First, $500 is a good amount of money to most people and it is a lot more than $200-$300 for a bottom of the line new PC.
$35,000 is a good amount of money to most people for a BMW and it's a lot more than what a Honda Civic costs. Know what? BMW doesn't care.
Second, there is the cost of all the software that will no longer run, and needs to be repurchased.
Out of the box, a Mac comes with Safari, Mail, iTunes (and the rest of the iLife suite), iChat, iWork is a mere $49. Hence, pretty much all the software that most people use a computer for is already included (or pretty cheap). Hence, for most people, the "repurchase" argument is also bogus.
I've never purchased a Mac because they... lack in GAMES
I've never understood this argument. You're willing to put up with the sucky OS that is Windows the rest of the time you're using your computer (i.e., when you're not playing games) just so you can play games? If you're that into games, why don't you just get a dedicated game machine, e.g., PS2, Xbox, etc., for games and a Mac to do the rest of your stuff?
Aside from that, I really don't think Apple cares about the gaming market segment, i.e., teenaged-or-twenty-something males.
I believe there are many instances in which companies have opened their code after being shown the text of the GPL and having it pointed out they're in violation.
Unless you can cite many specific, known cases, I really doubt it. They're not going to just roll over and say, "Well, OK, here you go" and release their proprietary code.
The whole Mauisoft debacle with CherryOS has also proved you wrong. They went under instead of giving out code.
Uh, no, it didn't prove me wrong: you jsut said they didn't give out their code which is my entire point.
So are you saying that the USPTO is doing a satisfactory job?
No. As stated in my sig, unless I explicity say something, don't assume or infer it. I am making no comment whatsoever on whether the USPTO is doing anything effectively or not. All I said was that your argument holds only if it's actually true. I never conceeded it is true. Not conceding a point is not the same as asserting the opposite. It's like "NULL" in SQL.
By what criteria and according to whom?
Mine and me. Don't like it? Tough. Stop arguing with me then.
You can never force a company to release its source code. It's not going to happen. You will, however, force one of two alternate things:
You'll force the company to use some other solution (e.g., FreeBSD).
You'll force the company to make changes to the code just as they're doing now, but keep it quiet and thus violate the license terms. It will be very hard to prove they're in violation.
Try reading ahead a sentence or two to see if a point is eleborated upon before replying. In this case, it was.
Then you presumably conceed that small software houses are not enjoying any particular protection from the large houses under the current regime at the USPTO and that, as a minimum patent office procedures are in need of an overhaul.
Wrong. All I said was:
All that means is that the patent office is doing a bad job, not that there's inherently anything wrong with software patents.
I never agreed that it was actually true, i.e., "All that means is... assuming your assertion were actually true."
if you still think I have a hidden agenda
I never said nor implied you did. That wild assmption is entirely your own doing. If anything, you're guilty of not being able to form sound arguments.
I do hope you have something better waiting in the wings - I was rather hoping you might offer something intelligent.
Get used to disappointment. I don't need to provide an argument for exclusion. The burden rests entirely on you.
Software patents are being granted so broadly and freely that the big houses can easily find a patent that is arguably infringed by the small house.
All that means is that the patent office is doing a bad job, not that there's inherently anything wrong with software patents.
Which presupposes that everything else is indeed eligible for patenting. And yet this too turns out not to be the case. There are no patents on creative works; none on ideas; none on mathematical theorems or laws of physics.
That's all irrelevant. I'm talking about "... anything else that is already patentable."
I've made the case as to why it should not - now it's your turn.
But I believe your case is FUD so, as far as I'm concerned, you have yet to make any compelling argument.
Which rather presupposes that preventing others from writing competing packages is a good thing. I'm sure MS and Amazon, (to name but two) think so, but the benefits are rather less obvious for small software houses, consumers the free market and the world at large.
The benefit for small software houses is if they're the ones to obtain their own patents. This way, MS or Amazon can't come along and just steal their ideas. I would think this reason would be blindingly obvious.
But if you're in the mood for injecting a little clarity into the debate, perhaps you could explain why society should grant this monopoly over software? What is it about software that you feel qualifies it for protection under patent?
That's the wrong question. On the contrary, I see nothing special about software to exlude it from receiving the same patent protections as anything else.
Then with protection already present in copyright, there is no need of protection via patent.
Of course there is. Copyrighting software is useful only if you publish the source code itself. If you keep it proprietary, then nobody can see it to copy it in the first place, so a copyright offers no protection.
What you want to protect is what the software does and for that you need a patent.
I see no reason why any lump of plastic and wires that plays music should be patentable, regardless of whether it's functionality is implemented in hardware or software.
By that reason, nothing at all should be patentable, i.e., patents shouldn't exist for anything. That argument isn't even worthy of discussion.
can't remember ever hearing of a single software patent that I really think would be non-obvious to an experienced software developer.
Where is what written down? The protection of copyright as applied to software or lack of an inalienable right to double a monopoly on ideas?
The supposed fact that you can't copyright something and have a patent on it simultaneously. (Of course if you have a patent on something, you don't need a copyright since a patent affords stronger protection anyway.)
If you're going to use a sig like that you're going to need to express yourself with much greater clarity.
My sig has nothing to do with the clarity (or your alleged lack thereof) of my posts. If something is unclear to you, then you should ask for clarification (which you have) and not merely to assume I meant something.
The problem with good inventions is that, noce you see them, you think: that's so obvious! Well clearly it wasn't otherwise somebody would have thought of it. Example: Post-It notes by 3M. Little pieces of paper had been around for thousands of years. Adhesives have been around equally as long. Yet stick a little adhesive on a little piece of paper and sell them in small stacks and -- viola -- one of the now most ubiquitous inventions in history.
Well, because your software interface is already protected by copright [sic] and you have no inalienable right to any further monopoly on the idea.
Uhm where is that written down? Anyway, a UI is not copyrightable. Apple already tried to copyright a look-and-feel. It didn't work. Whether the software implementing the UI is copyrighted is irrelevant.
... the software... nah. You shouldn't be able to.
Technically, one doesn't patent software. What's really patented is the device the machine becomes while running said software. This casts "comptuers running software" into the age-old "methods and aparatus" framework that the patent office has been using since its inception. (Ask a good patent attorney if you don't believe me.)
Hence, the lump of plastic and metal that is the iPod becomes a portable music player while it is running its software. You seem to have a problem with that. Yet if I invent a portable music player that somehow does it all in hardware, you're presumeably OK with that.
Why should the inventor who chooses to make his life easier by using software to make a portable music player not receive the same protections as the all-hardware inventor? From the end-user's point of view, it's a portable music player: s/he doesn't care how it's implemented.
You've got to remember that there are tens of millions of computer programmers out there.
Why? You mean if there were tens of millions of hardware developers out there then portable music players implemented solely using hardware shouldn't be patentable? The number of people in the field is irrelevant.
By patenting it (and enforcing the patent), you're not creating something new and wonderful for the world to use
Of course you are. When and how you allow the world to use it is entirely seperate from the act of its creation.
Anyway, the above would seem to apply equally to all patents. So then you presumeably don't want any patents on anything whatsoever.
au contraire, you're denying the world something new and wonderful to use, or imposing limits on its use.
That's precisely what a patent is for. If you want to invent something and let nobody use it, that's entirely your right. It's financially stupid of you, but you can do it. The smart thing to do is to license your patent to make money to recoup the time/money you invested on inventing in the first place.
Now if you're some guy who doesn't want to spend the money to pay for the license, well then you're free to invent something new and better, and, if you're so philanthropic, give it away for free (but you'd be a fool to do so).
Some guy and Apple both independently created this "interface." They both did the R&D, they both would have done so regardless of whether patent laws existed, but one, at the end of this, is going to get a monopoly on producing stuff with this technology. How is that fair?
And how is this specific to software? Why couldn't this have been about two guys in different labs who invented some hardware device? The fact that it's software is irrelevant. A double-standard should not exist.
As for this case, yes, it's seems unfair (but the unfairness has got nothing to do with the fact that it's software). Perhaps there could be something like a "co-patent" if it can be proven that two seperate, clean-room inventions were done. But that's far to problematic and lawyers would have a field day. Just like it's far simpler to say the legal drinking age is 21, it's far simpler to say he who files first, gets the patent.
Actually, you have a year to file a patent after publishing your idea.
And this has what to do with the scenario I presented? Again, if the first person does not patent their invention, then what the second person does is moot. The second person can not file (or keep) a patent on the idea.
Whether the first person might eventually patent his idea is irrelevant to my point.
... maybe this will expose the stupidity behind the generic techno patent craze that's been going on the past 4-5 years.
So if I develop a hardware stereo (i.e., totally implemented in hardware as opposed to software) with a novel set of knobs and switches, it's OK to patent that, but if I use software to display the interface on a screen instead and use a very novel scroll wheel it's suddenly not OK?
Care to explain that?
By the way, there have been far dumber/worse patent snafus reported here. If they didn't expose said stupidity, what makes you think this rather benign instance will?
t would be nice if two people patenting the same thing at roughly the same time could be used as a test to indicate that neither patent is valid and both are obvious.
Just because 2 people out of 6 billion think of something doesn't make it obvious.
Yet, the person that manages to get to the patent office first gets the patent.
That's not true. If the first person publishes/distributes first without patent, then it becomes prior art for the second patent that is then not granted because of the prior art (or is granted, but then thrown out). Hence, nobody gets a patent.
You realize that the company sending these catalogs has a reasonable expectation that the adressee will actually use their catalog, since they supposedly requested it in the first place.
I receive catalogs I never requested.
(FYI, for those living in the USA, filing a USPS Prohibitory Order usually stops them.)
Even if I did request them, I can thumb through them, perhaps order something, then, instead of simply throwing them the trash, can forward them to a known spammer.
Slashdot Mirror
You can buy a Mac Mini for $499. So... what high cost of entry?
Aside from that, I really don't think Apple cares about the gaming market segment, i.e., teenaged-or-twenty-something males.
Hey, can you provide a link for those glass frames? (A quick Google search revlealed nothing interesting.)
What you want to protect is what the software does and for that you need a patent.
Clear now?
Seems obvious now, though, doesn't it?
Hence, the lump of plastic and metal that is the iPod becomes a portable music player while it is running its software. You seem to have a problem with that. Yet if I invent a portable music player that somehow does it all in hardware, you're presumeably OK with that.
Why should the inventor who chooses to make his life easier by using software to make a portable music player not receive the same protections as the all-hardware inventor? From the end-user's point of view, it's a portable music player: s/he doesn't care how it's implemented.
Why? You mean if there were tens of millions of hardware developers out there then portable music players implemented solely using hardware shouldn't be patentable? The number of people in the field is irrelevant. Of course you are. When and how you allow the world to use it is entirely seperate from the act of its creation. Anyway, the above would seem to apply equally to all patents. So then you presumeably don't want any patents on anything whatsoever. That's precisely what a patent is for. If you want to invent something and let nobody use it, that's entirely your right. It's financially stupid of you, but you can do it. The smart thing to do is to license your patent to make money to recoup the time/money you invested on inventing in the first place.Now if you're some guy who doesn't want to spend the money to pay for the license, well then you're free to invent something new and better, and, if you're so philanthropic, give it away for free (but you'd be a fool to do so).
And how is this specific to software? Why couldn't this have been about two guys in different labs who invented some hardware device? The fact that it's software is irrelevant. A double-standard should not exist.As for this case, yes, it's seems unfair (but the unfairness has got nothing to do with the fact that it's software). Perhaps there could be something like a "co-patent" if it can be proven that two seperate, clean-room inventions were done. But that's far to problematic and lawyers would have a field day. Just like it's far simpler to say the legal drinking age is 21, it's far simpler to say he who files first, gets the patent.
Uhm... OK. My morning tea kicked in and I see your point. Sorry.
Whether the first person might eventually patent his idea is irrelevant to my point.
Care to explain that?
By the way, there have been far dumber/worse patent snafus reported here. If they didn't expose said stupidity, what makes you think this rather benign instance will?