"Because of the manner in which the NSA conducts upstream collection, and the limits of its current technology, the NSA cannot completely eliminate 'about' communications from its collection without also eliminating a significant portion of the 'to/from' communications that it seeks."
It sounds like this board completely fails to understand how oversight of surveillance is supposed to work. To government can *always* defend a dragnet on the grounds that it takes a dragnet to get the information they want. The purpose of oversight is to ensure they *don't* use dragnets, even where it's the only way to get what they want. The prohibition against general warrants is needed precisely because they can be so effective. The role of surveillance oversight is to prevent oppression, not inefficiency.
You can't get a patent on a result if there are obvious ways to achieve that result. If the result is "rank web pages in order of quality", well anyone can think of a dozen obvious ways to do that. For example, you could have people vote on them or track their usage. I don't believe anyone argues that one should be able to patent a result if there's an obvious way to get that result. The scope of a patent's protection can't include anything obvious. When you file for a patent, you have to set out the legal scope of your patent's protection in the claims, and any claims that can be violated by a solution that would be obvious to people skilled in the art to which the patent pertains are invalid.
The main problem is that things that are obvious, like one-click ordering, are getting patent protection.
The development of the mechanism is the invention. But if you're the first person to figure out a non-obvious way to obtain a result that cannot be obtained any obvious way, then you should be (and mostly are) entitled to protection of that result. The scope of the invention for patent purposes is not the common sense notion of "the invention", nor should it be. This is why patents have a section called "claims" that sets our precisely the legal scope of the invention. They can't quite claim results, but they don't have to claim specific mechanisms either. The law is, justifiable, a complex balance.
If patents lasted forever, your hypothetical about ball point pens would be correct. But patents don't last for all that long. So all that would happen is Birome, in exchange for innovating using a small ball bearing to deposit ink, would get a market lead and about 20 years of exclusivity. But, after that, would have to compete on a level playing field.
It's easy to say that 20 years with just one pen manufacturer is too long. But the alternative could be 40 years with none.
We agree that you shouldn't be able to patent something if it's obvious or someone else did it first.
> The specific method you developed. Sure, that might mean an alternative method is trivial to develop and you get nothing - but guess what? All that means is that your "invention" was trivial in the first place.
This argument is invalid. Sure, seeing a particular invention and seeing the result it gets, it may then be obvious how to achieve that same result by alternative methods. But it doesn't follow that the invention itself is trivial. This is precisely why patents can't just cover mechanisms.
If you're the first person to develop a mechanism to get a particular result, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to patent the result (within reason). Otherwise, it would be too easy to get around patents by making trivial changes to the mechanism.
Imagine if you're the first person to think of routing cars around areas of high traffic in real time and develop a method to do so. Why shouldn't you be able to get a patent on the result -- routing cars around areas of high traffic for a reasonable amount of time? And, if not, what "mechanism" should your patent be tied to?
By "atmospheric pressure differential" we mean the difference between atmospheric pressure at the upper part of the siphon and the pressure in the lower part of the siphon, which is not atmospheric pressure.
That's like arguing that men don't cause women to become pregnant because a pregnancy takes nine months no matter how many men a woman has had sex with.
It can't work both ways. The government can't say "sure, you can have limited liability, something only the government can give you and that you pretty much need to run a business, but in exchange, you must give up some of your Constitutional rights". That's basically the definition of an unconstitutional condition.
So if the New York Times publishes an article critical of the government and the government responds by seizing their printing presses, that's Constitutional in your view because the New York Times is a corporation -- nothing more than a piece of paper?
Right, like Papa John's claiming their pizza is "better" when it's basically the same as every other pizza. What a bunch of cheaters and liars they are.
That's certainly one view of how search engines should work, and there are search engines that share this view. But the most popular search engine in the world, Google, does not share this view, and its commercial success suggests that that's not what most people want. Google biases search results based on characteristics of the person searching to try to get them the results they are personally most likely to be interested in. This tends to produce results people consider more relevant, but it does not provide an unbiased view of the Internet.
Of course not. Paying for bandwidth asymmetry is only used where its logic makes sense. The basic underlying assumption is that traffic that begins on one network and terminates on the other benefits both sides equally and thus the costs should be split roughly evenly. Paying for bandwidth asymmetry is an approximation to cover the case where one side pays more than the other, usually because one side has to carry the traffic further than the other. (Generally, you carry inbound traffic further than outbound.) Historically, this is the way it's done.
But when you're talking about Comcast, which has a large number of small endpoints, and Netflix or Crashplan, which have a small number of large endpoints, more of the costs are borne by Comcast regardless of the direction. So settlement-based peering makes sense regardless of traffic ratios.
Settlement-based peering based on traffic ratios makes sense when you're talking about two ISPs with roughly similar business models, types of customers, and service areas. But it's just a simple approximation of the underlying logic -- traffic benefits the sender and receiver about equally, so they should split the costs about equally. When design asymmetries make one party pay more than their fair share, settlement-based peering is the norm.
Comcast is not an end user, they are a peer. When two networks exchange traffic as peers, that means they exchange only traffic that originates on one of their networks and terminates on the other. This is precisely what Comcast and Netflix want to do -- exchange traffic that originates on one network and terminates on the other. That is, by definition, peering.
I'll put this in terms that are as simple as possible, since you clearly don't understand the difference between peering and transit. When you want to reach a network in Sweden, your ISP carries that traffic for you. When your ISP wants to reach a network in Sweden, they can't ask you to carry it. That's why you pay your ISP. It has nothing to do with ratios or directions -- it's because your ISP is providing you with transit and you are not providing your ISP transit.
The presumption behind the scheme is that the traffic benefits both sides equally and thus the costs should be split. If Netflix wants to receive traffic that provides no benefit whatsoever to Comcast customers, they should pay 100% of the costs for that traffic. So that won't actually even the flow at all but only make it more asymmetric.
You don't have a peering arrangement with your ISP, you have a transit arrangement with them. These things are *completely* different. You use your ISP to reach other networks. Netflix doesn't want to use Comcast to reach anyone else.
They're paying twice, but they're paying for two different things. Netflix pays their ISP for the cost of delivering their traffic to Comcast. But they also pay Comcast for half the difference between their ISP's delivery costs and Comcast's delivery cost.
Say I want to send a package to you and we agree to split the cost of delivery. I might pay a courier to take the package to a pickup point and you might pay a courier to take the package from the pickup point to you. But if your courier is more expensive than mine, then I should also pay you half the difference in costs, so that we fairly split the delivery cost. This is the basis of settlement-based peering.
No, you should pay half the cost of the delivery. The sender should pay the other half. This is why the Internet has, for decades, used settlement-based for asymmetric flows. Otherwise, folks like Netflix and Google won't be paying half the costs.
It is fundamental to Netflix's business model that they will have a small number of sources that produce large amounts of traffic to a large number of destinations. It is common sense that this means that Netflix will, in the absence of settlements, pay less than half the costs of the traffic they produce.
Slashdot Mirror
"Because of the manner in which the NSA conducts upstream collection, and the limits of its current technology, the NSA cannot completely eliminate 'about' communications from its collection without also eliminating a significant portion of the 'to/from' communications that it seeks."
It sounds like this board completely fails to understand how oversight of surveillance is supposed to work. To government can *always* defend a dragnet on the grounds that it takes a dragnet to get the information they want. The purpose of oversight is to ensure they *don't* use dragnets, even where it's the only way to get what they want. The prohibition against general warrants is needed precisely because they can be so effective. The role of surveillance oversight is to prevent oppression, not inefficiency.
You can't get a patent on a result if there are obvious ways to achieve that result. If the result is "rank web pages in order of quality", well anyone can think of a dozen obvious ways to do that. For example, you could have people vote on them or track their usage. I don't believe anyone argues that one should be able to patent a result if there's an obvious way to get that result. The scope of a patent's protection can't include anything obvious. When you file for a patent, you have to set out the legal scope of your patent's protection in the claims, and any claims that can be violated by a solution that would be obvious to people skilled in the art to which the patent pertains are invalid.
The main problem is that things that are obvious, like one-click ordering, are getting patent protection.
The development of the mechanism is the invention. But if you're the first person to figure out a non-obvious way to obtain a result that cannot be obtained any obvious way, then you should be (and mostly are) entitled to protection of that result. The scope of the invention for patent purposes is not the common sense notion of "the invention", nor should it be. This is why patents have a section called "claims" that sets our precisely the legal scope of the invention. They can't quite claim results, but they don't have to claim specific mechanisms either. The law is, justifiable, a complex balance.
If patents lasted forever, your hypothetical about ball point pens would be correct. But patents don't last for all that long. So all that would happen is Birome, in exchange for innovating using a small ball bearing to deposit ink, would get a market lead and about 20 years of exclusivity. But, after that, would have to compete on a level playing field.
It's easy to say that 20 years with just one pen manufacturer is too long. But the alternative could be 40 years with none.
Most certainly the goal or result "a way to walk on the moon" isn't supposed to be patentable, which is what this thread is about.
And in this example it wouldn't be, since it's obvious how to do that.
We agree that you shouldn't be able to patent something if it's obvious or someone else did it first.
> The specific method you developed. Sure, that might mean an alternative method is trivial to develop and you get nothing - but guess what? All that means is that your "invention" was trivial in the first place.
This argument is invalid. Sure, seeing a particular invention and seeing the result it gets, it may then be obvious how to achieve that same result by alternative methods. But it doesn't follow that the invention itself is trivial. This is precisely why patents can't just cover mechanisms.
If you're the first person to develop a mechanism to get a particular result, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to patent the result (within reason). Otherwise, it would be too easy to get around patents by making trivial changes to the mechanism.
Imagine if you're the first person to think of routing cars around areas of high traffic in real time and develop a method to do so. Why shouldn't you be able to get a patent on the result -- routing cars around areas of high traffic for a reasonable amount of time? And, if not, what "mechanism" should your patent be tied to?
Are they arguing that they should be prohibited by law from doing this? If not, what's their point? If so, they are incredible douches.
The water pressure in the higher reservoir is a direct result of atmospheric pressure.
That's totally incorrect. There is no "surface" involved. (What surface do you think is involved?)
By "atmospheric pressure differential" we mean the difference between atmospheric pressure at the upper part of the siphon and the pressure in the lower part of the siphon, which is not atmospheric pressure.
That's like arguing that men don't cause women to become pregnant because a pregnancy takes nine months no matter how many men a woman has had sex with.
It can't work both ways. The government can't say "sure, you can have limited liability, something only the government can give you and that you pretty much need to run a business, but in exchange, you must give up some of your Constitutional rights". That's basically the definition of an unconstitutional condition.
So if the New York Times publishes an article critical of the government and the government responds by seizing their printing presses, that's Constitutional in your view because the New York Times is a corporation -- nothing more than a piece of paper?
You mean polar bears don't really drink Coca Cola?
Right, like Papa John's claiming their pizza is "better" when it's basically the same as every other pizza. What a bunch of cheaters and liars they are.
That's certainly one view of how search engines should work, and there are search engines that share this view. But the most popular search engine in the world, Google, does not share this view, and its commercial success suggests that that's not what most people want. Google biases search results based on characteristics of the person searching to try to get them the results they are personally most likely to be interested in. This tends to produce results people consider more relevant, but it does not provide an unbiased view of the Internet.
She can't give the school permission to access Facebook's computers, only Facebook can do that.
Of course not. Paying for bandwidth asymmetry is only used where its logic makes sense. The basic underlying assumption is that traffic that begins on one network and terminates on the other benefits both sides equally and thus the costs should be split roughly evenly. Paying for bandwidth asymmetry is an approximation to cover the case where one side pays more than the other, usually because one side has to carry the traffic further than the other. (Generally, you carry inbound traffic further than outbound.) Historically, this is the way it's done.
But when you're talking about Comcast, which has a large number of small endpoints, and Netflix or Crashplan, which have a small number of large endpoints, more of the costs are borne by Comcast regardless of the direction. So settlement-based peering makes sense regardless of traffic ratios.
Settlement-based peering based on traffic ratios makes sense when you're talking about two ISPs with roughly similar business models, types of customers, and service areas. But it's just a simple approximation of the underlying logic -- traffic benefits the sender and receiver about equally, so they should split the costs about equally. When design asymmetries make one party pay more than their fair share, settlement-based peering is the norm.
Comcast is not an end user, they are a peer. When two networks exchange traffic as peers, that means they exchange only traffic that originates on one of their networks and terminates on the other. This is precisely what Comcast and Netflix want to do -- exchange traffic that originates on one network and terminates on the other. That is, by definition, peering.
I'll put this in terms that are as simple as possible, since you clearly don't understand the difference between peering and transit. When you want to reach a network in Sweden, your ISP carries that traffic for you. When your ISP wants to reach a network in Sweden, they can't ask you to carry it. That's why you pay your ISP. It has nothing to do with ratios or directions -- it's because your ISP is providing you with transit and you are not providing your ISP transit.
The presumption behind the scheme is that the traffic benefits both sides equally and thus the costs should be split. If Netflix wants to receive traffic that provides no benefit whatsoever to Comcast customers, they should pay 100% of the costs for that traffic. So that won't actually even the flow at all but only make it more asymmetric.
You don't have a peering arrangement with your ISP, you have a transit arrangement with them. These things are *completely* different. You use your ISP to reach other networks. Netflix doesn't want to use Comcast to reach anyone else.
I think you don't understand what *peering* is.
They're paying twice, but they're paying for two different things. Netflix pays their ISP for the cost of delivering their traffic to Comcast. But they also pay Comcast for half the difference between their ISP's delivery costs and Comcast's delivery cost.
Say I want to send a package to you and we agree to split the cost of delivery. I might pay a courier to take the package to a pickup point and you might pay a courier to take the package from the pickup point to you. But if your courier is more expensive than mine, then I should also pay you half the difference in costs, so that we fairly split the delivery cost. This is the basis of settlement-based peering.
No, you should pay half the cost of the delivery. The sender should pay the other half. This is why the Internet has, for decades, used settlement-based for asymmetric flows. Otherwise, folks like Netflix and Google won't be paying half the costs.
It is fundamental to Netflix's business model that they will have a small number of sources that produce large amounts of traffic to a large number of destinations. It is common sense that this means that Netflix will, in the absence of settlements, pay less than half the costs of the traffic they produce.