Probable cause in shoplifting cases is generally accepted to consist of 6 things, including seeing someone conceal an item. Not showing your receipt is probably not sufficient probable cause.
See http://www.expertlaw.com/library/security/shoplifting.html/This link
A provisional application is a temporary application that lets you preserve the filing date, so the 2005 date is the correct priority date for the patent. The non-provisional application won't contain any new matter from the provisional. The patent application you found is most likely just the published non-provisional application that resulted in the patent.
Basically, the 2005 date is the correct one when determining prior art.
If you're planning on breaking the law, even if a police officer knows about it, you can't be held for anything unless you commit an act in furtherance of the crime. If you just sit around planning in your head and somehow a police officer finds out, there's no crime committed. If you go out and buy a gun and start stalking your victim that's one thing, but a police officer can't just stop you from say leaving your house because he knows you're planning on committing a crime. Unless you do something (and not something completely trivial) towards committing a crime, you can do all the planning you want.
And as the poster above me pointed out, the police have no affirmative duty to help you unless you're somehow in their care (say you're in custody for something already).
While I still think this is a bad idea, the bill is directed towards child pornography, not obscenity in general. Also, according to the bill there would be a duty to report if the administrator obtained actual knowledge that child pornography was posted online. I didn't read the bill over in great detail but I didn't see anything about an affirmative duty to monitor, just report when something is brought to your attention.
Still it sets a bad precedent and I'm disappointed in McCain who I've always supported.
Not having read the patent, I can't comment on this particular one, but one thing/.'ers love to do is point out how obvious patents are based on their titles. Being a lawyer and working with patents all day let me just state that the title of a patent often doesn't spell out what the inventive step is. It's just a general topic and area, and in a crowded area sometimes the titles are pretty generic. Usually you have to really get into the patent to find out what the innovation is (if it's there). So before you declare a patent obvious take a look at it, not just it's title.
As a recently graduated law student I'd imagine the numbers of students cheating to be pretty low. Mostly because most of the courses you take are tested on a single final exam that poses a number of hypothetical questions in a limited amount of time. Many of the exams at my school were also open book, and it wasn't so much what your paper said exactly but the though process that was graded.
The classes that I took involving papers at the end of the semester require basically a citation per sentence, for every statement you made you needed to have support for it. Professors expect it as that is normal in legal writing so you couldn't just write something down without support. While some people could have been making up the support, I somehow doubt it was rampant.
There might be a lawsuit but I have to say that as a lawyer I don't think it would get anywhere IF the facility was clearly marked. If you're on call then it's your responsibility to be available and if you KNOW that the place you're at can't get reception that's your fault not the facility's.
And having a doctor in the family, being on-call doesn't mean that the world revolves around your availability it's the other way around. You'd have to adapt not society.
The problem is that Congress took away funding from the PTO, and isn't likely to give it back, in fact they take away money that the PTO makes on filing fees.
The average patent examiner spends the same amount of time looking over a patent as a patent litigator will spend in one week prepping for trial. The amount of money that would have to be put into the system would be... well it just wouldn't happen. There are other alternatives that have been proposed but just adding money/people probably isn't the answer.
Company policy can be binding on the company if it is understood to be part of your employment contract. If the company presents you with it at the time of hiring then it can be just as equal a part of your contract as the contract itself. Therefore, their breaking their own rules can be a breach of contract that you can hold them liable for (however in this case it's hard to say he has much in the way of damages but that's another story).
I think this point is that if you come up with a solution that seems obvious in light of a question that no one asked, that should be patentable. If no one thought of it in the first place, then the solution is new.
There's a patent case involving some sort of paper drying machine. The machine had a certain top speed and no one could get it to go any faster or else the paper would jam or something like that. For years people were using this machine in that configuration. Some guy figures out that by using gravity he can increase the speed of the machine. He inclines the feeder a few degrees and patents it. Now if they had sat all the people working on this machine down and said, we need to increase the speed of the machine by using gravity, people would have thought of inclining the feeder. But no one really thought of the problem in those terms (or just wasn't thinking of the problem at all), and what ended up a pretty obvious solution, completely changed how quickly people could get their paper making done.
The USPTO are supposed to make sure that things are "non-obvious" in light of prior art. The prior art is the problem. When Amazon first tried to patent the 1-click shopping method the patent office had an open interference meeting (basically asking anyone interest to show some prior art that would invalidate it) no one could. It doesn't matter if it seems obvious in hindsight, as long as it's not obvious based on prior art, it's ok.
The U.S. didn't give Yahoo! the green light, in August the Appellate Court said that there was no jurisdiction to hear the case, so essentially the U.S. said, maybe it is ok, maybe it's not.
Well in that case it wasn't just a difference in Free Speech thoughts, it was also one of jurisdiction.
Having studied the history of the case, I think there is some element of French anti-US nose-thumbing when the court finds that it has jurisdiction over the US based Yahoo and not the French subsidiary. Especially considering that they refuse to enforce the order knowing it would never be upheld in the US, when they could have easily held against the French subsidiary (which runs Yahoo.fr) and enforced their decision there.
The OP asked what the difference between buying ad space and using the advertiser's name in your advertising, and there is a difference if 5/6 of search users can't distinguish the results. I doubt it is that high for comparative ads.
That said, the Courts tend to think that clearly marked ads are ok in the US (see Geico) but in the end it's a matter of degrees, the Geico case could have easily come out the other way based on precedent.
In the US you can still compare products under the "fair use" doctrine. The problem here is that sometimes it's hard for the end user to distinguish the results, imagine if you typed in "Playboy" and got an unnamed banner ad (actual case), how would you know that that banner ad wasn't "Playboy"'s? So the question gets a little fuzzier when things are clearly marked, but a recent survey http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=437251 found that only 1 in 6 people can distinguish between regular results and the ads. That means people are buying use of your protected trademark and directing users to their own sites.
Actually not always. There's the the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions that states that the government can't condition the receipt of funds on giving up a Constitutional right, including the first.
Now while certain cases seem to point the other way (NEA v. Finley, Russ v. Sullivan etc) there is still the idea in those that either the government is acting as a speaker by using the funds, or the burdens are so unintrusive that they are acceptable.
Maybe you're misreading me, I'm not saying that they can publish whatever they want. I'm saying that the government can't impose arbitrary or viewpoint discriminatory restrictions on speech that they fund, UNLESS the funding is for their own speech.
If the article was obscene (or fighting words, or slander, or any other unprotected category), then that's one thing, but it's something that could be challenged and if was found to not be obscene then wouldn't survive First Amendment analysis (assuming the funding was seen as opening a public forum).
Well it's not as clear cut as that. If the school is funding the facilities the paper uses in order to open a forum for speech, then the school can't restrict speech based on its content. If the school is funding the facilities in order to promote a specific view then it can basically whatever it wants.
It could be argued that the school is opening up a public forum, as the SC found in a case involving UVA banning religious publications. The SC held in relevant part that UVA couldn't institute a content discriminatory ban even though the funds came from the school/government. Just because it's government funded doesn't mean it can be restricted.
This is the second time I've seen this statement on this topic. Since (arguably) the Civil War, when was the last time the right to bear arms has been used to protect the 1st, or any other freedoms? Is the only reason why the government doesn't take more of our rights away due to some people carrying guns?
Of course that's not reason enough to do away with it, but it just seems silly to say that without the 2nd you can't defend the 1st.
Things that have legitimate uses can be made illegal without obtaining a permit to use the devices, if they're deemed to facilitate criminal activity. Possession of lock picking devices can get you in trouble in some places if you don't have permits to use them. Even though lock picking devices have legitimate purposes, for instance when someone gets locked out a locksmith uses them to open the door, their possession is still restricted.
You can't read the First Amendment literally like that, as the poster above me noted you can't yell fire in a theater. You can't disclose state secrets (like troop movements in war time), even if it is news.
Congress can regulate contracts (even though this could be seen as a form of speech).
It is not an absolute prohibition since there are other clauses that also have to be taken into consideration. But you're right, more than political speech is protected.
I would say that it becomes important if you're looking to go into an area outside of CS/Engr in the future and especially if you would consider grad school. MBA/JD programs can care a lot about the prestige of your ugrad degree, I do work for the admissions department at a top law school and having a degree from a big name school can be all that matters when looking at 2 applicants.
I went to ugrad not thinking I was going to change fields, but ended up deciding that the law was for me, so if you're not sure that CS will be for you forever and that you might go to grad school I'd go to the best ugrad I could.
Slashdot Mirror
Probable cause in shoplifting cases is generally accepted to consist of 6 things, including seeing someone conceal an item. Not showing your receipt is probably not sufficient probable cause. See http://www.expertlaw.com/library/security/shoplifting.html/This link
A provisional application is a temporary application that lets you preserve the filing date, so the 2005 date is the correct priority date for the patent. The non-provisional application won't contain any new matter from the provisional. The patent application you found is most likely just the published non-provisional application that resulted in the patent.
Basically, the 2005 date is the correct one when determining prior art.
If you're planning on breaking the law, even if a police officer knows about it, you can't be held for anything unless you commit an act in furtherance of the crime. If you just sit around planning in your head and somehow a police officer finds out, there's no crime committed. If you go out and buy a gun and start stalking your victim that's one thing, but a police officer can't just stop you from say leaving your house because he knows you're planning on committing a crime. Unless you do something (and not something completely trivial) towards committing a crime, you can do all the planning you want.
And as the poster above me pointed out, the police have no affirmative duty to help you unless you're somehow in their care (say you're in custody for something already).
While I still think this is a bad idea, the bill is directed towards child pornography, not obscenity in general. Also, according to the bill there would be a duty to report if the administrator obtained actual knowledge that child pornography was posted online. I didn't read the bill over in great detail but I didn't see anything about an affirmative duty to monitor, just report when something is brought to your attention. Still it sets a bad precedent and I'm disappointed in McCain who I've always supported.
Not having read the patent, I can't comment on this particular one, but one thing /.'ers love to do is point out how obvious patents are based on their titles. Being a lawyer and working with patents all day let me just state that the title of a patent often doesn't spell out what the inventive step is. It's just a general topic and area, and in a crowded area sometimes the titles are pretty generic. Usually you have to really get into the patent to find out what the innovation is (if it's there). So before you declare a patent obvious take a look at it, not just it's title.
As a recently graduated law student I'd imagine the numbers of students cheating to be pretty low. Mostly because most of the courses you take are tested on a single final exam that poses a number of hypothetical questions in a limited amount of time. Many of the exams at my school were also open book, and it wasn't so much what your paper said exactly but the though process that was graded. The classes that I took involving papers at the end of the semester require basically a citation per sentence, for every statement you made you needed to have support for it. Professors expect it as that is normal in legal writing so you couldn't just write something down without support. While some people could have been making up the support, I somehow doubt it was rampant.
There might be a lawsuit but I have to say that as a lawyer I don't think it would get anywhere IF the facility was clearly marked. If you're on call then it's your responsibility to be available and if you KNOW that the place you're at can't get reception that's your fault not the facility's. And having a doctor in the family, being on-call doesn't mean that the world revolves around your availability it's the other way around. You'd have to adapt not society.
The problem is that Congress took away funding from the PTO, and isn't likely to give it back, in fact they take away money that the PTO makes on filing fees. The average patent examiner spends the same amount of time looking over a patent as a patent litigator will spend in one week prepping for trial. The amount of money that would have to be put into the system would be... well it just wouldn't happen. There are other alternatives that have been proposed but just adding money/people probably isn't the answer.
Company policy can be binding on the company if it is understood to be part of your employment contract. If the company presents you with it at the time of hiring then it can be just as equal a part of your contract as the contract itself. Therefore, their breaking their own rules can be a breach of contract that you can hold them liable for (however in this case it's hard to say he has much in the way of damages but that's another story).
You need prior art to show non-obviousness, check out 35 U.S.C. 103(a). IANAL, but will be soon.
I think this point is that if you come up with a solution that seems obvious in light of a question that no one asked, that should be patentable. If no one thought of it in the first place, then the solution is new.
There's a patent case involving some sort of paper drying machine. The machine had a certain top speed and no one could get it to go any faster or else the paper would jam or something like that. For years people were using this machine in that configuration. Some guy figures out that by using gravity he can increase the speed of the machine. He inclines the feeder a few degrees and patents it. Now if they had sat all the people working on this machine down and said, we need to increase the speed of the machine by using gravity, people would have thought of inclining the feeder. But no one really thought of the problem in those terms (or just wasn't thinking of the problem at all), and what ended up a pretty obvious solution, completely changed how quickly people could get their paper making done.
The USPTO are supposed to make sure that things are "non-obvious" in light of prior art. The prior art is the problem. When Amazon first tried to patent the 1-click shopping method the patent office had an open interference meeting (basically asking anyone interest to show some prior art that would invalidate it) no one could. It doesn't matter if it seems obvious in hindsight, as long as it's not obvious based on prior art, it's ok.
The U.S. didn't give Yahoo! the green light, in August the Appellate Court said that there was no jurisdiction to hear the case, so essentially the U.S. said, maybe it is ok, maybe it's not.
Well in that case it wasn't just a difference in Free Speech thoughts, it was also one of jurisdiction.
Having studied the history of the case, I think there is some element of French anti-US nose-thumbing when the court finds that it has jurisdiction over the US based Yahoo and not the French subsidiary. Especially considering that they refuse to enforce the order knowing it would never be upheld in the US, when they could have easily held against the French subsidiary (which runs Yahoo.fr) and enforced their decision there.
The OP asked what the difference between buying ad space and using the advertiser's name in your advertising, and there is a difference if 5/6 of search users can't distinguish the results. I doubt it is that high for comparative ads.
That said, the Courts tend to think that clearly marked ads are ok in the US (see Geico) but in the end it's a matter of degrees, the Geico case could have easily come out the other way based on precedent.
It's not Google's fault, but much of TM law is based on consumer protection. It's there so that the consumer can easily identify the source.
In the US you can still compare products under the "fair use" doctrine. The problem here is that sometimes it's hard for the end user to distinguish the results, imagine if you typed in "Playboy" and got an unnamed banner ad (actual case), how would you know that that banner ad wasn't "Playboy"'s? So the question gets a little fuzzier when things are clearly marked, but a recent survey http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=437251 found that only 1 in 6 people can distinguish between regular results and the ads. That means people are buying use of your protected trademark and directing users to their own sites.
A survey found that only 1 in 6 people could tell the difference between unbiased search results and bought ads.
Trademark law is all about consumer confusion, if the results end up misleading/confusing the customer then there are problems.
I went to a public school in New Jersey, and up until today I thought civics classes were relics from the 60's.
Actually not always. There's the the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions that states that the government can't condition the receipt of funds on giving up a Constitutional right, including the first. Now while certain cases seem to point the other way (NEA v. Finley, Russ v. Sullivan etc) there is still the idea in those that either the government is acting as a speaker by using the funds, or the burdens are so unintrusive that they are acceptable. Maybe you're misreading me, I'm not saying that they can publish whatever they want. I'm saying that the government can't impose arbitrary or viewpoint discriminatory restrictions on speech that they fund, UNLESS the funding is for their own speech. If the article was obscene (or fighting words, or slander, or any other unprotected category), then that's one thing, but it's something that could be challenged and if was found to not be obscene then wouldn't survive First Amendment analysis (assuming the funding was seen as opening a public forum).
Well it's not as clear cut as that. If the school is funding the facilities the paper uses in order to open a forum for speech, then the school can't restrict speech based on its content. If the school is funding the facilities in order to promote a specific view then it can basically whatever it wants. It could be argued that the school is opening up a public forum, as the SC found in a case involving UVA banning religious publications. The SC held in relevant part that UVA couldn't institute a content discriminatory ban even though the funds came from the school/government. Just because it's government funded doesn't mean it can be restricted.
This is the second time I've seen this statement on this topic. Since (arguably) the Civil War, when was the last time the right to bear arms has been used to protect the 1st, or any other freedoms? Is the only reason why the government doesn't take more of our rights away due to some people carrying guns? Of course that's not reason enough to do away with it, but it just seems silly to say that without the 2nd you can't defend the 1st.
Things that have legitimate uses can be made illegal without obtaining a permit to use the devices, if they're deemed to facilitate criminal activity. Possession of lock picking devices can get you in trouble in some places if you don't have permits to use them. Even though lock picking devices have legitimate purposes, for instance when someone gets locked out a locksmith uses them to open the door, their possession is still restricted.
You can't read the First Amendment literally like that, as the poster above me noted you can't yell fire in a theater. You can't disclose state secrets (like troop movements in war time), even if it is news. Congress can regulate contracts (even though this could be seen as a form of speech). It is not an absolute prohibition since there are other clauses that also have to be taken into consideration. But you're right, more than political speech is protected.
I would say that it becomes important if you're looking to go into an area outside of CS/Engr in the future and especially if you would consider grad school. MBA/JD programs can care a lot about the prestige of your ugrad degree, I do work for the admissions department at a top law school and having a degree from a big name school can be all that matters when looking at 2 applicants. I went to ugrad not thinking I was going to change fields, but ended up deciding that the law was for me, so if you're not sure that CS will be for you forever and that you might go to grad school I'd go to the best ugrad I could.