No one is arguing for MPEG eliminationism and if they are, they're idiots. The argument is that HTML5 should list WebM as a base codec that everyone must support. The reasoning is that as long as you provide a WebM version, you're guaranteed that all users can view it. If you want to have an H.264 version or whatever other codec that's fine, but the standard should specify that everyone at least supports WebM.
The reason for not using H.264 as the common codec that everyone should support is due to the W3C's own rules that nothing in the spec should require patent licensing in order to implement or ship.
Let's see: Firefox version 3.6 has been downloaded 396,351,549 times since january 31, 2010. Now that's ONLY version 3.6 and only from firefox's website, not counting any of the hundreds of other places you can get it. So when you count all the versions of Firefox and downloads per year, it's pretty much guaranteed that Mozilla would have to pay.
Actually, the lab notes would not be prior art, as prior art is only counted by disclosing and publishing. Lab notes are not publishing. Thus regardless who actually invented it first, whoever ran to the USPTO would get the patent. Either that, or you'd have the exact same long running court battle over whether the lab notes or publication or whatever had actually been released before the patent was filed for. You'd still have to prove dates to establish whether the prior art was really prior. I don't see how first-to-file does anything but make it easier for someone to claim they invented something as long as they get the application in first.
That's what I was assuming I would get, I was hoping to get something like that so I could shoot it down, etc. I can't speak for every industry, but at the very least in the fast moving technology industry patents are only used to stifle competition which in turn stifles innovation. Which, of course, means that they are used for their exact opposite intended purpose.
How does it remove the opportunity? It gives more opportunity. If you have a small open source project that cannot afford a Patent, someone could simply patent your invention out from under you after inventing it and releasing the source doe.
Can you back this up with examples from the law? It could just as easily result in someone who invents something and doesn't file a patent having to pay someone who copies and files first.
Look at the fast innovation and rapidly changing fashion industry, that is what happens when there are no patents to prevent innovation.
In fact, patents only serve to hinder innovation under the guise of promoting it. Perhaps at one point they served their purpose of promoting science and arts, but Patents have done nothing but inhibit innovation in most cases for a long time.
Please give an example of this, because I can't think of a single example where a lack of patents or IP protection has prevented innovation. In fact, a lack of patents and IP has seemed to result in a proliferation of innovation and IP protection seems to only cause innovation to slow down.
You do realize that Apple has ALSO remote-killed applications and I'm sure that whatever you type into the Safari address bar is sent to Apple, just as everything you type into IE gets sent to Microsoft and everything you type into the Firefox address bar goes to Mozilla. Not saying it's right, but you can't just single Google out for something that pretty much all the companies do.
Job's supposed technical reasons for not allowing Flash were, simply put, bullshit. Flash is no less secure than iOS itself has been. Cracked at every patch and jailbroken due to various bugs. Flash mobile performance at the time was not exceptional, I'll give it that, but it was acceptable. All mobile versions of Flash on touch phones have allowed touch input. As for battery life, Flash video using H.264 is only slightly more battery intensive than watching a video using H.264, in other situations it's similar to playing a graphic intensive game or watching large videos on your mobile device, it's going to use your battery. Anyone who knows what Flash is knows that Flash is far from perfect.
You can go on about mouse-centric, reliability, or battery life. But what it boils down to is that all these supposed technical reasons are reasons that a consumer might weight in their mind when deciding whether or not to install and use Flash. They are not, in any way, reasons to completely prevent a user from installing it of their own volition. If they really want to, it's easy to put a message stating whatever they like before you install it, but still allow the user to install it. The only reason to prevent Flash from being installed is to be monopolistic and Apple trying to snuff Flash out. There is no technical reason to prevent Flash, only to not package it by default.
As for the rest of your post, I agree completely about the blocking. Hell, Microsoft was slapped with an anti-competitive behavior fine because of their treatment of Netscape and bundling of IE. =P
Funny story, when the handset manufacturers fail to release updates for a phone, the Android development community seems to release updates for a large portion of android phones. Despite the manufacturer failing to upgrade to 2.0, 2.1 or 2.2, many Android phones were able to upgrade due to the community releasing Roms and images.
Do you realize that in all of your examples, the term becoming generic happened after the term was trademarked? This situation, the term has become generic BEFORE the trademark was given. Can you give me an example of any of those situations where there was a lawsuit after the term became generic where the trademark was upheld?
Despite the fact that I disagree with you, "app" as an abbreviation for "Application" has been in use before OS X, it doesn't matter whether it was or not. It only matters what it is currently used for. Right now, everyone refers to an "App" as an abbreviation for an Application of any type and since currently it is a generic term trademarking a generic phrase like "App Store" would be the same as trademarking "Bike Store" or "Wheel Store" etc. It's too generic.
You do realize that you completely missed the point right? In the context of Gui elements, windows was the term for the rectangle on the screen containing the application. However, in the context of an Operating System (not Gui Elements) there is no generic Windows, only the microsoft Operating System product which is named Windows. There is no generic term Windows when speaking about Operating Systems, if you are talking about them and say Windows, everyone knows what you are talking about.
If you say "App Store" do you think people will instantly think of Apple's App Store, or do you think that they will think App Stores in general? Can someone tell you're talking about Apple's App Store without any clues other than the words App Store?
Apple used the term windows before Microsoft created Windows, that is true. However Apple was talking about Gui Elements, there was no product or operating system named Windows that would be trademarked. This is why using windows talking about Gui Elements does not infringe on the trademark. However, App Store is a generic phrase which represents the specific thing they are trying to trademark it for. Since the general public sees an App Store as any store that sells applications, rather than just Apple's Store, then it is too generic to be trademarked.
considering that the Achievements don't do anything other than give you bragging rights, it is not a valid reason to enforce online components for single-player. There are many many ways to make it work. Whether you can only get achievements if you are online, but can still play without or whatever.
Either you don't have single player, or you need to be online to play.
Why does single player matter at all? If they want to cheat at single player, go let them. It's their loss, or it can add a whole new dimension of fun to the game. There is never any reason to require being online for single player modes.
Most of their revenue is attributed to the search box revenue. Thus when you subtract running costs and salaries, then consider they are a non-profit organization. I doubt they could make room for a recurring yearly $6.5 million license. If it were only a single one time payment that's one thing, not yearly.
Actually, I believe the intention is that it's impossible to broadcast something with effective DRM that would prevent copying. Which, currently, is reality. In fact, until the broadcaster can shut off the outputs of your device (which unfortunately seems to be happening soon) it is impossible to effectively broadcast with DRM because you can simply copy the output to your TV or from your TV.
If mozilla includes an H.264 decoder with Firefox, they'd be paying the capped $6.5 Million per year, which I assure you is certainly not within the budget of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation.
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No one is arguing for MPEG eliminationism and if they are, they're idiots. The argument is that HTML5 should list WebM as a base codec that everyone must support. The reasoning is that as long as you provide a WebM version, you're guaranteed that all users can view it. If you want to have an H.264 version or whatever other codec that's fine, but the standard should specify that everyone at least supports WebM.
The reason for not using H.264 as the common codec that everyone should support is due to the W3C's own rules that nothing in the spec should require patent licensing in order to implement or ship.
Let's see: Firefox version 3.6 has been downloaded 396,351,549 times since january 31, 2010. Now that's ONLY version 3.6 and only from firefox's website, not counting any of the hundreds of other places you can get it. So when you count all the versions of Firefox and downloads per year, it's pretty much guaranteed that Mozilla would have to pay.
Actually, the lab notes would not be prior art, as prior art is only counted by disclosing and publishing. Lab notes are not publishing. Thus regardless who actually invented it first, whoever ran to the USPTO would get the patent. Either that, or you'd have the exact same long running court battle over whether the lab notes or publication or whatever had actually been released before the patent was filed for. You'd still have to prove dates to establish whether the prior art was really prior. I don't see how first-to-file does anything but make it easier for someone to claim they invented something as long as they get the application in first.
That's what I was assuming I would get, I was hoping to get something like that so I could shoot it down, etc. I can't speak for every industry, but at the very least in the fast moving technology industry patents are only used to stifle competition which in turn stifles innovation. Which, of course, means that they are used for their exact opposite intended purpose.
You assume that everyone who ever comes up with something novel has the thousands of dollars necessary to get a patent on it.
How does it remove the opportunity? It gives more opportunity. If you have a small open source project that cannot afford a Patent, someone could simply patent your invention out from under you after inventing it and releasing the source doe.
Can you back this up with examples from the law? It could just as easily result in someone who invents something and doesn't file a patent having to pay someone who copies and files first.
Look at the fast innovation and rapidly changing fashion industry, that is what happens when there are no patents to prevent innovation.
In fact, patents only serve to hinder innovation under the guise of promoting it. Perhaps at one point they served their purpose of promoting science and arts, but Patents have done nothing but inhibit innovation in most cases for a long time.
Please give an example of this, because I can't think of a single example where a lack of patents or IP protection has prevented innovation. In fact, a lack of patents and IP has seemed to result in a proliferation of innovation and IP protection seems to only cause innovation to slow down.
Actually, it IS the Democratic Party
Democrat is just a shortened form.
does this count as a derivative work?
You do realize that Apple has ALSO remote-killed applications and I'm sure that whatever you type into the Safari address bar is sent to Apple, just as everything you type into IE gets sent to Microsoft and everything you type into the Firefox address bar goes to Mozilla. Not saying it's right, but you can't just single Google out for something that pretty much all the companies do.
Job's supposed technical reasons for not allowing Flash were, simply put, bullshit. Flash is no less secure than iOS itself has been. Cracked at every patch and jailbroken due to various bugs. Flash mobile performance at the time was not exceptional, I'll give it that, but it was acceptable. All mobile versions of Flash on touch phones have allowed touch input. As for battery life, Flash video using H.264 is only slightly more battery intensive than watching a video using H.264, in other situations it's similar to playing a graphic intensive game or watching large videos on your mobile device, it's going to use your battery. Anyone who knows what Flash is knows that Flash is far from perfect.
You can go on about mouse-centric, reliability, or battery life. But what it boils down to is that all these supposed technical reasons are reasons that a consumer might weight in their mind when deciding whether or not to install and use Flash. They are not, in any way, reasons to completely prevent a user from installing it of their own volition. If they really want to, it's easy to put a message stating whatever they like before you install it, but still allow the user to install it. The only reason to prevent Flash from being installed is to be monopolistic and Apple trying to snuff Flash out. There is no technical reason to prevent Flash, only to not package it by default.
As for the rest of your post, I agree completely about the blocking. Hell, Microsoft was slapped with an anti-competitive behavior fine because of their treatment of Netscape and bundling of IE. =P
Funny story, when the handset manufacturers fail to release updates for a phone, the Android development community seems to release updates for a large portion of android phones. Despite the manufacturer failing to upgrade to 2.0, 2.1 or 2.2, many Android phones were able to upgrade due to the community releasing Roms and images.
Do you realize that in all of your examples, the term becoming generic happened after the term was trademarked? This situation, the term has become generic BEFORE the trademark was given. Can you give me an example of any of those situations where there was a lawsuit after the term became generic where the trademark was upheld?
Despite the fact that I disagree with you, "app" as an abbreviation for "Application" has been in use before OS X, it doesn't matter whether it was or not. It only matters what it is currently used for. Right now, everyone refers to an "App" as an abbreviation for an Application of any type and since currently it is a generic term trademarking a generic phrase like "App Store" would be the same as trademarking "Bike Store" or "Wheel Store" etc. It's too generic.
You do realize that you completely missed the point right? In the context of Gui elements, windows was the term for the rectangle on the screen containing the application. However, in the context of an Operating System (not Gui Elements) there is no generic Windows, only the microsoft Operating System product which is named Windows. There is no generic term Windows when speaking about Operating Systems, if you are talking about them and say Windows, everyone knows what you are talking about.
If you say "App Store" do you think people will instantly think of Apple's App Store, or do you think that they will think App Stores in general? Can someone tell you're talking about Apple's App Store without any clues other than the words App Store?
But Apple's point is wrong.
Apple used the term windows before Microsoft created Windows, that is true. However Apple was talking about Gui Elements, there was no product or operating system named Windows that would be trademarked. This is why using windows talking about Gui Elements does not infringe on the trademark. However, App Store is a generic phrase which represents the specific thing they are trying to trademark it for. Since the general public sees an App Store as any store that sells applications, rather than just Apple's Store, then it is too generic to be trademarked.
considering that the Achievements don't do anything other than give you bragging rights, it is not a valid reason to enforce online components for single-player. There are many many ways to make it work. Whether you can only get achievements if you are online, but can still play without or whatever.
Either you don't have single player, or you need to be online to play.
Why does single player matter at all? If they want to cheat at single player, go let them. It's their loss, or it can add a whole new dimension of fun to the game. There is never any reason to require being online for single player modes.
Please explain how the government providing access to the internet but prohibiting accessing only these specific sites is not prohibiting speech.
Please also explain how prohibiting the public from accessing the speech is not the same as prohibiting the speech itself.
I think you can do this in less than a 500 word essay, I expect it by the end of the week. Good luck!
Most of their revenue is attributed to the search box revenue. Thus when you subtract running costs and salaries, then consider they are a non-profit organization. I doubt they could make room for a recurring yearly $6.5 million license. If it were only a single one time payment that's one thing, not yearly.
Actually, I believe the intention is that it's impossible to broadcast something with effective DRM that would prevent copying. Which, currently, is reality. In fact, until the broadcaster can shut off the outputs of your device (which unfortunately seems to be happening soon) it is impossible to effectively broadcast with DRM because you can simply copy the output to your TV or from your TV.
If mozilla includes an H.264 decoder with Firefox, they'd be paying the capped $6.5 Million per year, which I assure you is certainly not within the budget of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation.
Actually a significant portion of users of Firefox and Chrome are NOT on Windows...