Only the people we intervened against hate our guts. Those in whose favor we intervene tend to like us a bit more. And there are in fact people in China (Falun Gong), and Iran (most young people), and Iraq (the middle class), and elsewhere (Darfur, Albania, Venezuela, Mogadishu, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, eastern Europe, western Europe, etc. etc. etc.), asking or who have asked the US for help.
Letting a friend borrow a tape you made off tv is fair use.
I do not believe that is the case. While it would not be worth it for a copyright holder to sue you, it is technically infringement and is not protected under Fair Use. Even if you tape it, and watch it twice, the second time you watch it is infringement and is outside Fair Use. Archiving is illegal; only time-shifting (i.e., taping it to watch ONCE at a later time) is protected under fair use. So sayeth the Platonic Nine.
It is legal to make a copy for personal private use. As soon as you give/lend that copy to someone else you are technically distributing copyrighted material, which is illegal.
You are correct that distribution is infringement, but please note that even copying for personal private use is not legal copying. The only legal copying is for watching it later, one time--called "time-shifting". You are not legally allowed to tape a show and archive it to watch repeatedly, even if you are alone. There are other instances of copying that are legal, but only those enumerated in the "Fair Use" doctrine of copyright law.
There was a case (Sony v. Universal, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?c ourt=us&vol=464&invol=417) wherein the industry tried to sue VCR makers as contributory infringers because consumers were buying VCRs and using them to tape shows. The industry (i.e., the copyright holders) lost (and VCRs are therefore legal) because the Platonic Nine found that there are substantial non-infringing uses of VCRs, namely, time-shifting--watching the show later.
Archiving shows is technically not within fair use doctrine of copyright law, and is technically not legal. It is a copyright infringement.
Taping radio off the airwaves is likewise infringment of copyright.
When you get a good idea, do you run to a notary public to get it notarized? That's what "first to invent" requires as documentation.
I don't think that is correct. You can verify your invention was invented on a given date in many ways. Any evidence of when you invented would be relevant--lab notebooks (which good scientists keep), witnesses (which is why people get their lab notebooks signed), computer files are all evidence.
Under NO conceivable circumstances within the universe that we currently live could you uninvasively transmit any detailed information, through the skull as the article (and presumably the patent) implies
The patent does not claim that. The patent basically covers using an acoustic energy diffraction pattern to alter neural firing timing. That is all. I agree with you that we don't know nearly enough about how the brain is "coded" (I am not a neural scientist!) to input specific information this way. But if the article lead you to believe that is what Sony patented, the article is wrong.
The main use of their idea is probably to induce a fit of some kind--uncontrolled neuron firing in a given region of the brain. Sign me up! NOT!
Basically, a patent is intended to cover current capability and any future expansion of a given technology. This is why there are so many patents for things that don't exist now, but might in the future if a particular technology is advanced/developed.
Actually, one can only patent an invention that one knows how to make. You can't have an idea, no way to actually make the idea work, and patent the idea. This is because patent laws require "enablement," which means the patent disclosure must be detailed enough to "enable" someone who understands the relevant technology to actually build the invention. This prevents people from doing what you suggest, which is to come up with an idea they can't build and patent the idea. You can only patent something you can actually accomplish yourself.
Basically, a patent is intended to cover current capability and any future expansion of a given technology. This is why there are so many patents for things that don't exist now, but might in the future if a particular technology is advanced/developed. It is interesting to me that the public at large assumes that if a technology is patented that it automatically means it is scientifically proven.
That said, Sony has a broad claim. They don't claim to create any specific imagery or experinece in the brain. All the claim, basically, is bombarding the brain with acoustical energy, creating a diffraction pattern based on "input sensory data", and messing with someone's neural firing timing.
So they might only be able to create white noise right now, or toss someone into an epileptic fit, but their claim is probably broad enough to cover people who eventually do figure out how to make sensory images in the brain.
Patents are legal documents that are intentionally obfuscated... the whole art of drafting a patent is to stay as ambiguous as possible and reveal as little about your "invention" as you can...
I disagree. Isn't one of the requirements of a patent to disclose the invention to the public? I think they even have to disclose "best mode", or the best way to practice the invention. Patents are hard to read, but they can't hide the ball as you suggest. If the Examiner can't figure out what the invention is, he rejects it. If he can figure it out, and if Examiner's are as stupid as most people here on/. say they are, then us genius techies should be able to read and understand too.
Corporations have shit to do with basic research and that, by definition, is where real invention takes place.
I don't want basic research patented! I only want the gizmos and minor improvements patented, so everyone can use and benefit from the basic research. It is a good thing that fundamental discoveries are not patented as often as trivial improvements.
I don't think I would be as worried if they also kept a paper record as well,
Paper can be destroyed too, arguably more easily than an electronic file. There was a big fire at the patent office sometime in the 1800s, and many thousand patents were lost. I am not sure paper offers more security. I would prefer a redundant system, as you seem to, but storage is apparently a big part of the problem. It is not cheap to archive literally millions of documents. But digital storage is rather cheap, by comparison.
Here's a question for the lawyers and not-a-lawyers with more time for legalese for the rest of us - if you're physically resident in one state, but only ever store and write programs in a second, and publish (whatever that means) in a third, which law applies?
Patent law covers making, using, and selling the patented invention. Anywhere any of those acts took place, that law would apply. If you write it in Canada, you "made" it in Canada. Canadian law applies to the act of writing. If you sell it in the US, US law covers the sale (but not the writing, which occurred in Canada).
A more difficult question: What if the act of "using" the patent occurs in two different countries? This was in the news recently. A patented process could rely on two different servers, located in two different countries. Anyone know anything about this?
It is this volume that would make any community effort to annotize patants to be useless except on the most controvercial patents.
That, and the fact that such "translations" into English would be largely worthless, as changing the language would necessarily mean changing the scope of what the language covers. Reading a "plain English" translation of a patent would not tell you claim scope--the only thing that matters on a patent. The scope is determined exactly by the language used, as defined in the body of the patent. Using alternative words would change that scope. One would be ill advised to rely on such a translation.
Yeah, well, when even lawyers have trouble understanding the ins and outs of patent law, maybe it's time to do something serious about it, eh?
I note the previous poster didn't say he was a patent lawyer. Those are an especially weird breed. Generally failed engineers who were argumentative enough and had high enough alcohol tolerance to make it though law school.
I've that investors are as displeased with software patents as smaller companies are.
The whole idea behind granting property rights is to create incentive for investment. If you are talking to investors who hate having property rights, send them my way--I've got a couple of bridges for sale...just the kind of investors I am looking for...MWA HAHAHAHAHA!
BUT, what the original AC poster was saying was that existing US patents would automatically apply and 'override' EU patents, which is totally untrue, they would have to apply for patents like everybody else (and they will)
There is an "absolute novelty" requirement in the EU for patents. If something were already patented in the US, not only would it not "automatically" be valid in Europe, but the US patent itself would prevent filing in the EU, because an EU examiner could point to the US patent to say, "This is already known, therefore it is not new and you can't patent it here." Only inventions that were invented later could be submitted for a patent.
You raise very good points. There is, in fact, no clear line between software patents and non-software patents. If you can write software to do it, you could, presumably, build a hard-wired machine to do it too, which would not exactly be software.
Some of the replies expose the problem which you point out. Some posters say, in effect, "Then just don't allow any algorithms to be patented." But in this context, an algorithm is just anything that has a set of steps. (Pure algorithms are allegedly unpatentable anyway.) Any method claim could be considered an "algorithm." But we certainly don't want to prevent all methods from being patented, half or more of all patents are methods.
"If it can be done on a computer, you can't patent it." The problem with this one is that, as you point out, many inventions include both software and hardware components. You may need both to carry out the patented invention. Again, this could be an overbroad restriction on patentable subject matter.
Many here, perhaps rightly so, gripe about attorneys making a killing off patents. But if you want to see lawyers making money, just draft an unclear law and watch the dollars flow into litigators' pockets as lawyers argue over a law that the legislators should have done a better job of drafting.
That should be easy. Inform the European public that the companies that will end up owning all of these patents and stifling future development will be American. It sounds like a troll, but if you want to mobilise the European public; telling them that the US is coming to patent everything under the sun will probably assist your cause.:)
At least one good thing will come from anti-Americanism, from US corporations' perspective: No EU software patents = less EU investment in software = continued US hegemony...
But maybe the EU knows what they're doing and patents are a good thing, just as Thomas Jefferson did in the original constitution. It's just a sad day for those who don't value intellectual property.
I agree, the rants on this board about bomb tossing are a bit scary, it is a shame that so many people who would probably not have jobs if it weren't for IP are so mindlessly against IP.
It's like the bard Homer once said: "When will people learn? Democracy doesn't work!"
Furthermore, if a corporation kills, it should be jailed for it. When's the last time that happened? Right, it never has.
This makes me laugh. How, exactly, would you jail a corporation? Put all its employees in jail? Or put a copy of its corporate logo in jail?
A corporation is a legal entity, yes, but this is not quite the same as it being an actual person. Corporate status as a legal entity is a good thing, it provides liability protection, which fosters investment, and also allows corporations to sue (and, more importantly, be sued) in court. Why do people think this is the root of all evil? The US is a market leader in the world because we have strong corporations (among other reasons). Corporations provide jobs. They are simply organizations of...humans.
Ouch, what you suggest would not clean up the patent system, unless by "clean up" you mean "eviscerate." Five years is not enough to make a return on your investment in many areas, especially the more expensive research areas like semiconductor processing (you know, the chips allowing us all to post to this forum) and drugs. Your idea would greatly retard innovation in those areas. Might kill of drug companies entirely.
Any communication related patent is written strangely because one person must violate the patent. So when describing a communication system you need to decide if you want to patent the client, or the server, or go the bother of patenting both.
One person (or company) sold the patented service, regardless of whether it occured on their server or not. Selling the patented service is infringement, even if the seller contracts individual parts of the service out.
Then there are also contributory infringement and inducement to infringe. These doctrines can rope in people who are ancillary to the actual infringement.
Uh, no. This isn't about the product, per se, but the service. The infrastructure of the service is located in Canada, which should mean that Canadian patent law governs, not US patent law.
If the service was *sold* in the US, then it doesn't matter where the service is *performed.* If the service infringes a US patent and the service is sold in the US, then US patent law applies. US patent law provides remedy against anyone who makes, uses, or sells a patented idea in the US.
The alternative, as a previous poster argued, is the end of patent law. If I can make a US patented product in Canada and sell it in the US without infringing the US patent, then US patents are basically worthless.
Finally, there is an international patent system, it is called the PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty). It doesn't provide world wide patents, but does provide a forum for obtaining patents in any or all signatory countries.
It might even be conceivable that a US company with a desire to step on someone else's patent could outsource the patent violation to India, and make the violating code the property of an Indian subsidiary.
The US patent would be "prior art" and prevent the Indian patent from issuing. It would also be unethical (not to mention illegal) for someone who knew of this prior art to file for a patent and not disclose it to the Indian government. Assuming Indian patent law is "in synch" with most other nations.
It won't make much of a difference to outsourcing as iirc the patents you have to worry about are the ones in the country you're distributing the product, not the patents in the country you're producing it in.
Patents include rights to making, using, and selling the patented invention. The country in which the invention is made certainly matters in foreign patenting! If I have an invention and file for (and obtain) a patent in India, I will have rights to prevent others from making, using, or selling the invention within India.
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Do you think the Chinese constitution actually uses the word "Frame-up"???
Only the people we intervened against hate our guts. Those in whose favor we intervene tend to like us a bit more. And there are in fact people in China (Falun Gong), and Iran (most young people), and Iraq (the middle class), and elsewhere (Darfur, Albania, Venezuela, Mogadishu, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, eastern Europe, western Europe, etc. etc. etc.), asking or who have asked the US for help.
I do not believe that is the case. While it would not be worth it for a copyright holder to sue you, it is technically infringement and is not protected under Fair Use. Even if you tape it, and watch it twice, the second time you watch it is infringement and is outside Fair Use. Archiving is illegal; only time-shifting (i.e., taping it to watch ONCE at a later time) is protected under fair use. So sayeth the Platonic Nine.
You are correct that distribution is infringement, but please note that even copying for personal private use is not legal copying. The only legal copying is for watching it later, one time--called "time-shifting". You are not legally allowed to tape a show and archive it to watch repeatedly, even if you are alone. There are other instances of copying that are legal, but only those enumerated in the "Fair Use" doctrine of copyright law.
There was a case (Sony v. Universal, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?c ourt=us&vol=464&invol=417) wherein the industry tried to sue VCR makers as contributory infringers because consumers were buying VCRs and using them to tape shows. The industry (i.e., the copyright holders) lost (and VCRs are therefore legal) because the Platonic Nine found that there are substantial non-infringing uses of VCRs, namely, time-shifting--watching the show later.
Archiving shows is technically not within fair use doctrine of copyright law, and is technically not legal. It is a copyright infringement.
Taping radio off the airwaves is likewise infringment of copyright.
I don't think that is correct. You can verify your invention was invented on a given date in many ways. Any evidence of when you invented would be relevant--lab notebooks (which good scientists keep), witnesses (which is why people get their lab notebooks signed), computer files are all evidence.
The patent does not claim that. The patent basically covers using an acoustic energy diffraction pattern to alter neural firing timing. That is all. I agree with you that we don't know nearly enough about how the brain is "coded" (I am not a neural scientist!) to input specific information this way. But if the article lead you to believe that is what Sony patented, the article is wrong.
The main use of their idea is probably to induce a fit of some kind--uncontrolled neuron firing in a given region of the brain. Sign me up! NOT!
Actually, one can only patent an invention that one knows how to make. You can't have an idea, no way to actually make the idea work, and patent the idea. This is because patent laws require "enablement," which means the patent disclosure must be detailed enough to "enable" someone who understands the relevant technology to actually build the invention. This prevents people from doing what you suggest, which is to come up with an idea they can't build and patent the idea. You can only patent something you can actually accomplish yourself.
That said, Sony has a broad claim. They don't claim to create any specific imagery or experinece in the brain. All the claim, basically, is bombarding the brain with acoustical energy, creating a diffraction pattern based on "input sensory data", and messing with someone's neural firing timing.
So they might only be able to create white noise right now, or toss someone into an epileptic fit, but their claim is probably broad enough to cover people who eventually do figure out how to make sensory images in the brain.
I disagree. Isn't one of the requirements of a patent to disclose the invention to the public? I think they even have to disclose "best mode", or the best way to practice the invention. Patents are hard to read, but they can't hide the ball as you suggest. If the Examiner can't figure out what the invention is, he rejects it. If he can figure it out, and if Examiner's are as stupid as most people here on /. say they are, then us genius techies should be able to read and understand too.
Corporations have shit to do with basic research and that, by definition, is where real invention takes place.
I don't want basic research patented! I only want the gizmos and minor improvements patented, so everyone can use and benefit from the basic research. It is a good thing that fundamental discoveries are not patented as often as trivial improvements.
Paper can be destroyed too, arguably more easily than an electronic file. There was a big fire at the patent office sometime in the 1800s, and many thousand patents were lost. I am not sure paper offers more security. I would prefer a redundant system, as you seem to, but storage is apparently a big part of the problem. It is not cheap to archive literally millions of documents. But digital storage is rather cheap, by comparison.
Patent law covers making, using, and selling the patented invention. Anywhere any of those acts took place, that law would apply. If you write it in Canada, you "made" it in Canada. Canadian law applies to the act of writing. If you sell it in the US, US law covers the sale (but not the writing, which occurred in Canada).
A more difficult question: What if the act of "using" the patent occurs in two different countries? This was in the news recently. A patented process could rely on two different servers, located in two different countries. Anyone know anything about this?
That, and the fact that such "translations" into English would be largely worthless, as changing the language would necessarily mean changing the scope of what the language covers. Reading a "plain English" translation of a patent would not tell you claim scope--the only thing that matters on a patent. The scope is determined exactly by the language used, as defined in the body of the patent. Using alternative words would change that scope. One would be ill advised to rely on such a translation.
I note the previous poster didn't say he was a patent lawyer. Those are an especially weird breed. Generally failed engineers who were argumentative enough and had high enough alcohol tolerance to make it though law school.
I've that investors are as displeased with software patents as smaller companies are.
The whole idea behind granting property rights is to create incentive for investment. If you are talking to investors who hate having property rights, send them my way--I've got a couple of bridges for sale...just the kind of investors I am looking for...MWA HAHAHAHAHA!
There is an "absolute novelty" requirement in the EU for patents. If something were already patented in the US, not only would it not "automatically" be valid in Europe, but the US patent itself would prevent filing in the EU, because an EU examiner could point to the US patent to say, "This is already known, therefore it is not new and you can't patent it here." Only inventions that were invented later could be submitted for a patent.
Some of the replies expose the problem which you point out. Some posters say, in effect, "Then just don't allow any algorithms to be patented." But in this context, an algorithm is just anything that has a set of steps. (Pure algorithms are allegedly unpatentable anyway.) Any method claim could be considered an "algorithm." But we certainly don't want to prevent all methods from being patented, half or more of all patents are methods.
"If it can be done on a computer, you can't patent it." The problem with this one is that, as you point out, many inventions include both software and hardware components. You may need both to carry out the patented invention. Again, this could be an overbroad restriction on patentable subject matter.
Many here, perhaps rightly so, gripe about attorneys making a killing off patents. But if you want to see lawyers making money, just draft an unclear law and watch the dollars flow into litigators' pockets as lawyers argue over a law that the legislators should have done a better job of drafting.
At least one good thing will come from anti-Americanism, from US corporations' perspective: No EU software patents = less EU investment in software = continued US hegemony...
Ironic, since the Kzin were mere toys of the puppetmasters...
I agree, the rants on this board about bomb tossing are a bit scary, it is a shame that so many people who would probably not have jobs if it weren't for IP are so mindlessly against IP.
It's like the bard Homer once said: "When will people learn? Democracy doesn't work!"
Oh wait, that was the idiot Homer.
If I knew how to mod you up I would.
This makes me laugh. How, exactly, would you jail a corporation? Put all its employees in jail? Or put a copy of its corporate logo in jail?
A corporation is a legal entity, yes, but this is not quite the same as it being an actual person. Corporate status as a legal entity is a good thing, it provides liability protection, which fosters investment, and also allows corporations to sue (and, more importantly, be sued) in court. Why do people think this is the root of all evil? The US is a market leader in the world because we have strong corporations (among other reasons). Corporations provide jobs. They are simply organizations of...humans.
Ouch, what you suggest would not clean up the patent system, unless by "clean up" you mean "eviscerate." Five years is not enough to make a return on your investment in many areas, especially the more expensive research areas like semiconductor processing (you know, the chips allowing us all to post to this forum) and drugs. Your idea would greatly retard innovation in those areas. Might kill of drug companies entirely.
One person (or company) sold the patented service, regardless of whether it occured on their server or not. Selling the patented service is infringement, even if the seller contracts individual parts of the service out.
Then there are also contributory infringement and inducement to infringe. These doctrines can rope in people who are ancillary to the actual infringement.
If the service was *sold* in the US, then it doesn't matter where the service is *performed.* If the service infringes a US patent and the service is sold in the US, then US patent law applies. US patent law provides remedy against anyone who makes, uses, or sells a patented idea in the US.
The alternative, as a previous poster argued, is the end of patent law. If I can make a US patented product in Canada and sell it in the US without infringing the US patent, then US patents are basically worthless.
Finally, there is an international patent system, it is called the PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty). It doesn't provide world wide patents, but does provide a forum for obtaining patents in any or all signatory countries.
The US patent would be "prior art" and prevent the Indian patent from issuing. It would also be unethical (not to mention illegal) for someone who knew of this prior art to file for a patent and not disclose it to the Indian government. Assuming Indian patent law is "in synch" with most other nations.
Patents include rights to making, using, and selling the patented invention. The country in which the invention is made certainly matters in foreign patenting! If I have an invention and file for (and obtain) a patent in India, I will have rights to prevent others from making, using, or selling the invention within India.