but you can't blame the user if the PC they purchased comes configured with the admin as the main user or if they installed from shrink wrap and it sets up the admin as the default user.
as I would not blame you for getting burned to a cinder because the car you purchased has a tendency to burst into flame when involved in an unexpected collision and you didn't install reinforcement around the fuel tank.
A PhD in physics would help, however, I've watched people with and Bachelors and Masters degree ranging from business to chemistry to mechanical engineering all execute the job of process development.
Of course these same people have been working in the industry for 20+ years and have more than earned a PhD with all the work they've done bringing the industry to where it is today.
I just want to make sure you don't scare anyone away making them think they have to get a PhD in physics to get into the biz.
And you are definitely on target about the diversity. I think you could take the work force from a semiconductor fab and throw them into just about any technical business and they would have the skills within the team to get the job done.
I agree that humans are still needed for many inspections and troubleshooting, however, that's about where it ends.
Manufacturers are able to completely automate the entire wafer handling process. The alignment for handling and processing is many times better than what any human could do.
And there have been standard communication protocols for interconnecting tools and systems for many years now. The two most common protocols are SECS and GEM.
soon after the photo resist is developed it goes through an etch process which is usually a dip in a nice acid bath, or a shower in a nice acid spray, or my favorite, a plasma treatment in a vacuum chamber with RF or microwave and wonderful gases like Sulfur Hexafluoride, Hydrogen Bromide, Chlorine, Carbon Tetra-Fluoride, etc.
But this may not always be the case. It may be headed for an implant step. A nice electron beam zaps the wafer while it is laced with boron, or arsenic, etc.
Smart comment, but of course its already been done.
Perkin Elmer made a big business of selling scan aligners. They use a one to one mask and scan an arc of light across the two for exposure. Or more accurately, the mask and wafer are scanned through the arc of light.
This works but has its own problems. And you may find this surprising but the biggest problem is focus.
The greatest difficulty with a large mask is getting the wafer perfectly flat across the entire surface. You end up with bad focus spots all over the wafer. But this is okay for larger geometries so the scan aligners are still in service in some processes.
Now there are several reasons why a stepper with a small mask works better but your going to be shocked to discover that better focus is one of them.
But it makes sense when you think about it. Since you are exposing a very small area on the wafer you can focus on just that small area and you are likely to avoid focus problems across the exposed area because it is smaller. Each time you step to a new area to expose you refocus thus reducing the problems with high and low areas across the wafer. Since you can getter better focus with a stepper you can expose much smaller lines.
No more stoning the chuck.;) Just ask a Perkin Elmer technician.
In a semiconductor factory yield is a measure of the percentage of good die versus the total number of potential die on a wafer. It is not the measure of the total number of die produced from a wafer and is therefore not directly affected by the size of the die.
You are correct that smaller die sizes produce more die per wafer, however, shrinking the structures in a die's circuit make it more susceptible to failure due to contamination. Therefore you are actually wrong when you state that a smaller die will yield more.
You can think about it this way. If you have two parallel conducting poly lines that are seperated by an insulator that is 1 inch wide and you drop a penny on the insulator it is likely that the insulator will still work because the penny, which is the contaminant, is not large enough to short across the insulator. If you take that insulator and shrink it down to 1/4 of an inch and drop the same contaminating penny on it there is a chance that it will short the two poly conductors across the insulator and destroy your circuit. Take that same circuit and shrink it to 0.01 inch lines and suddenly your process that ran wonderfully is destroying every die on the wafer because the penny is guaranteed to short the circuit every time.
So what you can derive from this is two things. First, the smaller contaminating particles are the less likely they are to destroy a die and may actually be acceptable, the smaller a die gets the more likely it will be destroyed by smaller particles and you plunge into a never ending battle of cleaning up smaller and smaller sized particles.
Speaking from experience I watched a process that ran for 10+ years and worked fine. Once the geometries in the die shrunk to.35 microns the same process was destroying die because the tiny particles it introduced suddenly were big enough to start creating a significant number of shorts. Needless to say I had my work cut out for me as the equipment required some reengineering along with the process.
Unless you are talking about a clean room from the late 70s or the 80s, its more likely that the noise you are hearing is from the exhaust systems sucking fumes from processing equipment.
The materials used to produce semiconductors are extremely deadly to humans as are many of the process by products.
Pretty much every processing tool has multiple exhaust connections which remove potentially harmful fumes to a scrubbing system on the roof that removes the toxic chemicals which are then treated and disposed.
There are other noises from the tools and support equipment but I assume you thought it was the laminar air flow filtering system because it sounded like high volume air movement. They do move high volumes of air but you don't want the air moving too fast as it will stir up any particles that may be present in the room.
This is a win for consumers, but what would be even better is if Disney investors woke up and recognized how capital was thrown away on this experiment.
Anyone in the movie industry who doesn't recall the dismall failure of the DIVX idiocy should not be in a position to make such a wasteful decision to attempt a similar scam.
You have got to be kidding. I admit my lack of knowledge when someone points out my mistake so I ask an honest question to clarify my misunderstanding and I'm modded a Troll?
Since the question is innocent enough it must be considered a troll because someone doesn't like what the answer will be.
If you read all the way to the end of the article you will find a nice surprise.
The Microsoft product manager for Office 2003 pretty much admits that these MS funded research reports are biased and bogus.
He answered that he had been so confident in the software's benefits that it "was never going to be a question."
I guess there really isn't even a reason to do research since there is "never going to be a question" on what the outcome will be. We can just let the MS product managers point the way.
If that is the case, a shrink wrapped copy of XP will by default have the user as admin, then nothing has changed at Microsoft.
Having security capability doesn't mean squat if you bypass it by default. Sounds like usual inept Microsoft to me.
And claiming users will end up bewildered is a false assumption. There are ways around this such as installing apps in user space. This works for linux and it works for OS X. Windows simply suffers from poor design by Microsoft.
I haven't used Windows since NT4, so I stand corrected.
However, tell me this. When someone purchases a box from Dell, or picks up a shrink wrapped XP to install, do they end up with the same secure system as the one you would have put together or do they end up with an admin user?
Actually there are ways to discover stolen code by looking at compiled binaries. Granted it is difficult to discover but it does happen. If you google around you'll find a few cases some of which are currently in progress.
Besides, the fact that a proprietary vendor can hide their crime does not make it okay for the end user. (I am of the belief that the means does not justify the ends.) And you are merely restating part of my arguement. Since an end user has no way of auditing the source code of a proprietary vendor they may be open to licensing fees or litigation when someone else finally discovers there is stolen code in the product. Open source is a huge benefit to the end user and we should all be demanding it.
I agree with your logic when it comes down to going after the actual criminal who stole the code, however, it is obvious that with the SCO threats and new licensing scam there are others that would think you and I are dolts for not going after the end users as well as the so called criminals.
When this file is run, it copies itself to the WINDOWS SYSTEM directory as taskmon.exe
%SysDir%\taskmon.exe
(Where %Sysdir% is the Windows System directory, for example C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM)
The Windows operating system has a very insecure design which has been apparent for years and yet Microsoft continues to use the same insecure paradigm again and again, version after version.
Seems to me you can't blame Microsoft's stupidity on their dumb users.
My thoughts? It seems you are assuming there is a lesson to be learned here for the open source community, I suggest there will be no lesson to learn until we get some results from this case.
Furthermore, I believe that if there is a lesson to be learned then it is a lesson for all software developement models. Just because you cannot see the source code in a proprietary model does not mean they aren't using stolen code.
In fact, considering that most EULAs provide virtually no protection for the end user in the event that a proprietary vendor is using stolen code I would have to say that all end users should start demanding open source to ensure they are protected.
So, considering the vast volumes of open source code out there and there is only one court case, which appears to many including myself to be a facade, I'd say the mere fact that open source is open provides a significant deterrent to contributors to introduce stolen code, they will be caught.
but their operation is now supposedly profitable because of the cash rolling in from the new source licenses. They don't need this additional capital unless they have plans to invest in expansion of their extortion racket
or could it be that they are not satisfied with the the two licenses they sold to Microsoft and Sun and so some round about means of a pay off was needed so it would not be too obvious they were being paid off.
we may never know, we can only speculate what happens in the shadows.
If dropping support for old products and less lucrative products means a company is failing then I guess Microsoft, and just about every other company out there, is also failing.
I guess we still have support for the stone age, thanks to good ole mother nature.
With obligatory IANAL, the rules don't put any restrictions based on previous court rulings. From what I've read it is a fluid situation.
I agree that the court ruling will make it more difficult, however, the ruling does not negate the procedures that are in place to allow for reexaminations of patents.
I suppose a review of the entire court case would be a good place to start to see how MS fought this patent dispute. Did they try to show prior art or did they use some other arguement that didn't attack the validity of the patent.
I suppose that attacking the software patent could actually be a bad move for MS depending on how the outcome would be interpreted, considering all the software patents that MS holds.
This patent madness needs to stop. This software patent, along with many others including many filed by Microsoft, is invalid because of prior art.
The system is supposed to be setup to protect us from such frivolous patent games, however, it seems that the USPTO has no intention of performing the necessary exhaustive research to determine the validity of every software patent application, or perhaps ANY patent.
Given that the system is not properly used by those who are entrusted, I propose a non-profit organization that uses the existing rules to force this government organization to practice proper policy.
From:
Title 37 - Code of Federal Regulations Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights
Section 1.501
" (a) At any time during the period of enforceability of a patent, any person may cite, to the Office in writing, prior art consisting of patents or printed publications which that person states to be pertinent and applicable to the patent and believes to have a bearing on the patentability of any claim of the patent. "
Section 1.510
" (a) Any person may, at any time during the period of enforceability of a patent, file a request for an ex parte reexamination by the Office of any claim of the patent on the basis of prior art patents or printed publications cited under 1.501. The request must be accompanied by the fee for requesting reexamination set in 1.20(c)(1). "
So based on these rules anyone can fight these lame patents, however, here is the kicker, if you want to file a patent the cost will start at between $385 and $770 (Section 1.16), however, if you want to force a reexamination the costs start at between $2,520 and $8,800 (Section 1.20).
This alone is going to dissuade regular people from using the system to fight these ridiculous patents. So this is why I suggest a non-profit organization that will need some type of support from the community.
Now get this:
Section 1.520
" The Director, at any time during the period of enforceability of a patent, may determine whether or not a substantial new question of patentability is raised by patents or printed publications which have been discovered by the Director or which have been brought to the Director's attention, even though no request for reexamination has been filed in accordance with 1.510 or 1.913. The Director may initiate ex parte reexamination without a request for reexamination pursuant to 1.510 or 1.913. Normally requests from outside the Office that the Director undertake reexamination on his own initiative will not be considered. Any determination to initiate exparte reexamination under this section will become a part of the official file of the patent and will be mailed to the patent owner at the address as provided for in 1.33(c). "
Now I'm thinking that the director may not have any incentive on his own to ensure proper examination is performed in the first place so the director is not likley to do a reexamination either.
So with proper lobbying higher up in the chain of command it may be possible to get someone to light a fire under the director so we could get some action on these lame patents without having to pay the reexamination fees. But we do need someone who's job it is to rattle some cages.
Assuming we cannot find anybody who is interested in taking up the cause to see these gross errors corrected this non-profit organization could begin filing reexamination requests.
Not only will this force the patent office to reconsider some of these patents, but a side affect would be to force the owners of the patents to spend some of their own time and capital to respond to the reexamination requests a defend their lame patents.
If we can get the purveyors of these bogus patents tied up in paying to backup their stupid claims then we could slow down the flow or pull back the tide.
From: Title 37 - Code of Federal Regulations Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights
Section 1.501
" (a) At any time during the period of enforceability of a patent, any person may cite, to the Office in writing, prior art consisting of patents or printed publications which that person states to be pertinent and applicable to the patent and believes to have a bearing on the patentability of any claim of the patent. "
Section 1.510
" (a) Any person may, at any time during the
period of enforceability of a patent, file a request for an ex parte reexamination by the Office of any claim of the patent on the basis of prior art patents or printed publications cited under 1.501. The request must be accompanied by the fee for requesting reexamination set in 1.20(c)(1). "
The kicker is this, if you want to file a patent the cost will start at between $385 and $770 (Section 1.16). However, if you want to force a reexamination the costs start at between $2,520 and $8,800 (Section 1.20).
Its seems they want to make it more expensive to request a reexamination becuase then the real work begins.
Now get this:
Section 1.520
" The Director, at any time during the period of enforceability of a patent, may determine whether or not a substantial new question of patentability is raised by patents or printed publications which have been discovered by the Director or which have been brought to the Director's attention, even though no request for reexamination has been filed in accordance with 1.510 or 1.913. The Director may initiate ex parte reexamination without a request for reexamination pursuant to 1.510 or 1.913. Normally requests from outside the Office that the Director undertake reexamination on his own initiative will not be considered. Any determination to initiate exparte reexamination under this section will become a part of the official file of the patent and will be mailed to the patent owner at the address as provided for in 1.33(c). "
Now I'm thinking that the director may not have any incentive on his own to ensure proper examination is performed in the first place so the director is not likley to do a reexamination either.
However, if someone up the chain of command were convinced by the people to put a fire under the director its possible we could get some action.
And, assuming we can find nobody who is interested in correcting these gross errors, I suggest a non-profit organization is started to hire the appropriate lawyers and begin filing reexamination requests. There will be significant costs involved, but get this, the owner of the patent is required to respond to every request for reexamination and citation of prior art. If we can get the purveyors of these bogus patents tied up in paying to backup their stupid claims then we could slow down the flow or pull back the tide.
Not only is the heading and article deceptive because it appears to highlight a small exodus from linux to Windows, but to me there is a greater deception.
Perhaps the article is meant to stir up some controversy, but to really be informative there should have been more complete information. i.e. What is the current total market share in the server arena for each OS and how has it changed over time.
I seem to recall this information being available on netcraft but I can't to find it anymore.
I suspect that there is a small percentage that is always moving back and forth between OSs, however, I am confident from what we are reading the world over that linux is gaining market share much faster than Windows. Note that I did not say Windows 2003 because I don't find it to be big news if older Windows servers are swapped out for the latest release. If that's the point of the article all I can say is "so?".
Slashdot Mirror
but you can't blame the user if the PC they purchased comes configured with the admin as the main user or if they installed from shrink wrap and it sets up the admin as the default user.
as I would not blame you for getting burned to a cinder because the car you purchased has a tendency to burst into flame when involved in an unexpected collision and you didn't install reinforcement around the fuel tank.
burnin
A PhD in physics would help, however, I've watched people with and Bachelors and Masters degree ranging from business to chemistry to mechanical engineering all execute the job of process development.
Of course these same people have been working in the industry for 20+ years and have more than earned a PhD with all the work they've done bringing the industry to where it is today.
I just want to make sure you don't scare anyone away making them think they have to get a PhD in physics to get into the biz.
And you are definitely on target about the diversity. I think you could take the work force from a semiconductor fab and throw them into just about any technical business and they would have the skills within the team to get the job done.
burnin
I agree that humans are still needed for many inspections and troubleshooting, however, that's about where it ends.
Manufacturers are able to completely automate the entire wafer handling process. The alignment for handling and processing is many times better than what any human could do.
And there have been standard communication protocols for interconnecting tools and systems for many years now. The two most common protocols are SECS and GEM.
burnin
soon after the photo resist is developed it goes through an etch process which is usually a dip in a nice acid bath, or a shower in a nice acid spray, or my favorite, a plasma treatment in a vacuum chamber with RF or microwave and wonderful gases like Sulfur Hexafluoride, Hydrogen Bromide, Chlorine, Carbon Tetra-Fluoride, etc.
But this may not always be the case. It may be headed for an implant step. A nice electron beam zaps the wafer while it is laced with boron, or arsenic, etc.
burnin
Smart comment, but of course its already been done.
;) Just ask a Perkin Elmer technician.
Perkin Elmer made a big business of selling scan aligners. They use a one to one mask and scan an arc of light across the two for exposure. Or more accurately, the mask and wafer are scanned through the arc of light.
This works but has its own problems. And you may find this surprising but the biggest problem is focus.
The greatest difficulty with a large mask is getting the wafer perfectly flat across the entire surface. You end up with bad focus spots all over the wafer. But this is okay for larger geometries so the scan aligners are still in service in some processes.
Now there are several reasons why a stepper with a small mask works better but your going to be shocked to discover that better focus is one of them.
But it makes sense when you think about it. Since you are exposing a very small area on the wafer you can focus on just that small area and you are likely to avoid focus problems across the exposed area because it is smaller. Each time you step to a new area to expose you refocus thus reducing the problems with high and low areas across the wafer. Since you can getter better focus with a stepper you can expose much smaller lines.
No more stoning the chuck.
burnin
Your ideas are good, thinking out of the box, and check this out for thinking out of the box, spherical semiconductor circuits.
Ball Technologies
burnin
In a semiconductor factory yield is a measure of the percentage of good die versus the total number of potential die on a wafer. It is not the measure of the total number of die produced from a wafer and is therefore not directly affected by the size of the die.
.35 microns the same process was destroying die because the tiny particles it introduced suddenly were big enough to start creating a significant number of shorts. Needless to say I had my work cut out for me as the equipment required some reengineering along with the process.
You are correct that smaller die sizes produce more die per wafer, however, shrinking the structures in a die's circuit make it more susceptible to failure due to contamination. Therefore you are actually wrong when you state that a smaller die will yield more.
You can think about it this way. If you have two parallel conducting poly lines that are seperated by an insulator that is 1 inch wide and you drop a penny on the insulator it is likely that the insulator will still work because the penny, which is the contaminant, is not large enough to short across the insulator. If you take that insulator and shrink it down to 1/4 of an inch and drop the same contaminating penny on it there is a chance that it will short the two poly conductors across the insulator and destroy your circuit. Take that same circuit and shrink it to 0.01 inch lines and suddenly your process that ran wonderfully is destroying every die on the wafer because the penny is guaranteed to short the circuit every time.
So what you can derive from this is two things. First, the smaller contaminating particles are the less likely they are to destroy a die and may actually be acceptable, the smaller a die gets the more likely it will be destroyed by smaller particles and you plunge into a never ending battle of cleaning up smaller and smaller sized particles.
Speaking from experience I watched a process that ran for 10+ years and worked fine. Once the geometries in the die shrunk to
burnin
Unless you are talking about a clean room from the late 70s or the 80s, its more likely that the noise you are hearing is from the exhaust systems sucking fumes from processing equipment.
The materials used to produce semiconductors are extremely deadly to humans as are many of the process by products.
Pretty much every processing tool has multiple exhaust connections which remove potentially harmful fumes to a scrubbing system on the roof that removes the toxic chemicals which are then treated and disposed.
There are other noises from the tools and support equipment but I assume you thought it was the laminar air flow filtering system because it sounded like high volume air movement. They do move high volumes of air but you don't want the air moving too fast as it will stir up any particles that may be present in the room.
burnin
oh, I do work in a clean room, have since 1989.
This is a win for consumers, but what would be even better is if Disney investors woke up and recognized how capital was thrown away on this experiment.
Anyone in the movie industry who doesn't recall the dismall failure of the DIVX idiocy should not be in a position to make such a wasteful decision to attempt a similar scam.
Investors should be looking for heads.
burnin
You have got to be kidding. I admit my lack of knowledge when someone points out my mistake so I ask an honest question to clarify my misunderstanding and I'm modded a Troll?
Since the question is innocent enough it must be considered a troll because someone doesn't like what the answer will be.
Whatever,
burnin
The Microsoft product manager for Office 2003 pretty much admits that these MS funded research reports are biased and bogus.
I guess there really isn't even a reason to do research since there is "never going to be a question" on what the outcome will be. We can just let the MS product managers point the way.
burnin
If that is the case, a shrink wrapped copy of XP will by default have the user as admin, then nothing has changed at Microsoft.
Having security capability doesn't mean squat if you bypass it by default. Sounds like usual inept Microsoft to me.
And claiming users will end up bewildered is a false assumption. There are ways around this such as installing apps in user space. This works for linux and it works for OS X. Windows simply suffers from poor design by Microsoft.
burnin
I haven't used Windows since NT4, so I stand corrected.
However, tell me this. When someone purchases a box from Dell, or picks up a shrink wrapped XP to install, do they end up with the same secure system as the one you would have put together or do they end up with an admin user?
burnin
Actually there are ways to discover stolen code by looking at compiled binaries. Granted it is difficult to discover but it does happen. If you google around you'll find a few cases some of which are currently in progress.
Besides, the fact that a proprietary vendor can hide their crime does not make it okay for the end user. (I am of the belief that the means does not justify the ends.) And you are merely restating part of my arguement. Since an end user has no way of auditing the source code of a proprietary vendor they may be open to licensing fees or litigation when someone else finally discovers there is stolen code in the product. Open source is a huge benefit to the end user and we should all be demanding it.
I agree with your logic when it comes down to going after the actual criminal who stole the code, however, it is obvious that with the SCO threats and new licensing scam there are others that would think you and I are dolts for not going after the end users as well as the so called criminals.
burnin
Protection from extortion rackets, i.e. SCO.
The Windows operating system has a very insecure design which has been apparent for years and yet Microsoft continues to use the same insecure paradigm again and again, version after version.
Seems to me you can't blame Microsoft's stupidity on their dumb users.
burnin
My thoughts? It seems you are assuming there is a lesson to be learned here for the open source community, I suggest there will be no lesson to learn until we get some results from this case.
Furthermore, I believe that if there is a lesson to be learned then it is a lesson for all software developement models. Just because you cannot see the source code in a proprietary model does not mean they aren't using stolen code.
In fact, considering that most EULAs provide virtually no protection for the end user in the event that a proprietary vendor is using stolen code I would have to say that all end users should start demanding open source to ensure they are protected.
So, considering the vast volumes of open source code out there and there is only one court case, which appears to many including myself to be a facade, I'd say the mere fact that open source is open provides a significant deterrent to contributors to introduce stolen code, they will be caught.
burnin
but their operation is now supposedly profitable because of the cash rolling in from the new source licenses. They don't need this additional capital unless they have plans to invest in expansion of their extortion racket
or could it be that they are not satisfied with the the two licenses they sold to Microsoft and Sun and so some round about means of a pay off was needed so it would not be too obvious they were being paid off.
we may never know, we can only speculate what happens in the shadows.
burnin
That would be "Say 'ello to my little friend..." or "Shoot dat piece o'chit!..." and "How jou like that, eh?"
If dropping support for old products and less lucrative products means a company is failing then I guess Microsoft, and just about every other company out there, is also failing.
I guess we still have support for the stone age, thanks to good ole mother nature.
burnin
With obligatory IANAL, the rules don't put any restrictions based on previous court rulings. From what I've read it is a fluid situation.
I agree that the court ruling will make it more difficult, however, the ruling does not negate the procedures that are in place to allow for reexaminations of patents.
I suppose a review of the entire court case would be a good place to start to see how MS fought this patent dispute. Did they try to show prior art or did they use some other arguement that didn't attack the validity of the patent.
I suppose that attacking the software patent could actually be a bad move for MS depending on how the outcome would be interpreted, considering all the software patents that MS holds.
burnin
This patent madness needs to stop. This software patent, along with many others including many filed by Microsoft, is invalid because of prior art.
The system is supposed to be setup to protect us from such frivolous patent games, however, it seems that the USPTO has no intention of performing the necessary exhaustive research to determine the validity of every software patent application, or perhaps ANY patent.
Given that the system is not properly used by those who are entrusted, I propose a non-profit organization that uses the existing rules to force this government organization to practice proper policy.
From:
Title 37 - Code of Federal Regulations Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights
Section 1.501
" (a) At any time during the period of enforceability of a patent, any person may cite, to the Office in writing, prior art consisting of patents or printed publications which that person states to be pertinent and applicable to the patent and believes to have a bearing on the patentability of any claim of the patent. "
Section 1.510
" (a) Any person may, at any time during the period of enforceability of a patent, file a request for an ex parte reexamination by the Office of any claim of the patent on the basis of prior art patents or printed publications cited under 1.501. The request must be accompanied by the fee for requesting reexamination set in 1.20(c)(1). "
So based on these rules anyone can fight these lame patents, however, here is the kicker, if you want to file a patent the cost will start at between $385 and $770 (Section 1.16), however, if you want to force a reexamination the costs start at between $2,520 and $8,800 (Section 1.20).
This alone is going to dissuade regular people from using the system to fight these ridiculous patents. So this is why I suggest a non-profit organization that will need some type of support from the community.
Now get this:
Section 1.520
" The Director, at any time during the period of enforceability of a patent, may determine whether or not a substantial new question of patentability is raised by patents or printed publications which have been discovered by the Director or which have been brought to the Director's attention, even though no request for reexamination has been filed in accordance with 1.510 or 1.913. The Director may initiate ex parte reexamination without a request for reexamination pursuant to 1.510 or 1.913. Normally requests from outside the Office that the Director undertake reexamination on his own initiative will not be considered. Any determination to initiate exparte reexamination under this section will become a part of the official file of the patent and will be mailed to the patent owner at the address as provided for in 1.33(c). "
Now I'm thinking that the director may not have any incentive on his own to ensure proper examination is performed in the first place so the director is not likley to do a reexamination either.
So with proper lobbying higher up in the chain of command it may be possible to get someone to light a fire under the director so we could get some action on these lame patents without having to pay the reexamination fees. But we do need someone who's job it is to rattle some cages.
Assuming we cannot find anybody who is interested in taking up the cause to see these gross errors corrected this non-profit organization could begin filing reexamination requests.
Not only will this force the patent office to reconsider some of these patents, but a side affect would be to force the owners of the patents to spend some of their own time and capital to respond to the reexamination requests a defend their lame patents.
If we can get the purveyors of these bogus patents tied up in paying to backup their stupid claims then we could slow down the flow or pull back the tide.
burnin
From:
Title 37 - Code of Federal Regulations Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights
Section 1.501
" (a) At any time during the period of enforceability of a patent, any person may cite, to the Office in writing, prior art consisting of patents or printed publications which that person states to be pertinent and applicable to the patent and believes to have a bearing on the patentability of any claim of the patent. "
Section 1.510
" (a) Any person may, at any time during the period of enforceability of a patent, file a request for an ex parte reexamination by the Office of any claim of the patent on the basis of prior art patents or printed publications cited under 1.501. The request must be accompanied by the fee for requesting reexamination set in 1.20(c)(1). "
The kicker is this, if you want to file a patent the cost will start at between $385 and $770 (Section 1.16). However, if you want to force a reexamination the costs start at between $2,520 and $8,800 (Section 1.20).
Its seems they want to make it more expensive to request a reexamination becuase then the real work begins.
Now get this:
Section 1.520
" The Director, at any time during the period of enforceability of a patent, may determine whether or not a substantial new question of patentability is raised by patents or printed publications which have been discovered by the Director or which have been brought to the Director's attention, even though no request for reexamination has been filed in accordance with 1.510 or 1.913. The Director may initiate ex parte reexamination without a request for reexamination pursuant to 1.510 or 1.913. Normally requests from outside the Office that the Director undertake reexamination on his own initiative will not be considered. Any determination to initiate exparte reexamination under this section will become a part of the official file of the patent and will be mailed to the patent owner at the address as provided for in 1.33(c). "
Now I'm thinking that the director may not have any incentive on his own to ensure proper examination is performed in the first place so the director is not likley to do a reexamination either.
However, if someone up the chain of command were convinced by the people to put a fire under the director its possible we could get some action.
And, assuming we can find nobody who is interested in correcting these gross errors, I suggest a non-profit organization is started to hire the appropriate lawyers and begin filing reexamination requests. There will be significant costs involved, but get this, the owner of the patent is required to respond to every request for reexamination and citation of prior art. If we can get the purveyors of these bogus patents tied up in paying to backup their stupid claims then we could slow down the flow or pull back the tide.
I can only hope.
burnin
That would be down in Lindon, not Salt Lake City. Bear in mind that Salt Lake City has it's share of OSS/FS supporters:
www.sllug.org
burnin
Not only is the heading and article deceptive because it appears to highlight a small exodus from linux to Windows, but to me there is a greater deception.
Perhaps the article is meant to stir up some controversy, but to really be informative there should have been more complete information. i.e. What is the current total market share in the server arena for each OS and how has it changed over time.
I seem to recall this information being available on netcraft but I can't to find it anymore.
I suspect that there is a small percentage that is always moving back and forth between OSs, however, I am confident from what we are reading the world over that linux is gaining market share much faster than Windows. Note that I did not say Windows 2003 because I don't find it to be big news if older Windows servers are swapped out for the latest release. If that's the point of the article all I can say is "so?".
burnin