"The U.S. patent law system is among the most lenient in the world with regards to prior disclosure of your invention. It allows you to publish your invention or offer it for sale prior to filing a patent application, provided that you file your patent application within one year of the publication or offer for sale."
While I list them on my resume as part of my accomplishments, I have never offered them, for free, or for a licensing fee, to a prospective employer. In my opinion, their value is in showing your employer that you have skills, not as some 'package deal' where one buys you, and gets the tech for free.
Absolutely agree. Back when I worked in the cards technology department at Citi, Mitchell Habib implemented a similar system when he took the CIO position. I had a new job within 2 weeks. Not because I felt like I was a bottom performer. In fact, I was told that I was a top performer, and they would often bring me in on projects that were lagging, in order to get things done on time. But I absolutely despise these kinds of systems, and I could foresee the huge morale hit that would take place when it was implemented. I wasn't the only top-tier guy that left...a small handful of us who had been around the block a few times saw what lay ahead and went on to greener pastures.
I used to work for CitiBank, and the client-side software used by their customer service reps to service credit card accounts was thick-client VB software (though the other tiers of the arrangement were not). I don't know if it's still VB based, since the company was still kicking around the idea of moving to a new platform when I left them a couple years ago.
The app was comprised of hundreds of screens dealing with everything from lost/stolen cards to rewards redemption to credit line increases, as well as general service questions. 99% of a customer service rep needed to do for a customer could be done with this software, and in an industry where seconds of lost productivity by customer service reps equates to millions of dollars lost, it performed just fine.
I also used to work for the MHA group, which recently merged with AMN Healthcare, making it one of the largest physician & nurse staffing companies in the country. It's entire business software suite, from invoicing to accounting to payroll to staffing was handled by software written in-house in VB.
I once wrote an EBSDIC to ASCII converter in VB to convert Texas Railroad Commission files to a format we could use, because a contract programmer had written one in C++ that didn't work--it translated text fine, but it didn't account for the EBCDIC Packed Numeric format. The version I wrote in VB was faster, and had GUI such as progress bars, etc. Granted, the C++ program could have been optimized and improved, but the point is ultimately that VB can compete on many levels with other programming languages.
Like martial arts, the ultimate value of a programming language must be judged by what a good programmer can do with it. Unfortunately, VB is so simple, it's easy for bad programmers to fake it just enough to get hired.
Just because it has the word "basic" in the name doesn't make VB unsuitable for applications.
And Windows isn't particularly easy to use; rather, everybody has had some exposure to it.
Right...and less people have had exposure to Linux. Therefore, it might make sense if Linux programs were even easier to find and use than the same type of programs in Windows. As it is, however, the odd names make the learning curve much higher than it has to be. And since most people are essentially lazy, they'll keep using what they know and what's easy for them to use.
I know that the first time I messed around with running Linux, my first question was "OK, where are all the apps?" followed quickly by "OK, what the hell do all of these things do?" It seems smart to me to make that first impression much nicer to encourage to explore and try things out, rather than immediately freaking out due to culture shock.
And faster broadband matters. There are three adults in the house, and one kid...at times, all of us are using the internet. For WoW, for downloading, for maintaining my webpage (which involves pushing around megabytes of music files). I do remote software development, which often invovles pushing applications across the net. My wife works from home and often pushes around video files.
When we had 768K cable, there were times when one or more of us would creep along at dialup speeds when we were all hitting the net. Even when we were not congested, "normal" cable speeds were slow for some of the things I did (remotely backing up the web server, pushing across applications).
With 15 megabit FIOS things are nimble again...I'm moving sometime next year, and it's made enough of a difference that moving to a FIOS enabled area is a huge consideration.
Yeah, I don't need it all the time...I don't need all of my computing power all the time either...but during peak times at the house, that fat pipe gets it's workout on a daily basis.
One example: How would you distinguish, in code, when someone purposefully included a player in an AOE attack, and when that "victim" jumped into the AOE range simply to trigger PVP?
There's a reason all role playing games have moderators. Because some rules are hard to encode programmatically, and players are good at pushing at the grey areas. The fact that you THINK all rules would be easy to program shows an arrogance I've come to expect out of programmers that don't take responsibilty for their own limitations.
In the specific case, I suppose rather than spending time on content, Blizzard programmers should spend time writing dictionaries of all disallowed names, so that they can be effectively filtered? This includes all abbreviations and leet-speak permutations. Like I said..asinine.
No... he shouldn't have been able to create the name in the first place if it violated the rules -- if the rules cannot be programmed into the game, then they should not be "enforced" by plebes.
This is the most asinine thing I've read in a long time. There are lots of rules possible that would difficult to enforce programmatically but easy for a real human to enforce. Just because the game allows it, doesn't make it legal. Bottom line is you are shown the ToS several times before you make your character. If you don't choose to read it or abide by it, your bad. Do you think Blizzard has the staff to look at every entry the second (or even week) it's made? No...CmdrTaco just got lucky that no one saw him until today.
Yup..diamonds are indeed a lot cheaper these days, and the smart buyer can even negotiate a bit with some jewlers.
I got my wife a 1.2 carat diamond in a platinum setting. It wasn't flawless, but it was something like a $7000 diamond in 1982 dollars. I got it, and the setting, for under $2000.
"Until the late nineteenth century, diamonds were found only in a few riverbeds in India and in the jungles of Brazil, and the entire world production of gem diamonds amounted to a few pounds a year. In 1870, however, huge diamond mines were discovered near the Orange River, in South Africa, where diamonds were soon being scooped out by the ton. Suddenly, the market was deluged with diamonds. The British financiers who had organized the South African mines quickly realized that their investment was endangered; diamonds had little intrinsic value -- and their price depended almost entirely on their scarcity. The financiers feared that when new mines were developed in South Africa, diamonds would become at best only semiprecious gems."
How many words? Don't ask me...ask a copyright judge. Copyright law interpretation is *highly* subjective. While your message itself would be copyrighted, I doubt very much that you would be able to gain any judicial relief in a court of law if someone made a story about Capt. Spooner.
These are ideas, which are not copyrightable. People so often misunderstand copyrights that it's not even funny any more.
You can copyright text, and you can copyright pictures (among other things such as performance recordings). You cannot copyright 'ideas'. You likewise own the copyrights of anything derived from your work.
So, draw a picture of Captain Spooner, write a story about him, and these things are copyrighted. Then, if someone tries to write a "Captain Spooner's Revenge", feel free to sue them for creating a derivative work.
I worked in IT for 4 years as tech support, and have worked another 9 as a programmer, and I don't put up with those long hours either. It seems to me some of you younger/newer IT folks allow subtle (or not so subtle) work pressures get the better of you. Unless it's a critical emergency, you shouldn't have to spend more than 40 hours a week on the job. If you find yourself working critical emergencies every week that require 10-20 hours a week overtime, then I would submit to you that your boss is a major dumbass--or you are. I'll leave it up to you to figure out which.
I don't think the analysts at Microsoft are stupid. I think that they knew there'd be an uproar about their browser-blocking, and that they'd have to change it, days or hours later.
Each little inconvenience adds up...and we are creatures of convenience. Enough little stumbling blocks get in the way, and eventually, you say "screw it" and install Internet Explorer. How many folks do you think did that very thing when they ran across their little blocking message? And how many folks do you think were pushed that closer to the edge of doing it NEXT TIME Microsoft pulls this stunt with one of their services.
In addition to desktop dominance, this was one of the ways Microsoft won the broswer war VS Netscape. Every time a revision of the OS would come out, Netscape would seem to stop working...eventually, people say "screw it" and use the browser that comes with the thing.
Heck, this was exactly how I weaned my wife off of her Mac;)
I saw the greyscale-only version of this watch at www.dillards.com as early as 9/23/01 (nearly a month ago--which is when I bought a wedding gift from them).
The geist of this is that obvious technologies are patented, but these patents are granted to a class of people, or to a community, or (what the heck) to everyone, thus rendering their legal power useless. You can think of them as Public Domain patents if you like. Well, I Am Not A Lawyer, much less an expert on patents, but I did think this was an angle to the issue that hasn't been addressed, so I though I'd toss it into the collective/. mind for comments or ideas. It does make a good prima facie case, but there are certainly going to be subtleties to patent law or licensing that I cannot see.
Every time I read a patent issue on/., I'm struck by how many people seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what is involved in getting a software patent. Perhaps it's because few of you actually have one, so you're unable to grasp some of the basic concepts.
Hopefully, I'll be able to make a lot of the process clear. You see, I have earned a software patent...two actually (5,727,154 and 5,987,505). While I realize that to many of you, that makes me "The Enemy", hopefully, you'll be able to put aside any initial knee-jerk reactions and listen to what I have to say.
It's not entirely accurate to think that everyone who gets a software patent is somehow wishing to stifle innovation. I'm just a software developer, who had an idea, same as most folks. Mostly, like anyone else, I want honest monetary consideration for my work...which doesn't make me much different than anyone else.
I've seen developers work themselves to the bone, hoping for an IPO payoff. I've seen a lot of start-ups chasing after venture capital. Well, one of the ways to help secure venture capital is to have something truly innovative, which is what a patent is supposed to be. A patent lends instant credibility to the idea you're trying to sell, and makes it easier to convince investors to part with some of their cash. Of course, they get a piece of the pie when they do. However, I'm not here to debate the value of patents. I fully support anyone who wishes to give their ideas away for free to to the community. I'm mostly just want to explain what is involved in getting a patent.
Some people seem to think that the Patent Office gives out patents to software companies like trading cards, and that all it takes is a bit of cash and a lawyer and you magically can create some kind of money-generating patent overnight. This isn't really the case. Most of you seem to be missing the "filing date" part of the published patent. Most patents, software patents included, take about 3 years to get, once filed. One of mine took 4, and we still have one in the works! Patents don't get filed until there's already a good amount of work spent creating the invention, and even more work done preparing for the filing. Then, countless unpaid hours (if you're an original inventor, and not assigning your patent to the company you work for) are spent educating your lawyers and educating the patent office. Of course, it'd be nice to recoup that later with royalties...same as many people work slavishly for start-ups hoping to recoup their efforts later with stock options and IPOs.
Amazon's One-click shopping seems obvious now, with cookies and other technology...but computer technology moves fast. Was it as obvious in September of 1997? Probably not. I had the idea for my patents way back before the internet was really starting to get "big". I remember reading magazine articles at the time about how the whole internet thing "could be" the next greatest thing. Now, just a few years later, some of the scope seems hopelessly out-of-date. Of course, when I was developing my ideas, modem-based bulletin boards were big, and most "internet" connectivity was unix shell accounts, newsgroups, and the like.
Are there abuses? Of course...it's a part of life. Anyone who thinks the world should run perfectly and everyone should give 100% for the good of the community is a bit naive (IMHO). Maybe the world SHOULD work that way, but it doesn't, and never has. But, I see a lot of cries of those "evil greedy corporations abusing the patent system with obvious patents"...and these cries just don't usually jive with the amount of time spent getting a patent. A lot of times, when the patent is filed, the idea truly IS innovative. Perhaps the answer is a shortening of the time during which a patent covers a technology. Judging by the speed at which technology turns over, that wouldn't be a bad thing. But, part of the answer needs to rest with the USPTO..they need better-educated employees, and they need to move patents off of their desks faster (either approving or disapproving them). It seems rediculous to me to have an innovative idea get obsolete by the time the patent number is issued, and it seems equally rediculous to me to think that Amazon will have a lock on "one-click" for the next 17 years or so.
> No, it's like saying Safeway has no incentive to pay millions to invent a new fruit if smith's can just copy it cheaply and quickly. Exactly. In this example, Safeway would spend millions of dollars in R&D, and Smith's could open up competition by copying Safeway's method. Smith's would have unfairly profited from Safeway's investment, while Safeway would most likely lose big money. The only way Safeway could protect their investment dollars (and prevent Smith's from running them out of business) would be to invest more time, effort, and dollars into keeping their fruit process a secret. Businesses recognize this. Without some measure of protection for their development dollars, it would be far more lucrative to steal someone else's work, or keep it trade secret. Sure, there'd still be innovation. Most of it would remain in-house, trade secret stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
False.
http://web.mit.edu/tlo/www/com...
"The U.S. patent law system is among the most lenient in the world with regards to prior disclosure of your invention. It allows you to publish your invention or offer it for sale prior to filing a patent application, provided that you file your patent application within one year of the publication or offer for sale."
I have 3 patents to my name.
While I list them on my resume as part of my accomplishments, I have never offered them, for free, or for a licensing fee, to a prospective employer. In my opinion, their value is in showing your employer that you have skills, not as some 'package deal' where one buys you, and gets the tech for free.
Absolutely agree.
Back when I worked in the cards technology department at Citi, Mitchell Habib implemented a similar system when he took the CIO position. I had a new job within 2 weeks. Not because I felt like I was a bottom performer. In fact, I was told that I was a top performer, and they would often bring me in on projects that were lagging, in order to get things done on time. But I absolutely despise these kinds of systems, and I could foresee the huge morale hit that would take place when it was implemented. I wasn't the only top-tier guy that left...a small handful of us who had been around the block a few times saw what lay ahead and went on to greener pastures.
And if you don't know how things shook out with Mitchell Habib and Citi, take a look here.
http://www.thereblogging.com/ThereBlogging/19D0F00D-C731-4B7E-B1D5-21455389D7EF.html
I used to work for CitiBank, and the client-side software used by their customer service reps to service credit card accounts was thick-client VB software (though the other tiers of the arrangement were not). I don't know if it's still VB based, since the company was still kicking around the idea of moving to a new platform when I left them a couple years ago.
The app was comprised of hundreds of screens dealing with everything from lost/stolen cards to rewards redemption to credit line increases, as well as general service questions. 99% of a customer service rep needed to do for a customer could be done with this software, and in an industry where seconds of lost productivity by customer service reps equates to millions of dollars lost, it performed just fine.
I also used to work for the MHA group, which recently merged with AMN Healthcare, making it one of the largest physician & nurse staffing companies in the country. It's entire business software suite, from invoicing to accounting to payroll to staffing was handled by software written in-house in VB.
I once wrote an EBSDIC to ASCII converter in VB to convert Texas Railroad Commission files to a format we could use, because a contract programmer had written one in C++ that didn't work--it translated text fine, but it didn't account for the EBCDIC Packed Numeric format. The version I wrote in VB was faster, and had GUI such as progress bars, etc. Granted, the C++ program could have been optimized and improved, but the point is ultimately that VB can compete on many levels with other programming languages.
Like martial arts, the ultimate value of a programming language must be judged by what a good programmer can do with it. Unfortunately, VB is so simple, it's easy for bad programmers to fake it just enough to get hired.
Just because it has the word "basic" in the name doesn't make VB unsuitable for applications.
And Windows isn't particularly easy to use; rather, everybody has had some exposure to it.
Right...and less people have had exposure to Linux. Therefore, it might make sense if Linux programs were even easier to find and use than the same type of programs in Windows. As it is, however, the odd names make the learning curve much higher than it has to be. And since most people are essentially lazy, they'll keep using what they know and what's easy for them to use.
I know that the first time I messed around with running Linux, my first question was "OK, where are all the apps?" followed quickly by "OK, what the hell do all of these things do?" It seems smart to me to make that first impression much nicer to encourage to explore and try things out, rather than immediately freaking out due to culture shock.
And faster broadband matters. There are three adults in the house, and one kid...at times, all of us are using the internet. For WoW, for downloading, for maintaining my webpage (which involves pushing around megabytes of music files). I do remote software development, which often invovles pushing applications across the net. My wife works from home and often pushes around video files.
When we had 768K cable, there were times when one or more of us would creep along at dialup speeds when we were all hitting the net. Even when we were not congested, "normal" cable speeds were slow for some of the things I did (remotely backing up the web server, pushing across applications).
With 15 megabit FIOS things are nimble again...I'm moving sometime next year, and it's made enough of a difference that moving to a FIOS enabled area is a huge consideration.
Yeah, I don't need it all the time...I don't need all of my computing power all the time either...but during peak times at the house, that fat pipe gets it's workout on a daily basis.
One example:
How would you distinguish, in code, when someone purposefully included a player in an AOE attack, and when that "victim" jumped into the AOE range simply to trigger PVP?
There's a reason all role playing games have moderators. Because some rules are hard to encode programmatically, and players are good at pushing at the grey areas. The fact that you THINK all rules would be easy to program shows an arrogance I've come to expect out of programmers that don't take responsibilty for their own limitations.
In the specific case, I suppose rather than spending time on content, Blizzard programmers should spend time writing dictionaries of all disallowed names, so that they can be effectively filtered? This includes all abbreviations and leet-speak permutations. Like I said..asinine.
No... he shouldn't have been able to create the name in the first place if it violated the rules -- if the rules cannot be programmed into the game, then they should not be "enforced" by plebes.
This is the most asinine thing I've read in a long time. There are lots of rules possible that would difficult to enforce programmatically but easy for a real human to enforce. Just because the game allows it, doesn't make it legal. Bottom line is you are shown the ToS several times before you make your character. If you don't choose to read it or abide by it, your bad. Do you think Blizzard has the staff to look at every entry the second (or even week) it's made? No...CmdrTaco just got lucky that no one saw him until today.
Yup..diamonds are indeed a lot cheaper these days, and the smart buyer can even negotiate a bit with some jewlers.
I got my wife a 1.2 carat diamond in a platinum setting. It wasn't flawless, but it was something like a $7000 diamond in 1982 dollars. I got it, and the setting, for under $2000.
"Until the late nineteenth century, diamonds were found only in a few riverbeds in India and in the jungles of Brazil, and the entire world production of gem diamonds amounted to a few pounds a year. In 1870, however, huge diamond mines were discovered near the Orange River, in South Africa, where diamonds were soon being scooped out by the ton. Suddenly, the market was deluged with diamonds. The British financiers who had organized the South African mines quickly realized that their investment was endangered; diamonds had little intrinsic value -- and their price depended almost entirely on their scarcity. The financiers feared that when new mines were developed in South Africa, diamonds would become at best only semiprecious gems."
Full article at The Atlantic
Diamonds are no longer rare, and are only worth anything for the same reason cabbage patch dolls once were: artificial scarcity.
from www.m-w.com (Mirriam-Webster):
Inflected Form(s): plural -puses or octopi
It's a shame to see such embarrassing errors when getting access to a dictionary is such a simple matter these days.
How many words? Don't ask me...ask a copyright judge. Copyright law interpretation is *highly* subjective. While your message itself would be copyrighted, I doubt very much that you would be able to gain any judicial relief in a court of law if someone made a story about Capt. Spooner.
semantics, chap...wouldn't hold up in court.
These are ideas, which are not copyrightable.
People so often misunderstand copyrights that it's not even funny any more.
You can copyright text, and you can copyright pictures (among other things such as performance recordings). You cannot copyright 'ideas'. You likewise own the copyrights of anything derived from your work.
So, draw a picture of Captain Spooner, write a story about him, and these things are copyrighted. Then, if someone tries to write a "Captain Spooner's Revenge", feel free to sue them for creating a derivative work.
I worked in IT for 4 years as tech support, and have worked another 9 as a programmer, and I don't put up with those long hours either. It seems to me some of you younger/newer IT folks allow subtle (or not so subtle) work pressures get the better of you. Unless it's a critical emergency, you shouldn't have to spend more than 40 hours a week on the job. If you find yourself working critical emergencies every week that require 10-20 hours a week overtime, then I would submit to you that your boss is a major dumbass--or you are. I'll leave it up to you to figure out which.
I don't think the analysts at Microsoft are stupid. I think that they knew there'd be an uproar about their browser-blocking, and that they'd have to change it, days or hours later.
;)
Each little inconvenience adds up...and we are creatures of convenience. Enough little stumbling blocks get in the way, and eventually, you say "screw it" and install Internet Explorer. How many folks do you think did that very thing when they ran across their little blocking message? And how many folks do you think were pushed that closer to the edge of doing it NEXT TIME Microsoft pulls this stunt with one of their services.
In addition to desktop dominance, this was one of the ways Microsoft won the broswer war VS Netscape. Every time a revision of the OS would come out, Netscape would seem to stop working...eventually, people say "screw it" and use the browser that comes with the thing.
Heck, this was exactly how I weaned my wife off of her Mac
I saw the greyscale-only version of this watch at www.dillards.com as early as 9/23/01 (nearly a month ago--which is when I bought a wedding gift from them).
The geist of this is that obvious technologies are patented, but these patents are granted to a class of people, or to a community, or (what the heck) to everyone, thus rendering their legal power useless. You can think of them as Public Domain patents if you like. Well, I Am Not A Lawyer, much less an expert on patents, but I did think this was an angle to the issue that hasn't been addressed, so I though I'd toss it into the collective /. mind for comments or ideas. It does make a good prima facie case, but there are certainly going to be subtleties to patent law or licensing that I cannot see.
/., I'm struck by how many people seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what is involved in getting a software patent. Perhaps it's because few of you actually have one, so you're unable to grasp some of the basic concepts.
Every time I read a patent issue on
Hopefully, I'll be able to make a lot of the process clear. You see, I have earned a software patent...two actually (5,727,154 and 5,987,505). While I realize that to many of you, that makes me "The Enemy", hopefully, you'll be able to put aside any initial knee-jerk reactions and listen to what I have to say.
It's not entirely accurate to think that everyone who gets a software patent is somehow wishing to stifle innovation. I'm just a software developer, who had an idea, same as most folks. Mostly, like anyone else, I want honest monetary consideration for my work...which doesn't make me much different than anyone else.
I've seen developers work themselves to the bone, hoping for an IPO payoff. I've seen a lot of start-ups chasing after venture capital. Well, one of the ways to help secure venture capital is to have something truly innovative, which is what a patent is supposed to be. A patent lends instant credibility to the idea you're trying to sell, and makes it easier to convince investors to part with some of their cash. Of course, they get a piece of the pie when they do. However, I'm not here to debate the value of patents. I fully support anyone who wishes to give their ideas away for free to to the community. I'm mostly just want to explain what is involved in getting a patent.
Some people seem to think that the Patent Office gives out patents to software companies like trading cards, and that all it takes is a bit of cash and a lawyer and you magically can create some kind of money-generating patent overnight. This isn't really the case. Most of you seem to be missing the "filing date" part of the published patent. Most patents, software patents included, take about 3 years to get, once filed. One of mine took 4, and we still have one in the works! Patents don't get filed until there's already a good amount of work spent creating the invention, and even more work done preparing for the filing. Then, countless unpaid hours (if you're an original inventor, and not assigning your patent to the company you work for) are spent educating your lawyers and educating the patent office. Of course, it'd be nice to recoup that later with royalties...same as many people work slavishly for start-ups hoping to recoup their efforts later with stock options and IPOs.
Amazon's One-click shopping seems obvious now, with cookies and other technology...but computer technology moves fast. Was it as obvious in September of 1997? Probably not. I had the idea for my patents way back before the internet was really starting to get "big". I remember reading magazine articles at the time about how the whole internet thing "could be" the next greatest thing. Now, just a few years later, some of the scope seems hopelessly out-of-date. Of course, when I was developing my ideas, modem-based bulletin boards were big, and most "internet" connectivity was unix shell accounts, newsgroups, and the like.
Are there abuses? Of course...it's a part of life. Anyone who thinks the world should run perfectly and everyone should give 100% for the good of the community is a bit naive (IMHO). Maybe the world SHOULD work that way, but it doesn't, and never has. But, I see a lot of cries of those "evil greedy corporations abusing the patent system with obvious patents"...and these cries just don't usually jive with the amount of time spent getting a patent. A lot of times, when the patent is filed, the idea truly IS innovative. Perhaps the answer is a shortening of the time during which a patent covers a technology. Judging by the speed at which technology turns over, that wouldn't be a bad thing. But, part of the answer needs to rest with the USPTO..they need better-educated employees, and they need to move patents off of their desks faster (either approving or disapproving them). It seems rediculous to me to have an innovative idea get obsolete by the time the patent number is issued, and it seems equally rediculous to me to think that Amazon will have a lock on "one-click" for the next 17 years or so.
> No, it's like saying Safeway has no incentive to pay millions to invent a new fruit if smith's can just copy it cheaply and quickly. Exactly. In this example, Safeway would spend millions of dollars in R&D, and Smith's could open up competition by copying Safeway's method. Smith's would have unfairly profited from Safeway's investment, while Safeway would most likely lose big money. The only way Safeway could protect their investment dollars (and prevent Smith's from running them out of business) would be to invest more time, effort, and dollars into keeping their fruit process a secret. Businesses recognize this. Without some measure of protection for their development dollars, it would be far more lucrative to steal someone else's work, or keep it trade secret. Sure, there'd still be innovation. Most of it would remain in-house, trade secret stuff.