to spend the money to develop such products in the future.
As for the problem of screwing people who thought of ideas independently, that is just another balancing act. Sure, it would be great if we could come up with some certain way of proving that someone developed an idea independently from others. But do you have any idea how difficult this would be to implement? The problem is with burdens of proof. How on earth could the initial patent filer prove that someone else who supposedly came up with the exact same idea didn't copy it from the pbublished patent? You would have to find a smoking gun (e.g. some internal memo saying "let's steal this idea"). Sure, a few people who truly independently develop products would benefit. But I suspect you would have many more instances of people stealing previously published ideas. If you put the burden on the alleged infringer, you would essentially require them to prove a negative. The only thing that is guaranteed to result from whichever avenue you choose is an insane amount of litigation.
As for the problem of screwing people who may have thought of the idea first but didn't patent it, Congress used a phrase most of us learned on the playground: "you snooze, you lose." That made sense to me when I was six and it still makes sense now.
I hadn't heard of this tech until your post. However, a quick google search shows that the technology was in a very early development in the early to mid 90s. However, it would appear to be far from "disappeared."
I am a bit unfamiliar with how dangerous liquid hydrogen is compared with gasoline. I seem to recall that this perceived danger is one reason why solid fuel cells are such a popular pursuit (however, this could just be catering to irrational popular hysteria).
Of course it will get funding. ADM makes big oil look like a bunch of neophites when it comes to political lobbying. Just take a look at the latest farm bill.
There are some decent boots you can buy in Hong Kong (I ordered the entire trilogy online for about $25 delivered). There's a big thread in the forums at Dvdtalk.com that goes over the quality of all of the popular bootleg versions out there for sale. The ones I ordered are clearly ripped from the Laserdisc and look very good on a standard definition TV. However, they are completely unwatchable on a high definition set (Everything looks very blocky). I ended up giving them to my neighbor after I got my high def set.
WHile this sort of response does show that OCZ is unwilling to pass the buck (a very admirable quality), one would hope that any halfway decent operation would know enough about applied sampling techniques to avoid this sort of problem in the first place. It almost sounds like they did an initial testing (that resulted in the 25/70 figures) and then testing after the article came out, with nothing in the interim. A good sized product run requires a surprisingly small amount of sampling to uncover a significant defect in a single measureable product quality (e.g. silver content). Hopefully they won't be as sloppy when sending out the replacements.
Stephen Baxter's Manifold group of books (I believe three in all) is good hard sci-fi. Generally, they all involve fairly sweeping concepts about the progress of mankind and the evolution of the universe over billions of years. Essentially, he comes up with some story to wrap around various theories about how the universe works. For the most part, these stories work (aren't so hokey that they distract from the science). Sometimes, however, his stories (especially when they relate to contemporary US society and politics) are distracting.
I think the parent was referring to a practice of the credit card company itself, not the merchant with whom the card user is doing business. I believe that Discover would give a cash rebate of a certain percent each month. This had nothing to do with the price charged by the retailer. Similarly, my GM card gives me a 5% credit towards the purchase of any GM car, which is a great deal since there are no annual fees and I pay off my balance every month. Now if I could only pay my mortgage with my GM card.
I think the parent was referring to actual units the Consumer Reports reviews. For example, when they review a car, they actually send someone out to a dealership to purchase a vehicle.
However, when it comes to reports on customer satisfaction and repair records, you comment is accurate in that only volunteers respond to their surveys.
You have your standards of proof mixed up. Generally (about 99% of the time), the standard of proof required to prevail in civil cases in "preponderance of the evidence," not "beyuond a reasonable doubt." Although this is a gross simplification, in lay terms this is sort of like the difference between 51% and 99.9%. So if SCO can present a convincing case, IBM may have to do much more than simply cast some doubt on the matter.
However, you make another valid point. Courts frown upon plaintiffs who bring wild claims without presenting any proof on their own, and instead try to make the defendant prove that the claim is false. Such fishing expeditions can, if really blatant, result in significant penalties (typically attorneys fees awarded to the prevailing side).
No, I work for a mid-sized firm (which in the PDX area means about 20 or so attorneys). However, once we hit seven billable hours in any given day, the FTKUs (Fungible Time Keeping Units) are generally allowed to goof around a little.
Way offtopic, but something to think about if you consider becoming an attorney . ..
Every once in awhile I run into someone who graduated from law school and, for some unknown reason decided to take up writing, or start a new business, or something else that has nothing to do with law. Despite my favorable experiences practicing law for the past six years, whenever I run into one of these people, I have this disturbing feeling that I'm talking to someone who managed to resist a great and horrible temptation and do something meaningful and worthwhile with their lives. I'm not quite sure what to make of this. The closest analogy (because we lawyers only think in analogies) is that it is like those moments of lucidity that senile elderly people sometimes have, when they suddenly remember everything and don't demonstrate the symptoms of memory loss. Perhaps I'm remembering that I once had a well anchored perception of common sense, decency, and respect for my fellow man.
Notice the GP said "Federal judges." I have met a large number of judges, both state and federal, and have seen a huge difference in the quality of analysis between the two. Yes, there are some idiotic federal judges, just as there are some brilliant state judges. But as a group, federal judges outshine their state counterparts by a wide margin.
Slashdot Mirror
Two years is generally quite reasonable, although it depends on the jurisdiction. Here in Washington state, five years is a pretty standard term that has been upheld in court.
Courts in most jurisdictions claim that they are supposed to carefully scrutinize these agreements for excessive scope, both in terms of time and geography. Although tech workers generally will have a tough time challenging non-competes on the basis of excessive geographical scope (because the tech manufacturing world is essentially global), I am amazed that courts haven't been more critical of excessive time periods given the rate at which these fields advance.
In the US, non-competes are enforceable in almost every jurisdiction exception California. However, there are generally substantial qualifications, the most significant of which is that the agreement cannot prevent competition solely for the purpose of placing restrictions on the marketplace. Instead, employers who use non-competes must generally demonstrate that they have a legitimate protectable interest that is promoted by the non-compete (mere restraint of trade is generally not legitimate). Examples of protectable interests include maintaining secrecy of proprietary methods of doing business (used most frequently by manufacturing businesses) and other secret trade information such as customer lists that are not publicly available.
In general, courts will not enforce non-competes when the worker involved uses a generic set of skills (like manual labor and most retail sales jobs) and doesn't use proprietary information in the successor job.
As alway, the above are gross generalizations and may vary from state to state (and certainly from country to country).
#2 would be pretty much impossible if that were the standard of proof. Although I am not an IP attorney, I doubt that is the standard. Generally, "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" is reserved for criminal offenses (think about being 99.9% certain). For the vast majority of civil cases, the standard is a mere "preponderance of the evidence" (think of 51%). There is an in-between standard of "clear and convincing" evidence that is occassionally used. I'm not going to begin to go into detail about the differences. However, based on the gross generalizations I've just made, it should be obvious that the differences can be tremendous in application.
I'm also not sure what you mean by "explicitly copied." Do you mean intentionally? This is where differences in the burden of proof can be very important because proving intent can sometimes be very difficult and the party with the burden can really benefit from a reduced burden.
The 614 out of 7,000,000 comparison doesn't really offer much useful information. First, the 7,000,000 figure appears to be all patents ever issued by the USPTO. However, it appears that the USPTO has been accepting these re-examinations only since 1981. Further, we're given no idea as to how many requests for re-examination have ever been filed. What would be nice to know is the success rate of having a patent revoked (declared invalid, etc.).
They actually let Soviet citizens in the hotel? When I went over there (a year earlier), Soviet citizens were not allowed in most hotels where westerners stayed (although security was relatively lax and it wasn't too difficult to get people in).
I also worked for a large non-profit health care company (as an attorney, not a programmer, but the observations are still applicable) and I'll tell you that the sisters could drive a harder bargain business-wise than many MBAs. There was nothing more relaxed about that work environment compared to a for-profit corporation. Plus, you always had to worry about your increased chances of going to hell if you forgot to put the cover sheets on your memos.
As many have observed, these rules will likely change little in the workforce and will merely codify what is existing practice (although only time will tell). One of the primary stated motives for the new rules was to update 50 year old Department of Labor rules that made it very difficult to determine exactly who was and was not eligible for overtime because the rules referred to positions that for the most part don't exist anymore (e.g. straw men and keypunch operators).
To put a really cynical spin on these new rules, I believe that one of the groups that will be hit hardest by overtime rules with bright line requirements will be the employment law plaintiffs bar, which will be hindered in its efforts to troll for new highly profitable cases by representing highly compensated former employees who could conceivably still be eligible for overtime under the old rules Representing low-hourly wage employees isn't that huge a business because employee will often settle for some minimal amount that they need just to survice and which employers will often be willing to pay to avoid a trial - and a potential award of attorneys fees if the employee wins.
I had a similar experience. I moved from Tacoma WA (where there are multiple broadband options) to a place called Brush Prairie (hard to get more small town than that). My internet connection is through smoke signals (Qwest has promised the tin cans and twine upgrade sometime next year). No DSL. No cable. And my dial up is screaming when I manage to get 28.8 speeds (forget 56K stuff). It was really painful.
However, I've got 6 acres to mess around on with my wife and dogs. I periodically think about getting a dish (for TV not internet) but always put it off until the next winter (I couldn't justify the cost during the spring and summer when I'm out in the yard all the time). The one thing I truly miss is decent online gaming. However, based on my prior useage in Tacoma, I suspect that having awesome online gaming access would create some problems at home (it is too addictive).
The PC police believe that Jar Jar is an offensive caricature of black people (correction African-Americans). Similarly, the trade federation people were caricatures of Asians. And Watto was a Jewish stereotype.
Of course, all of this could be the result of George Lucas being a mere caricature of a good screenwriter.
If you're wondering about the DLP units that use TI components, I believe it's because TI is the only company that makes the main components for this type of set. Monopoly power is a bitch when the tech is really good. I also seem to recall having read something about Intel developing competing tech which is supposed to drastically reduce the cost of DLP sets within the next year or so.
More than 20 years to develop the next generation of recon helicopter? If they took much longer they would have been forced to admit that it was really a "next next" generation helicopter or that their generational frame of reference was something longer lived than humans (perhaps turtles or parrots).
Sweeping statements that people should not be allowed to own ideas seem very short sighted in a number of applications (especially with products, as opposed to business methods). It is easy (and idealistic) to say that people shouldn't be able to own ideas because they are, at some level, based upon ideas put forth by others. However, that is not entirely the case, since obviously some original thought must have gone into the idea or else it would have been thought of long ago.
The idea behind protecting ideas through a system of intellectual property is merely a balancing act. Without it, many of the best aspects of capitalism will be eliminated. For example, without patents, companies that develop new drugs would quickly disappear (unless someone can offer a reason why anyone would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a new drug knowing you would never be able to recoup your costs). There are any number of examples of products that require high-cost R&D that should be protected by patents to motivate companies to spend the money to develop such products in the future.
As for the problem of screwing people who thought of ideas independently, that is just another balancing act. Sure, it would be great if we could come up with some certain way of proving that someone developed an idea independently from others. But do you have any idea how difficult this would be to implement? The problem is with burdens of proof. How on earth could the initial patent filer prove that someone else who supposedly came up with the exact same idea didn't copy it from the pbublished patent? You would have to find a smoking gun (e.g. some internal memo saying "let's steal this idea"). Sure, a few people who truly independently develop products would benefit. But I suspect you would have many more instances of people stealing previously published ideas. If you put the burden on the alleged infringer, you would essentially require them to prove a negative. The only thing that is guaranteed to result from whichever avenue you choose is an insane amount of litigation.
As for the problem of screwing people who may have thought of the idea first but didn't patent it, Congress used a phrase most of us learned on the playground: "you snooze, you lose." That made sense to me when I was six and it still makes sense now.
I hadn't heard of this tech until your post. However, a quick google search shows that the technology was in a very early development in the early to mid 90s. However, it would appear to be far from "disappeared."
Autoweb Article
New Cars article
Fule Cell Today Article
I am a bit unfamiliar with how dangerous liquid hydrogen is compared with gasoline. I seem to recall that this perceived danger is one reason why solid fuel cells are such a popular pursuit (however, this could just be catering to irrational popular hysteria).
Of course it will get funding. ADM makes big oil look like a bunch of neophites when it comes to political lobbying. Just take a look at the latest farm bill.
There are some decent boots you can buy in Hong Kong (I ordered the entire trilogy online for about $25 delivered). There's a big thread in the forums at Dvdtalk.com that goes over the quality of all of the popular bootleg versions out there for sale. The ones I ordered are clearly ripped from the Laserdisc and look very good on a standard definition TV. However, they are completely unwatchable on a high definition set (Everything looks very blocky). I ended up giving them to my neighbor after I got my high def set.
Aren't you talking about a standard definition set up, and not the new high def set up?
WHile this sort of response does show that OCZ is unwilling to pass the buck (a very admirable quality), one would hope that any halfway decent operation would know enough about applied sampling techniques to avoid this sort of problem in the first place. It almost sounds like they did an initial testing (that resulted in the 25/70 figures) and then testing after the article came out, with nothing in the interim. A good sized product run requires a surprisingly small amount of sampling to uncover a significant defect in a single measureable product quality (e.g. silver content). Hopefully they won't be as sloppy when sending out the replacements.
Stephen Baxter's Manifold group of books (I believe three in all) is good hard sci-fi. Generally, they all involve fairly sweeping concepts about the progress of mankind and the evolution of the universe over billions of years. Essentially, he comes up with some story to wrap around various theories about how the universe works. For the most part, these stories work (aren't so hokey that they distract from the science). Sometimes, however, his stories (especially when they relate to contemporary US society and politics) are distracting.
What you're proposing is choosing between getting an F (for cheating) or getting a C or D (for being a idiot who can't spell).
I think the parent was referring to a practice of the credit card company itself, not the merchant with whom the card user is doing business. I believe that Discover would give a cash rebate of a certain percent each month. This had nothing to do with the price charged by the retailer. Similarly, my GM card gives me a 5% credit towards the purchase of any GM car, which is a great deal since there are no annual fees and I pay off my balance every month. Now if I could only pay my mortgage with my GM card.
I think the parent was referring to actual units the Consumer Reports reviews. For example, when they review a car, they actually send someone out to a dealership to purchase a vehicle.
However, when it comes to reports on customer satisfaction and repair records, you comment is accurate in that only volunteers respond to their surveys.
You have your standards of proof mixed up. Generally (about 99% of the time), the standard of proof required to prevail in civil cases in "preponderance of the evidence," not "beyuond a reasonable doubt." Although this is a gross simplification, in lay terms this is sort of like the difference between 51% and 99.9%. So if SCO can present a convincing case, IBM may have to do much more than simply cast some doubt on the matter.
However, you make another valid point. Courts frown upon plaintiffs who bring wild claims without presenting any proof on their own, and instead try to make the defendant prove that the claim is false. Such fishing expeditions can, if really blatant, result in significant penalties (typically attorneys fees awarded to the prevailing side).
No, I work for a mid-sized firm (which in the PDX area means about 20 or so attorneys). However, once we hit seven billable hours in any given day, the FTKUs (Fungible Time Keeping Units) are generally allowed to goof around a little.
Way offtopic, but something to think about if you consider becoming an attorney . . .
Every once in awhile I run into someone who graduated from law school and, for some unknown reason decided to take up writing, or start a new business, or something else that has nothing to do with law. Despite my favorable experiences practicing law for the past six years, whenever I run into one of these people, I have this disturbing feeling that I'm talking to someone who managed to resist a great and horrible temptation and do something meaningful and worthwhile with their lives. I'm not quite sure what to make of this. The closest analogy (because we lawyers only think in analogies) is that it is like those moments of lucidity that senile elderly people sometimes have, when they suddenly remember everything and don't demonstrate the symptoms of memory loss. Perhaps I'm remembering that I once had a well anchored perception of common sense, decency, and respect for my fellow man.
oh well, gotta get back to writing that brief.
Notice the GP said "Federal judges." I have met a large number of judges, both state and federal, and have seen a huge difference in the quality of analysis between the two. Yes, there are some idiotic federal judges, just as there are some brilliant state judges. But as a group, federal judges outshine their state counterparts by a wide margin.