I agree, it is better than nothing. It's a start. It do believe it is very important and the fees mentioned are not prohibitive at all.
I like especially the requirement that the applicant of a business method invention must provide full disclosure to the extent the applicant has searched for prior art.
The other thing I like is how they define obviousness of a computer implemented business method invention:
If the subject matter within the scope of a claim addressed to a business method would be obtained by combining or modifying one or more prior art references, and any of those prior art references disclose a business method which differs from what is claimed in the application only in that the claim requires a computer to implement the invention, the invention is presumed obvious.
This definition with the request to disclose prior art search and the proposal by Carl Malamud to put up a publicly available database for open source code apps for the specific purpose of making existing prior art published, known and easily searchable by ANYONE, would at least be a major step in the right direction.
What I haven't understood yet is, when the public would know for what kind of business method a patent application has been filed for ?
How do you avoid filing an application with just the idea spelled out, without really having coded the application yet ? The applicant knows he has at least 12 months time to do it (during which you could graze and feed yourself with all open source code available and for large companies it is easy to code something within 12 months) and put it in your own code package. I don't think you need to open up the source code of your application to the PTO ? Can someone tell me if this is true ?
If it is true, then I wonder how it ever could be assured that a business method, which is implemented exclusively by software code, is an invention at all, as long open source code software is there, which anyone skilled in the art can cut and paste together to fit the right business idea.
Wouldn't that mean we all should know about any business method patent application filed the day it is filed and a complete source code package
should be provided to the PTO which then would have to examen the actual code ?
But that would mean you patent the code solution and not the business method.
Wouldn't the GPL need some addendum that would prohibit the usage of the open source code in any proprietary software package for which a company tries to get a patent for ? Who would check on that one ?
Doesn't seem to make sense too, but anyway, because the boo-boo has already been made by the PTO, it's better to change the laws than to do nothing. What does it help to be cynical ?
.sig If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes ?
I think a single swipe of your _debit_ card and punching in your PIN is the equivalent:-)
Haven't tried that out, but AFAIK Cybercash or similar payment systems refuse to charge your account automatically, if you don't have money on your account. So, what kind of message do you get back from Amazon's one-lick ordering system, if you one-click order something and your CC credit limit has been reached ? Can't imagine that you wouldn't have to engage in a second click at least. Don't ask me to try it out. I won't.
I like to see valuable URLs mentioned in posts being archived subject wise and been put up online. Like all the URLs which cover facts about the patent and copyright issues discussed here, for example. The same for science stories. You gather quite some knowledge through a couple of very informative posts within the thousands of "comic relief and common sense political stuff posts". It is an opportunity to build a knowledge base with URLs gathered from your poster's comments.
You have a great chance here to build something worthwhile by archiving, catalogueing and subject classifying the material you receive through your posters. This needs to be done by human brains.
Build a yahoo-like subject category tree online and archive URLs from your stories that matter, please. That would help us a lot. Basically it's a similar job a librarian for scientific libraries would do with regards to subject classification of book titles. You could do the same with regard to subject classification of relevant URLs. It's a very difficult job, but one which I think needs to be done.
Digital Convergence's CTO, said he applauds the hackers' ingenuity and 'chuckles' at some of the ideas they have dreamed up.
... because USPTO has granted me yesterday a patent on my dream idea, which will certainly generate a lot more chuckles for DC's CTO... (CTO admit it. That might be the first time you pay license fees and chuckle at the same time, a real innovative second patentable business process of mine... dreaming the impossible... )
Gosh, how could I disclose that in public before getting my second patent granted...if USPTO just
hadn't such a hard time to search for prior art in that case. Hey anybody out there who dreamt of finding a way of generating revenue through license fees while making people chuckle happily ?
It's cheaper to dispute a patent ? Since when ? The only place you can really dispute a patent's validity is in court and that's not cheap. If there would be a cheaper way, Amazon.com's patent would long have been invalidated.
Proving to have prior art after a patent has been granted, is very difficult, because the party, who wants to prove it, has to disclose in detail their own code, whereas the party who has the patent already, does not need to disclose the same details. Just filing prior art at the PTO does nothing to invalidate the patent.
The dilemma is that USPTO can't search for prior art thoroughly enough. It has been suggested to make a public database of prior art. Basically all open source code business applications should go in there.
In the case of Amazon the tactics are very clear.
You file an application as soon as you have the idea (doesn't mean you have already implemented the idea). During the time USPTO is NOT handling your application, you start working on implementing it (i.e. code the solution). When you got the patent granted, you market the business process big time and sue your serious competitors. Then your competitor gets cold feet and agrees to comply and settle out of court.
So, what happens, if the accused competitor doesn't get cold feet ? And there was actually prior art published one year prior to the filing of the patent ?(open source code in the public domain on an ftp server is more than you can ask for in terms of "being published")
The party who has the prior art, can't still release its proof in public, without having the chance of a hearing in court. Only the court can request to open up all the code which has been used for the patented business process. If you want to prove that your own code solution is really prior art, then you have to have to compare both code solutions and have to have both parties' code opened up in detail. But because you actually don't patent the the code itself, only the business process performed by the code, this code comparison will never take place in a regular reinvestigative process at USPTO. At least that is what I learned. So, it must be cleared in court and nowhere else.
What kind of defense then has the party whose patent gets challenged in court ?
a. First, they could try to do anything to avoid the trial and get an out-of-court settlement from the company they attacked. The attacked company must be financially very sound to resist those "bribing" efforts to settle out-of-court. I feared that B&N had already given in.
b. Second, Amazon could try to make it very hard to find proof of implementation of the prior art. (If you think of it, in hindsight it might have been a calculated move from Amazon to buy Alexa,Inc. - I could imagine in their archives you might find implementations of the one-click checkout feature easily - at leatst if they really archived everything since 1996.)
c. Make the granted patent more valid by finding people who pay the license fees for usage of the patented business process. (Apple has cooperated in that one)
I don't know if the overall situation here with the publishing system is that different from the one-click patent situation. It sounds as if it isn't, but that's beyond me to know.
Virtual communities, or whatever else you choose to call them, most definitely exist. I regularly contact at least a hundred, probably a few hundred, people and know them fairly well.
I don't believe you.
No, you don't know them fairly well, you just know some nicknames' thoughts posted at certain times for certain subjects. That's all. If you would actually have met all the persons you think you know well, you would understand that you didn't know anything about them.
How much do you know about an author of a book by reading his novels ?
1. Open source code had been available as early as spring 1996 in publicly downloadable package(CPAN), with which ANYONE SKILLED IN THE ART could OBVIOUSLY customize the checkout feature of a shopping cart system to a one-click ordering and checkout process.
2. It had been implemented. How the hell should the USPTO be aware of a website which had those features implemented for a couple of months, then changed it back, because the customers DIDN'T like it ? (People didn't like it back then for the same reasons you discuss them today, four years later, as if they were new: security, unease of end-users to be lurked into buying by relating too obviously to their compulsiveness and gullibility).
3. Will people, who had implemented the feature before Amazon.com filed for its patent, come forward and CAN they still prove that they HAD implemented it ? Hard to tell. But one thing is sure, the people who know it had been implemented, who know when and by whom, the developers of open source code e-commerce packages and consultants, implementing the e-commerce sites with those packages for their endusers (Attn: THOSE ARE THE ONES SKILLED IN THE ART and it was a very OBVIOUS feature for them and their clients who asked for such implementation of a one-click checkout), those people are put into a dilemma which is BLATANTLY UNETHICAL.
II. Why is it unethical ?
1. As mentioned before, patents were historically given out to do exactly what "Open Source Code" is trying to regain for the computing industry, the possibility to make the "scientific" value of the code public, so that everybody can build upon and increase human knowledge, without loosing R&D costs and reasonable profit for those who "developed a open source code based solutions and invention". It is not the fault of the patent law per se, that it can't protect R&D costs and profits for the developers of open source code based "inventions". It is a case were you apply a law to something which inately can't be protected, because as soon as code is open it is clonable, and becomes unsellable.
Neither legal code, nor digital code (so far), nor our genetic code (which seems to be the originator for our ethical code), can ensure the openess of the code and protection of R&D costs and profits to the developer of the code at the same time.
So, whatever solution is found, it is either the "invention" to make "open source code" unclonable and then sellable, or the introduction of legal code, which would prohibit "closed, proprietary code" altogether. (To wait til we change our genetic code code will take a bit too long...:-))
2. What seems to be unethical to me, is the mere fact, that patent law is used to protect closed code. Closed, proprietary code is protected to regain R&D costs and profits for the developers by its very nature of being closed.
3. To apply the protective measures of a patent upon closed code, which should guarantee the public openess of the code, is not working. In fact the granting of the patent is enhancing the potentital to regain R&D costs and profits to the extent that NO OTHER company can build upon the "matter-of-factly, non-publicly available patented closed code". The patent failed to make the code publicly available and functions as a catalyst in the development of global monopolies, thus overprotecting ONE company and hurting competetive development of other open source code business process solutions.
4. Thus the patent law applied on proprietary code of business processes doesn't do what it is supposed to do according to their own definition.
5. What is even more unethical in the whole situation, is that the patents given out for proprietary code business processes, hurt all those developers, who provide open source code business process solutions. There is no way to prove, that an open source code business process solution was not used in the proprietary code package, which gained patent protection later on. USPTO has no capacity to find all open source code business process solutions ever used on the web. They come and go, get implemented and discarded within weeks and months.
6. On top of that, the most unethical situation arises after the USPTO had granted a patent like that. Because now, any developer who had "donated" (yes !) his code to the public and the thousands of consultants (skilled in the art) and endusers (people who would guarantee the proper regaining and profit making for the developers of that open source code) are in a situation that THEY have to defend THEIR public donatations or THEIR usage of such code for such business process in court.
7. We ARE under the threat to get sued without us having done ANYTHING against the law. Even if it is easy to circumvent a one-click checkout feature (much easier to change your code a bit) than to fight for your rights in court, IT IS NEVERTHELESS WRONG. In my mind it is unacceptable.
III. Why some arguments are "hogwash":-)
1. It has been said that Amazon.com has the obligation to do EVERYTHING to regain R&D costs, because they have to protect the interests of their shareholders. Sure, so does ANY publicly traded company. That has nothing to do with Amazon.com's particular situation. B&N has to do the same thing.
2. In the case Amazon.com shouldn't make enough profits to regain their R&D costs and make reasonable profits, they should blame it on their business model. They didn't HAVE to invest that much money to come up with the code to provide the one-click ordering process. They didn't HAVE to dump prices to unaccpetable levels for any business to survive. They don't HAVE to become the BIGGEST whatever on earth. It's their decision not to focus.
IV. What's the tragedy ?
I think the dilemma is in the open source code business model. AFAIK, it's supposed to work as a service model. So far, all I can see is a potential of massive abuse of good-willed, honest coders, who like to make a normal living with their skills and view computing as a science which MUST be open the way all the other sciences are, or I see a big sell-out of ethical standards to substandard business practices.
Open source coders have no legal, ethical or code-based protection of their work. I don't like that.
Sorry for the long and non-technical post. IANAL, IANAP (programmer), IANANS (native speaker), I am a book lover who likes bazaars of independent bookstores and booksellers.
What are you talking about ? I wanted to be theoretical chemist when I grew up. 22 years later when my drugged off-spring started to pawn my Linux PCs away under my hands, I thought it's time to think about drugs being a big deal. Does denial increase proportionally with your intelligence ?
and saves me of feeling guilty to have read his post...
Re:"Long overdue"? It's been out since 1995!
on
Desire In Cyberspace
·
· Score: 1
and others as well regarding the same subject and published around the same time. Arghh, she made a mistake (how come ?)... not to publish the book online... strange... after that much insight of how to reach whom, where, with what....
Just expect to be sold out, if you sell everything...
Duh, you could do this with Open Source code way back in 1996. Companies tried it out and their customers often didn't like it, because they wanted some sort of a "security" feature, like asking: "Hey are you sure you really want to buy my merchandise ?" Those were the times where buyers still wanted two clicks, because they were smart enough to have second thoughts...and companies had some respect for their thinking customers...:-)
If it recognize the amount of pressure put on a button, why not let it recognize the pressure you
put on the skin of a complete flat "no-key"-keyboard, when writing out letters and words with a "pen".
Instead of opening the usual notebook's monitor to the top and the keyboard being flat on the table, you could open up the (flat) monitor to the left (as if opening a book) and let the right be a soft flat writable notepad.
You would not press the buttons on a plastic keyboard, but press a pen while handwriting your input to the computer. Together with a handwriting recognition program and the unique pressure each person would use while writing out letters and words, the computer might recognize the pressure of how you write (press your pen) on the skin of the notepad.
Should work. Then we had a reusable notebook together with an e-book on the left hand side. You could actually teach handwriting to kids...And may be even recognize each person's handwriting clearly enough as a measure of identification ?
What a nonsense. Stupid. A barcode scanner other than the CueCat costs anywhere from $90.00 and up.
Thank you, DC ? What for ? That people wanted to scan something with a gift, they didn't ask for, without being abused for hidden marketing purposes of their personal data ? And then getting sued for doing what any person with some common sense would do with such a gift ?
I can't stand voodoo - I can't stand games - I can't stand magicians who mess up the web with games - I can't stand people abusing users compulsiveness - I can't stand smart people who use their intelligence for lurking other people in degrading experiences - I can't stand the game industry - I can't stand people who think being intelligent is good enough - why don't you play your stupid games somewhere else - I know what the web is all about and you can't have it (said someone whose name I have forgotten).
Noone brave enough to question extreme voodoo-ism?
What a bunch of loosers.
Yes, they digitized their card catalog, but did they digitize the subject classification number and with it the subject classification subject headlines, so that they can be listed and one-click searched in a yahoo-like subject category tree ?
Did anyone try to adapt or enhance the subject classification schedule to online content beyond scholarly books ? Did anyone think of using an extended subject classification schedule together with search engines like google and come up with a combined output ?
Why is google so much better than, for example, the older Altavista search engine ? Because they incorporated all the subject classification done by users when they putt subject related link collections on their home web-sites.
That's using categorization brain power of humans to an otherwise dumb, but fast search engine. Why not use the brain power, which went into LC subject classification schedule, and use its classification power for online content as well ?
Why would we need to digitize every book ? It would be much progress already, if we just could truly find online content, as well as book titles classified a scientifically/scholarly manner, the way the LC has done it for years. This has nothing to do with scanning each book of the LC.
It is very important that PCs preloaded with Linux are shipped and sold to the first time home users in African cities. For most of them it would be the first computer experience at all. So it is crucial that this experience is on the Linux platform. Because once you are used to MS, the likelihood to switch afterwards is very small.
Must be working out of the box, must be cheaper than a Windows box, must have excellent documentation going under the hood beneath of the GUI.
Must have no glitches to configure modem dial-ups or whatever wireless access is mostly used. If that doesn't work easily, you can't catch the first time home-user.
Free printed documentation accompanying the hard- and software, to study before the box is set up, is crucial.
You can't make them dependent on critical information from online sources. You can't ship and sell printed documentation independently either. (Too expensive, no one would buy it) The way to go is to ship and sell preconfigured Linux on low cost machines with excellent, printed end-user newbie documentation. That documentation will be the only "textbook" the home-user will have to learn anything about computer in all likelihood.
Publishers and companies who sell preconfigured hardware with Linux should ship books together with the hardware to save costs. I don't see why VA-Linux for expample couldn't ship RedHat's or other distribution's handbooks, with other publisher's Linux books all prepacked in one box.
Geeks out there, just imagine your better halves would go off and study the snakes in the African rain forest. She hasn't really used Linux yet and doesn't know much about computer. What would you pack to help her succeed on her own with a Linux box ? Whatever you come up with, that's the way any African household would need it too. Very simple.
It's not a question of bringing up living standards to so-called Western levels. What do you think your great Western quality of life levels are anyway ?
It's about getting access to technical and scientific information and access to instant communication from very remote areas to anywhere in the world. Online documentation reading is great for anybody, but especially important for people who are poorer and live in remote areas, where you can't ship tangible items easily and at
low cost.
If you think the computer enriches your quality of life socially, think again...
I agree. Not only OSS applications and Linux is the key, also all the online documentation available to students locally in their own countries. No need necessarily anymore to leave to Europe or USA to get access to technological information.
The high telco costs are the only real problem at the moment.
If you can manage low cost connections to the local student community, there is no need anymore to get ripped off by western technical consultants (who need a job as much as you do). You will be able to help yourself. Linux and OSS applications will play a catalyst in that, I am very confident for that.
Right ! And that's why we should request from the companies who make big boo-boos like DC and Amazon to make it up to us and be sent to Congress.
Instead of sending us serial numbers hidden in CueCats to voyeuristically watch our one-clicking compulsive moves, the Alexas and Amazons, Forbes/Wired/DC et al. should be sent to the most knowledgable branch of the government and be confronted with the people's will.
Kahle says:
"The Library of Congress -- the largest library now -- is seventeen million. Only thirty four times more than what we had in 300 B.C. It indicates that the technology hasn't scaled. But now we've broken through into a new technology that allows us to bypass the Library of Congress in very little time, and the sky's the limit. What can we discover about ourselves as a species? As different peoples? Are we couch potatoes or do we actually have independent will?"
Bypass the Library of Congress and its accumulated knowledge ? To replace it with the big intelligence of 0s and 1s ? Wow, hold a minute !
You ask, do we actually have an independent will ? Sure, Mr. Kahle, we do !
And that's why I send you my independent-minded CueCats to get all your 56 million instances of ISBNs with one-click (not paying license fees) and let some people, who actually have some knowledge dealing with them, get involved. Meanwhile you can "find the business model of the web" and let the content rot a bit more.
Wouldn't it be a great match-maker game to hook up Alexa, Amazon, DC/Forbes/Wired and the Library of Congress ?
They all have something to make up for, Alexa, which has technology, but no brain, and the Library of Congress, which has brain, but no technology, and Amazon, which has the great drive, but no direction, and DC/Forbes/Wired, which have direction, but don't know how to drive ?
Amazon made a boo-boo with selling one-clicking seductions, qualifying as a drug-dealer and patenting this business process, Alexa made a boo boo selling out to Amazon, searching for business models instead of searching for knowledge, the DC/Forbes/Wired gang caved in to voyeurism through CueCats and the Library of Congress slept happily instead of kicking their citizen's butt and ask for money so that they could put their knowledge to use in the digital world.
Let these people kiss and make up ! Turn your trash heap into a library and your information into a knowledge, Mr. Kahle. Give your buddies a chance to be good guys. I want a happy end !
If you can't help but being cowboys, so be it, but well, I like those guys who save the farm for the blonde and then heroically ride away in the dust of the prairie, those lonely unsung heroes, which you wished were real and not only Hollywood's phantom boys.
Get real, use your brains, save our dignity and save your dimes for the BIGGEST LIBRARY ON EARTH ! (and NOT for Amazon/Alexa/DC, because they ain't one).
I can't get it, why the self-proclaimed freeest country in the world has no trust into the government it elects.
Why are Americans so government-phobic ?
How many of you have felt restricted in their individual freedoms, because some Joe has thrown out all common sense and wants to fight to death for your "right to do anything you want" ?
How many people in the world would be grateful, if they had a government, which would protect them better and have none, which does.
You have a government, which could protect you fairly, but for some reason you think it wouldn't. Why ? What's so dangerous about your government ?
Slashdot Mirror
I like especially the requirement that the applicant of a business method invention must provide full disclosure to the extent the applicant has searched for prior art.
The other thing I like is how they define obviousness of a computer implemented business method invention:
If the subject matter within the scope of a claim addressed to a business method would be obtained by combining or modifying one or more prior art references, and any of those prior art references disclose a business method which differs from what is claimed in the application only in that the claim requires a computer to implement the invention, the invention is presumed obvious.
This definition with the request to disclose prior art search and the proposal by Carl Malamud to put up a publicly available database for open source code apps for the specific purpose of making existing prior art published, known and easily searchable by ANYONE, would at least be a major step in the right direction.
What I haven't understood yet is, when the public would know for what kind of business method a patent application has been filed for ?
How do you avoid filing an application with just the idea spelled out, without really having coded the application yet ? The applicant knows he has at least 12 months time to do it (during which you could graze and feed yourself with all open source code available and for large companies it is easy to code something within 12 months) and put it in your own code package. I don't think you need to open up the source code of your application to the PTO ? Can someone tell me if this is true ?
If it is true, then I wonder how it ever could be assured that a business method, which is implemented exclusively by software code, is an invention at all, as long open source code software is there, which anyone skilled in the art can cut and paste together to fit the right business idea.
Wouldn't that mean we all should know about any business method patent application filed the day it is filed and a complete source code package should be provided to the PTO which then would have to examen the actual code ?
But that would mean you patent the code solution and not the business method.
Wouldn't the GPL need some addendum that would prohibit the usage of the open source code in any proprietary software package for which a company tries to get a patent for ? Who would check on that one ?
Doesn't seem to make sense too, but anyway, because the boo-boo has already been made by the PTO, it's better to change the laws than to do nothing. What does it help to be cynical ?
I think a single swipe of your _debit_ card and punching in your PIN is the equivalent :-)
Haven't tried that out, but AFAIK Cybercash or similar payment systems refuse to charge your account automatically, if you don't have money on your account. So, what kind of message do you get back from Amazon's one-lick ordering system, if you one-click order something and your CC credit limit has been reached ? Can't imagine that you wouldn't have to engage in a second click at least. Don't ask me to try it out. I won't.
I like to see valuable URLs mentioned in posts being archived subject wise and been put up online. Like all the URLs which cover facts about the patent and copyright issues discussed here, for example. The same for science stories. You gather quite some knowledge through a couple of very informative posts within the thousands of "comic relief and common sense political stuff posts". It is an opportunity to build a knowledge base with URLs gathered from your poster's comments.
You have a great chance here to build something worthwhile by archiving, catalogueing and subject classifying the material you receive through your posters. This needs to be done by human brains.
Build a yahoo-like subject category tree online and archive URLs from your stories that matter, please. That would help us a lot. Basically it's a similar job a librarian for scientific libraries would do with regards to subject classification of book titles. You could do the same with regard to subject classification of relevant URLs. It's a very difficult job, but one which I think needs to be done.
Gosh, how could I disclose that in public before getting my second patent granted...if USPTO just hadn't such a hard time to search for prior art in that case. Hey anybody out there who dreamt of finding a way of generating revenue through license fees while making people chuckle happily ?
It's cheaper to dispute a patent ? Since when ? The only place you can really dispute a patent's validity is in court and that's not cheap. If there would be a cheaper way, Amazon.com's patent would long have been invalidated.
Proving to have prior art after a patent has been granted, is very difficult, because the party, who wants to prove it, has to disclose in detail their own code, whereas the party who has the patent already, does not need to disclose the same details. Just filing prior art at the PTO does nothing to invalidate the patent.
The dilemma is that USPTO can't search for prior art thoroughly enough. It has been suggested to make a public database of prior art. Basically all open source code business applications should go in there.
In the case of Amazon the tactics are very clear.
You file an application as soon as you have the idea (doesn't mean you have already implemented the idea). During the time USPTO is NOT handling your application, you start working on implementing it (i.e. code the solution). When you got the patent granted, you market the business process big time and sue your serious competitors. Then your competitor gets cold feet and agrees to comply and settle out of court.
So, what happens, if the accused competitor doesn't get cold feet ? And there was actually prior art published one year prior to the filing of the patent ?(open source code in the public domain on an ftp server is more than you can ask for in terms of "being published")
The party who has the prior art, can't still release its proof in public, without having the chance of a hearing in court. Only the court can request to open up all the code which has been used for the patented business process. If you want to prove that your own code solution is really prior art, then you have to have to compare both code solutions and have to have both parties' code opened up in detail. But because you actually don't patent the the code itself, only the business process performed by the code, this code comparison will never take place in a regular reinvestigative process at USPTO. At least that is what I learned. So, it must be cleared in court and nowhere else.
What kind of defense then has the party whose patent gets challenged in court ?
a. First, they could try to do anything to avoid the trial and get an out-of-court settlement from the company they attacked. The attacked company must be financially very sound to resist those "bribing" efforts to settle out-of-court. I feared that B&N had already given in.
b. Second, Amazon could try to make it very hard to find proof of implementation of the prior art. (If you think of it, in hindsight it might have been a calculated move from Amazon to buy Alexa,Inc. - I could imagine in their archives you might find implementations of the one-click checkout feature easily - at leatst if they really archived everything since 1996.)
c. Make the granted patent more valid by finding people who pay the license fees for usage of the patented business process. (Apple has cooperated in that one)
I don't know if the overall situation here with the publishing system is that different from the one-click patent situation. It sounds as if it isn't, but that's beyond me to know.
I don't believe you.
No, you don't know them fairly well, you just know some nicknames' thoughts posted at certain times for certain subjects. That's all. If you would actually have met all the persons you think you know well, you would understand that you didn't know anything about them.
How much do you know about an author of a book by reading his novels ?
It is not only invalid, it is also unethical.
:-)
I. Why it is invalid:
1. Open source code had been available as early as spring 1996 in publicly downloadable package(CPAN), with which ANYONE SKILLED IN THE ART could OBVIOUSLY customize the checkout feature of a shopping cart system to a one-click ordering and checkout process.
2. It had been implemented. How the hell should the USPTO be aware of a website which had those features implemented for a couple of months, then changed it back, because the customers DIDN'T like it ? (People didn't like it back then for the same reasons you discuss them today, four years later, as if they were new: security, unease of end-users to be lurked into buying by relating too obviously to their compulsiveness and gullibility).
3. Will people, who had implemented the feature before Amazon.com filed for its patent, come forward and CAN they still prove that they HAD implemented it ? Hard to tell. But one thing is sure, the people who know it had been implemented, who know when and by whom, the developers of open source code e-commerce packages and consultants, implementing the e-commerce sites with those packages for their endusers (Attn: THOSE ARE THE ONES SKILLED IN THE ART and it was a very OBVIOUS feature for them and their clients who asked for such implementation of a one-click checkout), those people are put into a dilemma which is BLATANTLY UNETHICAL.
II. Why is it unethical ?
1. As mentioned before, patents were historically given out to do exactly what "Open Source Code" is trying to regain for the computing industry, the possibility to make the "scientific" value of the code public, so that everybody can build upon and increase human knowledge, without loosing R&D costs and reasonable profit for those who "developed a open source code based solutions and invention". It is not the fault of the patent law per se, that it can't protect R&D costs and profits for the developers of open source code based "inventions". It is a case were you apply a law to something which inately can't be protected, because as soon as code is open it is clonable, and becomes unsellable.
Neither legal code, nor digital code (so far), nor our genetic code (which seems to be the originator for our ethical code), can ensure the openess of the code and protection of R&D costs and profits to the developer of the code at the same time.
So, whatever solution is found, it is either the "invention" to make "open source code" unclonable and then sellable, or the introduction of legal code, which would prohibit "closed, proprietary code" altogether. (To wait til we change our genetic code code will take a bit too long...:-))
2. What seems to be unethical to me, is the mere fact, that patent law is used to protect closed code. Closed, proprietary code is protected to regain R&D costs and profits for the developers by its very nature of being closed.
3. To apply the protective measures of a patent upon closed code, which should guarantee the public openess of the code, is not working. In fact the granting of the patent is enhancing the potentital to regain R&D costs and profits to the extent that NO OTHER company can build upon the "matter-of-factly, non-publicly available patented closed code". The patent failed to make the code publicly available and functions as a catalyst in the development of global monopolies, thus overprotecting ONE company and hurting competetive development of other open source code business process solutions.
4. Thus the patent law applied on proprietary code of business processes doesn't do what it is supposed to do according to their own definition.
5. What is even more unethical in the whole situation, is that the patents given out for proprietary code business processes, hurt all those developers, who provide open source code business process solutions. There is no way to prove, that an open source code business process solution was not used in the proprietary code package, which gained patent protection later on. USPTO has no capacity to find all open source code business process solutions ever used on the web. They come and go, get implemented and discarded within weeks and months.
6. On top of that, the most unethical situation arises after the USPTO had granted a patent like that. Because now, any developer who had "donated" (yes !) his code to the public and the thousands of consultants (skilled in the art) and endusers (people who would guarantee the proper regaining and profit making for the developers of that open source code) are in a situation that THEY have to defend THEIR public donatations or THEIR usage of such code for such business process in court.
7. We ARE under the threat to get sued without us having done ANYTHING against the law. Even if it is easy to circumvent a one-click checkout feature (much easier to change your code a bit) than to fight for your rights in court, IT IS NEVERTHELESS WRONG. In my mind it is unacceptable.
III. Why some arguments are "hogwash"
1. It has been said that Amazon.com has the obligation to do EVERYTHING to regain R&D costs, because they have to protect the interests of their shareholders. Sure, so does ANY publicly traded company. That has nothing to do with Amazon.com's particular situation. B&N has to do the same thing.
2. In the case Amazon.com shouldn't make enough profits to regain their R&D costs and make reasonable profits, they should blame it on their business model. They didn't HAVE to invest that much money to come up with the code to provide the one-click ordering process. They didn't HAVE to dump prices to unaccpetable levels for any business to survive. They don't HAVE to become the BIGGEST whatever on earth. It's their decision not to focus.
IV. What's the tragedy ?
I think the dilemma is in the open source code business model. AFAIK, it's supposed to work as a service model. So far, all I can see is a potential of massive abuse of good-willed, honest coders, who like to make a normal living with their skills and view computing as a science which MUST be open the way all the other sciences are, or I see a big sell-out of ethical standards to substandard business practices.
Open source coders have no legal, ethical or code-based protection of their work. I don't like that.
Sorry for the long and non-technical post. IANAL, IANAP (programmer), IANANS (native speaker), I am a book lover who likes bazaars of independent bookstores and booksellers.
What are you talking about ? I wanted to be theoretical chemist when I grew up. 22 years later when my drugged off-spring started to pawn my Linux PCs away under my hands, I thought it's time to think about drugs being a big deal. Does denial increase proportionally with your intelligence ?
and saves me of feeling guilty to have read his post...
and others as well regarding the same subject and published around the same time. Arghh, she made a mistake (how come ?)... not to publish the book online... strange... after that much insight of how to reach whom, where, with what ....
Just expect to be sold out, if you sell everything...
Duh, you could do this with Open Source code way back in 1996. Companies tried it out and their customers often didn't like it, because they wanted some sort of a "security" feature, like asking: "Hey are you sure you really want to buy my merchandise ?" Those were the times where buyers still wanted two clicks, because they were smart enough to have second thoughts...and companies had some respect for their thinking customers...:-)
Amazon won against B&N in court ? When was that ? You have an URL ?
If it recognize the amount of pressure put on a button, why not let it recognize the pressure you
put on the skin of a complete flat "no-key"-keyboard, when writing out letters and words with a "pen".
Instead of opening the usual notebook's monitor to the top and the keyboard being flat on the table, you could open up the (flat) monitor to the left (as if opening a book) and let the right be a soft flat writable notepad.
You would not press the buttons on a plastic keyboard, but press a pen while handwriting your input to the computer. Together with a handwriting recognition program and the unique pressure each person would use while writing out letters and words, the computer might recognize the pressure of how you write (press your pen) on the skin of the notepad.
Should work. Then we had a reusable notebook together with an e-book on the left hand side. You could actually teach handwriting to kids...And may be even recognize each person's handwriting clearly enough as a measure of identification ?
What a nonsense. Stupid. A barcode scanner other than the CueCat costs anywhere from $90.00 and up.
Thank you, DC ? What for ? That people wanted to scan something with a gift, they didn't ask for, without being abused for hidden marketing purposes of their personal data ? And then getting sued for doing what any person with some common sense would do with such a gift ?
You gotta be kidding. No thanks, DC!
I can't stand voodoo - I can't stand games - I can't stand magicians who mess up the web with games - I can't stand people abusing users compulsiveness - I can't stand smart people who use their intelligence for lurking other people in degrading experiences - I can't stand the game industry - I can't stand people who think being intelligent is good enough - why don't you play your stupid games somewhere else - I know what the web is all about and you can't have it (said someone whose name I have forgotten).
Noone brave enough to question extreme voodoo-ism?
What a bunch of loosers.
so how much Telco cost in addition if you want to have 24h/7d connection ?
...because they license the ISBN databases from other companies...
Yes, they digitized their card catalog, but did they digitize the subject classification number and with it the subject classification subject headlines, so that they can be listed and one-click searched in a yahoo-like subject category tree ?
Did anyone try to adapt or enhance the subject classification schedule to online content beyond scholarly books ? Did anyone think of using an extended subject classification schedule together with search engines like google and come up with a combined output ?
Why is google so much better than, for example, the older Altavista search engine ? Because they incorporated all the subject classification done by users when they putt subject related link collections on their home web-sites.
That's using categorization brain power of humans to an otherwise dumb, but fast search engine. Why not use the brain power, which went into LC subject classification schedule, and use its classification power for online content as well ?
Why would we need to digitize every book ? It would be much progress already, if we just could truly find online content, as well as book titles classified a scientifically/scholarly manner, the way the LC has done it for years. This has nothing to do with scanning each book of the LC.
It is very important that PCs preloaded with Linux are shipped and sold to the first time home users in African cities. For most of them it would be the first computer experience at all. So it is crucial that this experience is on the Linux platform. Because once you are used to MS, the likelihood to switch afterwards is very small.
Must be working out of the box, must be cheaper than a Windows box, must have excellent documentation going under the hood beneath of the GUI.
Must have no glitches to configure modem dial-ups or whatever wireless access is mostly used. If that doesn't work easily, you can't catch the first time home-user.
Free printed documentation accompanying the hard- and software, to study before the box is set up, is crucial.
You can't make them dependent on critical information from online sources. You can't ship and sell printed documentation independently either. (Too expensive, no one would buy it) The way to go is to ship and sell preconfigured Linux on low cost machines with excellent, printed end-user newbie documentation. That documentation will be the only "textbook" the home-user will have to learn anything about computer in all likelihood.
Publishers and companies who sell preconfigured hardware with Linux should ship books together with the hardware to save costs. I don't see why VA-Linux for expample couldn't ship RedHat's or other distribution's handbooks, with other publisher's Linux books all prepacked in one box.
Geeks out there, just imagine your better halves would go off and study the snakes in the African rain forest. She hasn't really used Linux yet and doesn't know much about computer. What would you pack to help her succeed on her own with a Linux box ? Whatever you come up with, that's the way any African household would need it too. Very simple.
It's not a question of bringing up living standards to so-called Western levels. What do you think your great Western quality of life levels are anyway ?
It's about getting access to technical and scientific information and access to instant communication from very remote areas to anywhere in the world. Online documentation reading is great for anybody, but especially important for people who are poorer and live in remote areas, where you can't ship tangible items easily and at
low cost.
If you think the computer enriches your quality of life socially, think again...
I agree. Not only OSS applications and Linux is the key, also all the online documentation available to students locally in their own countries. No need necessarily anymore to leave to Europe or USA to get access to technological information.
The high telco costs are the only real problem at the moment.
If you can manage low cost connections to the local student community, there is no need anymore to get ripped off by western technical consultants (who need a job as much as you do). You will be able to help yourself. Linux and OSS applications will play a catalyst in that, I am very confident for that.
Amen. Glad you spoke up.
Right ! And that's why we should request from the companies who make big boo-boos like DC and Amazon to make it up to us and be sent to Congress.
Instead of sending us serial numbers hidden in CueCats to voyeuristically watch our one-clicking compulsive moves, the Alexas and Amazons, Forbes/Wired/DC et al. should be sent to the most knowledgable branch of the government and be confronted with the people's will.
Kahle says:
"The Library of Congress -- the largest library now -- is seventeen million. Only thirty four times more than what we had in 300 B.C. It indicates that the technology hasn't scaled. But now we've broken through into a new technology that allows us to bypass the Library of Congress in very little time, and the sky's the limit. What can we discover about ourselves as a species? As different peoples? Are we couch potatoes or do we actually have independent will?"
Bypass the Library of Congress and its accumulated knowledge ? To replace it with the big intelligence of 0s and 1s ? Wow, hold a minute !
You ask, do we actually have an independent will ? Sure, Mr. Kahle, we do !
And that's why I send you my independent-minded CueCats to get all your 56 million instances of ISBNs with one-click (not paying license fees) and let some people, who actually have some knowledge dealing with them, get involved. Meanwhile you can "find the business model of the web" and let the content rot a bit more.
Wouldn't it be a great match-maker game to hook up Alexa, Amazon, DC/Forbes/Wired and the Library of Congress ?
They all have something to make up for, Alexa, which has technology, but no brain, and the Library of Congress, which has brain, but no technology, and Amazon, which has the great drive, but no direction, and DC/Forbes/Wired, which have direction, but don't know how to drive ?
Amazon made a boo-boo with selling one-clicking seductions, qualifying as a drug-dealer and patenting this business process, Alexa made a boo boo selling out to Amazon, searching for business models instead of searching for knowledge, the DC/Forbes/Wired gang caved in to voyeurism through CueCats and the Library of Congress slept happily instead of kicking their citizen's butt and ask for money so that they could put their knowledge to use in the digital world.
Let these people kiss and make up ! Turn your trash heap into a library and your information into a knowledge, Mr. Kahle. Give your buddies a chance to be good guys. I want a happy end !
If you can't help but being cowboys, so be it, but well, I like those guys who save the farm for the blonde and then heroically ride away in the dust of the prairie, those lonely unsung heroes, which you wished were real and not only Hollywood's phantom boys.
Get real, use your brains, save our dignity and save your dimes for the BIGGEST LIBRARY ON EARTH ! (and NOT for Amazon/Alexa/DC, because they ain't one).
I can't get it, why the self-proclaimed freeest country in the world has no trust into the government it elects.
Why are Americans so government-phobic ?
How many of you have felt restricted in their individual freedoms, because some Joe has thrown out all common sense and wants to fight to death for your "right to do anything you want" ?
How many people in the world would be grateful, if they had a government, which would protect them better and have none, which does.
You have a government, which could protect you fairly, but for some reason you think it wouldn't. Why ? What's so dangerous about your government ?
The cuecats could go to the Library of Congress and chase some subject classifications. Haven't tried it yet, but hope it can be done.
Then you could classify the web content scientifically according to the Library of Congress Subject Classification Schedule.
A million cats chasing a million books and their subject categories...