You're right and it's unfortunate that some people can't afford the luxuries most slashdot readers take for granted, but the first amendment doesn't require the government to provide people with access to TVs or radios either.
In the end, libraries are a discretionary service provided with taxpayer funds and the Constitution and courts give pretty broad deference to the legislative arm of government to decide spending issues. I'm not saying it always a good thing (it certainly would be nice if the courts could strike down pork barrel spending -- "Your honor, why are you striking down my important study on the mysterious number of socks lost every year in dryers?" "Because its stupid. Next case."), but its pretty much the way it is.
I'm afraid I disagree. The government is simply not funding your access to a particular segment of your potential audience. They're not censoring your speech.
Now, if the situation was one where the act singled out speech that was narrowly addressed to library patrons (e.g., criticism of libraries or something), the Court would be very suspicious because then the act would be preventing the speech from reaching all or nearly all of its intended audience, which looks a lot more like censorship.
You're incorrect because you're applying the wrong standard. While the Court has struck down (correctly) several laws which place restrictions on Internet sites which provide material "harmful to children" as restrictions on speech, in this case the issue is tied into government funding of libraries. The speech is not restricted at all, it is receipt of the speech using hardware, software and bandwidth paid for with tax dollars that is restricted. The First Amendment does not require government to provide financial support or access to speech, it merely requires that government not place content-based restrictions on speech.
In short, while the speech is allowed on the Internet, the government is not required to use tax dollars to provide you with a way to get it. (This analysis would be different if the government was the only way to access the Internet, but thankfully that's not true, at least in the U.S.)
It would be nearly impossible to send repeaters out behind a space probe because virtually all of the probes sent out by NASA are slingshot off the gravity of the planets that they flyby. By the time a trailing repeater got there the planet would be in a different place -- thus no slingshot and no way to follow/keep up with the original probe.
I recently visited this spectacular passage tomb in Ireland. Older than the Pyramids or Stonehenge, the passage lines up exactly with the rising sun on the winter solstice. The roof of the tomb is built by rocks laid one on top of the other (i.e., no mortar) and supports an entire mound of earth. See pictures, etc.
Its Limp Bizkit, not Metallica, that is going on tour for a month for free sponsered by Napster (Metallica sponsered by Napster wouldn't really make any sense, now would it).
Is this just a naked bribe by Napster to garner support or is it just me?
Interestingly enough Limp Bizkit is on the same label as Dr. Dre.
Here's the link: http://newsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/us/dept/nm/a192 22-2000apr30.htm
I'm pretty sure that the decryption key and decryption are done in the hardware and output directly to the monitor (assuming it works like my dxr3 decoder card), so RIAA won't have a problem, unless the driver is somehow extracting the video unencrypted.
Actually the PTO can "recall" a patent for a reexamination (they did this for that Y2K windowing patent that was big news a couple months ago) but it is relatively rare. It usually only occurs when there is sufficient press coverage that makes the PTO look bad. I don't see them doing a whole lot with existing patents because of the amount of examiner time it would pull away from the regular examination process, but it is possible without any legislative changes.
I think that this is absolutely the right first step to handling the internet/software patent issues. A lot of casual talk here on slashdot (and elsewhere) has focused on making fundamental changes to the law, when in fact, the law as it was written by Congress has never really been in effect in the real world because the PTO has been doing such a lousy job of examining software patents. A large number of the complaints about individual patents that have been raised on slashdot have centered on the "that technique is old" or "that's obvious, any skilled programmer could do that" type of complaints. If the PTO does correctly implement this more rigorous examination process most of these kind of complaints will go away.
There will still be the larger policy debate on software/internet patents in general, but I think that that debate will be much more focused without the distraction of the really bad patents. This is important because the truly lousy patents aren't so much the fault of bad law but more the failure of the PTO to do its job. And in the spirit of using the right tool to do the right job, changes at the PTO are probably a better tool than changing the law, at least at this point.
Additionally, changes at the PTO will not require the incredibly long process of new legislation to change the law, etc. We may see results sooner this way.
It will be interesting to see if the PTO can actually pull this off given the usual government bureaucracy problems.
Let me get this straight, Bezos/Amazon comes up with an alleged "invention" of one-click shopping, hires a lawyer to patent it, sneaks it past the lousy examination procedures at the PTO, and gets a patent on it. Then Bezos/Amazon goes out and sues its competitors, and somehow this is the fault of the lawyers, patent system and PTO? Sure there are problems with the patent system, there are plenty of sleazy lawyers out there (and some honorable ones too though, e.g. Abraham Lincoln just to pick a name), and the PTO does do a crappy job of examining applications, but quite frankly all of these events took place at the direction of Bezos/Amazon! Even if you believe in patenting software/business methods in order to prevent some one else from doing it, there is NO requirement that you sue someone! Bezos/Amazon is acting like all these actions are someone else's fault which is just total crap. If anything the lawyers are getting the worst of it, because if a lawyer doesn't represent his/her client's interests to the full extent of the law, which is assumedly what the lawyers were doing in this case, they can be sued for malpractice (and Amazon doesn't seem too adverse to suing people on weak grounds)
As mentioned in a previous post, Bezos is not the mascot we want for patent reform. He's the one who set everything in motion for the one-click patent suit, we shouldn't let him off the hook just because he's mouthing the right platitudes now and pretending he doesn't like it after he intentionally abused it.
Actually the fees for patent applicants and holders more than cover the current costs of the PTO. Congress just takes some of the money and spends it on other stuff. If they actually used all the fees for better patent examination a lot of the problems with the patent system would go away because these lousy patents (e.g., one-click shopping) would never get issued. So better examination would cost the taxpayers nothing, but politics as usual prevails.... apparently better patent examination procedures don't show up very high on the voter's opinion polls.
There is a HUGE problem with the new inter partes reexam provisions. If the patentee prevails before the PTO in the reexam, the third party CANNOT appeal the decision to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the exclusive appeals court for all patent cases) and cannot assert the same piece of prior art as a defense in a later infringement lawsuit. However, if the third party prevails, the patentee CAN appeal. This is a tremendous downside to the process because the third party is forfeiting its day in court in favor of a decision by the PTO but the patentee faces no such risk.
At the risk of getting pounced on I'm going to make a few mitigating (not exculpatory, note the difference) remarks about DoubleClick. The simple fact is that these guys publicized their plans and got nailed, which is good. At least they announced what they were doing and didn't try to deny it.
The real question is how many other companies are sneaking around doing the same kind of thing under the radar of the media, etc. For instance, credit card companies track every purchase that you make and where and when you made it. Credit reporting agencies track all of your financial transactions except for pure cash. Obviously, your ISP can tell every site that you visit simply by correlating network traffic to your login or IP address and can read your email (what do you think those spam filtering "services" are doing?).
Generally the point I'm trying to make is that everyone knew that DoubleClick was using cookies to do some sort of tracing to begin with, they just previously weren't correlating it directly to your name, etc. I've been blocking their cookies for a while now because I KNEW they were there. The ones I'm worried about are the ones I can't see. The Internet is much more like a public street then any one wants to admit, and what you do on a public street can be seen by a lot of people. Be careful out there.....
... Then again, if the infringer has deeper pockets than you, you might be out of business years before the case is settled. Even megacorps have a hard time defending their patent pool. If you are a little guy, forget it.
....Then yet again, if you have a case good enough where legal fees are likely (even better if you can show that the infringer did so willfully and therefore are eligible for triple damages) you'll likely find a firm willing to take the case on contingency.
I'll try to answer your questions, with the caveat that this is much simplified and should not be taken as actual legal advice.
The simple answer is that a patent grants you the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling your invention. Note that a patent does not grant the right to make, use, or sell your own invention. This is because your patent may be an improvement upon something else that is also patented. Situations like this are usually called "blocking" patents and are what result in the large number of cross licensing agreements between companies that hold patents in closely related areas.
You can hold a patent for any reason you want. To keep your rights for the life of the patent (20 years from time of filing in the U.S.) you will have to pay the periodic maintainence fees.
Unlike trademarks, not using the patented technique will not result in loss of the patent. (rights to a trademark can be lost if it is "abandoned" i.e. not used) However, if you know of an infringer and do not pursue an infringement suit for an extended period of time, you may lose the right to sue that particular infringer.
Patents are like other pieces of property in that their ownership can be determined by contract. Frequently employees of companies are required by their employment agreements to "assign" any patents that they get to their employer. (Read your own employment agreements carefully, especially if you're doing your own inventing on the side)
As far as legal fees go, if you have an especially good case against an infringer (i.e. you show that they knew of your patent and infringed anyway) you can generally get legal fees at the end of the suit.
According to the Washington Post, the OSHA "interpretation" of the rule which applied it to telecommuters was in response to a letter from an employer. The Post said this letter was sent back in November but just reported now. However, who knows how many previous letters or unofficial statements with this "interpretation" were sent out without any publicity (and hence no public outcry at the outright lunacy of this idea). OSHA could have been peddling this crap for years but no employer wanted to protest possibly for fear that OSHA would then suspect them of violating the rule and investigate/intimidate, etc. etc. A lot of supposition on my part in that last statement but it certainly wouldn't surprise me if OSHA had been quietly pushing this for some time, the Post also reported that this "interpretation" has been in the formulation stage for more than two years...
Actually copyrights do not provide protection for most databases. A database is generally a collection of facts and facts are not copyrightable. Original text in a database may be protectable. For example a database of film reviews that you wrote would garner some protection based on the originality that you created.
Copyright law provides limited protection to organization schemes of databases but only when those schemes contain some element of originality. For example, organizing a list of James Bond films alphabetically gets absolutely no protection, but organizing a list of Bond films from best to worst according to your opinion would merit some protection because of the creativity you used in ordering the list.
The Supreme Court set out most of this in Fiest Publications v. Rural Telephone Service, 499 U.S. 340 (1991) (The case addresses telephone books and alphabetical organization directly)
Actually, contrary to popular belief copyright protection applies to broader than exact copies. To show a violation a copyright holder need only show that the alleged violator had access to the copyrighted work (i.e. had seen it previously) and that the alleged violator's work was "substantially similar". Of course what qualifies as "substantially similar" is decided by a judge who usually doesn't know squat about software, so its pretty much pot luck as to what he/she decides. Essentially if an idea is simple enough, even an "original" implementation may be found "substantially similar" and thus a copyright violation.
This is not legal advice. The ideas and opinions expressed are mine alone and not those of my firm or clients.
If it was shown that the patent was obtained fraudulently (i.e. by lying to the PTO or concealing relevant prior art that the inventor/applicant knew about) then the patent would be found unenforceable and the alleged infringer could recover attorney's fees for the litigation. The patent holder who sued on a patent that they knew or should have known to be invalid could then be subject to antitrust violations, security law violations, and voiding of any licenses (though royalties already paid are not recoverable). The attorney who assisted in the patenting process may also be subject to discipline. In fact, however, usually only the attorney's fees and loss of future royalties occur. It would be absolutely amazing if an extortion type argument resulted in someone going to jail.
Disclaimer: This is not legal advice. These are my personal opinions and not those of my firm or clients.
1. The statement "Experts say decisions by the PTO to review patents that are already approved are rare." This statement is likely refering to the PTO deciding to reexamine (the legal term for reviewing an already issued patent) a patent at its own discretion. This is very rare. However, third parties (and the patent holder, too) can also initiate a reexam by submitting prior art (and paying a fee) to the PTO that calls the validity of the patent into question. Third parties rarely initiate reexams either, though, because reexams are ex parte proceedings. This means that after the third party submits the prior art, the rest of the reexam proceedings are between the PTO and the patent holder, the third party does not get a seat at the table and essentially has to trust that the PTO will do the right thing. Most third parties would rather use whatever "good" prior art they have to challenge the patent in court because although much more expensive at least in court they have a chance to make arguments themselves instead of relying on the PTO. The revisions to the Patent Act that passed this fall did make some changes to the reexam proceeding to allow inter partes proceedings that give the third party more input but there are still problems with it and going to court still has a significant benefit.
2. The revisions to the Patent Act also added a new defense against infringement, the "First inventor defense", intended for use against patents for methods of doing business (not really applicable against the windowing patent but likely to come into play against the one click patent and the Priceline reverse auction patent). This new defense is essentially designed to stop someone from patenting something that other people are doing and then being able to sue them for it. (Well, its a bit more complicated than that but I don't want to write pages and pages on it).
Disclaimer: This is not legal advice and represents only my personal opinion not that of my firm.
It is possible that a developer whose copyrights are being violated by GPL abuse could interest an intellectual property attorney in taking the case on Pro Bono (i.e. for free). Most states have some sort of Pro Bono requirement or recommendation to all members of the state bar. IP attorneys frequently have trouble finding Pro Bono work that is actually in their area of expertise so there may be a fair amount of interest if they were aware of these disputes.
Two things to consider before getting all excited about this ruling.
1. Similar to the trademark decision that caused much excitement last week, this decision is from the Ninth Circuit which has the distinction of being overturned MUCH more frequently than any other circuit.
2. This free speech rationale is pretty weak in terms of precedent. This argument if excepted would make it legal to export any writing including, say, instructions on making nukes. The Supremes are not about to buy into it.
As counter productive as current crypto laws are, I think this is a problem that needs to be addressed legislatively, not judicially.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right and it's unfortunate that some people can't afford the luxuries most slashdot readers take for granted, but the first amendment doesn't require the government to provide people with access to TVs or radios either.
In the end, libraries are a discretionary service provided with taxpayer funds and the Constitution and courts give pretty broad deference to the legislative arm of government to decide spending issues. I'm not saying it always a good thing (it certainly would be nice if the courts could strike down pork barrel spending -- "Your honor, why are you striking down my important study on the mysterious number of socks lost every year in dryers?" "Because its stupid. Next case."), but its pretty much the way it is.
I'm afraid I disagree. The government is simply not funding your access to a particular segment of your potential audience. They're not censoring your speech.
Now, if the situation was one where the act singled out speech that was narrowly addressed to library patrons (e.g., criticism of libraries or something), the Court would be very suspicious because then the act would be preventing the speech from reaching all or nearly all of its intended audience, which looks a lot more like censorship.
You're incorrect because you're applying the wrong standard. While the Court has struck down (correctly) several laws which place restrictions on Internet sites which provide material "harmful to children" as restrictions on speech, in this case the issue is tied into government funding of libraries. The speech is not restricted at all, it is receipt of the speech using hardware, software and bandwidth paid for with tax dollars that is restricted. The First Amendment does not require government to provide financial support or access to speech, it merely requires that government not place content-based restrictions on speech.
In short, while the speech is allowed on the Internet, the government is not required to use tax dollars to provide you with a way to get it. (This analysis would be different if the government was the only way to access the Internet, but thankfully that's not true, at least in the U.S.)
It would be nearly impossible to send repeaters out behind a space probe because virtually all of the probes sent out by NASA are slingshot off the gravity of the planets that they flyby. By the time a trailing repeater got there the planet would be in a different place -- thus no slingshot and no way to follow/keep up with the original probe.
here
Its Limp Bizkit, not Metallica, that is going on tour for a month for free sponsered by Napster (Metallica sponsered by Napster wouldn't really make any sense, now would it).
2 22-2000apr30.htm
Is this just a naked bribe by Napster to garner support or is it just me?
Interestingly enough Limp Bizkit is on the same label as Dr. Dre.
Here's the link: http://newsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/us/dept/nm/a19
I'm pretty sure that the decryption key and decryption are done in the hardware and output directly to the monitor (assuming it works like my dxr3 decoder card), so RIAA won't have a problem, unless the driver is somehow extracting the video unencrypted.
Actually the PTO can "recall" a patent for a reexamination (they did this for that Y2K windowing patent that was big news a couple months ago) but it is relatively rare. It usually only occurs when there is sufficient press coverage that makes the PTO look bad. I don't see them doing a whole lot with existing patents because of the amount of examiner time it would pull away from the regular examination process, but it is possible without any legislative changes.
I think that this is absolutely the right first step to handling the internet/software patent issues. A lot of casual talk here on slashdot (and elsewhere) has focused on making fundamental changes to the law, when in fact, the law as it was written by Congress has never really been in effect in the real world because the PTO has been doing such a lousy job of examining software patents. A large number of the complaints about individual patents that have been raised on slashdot have centered on the "that technique is old" or "that's obvious, any skilled programmer could do that" type of complaints. If the PTO does correctly implement this more rigorous examination process most of these kind of complaints will go away.
There will still be the larger policy debate on software/internet patents in general, but I think that that debate will be much more focused without the distraction of the really bad patents. This is important because the truly lousy patents aren't so much the fault of bad law but more the failure of the PTO to do its job. And in the spirit of using the right tool to do the right job, changes at the PTO are probably a better tool than changing the law, at least at this point.
Additionally, changes at the PTO will not require the incredibly long process of new legislation to change the law, etc. We may see results sooner this way.
It will be interesting to see if the PTO can actually pull this off given the usual government bureaucracy problems.
Let me get this straight, Bezos/Amazon comes up with an alleged "invention" of one-click shopping, hires a lawyer to patent it, sneaks it past the lousy examination procedures at the PTO, and gets a patent on it. Then Bezos/Amazon goes out and sues its competitors, and somehow this is the fault of the lawyers, patent system and PTO? Sure there are problems with the patent system, there are plenty of sleazy lawyers out there (and some honorable ones too though, e.g. Abraham Lincoln just to pick a name), and the PTO does do a crappy job of examining applications, but quite frankly all of these events took place at the direction of Bezos/Amazon! Even if you believe in patenting software/business methods in order to prevent some one else from doing it, there is NO requirement that you sue someone! Bezos/Amazon is acting like all these actions are someone else's fault which is just total crap. If anything the lawyers are getting the worst of it, because if a lawyer doesn't represent his/her client's interests to the full extent of the law, which is assumedly what the lawyers were doing in this case, they can be sued for malpractice (and Amazon doesn't seem too adverse to suing people on weak grounds)
As mentioned in a previous post, Bezos is not the mascot we want for patent reform. He's the one who set everything in motion for the one-click patent suit, we shouldn't let him off the hook just because he's mouthing the right platitudes now and pretending he doesn't like it after he intentionally abused it.
Actually the fees for patent applicants and holders more than cover the current costs of the PTO. Congress just takes some of the money and spends it on other stuff. If they actually used all the fees for better patent examination a lot of the problems with the patent system would go away because these lousy patents (e.g., one-click shopping) would never get issued. So better examination would cost the taxpayers nothing, but politics as usual prevails.... apparently better patent examination procedures don't show up very high on the voter's opinion polls.
The prohibition against appeal or use in a future suit by a third party is explicit in the law itself. Find the law at
1 948gb1.pdf
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/speeches/s
Appeal: page 49 of pdf
Future suit: page 44-45 of pdf
There is a HUGE problem with the new inter partes reexam provisions. If the patentee prevails before the PTO in the reexam, the third party CANNOT appeal the decision to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the exclusive appeals court for all patent cases) and cannot assert the same piece of prior art as a defense in a later infringement lawsuit. However, if the third party prevails, the patentee CAN appeal. This is a tremendous downside to the process because the third party is forfeiting its day in court in favor of a decision by the PTO but the patentee faces no such risk.
At the risk of getting pounced on I'm going to make a few mitigating (not exculpatory, note the difference) remarks about DoubleClick. The simple fact is that these guys publicized their plans and got nailed, which is good. At least they announced what they were doing and didn't try to deny it.
The real question is how many other companies are sneaking around doing the same kind of thing under the radar of the media, etc. For instance, credit card companies track every purchase that you make and where and when you made it. Credit reporting agencies track all of your financial transactions except for pure cash. Obviously, your ISP can tell every site that you visit simply by correlating network traffic to your login or IP address and can read your email (what do you think those spam filtering "services" are doing?).
Generally the point I'm trying to make is that everyone knew that DoubleClick was using cookies to do some sort of tracing to begin with, they just previously weren't correlating it directly to your name, etc. I've been blocking their cookies for a while now because I KNEW they were there. The ones I'm worried about are the ones I can't see. The Internet is much more like a public street then any one wants to admit, and what you do on a public street can be seen by a lot of people. Be careful out there.....
I'll try to answer your questions, with the caveat that this is much simplified and should not be taken as actual legal advice.
The simple answer is that a patent grants you the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling your invention. Note that a patent does not grant the right to make, use, or sell your own invention. This is because your patent may be an improvement upon something else that is also patented. Situations like this are usually called "blocking" patents and are what result in the large number of cross licensing agreements between companies that hold patents in closely related areas.
You can hold a patent for any reason you want. To keep your rights for the life of the patent (20 years from time of filing in the U.S.) you will have to pay the periodic maintainence fees.
Unlike trademarks, not using the patented technique will not result in loss of the patent. (rights to a trademark can be lost if it is "abandoned" i.e. not used) However, if you know of an infringer and do not pursue an infringement suit for an extended period of time, you may lose the right to sue that particular infringer.
Patents are like other pieces of property in that their ownership can be determined by contract. Frequently employees of companies are required by their employment agreements to "assign" any patents that they get to their employer. (Read your own employment agreements carefully, especially if you're doing your own inventing on the side)
As far as legal fees go, if you have an especially good case against an infringer (i.e. you show that they knew of your patent and infringed anyway) you can generally get legal fees at the end of the suit.
According to the Washington Post, the OSHA "interpretation" of the rule which applied it to telecommuters was in response to a letter from an employer. The Post said this letter was sent back in November but just reported now. However, who knows how many previous letters or unofficial statements with this "interpretation" were sent out without any publicity (and hence no public outcry at the outright lunacy of this idea). OSHA could have been peddling this crap for years but no employer wanted to protest possibly for fear that OSHA would then suspect them of violating the rule and investigate/intimidate, etc. etc. A lot of supposition on my part in that last statement but it certainly wouldn't surprise me if OSHA had been quietly pushing this for some time, the Post also reported that this "interpretation" has been in the formulation stage for more than two years...
0 -01/04/135l-010400-idx.html 0 -01/05/157l-010500-idx.html 0 -01/05/142l-010500-idx.html
The three stories in the Post are at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/200
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/200
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/200
Actually copyrights do not provide protection for most databases. A database is generally a collection of facts and facts are not copyrightable. Original text in a database may be protectable. For example a database of film reviews that you wrote would garner some protection based on the originality that you created.
Copyright law provides limited protection to organization schemes of databases but only when those schemes contain some element of originality. For example, organizing a list of James Bond films alphabetically gets absolutely no protection, but organizing a list of Bond films from best to worst according to your opinion would merit some protection because of the creativity you used in ordering the list.
The Supreme Court set out most of this in Fiest Publications v. Rural Telephone Service, 499 U.S. 340 (1991) (The case addresses telephone books and alphabetical organization directly)
By the way, this is not legal advice.
Actually, contrary to popular belief copyright protection applies to broader than exact copies. To show a violation a copyright holder need only show that the alleged violator had access to the copyrighted work (i.e. had seen it previously) and that the alleged violator's work was "substantially similar". Of course what qualifies as "substantially similar" is decided by a judge who usually doesn't know squat about software, so its pretty much pot luck as to what he/she decides. Essentially if an idea is simple enough, even an "original" implementation may be found "substantially similar" and thus a copyright violation.
This is not legal advice. The ideas and opinions expressed are mine alone and not those of my firm or clients.
If it was shown that the patent was obtained fraudulently (i.e. by lying to the PTO or concealing relevant prior art that the inventor/applicant knew about) then the patent would be found unenforceable and the alleged infringer could recover attorney's fees for the litigation. The patent holder who sued on a patent that they knew or should have known to be invalid could then be subject to antitrust violations, security law violations, and voiding of any licenses (though royalties already paid are not recoverable). The attorney who assisted in the patenting process may also be subject to discipline. In fact, however, usually only the attorney's fees and loss of future royalties occur. It would be absolutely amazing if an extortion type argument resulted in someone going to jail.
Disclaimer: This is not legal advice. These are my personal opinions and not those of my firm or clients.
A couple of general information type comments
1. The statement "Experts say decisions by the PTO to review patents that are already approved are rare." This statement is likely refering to the PTO deciding to reexamine (the legal term for reviewing an already issued patent) a patent at its own discretion. This is very rare. However, third parties (and the patent holder, too) can also initiate a reexam by submitting prior art (and paying a fee) to the PTO that calls the validity of the patent into question. Third parties rarely initiate reexams either, though, because reexams are ex parte proceedings. This means that after the third party submits the prior art, the rest of the reexam proceedings are between the PTO and the patent holder, the third party does not get a seat at the table and essentially has to trust that the PTO will do the right thing. Most third parties would rather use whatever "good" prior art they have to challenge the patent in court because although much more expensive at least in court they have a chance to make arguments themselves instead of relying on the PTO. The revisions to the Patent Act that passed this fall did make some changes to the reexam proceeding to allow inter partes proceedings that give the third party more input but there are still problems with it and going to court still has a significant benefit.
2. The revisions to the Patent Act also added a new defense against infringement, the "First inventor defense", intended for use against patents for methods of doing business (not really applicable against the windowing patent but likely to come into play against the one click patent and the Priceline reverse auction patent). This new defense is essentially designed to stop someone from patenting something that other people are doing and then being able to sue them for it. (Well, its a bit more complicated than that but I don't want to write pages and pages on it).
Disclaimer: This is not legal advice and represents only my personal opinion not that of my firm.
It is possible that a developer whose copyrights are being violated by GPL abuse could interest an intellectual property attorney in taking the case on Pro Bono (i.e. for free). Most states have some sort of Pro Bono requirement or recommendation to all members of the state bar. IP attorneys frequently have trouble finding Pro Bono work that is actually in their area of expertise so there may be a fair amount of interest if they were aware of these disputes.
You can get a 2 or 4 system OmniCube KVM from Belkin for less than $100. I have a 2 way and it works great.
Two things to consider before getting all excited about this ruling.
1. Similar to the trademark decision that caused much excitement last week, this decision is from the Ninth Circuit which has the distinction of being overturned MUCH more frequently than any other circuit.
2. This free speech rationale is pretty weak in terms of precedent. This argument if excepted would make it legal to export any writing including, say, instructions on making nukes. The Supremes are not about to buy into it.
As counter productive as current crypto laws are, I think this is a problem that needs to be addressed legislatively, not judicially.
Write your Congressperson. Tell them geeks vote.