trying to argue that he never actually had sex with them would be him changing that story, raising the questions of whether he was lying then or lying now, and what else is he lying about?
No, the question is what are Swedish authorities lying about, given the fact that Assange has offered to return to Sweden if the government promises not to hand him over to the United States. Sweden has so far ignored that offer, just as it's ignored offers to interview him by phone or by meeting Swedish investigators in the Ecuadorian embassy.
He's a suspect in a crime... Since when do suspects get to set conditions for interviews? You're telling me that if the police wanted to talk to some kid in New York about suspected drug dealing, he could say things like "you have to come to my house, or talk to me on the phone," and if they said "no, you're coming to the station," then they must be lying? That makes no sense.
Here, that Sweden isn't making a bunch of promises to Assange means that they don't think it's reasonable that they have to make a bunch of promises to a suspect. No more, no less. It certainly doesn't mean that he never had sex with the women, as the GP poster was trying to imply.
It probably doesn't mentioned enough because Assange has already admitted to having sex with both women. His story is that it was consensual - trying to argue that he never actually had sex with them would be him changing that story, raising the questions of whether he was lying then or lying now, and what else is he lying about?
"Spanish hackers have been showing off their latest car-hacking creation; a circuit board using untraceable, off-the-shelf parts worth $20 that can give wireless access to the car's controls while it's on the road... the smartphone-sized device can be plugged in under some vehicles, or inside the bonnet of other models, and give the hackers remote access to control systems.
That's like saying I can get wireless access to your server, provided you let me have physical access first so I can plug in my wireless NIC.
No I wouldn't. Trademark law would also HAVE to be scaled back massively to eliminate the trademarking of characters, places, events, catch phrases etc.
Look it up, that's the trend. Every single character and place in Harry Potter is trademarked. "Ron Weasley", the name, is trademarked in dozens of countries... even if the book went into the public domain today, nearly anyone or thing in it is trademarked and would still be off limits. Surely that's not the vision you have?
Two things... First, why is that such a bad thing? When the average person hears "Ron Weasley" in connection with a fictional book aimed at children or a movie with the same subject matter, they think of JK Rowling. That's exactly what trademark protects - the mental association between the mark and the originator or manufacturer.
Second, you're forgetting about nominative fair use, namely, using the name in a non-trademark way.
No, I don't think you've supported a case for why trademark law would "HAVE to be scaled back massively."
Otherwise how am I supposed to make a Star Trek(tm) movie about Captain James Kirk (tm) on the Starship Enterprise (tm) where they Boldly go where no one has gone before (tm) to fight the Romulan Empire(tm)?
You can make a derivative work, set in the Star Trek universe, about Captain Kirk J. Aimes of the Starship Columbia, who boldly ventures forth to fight the Romulan Empire - the last of which, is used in a nominative fair use way, particularly with a disclaimer that this is a work of fiction based on Roddenberry's original creation.
If they can write better stories, why can't they create their own settings and characters too? Why exactly do they HAVE to write "Star Wars" stories?
Why can't they, if we're allowing derivative works? Go back to my earlier example of sampling and remixing - why do electronic artists HAVE to use samples from known songs? Because that's part of the art.
And how exactly are tales about an imaginary people living a long time ago in a galaxy far far away contributing to the "storehouse of public knowledge" anyway?
That seems pretty tangential to anything I'd call "knowledge".
Are you arguing that fiction shouldn't be subject to copyright? Or art that's not realism, for that matter? Of course, literature, poetry, and art are part of the realm of knowledge.
By comparison, direct copying and redistribution is at worst plagiarism, and at best, piracy. The moral justification for allowing someone to copy and sell DVDs of Star Wars is significantly lower than the justification for allowing someone to make Star Wars: The Musical, or Star Wars: The Han Solo Story.
Interesting take.
No consistency, no canon, nothing. Just everyone attaching their suckers to the franchise to try and make a buck off it in a race to the bottom. Star Trek, Dr. Who, Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, Warhammer 40K, Harry Potter, Hunger Games all more than 5 years old... any franchise worth anything would be obliterated under a tsunami of shit.
... except that you'd still have trademark rights. No one could imply that their Star Trek was from Gene Roddenberry or that their Harry Potter was from JK Rowling. The original authors would still be able to rise above the crowd, provided their product was better. And if it's not, if one of those new follow-ons actually was better, doesn't it deserve the chance to be recognized?
Remember, this is a discussion of copyright and adding to the storehouse of public knowledge (or restricting that by giving the author a time-limited monopoly): it's quantitative, not qualitative. There is no test for copyright that requires the work to actually be good.
So I propose that the copyright be broken up a bit.
a) The rights to basic broadcast and redistribution expire after 20 years. So you can make a copy of a movie, or a book or whatever after 20 years for free. You can show it in a theatre or school, etc.
b) However the rights over derivative works (book to movie, etc) and commercial re-purposing (e.g. advertising etc) are "75 years or life of the author + 5 years*, whichever is longer" or something, and requires active renewal for a nominal fee. (So that abandoned works automatically roll into the public domain quickly.)
(* + 5 years to prevent the inevitable strip mining of an authors estate right after they die, capitalizing on the news of their death as free marketing for whatever they produce by strip mining. So the estate can benefit a bit from that.)
I agree with the concept of breaking up the terms for copying/distribution and creation of derivative works, but in the exact opposite direction. Derivative works - such as sampling or remixing - create new creative works, albeit on the bones of older works. They actually add to the wealth of public knowledge, arguably less than a completely original work, but still more than merely copying existing works. Many remixes and sampling artists create works of great value, and this should be encouraged.
By comparison, direct copying and redistribution is at worst plagiarism, and at best, piracy. The moral justification for allowing someone to copy and sell DVDs of Star Wars is significantly lower than the justification for allowing someone to make Star Wars: The Musical, or Star Wars: The Han Solo Story.
I'd submit that it would be better for the original author to have an exclusive monopoly on creating derivative works for around 5 years while copying and redistribution of the original work, substantially unchanged, should remain at the 75 years/life+5 whichever is longer term you suggest.
That said, I'm fine with copyright renewal fees, and even steadily increasing fees. For example, patents have maintenance fees that significantly increase - as a result, particularly in the computing industry where a ten year old product is likely obsolete, most patents aren't extended to their full 20-year term. Making it more and more expensive to get 75 years as opposed to 50 or 30 would do a lot for encouraging abandonment of older works to the public domain.
Computers use the binary system to represent everything. Tell me again how manipulating strings using a computer process isn't mathematical.
Why would I do that? I never said that it wasn't mathematical. This is why Slashdot has a "quote parent" button. Rather than making you repost, I'll simply fix your post for you:
You're allowed to patent processes, and isn't an algorithm just a process? Specifically, you're not allowed to patent mathematical algorithms. Algorithms that are not purely math, such as a string of commands executed by a processor, are not just mathematical algorithms.
Computers use the binary system to represent everything. Tell me again how manipulating strings using a computer process isn't- and now I see that you wrote "purely math" and "just mathematical algorithms", but actually require hardware, and hardware isn't just math, even though it may use math, and now I realize that I should have probably read your entire post carefully before responding, and at the least should have quoted it. Sorry.
I know what copyright is for, but you're not allowed to patent algorithms.
You're allowed to patent processes, and isn't an algorithm just a process? Specifically, you're not allowed to patent mathematical algorithms. Algorithms that are not purely math, such as a string of commands executed by a processor, are not just mathematical algorithms. Basically, if you can do it on a pad of paper with a pencil, then it's not patentable... but if the claims expressly require a processor, then by definition, paper and a pencil isn't enough, and it is patentable - and doing it with just the paper and pencil wouldn't be patent infringement. It doesn't remove the mathematical algorithm from the public domain, just the computer implementation.
This more than most software patents is an algorithm with how to create a result from set of common existing sensor inputs. It should not be patentable based on that alone.
Didn't you say in your first post that you hadn't read the article? How do you know that this "more than most software patents is an algorithm" if you haven't read it? Plus, as noted above, processes are patentable - see 35 USC 101. The fact that this is a process doesn't make it not patentable.
Your Move Patent Office. Are they trying to patent an idea again?
Well, yeah, that's what patents are for.
More precisely, an overly broad, idea that would be fairly trivial to implement using existing hardware.
A steam engine is pretty easy to build. Hell, you can 3D print one at home now. Does that mean they should never have been patentable? Difficulty of implementation has never been a requirement for patentability in the statutes... if you disagree with that, then contact Congress, not the patent office, because only the legislature can add a new requirement.
Given that, do they have even a working implementation?
Most likely, but even if they don't, prototypes haven't been required for decades. That's a good thing - it makes it easier for small inventors with brilliant ideas but no capital to get protection for their invention and then sell it to large companies who have the ability to implement it. Say, for example, you come up with a great idea for a new, super-efficient and secure file system architecture. Are you going to write your own OS? And try to make it in the marketplace as a brand new OS, competing with Apple and Microsoft? You'd never get past.01% market share. But if you could sell it to one of them and it gets implemented in their next OS release, your idea would get used by a much greater portion of the population. Isn't this a good thing for society?
These are real questions, I haven't read TFA. These are the kind of patents that need to stop though.
How do you know, if you haven't read TFA? We already know that you're wrong about the requirement for difficulty of implementation, the requirement of prototypes, and the requirement that something not be an idea. Why should we think you're right when you haven't even read the article?
Copyright the implementation of your algorithm and move on.
Copyright will protect you from people making exact copies of your algorithm, from your source code. If they reverse engineer it and remake it - like say one of those OS companies and your file system architecture - it's not copyright infringement. Copyright only protects things where having the specific thing is important - it protects movies, because you want to see "The Hulk", and not the Mockbuster "Angry Green Man" knockoff, or you want to rent "Drop Kick Panda" instead of "Chop Kick Panda". It protects art because you want a Warhol original, not the selfie I just took of me holding a soup can. It protects books because you want OSC's "Ender's Game" and not "Fighting Kids in Space".
But it doesn't protect software, because you don't really care about the specific thing, you want the general concept - you don't care whether you use TaxAct or TurboTax; you don't care if you play Farmville or Farmtown; or Tiny Tower vs. Dream Heights; or Candy Crush Saga vs. Candy Link Epic. It's only useful where someone is locked into a particular implementation due to lack of compatibility - you have to use Microsoft Word because you keep getting.doc files with proprietary formatting, etc. And those are bad things for consumers.
Basically, copyright is useless for most developers, unless they're leveraging a monopoly power to lock people into their software.
There's a difference between donating some genetic material to a couple who can't conceive on their own, and being a father.
This man, at the request of the couple he was donating the material to, signed away any rights/claims to being a father. This is completely and utterly wrongheaded on behalf of the state, and I hope the man is able to take it to appeals.
And I say that as a lesbian who has been in a similar situation to the women in this case. (we ended up not having kids, but were looking at the possibility).
To whom did he sign away his rights and claims to being a father? The couple? That doesn't work - the support obligation is to the child, not the couple. If he's going to sign away his rights and obligations, he has to have it accepted by the child or a guardian ad litem for the child.
For example, say I backed into your car this morning, denting it. Well, I just signed a paper signing away my obligations to you, so it'd be unfair if you went to court and got a judgement against me, right? No, because I can't unilaterally waive that obligation without the consent of the obligee - you. Similarly, the father can't sign away his support obligation to the child unless a guardian ad litem accepts. In Kansas, this is done as part of the official donation process, but he didn't use that - instead, he showed up at their door with three cups of fresh squeezed sperm. So, he hasn't actually fulfilled the requirements to waive that obligation anymore than I can waive my responsibility to you by signing a paper without your consent.
Public defenders have all the billable hours they want. The number of people who need a defender vastly outnumber the defenders available. They lose nothing if they short change you.
They also gain nothing if they short change you. Since the state pays them by the hour, with no limit, there's no reason for them to only work 50 hours on your case and work 50 on another case rather than 100 hours on your case. They get paid the exact same amount either way.
Do they just assign some random lawyer to you from the public defender's office? In that case you might be better off trying to be your own lawyer.
It should be noted that this commonly held belief is actually false. Public defenders are paid hourly by the state or federal government, and thus have an incentive to do as much as possible for you. Unless you're very wealthy, private criminal defense attorneys tend to be paid a set retainer up front (e.g. "$5000 to get you to trial, and we'll talk then about the next retainer if you want to go through trial") and thus have an incentive to do as little as possible, since the less time they spend on you, the more profit they make. If you can't drop $50k on your defense, then you're much better off with the public defender.
He did not have to answer the questions at all, due to the Fifth at a minimum, and to the irrelevance you mention. He could at least have deferred to his attorney. Instead he elected, of his own free will, to lie. This is a crime.
That would be true, if that's what he did. He did not, however, lie. Full stop. Rather, he answered the question he was asked, taking advantage of some ambiguity in the question, while knowing that that wasn't the information he was being asked for. Specifically, he was asked if he'd ever had sex with Lewinsky, and when asked for clarification, the prosecutor defined "sex" as "intercourse", so he said no. That's completely true, but it's also intentionally misleading. That's why he was never charged or sanctioned with perjury by the court. Instead, he was sanctioned for willfully violating the discovery procedure.
On the other hand, an internet connected, digital thermostat isn't exactly a novel idea.
Nope, and if that's what they tried to claim in a patent, it would be rejected. But the specifics of the design and user interface are new, and may not be obvious.
When you set out to explicitly copy someone's product and succeed without reading any patent information, it's tough to argue that their patent is nonobvious.
I think you'll have a hard time proving that the guys saying "we made an open-source version of the Nest!" have no idea what the Nest is and haven't seen any write-ups of it.
And we know you didn't read their patent because first, we know their patent is not actually useful for replicating their "invention", second, because you were explicitly ordered not to read their patent because your boss thinks the treble damage rule is still in effect, and third, because you know you didn't need to. As a skilled practitioner of the art, you knew you would be able to solve any problems you encountered in the process of replicating the product.
Nope, instead you read the white papers, read product reviews and use manuals, and read lots of other information that was made public because they had patent protection, rather than being kept hidden as a trade secret.
Yes, that wouldn't be extortion. However, it's not common for hundreds of people to damage your car, so it's not the best example.
Conceded.
How about this - you own a house on a nice plot of land that happens to be near a major sports/concert venue. Game/show day rolls around, and hundreds of people (you have several acres) decide to park on your land, without your permission, damaging your nice lawn with their tires. If you left a letter on each of their windshields demanding $50 to repair your lawn or you'd take them to court for trespassing, that wouldn't be extortion.
There's one important difference between your example and this case - the number of people targeted. If you're sending out hundreds of letters to people claiming that they damaged your car, then that's extortion.
Not if hundreds of people did damage your car. In this case, since the hundreds of people are apparently using the patented technology, then the claims are not frivolous, and it's not extortion.
Sounds to me like they're risking running afoul of racketeering and extortion laws. I hope that they push the issue that far, it'd be fun to watch.
Unlikely. If they have a non-frivolous legal claim, which it appears they do (they own the patents in question, the patents are considered prima facie valid until invalidated, the people targeted are using the patented technology), then notifying someone of an intent to sue and offering a settlement is not extortion. Think of a similar situation - someone hits your car, causing minor damage to a quarter panel. Since you have a high deductible, you tell them to give you $1k in cash and you'll call it a day without filing suit or getting the insurance companies involved. Are you now engaging in extortion? Of course not.
However, we have no formal test for what is obvious.
Uh, yeah, we do. A claimed invention is prima facie obvious if one or more pieces of prior art, alone or in combination, teach or suggest each and every element of the patent claim. See MPEP 2143.03, citing to In re Royka, 490 F.2d 981, 180 USPQ 580 (CCPA 1974).
In other words, if a patent claim recites "A method, comprising: step A; step B; step C; and step D" and you can find steps A, B, C, and D in one or more pieces of prior art, then the claim is obvious, by definition. If, on the other hand, you can find step A, B, and D, but there's nowhere - no literature, no product, no white paper, no advertisement, nothin' - that describes step C, then the invention is likely not obvious.
It's like proving someone guilty of a crime. The crime will list elements - "(i) operated, (ii) a motor vehicle, (iii) on a public way, (iv) while intoxicated" - and if the prosecution can only prove that you operated a motor vehicle while intoxicated, but you were actually in your back yard at the time, then you're not guilty of the crime. Each and every element has to be met, or you don't get the obvious/guilty conclusion.
There are efforts underway by IP maximalists to extend IP protection forever. We've already seen works be taken OUT of the public domain. Do you know how many works became public domain in 2013?
Firstly, no patent or copyright should outlive the inventor or creator.
There are no efforts to extend patent protection, nor have there been. Patent term has only been extended once, back in the 1850s (the more recent change from 17 years from issue to 20 years from filing is not a change in term since there was and is an average of three years of backlog and prosecution between filing and issue). This is because, unlike copyright, there's equal interest by wealthy lobbyists in shortening term: basically, all of the copyright owners (and their well-backed industry organizations like the RIAA and MPAA) want longer protection while the public and pirates want shorter protection... but all of the money going to Congress is from the former group, so copyright term gets lengthened. With patents, every patent owner wants their own patents to have a longer term, but their competitors' patents to have a shorter term. It doesn't benefit Apple if, for example, Microsoft gets a 50 year patent term, and vice versa. Accordingly, there's no coalition sending large amounts of money to Congress to demand longer patent terms.
Furniture, fashion, and a significant portion of industrial design (such as car bodies) don't even have copyright or design patent protection. Yet those industries thrive.
I have no idea why this myth keeps getting spread. Of course, furniture, fashion, and car bodies have patent protection. Ten seconds on Google refutes your post, and yet this myth keeps getting spread over and over.
Unless viewed in the broadcast area, the value of those commercials is Nil, and the network no longer gets paid proportionally to the number of actual viewers, only to the number of viewers within the area
Aereo has gone to great lengths to ensure that nobody outside the broadcast footprint can access the content through Aereo. So your point is entirely moot.
They do an IP-based location check, and then offer a "are we wrong and you're actually in your home area" button to click, at which point they allow access to the content. It's a great length in the same way that Hello World is a complex program.
The rectangle with rounded edges was a design patent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent) not a utlitity patent, which the Google patent is.
... Design patents are a little easier to accept since they're closer to copyright on physical objects.
Sort of... They're actually closer to trade dress: if you have a distinctive trade dress or a granted design patent, then you can stop someone from using the design, even if they aren't actually copying you and never even saw your design, unlike copyright, which requires actual copying.
I'm not saying the Google patent isn't bad, especially given the clear prior art with MS Comic Chat, but just that it's important to distinguish the types of patents when pointing out the inanity of the system.
Having read both the Comic Chat article linked earlier, and the patent claims (which you clearly haven't done), I don't know how anyone could say that Comic Chat is "clear prior art"... At least in any way more meaningful than saying that the Model T is "clear prior art" to the Tesla Roadster, since it's prior, and it's in the art, but it sure wouldn't invalidate any patents on the latter.
That's not to say the patent is necessarily valid... Just that Comic Chat, on its own, doesn't even begin to teach every element in the claims.
.. having been separated last year, I've been hitting the internet dating, including Tinder.
Anyone who uses a Bitstrip as a profile photo gets rejected instantly unless they are very, very compelling otherwise. It just conveys a complete lack of honesty and originality to me..
You assume, inaccurately, that they'd not want to be "instantly rejected" by someone that condescending.
Slashdot Mirror
No, the question is what are Swedish authorities lying about, given the fact that Assange has offered to return to Sweden if the government promises not to hand him over to the United States. Sweden has so far ignored that offer, just as it's ignored offers to interview him by phone or by meeting Swedish investigators in the Ecuadorian embassy.
He's a suspect in a crime... Since when do suspects get to set conditions for interviews? You're telling me that if the police wanted to talk to some kid in New York about suspected drug dealing, he could say things like "you have to come to my house, or talk to me on the phone," and if they said "no, you're coming to the station," then they must be lying? That makes no sense.
Here, that Sweden isn't making a bunch of promises to Assange means that they don't think it's reasonable that they have to make a bunch of promises to a suspect. No more, no less. It certainly doesn't mean that he never had sex with the women, as the GP poster was trying to imply.
This doesn't get mentioned enough:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
It probably doesn't mentioned enough because Assange has already admitted to having sex with both women. His story is that it was consensual - trying to argue that he never actually had sex with them would be him changing that story, raising the questions of whether he was lying then or lying now, and what else is he lying about?
"Spanish hackers have been showing off their latest car-hacking creation; a circuit board using untraceable, off-the-shelf parts worth $20 that can give wireless access to the car's controls while it's on the road... the smartphone-sized device can be plugged in under some vehicles, or inside the bonnet of other models, and give the hackers remote access to control systems.
That's like saying I can get wireless access to your server, provided you let me have physical access first so I can plug in my wireless NIC.
No I wouldn't. Trademark law would also HAVE to be scaled back massively to eliminate the trademarking of characters, places, events, catch phrases etc.
Look it up, that's the trend. Every single character and place in Harry Potter is trademarked. "Ron Weasley", the name, is trademarked in dozens of countries... even if the book went into the public domain today, nearly anyone or thing in it is trademarked and would still be off limits. Surely that's not the vision you have?
Two things... First, why is that such a bad thing? When the average person hears "Ron Weasley" in connection with a fictional book aimed at children or a movie with the same subject matter, they think of JK Rowling. That's exactly what trademark protects - the mental association between the mark and the originator or manufacturer.
Second, you're forgetting about nominative fair use, namely, using the name in a non-trademark way.
No, I don't think you've supported a case for why trademark law would "HAVE to be scaled back massively."
Otherwise how am I supposed to make a Star Trek(tm) movie about Captain James Kirk (tm) on the Starship Enterprise (tm) where they Boldly go where no one has gone before (tm) to fight the Romulan Empire(tm)?
You can make a derivative work, set in the Star Trek universe, about Captain Kirk J. Aimes of the Starship Columbia, who boldly ventures forth to fight the Romulan Empire - the last of which, is used in a nominative fair use way, particularly with a disclaimer that this is a work of fiction based on Roddenberry's original creation.
If they can write better stories, why can't they create their own settings and characters too? Why exactly do they HAVE to write "Star Wars" stories?
Why can't they, if we're allowing derivative works? Go back to my earlier example of sampling and remixing - why do electronic artists HAVE to use samples from known songs? Because that's part of the art.
And how exactly are tales about an imaginary people living a long time ago in a galaxy far far away contributing to the "storehouse of public knowledge" anyway?
That seems pretty tangential to anything I'd call "knowledge".
Are you arguing that fiction shouldn't be subject to copyright? Or art that's not realism, for that matter? Of course, literature, poetry, and art are part of the realm of knowledge.
By comparison, direct copying and redistribution is at worst plagiarism, and at best, piracy. The moral justification for allowing someone to copy and sell DVDs of Star Wars is significantly lower than the justification for allowing someone to make Star Wars: The Musical, or Star Wars: The Han Solo Story.
Interesting take.
No consistency, no canon, nothing. Just everyone attaching their suckers to the franchise to try and make a buck off it in a race to the bottom. Star Trek, Dr. Who, Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, Warhammer 40K, Harry Potter, Hunger Games all more than 5 years old... any franchise worth anything would be obliterated under a tsunami of shit.
... except that you'd still have trademark rights. No one could imply that their Star Trek was from Gene Roddenberry or that their Harry Potter was from JK Rowling. The original authors would still be able to rise above the crowd, provided their product was better. And if it's not, if one of those new follow-ons actually was better, doesn't it deserve the chance to be recognized?
Remember, this is a discussion of copyright and adding to the storehouse of public knowledge (or restricting that by giving the author a time-limited monopoly): it's quantitative, not qualitative. There is no test for copyright that requires the work to actually be good.
So I propose that the copyright be broken up a bit.
a) The rights to basic broadcast and redistribution expire after 20 years. So you can make a copy of a movie, or a book or whatever after 20 years for free. You can show it in a theatre or school, etc.
b) However the rights over derivative works (book to movie, etc) and commercial re-purposing (e.g. advertising etc) are "75 years or life of the author + 5 years*, whichever is longer" or something, and requires active renewal for a nominal fee. (So that abandoned works automatically roll into the public domain quickly.)
(* + 5 years to prevent the inevitable strip mining of an authors estate right after they die, capitalizing on the news of their death as free marketing for whatever they produce by strip mining. So the estate can benefit a bit from that.)
I agree with the concept of breaking up the terms for copying/distribution and creation of derivative works, but in the exact opposite direction. Derivative works - such as sampling or remixing - create new creative works, albeit on the bones of older works. They actually add to the wealth of public knowledge, arguably less than a completely original work, but still more than merely copying existing works. Many remixes and sampling artists create works of great value, and this should be encouraged.
By comparison, direct copying and redistribution is at worst plagiarism, and at best, piracy. The moral justification for allowing someone to copy and sell DVDs of Star Wars is significantly lower than the justification for allowing someone to make Star Wars: The Musical, or Star Wars: The Han Solo Story.
I'd submit that it would be better for the original author to have an exclusive monopoly on creating derivative works for around 5 years while copying and redistribution of the original work, substantially unchanged, should remain at the 75 years/life+5 whichever is longer term you suggest.
That said, I'm fine with copyright renewal fees, and even steadily increasing fees. For example, patents have maintenance fees that significantly increase - as a result, particularly in the computing industry where a ten year old product is likely obsolete, most patents aren't extended to their full 20-year term. Making it more and more expensive to get 75 years as opposed to 50 or 30 would do a lot for encouraging abandonment of older works to the public domain.
Computers use the binary system to represent everything. Tell me again how manipulating strings using a computer process isn't mathematical.
Why would I do that? I never said that it wasn't mathematical. This is why Slashdot has a "quote parent" button.
Rather than making you repost, I'll simply fix your post for you:
You're allowed to patent processes, and isn't an algorithm just a process? Specifically, you're not allowed to patent mathematical algorithms. Algorithms that are not purely math, such as a string of commands executed by a processor, are not just mathematical algorithms.
Computers use the binary system to represent everything. Tell me again how manipulating strings using a computer process isn't- and now I see that you wrote "purely math" and "just mathematical algorithms", but actually require hardware, and hardware isn't just math, even though it may use math, and now I realize that I should have probably read your entire post carefully before responding, and at the least should have quoted it. Sorry.
No problem. Cheers.
I know what copyright is for, but you're not allowed to patent algorithms.
You're allowed to patent processes, and isn't an algorithm just a process? Specifically, you're not allowed to patent mathematical algorithms. Algorithms that are not purely math, such as a string of commands executed by a processor, are not just mathematical algorithms. Basically, if you can do it on a pad of paper with a pencil, then it's not patentable... but if the claims expressly require a processor, then by definition, paper and a pencil isn't enough, and it is patentable - and doing it with just the paper and pencil wouldn't be patent infringement. It doesn't remove the mathematical algorithm from the public domain, just the computer implementation.
This more than most software patents is an algorithm with how to create a result from set of common existing sensor inputs. It should not be patentable based on that alone.
Didn't you say in your first post that you hadn't read the article? How do you know that this "more than most software patents is an algorithm" if you haven't read it? Plus, as noted above, processes are patentable - see 35 USC 101. The fact that this is a process doesn't make it not patentable.
Your Move Patent Office. Are they trying to patent an idea again?
Well, yeah, that's what patents are for.
More precisely, an overly broad, idea that would be fairly trivial to implement using existing hardware.
A steam engine is pretty easy to build. Hell, you can 3D print one at home now. Does that mean they should never have been patentable? Difficulty of implementation has never been a requirement for patentability in the statutes... if you disagree with that, then contact Congress, not the patent office, because only the legislature can add a new requirement.
Given that, do they have even a working implementation?
Most likely, but even if they don't, prototypes haven't been required for decades. That's a good thing - it makes it easier for small inventors with brilliant ideas but no capital to get protection for their invention and then sell it to large companies who have the ability to implement it. Say, for example, you come up with a great idea for a new, super-efficient and secure file system architecture. Are you going to write your own OS? And try to make it in the marketplace as a brand new OS, competing with Apple and Microsoft? You'd never get past .01% market share. But if you could sell it to one of them and it gets implemented in their next OS release, your idea would get used by a much greater portion of the population. Isn't this a good thing for society?
These are real questions, I haven't read TFA. These are the kind of patents that need to stop though.
How do you know, if you haven't read TFA? We already know that you're wrong about the requirement for difficulty of implementation, the requirement of prototypes, and the requirement that something not be an idea. Why should we think you're right when you haven't even read the article?
Copyright the implementation of your algorithm and move on.
Copyright will protect you from people making exact copies of your algorithm, from your source code. If they reverse engineer it and remake it - like say one of those OS companies and your file system architecture - it's not copyright infringement. Copyright only protects things where having the specific thing is important - it protects movies, because you want to see "The Hulk", and not the Mockbuster "Angry Green Man" knockoff, or you want to rent "Drop Kick Panda" instead of "Chop Kick Panda". It protects art because you want a Warhol original, not the selfie I just took of me holding a soup can. It protects books because you want OSC's "Ender's Game" and not "Fighting Kids in Space".
But it doesn't protect software, because you don't really care about the specific thing, you want the general concept - you don't care whether you use TaxAct or TurboTax; you don't care if you play Farmville or Farmtown; or Tiny Tower vs. Dream Heights; or Candy Crush Saga vs. Candy Link Epic. It's only useful where someone is locked into a particular implementation due to lack of compatibility - you have to use Microsoft Word because you keep getting .doc files with proprietary formatting, etc. And those are bad things for consumers.
Basically, copyright is useless for most developers, unless they're leveraging a monopoly power to lock people into their software.
There's a difference between donating some genetic material to a couple who can't conceive on their own, and being a father.
This man, at the request of the couple he was donating the material to, signed away any rights/claims to being a father. This is completely and utterly wrongheaded on behalf of the state, and I hope the man is able to take it to appeals.
And I say that as a lesbian who has been in a similar situation to the women in this case. (we ended up not having kids, but were looking at the possibility).
To whom did he sign away his rights and claims to being a father? The couple? That doesn't work - the support obligation is to the child, not the couple. If he's going to sign away his rights and obligations, he has to have it accepted by the child or a guardian ad litem for the child.
For example, say I backed into your car this morning, denting it. Well, I just signed a paper signing away my obligations to you, so it'd be unfair if you went to court and got a judgement against me, right? No, because I can't unilaterally waive that obligation without the consent of the obligee - you. Similarly, the father can't sign away his support obligation to the child unless a guardian ad litem accepts. In Kansas, this is done as part of the official donation process, but he didn't use that - instead, he showed up at their door with three cups of fresh squeezed sperm. So, he hasn't actually fulfilled the requirements to waive that obligation anymore than I can waive my responsibility to you by signing a paper without your consent.
Public defenders have all the billable hours they want. The number of people who need a defender vastly outnumber the defenders available. They lose nothing if they short change you.
They also gain nothing if they short change you. Since the state pays them by the hour, with no limit, there's no reason for them to only work 50 hours on your case and work 50 on another case rather than 100 hours on your case. They get paid the exact same amount either way.
Do they just assign some random lawyer to you from the public defender's office? In that case you might be better off trying to be your own lawyer.
It should be noted that this commonly held belief is actually false. Public defenders are paid hourly by the state or federal government, and thus have an incentive to do as much as possible for you. Unless you're very wealthy, private criminal defense attorneys tend to be paid a set retainer up front (e.g. "$5000 to get you to trial, and we'll talk then about the next retainer if you want to go through trial") and thus have an incentive to do as little as possible, since the less time they spend on you, the more profit they make. If you can't drop $50k on your defense, then you're much better off with the public defender.
Dude lied while under oath. Full stop.
He did not have to answer the questions at all, due to the Fifth at a minimum, and to the irrelevance you mention. He could at least have deferred to his attorney. Instead he elected, of his own free will, to lie. This is a crime.
That would be true, if that's what he did. He did not, however, lie. Full stop. Rather, he answered the question he was asked, taking advantage of some ambiguity in the question, while knowing that that wasn't the information he was being asked for. Specifically, he was asked if he'd ever had sex with Lewinsky, and when asked for clarification, the prosecutor defined "sex" as "intercourse", so he said no. That's completely true, but it's also intentionally misleading. That's why he was never charged or sanctioned with perjury by the court. Instead, he was sanctioned for willfully violating the discovery procedure.
On the other hand, an internet connected, digital thermostat isn't exactly a novel idea.
Nope, and if that's what they tried to claim in a patent, it would be rejected. But the specifics of the design and user interface are new, and may not be obvious.
When you set out to explicitly copy someone's product and succeed without reading any patent information, it's tough to argue that their patent is nonobvious.
I think you'll have a hard time proving that the guys saying "we made an open-source version of the Nest!" have no idea what the Nest is and haven't seen any write-ups of it.
And we know you didn't read their patent because first, we know their patent is not actually useful for replicating their "invention", second, because you were explicitly ordered not to read their patent because your boss thinks the treble damage rule is still in effect, and third, because you know you didn't need to. As a skilled practitioner of the art, you knew you would be able to solve any problems you encountered in the process of replicating the product.
Nope, instead you read the white papers, read product reviews and use manuals, and read lots of other information that was made public because they had patent protection, rather than being kept hidden as a trade secret.
But we are saying that you can build a $3.2 billion company, and it's easier now than it's ever been before.
Were it not for patents...
When you set out to explicitly copy someone's product, it's tough to argue that they don't need patent protection.
Yes, that wouldn't be extortion. However, it's not common for hundreds of people to damage your car, so it's not the best example.
Conceded.
How about this - you own a house on a nice plot of land that happens to be near a major sports/concert venue. Game/show day rolls around, and hundreds of people (you have several acres) decide to park on your land, without your permission, damaging your nice lawn with their tires. If you left a letter on each of their windshields demanding $50 to repair your lawn or you'd take them to court for trespassing, that wouldn't be extortion.
There's one important difference between your example and this case - the number of people targeted. If you're sending out hundreds of letters to people claiming that they damaged your car, then that's extortion.
Not if hundreds of people did damage your car. In this case, since the hundreds of people are apparently using the patented technology, then the claims are not frivolous, and it's not extortion.
Sounds to me like they're risking running afoul of racketeering and extortion laws. I hope that they push the issue that far, it'd be fun to watch.
Unlikely. If they have a non-frivolous legal claim, which it appears they do (they own the patents in question, the patents are considered prima facie valid until invalidated, the people targeted are using the patented technology), then notifying someone of an intent to sue and offering a settlement is not extortion. Think of a similar situation - someone hits your car, causing minor damage to a quarter panel. Since you have a high deductible, you tell them to give you $1k in cash and you'll call it a day without filing suit or getting the insurance companies involved. Are you now engaging in extortion? Of course not.
However, we have no formal test for what is obvious.
Uh, yeah, we do. A claimed invention is prima facie obvious if one or more pieces of prior art, alone or in combination, teach or suggest each and every element of the patent claim. See MPEP 2143.03, citing to In re Royka, 490 F.2d 981, 180 USPQ 580 (CCPA 1974).
In other words, if a patent claim recites "A method, comprising: step A; step B; step C; and step D" and you can find steps A, B, C, and D in one or more pieces of prior art, then the claim is obvious, by definition. If, on the other hand, you can find step A, B, and D, but there's nowhere - no literature, no product, no white paper, no advertisement, nothin' - that describes step C, then the invention is likely not obvious.
It's like proving someone guilty of a crime. The crime will list elements - "(i) operated, (ii) a motor vehicle, (iii) on a public way, (iv) while intoxicated" - and if the prosecution can only prove that you operated a motor vehicle while intoxicated, but you were actually in your back yard at the time, then you're not guilty of the crime. Each and every element has to be met, or you don't get the obvious/guilty conclusion.
There are efforts underway by IP maximalists to extend IP protection forever. We've already seen works be taken OUT of the public domain. Do you know how many works became public domain in 2013?
Firstly, no patent or copyright should outlive the inventor or creator.
There are no efforts to extend patent protection, nor have there been. Patent term has only been extended once, back in the 1850s (the more recent change from 17 years from issue to 20 years from filing is not a change in term since there was and is an average of three years of backlog and prosecution between filing and issue). This is because, unlike copyright, there's equal interest by wealthy lobbyists in shortening term: basically, all of the copyright owners (and their well-backed industry organizations like the RIAA and MPAA) want longer protection while the public and pirates want shorter protection... but all of the money going to Congress is from the former group, so copyright term gets lengthened. With patents, every patent owner wants their own patents to have a longer term, but their competitors' patents to have a shorter term. It doesn't benefit Apple if, for example, Microsoft gets a 50 year patent term, and vice versa. Accordingly, there's no coalition sending large amounts of money to Congress to demand longer patent terms.
Furniture, fashion, and a significant portion of industrial design (such as car bodies) don't even have copyright or design patent protection. Yet those industries thrive.
I have no idea why this myth keeps getting spread. Of course, furniture, fashion, and car bodies have patent protection. Ten seconds on Google refutes your post, and yet this myth keeps getting spread over and over.
Aereo has gone to great lengths to ensure that nobody outside the broadcast footprint can access the content through Aereo. So your point is entirely moot.
They do an IP-based location check, and then offer a "are we wrong and you're actually in your home area" button to click, at which point they allow access to the content. It's a great length in the same way that Hello World is a complex program.
The rectangle with rounded edges was a design patent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent) not a utlitity patent, which the Google patent is.
... Design patents are a little easier to accept since they're closer to copyright on physical objects.
Sort of... They're actually closer to trade dress: if you have a distinctive trade dress or a granted design patent, then you can stop someone from using the design, even if they aren't actually copying you and never even saw your design, unlike copyright, which requires actual copying.
I'm not saying the Google patent isn't bad, especially given the clear prior art with MS Comic Chat, but just that it's important to distinguish the types of patents when pointing out the inanity of the system.
Having read both the Comic Chat article linked earlier, and the patent claims (which you clearly haven't done), I don't know how anyone could say that Comic Chat is "clear prior art"... At least in any way more meaningful than saying that the Model T is "clear prior art" to the Tesla Roadster, since it's prior, and it's in the art, but it sure wouldn't invalidate any patents on the latter.
That's not to say the patent is necessarily valid... Just that Comic Chat, on its own, doesn't even begin to teach every element in the claims.
.. having been separated last year, I've been hitting the internet dating, including Tinder.
Anyone who uses a Bitstrip as a profile photo gets rejected instantly unless they are very, very compelling otherwise. It just conveys a complete lack of honesty and originality to me..
You assume, inaccurately, that they'd not want to be "instantly rejected" by someone that condescending.