As noted elsewhere, a true undergraduate experience is not spoon-feeding, it's learning how to learn. My engineering classes were just as described until upper division. Those that could hack it could hack any curriculum at any school anywhere. Those that couldn't, well . . . .
Depending on the program, ME, EE, CE, ChE, PeE, AsE, etc. and graduate or undergrad, UT may or may not be #5.
However, I guarantee you that in no poll will you find Rice, TAMU, or UTA ranked higher, except possibly Petroleum, where OU, UT, and TAMU change 1,2,3 about every 5 years.
Well, the protection afforded by copyright is against copying. Which means verbatim or near verbatim copying. Which assumes that the work is rather easily publicly available for copying, otherwise why bother?
The deposit requirement at the copyright office is for "identifying material" only. It is not a repository for material for people to copy when the copyright expires. And for published books, to stock the Library of Congress.
The current rules are that you submit the first and last 25 pages of source. Since Object Oriented Programming, there are no first and last, so you just pick the 50 most innocuous lines of source and deposit that.
One may also cite to trade secrets and obtain a "fishy" (rule of doubt) registration for the source code without disclosing any source.
So, no, registration does not automatically inject whole code into public domain (the non-copyrightable portions anyway).
There is no distinction to be made between software and non-software patents. Either an invention is obvious or it is not. You are arguing a higher state of knowledge and skill in the art in software, which may be the case. If that higher standard applies perhaps it is obvious.
You also have the benefit of hindsight.
Overall, the article was sensationalistic and the original post is correct.
Excellent point in the reply. Sideways swinging would not be the subject of a printed publication. Moreover, one will note that the examiner has a decidedly Vietnamese name, and is probably between 30 and 40 years old and did not grow up in the good old U.S. of A. Accordingly, that Examiner probably did not even have the anecdotal knowledge necessary to reject the patent. I doubt that swings were a common commodity in Saigon in the 60's and 70's.
Really kind of a mindless screed. There are a lot of flaws in the patent system. The flaws are shared between ALL patent systems, in my opinion. The question of whether we really should have one at all is not one I have ever attempted to address because it simply goes beyond my training into deep economics (which is all bullshit anyway). I'm only defending the USPTO because its probably no worse than any other patent office at granting or refusing to grant patents on the basis of the state of the art information that it has, which, in the case of software, is limited.
For whatever its worth, the patent system in the U.S. is constitutional in origin, meaning if one wanted to eliminate it, it would require a constitutional amendment. Then again, in the constitution, slaves were 3/5 human.
As a US Patent attorney, the fault of "lame" software patents is not that of the office but of the poor state of documentation of software inventions. In the USPTO and as far as I am aware the EPO, valid rejections must be based on printed publications, not some vague knowledge on the patent examiner that "this has been done before." Without that prior art, the Examiner is helpless not to issue the patent. So, in part, the software industry can blame itself for poorly documenting. The other fault is the shortsighted Supreme Court and Congress for failing to recognize the patentability of software until 1980, leaving the patent records woefully short of invention documentation in this field. Because the EPO has ruled similarly, I'm sure Mr. Savage's colleagues in the software areas find themselves having the same difficulty. True Mr. Savage?
Another good one possibly, the engineering students (us) put together a tshirt as a limit function: the limit, as GPA approaches 0, of engineering = Business
Best done in the sigma form methinks
Could do the same for Microsoft
Limit as IQ approaches 0 is MS or something
I went to UT (thats Texas) (at Austin). The physics kids put together a tshirt that read on the front:
And on the seventh day,
the Lord said,
let there be
and on the back:
Maxwell's equations.
I thought that was chucklicious.
Slashdot Mirror
As noted elsewhere, a true undergraduate experience is not spoon-feeding, it's learning how to learn. My engineering classes were just as described until upper division. Those that could hack it could hack any curriculum at any school anywhere. Those that couldn't, well . . . .
Um.
WRONG!
Depending on the program, ME, EE, CE, ChE, PeE, AsE, etc. and graduate or undergrad, UT may or may not be #5.
However, I guarantee you that in no poll will you find Rice, TAMU, or UTA ranked higher, except possibly Petroleum, where OU, UT, and TAMU change 1,2,3 about every 5 years.
HOOKEM
HOOKEM HORNS!
It really is. Very perceptive editorial and good analysis by Senor Wong.
Dont f*** with the Wongs!
Well, the protection afforded by copyright is against copying. Which means verbatim or near verbatim copying. Which assumes that the work is rather easily publicly available for copying, otherwise why bother?
The deposit requirement at the copyright office is for "identifying material" only. It is not a repository for material for people to copy when the copyright expires. And for published books, to stock the Library of Congress.
The current rules are that you submit the first and last 25 pages of source. Since Object Oriented Programming, there are no first and last, so you just pick the 50 most innocuous lines of source and deposit that.
One may also cite to trade secrets and obtain a "fishy" (rule of doubt) registration for the source code without disclosing any source.
So, no, registration does not automatically inject whole code into public domain (the non-copyrightable portions anyway).
It's a design patent.
Protects the look of the trash can. Not the concept.
There is no distinction to be made between software and non-software patents. Either an invention is obvious or it is not. You are arguing a higher state of knowledge and skill in the art in software, which may be the case. If that higher standard applies perhaps it is obvious.
You also have the benefit of hindsight.
Overall, the article was sensationalistic and the original post is correct.
Excellent point in the reply. Sideways swinging would not be the subject of a printed publication. Moreover, one will note that the examiner has a decidedly Vietnamese name, and is probably between 30 and 40 years old and did not grow up in the good old U.S. of A. Accordingly, that Examiner probably did not even have the anecdotal knowledge necessary to reject the patent. I doubt that swings were a common commodity in Saigon in the 60's and 70's.
Very likely true.
Really kind of a mindless screed. There are a lot of flaws in the patent system. The flaws are shared between ALL patent systems, in my opinion. The question of whether we really should have one at all is not one I have ever attempted to address because it simply goes beyond my training into deep economics (which is all bullshit anyway). I'm only defending the USPTO because its probably no worse than any other patent office at granting or refusing to grant patents on the basis of the state of the art information that it has, which, in the case of software, is limited.
For whatever its worth, the patent system in the U.S. is constitutional in origin, meaning if one wanted to eliminate it, it would require a constitutional amendment. Then again, in the constitution, slaves were 3/5 human.
As a US Patent attorney, the fault of "lame" software patents is not that of the office but of the poor state of documentation of software inventions. In the USPTO and as far as I am aware the EPO, valid rejections must be based on printed publications, not some vague knowledge on the patent examiner that "this has been done before." Without that prior art, the Examiner is helpless not to issue the patent. So, in part, the software industry can blame itself for poorly documenting. The other fault is the shortsighted Supreme Court and Congress for failing to recognize the patentability of software until 1980, leaving the patent records woefully short of invention documentation in this field. Because the EPO has ruled similarly, I'm sure Mr. Savage's colleagues in the software areas find themselves having the same difficulty. True Mr. Savage?
I too have one of sauls finest, Latitude C600. Very nice machine. The winmodem is the big drawback for the GNU dabbler.
Another good one possibly, the engineering students (us) put together a tshirt as a limit function: the limit, as GPA approaches 0, of engineering = Business Best done in the sigma form methinks Could do the same for Microsoft Limit as IQ approaches 0 is MS or something
I went to UT (thats Texas) (at Austin). The physics kids put together a tshirt that read on the front: And on the seventh day, the Lord said, let there be and on the back: Maxwell's equations. I thought that was chucklicious.