Wrong question. The proper question is "how often is it the primary caretaker who gets sole custody?" and the answer, as you'd expect, is probably close to 90% or higher. If a child is raised by a stay-at-home parent, the courts will almost always find that parent to be the best caretaker for the child, absent some unusual circumstances.
[citation needed].
There were three sentences there... Is there a specific one you'd like a citation for? I mean, I'm happy to help answer your question, but you have to be a little more definite with what the question is.
How often it's the female who pays alimony/child support to the male? Next to never?
Exactly as often as the male is the primary caretaker and the female is the one with the career. Again, rare in the pre-feminism days, increasing now, thanks to feminism.
Well, it turns out that in 2006, 33.4% of wives earned more than their husbands (link. But only 3.6% of alimony recipients were male (link), so it looks like you're wrong in claiming that alimony payments are being distributed fairly.
Did you realize that you were changing the terms mid-question? I'm going to assume good faith on your part and that you just weren't thinking when you wrote the question.
First, this is a question about child support and primary caretakers [of the child] and your statistic is about... alimony. Unrelated. And, contrary to your assertion, I never said anything about "alimony payments being distributed fairly." But we'll come back to that in a second.
Second, you mentioned that 33.4% of wives earned more than husbands, but you were responding to a question about primary caretaker vs. non-primary caretaker. Unless you're making the bold (and incorrect) assertion that wives are always the primary caretaker, then your statistic is unrelated to the point you're trying to make. Again, when husbands are primary caretakers, such as stay-at-home-dads, then working wives will pay child support, because the court considers the primary caretaker to be the best custodian for the kid, generally, and the non-custodial parent pays support.
Third, returning to your attempted goalpost-moving, your statistic has a bunch of false assumptions and hidden numbers, because you're comparing unrelated things... 33% of wives out earn their husbands, but only 3.6% of alimony recipients are male. Gosh, that'd be shocking if 100% of divorcees receive alimony. But wait, that's not true. It's far less, in fact. only 15% of divorces get alimony. Why, if most of those cases of wives out-earning husbands are cases where both parties have good incomes - say one makes $100k and the other makes $120k - then alimony wouldn't be awarded at all. So your numbers about the overall income levels may have no relationship whatsoever to the income levels of people who get or pay alimony.
So, in summary: (i) stay on topic, we're talking about child support; (ii) your numbers are invalid as they relate to alimony, because your primary number has nothing to do with alimony.
I haven't had a chance to read the new versions of the Violence Against Women Act, but I have skimmed it and read summaries. It is my understanding that the gender-neutral terminology was added to protect BGLTQ victims (a noble goal, to be sure), and that their exists no mandate in the law to assign funding to programs for battered men on a fair basis. Also, it is my understanding that said gender-neutral language wasn't in the original law, which was passed with the help of feminists.
I'm not sure what your point here is: that you don't understand the law, or that feminists haven't achieved 100% o
Except that staff, who have access to the information regarding which students have which RFID badges, can track the students off campus, they just cannot do so with the school's equipment. It is not the badges which do not work off campus, it is the central tracking system which does not work off campus. This is a violation of "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." There is a reason that the oath is worded that way, your statements to the court under oath are supposed to be worded so as to be clear as to their meaning."
And yet, perjury statutes don't create liability for failing to "tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth", but rather lying. The oath itself does not create a legal requirement.
I mean, come on, think about it for a second... you're saying that lawyers never say anything unclear and never emphasis helpful facts while de-emphasizing unhelpful ones?? I mean, heck, I'm a lawyer (though not a trial attorney), and I didn't think our reputation was that good.
How often it's the male who gets the sole custody? 5% maybe? How many in case of females?
Wrong question. The proper question is "how often is it the primary caretaker who gets sole custody?" and the answer, as you'd expect, is probably close to 90% or higher. If a child is raised by a stay-at-home parent, the courts will almost always find that parent to be the best caretaker for the child, absent some unusual circumstances.
Then the second question is "how often is the primary caretaker female?" And here, rather than biatching about feminism, you should be praising it. Go back 50 years, and that answer would be nigh-100% of the time. But now, with women able to have careers and advanced education, that rate is declining. Feminism is the answer to this problem, not the cause of it.
And similarly, it's the answer to most of your complaints:
How often it's the female who pays alimony/child support to the male? Next to never?
Exactly as often as the male is the primary caretaker and the female is the one with the career. Again, rare in the pre-feminism days, increasing now, thanks to feminism.
How often it's the male who gets locked up by default in case of domestic violence because of the concept of 'predominant aggressor' enshrined by the DV laws?
And feminism is changing those laws too, to make them gender neutral. There are abused men out there, and by mixing this in with complaints about child custody, you're doing them a disservice.
Why is that men are only approx 1% of are allowed to the shelters for DV victims?
Because of our historical culture that says that women are weak and fragile and can't have jobs or careers and men are strong and stoic. Again, feminism is the answer to this complaint, not the cause.
Feminism is partially to blame. Many women feel entitled to good lives with plenty of thrill and whatnot so they simply dump their boring husbands who slave away 12hr/day to support the family (women initiate divorce in 70% of cases).
Ever heard women saying men have it so good, they live their sweet patriarchical lives with obedient housewives, dinners every day, sex every evening and whatnot, yet whining that there are no good men willing to marry on the horizon? The truth is the marriage is an increasingly lousy deal for men. Due to decades of lobbying based on 'will somebody please think of the women', the law is heavily stacked against men, when they marry they are literally at the mercy of their wives.
Wives are entitled to half of wealth just because, can get their husbands arrested on their word alone (domestic violence even if it didn't happen), in case of divorce get child custody (and have men by the balls if they ever want to see the children), child support and/or alimony (material situation of the man doesn't matter at all and he can be forced to pay more than he earns).
On the contrary, feminism is the remedy for your complaints. Specifically, your complaints about wives being entitled to half of community property, domestic violence, default child custody, alimony, etc. are all things that were created because it was assumed that (i) women couldn't have careers or advanced educations, and (ii) no one would marry a non-virgin, so if you divorced your wife at, say, 40, she was going to be destitute if you didn't provide support.
That's now changing. Women do have careers and educations, and the law has shifted to take notice of this - particularly in the more progressive states like Massachusetts or New York where feminism has experienced less blowback than, say, Texas or Alabama. As a result, in these states:
(i) community property laws are changed to reflect only assets gained during the marriage;
(ii) domestic violence statutes are gender-neutral;
(iii) child custody determinations are not by default tilted to the mother, but rather are tilted to whomever is the primary caretaker, including stay-at-home-Dads; and
(iv) except for the few remaining cases of divorcing 70 year olds - i.e. people from an era before feminism, hint hint - alimony is temporary and rehabilitative in nature, solely to cover the short time needed for the recipient spouse who took time off for raising children to re-enter the work force. If the couple are both educated and/or both have jobs, or there were no children that one interrupted a career for, that alimony may be non-existent.
So, respectfully, all your biatching about feminism is misplaced and counter-productive. You should be trumpeting its gains and advocating for more.
Well it kind of is perjury. The badges do indeed "work" off campus, in that if pinged by and RFID scanner they respond with their unique ID code.
A stalker or someone who wanted to do harm to a specific student doesn't need access to their full records, they just need to determine that ID code and use it to track them.
In context, they're referring to the ability of staff to use them to locate students. Perjury is determined by reading all of a party's submissions and statements to the court, not just one sentence out of context.
It's a doctrine of statutory construction that, where an influential court such as the Supreme Court has said "this statute means [x]" and Congress later amends the statute but doesn't change that part or add "and not [x]" then Congress has agreed or concurred with the court's interpretation. So, for example, where the Supreme Court has said repeatedly that software that wasn't merely an abstract idea was patentable in Bilski, Diamond, State Street, and other cases, and Congress has amended the Patent Act twice (1999 and again in 2011, plus a few treaties in the interim), then Congress has agreed with the Supreme Court that software patents* are legal.
*Not software alone, but software that's not merely an abstract idea or is otherwise tied to machine.
If you really want to keep something exclusive, keep it hidden, call it a trade secret, and sue anyone who leaks it.
Unless you are Einstein, someone else will think of it fairly soon anyway, because it's obvious to those at the leading edge of whateever specialty, so keeping it a secret may be bad social form but is not really harmful.
Except that, because under your system there are "no software or algorithm patents"*, then that person will also keep it hidden and call it a trade secret and sue anyone who leaks it. And so will the next person, and the next person, and the next person, and the idea will never become part of the public domain because trade secrets last forever. So, you just slowed innovation to a crawl, because (i) every person has to reinvent the wheel because every other person is keeping it secret, eliminating the ability to build on others' inventions, and (ii) ideas that were protected are not falling into the public domain when they expire.
*There are no software or algorithm patents right now. Software is currently not patentable. Software-executed-on-a-machine is patentable, and it's what we typically refer to when we talk about "software patents", but it's different. The pure algorithm is still "just math" and is unpatentable.
Of the things universally accepted as not being patentable are:
Physical Phenomenon
Natural Law
Abstract Ideas
and of these three comes Mathematical Algorithms
So what is software? Its all of these!
And software is not actually patentable, contrary to Slashdot belief and complaint. Instead, software that's implemented in a machine is patentable, because a machine is neither a physical phenomenon, natural law, or an abstract idea.
"Software Patents
Here are some of the articles Groklaw has published on software patents, particularly in support of the claim that software is mathematics and hence unpatentable subject matter."
But those papers fail to address the actual patents at issue. Contrary to Slashdot and Groklaw belief, "software patents" are not patents on software. Software is unpatentable. However, you can patent a software-executed-by-hardware, or a machine that executes software, neither of which are reducible to mathematics via Curry-Howard, or at least, no more so than a car or an aeroplane.
100000 applications for software patents -----------> USPTO ------------> All rejected.
All software is, by definition, math. And all math, by definition, is not patentable.
But all "software patents" are not necessarily just patenting software. In this case, the title is not the definition, so the fact that software is by definition unpatentable is irrelevant. What we call "software patents" are actually "software-executed-on-hardware patents" and hardware is not, by definition, not patentable.
Secondly, algorithms can't be patented. The law explicitly forbids the patenting of math. You can only patent an implementation of the math.
Strictly speaking, software should be unpatentable. Software is, at its most fundamental level, pure math. However, much like gene patents, the US courts have decided to conveniently ignore the law where it states that Nature can't be patented (math and genes fall under Nature) in order to allow industry to prosper.
Which law is this that "explicitly forbids the patenting of math" and "states that Nature can't be patented" that courts are allegedly ignoring?
I'll save you the time searching - it's not a law at all. It's a quote in a Supreme Court decision interpreting 35 USC 101, which states that new and useful processes, machines, articles of manufacture, and compositions of matter are patent-eligible. And it's a bit odd that you're essentially saying that the Supreme Court is conveniently ignoring the Supreme Court.
To return to your original point, though, as you note, pure software is not patentable. However, implementations are - and so, "software patents" that actually recite specific implementations performed by a machine are patentable, because they're not unpatentable "pure math".
Yes, except in this case, the patent office allowed someone to patent a process and not an invention so general legal logic goes out the window right there.
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.
The Galaxy Note series use Wacom technology which, according to Wikipedia, was patented and is now expired. This is separate from the touchscreen, and provides stuff like pressure, tilt, and multi-device support (though I'm not sure if the latter is supported on Samsung devices). In short, it works really well, it's well-proven, and it's not patentable.
... not patentable using the specific implementations used or disclosed by Wacom (or others). Other implementations that are new and nonobvious in view of the Wacom stuff are still patentable.
I stand under correction here but I'm under the impression that the motor industry doesn't bother with patents much. I don't remember who told me that or where I heard it so I can't really substantiate it...
Patents are bad in practice, but they are wrong in theory too. The philosohpical problems are: independent invention, and the shoulders of giants.
* If you and I independently solve the same problem and create a product, then we should both have the right to make our businesses from it. Just because I filed first doesn't mean that you stole my idea, nor should it give me the right to crush your business.
On the contrary - as Jefferson stated, monopolies are an embarrassment to society, granted only because the of the great benefit to society gained by the exchange. Specifically, we grant patent rights not as a reward for some invention, but as a payment grudgingly made in exchange for public disclosure. If you and I independently solve the same problem and I publish it first, either voluntarily or in exchange for a patent, then when you later come along and do the same thing, how does society benefit? You aren't adding anything to the public domain, because I've already done that. Why should society give you anything or allow you to benefit from the embarrassment of a monopoly, when you've given nothing to society in exchange?
* If I invent something, I maybe did 0.001% of the work. Everything else was drawn from the public domain, my education, and from the scientific community. That invention isn't truly "mine", and it's certainly not "mine and mine alone".
Improvements are inventions, too. It's that "better" part of "build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door."
Thomas Jefferson was right when he said:
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. "
Thomas Jefferson was also right when, in the very same letter, he said "Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody."
See, Thomas Jefferson's point wasn't that patents shouldn't exist - he was the first Patent Examiner after all, wrote the Patent Act, and explains in that letter how patents are to the benefit of society - but that patents shouldn't be considered property in the same way as real property: they should not last forever, to be passed from parent to child in an aristocratic family, but are a grant to encourage invention.
Aside: my point about lawyers here was that patents help *only* lawyers. In contract law, the lawyers help ordinary people to do what they want. Patent lawyers are the only people who benefit from, promote, and strengthen the patent system - practically every engineer wishes the system would just go away.
Au contraire, every patent lawyer is an engineer (except for the ones that are biologists or ch
The Australian system is actually a good idea - it means that inventors can have their rubber stamp cheaply, and that it doesn't arm the patent trolls.
It's a great idea, if you don't want to actually help inventors, but just want to take money from them. Frankly, I'd rather see inventors encouraged to innovate, rather than just hitting them with fees and giving them a useless piece of paper.
But seriously, when more than half the patent suits are brought by non-practising entities (the balance tipped last year), and when patent thickets are so severe that innovators have to just ignore the patents and hope not to be sued... the system is broken.
In what way is that broken? I understand that you hate trolls, but to imply that it's their non-practicing status that's the bad part, rather than their extortionate methods, or forum shopping, or the like, is just insane. Plus, what about other non-practicing entities, like Cornell, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Cal Tech, etc.? Let's focus on the real problems like I noted rather than latching on to some irrelevant characteristic that doesn't actually affect the legitimacy of their suits.
We should just scrap the whole thing. Patents help lawyers, and sometimes as a paper-trail for VC-funding. But in reaility, the whole patent system is now parasitic upon inventors and manufacturers.
All litigation helps lawyers... why aren't you calling for contract law, tort law, bankruptcy law, etc. to be scrapped too? Again, it seems like you're ignoring legitimate problems with the system and instead latching on to irrelevancies - a subset of NPEs are patent trolls, so all NPEs are bad and the system should be scrapped; lawyers make money, so therefore the system is bad and should be scrapped. Without (i) a clear understanding of what the problems are, and (ii) a suggestion for how to solve them, your cries of "let's abolish all legal systems" is going to fall on deaf ears.
... And? Sorry, we're talking about some patents here, not whether iOS uses features from Android or even vice versa. Maybe you're in the wrong thread?
A large amount of the trouble with patents comes from the fact that:
* The patent office doesn't have the resources to properly validate platent claims. They basically grant anything, and assume that validity will be litigated in the courts.
Except that 90% of patent applications are initially rejected. A far cry from "they basically grant anything".
* The courts tend to assume that anything granted must be valid.
So, why not change it to:
* The patent office merely registers the patent filing. It acknowledges the inventor's name, and publishes the details. but, at this stage, the patent is not deemed valid..
* When there is an actual patent suit, this is the time when the patent is carefully examined, and the question of validity can be debated in court.
Think of this as "lazy-evaluation" for patents.
There are registration-only systems in a few countries: Hong Kong, for example, and you can imagine how solid patent rights are there. Another one is Australia - they have a two-method patent system in which you can either get a real patent with examination and prior art search and a presumption of validity... or you can get an invention registration, as you suggest... And Slashdot simply loves to make fun of the result.
I'm sure we'll see you in all the copyright troll threads talking about how the publishers/MPAA/RIAA have "successfully sued" people who settled prior to any trial. I mean, it's certainly successful by some definitions, but I wouldn't rely on it as actually establishing liability, or anything,
Actually, there were. At least one of the other people on the jury had a patent, and two others did during voir dire. They were even in computer related professions.
So instead of one juror with a vested interest in keeping the patent system broken, they had two?
That is truly scary.
No, that's supposition and FUD.
What proportion of the population in CA would have to hold patents for a 'randomly' selected sample to uncover 4 patent holders during jury empanelment? Those odds are like selecting a jury from a prison ward and finding a handful had been previously convicted of the same crime, and letting a couple still serve on the panel.
Sounds like you've never been to Silicon Valley.
There are very few patents that would survive a full scrutiny in the face of reasonable limits on obviousness and similarity to prior art.
[Citation needed]
And far too many patents are simply milking the system. Anyone with a patent either knows this to be true and plays along, or is deluding themselves into believing they are so much cleverer than everyone else in the field.
Disagree with you and they must be a shill, right? Why bother with facts and logic when you've got fallacies, eh?
This applies to regular juries where there is a single source of (potentially faulty) external knowledge being introduced into the jury box. In that situation there is a good chance that the introduced 'external testimony' will go unchallenged. That is what happened in the Apple/Samsung case - the jury basically listened to one guy who was able to gain their trust as being an impartial expert on the issue at hand. In reality he was heavily biased and didn't properly understand the issues. But, since there weren't 11 other people on the jury that could refute his claims or offer alternative interpretations, the final decision naturally leant towards whatever his biases were.
Actually, there were. At least one of the other people on the jury had a patent, and two others did during voir dire. They were even in computer related professions.
A purely non-expert jury sounds good in theory if you don't mind allowing the trial to continue for 3 years while the jury learns all the necessary background knowledge to be able to understand and decide on the technical issue at hand - and that's assuming the jury is even capable. That is why these things should not be handled by jury trials where the jury has no background in the technical area(s) at hand.
The 'facts' in this case could very well be presented to an expert panel (randomly chosen from people working in the appropriate field(s)), and have the technical issue decided there. Then the lay jury could decide on the remaining facts. But, why have two juries, when the expert jury could easily decide on both. Even a half-and-half jury of randomly selected experts and laymen would be better than having a jury entirely composed of men and women unable to properly understand the facts.
Professional juries are an aspect of many European legal systems, so take that as you will.
The idea of a jury of non-engineers deciding on their novelty is at best weird.
There are expert witnesses on both sides who are saying that the patents are either novel or not. Really, the jury is deciding on the credibility of those witnesses, and you don't need an engineer for that.
Actually, you do. Expert witnesses are picked based on their ability to convince a layman that they are more credible than the opposing 'expert witness'. And on more than one occasion, I've personally butted heads against an opposing 'expert' that was so far out of his depth that any random slashdotter would have put him to shame. However, he always sounded very convincing and sincere when in his 'expert opinion', he strongly disagreed with his "learned colleague's" assertions. I have no idea how this guy got his technical 'qualifications', but it was clear he is chosen for his presentability and not his engineering expertise. I also assume that, in general, this guy (and all those like him) just say whatever they're being paid to say.
What's a jury to do when they are faced with that? Decide credibility based on whichever one reminded them more of their favourite uncle?
Without any ability to be able to understand the technical merits of what is being presented, there is no way a jury can make an appropriate determination between two opposing 'paid-for' experts.
The jury should decide based on the evidence presented at trial and the credibility of the witnesses. Otherwise, they're not judging the facts before them, but their pre-existing and prejudicial knowledge of related facts. Basically, what you're suggesting is that they use knowledge external to the trial - the same thing people on Slashdot complained about when Hogan did it in the Apple/Samsung trial.
The idea of a jury of non-engineers deciding on their novelty is at best weird.
There are expert witnesses on both sides who are saying that the patents are either novel or not. Really, the jury is deciding on the credibility of those witnesses, and you don't need an engineer for that.
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong question. The proper question is "how often is it the primary caretaker who gets sole custody?" and the answer, as you'd expect, is probably close to 90% or higher. If a child is raised by a stay-at-home parent, the courts will almost always find that parent to be the best caretaker for the child, absent some unusual circumstances.
[citation needed].
There were three sentences there... Is there a specific one you'd like a citation for? I mean, I'm happy to help answer your question, but you have to be a little more definite with what the question is.
How often it's the female who pays alimony/child support to the male? Next to never?
Exactly as often as the male is the primary caretaker and the female is the one with the career. Again, rare in the pre-feminism days, increasing now, thanks to feminism.
Well, it turns out that in 2006, 33.4% of wives earned more than their husbands (link. But only 3.6% of alimony recipients were male (link), so it looks like you're wrong in claiming that alimony payments are being distributed fairly.
Did you realize that you were changing the terms mid-question? I'm going to assume good faith on your part and that you just weren't thinking when you wrote the question.
First, this is a question about child support and primary caretakers [of the child] and your statistic is about... alimony. Unrelated. And, contrary to your assertion, I never said anything about "alimony payments being distributed fairly." But we'll come back to that in a second.
Second, you mentioned that 33.4% of wives earned more than husbands, but you were responding to a question about primary caretaker vs. non-primary caretaker. Unless you're making the bold (and incorrect) assertion that wives are always the primary caretaker, then your statistic is unrelated to the point you're trying to make. Again, when husbands are primary caretakers, such as stay-at-home-dads, then working wives will pay child support, because the court considers the primary caretaker to be the best custodian for the kid, generally, and the non-custodial parent pays support.
Third, returning to your attempted goalpost-moving, your statistic has a bunch of false assumptions and hidden numbers, because you're comparing unrelated things... 33% of wives out earn their husbands, but only 3.6% of alimony recipients are male. Gosh, that'd be shocking if 100% of divorcees receive alimony. But wait, that's not true. It's far less, in fact. only 15% of divorces get alimony. Why, if most of those cases of wives out-earning husbands are cases where both parties have good incomes - say one makes $100k and the other makes $120k - then alimony wouldn't be awarded at all. So your numbers about the overall income levels may have no relationship whatsoever to the income levels of people who get or pay alimony.
So, in summary: (i) stay on topic, we're talking about child support; (ii) your numbers are invalid as they relate to alimony, because your primary number has nothing to do with alimony.
I haven't had a chance to read the new versions of the Violence Against Women Act, but I have skimmed it and read summaries. It is my understanding that the gender-neutral terminology was added to protect BGLTQ victims (a noble goal, to be sure), and that their exists no mandate in the law to assign funding to programs for battered men on a fair basis. Also, it is my understanding that said gender-neutral language wasn't in the original law, which was passed with the help of feminists.
I'm not sure what your point here is: that you don't understand the law, or that feminists haven't achieved 100% o
Except that staff, who have access to the information regarding which students have which RFID badges, can track the students off campus, they just cannot do so with the school's equipment. It is not the badges which do not work off campus, it is the central tracking system which does not work off campus. This is a violation of "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." There is a reason that the oath is worded that way, your statements to the court under oath are supposed to be worded so as to be clear as to their meaning."
And yet, perjury statutes don't create liability for failing to "tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth", but rather lying. The oath itself does not create a legal requirement.
I mean, come on, think about it for a second... you're saying that lawyers never say anything unclear and never emphasis helpful facts while de-emphasizing unhelpful ones?? I mean, heck, I'm a lawyer (though not a trial attorney), and I didn't think our reputation was that good.
How often it's the male who gets the sole custody? 5% maybe? How many in case of females?
Wrong question. The proper question is "how often is it the primary caretaker who gets sole custody?" and the answer, as you'd expect, is probably close to 90% or higher. If a child is raised by a stay-at-home parent, the courts will almost always find that parent to be the best caretaker for the child, absent some unusual circumstances.
Then the second question is "how often is the primary caretaker female?" And here, rather than biatching about feminism, you should be praising it. Go back 50 years, and that answer would be nigh-100% of the time. But now, with women able to have careers and advanced education, that rate is declining. Feminism is the answer to this problem, not the cause of it.
And similarly, it's the answer to most of your complaints:
How often it's the female who pays alimony/child support to the male? Next to never?
Exactly as often as the male is the primary caretaker and the female is the one with the career. Again, rare in the pre-feminism days, increasing now, thanks to feminism.
How often it's the male who gets locked up by default in case of domestic violence because of the concept of 'predominant aggressor' enshrined by the DV laws?
And feminism is changing those laws too, to make them gender neutral. There are abused men out there, and by mixing this in with complaints about child custody, you're doing them a disservice.
Why is that men are only approx 1% of are allowed to the shelters for DV victims?
Because of our historical culture that says that women are weak and fragile and can't have jobs or careers and men are strong and stoic. Again, feminism is the answer to this complaint, not the cause.
Feminism is partially to blame. Many women feel entitled to good lives with plenty of thrill and whatnot so they simply dump their boring husbands who slave away 12hr/day to support the family (women initiate divorce in 70% of cases). Ever heard women saying men have it so good, they live their sweet patriarchical lives with obedient housewives, dinners every day, sex every evening and whatnot, yet whining that there are no good men willing to marry on the horizon? The truth is the marriage is an increasingly lousy deal for men. Due to decades of lobbying based on 'will somebody please think of the women', the law is heavily stacked against men, when they marry they are literally at the mercy of their wives. Wives are entitled to half of wealth just because, can get their husbands arrested on their word alone (domestic violence even if it didn't happen), in case of divorce get child custody (and have men by the balls if they ever want to see the children), child support and/or alimony (material situation of the man doesn't matter at all and he can be forced to pay more than he earns).
On the contrary, feminism is the remedy for your complaints. Specifically, your complaints about wives being entitled to half of community property, domestic violence, default child custody, alimony, etc. are all things that were created because it was assumed that (i) women couldn't have careers or advanced educations, and (ii) no one would marry a non-virgin, so if you divorced your wife at, say, 40, she was going to be destitute if you didn't provide support.
That's now changing. Women do have careers and educations, and the law has shifted to take notice of this - particularly in the more progressive states like Massachusetts or New York where feminism has experienced less blowback than, say, Texas or Alabama. As a result, in these states: (i) community property laws are changed to reflect only assets gained during the marriage; (ii) domestic violence statutes are gender-neutral; (iii) child custody determinations are not by default tilted to the mother, but rather are tilted to whomever is the primary caretaker, including stay-at-home-Dads; and (iv) except for the few remaining cases of divorcing 70 year olds - i.e. people from an era before feminism, hint hint - alimony is temporary and rehabilitative in nature, solely to cover the short time needed for the recipient spouse who took time off for raising children to re-enter the work force. If the couple are both educated and/or both have jobs, or there were no children that one interrupted a career for, that alimony may be non-existent.
So, respectfully, all your biatching about feminism is misplaced and counter-productive. You should be trumpeting its gains and advocating for more.
Well it kind of is perjury. The badges do indeed "work" off campus, in that if pinged by and RFID scanner they respond with their unique ID code.
A stalker or someone who wanted to do harm to a specific student doesn't need access to their full records, they just need to determine that ID code and use it to track them.
In context, they're referring to the ability of staff to use them to locate students. Perjury is determined by reading all of a party's submissions and statements to the court, not just one sentence out of context.
Congress has said software patents are legal.
[citation needed]. When I read "Software or computer programs are not explicitly mentioned in United States patent law on Wikipedia itself, I can't figure out just what you're claiming here. If software was clearly protected or not we wouldn't have Bliski bouncing around in both directions in the courts.
It's a doctrine of statutory construction that, where an influential court such as the Supreme Court has said "this statute means [x]" and Congress later amends the statute but doesn't change that part or add "and not [x]" then Congress has agreed or concurred with the court's interpretation. So, for example, where the Supreme Court has said repeatedly that software that wasn't merely an abstract idea was patentable in Bilski, Diamond, State Street, and other cases, and Congress has amended the Patent Act twice (1999 and again in 2011, plus a few treaties in the interim), then Congress has agreed with the Supreme Court that software patents* are legal.
*Not software alone, but software that's not merely an abstract idea or is otherwise tied to machine.
No software or algorithm patents.
If you really want to keep something exclusive, keep it hidden, call it a trade secret, and sue anyone who leaks it. Unless you are Einstein, someone else will think of it fairly soon anyway, because it's obvious to those at the leading edge of whateever specialty, so keeping it a secret may be bad social form but is not really harmful.
Except that, because under your system there are "no software or algorithm patents"*, then that person will also keep it hidden and call it a trade secret and sue anyone who leaks it. And so will the next person, and the next person, and the next person, and the idea will never become part of the public domain because trade secrets last forever. So, you just slowed innovation to a crawl, because (i) every person has to reinvent the wheel because every other person is keeping it secret, eliminating the ability to build on others' inventions, and (ii) ideas that were protected are not falling into the public domain when they expire.
*There are no software or algorithm patents right now. Software is currently not patentable. Software-executed-on-a-machine is patentable, and it's what we typically refer to when we talk about "software patents", but it's different. The pure algorithm is still "just math" and is unpatentable.
Of the things universally accepted as not being patentable are: Physical Phenomenon Natural Law Abstract Ideas and of these three comes Mathematical Algorithms
So what is software? Its all of these!
And software is not actually patentable, contrary to Slashdot belief and complaint. Instead, software that's implemented in a machine is patentable, because a machine is neither a physical phenomenon, natural law, or an abstract idea.
Really? Oh. Here are a whole bunch of them, each one carefully reasoned out and commented on: http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=Patents2
But those papers fail to address the actual patents at issue. Contrary to Slashdot and Groklaw belief, "software patents" are not patents on software. Software is unpatentable. However, you can patent a software-executed-by-hardware, or a machine that executes software, neither of which are reducible to mathematics via Curry-Howard, or at least, no more so than a car or an aeroplane.
Input -----> Process -------> Output
100000 applications for software patents -----------> USPTO ------------> All rejected.
All software is, by definition, math. And all math, by definition, is not patentable.
But all "software patents" are not necessarily just patenting software. In this case, the title is not the definition, so the fact that software is by definition unpatentable is irrelevant. What we call "software patents" are actually "software-executed-on-hardware patents" and hardware is not, by definition, not patentable.
Secondly, algorithms can't be patented. The law explicitly forbids the patenting of math. You can only patent an implementation of the math.
Strictly speaking, software should be unpatentable. Software is, at its most fundamental level, pure math. However, much like gene patents, the US courts have decided to conveniently ignore the law where it states that Nature can't be patented (math and genes fall under Nature) in order to allow industry to prosper.
Which law is this that "explicitly forbids the patenting of math" and "states that Nature can't be patented" that courts are allegedly ignoring?
I'll save you the time searching - it's not a law at all. It's a quote in a Supreme Court decision interpreting 35 USC 101, which states that new and useful processes, machines, articles of manufacture, and compositions of matter are patent-eligible. And it's a bit odd that you're essentially saying that the Supreme Court is conveniently ignoring the Supreme Court.
To return to your original point, though, as you note, pure software is not patentable. However, implementations are - and so, "software patents" that actually recite specific implementations performed by a machine are patentable, because they're not unpatentable "pure math".
Yes, except in this case, the patent office allowed someone to patent a process and not an invention so general legal logic goes out the window right there.
Yeah, stupid patent office following the statute:
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.
The Galaxy Note series use Wacom technology which, according to Wikipedia, was patented and is now expired. This is separate from the touchscreen, and provides stuff like pressure, tilt, and multi-device support (though I'm not sure if the latter is supported on Samsung devices). In short, it works really well, it's well-proven, and it's not patentable.
... not patentable using the specific implementations used or disclosed by Wacom (or others). Other implementations that are new and nonobvious in view of the Wacom stuff are still patentable.
I stand under correction here but I'm under the impression that the motor industry doesn't bother with patents much. I don't remember who told me that or where I heard it so I can't really substantiate it...
Not sure who you heard it from. It's false.
In fact, one of the biggest Supreme Court decisions on patents in recent years, KSR v. Teleflex, was about patents around gas pedal sensors.
Patents are bad in practice, but they are wrong in theory too. The philosohpical problems are: independent invention, and the shoulders of giants.
* If you and I independently solve the same problem and create a product, then we should both have the right to make our businesses from it. Just because I filed first doesn't mean that you stole my idea, nor should it give me the right to crush your business.
On the contrary - as Jefferson stated, monopolies are an embarrassment to society, granted only because the of the great benefit to society gained by the exchange. Specifically, we grant patent rights not as a reward for some invention, but as a payment grudgingly made in exchange for public disclosure. If you and I independently solve the same problem and I publish it first, either voluntarily or in exchange for a patent, then when you later come along and do the same thing, how does society benefit? You aren't adding anything to the public domain, because I've already done that. Why should society give you anything or allow you to benefit from the embarrassment of a monopoly, when you've given nothing to society in exchange?
* If I invent something, I maybe did 0.001% of the work. Everything else was drawn from the public domain, my education, and from the scientific community. That invention isn't truly "mine", and it's certainly not "mine and mine alone".
Improvements are inventions, too. It's that "better" part of "build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door."
Thomas Jefferson was right when he said: "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. "
Thomas Jefferson was also right when, in the very same letter, he said "Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody."
See, Thomas Jefferson's point wasn't that patents shouldn't exist - he was the first Patent Examiner after all, wrote the Patent Act, and explains in that letter how patents are to the benefit of society - but that patents shouldn't be considered property in the same way as real property: they should not last forever, to be passed from parent to child in an aristocratic family, but are a grant to encourage invention.
Aside: my point about lawyers here was that patents help *only* lawyers. In contract law, the lawyers help ordinary people to do what they want. Patent lawyers are the only people who benefit from, promote, and strengthen the patent system - practically every engineer wishes the system would just go away.
Au contraire, every patent lawyer is an engineer (except for the ones that are biologists or ch
... in the same thread, it's probably time for the redundant tag.
The Australian system is actually a good idea - it means that inventors can have their rubber stamp cheaply, and that it doesn't arm the patent trolls.
It's a great idea, if you don't want to actually help inventors, but just want to take money from them. Frankly, I'd rather see inventors encouraged to innovate, rather than just hitting them with fees and giving them a useless piece of paper.
But seriously, when more than half the patent suits are brought by non-practising entities (the balance tipped last year), and when patent thickets are so severe that innovators have to just ignore the patents and hope not to be sued... the system is broken.
In what way is that broken? I understand that you hate trolls, but to imply that it's their non-practicing status that's the bad part, rather than their extortionate methods, or forum shopping, or the like, is just insane. Plus, what about other non-practicing entities, like Cornell, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Cal Tech, etc.? Let's focus on the real problems like I noted rather than latching on to some irrelevant characteristic that doesn't actually affect the legitimacy of their suits.
We should just scrap the whole thing. Patents help lawyers, and sometimes as a paper-trail for VC-funding. But in reaility, the whole patent system is now parasitic upon inventors and manufacturers.
All litigation helps lawyers... why aren't you calling for contract law, tort law, bankruptcy law, etc. to be scrapped too? Again, it seems like you're ignoring legitimate problems with the system and instead latching on to irrelevancies - a subset of NPEs are patent trolls, so all NPEs are bad and the system should be scrapped; lawyers make money, so therefore the system is bad and should be scrapped. Without (i) a clear understanding of what the problems are, and (ii) a suggestion for how to solve them, your cries of "let's abolish all legal systems" is going to fall on deaf ears.
6 Ways Apple's iOS 5 Just Copied Android
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-ios-5-copied-android-2011-6?op=1
... And? Sorry, we're talking about some patents here, not whether iOS uses features from Android or even vice versa. Maybe you're in the wrong thread?
None of the Apple patents are inventive, creative or novel. They are all freaking obvious and all probably have a large amount of prior art.
Then I'm sure you have some citations to said invalidating prior art? Or is this just one of those gut-feeling things?
A large amount of the trouble with patents comes from the fact that:
* The patent office doesn't have the resources to properly validate platent claims. They basically grant anything, and assume that validity will be litigated in the courts.
Except that 90% of patent applications are initially rejected. A far cry from "they basically grant anything".
* The courts tend to assume that anything granted must be valid.
So, why not change it to:
* The patent office merely registers the patent filing. It acknowledges the inventor's name, and publishes the details. but, at this stage, the patent is not deemed valid.. * When there is an actual patent suit, this is the time when the patent is carefully examined, and the question of validity can be debated in court.
Think of this as "lazy-evaluation" for patents.
There are registration-only systems in a few countries: Hong Kong, for example, and you can imagine how solid patent rights are there. Another one is Australia - they have a two-method patent system in which you can either get a real patent with examination and prior art search and a presumption of validity... or you can get an invention registration, as you suggest... And Slashdot simply loves to make fun of the result.
At least one lawyer successfully sued Apple and got compensated when his previous toy got stolen. Why take responsibility for your actions when you can blame someone else?
I'm sure we'll see you in all the copyright troll threads talking about how the publishers/MPAA/RIAA have "successfully sued" people who settled prior to any trial. I mean, it's certainly successful by some definitions, but I wouldn't rely on it as actually establishing liability, or anything,
Actually, there were. At least one of the other people on the jury had a patent, and two others did during voir dire. They were even in computer related professions.
So instead of one juror with a vested interest in keeping the patent system broken, they had two?
That is truly scary.
No, that's supposition and FUD.
What proportion of the population in CA would have to hold patents for a 'randomly' selected sample to uncover 4 patent holders during jury empanelment? Those odds are like selecting a jury from a prison ward and finding a handful had been previously convicted of the same crime, and letting a couple still serve on the panel.
Sounds like you've never been to Silicon Valley.
There are very few patents that would survive a full scrutiny in the face of reasonable limits on obviousness and similarity to prior art.
[Citation needed]
And far too many patents are simply milking the system. Anyone with a patent either knows this to be true and plays along, or is deluding themselves into believing they are so much cleverer than everyone else in the field.
Disagree with you and they must be a shill, right? Why bother with facts and logic when you've got fallacies, eh?
This applies to regular juries where there is a single source of (potentially faulty) external knowledge being introduced into the jury box. In that situation there is a good chance that the introduced 'external testimony' will go unchallenged. That is what happened in the Apple/Samsung case - the jury basically listened to one guy who was able to gain their trust as being an impartial expert on the issue at hand. In reality he was heavily biased and didn't properly understand the issues. But, since there weren't 11 other people on the jury that could refute his claims or offer alternative interpretations, the final decision naturally leant towards whatever his biases were.
Actually, there were. At least one of the other people on the jury had a patent, and two others did during voir dire. They were even in computer related professions.
A purely non-expert jury sounds good in theory if you don't mind allowing the trial to continue for 3 years while the jury learns all the necessary background knowledge to be able to understand and decide on the technical issue at hand - and that's assuming the jury is even capable. That is why these things should not be handled by jury trials where the jury has no background in the technical area(s) at hand.
The 'facts' in this case could very well be presented to an expert panel (randomly chosen from people working in the appropriate field(s)), and have the technical issue decided there. Then the lay jury could decide on the remaining facts. But, why have two juries, when the expert jury could easily decide on both. Even a half-and-half jury of randomly selected experts and laymen would be better than having a jury entirely composed of men and women unable to properly understand the facts.
Professional juries are an aspect of many European legal systems, so take that as you will.
The idea of a jury of non-engineers deciding on their novelty is at best weird.
There are expert witnesses on both sides who are saying that the patents are either novel or not. Really, the jury is deciding on the credibility of those witnesses, and you don't need an engineer for that.
Actually, you do. Expert witnesses are picked based on their ability to convince a layman that they are more credible than the opposing 'expert witness'. And on more than one occasion, I've personally butted heads against an opposing 'expert' that was so far out of his depth that any random slashdotter would have put him to shame. However, he always sounded very convincing and sincere when in his 'expert opinion', he strongly disagreed with his "learned colleague's" assertions. I have no idea how this guy got his technical 'qualifications', but it was clear he is chosen for his presentability and not his engineering expertise. I also assume that, in general, this guy (and all those like him) just say whatever they're being paid to say.
What's a jury to do when they are faced with that? Decide credibility based on whichever one reminded them more of their favourite uncle?
Without any ability to be able to understand the technical merits of what is being presented, there is no way a jury can make an appropriate determination between two opposing 'paid-for' experts.
The jury should decide based on the evidence presented at trial and the credibility of the witnesses. Otherwise, they're not judging the facts before them, but their pre-existing and prejudicial knowledge of related facts. Basically, what you're suggesting is that they use knowledge external to the trial - the same thing people on Slashdot complained about when Hogan did it in the Apple/Samsung trial.
The idea of a jury of non-engineers deciding on their novelty is at best weird.
There are expert witnesses on both sides who are saying that the patents are either novel or not. Really, the jury is deciding on the credibility of those witnesses, and you don't need an engineer for that.