It should be noted that the usefulness of h-indices varies from field to field. For example, in various branches of pure mathematics, a heavily-referenced paper is one that, maybe, garners 25 to 100 citations. In applied mathematics and certain subsets of statistics, the threshold would be a factor of magnitude larger.
Also, as a preference, I tend to ignore metrics like h-indices when evaluating a researcher, as they provide very little evidence for his her her capabilities, let alone the quality of the work.
To elaborate, at least from my own experiences, in certain portions of applied mathematics that bleed over into computer vision, machine learning, and pattern recognition, I've seen papers that are relatively mathematically prosaic, but possibly easy to understand or where the code is made available, be heralded and heavily cited for a period. In contrast, I've come across papers that provide a much more sound, but complicated, framework along with better results, possibly after the topic is no longer in vogue, and go unnoticed or scarcely acknowledged.
In a different vein, there are times when a problem is so niche, but nevertheless important to someone or some funding agency, that there would be little reason for anyone else to cite it.
Touching on an almost completely opposite factor, there are times when the generality of the papers, coupled with the subject area, artificially inflates certain scores. For instance, if a researcher spends his or her career developing general tools, e.g., in the context of computer vision, things like optical flow estimators, object recognition schemes, etc., those papers will likely end up more heavily cited, as they can be applied in many ways, than those dealing with a specific, non-niche problem, e.g., car detection in traffic videos. Furthermore, the propensity for certain disciplines to favor almost-complete bibliographies can skew things too.
Finally, albeit rare, are those papers that introduce and find the "best" way to solve a problem that no other discussion is warranted.
This seems blatantly obvious to me. Forget any psych certs and licenses. You can do IT work without them, and you can do the same in the psych field. Just don't lie about your qualifications.
Actually, most countries, including the United States, require that counseling psychologists obtain a license, let alone pass tests, to offer their craft to the public. If someone is found, just like in medicine or in clinical psychiatry, practicing without such a license, they will be slapped with some steep fines and jail time. (Granted, there is some wiggle room with regards to this, as ordained pastors and rabbis are allowed to provide counseling within the context of religious duties; moreover, if these religious ministers have suitable advanced training or degrees, they can ethically provide psychotherapy.)
Also, as an aside, the submitter might not have the proper background to engage in psychological counseling. For example, there are many that focus exclusively on research and look at phenomena, which are distant from those behaviors useful in a psychotherapy setting, such as how humans parse space, how we learn new concepts, how we analyze various items, etc.
It is not better if the professor writes the book for you to use in class.
This is incorrect. I have gone through several undergraduate and graduate math courses where the professor's book was lauded in the field and also a great read, e.g., Tom Apostol's two-volume Calculus series, Serge Lang's Algebra, or some of Bourbaki's treatises. I have also had instructors that would produce copious amounts of notes, which were freely available, to go along with their self-written books; one such example was for my differential geometry class, where around 700 pages of alternate derivations of theorems, showing different routes that could be taken to prove the claim, stronger results, etc., were given.
What you're asking, as with most difficult topics, is something that's not easy to answer: for every good intention there will be someone waiting to exploit it, for every forced concession on the part of large companies there will be major resistance, and so on.
Personally, though, I'd prefer to see some sort of short-duration patent infringement immunity clause for new small business start-ups.
To elaborate, I've come up some pieces of hardware that I'm both publishing about and having patented. Ideally, it'd be nice to spin the design and manufacturing elements of this hardware into a small company, as it not only would bring in a handful of high-paying engineering and development jobs to the state right away, but would also, hopefully, generate enough revenue to allow the pursuit of other endeavors, thus leading to more positions down the road. Unfortunately, however, to actually sell this device, I'll be forced to license an array of patents, which has the potential to eat up a lot of money that could be used for better purposes, e.g., bringing on more talented workers or for handling unforeseen situations. As a result, it would be nice to have a guaranteed, one or two year reprieve from having to negotiate the use of intellectual property from any other source, which would be ample time to get a product out to market and save up enough to license everything after that period, provided everything goes well and the company is still solvent.
Although not entirely pertinent, a cursory reading of the the dissenting opinion by Circuit Judge Newman, a brief excerpt of which is given below, sheds some light on this:
According to the court’s new ruling, it appears that the patentee cannot sue the direct infringers of the patent, when more than one entity participates in the infringement. The only remedial path is by way of “inducement.” We are not told how compensation is measured. The only thing that is clear, is that remedy is subject to new uncertainties. Since the direct infringers cannot be liable for infringement, they do not appear to be subject to the court’s jurisdiction. Perhaps the inducer can be enjoined—but will that affect the direct infringers? Since the inducer is liable when he breaches the “duty” not to induce, is the inducer subject to multiplication of damages? This return to the “duty to exercise due care to determine whether or not he is infringing” of Underwater Devices Inc. v. Morrison–Knudsen Co., Inc., 717 F.2d 1380, 1389 (Fed. Cir. 1983) raises tension with the ruling of the en banc court in In re Seagate Technology LLC, 497 F.3d 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2007) that overruled the standard of Underwater Devices.
My comment was intended as raillery. The fact that you view it, if I am understanding you correctly, as aggressive vitriol is a bit surprising, considering that there are far more severe ways to excoriate someone.
Oh, and as an aside, I own no Apple products and am definitely not a fanatic of theirs, let alone any other company.
Then apparently you parsed my post incorrectly, whilst I, in turn, did the same to yours, as I did not envision that someone could misinterpret my reference to hyperbole and not see it applied solely to: "[t]here are quite a number of people out there that would sooner die then choose Apple because of their shiny retarded walled garden approach to computing" versus: "it is a bit rich that you would opt for a phone that is more limited and, likely, locked down than an iPhone". Albeit unintentional, if you were offended, I do apologize.
Nevertheless, to make things perfectly clear, I am not saying that people voting with their wallets or choosing an inferior product, where the qualifier is subjective, are cognitively impaired.
don't run Android, have no way to install applications, etc. In fact, there are only two that do, currently, run the Android OS: the Aquos Hybrid 007SH and the Samsung W999
What I take exception to is being called mentally deficient.
If you would rather die than choosing an iPhone, be it under any circumstance, as the original poster did not specify, my statement stands: you, let alone anyone else, would clearly exhibit a dearth of faculties, as you would be willing to forfeit your existence over something so trivial as a piece of technology.
There are quite a number of people out there that would sooner die then choose Apple because of their shiny retarded walled garden approach to computing. I'll go back to a clamshell phone before I choose Apple for anything.
The obvious hyperbole aside, unless, of course, you were serious and do know of people with such obvious mental deficiencies, it is a bit rich that you would opt for a phone that is more limited and, likely, locked down than an iPhone.
[...] Apple employees can forget about being allowed to collaborate with researchers at U. of Missouri.
That's not a loss for Apple, considering that most of the "researchers" within the School of Engineering there, at least from what I've seen and have been told from others, are regulated to publishing prosaic papers in the bottom-tier journals and conferences.
Give me some science on it and tell me some more details.
Since they didn't give a link to it, here's the citation for the paper in question: M. P. Walser, et al., "Direct mapping of the formation of a persistent spin helix", Nature Phys., 2012 (accepted, in press). You can read all of the wonderfully gritty, and hard-to-parse, details in that paper.
If you want to learn more about the science behind spintronics, feel free to peruse:
M. Johnson and R. H. Silsbee, "Interfacial charge-spin coupling: Injection and detection of spin magnetization in metals", Phys. Rev. Lett. 55: 1790-1793, 1985 M. N. Baibich, et al., "Giant magnetoresistance of (001)Fe/(001)Cr magnetic superlattices", Phys. Rev. Lett. 61: 2472-2475, 1988 G. Binasch, et al., "Enhanced magnetoresistance in layered magnetic structures with antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange", Phys. Rev. B 29: 4828, 1989 S. Datta and B. Das, "Electronic analog of the electrooptic modulator", Appl. Phys. Lett. 56: 665-667, 1990 J. Kikkawa and D. Awschalom, "Resonant spin amplification in n-type GaAs", Phys. Rev. Lett. 80: 4313, 1998 B. T. Jonker, et al., "Robust electrical spin injection into a semiconductor heterostructure", Phys. Rev. B 62: 8180-8183, 2000 A. T. Hanbicki, et al., "Efficient electrical spin injection from a magnetic metal/tunnel barrier contact into a semiconductor", Appl. Phys. Lett. 80: 1240, 2002 S. van Dijken, et al., "Room temperature operation of a high output current magnetic tunnel transistor", Appl. Phys. Lett. 80: 3364-3366, 2002 X. Jiang, et al., "Optical detection of hot-electron spin injection into GaAs from a magnetic tunnel transistor source", Phys. Rev. Lett. 90: 256603, 2003 J. Schliemann, et al., "Nonballistic spin-field-effect transistor", Phys. Rev. Lett. 90: 146801, 2003 B. A. Bernevig, et al., "Exact SU(2) symmetry and persistent spin helix in a spin-orbit coupled system", Phys. Rev. Lett. 97: 236601: 2006 X. Lou, et al., "Electrical detection of spin transport in lateral ferromagnet–semiconductor devices", Nature Phys. 3: 197-202, 2007 M. Holub, et al., "Electrical spin injection and threshold reduction in a semiconductor laser", Phys. Rev. Lett. 98: 146603, 2007 I. Appelbaum, et al., "Electronic measurement and control of spin transport in silicon", Nature 447: 295-298, 2007 M. Duckheim and D. Loss, "Resonant spin polarization and spin current in a two-dimensional electron gas", Phys. Rev. B 75: 201305, 2007 B. Behin-Aein, et al., "Proposal for an all-spin logic device with built-in memory", Nature Nano. 5: 266-270, 2010 J. Wunderlich, et al., "Spin Hall effect transistor", Science 330: 1801-1804, 2010
How about a blurb about spintronics already being used in modern hard drive read heads?
I can do better than a blurb, I can provide you with references to the underlying science:
M. Julliere, "Tunneling between ferromagnetic films", Phys. Lett. 54: 225-226, 1975 J. S. Moodera, et al. "Large magnetoresistance at room temperature in ferromagnetic thin film tunnel junctions", Phys. Rev. Lett. 74: 3273-3276 W. H. Butler, et al., "Spin-dependent tunneling conductance of Fe/MgO/Fe sandwiches", Phys. Rev. B. 63: 054416, 2001 J. Mathon and A. Umerski, "Theory of tunneling magnetoresistance of an epitaxial Fe/MgO/Fe (001) junction", Phys. Rev. B. 63: 220403, 2001 M. Bowen, et al., "Large magnetoresistance in Fe/MgO/FeCo(001) epitaxial tunnel junctions on GaAs(001)", Appl. Phys. Lett. 79: 1655, 2001 S. Yuasa, et al., "Giant room-temperature magnetoresistance in single-crystal Fe/MgO/Fe magnetic tunnel junctions", Nature Mater. 3: 868-871, 2004 S. S. P. Parkin, et al., "Giant tunnelling magnetoresistance at room temperature with MgO (100) tunnel barriers" Nature Mater. 3: 862-867, 2004 S. Ikeda, et al., "Tunnel magnetoresistance of 604% at 300 K by suppression of Ta diffusion in CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB pseudo-spin-valves annealed at high temperature", Appl. Phys. Lett. 93: 082508, 2008
Of course not. Liberals never give up the tools of fascism, they need them too dearly.
Yes, clearly [classical] liberals need those tools in order to realize limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberties including free markets and freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly.
The following is taken from R. Hudelson, Modern Political Philosophy. M.E. Sharpe: Armonk, NY, USA, 1999:
By the middle of the nineteenth century, a coherent vision of how society should be organized had taken shape in England, western Europe, and the Americas. This vision is the political ideology of classical liberalism. [...] Central to the classical liberalism of the nineteenth century is a commitment to the liberty of individual citizens. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly [are] core components, as [is] the underlying conception of the proper role of just government as the protection of the liberties of individual citizens. Also central to classical liberalism was a commitment to a system of free markets as the best way to organize economic life.
[...] Classical liberalism draws on the economic science of Adam Smith, the psychological insight into the importance of individual liberty to human beings, and the ethical theories of natural law and utilitarianism. While, at their most abstract level, utilitarianism and natural law disagree profoundly about what makes something morally right or wrong, when combined with the convictions about the truth of Smith's economics and the psychology of human liberty, both theories agree in their endorsement of free markets and limited government. By the middle of the nineteenth century, convinced by the utilitarian critique of the idea of natural law, most philosophers had embraced the utilitarian philosophy. Nonetheless, being also convinced by Smith and Mill of the conduciveness to human happiness and the maximal individual liberty, these same philosophers could warmly endorse the political principles championed by the natural-law theorists of the American and French Revolutions. [...] As the century drew to a close, most classical liberals had also [...] followed Bentham and Mill into accepting the principle of democracy as well. Only governments elected by universal or near-universal suffrage could reasonably be expected to refrain from violating the liberty of their citizens in service to narrow interests [...]
(In case it wasn't obvious, you should not generalize, let alone bandy terms with which you are, seemingly, unfamiliar.)
Another paper, published in the same journal, concluded that "the heat wave falls within the realm of natural variability... [and] appears not to be the product of long-term climate changes"
That quote neither appears in the paper you reference (M. Matsueda, "Predictability of Euro-Russian blocking in summer of 2010", Geophys. Res. Lett. 38: L06801, 2011) nor the NOAA press release.
The quote taken from (the abstract of) that paper, by Schneidereit et al., was in reference to R. Dole, et al. ("Was there a basis for anticipating the 2010 Russian heat wave", Geophys. Res. Lett. 38: L06702, 2011). Schneidereit et al. also mentioned, citing a study by Schar et al. ("The role of increasing temperature variability in European summer heatwaves", Nature 427: 332-336, 2004), that a long-lasting blocking high could occur more often with climate change and the expected change in the year-to-year variability.
If they remade the assets and did not copy directly the files it's not copyright infringement in international law. Same thing with game mechanics. If Zynga did not copy/paste the code or texts from EA them there's no ground in international copyright law.
There is plenty of legal precedence in US law, which pertains as the case is being argued in US, that contradicts some of your statements:
Midway Mfg. Co., v. Dirkschneider et al. 543 F. Supp 466 (D. Neb. 1981) Nintendo of America, Inc. v. Elcon Industries, 564 F.Supp. 937 (E.D. Mich. 1982) Atari, Inc. v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp., 672 F.2d 607 (7th Cir. 1982) Midway Manufacturing Co. v. Artic International, Inc., 547 F. Supp. 999 (N.D. Ill. 1982) Midway Manufacturing Co. v. Artic International, Inc., 704 F.2d 1009 (7th Cir. 1983) Team Play, Inc. v. Boyer, 391 F.Supp.2d 695 (N.D. Ill. 2005) William L Crawford II et al. v. Midway Games, Inc. et al. (W.D. Cal. 2007) Capcom Co., Ltd. et. al. v. The MKR Group (N.D. Cal. 2008)
To elaborate a bit from those above cases, let alone others, to establish infringement a plaintiff must prove ownership of a valid copyright and "copying" by the defendant. Because direct evidence of copying often is unavailable, copying may be inferred where the defendant had access to the copyrighted work and the accused work is substantially similar to the copyrighted work (Warner Brothers, Inc. v. American Broadcasting Cos., Inc., 654 F.2d 204, 207 (2d Cir. 1981)).
Some courts have expressed the test of substantial similarity in two parts: (1) whether the defendant copied from the plaintiff's work and (2) whether the copying, if proven, went so far as to constitute an improper appropriation (Scott v. WKJG, Inc., 376 F.2d 467, 469 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 832, 88 S.Ct. 101, 19 L.Ed.2d 91 (1967)); Arnstein v. Porter, 154 F.2d 464, 468 (2d Cir. 1946); cf. Sid & Marty Krofft Television Productions, Inc. v. McDonald's Corp., 562 F.2d 1157, 1164 (9th Cir. 1977) (extrinsic-intrinsic test)). In many cases, the courts focus on the second part of that test and the response of the "ordinary observer" (Ideal Toy Corp. v. Fab-Lu Ltd. (Inc.), 360 F.2d 1021, 1023 n.2 (2d Cir. 1966)). Specifically, the test is whether the accused work is so similar to the plaintiff's work that an ordinary reasonable person would conclude that the defendant unlawfully appropriated the plaintiff's protectible expression by taking material of substance and value (Krofft, 562 F.2d at 1164). Judge Learned Hand, in finding infringement, once stated that "the ordinary observer, unless he set out to detect the disparities, would be disposed to overlook them, and regard their aesthetic appeal as the same" (Peter Pan Fabrics, Inc. v. Martin Weiner Corp., 274 F.2d 487, 489 (2d Cir. 1960)). It has been said that this test does not involve "analytic dissection and expert testimony," Arnstein, 154 F.2d at 468, but depends on whether the accused work has captured the "total concept and feel" of the copyrighted work (Roth Greeting Cards v. United Card Co., 429 F.2d 1106, 1110 (9th Cir. 1970)).
While dissection is generally disfavored, the ordinary observer test, in application, must take into account that the copyright laws preclude appropriation of only those elements of the work that are protected by the copyright (Durham Industries, Inc. v. Tomy Corp., 630 F.2d 905, 913 (2d Cir. 1980); Clarke v. G. A. Kayser & Sons, Inc., 472 F.Supp. 481, 482 (W.D.Pa.1979), aff'd without op., 631 F.2d 725 (3d Cir. 1980)). "It is an axiom of copyright law that the protection granted to a copyrightable work extends only to the particular expression of an idea and never to the idea itself" (Reyher v. Children's Television Workshop, 533 F.2d 87, 90 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 980, 97 S.Ct. 492, 50 L.Ed.2d 588 (1976)). "Unlike a patent, a copyright gives no exclusive right to the art disclosed; protection is given only to the expression of the idea-not the idea itself" (Mazer v. St
Sure, we know that. The problem is other people had already made devices that looked very similar and features most, if not all, of those design elements. Apple's claim should have been invalidated by prior art and for not being at all novel.
Then let me ask you this question: based upon the design patents by M. Kurihara (D291,442, Sept. 1984), M. Hara, et al. (D294,831, Aug. 1985), Y. Sugano (D299,031, Jun. 1986), C. T. Yu (D306,285, Dec. 1987), H. Shiozawa, et al. (D303,523, Nov. 1987), Y. Ooshima, et al. (D307,581, Feb. 1988), A. Tsukada, et al. (D310,213, Nov. 1988), K. Mizusugi, et al. (D309,603, Feb. 1989), K. Mizusugi, et al. (D330,016, Apr. 1991), K. Mizusugi, et al. (D344,496, Dec. 1991), K. Mizusugi (D357,674, Feb. 1994), H. Tamaki (D384,043, Jun. 1996), M. Kawa (D385,856, Oct. 1996), S. Mizuno (D405,434, Dec. 1997), S.-H. Han (D396,703, Aug. 1997), M. Kawa and K. Koyama (D413,107, Nov. 1998), C.-C. Lee, et al. (D408,798, Apr. 1998), and S. Mizuno (D431,821, Dec. 1999), let alone hundreds of others, do you believe that all current laptop design patents should be invalidated? After all, most, if not all laptops, share the same fundamental features outlined in those documents: a two-part hinged body, one which houses a screen and another for a keyboard and/or trackpad, etc.
Really, when you get down to it, design patents are notoriously difficult to deal with during the review phase, which is why it is usually up to the courts to settle matters.
To elaborate, for an examiner to properly reject a claimed design under 35 U.S.C. 171 on the basis of a lack of ornamentality, he or she must make a prima facie showing that the claimed design lacks ornamentality and provide a sufficient evidentiary basis for factual assumptions relied upon in such showing. (The court in In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir.1992), stated that "the examiner bears the initial burden, on review of the prior art or on any other ground, of presenting a prima facie case of unpatentability.")
The proper evidentiary basis for a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 171 that a claim is lacking in ornamentality is an evaluation of the appearance of the design itself. The examiner’s knowledge of the art, a reply to a letter of inquiry, a brochure emphasizing the functional/mechanical features of the design, the specification of an analogous utility patent (the applicant’s or another inventor), or information provided in the specification may be used to supplement the analysis of the design. If a design is embodied in a specific mechanical article, the analysis that the design lacks ornamentality because its appearance is dictated by functional requirements should be supported by reference to utility patents or some other source of information about the function of the design. If the design is embodied in an article that has a more general use, such as a clip, the analysis and explanation as to why the design lacks ornamentality should be detailed and specific. The examiner’s contention that the specific appearance of the claimed design lacks ornamentality may be supported by the holding of the court in In re Carletti et al., 328 F.2d 1020, 140 USPQ 653 (CCPA 1964), that a design to be patentable must be "created for the purpose of ornamenting" the article in which it is embodied. The presence or lack of ornamentality must be made on a case by case basis.
Examples of proper evidentiary basis for a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 171 that a claim is lacking in ornamentality would be: (a) common knowledge in the art; (b) the appearance of the design itself; (c) the specification of a related utility patent; or (d) information provided in the specification. Moreover, a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 171 for lack of ornamentality must be supported by evidence and rejections should not be made in the absence of such evidence.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. 171 for lack of ornamentality based on a proper prima facie showing fall into two categories: (a) a design visibl
The answer to your question is that design patents cover articles that are "primarily ornamental", which I elaborate upon below. (Your item (b) is the closest to this. However, it is important to point out that, unless specifically stated, design patents cover all potential colorations of an article.)
An ornamental feature or design has been defined as one which was “created for the purpose of ornamenting” and cannot be the result or “merely a by-product” of functional or mechanical considerations. (In re Carletti, 328 F.2d 1020, 140 USPQ 653, 654 (CCPA 1964); Blisscraft of Hollywood v. United Plastic Co., 189 F. Supp. 333, 337, 127 USPQ 452, 454 (S.D.N.Y. 1960), aff’d, 294 F.2d 694, 131 USPQ 55 (2d Cir. 1961)) It is clear that the ornamentality of the article must be the result of a conscious act by the inventor, as 35 U.S.C. 171 requires that a patent for a design be given only to “whoever invents any new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture.” Therefore, for a design to be ornamental within the requirements of 35 U.S.C. 171, it must be “created for the purpose of ornamenting.” (In re Carletti, 328 F.2d 1020, 1022, 140 USPQ 653, 654 (CCPA 1964))
To be patentable, a design must be “primarily ornamental.” “In determining whether a design is primarily functional or primarily ornamental the claimed design is viewed in its entirety, for the ultimate question is not the functional or decorative aspect of each separate feature, but the overall appearance of the article, in determining whether the claimed design is dictated by the utilitarian purpose of the article.” (L. A. Gear Inc. v. Thom McAn Shoe Co., 988 F.2d 1117, 1123, 25 USPQ2d 1913, 1917 (Fed. Cir. 1993)) The court in Norco Products, Inc. v. Mecca Development, Inc., 617 F.Supp. 1079, 1080, 227 USPQ 724, 725 (D. Conn. 1985), held that a “primarily functional invention is not patentable” as a design.
A determination of ornamentality is not a quantitative analysis based on the size of the ornamental feature or features but rather a determination based on their ornamental contribution to the design as a whole.
While ornamentality must be based on the entire design, “[i]n determining whether a design is primarily functional, the purposes of the particular elements of the design necessarily must be considered.” (Power Controls Corp. v. Hybrinetics, Inc., 806 F.2d 234, 240, 231 USPQ 774, 778 (Fed. Cir. 1986)) The court in Smith v. M & B Sales & Manufacturing, 13 USPQ2d 2002, 2004 (N. D. Cal. 1990), states that if “significant decisions about how to put it [the item] together and present it in the marketplace were informed by primarily ornamental considerations”, this information may establish the ornamentality of a design.
“However, a distinction exists between the functionality of an article or features thereof and the functionality of the particular design of such article or features thereof that perform a function.” (Avia Group International Inc. v. L. A. Gear California Inc., 853 F.2d 1557, 1563, 7 USPQ2d 1548, 1553 (Fed. Cir. 1988)) The distinction must be maintained between the ornamental design and the article in which the design is embodied. The design for the article cannot be assumed to lack ornamentality merely because the article of manufacture would seem to be primarily functional.
To understand how I reached that decision, beyond what I mentioned above, it is important to start with case law dating back to 1893, specifically Smith v. Whitman Saddle Co., 148 U.S. 674, respectively.
The Whitman Saddle case involved a patent on a design for a saddle. During its ruling, the court emphasized the importance of “invention” to the patentability of a design; it stated, “Mere mechanical skill is insufficient. There must be something akin to genius, an effort of the brain as well as the hand. The adaptation of old devices or forms to new purposes, however convenient, useful, or beautiful they may be in their new role, is not invention.” (148 U.S. at 679) The Court then explained (id.):
"The exercise of the inventive or originative faculty is required, and a person cannot be permitted to select an existing form, and simply put it to a new use, any more than he can be permitted to take a patent for the mere double use of a machine. If, however, the selection and adaptation of an existing form is more than the exercise of the imitative faculty, and the result is in effect a new creation, the design may be patentable."
In the case before it, the court characterized the patented saddle design as a combination of elements from two saddle designs that were well known in the art. The court explained that the patented design consisted of a combination of the front half of the so-called Granger saddle and the back end of the so-called Jenifer saddle. The design differed from a simple combination of the two known saddles, according to the court, only in that the front end of the design had “a nearly perpendicular drop of some inches at the rear of the pommel,” unlike in the Granger saddle. (Id. at 680)
Although the trial court, sitting in equity, concluded that the design was patentable, the Supreme Court disagreed. The court wrote, “Nothing more was done in this instance (except as hereafter noted) than to put the two halves of these saddles together in the exercise of the ordinary skill of workmen of the trade, and in the way and manner ordinarily done.” (148 U.S. at 681) The court noted that there was a difference between the pommel of the designed saddle and the pommel of the Granger saddle, and it added that the “shape of the front end being old, the sharp drop of the pommel at the rear seems to constitute what was new and to be material.” Id. at 682. That feature, however, was not present in the defendants’ saddle. The court then concluded with the following remarks (id.):
"If, therefore, this drop were material to the design, and rendered it patentable as a complete and integral whole, there was no infringement. As before said, the design of the patent had two features of difference as compared with the Granger saddle, one the cantle, the other the drop; and unless there was infringement as to the latter there was none at all, since the saddle design of the patent does not otherwise differ from the old saddle with the old cantle added, an addition frequently made. Moreover, that difference was so marked that in our judgment the defendant’s saddle could not be mistaken for the saddle of the complainant."
Since Whitman Saddle was an action in equity, the court did not distinguish sharply between its analysis of patentability and its discussion of infringement. Within the same passage, it moved from stating that it could not agree with the trial court that the design in issue was patentable to the conclusion that if the design were patentable because of the drop at the rear of the pommel, there was no infringement. The point the court was making was that, viewed in light of the similarities between the prior art and the patented design, the accused design did not contain the single feature that would have made it appear distinctively similar to the patented design rather than like the numerous prior art designs. For that reason, it held, the accused design did not infringe.
(Submitting this comment again, since it apparently didn't get accepted the first time)
As I mentioned above, according to the US Patent Office, Apple's design met their criteria to merit the awarding of a patent. Whether or not the jury, and likely the appeal courts, agree, is still debatable.
To elaborate a bit on this, and also better refine by above post, Apple's design patents do not cover all rectangular-shaped electronic devices with rounded corners. Apple's design patents, e.g., for the iPad (D504,889, and others), are rather precise, and, ultimately, limited: they cover an article with a certain kind of case design, a specific screen placement and size ratio with respect to the body, and input port/button location. Provided that other companies/individuals do not, practically, reuse the same design elements, i.e., an article doesn't have buttons in the same locations, similar stylizations in the same locations, the same kind of package design, etc., the US Patent Office is willing to grant design patents.
Now, the court's view is mostly aligned with the US Patent Office's on what constitutes a valid design, i.e., the design threshold needed to afford protection via a patent. To begin, it is helpful to at least outline some preliminary case law about design patents:
"A design patent protects the nonfunctional aspects of an ornamental design as shown in the patent." (Elmer v. ICC Fabricating, Inc., 67 F.3d 1571, 1577 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (citing Keystone Retaining Wall Sys., Inc. v. Westrock, Inc., 997 F.2d 1444, 1450 (Fed. Cir. 1993))) The chief limitation on the patentability of designs is that they must be primarily ornamental in character. If the design is dictated by performance of the article, then it is judged to be functional and ineligible for design patent protection. (Best Lock Corp. v. Ilco Unican Corp., 94 F.3d 1563, 1566 (Fed. Cir. 1996))
As for case law about design thresholds, I found it by looking through that concerning infringement (a design patent is infringed by the "unauthorized manufacture, use, or sale of the article embodying the patented design or any colorable imitation thereof." (Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Hercules Tire & Rubber Co., 162 F.3d 1113, 1116-17 (Fed. Cir. 1998))):
Similar to the infringement analysis of a utility patent, infringement of a design patent is evaluated in a two-step process. First, the court must construe the claims of the design patent to determine their meaning and scope. (OddzOn Prods., Inc. v. Just Toys, Inc., 122 F.3d 1396, 1404-05 (Fed. Cir. 1997)) Design patents typically are claimed as shown in drawings. Claim construction by a court is adapted accordingly. Goodyear, 162 F.3d at 1116. The scope of the claim of a patented design “encompasses ‘its visual appearance as a whole,’ and in particular ‘the visual impression it creates.’” (Contessa Food Prods., Inc. v. Conagra, Inc., 282 F.3d 1370, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (quoting Durling v. Spectrum Furniture Co., 101 F.3d 100, 104-05 (Fed. Cir. 1996)))
Second, after construction of the patent’s claims, the court is to compare the construed claims to the accused design. Elmer, 67 F.3d at 1577. Infringement of a design patent occurs if "the designs have the same general visual appearance, such that it is likely that the purchaser [(or the ordinary observer)] would be deceived into confusing the design of the accused article with the patented design." (Goodyear, 162 F.3d at 1118) The patented and accused designs do not have to be identical in order for design patent infringement to be found. (Contessa, 282 F.3d at 1376) In determining infringement of a design patent, the court "is not limited to the ornamental features of a subset of the drawings, but instead must encompass the claimed ornamental features of all figures of a design patent." (Id. at 1379 (emphasis added))
The comparison of the patented and accused designs involves two separate tests, both of which must be satisfied to find infringement: the "ordina
A flat rectangle with a touch screen is not a patentable design.
This is an erroneous claim. To see why, it is instructive to see what the US Patent Office has to say about design patents:
"A design consists of the visual ornamental characteristics embodied in, or applied to, an article of manufacture. Since a design is manifested in appearance, the subject matter of a design patent application may relate to the configuration or shape of an article, to the surface ornamentation applied to an article, or to the combination of configuration and surface ornamentation. A design for surface ornamentation is inseparable from the article to which it is applied and cannot exist alone. It must be a definite pattern of surface ornamentation, applied to an article of manufacture.
The Patent Law provides for the granting of design patents to any person who has invented any new, original and ornamental design for an article of manufacture. A design patent protects only the appearance of the article and not its structural or utilitarian features. The principal statutes (United States Code) governing design patents are:
35 USC 171: Whoever invents any new, original and ornamental design for an article of manufacture may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title. The provisions of this title relating to patents for inventions shall apply to patents for designs, except as otherwise provided.
[...]
35 USC 102: A person shall be entitled to a patent unless: (a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent, or (b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States, or (c) he has abandoned the invention, or (d) the invention was first patented or caused to be patented, or was the subject of an inventor’s certificate, by the applicant or his legal representatives or assigns in a foreign country prior to the date of the application for patent in this country on an application for patent or inventor’s certificate filed more than twelve months before the filing of the application in the United States, or (e) the invention was described in (1) an application for patent, published under section 122 (b), by another filed in the United States before the invention by the applicant for patent or (2) a patent granted on an application for patent by another filed in the United States before the invention by the applicant for patent, except that an international application filed under the treaty defined in section 351 (a) shall have the effects for the purposes of this subsection of an application filed in the United States only if the international application designated the United States and was published under Article 21(2) of such treaty in the English language; or (f) he did not himself invent the subject matter sought to be patented, or (g) (1) during the course of an interference conducted under section 135 orsection 291, another inventor involved therein establishes, to the extent permitted in section 104, that before such person’s invention thereof the invention was made by such other inventor and not abandoned, suppressed, or concealed, or (2) before such person’s invention thereof, the invention was made in this country by another inventor who had not abandoned, suppressed, or concealed it. In determining priority of invention under this subsection, there shall be considered not only the respective dates of conception and reduction to practice of the invention, but also the reasonable diligence of one who was first to conceive and last to reduce to practice, from a time prior to conception by the other.
35 USC 103: (a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identic
Since you didn't bother to specify which, now disbanded, Arizonian "minutemen" group, there's the murders of Raul and Brisenia Flores by Shawna Forde (State of Arizona vs. Shawna Forde (court case number CR-20092300-001, Pima County)), the founder of the splinter group Minutemen American Defense, and Jason Bush (State of Arizona vs. Jason Eugene Bush (court case number CR-20092300-003, Pima County)).
Re:So what's the purpose of this story again?
on
The Fall of 38 Studios
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Although the story doesn't mention it, unlike others, I'm guessing it's one more subtle jab to the fact that he [Curt Schilling] is vehemently opposed to government financial bailouts and stimulus funds, yet didn't bother to eschew a tax-payer backed state loan, let alone managed his company, from afar, in the same impetuous manner as those that required government aid in the first place.
Had Schilling really wanted to make Copernicus a reality, there were plenty of other alternative steps he and the management at 38 Studios could have taken. One option would have been to scrap the development of an MMO, something that, as the article noted, resulted in a number of years without revenue, and instead focused on an excellent single-player game from the get-go, so as to build up brand recognition before branching out. (While they, in a half-hearted attempt, did this with Kingdoms of Amalur, it really wasn't a good enough effort, which is evident in just about every facet of the game.)
You've displayed a key lack of understanding in many topics in all of your posts. While I don't have a desire to point out all of your egregiously specious claims, as some have already done that for me, I will say that you clearly have a short memory, depending upon your age, when it comes to some of the components of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (HR 3590 with amendment).
To elaborate, almost two decades ago, a paper from the Heritage Foundation (S. M. Butler, "The Heritage consumer choice health plan", Heritage Foundation, 1992; see also S. M. Butler, "Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans", 1989; M. V. Pauly, et al., "A plan for responsible national health insurance", Health Affairs, 1991; R. E. Moffitt, "Personal freedom, responsibility, and mandates", Health Affairs, 1994; T. Miller, "Cato Institute policy analysis no. 210: Nickles-Sterns is not the market choice for health care reform", Cato Institute, 1994) pushed for health insurance mandates as an alternative to the Clinton health care plan of 1993. To quote:
"Step #2: Require all households to purchase at least a basic package of insurance, unless they are covered by Medicaid, Medicare, or other government health programs: All Heads of households would be required by law to obtain at least a basic health plan specified by Congress. The refundable credit system would offset the cost of such a plan for most Americans, as the exclusion does today for those with company-sponsored plans.
In addition to these core steps, the Heritage plan would institute reforms to smooth the transition to the consumer-based national system and to enable the market for health insurance and medical care to operate more effectively. Among these, the plan would:
(1) Reform the insurance market: The private insurance market would be reformed to make a standard basic package available to all at an acceptable price. (2) End state insurance mandates: Most states mandate that insurance sold must cover certain services. These mandates would in effect be preempted, to allow the basic plan to be marketed throughout the United States and to permit new types of group sponsors to sell plans. In addition, plans could not be made subject to state restrictions on managed care. These state mandates could be preempted by federal law, as they are for the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program. Or the federal government could widen current exemptions from state mandates for self-insured company plans to include any plan that complies with the insurance requirements of the Heritage proposal. (3) Place requirements on employers: In a system based on the Heritage proposal, employers would be required by law to do two things: 1) "Cash out" benefits during a one year transition period: Employers would have to add the cash value of their existing plan to the paychecks of any employee wishing to switch to an alternative plan or if the employer decided to terminate the plan. This means employees would be what economists call "held harmless" by the charge. After the transition, employers and employees would bargain for compensation packages as they do today. 2) Introduce payroll deduction for health insurance to adjust withholdings: Employers would be required to make payroll deductions each pay period, at the direction of each employee, and send the amount to the plan of the employee's choice. This would be like the payroll deduction that many employees instruct their employers to make for contributions to a 401(k) or similar savings plan. In the federal employee health system, a worker's agency or congressional office makes a similar payroll deduction to pay for premium costs."
This resulted in a number of bills, sponsored by Republicans, including the Consumer Choice Health Security Act (SB 1743), which was introduced in 1993 by Senator Don Nickles (R-OK) and 24 Republican co-sponsors and had this to say about the individual mandate:
"Subtitle C: Employer Provisions - Requires employers to: (1) withhold health insurance prem
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make in relation to my post. Almost all of the references I listed, which the parent poster desired from the grandparent poster, were to neuroscience journals, not "soft science" ones. (Having worked and written articles with more than a few neuroscientists in the past, many of whom also had M.D.s and joint appointments as faculty in the schools of medicine at various universities, I can definitely say they are not, principally, psychologists; granted, some neuroscientists can dabble in psychology, but most tend to stay within the realms of biology, medicine, and chemistry.)
In case you're confused about the two, to illustrate the difference between psychologists and neuroscientists, it is instructive to consider how we parse space.
In the psychology literature, one of the more dominant theories says that, when we couple or descriptions of routes with directional relations, we form spatial mental models of the information [1]. We then, through imagined geometric [2] or perspective transformations [3-5], synchronize them with the environment to navigate. Similarly, when we encounter spatial and object information that portray a scene, psychologists argue that we construct internal characterizations of it [6-10], which can be linked to the real world [11-15], despite incomplete or poorly worded descriptions [16], object position/size differences [17], etc.
Now, according to psychologists, how we build up this information is a source of contention: one group believes that we form abstract, mental images, while another says that we fabricate a semi-relaxed rule-base, both of which have "evidence" to "strongly support" their claims. That is, some psychologists got together and designed some experiments whose predicted observational results could be loosely interpreted as supporting some of their conclusions.
In contradistinction to simply dreaming up a theory, and sometimes tailoring tests to yield results that mostly conform to it, neuroscientists actually dig into the nervous system and try to figure out what's going on, i.e., they work from the opposite direction as psychologists and typically move forward without any sort of preconceptions as to what they will find. Of course, it is important to point out that their work usually takes years or decades to reach fruition, as they first have to find specific area(s) of the brain that correspond to various functions, which is no easy task, followed by making sense of neuronal activity, chemical secretions, etc. (see e.g., [18-42]). (Consequently, while psychologists think they have space partly figured out, neuroscientists have yet to say if any of them are actually right!)
[1] B. Tversky, et al., "Spatial mental models from descriptions", J. Amer. Soc. Inform. Science 45: 656-668, 1994 [2] R. Maki, et al., "Processing location and orientation information", Memory Cogn. 5: 602-612, 1977 [3] H. Taylor and B. Tversky, "Descriptions and depictions of environments", Memory Cog. 20: 483-496, 1992 [4] H. Taylor and B. Tversky, "Spatial mental models derived from survey and route descriptions", J. Memory Lang. 31: 261-282, 1992 [5] H. Taylor and B. Tversky, "Perspective in spatial descriptions", J. Memory Lang. 35: 371-391, 1996 [6] P. Foos, "Constructing cognitive maps from sentences", J. Exper. Psychol. 6: 25-38, 1980 [7] A. Garnham, "Mental models as representations of text", Memory Cogn. 9: 560-565, 1981 [8] K. Mani and P. Johnson-Laird, "The mental representation of spatial descriptions", Memory Cogn. 10: 181-187, 1982 [9] D. Bryand, et al., "Internal and external spatial frameworks for representing described scenes", J. Memory Lang. 31: 74-98, 1992 [10] E. Ferguson and M. Hegarty, "Properties of cognitive maps constructed from texts", Memory Cogn. 22: 455-473, 1994 [11] M. Denis and H. Zimmer, "Analog properties of cognitive maps constructed from texts", Psychol. Res. 54: 286-298, 1992 [12] M. Denis and M. Concude, "Scanning visual images generated from verbal desc
Learning can be hard for some, e.g., that person might have developmental dyscalculia, a rather specific developmental disorder:
B. Butterworth, et al., "Dyscalculia: From brain to education", Science 332: 1049–1053, 2011 N. Molko, et al., "Functional and structural alterations of intra-arietal sulcus in a developmental dyscalculia of genetic origin", Neuron 40: 847-858, 2003 H. S. Levin, et al., "Dyscalculia and dyslexia after right hemisphere injury in infancy", Arch. Neurol. 53: 88-96, 1996 K. L. Koontz and D. B. Berch, "Identifying simple numerical stimuli: Processing inefficiencies exhibited by arithmetic learning disabled children", Mathemat. Cogn. 2: 1-24, 1996 L. M. Levy, et al., "Metabolic abnormalities detected by 1H-MRS in dyscalculia and dysgraphia", Neurol. 53: 639-641, 1999 N. Molko, et al., "Brain anatomy in Turner syndrome: Evidence for impaired social and spatial-numerical networks", Cereb. Cortex 14: 840-850, 2004 E. B. Isaacs, et al., "Calculation difficulties in children of very low birthweight: A neural correlate", Brain 124: 1701-1707, 2001 R. S. Shalev, et al., "Developmental dyscalculia and brain laterality", Cortex 31: 357-365, 1995 I. P. Martins, et al., "Acquired procedural dyscalculia associated to a left parietal lesion in a child", Child Neuropsychol. 5: 265-273, 1999 K. Kucian, et al., "Impaired neural networks for approximate calculation in dyscalculic children: A functional MRI study", Behav. Brain Funct. 2: 31, 2006 R. Cohen, et al., "Virtual dyscalculia induced by parietal-lobe TMS impairs automatic magnitude processing", Curr. Biol. 17: 689-693, 2007 R. Stanescu-Cosson, et al., "Understanding dissociations in dyscalculia: A brain imaging study of the impact of number size on the cerebral networks for exact and approximate calculation", Brain 123: 2240-2255, 2000 S. M. Rivera, et al., "Functional brain activation during arithmetic processing in females with fragile X Syndrome is related to FMR1 protein expression", Hum. Brain Mapp. 16: 205-218, 2002 S. M. Rivera, et al., "Developmental changes in mental arithmetic: Evidence for increased functional specialization in the left inferior parietal cortex", Cereb. Cortex 15: 1779-1790, 2005 S. Dehaene and L. Cohen, "Cerebral pathways for calculation: Double dissociation between rote verbal and quantitative knowledge of arithmetic", Cortex 33: 219-250, 1997 P. Burbaud, et al., "Lateralization of prefrontal activation during internal mental calculation: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study", J. Neurophysiol. 74: 2194-2200, 1995 V. Menon, et al., "Dissociating prefrontal and parietal cortex activation during arithmetic processing", NeuroImage 12: 357-365, 2000 Y. Takayama, et al., "Isolated acalculia due to left parietal lesion", Arch. Neurol. 51: 286-291, 1994 M. Pesenti, et al., "Neuroanatomical substrates of arabic number processing, numerical comparison, and simple addition: a PET study", J. Cogn. Neurosci. 12: 461-479, 2000 T. C. Rickard, et al., "The calculating brain: an fMRI study", Neuropsychologia 38: 325-335, 2000 L. Cohen, et al., "Language and calculation within the parietal lobe: A combined cognitive, anatomical and fMRI study", Neuropsychologia 38: 1426-1440, 2000 L. Kaufmann, et al., "Deficient arithmetic fact retrieval - Storage or acess problem?", Neuropsychologia 42: 482-496, 2004 N. J. van Harskamp, et al., "Are multiplication facts implemented by the left supramarginal and angular gyri?", Neuropsychologia 40: 1786-1793, 2002 O. Rubinsten and A. Henik, "Automatic activation of internal magnitudes: A study of developmental dyscalculia", Neuropsychol. 19: 641-648, 2005 V. J. Schmithorst and R. D. Brown, "Empirical validation of the triplecode model of numerical processing for complex math operations using functional MRI and group independent component analysis of the mental addition and subtraction of fractions", NeuroImage 22: 1414-1420, 2004 R. S. Shalev and V. Gross-Tsu, "Developmetnal dyscalculia", Pediatr. Neurol. 24: 337-342
Slashdot Mirror
It should be noted that the usefulness of h-indices varies from field to field. For example, in various branches of pure mathematics, a heavily-referenced paper is one that, maybe, garners 25 to 100 citations. In applied mathematics and certain subsets of statistics, the threshold would be a factor of magnitude larger.
Also, as a preference, I tend to ignore metrics like h-indices when evaluating a researcher, as they provide very little evidence for his her her capabilities, let alone the quality of the work.
To elaborate, at least from my own experiences, in certain portions of applied mathematics that bleed over into computer vision, machine learning, and pattern recognition, I've seen papers that are relatively mathematically prosaic, but possibly easy to understand or where the code is made available, be heralded and heavily cited for a period. In contrast, I've come across papers that provide a much more sound, but complicated, framework along with better results, possibly after the topic is no longer in vogue, and go unnoticed or scarcely acknowledged.
In a different vein, there are times when a problem is so niche, but nevertheless important to someone or some funding agency, that there would be little reason for anyone else to cite it.
Touching on an almost completely opposite factor, there are times when the generality of the papers, coupled with the subject area, artificially inflates certain scores. For instance, if a researcher spends his or her career developing general tools, e.g., in the context of computer vision, things like optical flow estimators, object recognition schemes, etc., those papers will likely end up more heavily cited, as they can be applied in many ways, than those dealing with a specific, non-niche problem, e.g., car detection in traffic videos. Furthermore, the propensity for certain disciplines to favor almost-complete bibliographies can skew things too.
Finally, albeit rare, are those papers that introduce and find the "best" way to solve a problem that no other discussion is warranted.
This seems blatantly obvious to me. Forget any psych certs and licenses. You can do IT work without them, and you can do the same in the psych field. Just don't lie about your qualifications.
Actually, most countries, including the United States, require that counseling psychologists obtain a license, let alone pass tests, to offer their craft to the public. If someone is found, just like in medicine or in clinical psychiatry, practicing without such a license, they will be slapped with some steep fines and jail time. (Granted, there is some wiggle room with regards to this, as ordained pastors and rabbis are allowed to provide counseling within the context of religious duties; moreover, if these religious ministers have suitable advanced training or degrees, they can ethically provide psychotherapy.)
Also, as an aside, the submitter might not have the proper background to engage in psychological counseling. For example, there are many that focus exclusively on research and look at phenomena, which are distant from those behaviors useful in a psychotherapy setting, such as how humans parse space, how we learn new concepts, how we analyze various items, etc.
It is not better if the professor writes the book for you to use in class.
This is incorrect. I have gone through several undergraduate and graduate math courses where the professor's book was lauded in the field and also a great read, e.g., Tom Apostol's two-volume Calculus series, Serge Lang's Algebra, or some of Bourbaki's treatises. I have also had instructors that would produce copious amounts of notes, which were freely available, to go along with their self-written books; one such example was for my differential geometry class, where around 700 pages of alternate derivations of theorems, showing different routes that could be taken to prove the claim, stronger results, etc., were given.
What you're asking, as with most difficult topics, is something that's not easy to answer: for every good intention there will be someone waiting to exploit it, for every forced concession on the part of large companies there will be major resistance, and so on.
Personally, though, I'd prefer to see some sort of short-duration patent infringement immunity clause for new small business start-ups.
To elaborate, I've come up some pieces of hardware that I'm both publishing about and having patented. Ideally, it'd be nice to spin the design and manufacturing elements of this hardware into a small company, as it not only would bring in a handful of high-paying engineering and development jobs to the state right away, but would also, hopefully, generate enough revenue to allow the pursuit of other endeavors, thus leading to more positions down the road. Unfortunately, however, to actually sell this device, I'll be forced to license an array of patents, which has the potential to eat up a lot of money that could be used for better purposes, e.g., bringing on more talented workers or for handling unforeseen situations. As a result, it would be nice to have a guaranteed, one or two year reprieve from having to negotiate the use of intellectual property from any other source, which would be ample time to get a product out to market and save up enough to license everything after that period, provided everything goes well and the company is still solvent.
Although not entirely pertinent, a cursory reading of the the dissenting opinion by Circuit Judge Newman, a brief excerpt of which is given below, sheds some light on this:
According to the court’s new ruling, it appears that the patentee cannot sue the direct infringers of the patent, when more than one entity participates in the infringement. The only remedial path is by way of “inducement.” We are not told how compensation is measured. The only thing that is clear, is that remedy is subject to new uncertainties. Since the direct infringers cannot be liable for infringement, they do not appear to be subject to the court’s jurisdiction. Perhaps the inducer can be enjoined—but will that affect the direct infringers? Since the inducer is liable when he breaches the “duty” not to induce, is the inducer subject to multiplication of damages? This return to the “duty to exercise due care to determine whether or not he is infringing” of Underwater Devices Inc. v. Morrison–Knudsen Co., Inc., 717 F.2d 1380, 1389 (Fed. Cir. 1983) raises tension with the ruling of the en banc court in In re Seagate Technology LLC, 497 F.3d 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2007) that overruled the standard of Underwater Devices.
My comment was intended as raillery. The fact that you view it, if I am understanding you correctly, as aggressive vitriol is a bit surprising, considering that there are far more severe ways to excoriate someone.
Oh, and as an aside, I own no Apple products and am definitely not a fanatic of theirs, let alone any other company.
Then apparently you parsed my post incorrectly, whilst I, in turn, did the same to yours, as I did not envision that someone could misinterpret my reference to hyperbole and not see it applied solely to: "[t]here are quite a number of people out there that would sooner die then choose Apple because of their shiny retarded walled garden approach to computing" versus: "it is a bit rich that you would opt for a phone that is more limited and, likely, locked down than an iPhone". Albeit unintentional, if you were offended, I do apologize.
Nevertheless, to make things perfectly clear, I am not saying that people voting with their wallets or choosing an inferior product, where the qualifier is subjective, are cognitively impaired.
How does any of that qualify as locked down?
The answer to that is easy: most clamshell phones, e.g.,
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SGH-A157ZKAATT
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SCH-U365HAAVZW
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SGH-T159YKBTMB
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SCH-R270KRAUSC
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SCH-R220ZSADYN
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SPH-M370BAASPR
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SGH-A197ZKAATT
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SGH-T245LSATFN
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SCH-R261WRAXAR
don't run Android, have no way to install applications, etc. In fact, there are only two that do, currently, run the Android OS: the Aquos Hybrid 007SH and the Samsung W999
What I take exception to is being called mentally deficient.
If you would rather die than choosing an iPhone, be it under any circumstance, as the original poster did not specify, my statement stands: you, let alone anyone else, would clearly exhibit a dearth of faculties, as you would be willing to forfeit your existence over something so trivial as a piece of technology.
There are quite a number of people out there that would sooner die then choose Apple because of their shiny retarded walled garden approach to computing. I'll go back to a clamshell phone before I choose Apple for anything.
The obvious hyperbole aside, unless, of course, you were serious and do know of people with such obvious mental deficiencies, it is a bit rich that you would opt for a phone that is more limited and, likely, locked down than an iPhone.
[...] Apple employees can forget about being allowed to collaborate with researchers at U. of Missouri.
That's not a loss for Apple, considering that most of the "researchers" within the School of Engineering there, at least from what I've seen and have been told from others, are regulated to publishing prosaic papers in the bottom-tier journals and conferences.
Give me some science on it and tell me some more details.
Since they didn't give a link to it, here's the citation for the paper in question: M. P. Walser, et al., "Direct mapping of the formation of a persistent spin helix", Nature Phys., 2012 (accepted, in press). You can read all of the wonderfully gritty, and hard-to-parse, details in that paper.
If you want to learn more about the science behind spintronics, feel free to peruse:
M. Johnson and R. H. Silsbee, "Interfacial charge-spin coupling: Injection and detection of spin magnetization in metals", Phys. Rev. Lett. 55: 1790-1793, 1985
M. N. Baibich, et al., "Giant magnetoresistance of (001)Fe/(001)Cr magnetic superlattices", Phys. Rev. Lett. 61: 2472-2475, 1988
G. Binasch, et al., "Enhanced magnetoresistance in layered magnetic structures with antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange", Phys. Rev. B 29: 4828, 1989
S. Datta and B. Das, "Electronic analog of the electrooptic modulator", Appl. Phys. Lett. 56: 665-667, 1990
J. Kikkawa and D. Awschalom, "Resonant spin amplification in n-type GaAs", Phys. Rev. Lett. 80: 4313, 1998
B. T. Jonker, et al., "Robust electrical spin injection into a semiconductor heterostructure", Phys. Rev. B 62: 8180-8183, 2000
A. T. Hanbicki, et al., "Efficient electrical spin injection from a magnetic metal/tunnel barrier contact into a semiconductor", Appl. Phys. Lett. 80: 1240, 2002
S. van Dijken, et al., "Room temperature operation of a high output current magnetic tunnel transistor", Appl. Phys. Lett. 80: 3364-3366, 2002
X. Jiang, et al., "Optical detection of hot-electron spin injection into GaAs from a magnetic tunnel transistor source", Phys. Rev. Lett. 90: 256603, 2003
J. Schliemann, et al., "Nonballistic spin-field-effect transistor", Phys. Rev. Lett. 90: 146801, 2003
B. A. Bernevig, et al., "Exact SU(2) symmetry and persistent spin helix in a spin-orbit coupled system", Phys. Rev. Lett. 97: 236601: 2006
X. Lou, et al., "Electrical detection of spin transport in lateral ferromagnet–semiconductor devices", Nature Phys. 3: 197-202, 2007
M. Holub, et al., "Electrical spin injection and threshold reduction in a semiconductor laser", Phys. Rev. Lett. 98: 146603, 2007
I. Appelbaum, et al., "Electronic measurement and control of spin transport in silicon", Nature 447: 295-298, 2007
M. Duckheim and D. Loss, "Resonant spin polarization and spin current in a two-dimensional electron gas", Phys. Rev. B 75: 201305, 2007
B. Behin-Aein, et al., "Proposal for an all-spin logic device with built-in memory", Nature Nano. 5: 266-270, 2010
J. Wunderlich, et al., "Spin Hall effect transistor", Science 330: 1801-1804, 2010
How about a blurb about spintronics already being used in modern hard drive read heads?
I can do better than a blurb, I can provide you with references to the underlying science:
M. Julliere, "Tunneling between ferromagnetic films", Phys. Lett. 54: 225-226, 1975
J. S. Moodera, et al. "Large magnetoresistance at room temperature in ferromagnetic thin film tunnel junctions", Phys. Rev. Lett. 74: 3273-3276
W. H. Butler, et al., "Spin-dependent tunneling conductance of Fe/MgO/Fe sandwiches", Phys. Rev. B. 63: 054416, 2001
J. Mathon and A. Umerski, "Theory of tunneling magnetoresistance of an epitaxial Fe/MgO/Fe (001) junction", Phys. Rev. B. 63: 220403, 2001
M. Bowen, et al., "Large magnetoresistance in Fe/MgO/FeCo(001) epitaxial tunnel junctions on GaAs(001)", Appl. Phys. Lett. 79: 1655, 2001
S. Yuasa, et al., "Giant room-temperature magnetoresistance in single-crystal Fe/MgO/Fe magnetic tunnel junctions", Nature Mater. 3: 868-871, 2004
S. S. P. Parkin, et al., "Giant tunnelling magnetoresistance at room temperature with MgO (100) tunnel barriers" Nature Mater. 3: 862-867, 2004
S. Ikeda, et al., "Tunnel magnetoresistance of 604% at 300 K by suppression of Ta diffusion in CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB pseudo-spin-valves annealed at high temperature", Appl. Phys. Lett. 93: 082508, 2008
Of course not. Liberals never give up the tools of fascism, they need them too dearly.
Yes, clearly [classical] liberals need those tools in order to realize limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberties including free markets and freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly.
The following is taken from R. Hudelson, Modern Political Philosophy. M.E. Sharpe: Armonk, NY, USA, 1999:
By the middle of the nineteenth century, a coherent vision of how society should be organized had taken shape in England, western Europe, and the Americas. This vision is the political ideology of classical liberalism. [...] Central to the classical liberalism of the nineteenth century is a commitment to the liberty of individual citizens. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly [are] core components, as [is] the underlying conception of the proper role of just government as the protection of the liberties of individual citizens. Also central to classical liberalism was a commitment to a system of free markets as the best way to organize economic life.
[...] Classical liberalism draws on the economic science of Adam Smith, the psychological insight into the importance of individual liberty to human beings, and the ethical theories of natural law and utilitarianism. While, at their most abstract level, utilitarianism and natural law disagree profoundly about what makes something morally right or wrong, when combined with the convictions about the truth of Smith's economics and the psychology of human liberty, both theories agree in their endorsement of free markets and limited government. By the middle of the nineteenth century, convinced by the utilitarian critique of the idea of natural law, most philosophers had embraced the utilitarian philosophy. Nonetheless, being also convinced by Smith and Mill of the conduciveness to human happiness and the maximal individual liberty, these same philosophers could warmly endorse the political principles championed by the natural-law theorists of the American and French Revolutions. [...] As the century drew to a close, most classical liberals had also [...] followed Bentham and Mill into accepting the principle of democracy as well. Only governments elected by universal or near-universal suffrage could reasonably be expected to refrain from violating the liberty of their citizens in service to narrow interests [...]
(In case it wasn't obvious, you should not generalize, let alone bandy terms with which you are, seemingly, unfamiliar.)
Another paper, published in the same journal, concluded that "the heat wave falls within the realm of natural variability ... [and] appears not to be the product of long-term climate changes"
That quote neither appears in the paper you reference (M. Matsueda, "Predictability of Euro-Russian blocking in summer of 2010", Geophys. Res. Lett. 38: L06801, 2011) nor the NOAA press release.
Also, some researchers in Germany analyzed the data and published a paper, entitled "Large scale flow and the long-lasting blocking high over Russia", which says that the heat wave "appears as a result of natural atmospheric variability".
The quote taken from (the abstract of) that paper, by Schneidereit et al., was in reference to R. Dole, et al. ("Was there a basis for anticipating the 2010 Russian heat wave", Geophys. Res. Lett. 38: L06702, 2011). Schneidereit et al. also mentioned, citing a study by Schar et al. ("The role of increasing temperature variability in European summer heatwaves", Nature 427: 332-336, 2004), that a long-lasting blocking high could occur more often with climate change and the expected change in the year-to-year variability.
If they remade the assets and did not copy directly the files it's not copyright infringement in international law. Same thing with game mechanics. If Zynga did not copy/paste the code or texts from EA them there's no ground in international copyright law.
There is plenty of legal precedence in US law, which pertains as the case is being argued in US, that contradicts some of your statements:
Midway Mfg. Co., v. Dirkschneider et al. 543 F. Supp 466 (D. Neb. 1981)
Nintendo of America, Inc. v. Elcon Industries, 564 F.Supp. 937 (E.D. Mich. 1982)
Atari, Inc. v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp., 672 F.2d 607 (7th Cir. 1982)
Midway Manufacturing Co. v. Artic International, Inc., 547 F. Supp. 999 (N.D. Ill. 1982)
Midway Manufacturing Co. v. Artic International, Inc., 704 F.2d 1009 (7th Cir. 1983)
Team Play, Inc. v. Boyer, 391 F.Supp.2d 695 (N.D. Ill. 2005)
William L Crawford II et al. v. Midway Games, Inc. et al. (W.D. Cal. 2007)
Capcom Co., Ltd. et. al. v. The MKR Group (N.D. Cal. 2008)
To elaborate a bit from those above cases, let alone others, to establish infringement a plaintiff must prove ownership of a valid copyright and "copying" by the defendant. Because direct evidence of copying often is unavailable, copying may be inferred where the defendant had access to the copyrighted work and the accused work is substantially similar to the copyrighted work (Warner Brothers, Inc. v. American Broadcasting Cos., Inc., 654 F.2d 204, 207 (2d Cir. 1981)).
Some courts have expressed the test of substantial similarity in two parts: (1) whether the defendant copied from the plaintiff's work and (2) whether the copying, if proven, went so far as to constitute an improper appropriation (Scott v. WKJG, Inc., 376 F.2d 467, 469 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 832, 88 S.Ct. 101, 19 L.Ed.2d 91 (1967)); Arnstein v. Porter, 154 F.2d 464, 468 (2d Cir. 1946); cf. Sid & Marty Krofft Television Productions, Inc. v. McDonald's Corp., 562 F.2d 1157, 1164 (9th Cir. 1977) (extrinsic-intrinsic test)). In many cases, the courts focus on the second part of that test and the response of the "ordinary observer" (Ideal Toy Corp. v. Fab-Lu Ltd. (Inc.), 360 F.2d 1021, 1023 n.2 (2d Cir. 1966)). Specifically, the test is whether the accused work is so similar to the plaintiff's work that an ordinary reasonable person would conclude that the defendant unlawfully appropriated the plaintiff's protectible expression by taking material of substance and value (Krofft, 562 F.2d at 1164). Judge Learned Hand, in finding infringement, once stated that "the ordinary observer, unless he set out to detect the disparities, would be disposed to overlook them, and regard their aesthetic appeal as the same" (Peter Pan Fabrics, Inc. v. Martin Weiner Corp., 274 F.2d 487, 489 (2d Cir. 1960)). It has been said that this test does not involve "analytic dissection and expert testimony," Arnstein, 154 F.2d at 468, but depends on whether the accused work has captured the "total concept and feel" of the copyrighted work (Roth Greeting Cards v. United Card Co., 429 F.2d 1106, 1110 (9th Cir. 1970)).
While dissection is generally disfavored, the ordinary observer test, in application, must take into account that the copyright laws preclude appropriation of only those elements of the work that are protected by the copyright (Durham Industries, Inc. v. Tomy Corp., 630 F.2d 905, 913 (2d Cir. 1980); Clarke v. G. A. Kayser & Sons, Inc., 472 F.Supp. 481, 482 (W.D.Pa.1979), aff'd without op., 631 F.2d 725 (3d Cir. 1980)). "It is an axiom of copyright law that the protection granted to a copyrightable work extends only to the particular expression of an idea and never to the idea itself" (Reyher v. Children's Television Workshop, 533 F.2d 87, 90 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 980, 97 S.Ct. 492, 50 L.Ed.2d 588 (1976)). "Unlike a patent, a copyright gives no exclusive right to the art disclosed; protection is given only to the expression of the idea-not the idea itself" (Mazer v. St
Sure, we know that. The problem is other people had already made devices that looked very similar and features most, if not all, of those design elements. Apple's claim should have been invalidated by prior art and for not being at all novel.
Then let me ask you this question: based upon the design patents by M. Kurihara (D291,442, Sept. 1984), M. Hara, et al. (D294,831, Aug. 1985), Y. Sugano (D299,031, Jun. 1986), C. T. Yu (D306,285, Dec. 1987), H. Shiozawa, et al. (D303,523, Nov. 1987), Y. Ooshima, et al. (D307,581, Feb. 1988), A. Tsukada, et al. (D310,213, Nov. 1988), K. Mizusugi, et al. (D309,603, Feb. 1989), K. Mizusugi, et al. (D330,016, Apr. 1991), K. Mizusugi, et al. (D344,496, Dec. 1991), K. Mizusugi (D357,674, Feb. 1994), H. Tamaki (D384,043, Jun. 1996), M. Kawa (D385,856, Oct. 1996), S. Mizuno (D405,434, Dec. 1997), S.-H. Han (D396,703, Aug. 1997), M. Kawa and K. Koyama (D413,107, Nov. 1998), C.-C. Lee, et al. (D408,798, Apr. 1998), and S. Mizuno (D431,821, Dec. 1999), let alone hundreds of others, do you believe that all current laptop design patents should be invalidated? After all, most, if not all laptops, share the same fundamental features outlined in those documents: a two-part hinged body, one which houses a screen and another for a keyboard and/or trackpad, etc.
Really, when you get down to it, design patents are notoriously difficult to deal with during the review phase, which is why it is usually up to the courts to settle matters.
To elaborate, for an examiner to properly reject a claimed design under 35 U.S.C. 171 on the basis of a lack of ornamentality, he or she must make a prima facie showing that the claimed design lacks ornamentality and provide a sufficient evidentiary basis for factual assumptions relied upon in such showing. (The court in In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir.1992), stated that "the examiner bears the initial burden, on review of the prior art or on any other ground, of presenting a prima facie case of unpatentability.")
The proper evidentiary basis for a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 171 that a claim is lacking in ornamentality is an evaluation of the appearance of the design itself. The examiner’s knowledge of the art, a reply to a letter of inquiry, a brochure emphasizing the functional/mechanical features of the design, the specification of an analogous utility patent (the applicant’s or another inventor), or information provided in the specification may be used to supplement the analysis of the design. If a design is embodied in a specific mechanical article, the analysis that the design lacks ornamentality because its appearance is dictated by functional requirements should be supported by reference to utility patents or some other source of information about the function of the design. If the design is embodied in an article that has a more general use, such as a clip, the analysis and explanation as to why the design lacks ornamentality should be detailed and specific. The examiner’s contention that the specific appearance of the claimed design lacks ornamentality may be supported by the holding of the court in In re Carletti et al., 328 F.2d 1020, 140 USPQ 653 (CCPA 1964), that a design to be patentable must be "created for the purpose of ornamenting" the article in which it is embodied. The presence or lack of ornamentality must be made on a case by case basis.
Examples of proper evidentiary basis for a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 171 that a claim is lacking in ornamentality would be: (a) common knowledge in the art; (b) the appearance of the design itself; (c) the specification of a related utility patent; or (d) information provided in the specification. Moreover, a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 171 for lack of ornamentality must be supported by evidence and rejections should not be made in the absence of such evidence.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. 171 for lack of ornamentality based on a proper prima facie showing fall into two categories: (a) a design visibl
The answer to your question is that design patents cover articles that are "primarily ornamental", which I elaborate upon below. (Your item (b) is the closest to this. However, it is important to point out that, unless specifically stated, design patents cover all potential colorations of an article.)
An ornamental feature or design has been defined as one which was “created for the purpose of ornamenting” and cannot be the result or “merely a by-product” of functional or mechanical considerations. (In re Carletti, 328 F.2d 1020, 140 USPQ 653, 654 (CCPA 1964); Blisscraft of Hollywood v. United Plastic Co., 189 F. Supp. 333, 337, 127 USPQ 452, 454 (S.D.N.Y. 1960), aff’d, 294 F.2d 694, 131 USPQ 55 (2d Cir. 1961)) It is clear that the ornamentality of the article must be the result of a conscious act by the inventor, as 35 U.S.C. 171 requires that a patent for a design be given only to “whoever invents any new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture.” Therefore, for a design to be ornamental within the requirements of 35 U.S.C. 171, it must be “created for the purpose of ornamenting.” (In re Carletti, 328 F.2d 1020, 1022, 140 USPQ 653, 654 (CCPA 1964))
To be patentable, a design must be “primarily ornamental.” “In determining whether a design is primarily functional or primarily ornamental the claimed design is viewed in its entirety, for the ultimate question is not the functional or decorative aspect of each separate feature, but the overall appearance of the article, in determining whether the claimed design is dictated by the utilitarian purpose of the article.” (L. A. Gear Inc. v. Thom McAn Shoe Co., 988 F.2d 1117, 1123, 25 USPQ2d 1913, 1917 (Fed. Cir. 1993)) The court in Norco Products, Inc. v. Mecca Development, Inc., 617 F.Supp. 1079, 1080, 227 USPQ 724, 725 (D. Conn. 1985), held that a “primarily functional invention is not patentable” as a design.
A determination of ornamentality is not a quantitative analysis based on the size of the ornamental feature or features but rather a determination based on their ornamental contribution to the design as a whole.
While ornamentality must be based on the entire design, “[i]n determining whether a design is primarily functional, the purposes of the particular elements of the design necessarily must be considered.” (Power Controls Corp. v. Hybrinetics, Inc., 806 F.2d 234, 240, 231 USPQ 774, 778 (Fed. Cir. 1986)) The court in Smith v. M & B Sales & Manufacturing, 13 USPQ2d 2002, 2004 (N. D. Cal. 1990), states that if “significant decisions about how to put it [the item] together and present it in the marketplace were informed by primarily ornamental considerations”, this information may establish the ornamentality of a design.
“However, a distinction exists between the functionality of an article or features thereof and the functionality of the particular design of such article or features thereof that perform a function.” (Avia Group International Inc. v. L. A. Gear California Inc., 853 F.2d 1557, 1563, 7 USPQ2d 1548, 1553 (Fed. Cir. 1988)) The distinction must be maintained between the ornamental design and the article in which the design is embodied. The design for the article cannot be assumed to lack ornamentality merely because the article of manufacture would seem to be primarily functional.
To understand how I reached that decision, beyond what I mentioned above, it is important to start with case law dating back to 1893, specifically Smith v. Whitman Saddle Co., 148 U.S. 674, respectively.
The Whitman Saddle case involved a patent on a design for a saddle. During its ruling, the court emphasized the importance of “invention” to the patentability of a design; it stated, “Mere mechanical skill is insufficient. There must be something akin to genius, an effort of the brain as well as the hand. The adaptation of old devices or forms to new purposes, however convenient, useful, or beautiful they may be in their new role, is not invention.” (148 U.S. at 679) The Court then explained (id.):
"The exercise of the inventive or originative faculty is required, and a person cannot be permitted to select an existing form, and simply put it to a new use, any more than he can be permitted to take a patent for the mere double use of a machine. If, however, the selection and adaptation of an existing form is more than the exercise of the imitative faculty, and the result is in effect a new creation, the design may be patentable."
In the case before it, the court characterized the patented saddle design as a combination of elements from two saddle designs that were well known in the art. The court explained that the patented design consisted of a combination of the front half of the so-called Granger saddle and the back end of the so-called Jenifer saddle. The design differed from a simple combination of the two known saddles, according to the court, only in that the front end of the design had “a nearly perpendicular drop of some inches at the rear of the pommel,” unlike in the Granger saddle. (Id. at 680)
Although the trial court, sitting in equity, concluded that the design was patentable, the Supreme Court disagreed. The court wrote, “Nothing more was done in this instance (except as hereafter noted) than to put the two halves of these saddles together in the exercise of the ordinary skill of workmen of the trade, and in the way and manner ordinarily done.” (148 U.S. at 681) The court noted that there was a difference between the pommel of the designed saddle and the pommel of the Granger saddle, and it added that the “shape of the front end being old, the sharp drop of the pommel at the rear seems to constitute what was new and to be material.” Id. at 682. That feature, however, was not present in the defendants’ saddle. The court then concluded with the following remarks (id.):
"If, therefore, this drop were material to the design, and rendered it patentable as a complete and integral whole, there was no infringement. As before said, the design of the patent had two features of difference as compared with the Granger saddle, one the cantle, the other the drop; and unless there was infringement as to the latter there was none at all, since the saddle design of the patent does not otherwise differ from the old saddle with the old cantle added, an addition frequently made. Moreover, that difference was so marked that in our judgment the defendant’s saddle could not be mistaken for the saddle of the complainant."
Since Whitman Saddle was an action in equity, the court did not distinguish sharply between its analysis of patentability and its discussion of infringement. Within the same passage, it moved from stating that it could not agree with the trial court that the design in issue was patentable to the conclusion that if the design were patentable because of the drop at the rear of the pommel, there was no infringement. The point the court was making was that, viewed in light of the similarities between the prior art and the patented design, the accused design did not contain the single feature that would have made it appear distinctively similar to the patented design rather than like the numerous prior art designs. For that reason, it held, the accused design did not infringe.
Subsequent cases applied t
(Submitting this comment again, since it apparently didn't get accepted the first time)
As I mentioned above, according to the US Patent Office, Apple's design met their criteria to merit the awarding of a patent. Whether or not the jury, and likely the appeal courts, agree, is still debatable.
To elaborate a bit on this, and also better refine by above post, Apple's design patents do not cover all rectangular-shaped electronic devices with rounded corners. Apple's design patents, e.g., for the iPad (D504,889, and others), are rather precise, and, ultimately, limited: they cover an article with a certain kind of case design, a specific screen placement and size ratio with respect to the body, and input port/button location. Provided that other companies/individuals do not, practically, reuse the same design elements, i.e., an article doesn't have buttons in the same locations, similar stylizations in the same locations, the same kind of package design, etc., the US Patent Office is willing to grant design patents.
Now, the court's view is mostly aligned with the US Patent Office's on what constitutes a valid design, i.e., the design threshold needed to afford protection via a patent. To begin, it is helpful to at least outline some preliminary case law about design patents:
"A design patent protects the nonfunctional aspects of an ornamental design as shown in the patent." (Elmer v. ICC Fabricating, Inc., 67 F.3d 1571, 1577 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (citing Keystone Retaining Wall Sys., Inc. v. Westrock, Inc., 997 F.2d 1444, 1450 (Fed. Cir. 1993))) The chief limitation on the patentability of designs is that they must be primarily ornamental in character. If the design is dictated by performance of the article, then it is judged to be functional and ineligible for design patent protection. (Best Lock Corp. v. Ilco Unican Corp., 94 F.3d 1563, 1566 (Fed. Cir. 1996))
As for case law about design thresholds, I found it by looking through that concerning infringement (a design patent is infringed by the "unauthorized manufacture, use, or sale of the article embodying the patented design or any colorable imitation thereof." (Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Hercules Tire & Rubber Co., 162 F.3d 1113, 1116-17 (Fed. Cir. 1998))):
Similar to the infringement analysis of a utility patent, infringement of a design patent is evaluated in a two-step process. First, the court must construe the claims of the design patent to determine their meaning and scope. (OddzOn Prods., Inc. v. Just Toys, Inc., 122 F.3d 1396, 1404-05 (Fed. Cir. 1997)) Design patents typically are claimed as shown in drawings. Claim construction by a court is adapted accordingly. Goodyear, 162 F.3d at 1116. The scope of the claim of a patented design “encompasses ‘its visual appearance as a whole,’ and in particular ‘the visual impression it creates.’” (Contessa Food Prods., Inc. v. Conagra, Inc., 282 F.3d 1370, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (quoting Durling v. Spectrum Furniture Co., 101 F.3d 100, 104-05 (Fed. Cir. 1996)))
Second, after construction of the patent’s claims, the court is to compare the construed claims to the accused design. Elmer, 67 F.3d at 1577. Infringement of a design patent occurs if "the designs have the same general visual appearance, such that it is likely that the purchaser [(or the ordinary observer)] would be deceived into confusing the design of the accused article with the patented design." (Goodyear, 162 F.3d at 1118) The patented and accused designs do not have to be identical in order for design patent infringement to be found. (Contessa, 282 F.3d at 1376) In determining infringement of a design patent, the court "is not limited to the ornamental features of a subset of the drawings, but instead must encompass the claimed ornamental features of all figures of a design patent." (Id. at 1379 (emphasis added))
The comparison of the patented and accused designs involves two separate tests, both of which must be satisfied to find infringement: the "ordina
A flat rectangle with a touch screen is not a patentable design.
This is an erroneous claim. To see why, it is instructive to see what the US Patent Office has to say about design patents:
"A design consists of the visual ornamental characteristics embodied in, or applied to, an article of manufacture. Since a design is manifested in appearance, the subject matter of a design patent application may relate to the configuration or shape of an article, to the surface ornamentation applied to an article, or to the combination of configuration and surface ornamentation. A design for surface ornamentation is inseparable from the article to which it is applied and cannot exist alone. It must be a definite pattern of surface ornamentation, applied to an article of manufacture.
The Patent Law provides for the granting of design patents to any person who has invented any new, original and ornamental design for an article of manufacture. A design patent protects only the appearance of the article and not its structural or utilitarian features. The principal statutes (United States Code) governing design patents are:
35 USC 171: Whoever invents any new, original and ornamental design for an article of manufacture may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title. The provisions of this title relating to patents for inventions shall apply to patents for designs, except as otherwise provided.
[...]
35 USC 102: A person shall be entitled to a patent unless: (a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent, or (b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States, or (c) he has abandoned the invention, or (d) the invention was first patented or caused to be patented, or was the subject of an inventor’s certificate, by the applicant or his legal representatives or assigns in a foreign country prior to the date of the application for patent in this country on an application for patent or inventor’s certificate filed more than twelve months before the filing of the application in the United States, or (e) the invention was described in (1) an application for patent, published under section 122 (b), by another filed in the United States before the invention by the applicant for patent or (2) a patent granted on an application for patent by another filed in the United States before the invention by the applicant for patent, except that an international application filed under the treaty defined in section 351 (a) shall have the effects for the purposes of this subsection of an application filed in the United States only if the international application designated the United States and was published under Article 21(2) of such treaty in the English language; or (f) he did not himself invent the subject matter sought to be patented, or (g) (1) during the course of an interference conducted under section 135 orsection 291, another inventor involved therein establishes, to the extent permitted in section 104, that before such person’s invention thereof the invention was made by such other inventor and not abandoned, suppressed, or concealed, or (2) before such person’s invention thereof, the invention was made in this country by another inventor who had not abandoned, suppressed, or concealed it. In determining priority of invention under this subsection, there shall be considered not only the respective dates of conception and reduction to practice of the invention, but also the reasonable diligence of one who was first to conceive and last to reduce to practice, from a time prior to conception by the other.
35 USC 103: (a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identic
Since you didn't bother to specify which, now disbanded, Arizonian "minutemen" group, there's the murders of Raul and Brisenia Flores by Shawna Forde (State of Arizona vs. Shawna Forde (court case number CR-20092300-001, Pima County)), the founder of the splinter group Minutemen American Defense, and Jason Bush (State of Arizona vs. Jason Eugene Bush (court case number CR-20092300-003, Pima County)).
Although the story doesn't mention it, unlike others, I'm guessing it's one more subtle jab to the fact that he [Curt Schilling] is vehemently opposed to government financial bailouts and stimulus funds, yet didn't bother to eschew a tax-payer backed state loan, let alone managed his company, from afar, in the same impetuous manner as those that required government aid in the first place.
Had Schilling really wanted to make Copernicus a reality, there were plenty of other alternative steps he and the management at 38 Studios could have taken. One option would have been to scrap the development of an MMO, something that, as the article noted, resulted in a number of years without revenue, and instead focused on an excellent single-player game from the get-go, so as to build up brand recognition before branching out. (While they, in a half-hearted attempt, did this with Kingdoms of Amalur, it really wasn't a good enough effort, which is evident in just about every facet of the game.)
You've displayed a key lack of understanding in many topics in all of your posts. While I don't have a desire to point out all of your egregiously specious claims, as some have already done that for me, I will say that you clearly have a short memory, depending upon your age, when it comes to some of the components of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (HR 3590 with amendment).
To elaborate, almost two decades ago, a paper from the Heritage Foundation (S. M. Butler, "The Heritage consumer choice health plan", Heritage Foundation, 1992; see also S. M. Butler, "Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans", 1989; M. V. Pauly, et al., "A plan for responsible national health insurance", Health Affairs, 1991; R. E. Moffitt, "Personal freedom, responsibility, and mandates", Health Affairs, 1994; T. Miller, "Cato Institute policy analysis no. 210: Nickles-Sterns is not the market choice for health care reform", Cato Institute, 1994) pushed for health insurance mandates as an alternative to the Clinton health care plan of 1993. To quote:
"Step #2: Require all households to purchase at least a basic package of insurance, unless they are covered by Medicaid, Medicare, or other government health programs: All Heads of households would be required by law to obtain at least a basic health plan specified by Congress. The refundable credit system would offset the cost of such a plan for most Americans, as the exclusion does today for those with company-sponsored plans.
In addition to these core steps, the Heritage plan would institute reforms to smooth the transition to the consumer-based national system and to enable the market for health insurance and medical care to operate more effectively. Among these, the plan would:
(1) Reform the insurance market: The private insurance market would be reformed to make a standard basic package available to all at an acceptable price.
(2) End state insurance mandates: Most states mandate that insurance sold must cover certain services. These mandates would in effect be preempted, to allow the basic plan to be marketed throughout the United States and to permit new types of group sponsors to sell plans. In addition, plans could not be made subject to state restrictions on managed care. These state mandates could be preempted by federal law, as they are for the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program. Or the federal government could widen current exemptions from state mandates for self-insured company plans to include any plan that complies with the insurance requirements of the Heritage proposal.
(3) Place requirements on employers: In a system based on the Heritage proposal, employers would be required by law to do two things: 1) "Cash out" benefits during a one year transition period: Employers would have to add the cash value of their existing plan to the paychecks of any employee wishing to switch to an alternative plan or if the employer decided to terminate the plan. This means employees would be what economists call "held harmless" by the charge. After the transition, employers and employees would bargain for compensation packages as they do today. 2) Introduce payroll deduction for health insurance to adjust withholdings: Employers would be required to make payroll deductions each pay period, at the direction of each employee, and send the amount to the plan of the employee's choice. This would be like the payroll deduction that many employees instruct their employers to make for contributions to a 401(k) or similar savings plan. In the federal employee health system, a worker's agency or congressional office makes a similar payroll deduction to pay for premium costs."
This resulted in a number of bills, sponsored by Republicans, including the Consumer Choice Health Security Act (SB 1743), which was introduced in 1993 by Senator Don Nickles (R-OK) and 24 Republican co-sponsors and had this to say about the individual mandate:
"Subtitle C: Employer Provisions - Requires employers to: (1) withhold health insurance prem
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make in relation to my post. Almost all of the references I listed, which the parent poster desired from the grandparent poster, were to neuroscience journals, not "soft science" ones. (Having worked and written articles with more than a few neuroscientists in the past, many of whom also had M.D.s and joint appointments as faculty in the schools of medicine at various universities, I can definitely say they are not, principally, psychologists; granted, some neuroscientists can dabble in psychology, but most tend to stay within the realms of biology, medicine, and chemistry.)
In case you're confused about the two, to illustrate the difference between psychologists and neuroscientists, it is instructive to consider how we parse space.
In the psychology literature, one of the more dominant theories says that, when we couple or descriptions of routes with directional relations, we form spatial mental models of the information [1]. We then, through imagined geometric [2] or perspective transformations [3-5], synchronize them with the environment to navigate. Similarly, when we encounter spatial and object information that portray a scene, psychologists argue that we construct internal characterizations of it [6-10], which can be linked to the real world [11-15], despite incomplete or poorly worded descriptions [16], object position/size differences [17], etc.
Now, according to psychologists, how we build up this information is a source of contention: one group believes that we form abstract, mental images, while another says that we fabricate a semi-relaxed rule-base, both of which have "evidence" to "strongly support" their claims. That is, some psychologists got together and designed some experiments whose predicted observational results could be loosely interpreted as supporting some of their conclusions.
In contradistinction to simply dreaming up a theory, and sometimes tailoring tests to yield results that mostly conform to it, neuroscientists actually dig into the nervous system and try to figure out what's going on, i.e., they work from the opposite direction as psychologists and typically move forward without any sort of preconceptions as to what they will find. Of course, it is important to point out that their work usually takes years or decades to reach fruition, as they first have to find specific area(s) of the brain that correspond to various functions, which is no easy task, followed by making sense of neuronal activity, chemical secretions, etc. (see e.g., [18-42]). (Consequently, while psychologists think they have space partly figured out, neuroscientists have yet to say if any of them are actually right!)
[1] B. Tversky, et al., "Spatial mental models from descriptions", J. Amer. Soc. Inform. Science 45: 656-668, 1994
[2] R. Maki, et al., "Processing location and orientation information", Memory Cogn. 5: 602-612, 1977
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