Does anyone else get the impression that this kind of crap has been going on since day one? At least now we're paying more attention and noticing it -- that's a good thing.
Voting on paper is a good thing, but apparently you need a 4 year degree in computer science (or related field) to realize this, and that is a bad thing.
Find me one example in history where computers are given authority to punish or penalize people that wasn't at least controversial. Chances are, the best you can come up with are traffic tickets or using photo recognition to question people. That's a FREAKING FAR CRY from determining the future of our nation, and where's the goddamn controversy? If we can run an election on computers, it's apparently time to decide to fire people with computers, decide to cut life support with computers, and decide who should join the military (hmm, draft?) with computers, because granting computers authority over humans is apparently no longer controversial.
There is a fundamental difference between using computers as tools and using computers as adversaries to humans. Tools are fine; adversaries are the stuff of scary sci-fi. I have no problem buying movie tickets from a computerized kiosk; I have a huge problem with computers putting tickets on my criminal record.
If I had mod points, you'd earn one. Watching the decline of the US from the inside is infuriating, because many Americans lack the mental faculties to recognize what is happening.
The people that used to like Bush before now basically LOVE him.
And I say, "They shall have him." They voted for moral values - because Jesus tells us that gay people are fags. They voted for moral values - because Jesus wouldn't want us to aid thousands of Christians dying in Sudan unless they had something to sell us. They voted against terrorism - because believing that Nowhere, Kansas is a legitimate target makes them feel important.
Listen to someone talk about politics and notice whether they use the word "think" or "believe". A friend pointed this out to me last week and I thought he was just being anecdotal, but it's amazing how accurate this is at identifying Bush supporters (believe) or non-supporters (think).
I say, "They shall have him." What happens when a child wants too much candy? You know it will make him sick and you warn him against eating too much. He won't heed your warnings and continue to whine for more candy. Eventually, he'll become defiant and eat all the candy he likes. He'll get sick to his stomach, but he'll finally learn what eating too much candy does. Right now this nation has snuck away with a big bag of candy. The nation is not going to learn anything until it engorges itself on the doublespeak and predatory policies of the Bush administration, and hopefully we'll be done puking all over the world in 2008.
Until then, America needs to down the candy like a good little pig. For this reason, I fully support everything Bush does between now and 2008.
I appreciate your thoughtfulness about this issue where many people aren't even interested in being informed.
Perhaps I overestimated the authority of the USPTO then. But still, by not taking the hard route through the courts, the USPTO allows greedy corporations with enough money to pay for a small army of lawyers to terrorize smaller corporations and individuals through the use of bogus patents.
In essence, this is true, but the reason for this is in large part because of what the Constitution says about patents. There is no shortage of minds at the USPTO who are sensitive to the abuses of the system, however the USPTO must obey the law when they apply the law. As for resources, the USPTO doesn't actually participate in litigation regarding patenting issues. However, the case law system which actually defines the law is one of violation-then-compensation. There is no legal path for the USPTO to say, "We have all of these really shady applications and we don't have any law that we feel appropriately addresses them." Instead, if you're a conspiracy nut [read between the lines here], the USPTO can issue the most egregious of these applications with the hopes that it will quickly end up in an infringement suit. Of course, if the patent holder decides to wait 2 years before using the patent, then it's just a tactical blunder that the USPTO is helpless to correct.
Now, you wouldn't be the first to point out that this is an imperfect system, but that's what it is.
People can and do understand that police officers are just doing their jobs, while still criticizing the police department as a whole. Likewise for the USPTO.
That's a very good point. I'm sure it's difficult for police officers to distinguish between criticism of the department and criticism of the individuals as well.
Knowing this, if a computer does appear to perform a mistake, its because of a human element. Thus the apparent control you perceive is the opposite way round, but in general (as you pointed out) people don't know that.
I'm a CS grad who specialized in computability and I work in simulation technology. I know as well as anyone that you're right; computers perform exactly as they are instructed.
However, they are not always instructed appropriately. When a computer is a "tool", then we spot those problems, fix them, have a laugh, and move on. When a computer is a human's adversary, then a human suffers as the result of the mistake (produced|generated|reproduced) by a computer. In my opinion, the gravity of this distinction is not fully appreciated. It's the difference between using TNT to build a tunnel and using TNT to blow up people, although metaphorical.
A computer that dispenses traffic tickets is NOT a tool, it is an adversary. Will that computer take responsibility for erroneously mailing me a ticket? Will the computer take responsibility if it fails to issue a ticket in an event that ends with a collision? It's irrelevant whether the source of the problem lies with the computer or the programmer; the computer is an enemy and nobody takes responsibility for it.
I'm all for buying movie tickets at an automated kiosk, I am not in favor of computers putting things on my criminal record.
I also noticed the ears as being very toy-like. I thought it was odd that they chose those ears when virtually everything non-human was about 95% realistic.
The jazz soundtrack was a great idea (to complement the quasi-1960s style cars, architecture, James Bond-esque villain, and other period references) but I thought it could have been a stronger presence in the movie.
The story itself was compelling enough that I almost wanted to see live action characters. While both Violet and (bad guy's girlfriend? Did she have a name) both had some inner conflict, an animated character with inner conflict just doesn't compare to a real actress with inner conflict. But, I realize that in making this criticism, I'm talking about cartoons having inner turmoil - consequently that criticism is just as much admiration of the 99 other animated character features that were spectacular and allowed me to realize that inner conflict, and only inner conflict, were hard to adequately convey through animation.
All I really know about those cameras is that they're supposed to take at least 2 pictures, but most take 3. They must take 1 picture of your car before the intersection with a red light and they must take 1 picture of your car in the intersection with a red light. Many also take a third picture of your plate. In your case, it's possible that you tripped the sensor that takes the photographs, but your front wheels were in the intersection in the first photograph - technically not running the red light.
While I understand that these are supposed to be a public safety device, they only prove that my car ran a red light, not that I committed a crime. Also, if you're going to cut it close at a red light, it is to your advantage to driver faster in order to defeat the first photograph. Third, I prefer my law enforcement is done by a human. If they want to stick a traffic warden at the intersection and hand out tickets, I'm fine with that - I don't think law and order ought to be upheld by a machine, even if we're merely talking about traffic tickets.
Actually, it is my understanding that most countries require the law to be interpreted within the confines of reason, at least in theory. Specifically, it certainly seems to me that the nonobviousness requirement of US patent law requires the application of common sense, but I will gladly admit that I am not a lawyer, so I will not get into that any further.
While this is true, the USPTO is not at liberty to define for themselves what is nonobvious - judges do this when they generate case law.
I see no reason why that precludes me from having an issue with the institution that applies this law.
Well, if there is a bad criminal law, do you fault the police officers for arresting people who break that law? The USPTO is little more than the IP law police department. They take the legislated law and the case law and attempt to make those who apply for patents abide by those legal concepts. Ultimately, 35 USC 102 states that "a person shall be entitled to a patent unless..." and if the applicant argues incessantly, there isn't much the USPTO can do other than reject the patent and let it go to court, or issue the patent and let the issue get sorted out in court when the patent owner tries to enforce it. That's where the existing case law comes from, and that's how problematic areas of patent law are clarified - by judges, not by the USPTO which does not hold authority to interpret the law. If you're a conspiracy nut, you'd almost think that the USPTO sometimes issues oddball patents related to problematic areas of the law if there is a high likelihood that the patent will be tested in court - baiting the system to get helpful case law, if you will. Of course, you'd have to be a real conspiracy nut...
But, when it's all said and done, it's worth remembering that the USPTO gets 350,000 applications per year, issues 1500-2000 patents per week, and sometimes mistakes are made. If you figure 10 patents per month end up in the papers for offending the public's sense of obviousness, you're talking about less than 1% of issued patents. That's not an excuse, but it's something to keep in mind. Also, there are about 6 different paths a patent can take before it gets patented. I assure you there are plenty of cases where the examiner fully believes the patent should not be issued, has prior art, argues that the invention is obvious, but the applicant appeals the decision and the examiner's decision is overturned because "compiling on the fly" and "compiling during execution" are apparently different concepts (or some similar gem of wisdom.) At that point, the decision is basically out of the examiner's hands - he could be a hero, reject the application, get fired and end his career in IP law or alternatively issue the patent. I'm not sure what the story is behind this patent, but it's a far more complex issue than the USPTO employs idiots.
If the spirit of a law is obviously violated, then I expect those who are to apply this law to protest and most definitely not to blindly keep applying it.
While you might hold this opinion about police who enforce bad laws, many people do not. Why do you think that the public realizes that police officers are "just doing their jobs" while they expect examiners at the USPTO to risk their careers to fix a system they had no part in creating?
I haven't read the book, but it sounds to me like it plays upon an important concept that I really haven't heard anyone address in contemporary terms.
There's a huge difference between what I'll call a "tool" use of computers and an "adversarial" use of computers. In MANY applications, computers are only used to help the people involved - there isn't any plausible reason to suspect that the computer is cheating. ATMs (both banks and customers want the results accurate), medical devices, flight control computers, scientific simulation, email, etc. are all situations where the sum of the computer's influence is to help the people involved. (In the case of weapons systems, well, we don't want to help the targets anyway.) Recently we've been seeing situations where the computers are adversaries to people - electronic voting, photography-enforced red lights, and here customer databases to act against customers. These applications are fundamentally different from "tool" uses of computers.
It goes back to the boring old discussions about email - if it's a technology problem, solve it with technology, not legislation. Alright, well, if my "adversarial" computer borks something up, what type of problem is that? Technological? Legislative? Social? Civil rights? Who is going to solve the problem? Who has seriously considered the problem? What if (just what if, I'm not a conspiracy nut) an election is stolen through electronic voting fraud and we find out 6 months after the fact? Uh, what the hell do you do then? Another election with the electronic voting equipment? Do you even speak up about it?
The funny joke is about our computer overlords, and it's funny because it's so absurd to think that our mundane desktop pr0n machines could rule our lives. Well, IF there is a gradual progression toward that scenario, wouldn't it start with computers taking the responsibility of playing an adversarial role with humans? Maybe you'll be fired one day because a computer determined that you weren't performing up to snuff. I wonder how many health care services are denied to people because a computer determined that the procedure wasn't worth the risk. They're already giving you traffic tickets and protecting your democracy, so exactly where is this line that's "so far-fetched that it's absurd?"
You do not see a relation between that and the critique directed at the reality of the USPTO?
Only if I remove any knowledge of the legal system. The "criticism" of the USPTO around here is only valid if you don't have a clue how a legal system works. There is no concept of "common sense" in the law. There is no legal basis for issuing or not issuing a patent based on "common sense". If you think that's a problem, then you have a problem with the law, not the USPTO, and anyone with a basic knowledge of how the legal system works would know that.
Is this the next step in the war on terror? Deny EVERYTHING you do wrong? I remember when they claimed there was WMDs, but there wasn't. I remember when they said they wanted to make the world a safer place, but it isn't! We're taking bullshit from a monkey and a big eared twat and now they want to hide as much of it as they can.
Don't forget, we Americans voted for "moral values", which includes reminding gay people that they're nothing more than fags. We voted for "moral values", which includes buying popcorn and coca-cola so we have a snack while ethnic cleansing is happening yesterday, today, and tomorrow in Sudan (and the victims are Christians, to beat all). We voted for "moral values", but nobody had the balls to say which "moral values" the red states voted for - and sure as shit stinks they were not the moral values of Jesus.
I'm also curious about the details. I did 5 minutes of Googling (got irony? want some?) and came up with this which sort of could be interpreted (incorrectly, I think) as the parent poster has. Rather than keeping the PATRIOT act secret, it appears that lawsuits regarding the PATRIOT act are kept secret - however these lawsuits would establish case law which further defines the PATRIOT act, and if that case law is secret, then important limitations of the PATRIOT act are kept secret.
I'm not lawyer, though, and don't know the procedures around gag-ordered lawsuits. I don't know if the court's decision would be made public or not - but in some fantasy country where freedom and the Constitution matter, I'm sure it would all be public.
Of course not because common sense has nothing to do with the legal issues surrounding patenting. Common sense is something that does suggest that you have the slightest clue what you're talking about before you make an ass of yourself, however. Therefore, I have no idea why you would bring up common sense.
You monkeys approved a patent on teasing a cat with a laser pointer. I am somewhat less than interested in any 37 CFR paragraphs you can cite that will support your arguments.
Yes, of course you are less than interested - because then you would have the slightest clue what you are talking about, and would probably be embarrassed that you brought up common sense. I'm glad you got your funny mod points - not everyone can offer intelligent or informative ideas.
That may be 100% true but is neither here nor there. 35 USC 102 states that "a person shall be entitled to a patent unless..." and nothing after that includes "objectively obvious".
I know the system is broken and that a bunch of bureaucrats have attempted to redefine the word "obvious" to mean something that it doesn't.
Bureaucrats have nothing to do with it. You would be talking about judges, and while the existing case law may not be perfect, it is the law, and that's how the legal system works. If you're upset about the current state of the law, then you need to direct that frustration at the people responsible for the law, not the people who follow the law.
Maybe I missed something but, I thought it was the USPTO that was supposed to decide what was patentable and not the courts. Not, allow anything through and let the courts figure it out later.
Sorry, I meant to respond to this also. Like I said in my other post, the USPTO cannot deny giving someone a patent unless the case goes before a judge - every other failed patent application is abandoned by the applicant. As I said, case law is the result of previous patent applications going to a judge and they define what can be patented. Sometimes, the USPTO has no choice but to issue a patent and let the courts sort it out.
Also, at least 19 out of 20 cases are absolutely ridiculous and that USPTO received 350,000 applications per year. People do make mistakes, but even in the worst case, an infringement lawsuit will put the patent under intense scrutiny in a courtroom - the fastest way to invalidate your weak patent is to use it.
I appreciate your post, and especially your ability to understand why I might have posted with the attitude I had. While I understand that there is a lot of misunderstanding about the patent system, I don't think that ought to justify the wildly inaccurate comments about the intelligence and abilities of people at the USPTO which are so popular around Slashdot.
Please show me where this is stated in patent law.
35 USC 102 forms the legal basis for the concept of "novelty". While many dictionaries may state "novel" and "unique" are synonyms - and they certainly are in everyday language - the Patent system lives in a parallel universe of legal speak. For example, you might read 35 USC 102 regarding novelty and draw some conclusions about whether or not a patent should be issued - but you will very likely be incorrect.
While 35 USC 102 is short and written in rather plain language for a Federal law, unfortunately knowledge of the law is insufficient to apply the law. That's why we have judges; their job is to interpret 35 USC 102 and produce case law. This case law is what defines the concepts of "novelty". Believe you me, you would be surprised by how specifically this concept is defined by case law, and also surprised by how different this concept is from the standard dictionary definition.
35 USC 103 forms the basis for rejecting an "obvious" patent. Again, reading and understanding this law is insufficient to form an opinion about a particular situation. There is a good amount of 102 case law, there are mountains of 103 case law. Once again, the concept of "non-obvious" is NOT what you will find in the dictionary, rather it is defined by decades of case law. While the USPTO often uses the language "a person of ordinary skill in the art", again there are piles of case law defining what this means. According to the examiners at the USPTO, a person of ordinary skill in the art has common sense and is reasonably intelligent. To the attorneys, it's debatable whether a person of ordinary skill can tie his own shoes. This conflict comes to a head in the language of 35 USC 102, which declares that "a person shall be entitled to a patent unless..." meaning that a person cannot be denied a patent unless they willfully give up (abandon the application) or a judge affirms that the USPTO's rejection is lawful.
What many people do not understand is that these laws, 35 USC 102 and 103, do NOT tell you WHAT can or cannot be patented, rather they establish the concepts of WHY a patent should or should not be issued. On Slashdot, people like to rant and rave about something being "obvious" - fact is, that doesn't mean anything. Hell, there is case law that declares "If prior art could have performed the claimed function, even though the claimed function is not disclosed, the difference is a naming convention and the claimed invention is not patentable." Proof positive that any tangible embodiment of a Turing machine teaches all software claims - a Turing machine could be configured to compute anything that is computable. However, that stance would conflict with the spirit and intention of 35 USC 101 which is intended to advance technology for the nation - surely we can agree that SOME things using software are novel and non-obvious. Finite element simulation was impossible before computers, as was nuclear simulation, flight control for the F-117A, and processing SETI data.
How does this get resolved? Case law. As it currently stands, software is non-statutory under 35 USC 101 for being an abstract algorithm. However, the flight control for the F-117A is truly a complicated invention that advanced technology. Current case law has established that a software process must be claimed in conjunction with a tangible embodiment, cannot be claimed without function (meaning it cannot be claimed as merely data
If a computer is just simulating something that's been done for 100's of years, then the idea hardly seems to qualify as "nonobvious", which is a requirement for a patent. Sticking "Use a computer to" in front of something shouldn't be an automatic green light.
No, the requirement is that the invention would not have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the application under 35 U.S.C. 103. This concept is NOT the same concept as "nonobvious" in every day life. If it were, then there would be no need for the volumes of case law which define what those words mean. The idea that a patent should be simply "nonobvious" is a crude simplification that fosters a critical misunderstanding of the nature of patenting by the public.
While that page is accurate, I have never heard of anyone being hired in at less than the GS-7 level. It's also worth noting that decisions to hire, fire, and the details of the job offer (GS level, to the extent that it's flexible) are determined by the supervisor, not someone in an unrelated HR department, and that the current tech economy allows these supervisors to be extremely selective.
The assertion that the USPTO employs monkeys in an assembly line is an indictment and conviction of the public's crippling ignorance into how the legal system works. I know an examiner who has a graduate degree in both nuclear physics and electrical engineering, and I wouldn't even bother asking what undergrad degrees he has - and this guy doesn't even have the authority to issue a patent. I hold two BS degrees, and if I advance as fast as possible, it will be over half a decade before I can issue a patent myself.
There is so much prior art for this that its not even funny.
Clearly you have the patent number? I looked at the article and found no mention of an actual patent - only the assertion that one exists. Of course, this is an obscenely irresponsible method of journalism since every issued patent is published and available on the internet.
It's quite obvious that unless someone can provide the patent number, any discussion here epitomizes uninformed bullshit. Of course, I could search for the patent, but I would have no idea of knowing if what I found would be the patent actually being used in litigation.
So, do you have the patent number? I'm interested in reading the patent myself.
Actually, I don't really beleive it's the laws that need overhauled but the public in general. The public (or atleast the concept of) were at one time expected to know what they were talking about. However, these tools are clueless. They seem to be forgetting two very important terms when it comes to voicing a respectable opinion. "Having" and "the slightest idea what they're babbling about". (I'm sure we can slip 'not overly broad' in there somewhere too).
You are such a tool. There is NO LEGAL BASIS FOR THE IDEA OF "UNIQUE" IN PATENT LAW. The term is "novel" and in the context of patent law, it does not mean "unique". Further, the concept of "non-obvious" does not mean what you think it means when dealing with corporate patent attorneys.
An no, you cannot slip "overly broad" in there, because this concept has NO BASIS IN LAW. That a patent should not be "overly broad" is a fantasy of public mediocrity. The Constitution, as it regards patents, was specifically written so that an inventor could have the broadest patent protection he can attain - a patent that is honestly "too broad" will be easily defeated in court. Also, see my above comments about having a clue.
Granted, I haven't read the complaint or the terms of the patent
...or the laws that define what a patent is, or the case law that clarify what can or cannot be patented. I also strongly suspect you haven't read too much in the way of "informative stuff about patents", because you seem to be regurgitating untruths that I'm guessing you heard from someone else - who didn't have a clue. By the way, patents do not have "terms". See my previous comment about having a clue.
Anyone have anymore information on the complaint?
Yes, I do. I got it by READING THE PATENT, which is legally required to by published. It is accessible through the internet by a method similar to Google - I'll spare you the details. The patent has three independent claims, all of which are directed toward a method that requires a tangible embodiment on a computer. Nothing you have uttered forth has addressed that one glaring difference between the patent and "recommending items to customers" in general - and expresses a stark inadequacy in your understanding of the patent system.
I'm not saying that this invention sounds like it'll change the world, but unless you show up at the doctor's office and tell him he's a clueless tool for not curing your cold (in which case you would be a dipshit in general), I think you have an ethical obligation to know what you're talking about before publicly declaring things like "these tools working in the patent system are clueless".
I'm sure you're a fine person and competent at your job, but YOU look like a complete tool when you make comments like that and clearly don't know the first thing about the topic.
This is factually incorrect and moderated incorrectly. Rather than interesting, it is false.
I trust you can use Google. I therefore presume you can operate the uspto website and find the patent in question. It consists of three independent claims, all of which require that the invention be implemented on a computer. What you have posted as "prior art" does not read on the claims. Your post is not interesting, it is factually incorrect.
Slashdot Mirror
Voting on paper is a good thing, but apparently you need a 4 year degree in computer science (or related field) to realize this, and that is a bad thing.
Find me one example in history where computers are given authority to punish or penalize people that wasn't at least controversial. Chances are, the best you can come up with are traffic tickets or using photo recognition to question people. That's a FREAKING FAR CRY from determining the future of our nation, and where's the goddamn controversy? If we can run an election on computers, it's apparently time to decide to fire people with computers, decide to cut life support with computers, and decide who should join the military (hmm, draft?) with computers, because granting computers authority over humans is apparently no longer controversial.
There is a fundamental difference between using computers as tools and using computers as adversaries to humans. Tools are fine; adversaries are the stuff of scary sci-fi. I have no problem buying movie tickets from a computerized kiosk; I have a huge problem with computers putting tickets on my criminal record.
If I had mod points, you'd earn one. Watching the decline of the US from the inside is infuriating, because many Americans lack the mental faculties to recognize what is happening.
Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of Mexicans with work permits flooding our factories.
It's got nothing to do with Mexicans and everything to do with unemployment of American citizens (whether they're white, black, or hispanic.)
And I say, "They shall have him." They voted for moral values - because Jesus tells us that gay people are fags. They voted for moral values - because Jesus wouldn't want us to aid thousands of Christians dying in Sudan unless they had something to sell us. They voted against terrorism - because believing that Nowhere, Kansas is a legitimate target makes them feel important.
Listen to someone talk about politics and notice whether they use the word "think" or "believe". A friend pointed this out to me last week and I thought he was just being anecdotal, but it's amazing how accurate this is at identifying Bush supporters (believe) or non-supporters (think).
I say, "They shall have him." What happens when a child wants too much candy? You know it will make him sick and you warn him against eating too much. He won't heed your warnings and continue to whine for more candy. Eventually, he'll become defiant and eat all the candy he likes. He'll get sick to his stomach, but he'll finally learn what eating too much candy does. Right now this nation has snuck away with a big bag of candy. The nation is not going to learn anything until it engorges itself on the doublespeak and predatory policies of the Bush administration, and hopefully we'll be done puking all over the world in 2008.
Until then, America needs to down the candy like a good little pig. For this reason, I fully support everything Bush does between now and 2008.
HOLY CRAP, you're right! WHO KNEW?!
Perhaps I overestimated the authority of the USPTO then. But still, by not taking the hard route through the courts, the USPTO allows greedy corporations with enough money to pay for a small army of lawyers to terrorize smaller corporations and individuals through the use of bogus patents.
In essence, this is true, but the reason for this is in large part because of what the Constitution says about patents. There is no shortage of minds at the USPTO who are sensitive to the abuses of the system, however the USPTO must obey the law when they apply the law. As for resources, the USPTO doesn't actually participate in litigation regarding patenting issues. However, the case law system which actually defines the law is one of violation-then-compensation. There is no legal path for the USPTO to say, "We have all of these really shady applications and we don't have any law that we feel appropriately addresses them." Instead, if you're a conspiracy nut [read between the lines here], the USPTO can issue the most egregious of these applications with the hopes that it will quickly end up in an infringement suit. Of course, if the patent holder decides to wait 2 years before using the patent, then it's just a tactical blunder that the USPTO is helpless to correct.
Now, you wouldn't be the first to point out that this is an imperfect system, but that's what it is.
People can and do understand that police officers are just doing their jobs, while still criticizing the police department as a whole. Likewise for the USPTO.
That's a very good point. I'm sure it's difficult for police officers to distinguish between criticism of the department and criticism of the individuals as well.
I'm a CS grad who specialized in computability and I work in simulation technology. I know as well as anyone that you're right; computers perform exactly as they are instructed.
However, they are not always instructed appropriately. When a computer is a "tool", then we spot those problems, fix them, have a laugh, and move on. When a computer is a human's adversary, then a human suffers as the result of the mistake (produced|generated|reproduced) by a computer. In my opinion, the gravity of this distinction is not fully appreciated. It's the difference between using TNT to build a tunnel and using TNT to blow up people, although metaphorical.
A computer that dispenses traffic tickets is NOT a tool, it is an adversary. Will that computer take responsibility for erroneously mailing me a ticket? Will the computer take responsibility if it fails to issue a ticket in an event that ends with a collision? It's irrelevant whether the source of the problem lies with the computer or the programmer; the computer is an enemy and nobody takes responsibility for it.
I'm all for buying movie tickets at an automated kiosk, I am not in favor of computers putting things on my criminal record.
The jazz soundtrack was a great idea (to complement the quasi-1960s style cars, architecture, James Bond-esque villain, and other period references) but I thought it could have been a stronger presence in the movie.
The story itself was compelling enough that I almost wanted to see live action characters. While both Violet and (bad guy's girlfriend? Did she have a name) both had some inner conflict, an animated character with inner conflict just doesn't compare to a real actress with inner conflict. But, I realize that in making this criticism, I'm talking about cartoons having inner turmoil - consequently that criticism is just as much admiration of the 99 other animated character features that were spectacular and allowed me to realize that inner conflict, and only inner conflict, were hard to adequately convey through animation.
While I understand that these are supposed to be a public safety device, they only prove that my car ran a red light, not that I committed a crime. Also, if you're going to cut it close at a red light, it is to your advantage to driver faster in order to defeat the first photograph. Third, I prefer my law enforcement is done by a human. If they want to stick a traffic warden at the intersection and hand out tickets, I'm fine with that - I don't think law and order ought to be upheld by a machine, even if we're merely talking about traffic tickets.
While this is true, the USPTO is not at liberty to define for themselves what is nonobvious - judges do this when they generate case law.
I see no reason why that precludes me from having an issue with the institution that applies this law.
Well, if there is a bad criminal law, do you fault the police officers for arresting people who break that law? The USPTO is little more than the IP law police department. They take the legislated law and the case law and attempt to make those who apply for patents abide by those legal concepts. Ultimately, 35 USC 102 states that "a person shall be entitled to a patent unless..." and if the applicant argues incessantly, there isn't much the USPTO can do other than reject the patent and let it go to court, or issue the patent and let the issue get sorted out in court when the patent owner tries to enforce it. That's where the existing case law comes from, and that's how problematic areas of patent law are clarified - by judges, not by the USPTO which does not hold authority to interpret the law. If you're a conspiracy nut, you'd almost think that the USPTO sometimes issues oddball patents related to problematic areas of the law if there is a high likelihood that the patent will be tested in court - baiting the system to get helpful case law, if you will. Of course, you'd have to be a real conspiracy nut...
But, when it's all said and done, it's worth remembering that the USPTO gets 350,000 applications per year, issues 1500-2000 patents per week, and sometimes mistakes are made. If you figure 10 patents per month end up in the papers for offending the public's sense of obviousness, you're talking about less than 1% of issued patents. That's not an excuse, but it's something to keep in mind. Also, there are about 6 different paths a patent can take before it gets patented. I assure you there are plenty of cases where the examiner fully believes the patent should not be issued, has prior art, argues that the invention is obvious, but the applicant appeals the decision and the examiner's decision is overturned because "compiling on the fly" and "compiling during execution" are apparently different concepts (or some similar gem of wisdom.) At that point, the decision is basically out of the examiner's hands - he could be a hero, reject the application, get fired and end his career in IP law or alternatively issue the patent. I'm not sure what the story is behind this patent, but it's a far more complex issue than the USPTO employs idiots.
If the spirit of a law is obviously violated, then I expect those who are to apply this law to protest and most definitely not to blindly keep applying it.
While you might hold this opinion about police who enforce bad laws, many people do not. Why do you think that the public realizes that police officers are "just doing their jobs" while they expect examiners at the USPTO to risk their careers to fix a system they had no part in creating?
There's a huge difference between what I'll call a "tool" use of computers and an "adversarial" use of computers. In MANY applications, computers are only used to help the people involved - there isn't any plausible reason to suspect that the computer is cheating. ATMs (both banks and customers want the results accurate), medical devices, flight control computers, scientific simulation, email, etc. are all situations where the sum of the computer's influence is to help the people involved. (In the case of weapons systems, well, we don't want to help the targets anyway.) Recently we've been seeing situations where the computers are adversaries to people - electronic voting, photography-enforced red lights, and here customer databases to act against customers. These applications are fundamentally different from "tool" uses of computers.
It goes back to the boring old discussions about email - if it's a technology problem, solve it with technology, not legislation. Alright, well, if my "adversarial" computer borks something up, what type of problem is that? Technological? Legislative? Social? Civil rights? Who is going to solve the problem? Who has seriously considered the problem? What if (just what if, I'm not a conspiracy nut) an election is stolen through electronic voting fraud and we find out 6 months after the fact? Uh, what the hell do you do then? Another election with the electronic voting equipment? Do you even speak up about it?
The funny joke is about our computer overlords, and it's funny because it's so absurd to think that our mundane desktop pr0n machines could rule our lives. Well, IF there is a gradual progression toward that scenario, wouldn't it start with computers taking the responsibility of playing an adversarial role with humans? Maybe you'll be fired one day because a computer determined that you weren't performing up to snuff. I wonder how many health care services are denied to people because a computer determined that the procedure wasn't worth the risk. They're already giving you traffic tickets and protecting your democracy, so exactly where is this line that's "so far-fetched that it's absurd?"
Only if I remove any knowledge of the legal system. The "criticism" of the USPTO around here is only valid if you don't have a clue how a legal system works. There is no concept of "common sense" in the law. There is no legal basis for issuing or not issuing a patent based on "common sense". If you think that's a problem, then you have a problem with the law, not the USPTO, and anyone with a basic knowledge of how the legal system works would know that.
While you were trying to be clever, I think you overshot my point.
Find me any law that deals with "common sense".
Don't forget, we Americans voted for "moral values", which includes reminding gay people that they're nothing more than fags. We voted for "moral values", which includes buying popcorn and coca-cola so we have a snack while ethnic cleansing is happening yesterday, today, and tomorrow in Sudan (and the victims are Christians, to beat all). We voted for "moral values", but nobody had the balls to say which "moral values" the red states voted for - and sure as shit stinks they were not the moral values of Jesus.
I'm not lawyer, though, and don't know the procedures around gag-ordered lawsuits. I don't know if the court's decision would be made public or not - but in some fantasy country where freedom and the Constitution matter, I'm sure it would all be public.
Of course not because common sense has nothing to do with the legal issues surrounding patenting. Common sense is something that does suggest that you have the slightest clue what you're talking about before you make an ass of yourself, however. Therefore, I have no idea why you would bring up common sense.
You monkeys approved a patent on teasing a cat with a laser pointer. I am somewhat less than interested in any 37 CFR paragraphs you can cite that will support your arguments.
Yes, of course you are less than interested - because then you would have the slightest clue what you are talking about, and would probably be embarrassed that you brought up common sense. I'm glad you got your funny mod points - not everyone can offer intelligent or informative ideas.
That may be 100% true but is neither here nor there. 35 USC 102 states that "a person shall be entitled to a patent unless..." and nothing after that includes "objectively obvious".
I know the system is broken and that a bunch of bureaucrats have attempted to redefine the word "obvious" to mean something that it doesn't.
Bureaucrats have nothing to do with it. You would be talking about judges, and while the existing case law may not be perfect, it is the law, and that's how the legal system works. If you're upset about the current state of the law, then you need to direct that frustration at the people responsible for the law, not the people who follow the law.
Sorry, I meant to respond to this also. Like I said in my other post, the USPTO cannot deny giving someone a patent unless the case goes before a judge - every other failed patent application is abandoned by the applicant. As I said, case law is the result of previous patent applications going to a judge and they define what can be patented. Sometimes, the USPTO has no choice but to issue a patent and let the courts sort it out.
Also, at least 19 out of 20 cases are absolutely ridiculous and that USPTO received 350,000 applications per year. People do make mistakes, but even in the worst case, an infringement lawsuit will put the patent under intense scrutiny in a courtroom - the fastest way to invalidate your weak patent is to use it.
Please show me where this is stated in patent law.
35 USC 102 forms the legal basis for the concept of "novelty". While many dictionaries may state "novel" and "unique" are synonyms - and they certainly are in everyday language - the Patent system lives in a parallel universe of legal speak. For example, you might read 35 USC 102 regarding novelty and draw some conclusions about whether or not a patent should be issued - but you will very likely be incorrect.
While 35 USC 102 is short and written in rather plain language for a Federal law, unfortunately knowledge of the law is insufficient to apply the law. That's why we have judges; their job is to interpret 35 USC 102 and produce case law. This case law is what defines the concepts of "novelty". Believe you me, you would be surprised by how specifically this concept is defined by case law, and also surprised by how different this concept is from the standard dictionary definition.
35 USC 103 forms the basis for rejecting an "obvious" patent. Again, reading and understanding this law is insufficient to form an opinion about a particular situation. There is a good amount of 102 case law, there are mountains of 103 case law. Once again, the concept of "non-obvious" is NOT what you will find in the dictionary, rather it is defined by decades of case law. While the USPTO often uses the language "a person of ordinary skill in the art", again there are piles of case law defining what this means. According to the examiners at the USPTO, a person of ordinary skill in the art has common sense and is reasonably intelligent. To the attorneys, it's debatable whether a person of ordinary skill can tie his own shoes. This conflict comes to a head in the language of 35 USC 102, which declares that "a person shall be entitled to a patent unless..." meaning that a person cannot be denied a patent unless they willfully give up (abandon the application) or a judge affirms that the USPTO's rejection is lawful.
What many people do not understand is that these laws, 35 USC 102 and 103, do NOT tell you WHAT can or cannot be patented, rather they establish the concepts of WHY a patent should or should not be issued. On Slashdot, people like to rant and rave about something being "obvious" - fact is, that doesn't mean anything. Hell, there is case law that declares "If prior art could have performed the claimed function, even though the claimed function is not disclosed, the difference is a naming convention and the claimed invention is not patentable." Proof positive that any tangible embodiment of a Turing machine teaches all software claims - a Turing machine could be configured to compute anything that is computable. However, that stance would conflict with the spirit and intention of 35 USC 101 which is intended to advance technology for the nation - surely we can agree that SOME things using software are novel and non-obvious. Finite element simulation was impossible before computers, as was nuclear simulation, flight control for the F-117A, and processing SETI data.
How does this get resolved? Case law. As it currently stands, software is non-statutory under 35 USC 101 for being an abstract algorithm. However, the flight control for the F-117A is truly a complicated invention that advanced technology. Current case law has established that a software process must be claimed in conjunction with a tangible embodiment, cannot be claimed without function (meaning it cannot be claimed as merely data
No, the requirement is that the invention would not have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the application under 35 U.S.C. 103. This concept is NOT the same concept as "nonobvious" in every day life. If it were, then there would be no need for the volumes of case law which define what those words mean. The idea that a patent should be simply "nonobvious" is a crude simplification that fosters a critical misunderstanding of the nature of patenting by the public.
Exactly what is wrong with this patent? Please cite the laws and 37 CFR in your answer so I'll know you're not talking out of your ass.
The assertion that the USPTO employs monkeys in an assembly line is an indictment and conviction of the public's crippling ignorance into how the legal system works. I know an examiner who has a graduate degree in both nuclear physics and electrical engineering, and I wouldn't even bother asking what undergrad degrees he has - and this guy doesn't even have the authority to issue a patent. I hold two BS degrees, and if I advance as fast as possible, it will be over half a decade before I can issue a patent myself.
Clearly you have the patent number? I looked at the article and found no mention of an actual patent - only the assertion that one exists. Of course, this is an obscenely irresponsible method of journalism since every issued patent is published and available on the internet.
It's quite obvious that unless someone can provide the patent number, any discussion here epitomizes uninformed bullshit. Of course, I could search for the patent, but I would have no idea of knowing if what I found would be the patent actually being used in litigation.
So, do you have the patent number? I'm interested in reading the patent myself.
You are such a tool. There is NO LEGAL BASIS FOR THE IDEA OF "UNIQUE" IN PATENT LAW. The term is "novel" and in the context of patent law, it does not mean "unique". Further, the concept of "non-obvious" does not mean what you think it means when dealing with corporate patent attorneys.
An no, you cannot slip "overly broad" in there, because this concept has NO BASIS IN LAW. That a patent should not be "overly broad" is a fantasy of public mediocrity. The Constitution, as it regards patents, was specifically written so that an inventor could have the broadest patent protection he can attain - a patent that is honestly "too broad" will be easily defeated in court. Also, see my above comments about having a clue.
Granted, I haven't read the complaint or the terms of the patent
Anyone have anymore information on the complaint?
Yes, I do. I got it by READING THE PATENT, which is legally required to by published. It is accessible through the internet by a method similar to Google - I'll spare you the details. The patent has three independent claims, all of which are directed toward a method that requires a tangible embodiment on a computer. Nothing you have uttered forth has addressed that one glaring difference between the patent and "recommending items to customers" in general - and expresses a stark inadequacy in your understanding of the patent system.
I'm not saying that this invention sounds like it'll change the world, but unless you show up at the doctor's office and tell him he's a clueless tool for not curing your cold (in which case you would be a dipshit in general), I think you have an ethical obligation to know what you're talking about before publicly declaring things like "these tools working in the patent system are clueless".
I'm sure you're a fine person and competent at your job, but YOU look like a complete tool when you make comments like that and clearly don't know the first thing about the topic.
This is factually incorrect and moderated incorrectly. Rather than interesting, it is false.
I trust you can use Google. I therefore presume you can operate the uspto website and find the patent in question. It consists of three independent claims, all of which require that the invention be implemented on a computer. What you have posted as "prior art" does not read on the claims. Your post is not interesting, it is factually incorrect.