Notice the dramatic difference here between results of three-judge panels (unix.com) and an individual arbitrator (unix.org). The published statistics show that single-judge arbitrations tend to be dramatically slanted pro-Complainant, with more balanced (but still generally proComplainant) results arising from a three-judge panel.
The Complainant gets to pick the arbitration house -- and will invariably pick the one with the strongest published pro-Complainant statistics. The respondant cannot challenge that choice, but under the rules may opt for the three-judge panel.
Ignorance of the law excuses noone. There are about thirty different latin phrases, but the bottom line best response to our poor defendant's please is this: "You're kidding, right?"
Despite strong standing in the community of an intelligent, technically educated constituency, the enormous political clout of voting manufacturers essentially hypnotized the politically defensive bureaucrats to freeze us out. At the end of the day, this too must result in debacle. If not now, later. The problem with chad was poor rules, poor technology and reliance on case law addressing a much older technology (hand-written ballots).
But the problem was not lack of accountability for absence of evidence -- most of it was there. It was simply a dispute over what it meant, and whether to look at it -- the stuff of which a political or legal decision can be made. Yes, it was a debacle, but the solution is worse than the problem.
There must be auditable physical evidence of a vote if the result is ever to have credibility -- and the public must believe in the technology. The virtue of paper ballots is its comprehensibility to the public. Having a machine with a "he-said," "she-said" dispute (and no physical proofs) of its fairness and the results is a recipe for chaos. Absolute chaos.
The way to begin was simple, routine engineering processes: define and agree on requirements; produce and RFP; accept only conforming solutions and iterate as necessary if requirements change over time.
Instead, Florida, for the most part, went with pre-made and cheap. The public never had any stomach to spend money to vote well, and took whatever was being sold. At the end of the day, these machines weren't even cheap. (And truth to tell, the total cost of ownership has yet to be measured or validated either.)
The public was frozen out of the decision in favor of "blue-ribbon" committees of non-engineers. For shame, all of us. Fool us once...
My pleasure. It may interest you to know that you actually understated the extent to which abstracts are irrelevant -- in the US there are regs and case law clearly stating that the abstract has NO EFFECT AT ALL on validity or a claim construction.
Apple filed its complaint months ago, suing Sorenson fore breaching an agreement to grant it an exclusive license. Sorenson, now obliged to file its answer after losing preliminary motions, files an Answer with Counterclaims, apparently alleging that the suit has caused them difficulty -- which sounds like an almost certain loser.
What would have been news in a case of this kind would be if Sorenson filed an answer WITHOUT filing a counterclaim.
If a base claim is invalid (or not applicable to what you're doing) then all derived claims are also invalid. So, concentrate on them and try to find your points of difference there.
This is not generally true, and often false. The dependent (you called them derived) claims include all the limitations of their parent independent (you called them base) claims. For this reason, if the parent independent is NOT INFRINGED (because one or more limitation is not present in the accused), the dependent claims are not infringed. (There is an obscure exception to this rule, but it holds almost always).
The converse is not generally true. If a parent claim for A+B+C IS INFRINGED, the dependent claim for A+B+C+D might not be infringed by an accused device with A, B and C, but no D. For similar resons, the corresponding proposition for validity is NOT generally true.
A parent claim for A+B+C can read on a piece of prior art, while one of its dependents for A+B+C+D might not, because the dependent claim could have one or more additional limitations, in this case D, that are not disclosed in the prior art. This happens all the time -- invalidating the broad claim does not put an end to the case if the dependent claims are also infringed.
The patent specfification appears to expressly acknowledge that the prior art contains traditional patent filter firewalls, and seems to focus more on modes for redirecting packets based on a ruleset, rather than drop/pass decisions:
2. Description of the Related Art
A technique that has been employed by prior art network devices such as a LAN switch involves access lists, or filters, that allow the network administrator to control the forwarding of packets from a network device based upon the contents of the data packet. Such access lists allow a user to define a value within a specific field of a data packet. For example, to filter on an Internet protocol (IP) data packet with an IP address of 129.1.1.1, a user may configure and then apply to a particular port an access list that forwards or drops data packets having a value of 129.1.1.1 in the IP header of the data packet.
prior art techniques also allow filtering on an arbitrary offset within a packet. However, these techniques do not allow filtering on the contents of well known variable length fields, e.g., the routing information field (RIF) of an IEEE 802.5 token ring data packet. Prior art filtering mechanisms allow for the application of multiple filters to the same data packet; however, the filters are applied in sequential order--no skipping to other filters is allowed. As soon as a match is found, no further filters are considered and the packet is processed according to the filter for which a match occurred. The only processing provided is to either permit the packet to be forwarded or drop the packet. There is no mechanism by which the data packet may be redirected to a port of the network device other than the normal destination port to which the packet is forwarded in the absence of an access list or filter, nor is a packet redirected to multiple destination ports.
There are a number of disadvantages to the above approach for controlling the flow of data packets in a network device. A network administrator must specify a well known field based on an access list type, i.e., the manager is not allowed to specify an arbitrary offset within the data packet at which to compare the contents of the data packet to a value specified by the filter. Moreover, a filter cannot jump to another filter, rather, filters are applied according to the order in which they are configured in the network device. Furthermore, prior art filtering systems do not allow forwarding of a data packet to an alternative port or an additional port. The packets may only be forwarded to the normal destination port or dropped. Finally, filters heretofore have only allowed the logical operators equal and not equal in determining whether a value specified by the filter matches or fails to match the contents of a data packet at the location in the packet specified by the filter. The additional logical operators of less than, less than or equal to, greater than, and greater than or equal to, have not been permissible.
A process already exists for people to assert prior art raising substantial new questions of patentability against an existing patent, and in a forum where the presumption of validity does not apply. In extraordinary cases, such as the Compton's patent, the PTO Commissioner can call for a reexamination by himself.
This is, in fact, precisely what they are supposed to have been doing all along. The problem with file sharing is not file sharing services, but that individuals would use file sharing to engage in copyright infringement. The proper defendants, if any, have ALWAYS BEEN the persons actually copying the files without consent and not for fair use.
But MPAA finds this unsatisfactory, because they don't want to actually deal with legitimate defenses that will inevitably crop up from time to time, or spend their energies on judgement-proof defendants. Fair reasons, but quite frankly, these are the checks and balances of the Copyright Act that have worked (to their advantage for the most part) for 200 years.
Nor is this a fault of the DMCA -- prior to the DMCA, caselaw imposed liability on a provider (the Netcom/Scientology case) only who had been given actual notice of an infringement. Indeed, this is to the advantage of the user -- because the takedown only need go on for ten days, unless MPAA actually sues.
So I applaud MPAA for doing the right thing. And, I rather like the (tacit) admission that they have been fibbing all these years about how imposible and implausible it would be to actually sue proper defendants instead of those providing viable and valuable new technologies to the public at large, particularly those capable of substantial noninfringing uses.
At least one correspondent has indicated that the same language appeared in earlier versions (5.3 and 5.2). However, 5.4 does appear to have disabled some functionality of earlier versions, which gives me pause. Until I can clarify the point, I'll stay at 5.3 and look into alternative products.
Too bad, toast was very easy to use and looked great. But if it doesn't work, who needs it?
It proffered no meaningful analysis of the scope or nature of Microsoft's claims -- offered no insights drawn from 18 month publications, and took no account of obvious and likely strategies that could be taken to counter the "threat" of an abuse of IP ownership in these contexts.
The time is long since past due that a community of open source developers and technicians need to develop a portfolio of technology patents to cross-license against such threats. If significant standards were so protected, even a Microsoft could not long resist the need to "quid pro quo" its blocking technologies, even if it had some.
No, in the United States, prior use is neither necessary nor sufficient to permit registration. There is, by the way, an existing application for registration for the certification mark OSI CERTIFIED, based upon a claim of use several years old, which is presently subject to a non-final refusal from the USPTO.
The OSI has trademarked a logo looking like a keyhole for their use as a graphical certification mark
While it is correct that a trademark registration for the typed phrase "OSI Certified" has been applied for by OSI, that application has been initially refused. I could find no application at the USPTO website for the logotype, apart from the typed mark.
Straw man. Your hypothetical, however interesting, is not this case. Yahoo has property in France, and is thus subject to France's jurisdiction. If Yahoo ignores the order, France will take it out on Yahoo's french property and personnel. A company having no exposure to France might simply ignore the order, or fight it in a US court should France try to nationalize it. Then US law (and the US Constitution) would apply.
Proof that the author and those quoted don't really understand what they're dealing with lies in the underlying assumption that one nation's laws can be binding on something like the internet.
Straw man. The "assumption" is not that "one nation's laws can be binding on... the internet." It is merely that a nation's laws can be binding upon the French subsidiary of Yahoo, over whom it had plain and simple jurisidiction. As much as some would like to pretend that Yahoo France is a "virtual" company residing in the internet, the Nazi paraphernalia case is a very bad poster boy for accusations of virtual jurisdiction.
Yahoo WAS a bad citizen in this case, and was slammed accordingly. Under US law, this result seems foolish and foreign, but we in the US do not get to impose our constitution on France -- a place brutally savaged by the Nazis. France applied its own law as against its own corporate citizen and its parent, a citizen that faced pretty bad and ugly facts in its own defense, using traditional notions of extraterritoriality.
Yahoo is probably not the best example to suggest that these authors don't "get it." Indeed, the poster seems to have as much difficulty understanding the law as he insists these jurists are having difficulty understanding the tech.
The case is fun in several ways. First, of course, there is the question of how ownership of personal property is initially created -- in this case by physically claiming it before anyone else. There are related treaty issues, of course.
The second, perhaps more interesting question here, is this: "Why is the U.S. suing a rock?" That, as opposed to the question why isn't the US suing the person currently in possession for title to the rock. The answer is one of jurisdiction -- ad personam jurisdiction.
You can sue property (so called in rem suits) or people (in personam), provided that you have jurisdiction over the relevant party. It is not uncommon at all, particularly in civil seizure scenarios. At any rate, the point of suing the property is to assure that it is within the jurisdiction o fhte court (when the individual in possession may not be), and then take the property after "title" in it is cleared.
So much depends upon the jurisdiction and facts. While the Uniform Trade Secrets Act does exclude reverse engineering from "improper act," the case law is more sanguine as to what conduct constitutes a complete defense. The more "unclean" the hands that do the reverse engineering, the more at question will be at issue. This issue is, of course, not fully tested in view of the usual "no reverse engineering" license provisions of most software licenses.
But the fact pattern here is NOT one of reverse engineering a published product -- it is one of solving a problem in a neat way in a prior employment. In such cases, where the details of the prior solution come from a specification provided by a prior employee, not from an RE of a publicly available work, the development of code from the employees "recollections" is probably not going to provide a defense. Even where the employee provides only slight assistance, such as identifying the product with the "neat solution," or pointing to the code or portion to be reverse engineered, an RE accomplished independently may be tainted.
The difference between trade secrets and copyright in this regard isn't the nature of the protection granted, but the scope of subject matter given protection -- copyright protects expression, not the underlying ideas, providing a form of protection that can be reduced by a specification team in a clean room as fair use to a document, which can then be independently developed. Unless the company has put the idea "out there" in some way, trade secrets can nail the former employee in many cases.
As I keep stating -- devil is in the details -- specific facts can swing the results widely -- almost identical fact patterns can yield different results on what may appear to be a minor detail. My point is that the informal clean room approach suggested in the immediately prior message would not avoid trade secrets -- if the employee participates in the putative RE, the litigation will be fast and furious, notwithstanding this language.
While an independently developed "clean room" implementation of an "idea" specified in his description cannot infringe a copyright, it could still impinge on trade secrets or breach of a fiduciary duty. Of course, independent implementation via clean room will never be a defense against patent infringement.
This is not to say that the hypothetical, in every case, precludes re-solving problems previously solved -- nothing of the kind. The hypo is too broadly stated, and the devil is in the details. Short answer to the question: Ordinarily, drawing on previous experience is ok, except when it isn't. (Hey, I'm a lawyer, absent the meaningful details, which could swing a result either way, that is the best we can do.)
However, where a trade secret claim is available with respect to the architecture for the previous "neat" solution, the clean room approach will fail. That trick works only for copyrights.
A ridiculous criticism -- it informs nothing
on
Version Fatigue
·
· Score: 2
Maybe it's because tech designers are more anxious to be creative than to produce things that users like?"
Yeah, right. Users are just plain exhausted by all the new functionality they get. The criticism, certainly not entirely unfounded, that arbitrary and capricious changes make life difficult, will never cost any company anywhere a sale. Never. The only customers aggrieved are already their customer, and if the customer is disinclined toward change or learning new ways to do things, would NEVER BE INCLINED TO ADOPT AN ENTIRELY NEW AND DIFFERENT product by a competitor.
On the other hand, avoiding changes to the status quo and avoiding inclusion of new and modern features (many of which include adopting new GUI standards imposed by OS manufacturers) will eventually assure the demise of a product, as the product gets branded old and obsolete, and gradually the competitors overwhelm us with competitive upgrades and the like -- soon, we are the stranger to the next generation of sedentary users. Yes, of course, we will retain a handful of those who like things "as they were," and they will be the last to leave us. However, they weren't going to buy the new upgrade anyway.
In short, OF COURSE, we shouldn't make stupid and arbitrary changes -- but tech designers who make sound, decent and forward-moving changes will ALWAYS be closer to the heart of the consuming public, even though a few old farts will grump from time to time (until they learn the new stuff).
Version exhaustion? Nothing a good cup of coffee and a manual couldn't cure.
Typically, the number of persons who are given authority to enter contributions for projects of any size is much smaller than the number of actual contributors. In "large scale" projects, it is common for a small community of "editors" to be "responsible" for a body of code, by taking the contributions of many individuals, vetting them and ultimately adding these contributions to the code tree.
Thus, for some projects, merely counting the number of committers underestimates the actual number of contributers certainly by one, and perhaps two or more, orders of magnitude.
"Please sign this EULA before you buy this car." Its coming.
nah, its been here since forever.
Have you actually ever read any of the documents they make you sign before you buy a car? rent a car?
for enforceable provisions that you don't ever read, have you looked at the backside of your plane tickets lately? almost any theatre or park admission ticket? utility tariffs?
Each side argued for a different rule, one that elevated one patent policy to the detriment of another. The plaintiff liked the "flexible bar" rule, where a judge's indigestion would determine whether the jury could decide questions of equivalents of an amended claim. This elevated the protection function of a patent way above the idea that the patent should give notice to the public of what was, and what was not, claimed.
The defendant liked the "absolute bar," that says there can be no equivalents when a claim is amended. This provided clear notice to the public, but at the expense of creating a hypertechnical loophole to virtually every existing patent. Thus, notice is elevated over protection.
The Supreme Court rejected both views, recognizing that a robust system must do both: it must adequately balance each critical patent policy against the other, addressing the parade of horribles cited against each of the rules by the parties. (1) It shouldn't permit an automatic hypertechnical out for every patent; and (2) it shouldn't fuzz the scope of every patent so that every rich plaintiff can simply beat the drum to force every defendant into a "trial or nothing" alternative.
The Supreme Court came up, thanks to Amicus Briefs filed on behalf of neither party, with the "foreseeable bar." Basically, this bars equivalents for the amended claim unless the plaintiff can show that at the time of the amendment one skilled in the art could not reasonably have anticipated the accused device. Thus, after-invented technologies do not shut down pre-existing patents, yet patent bullies are neutralized when they opt to take an "easy allowance," expecting to "make it up" during litigation using the doctrine of equivalents.
Slashdot Mirror
Notice the dramatic difference here between results of three-judge panels (unix.com) and an individual arbitrator (unix.org). The published statistics show that single-judge arbitrations tend to be dramatically slanted pro-Complainant, with more balanced (but still generally proComplainant) results arising from a three-judge panel.
The Complainant gets to pick the arbitration house -- and will invariably pick the one with the strongest published pro-Complainant statistics. The respondant cannot challenge that choice, but under the rules may opt for the three-judge panel.
absolutely correct. -- thanks.
Ignorance of the law excuses noone. There are about thirty different latin phrases, but the bottom line best response to our poor defendant's please is this: "You're kidding, right?"
Despite strong standing in the community of an intelligent, technically educated constituency, the enormous political clout of voting manufacturers essentially hypnotized the politically defensive bureaucrats to freeze us out. At the end of the day, this too must result in debacle. If not now, later. The problem with chad was poor rules, poor technology and reliance on case law addressing a much older technology (hand-written ballots).
...
But the problem was not lack of accountability for absence of evidence -- most of it was there. It was simply a dispute over what it meant, and whether to look at it -- the stuff of which a political or legal decision can be made. Yes, it was a debacle, but the solution is worse than the problem.
There must be auditable physical evidence of a vote if the result is ever to have credibility -- and the public must believe in the technology. The virtue of paper ballots is its comprehensibility to the public. Having a machine with a "he-said," "she-said" dispute (and no physical proofs) of its fairness and the results is a recipe for chaos. Absolute chaos.
The way to begin was simple, routine engineering processes: define and agree on requirements; produce and RFP; accept only conforming solutions and iterate as necessary if requirements change over time.
Instead, Florida, for the most part, went with pre-made and cheap. The public never had any stomach to spend money to vote well, and took whatever was being sold. At the end of the day, these machines weren't even cheap. (And truth to tell, the total cost of ownership has yet to be measured or validated either.)
The public was frozen out of the decision in favor of "blue-ribbon" committees of non-engineers. For shame, all of us. Fool us once
Thanks for the correction
My pleasure. It may interest you to know that you actually understated the extent to which abstracts are irrelevant -- in the US there are regs and case law clearly stating that the abstract has NO EFFECT AT ALL on validity or a claim construction.
Apple filed its complaint months ago, suing Sorenson fore breaching an agreement to grant it an exclusive license. Sorenson, now obliged to file its answer after losing preliminary motions, files an Answer with Counterclaims, apparently alleging that the suit has caused them difficulty -- which sounds like an almost certain loser.
What would have been news in a case of this kind would be if Sorenson filed an answer WITHOUT filing a counterclaim.
If a base claim is invalid (or not applicable to what you're doing) then all derived claims are also invalid. So, concentrate on them and try to find your points of difference there.
This is not generally true, and often false. The dependent (you called them derived) claims include all the limitations of their parent independent (you called them base) claims. For this reason, if the parent independent is NOT INFRINGED (because one or more limitation is not present in the accused), the dependent claims are not infringed. (There is an obscure exception to this rule, but it holds almost always).
The converse is not generally true. If a parent claim for A+B+C IS INFRINGED, the dependent claim for A+B+C+D might not be infringed by an accused device with A, B and C, but no D. For similar resons, the corresponding proposition for validity is NOT generally true.
A parent claim for A+B+C can read on a piece of prior art, while one of its dependents for A+B+C+D might not, because the dependent claim could have one or more additional limitations, in this case D, that are not disclosed in the prior art. This happens all the time -- invalidating the broad claim does not put an end to the case if the dependent claims are also infringed.
A process already exists for people to assert prior art raising substantial new questions of patentability against an existing patent, and in a forum where the presumption of validity does not apply. In extraordinary cases, such as the Compton's patent, the PTO Commissioner can call for a reexamination by himself.
This is, in fact, precisely what they are supposed to have been doing all along. The problem with file sharing is not file sharing services, but that individuals would use file sharing to engage in copyright infringement. The proper defendants, if any, have ALWAYS BEEN the persons actually copying the files without consent and not for fair use.
But MPAA finds this unsatisfactory, because they don't want to actually deal with legitimate defenses that will inevitably crop up from time to time, or spend their energies on judgement-proof defendants. Fair reasons, but quite frankly, these are the checks and balances of the Copyright Act that have worked (to their advantage for the most part) for 200 years.
Nor is this a fault of the DMCA -- prior to the DMCA, caselaw imposed liability on a provider (the Netcom/Scientology case) only who had been given actual notice of an infringement. Indeed, this is to the advantage of the user -- because the takedown only need go on for ten days, unless MPAA actually sues.
So I applaud MPAA for doing the right thing. And, I rather like the (tacit) admission that they have been fibbing all these years about how imposible and implausible it would be to actually sue proper defendants instead of those providing viable and valuable new technologies to the public at large, particularly those capable of substantial noninfringing uses.
At least one correspondent has indicated that the same language appeared in earlier versions (5.3 and 5.2). However, 5.4 does appear to have disabled some functionality of earlier versions, which gives me pause. Until I can clarify the point, I'll stay at 5.3 and look into alternative products.
Too bad, toast was very easy to use and looked great. But if it doesn't work, who needs it?
It proffered no meaningful analysis of the scope or nature of Microsoft's claims -- offered no insights drawn from 18 month publications, and took no account of obvious and likely strategies that could be taken to counter the "threat" of an abuse of IP ownership in these contexts.
The time is long since past due that a community of open source developers and technicians need to develop a portfolio of technology patents to cross-license against such threats. If significant standards were so protected, even a Microsoft could not long resist the need to "quid pro quo" its blocking technologies, even if it had some.
No, in the United States, prior use is neither necessary nor sufficient to permit registration. There is, by the way, an existing application for registration for the certification mark OSI CERTIFIED, based upon a claim of use several years old, which is presently subject to a non-final refusal from the USPTO.
The OSI has trademarked a logo looking like a keyhole for their use as a graphical certification mark
While it is correct that a trademark registration for the typed phrase "OSI Certified" has been applied for by OSI, that application has been initially refused. I could find no application at the USPTO website for the logotype, apart from the typed mark.
Straw man. Your hypothetical, however interesting, is not this case. Yahoo has property in France, and is thus subject to France's jurisdiction. If Yahoo ignores the order, France will take it out on Yahoo's french property and personnel. A company having no exposure to France might simply ignore the order, or fight it in a US court should France try to nationalize it. Then US law (and the US Constitution) would apply.
Proof that the author and those quoted don't really understand what they're dealing with lies in the underlying assumption that one nation's laws can be binding on something like the internet.
... the internet." It is merely that a nation's laws can be binding upon the French subsidiary of Yahoo, over whom it had plain and simple jurisidiction. As much as some would like to pretend that Yahoo France is a "virtual" company residing in the internet, the Nazi paraphernalia case is a very bad poster boy for accusations of virtual jurisdiction.
Straw man. The "assumption" is not that "one nation's laws can be binding on
Yahoo WAS a bad citizen in this case, and was slammed accordingly. Under US law, this result seems foolish and foreign, but we in the US do not get to impose our constitution on France -- a place brutally savaged by the Nazis. France applied its own law as against its own corporate citizen and its parent, a citizen that faced pretty bad and ugly facts in its own defense, using traditional notions of extraterritoriality.
Yahoo is probably not the best example to suggest that these authors don't "get it." Indeed, the poster seems to have as much difficulty understanding the law as he insists these jurists are having difficulty understanding the tech.
. . . and then sue Hammermill. (Suggestion gleaned from Cyberia).
The case is fun in several ways. First, of course, there is the question of how ownership of personal property is initially created -- in this case by physically claiming it before anyone else. There are related treaty issues, of course.
The second, perhaps more interesting question here, is this: "Why is the U.S. suing a rock?" That, as opposed to the question why isn't the US suing the person currently in possession for title to the rock. The answer is one of jurisdiction -- ad personam jurisdiction.
You can sue property (so called in rem suits) or people (in personam), provided that you have jurisdiction over the relevant party. It is not uncommon at all, particularly in civil seizure scenarios. At any rate, the point of suing the property is to assure that it is within the jurisdiction o fhte court (when the individual in possession may not be), and then take the property after "title" in it is cleared.
So much depends upon the jurisdiction and facts. While the Uniform Trade Secrets Act does exclude reverse engineering from "improper act," the case law is more sanguine as to what conduct constitutes a complete defense. The more "unclean" the hands that do the reverse engineering, the more at question will be at issue. This issue is, of course, not fully tested in view of the usual "no reverse engineering" license provisions of most software licenses.
But the fact pattern here is NOT one of reverse engineering a published product -- it is one of solving a problem in a neat way in a prior employment. In such cases, where the details of the prior solution come from a specification provided by a prior employee, not from an RE of a publicly available work, the development of code from the employees "recollections" is probably not going to provide a defense. Even where the employee provides only slight assistance, such as identifying the product with the "neat solution," or pointing to the code or portion to be reverse engineered, an RE accomplished independently may be tainted.
The difference between trade secrets and copyright in this regard isn't the nature of the protection granted, but the scope of subject matter given protection -- copyright protects expression, not the underlying ideas, providing a form of protection that can be reduced by a specification team in a clean room as fair use to a document, which can then be independently developed. Unless the company has put the idea "out there" in some way, trade secrets can nail the former employee in many cases.
As I keep stating -- devil is in the details -- specific facts can swing the results widely -- almost identical fact patterns can yield different results on what may appear to be a minor detail. My point is that the informal clean room approach suggested in the immediately prior message would not avoid trade secrets -- if the employee participates in the putative RE, the litigation will be fast and furious, notwithstanding this language.
While an independently developed "clean room" implementation of an "idea" specified in his description cannot infringe a copyright, it could still impinge on trade secrets or breach of a fiduciary duty. Of course, independent implementation via clean room will never be a defense against patent infringement.
This is not to say that the hypothetical, in every case, precludes re-solving problems previously solved -- nothing of the kind. The hypo is too broadly stated, and the devil is in the details. Short answer to the question: Ordinarily, drawing on previous experience is ok, except when it isn't. (Hey, I'm a lawyer, absent the meaningful details, which could swing a result either way, that is the best we can do.)
However, where a trade secret claim is available with respect to the architecture for the previous "neat" solution, the clean room approach will fail. That trick works only for copyrights.
Maybe it's because tech designers are more anxious to be creative than to produce things that users like?"
Yeah, right. Users are just plain exhausted by all the new functionality they get. The criticism, certainly not entirely unfounded, that arbitrary and capricious changes make life difficult, will never cost any company anywhere a sale. Never. The only customers aggrieved are already their customer, and if the customer is disinclined toward change or learning new ways to do things, would NEVER BE INCLINED TO ADOPT AN ENTIRELY NEW AND DIFFERENT product by a competitor.
On the other hand, avoiding changes to the status quo and avoiding inclusion of new and modern features (many of which include adopting new GUI standards imposed by OS manufacturers) will eventually assure the demise of a product, as the product gets branded old and obsolete, and gradually the competitors overwhelm us with competitive upgrades and the like -- soon, we are the stranger to the next generation of sedentary users. Yes, of course, we will retain a handful of those who like things "as they were," and they will be the last to leave us. However, they weren't going to buy the new upgrade anyway.
In short, OF COURSE, we shouldn't make stupid and arbitrary changes -- but tech designers who make sound, decent and forward-moving changes will ALWAYS be closer to the heart of the consuming public, even though a few old farts will grump from time to time (until they learn the new stuff).
Version exhaustion? Nothing a good cup of coffee and a manual couldn't cure.
Notwithstanding the hardware "limitations," Mac OSX/Darwin is probably among the most pervasively-used Unix distros out today.
Typically, the number of persons who are given authority to enter contributions for projects of any size is much smaller than the number of actual contributors. In "large scale" projects, it is common for a small community of "editors" to be "responsible" for a body of code, by taking the contributions of many individuals, vetting them and ultimately adding these contributions to the code tree.
Thus, for some projects, merely counting the number of committers underestimates the actual number of contributers certainly by one, and perhaps two or more, orders of magnitude.
"Please sign this EULA before you buy this car." Its coming.
nah, its been here since forever.
Have you actually ever read any of the documents they make you sign before you buy a car? rent a car?
for enforceable provisions that you don't ever read, have you looked at the backside of your plane tickets lately? almost any theatre or park admission ticket? utility tariffs?
Each side argued for a different rule, one that elevated one patent policy to the detriment of another. The plaintiff liked the "flexible bar" rule, where a judge's indigestion would determine whether the jury could decide questions of equivalents of an amended claim. This elevated the protection function of a patent way above the idea that the patent should give notice to the public of what was, and what was not, claimed.
The defendant liked the "absolute bar," that says there can be no equivalents when a claim is amended. This provided clear notice to the public, but at the expense of creating a hypertechnical loophole to virtually every existing patent. Thus, notice is elevated over protection.
The Supreme Court rejected both views, recognizing that a robust system must do both: it must adequately balance each critical patent policy against the other, addressing the parade of horribles cited against each of the rules by the parties. (1) It shouldn't permit an automatic hypertechnical out for every patent; and (2) it shouldn't fuzz the scope of every patent so that every rich plaintiff can simply beat the drum to force every defendant into a "trial or nothing" alternative.
The Supreme Court came up, thanks to Amicus Briefs filed on behalf of neither party, with the "foreseeable bar." Basically, this bars equivalents for the amended claim unless the plaintiff can show that at the time of the amendment one skilled in the art could not reasonably have anticipated the accused device. Thus, after-invented technologies do not shut down pre-existing patents, yet patent bullies are neutralized when they opt to take an "easy allowance," expecting to "make it up" during litigation using the doctrine of equivalents.