"If I don't like how much a restaurant charges for their food, or how long it takes for it to reach my table, I don't wait in the alley for the cook to through the scraps in the dumpster so that I can get it for free."
While I don't agree with the parent poster 100%, I do disagree with the above comment- it's not analogous, no matter how contorted you get trying to make it so. (Yes, this yet another theft/infringement rant, but I'll keep doing it until most everyone stops framing their thoughts the way that the Labels, RIAA, MPAA, etc. want you to frame them. Now, without further ado...)
1) It's not "table scraps". Far from it. 2) You're still talking about a physical item, which, when you stop to think about it, ISN'T ONE.
Yes, he's guilty of something- it's called infringement. The taking of the right of the control of the production and distribution to first sale customers of a given Copyrighted work. It's not the same thing as taking table scraps or walking a ticket in a restaurant. In that case, there's a physical item, namely food, that is involved with those acts, and by taking scraps or walking a ticket, you've taken something away from the owner of the restaurant without paying for it. Now, that's defined as theft if the person who owns the stuff in question doesn't want you doing this. Typically the thrown away scraps aren't a big deal, because the owner or their representative threw it away- but it's still defined as theft all the same as the item now techincally belongs to the trash people to be picked up and disposed of properly.
Infringement is a bit different. In the case of theft, the person being stolen from is deprived of the object being stolen. In the case of infringement, the most the person is out is the potential of profit for each instance of infringement commited against them. There's a good distinction here- if you think the infringer is taking money away, that is not actually the case, they didn't walk up and take the money out of the possession of the person being infringed. All that happened was a copy of a work was made without the permission of the rights holder. There is no distinction of what that rights holder might have made off that work in the law or anywhere other than in the propaganda from the BSA, RIAA, MPAA, etc. The law acknowleges that the infringement may never have produced revenue for the work in the first place- all that happened was that the work was duplicated without permission, with all the commensurate penalties that would ensue from this. If there is a case that there WAS real losses involved, still not theft, but real lost revenues like what happens with the commercial pirates that mass-produce and sell infringements for a profit, there's criminal penalties, but the law still keeps the distinction that it's not a theft.
Any time that you frame things in terms of physical things being taken, you're framing things in the terms that the "IP rights protection" businesses want you to- even though it's utterly inaccurate and not the case. You really, really need to avoid doing this as the laws like the one we're discussing get made in the FIRST place because of this practice. We need to quit letting them control this discussion and we need to do it now- because they'll render this into a wasteland and another dark age.
In order for it to even be a legitimate provisional filing, it needs to meet the criteria of Title 35, Part II, Chapter 10. This doesn't (of course, there's literally tons of granted patents out there that do NOT conform to this either...)- not in the biggest stretch of the interpretation thereof. Someone's rubber stamping the damn things there in DC instead of looking at what was claimed and saying "no" when it doesn't come even close- this is with provisionals AND actual applications.
The USPTO's NOT operating within their mandate and hasn't for some time now. Part of it is the lack of proper resources to examine the Patent Applications, part of it is that they're funded by the applications in the first place. Both are a formula for disaster.
And you're making an assumption that the Trustee can find a buyer for the IP. Honestly, that's all it is, an assumption.
Several things can actually happen when a company goes bankrupt...
The IP could be licensed in perpetuity under an Open License like the GPL. The IP could be sold to the highest bidder (Like you indicate...). The IP could be claimed by one of the creditors. The IP could be claimed by private shareholders if there's no further creditors in line. The IP could revert to the artist/inventor or their surviving family members.
You're right that it won't automagically go into the Public Domain, but your assertion that it'll just be sold is incorrect. It doesn't always work that way- and I know, I'm an inventor with Patents pending. I know precisely how things work out and how they'll go down in case the startup I'm working for doesn't get out of the gate or fails to execute (Not likely if we get the funding round we're expecting...). I wanted to know because it IS my Patents involved with my situation.
"If SGI are bought out, the purchaser might be more keen to release the necessary information. Alternatively, if SGI are wound up, then the information might effectively revert to the public domain by default {since there will be no party in a position to assert a claim over it}."
The rules of how things are handled in a dissolution of the company doesn't automatically move Patents and Copyrights to the Public Domain. If the company doesn't place the stuff in the Public Domain or under a suitable license that effectively does this before the dissolution of the company as an entity, the ownership in interest simply reverts to the artist/inventor if the primary shareholders or creditors do not have title to it. Simply put, the main shareholders (Typically the BoD members...) end up owning it first, if the company owes creditors, then the "IP" is either liquidated or handed over to the said creditors if they so seek it.
Simply put, it doesn't go into the Public Domain unless the Patent/Copyright expires either via a failure to maintain the Patent (i.e. not paying the requisite fees to maintain the same) or via the statutory expiration of the Copyright or Patent- OR the owner of the "IP" puts it there or under some license (like the GPL...) that effectively does the same thing.
Gads... Can't type worth a flip today!
on
Ma Bell is Back
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· Score: 1
Try buying a preconfigured x86/x86-64 machine of any kind without Linux in places like Best Buy or Fry's and the statement is largely correct.
Sigh... This is what I get for not proof-reading my posts...
> You forget, IBM and microsoft is not forced upon you. (ok some might argue that point)
Oh, I think more would argue that point. Try buying a preconfigured x86/x86-64 machine of any kind without Linux in places like Best Buy or Fry's and the statement is largely correct (There's ONE, and I do mean that, PC that has Linspire at Fry's- elsewhere is all Windows XP... And the PC in question that has Linspire's not very inspiring- it's a $250 bargain basement wonder...). For the average person not attempting to assemble their machine from parts or from most outlets that aren't online, its pretty much accurate to state for the record that Microsoft IS forced on you- the edge cases are so small that they almost don't count for anything.
The little RCA MP3 player seems to have handled all of that just fine with none of the negatives you list with a cheaper device, iRiver shouldn't be cut any slack on that regard.
Uh... I don't know why you were modded "insightful", but the reality of things doesn't map to what you're claiming here. In fact, I've SEVERAL problems with your comment:
Basic things like cut-and-paste between windows is broken. (If I want to copy this text to a console, say, it usually (but weirdly, not always) fails).
Take the above quote for example... I just DID what you described- several times in fact to several editor windows and then back into the browser. I didn't hand-type this, just copy and paste. Cut and paste doesn't work like in Linux like Windows does it and if you apply the Windows rules for things, sure it's "Broken"- but X11 cut and paste DOES work largely as expected and across windows. Heck, it even works across the wire in a remote context either through telnet, ssh, or NX initiated windows- I wouldn't be able to do the work I do on a daily basis any other way. What you're describing doesn't simply happen- hasn't happened in years in all the distributions.
Any time I want to change my display configuration or mouse I need to call the systems department so they can hack my xorg.conf or whatever it's called these days.
Considering that SuSE can pretty much handle ANY supported display configuration with SAX, including resizing the desktop and all, and has been able to do so since well before 9.0, I find this one excessively hard to believe- and if it IS true, your bunch is using hardware that doesn't map to what is officially supported by SuSE in the first place. You are using unsupported hardware for your display adapter. No major company or even a medium to large sized company would actually DO things in like that- hardware that isn't supported is replaced before a migration to new software is performed for an employee. I didn't catch who you worked for, but if it's someone that's a "flagship", they're embarassingly sloppy. Try again, this one's just waaay too hard to swallow as it is.
The network is truly horrible but what's worse is that network stalls seem to cause countless local problems - like everyone's machines will frequently freeze for a few seconds and then wake up again.
Okay... What you've just described is...
- Everyone's machines are defective.
OR...
- Everyone in question is using the same common application and IT is locking up, because it was poorly written or you've got server related issues along with poor code design.
OR...
- You've got something slam-dancing all the machines out there in a DoS type problem. Something that's causing the collective of workstations to eat up CPU cycles like they were candy.
In any event, what you're describing is NOT the norm- don't be blaming Linux for it, blame the people deploying it; that is, if you're telling the truth here in the first place. You might be, from your perspective, but sadly, the reality of things doesn't match what you're claiming. It just doesn't.
Considering that the cable would have to be stronger than the huge construction, I doubt that you'll see that one anytime soon. Nice idea, but it's actually easier to strengthen a larger structure than a smaller one- more materials can mean you can use slightly less strong stuff and accomplish the same thing. To be sure, it's a balancing act, but until you achieve something that can do a space elevator effectively, you don't have the materials strong enough to accomplish what you suggest reliably such that it's any less expensive than the more massive spinning ring or sphere that people have suggested.
Nice catch. However, I DO believe that Jack, old boy, did screw up on that count at least once or more on his rants. I'd be looking for someone else as a DA, that man's a liability, not an asset.
Careful there... Insults can be taken as libel. What you put to paper in a public forum can come back to haunt you unless you frame it with "In my Opinion" first.
Nice straw-man argument there. In each of these line items of yours, only the really bent would agree that you should have a right to do those things because they really are, without a doubt, highly detrimental to the environment and the populace at large- and a Libertarian would consider those things to be things that just aren't freedoms to be allowed. Libertarians are about freedom without harms- if it harms everyone other than the given individual, then it's a problem. If it harms just the individual, done by the individual, then it's a non-problem.
I've long since quit taking Dvorak seriously. He's repeatedly shown himself to be clueless when it comes to these things. But then, you don't need any usable current qualifications in the industry that you're being a pundit for- all you need is an opinion, it seems.
It's what you get if you buy an economical PC. Honestly. It has NOTHING to do with it being all that good or easy. It's what was there, so that's what gets used because you have to go out of your way to use anything else.
It's so "craptastic" as you put it that most people spend as much as 20-40% dealing with Spyware, Worms, Trojans, and Virii on their boxes. This isn't because they're not security conscious, it's because the OS is actually THAT bad. "Easy to use" isn't when you're broken part of the time because of something that got inserted on your machine without your permission because of horrendous design flaws in the tool you're using.
The response that I saw from the suggested query was quite snappy. I didn't know you were doing this off an ADSL link.
I almost wish I'd brushed up on my Ruby coding skills and did our online store that I'm currently working on in RoR, but we chose JSP/Java Servlet stuff because of concerns of access to developers and scaling. I'm sure you're not going to tump that one over and all you're going to see is your pipe choked full- DoS by Slashdot, done to oneself. Brave soul.:-)
Re:Maybe a combination of the 2
on
Archimedes Death Ray
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
There's things about what Adam and Jamie does to "bust" myths that end up being "wrong" and they bust myths that aren't myths. The chicken gun story is a prime example. They'd "proven" that it was not possible to have what was described in the chicken gun- but what they did was miss what the conditions were and didn't test the actual story's premise. When re-done in a recap story trying to revisit the whole idea, they more closely duplicated the whole set of conditions and ended up reversing the decision they'd come to on it. The cell-phone story was debunked but it wasn't debunked appropriately- again they didn't reproduce the conditions. They used a non flip-phone cell-phone with capacitive operated buttons. No way for the phone to EVER introduce a spark into an environment. I'm of their opinon on that one- it's a myth, but to claim that it is off of their test on the subject is bad science.
Don't get me wrong, Mythbusters' is a great show and the bulk of the stuff they do is highly accurate; but they should never ever be held as a final authority because they're a much about showmanship as they're about mythbusting and miss many things. The MIT project apparently shows this situation to be another one of those, "they didn't get the conditions right to properly test and prove/disprove anything" situations they're guilty of on a periodic basis.
Unfortunately, it's not expensive enough to discourage the practice we're seeing here. Otherwise, it'd not be profitable enough to maintain the Patents long enough to pull these sorts of extortion.
"The downside of actually reading his email is that he can't say "I didn't know" if the Feds come asking questions about his company's actions or financial statements."
Considering that the Feds typically only get involved with true malfesance on the part of a company, being able to say "I didn't know" shouldn't be an issue, right? I know if I were a CEO, I'd not be a party to any of the funny-business goings on that went on to bring about Sarbanes-Oxley in the first place. Never mind that in the line of business that the company I'm the CTO for would probably never be allowed to work in that field in the first place if that sort of stuff was going on.
And unless you get lucky, you're going to stay a peon with that attitude...
If you think that it's all easy work, you'd be mistaken. Some executive management does in fact work like demons so you can have a job to work at. They're not all like the Enron, Worldcom, or Tyco bunch...
I always thought that Rumple Mintz or a fine Single Malt Scotch was the fix for those sorts of problems- but then, what do I know, I'm just a CTO... I guess CEO's know more about those sorts of things, eh?:-)
Here's a modification to your suggestion that is more practical.
Non-productive patents do not expire (the idea may be sound, but it may be difficult to capitalize the invention), but if you find an infringer on one of those, you can't charge damages, you can't charge exorbitant royalties, and you can't prevent that specific infringer(s) from continuing forward with the invention in question. You didn't do anything with it, but you CAN charge people that did a small fee moving forward. And, you certainly can't do what a lot of these people have been doing- principal of laches, they waited to act on their Patent rights, so they get reasonable royalties moving forward and no right to tell them "no" on the production thereof.
I like item 3. With what I've got lurking above, at the 5 year mark, the extra maintenance fees kick in, just like you're calculating them. Sure, you can hold onto this non-productive Patent for the remaining 12-15 years, but it's going to cost you a pretty penny if you're holding onto a lot of them. Fail to pay the fee, Patent ceases to be with no renewal possible.
Sadly, the "Little" guy is nothing more than a lawfirm- Patents are solely only worth what kind of legal defense you can mount to defend them. The "Little" guy can't even afford a decent legal defense in most of these cases, and when you seer a lawsuit like this it's somebody that thinks that they have deep enough pockets to bleed even deeper pockets.
This would be a little easier to stomach if it were the "Little" guy fighting back and that the litigant actually DID something with their precious Patents. What we have here is a letter of the law thing- and a bunch of lawyers abusing it seriously to their and their client's best interests. It's not illegal- but it is immoral.
Secretaries shouldn't be editing Access stuff- honestly. A database is not a spreadsheet. A database is not a worprocessor document. Think long and hard about that for a moment. Secretaries should be doing letters and filing and things of that ilk. If they're doing more, then they're not a secretary. As for higher performance tools, if you're using Access, you're using a subset of VB... Next time try a little harder to know the subject in question- you missed the point altogether while trying to tell me the same thing.
Re:Services aren't the same thing...
on
RIAA Sues a Child
·
· Score: 1
Oh, and before you try to formulate a reply...
1) I've been in the IP business for decades. 2) I'm a SF author. 3) I'm a very accomplished professional Software Engineer. 4) I'm an inventor with several US and International Patents Pending or about to be filed.
While I won't profess to know everything about IP law, I'm pretty well versed in it because I have to be in the line of work I'm in. There's a reason WHY it's defined differently- because it IS different. Because it is different, you need to use the right verbiage and lines of thought regarding it.
Slashdot Mirror
While I don't agree with the parent poster 100%, I do disagree with the above comment- it's not analogous, no matter how contorted you get trying to make it so. (Yes, this yet another theft/infringement rant, but I'll keep doing it until most everyone stops framing their thoughts the way that the Labels, RIAA, MPAA, etc. want you to frame them. Now, without further ado...)
1) It's not "table scraps". Far from it.
2) You're still talking about a physical item, which, when you stop to think about it, ISN'T ONE.
Yes, he's guilty of something- it's called infringement. The taking of the right of the control of the production and distribution to first sale customers of a given Copyrighted work. It's not the same thing as taking table scraps or walking a ticket in a restaurant. In that case, there's a physical item, namely food, that is involved with those acts, and by taking scraps or walking a ticket, you've taken something away from the owner of the restaurant without paying for it. Now, that's defined as theft if the person who owns the stuff in question doesn't want you doing this. Typically the thrown away scraps aren't a big deal, because the owner or their representative threw it away- but it's still defined as theft all the same as the item now techincally belongs to the trash people to be picked up and disposed of properly.
Infringement is a bit different. In the case of theft, the person being stolen from is deprived of the object being stolen. In the case of infringement, the most the person is out is the potential of profit for each instance of infringement commited against them. There's a good distinction here- if you think the infringer is taking money away, that is not actually the case, they didn't walk up and take the money out of the possession of the person being infringed. All that happened was a copy of a work was made without the permission of the rights holder. There is no distinction of what that rights holder might have made off that work in the law or anywhere other than in the propaganda from the BSA, RIAA, MPAA, etc. The law acknowleges that the infringement may never have produced revenue for the work in the first place- all that happened was that the work was duplicated without permission, with all the commensurate penalties that would ensue from this. If there is a case that there WAS real losses involved, still not theft, but real lost revenues like what happens with the commercial pirates that mass-produce and sell infringements for a profit, there's criminal penalties, but the law still keeps the distinction that it's not a theft.
Any time that you frame things in terms of physical things being taken, you're framing things in the terms that the "IP rights protection" businesses want you to- even though it's utterly inaccurate and not the case. You really, really need to avoid doing this as the laws like the one we're discussing get made in the FIRST place because of this practice. We need to quit letting them control this discussion and we need to do it now- because they'll render this into a wasteland and another dark age.
In order for it to even be a legitimate provisional filing, it needs to meet the criteria of Title 35, Part II, Chapter 10. This doesn't (of course, there's literally tons of granted patents out there that do NOT conform to this either...)- not in the biggest stretch of the interpretation thereof. Someone's rubber stamping the damn things there in DC instead of looking at what was claimed and saying "no" when it doesn't come even close- this is with provisionals AND actual applications.
The USPTO's NOT operating within their mandate and hasn't for some time now. Part of it is the lack of proper resources to examine the Patent Applications, part of it is that they're funded by the applications in the first place. Both are a formula for disaster.
And you're making an assumption that the Trustee can find a buyer for the IP. Honestly, that's all it is, an assumption.
Several things can actually happen when a company goes bankrupt...
The IP could be licensed in perpetuity under an Open License like the GPL.
The IP could be sold to the highest bidder (Like you indicate...).
The IP could be claimed by one of the creditors.
The IP could be claimed by private shareholders if there's no further creditors in line.
The IP could revert to the artist/inventor or their surviving family members.
You're right that it won't automagically go into the Public Domain, but your assertion that it'll just be sold is incorrect. It doesn't always work that way- and I know, I'm an inventor with Patents pending. I know precisely how things work out and how they'll go down in case the startup I'm working for doesn't get out of the gate or fails to execute (Not likely if we get the funding round we're expecting...). I wanted to know because it IS my Patents involved with my situation.
The rules of how things are handled in a dissolution of the company doesn't automatically move Patents and Copyrights to the Public Domain. If the company doesn't place the stuff in the Public Domain or under a suitable license that effectively does this before the dissolution of the company as an entity, the ownership in interest simply reverts to the artist/inventor if the primary shareholders or creditors do not have title to it. Simply put, the main shareholders (Typically the BoD members...) end up owning it first, if the company owes creditors, then the "IP" is either liquidated or handed over to the said creditors if they so seek it.
Simply put, it doesn't go into the Public Domain unless the Patent/Copyright expires either via a failure to maintain the Patent (i.e. not paying the requisite fees to maintain the same) or via the statutory expiration of the Copyright or Patent- OR the owner of the "IP" puts it there or under some license (like the GPL...) that effectively does the same thing.
> You forget, IBM and microsoft is not forced upon you. (ok some might argue that point)
Oh, I think more would argue that point. Try buying a preconfigured x86/x86-64 machine of any kind without Linux in places like Best Buy or Fry's and the statement is largely correct (There's ONE, and I do mean that, PC that has Linspire at Fry's- elsewhere is all Windows XP... And the PC in question that has Linspire's not very inspiring- it's a $250 bargain basement wonder...). For the average person not attempting to assemble their machine from parts or from most outlets that aren't online, its pretty much accurate to state for the record that Microsoft IS forced on you- the edge cases are so small that they almost don't count for anything.
The little RCA MP3 player seems to have handled all of that just fine with none of the negatives you list with a cheaper device , iRiver shouldn't be cut any slack on that regard.
Sorry, it doesn't work for me.
Take the above quote for example... I just DID what you described- several times in fact to several editor windows and then back into the browser. I didn't hand-type this, just copy and paste. Cut and paste doesn't work like in Linux like Windows does it and if you apply the Windows rules for things, sure it's "Broken"- but X11 cut and paste DOES work largely as expected and across windows. Heck, it even works across the wire in a remote context either through telnet, ssh, or NX initiated windows- I wouldn't be able to do the work I do on a daily basis any other way. What you're describing doesn't simply happen- hasn't happened in years in all the distributions.
Considering that SuSE can pretty much handle ANY supported display configuration with SAX, including resizing the desktop and all, and has been able to do so since well before 9.0, I find this one excessively hard to believe- and if it IS true, your bunch is using hardware that doesn't map to what is officially supported by SuSE in the first place. You are using unsupported hardware for your display adapter. No major company or even a medium to large sized company would actually DO things in like that- hardware that isn't supported is replaced before a migration to new software is performed for an employee. I didn't catch who you worked for, but if it's someone that's a "flagship", they're embarassingly sloppy. Try again, this one's just waaay too hard to swallow as it is.
Okay... What you've just described is...
- Everyone's machines are defective.
OR...
- Everyone in question is using the same common application and IT is locking up, because it was poorly written or you've got server related issues along with poor code design.
OR...
- You've got something slam-dancing all the machines out there in a DoS type problem. Something that's causing the collective of workstations to eat up CPU cycles like they were candy.
In any event, what you're describing is NOT the norm- don't be blaming Linux for it, blame the people deploying it; that is, if you're telling the truth here in the first place. You might be, from your perspective, but sadly, the reality of things doesn't match what you're claiming. It just doesn't.
Considering that the cable would have to be stronger than the huge construction, I doubt that you'll see that one anytime soon. Nice idea, but it's actually easier to strengthen a larger structure than a smaller one- more materials can mean you can use slightly less strong stuff and accomplish the same thing. To be sure, it's a balancing act, but until you achieve something that can do a space elevator effectively, you don't have the materials strong enough to accomplish what you suggest reliably such that it's any less expensive than the more massive spinning ring or sphere that people have suggested.
Nice catch. However, I DO believe that Jack, old boy, did screw up on that count at least once or more on his rants. I'd be looking for someone else as a DA, that man's a liability, not an asset.
Careful there... Insults can be taken as libel. What you put to paper in a public forum can come back to haunt you unless you frame it with "In my Opinion" first.
Nice straw-man argument there. In each of these line items of yours, only the
really bent would agree that you should have a right to do those things because
they really are, without a doubt, highly detrimental to the environment and
the populace at large- and a Libertarian would consider those things to be things
that just aren't freedoms to be allowed. Libertarians are about freedom without
harms- if it harms everyone other than the given individual, then it's a problem.
If it harms just the individual, done by the individual, then it's a non-problem.
I typically take Dvorak's stuff with half or more of one of the Utah Salt Domes...
I've long since quit taking Dvorak seriously. He's repeatedly shown himself to be clueless when it comes to these things. But then, you don't need any usable current qualifications in the industry that you're being a pundit for- all you need is an opinion, it seems.
It's what you get if you buy an economical PC. Honestly. It has NOTHING to do with it being all that good or easy. It's what was there, so that's what gets used because you have to go out of your way to use anything else.
It's so "craptastic" as you put it that most people spend as much as 20-40% dealing with Spyware, Worms, Trojans, and Virii on their boxes. This isn't because they're not security conscious, it's because the OS is actually THAT bad. "Easy to use" isn't when you're broken part of the time because of something that got inserted on your machine without your permission because of horrendous design flaws in the tool you're using.
Impressive. Simply impressive.
:-)
The response that I saw from the suggested query was quite snappy. I didn't know you were doing this off an ADSL link.
I almost wish I'd brushed up on my Ruby coding skills and did our online store that I'm currently working on in RoR, but we chose JSP/Java Servlet stuff because of concerns of access to developers and scaling. I'm sure you're not going to tump that one over and all you're going to see is your pipe choked full- DoS by Slashdot, done to oneself. Brave soul.
There's things about what Adam and Jamie does to "bust" myths that end up being "wrong" and they
bust myths that aren't myths. The chicken gun story is a prime example. They'd "proven" that
it was not possible to have what was described in the chicken gun- but what they did was miss
what the conditions were and didn't test the actual story's premise. When re-done in a recap
story trying to revisit the whole idea, they more closely duplicated the whole set of conditions
and ended up reversing the decision they'd come to on it. The cell-phone story was debunked
but it wasn't debunked appropriately- again they didn't reproduce the conditions. They used
a non flip-phone cell-phone with capacitive operated buttons. No way for the phone to EVER
introduce a spark into an environment. I'm of their opinon on that one- it's a myth, but to
claim that it is off of their test on the subject is bad science.
Don't get me wrong, Mythbusters' is a great show and the bulk of the stuff they do is highly
accurate; but they should never ever be held as a final authority because they're a much
about showmanship as they're about mythbusting and miss many things. The MIT project apparently
shows this situation to be another one of those, "they didn't get the conditions right to
properly test and prove/disprove anything" situations they're guilty of on a periodic basis.
Unfortunately, it's not expensive enough to discourage the practice we're seeing here. Otherwise, it'd not be profitable enough to maintain the Patents long enough to pull these sorts of extortion.
Considering that the Feds typically only get involved with true malfesance on the part of a company, being able to say "I didn't know" shouldn't be an issue, right? I know if I were a CEO, I'd not be a party to any of the funny-business goings on that went on to bring about Sarbanes-Oxley in the first place. Never mind that in the line of business that the company I'm the CTO for would probably never be allowed to work in that field in the first place if that sort of stuff was going on.
And unless you get lucky, you're going to stay a peon with that attitude...
If you think that it's all easy work, you'd be mistaken. Some executive management does in fact work like demons so you can have a job to work at. They're not all like the Enron, Worldcom, or Tyco bunch...
I always thought that Rumple Mintz or a fine Single Malt Scotch was the fix for those sorts of problems- but then, what do I know, I'm just a CTO... I guess CEO's know more about those sorts of things, eh? :-)
Here's a modification to your suggestion that is more practical.
Non-productive patents do not expire (the idea may be sound, but it may be difficult to capitalize the invention), but if you find an infringer on one of those, you can't charge damages, you can't charge exorbitant royalties, and you can't prevent that specific infringer(s) from continuing forward with the invention in question. You didn't do anything with it, but you CAN charge people that did a small fee moving forward. And, you certainly can't do what a lot of these people have been doing- principal of laches, they waited to act on their Patent rights, so they get reasonable royalties moving forward and no right to tell them "no" on the production thereof.
I like item 3. With what I've got lurking above, at the 5 year mark, the extra maintenance fees kick in, just like you're calculating them. Sure, you can hold onto this non-productive Patent for the remaining 12-15 years, but it's going to cost you a pretty penny if you're holding onto a lot of them. Fail to pay the fee, Patent ceases to be with no renewal possible.
Sadly, the "Little" guy is nothing more than a lawfirm- Patents are solely only worth what kind of legal defense you can mount to defend them. The "Little" guy can't even afford a decent legal defense in most of these cases, and when you seer a lawsuit like this it's somebody that thinks that they have deep enough pockets to bleed even deeper pockets.
This would be a little easier to stomach if it were the "Little" guy fighting back and that the litigant actually DID something with their precious Patents. What we have here is a letter of the law thing- and a bunch of lawyers abusing it seriously to their and their client's best interests. It's not illegal- but it is immoral.
Secretaries shouldn't be editing Access stuff- honestly. A database is not a spreadsheet. A database is not a worprocessor document. Think long and hard about that for a moment. Secretaries should be doing letters and filing and things of that ilk. If they're doing more, then they're not a secretary. As for higher performance tools, if you're using Access, you're using a subset of VB... Next time try a little harder to know the subject in question- you missed the point altogether while trying to tell me the same thing.
Oh, and before you try to formulate a reply...
1) I've been in the IP business for decades.
2) I'm a SF author.
3) I'm a very accomplished professional Software Engineer.
4) I'm an inventor with several US and International Patents Pending or about to be filed.
While I won't profess to know everything about IP law, I'm pretty well versed in it because I have to be in the line of work I'm in. There's a reason WHY it's defined differently- because it IS different. Because it is different, you need to use the right verbiage and lines of thought regarding it.