The reason why patent attorneys recommend against searching for patents is that once you know about a patent that is relevant to the one that you are filing, you have a duty to disclose it.
Hmm... your statement is correct, but it's not really "the reason why patent attorneys recommend against searching." I certainly wouldn't recommend a client not search for this reason, and I've never read that motivation expressed.
If prior art is out there that might render your invention non-novel or obvious, it's much better to discover it as early as possible. If the prior art is found early, the application can be drafted or prosecuted differently. If found late, added expense may be involved (e.g., a refiling or reexamination), or the bought-and-paid-for patent may have to be abandoned. Worst-case scenario, the patentee may waste tons of money developing a product line and suing a potential infringer, only to have the patent invalidated at trial.
Contrary to popular belief (especially here), neither patent owners nor patent attorneys are in favor of bad patents.
Then it shouldn't be a valid patent. Further evidence that the patent system in the US needs to be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch.
If I were to look at your code (presuming you're a coder [for the sake of argument], and presuming I'm *not* a coder [which I am, actually]) and say, "I can't understand this - you must be a terrible coder and your programming language must be broken," would that be fair?
The patent claim attempts to do something unique in the domain of language: it attempts to describe, in the simplest and logically clearest possible manner, the bare minimum requirements of an enabled invention. That's not exactly easy... in fact, it's been called the most difficult type of legal drafting.
The complexity of claim language arises from 170 years of claim-oriented patent drafting. (That's not an exaggeration - the concept of a patent claim arose in the Patent Act of 1836.)
The language of the patent claim has evolved dozens of times as practices have changed (peripheral claiming, acceptable claim styles, rules of interpretation derived from case law.) It may be incomprehensible to you, but those trained in patent law understand not only what a claim covers, but [i]why[/i] it's written that way.
Patents are ensconced in the Constitution, "To promote the progress of science and useful arts." Even after a patent expires, it is supposed to contribute to humanity's corpus of knowledge and science. How does a patent, written in language that can't be understood by an actual person trying to actually get something useful done, serve to promote the progress of science and the useful arts?
A person having "ordinary skill in the art" (i.e., in the technical field into which the patent falls) should be able to read the specification (and review the figures), understand the invention, and be able to practice it without undue experimentation. That's a legal requirement of a patent, and if it's not met, the patent examiner may reject it as insufficiently disclosed. The claims, on the other hand, define what's covered by the patent... in light of the specification.
Thus far I have never encountered a single company that "churns out" significant inventions.
Hey, "churn out" was your phrase, not mine. I was correcting your misstatement - the product of an inventor's effort is not a patent, but an invention.
But as for your new comment about the rate of innovation - "significant" is not a prerequisite to getting a patent, for at least three reasons:
"Significance" is impossible to define. It's impossible to specify a line or a standard, and it would be impossible to determine (objectively and consistently) how well any invention meets that standard. Go ahead - try it - let's see how well you do.
"Significance" is entirely subjective. Maybe only the inventor appreciates the significance. Maybe the significance is groundbreaking, but won't be apparent for a few years. The internet wasn't widely adopted on day one, nor was the worldwide web.
By and large, science and technology are incremental. In between the great paradigm shifts are long periods of small improvements. Patent systems similarly promote both types of innovations - there is no utilitarian argument for promoting one kind, but leaving the other to the dogs.
However, the original poster did not claim that he works for google or IBM. He claimed that he works for a "one-year old startup".
But your post was not specific to the original post, or even to the field of startups. You wrote: "I would also have grave concerns about any company that focused on patents. In almost every such company..." If you write in generalities, expect generalized responses.
Drug patents are not analogous to software patents.
Again, look at your post before criticizing my response. The OP did not indicate the tech area of his startup. You made some sweeping comments about "every company" and "any company." I responded with a specific example.
I'd love to get into the differences of software development vs. drug development (because I think you're wrong, based on what I've seen in years of IP work in both industries.) But we're already far afield of the principle question here ("how do I set up a patent incentivization program?"), so we'll leave it for another thread.
Many founders of small companies have the conceit that any idea of theirs or their programmers will be important or even revolutionary. As a result, many of them end up wasting lots of money on patent attorneys.
A patent takes about $10,000 to draft and about $10,000 to prosecute through issuance. Do you know how trivial a sum that is to the budget of a typical startup? Even if the start goes hog-wild and files ten applications, you're talking about $200,000 - spread over a period of six years or more! - whereas startups are usually valued well into the millions.
Sure, it's entirely possible to make bad choices. If you hire a New York boutique for your IP strategizing, you're going to be paying millions in fees. But that's just bad business sense, not a flaw in the patent system.
Why on earth would a company want to incentivize employees to churn out patents?
Err... they don't. They churn out inventions. The incentive is to get them to talk to the IP group at the company before publication. What the company decides to patent is its own business.
Most patents will not yield enough money to recover the $5000 spent on incentivizing the employee, to say nothing about the many thousands spent on patent attorneys.
1) The utility ratio ("useful" patent out of the total number of patents) depends on how good the IP group is at identifying inventions worth pursuing. Yes, a company that tries to patent everything will get socked with a mountain of fees in exchange for very little valuable IP. But a good triage process can greatly extend the value of the IP dollar.
2) Most companies that produce products aren't trying to sell their patents - they're trying to protect the value of their R&D. It's practically impossible to put a dollar figure on that, but any MBA will tell you that these are incredibly important assets for any company that does research and develops products.
Instead of worrying about patents, their concern should be having one discovery or one program that is worth anything at all.
How about drug companies that are simultaneously researching therapeutic agents for dozens or hundreds of diseases? I think they probably generate a steady stream of patentable remedies.
However, if the company is insistent on offering incentives for patents, then it should offer incentives based upon how much money others will pay to license the intellectual property and use the patent.
I agree with you - IF the company wants to license its IP. If (like most product-producing companies) it's more interested in protecting its R&D, that's a whole different ballgame.
I spent several years as in-house patent counsel for a hospital with a large research institute. We had a very interesting population of potential inventors - basic researchers, doctors of all stripes, and the entire range of healthcare workers.
We developed a disclosure program with a more practical twist: financial rewards were based on the successful commercialization of the technology, with a 40% share of royalties going to the inventors (to be split among them.) We also ran many non-financial recognition programs - plaques for implemented ideas, annual recognition dinners for anyone with a submitted idea, etc.
This arrangement had several advantages over the bonus-upon-filing/issuance arrangement:
We didn't get hit with a flood of bad disclosures from employees who were just trying to cash in.
Our inventors were encouraged (both literally and through the fee structure) to remain actively involved in the technology - not just the patent process, but also the marketing and licensing deals.
Some other thoughts:
Intra-organization advertising was key. The biggest reason why inventors weren't participating was simply that they didn't know our group existed. And due to employee turnover and short memory spans, the population needed frequent notices of our program, so this was just an ongoing mission.
One step up the line from education is a triage process. Be sure to have a solid team of broadly trained individuals who can review disclosures, do some market and patentability research, and thresh the wheat from the chaff.
On the whole, our inventors were excellent: creative, eager to explain and show, willing to learn about the IP process and to devote time to doing their part. Best of all, very few of them were motivated by money - most just wanted to see their inventions turned into products.
As for distribution of royalties among inventors - the easiest and fairest way to handle this is to have the inventors agree, UP FRONT (i.e., on the disclosure form), as to their respective contributions to the invention. Let them work it out among themselves, and get it documented ASAP. Waiting until royalties actually materialize is a recipe for disaster.
As a last observation - I think the reward strategy you've set out is a little unusual in two aspects: (1) The rewards are comparatively VERY large. $5k for an issued patent? Seriously? I don't think such high fees are going to promote innovation - they'll probably promote get-rich-quick thinking among the employees. (2) It's a little odd to have several inventor rewards for various stops along the patenting process. Usually, the inventor only participates in the *patent* process through filing... seems odd to reward them further based on work by your IP counsel.
"Unfortunately the glasses never really took off, partly because there were rendering problems with many popular 3D games but mostly because monitors didn't support high enough refresh rates to display games without giving people crushing headaches."
Um, no. The glasses never took off because no one wanted to wear clunky, heavy glasses with a HUGE battery pack or cable attachment. (Or even better, two cables: sync and power.) Not to mention the hardware integrated into the frame for manipulating the shutter or polarization of each lens...
And then there's the fact that a fair amount of gaming is not done in the solitude of a dorm room or mom's basement, but in public. And how would you look wearing a pair of shuttering glasses in Starbucks? True 3D is cool, but even nerds have their - our - limits.
But, hey, this is Nvidia trying to find a raison d'etre after its sole niche becomes commoditized. I get that, but that doesn't make it not stupid. Next I suppose Nvidia will start touting other good-only-at-first-glance peripherals: the Nvidia gyroscopic mouse, the Nvidia true-3D-audio speaker set, and the Nvidia dvorak keyboard...
Okay, so how do you explain away the Al Jazeera tapes?
Look, I'm not a theorist. It's not my role to explain anything - I'm not in the right position and I have virtually no firsthand information.
But I am in a position to evaluate the explanation given to us by the government, by simple virtue of my status as a citizen and a taxpayer. And it disturbs me that the only direct link between 9/11 and Osama bin Laden is critically regarded by some fairly neutral parties.
The duty is on the federal government to respond to such doubt with more credible evidence - a fleet of academics, let's say, testifying as to a particular translation. But it didn't do that, and we didn't hold its feet to the fire... much as we've failed to hold government accountable for anything since 2001.
I love the black holes,
I love the quasars,
I love gas giants
And both the moons of Mars!
I love the Oort Cloud
And all the "billion stars!" Boom de yada, boom de yada,
Boom de yada, boom de yada...
I love big telescopes
And supercollider rings,
I love dark matter
And six-dimension strings!
This space is awesome
It's our Final Frontier! Boom de yada, boom de yada,
Boom de yada, boom de yada...
"On December 20, 2001, German TV channel "Das Erste" broadcast its analysis of the White House's translation of the videotape. On the program "Monitor", two independent translators and an expert on oriental studies found the White House's translation to be not only inaccurate, but also manipulative saying "At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of Bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic" and that the words used that indicate foreknowledge can not be heard at all in the original Arabic. Prof. Gernot Rotter, professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the Asia-Africa Institute at the University of Hamburg said "The American translators who listened to the tapes and transcribed them apparently wrote a lot of things in that they wanted to hear but that cannot be heard on the tape no matter how many times you listen to it."
What manager thought it would be a good idea to announce, before the product shipped, that -
the product will essentially have no support beyond v1.0;
any coding glitches or problems will probably never come back to haunt any of the developers; and
some of the developers will be fired as soon as the product ships?
Doesn't this pretty much guarantee that Halo Wars will be late (delayed by people who don't want to lose their jobs), full of glitches (since devs don't have to worry about the ramifications), and avoided by customers (who will know that the product is DOA?)
I thought this gaffe was only a software engineering myth. I'm gonna have to bookmark this post for future reference:)...
I didn't know that one person could have so many crackpot ideas.
Presumably you've never visited Time Cube before... it's a whole 'nother level of crazy. Just one visit will permanently destroy your ability to be surprised by anyone's level of insanity.
Well, money isn't much of a factor in a perjury case - it's a criminal matter. The limiting factor is whether the justice department of any municipality wants to go after them... presumably the city will have the money to fund prosecution if the interest is there.
Of course, an effective countermeasure would be a statutorily defined civil penalty for DMCA abuse. Sadly, the DMCA has nothing of the sort - the situation simply isn't addressed... probably because the legislators gave no thought to the "accused infringer" side of the coin when enacting it. Yet another reason why the DMCA is a lousy law.
Theoretically, the scope of $cientology's abuse of the DMCA might be a sufficiently public debacle that forces Congress to rewrite it. But what are the odds of that occurring in an election year? If nothing else, this gambit is well-timed...
The difference, though, is that people who have frequently used both often tend to develop that exact same opinion.
Precisely.
The Mojave ad features a bunch of (what look to be) regular joes getting hoodwinked into using Vista. The obvious problem is that no one cares what Joe Sixpack thinks of Vista... that's not where most people get their information. Most get it from well-informed users using the big voices of weblogs, magazines, and newspapers. And those voices come down almost unanimously against Vista, with mountains of backing evidence.
Correct and how many of those patents are hardware innovations NOT software? I keep mentioning this but you seem to gloss over it.
I addressed that a few posts above, but I'll address it more thoroughly now.
From IT Jungle:
"According to sources at IBM, about 1,800 of the patents that were issued to Big Blue in 2005 were for software-related inventions... IBM says that the percentage of its patents relating to software inventions has been increasing steadily in the past few years. It was 51 percent in 2003, 58 percent in 2004, and 61 percent in 2005."
-----
Second, until patent reform takes place, this is the best IBM can do. Offer their patents to others wishing patent reform on software patents while at the same time making sure they are protected
Well, it's true that despite what changes are in store, you've got to play the current game as well as you can.
However, IBM is one of the strongest supporters of software patents, and has consistently been so throughout the history of software patenting.
Here is a transcript of USPTO hearings in 1994 - back when many industry players held Slashdot-like dislike for software patents. Even back then, IBM took a pro-software-patent stance and advocated for their allowance.
(Incidentally, that transcript should be required reading for anyone who wants to participate in this debate - IBM raised some extremely persuasive points that most Slashdotters don't like to acknowledge - such as: "We can't divorce computer program-related inventions from computer hardware and other microprocessor inventions. The overlap between the two is so great that cutting back on one automatically cuts back on the other.")
IBM continues to lobby in favor of software patents - particularly in the EU. From FFII.org:
"In the wake of the Opensource hype, IBM's rhetoric has become relatively moderate, but nonetheless it is supported by real pressure. IBM has acquired approximately 1000 European software patents whose legal status is currently unclear. Given the great number of software patents in IBM's hands, IBM is one of the few software companies who may have a genuine interest in software patentability."
From Ars Technica:
"IBM and OSDL to help Patent Office get organized"
This article is about IBM's contributions to the USPTO to help it improve its search tools, and in developing a Wiki-like system for allowing the public to participate in patent examination. This initiative is hardly about deconstructing the patent system - it's about sharpening and improving it, so that better-examined patents can issue.
And from Gartner:
"IBM Uses Patents to Lead Open-Source Community"
"IBM announced that it would open access to technology covered by 500 IBM software patents to any individual, community or company working on or using software that meets the Open Source Initiative (OSI) definition of open-source software (see www.opensource.org). IBM also proposed an industrywide "patent commons" for sharing patents among technology developers."
Note: This is not "donating patents to the public domain" or "abandoning patents." This is "using patents strategically to promote a particular sector of the market," i.e., the OSI crew.
In short - you couldn't be more wrong in your summary of IBM's position on software patents. IBM is a HUGE player in this space. They know how to get them, and they know how to use them well. They have consistently supported software patenting, from its mainstream inception in the 1990's and through today, and consistently lobby for expansion in terms of allowability, regional acceptance, and enforcement power.
So we agree the purpose of a patent is to create a monopoly. But yet you claim this kind of monopoly doesn't put your competitors out of business...
Of course not. Consider:
Companies A and B are competing in offering a particular product (say, an operating system.) Company A develops, patents, and brings to market an improvement of that product (e.g., a new type of task scheduler that's more efficient than conventional types.) Does Company B go out of business because of Company A's patent? Of course not; it has several other options -
(1) License the patent to the invention from Company A and build it into its product.
(2) Build a further improvement of the invention (e.g., another new task scheduler) that adds to the value, then cross-license the inventions with Company A so that both get to use the improved invention.
(3) Conduct some R&D to build (and patent) an entirely new type of invention that doesn't work along the principles of Company A's, but allows them to compete with Company A's improved product.
(4) Ignore the invention and continue selling the unimproved product.
Many other options are also available. And, you know, even if Company B were threatened with extinction over Company A's patent, Company A might just want to help out Company B - even big companies see value in competition, you know.
Look - patents aren't the evil that Slashdot thinks they are. A bunch of studying of the law, business, and economics may promote a deeper understanding of the business realities at play here.
Explain to me again --- how do you think patents work?
Umm... that's such an open-ended question that I can't really answer it. I'll just give you two things:
1) Here's a brief summary. A patent is a limited-duration government-awarded monopoly on an invention. It is issued if the government, after examination, determines that the invention is new and meets some other prerequisites (e.g., a sufficiently detailed description.)
In exchange for publishing (free of charge) the patentee's description for the whole world to read, the government grants the patentee exactly one right: the ability to stop anyone else from practicing the invention within the country of issue of the patent. This prohibition is enforceable by the patentee through litigation, resulting in a potentially large damages award and an injunction. However, the patentee may license others to use the patent subject to contractual obligations - which may range from very restrictive (high royalty payments to the patentee) to very open (only a handful of use restrictions.)
2) For general info, here is an outline. It's eight years old and some parts are out of date, but it's mostly correct as to the general state of law. If you have specific questions, consult a patent attorney. (Of course, I am a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer.)
There were no file formats before Microsoft cam along with Office? Then what was ASCII,.txt,.rdf, and Word Perfect's format.
Read my post again, please - I wasn't arguing that there weren't any "file formats" (which would be ridiculous!), but that there weren't any (or at least, not many) consortiums for standardizing file and data formats to promote cross-compatibility.
I agree that the ECMA proceeding may not have reached an acceptable solution. But was it better two decades ago, when no one submitted any data format to an independent body for review and documenting?
Omnigroup wrote an excellent disk backup program for Mac OS X, which they had to pull because Dantz had a patent on keeping an index to a backup on a separate device.
Interesting. I'd never read that story, but it looks like it checks out. Thanks for the info.
Very unlikely to be litigated. Courts generally do not tell regulatory agencies how to make their rules.
Sure they do. Earlier this year, in Tafas v. Dudas, GlaxoSmithKline sued the USPTO over its new "continuation rules package" that imposed new procedural requirements on certain patent applications. The CAFC not only heard the case, but came down loud and hard against the USPTO, finding that it had exceeded its authority. Although cast in procedural language, the new rules effectively altered the landscape of patentable inventions - a substantive change that only Congress was authorized to make.
Now, that was for a set of rules that were facially procedural. The USPTO's position here is not even facially procedural - it is a completely substantive decree that they will regard a whole swath of inventions as unpatentable.
The CAFC will definitely hear this case, and I've got some safe money on a USPTO smackdown.
Slashdot Mirror
Star Control: The Ur-Quan Masters. One of the absolute best games I've EVER played for ANY platform - ported from the 1990's as free software.
Seiklus. One of my all-time favorite action/adventures: simple, colorful, evocative.
Within a Deep Forest. Really fun and neat game where you play a bouncing ball.
Spheres of Chaos. INCREDIBLE trippy Asteroids clone with lots of power-ups.
flOw. Of course.
Overgod. Very fun 2D arena shooter with upgradable ships.
ROM CHECK FAIL. Old-school craziness. =)
Cave Story. Metroid-style old-school side-scroller.
- David Stein
The reason why patent attorneys recommend against searching for patents is that once you know about a patent that is relevant to the one that you are filing, you have a duty to disclose it.
Hmm... your statement is correct, but it's not really "the reason why patent attorneys recommend against searching." I certainly wouldn't recommend a client not search for this reason, and I've never read that motivation expressed.
If prior art is out there that might render your invention non-novel or obvious, it's much better to discover it as early as possible. If the prior art is found early, the application can be drafted or prosecuted differently. If found late, added expense may be involved (e.g., a refiling or reexamination), or the bought-and-paid-for patent may have to be abandoned. Worst-case scenario, the patentee may waste tons of money developing a product line and suing a potential infringer, only to have the patent invalidated at trial.
Contrary to popular belief (especially here), neither patent owners nor patent attorneys are in favor of bad patents.
- David Stein
Then it shouldn't be a valid patent. Further evidence that the patent system in the US needs to be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch.
If I were to look at your code (presuming you're a coder [for the sake of argument], and presuming I'm *not* a coder [which I am, actually]) and say, "I can't understand this - you must be a terrible coder and your programming language must be broken," would that be fair?
The patent claim attempts to do something unique in the domain of language: it attempts to describe, in the simplest and logically clearest possible manner, the bare minimum requirements of an enabled invention. That's not exactly easy... in fact, it's been called the most difficult type of legal drafting.
The complexity of claim language arises from 170 years of claim-oriented patent drafting. (That's not an exaggeration - the concept of a patent claim arose in the Patent Act of 1836.)
The language of the patent claim has evolved dozens of times as practices have changed (peripheral claiming, acceptable claim styles, rules of interpretation derived from case law.) It may be incomprehensible to you, but those trained in patent law understand not only what a claim covers, but [i]why[/i] it's written that way.
Patents are ensconced in the Constitution, "To promote the progress of science and useful arts." Even after a patent expires, it is supposed to contribute to humanity's corpus of knowledge and science. How does a patent, written in language that can't be understood by an actual person trying to actually get something useful done, serve to promote the progress of science and the useful arts?
A person having "ordinary skill in the art" (i.e., in the technical field into which the patent falls) should be able to read the specification (and review the figures), understand the invention, and be able to practice it without undue experimentation. That's a legal requirement of a patent, and if it's not met, the patent examiner may reject it as insufficiently disclosed. The claims, on the other hand, define what's covered by the patent... in light of the specification.
- David Stein
I was sitting on my couch, playing through the second quest of Legend of Zelda on an NES emulator, while waiting for my laundry to finish.
(...with my "Yes, I Voted Today!" sticker on my lapel, and in between refreshes of reddit for election news.)
- David Stein
Hey, "churn out" was your phrase, not mine. I was correcting your misstatement - the product of an inventor's effort is not a patent, but an invention.
But as for your new comment about the rate of innovation - "significant" is not a prerequisite to getting a patent, for at least three reasons:
However, the original poster did not claim that he works for google or IBM. He claimed that he works for a "one-year old startup".
But your post was not specific to the original post, or even to the field of startups. You wrote: "I would also have grave concerns about any company that focused on patents. In almost every such company..." If you write in generalities, expect generalized responses.
Drug patents are not analogous to software patents.
Again, look at your post before criticizing my response. The OP did not indicate the tech area of his startup. You made some sweeping comments about "every company" and "any company." I responded with a specific example.
I'd love to get into the differences of software development vs. drug development (because I think you're wrong, based on what I've seen in years of IP work in both industries.) But we're already far afield of the principle question here ("how do I set up a patent incentivization program?"), so we'll leave it for another thread.
Many founders of small companies have the conceit that any idea of theirs or their programmers will be important or even revolutionary. As a result, many of them end up wasting lots of money on patent attorneys.
A patent takes about $10,000 to draft and about $10,000 to prosecute through issuance. Do you know how trivial a sum that is to the budget of a typical startup? Even if the start goes hog-wild and files ten applications, you're talking about $200,000 - spread over a period of six years or more! - whereas startups are usually valued well into the millions.
Sure, it's entirely possible to make bad choices. If you hire a New York boutique for your IP strategizing, you're going to be paying millions in fees. But that's just bad business sense, not a flaw in the patent system.
- David Stein
Err... they don't. They churn out inventions. The incentive is to get them to talk to the IP group at the company before publication. What the company decides to patent is its own business.
Most patents will not yield enough money to recover the $5000 spent on incentivizing the employee, to say nothing about the many thousands spent on patent attorneys.
1) The utility ratio ("useful" patent out of the total number of patents) depends on how good the IP group is at identifying inventions worth pursuing. Yes, a company that tries to patent everything will get socked with a mountain of fees in exchange for very little valuable IP. But a good triage process can greatly extend the value of the IP dollar.
2) Most companies that produce products aren't trying to sell their patents - they're trying to protect the value of their R&D. It's practically impossible to put a dollar figure on that, but any MBA will tell you that these are incredibly important assets for any company that does research and develops products. Instead of worrying about patents, their concern should be having one discovery or one program that is worth anything at all.
How about drug companies that are simultaneously researching therapeutic agents for dozens or hundreds of diseases? I think they probably generate a steady stream of patentable remedies.
However, if the company is insistent on offering incentives for patents, then it should offer incentives based upon how much money others will pay to license the intellectual property and use the patent.
I agree with you - IF the company wants to license its IP. If (like most product-producing companies) it's more interested in protecting its R&D, that's a whole different ballgame.
- David Stein
We developed a disclosure program with a more practical twist: financial rewards were based on the successful commercialization of the technology, with a 40% share of royalties going to the inventors (to be split among them.) We also ran many non-financial recognition programs - plaques for implemented ideas, annual recognition dinners for anyone with a submitted idea, etc.
This arrangement had several advantages over the bonus-upon-filing/issuance arrangement:
Some other thoughts:
Good luck! - David Stein
Um, no. The glasses never took off because no one wanted to wear clunky, heavy glasses with a HUGE battery pack or cable attachment. (Or even better, two cables: sync and power.) Not to mention the hardware integrated into the frame for manipulating the shutter or polarization of each lens...
And then there's the fact that a fair amount of gaming is not done in the solitude of a dorm room or mom's basement, but in public. And how would you look wearing a pair of shuttering glasses in Starbucks? True 3D is cool, but even nerds have their - our - limits.
But, hey, this is Nvidia trying to find a raison d'etre after its sole niche becomes commoditized. I get that, but that doesn't make it not stupid. Next I suppose Nvidia will start touting other good-only-at-first-glance peripherals: the Nvidia gyroscopic mouse, the Nvidia true-3D-audio speaker set, and the Nvidia dvorak keyboard...
- David Stein
Look, I'm not a theorist. It's not my role to explain anything - I'm not in the right position and I have virtually no firsthand information.
But I am in a position to evaluate the explanation given to us by the government, by simple virtue of my status as a citizen and a taxpayer. And it disturbs me that the only direct link between 9/11 and Osama bin Laden is critically regarded by some fairly neutral parties.
The duty is on the federal government to respond to such doubt with more credible evidence - a fleet of academics, let's say, testifying as to a particular translation. But it didn't do that, and we didn't hold its feet to the fire... much as we've failed to hold government accountable for anything since 2001.
- David Stein
I love the black holes,
I love the quasars,
I love gas giants
And both the moons of Mars!
I love the Oort Cloud
And all the "billion stars!"
Boom de yada, boom de yada,
Boom de yada, boom de yada...
I love big telescopes
And supercollider rings,
I love dark matter
And six-dimension strings!
This space is awesome
It's our Final Frontier!
Boom de yada, boom de yada,
Boom de yada, boom de yada...
- David Stein
How about: "providing an alternative to trade secret protection so that industries don't gridlock because everything is confidential?"
- David Stein
"On December 20, 2001, German TV channel "Das Erste" broadcast its analysis of the White House's translation of the videotape. On the program "Monitor", two independent translators and an expert on oriental studies found the White House's translation to be not only inaccurate, but also manipulative saying "At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of Bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic" and that the words used that indicate foreknowledge can not be heard at all in the original Arabic. Prof. Gernot Rotter, professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the Asia-Africa Institute at the University of Hamburg said "The American translators who listened to the tapes and transcribed them apparently wrote a lot of things in that they wanted to hear but that cannot be heard on the tape no matter how many times you listen to it."
- David Stein
What manager thought it would be a good idea to announce, before the product shipped, that -
Doesn't this pretty much guarantee that Halo Wars will be late (delayed by people who don't want to lose their jobs), full of glitches (since devs don't have to worry about the ramifications), and avoided by customers (who will know that the product is DOA?)
I thought this gaffe was only a software engineering myth. I'm gonna have to bookmark this post for future reference :) ...
- David Stein
Presumably you've never visited Time Cube before... it's a whole 'nother level of crazy. Just one visit will permanently destroy your ability to be surprised by anyone's level of insanity.
- David Stein
No, no, it's perfectly safe. They're just going to have Gordon move the sample into the test chamber...
- David Stein
Well, money isn't much of a factor in a perjury case - it's a criminal matter. The limiting factor is whether the justice department of any municipality wants to go after them... presumably the city will have the money to fund prosecution if the interest is there.
Of course, an effective countermeasure would be a statutorily defined civil penalty for DMCA abuse. Sadly, the DMCA has nothing of the sort - the situation simply isn't addressed... probably because the legislators gave no thought to the "accused infringer" side of the coin when enacting it. Yet another reason why the DMCA is a lousy law.
Theoretically, the scope of $cientology's abuse of the DMCA might be a sufficiently public debacle that forces Congress to rewrite it. But what are the odds of that occurring in an election year? If nothing else, this gambit is well-timed...
- David Stein
They don't have that right. That's the point of parody.
Jerry Falwell certainly didn't want his image used by Hustler Magazine, but he didn't have the power to stop them.
- David Stein
Precisely.
The Mojave ad features a bunch of (what look to be) regular joes getting hoodwinked into using Vista. The obvious problem is that no one cares what Joe Sixpack thinks of Vista... that's not where most people get their information. Most get it from well-informed users using the big voices of weblogs, magazines, and newspapers. And those voices come down almost unanimously against Vista, with mountains of backing evidence.
- David Stein
AT&T has discovered Step 2 for us! Awesome work, AT&T scientician people! We can bail ourselves out of the recession this way!
- David Stein
I addressed that a few posts above, but I'll address it more thoroughly now.
From IT Jungle:
"According to sources at IBM, about 1,800 of the patents that were issued to Big Blue in 2005 were for software-related inventions... IBM says that the percentage of its patents relating to software inventions has been increasing steadily in the past few years. It was 51 percent in 2003, 58 percent in 2004, and 61 percent in 2005."
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Second, until patent reform takes place, this is the best IBM can do. Offer their patents to others wishing patent reform on software patents while at the same time making sure they are protected
Well, it's true that despite what changes are in store, you've got to play the current game as well as you can.
However, IBM is one of the strongest supporters of software patents, and has consistently been so throughout the history of software patenting.
Here is a transcript of USPTO hearings in 1994 - back when many industry players held Slashdot-like dislike for software patents. Even back then, IBM took a pro-software-patent stance and advocated for their allowance.
(Incidentally, that transcript should be required reading for anyone who wants to participate in this debate - IBM raised some extremely persuasive points that most Slashdotters don't like to acknowledge - such as: "We can't divorce computer program-related inventions from computer hardware and other microprocessor inventions. The overlap between the two is so great that cutting back on one automatically cuts back on the other.")
IBM continues to lobby in favor of software patents - particularly in the EU. From FFII.org:
"In the wake of the Opensource hype, IBM's rhetoric has become relatively moderate, but nonetheless it is supported by real pressure. IBM has acquired approximately 1000 European software patents whose legal status is currently unclear. Given the great number of software patents in IBM's hands, IBM is one of the few software companies who may have a genuine interest in software patentability."
From Ars Technica:
"IBM and OSDL to help Patent Office get organized"
This article is about IBM's contributions to the USPTO to help it improve its search tools, and in developing a Wiki-like system for allowing the public to participate in patent examination. This initiative is hardly about deconstructing the patent system - it's about sharpening and improving it, so that better-examined patents can issue.
And from Gartner:
"IBM Uses Patents to Lead Open-Source Community"
"IBM announced that it would open access to technology covered by 500 IBM software patents to any individual, community or company working on or using software that meets the Open Source Initiative (OSI) definition of open-source software (see www.opensource.org). IBM also proposed an industrywide "patent commons" for sharing patents among technology developers."
Note: This is not "donating patents to the public domain" or "abandoning patents." This is "using patents strategically to promote a particular sector of the market," i.e., the OSI crew.
In short - you couldn't be more wrong in your summary of IBM's position on software patents. IBM is a HUGE player in this space. They know how to get them, and they know how to use them well. They have consistently supported software patenting, from its mainstream inception in the 1990's and through today, and consistently lobby for expansion in terms of allowability, regional acceptance, and enforcement power.
- David Stein
Of course not. Consider:
Companies A and B are competing in offering a particular product (say, an operating system.) Company A develops, patents, and brings to market an improvement of that product (e.g., a new type of task scheduler that's more efficient than conventional types.) Does Company B go out of business because of Company A's patent? Of course not; it has several other options -
(1) License the patent to the invention from Company A and build it into its product.
(2) Build a further improvement of the invention (e.g., another new task scheduler) that adds to the value, then cross-license the inventions with Company A so that both get to use the improved invention.
(3) Conduct some R&D to build (and patent) an entirely new type of invention that doesn't work along the principles of Company A's, but allows them to compete with Company A's improved product.
(4) Ignore the invention and continue selling the unimproved product.
Many other options are also available. And, you know, even if Company B were threatened with extinction over Company A's patent, Company A might just want to help out Company B - even big companies see value in competition, you know.
Look - patents aren't the evil that Slashdot thinks they are. A bunch of studying of the law, business, and economics may promote a deeper understanding of the business realities at play here.
- David Stein
Umm... that's such an open-ended question that I can't really answer it. I'll just give you two things:
1) Here's a brief summary. A patent is a limited-duration government-awarded monopoly on an invention. It is issued if the government, after examination, determines that the invention is new and meets some other prerequisites (e.g., a sufficiently detailed description.)
In exchange for publishing (free of charge) the patentee's description for the whole world to read, the government grants the patentee exactly one right: the ability to stop anyone else from practicing the invention within the country of issue of the patent. This prohibition is enforceable by the patentee through litigation, resulting in a potentially large damages award and an injunction. However, the patentee may license others to use the patent subject to contractual obligations - which may range from very restrictive (high royalty payments to the patentee) to very open (only a handful of use restrictions.)
2) For general info, here is an outline. It's eight years old and some parts are out of date, but it's mostly correct as to the general state of law. If you have specific questions, consult a patent attorney. (Of course, I am a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer.)
- David Stein
Read my post again, please - I wasn't arguing that there weren't any "file formats" (which would be ridiculous!), but that there weren't any (or at least, not many) consortiums for standardizing file and data formats to promote cross-compatibility.
I agree that the ECMA proceeding may not have reached an acceptable solution. But was it better two decades ago, when no one submitted any data format to an independent body for review and documenting?
- David Stein
Interesting. I'd never read that story, but it looks like it checks out. Thanks for the info.
- David Stein
Sure they do. Earlier this year, in Tafas v. Dudas, GlaxoSmithKline sued the USPTO over its new "continuation rules package" that imposed new procedural requirements on certain patent applications. The CAFC not only heard the case, but came down loud and hard against the USPTO, finding that it had exceeded its authority. Although cast in procedural language, the new rules effectively altered the landscape of patentable inventions - a substantive change that only Congress was authorized to make.
Now, that was for a set of rules that were facially procedural. The USPTO's position here is not even facially procedural - it is a completely substantive decree that they will regard a whole swath of inventions as unpatentable.
The CAFC will definitely hear this case, and I've got some safe money on a USPTO smackdown.
- David Stein