the con artists would stop submitting those bogus patents
i have only seen a scant few applications that i would consider 'shady' as if done up by someone trying to get a patent on the wheel or what-not.
i enjoy being one the more rejection-happy examiners, but i know that even if everyone at the office were like me, it still wouldn't stop the tide of applications we get every year.
further, at least in my area, the latency of applications is staggering- i'm working on applications filed in 1999. so even if people practically stopped sending in aplications today, certain areas in the PTO wouldn't even feel the effect for yeaers to come.
man, that is one of the dumbest things i've ever heard.
we make money from everything, from the filing to the issue. in fact, i've made the PTO more money in fees from NOT allowing cases, since the attorney has to pay evertime he amends the application.
the real problem is people who don't know what the hell they're talking about.
actually, its pretty damn easy to reject a claim, even if your evidence isn't that great.
what can be hard is allowing an application. actually, this is what examiners want, because it lets them work on other applications, and you only get credit for the first (i.e. first rejection) and last (issue) actions. all the piddly arguing with the attorney is a waste of time that could be better used on another application. also, allowances are hella easy, it only takes about 15 minutes to whip one up.
when i joined the PTO 3 years ago, the boss-man was all 'yeah, we need a lot of people now'. he's been saying that every month since.
the job is not at all difficult. but don't think you can change the system somehow, i spend most of my time trying to untangle myself from the beaurocracy that is the patent office.
yeah, i saw something like that a while back. there was this guy talking about a fuel additive that, when the tank is subject to a great shock, causes the fuel to turn to an inert gel.
great idea, they had a demo where they crashed a 747 chock full of the stuff. instead of a huge rolling fireball, it caught fire and then almost immediately snuffed out.
The lead researcher says he hopes to have FDA approval within a year(!)and wishes they could start working with the drug in areas devastated by AIDS right away.
well, the areas most affected by AIDS are in sub-saharan africa. so why be so concerned with the FDA?
just saying.
Re:Good toy, but not an important energy source.
on
Pour-In-Place Solar Cells
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· Score: 2, Informative
eh? 240 watta/sq. meter is a lot. either way, i believe that is on the very high end of possible energy capture, i.e. assuming a very very efficient panel.
however, A)240 W/sq m means a small roof could provide 20kW or so, way more then a regular house needs. even assuming a low efficiency, the numbers are still pretty nice.
B) you don't need batteries, just hook the system up to the power grid, and during the time you make more than you use, the power company pays you for the excess.
If you are so correct then explain again why photons are attracted to black holes. If photons are virtual particles that have no mass, they shouldn't be attracted to gravity, now should they
because photons do have mass, just not rest mass. they have 'relativistic' mass. they have momentum. they have no rest mass because they are never at rest, duh.
Today, they showed off some of their most impressive finds atop a barge, including 20-foot-tall pink granite statues representing a pharoah, a queen and Hapi, the Nile goddess of flooding;
but flywheel technology is pretty advanced nowadays.
check out the Rosen Powertrain, a series electric motor/gas turbine (very nice) and flywheel which has been tested and runs beautifully in a reworked saturn.
the secret is, the flywheel is suppoted on gimbals, which allow it to rotate in 3 dimensions, so it causes no precession relative to the vehicle.
plus, its made of carbon fibre, and is made such that if the flywheel does break, the rotor dissolves rather than flies apart.
They found this in monkeys in reston, but it was a version no dangerous to humans
IIRC, only a few people contracted the reston strain of Ebola, a few guys who worked at the reston monkey facility where it broke out. did they test the new strain or are they basing that belief on two cases? (the latter being quite foolish)
the scariest thing about the reston strain was that it propogated throughout the monkey house via the air ducts, i.e. the shit went airborne
As I've pointed out before, the dude in charge at the patent office has plainly and bluntly stated up front that the only "Prior Art" they search for are in existing patents, and current patent applications submitted before the one in question.
that isn't right. at the PTO searches may be concentrated on the world patent database, but we do a lot of searching of technical journals and what not, IBM, IEEE, etc etc, at least in my area.
Maybe patents should be voted on by/. users before being granted.
you know, that might sound like even a slightly good idea if the only areas of technology covered by patents were those discussed on/.
however, i doubt a lot of slashdotters could enlighten examiners who work in areas such as animal husbandry (class 119), paper making (class 162), textiles (class 28), boot and shoe making (class 12), undertaking (class 27
) etc etc.
remember kids, not everything has to do with computers/communications.
nope. at the PTO we get paid for examining apps, which includes allowing them, but we don't get paid any more for issuing an application than we do for rejecting the hell out of it. we get paid regular salary, and although we can get bonuses, that's only for doing production above and beyond the expected 100%.
now, while it is true that allowing an application is useful in that you no longer have to deal with it, that doesn't really encourage examiners to allow everything they see.
Imagine if you lived between two neighbors. Every day, each neighbor would go to his fence that borders on your property and shout to the other one over your backyard. Are you at fault if you listen to these conversations? I don't think so. If they want to shout right over your head, then they should deal with the fact that you might actually hear them.
that's a good analogy, but a bit simplified. With this situation, it'd be more like the following:
Imagine if you lived between two neighbors. Every day, each neighbor would go to his fence that borders on your property and shout to the other one in Russian Pig-Latin over your backyard. Are you at fault if you go out to the library, rent a buch of books and learn Russian Pig-Latin specifically to listen to these conversations?
IMHO, I think it would still be justified, since, hell, its still in my yard. Then again, I'm a jerk.
Stop whining about "being in a hurry". One election every four years is too much? No wonder [fill in random piece of shit] has a chance of being elected with that kinda attitude.
true, true. then again, i stood in line for like 2 hours (and didn't get any time off work for it) to vote, basically gobbling up my lunch break and then some. lucky for me, i have a job where i can disappear for an hour or so and nobody notices. but some people aren't so lucky and might have a bit of trouble waiting so long. i saw some elderly people who did not like standing in line for an hour or so, and a lot of other people were a bit pissed when, after waiting in line for a while to get their yellow ticket, were told they had to wait in a whole other line to vote. what a system!
easy fix is, make election day a federal holiday, and make it a speedier process, so people won't be so damn impatient.
With a straight popularity contest, all a candidate would have to do is woo FL, CA, NY, and TX, and to hell with those other insignificant states.
well, sorta. it is true that with the electoral college, a candidate needs to take more states than if it were a straight popular vote. but remember, the argument that "a candidate would only need to take 4 or 5 states" to get enough popular votes assumes that he/she take every vote in those states.
unlike the electoral college, if you win a majority of popular votes in a given state, you don't get all of the votes by concession. so, even if a candidate received a majority of votes in CA, TX, NY, etc etc, they would still need to campaign in other states to get the rest of the votes they need.
even so, i do agree that a straight popular vote would invoke more concentrated campaigning on the part of the candidates.
as for the numbers needed to amend the constitution, it would be a long shot. however, some recent polls have shown a pretty large number of americans like the idea of removing the EC from the voting system, so who knows?
well, i guess it all depends. if the booths are in a generally "jesus-free" part of the church, its cool. however, it might be a bit weird standing in line to vote surrounded by paintings of saints, a huge sculpture of some dude on a cross, signs saying "read your bible daily" etc etc.
Slashdot Mirror
i have only seen a scant few applications that i would consider 'shady' as if done up by someone trying to get a patent on the wheel or what-not.
i enjoy being one the more rejection-happy examiners, but i know that even if everyone at the office were like me, it still wouldn't stop the tide of applications we get every year.
further, at least in my area, the latency of applications is staggering- i'm working on applications filed in 1999. so even if people practically stopped sending in aplications today, certain areas in the PTO wouldn't even feel the effect for yeaers to come.
RTFA
we make money from everything, from the filing to the issue. in fact, i've made the PTO more money in fees from NOT allowing cases, since the attorney has to pay evertime he amends the application.
the real problem is people who don't know what the hell they're talking about.
but say whatever you want, cause we're all a bunch of drooling idiots anyways, i mean, this *is* /.
what can be hard is allowing an application. actually, this is what examiners want, because it lets them work on other applications, and you only get credit for the first (i.e. first rejection) and last (issue) actions. all the piddly arguing with the attorney is a waste of time that could be better used on another application. also, allowances are hella easy, it only takes about 15 minutes to whip one up.
the job is not at all difficult. but don't think you can change the system somehow, i spend most of my time trying to untangle myself from the beaurocracy that is the patent office.
pays well tho.
'course, then Whoopi Goldberg would sue him into the ground...
i guess he just can't win.
great idea, they had a demo where they crashed a 747 chock full of the stuff. instead of a huge rolling fireball, it caught fire and then almost immediately snuffed out.
still trying to find a link tho.
well, the areas most affected by AIDS are in sub-saharan africa. so why be so concerned with the FDA?
just saying.
however, A)240 W/sq m means a small roof could provide 20kW or so, way more then a regular house needs. even assuming a low efficiency, the numbers are still pretty nice.
B) you don't need batteries, just hook the system up to the power grid, and during the time you make more than you use, the power company pays you for the excess.
stupid roomates.
because photons do have mass, just not rest mass. they have 'relativistic' mass. they have momentum. they have no rest mass because they are never at rest, duh.
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FUD. The EV-1 is actually quite swift. It'll do highway speeds easily, and the original EV-1 had a 0-60 time of what, 7 seconds? not too bad.
also, a 100-200 mile range is just fine for the 90% of us who don't drive more than 100 miles a day.
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well, isn't that a bit ironic?
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check out the Rosen Powertrain, a series electric motor/gas turbine (very nice) and flywheel which has been tested and runs beautifully in a reworked saturn.
the secret is, the flywheel is suppoted on gimbals, which allow it to rotate in 3 dimensions, so it causes no precession relative to the vehicle.
plus, its made of carbon fibre, and is made such that if the flywheel does break, the rotor dissolves rather than flies apart.
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if i remember, standard sealed lead-acids are 98% recyclable.
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IIRC, only a few people contracted the reston strain of Ebola, a few guys who worked at the reston monkey facility where it broke out. did they test the new strain or are they basing that belief on two cases? (the latter being quite foolish)
the scariest thing about the reston strain was that it propogated throughout the monkey house via the air ducts, i.e. the shit went airborne
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that isn't right. at the PTO searches may be concentrated on the world patent database, but we do a lot of searching of technical journals and what not, IBM, IEEE, etc etc, at least in my area.
---
you know, that might sound like even a slightly good idea if the only areas of technology covered by patents were those discussed on /.
however, i doubt a lot of slashdotters could enlighten examiners who work in areas such as animal husbandry (class 119), paper making (class 162), textiles (class 28), boot and shoe making (class 12), undertaking (class 27 ) etc etc.
remember kids, not everything has to do with computers/communications.
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that work?
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now, while it is true that allowing an application is useful in that you no longer have to deal with it, that doesn't really encourage examiners to allow everything they see.
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that's a good analogy, but a bit simplified. With this situation, it'd be more like the following:
Imagine if you lived between two neighbors. Every day, each neighbor would go to his fence that borders on your property and shout to the other one in Russian Pig-Latin over your backyard. Are you at fault if you go out to the library, rent a buch of books and learn Russian Pig-Latin specifically to listen to these conversations?
IMHO, I think it would still be justified, since, hell, its still in my yard. Then again, I'm a jerk.
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true, true. then again, i stood in line for like 2 hours (and didn't get any time off work for it) to vote, basically gobbling up my lunch break and then some. lucky for me, i have a job where i can disappear for an hour or so and nobody notices. but some people aren't so lucky and might have a bit of trouble waiting so long. i saw some elderly people who did not like standing in line for an hour or so, and a lot of other people were a bit pissed when, after waiting in line for a while to get their yellow ticket, were told they had to wait in a whole other line to vote. what a system!
easy fix is, make election day a federal holiday, and make it a speedier process, so people won't be so damn impatient.
---
well, sorta. it is true that with the electoral college, a candidate needs to take more states than if it were a straight popular vote. but remember, the argument that "a candidate would only need to take 4 or 5 states" to get enough popular votes assumes that he/she take every vote in those states.
unlike the electoral college, if you win a majority of popular votes in a given state, you don't get all of the votes by concession. so, even if a candidate received a majority of votes in CA, TX, NY, etc etc, they would still need to campaign in other states to get the rest of the votes they need.
even so, i do agree that a straight popular vote would invoke more concentrated campaigning on the part of the candidates.
as for the numbers needed to amend the constitution, it would be a long shot. however, some recent polls have shown a pretty large number of americans like the idea of removing the EC from the voting system, so who knows?
---
well, i guess it all depends. if the booths are in a generally "jesus-free" part of the church, its cool. however, it might be a bit weird standing in line to vote surrounded by paintings of saints, a huge sculpture of some dude on a cross, signs saying "read your bible daily" etc etc.
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