Simple versus complex is not the issue. The issue is functional versus ornamental. If there are no ornamental elements, then it is a purely functional design and should not be eligible for protection. When Apple issued the design patent for the rounded cornered rectangular tablet, it was indeed a "land-grab" for all rectangular tablets with rounded corners, despite the prior-art. Given their history with design patents, that this is a claim to all "wedge-shaped" thin notebooks, is a concern.
What aspects of the design differentiate it from any other ultra-thin wedge-shaped notebook? If the design patent is not on all such devices, then how could you tell when the Apple design was violated? Are you saying that every other manufacturer should be forced to add curlicues?
The Dutch court dismissed the community designs on the grounds they were purely functional designs are not worthy of protection, so yes disallow them from protection on anything purely functional.
I think a design patent has a place. It as an extension of trademark. The problem with THIS design patent is that it is attempting to monopolize the most efficient engineering design for a thin laptop computer (the wedge shape) and not some cosmetic design to differentiate themselves from the competition. This strays precariously close to utility patent territory. Design patents should be required to have non-functional distinguishing features. So long as you avoid that/those features then you are in the clear. This patent is purely functional and hence should not have been granted.
Apple attempted to argue last year in the Netherlands that Samsung tablets violated their equally vague European Community Design on a rectangular device with rounded corners. The Dutch court held that, in essence, Apple had simply taken the most efficient shape for their product and attempted to monopolize it. This is not the purpose of a Community Design nor a Design Patent. Engineering issues should be covered by utility patents, not design patents.
The concern here is the the same as the rounded corners things last year. Apple designs are, intentionally, minimalist designs. Granting of design patents on what amounts to purely functional designs is problematic. The Dutch court last year struck down the rounded corner design patent (called community design in Europe) because there were not any non-functional elements and the court held that purely functional designs are less worthy of protection. I think the U.S. would be wise to adopt the same stance.
Just to reiterate, the problem with this patent is not design vs. utility, it is the functional nature of the design that should not be worthy of design patent protection.
SK has a minority Christian population (around 25%) and about the same for the Buddhists. Officially, the rest of the country has no religion. In practice, everybody is a Confucianist, regardless of other religious affiliations.
You had me until the "higher number of schools" bit. As a percentage of GDP, only Iceland spends more than Korea on Education (according to the OECD "Education at a Glance 2011"). Education is a national obsession in Korea. From my observations, I would guess that Korea has, at least, twice the number of schools per capita as the U.S. (once you count public, private, and tertiary institutions).
The bigger issue for Korea is that public education is only a small part of the national education expense. When I was there, among my co-workers, all of them had their children enrolled in after-school schools (tertiary schools in the lingo of the OECD). In addition, high schools in Korea (at least as far as I know) are private. So the government has a much more limited role in education in Korea than in the U.S.
(I am, of course, using Korea here to talk about South Korea because that is what the article is talking about)
It is apparently complex enough that you have not given any relevant examples. The time example is objectively and physically verifiable (hence not relevant to this problem). What we are grappling with here is purely subjective data. How else can we verify the creationist views of the American population if not through surveys? Your entire argument relies on some, as yet unidentified, survey that ties this together.
Your position is one of faith. In order to be correct, there must be another survey that is addressed by people who do not answer telephone surveys and from which relevant information can be inferred. I have refused to make this leap of faith. If we make the assumption that there is a significant percentage of the population that does not participate in surveys, then what can we really conclude from this group when discussing purely subjective data?
It guess it depends on what you mean by "design." Apple did detail the specs (marketing design), but Samsung did the actual engineering design. This is different than that for processors where Apple still does some engineering design in addition to marketing design.
Perhaps it is my bias, but when speaking of "design," I think engineering/technical design.
Clearly you have never tried to count cards in Vegas. After the MIT kids robbed them blind, they changed their rules and developed sophisticated methods for detecting card counting. My friend and I were escorted to the door withing 15 minutes and that was 8 years ago.
Card counting is easy, but it relies on probability and betting high when the count is good and low when the count is bad. The house keeps track of the count too and your variation in betting.
One of the links answers this question directly. Child pornography is easier to police because it is absolutely illegal. You can block searches for it. You can develop algorithms to scan images and videos for it. You can target it without pause or question. Copyright is more vague. Is it in the public domain? How do you know? Is this particular case fair use? Considering that Lenz v. Universal ruled that copyright holders can be financially liable for issuing DMCA requests on fair use creations, this is a real issue. Is this a licensed use of it?
Given that nobody really knows what "fair use" is in the digital age, building a system for filtering copyright is impossible on the fair use issue alone. Even if that issue was settled, then Google would have to run every image and video through a database of copyrighted works and they would have to know who has permission to use the works.
There is the problem. How do you know that "people over 70 are 70% more likely to believe something?" The census does not ask if you hold a creationist view of human origin. You can try to infer, based on religious self-identification. Then you could take a phone survey of all religious people to ask their views on creationism, but you would have the same self-selecting people again. So, the problem becomes circular. Unless you have a reliable starting place, then you really don't know any more than that these people exist. Of course, this makes the presumption that people who don't answer phone surveys, don't participate in any surveys. It also assumes that people who don't participate in surveys are statistically significant (but if they aren't, then we needn't worry about any of this). It also does not apply to something that is objectively verifiable (70% of people who always wear turtlenecks are megalomaniacs).
Presuming, of course, that you understand the extent of the problem. Even still, the results will not be effected by this "shifting the data," only the confidence that the data is indeed correct.
I am ever so grateful to the founding fathers, all Christians (mostly Deists), for enshrining the separation of church and state. Religion should have no place in Government and Government should have no place in religion. As for religion in the public square, I was just at a public school function the other day were the pledge of allegiance was recited. It seems to me that not all vestiges of religion have been "sanitized" from the public square.
I think their critique was more that their methodology is a bit dubious because their respondents are largely self-selecting. The study completely ignores any people who choose not to answer random calls or not participate in phone surveys. If this is a growing demographic, then the respondents would increasingly represent less of the population.
I just don't get the same impression of the people at Google, or Slashdot for that matter. While a few people on Slashdot are against the concept of intellectual property, the vast majority of those opposed to software patents and 100 year copyright terms do support the concept of intellectual property. As for Google, they are certainly pro intellectual property, but they too strike out at the structure of the current system.
I see the debate as really between two world views on intellectual property. One side believes that intellectual property is akin to physical property and exists primarily to enrich its owners (for example, Florian Mueller recently compared IP to real estate). The other side believes that intellectual property is primarily for the benefit of society and that the enrichment of its owners is valid if and only if the benefits of innovation outweigh the costs to society. If you fall into the former, then the expansion of patents is just the strengthening of property rights. If you fall into the latter, then the expansion of patents is only valid if it results in increases in innovation for society at large. For software patents, the latter camp believes them to be a net hindrance to innovation and therefore invalid (whether or not someone makes money off of them becomes irrelevant).
My problem with that statement is it presumes that all companies took offensive positions at an equal rate. More often than not, some companies on your list initiated the lawsuits instead of cross-licensing, while others primarily sued in retaliation.
Um, if there's a legal hazard in using Android, maybe that means Google/manufacturer's should license patents from Microsoft (or others). I know the current belief on/. is that everybody should be able to make whatever they want, even if they copy someone else's work but, ignoring whether or not I agree with that view, that's simply not how the world works. Sorry - it isn't. The world works such that, if you invent it and you patent it, you have the right to get paid when someone else uses it (or outright block them from using it for a time). You may not like that, and many don't, but that's how the world works. Not just the US - the world. Google may view that as a problem but the solution is simple - build Android so that it doesn't infringe on any patents or license the patents so that there's no legal risk.
I know I'll be in the minority on this one but, sorry - the system is what the system is. It's simple, design around the patent or license it. Or don't and deal with the consequences.
Software patents are not valid in Europe, so no, this is not the way the "world" works. It is the way the U.S. works, but only since 1981. Prior to that year (and for a practical purposes the early 90's) software patents were expressly forbade by the USPTO and the Supreme Court. The definition of patentable material has expanded immensely in the last 30 years in US. Europe has been drifting toward allowing software patents, but the debate is as fierce there as it is here.
With the U.S. Supreme Court recently reasserting itself into the patent debate, this is a great time for Google to push against software patents and Europe is the place to start.
I certainly hope they are will not settle for this, simply because servers are off the table. I am concerned that placing Microsoft in this position is a slippery slope. Maybe Microsoft is sincere this time, but history has shown that they will use their monopoly power in abusive ways.
I use my own Linux version, but I will probably be able to use my own key (at least is sounds like that now). The problem here really isn't about money, it is the limitation (and the principle). Microsoft is now going to be the gatekeeper of secure booting with UEFI. They will be the central repository of all the keys. All hardware you run on your system will need to now have Microsoft's key. Microsoft will also have sole discretion in blacklisting keys. I don't trust Microsoft in this role. Do you?
Because of the nature of UEFI, everything that touches the hardware needs to be signed, kernel, modules, drivers, etc. This just erects more barriers for creating a customized version of Linux and sharing it.
At $99 for a key, what's to stop malware writers from just buying their own keys? Also, most geeks are simply going to turn off secure booting to get around its stringent limitations. It seems to have lots of negatives and few positives from my perspective.
As long as I can sign my own operating system (without paying anything to Microsoft), I will be fine. If not, then I am not getting the benefit of the UEFI bios because of Microsoft and that is an abuse of their monopoly position.
I think you are misunderstanding their argument. The problem is not that RedHat is doing this out of convenience or not, but simply that RedHat is unwilling to fight Microsoft on an issue of this magnitude. It is because RedHat has made the choice to do what is convenient for them instead of what would be best for the Linux community at large. Personally, I don't use RedHat or Fedora, but I don't approve of their choice here either.
The $99 fee is per OS though. So now RedHat has paid it for Fedora. What about Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware, FreeBSD, etc. I use my own variant of TinHat Linux on my server, so will I have access to secure mode? It is not clear if you will able to run in secure boot mode with those operating systems. Of course, you have the option of turning off secure boot, but this may be challenging to the not-so-technically-inclined and it introduces a level of security that may not be available to any vendor without paying the $100 to Microsoft. Personally, I don't see this sitting well with the EU, but the US won't care.
So, this is really not a software patent at all. It is a patent on the concept of not charging someone until their gift certificate is redeemed.
If I issued a plastic gift card that required a credit card on file from the giver and did not bill them until the gift had been redeemed, while allowing them to cancel the gift card, could this idea be patented if not involving a computer (or is it already)? If not, then simply putting "computer-implemented" with it should not change that IMHO. If so, then I am surprised someone doesn't own it already.
Slashdot Mirror
Simple versus complex is not the issue. The issue is functional versus ornamental. If there are no ornamental elements, then it is a purely functional design and should not be eligible for protection. When Apple issued the design patent for the rounded cornered rectangular tablet, it was indeed a "land-grab" for all rectangular tablets with rounded corners, despite the prior-art. Given their history with design patents, that this is a claim to all "wedge-shaped" thin notebooks, is a concern.
What aspects of the design differentiate it from any other ultra-thin wedge-shaped notebook? If the design patent is not on all such devices, then how could you tell when the Apple design was violated? Are you saying that every other manufacturer should be forced to add curlicues?
The Dutch court dismissed the community designs on the grounds they were purely functional designs are not worthy of protection, so yes disallow them from protection on anything purely functional.
I think a design patent has a place. It as an extension of trademark. The problem with THIS design patent is that it is attempting to monopolize the most efficient engineering design for a thin laptop computer (the wedge shape) and not some cosmetic design to differentiate themselves from the competition. This strays precariously close to utility patent territory. Design patents should be required to have non-functional distinguishing features. So long as you avoid that/those features then you are in the clear. This patent is purely functional and hence should not have been granted.
Apple attempted to argue last year in the Netherlands that Samsung tablets violated their equally vague European Community Design on a rectangular device with rounded corners. The Dutch court held that, in essence, Apple had simply taken the most efficient shape for their product and attempted to monopolize it. This is not the purpose of a Community Design nor a Design Patent. Engineering issues should be covered by utility patents, not design patents.
The concern here is the the same as the rounded corners things last year. Apple designs are, intentionally, minimalist designs. Granting of design patents on what amounts to purely functional designs is problematic. The Dutch court last year struck down the rounded corner design patent (called community design in Europe) because there were not any non-functional elements and the court held that purely functional designs are less worthy of protection. I think the U.S. would be wise to adopt the same stance.
Just to reiterate, the problem with this patent is not design vs. utility, it is the functional nature of the design that should not be worthy of design patent protection.
SK has a minority Christian population (around 25%) and about the same for the Buddhists. Officially, the rest of the country has no religion. In practice, everybody is a Confucianist, regardless of other religious affiliations.
You had me until the "higher number of schools" bit. As a percentage of GDP, only Iceland spends more than Korea on Education (according to the OECD "Education at a Glance 2011"). Education is a national obsession in Korea. From my observations, I would guess that Korea has, at least, twice the number of schools per capita as the U.S. (once you count public, private, and tertiary institutions).
The bigger issue for Korea is that public education is only a small part of the national education expense. When I was there, among my co-workers, all of them had their children enrolled in after-school schools (tertiary schools in the lingo of the OECD). In addition, high schools in Korea (at least as far as I know) are private. So the government has a much more limited role in education in Korea than in the U.S.
(I am, of course, using Korea here to talk about South Korea because that is what the article is talking about)
source?
It is apparently complex enough that you have not given any relevant examples. The time example is objectively and physically verifiable (hence not relevant to this problem). What we are grappling with here is purely subjective data. How else can we verify the creationist views of the American population if not through surveys? Your entire argument relies on some, as yet unidentified, survey that ties this together.
Your position is one of faith. In order to be correct, there must be another survey that is addressed by people who do not answer telephone surveys and from which relevant information can be inferred. I have refused to make this leap of faith. If we make the assumption that there is a significant percentage of the population that does not participate in surveys, then what can we really conclude from this group when discussing purely subjective data?
It guess it depends on what you mean by "design." Apple did detail the specs (marketing design), but Samsung did the actual engineering design. This is different than that for processors where Apple still does some engineering design in addition to marketing design.
Perhaps it is my bias, but when speaking of "design," I think engineering/technical design.
Clearly you have never tried to count cards in Vegas. After the MIT kids robbed them blind, they changed their rules and developed sophisticated methods for detecting card counting. My friend and I were escorted to the door withing 15 minutes and that was 8 years ago.
Card counting is easy, but it relies on probability and betting high when the count is good and low when the count is bad. The house keeps track of the count too and your variation in betting.
One of the links answers this question directly. Child pornography is easier to police because it is absolutely illegal. You can block searches for it. You can develop algorithms to scan images and videos for it. You can target it without pause or question. Copyright is more vague. Is it in the public domain? How do you know? Is this particular case fair use? Considering that Lenz v. Universal ruled that copyright holders can be financially liable for issuing DMCA requests on fair use creations, this is a real issue. Is this a licensed use of it?
Given that nobody really knows what "fair use" is in the digital age, building a system for filtering copyright is impossible on the fair use issue alone. Even if that issue was settled, then Google would have to run every image and video through a database of copyrighted works and they would have to know who has permission to use the works.
There is the problem. How do you know that "people over 70 are 70% more likely to believe something?" The census does not ask if you hold a creationist view of human origin. You can try to infer, based on religious self-identification. Then you could take a phone survey of all religious people to ask their views on creationism, but you would have the same self-selecting people again. So, the problem becomes circular. Unless you have a reliable starting place, then you really don't know any more than that these people exist. Of course, this makes the presumption that people who don't answer phone surveys, don't participate in any surveys. It also assumes that people who don't participate in surveys are statistically significant (but if they aren't, then we needn't worry about any of this). It also does not apply to something that is objectively verifiable (70% of people who always wear turtlenecks are megalomaniacs).
oops, of course I meant affected
Presuming, of course, that you understand the extent of the problem. Even still, the results will not be effected by this "shifting the data," only the confidence that the data is indeed correct.
I am ever so grateful to the founding fathers, all Christians (mostly Deists), for enshrining the separation of church and state. Religion should have no place in Government and Government should have no place in religion. As for religion in the public square, I was just at a public school function the other day were the pledge of allegiance was recited. It seems to me that not all vestiges of religion have been "sanitized" from the public square.
I think their critique was more that their methodology is a bit dubious because their respondents are largely self-selecting. The study completely ignores any people who choose not to answer random calls or not participate in phone surveys. If this is a growing demographic, then the respondents would increasingly represent less of the population.
I just don't get the same impression of the people at Google, or Slashdot for that matter. While a few people on Slashdot are against the concept of intellectual property, the vast majority of those opposed to software patents and 100 year copyright terms do support the concept of intellectual property. As for Google, they are certainly pro intellectual property, but they too strike out at the structure of the current system.
I see the debate as really between two world views on intellectual property. One side believes that intellectual property is akin to physical property and exists primarily to enrich its owners (for example, Florian Mueller recently compared IP to real estate). The other side believes that intellectual property is primarily for the benefit of society and that the enrichment of its owners is valid if and only if the benefits of innovation outweigh the costs to society. If you fall into the former, then the expansion of patents is just the strengthening of property rights. If you fall into the latter, then the expansion of patents is only valid if it results in increases in innovation for society at large. For software patents, the latter camp believes them to be a net hindrance to innovation and therefore invalid (whether or not someone makes money off of them becomes irrelevant).
I believe Duck Duck Go uses Bing for searches.
My problem with that statement is it presumes that all companies took offensive positions at an equal rate. More often than not, some companies on your list initiated the lawsuits instead of cross-licensing, while others primarily sued in retaliation.
Um, if there's a legal hazard in using Android, maybe that means Google/manufacturer's should license patents from Microsoft (or others). I know the current belief on /. is that everybody should be able to make whatever they want, even if they copy someone else's work but, ignoring whether or not I agree with that view, that's simply not how the world works. Sorry - it isn't. The world works such that, if you invent it and you patent it, you have the right to get paid when someone else uses it (or outright block them from using it for a time). You may not like that, and many don't, but that's how the world works. Not just the US - the world. Google may view that as a problem but the solution is simple - build Android so that it doesn't infringe on any patents or license the patents so that there's no legal risk.
I know I'll be in the minority on this one but, sorry - the system is what the system is. It's simple, design around the patent or license it. Or don't and deal with the consequences.
Software patents are not valid in Europe, so no, this is not the way the "world" works. It is the way the U.S. works, but only since 1981. Prior to that year (and for a practical purposes the early 90's) software patents were expressly forbade by the USPTO and the Supreme Court. The definition of patentable material has expanded immensely in the last 30 years in US. Europe has been drifting toward allowing software patents, but the debate is as fierce there as it is here.
With the U.S. Supreme Court recently reasserting itself into the patent debate, this is a great time for Google to push against software patents and Europe is the place to start.
I certainly hope they are will not settle for this, simply because servers are off the table. I am concerned that placing Microsoft in this position is a slippery slope. Maybe Microsoft is sincere this time, but history has shown that they will use their monopoly power in abusive ways.
I use my own Linux version, but I will probably be able to use my own key (at least is sounds like that now). The problem here really isn't about money, it is the limitation (and the principle). Microsoft is now going to be the gatekeeper of secure booting with UEFI. They will be the central repository of all the keys. All hardware you run on your system will need to now have Microsoft's key. Microsoft will also have sole discretion in blacklisting keys. I don't trust Microsoft in this role. Do you?
Because of the nature of UEFI, everything that touches the hardware needs to be signed, kernel, modules, drivers, etc. This just erects more barriers for creating a customized version of Linux and sharing it.
At $99 for a key, what's to stop malware writers from just buying their own keys? Also, most geeks are simply going to turn off secure booting to get around its stringent limitations. It seems to have lots of negatives and few positives from my perspective.
As long as I can sign my own operating system (without paying anything to Microsoft), I will be fine. If not, then I am not getting the benefit of the UEFI bios because of Microsoft and that is an abuse of their monopoly position.
I think you are misunderstanding their argument. The problem is not that RedHat is doing this out of convenience or not, but simply that RedHat is unwilling to fight Microsoft on an issue of this magnitude. It is because RedHat has made the choice to do what is convenient for them instead of what would be best for the Linux community at large. Personally, I don't use RedHat or Fedora, but I don't approve of their choice here either.
The $99 fee is per OS though. So now RedHat has paid it for Fedora. What about Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware, FreeBSD, etc. I use my own variant of TinHat Linux on my server, so will I have access to secure mode? It is not clear if you will able to run in secure boot mode with those operating systems. Of course, you have the option of turning off secure boot, but this may be challenging to the not-so-technically-inclined and it introduces a level of security that may not be available to any vendor without paying the $100 to Microsoft. Personally, I don't see this sitting well with the EU, but the US won't care.
So, this is really not a software patent at all. It is a patent on the concept of not charging someone until their gift certificate is redeemed.
If I issued a plastic gift card that required a credit card on file from the giver and did not bill them until the gift had been redeemed, while allowing them to cancel the gift card, could this idea be patented if not involving a computer (or is it already)? If not, then simply putting "computer-implemented" with it should not change that IMHO. If so, then I am surprised someone doesn't own it already.