Clearly that is the intent here. They are abusing the system for their personal enrichment and even the courts realize it.
The fact that they have civilian defenders that think they can hide behind the letter of the law doesn't change their mens rea.
This judge seems to understand that.
The fact that you think a court should find someone guilty if you can show they have the requisite mens rea for a crime but can't show the actus reus means you apparently missed everything after the first 10 minutes in your criminal law class.
Exerting your legal rights is not extortion, nor is offering a settlement to avoid litigation. For better or for worse, RICO doesn't apply.
I think that is probably legally true. But as phrased this case closely fits the commonly understood, if not the legal, definition of extortion. And maybe that company yesterday that was threatening to tell all your neighbors that they thought you downloaded donkey porn (well, they weren't that explicit...it was a rather vague threat...phrased in a way that didn't make it any less threatening) wasn't doing extortion either. Not in a legal sense. There were enough weasel words in what they were sending people that it may well have been legal. But it was clearly extortion in every normal meaning of the term.
That one wasn't so much weasel words as the logical response to the "so you have my IP address - so what? That doesn't uniquely identify me, as it could be my wife, my kids, my neighbors, etc.": "okay, then we'll ask your wife, your kids, and your neighbors if they were the ones downloading donkey midget porn from your WiFi access point, or whether it might have been someone else, like you." And it's not extortion for the same reason - it's legitimate to ask them about it for that reason.
Is it potentially embarrassing? Sure, if it's true and you did download the donkey midget porn (if not, then why would you be embarrassed, and wouldn't you in fact be vehemently and publicly denying it?). But then, should we really be so concerned with not embarrassing people who do something illegal?
and the defendant in an infringement suit can show proof of actual damages to mitigate statutory damages.
As far as I know, that is not really true - the copyright holder can choose to ask for actual or statutory damages and while it might have an impact on where you end up on the $750-150,000 statutory scale you can't prove your way below the statutory minimum. And that is pretty damn steep for a dollar tune or porn flick. You can knock that down to $200 if you can prove you're an innocent infringer, but then the burden is on you to prove that.
Nah, not the innocent infringer bit - that's pretty much impossible to show, thanks to some existing case law. But you can get down to $750. And while yes, that's still pretty steep, but my earlier point stands - if there's a likelihood that you can get damages that low, then it's not worth suing you in the first place, since they're going to spend upwards of $10k just filing the suit and likely won't be able to collect attorney's fees.
It's about time judges start to see these campaigns as the mass extortion cases that they are. If this was being done by anyone else there would have been RICO charges filed long ago.
Exerting your legal rights is not extortion, nor is offering a settlement to avoid litigation. For better or for worse, RICO doesn't apply.
These cases have nothing to do with preserving copyright and everything to do with extorting the public. A $7500 settlement instead of a $150,000 for a $10 movie, how on earth can this possibly be anything other than sheer extortion?
Except that they're going after people who distribute the movie, not just download a single copy... In which case, it's a $7500 settlement instead of $150,000 for a $50,000 license to reproduce and distribute a movie. They don't go after leechers because (i) there are technical problems with finding leechers unless you're the seeder or you're doing deep packet inspection; (ii) leechers may have format-shifting-by-proxy fair use arguments if they have a legal copy in another format; (iii) leechers can prove that actual damages are $10, and the defendant in an infringement suit can show proof of actual damages to mitigate statutory damages.
No, unfortunately. For simplicity (though the analysis is the same), let's take the federal one at the end:
18 USC 875(a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any demand or request for a ransom or reward for the release of any kidnapped person, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
Well, that one clearly doesn't apply.
(b) Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
Again, no threat of injury or kidnapping, so not there.
(c) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
No again, for the same reason.
(d) Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to injure the property or reputation of the addressee or of another or the reputation of a deceased person or any threat to accuse the addressee or any other person of a crime, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
So, here's the one - threat to injure the reputation of the addressee with intent to extort money. However, remember that defamation must be false. For example, say you borrow my car while drunk and damage the bumper. If I send you a letter threatening to sue you for it if you don't pay for the repair, it would damage your reputation for your neighbors to know you were a drunk driver... but I'm not committing extortion or threatening to injure your reputation, because there's nothing defamatory in my statement: it's true.
Assuming in this case that they did detect a download of midget goat porn from the recipient's cable modem (because while the scummiest lawyer in the world may twist the truth and skirt the edge of an outright lie to a court, in this case, it's relatively trivial to monitor a bittorrent swarm, and then the letter has at least the barest sliver of truth as an excuse), then the letter isn't extortion or defamatory: they did detect the download, and they'll inquire of your neighbors whether they jumped on your access point to download midget goat porn or whether it someone else, like you.
So, yeah, it's sleazy, and they're still going to have the problems noted by the judge in the Prenda case, but it's not technically extortion.
I'm not ashamed of my sexuality. I don't pirate porn, largely because the majority of it is fake and really poor quality (I'm not in the target audience), but let them tell my neighbours. They'll get hit with a defamation lawsuit pretty quickly.
On what grounds? They're going to contact your neighbors to say that they detected a download of midget goat porn from your cable modem, and ask if they were the ones downloading midget goat porn as opposed to another person accessing your WiFi, such as you. If they actually did detect the download (which even the scummiest sleazebag lawyer in the world is still going to do so as to have the barest excuse for threatening litigation), then there's nothing that they'll say that is untrue or defamatory.
How the 2013 World Press Photo of the Year was faked with Photoshop
OMG, it was faked! This is an outrage!
... but, from the ExtremeTech article:
When is an image fake, and when is it merely enhanced?
The bigger discussion, of course, is whether Gaza Burial is actually fake — or just enhanced to bring out important details. This is a question that has plagued photography since its inception. Should a photo, especially a press photo, be purely objective? Most people think the answer is an obvious “yes,” but it’s not quite that simple. What if a photo is perfect, except that it’s taken at an odd angle — can you digitally rotate it? What about cropping? What if there’s dust on the lens/sensor/film — can you digitally remove it?
Perhaps most importantly, though, cameras simply don’t capture the same gamut of color or dynamic range as human eyes — a photo never looks the same as the original image perceived by your brain. Is it okay for a photographer to modify a picture so that it looks exactly how he remembers the scene?
So, it wasn't faked, but rather cleaned up? All those people were in those positions at that time? The event was real?
The article uses the word "fake" to discredit the photographer, while at the same time admitting that that determination is really a subjective one having to do with how much enhancement is acceptable, and that the subject of the photo - which photojournalism is really about - is completely real.
As much as the idea of patented seeds is ridiculous and dangerous (IMO), this particular argument wasn't going to fly.
The more important part of the decision (FTA): "But Kagan said the court's holding only "addresses the situation before us."" There was no wider ruling on whether seeds are patentable as IP or anything sweeping like that.
Though true, it's also a pretty good implication that seeds are patentable as IP, because patent ineligibility would be something the Supreme Court could raise sua sponte (deciding an issue on their own initiative, as opposed to merely deciding issues addressed by the lower court).
I think there are both practical differences (investment levels, for starters: it's quite expensive to experiment with chemical processes, drug manufacture, upscale them, AND comply with medical and industrial regulations, whereas algorithm design is hardly more expensive than any other kind of academic or applied mathematical work)
If patent subject matter eligibility is based on "is this an algorithm or not," then practical concerns such as investment level should be irrelevant. Furthermore, if patents are objectively granted based on innovation regardless of capitalistic influences, then "but it's expensive!" or "we spent a lot of investment money on this!" should be irrelevant. Do you think patents should be awarded only to big companies who spend lots of money on development and who promise their investors great gains, regardless of invention?
... and theoretical differences (example by contradiction: if algorithms indeed *are* patent-worthy, why not the rest of mathematics? And if the rest of mathematics is patent-worthy, why hasn't any country done that yet? Case in point: in my country, anything derivable from math is explicitly ruled out as unpatentable).
But, under the Supreme Court's Bilski decision (and in most countries, including, I suspect, your country - what country are you in, exactly?), an algorithm or mathematics alone (or software per se) is unpatentable, but the same algorithm or mathematics (or software) embodied in or performed by a machine is patentable - see Diamond v. Diehr, among others.
The dividing line seems to be whether the claim could be infringed by a human, thinking, for good reason - allowing this to be patented would create a thoughtcrime, since people can't control their thoughts.
I'd argue that the spirit of 35 USC 101 refers to physical processes, not abstract ones; at most a practical implementation of an abstract algorithm is what is patentable, not the algorithm itself. The Juducial Exceptions explain this further. This was decided by Gottschalk_v._Benson, and seems to have been confirmed by the current case.
Except that the recent cases have affirmed or cited positively Diamond v. Diehr, which was patenting an algorithm, too:
1. A method of operating a rubber-molding press for precision molded compounds with the aid of a digital computer, comprising:
providing said computer with a data base for said press including at least, natural logarithm conversion data (ln), the activation energy constant (C) unique to each batch of said compound being molded, and a constant (x) dependent upon the geometry of the particular mold of the press,
initiating an interval timer in said computer upon the closure of the press for monitoring the elapsed time of said closure,
constantly determining the temperature (Z) of the mold at a location closely adjacent to the mold cavity in the press during molding,
constantly providing the computer with the temperature (Z),
repetitively performing in the computer, at frequent intervals during each cure, integrations to calculate from the series of temperature determinations the Arrhenius equation for reaction time during the cure, which is
ln(v)=CZ+x
where v is the total required cure time,
repetitively comparing in the computer at frequent intervals during the cure each said calculation of the total required cure time calculated with the Arrhenius equation and said elapsed time, and
opening the press automatically when a said comparison indicates completion of curing.
35 USC 101: Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Hm. Hmmm. There's this talk about "machine", "manufacture", and "matter" that makes me think whether "process" meant actually meant "technological process" (including, say, the chemical ones). When exactly was this law written? Before or after Turing?:-) Given the fact that algorithms are essentially very complex equations, one would expect that mathematics would have been mentioned if that were the case.
Well, the patent act was most recently amendment two years ago, in the America Invents Act. So, almost 50 years after Turing's death. Previously, it has been amended in the 1990s, and substantially in the 1950s, both well after Turing was doing his thing.:-D I think Congress in the 1950s, 1990s, and 2010s, understood processes to include algorithms.
There is no line. Algorithms were never meant to be patented.
35 USC 101: Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Algorithm: A process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, esp. by a computer.
I'd say it's pretty clear that algorithms were meant to be patented, provided they were new and useful and met the other conditions of the patent act.
The 7th Circuit Judge Easterbook used the phrase "law of the horse" in a discussion about cyberlaw back in 1996, the idea being that there need not be specialized areas of law for different circumstances: we don't need a specialized "tort law of the horse" to cover when someone is kicked by a horse; current tort law applies. Similarly, we don't need specialized "contract law of the horse" to cover sales of horses; contract law already applies. Likewise, goes the argument, we don't need a tort law of cyberspace, or contract law of cyberspace.
Similarly, we don't need a specialized law of the robot: "Robots are, and for many years will remain, tools," and the law already covers uses of tools (e.g. machines, such as cars) in committing torts (such as hit and run accidents).
Software algorithms, especially as most programmers were taught from the same basics, can be very ubiquitous. While I think coding implementation of an alogrithm can be unique and should be copyrightable, granting patents on the algorithm is a very flawed and growth inhibiting concept.
But that's more of a question of whether a new algorithm is obvious in view of the basics that everyone knows. This is a separate question of whether even the most novel, nonobvious software algorithm ever invented could be patentable - something so far beyond what you can do with the basics, or even beyond imagining: should that super inventive, Nobel-prize winning, unquestioned "Most Non-obvious Program Ever" still be barred from patentability, merely because it's a program?
Obvious programs, of course, shouldn't be patentable, but that's because they're obvious, not because they're programs. Why should you be able to patent a circuit that takes an input, performs a function, and spits out an output, but you shouldn't be able to patent the same exact input-function-output in software? What if your software is explicitly modelling the electronic components, like Circuit Lab? Is it still unpatentable when it's a collection of virtual hardware? In the same vein, what about a new type of automatic transmission for a car - patentable machine, right? What if you model it in a 3D CAD program? Suddenly unpatentable software? Even if, hiding the monitor bezel and cranking the rendering resolution up to full, an observer couldn't tell the difference between the physical prototype and the virtual prototype?
I'm not really sure that this is even something they can patent? Isn't their prior art? ... I didn't read the patent application...
Only on Slashdot would this be moderated as insightful.
Here's a real insight for you: when someone, such as Subby, paraphrases something to make it easier to understand, the result will be obvious by definition. Toyota's Prius hybrid is "like a Model T that can also use a battery", both of which are well known, so its planetary transmission is obvious, right? Or iRobot's packbot is "like a giant dog, but metal" so its radar terrain tracking and movement algorithms are obvious, right?
Paraphrasing is like lossy compression: it's purpose is to simplify and explain something by taking away in depth information. Making a conclusion based on that, without ever reading the original, is like listening to a 32 Kbps MP3 and saying you know that glockenspiels sound like trash can lids.
Of course, one benefit of POTS was that, in a power failure, your landline phone would frequently still work because of the giant piles of batteries at the CO. So, you could still dial 911 if, say, your aged relative's breathing assist machine needed power, or if there was some other medical emergency in the midst of what ever caused the power failure. Kind of ironic that, as a result of a disaster, they'll be somewhat more vulnerable to disasters.
why do patent inspectors spend more than 2 seconds on dreck like this before denying it.
Because it's a quasi-judicial decision, and is subject to the constitutional requirements of due process. "Obvious" is a legal conclusion, like "guilty", and must be supported by evidence. No matter how guilty a judge or jury thinks a defendant looks, their conclusion must be supported by evidence, and if there's no evidence, then a conviction of "but we had a gut feeling he was guilty" will be overturned. Similarly, no matter how obvious we feel dreck like this is, that conclusion must be supported by evidence, and if there's no evidence, then a rejection of the patent on "but we had a gut feeling it was obvious" will be overturned.
I think the easiest way to start to fix this would to be to hire masters of different fields to handle patents of said field. I think that right there would help quite a bit. there is no reason someone who went to school for cooking but gets the qualifications and becomes a patent officer should have any reason saying yes or no to something such as computer systems / hardware or engine design etc.
That's a brilliant idea... We could have a classification system wherein patent applications are sorted by area of technology and assigned to patent units with specialized Examiners who are skilled in those fields to apply prior art and test for obviousness. We can call them "art units".
There is no test for obviousness, despite it being a requirement that patents must not cover obvious innovations.
There's a difference between "there is no test for obviousness" and "I don't know what the test for obviousness is," and they should not be used interchangeably when you mean the latter. The Examiner can make a prima facie case that a claimed invention is obvious by showing that one or more pieces of prior art, alone or in combination, teach or suggest each and every element in the claim. So, if a claim recites A+B+C and the Examiner can show one piece of prior art that teaches A+B and another that teaches C, and they can be combined without undue experimentation or changing their functions, then the claim is obvious. If, on the other hand, the Examiner can't find anything that teaches C anywhere, then the claim is not obvious.
Happy to help clarify that for you.
Now, to clear up a few other things you say:
The cost to invalidate a patent is in the millions, but the cost to file and receive a patent is in the hundreds.
It costs about $25k to file and prosecute a patent to issue, not "hundreds". And they can be invalidated for just a few hundred via post grant review.
First to File means that patent application secrecy is needless -- If you're filling a patent it should be public knowledge so we can protest anything that is obvious / file our prior art.
That doesn't change anything, as all patent applications were published under the first-to-invent system, too, and the public could protest by submitting prior art to the Examiner.
Look at the Automotive and Fashion industries -- Neither of which have design patents or copyright, and yet design is their core sales point, and they are very innovative in design.
Here are tens of thousands of design patents in the automotive industry. And here are thousands of design patents on dresses. A search for design patents on "jeans" will turn up a similar number, as will socks, shoes, etc. Your premise is demonstrably false.
Anyone who fears Trade Secrecy / Trade Unions locking up innovation has never met a reverse engineer from this century. We strip layers off of microchips to discover their wiring at the nano scale.
Yes, but without patents, there would be more efforts to protect trade secrets - like you wouldn't actually ever own a physical microchip to strip it apart. You'd merely be renting it under a lease agreement, with massive liquidated damages if you do damage it. Do you really want to have to have a subscription to use your computer? I don't.
We have spectrograms and readily derive the secret recipes for foodstuffs and medicines -- Hence the generics market existing.
Actually, the generics market exists because of patent disclosures and the FDA orange book. Would you buy a "generic" reverse engineered version of a brand new medicine that the FDA hadn't approved, much less tested?
It's not economically feasible for secrets to exist in consumer products today, you can't hide the molecules and machine code from me (and yes, I do read and write fluently in machine code).
Watch out, Slashdot, we've got a badass over here.
I'll do you one better. Just shorten patent duration to 5 years. Oh you waited too long, your submarine sank... Oh, that's not long enough? Well, it is for the majority so get to innovating faster and deal with it.
That's a bit naive. Between a provisional application, and a two and a half year backlog at the USPTO, and then 1.5 years of prosecution (two rounds of back and forth, plus the delay to issue the patent) and you could have a patent that issues on its expiration date. And if you're in pharma, you still haven't cleared FDA-required animal testing, much less humans, and you're far from even selling a single unit of product.
There needs to be some sort of "horse has left the barn" exemption to patent enforceability. If a patent holder sits quietly and watches while an industry develops around something they believe to be infringing, it's not reasonable to allow them to wait until billions of dollars are at stake and then suddenly show up with a demand for payment.
That's not at all in the spirit of patent law. The purpose was to allow the patent holder the ability to exploit their own invention, not to allow them to sit on their asses doing nothing and then exploit everyone else's work.
Yeah... some sort of "you intentionally waited too long to enforce your rights, and as a result, the infringers are in an unreasonably worse position now than they would've been had you acted at little faster" rule. Or like you say, the "horse has left the barn, so why bother latching it up". We could even call it the laches rule.
The problem isn't being seen in public. It's being seen in public, and identified. And possibly doing something controversial.
All of which can happen now. Those busybodies who keep track of people who buy video games, alcohol, adult stores, abortion clinics, etc. currently do all of that, without Glass. They use cameras, and notepads, and other low tech tools.
Your other concerns - that Glass will be used to spy on the user, by tracking everything you purchase and consume - have you any idea how much bandwidth that would require? A user would burn through their data plan in a day. And Google would have to process petabytes of video, daily. Frankly, it makes no sense. It's also far easier to simply track your credit card purchases, which again, they already do.
Only a complete fucking moron would move legal data with torrents.
A lawyer is obligated to preserve his clients' confidences. When you store your information on somebody elses server or servers you are giving up custody and control over some of those confidences. In that situation you are entirely dependent upon the strength of your encryption.
That encryption might be good today or tomorrow, but how good will it be five years from now or ten years from now when quantum computing or the next best thing becomes available for codebreakers.
Don't risk a lawsuit from a pissed client!
Respectfully, I believe the submitter meant "legal" as opposed to "illegal" or unlicensed data under someone else's copyright - i.e. the vast majority of torrents.
As a handy tip for the future - attempting to put words in other peoples' mouths doesn't work on an internet forum, where anyone can read what the other people say. Only use that in your 'journalism' where you can control the conversation. Cheers!
I can summarize your comment very simply: "Crowdsourcing! Crowdsourcing! Rah! Rah! Rah! - but don't look behind the curtains. We got many things wrong, but ignore those. It's not our fault. Crowdsourcing! Crowdsourcing! Rah! Rah! Rah!"
Nope. And I'm not sure how a strawman argument gets a +4 interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
> Exerting your legal rights is not extortion
Clearly that is the intent here. They are abusing the system for their personal enrichment and even the courts realize it.
The fact that they have civilian defenders that think they can hide behind the letter of the law doesn't change their mens rea.
This judge seems to understand that.
The fact that you think a court should find someone guilty if you can show they have the requisite mens rea for a crime but can't show the actus reus means you apparently missed everything after the first 10 minutes in your criminal law class.
Exerting your legal rights is not extortion, nor is offering a settlement to avoid litigation. For better or for worse, RICO doesn't apply.
I think that is probably legally true. But as phrased this case closely fits the commonly understood, if not the legal, definition of extortion. And maybe that company yesterday that was threatening to tell all your neighbors that they thought you downloaded donkey porn (well, they weren't that explicit...it was a rather vague threat...phrased in a way that didn't make it any less threatening) wasn't doing extortion either. Not in a legal sense. There were enough weasel words in what they were sending people that it may well have been legal. But it was clearly extortion in every normal meaning of the term.
That one wasn't so much weasel words as the logical response to the "so you have my IP address - so what? That doesn't uniquely identify me, as it could be my wife, my kids, my neighbors, etc.": "okay, then we'll ask your wife, your kids, and your neighbors if they were the ones downloading donkey midget porn from your WiFi access point, or whether it might have been someone else, like you." And it's not extortion for the same reason - it's legitimate to ask them about it for that reason.
Is it potentially embarrassing? Sure, if it's true and you did download the donkey midget porn (if not, then why would you be embarrassed, and wouldn't you in fact be vehemently and publicly denying it?). But then, should we really be so concerned with not embarrassing people who do something illegal?
and the defendant in an infringement suit can show proof of actual damages to mitigate statutory damages.
As far as I know, that is not really true - the copyright holder can choose to ask for actual or statutory damages and while it might have an impact on where you end up on the $750-150,000 statutory scale you can't prove your way below the statutory minimum. And that is pretty damn steep for a dollar tune or porn flick. You can knock that down to $200 if you can prove you're an innocent infringer, but then the burden is on you to prove that.
Nah, not the innocent infringer bit - that's pretty much impossible to show, thanks to some existing case law. But you can get down to $750. And while yes, that's still pretty steep, but my earlier point stands - if there's a likelihood that you can get damages that low, then it's not worth suing you in the first place, since they're going to spend upwards of $10k just filing the suit and likely won't be able to collect attorney's fees.
It's about time judges start to see these campaigns as the mass extortion cases that they are. If this was being done by anyone else there would have been RICO charges filed long ago.
Exerting your legal rights is not extortion, nor is offering a settlement to avoid litigation. For better or for worse, RICO doesn't apply.
These cases have nothing to do with preserving copyright and everything to do with extorting the public. A $7500 settlement instead of a $150,000 for a $10 movie, how on earth can this possibly be anything other than sheer extortion?
Except that they're going after people who distribute the movie, not just download a single copy... In which case, it's a $7500 settlement instead of $150,000 for a $50,000 license to reproduce and distribute a movie. They don't go after leechers because (i) there are technical problems with finding leechers unless you're the seeder or you're doing deep packet inspection; (ii) leechers may have format-shifting-by-proxy fair use arguments if they have a legal copy in another format; (iii) leechers can prove that actual damages are $10, and the defendant in an infringement suit can show proof of actual damages to mitigate statutory damages.
...the definition of extortion? For example:
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+18.2-59
http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2905.11
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&group=00001-01000&file=518-527
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/875
No, unfortunately. For simplicity (though the analysis is the same), let's take the federal one at the end:
18 USC 875(a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any demand or request for a ransom or reward for the release of any kidnapped person, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
Well, that one clearly doesn't apply.
(b) Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
Again, no threat of injury or kidnapping, so not there.
(c) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
No again, for the same reason.
(d) Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to injure the property or reputation of the addressee or of another or the reputation of a deceased person or any threat to accuse the addressee or any other person of a crime, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
So, here's the one - threat to injure the reputation of the addressee with intent to extort money. However, remember that defamation must be false. For example, say you borrow my car while drunk and damage the bumper. If I send you a letter threatening to sue you for it if you don't pay for the repair, it would damage your reputation for your neighbors to know you were a drunk driver... but I'm not committing extortion or threatening to injure your reputation, because there's nothing defamatory in my statement: it's true.
Assuming in this case that they did detect a download of midget goat porn from the recipient's cable modem (because while the scummiest lawyer in the world may twist the truth and skirt the edge of an outright lie to a court, in this case, it's relatively trivial to monitor a bittorrent swarm, and then the letter has at least the barest sliver of truth as an excuse), then the letter isn't extortion or defamatory: they did detect the download, and they'll inquire of your neighbors whether they jumped on your access point to download midget goat porn or whether it someone else, like you.
So, yeah, it's sleazy, and they're still going to have the problems noted by the judge in the Prenda case, but it's not technically extortion.
I'm not ashamed of my sexuality. I don't pirate porn, largely because the majority of it is fake and really poor quality (I'm not in the target audience), but let them tell my neighbours. They'll get hit with a defamation lawsuit pretty quickly.
On what grounds? They're going to contact your neighbors to say that they detected a download of midget goat porn from your cable modem, and ask if they were the ones downloading midget goat porn as opposed to another person accessing your WiFi, such as you. If they actually did detect the download (which even the scummiest sleazebag lawyer in the world is still going to do so as to have the barest excuse for threatening litigation), then there's nothing that they'll say that is untrue or defamatory.
How the 2013 World Press Photo of the Year was faked with Photoshop
OMG, it was faked! This is an outrage!
... but, from the ExtremeTech article:
When is an image fake, and when is it merely enhanced?
The bigger discussion, of course, is whether Gaza Burial is actually fake — or just enhanced to bring out important details. This is a question that has plagued photography since its inception. Should a photo, especially a press photo, be purely objective? Most people think the answer is an obvious “yes,” but it’s not quite that simple. What if a photo is perfect, except that it’s taken at an odd angle — can you digitally rotate it? What about cropping? What if there’s dust on the lens/sensor/film — can you digitally remove it?
Perhaps most importantly, though, cameras simply don’t capture the same gamut of color or dynamic range as human eyes — a photo never looks the same as the original image perceived by your brain. Is it okay for a photographer to modify a picture so that it looks exactly how he remembers the scene?
So, it wasn't faked, but rather cleaned up? All those people were in those positions at that time? The event was real?
The article uses the word "fake" to discredit the photographer, while at the same time admitting that that determination is really a subjective one having to do with how much enhancement is acceptable, and that the subject of the photo - which photojournalism is really about - is completely real.
As much as the idea of patented seeds is ridiculous and dangerous (IMO), this particular argument wasn't going to fly.
The more important part of the decision (FTA): "But Kagan said the court's holding only "addresses the situation before us."" There was no wider ruling on whether seeds are patentable as IP or anything sweeping like that.
Though true, it's also a pretty good implication that seeds are patentable as IP, because patent ineligibility would be something the Supreme Court could raise sua sponte (deciding an issue on their own initiative, as opposed to merely deciding issues addressed by the lower court).
I think there are both practical differences (investment levels, for starters: it's quite expensive to experiment with chemical processes, drug manufacture, upscale them, AND comply with medical and industrial regulations, whereas algorithm design is hardly more expensive than any other kind of academic or applied mathematical work)
If patent subject matter eligibility is based on "is this an algorithm or not," then practical concerns such as investment level should be irrelevant. Furthermore, if patents are objectively granted based on innovation regardless of capitalistic influences, then "but it's expensive!" or "we spent a lot of investment money on this!" should be irrelevant. Do you think patents should be awarded only to big companies who spend lots of money on development and who promise their investors great gains, regardless of invention?
... and theoretical differences (example by contradiction: if algorithms indeed *are* patent-worthy, why not the rest of mathematics? And if the rest of mathematics is patent-worthy, why hasn't any country done that yet? Case in point: in my country, anything derivable from math is explicitly ruled out as unpatentable).
But, under the Supreme Court's Bilski decision (and in most countries, including, I suspect, your country - what country are you in, exactly?), an algorithm or mathematics alone (or software per se) is unpatentable, but the same algorithm or mathematics (or software) embodied in or performed by a machine is patentable - see Diamond v. Diehr, among others.
The dividing line seems to be whether the claim could be infringed by a human, thinking, for good reason - allowing this to be patented would create a thoughtcrime, since people can't control their thoughts.
I'd argue that the spirit of 35 USC 101 refers to physical processes, not abstract ones; at most a practical implementation of an abstract algorithm is what is patentable, not the algorithm itself. The Juducial Exceptions explain this further. This was decided by Gottschalk_v._Benson, and seems to have been confirmed by the current case.
Except that the recent cases have affirmed or cited positively Diamond v. Diehr, which was patenting an algorithm, too:
1. A method of operating a rubber-molding press for precision molded compounds with the aid of a digital computer, comprising:
providing said computer with a data base for said press including at least, natural logarithm conversion data (ln), the activation energy constant (C) unique to each batch of said compound being molded, and a constant (x) dependent upon the geometry of the particular mold of the press,
initiating an interval timer in said computer upon the closure of the press for monitoring the elapsed time of said closure,
constantly determining the temperature (Z) of the mold at a location closely adjacent to the mold cavity in the press during molding,
constantly providing the computer with the temperature (Z),
repetitively performing in the computer, at frequent intervals during each cure, integrations to calculate from the series of temperature determinations the Arrhenius equation for reaction time during the cure, which is ln(v)=CZ+x where v is the total required cure time,
repetitively comparing in the computer at frequent intervals during the cure each said calculation of the total required cure time calculated with the Arrhenius equation and said elapsed time, and
opening the press automatically when a said comparison indicates completion of curing.
The current case also cites Diehr positively.
35 USC 101: Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Hm. Hmmm. There's this talk about "machine", "manufacture", and "matter" that makes me think whether "process" meant actually meant "technological process" (including, say, the chemical ones). When exactly was this law written? Before or after Turing? :-) Given the fact that algorithms are essentially very complex equations, one would expect that mathematics would have been mentioned if that were the case.
Well, the patent act was most recently amendment two years ago, in the America Invents Act. So, almost 50 years after Turing's death. Previously, it has been amended in the 1990s, and substantially in the 1950s, both well after Turing was doing his thing. :-D I think Congress in the 1950s, 1990s, and 2010s, understood processes to include algorithms.
There is no line. Algorithms were never meant to be patented.
35 USC 101: Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Algorithm: A process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, esp. by a computer.
I'd say it's pretty clear that algorithms were meant to be patented, provided they were new and useful and met the other conditions of the patent act.
Similarly, we don't need a specialized law of the robot: "Robots are, and for many years will remain, tools," and the law already covers uses of tools (e.g. machines, such as cars) in committing torts (such as hit and run accidents).
Software algorithms, especially as most programmers were taught from the same basics, can be very ubiquitous. While I think coding implementation of an alogrithm can be unique and should be copyrightable, granting patents on the algorithm is a very flawed and growth inhibiting concept.
But that's more of a question of whether a new algorithm is obvious in view of the basics that everyone knows. This is a separate question of whether even the most novel, nonobvious software algorithm ever invented could be patentable - something so far beyond what you can do with the basics, or even beyond imagining: should that super inventive, Nobel-prize winning, unquestioned "Most Non-obvious Program Ever" still be barred from patentability, merely because it's a program?
Obvious programs, of course, shouldn't be patentable, but that's because they're obvious, not because they're programs. Why should you be able to patent a circuit that takes an input, performs a function, and spits out an output, but you shouldn't be able to patent the same exact input-function-output in software? What if your software is explicitly modelling the electronic components, like Circuit Lab? Is it still unpatentable when it's a collection of virtual hardware? In the same vein, what about a new type of automatic transmission for a car - patentable machine, right? What if you model it in a 3D CAD program? Suddenly unpatentable software? Even if, hiding the monitor bezel and cranking the rendering resolution up to full, an observer couldn't tell the difference between the physical prototype and the virtual prototype?
I'm not really sure that this is even something they can patent? Isn't their prior art?
... I didn't read the patent application...
Only on Slashdot would this be moderated as insightful.
Here's a real insight for you: when someone, such as Subby, paraphrases something to make it easier to understand, the result will be obvious by definition. Toyota's Prius hybrid is "like a Model T that can also use a battery", both of which are well known, so its planetary transmission is obvious, right? Or iRobot's packbot is "like a giant dog, but metal" so its radar terrain tracking and movement algorithms are obvious, right?
Paraphrasing is like lossy compression: it's purpose is to simplify and explain something by taking away in depth information. Making a conclusion based on that, without ever reading the original, is like listening to a 32 Kbps MP3 and saying you know that glockenspiels sound like trash can lids.
Of course, one benefit of POTS was that, in a power failure, your landline phone would frequently still work because of the giant piles of batteries at the CO. So, you could still dial 911 if, say, your aged relative's breathing assist machine needed power, or if there was some other medical emergency in the midst of what ever caused the power failure. Kind of ironic that, as a result of a disaster, they'll be somewhat more vulnerable to disasters.
why do patent inspectors spend more than 2 seconds on dreck like this before denying it.
Because it's a quasi-judicial decision, and is subject to the constitutional requirements of due process. "Obvious" is a legal conclusion, like "guilty", and must be supported by evidence. No matter how guilty a judge or jury thinks a defendant looks, their conclusion must be supported by evidence, and if there's no evidence, then a conviction of "but we had a gut feeling he was guilty" will be overturned. Similarly, no matter how obvious we feel dreck like this is, that conclusion must be supported by evidence, and if there's no evidence, then a rejection of the patent on "but we had a gut feeling it was obvious" will be overturned.
I think the easiest way to start to fix this would to be to hire masters of different fields to handle patents of said field. I think that right there would help quite a bit. there is no reason someone who went to school for cooking but gets the qualifications and becomes a patent officer should have any reason saying yes or no to something such as computer systems / hardware or engine design etc.
That's a brilliant idea... We could have a classification system wherein patent applications are sorted by area of technology and assigned to patent units with specialized Examiners who are skilled in those fields to apply prior art and test for obviousness. We can call them "art units".
There is no test for obviousness, despite it being a requirement that patents must not cover obvious innovations.
There's a difference between "there is no test for obviousness" and "I don't know what the test for obviousness is," and they should not be used interchangeably when you mean the latter. The Examiner can make a prima facie case that a claimed invention is obvious by showing that one or more pieces of prior art, alone or in combination, teach or suggest each and every element in the claim. So, if a claim recites A+B+C and the Examiner can show one piece of prior art that teaches A+B and another that teaches C, and they can be combined without undue experimentation or changing their functions, then the claim is obvious. If, on the other hand, the Examiner can't find anything that teaches C anywhere, then the claim is not obvious.
Happy to help clarify that for you.
Now, to clear up a few other things you say:
The cost to invalidate a patent is in the millions, but the cost to file and receive a patent is in the hundreds.
It costs about $25k to file and prosecute a patent to issue, not "hundreds". And they can be invalidated for just a few hundred via post grant review.
First to File means that patent application secrecy is needless -- If you're filling a patent it should be public knowledge so we can protest anything that is obvious / file our prior art.
That doesn't change anything, as all patent applications were published under the first-to-invent system, too, and the public could protest by submitting prior art to the Examiner.
Look at the Automotive and Fashion industries -- Neither of which have design patents or copyright, and yet design is their core sales point, and they are very innovative in design.
Here are tens of thousands of design patents in the automotive industry. And here are thousands of design patents on dresses. A search for design patents on "jeans" will turn up a similar number, as will socks, shoes, etc. Your premise is demonstrably false.
Anyone who fears Trade Secrecy / Trade Unions locking up innovation has never met a reverse engineer from this century. We strip layers off of microchips to discover their wiring at the nano scale.
Yes, but without patents, there would be more efforts to protect trade secrets - like you wouldn't actually ever own a physical microchip to strip it apart. You'd merely be renting it under a lease agreement, with massive liquidated damages if you do damage it. Do you really want to have to have a subscription to use your computer? I don't.
We have spectrograms and readily derive the secret recipes for foodstuffs and medicines -- Hence the generics market existing.
Actually, the generics market exists because of patent disclosures and the FDA orange book. Would you buy a "generic" reverse engineered version of a brand new medicine that the FDA hadn't approved, much less tested?
It's not economically feasible for secrets to exist in consumer products today, you can't hide the molecules and machine code from me (and yes, I do read and write fluently in machine code).
Watch out, Slashdot, we've got a badass over here.
I'll do you one better. Just shorten patent duration to 5 years. Oh you waited too long, your submarine sank... Oh, that's not long enough? Well, it is for the majority so get to innovating faster and deal with it.
That's a bit naive. Between a provisional application, and a two and a half year backlog at the USPTO, and then 1.5 years of prosecution (two rounds of back and forth, plus the delay to issue the patent) and you could have a patent that issues on its expiration date. And if you're in pharma, you still haven't cleared FDA-required animal testing, much less humans, and you're far from even selling a single unit of product.
There needs to be some sort of "horse has left the barn" exemption to patent enforceability. If a patent holder sits quietly and watches while an industry develops around something they believe to be infringing, it's not reasonable to allow them to wait until billions of dollars are at stake and then suddenly show up with a demand for payment.
That's not at all in the spirit of patent law. The purpose was to allow the patent holder the ability to exploit their own invention, not to allow them to sit on their asses doing nothing and then exploit everyone else's work.
Yeah... some sort of "you intentionally waited too long to enforce your rights, and as a result, the infringers are in an unreasonably worse position now than they would've been had you acted at little faster" rule. Or like you say, the "horse has left the barn, so why bother latching it up". We could even call it the laches rule.
The problem isn't being seen in public. It's being seen in public, and identified. And possibly doing something controversial.
All of which can happen now. Those busybodies who keep track of people who buy video games, alcohol, adult stores, abortion clinics, etc. currently do all of that, without Glass. They use cameras, and notepads, and other low tech tools.
Your other concerns - that Glass will be used to spy on the user, by tracking everything you purchase and consume - have you any idea how much bandwidth that would require? A user would burn through their data plan in a day. And Google would have to process petabytes of video, daily. Frankly, it makes no sense. It's also far easier to simply track your credit card purchases, which again, they already do.
Only a complete fucking moron would move legal data with torrents.
A lawyer is obligated to preserve his clients' confidences. When you store your information on somebody elses server or servers you are giving up custody and control over some of those confidences. In that situation you are entirely dependent upon the strength of your encryption.
That encryption might be good today or tomorrow, but how good will it be five years from now or ten years from now when quantum computing or the next best thing becomes available for codebreakers.
Don't risk a lawsuit from a pissed client!
Respectfully, I believe the submitter meant "legal" as opposed to "illegal" or unlicensed data under someone else's copyright - i.e. the vast majority of torrents.
I don't find that surprising at all given how deeply you misunderstand the nature of crowdsourcing
I understand it just fine, even if the little strawman you've made up in your own head may not.
As a handy tip for the future - attempting to put words in other peoples' mouths doesn't work on an internet forum, where anyone can read what the other people say. Only use that in your 'journalism' where you can control the conversation. Cheers!
I can summarize your comment very simply: "Crowdsourcing! Crowdsourcing! Rah! Rah! Rah! - but don't look behind the curtains. We got many things wrong, but ignore those. It's not our fault. Crowdsourcing! Crowdsourcing! Rah! Rah! Rah!"
Nope. And I'm not sure how a strawman argument gets a +4 interesting.