It's not a patent, it's a patent application, which may or may not ever become allowed and issue as a patent. Provided that you submit all the right documents and pay the application fee, anyone can apply for a patent on anything. It's not a patent until an examiner allows the claims, and what is allowed is often only a small part of what was claimed in the original application.
My univerity (University of Texas at Austin) offers Microsoft software for dirt-cheap prices. For example, Windows XP can be had for $5, and Visual Studio 6 for $15 or $20.
So your university has bought into the Microsoft Campus Agreement? They tried to do that here at Iowa State and it has met with widespread opposition. Basically, for $300,000 per year, students can have copies of all MS software for a small "media cost" (usually $5-10). Problem is, people who already own Windows and Office (since they were forced to buy them with their PCs) and Mac and Linux users were stuck with a $25 increase in student computer fees. Also, the university was going to divert money from upkeep on computer labs to help pay for it. And in reality, most savvy students already use StrangeSearch and get their Windows software for, uh, free.
People, I bet all of you have at least one magazine subscription, or at least buy a magazine once a month. Now consider the percentage of space in a magazine is taken up by advertising. More than half? More than 75%? How many pages of ads do you flip through before you get to the first page of content? Yet it still costs $5 for ONE ISSUE of most magazines!
Sure it costs money to print a magazine (and more money, when you consider the paper the ads consume), and it takes servers and bandwidth to run Slashdot.
So why is it so hard to imagine subscribing to something which actually uses your subscription dollars to reduce the advertising? You can give $20 to sites like Salon (to which I subscribe, and receive ad-free), or fork out cash only to get magazines with so little acutal content that you wouldn't consider spending $5 on if they didn't have the ad bulk.
O'Reilly should stick to unix, leave the science for the peer-reviewed journals.
Yeah, where they'll publish a bunch of papers about Excel add-ins (for Windows only). I'm really happy O'Reilly is doing bioinformatics these days. It's exactly the topic that I need to know about as a manager of a lab in need of computing solutions for our data. I'm installing unix bioinformatics programs on our G4 running OS X, and so now it runs EMBOSS and clustalW and phred, and uses its X windowing power to run GCG from a remote Sun server. I convinced my boss to let us buy this book, and now I'm getting to learn about what goes on when I click "assemble."
While we're talking "sue", I suggest this: Apple should sue Universal for crippling their CDs on their machines. If this kind of copy "protection" is employed, it could be very damaging for Apple, especially with the iPod being the hot new thing. Perhaps it would fall under some anti-trust laws?
Whatever the case, Apple has to do something. Not being able to play CDs would be a huge con when considering a new G4 (or G5?)!
I work in genetics, and particularly with the computing aspect of it. My lab has a tight budget, and open source analysis software would be a tremendous help to us.
Of course, we have some OSS tools already, namely EMBOSS and others, but the big hitters in the bio-computing field (VectorNTI, MacVector, DNAstar, etc) run in the $5000-10000 range per license. Right now, they are much more usable than their open sourced cousins. I'd love to see genetics software continue to be developed open source. We could give less taxpayer money to software corporations.
Well, how many of the new iBooks did Apple just sell? I'd say everyone of those buyers passes your test. Add to that people who've bought a G4 in the last year, and you've got a pretty large customer pool right there (iTunes, Firewire, disposable income). I think they'll sell well.
Personally, 1000 songs in a box the size of a deck of cards is mighty attractive to me. I'm seriously considering buying one.
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It's not a patent, it's a patent application, which may or may not ever become allowed and issue as a patent. Provided that you submit all the right documents and pay the application fee, anyone can apply for a patent on anything. It's not a patent until an examiner allows the claims, and what is allowed is often only a small part of what was claimed in the original application.
Furthermore, can't Apple (or anyone, for that matter) request re-examination on the patent-in-suit?
Though I suppose the patent office doesn't work fast enough for re-examination to to be considered within the timeframe of this case?
I've been moving my registrations over to Dreamhost. $9.95 including a one-year extension, and free private WHOIS listing.
Yes! Exactly, great comment.
Exactly. It's NOT their problem, because it's not a problem for them, I'd wager, and therefore fairly easy for them to take such a stance.
My univerity (University of Texas at Austin) offers Microsoft software for dirt-cheap prices. For example, Windows XP can be had for $5, and Visual Studio 6 for $15 or $20.
So your university has bought into the Microsoft Campus Agreement? They tried to do that here at Iowa State and it has met with widespread opposition. Basically, for $300,000 per year, students can have copies of all MS software for a small "media cost" (usually $5-10). Problem is, people who already own Windows and Office (since they were forced to buy them with their PCs) and Mac and Linux users were stuck with a $25 increase in student computer fees. Also, the university was going to divert money from upkeep on computer labs to help pay for it. And in reality, most savvy students already use StrangeSearch and get their Windows software for, uh, free.
People, I bet all of you have at least one magazine subscription, or at least buy a magazine once a month. Now consider the percentage of space in a magazine is taken up by advertising. More than half? More than 75%? How many pages of ads do you flip through before you get to the first page of content? Yet it still costs $5 for ONE ISSUE of most magazines!
Sure it costs money to print a magazine (and more money, when you consider the paper the ads consume), and it takes servers and bandwidth to run Slashdot.
So why is it so hard to imagine subscribing to something which actually uses your subscription dollars to reduce the advertising? You can give $20 to sites like Salon (to which I subscribe, and receive ad-free), or fork out cash only to get magazines with so little acutal content that you wouldn't consider spending $5 on if they didn't have the ad bulk.
O'Reilly should stick to unix, leave the science for the peer-reviewed journals.
Yeah, where they'll publish a bunch of papers about Excel add-ins (for Windows only). I'm really happy O'Reilly is doing bioinformatics these days. It's exactly the topic that I need to know about as a manager of a lab in need of computing solutions for our data. I'm installing unix bioinformatics programs on our G4 running OS X, and so now it runs EMBOSS and clustalW and phred, and uses its X windowing power to run GCG from a remote Sun server. I convinced my boss to let us buy this book, and now I'm getting to learn about what goes on when I click "assemble."
While we're talking "sue", I suggest this: Apple should sue Universal for crippling their CDs on their machines. If this kind of copy "protection" is employed, it could be very damaging for Apple, especially with the iPod being the hot new thing. Perhaps it would fall under some anti-trust laws?
Whatever the case, Apple has to do something. Not being able to play CDs would be a huge con when considering a new G4 (or G5?)!
I work in genetics, and particularly with the computing aspect of it. My lab has a tight budget, and open source analysis software would be a tremendous help to us.
Of course, we have some OSS tools already, namely EMBOSS and others, but the big hitters in the bio-computing field (VectorNTI, MacVector, DNAstar, etc) run in the $5000-10000 range per license. Right now, they are much more usable than their open sourced cousins. I'd love to see genetics software continue to be developed open source. We could give less taxpayer money to software corporations.
*waves hand in the air frantically*
Well, how many of the new iBooks did Apple just sell? I'd say everyone of those buyers passes your test. Add to that people who've bought a G4 in the last year, and you've got a pretty large customer pool right there (iTunes, Firewire, disposable income). I think they'll sell well.
Personally, 1000 songs in a box the size of a deck of cards is mighty attractive to me. I'm seriously considering buying one.