Huh? I don't think you can sue someone just beacuse you dissagree with there use of a word. That dosn't make any sense.
Really? Then I guess there are thousands of competition lawyers, advertising lawyers and trademark lawyers who are twiddling their thumbs with nothing to do.
IANALBIAALS ("I am not a lawyer but I am a law student")
First - without having read the C+D letter, this is not about 'look and feel', it is about their logo. Yes, they have a solid complaint, which you can most likely remedy by simply removing their logo.
They -without question- have a legitimate complaint in the use of their trademark. They also have (probably) a legit complaint re: copyright in their logo. (*note - this is not the same as a look and feel copyright complaint: there is no functional purpose to the logo, so copyright can still attach.)
Trademarks is the important one here: trademarks doesn't really fit well in intellectual property law. It's really a subset of consumer protection law. The apple logo is the only means the company has of communicating to the customer that they can count on whatever bears that logo being from, or approved by, Apple. Now we all know that you are not trying to pretend that your theme is an Apple product, but what about the next dolt who installs Linux, sees your theme, and assumes that Apple contributed it or approved it. It's potentially misleading.
Just replace the logo with something interesting and creative, and you're probably off the hook.
Legal precedents are wonderful things, but the new problem we are facing (or should I say -you- are: I live in Canada) is that much of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act is drafted -specifically- to overrule the common law in this area. As the DVD MPAA case shows quite clearly in my reading, the DMCA prohibits activities that were permitted by courts under the traditional copyright regime. This is why I'm pessimistic, at least about that specific case.
As much as I admire and enjoy slashdot, it is about the last place I would seek legal advice (which is what this is.) A perfect illustration of why is that your initial post, and the replies that have followed, have failed to distinguish between patents, trade secrets, copyrights, etc.
You mention that the work you are attempting to re-implemenent is the subject of "proprietary" protection and "trade secrets", but then you claim that you will be the subject of patent litigation. I'm sorry - what are you referring to? If they have patents on the technology, then what are the patent #'s? Further, if they have patents, then their technology is NOT a trade secret - patents are published.
You mention that "most of the work is considered proprietary, the rest is considered trade secrets" this doesn't make much sense. First point - "proprietary" is NOT a subset of intellectual property. IF a technology IS the subject of either patent, copyright or trade secret protection, only then can they consider it proprietary.
So again - if there is no patent, there is no patent protection. If the technology is contained in published works, then there is no trade secret protection (unless what you are referring to is object code software that has been released to the public - you are not clear on this point). (If however, you gained knowledge of the technologies you are trying to re-implement under an implicit or explicit agreement of secrecy, then you may be in hot water.) If you are not copying source code verbatim, then you are NOT violating copyright by re-implementing the algorithm.
Further than that, you simply haven't provided enough information to help you in any meaningful way.
The MPAA chose, out of hundreds of sites carrying the DeCSS source, THREE that were blatantly and openly aimed at piracy. With regards to these three defendants - he's right! He is now able to point to places like Slashdot and the support the opposing side is getting: I hasten to point out that he's not wrong there either - As I write this, comments are piling up about the injustice of the case against these three particular defendants.
He's also right about how weak the "free speech" argument is, and the argument that the weakness of the cryptographic implementation extends to a legal justification to break it.
Memo to the EFF - KEEP IT SIMPLE. Any court will understand the following logic:
The DMCA prohibits "any technology, product, service, device, component or part thereof that is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner."
DeCSS was not primarily designed or produced for the purposes of circumventing protection that protects the copyright of the owner. This is because playing a legally purchased copy, on whatever platform, does not violate a copyright of the owner.
Some DeCSS users have, evidently, used it or announced that they will be using it for piracy. The EFF does not support or represent (I certainly hope) such persons. An illegal use by third parties of an otherwise legal product does not an illegal product make.
Polluting the issue with "free speech" irrelevancies is unnecessarily burdensome - leave it alone.
While VanKampen's goal of protecting the name may seem laudable, that role is not his to play. Linus owns the trademark rights to "Linux" - as long as the linux.net domain is going to be used in relation to the Linus OS, VanKampen cannot use the domain name without permission from Linus.
My -assumption- is that he -does- have such permission (as will the party to whom it is sold), but for VanKampen, rather than Linus, to retain the proceeds from the sale of the domain name may do serious damage to Linus' trademark rights - as a requirement for protecting those rights is control over the name. Linus cannot claim to control the use of the name if VanKampen is entitled to control the proceeds of the sale of a domain name that he cannot legally use without permission from Linus. VanKampen can only be holding linux.net as an implicit or explicit licensee of Linus, not as a rightful owner.
Public domain and public record mean very different things. Patents are a perfect example to illustrate - a patent is information about an invention/mechanism/process that is publicly disclosed. Patenting such an invention/mechanism/process -specifically- excludes that information from the public domain - that's what a patent -is-.
There is plenty of information that is on the public record but specifically not in the public domain - absolutely anything that is written and published, for example. You write a book - the information is public record - but the book is copyrighted. Unless you specifically place it in the public domain, the copyright gives certain exclusive rights to the copyright holder.
My impression was that while they were discouraged, binary-only *modules* did not violate the GPL. Both Stallman and Torvalds have said so on a few occassions. (Binary-only *drivers* on the other hand, do violate the GPL.)
The DMCA does not outline your rights as a consumer in that sense - the provisions of a statute like the DMCA can be contracted out of: precisely what the license does. (As opposed to a constitutional right which - you're right - typically cannot be contracted out of.) So by clicking the agreement, you are agreeing that while -otherwise- under statute you may have the right to reverse-engineer, in this case you are waiving those rights.
I don't know why people get worked up over click-through licenses. They are perfectly valid in a growing number of jurisdictions (mine, for instance (Ontario)). They are going to be the only way to enforce any sort of contractual arrangement for transactions over the Internet, so no sane court would provide otherwise, with the exception of particularly onerous provisions that would be invalid in a paper contract.
As a law student, this is a great question - and I'd love to give you suggestions. Unfortunately, as a -Canadian- law student, any specific suggestions wouldn't be much use.
There are no "what do I do if I get sued" books - obviously this would have to include every area of civil law imaginable: it depends on what legal rights of the other party you are purported to have traversed. (The answer is always, by the way, "consult a lawyer"). It's also never obvious to the layperson (or even the lawyer) precisely what legal area or discipline is raised by a given legal conflict. Take this one, for instance, it raises copyright issues, trade secret issues (both independent branches of intellectual property), remedies, etc. As one professor said the other day: "your client never comes to you and says 'I have a Rule Against Perpetuities problem!'".
So to educate yourself about the law isn't easy, because you'd never really know where to start. HOWEVER - In Canada there are a number of good book series on various topics. One is an 'essentials of Canadian law' series of books (Tax, Intellectual Property, Trusts, Evidence, Computer Law, Criminal, etc.) Some of these are quite good, and quite accessible to the intelligent but legally inexperienced reader. My guess is that there are such series available at US bookstores.
Your analysis seems sound, but is it even -feasible- to pirate DVD's? I was under the impression that DVD writing equipment was still not generally available, and that the cost of a blank is generally higher than a DVD movie.
As far as other avenues of piracy are concerned - aren't DVD's in the many-gigabyte range? Even with broadband internet access, wouldn't one consider this prohibitive? The only other avenue of 'piracy' would be to copy the DVD to a harddrive - running in the $100's to cover the size at issue.
Am I simply not getting something? Or is it an easy argument for our side to make that given the lack of feasibility of pirating DVD's efficiently, the main motivation for DeCSS is for other purposes (like the obvious: -viewing- DVD's on platforms not currently blessed by manufacturers.)
The most important issue, IMHO, is reconciling Corel's legitimate interests in keeping the beta release out of the hands of the press, etc. and our interests in protecting the integrity of the GPL.
So we care (at least I do) not because I think Corel wants to violate the GPL, but that this beta release could be considered a "distribution" and hence violate the GPL. The GPL is a license like any other, and can be enforced or not enforced, but I personally think it is important - especially since the GPL has never been litigated (and hopefully never will be) - that its integrity as a serious and binding legal contract be protected even against possible and inherently temporary breaches like this one.
The problem is that I agree with you that for a company like Corel, with stockholders, investors, etc., that releasing their product before its time would do more harm than good, given that the role Corel is playing in the Linux community right now is bringing confidence to people unaccustomed to the traditional linux way of producting and distributing products.
Because of this, I admittedly disagree with most/.ers here, and Bruce and ESR, who see the solution as Corel re-drafting their Beta license to conform to the GPL. I actually think, given Corel's stated interest in keeping pre-releases in-house, that the best solution is to re-draft the Beta license as an explicit consultancy arrangement, even perhaps with a $1 consultants fee going to the Beta tester. This way, Corel's interests are protected, and the integrity of the GPL is protected as this could no longer be conceived of as a "distribution".
In Apple's case, it looks like they missed the one year deadline. They published the TrueType specification and software using it circa 1990, but didn't file for their patents until 2 years later.
This is the second time this has been claimed, but nobody has provided the relevant patent numbers or provided any evidence. Could we have them, please?
You're right, of course, but these days whether an espression actually has to be a written program depends on jurisdiction. I don't know about the US for sure, but in Canada pure binary data - even compiled object code - is protected by copyright.
It is a trademark holder that must actively prevent their mark from being released into the public domain by failing to protect it. There is no such requirement with regard to patents.
What would be interesting to see is whether Apple takes the approach to patents that many companies do (IBM in particular) - that patenting is a source of licensing revenue rather than a means of denying entry into a given technological market, i.e. an 'open licensing' policy.
Open source patent infringements aren't really an issue in that case - no money made directly off of XFree86's licensing of the technology, no reason to pursue a patent license, and no -real- reason to pursue any other expensive infringement action.
This is not ironic: individual fonts ARE protected, just under a different intellectual property category. You cannot patent a font, because a font is not an invention - it is a creative expression. Creative expression is protected by copyright law. A "font system" is in the nature of an invention. Neither can you copyright a font system - a system is just an well -defined idea, reproducible and having a pre-determined result (i.e. the processing, formatting and display of fonts).
Neither patent nor copyright are inherently weaker or stronger forms of legal protection - they are just different, mutually exclusive catetories. One does not belong in the other.
Furthermore, there is no question of whether it's legal to USE or LOOK AT a font - they are copyrighted: protection is, again, against copying, not use.
It need not be specialized; it doesn't even have to be portable, according to the abstract.
The ONLY part of a patent of legal significance are the CLAIMS! What the abstract says, how vague you think it is, what you can 'read into' it, etc. are totally irrelevant. There are 18 claims, and those are the only things you should be reading. Why is it that so many indignant/.ers feel that they have to have strong opinions about things that they know nothing about?
Yes, patents do have to be specific, and this one (sort of) is. The problem is that absolutely nobody on/. as far as I can tell knows how to read a patent.
[Disclaimer: I am NOT a lawyer. This is not to be taken as legal advice.]
The ONLY part of a patent with any legal significance, as I understand it, is the "claims" section. As broad as you think "digital audio player" is, this is NOT what has been patented, and does not have to be more specific.
The patent itself is here: http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05914941 __
Skip right down to the "Show all 18 claims" link, and click it.
For a product to infringe the patent, it must be completely covered by at least one WHOLE claim. If it is similar to -part- of one claim, then it doesn't infringe. There are some pretty specific requirements within these claims that a potentially infringing product must satisfy.
None of this is to suggest that the patent is any more legitimate, but read the -claims-, not the title or abstract before you get mad.:)
Had she said, "when was the last time you saw Microsoft make its particular configuration and distribution of Windows available for free download," I imagine some people would have had a -legitimate- complaint: i.e. it would have been detached from reality and made no sense.
It, sir, is completely a "question of semantics": she did not use the words, "Linux is Red Hat's operating system." She chose a perfectly cogent way to express a sound sentiment - why are you reading 'arrogance' into this when she offered none?
Should/. moderaters be given an English comprehension test?
If your soo sure, how do you explain this (referring to jwz's gruntle on the issue.)
Yes: jwz's major concerns were that (a) it did not attract a lot of developers because (b) only products people use attract developers and (c) nobody's using it.
Does nobody see the vicious circle here? Does nobody understand that if you insert the word YET at the right spots in the above logic, there is much cause for optimism?
Fine - it's taking a long time: as anyone with the slightest clue understands, this is A GOOD THING when it means they've re-written the layout and networking code. WHEN the first useable release is done: (a) people will start using it; (b) people will start saying, "oh- I found a bug in a program I actually use quite often, and OH YEAH - I can download the source and try to figure it out!"; leading to (c) lots more developers as time goes by.
HOW many non-Linus developers did Linux have between 1991 and 1992?
All I said was that there was infringement. I made no comment on how such an infringement ought to be approached, nor did I suggest that Microworkz ought to be jumped all over.
Unless there's some clear, uncompromising abuse (which there likely isn't and won't be here) I fully endorse the 'no harm, no foul', 'live and let live' approach.
Is art free speech? Sure - but what if a painting hung in a gallery also depicts, in sufficient detail, military defence plans or other legitimate technological secrets (if any)?
Is a play, either in written form or the performance thereof, free expression? Naturally - but one must question the extent of this protection when you read OR hear something like:
"BRUTUS: Whew! I sure hope everyone sitting in this audience goes out an kills someone tonight! Someone kill that guy - you, in the blue sweater!"
Whether or not program code is subject to free expression or free speech protection (I personally think it ought to be) is irrelevant: it is subject, like all protected free speech, to those reasonable restrictions that are already in place. You cannot cloak illegality or a -clear- attempt to compromise state security under the rubric of free speech.
Now - don't get me wrong - US export laws concerning cryptographic technology are NOT reasonable or legitimate restrictions when placed in the context of intellectual and technological freedom: the issue is not the form of the communication, but the content of that communication. Cryptographic technology ought not be subject - as content - to security regulations, but arguing the case in terms of the form of that communication side-steps the issue.
Slashdot Mirror
Really? Then I guess there are thousands of competition lawyers, advertising lawyers and trademark lawyers who are twiddling their thumbs with nothing to do.
(reference keywords: "trademark infringment", "false advertising", "unfair competition", etc.)
IANALBIAALS ("I am not a lawyer but I am a law student")
First - without having read the C+D letter, this is not about 'look and feel', it is about their logo. Yes, they have a solid complaint, which you can most likely remedy by simply removing their logo.
They -without question- have a legitimate complaint in the use of their trademark. They also have (probably) a legit complaint re: copyright in their logo. (*note - this is not the same as a look and feel copyright complaint: there is no functional purpose to the logo, so copyright can still attach.)
Trademarks is the important one here: trademarks doesn't really fit well in intellectual property law. It's really a subset of consumer protection law. The apple logo is the only means the company has of communicating to the customer that they can count on whatever bears that logo being from, or approved by, Apple. Now we all know that you are not trying to pretend that your theme is an Apple product, but what about the next dolt who installs Linux, sees your theme, and assumes that Apple contributed it or approved it. It's potentially misleading.
Just replace the logo with something interesting and creative, and you're probably off the hook.
...but the 'inflamatory' comment was actually the story submitter's, not roblimo's. This is what italics mean in a story header.
(Not that I disagree with you about roblimo's foot-in-the-mouth way of presenting stories, but this just doesn't happen to be an example of that.)
I.
Legal precedents are wonderful things, but the new problem we are facing (or should I say -you- are: I live in Canada) is that much of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act is drafted -specifically- to overrule the common law in this area. As the DVD MPAA case shows quite clearly in my reading, the DMCA prohibits activities that were permitted by courts under the traditional copyright regime. This is why I'm pessimistic, at least about that specific case.
As much as I admire and enjoy slashdot, it is about the last place I would seek legal advice (which is what this is.) A perfect illustration of why is that your initial post, and the replies that have followed, have failed to distinguish between patents, trade secrets, copyrights, etc.
You mention that the work you are attempting to re-implemenent is the subject of "proprietary" protection and "trade secrets", but then you claim that you will be the subject of patent litigation. I'm sorry - what are you referring to? If they have patents on the technology, then what are the patent #'s? Further, if they have patents, then their technology is NOT a trade secret - patents are published.
You mention that "most of the work is considered proprietary, the rest is considered trade secrets" this doesn't make much sense. First point - "proprietary" is NOT a subset of intellectual property. IF a technology IS the subject of either patent, copyright or trade secret protection, only then can they consider it proprietary.
So again - if there is no patent, there is no patent protection. If the technology is contained in published works, then there is no trade secret protection (unless what you are referring to is object code software that has been released to the public - you are not clear on this point). (If however, you gained knowledge of the technologies you are trying to re-implement under an implicit or explicit agreement of secrecy, then you may be in hot water.) If you are not copying source code verbatim, then you are NOT violating copyright by re-implementing the algorithm.
Further than that, you simply haven't provided enough information to help you in any meaningful way.
He's also right about how weak the "free speech" argument is, and the argument that the weakness of the cryptographic implementation extends to a legal justification to break it.
Memo to the EFF - KEEP IT SIMPLE. Any court will understand the following logic:
- The DMCA prohibits "any technology, product, service, device, component or part thereof that is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner."
- DeCSS was not primarily designed or produced for the purposes of circumventing protection that protects the copyright of the owner. This is because playing a legally purchased copy, on whatever platform, does not violate a copyright of the owner.
- Some DeCSS users have, evidently, used it or announced that they will be using it for piracy. The EFF does not support or represent (I certainly hope) such persons. An illegal use by third parties of an otherwise legal product does not an illegal product make.
Polluting the issue with "free speech" irrelevancies is unnecessarily burdensome - leave it alone.While VanKampen's goal of protecting the name may seem laudable, that role is not his to play. Linus owns the trademark rights to "Linux" - as long as the linux.net domain is going to be used in relation to the Linus OS, VanKampen cannot use the domain name without permission from Linus.
My -assumption- is that he -does- have such permission (as will the party to whom it is sold), but for VanKampen, rather than Linus, to retain the proceeds from the sale of the domain name may do serious damage to Linus' trademark rights - as a requirement for protecting those rights is control over the name. Linus cannot claim to control the use of the name if VanKampen is entitled to control the proceeds of the sale of a domain name that he cannot legally use without permission from Linus. VanKampen can only be holding linux.net as an implicit or explicit licensee of Linus, not as a rightful owner.
Public domain and public record mean very different things. Patents are a perfect example to illustrate - a patent is information about an invention/mechanism/process that is publicly disclosed. Patenting such an invention/mechanism/process -specifically- excludes that information from the public domain - that's what a patent -is-.
There is plenty of information that is on the public record but specifically not in the public domain - absolutely anything that is written and published, for example. You write a book - the information is public record - but the book is copyrighted. Unless you specifically place it in the public domain, the copyright gives certain exclusive rights to the copyright holder.
My impression was that while they were discouraged, binary-only *modules* did not violate the GPL. Both Stallman and Torvalds have said so on a few occassions. (Binary-only *drivers* on the other hand, do violate the GPL.)
No - anyone who feels like posting is not necessarily "acting in concert" with a defendant. From my Black's Law Dictionary:
Concert: A person is deemed to act in concert when he acts with another to bring about some preconceived result.
I.
The DMCA does not outline your rights as a consumer in that sense - the provisions of a statute like the DMCA can be contracted out of: precisely what the license does. (As opposed to a constitutional right which - you're right - typically cannot be contracted out of.) So by clicking the agreement, you are agreeing that while -otherwise- under statute you may have the right to reverse-engineer, in this case you are waiving those rights.
I don't know why people get worked up over click-through licenses. They are perfectly valid in a growing number of jurisdictions (mine, for instance (Ontario)). They are going to be the only way to enforce any sort of contractual arrangement for transactions over the Internet, so no sane court would provide otherwise, with the exception of particularly onerous provisions that would be invalid in a paper contract.
As a law student, this is a great question - and I'd love to give you suggestions. Unfortunately, as a -Canadian- law student, any specific suggestions wouldn't be much use.
There are no "what do I do if I get sued" books - obviously this would have to include every area of civil law imaginable: it depends on what legal rights of the other party you are purported to have traversed. (The answer is always, by the way, "consult a lawyer"). It's also never obvious to the layperson (or even the lawyer) precisely what legal area or discipline is raised by a given legal conflict. Take this one, for instance, it raises copyright issues, trade secret issues (both independent branches of intellectual property), remedies, etc. As one professor said the other day: "your client never comes to you and says 'I have a Rule Against Perpetuities problem!'".
So to educate yourself about the law isn't easy, because you'd never really know where to start. HOWEVER - In Canada there are a number of good book series on various topics. One is an 'essentials of Canadian law' series of books (Tax, Intellectual Property, Trusts, Evidence, Computer Law, Criminal, etc.) Some of these are quite good, and quite accessible to the intelligent but legally inexperienced reader. My guess is that there are such series available at US bookstores.
I.
...I still don't understand:
Your analysis seems sound, but is it even -feasible- to pirate DVD's? I was under the impression that DVD writing equipment was still not generally available, and that the cost of a blank is generally higher than a DVD movie.
As far as other avenues of piracy are concerned - aren't DVD's in the many-gigabyte range? Even with broadband internet access, wouldn't one consider this prohibitive? The only other avenue of 'piracy' would be to copy the DVD to a harddrive - running in the $100's to cover the size at issue.
Am I simply not getting something? Or is it an easy argument for our side to make that given the lack of feasibility of pirating DVD's efficiently, the main motivation for DeCSS is for other purposes (like the obvious: -viewing- DVD's on platforms not currently blessed by manufacturers.)
Comments, please.
The most important issue, IMHO, is reconciling Corel's legitimate interests in keeping the beta release out of the hands of the press, etc. and our interests in protecting the integrity of the GPL.
/.ers here, and Bruce and ESR, who see the solution as Corel re-drafting their Beta license to conform to the GPL. I actually think, given Corel's stated interest in keeping pre-releases in-house, that the best solution is to re-draft the Beta license as an explicit consultancy arrangement, even perhaps with a $1 consultants fee going to the Beta tester. This way, Corel's interests are protected, and the integrity of the GPL is protected as this could no longer be conceived of as a "distribution".
So we care (at least I do) not because I think Corel wants to violate the GPL, but that this beta release could be considered a "distribution" and hence violate the GPL. The GPL is a license like any other, and can be enforced or not enforced, but I personally think it is important - especially since the GPL has never been litigated (and hopefully never will be) - that its integrity as a serious and binding legal contract be protected even against possible and inherently temporary breaches like this one.
The problem is that I agree with you that for a company like Corel, with stockholders, investors, etc., that releasing their product before its time would do more harm than good, given that the role Corel is playing in the Linux community right now is bringing confidence to people unaccustomed to the traditional linux way of producting and distributing products.
Because of this, I admittedly disagree with most
I.
Just to follow-up on my above post, Apple did NOT miss the deadline.
The date of filing was May 9, 1989. They published the specification (according to your information) in 1990, about three years later.
I.
In Apple's case, it looks like they missed the one year deadline. They published the TrueType specification and software using it circa 1990, but didn't file for their patents until 2 years later.
This is the second time this has been claimed, but nobody has provided the relevant patent numbers or provided any evidence. Could we have them, please?
I.
You're right, of course, but these days whether an espression actually has to be a written program depends on jurisdiction. I don't know about the US for sure, but in Canada pure binary data - even compiled object code - is protected by copyright.
I.
It is a trademark holder that must actively prevent their mark from being released into the public domain by failing to protect it. There is no such requirement with regard to patents.
What would be interesting to see is whether Apple takes the approach to patents that many companies do (IBM in particular) - that patenting is a source of licensing revenue rather than a means of denying entry into a given technological market, i.e. an 'open licensing' policy.
Open source patent infringements aren't really an issue in that case - no money made directly off of XFree86's licensing of the technology, no reason to pursue a patent license, and no -real- reason to pursue any other expensive infringement action.
I.
This is not ironic: individual fonts ARE protected, just under a different intellectual property category. You cannot patent a font, because a font is not an invention - it is a creative expression. Creative expression is protected by copyright law. A "font system" is in the nature of an invention. Neither can you copyright a font system - a system is just an well -defined idea, reproducible and having a pre-determined result (i.e. the processing, formatting and display of fonts).
Neither patent nor copyright are inherently weaker or stronger forms of legal protection - they are just different, mutually exclusive catetories. One does not belong in the other.
Furthermore, there is no question of whether it's legal to USE or LOOK AT a font - they are copyrighted: protection is, again, against copying, not use.
I.
The ONLY part of a patent of legal significance are the CLAIMS! What the abstract says, how vague you think it is, what you can 'read into' it, etc. are totally irrelevant. There are 18 claims, and those are the only things you should be reading. Why is it that so many indignant /.ers feel that they have to have strong opinions about things that they know nothing about?
Yes, patents do have to be specific, and this one (sort of) is. The problem is that absolutely nobody on /. as far as I can tell knows how to read a patent.
1 __
:)
[Disclaimer: I am NOT a lawyer. This is not to be taken as legal advice.]
The ONLY part of a patent with any legal significance, as I understand it, is the "claims" section. As broad as you think "digital audio player" is, this is NOT what has been patented, and does not have to be more specific.
The patent itself is here:
http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US0591494
Skip right down to the "Show all 18 claims" link, and click it.
For a product to infringe the patent, it must be completely covered by at least one WHOLE claim. If it is similar to -part- of one claim, then it doesn't infringe. There are some pretty specific requirements within these claims that a potentially infringing product must satisfy.
None of this is to suggest that the patent is any more legitimate, but read the -claims-, not the title or abstract before you get mad.
Had she said, "when was the last time you saw Microsoft make its particular configuration and distribution of Windows available for free download," I imagine some people would have had a -legitimate- complaint: i.e. it would have been detached from reality and made no sense.
/. moderaters be given an English comprehension test?
It, sir, is completely a "question of semantics": she did not use the words, "Linux is Red Hat's operating system." She chose a perfectly cogent way to express a sound sentiment - why are you reading 'arrogance' into this when she offered none?
Should
If your soo sure, how do you explain this (referring to jwz's gruntle on the issue.)
Yes: jwz's major concerns were that (a) it did not attract a lot of developers because (b) only products people use attract developers and (c) nobody's using it.
Does nobody see the vicious circle here? Does nobody understand that if you insert the word YET at the right spots in the above logic, there is much cause for optimism?
Fine - it's taking a long time: as anyone with the slightest clue understands, this is A GOOD THING when it means they've re-written the layout and networking code. WHEN the first useable release is done: (a) people will start using it; (b) people will start saying, "oh- I found a bug in a program I actually use quite often, and OH YEAH - I can download the source and try to figure it out!"; leading to (c) lots more developers as time goes by.
HOW many non-Linus developers did Linux have between 1991 and 1992?
"Waa, waa. I want my browser and I want it NOW!"
I.
All I said was that there was infringement. I made no comment on how such an infringement ought to be approached, nor did I suggest that Microworkz ought to be jumped all over.
:)
Unless there's some clear, uncompromising abuse (which there likely isn't and won't be here) I fully endorse the 'no harm, no foul', 'live and let live' approach.
Sheesh: I said "lawyer", not "litigator".
Is art free speech? Sure - but what if a painting hung in a gallery also depicts, in sufficient detail, military defence plans or other legitimate technological secrets (if any)?
Is a play, either in written form or the performance thereof, free expression? Naturally - but one must question the extent of this protection when you read OR hear something like:
"BRUTUS: Whew! I sure hope everyone sitting in this audience goes out an kills someone tonight! Someone kill that guy - you, in the blue sweater!"
Whether or not program code is subject to free expression or free speech protection (I personally think it ought to be) is irrelevant: it is subject, like all protected free speech, to those reasonable restrictions that are already in place. You cannot cloak illegality or a -clear- attempt to compromise state security under the rubric of free speech.
Now - don't get me wrong - US export laws concerning cryptographic technology are NOT reasonable or legitimate restrictions when placed in the context of intellectual and technological freedom: the issue is not the form of the communication, but the content of that communication. Cryptographic technology ought not be subject - as content - to security regulations, but arguing the case in terms of the form of that communication side-steps the issue.
I.