Yea, except the Bush administration only wants damage caps as long as its the consumer suing the corporation (specifically in health care).... they have no problem with frivolous lawsuits so long as its the company trying to screw the consumer.
I hate when ignorance of economics is modded up to +5 insightful.
The savings will be split -- that's right, split -- between additional profit to the company and reduced price to the consumer, according to a function of how competitive the market is (and other factors such as price-elasticity).
you mean kinda the same way that airline tickets drop when fuel prices drop? or the way phone services prices drop when govt. fees are removed? or perhaps you mean the way that cable tv prices dropped when they were deregulated and subject to 'free market' competition?/sarcasm/
No. You explicitly went out and picked examples of non-competitive markets.
Let me give you a different example. You're looking at it. Yes, right now. When the price of a component of your PC drops, you can bet the price of that PC will fall.
The savings from the drop in price of a component will be split between the company and its consumers according to how competitive the market is.
And I'm quoting myself here: Wasn't this what Microsoft was sued for before? Using their Monopoly on OSs to marginalise the web browser industry? Haven't they learned anything?
They're handing out stupid patents because in 1998 the Supreme Court decided that patents on so-called "methods of doing business," long banned, were actually acceptable. So now you can patent any process at all that could possibly fall under that unrestrictive category.
For many years, some courts also ruled that a patent could not be granted on a "method of doing business," such as a sales technique or an accounting method. A recent court decision, however, has opened the door to patents in those areas by ruling that so-called business methods can be patented. Companies that rely on computers for accounting, electronic commerce and communication may be prime beneficiaries of those new types of patents.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has the final word on patents aside from the Supreme Court, ruled in State Street Bank & Trust Co. vs. Signature Financial Group that a computerized accounting system was patentable, even though it concerned a method of doing business and involved mathematical algorithms.
...
The court's ruling provides new opportunities for those who seek patent protection in areas such as accounting, electronic commerce and computer software. Computer programs once considered merely abstract ideas can now be patented as long as they produce a "useful result."... Even Einstein's famous equation, if applied in a useful manner, could form the basis for a patent.
No, I've got a better idea. You should patent the frustration hormones that are released when you experience a frustrating feature.
It's not unrealistic. Medical companies will use this technique nowadays when the patents run out on one of their drugs -- patent the reaction inside the body that the drug produces. It doesn't always work, but it gives them an extra couple years of patent protection while the lawyers fight it out.
So, patent the reaction you get when you are frustrated by that. Then, when anybody else gets frustrated by that, you can sue them. When they get even more frustrated, you can patent that. Step 3 Profit!
Traditionally, patent protection was awarded only to technical inventions, such as light bulbs, shavers, medicines and so on. New financial techniques or ways of selling things were often explicitly excluded in patent laws. As electronic commerce became more popular, new ways of selling things were offering services over the Internet were developed. Since these new business methods involved computers, communication systems and other technical things, many inventors in this field tried to obtain patent protection. The 1998 State Street Bank decision in the USA ruled that patents on business methods were as valid as any other type of patent. The combination of these two of events resulted in an explosive growth of the number of business method patents.
Re:Discovery, not Invention
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Mighty Amazon
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It's a method of doing business. It shouldn't be patentable.
When they start letting you patent methods of doing business, you can patent anything. Anything. You could patent picking your nose. You could patent swinging on a swing set. What if Picasso patented cubism?
It may be a good idea, but it's not something that should be protected by the government against competition.
Re:This is a GOOD patent.
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Mighty Amazon
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· Score: 1
Methods of doing business are explicitly not patentable. Or they're not supposed to be patentable, but the USPTO will let you patent methods of using a swing set since they're so derelict in evaluating patent applications. (That URL isn't a joke, BTW.)
It's an idea, not a technical innovation. It doesn't cost anything to have an idea. And it's impossible to verify that you were the first person to have that idea. Technical innovations do cost money to develop and there really wasn't any unique technical process that had to be invented and invested in in order to implement this particular idea.
I'm not so sure people wouldn't mind joinging several download services... maybe they wouldn't want to join 20-30, *but as long as there's no annual fee*, I don't see anyone balking at going to 3 or 4.
One thing that surprised business people was that people were willing to join and run 2 or 3 different instant messenger clients at the same time... even though you'd expect one to become dominant and push the others out because of the network effects. For whatever reason it didn't bother people.
Or, another analogy: *as long as there's no annual fee* people are perfectly willing to buy something from buy.com one day and amazon.com the next day. How else could something like MySimon exist? It's a pay-per-song service.
[Economics-speak: one firm may acquire dominance characteristics in this market, just like any other e-commerce market, and there are behavioral barriers to perfect competition, true monopoly simply isn't possible. Unless Apple gets exclusive contracts, in which case bollocks to everything I just said.]
The gun-in-each-hand thing is something Bungie did with its earlier shooter, Marathon 2. One of the guns was a shotgun... the readme file had a little joke about how it was "too complicated to detail" how actually you could reload it without using your other hand.
This is actually this first argument towards cutting the dividend tax that actually makes sense that I've ever heard. Where can I find more info on this?
Well, pardon my troll, but it's pretty fucking lame that "Nazi" now means "any authoritarian viewpoint."
Maybe it's true. But PA didn't accuse them of being Nazi-meaning-authoritarian. They specifically accused them of being Hitler-nazis. And calling them authoritarian wouldn't make any sense because their dispute is a civil one, between private entities of the same state system.
one little unique challenge to the internet is that hardwired, involuntary "disgust" cues in body language, facial expression and voice tonality don't come across in purely text-based discussion. In real life in social situations, people are rewarded and punished for their behavior in this way, on an unconscious, perhaps even biological level.
if you ask me, I think the solution is quasi-democratic quality grading systems like slashdot's.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is when people start thinking what makes them feel powerful is also *good*.
This is just an attempt to sell Microsoft a lot of stamps.
Hope that gave someone a laugh somewhere....
sudo ipfw add deny ip from any to host_name
Haven't you ever realized that people will believe you as long as you sound confident?
Yea, except the Bush administration only wants damage caps as long as its the consumer suing the corporation (specifically in health care).... they have no problem with frivolous lawsuits so long as its the company trying to screw the consumer.
The savings will be split -- that's right, split -- between additional profit to the company and reduced price to the consumer, according to a function of how competitive the market is (and other factors such as price-elasticity).
No. You explicitly went out and picked examples of non-competitive markets.
Let me give you a different example. You're looking at it. Yes, right now. When the price of a component of your PC drops, you can bet the price of that PC will fall.
The savings from the drop in price of a component will be split between the company and its consumers according to how competitive the market is.
Yes: donate money to the right politicians.
Haven't you ever realized that dumb 12-14 year old girls run the economy?
More info here:
What could Picasso patent?It's not unrealistic. Medical companies will use this technique nowadays when the patents run out on one of their drugs -- patent the reaction inside the body that the drug produces. It doesn't always work, but it gives them an extra couple years of patent protection while the lawyers fight it out.
So, patent the reaction you get when you are frustrated by that. Then, when anybody else gets frustrated by that, you can sue them. When they get even more frustrated, you can patent that. Step 3 Profit!
Which led to this.
When they start letting you patent methods of doing business, you can patent anything. Anything. You could patent picking your nose. You could patent swinging on a swing set. What if Picasso patented cubism?
It may be a good idea, but it's not something that should be protected by the government against competition.
It's an idea, not a technical innovation. It doesn't cost anything to have an idea. And it's impossible to verify that you were the first person to have that idea. Technical innovations do cost money to develop and there really wasn't any unique technical process that had to be invented and invested in in order to implement this particular idea.
This patent should never be allowed.
http://macosx.forked.net/ has a fair number of ports and some handy porting tips
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unix_open_so urce/
1. The price of a complete album is $0.99/song or $9.99, whichever is cheaper.
2. Once you buy a song you can download it again at no additional cost
Please, get a clue before you post.
One thing that surprised business people was that people were willing to join and run 2 or 3 different instant messenger clients at the same time... even though you'd expect one to become dominant and push the others out because of the network effects. For whatever reason it didn't bother people.
Or, another analogy: *as long as there's no annual fee* people are perfectly willing to buy something from buy.com one day and amazon.com the next day. How else could something like MySimon exist? It's a pay-per-song service.
[Economics-speak: one firm may acquire dominance characteristics in this market, just like any other e-commerce market, and there are behavioral barriers to perfect competition, true monopoly simply isn't possible. Unless Apple gets exclusive contracts, in which case bollocks to everything I just said.]
No, if you buy a song you can download it again without being charged. This is also helpful if your download fails somehow. Only way to do it, really.
The gun-in-each-hand thing is something Bungie did with its earlier shooter, Marathon 2. One of the guns was a shotgun... the readme file had a little joke about how it was "too complicated to detail" how actually you could reload it without using your other hand.
I'll put in for that. I was going to suggest as much.
HInt: picking biased examples won't help
Maybe it's true. But PA didn't accuse them of being Nazi-meaning-authoritarian. They specifically accused them of being Hitler-nazis. And calling them authoritarian wouldn't make any sense because their dispute is a civil one, between private entities of the same state system.
if you ask me, I think the solution is quasi-democratic quality grading systems like slashdot's.