This is not a novel invention.
This is trivially obvious from hitting the problem 'I am deploying lots of drones'.
All of the above solutions are obvious and un-novel and in no way not obvious from prior art.
Prove it, then. If it's not novel, you should be able to find someone doing it before November 2014. Otherwise, by definition, it's novel.
And if it's not obvious, then you should be able to find all of the elements of the claim in one or more pieces of prior art from before November 2014. I'll help. Here's Claim 1:
1. A method of operating an uncrewed autonomous vehicle (“UAV”) comprising:
establishing, at the UAV via a communication interface, communication with a mesh network comprising a plurality of other UAVs;
generating first location data of the UAV using a first navigation system onboard the UAV, wherein the first location data indicates a first location of the UAV;
receiving external data from one or more of the plurality of other UAVs in the mesh network;
generating second location data using a second navigation system, wherein the second location data indicates a second location of the UAV;
determining that the first location data differs from the second location data by a threshold value;
determining operation of the UAV is compromised based at least in part on the external data;
transitioning to a fail-safe mode wherein the UAV is configured to disregard one or more of commands, the first location data, or the second location data; and
transmitting alert data indicative of: the compromise of the UAV; and last available location data of the UAV.
It's very easy to say that something is trivial in hindsight, but that's like saying that someone "looks" guilty. It's a lot more difficult to prove it with evidence, and that's what's required, legally.
I don't expect the Consumer Reports' crew to be experts on this sort of thing. I expect they will run things more along the lines of how a typical non-technical Mac user will run things, because CR's team probably isn't that much more knowledgeable about Macs than the typical end user... That's kind of the point of Consumer Reports... to test things the way typical real-world people do.
Allegedly, what CR did was to set up a script that would constantly reload a half dozen pages in Safari, and they got the wildly varying battery life. When they re-ran the test in Chrome, it was solid and in line with Apple's marketing info. Was Safari not using the cache properly? Was Safari properly refreshing the cache and Chrome was relying on it? Something else? Either way, it's clear it's not a hardware problem, which makes CR's refusal to rate the Macbook questionable. Their justification is that they rate hardware with the default software on it, but that implies that if you give them a stripped down version, you may get significantly better ratings than one with free software, and that raises credibility issues overall.
This is not an EmDrive. It's a drive of the same type as an EmDrive, resonant cavity thrusters, but EmDrive is a trade mark for one particular variant by Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd, which this isn't.
First, it's a drive, yes? And it's using electromagnetism, yes? Therefore, it's at best merely descriptive, and therefore not a protectable trademark.
Second, the ElectroMotive Designs company already has a registration on the EMDRIVE mark for converting cars and trucks to hybrids. So, Satellite Propulsion Research can go suck on the smaller end of a resonant cavity.
Yes, you read it the same way I did. The appeals court judge in this case said he failed to see the distinction and disagreed with the earlier supreme court ruling. So he wants the higher courts to reconsider, apparently.
The quote from the Supreme Court is in a single-judge dissent, and the eight-judge majority agreed with the appeals court judge in this case (albeit, in a footnote, responding to Stevens' dissent, because it wasn't actually a real issue in that case).
Subby's summary is not just misleading, it's blatantly wrong.
But awarding all the profit is insane. If that's the standard you're going to use, then Apple should just hand over all their profit from their iPhones 1 through 4 to Samsung, because they infringed one of Samsung's FRAND patents.
FRAND patents are utility patents, not design patents, and the "entire profits" rule only applies to design patents. Plus, FRAND patents are explicitly limited to a fair and reasonable royalty, or the patent can be effectively invalidated (not really invalid, but they can't enforce it, once found in breach of their FRAND requirements).
Apple escaped punishment for that only because Obama used executive privilege to nullify that ITC decision.
The ITC couldn't levy monetary damages, anyway. The only thing they can do is stop imports. And if they did stop imports under the ITC decision, then Samsung would have been in breach of their FRAND requirements, since by entering the patents into a FRAND agreement, they explicitly said, "we will never try to get an injunction to stop imports or sales, pinkie swears, honest." So, if the ITC decision was upheld, then those patents would have been unenforceable.
Have a look at Etymotic plugs. I've used ER20s (looks like they are called 'Ety Plugs', now) at clubs and events for years. They do what they say - drop the volume without distortion. I can have conversations while wearing them that would have been a muted mess with the more usual foam earplugs. They aren't bad for long stays in server rooms, either.
If you attend loud events with any regularity, and want to _keep_ being able to enjoy those events for years to come, protect your hearing.
Caveat - no association with the company, just a satisfied customer.
I keep a pair of them in a small metal tube on my keychain, just in case a bar is too loud.:D
Also get some ear plugs. A lot of music and dance venues play much louder than 85db for prolonged periods, I presume to get the bass up to the level where you can feel it. With a good pair of ear plugs, you can still feel the bass and hear the music, with much less stress on your hearing. Why would you want to sacrifice future concerts for one concert right now?
"A lot"? Try "all". I'd say, on average, you're hitting 105 dB SPL at a minimum in most venues and closer to 115 to 120 near the speakers.
Another reason to wear ear plugs - your brain does some acoustic processing to deal with high volume levels (there's some multi-band audio compression via threshold shifts... it's really quite fascinating) and that's fatiguing. That's why if you go to a loud concert or club, even if you're not drinking and even if it's relatively early, you're wiped out when it's over, more so than you should be for that time of night. Wear earplugs, and you'll be a lot less tired.
Not quite - the "total profit" part in the statute only applies to design patents.
And yet, just like the camera and folder organization patent and the cell phone video conferencing patent from Samsung, all the patents in question from Apple in this last particular case brought up by the Supreme Court were ALL utility patents, NOT design patents.
The '647 patent covers "quick links," which do things like automatically detect data in messages that can be clicked. The '959 patent covers universal search, such as what Apple uses in Siri. Patent No. '414 involves background syncing, such as syncing calendars, email, and contacts. The '721 patent covers slide-to-unlock, the motion used to unlock the home screen. And '172 covers predictive text.
Nope, you're wrong. From the opinion:
Apple secured many design patents in connection with the release. Among those patents were the D618,677
patent, covering a black rectangular front face with rounded corners, the D593,087 patent, covering a rectangular
front face with rounded corners and a raised rim,and the D604,305 patent, covering a grid of 16 colorful icons on a black screen.
In two separate lawsuits,[48][49] Apple accused Samsung of infringing on three utility patents (United States Patent Nos. 7,469,381, 7,844,915, and 7,864,163) and four design patents (United States Patent Nos. D504,889, D593,087, D618,677, and D604,305). Samsung accused Apple of infringing on United States Patent Nos. 7,675,941, 7,447,516, 7,698,711, 7,577,460, and 7,456,893.
It does involve constitutionality. The constitutionality of any law passed by Congress must be be weighed by the possibilities of that law. (McCollough vs Maryland and Brown v Maryland). If the monetary award is a penalty against Samsung, it can be argued as excessive in the light of only a component of their phone was infringing (and both parties agreed that the infringing design could be be considered a component). Article 8 of the Constitution prohibits excessive fines.
The monetary award is not a penalty, but compensatory damages, which are not fines. That's been ruled on repeatedly. And no part of this decision involved the 8th Amendment. Congress also has almost limitless rulemaking authority for patents and copyrights under Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, primarily subject only to the first amendment (where most conflicts would arise).
Which is why they're throwing the decision back to lower courts, who will start proposing specific tests in different rulings and cases. Those cases will be appealed, different districts will develop different standards and those will need be be reconciled, and eventually over many different cases a robust test will emerge.
Asking the SCOTUS to develop a test right off the bat is a recipe for a bad precedent.
Although generally true, patent appeals all go to the federal circuit, not the other circuits, so it's not like SCOTUS will get a split to reconcile. As with the Bilski and Akami decisions, the Fed Circ. will propose a test; SCOTUS will say "eh, not that one"; the Fed will propose another; and rinse, and repeat.
. I said they're disregarding the explicit language of a long-standing statute and previous Congress-slap of the court, and replacing it with "you want a test? Go make one up."
Absolutely untrue
Then please quote from the opinion where the test is laid out. I'll wait.
Flip over a carpet sometime. You'll see a standard mat that the fibers are woven into that is the same, regardless of design. That mat is a substantial part of the carpet, literally holding it together.
Nobody's arguing any different. If there's a practical way to separate the components of a carpet into articles of manufacture (and they must be items you'd make separately) in such a way that only one part violates the patent, then only that one part violates the patent, and the damages can be assessed. That's entirely within the keeping of the 1952 act, which explicitly codifies the "Article of manufacture" language.
Mats are made in advance of weaving the carpet fibers. Only the carpet fibers infringe the patent, not the mat. This new analysis that the damages would not be measured by the total profits per yard of carpet, however, is directly at odds with Congress' explicit 1887 refutation of that earlier case.
but it's not necessary to redefine article of manufacture.
Sotomayor isn't redefining anything.
Yes, I know that. You were the one who said that "it would certainly mean a complete shake up of patents if patents ceased to apply to components", and I said that it wasn't necessary to redefine the term. It's a bit odd that you're now explaining to me that no one's redefining the term, considering that's what I just said. Makes me wonder if you're actually reading my entire post, or just angrily pounding out a response based on the first couple words in each sentence.
Nope, you're just wrong about what they did. I explained here, but to summarize:
Your claim: they went back to 1885 and changed the profitability criteria to "incremental value added by patent."
I never said that, and responded to your other post explaining that I never said that. If you want to insist I did say it, please copy-paste from my post.
What they actually did: they said that the profits due to the infringed upon party need to be those applying to the component that was sold, rather than the whole of the smartphone.
What I said in my original post: "the Court steps in and says "oh, by total profit, it's just the total profit for any component using the design, not the entire article."
I think you've misread what I was saying. Your attempt to correct me by saying the same thing I did is misguided, but I nonetheless appreciate the indirect confirmation of my analysis.
Your insults to the Supreme Court Justices are noted and hardly do your case credit: they may not know much about technology, but this case wasn't about technologies, it was about the criteria needed to measure compensation. You bet Scalia's fat dead ass they all know the law on that better than anyone else.
My insults to them were an explanation of why they voted 8-0 and issued an opinion that only had 5 substantive pages and punted the creation of any test to the Federal Circuit: they really don't care much about patent law. This was to address your contention that, because they're "deeply divided" on Constitutional issues around, say, privacy or the federal-state divide, it's highly unusual for them ever to agree on something (that happens to entirely unrelated to those issues).
You're misrepresenting the opinion. The opinion is not "Oh, let's go back to the incremental value added by the patented technology as the yardstick for profitability"
I never said it was. I said they're disregarding the explicit language of a long-standing statute and previous Congress-slap of the court, and replacing it with "you want a test? Go make one up." And sadly that's not a misrepresentation. It's barely even a paraphrase.
In the carpet's case, 100% of the carpet violates the patent, regardless of whether you compare it to a beige carpet or not.
Flip over a carpet sometime. You'll see a standard mat that the fibers are woven into that is the same, regardless of design. That mat is a substantial part of the carpet, literally holding it together.
Reading the opinion, they're not just making up that criterion. The "article of manufacture" concept is long standing in the patent world, and it would certainly mean a complete shake up of patents if patents ceased to apply to components, and only to the whole of a completed product. (Whether that's a good or bad thing I'll leave to the lawyers.)
Yes, but it's not necessary to redefine article of manufacture. Going back to the 1887 statute, the phrase was "the total profit made by him from the manufacture or sale. . . of the article or articles to which the design, or colorable imitation thereof, has been applied.” And this was preserved in the 1952 Act, saying:
Whoever during the term of a patent for a design, without license of the owner, (1) applies the patented design, or any colorable imitation thereof, to any article of manufacture for the purpose of sale, or (2) sells or exposes for sale any article of manufacture to which such design or colorable imitation has been applied shall be liable to the owner to the extent of his total profit, but not less than $250...
So the question is not "what's an article of manufacture, is it just a component", but "to what has the design been applied". And there, it seems that you can either say, "it's applied to the product", or you can go to ever narrower levels of "it's applied to a case... well, part of the case... well, really just the surface of part of the case... well, just the paint on the surface of part of the case... but not the primer either..."
A Wisconsin federal jury found that Life Tech had willfully infringed and should pay $52 million in damages. But the district judge overseeing the case set aside that verdict after trial, ruling that since nearly all of the Life Tech product had been assembled and shipped from outside the US, the product wasn't subject to US patent laws.
It's infringement under US Patent law to make, use, or sell a patented invention in the US. However, it's also infringement to import a patented invention, made elsewhere, into the US. So you can't, for example, escape liability by saying "oh, we don't manufacture in the US. We manufacture in Mexico and then heave them over Trump's wall to waiting buyers." So, something had been assembled and shipped from outside the US would still be subject to US patent laws if it was being shipped to the US.
In this case, LifeTech manufactures their kits in the UK and sells them in Europe (and elsewhere). One component of the kit is manufactured in the US and shipped from the US to the UK, and the question is whether that component brings those sales under US patent law.
So, just to clarify, the summary should be "since nearly all of the Life Tech product had been assembled and shipped from outside the US to locations outside the US, the product wasn't subject to US patent laws."
So that stood for 140 years (including the 1952 Patent Act, where Congress again said that the damages for infringement were the total profit).
You're totally right, of course.
Samsung should give all of its smartphone profits to Apple since it infringed on some of Apple's patents.
And conversely, Apple should give all of its iPhone profits to Samsung, since the court had also found that the iPhone had infringed on some of Samsung's patents.
Not quite - the "total profit" part in the statute only applies to design patents. And Samsung never accused Apple of infringing any design patents, and Apple was never found to have done so. So, no, the damages wouldn't offset that way.
The better question is "why are design patents treated differently?"
I'm finding it somewhat improbable that an 8-0 decision would be made on a deeply divided Supreme Court with justices having dramatically different views of the constitution if there's such a compelling case in opposition to the decision they made. Can you put forward a theory that explains why all eight justices rejected this argument?
Why did they reject the argument? Because they didn't like the outcome.
What's the legal reasoning that supports that? There really isn't any. If there's no constitutional argument to be made, they don't get to rewrite a statute just because they dislike the outcome. Instead, they try to shoehorn in a statutory interpretation argument that doesn't really apply, considering that Congress explicitly told them how to interpret the statute the last time this happened.
I don't give a shit what congress said 100+ years ago. Rationalizing that rounded corners is worth the entire profits of a phone is intuitively wrong.
And if so, Congress should change the law. The Supreme Court doesn't just get to rewrite things on their own for funsies. If it's not unconstitutional - and there's absolutely nothing about this that's unconstitutional, nor does the Court ever suggest there is - then they can't simply strike down a law because they dislike the outcome.
If the cases were so cut-and-dried, why was the decision 8-0? Usually, if there is such an obvious conflict with the law, at least ONE justice will dissent. But zero?
The justices know as much about patents and technology - and are interested in knowing about patents and technology - exactly as much as you'd expect for a bunch of people in their 70s. This decision barely hit 9 pages, and half of that was on the procedural history of the trial and appeal. They had some clerk rush this off, and they don't really care - hence why they acknowledge there needs to be test, but simply remand to the Federal Circuit to come up with the test.
So why 8-0? Because 7 of them probably didn't bother to read the opinion.
Regardless of whether you're pro-patent or anti-patent, pro-Apple or anti-Apple, pro-Samsung or anti-Samsung, this was a terrible decision. It threw out 140 years of precedent, and then explicitly refuses to replace it with anything.
Specifically, up until 1885, the patent act had damages for infringement of a design patent that were "the actual damages sustained". In 1885, there was a design patent infringement case having to do with carpet designs. The lower court said the actual damages were the infringer's profits, in $ per yard of carpet sold. The Supreme Court reversed and said that since bland carpets have some intrinsic value, then the damages should be limited only to what part of the profits that were explicitly due to the design, as opposed to the carpet. I.e. if you can sell this carpet for $5/yard, or you could sell a beige carpet for $3/yard, then the profits due to the design are $2/yard.
Mmmkay, whatever, but that's not what Congress intended. So in 1887, Congress explicitly rewrote the statute to reverse the Supreme Court's ruling, saying that the damages for infringing a design patent were "the total profit made by the manufacture or sale of the article to which the design had been applied." This is how checks and balances work under our Constitution... The Supreme Court can interpret anything that's ambiguous in a statute, as a check on Congress; and Congress can draft statutes that explicitly overturn Court rulings and say "x is the proper interpretation, rather than y". Here, they said it was the total profits for the sale of the article, so that infringing carpet is back to $5/yard.
So that stood for 140 years (including the 1952 Patent Act, where Congress again said that the damages for infringement were the total profit).
But then here, the Court steps in and says "oh, by total profit, it's just the total profit for any component using the design, not the entire article." So, for example, the design on those carpets may only apply to the top fibers and not the mat into which they're woven, so the profits are... well, no one sells just the top fibers, so no one knows. And the justification for this is based on the fact that you can get a utility patent that covers a component. But that's not really a good justification to overturn 140 years of precedent and completely disregard what Congress has said, twice.
And then if that weren't bad enough, the decision ends with "so how do we determine whether the 'article' for purposes of infringement is the entire device or just a component? That would require us to set out a test for identifying the relevant article... But that's hard, so we're not going to do it."
It's as bad as the Alice Corp. decision with Justice Thomas saying, "abstract ideas are unpatentable. What's an abstract idea? Eh, we don't need to define that." Both pro-patent and anti-patent ridiculed him for that, rightly. This decision is at least as bad, with it's "we need a test to identify the relevant article, but we're going to punt on that question and hope that someone else answers it."
WALLACE: Mr. Trump, I want to ask you about one last question in this topic. You have been warning at rallies recently that this election is rigged and that Hillary Clinton is in the process of trying to steal it from you.
Your running mate, Governor Pence, pledged on Sunday that he and you -- his words -- "will absolutely accept the result of this election." Today your daughter, Ivanka, said the same thing. I want to ask you here on the stage tonight: Do you make the same commitment that you will absolutely -- sir, that you will absolutely accept the result of this election?
It's not about possession, it's about who's in control of the "make a copy" process.
So if I first ask my girlfriend to make me a mix CD, then I become party to her copyright infringement, but if she just does it of her own accord I'm fine?
Yes. It's called induced infringement - where you induce another to infringe on your behalf.
The rest of your questions have the same answer.
I was under the impression that downloading is illegal, but uploading is not, and that is why it is handled in civil, not criminal, court. Is that correct?
Nope, both are illegal, both criminally and civilly. Specifically, 15 USC 504 has civil remedies for copyright infringement, including both copying and distribution. 15 USC 506 has criminal punishments for copyright infringement, including both copying and distribution. The difference? The criminal penalties only attach when the infringement was committed "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain"; "by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180–day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000"; or "by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution."
For most casual sharing, it's not for private financial gain, so the first one is out. It's also not usually totaling over $1000... but watch out, because many people's upload or shared folder can frequently approach that. And it's rarely a leaked pre-release work, though that does happen too. So, generally, most people don't run into criminal copyright infringement (it tends to be more counterfeiters), but it could happen.
Slashdot Mirror
1) iPad Pro: Meh. 2) Apple Watch: Meh. 3) MBP 2016: Meh 4) iPhone 7: Meh 5) Airpods?
I'm going to go with "Meh".
Less bass than over-the-ear phones. Wireless. Lame.
This is not a novel invention. This is trivially obvious from hitting the problem 'I am deploying lots of drones'. All of the above solutions are obvious and un-novel and in no way not obvious from prior art.
Prove it, then. If it's not novel, you should be able to find someone doing it before November 2014. Otherwise, by definition, it's novel.
And if it's not obvious, then you should be able to find all of the elements of the claim in one or more pieces of prior art from before November 2014. I'll help. Here's Claim 1:
1. A method of operating an uncrewed autonomous vehicle (“UAV”) comprising:
establishing, at the UAV via a communication interface, communication with a mesh network comprising a plurality of other UAVs;
generating first location data of the UAV using a first navigation system onboard the UAV, wherein the first location data indicates a first location of the UAV;
receiving external data from one or more of the plurality of other UAVs in the mesh network;
generating second location data using a second navigation system, wherein the second location data indicates a second location of the UAV;
determining that the first location data differs from the second location data by a threshold value;
determining operation of the UAV is compromised based at least in part on the external data;
transitioning to a fail-safe mode wherein the UAV is configured to disregard one or more of commands, the first location data, or the second location data; and
transmitting alert data indicative of: the compromise of the UAV; and last available location data of the UAV.
Now, establishing mesh networks and receiving data over mesh networks has been done since at least 2007, according to Wiki.
Here's a post from April 2014 on redundancy in airplane autopilot location guidance, so there's generating first location data and second location data, but it doesn't mention the threshold comparison, and states that the transitioning is manual with only two computers. So that doesn't help.
It's very easy to say that something is trivial in hindsight, but that's like saying that someone "looks" guilty. It's a lot more difficult to prove it with evidence, and that's what's required, legally.
I don't expect the Consumer Reports' crew to be experts on this sort of thing. I expect they will run things more along the lines of how a typical non-technical Mac user will run things, because CR's team probably isn't that much more knowledgeable about Macs than the typical end user... That's kind of the point of Consumer Reports... to test things the way typical real-world people do.
Allegedly, what CR did was to set up a script that would constantly reload a half dozen pages in Safari, and they got the wildly varying battery life. When they re-ran the test in Chrome, it was solid and in line with Apple's marketing info. Was Safari not using the cache properly? Was Safari properly refreshing the cache and Chrome was relying on it? Something else? Either way, it's clear it's not a hardware problem, which makes CR's refusal to rate the Macbook questionable. Their justification is that they rate hardware with the default software on it, but that implies that if you give them a stripped down version, you may get significantly better ratings than one with free software, and that raises credibility issues overall.
This is not an EmDrive. It's a drive of the same type as an EmDrive, resonant cavity thrusters, but EmDrive is a trade mark for one particular variant by Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd, which this isn't.
First, it's a drive, yes? And it's using electromagnetism, yes? Therefore, it's at best merely descriptive, and therefore not a protectable trademark.
Second, the ElectroMotive Designs company already has a registration on the EMDRIVE mark for converting cars and trucks to hybrids. So, Satellite Propulsion Research can go suck on the smaller end of a resonant cavity.
Yes, you read it the same way I did. The appeals court judge in this case said he failed to see the distinction and disagreed with the earlier supreme court ruling. So he wants the higher courts to reconsider, apparently.
The quote from the Supreme Court is in a single-judge dissent, and the eight-judge majority agreed with the appeals court judge in this case (albeit, in a footnote, responding to Stevens' dissent, because it wasn't actually a real issue in that case).
Subby's summary is not just misleading, it's blatantly wrong.
But awarding all the profit is insane. If that's the standard you're going to use, then Apple should just hand over all their profit from their iPhones 1 through 4 to Samsung, because they infringed one of Samsung's FRAND patents.
FRAND patents are utility patents, not design patents, and the "entire profits" rule only applies to design patents. Plus, FRAND patents are explicitly limited to a fair and reasonable royalty, or the patent can be effectively invalidated (not really invalid, but they can't enforce it, once found in breach of their FRAND requirements).
Apple escaped punishment for that only because Obama used executive privilege to nullify that ITC decision.
The ITC couldn't levy monetary damages, anyway. The only thing they can do is stop imports. And if they did stop imports under the ITC decision, then Samsung would have been in breach of their FRAND requirements, since by entering the patents into a FRAND agreement, they explicitly said, "we will never try to get an injunction to stop imports or sales, pinkie swears, honest." So, if the ITC decision was upheld, then those patents would have been unenforceable.
Have a look at Etymotic plugs. I've used ER20s (looks like they are called 'Ety Plugs', now) at clubs and events for years. They do what they say - drop the volume without distortion. I can have conversations while wearing them that would have been a muted mess with the more usual foam earplugs. They aren't bad for long stays in server rooms, either.
If you attend loud events with any regularity, and want to _keep_ being able to enjoy those events for years to come, protect your hearing.
Caveat - no association with the company, just a satisfied customer.
I keep a pair of them in a small metal tube on my keychain, just in case a bar is too loud. :D
Also get some ear plugs. A lot of music and dance venues play much louder than 85db for prolonged periods, I presume to get the bass up to the level where you can feel it. With a good pair of ear plugs, you can still feel the bass and hear the music, with much less stress on your hearing. Why would you want to sacrifice future concerts for one concert right now?
"A lot"? Try "all". I'd say, on average, you're hitting 105 dB SPL at a minimum in most venues and closer to 115 to 120 near the speakers.
Another reason to wear ear plugs - your brain does some acoustic processing to deal with high volume levels (there's some multi-band audio compression via threshold shifts... it's really quite fascinating) and that's fatiguing. That's why if you go to a loud concert or club, even if you're not drinking and even if it's relatively early, you're wiped out when it's over, more so than you should be for that time of night. Wear earplugs, and you'll be a lot less tired.
Not quite - the "total profit" part in the statute only applies to design patents.
And yet, just like the camera and folder organization patent and the cell phone video conferencing patent from Samsung, all the patents in question from Apple in this last particular case brought up by the Supreme Court were ALL utility patents, NOT design patents.
The '647 patent covers "quick links," which do things like automatically detect data in messages that can be clicked. The '959 patent covers universal search, such as what Apple uses in Siri. Patent No. '414 involves background syncing, such as syncing calendars, email, and contacts. The '721 patent covers slide-to-unlock, the motion used to unlock the home screen. And '172 covers predictive text.
Nope, you're wrong. From the opinion:
Apple secured many design patents in connection with the release. Among those patents were the D618,677 patent, covering a black rectangular front face with rounded corners, the D593,087 patent, covering a rectangular front face with rounded corners and a raised rim,and the D604,305 patent, covering a grid of 16 colorful icons on a black screen.
And, from the Wiki:
In two separate lawsuits,[48][49] Apple accused Samsung of infringing on three utility patents (United States Patent Nos. 7,469,381, 7,844,915, and 7,864,163) and four design patents (United States Patent Nos. D504,889, D593,087, D618,677, and D604,305). Samsung accused Apple of infringing on United States Patent Nos. 7,675,941, 7,447,516, 7,698,711, 7,577,460, and 7,456,893.
It does involve constitutionality. The constitutionality of any law passed by Congress must be be weighed by the possibilities of that law. (McCollough vs Maryland and Brown v Maryland). If the monetary award is a penalty against Samsung, it can be argued as excessive in the light of only a component of their phone was infringing (and both parties agreed that the infringing design could be be considered a component). Article 8 of the Constitution prohibits excessive fines.
The monetary award is not a penalty, but compensatory damages, which are not fines. That's been ruled on repeatedly. And no part of this decision involved the 8th Amendment. Congress also has almost limitless rulemaking authority for patents and copyrights under Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, primarily subject only to the first amendment (where most conflicts would arise).
Which is why they're throwing the decision back to lower courts, who will start proposing specific tests in different rulings and cases. Those cases will be appealed, different districts will develop different standards and those will need be be reconciled, and eventually over many different cases a robust test will emerge.
Asking the SCOTUS to develop a test right off the bat is a recipe for a bad precedent.
Although generally true, patent appeals all go to the federal circuit, not the other circuits, so it's not like SCOTUS will get a split to reconcile. As with the Bilski and Akami decisions, the Fed Circ. will propose a test; SCOTUS will say "eh, not that one"; the Fed will propose another; and rinse, and repeat.
Absolutely untrue
Then please quote from the opinion where the test is laid out. I'll wait.
Nobody's arguing any different. If there's a practical way to separate the components of a carpet into articles of manufacture (and they must be items you'd make separately) in such a way that only one part violates the patent, then only that one part violates the patent, and the damages can be assessed. That's entirely within the keeping of the 1952 act, which explicitly codifies the "Article of manufacture" language.
Mats are made in advance of weaving the carpet fibers. Only the carpet fibers infringe the patent, not the mat. This new analysis that the damages would not be measured by the total profits per yard of carpet, however, is directly at odds with Congress' explicit 1887 refutation of that earlier case.
Sotomayor isn't redefining anything.
Yes, I know that. You were the one who said that "it would certainly mean a complete shake up of patents if patents ceased to apply to components", and I said that it wasn't necessary to redefine the term. It's a bit odd that you're now explaining to me that no one's redefining the term, considering that's what I just said. Makes me wonder if you're actually reading my entire post, or just angrily pounding out a response based on the first couple words in each sentence.
Nope, you're just wrong about what they did. I explained here, but to summarize:
Your claim: they went back to 1885 and changed the profitability criteria to "incremental value added by patent."
I never said that, and responded to your other post explaining that I never said that. If you want to insist I did say it, please copy-paste from my post.
What they actually did: they said that the profits due to the infringed upon party need to be those applying to the component that was sold, rather than the whole of the smartphone.
What I said in my original post: "the Court steps in and says "oh, by total profit, it's just the total profit for any component using the design, not the entire article."
I think you've misread what I was saying. Your attempt to correct me by saying the same thing I did is misguided, but I nonetheless appreciate the indirect confirmation of my analysis.
Your insults to the Supreme Court Justices are noted and hardly do your case credit: they may not know much about technology, but this case wasn't about technologies, it was about the criteria needed to measure compensation. You bet Scalia's fat dead ass they all know the law on that better than anyone else.
My insults to them were an explanation of why they voted 8-0 and issued an opinion that only had 5 substantive pages and punted the creation of any test to the Federal Circuit: they really don't care much about patent law. This was to address your contention that, because they're "deeply divided" on Constitutional issues around, say, privacy or the federal-state divide, it's highly unusual for them ever to agree on something (that happens to entirely unrelated to those issues).
You're misrepresenting the opinion. The opinion is not "Oh, let's go back to the incremental value added by the patented technology as the yardstick for profitability"
I never said it was. I said they're disregarding the explicit language of a long-standing statute and previous Congress-slap of the court, and replacing it with "you want a test? Go make one up." And sadly that's not a misrepresentation. It's barely even a paraphrase.
In the carpet's case, 100% of the carpet violates the patent, regardless of whether you compare it to a beige carpet or not.
Flip over a carpet sometime. You'll see a standard mat that the fibers are woven into that is the same, regardless of design. That mat is a substantial part of the carpet, literally holding it together.
Reading the opinion, they're not just making up that criterion. The "article of manufacture" concept is long standing in the patent world, and it would certainly mean a complete shake up of patents if patents ceased to apply to components, and only to the whole of a completed product. (Whether that's a good or bad thing I'll leave to the lawyers.)
Yes, but it's not necessary to redefine article of manufacture. Going back to the 1887 statute, the phrase was "the total profit made by him from the manufacture or sale. . . of the article or articles to which the design, or colorable imitation thereof, has been applied.” And this was preserved in the 1952 Act, saying:
Whoever during the term of a patent for a design, without license of the owner, (1) applies the patented design, or any colorable imitation thereof, to any article of manufacture for the purpose of sale, or (2) sells or exposes for sale any article of manufacture to which such design or colorable imitation has been applied shall be liable to the owner to the extent of his total profit, but not less than $250...
So the question is not "what's an article of manufacture, is it just a component", but "to what has the design been applied". And there, it seems that you can either say, "it's applied to the product", or you can go to ever narrower levels of "it's applied to a case... well, part of the case... well, really just the surface of part of the case... well, just the paint on the surface of part of the case... but not the primer either..."
A Wisconsin federal jury found that Life Tech had willfully infringed and should pay $52 million in damages. But the district judge overseeing the case set aside that verdict after trial, ruling that since nearly all of the Life Tech product had been assembled and shipped from outside the US, the product wasn't subject to US patent laws.
It's infringement under US Patent law to make, use, or sell a patented invention in the US. However, it's also infringement to import a patented invention, made elsewhere, into the US. So you can't, for example, escape liability by saying "oh, we don't manufacture in the US. We manufacture in Mexico and then heave them over Trump's wall to waiting buyers." So, something had been assembled and shipped from outside the US would still be subject to US patent laws if it was being shipped to the US.
In this case, LifeTech manufactures their kits in the UK and sells them in Europe (and elsewhere). One component of the kit is manufactured in the US and shipped from the US to the UK, and the question is whether that component brings those sales under US patent law.
So, just to clarify, the summary should be "since nearly all of the Life Tech product had been assembled and shipped from outside the US to locations outside the US, the product wasn't subject to US patent laws."
So that stood for 140 years (including the 1952 Patent Act, where Congress again said that the damages for infringement were the total profit).
You're totally right, of course.
Samsung should give all of its smartphone profits to Apple since it infringed on some of Apple's patents.
And conversely, Apple should give all of its iPhone profits to Samsung, since the court had also found that the iPhone had infringed on some of Samsung's patents.
Not quite - the "total profit" part in the statute only applies to design patents. And Samsung never accused Apple of infringing any design patents, and Apple was never found to have done so. So, no, the damages wouldn't offset that way.
The better question is "why are design patents treated differently?"
I'm finding it somewhat improbable that an 8-0 decision would be made on a deeply divided Supreme Court with justices having dramatically different views of the constitution if there's such a compelling case in opposition to the decision they made. Can you put forward a theory that explains why all eight justices rejected this argument?
This case doesn't involve constitutionality at all, so their deeply divided views there don't matter. Most patent decisions are unanimous or nearly unanimous. Generally, because they care about patents and technology exactly as much as you'd expect from a bunch of 70 year olds that don't even use email.
Why did they reject the argument? Because they didn't like the outcome.
What's the legal reasoning that supports that? There really isn't any. If there's no constitutional argument to be made, they don't get to rewrite a statute just because they dislike the outcome. Instead, they try to shoehorn in a statutory interpretation argument that doesn't really apply, considering that Congress explicitly told them how to interpret the statute the last time this happened.
I don't give a shit what congress said 100+ years ago. Rationalizing that rounded corners is worth the entire profits of a phone is intuitively wrong.
And if so, Congress should change the law. The Supreme Court doesn't just get to rewrite things on their own for funsies. If it's not unconstitutional - and there's absolutely nothing about this that's unconstitutional, nor does the Court ever suggest there is - then they can't simply strike down a law because they dislike the outcome.
If the cases were so cut-and-dried, why was the decision 8-0? Usually, if there is such an obvious conflict with the law, at least ONE justice will dissent. But zero?
The justices know as much about patents and technology - and are interested in knowing about patents and technology - exactly as much as you'd expect for a bunch of people in their 70s. This decision barely hit 9 pages, and half of that was on the procedural history of the trial and appeal. They had some clerk rush this off, and they don't really care - hence why they acknowledge there needs to be test, but simply remand to the Federal Circuit to come up with the test.
So why 8-0? Because 7 of them probably didn't bother to read the opinion.
Specifically, up until 1885, the patent act had damages for infringement of a design patent that were "the actual damages sustained". In 1885, there was a design patent infringement case having to do with carpet designs. The lower court said the actual damages were the infringer's profits, in $ per yard of carpet sold. The Supreme Court reversed and said that since bland carpets have some intrinsic value, then the damages should be limited only to what part of the profits that were explicitly due to the design, as opposed to the carpet. I.e. if you can sell this carpet for $5/yard, or you could sell a beige carpet for $3/yard, then the profits due to the design are $2/yard.
Mmmkay, whatever, but that's not what Congress intended. So in 1887, Congress explicitly rewrote the statute to reverse the Supreme Court's ruling, saying that the damages for infringing a design patent were "the total profit made by the manufacture or sale of the article to which the design had been applied." This is how checks and balances work under our Constitution... The Supreme Court can interpret anything that's ambiguous in a statute, as a check on Congress; and Congress can draft statutes that explicitly overturn Court rulings and say "x is the proper interpretation, rather than y". Here, they said it was the total profits for the sale of the article, so that infringing carpet is back to $5/yard.
So that stood for 140 years (including the 1952 Patent Act, where Congress again said that the damages for infringement were the total profit).
But then here, the Court steps in and says "oh, by total profit, it's just the total profit for any component using the design, not the entire article." So, for example, the design on those carpets may only apply to the top fibers and not the mat into which they're woven, so the profits are... well, no one sells just the top fibers, so no one knows. And the justification for this is based on the fact that you can get a utility patent that covers a component. But that's not really a good justification to overturn 140 years of precedent and completely disregard what Congress has said, twice.
And then if that weren't bad enough, the decision ends with "so how do we determine whether the 'article' for purposes of infringement is the entire device or just a component? That would require us to set out a test for identifying the relevant article... But that's hard, so we're not going to do it."
It's as bad as the Alice Corp. decision with Justice Thomas saying, "abstract ideas are unpatentable. What's an abstract idea? Eh, we don't need to define that." Both pro-patent and anti-patent ridiculed him for that, rightly. This decision is at least as bad, with it's "we need a test to identify the relevant article, but we're going to punt on that question and hope that someone else answers it."
Fortunately, they won't come for Slashdot. This is News for Nerds, we never discuss things like politics or rights or surveillance...
WALLACE: Mr. Trump, I want to ask you about one last question in this topic. You have been warning at rallies recently that this election is rigged and that Hillary Clinton is in the process of trying to steal it from you.
Your running mate, Governor Pence, pledged on Sunday that he and you -- his words -- "will absolutely accept the result of this election." Today your daughter, Ivanka, said the same thing. I want to ask you here on the stage tonight: Do you make the same commitment that you will absolutely -- sir, that you will absolutely accept the result of this election?
Perhaps he should've asked Clinton that question?
D. I actually speak and understand English.
F. I possess got over two decades of experience.
Either the first one isn't true, or experience doesn't correlate with accuracy and diligence.
It's not about possession, it's about who's in control of the "make a copy" process.
So if I first ask my girlfriend to make me a mix CD, then I become party to her copyright infringement, but if she just does it of her own accord I'm fine?
Yes. It's called induced infringement - where you induce another to infringe on your behalf.
The rest of your questions have the same answer.
I was under the impression that downloading is illegal, but uploading is not, and that is why it is handled in civil, not criminal, court. Is that correct?
Nope, both are illegal, both criminally and civilly. Specifically, 15 USC 504 has civil remedies for copyright infringement, including both copying and distribution. 15 USC 506 has criminal punishments for copyright infringement, including both copying and distribution. The difference? The criminal penalties only attach when the infringement was committed "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain"; "by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180–day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000"; or "by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution."
For most casual sharing, it's not for private financial gain, so the first one is out. It's also not usually totaling over $1000... but watch out, because many people's upload or shared folder can frequently approach that. And it's rarely a leaked pre-release work, though that does happen too. So, generally, most people don't run into criminal copyright infringement (it tends to be more counterfeiters), but it could happen.