All of you who think that this patent is obvious should stop your belly aching and act! It's easy. The patent has not yet issued. In the U.S. there is a rule (37 C.F.R. 1.56) which obliges a patentee to disclose ALL prior art of which he or she is aware. So, find some prior art, and email it to the company. They will then be obliged to disclose this prior art to the Patent Office. If they fail to do so, the patent may be invalidated under Rule 56. How's that for an easy solution?
Actually you would be suprised how often we do get exactly that type of language. When I was an engineering student, I got, from a few different professors famous lines like:
- Are you here to get your Mrs. degree? - Women are never any good at circuits. - Are you sure you are supposed to be in this class? an my all time favorite, on the first day of class: - Ah, I remember the good old days, when we didnt' admit women to this school. We flew the flag at half mast when women were first admitted. I don't think they should have been.
So, yes, women do put up with more BS than men in the field. Which is not to say that women can't make it. It just means that average women can't.
By the way, you notice that the "researchers" didn't interview boys? I expect you can find plenty of boys that will have similar points of view.
The reality is that not only do they (not only the DOE but any employer) have a right to monitor your phone calls, and your emails, and your key strokes, they can also ask you to take random drug tests. The only thing they can not monitor is the break room and the bath room. Otherwise, they can put cameras everywhere. Why? The short answer is that employment is voluntary, so you can be asked to give up your privacy, in exchange for a job. An excellent article on this can be found here.
As a side note, the reason most Silicon Valley employers don't do any of this monitoring is that they KNOW they'd lose employees. The only real way to fight this is to band together, and to inform management that all of the technical staff will leave, if monitoring/drug testing is done. They can not afford to lose the skilled folks. So, they'll usually cave.
Remember, the only power you have is that they need you more than you need them...
Although I don't disagree with Mr. Bryar that the USPTO has some problems, he does have some credibility issues.
For example, he says that "Over the last couple of years the US patent system has been managed by Todd Dickinson," and blames much of the mismanagement on Dickinson. Now, according to the USPTO site, Todd Dickinson was confirmed as Commissioner November 1999, a mere four months ago. Dickinson worked at the PTO since 1998, but only as a deputy commissioner. Before that, it was Bruce Lehman who was screwing up the patent office.
Mr. Bryar states that "the time available to Patent Office employees to process, review and approve a patent application -- an application which may run to hundreds of pages and be highly technical in nature -- has been reduced to less than eight man-hours." As has been pointed out, the eight hour examination time applies only to experienced Examiners (who have been at the PTO 5+ years). As has also been pointed out, most patent applications are not hundreds of pages, but rather tens. Plus, Examiners examine patents in a narrow area, and are generally quite familiar with the art in the area. They generally can look at the figures, glance through the specification, and read the claims. I do agree that eight hours is low, and there should be a factor for patent complexity.
Mr. Bryar also states that "Among these are a new type of patent, not for traditional inventions, but for new "business models." In 1998 the Patent Office and the Clinton Administration bungled their response to a lawsuit brought by State Street Bank, which decided to extend its patent claims against Signature Financial to include State Street's "business methods." But if you actually bother to read the State Street case, you will find that business methods have always been patentable. And, not only that, but Amazon's famed 1-Click patent is a SOFTWARE patent, not a business method patent. After all, Amazon describes a software method, with execution steps. This is not a business method. So, blaming all the problems on business method patents is disingenuous.
Mr. Bryar further states that "But last year's legislation, the so-called Inventors Protection Act, made matters worse. The act contained nothing to restrain spurious "business model" patents" If he had read the act, he would have noticed that there is a new defense to Business Method patents, that of First to Invent. If the person being sued invented first, he or she is protected from the patent. Admittedly not a very strong protection, but it exists.
The assertion that "As amended, Section 155 now provides companies with an almost unchecked ability to claim protection on unsubstantiated, unapproved "provisional" patents and to tie up other firms in court with compensation claims." Is simply incorrect as well. First, you can only sue when the patent has already issued, not when it's still provisional or unapproved. Second, you can only collect for the time when the patent was pending if your claims are virtually identical to those published. This is highly unlikely in the real word.
Then, Mr. Bryar states that "I went through the act line by line. There is no defense based on the notion that a so-called patent is absurd or covers an obvious activity or business practice." Of course, I expect even Mr. Bryar is aware of that "obviousness" is a bar to obtaining a patent, under 35 U.S.C. 103. I think this is supposed to be hyperbole. A patent that is absurd can be obtained, of course. But then, back in the 1950's the transistor was thought to be quite absurd... as was the mouse when it was first shown.
I agree that we have to address the issues in the Patent Office, primarily by hiring more competent people, who know software. A better resource of prior art software would also be helpful. But Mr. Bryar's sweeping statements that are on their face incorrect do not help his mission.
Just so you don't get too enthusiastic... this ruling doesn't apply in California, Texas, or any of the other states outside New York
The Court of Appeals has authority over all of the lower courts in New York (it's their highest court), but has only a "persuasive" value in courts in other states. In other words, you'll have to fight this fight in the 49 other states too...
You will recall that what Yahoo actually gets is not the abstract, but what is actually claimed. It appears that Claim 2 is their broadest claim. Claim 2 states:
>2. Using a page server, a method of providing >real-time responses to user requests for >customized pages, the method comprising the >steps of: > >obtaining user preferences, wherein a user's >user preferences indicate items of interest to >that user; > >obtaining real-time information from information >sources; > >storing the real-time information in a storage >device; > >combining the user preferences for the user and >a template to form a template program specific >to the user; > >receiving, from a user and at the server, a user >request for a customized page customized >according to the user preferences; > >executing the template program specific to the >user using the real-time information stored in >the storage device as input to the template >program to generate the customized page; and > >providing the user with the customized page, >wherein the steps of executing and providing are >performed in real-time response to receipt of >the user request in the step of receiving and >wherein the customized page includes at least >one item of real-time information selected from >the storage device.
This is quite a bit narrower than the technologies discussed on Slashdot. Specifically, there appear to be two limitations that relate directly to the news being customized. By specifying that it is "real-time information" they probably get around a lot of old technology that customizes standard pages that do not preset news or the like.
--Microsoft threatened to terminate the Windows license of any OEM that removed Microsoft's chosen icons and program entries from the Windows desktop or the "Start" menu. It threatened similar punishment for OEMs who added programs that promoted third-party software to the Windows "boot" sequence. These inhibitions soured Microsoft's relations with OEMs and stymied innovation that might have made Windows PC systems more satisfying to users. Microsoft would not have paid this price had it not been convinced that its actions were necessary to ostracize Navigator from the vital OEM distribution channel.--
This, by legal definition is called TYING, and it's illegal. There is very specific case law on this.
I can't wait for the actual verdict. Although my predition is that M$ will attempt to settle by providing discounts on future M$ products (it worked for GM!) This would force people to buy even more M$ product. I don't expect the judge would sign that agreement...
Isn't that there is only one American on the board, but that there are no representatives of the actual users of the Internet on the board. Every one of the elected members represent large Telcos. Vinton Cerf is an MCI WorldCom vice president. His point of view is that of a large corporation. This also applies to the remaining members.
On the other hand, according to ICANN's web page, the Board of ICANN will be composed of nineteen Directors, nine At-Large Directors, nine to be nominated by Supporting Organizations, and the President/CEO (ex officio). This election was for the nine members nominated by Supporting Organizations. So there is still time to get some representation for actual techies onto the ICANN board.
I don't know WHERE you're getting your information. There is no "duty to publish" under the U.S. Patent system. When the patent issues (i.e. after the Patent Office found it novel, useful, and non-obvious) it is automatically published. At that time, it is freely available as a patent to anyone. It's published on the USPTO's site, as well as the IBM site, and various other places. This gives you permission to copy the patent. It does not give your rights to use the contents described or rights to copy certain data and resell it. (i.e. standard copyright rules apply.) The Patent Office will keep applications confidential until they issue. This can take anywhere from a year to many years, depending on a number of factors, including how busy the PTO is with patents of that type.
I think the more interesting question is whether gene sequences are "useful" under the Patent Law defininion. My answer is no... just knowing the sequence does not provide for an actual use of the sequence. If the inventors also provide for a use (i.e. this sequence can be manipulated in this way to produce a different characteristic) then it should be patentable. Otherwise, it shouldn't be.
"Quite the contrary, things always work out for the worst," said Dr. Hartley.
"Things might work out okay in the short term," he added. "But in the long run, all things deteriorate, disintegrate or die -- and then something new and different pops up in its place.
"This is the unstoppable nature of reality itself. Nothing gets better. Nothing lasts. This is why everybody fears change and is terrified of the future."
Belief #4 -- FAT PEOPLE ARE JOLLIER THAN SLIM FOLKS!
"Nothing could be further from the truth," said Dr. Hartley. "Studies show that 80 to 85 percent of fat people are terribly unhappy and seldom joke or laugh. They simply do not feel good about themselves.
"A similar belief, that fat people, particularly women, have 'hearts of gold' doesn't jibe with reality, either. Studies indicate that far from being generous, kind and loving, a clear majority of fat people are petty, grasping, greedy, gluttonous and conniving -- hardly traits you would ascribe to someone with a 'heart of gold.'"
I love generalizations... especially nasty ones. However, NOTHING can beat Dear Dotty:
Dear Dotti: I was cleaning my 11-year-old son's room the other day and just happened to peek in his closet. There were 18 women's purses in there, all colors, shapes and sizes. When Billy got home from playing ball I asked him what was going on. Like any teenager, he was angry with me for going into his room. As for the purses, he told me he collects them and that girls give them to him. That doesn't sound quite right but he's my son and I feel like I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. Have you ever heard of anything like this? -- Susan in D.C. SUSAN in D.C.
Dear Susan: For starters, stooge, that 11-year-old delinquent you call a son isn't a teenager -- he's a child. And I'm not the only person who thinks he snatched those purses -- the detectives who acted on my tip and arrested him the day after I received your letter agree!
I expect the real reason they don't want anyone under 18 is because folks under 18 can get out of contracts. If you sign a contract as a 16-year-old, and you do not re-confirm the contract after you turn 18, you can get out of it. You'd have to return what they gave you, but that's not much help. There were a couple of famous cases of 17-year-olds buying Porsches, trashing them, and returning them the week before they turned 18. The dealer was stuck. I expect Comdex worries about liabilities.
Also, there may be additional liablities to someone inviting minors. If the kid slips and falls or does something else stupid, you've got a bigger law suit than if an adult does the same.
The real cost of a patent is the patent attorney's time. The cost of filing a provisional patent is $150. The cost of filing a non-provisional patent is $800. The cost of my time to write a provisional OR a non-provisional patent is about $8000. It's better to file a non-provisional patent up-front. Provisonal patents can muck with your foreign rights, and if there is ever a dispute, you're going to have to prove that everything in your non-provisional patent was already in your provisional patent. This adds a ballpark of $500,000 to the cost of litigation -- which will run $1 million + in any case.
The only time provisional patents are useful is if you are about to hit a bar date (you've disclose the idea almost a whole year ago... but you have a few extra days). You just don't have time to write a real patent... and you're better off getting incomplete or possibly bad protection rather than no protection at all. Otherwise, get a real patent. Most patent attorneys are willing to arrange a payment plan, and some will even take stock options instead of cash up front.
Actually, VC's almost never sign NDAs. They don't have to. There are tons of little guys out there who'd be willing to talk to them without the NDA. And, of course, if you sign an NDA, you have to get your lawyer to review it -- which costs money and more importantly time. So, the answer is, go to reputable VCs, and ONLY reputable VCs. And, if you actually want to make money off this deal, you may want to talk to a patent lawyer. (we're not evil... well... we're not very evil.:)
As you probably know, the question isn't the summary or title of the patent, but the claims. They claims may be sufficiently restrictive to exclude the examples of prior art you listed.
The other interesting note is that the NCR patents do cite quite a few other patents and relevant articles.
The problem is the PTO pays incredibly low wages. The time I looked, in 1993, they offered $23K for someone with an engineering degree... the going wages at that point were approximately $36K. So how are they going to get clueful people if they're paying 2/3 the going wages?
And there is one method of killing a patent, without going to court. It's called a reexamination, and anyone can request one (for about $2000). Basically, you send to the patent office the new references you found, that they didn't look at, and your analysis of why the patent is obvious. The patent office then reexamines the patent, with the cooperation of the patent office, and generally narrows it. Although most patents are still allowed after a reexamination, they are generally narrower.
Actually, the Supreme Court has held, in Feist v. Rural Telephone Service, 499 U.S. 340 (1991) 499 U.S. 340, that collections of data that are not at all creative are not copyrightable. The West Publishing Group, the folks that publish most of the court decisions in the US have been pushing for copyright-like protection for years. It looks like they've finally managed to pay off enough people to get it.
The real problem is that now West and their ilk will "own" the public data they collect. Because they data is not generally available through other sources, everyone will have to pay for supposedly public information.
The simple answer why patents on things that seem obvious are granted is that the Patent Office bases a rejection on "prior art" which requires a prior publication or patent. This means that software that was never documented, and rarely patented or otherwise formally published, never makes it into the "prior art" pool. There are actually a number of organizations attempting to solve this problem right now, by providing a better software prior art database to the patent office.
As to your second question, how software is different from a literary work, the answer is that software enbodies a useful function. The only thing protectable by a copyright (which is how literary works are protected) is the actual expression used. But the underlying functionality, the point of the software, can not be protected. There is no such underlying functionality in literary or musical works. That's why software is patentable, and music isn't. The other reason is that if you do not permit software to be patented, you will just force applicants to couch their software patents in hardware terms (e.g. the memory stores data, and then the processor calculates something). This is silly. Software has been patented since the mid-70s.
It includes voting records, approval/disapproval percentage by various organizations (from the NRA to NOW), and other useful info.
They are not biased, nor do they accept money from anyone who might want to influence them. This is their statement of purpose:
THROUGH A CITIZENS' TOOLKIT OF FREE SERVICES, programs and materials, this national non-partisan, non-profit effort researches, tracks and provides to the public independent factual information on over 13,000 candidates and elected officials. Voting records, campaign issue positions, performance evaluations by special interests, campaign contributions, backgrounds, previous experience, and contact information are available, over a toll-free Voter's Research Hotline, manuals and other publications, and the Vote Smart Web site. The whole system provides a powerful tool for accountability. It allows citizens to look over the shoulders of their elected representatives daily, to monitor and supervise them, and to compare their campaign promises with their actual job performance once in office.
This is their statement of integrity:
THE INTEGRITY OF THE INFORMATION system is scrupulously protected in several crucial ways. The Founding Board, balanced across the political spectrum, includes prominent national leaders like Barry Goldwater and George McGovern, Geraldine Ferraro and Newt Gingrich, Mark Hatfield and Bill Bradley. The Project is funded entirely by foundation grants and the individual contributions of over 50,000 members. Our members contribute what they can, to ensure the system survives to help all citizens. The average contribution is $35. We refuse donations from corporate and special interests--from any group that lobbies government at any level.
Why wouldn't you buy one? Because they're trying to enforce their rights?
I expect that even gung-ho open sourcers would be ticked off if I swiped Linux, and claimed I had written it myself. Even RMS likes credit for his contributions.
I don't see Palm as doing anything I wouldn't do in their place.
A number of individuals as well as organizations have expressed their opposition to UCITA. This includes industry groups as well as individual law professors.
Attorneys general don't all like UCITA either. For example, California's attorney general has critized and expressed opposition to UCITA. See an excellent list of organizations and individuals opposing UCITA, including their comments on this page.
Now that the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws has passed the the UCITA, each state individually has to enact it into law. The best thing to do is to write to the Attorney General in your state, expressing your opposition to this law. Please couch it in terms of economic harm to industry. Remember that rants about free software probably won't win you friends in government.
A number of individuals as well as organizations have expressed their opposition to UCITA. This includes industry groups as well as individual law professors.
Attorneys general don't all like UCITA either. For example, California's attorney general has critized and expressed opposition to UCITA. See an excellent list of organizations and individuals opposing UCITA, including their comments on this page.
Now that the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws has passed the the UCITA, each state individually has to enact it into law. The best thing to do is to write to the Attorney General in your state, expressing your opposition to this law. Please couch it in terms of economic harm to industry. Remember that rants about free software probably won't win you friends in government.
Attorneys general don't all like UCITA. For example, California's attorney general has critized and expressed opposition to UCITA. See an excellent summary page. The de facto clearinghouse for legal briefs and position papers from all sides in the process is the "Guide to the Proposed Law on Software Transactions" provided by Carol A. Kunze. Now that the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws has passed the the UCITA, each state individually has to enact it into law. The best thing to do is to write to the Attorney General in your state, expressing your opposition to this law. Please couch it in terms of economic harm to industry. Remember that rants about free software probably won't win you friends in government.
And which of Microsoft's prodigious production of bloatware is backward compatible? That's the thing that pisses me off most about Microsoft. If my clients upgrade to the newest version, I had better upgrade too to see their documents. Not only that, if I send them something in the "old version" most of the formatting magically goes away in the conversion.
Unfortunately, they can enforce this. After all, the courts have held shrinkwrap software licenses legal (the license you find in your new software you bought at Fry's that's on the inside of the package and tells you that by opening the package you just agreed to something.)
But, I do agree. Ignore it. Just know a good lawyer who doesn't mind fighting it out with NSI.
The basis for the decision was that the telco couldn't claim a copyright on the data, since it was merely drudge work, and not creative work. Since the telco distributes the telephone book in paper format without a license, the only right they could claim over it was copyright. The Supreme Court (in Feist v. Rural Telephone) said that alphabetizing names was not creative enough to warrant a copyright. There is now a bill in Congress trying to change this by permitting "database rights" for the work of creating the database of information.
As a side note, since the whois information is not freely distributed, NSI claims not copyright but licensing agreement right. So this argument wouldn't work for them.
Slashdot Mirror
All of you who think that this patent is obvious should stop your belly aching and act! It's easy. The patent has not yet issued. In the U.S. there is a rule (37 C.F.R. 1.56) which obliges a patentee to disclose ALL prior art of which he or she is aware. So, find some prior art, and email it to the company. They will then be obliged to disclose this prior art to the Patent Office. If they fail to do so, the patent may be invalidated under Rule 56. How's that for an easy solution?
Thalia
Actually you would be suprised how often we do get exactly that type of language. When I was an engineering student, I got, from a few different professors famous lines like:
- Are you here to get your Mrs. degree?
- Women are never any good at circuits.
- Are you sure you are supposed to be in this class?
an my all time favorite, on the first day of class:
- Ah, I remember the good old days, when we didnt' admit women to this school. We flew the flag at half mast when women were first admitted. I don't think they should have been.
So, yes, women do put up with more BS than men in the field. Which is not to say that women can't make it. It just means that average women can't.
By the way, you notice that the "researchers" didn't interview boys? I expect you can find plenty of boys that will have similar points of view.
The reality is that not only do they (not only the DOE but any employer) have a right to monitor your phone calls, and your emails, and your key strokes, they can also ask you to take random drug tests. The only thing they can not monitor is the break room and the bath room. Otherwise, they can put cameras everywhere. Why? The short answer is that employment is voluntary, so you can be asked to give up your privacy, in exchange for a job. An excellent article on this can be found here.
As a side note, the reason most Silicon Valley employers don't do any of this monitoring is that they KNOW they'd lose employees. The only real way to fight this is to band together, and to inform management that all of the technical staff will leave, if monitoring/drug testing is done. They can not afford to lose the skilled folks. So, they'll usually cave.
Remember, the only power you have is that they need you more than you need them...
Although I don't disagree with Mr. Bryar that the USPTO has some problems, he does have some credibility issues.
For example, he says that "Over the last couple of years the US patent system has been managed by Todd Dickinson," and blames much of the mismanagement on Dickinson. Now, according to the USPTO site, Todd Dickinson was confirmed as Commissioner November 1999, a mere four months ago. Dickinson worked at the PTO since 1998, but only as a deputy commissioner. Before that, it was Bruce Lehman who was screwing up the patent office.
Mr. Bryar states that "the time available to Patent Office employees to process, review and approve a patent application -- an application which may run to hundreds of pages and be highly technical in nature -- has been reduced to less than eight man-hours." As has been pointed out, the eight hour examination time applies only to experienced Examiners (who have been at the PTO 5+ years). As has also been pointed out, most patent applications are not hundreds of pages, but rather tens. Plus, Examiners examine patents in a narrow area, and are generally quite familiar with the art in the area. They generally can look at the figures, glance through the specification, and read the claims. I do agree that eight hours is low, and there should be a factor for patent complexity.
Mr. Bryar also states that "Among these are a new type of patent, not for traditional inventions, but for new "business models." In 1998 the Patent Office and the Clinton Administration bungled their response to a lawsuit brought by State Street Bank, which decided to extend its patent claims against Signature Financial to include State Street's "business methods." But if you actually bother to read the State Street case, you will find that business methods have always been patentable. And, not only that, but Amazon's famed 1-Click patent is a SOFTWARE patent, not a business method patent. After all, Amazon describes a software method, with execution steps. This is not a business method. So, blaming all the problems on business method patents is disingenuous.
Mr. Bryar further states that "But last year's legislation, the so-called Inventors Protection Act, made matters worse. The act contained nothing to restrain spurious "business model" patents" If he had read the act, he would have noticed that there is a new defense to Business Method patents, that of First to Invent. If the person being sued invented first, he or she is protected from the patent. Admittedly not a very strong protection, but it exists.
The assertion that "As amended, Section 155 now provides companies with an almost unchecked ability to claim protection on unsubstantiated, unapproved "provisional" patents and to tie up other firms in court with compensation claims." Is simply incorrect as well. First, you can only sue when the patent has already issued, not when it's still provisional or unapproved. Second, you can only collect for the time when the patent was pending if your claims are virtually identical to those published. This is highly unlikely in the real word.
Then, Mr. Bryar states that "I went through the act line by line. There is no defense based on the notion that a so-called patent is absurd or covers an obvious activity or business practice." Of course, I expect even Mr. Bryar is aware of that "obviousness" is a bar to obtaining a patent, under 35 U.S.C. 103. I think this is supposed to be hyperbole. A patent that is absurd can be obtained, of course. But then, back in the 1950's the transistor was thought to be quite absurd... as was the mouse when it was first shown.
I agree that we have to address the issues in the Patent Office, primarily by hiring more competent people, who know software. A better resource of prior art software would also be helpful. But Mr. Bryar's sweeping statements that are on their face incorrect do not help his mission.
Just so you don't get too enthusiastic... this ruling doesn't apply in California, Texas, or any of the other states outside New York
The Court of Appeals has authority over all of the lower courts in New York (it's their highest court), but has only a "persuasive" value in courts in other states. In other words, you'll have to fight this fight in the 49 other states too...
You will recall that what Yahoo actually gets is not the abstract, but what is actually claimed. It appears that Claim 2 is their broadest claim. Claim 2 states:
>2. Using a page server, a method of providing
>real-time responses to user requests for
>customized pages, the method comprising the
>steps of:
>
>obtaining user preferences, wherein a user's
>user preferences indicate items of interest to
>that user;
>
>obtaining real-time information from information
>sources;
>
>storing the real-time information in a storage
>device;
>
>combining the user preferences for the user and
>a template to form a template program specific
>to the user;
>
>receiving, from a user and at the server, a user
>request for a customized page customized
>according to the user preferences;
>
>executing the template program specific to the
>user using the real-time information stored in
>the storage device as input to the template
>program to generate the customized page; and
>
>providing the user with the customized page,
>wherein the steps of executing and providing are
>performed in real-time response to receipt of
>the user request in the step of receiving and
>wherein the customized page includes at least
>one item of real-time information selected from
>the storage device.
This is quite a bit narrower than the technologies discussed on Slashdot. Specifically, there appear to be two limitations that relate directly to the news being customized. By specifying that it is "real-time information" they probably get around a lot of old technology that customizes standard pages that do not preset news or the like.
Ah yes, the judge does get it... from Para 302
--Microsoft threatened to terminate the Windows license of any OEM that removed Microsoft's chosen icons and program entries from the Windows desktop or the "Start" menu. It threatened similar punishment for OEMs who added programs that promoted third-party software to the Windows "boot" sequence. These inhibitions soured Microsoft's relations with OEMs and stymied innovation that might have made Windows PC systems more satisfying to users. Microsoft would not have paid this price had it not been convinced that its actions were necessary to ostracize Navigator from the vital OEM distribution channel.--
This, by legal definition is called TYING, and it's illegal. There is very specific case law on this.
I can't wait for the actual verdict. Although my predition is that M$ will attempt to settle by providing discounts on future M$ products (it worked for GM!) This would force people to buy even more M$ product. I don't expect the judge would sign that agreement...
Isn't that there is only one American on the board, but that there are no representatives of the actual users of the Internet on the board. Every one of the elected members represent large Telcos. Vinton Cerf is an MCI WorldCom vice president. His point of view is that of a large corporation. This also applies to the remaining members.
On the other hand, according to ICANN's web page, the Board of ICANN will be composed of nineteen Directors, nine At-Large Directors, nine to be nominated by Supporting Organizations, and the President/CEO (ex officio). This election was for the nine members nominated by Supporting Organizations. So there is still time to get some representation for actual techies onto the ICANN board.
I don't know WHERE you're getting your information. There is no "duty to publish" under the U.S. Patent system. When the patent issues (i.e. after the Patent Office found it novel, useful, and non-obvious) it is automatically published. At that time, it is freely available as a patent to anyone. It's published on the USPTO's site, as well as the IBM site, and various other places. This gives you permission to copy the patent. It does not give your rights to use the contents described or rights to copy certain data and resell it. (i.e. standard copyright rules apply.) The Patent Office will keep applications confidential until they issue. This can take anywhere from a year to many years, depending on a number of factors, including how busy the PTO is with patents of that type.
I think the more interesting question is whether gene sequences are "useful" under the Patent Law defininion. My answer is no... just knowing the sequence does not provide for an actual use of the sequence. If the inventors also provide for a use (i.e. this sequence can be manipulated in this way to produce a different characteristic) then it should be patentable. Otherwise, it shouldn't be.
It IS a parody... my new favorite:
Belief #6 -- THINGS ALWAYS WORK OUT FOR THE BEST!
"Quite the contrary, things always work out for the worst," said Dr. Hartley.
"Things might work out okay in the short term," he added. "But in the long run, all things deteriorate, disintegrate or die -- and then something new and different pops up in its place.
"This is the unstoppable nature of reality itself. Nothing gets better. Nothing lasts. This is why everybody fears change and is terrified of the future."
Belief #4 -- FAT PEOPLE ARE JOLLIER THAN SLIM FOLKS!
"Nothing could be further from the truth," said Dr. Hartley. "Studies show that 80 to 85 percent of fat people are terribly unhappy and seldom joke or laugh. They simply do not feel good about themselves.
"A similar belief, that fat people, particularly women, have 'hearts of gold' doesn't jibe with reality, either. Studies indicate that far from being generous, kind and loving, a clear majority of fat people are petty, grasping, greedy, gluttonous and conniving -- hardly traits you would ascribe to someone with a 'heart of gold.'"
I love generalizations... especially nasty ones. However, NOTHING can beat Dear Dotty:
Dear Dotti: I was cleaning my 11-year-old son's room the other day and just happened to peek in his closet. There were 18 women's purses in there, all colors, shapes and sizes. When Billy got home from playing ball I asked him what was going on. Like any teenager, he was angry with me for going into his room. As for the purses, he told me he collects them and that girls give them to him. That doesn't sound quite right but he's my son and I feel like I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. Have you ever heard of anything like this?
-- Susan in D.C.
SUSAN in D.C.
Dear Susan: For starters, stooge, that 11-year-old delinquent you call a son isn't a teenager -- he's a child. And I'm not the only person who thinks he snatched those purses -- the detectives who acted on my tip and arrested him the day after I received your letter agree!
This can't be for real.
I expect the real reason they don't want anyone under 18 is because folks under 18 can get out of contracts. If you sign a contract as a 16-year-old, and you do not re-confirm the contract after you turn 18, you can get out of it. You'd have to return what they gave you, but that's not much help. There were a couple of famous cases of 17-year-olds buying Porsches, trashing them, and returning them the week before they turned 18. The dealer was stuck. I expect Comdex worries about liabilities.
Also, there may be additional liablities to someone inviting minors. If the kid slips and falls or does something else stupid, you've got a bigger law suit than if an adult does the same.
The real cost of a patent is the patent attorney's time. The cost of filing a provisional patent is $150. The cost of filing a non-provisional patent is $800. The cost of my time to write a provisional OR a non-provisional patent is about $8000. It's better to file a non-provisional patent up-front. Provisonal patents can muck with your foreign rights, and if there is ever a dispute, you're going to have to prove that everything in your non-provisional patent was already in your provisional patent. This adds a ballpark of $500,000 to the cost of litigation -- which will run $1 million + in any case.
The only time provisional patents are useful is if you are about to hit a bar date (you've disclose the idea almost a whole year ago... but you have a few extra days). You just don't have time to write a real patent... and you're better off getting incomplete or possibly bad protection rather than no protection at all. Otherwise, get a real patent. Most patent attorneys are willing to arrange a payment plan, and some will even take stock options instead of cash up front.
Actually, VC's almost never sign NDAs. They don't have to. There are tons of little guys out there who'd be willing to talk to them without the NDA. And, of course, if you sign an NDA, you have to get your lawyer to review it -- which costs money and more importantly time. So, the answer is, go to reputable VCs, and ONLY reputable VCs. And, if you actually want to make money off this deal, you may want to talk to a patent lawyer. (we're not evil... well... we're not very evil. :)
Thalia
As you probably know, the question isn't the summary or title of the patent, but the claims. They claims may be sufficiently restrictive to exclude the examples of prior art you listed.
The other interesting note is that the NCR patents do cite quite a few other patents and relevant articles.
The problem is the PTO pays incredibly low wages. The time I looked, in 1993, they offered $23K for someone with an engineering degree... the going wages at that point were approximately $36K. So how are they going to get clueful people if they're paying 2/3 the going wages?
And there is one method of killing a patent, without going to court. It's called a reexamination, and anyone can request one (for about $2000). Basically, you send to the patent office the new references you found, that they didn't look at, and your analysis of why the patent is obvious. The patent office then reexamines the patent, with the cooperation of the patent office, and generally narrows it. Although most patents are still allowed after a reexamination, they are generally narrower.
Actually, the Supreme Court has held, in Feist v. Rural Telephone Service, 499 U.S. 340 (1991) 499 U.S. 340, that collections of data that are not at all creative are not copyrightable. The West Publishing Group, the folks that publish most of the court decisions in the US have been pushing for copyright-like protection for years. It looks like they've finally managed to pay off enough people to get it.
The real problem is that now West and their ilk will "own" the public data they collect. Because they data is not generally available through other sources, everyone will have to pay for supposedly public information.
The simple answer why patents on things that seem obvious are granted is that the Patent Office bases a rejection on "prior art" which requires a prior publication or patent. This means that software that was never documented, and rarely patented or otherwise formally published, never makes it into the "prior art" pool. There are actually a number of organizations attempting to solve this problem right now, by providing a better software prior art database to the patent office.
As to your second question, how software is different from a literary work, the answer is that software enbodies a useful function. The only thing protectable by a copyright (which is how literary works are protected) is the actual expression used. But the underlying functionality, the point of the software, can not be protected. There is no such underlying functionality in literary or musical works. That's why software is patentable, and music isn't. The other reason is that if you do not permit software to be patented, you will just force applicants to couch their software patents in hardware terms (e.g. the memory stores data, and then the processor calculates something). This is silly. Software has been patented since the mid-70s.
Check out Project Vote-Smart
It includes voting records, approval/disapproval percentage by various organizations (from the NRA to NOW), and other useful info.
They are not biased, nor do they accept money from anyone who might want to influence them. This is their statement of purpose:
THROUGH A CITIZENS' TOOLKIT OF FREE SERVICES, programs and materials, this national non-partisan, non-profit effort researches, tracks and provides to the public independent factual information on over 13,000 candidates and elected officials. Voting records, campaign issue positions, performance evaluations by special interests, campaign contributions, backgrounds, previous experience, and contact information are available, over a toll-free Voter's Research Hotline, manuals and other publications, and the Vote Smart Web site. The whole system provides a powerful tool for accountability. It allows citizens to look over the shoulders of their elected representatives daily, to monitor and supervise them, and to compare their campaign promises with their actual job performance once in office.
This is their statement of integrity:
THE INTEGRITY OF THE INFORMATION system is scrupulously protected in several crucial ways. The Founding Board, balanced across the political spectrum, includes prominent national leaders like Barry Goldwater and George McGovern, Geraldine Ferraro and Newt Gingrich, Mark Hatfield and Bill Bradley. The Project is funded entirely by foundation grants and the individual contributions of over 50,000 members. Our members contribute what they can, to ensure the system survives to help all citizens. The average contribution is $35. We refuse donations from corporate and special interests--from any group that lobbies government at any level.
Why wouldn't you buy one? Because they're trying to enforce their rights?
I expect that even gung-ho open sourcers would be ticked off if I swiped Linux, and claimed I had written it myself. Even RMS likes credit for his contributions.
I don't see Palm as doing anything I wouldn't do in their place.
A number of individuals as well as organizations have expressed their opposition to UCITA. This includes industry groups as well as individual law professors.
Attorneys general don't all like UCITA either. For example, California's attorney general has critized and expressed opposition to UCITA. See an excellent list of organizations and individuals opposing UCITA, including their comments on this page.
The de facto clearinghouse for legal briefs and position papers from all sides in the process is the "Guide to the Proposed Law on Software Transactions" provided by Carol A. Kunze.
Now that the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws has passed the the UCITA, each state individually has to enact it into law. The best thing to do is to write to the Attorney General in your state, expressing your opposition to this law. Please couch it in terms of economic harm to industry. Remember that rants about free software probably won't win you friends in government.
A number of individuals as well as organizations have expressed their opposition to UCITA. This includes industry groups as well as individual law professors.
Attorneys general don't all like UCITA either. For example, California's attorney general has critized and expressed opposition to UCITA. See
an excellent list of organizations and individuals opposing UCITA, including their comments on this page.
The de facto clearinghouse for legal briefs and position papers from all sides in the process is the "Guide to the Proposed Law on Software Transactions" provided by Carol A. Kunze.
Now that the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws has passed the the UCITA, each state individually has to enact it into law. The best thing to do is to write to the Attorney General in your state, expressing your opposition to this law. Please couch it in terms of economic harm to industry. Remember that rants about free software probably won't win you friends in government.
Attorneys general don't all like UCITA. For example, California's attorney general has critized and expressed opposition to UCITA. See an excellent summary page.
The de facto clearinghouse for legal briefs and position papers from all sides in the process is the "Guide to the Proposed Law on Software Transactions" provided by Carol A. Kunze.
Now that the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws has passed the the UCITA, each state individually has to enact it into law. The best thing to do is to write to the Attorney General in your state, expressing your opposition to this law. Please couch it in terms of economic harm to industry. Remember that rants about free software probably won't win you friends in government.
And which of Microsoft's prodigious production of bloatware is backward compatible? That's the thing that pisses me off most about Microsoft. If my clients upgrade to the newest version, I had better upgrade too to see their documents. Not only that, if I send them something in the "old version" most of the formatting magically goes away in the conversion.
So that's not much of an excuse.
Unfortunately, they can enforce this. After all, the courts have held shrinkwrap software licenses legal (the license you find in your new software you bought at Fry's that's on the inside of the package and tells you that by opening the package you just agreed to something.)
But, I do agree. Ignore it. Just know a good lawyer who doesn't mind fighting it out with NSI.
The basis for the decision was that the telco couldn't claim a copyright on the data, since it was merely drudge work, and not creative work. Since the telco distributes the telephone book in paper format without a license, the only right they could claim over it was copyright. The Supreme Court (in Feist v. Rural Telephone) said that alphabetizing names was not creative enough to warrant a copyright. There is now a bill in Congress trying to change this by permitting "database rights" for the work of creating the database of information.
As a side note, since the whois information is not freely distributed, NSI claims not copyright but licensing agreement right. So this argument wouldn't work for them.