What does this have to do with anything? Are you implying that the union workers are "paid enough" because they are in the union? Or that the union will protect them is the movie industry starts making less movies, and therefore needs less stunt men or key grips?
"There is no righteous cause in the MPAA minds. Their only cause is for $."
Good. They are there to make money, and to increase the value of their shareholders' investments, not to provide entertaining fare to those who are not prepared to pay for it. Any corporation that doesn't put making money first is not doing its job.
"IANAL, but doesn't this amount to "selective enforcement" of a copyright? I thought that the idea was that if you have only go after some people infringing your rights, but knowingly ignore others, especially for arbitrary reason, doesn't that potentially void your copyright?"
No, it does not void your copyright. You can have a hundred infringers, and choose to only go after the one with deep pockets, and that will have no impact on you copyright.
However, if you let someone infringe long enough, you COULD lose the right to stop them from infringing -- this is a concept known as laches, and basically means you have to sue someone fairly soon after you realize you need to sue them, or don't sue them at all. But even if you are banned from suin one infringer because of laches, you can still sue the next guy, even if he is doing the exact same thing, as long as he doesn't have a laches defense himself.
Trademarks, on the other hand, those you pretty much have to sue everybody on, or you could lose your mark. But patents and copyrights, you don't ever have to enforce them if you don't want to -- but they still won't go away unless you deliberately give them up or they expire.
"what if I purchased (or rented) a movie, and invited 50 friends to see it?"
Then you would be violating the copyright holder's right to control the public performance of their work, 17 U.S.C. 106(4), and liable for copyright infringement.
"They dont get that we have decided the billions they have made is enough already, and the rest of the world is going to watch the damn movie for free whether they like it or not."
Who's we? And why are "the billions" enough? Why not a hundred million. or even ten million? When is enough reached? Who gets to decide? If "we" decide that you should make no more than, say , $10,000 a year, that's okay with you, because "we" decided that that's enough and the rest of the world should be able to benefit from your labor for free, whether you like it or not?
"They should adjust their business model to one which better fits the current technological landscape."
Why should they have to adjust their business model? It's THEIR business model, not yours. Presumably, if they couldn't make money with their current business model, they would change it.
And why shouldn't they use laws and lawsuits -- everybody else does. If a supermarket is subject to a lot of shoplifting, do we expect them to "change their business model" to adjust to a "current shopping landscape?" Of course not -- we let them enforce the shoplifting and theft laws, maybe we even get new laws put into place. Presumably if the supermarket STILL couldn't make money, they would either a)change their business model, b)close up shop, or c)move somewhere else where they could make money.
Not an exact analogy, I agree. But the consumers don't have the power to tell a seller how they should "change their business model" except in two ways -- lobby for changes in the laws that allow the businesses to maintain profitability even in the face of changing times, or boycott the services or products.
Now maybe in Soviet Union, business model adjusts to consumers...
"Such as, for example, targeting theater runs as their primary revenue stream and adding value APART FROM the digital content to their purchase offerings."
Maybe it's more profitable for the movie houses to target theaters AND DVD's equally -- why should they have to choose one or the other, just because you (and others) don't want to pay for either? Maybe fast food restaurants should focus on dine-in customers, and fancy packaging and advertising for their food, and make the dine-in parts of their restaurants really stylish, and then let the drive-through people eat free.
And besides, would you be willing to go out and buy the "concept art" and "production notes" and "decorative cases" after you've already obtained the movie for free? Beyond that even, why should they have to provide "added value" to something in order to sell it? Does a car dealership need to add "something extra" in order to sell trade-ins? Maybe the car dealership should concentrate on new cars as their primary revenue stream, and used cars should be given away, unless the dealer adds some value, perhaps via an undercoating process or scotch-gaurding the interior or something.
"Of course people will pay for it. We learned this lesson already from the whole "OMG VCR's will destroy the industry" lie a while back."
Well, what we didn't learn from the VCR days is that if every VCR had been able to make many, many, many perfect duplicate copies of any tape and allow for near-instantaneous worldwide distribution of those copies, whether that would have destroyed the industry or not.
I know these analogies and such are a bit 'extreme' and not completely accurate (BEST HYPERBOLE EVER!), but I guess I just don't understand this notion that it is somehow "okay" to use illegal means to drive a legitimate enterprise in a certain direction, with the promise that the illegal activity will stop once the enterprise gets there. It's like speeding -- everyone says "hey, everyone speeds, if you raise the speed limits to something reasonable, we'll all be happy." Speed limits went from 55 to 65 to 70, now everyone in CA drives 80 or 90...
"This is the Internet equivilent of a speeding ticket, the damages should be at that level."
Like an American speeding ticket, where it's a couple of hundred bucks, or like a Swedish speeding ticket, where it is some percentage of your income?
Maybe you could do a hybrid -- a couple of hundred bucks, then multiply by the percentage of your bandwidth usage that is used to download movies or something...[/sarcasm]
Every music CD I own has a bunch of files on it that can be played with WMP. My computer has a DVD player that can -- get this -- play the DVD's that I own!
iTunes, KaZaa and BitTorrent are not the only ways to obtain media...
"Most people use a VCR not for time shifting but to create their own video library of recorded shows."
But that IS time shifting, at least that's what the court in Sony said, and therefore a fair use. Recording something now to watch later is exactly what time shifting is. The problem with the P2P guys is not "time shifting" but distribution.
"When does the scale change something from legal to illegal anyway? Stealing 5 dollars and stealing 5 million dollars are both crimes. When does non-liability for selling a device with non-infringing uses on the small scale become liabilty for selling a more capable device with non-infringing uses on the large scale?"
The law isn't binary like this -- if you steal $5, it's petty theft, you won't get nay jail time for that. If you steal $5e6, well, then that's grand theft, and it's a felony, and you'll likely do time (you'll do life if you have 2 other previous "strikes" in CA). Another example: killing another person is illegal. You may have a defense -- self defense, for example -- or they may charge the crime different depending on what exactly you did and what your frame of mind was -- involuntary manslaughter if you did something careless, up to murder one for a premeditated act.
Even in copyright law, the criminal penalties don't kick in until you've got a) the right "intent" (willfulness), b) commercial gain, and c) the commercial gain has to be over a certain threshold. So, if you don't meet those factors, you can't be charged with criminal infringement.
Even "fair use" is a sliding scale -- if you borrow just a teeny bit, even if you use it for commercial gain it might be fair use. If you borrow a lot (or all of it), even if it is for an educational use, it might not be a fair use.
These sorts of sliding scales and cutoffs are quite common in the law, and there is no reason that the courts could not potentially say, for example, if you can make one copy at a time (like a VCR) its fair use, and if you make more than one copy at a time, its not a fair use. Or, in this case, if a VCR has infringing and noninfringing uses, but the noninfringing uses make up 75% of the uses that's cool, but for Grokster, even though it has way MORE noninfringing uses than infringing uses, but infringing uses make up 95% of the actual uses, then it is not cool.
In fact, that's probably how this will all shake out. I predict that in the future, you'll not only have to show substantial non-infringing uses (like in the Betamax case), you'll also have to show that the non-infringing uses are actually the PRIMARY use of the product -- so Grokster or Bittorrent or whoever would not only have to show noninfringing uses, but that the noninfringing users were in the majority...
"Mixtures certainly are patentable so long as you can show they have novel properties."
Is 'light, crisp, refreshing' taste (I'm looking at a diet Pepsi can here) a novel property?
I guess I should have been more clear -- maybe you could, in principle, patent a soda recipe -- but how would you show that it has novel properties (beyond what you would expect a soda to have) and that it was nonobvious to one "skilled in the art?"
"Just because something isn't patented doesn't mean it can't be."
"To the best of my knowledge, the only person known to have successfully learned something from patents was Einstein."
Go look at a U.S. patent, any one, and look under the section called "references cited" -- there you will see a bunch of other patents that the current patent is "built upon."
I guess you could be cynical and say that those references are only listed so that the patent owner can later avoid an inequitable conduct charge, and to basically take those patents out of contention in the case someone tries to prove invalidity, but come on. Nobody develops anything from first principles -- everything is built upon something else. And patents, being public record, are just another starting point.
"But if you look at his best work, you look at the thought experiments, the observations of the ordinary, the stuff that is simply not ownable. THAT is where Real Science and Real R&D takes place."
True enough, if you limit the definition of "real science" to the purely theoretical sciences.
At least in the U.S., intent is not a factor in copyright infringement, except as a mitigating factor in determing the damages imposed, and even then only in certain cases.
I realize the perp is in Hong Kong. I thought that it might be a useful tidbit of info to outline what U.S. law says about this. That's why I prefaced my remark by saying "Under U.S. copyright law."
However, I guess my thought was wrong. I am so sorry.
But hey, at least I learned that I am a douche bag, so it wasn't a complete waste of time...
Judge: This is your computer, right? You: Yes. Judge: Then you are repsonsible. You: But your honor, it wasn't me, it was my roommate! I was asleep the whole time! Judge: Roommate, did you do this? Roommate: Your honor, I cannot tell a lie. It wasn't me. Judge, So, you, do you have any PROOF that it was your roommate? Since it was your computer, the presumption is that you are reponsible, and it is your burden to PROVE that is was your roommate and not you. You: But your honor, I just told you... Judge: SILENCE! If all I have is your word against his, he wins, because YOU have the burden of proof. Bailiff, lock this man in irons! You: You haven't heard the last of me yet...
"How are they going to prove he "distributed" the movie if he is only serving chunks out piecemeal to various clients?"
Under U.S. copyright law, you don't have to actually prove that distribution occured -- it is generally sufficient to make a copyrighted work available for distribution. You don't have to prove that anyone downloaded the file -- simply making it available on Kazaa or whatever is sufficient. There's a case on this, Playboy v. Chuckleberry or Playbou v. Harbough, or one of the Playboy v. someone cases that raised this point.
"The only legal questions are whether this constitutes entrapment. If it does the pirates win and copyright law is broken. If it doesn't then the RIAA/MPAA/whoever wins and copyright law is safe. "
DISCLAIMER: What follows is based on U.S. law. If you are not in the U.S., your laws can and will vary.
Well, legally, it probably wouldn't be entrapment. Entrapment is actually an incredibly narrow issue -- basically, you have to enticed into doing something you would not normally do. So, if you are looking to buy pot, and but from an undercover cop, that's not entrapment, because you were going to buy the pot any -- the cop didn't entice you into doing something you wouldn't otherwise do.
If you were searching for illegal materials online, and a server gave them to you then ratted you out, again, that wouldn't be entrapment, because you were looking for the illegal stuff.
I guess if you were honestly an "innocent infringer" then maybe this would hold up, but "innocent infringer" can be pretty tough to prove, and is not even allowed as a defense if the copyright is registered, as all movies are.
So, what would entrapment be? If an undercover cop gave you a birthday present, which you didn't like so you regifted, and then the cop arrested you for trafficking in stolen goods, becausew the gift he gave you was originally stolen, well, that's the kind of thing that is entrapment under the legal standards. Virtually none of the things that people usually think of as entrapment -- dope buys from undercover cops, cops posing as hookers, speed traps, etc. -- are legally entrapment.
$20K is on the high side for, say, and electrical or software patent, probably mid-range for biotech. Of course, if you end up with a lot of back-and-forth prosecution, that jacks the costs up.
You can't just send in an application and get a patent -- but it's pretty close. If you send in an application and ask the examiner to write the claims for you (which you can do if you are prosecuting an application yourself, and you are not a registered agent or attorney), and the subject matter is otherwise patentable (proper matter, not anticipated or obvious), then you are all but guaranteed a patent. The only office action you'll need to respond to is an ammendment to add the examiner's claims into your application.
And that sort of patent would only cost filing fees. May not be worth much in litigation, but you'll have a patent...
"Oh, I know. But the issue is that it's accepted... and it was brought up at the last minute, on my starting day, not when they made the job offer. And well, when you're a few months past graduation, just move out and get an apartment, and student loans are coming due, it's pretty tough to walk away based on moral principle."
I understand completely. But if you look at this from a purely rational economic standpoint, you made the rational decision -- perhaps subconciously -- that your "moral principles" (hanging on to any IP you develop) was worth less (to you) than a regular paycheck from your employer. If you valued your "moral principles" more than you valued what they were willing to pay you, then you would not have accepted the job.
You can obtain a patent for just the filing costs by writing it yourself -- the USPTO will even help you write it. It probably won't be as broad as a patent you get by having an experienced practitioner draft it for you, but you'll have a patent.
Sure, getting a patent may cost $20,000 -- $30,000 if you are talking about some exotic biotech invention, and you have a top law firm do the patent for you -- but there are a lot of solo patent attorneys (and patent agents) who can do most types of patents for way less money. It may still cost a couple of grand for an agent to get you a patent on a relatively non-complex invention, but that's well within the range of many solo and small inventors.
Further, if you have a good, solid patent, there are a number of law firms that will take plaintiff-side patent infringement cases on contingency, so you don't even necessarily have to have big bucks to enforce your patent.
Now, sometimes you get what you pay for -- but big-$$$ law firms sometimes screw up and produce a bad patent, and oftentimes solo practitioners can do an excellent job for a lot less cost (a lot of solos are former big-firm practitioners who got tired of sharing the wealth).
It may seem like patents are only for the big guys, but that is not really true.
I posted this above under another thread, but just for completeness, simply using another's name is not legal identity theft -- legal identity theft requires the use of another's name along with that person's "personal infromation" (SSN, DL number, etc., but not address or phone number).
Slashdot Mirror
"ignoring the fact they're union workers)"
What does this have to do with anything? Are you implying that the union workers are "paid enough" because they are in the union? Or that the union will protect them is the movie industry starts making less movies, and therefore needs less stunt men or key grips?
"There is no righteous cause in the MPAA minds. Their only cause is for $."
Good. They are there to make money, and to increase the value of their shareholders' investments, not to provide entertaining fare to those who are not prepared to pay for it. Any corporation that doesn't put making money first is not doing its job.
"IANAL, but doesn't this amount to "selective enforcement" of a copyright? I thought that the idea was that if you have only go after some people infringing your rights, but knowingly ignore others, especially for arbitrary reason, doesn't that potentially void your copyright?"
No, it does not void your copyright. You can have a hundred infringers, and choose to only go after the one with deep pockets, and that will have no impact on you copyright.
However, if you let someone infringe long enough, you COULD lose the right to stop them from infringing -- this is a concept known as laches, and basically means you have to sue someone fairly soon after you realize you need to sue them, or don't sue them at all. But even if you are banned from suin one infringer because of laches, you can still sue the next guy, even if he is doing the exact same thing, as long as he doesn't have a laches defense himself.
Trademarks, on the other hand, those you pretty much have to sue everybody on, or you could lose your mark. But patents and copyrights, you don't ever have to enforce them if you don't want to -- but they still won't go away unless you deliberately give them up or they expire.
"what if I purchased (or rented) a movie, and invited 50 friends to see it?"
Then you would be violating the copyright holder's right to control the public performance of their work, 17 U.S.C. 106(4), and liable for copyright infringement.
"They dont get that we have decided the billions they have made is enough already, and the rest of the world is going to watch the damn movie for free whether they like it or not."
Who's we? And why are "the billions" enough? Why not a hundred million. or even ten million? When is enough reached? Who gets to decide? If "we" decide that you should make no more than, say , $10,000 a year, that's okay with you, because "we" decided that that's enough and the rest of the world should be able to benefit from your labor for free, whether you like it or not?
"They should adjust their business model to one which better fits the current technological landscape."
Why should they have to adjust their business model? It's THEIR business model, not yours. Presumably, if they couldn't make money with their current business model, they would change it.
And why shouldn't they use laws and lawsuits -- everybody else does. If a supermarket is subject to a lot of shoplifting, do we expect them to "change their business model" to adjust to a "current shopping landscape?" Of course not -- we let them enforce the shoplifting and theft laws, maybe we even get new laws put into place. Presumably if the supermarket STILL couldn't make money, they would either a)change their business model, b)close up shop, or c)move somewhere else where they could make money.
Not an exact analogy, I agree. But the consumers don't have the power to tell a seller how they should "change their business model" except in two ways -- lobby for changes in the laws that allow the businesses to maintain profitability even in the face of changing times, or boycott the services or products.
Now maybe in Soviet Union, business model adjusts to consumers...
"Such as, for example, targeting theater runs as their primary revenue stream and adding value APART FROM the digital content to their purchase offerings."
Maybe it's more profitable for the movie houses to target theaters AND DVD's equally -- why should they have to choose one or the other, just because you (and others) don't want to pay for either? Maybe fast food restaurants should focus on dine-in customers, and fancy packaging and advertising for their food, and make the dine-in parts of their restaurants really stylish, and then let the drive-through people eat free.
And besides, would you be willing to go out and buy the "concept art" and "production notes" and "decorative cases" after you've already obtained the movie for free? Beyond that even, why should they have to provide "added value" to something in order to sell it? Does a car dealership need to add "something extra" in order to sell trade-ins? Maybe the car dealership should concentrate on new cars as their primary revenue stream, and used cars should be given away, unless the dealer adds some value, perhaps via an undercoating process or scotch-gaurding the interior or something.
"Of course people will pay for it. We learned this lesson already from the whole "OMG VCR's will destroy the industry" lie a while back."
Well, what we didn't learn from the VCR days is that if every VCR had been able to make many, many, many perfect duplicate copies of any tape and allow for near-instantaneous worldwide distribution of those copies, whether that would have destroyed the industry or not.
I know these analogies and such are a bit 'extreme' and not completely accurate (BEST HYPERBOLE EVER!), but I guess I just don't understand this notion that it is somehow "okay" to use illegal means to drive a legitimate enterprise in a certain direction, with the promise that the illegal activity will stop once the enterprise gets there. It's like speeding -- everyone says "hey, everyone speeds, if you raise the speed limits to something reasonable, we'll all be happy." Speed limits went from 55 to 65 to 70, now everyone in CA drives 80 or 90...
"This is the Internet equivilent of a speeding ticket, the damages should be at that level."
Like an American speeding ticket, where it's a couple of hundred bucks, or like a Swedish speeding ticket, where it is some percentage of your income?
Maybe you could do a hybrid -- a couple of hundred bucks, then multiply by the percentage of your bandwidth usage that is used to download movies or something...[/sarcasm]
"We should implement a system that really rewards creators and without these silly monopolies."
And what system would that be?
Every music CD I own has a bunch of files on it that can be played with WMP. My computer has a DVD player that can -- get this -- play the DVD's that I own!
iTunes, KaZaa and BitTorrent are not the only ways to obtain media...
"Most people use a VCR not for time shifting but to create their own video library of recorded shows."
But that IS time shifting, at least that's what the court in Sony said, and therefore a fair use. Recording something now to watch later is exactly what time shifting is. The problem with the P2P guys is not "time shifting" but distribution.
"When does the scale change something from legal to illegal anyway? Stealing 5 dollars and stealing 5 million dollars are both crimes. When does non-liability for selling a device with non-infringing uses on the small scale become liabilty for selling a more capable device with non-infringing uses on the large scale?"
The law isn't binary like this -- if you steal $5, it's petty theft, you won't get nay jail time for that. If you steal $5e6, well, then that's grand theft, and it's a felony, and you'll likely do time (you'll do life if you have 2 other previous "strikes" in CA). Another example: killing another person is illegal. You may have a defense -- self defense, for example -- or they may charge the crime different depending on what exactly you did and what your frame of mind was -- involuntary manslaughter if you did something careless, up to murder one for a premeditated act.
Even in copyright law, the criminal penalties don't kick in until you've got a) the right "intent" (willfulness), b) commercial gain, and c) the commercial gain has to be over a certain threshold. So, if you don't meet those factors, you can't be charged with criminal infringement.
Even "fair use" is a sliding scale -- if you borrow just a teeny bit, even if you use it for commercial gain it might be fair use. If you borrow a lot (or all of it), even if it is for an educational use, it might not be a fair use.
These sorts of sliding scales and cutoffs are quite common in the law, and there is no reason that the courts could not potentially say, for example, if you can make one copy at a time (like a VCR) its fair use, and if you make more than one copy at a time, its not a fair use. Or, in this case, if a VCR has infringing and noninfringing uses, but the noninfringing uses make up 75% of the uses that's cool, but for Grokster, even though it has way MORE noninfringing uses than infringing uses, but infringing uses make up 95% of the actual uses, then it is not cool.
In fact, that's probably how this will all shake out. I predict that in the future, you'll not only have to show substantial non-infringing uses (like in the Betamax case), you'll also have to show that the non-infringing uses are actually the PRIMARY use of the product -- so Grokster or Bittorrent or whoever would not only have to show noninfringing uses, but that the noninfringing users were in the majority...
That's my prediction, at least...
"This isn't criminal law, though."
A minor point that most people happen to ignore...
This is an old Sepultura song, isn't it?
"Mixtures certainly are patentable so long as you can show they have novel properties."
Is 'light, crisp, refreshing' taste (I'm looking at a diet Pepsi can here) a novel property?
I guess I should have been more clear -- maybe you could, in principle, patent a soda recipe -- but how would you show that it has novel properties (beyond what you would expect a soda to have) and that it was nonobvious to one "skilled in the art?"
"Just because something isn't patented doesn't mean it can't be."
Very true.
Just a minor point, sodas (or any recipes) are not patentable. The recipe for Coke, for example, is a trade secret, not a patent.
Recipes aren't copyrightable either.
"To the best of my knowledge, the only person known to have successfully learned something from patents was Einstein."
Go look at a U.S. patent, any one, and look under the section called "references cited" -- there you will see a bunch of other patents that the current patent is "built upon."
I guess you could be cynical and say that those references are only listed so that the patent owner can later avoid an inequitable conduct charge, and to basically take those patents out of contention in the case someone tries to prove invalidity, but come on. Nobody develops anything from first principles -- everything is built upon something else. And patents, being public record, are just another starting point.
"But if you look at his best work, you look at the thought experiments, the observations of the ordinary, the stuff that is simply not ownable. THAT is where Real Science and Real R&D takes place."
True enough, if you limit the definition of "real science" to the purely theoretical sciences.
"Obviously, the intent to distribute is missing."
At least in the U.S., intent is not a factor in copyright infringement, except as a mitigating factor in determing the damages imposed, and even then only in certain cases.
I realize the perp is in Hong Kong. I thought that it might be a useful tidbit of info to outline what U.S. law says about this. That's why I prefaced my remark by saying "Under U.S. copyright law."
However, I guess my thought was wrong. I am so sorry.
But hey, at least I learned that I am a douche bag, so it wasn't a complete waste of time...
Judge: This is your computer, right?
You: Yes.
Judge: Then you are repsonsible.
You: But your honor, it wasn't me, it was my roommate! I was asleep the whole time!
Judge: Roommate, did you do this?
Roommate: Your honor, I cannot tell a lie. It wasn't me.
Judge, So, you, do you have any PROOF that it was your roommate? Since it was your computer, the presumption is that you are reponsible, and it is your burden to PROVE that is was your roommate and not you.
You: But your honor, I just told you...
Judge: SILENCE! If all I have is your word against his, he wins, because YOU have the burden of proof. Bailiff, lock this man in irons!
You: You haven't heard the last of me yet...
"How are they going to prove he "distributed" the movie if he is only serving chunks out piecemeal to various clients?"
Under U.S. copyright law, you don't have to actually prove that distribution occured -- it is generally sufficient to make a copyrighted work available for distribution. You don't have to prove that anyone downloaded the file -- simply making it available on Kazaa or whatever is sufficient. There's a case on this, Playboy v. Chuckleberry or Playbou v. Harbough, or one of the Playboy v. someone cases that raised this point.
Sorry about the multiple typos -- should have used the 'preview' button...
"...basically, you have BE to enticed..."
"...and BUY from an undercover cop..."
"...to buy the pot ANYWAY..."
proofread next time...
"The only legal questions are whether this constitutes entrapment. If it does the pirates win and copyright law is broken. If it doesn't then the RIAA/MPAA/whoever wins and copyright law is safe. "
DISCLAIMER: What follows is based on U.S. law. If you are not in the U.S., your laws can and will vary.
Well, legally, it probably wouldn't be entrapment. Entrapment is actually an incredibly narrow issue -- basically, you have to enticed into doing something you would not normally do. So, if you are looking to buy pot, and but from an undercover cop, that's not entrapment, because you were going to buy the pot any -- the cop didn't entice you into doing something you wouldn't otherwise do.
If you were searching for illegal materials online, and a server gave them to you then ratted you out, again, that wouldn't be entrapment, because you were looking for the illegal stuff.
I guess if you were honestly an "innocent infringer" then maybe this would hold up, but "innocent infringer" can be pretty tough to prove, and is not even allowed as a defense if the copyright is registered, as all movies are.
So, what would entrapment be? If an undercover cop gave you a birthday present, which you didn't like so you regifted, and then the cop arrested you for trafficking in stolen goods, becausew the gift he gave you was originally stolen, well, that's the kind of thing that is entrapment under the legal standards. Virtually none of the things that people usually think of as entrapment -- dope buys from undercover cops, cops posing as hookers, speed traps, etc. -- are legally entrapment.
$20K is on the high side for, say, and electrical or software patent, probably mid-range for biotech. Of course, if you end up with a lot of back-and-forth prosecution, that jacks the costs up.
You can't just send in an application and get a patent -- but it's pretty close. If you send in an application and ask the examiner to write the claims for you (which you can do if you are prosecuting an application yourself, and you are not a registered agent or attorney), and the subject matter is otherwise patentable (proper matter, not anticipated or obvious), then you are all but guaranteed a patent. The only office action you'll need to respond to is an ammendment to add the examiner's claims into your application.
And that sort of patent would only cost filing fees. May not be worth much in litigation, but you'll have a patent...
"Oh, I know. But the issue is that it's accepted... and it was brought up at the last minute, on my starting day, not when they made the job offer.
And well, when you're a few months past graduation, just move out and get an apartment, and student loans are coming due, it's pretty tough to walk away based on moral principle."
I understand completely. But if you look at this from a purely rational economic standpoint, you made the rational decision -- perhaps subconciously -- that your "moral principles" (hanging on to any IP you develop) was worth less (to you) than a regular paycheck from your employer. If you valued your "moral principles" more than you valued what they were willing to pay you, then you would not have accepted the job.
You can obtain a patent for just the filing costs by writing it yourself -- the USPTO will even help you write it. It probably won't be as broad as a patent you get by having an experienced practitioner draft it for you, but you'll have a patent.
Sure, getting a patent may cost $20,000 -- $30,000 if you are talking about some exotic biotech invention, and you have a top law firm do the patent for you -- but there are a lot of solo patent attorneys (and patent agents) who can do most types of patents for way less money. It may still cost a couple of grand for an agent to get you a patent on a relatively non-complex invention, but that's well within the range of many solo and small inventors.
Further, if you have a good, solid patent, there are a number of law firms that will take plaintiff-side patent infringement cases on contingency, so you don't even necessarily have to have big bucks to enforce your patent.
Now, sometimes you get what you pay for -- but big-$$$ law firms sometimes screw up and produce a bad patent, and oftentimes solo practitioners can do an excellent job for a lot less cost (a lot of solos are former big-firm practitioners who got tired of sharing the wealth).
It may seem like patents are only for the big guys, but that is not really true.
I posted this above under another thread, but just for completeness, simply using another's name is not legal identity theft -- legal identity theft requires the use of another's name along with that person's "personal infromation" (SSN, DL number, etc., but not address or phone number).