Nope, unencrypted still falls inside the scope of claim 1, so infringes the patent. However, my guess is that Apple already did it before this patent was filed, so that would make the patent invalid.
The "World Wide Web" in the wording of the claim is a bit ridiculous, but in the US system the doctrine of equivalents will make sure that any "equivalent" transmission method would also be judged as infringing.
Well, you'd have a hard time showing that cats go crazy using a mirror and sunlight, because typically they don't. A flashlight is a bit closer, but still easy to show that only a limited number of cats go crazy over them. Only a laser has the peculiar quality of making nearly every cat on earth go crazy.
I'm afraid you have just shown that this "Cat Exercise Device" is inventive: you put known things together, but the combination has a surprising effect ("peculiar quality"). Now I would really need to see some prior art document showing that this effect was known:).
I'm not sure whether we were talking orthogonal or not, although we certainly do not fully disagree. My main 'objection' to your post was the sentence "You must demonstrate that the implementation existed at the time", whereas I say it's enough to either show an anticipation of the technique, or some proof that the effect was known, hence not surprising, at the time (which I think that hey my cat goes crazy chasing the laser e-mail would do).
Actually, at least in the European system, if you can show that hand-held lasers existed, then a claim to this Cat Exercise Device would be already invalid: the device is just not new. A method for exercising a cat comprising making the cat go crazy using a laser might still be allowable with respect to novelty, but then it doesn't really seem to present a contribution in a technical field (at least not to me).
Not really true. Patents are indeed some kind of ideas, but they must be ideas of *how* to do something, not just *what*, and they must be technical (at least in Europe... not anymore in the US where you can get patents on business methods).
Copyrights cover only creative works in certain well-defined categories such as literature, music, paintings, movies, computer programs (I might have missed a few). Copyrights do not cover say an improved tennis racket or a new medicine. You need patents for that.
Designs cover aesthetic creations. How a new mobile phone looks, for example, which has nothing to do with how it works in any technical sense.
E-mails along those lines do count as prior art, provided that the e-mail was to a public forum. E-mail from one person to another does not count as a public disclosure. It is not required that an invention was already implemented. It is required that the invention was already disclosed at the date of filing (or alleged date of invention in the US system).
In addition, if you can show that at the date of filing the invention would have been 'obvious', the patent is also invalid. To show obviousness, you usually need to have a disclosure that comes close (saw, using a mirror and sunlight to make a cat go crazy), and then showing that starting from there the invention is obvious (for example using a document that explains that in similar situations a mirror and sunlight can be replaced by a laser).
You can certainly patent something without a working implementation. There is no requirement in the law to have an implementation (at least not in Europe but I believe the same holds in the US). However, the application is required to disclose the invention. Basically that is what the description is for, while the claims define exactly what the applicant seeks to protect (monopolize).
Postings to a public mailing list certainly count as prior art. As long as you can prove the date and the mail discloses all the features that are in the claim, the patent is invalid. If it misses some of the features the question is whether the difference is "obvious" or not.
Patent offices might not allow pure ideas to be patented, they certainly allow ideas of implementations to be patented. The letter of the law only requires you to disclose enough so that the "skilled person" will be able to practise the invention. Actually, all applications consist of paper only (not entirely true.. genetic sequences can sometimes be handed in on cdrom i think).
US patents won't ever be valid in Europe simply because they're US patents and not European or national patents. And it's too late to file any patent that was already published in the US.
Well... a lot of Linux development is taking place in the US, and the US is already allowing any kind of patent as long it's not all too obviously not new. So whatever happens, it won't be the end of linux or open source...
If the user creates the ID, but the server still checks this ID is unique, assigns it to the information, and returns it to the user (for storing in a cookie), then you're still infringing (provided you also have the rest of claim 1).
No that is not where it stops. You have to read *all* of this claim (claim 20). Only when a method has *all* the features mentioned in this claim, does it infringe the claim. Anyway, I guess it still is broad, but it seems the average/. reader does not really know how to read a patent claim (nothing to be ashamed of though).
The first claim really does define the scope of protection, together with the other *independent* claims. Usually, if the first claim claims a method, some other independent claim will claim the corresponding apparatus or product.
Anything that falls within the scope of some claim of a (granted) patent is infringing. Since the dependent claims (like "method according to claim 1 wherein blabla") are by definition more narrow than the independent claim, it is sufficient to concentrate on the independent claims.
Why do they put in the dependent claims at all? Well, in case it is later decided in court that a certain independent claim is invalid, the dependent claims serve as fall-backs.
And you really will not find a patent with "an electronic device" as the first claim (without other any other limiting features). Not even in the USA.
That kind of treatment is really unheard of in The Netherlands as well. Two years ago a large group of developers got fired from my company. They had about a month to finish and transfer their work and received many months of salary (basically 2 + #years they'd been employed, where years worked after the age of 40 count for 1,5 and after 50 for 2,0). The BIG scandal was that management had forgotten to order large amounts of beer at the farewell reception.
Nope, Norway is not a contracting state. However, Turkey, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia and Slovak Republic are contracting states. See this list.
It really *is* a paradox though. By definition, a paradox is a 'supposed contradiction'. From www.m-w.com:
Main Entry: paradox Pronunciation: 'par-&-"daks Function: noun Etymology: Latin paradoxum, from Greek paradoxon, from neuter of paradoxos contrary to expectation, from para- + dokein to think, seem -- more at DECENT Date: 1540 1 : a tenet contrary to received opinion 2 a : a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true b : a self-contradictory statement that at first seems true c : an argument that apparently derives self-contradictory conclusions by valid deduction from acceptable premises 3 : one that possesses seemingly contradictory qualities or phases
But then you'll get sued for violating BitKeeper's EULA, see this reply of Larry McVoy.
McVoy seems to play this game even harder than Microsoft, seeing that Wine's been cloning Windows for about 10 years now.
You have protection while it's pending, but regardless of the time it takes before the patent is granted, any rights will expire 20 years after the filing date. (This used to be different in the US, but nowadays it's the same there.)
Well maybe I didn't look carefully enough, but nowhere do I see mention of mpeg4 encoding, and I actually doubt very much that a mobile phone would be capable of that. Probably more like animated gif or so.
So which of the facts just mentioned are you trying to deny?
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Ehm, I think the reason that parking meters are removed with hacksaws and that armed guards are needed is that parking is expensive. Nothing to do with $1 coins or not, as far as I can see....
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Claim 1 requires the information to be used as "user's settings", so bookmarks would certainly qualify, yes.
Nope, unencrypted still falls inside the scope of claim 1, so infringes the patent. However, my guess is that Apple already did it before this patent was filed, so that would make the patent invalid.
The "World Wide Web" in the wording of the claim is a bit ridiculous, but in the US system the doctrine of equivalents will make sure that any "equivalent" transmission method would also be judged as infringing.
I'm afraid you have just shown that this "Cat Exercise Device" is inventive: you put known things together, but the combination has a surprising effect ("peculiar quality"). Now I would really need to see some prior art document showing that this effect was known :).
I'm not sure whether we were talking orthogonal or not, although we certainly do not fully disagree. My main 'objection' to your post was the sentence "You must demonstrate that the implementation existed at the time", whereas I say it's enough to either show an anticipation of the technique, or some proof that the effect was known, hence not surprising, at the time (which I think that hey my cat goes crazy chasing the laser e-mail would do).
Actually, at least in the European system, if you can show that hand-held lasers existed, then a claim to this Cat Exercise Device would be already invalid: the device is just not new. A method for exercising a cat comprising making the cat go crazy using a laser might still be allowable with respect to novelty, but then it doesn't really seem to present a contribution in a technical field (at least not to me).
Not really true. Patents are indeed some kind of ideas, but they must be ideas of *how* to do something, not just *what*, and they must be technical (at least in Europe... not anymore in the US where you can get patents on business methods).
Copyrights cover only creative works in certain well-defined categories such as literature, music, paintings, movies, computer programs (I might have missed a few). Copyrights do not cover say an improved tennis racket or a new medicine. You need patents for that.
Designs cover aesthetic creations. How a new mobile phone looks, for example, which has nothing to do with how it works in any technical sense.
E-mails along those lines do count as prior art, provided that the e-mail was to a public forum. E-mail from one person to another does not count as a public disclosure. It is not required that an invention was already implemented. It is required that the invention was already disclosed at the date of filing (or alleged date of invention in the US system).
In addition, if you can show that at the date of filing the invention would have been 'obvious', the patent is also invalid. To show obviousness, you usually need to have a disclosure that comes close (saw, using a mirror and sunlight to make a cat go crazy), and then showing that starting from there the invention is obvious (for example using a document that explains that in similar situations a mirror and sunlight can be replaced by a laser).
You can certainly patent something without a working implementation. There is no requirement in the law to have an implementation (at least not in Europe but I believe the same holds in the US). However, the application is required to disclose the invention. Basically that is what the description is for, while the claims define exactly what the applicant seeks to protect (monopolize).
Postings to a public mailing list certainly count as prior art. As long as you can prove the date and the mail discloses all the features that are in the claim, the patent is invalid. If it misses some of the features the question is whether the difference is "obvious" or not.
Patent offices might not allow pure ideas to be patented, they certainly allow ideas of implementations to be patented. The letter of the law only requires you to disclose enough so that the "skilled person" will be able to practise the invention. Actually, all applications consist of paper only (not entirely true.. genetic sequences can sometimes be handed in on cdrom i think).
US patents won't ever be valid in Europe simply because they're US patents and not European or national patents. And it's too late to file any patent that was already published in the US.
Well... a lot of Linux development is taking place in the US, and the US is already allowing any kind of patent as long it's not all too obviously not new. So whatever happens, it won't be the end of linux or open source...
If the user creates the ID, but the server still checks this ID is unique, assigns it to the information, and returns it to the user (for storing in a cookie), then you're still infringing (provided you also have the rest of claim 1).
No that is not where it stops. You have to read *all* of this claim (claim 20). Only when a method has *all* the features mentioned in this claim, does it infringe the claim. Anyway, I guess it still is broad, but it seems the average /. reader does not really know how to read a patent claim (nothing to be ashamed of though).
The first claim really does define the scope of protection, together with the other *independent* claims. Usually, if the first claim claims a method, some other independent claim will claim the corresponding apparatus or product.
Anything that falls within the scope of some claim of a (granted) patent is infringing. Since the dependent claims (like "method according to claim 1 wherein blabla") are by definition more narrow than the independent claim, it is sufficient to concentrate on the independent claims.
Why do they put in the dependent claims at all? Well, in case it is later decided in court that a certain independent claim is invalid, the dependent claims serve as fall-backs.
And you really will not find a patent with "an electronic device" as the first claim (without other any other limiting features). Not even in the USA.
That kind of treatment is really unheard of in The Netherlands as well. Two years ago a large group of developers got fired from my company. They had about a month to finish and transfer their work and received many months of salary (basically 2 + #years they'd been employed, where years worked after the age of 40 count for 1,5 and after 50 for 2,0). The BIG scandal was that management had forgotten to order large amounts of beer at the farewell reception.
Nope, Norway is not a contracting state. However, Turkey, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia and Slovak Republic are contracting states. See this list.
I'm guessing this has to do with how the Matrox DRI drivers do locking. Here the NVidia drivers might have an (architectural?) advantage.
It really *is* a paradox though. By definition, a paradox is a 'supposed contradiction'. From www.m-w.com:
Main Entry: paradox
Pronunciation: 'par-&-"daks
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin paradoxum, from Greek paradoxon, from neuter of paradoxos contrary to expectation, from para- + dokein to think, seem -- more at DECENT
Date: 1540
1 : a tenet contrary to received opinion
2 a : a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true b : a self-contradictory statement that at first seems true c : an argument that apparently derives self-contradictory conclusions by valid deduction from acceptable premises
3 : one that possesses seemingly contradictory qualities or phases
The application was filed less than two weeks ago. No examiner has looked at it yet.
But then you'll get sued for violating BitKeeper's EULA, see this reply of Larry McVoy.
McVoy seems to play this game even harder than Microsoft, seeing that Wine's been cloning Windows for about 10 years now.
You have protection while it's pending, but regardless of the time it takes before the patent is granted, any rights will expire 20 years after the filing date. (This used to be different in the US, but nowadays it's the same there.)
The latest sdk (1.4.2-beta) from sun contains a plugin compiled with gcc3 (jdk/jre/plugin/i386/ns610-gcc32/libjavaplugin_oji .so).
Well maybe I didn't look carefully enough, but nowhere do I see mention of mpeg4 encoding, and I actually doubt very much that a mobile phone would be capable of that. Probably more like animated gif or so.
It's clear that you started out this journey with an ancient distro that you never cared to update...
This particular correction was obviously made as an illustrative joke.
So which of the facts just mentioned are you trying to deny?
Ehm, I think the reason that parking meters are removed with hacksaws and that armed guards are needed is that parking is expensive. Nothing to do with $1 coins or not, as far as I can see....