Yeah, I think you've nailed it there. Internal consistency. Yup.
Every time I try to get someone to read a graphic novel, they say "I don't know, I've heard they're not internally consistent."
And they never say "But aren't comic books just incomprehensible babble about superheroes geared towards the same small, scary audience that's been reading them for twenty years."
Because, you know, who would complain about that when Warren Ellis keeps churning out stuff that may or may not be internally consistent.
But in addition to the abstract, there are 13 pages of figures and 9 pages of text.
To judge from the figures alone, Amazon is patenting a *very specific* method of discussing an object for sale. While I haven't read the entire patent, this seems pretty reasonable to me. After all, my firm's biggest client has hundreds of patents on DOORS. By some of the logic being displayed here, they wouldn't have any, because, hey, everybody knows what a door is, they've been around forever. But they don't patent "a door," they patent a "A Specific Sort of Door and Method for Making Same," that specific sort of door and method being something no one else has. So, while it might seem Amazon is patenting the obvious and getting away with it, I'd say that's not the case.
Well, you'd possibly be harming the writer's spouse and children, who might gain benefit from continuing to hold copyright on their deceased relative's works. For example, under your idea, J.D. Salinger dies. A movie is immediately made of Catcher in the Rye which makes millions and millions of dollars. J.D. Salinger's wife gets nothing. See the problem?
This is a nice little paranoid fantasy, but Amazon pays the same large-entity fees as every other large entity. Unless, of course, you have some proof that corporations have been bribing the PTO. I'm sure the attorney I work for would love to see it, so he could, too--it might result in an improvement of service.
As an assistant to a patent attorney, I think I can say that everyone is being a little bit alarmist here. These are patent applications, not granted patents. You can file an application for any old stupid thing, and it will be published. That has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not the patent will be granted. And, while I'd be the last person to say the USPTO is a flawless organization, I can assure you that the examiners do not rubber stamp applications which come from large entities--although I sort of wish they would.
Re:Without reading the actual article....
on
Shrinkwrapped Books
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· Score: 1
No, of course not. It's only been ten years since his last book. Maybe in 2012, after he finishes polishing the last Dangerous Visions anthology...
I've gone to barbershops ever since I've lived in the South, for almost ten years and, frankly, I think they're pretty damn hip already. What could be hipper than a bunch of old Southern guys hanging around, watching baseball and telling stories which have no end, no point and are the funniest thing you ever heard. That's so un-hip, it's hipper than the hippest hip thing you could find.
I wonder if the reason Warcraft III drags on your iBook is that it's not a supported machine for that game, due to its 8MB graphics card, while your desktop machine probably has something a bit more substantial, if you built it recently.
FYI, I have a 600 mHz iBook, and it's quite usuable with OS X.
What are the proprietary features of Microsoft Office, anyway? The paperclip? By necessity I use a lot of Word and Excel at the office and I can't imagine that most of what I use them for isn't so logical a function that it could be patented (and I work at a patent law firm). I know I probably won't get many answers buried way down here, but I'm curious.
So far, no one's metioned Omniweb, a Cocoa browser which is fast, stable and good-looking. It has a few minor faults, but a lot of its major flaws were fixed in the last release. I should also note that those of you still on modems will appreciate the minimal download time. Good stuff.
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Yeah, I think you've nailed it there. Internal consistency. Yup.
Every time I try to get someone to read a graphic novel, they say "I don't know, I've heard they're not internally consistent."
And they never say "But aren't comic books just incomprehensible babble about superheroes geared towards the same small, scary audience that's been reading them for twenty years."
Because, you know, who would complain about that when Warren Ellis keeps churning out stuff that may or may not be internally consistent.
That bastard.
But in addition to the abstract, there are 13 pages of figures and 9 pages of text.
To judge from the figures alone, Amazon is patenting a *very specific* method of discussing an object for sale. While I haven't read the entire patent, this seems pretty reasonable to me. After all, my firm's biggest client has hundreds of patents on DOORS. By some of the logic being displayed here, they wouldn't have any, because, hey, everybody knows what a door is, they've been around forever. But they don't patent "a door," they patent a "A Specific Sort of Door and Method for Making Same," that specific sort of door and method being something no one else has. So, while it might seem Amazon is patenting the obvious and getting away with it, I'd say that's not the case.
Well, you'd possibly be harming the writer's spouse and children, who might gain benefit from continuing to hold copyright on their deceased relative's works. For example, under your idea, J.D. Salinger dies. A movie is immediately made of Catcher in the Rye which makes millions and millions of dollars. J.D. Salinger's wife gets nothing. See the problem?
This is a nice little paranoid fantasy, but Amazon pays the same large-entity fees as every other large entity. Unless, of course, you have some proof that corporations have been bribing the PTO. I'm sure the attorney I work for would love to see it, so he could, too--it might result in an improvement of service.
As an assistant to a patent attorney, I think I can say that everyone is being a little bit alarmist here. These are patent applications, not granted patents. You can file an application for any old stupid thing, and it will be published. That has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not the patent will be granted. And, while I'd be the last person to say the USPTO is a flawless organization, I can assure you that the examiners do not rubber stamp applications which come from large entities--although I sort of wish they would.
No, of course not. It's only been ten years since his last book. Maybe in 2012, after he finishes polishing the last Dangerous Visions anthology...
I've gone to barbershops ever since I've lived in the South, for almost ten years and, frankly, I think they're pretty damn hip already. What could be hipper than a bunch of old Southern guys hanging around, watching baseball and telling stories which have no end, no point and are the funniest thing you ever heard. That's so un-hip, it's hipper than the hippest hip thing you could find.
I wonder if the reason Warcraft III drags on your iBook is that it's not a supported machine for that game, due to its 8MB graphics card, while your desktop machine probably has something a bit more substantial, if you built it recently.
FYI, I have a 600 mHz iBook, and it's quite usuable with OS X.
What are the proprietary features of Microsoft Office, anyway? The paperclip? By necessity I use a lot of Word and Excel at the office and I can't imagine that most of what I use them for isn't so logical a function that it could be patented (and I work at a patent law firm). I know I probably won't get many answers buried way down here, but I'm curious.
So far, no one's metioned Omniweb, a Cocoa browser which is fast, stable and good-looking. It has a few minor faults, but a lot of its major flaws were fixed in the last release. I should also note that those of you still on modems will appreciate the minimal download time. Good stuff.