The purpose of the design patent is to keep competitors from not innovating, and just making duplicates of your product. Once you have a design patent, your competitors have to innovate -- to do something different; to think of something better -- to compete in the market. With the design patent, if they duplicate the appearance of your product, you have grounds to sue.
It's this protection of innovation that drives industries forward, and creates progress.
This is a "design patent," not a "utility patent." "The difference between a design patent and a utility patent is that a design patent protects the ornamental design, configuration, improved decorative appearance, or shape of an invention, [while] a utility patent protects any new invention or functional improvements on existing inventions."
People get design patents so that they may have legal recourse when someone substantially copies the appearance of their product. Apple got a design patent on its particular ornamental design of wedge-shaped laptops, to keep people from making knockoffs off them, not "a broad patent on wedge-shaped laptops."
Unsolicited, unprofessional advice: Roll over. Go back to sleep.
Um, no, the atmosphere is nowhere near saturated with H2O; even in the tropics the relative humidity only approaches 100% near the surface, in the lower troposphere. At altitude there is plenty of opportunity to add H2O; think of the number of aircraft contrails you've seen in your life.
My point is that the same type of argument you make about water vapor was made in 1965 about CO2 -- there is a natural atmospheric regulatory mechanism (in the case of CO2, it was plant photosynthesis), so there's nothing to worry about -- and that that type of argument is specious: Adding all that water to the ecosystem, in a place that has never seen that quantity before, is going to have consequences. One aircraft flight per day? Sure, unmeasurable on a global scale. 100,000 aircraft flights per day? Well. . . .
Back when I was young, and dirt was new, a "clean-burning" engine was "clean" when it produced only water vapor and carbon dioxide (and didn't produce, say, carbon monoxide or carbon particulates, et al.). The reason given for this assertion was that both water vapor and carbon dioxide were "natural" constituents of the atmosphere -- i.e., they were already there, in measurable amounts -- so no harm could be done by their production. People then just could not understand how water vapor and carbon dioxide could cause any harm: After all, animals -- including people -- had been exhaling them both for millennia.
Now, however, it has become clear that one can cause a problem not just by putting a *new* component into the atmosphere (e.g., CFCs), but by putting an existing component into the atmosphere (e.g., CO2) in such large quantities that the natural balance is disturbed.
I think we should keep in mind that anything done can be overdone. Water vapor is a natural part of the atmosphere, too, but if hydrogen-powered aircraft become popular we could see the CO2 problem redux, with water vapor.
Davidson, who was on the same OB-GYN rotation, recalled the teenage Yano's reaction to witnessing his first birth. "He just looked at all of us and said, 'There's got to be a better way.'"
My nominee would have been the user interface on substantially all computer projectors. At a typical meeting I attend -- the type of group doesn't seem to matter -- the first ten minutes is usually spent trying to figure out how to get the projector to work. "Is it on?" "Is it off?" "Is it plugged in?" "Is it warming up?" "Is it cooling down?" "Is the bulb bad?" "Is the cable bad?" "Is it receiving anything from the laptop?" etc. Not to mention the eleventeen connectors and plenty-two buttons, when all anyone ever uses -- at least in my experience -- is a PC laptop cable and the on/off switch.
Whether it's a group of administrative assistants, football coaches, electrical technicians, farmers, or Ph.D. computer scientists, it's always the same. My kingdom for a projector that has a nice little LCD that tells me its present state, and what I need to do to either (a) see my presentation, or (b) turn it off, from there.
. ..some people (mostly women) still change their names. ..
. ..not to mention the difficulties faced by, e.g., Lynn Conway. Being able to generate a new identity for oneself can have advantages.
Lynn was fired, and forced to leave the field of computer science/engineering after telling her bosses at IBM that she was to undergo sex reassignment surgery in 1968. She could re-enter the field only because she could create a new identity (this time as a woman), starting a new career all over again at the bottom of the ladder.
Who is this person, you may ask? As a man, in the 1960s, she invented processor multiple-issue out-of-order dynamic instruction scheduling. After her transition? Oh, nothing . . . only co-authoring (with Carver Mead) Introduction to VLSI Systems which, by promoting the use of standard cells, automated design tools, and silicon foundry services (e.g., MOSIS), revolutionized the field of digital integrated circuits. Virtually every digital chip today is designed in this way; and there are many in the field who cannot conceive of any other way to do design ("Wasn't it always done this way?").
If Lynn could not have generated a new identity and re-entered the field as she did, these critical advances may have been delayed for years.
Today we released the drafts of our full papers on QVL technology due to accidental publicity, because someone put the link to our very old drafts of abstracts on Reddit.
There are lots of other lifestyle-damaging injuries in American football. Ask Jim Otto -- he's had his knees replaced not once, but twice, not to mention dozens of other surgeries, arthritis, infections, an amputation, etc.
If you are an investigative reporter, I suggest that an interesting topic for your research would be to pick a particular team, say, the 1972 Miami Dolphins, and track down all the players. How are they doing -- physically? As well as their peers in other professions? As well as they expected, when they were younger?
Those with a (or even an) historical bent may be interested in the first outdoor optical communication system, the heliograph, which used reflected sunlight for long-distance communication via Morse code. The record distance covered was 183 miles (295 km), between Mount Ellen, Utah, and Uncompahgre Peak, Colorado on 17 September 1894.
To my knowledge, this record for terrestrial (i.e., non-moonbounce) optical communication has never been broken, even by modern laser and LED systems. The closest attempt of which I am aware is 179 miles (288 km), between Mount Horror, Tasmania and Mount Liptrap in South Gippsland, Victoria, Australia on 27 October 2009, using non-line-of-sight techniques (they bounced Luxeon LED light off of high cirrus clouds, and used very-weak-signal digital coding and modulation techniques).
The model is two-dimensional (latitude and height), so it does not model three-dimensional complexities. Still, it's the first work of a fascinating subject -- all the more fascinating because Pluto is moving away from the Sun, and its atmosphere is due to freeze solid in a few years. Adding that complicating feature to the atmospheric models should keep a generation of graduate students employed.
Are we confusing design patents and utility patents? From the link, "A design consists of the visual ornamental characteristics embodied in, or applied to, an article of manufacture. Since a design is manifested in appearance, the subject matter of a design patent application may relate to the configuration or shape of an article, to the surface ornamentation applied to an article, or to the combination of configuration and surface ornamentation."
"In general terms, a “utility patent” protects the way an article is used and works (35 U.S.C. 101), while a “design patent” protects the way an article looks (35 U.S.C. 171)."
The summary means "between" in the physical sense -- when there is a physical space between the coverage area of DTV stations. Read a little about IEEE 802.22. (Maybe the second sentence in Wikipedia will help: "The development of the IEEE 802.22 WRAN standard is aimed at using cognitive radio (CR) techniques to allow sharing of geographically unused spectrum allocated to the Television Broadcast Service. . ..") An 802.22 signal has a bandwidth of 6, 7, or 8 MHz, depending on the bandwidth of the television channels used in the relevant country: It's not a narrow, "guardband" type of signal shoved in between the channels somehow.
Regardless, your question, "Where there isn't enough market to put a TV station, is there enough market for a broadband station?" to me remains the question to be answered about TVWS. Will applications be found for it that are economically viable?
I don't know what it's like in the UK, but in the states, if you're in a rural area (no broadband), you generally also have no DTV reception and have to resort to satellite.
Yes, that's the point -- locations for which the DTV stations are out of range, form a "TV White Space," where the DTV frequencies are not used. The frequencies then can be re-used for other applications, like wireless, wide-area Internet access. It gives the person in rural areas an alternative to satellites.
Slashdot Mirror
This kind of argument always baffles me.
The purpose of the design patent is to keep competitors from not innovating, and just making duplicates of your product. Once you have a design patent, your competitors have to innovate -- to do something different; to think of something better -- to compete in the market. With the design patent, if they duplicate the appearance of your product, you have grounds to sue.
It's this protection of innovation that drives industries forward, and creates progress.
Page 2, "OTHER PUBLICATIONS":
Sony Viao X505, available at least as early as May 8, 2005
Apple cited the Viao in its application. Keep in mind that this is a design patent, not a utility patent.
Don't Panic!
This is a "design patent," not a "utility patent." "The difference between a design patent and a utility patent is that a design patent protects the ornamental design, configuration, improved decorative appearance, or shape of an invention, [while] a utility patent protects any new invention or functional improvements on existing inventions."
People get design patents so that they may have legal recourse when someone substantially copies the appearance of their product. Apple got a design patent on its particular ornamental design of wedge-shaped laptops, to keep people from making knockoffs off them, not "a broad patent on wedge-shaped laptops."
Unsolicited, unprofessional advice: Roll over. Go back to sleep.
Yes.
Um, no, the atmosphere is nowhere near saturated with H2O; even in the tropics the relative humidity only approaches 100% near the surface, in the lower troposphere. At altitude there is plenty of opportunity to add H2O; think of the number of aircraft contrails you've seen in your life.
My point is that the same type of argument you make about water vapor was made in 1965 about CO2 -- there is a natural atmospheric regulatory mechanism (in the case of CO2, it was plant photosynthesis), so there's nothing to worry about -- and that that type of argument is specious: Adding all that water to the ecosystem, in a place that has never seen that quantity before, is going to have consequences. One aircraft flight per day? Sure, unmeasurable on a global scale. 100,000 aircraft flights per day? Well. . . .
Back when I was young, and dirt was new, a "clean-burning" engine was "clean" when it produced only water vapor and carbon dioxide (and didn't produce, say, carbon monoxide or carbon particulates, et al.). The reason given for this assertion was that both water vapor and carbon dioxide were "natural" constituents of the atmosphere -- i.e., they were already there, in measurable amounts -- so no harm could be done by their production. People then just could not understand how water vapor and carbon dioxide could cause any harm: After all, animals -- including people -- had been exhaling them both for millennia.
Now, however, it has become clear that one can cause a problem not just by putting a *new* component into the atmosphere (e.g., CFCs), but by putting an existing component into the atmosphere (e.g., CO2) in such large quantities that the natural balance is disturbed.
I think we should keep in mind that anything done can be overdone. Water vapor is a natural part of the atmosphere, too, but if hydrogen-powered aircraft become popular we could see the CO2 problem redux, with water vapor.
Davidson, who was on the same OB-GYN rotation, recalled the teenage Yano's reaction to witnessing his first birth. "He just looked at all of us and said, 'There's got to be a better way.'"
Volcanoes were invented shortly after World War 2, [. . .] they were then retroactively added to various historical documents around the world. . .
This wouldn't be the first time the past was revised in such a way. I present the non-obligatory non-XKCD link.
I wonder what's more difficult?
Writing is, quite literally, child's play. Plastic clamshell packaging, on the other hand, is child-resistant, if not actually child-proof.
My nominee would have been the user interface on substantially all computer projectors. At a typical meeting I attend -- the type of group doesn't seem to matter -- the first ten minutes is usually spent trying to figure out how to get the projector to work. "Is it on?" "Is it off?" "Is it plugged in?" "Is it warming up?" "Is it cooling down?" "Is the bulb bad?" "Is the cable bad?" "Is it receiving anything from the laptop?" etc. Not to mention the eleventeen connectors and plenty-two buttons, when all anyone ever uses -- at least in my experience -- is a PC laptop cable and the on/off switch.
Whether it's a group of administrative assistants, football coaches, electrical technicians, farmers, or Ph.D. computer scientists, it's always the same. My kingdom for a projector that has a nice little LCD that tells me its present state, and what I need to do to either (a) see my presentation, or (b) turn it off, from there.
If I'm arrested and they make me sing, will I be charged again?
It depends. Are you going to sing a new tune, or just the same old song?
Republicans in North Carolina are floating a bill that. . .
The question is, at which sea level will that bill be floating -- the developers' sea level or the scientists' sea level?
Or will it have been sunk?
That's what I love about slashdot. My vocabulary is constantly being improved.
Yes -- if not by the comment, then by the characterizations of the commenter that come to mind.
. . .some people (mostly women) still change their names. . .
. . .not to mention the difficulties faced by, e.g., Lynn Conway. Being able to generate a new identity for oneself can have advantages.
Lynn was fired, and forced to leave the field of computer science/engineering after telling her bosses at IBM that she was to undergo sex reassignment surgery in 1968. She could re-enter the field only because she could create a new identity (this time as a woman), starting a new career all over again at the bottom of the ladder.
Who is this person, you may ask? As a man, in the 1960s, she invented processor multiple-issue out-of-order dynamic instruction scheduling. After her transition? Oh, nothing . . . only co-authoring (with Carver Mead) Introduction to VLSI Systems which, by promoting the use of standard cells, automated design tools, and silicon foundry services (e.g., MOSIS), revolutionized the field of digital integrated circuits. Virtually every digital chip today is designed in this way; and there are many in the field who cannot conceive of any other way to do design ("Wasn't it always done this way?").
If Lynn could not have generated a new identity and re-entered the field as she did, these critical advances may have been delayed for years.
The word you're looking for is "voilà." (From the French, "see there.")
From TFA:
Today we released the drafts of our full papers on QVL technology due to accidental publicity, because someone put the link to our very old drafts of abstracts on Reddit.
This is a security guy I would trust, yessir.
Well, at least I'm only six months behind the times :-/
But, seriously, it was just as dreadful as I feared it would be.
There are lots of other lifestyle-damaging injuries in American football. Ask Jim Otto -- he's had his knees replaced not once, but twice, not to mention dozens of other surgeries, arthritis, infections, an amputation, etc.
If you are an investigative reporter, I suggest that an interesting topic for your research would be to pick a particular team, say, the 1972 Miami Dolphins, and track down all the players. How are they doing -- physically? As well as their peers in other professions? As well as they expected, when they were younger?
Those with a (or even an) historical bent may be interested in the first outdoor optical communication system, the heliograph, which used reflected sunlight for long-distance communication via Morse code. The record distance covered was 183 miles (295 km), between Mount Ellen, Utah, and Uncompahgre Peak, Colorado on 17 September 1894.
To my knowledge, this record for terrestrial (i.e., non-moonbounce) optical communication has never been broken, even by modern laser and LED systems. The closest attempt of which I am aware is 179 miles (288 km), between Mount Horror, Tasmania and Mount Liptrap in South Gippsland, Victoria, Australia on 27 October 2009, using non-line-of-sight techniques (they bounced Luxeon LED light off of high cirrus clouds, and used very-weak-signal digital coding and modulation techniques).
The model is two-dimensional (latitude and height), so it does not model three-dimensional complexities. Still, it's the first work of a fascinating subject -- all the more fascinating because Pluto is moving away from the Sun, and its atmosphere is due to freeze solid in a few years. Adding that complicating feature to the atmospheric models should keep a generation of graduate students employed.
Are we confusing design patents and utility patents? From the link, "A design consists of the visual ornamental characteristics embodied in, or applied to, an article of manufacture. Since a design is manifested in appearance, the subject matter of a design patent application may relate to the configuration or shape of an article, to the surface ornamentation applied to an article, or to the combination of configuration and surface ornamentation."
"In general terms, a “utility patent” protects the way an article is used and works (35 U.S.C. 101), while a “design patent” protects the way an article looks (35 U.S.C. 171)."
...at the IEEE Get Program web site.
The summary means "between" in the physical sense -- when there is a physical space between the coverage area of DTV stations. Read a little about IEEE 802.22. (Maybe the second sentence in Wikipedia will help: "The development of the IEEE 802.22 WRAN standard is aimed at using cognitive radio (CR) techniques to allow sharing of geographically unused spectrum allocated to the Television Broadcast Service. . . .") An 802.22 signal has a bandwidth of 6, 7, or 8 MHz, depending on the bandwidth of the television channels used in the relevant country: It's not a narrow, "guardband" type of signal shoved in between the channels somehow.
Regardless, your question, "Where there isn't enough market to put a TV station, is there enough market for a broadband station?" to me remains the question to be answered about TVWS. Will applications be found for it that are economically viable?
I don't know what it's like in the UK, but in the states, if you're in a rural area (no broadband), you generally also have no DTV reception and have to resort to satellite.
Yes, that's the point -- locations for which the DTV stations are out of range, form a "TV White Space," where the DTV frequencies are not used. The frequencies then can be re-used for other applications, like wireless, wide-area Internet access. It gives the person in rural areas an alternative to satellites.
I'm working for the Horticulture department, which isn't in any danger of getting cut.
There's a really great joke in there somewhere about trimming hedges, or maybe grafting plants, but I just can't put my finger on it.