Because the American media system is a complete and total failure to the American people (and to the people of the world to the extent that they are concerned with American news.) Our media does not consider this a problem because they are in a profitable position. Our broadcast and cable TV channels are swamped with the cheap-to-produce "reality" shows that generate huge sums of advertising dollars. Why would a media corporation risk the backlash of telling us what we don't want to hear when they could cash in by assimilating the "reality TV" formula?
There's a news article today about how a healthy majority of Bush voters think that Bush is popular in the rest of the world, Islamic nations support Bush's international war on terrorism, and that Bush supports the Kyoto air pollution agreements and the landmine anti-proliferation agreement. He is, in fact, openly against the Kyoto and landmine anti-proliferation agreements. (I'm not trying to argue the pros or cons of that political stance.) There is a clear and unquestionaly disconnect between the President's political agenda and what his own supporters believe is his agenda. How can this happen?
Our media has completely failed us. How is it that our health system is in crisis? Because most Americans are not aware that it could or should be different. Many Americans do believe that we have the best health care system in the world (not just quality of care, should you be able to afford it.) Why don't they know? Because our media has completely failed us.
"The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power"
-Benito Mussolini
(1883-1945), Fascist Dictator of Italy
You have NO right to turn off TV's that don't belong to you. Don't believe me? Come over to my house and try to turn off the TV and I'll beat your ass with a baseball bat, all the while laughing like a pirate at your incredible lack of hubris and blatant stupdity. [...] I'm sick of people like you, who think their way is the right way. I leave people like you alone to do whatever they wish to do, so long as it doesn't affect me. Why the hell can't you provide the same courtsey?
I know I'm about to engage in an internet pissing contest, but since we're talking tough...
I think this invention is a great idea, and I'm the type of guy who will show up, turn off your TV, and point out that I too have a baseball bat. While the, "Leave me alone or I'll punch you" attitude might work with lots of limp wristed liberals who want to tell you how to live, it doesn't work well with the bigger bully who trains 4 times per week to punch your teeth out.
Just something to keep in mind. I like punching things and I don't like your television.
And, again, I know this is an internet pissing match and really quite meaningless, but some folks won't "provide you with the same courtesy" not because they're sorry-sick high-minded liberals but because they don't give a fuck.
Just a different angle on the same result, I guess.
I have mod points but rather than use them, I'll point out that Estonia, Slovakia, and Poland are developed countries, you nitwit.
Undeveloped countries are places where paved roads, hospitals, and electricity are luxuries. That's not what you're looking at in eastern Europe or the former Soviet states.
I have the front page of a patent titled "Advertising in Electronic Games" printed out and taped to my office wall. I wonder if they spent 20 minutes doing a patent search before firing up the ol' business model or if we'll all get a chance to blame the patent system for some corporation's inability to perform a trivial infringement search..
the other two monitors and the laptop are connected via synergy. Theres also an old sun box connected via a KVM on one of the main monitors.
cannot stress enough how rad synergy is
I have three screens in my setup (19", 17", 15") running a win2k, win2k (soon to be something more interesting), and redhat.
I even contributed on the synergy forums with some script tips about getting synergyc to automatically start on Fedora. I know it wasn't anything special, but it does mark the first time I gave something back to an open source project.
Not even if the software if primarily used for illegal stuff?
How many digital cameras are used for producing porn? How many registered domain names are used for porn?
How many handguns are used (as in fired and hit something living) for hunting or self defense versus committing a crime?
How much marijuana is (debatably) purchased according to state laws versus illegally purchased in states that have legal uses?
How many people are killed by drunk drivers? Beaten by drunken spouses? How many people are really better off after a few drinks?
What's the point of making nicotine a legal drug?
How in hell is it legal for the fast food industry to sell us the unhealthy crap they do but an elderly person with a terminal illness can be court ordered to take medication to prolong his life|suffering?
I'm not refuting/supporting the implications of your question, but trying to show that without a MUCH broader context, the question cannot have much meaning. In fact, I'm inclined to agree that P2P filesharing is on shaky ground based on its "legitimate use", but then so are handguns and liquor. The bigger question, to me, is why this ought to be even considered at the federal level.
If you made a product out of coathangers, and it turned out that people discovered that they could replicate your product with their own coathangers, is it right to get a federal law preventing people from bending coathangers?
I'm more than happy to pay for copyright media if I feel like I'm getting a fair value. Throughout the whole MPAA/RIAA/P2P controversy, I've continued to buy plenty of DVDs but not a single CD. I really thought about getting The Roots latest CD, but since that group makes such a fuss about P2P crap like hookers for their record label, I just downloaded it instead. I'll still go see them live, though.
Blah, anyway, I got Columbus Day off, sat home drinking beer, and wrote a rambling 5 page response to a 2 sentence Slashdot post. How about you?
It makes no difference anyway. The half of the stated purpose of the patent system is to make advances in the state of the art publicly known - which is why patents have been publicly published for over 100 years.
The onus is NOT on Honeywell to chase down every last nitwit who might think about maybe potentially infringing on Honeywell's patents. The onus is on the nitwits to spend 30 minutes searching the patent database and either license, avoid, or improve the technology they find.
First of all, Along with many other computer scientists, I would like to ask you to
reconsider the current policy of giving patents for computational
processes.
patents are not issued for computational processes. That's pretty much covered in the first week of OTJ training to be an examiner.
Further, For example, I developed software
called TeX that is now used to produce more than 90% of all books
and journals in mathematics and physics and to produce hundreds of
thousands of technical reports in all scientific disciplines. If
software patents had been commonplace in 1980, I would not have been
able to create such a system, nor would I probably have ever thought
of doing it, nor can I imagine anyone else doing so.
which is entirely true. He fails to mention that he would have been perfectly free to improve upon such a patented system. Why is it that everyone insists that it is so easy to "invent" software but that magically easy inventing always stops with what other people have done?
Again, further, The basic algorithmic ideas that people are now rushing to
patent are so fundamental, the result threatens to be like what would
happen if we allowed authors to have patents on individual words and
concepts.
this proves that Knuth is not spending his time looking at unexamined patent applications. They are published and made public, you know. If there's an application for bare software, it's rejected out of hand. The very thing he's arguing against is already nonstatutory.
Further still, When I think of the computer programs I require daily to get my own
work done, I cannot help but realize that none of them would exist
today if software patents had been prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s.
he once again expects me to believe that anybody and everybody would have invented what we already have, but it's impossible to improve upon these existing inventions.
I like Knuth's textbooks. He's a smart guy. If he went through 2 weeks of patent examiner training, he probably wouldn't have written that letter the way he did. The stuff he is arguing against is already unpatentable.
Just to promote discussion, software is unpatentable. Software that is part of a tangible process IS patentable. If you have a blast furnace that is controlled by software, you can apply for a patent. If you have a piece of software, you cannot patent that. The problem is that case law provides precious little grounds for deciding where the line is between software in a tangible process and a disembodied piece of software; as it currently stands, instructions that control a processor to implement an algorithm IS patentable, because the abstract algorithm will NOT infringe on that patent. This falls under the same reasoning as a fighter jet that is controlled, in part, by software.
The people who make these decisions are not examiners at the USPTO. The people who decide these issues are on the appeals board and federal judges. Most people think it's not unreasonable to employ the powers of a microcontroller or a computer as part of a complicated, patentable process - such as using computer control to make integrated circuits, control the fuel injector in your car, or operate a CD player. Many "inventions" would be impossible to make without some form of computer/software. Some inventions would be impossible without certain software improvements. The issue is that there is no "rule of thumb" or checklist that differentiates between "abstract software algorithm, oh yeah on a processor" and "this computer and software keeps the nuclear reactor from exploding". Even Knuth is barking up the wrong tree (bearing in mind I have no idea how old that letter is).
So if YOU have a solution to issue, all you have to do is convince a judge or appeal board to hand down a decision that establishes the law in this regard. Good luck. It has to be unquestionably clear, Constitutional, defendable against the onslaught of 50,000 registered patent attorneys with billions of corporate money to burn, and straightforward enough that a patent examiner can apply it in about 15-30 minutes.
It struck me that I NEVER agree with any of the software patents that are proposed by various entities, because I generally have a deep understanding of how the relevant technology operates. [..] This is why I understand why it is so difficult to educate laymen of the dangers of software patents.
How do you think a mechanical engineer or a machinist feels about patents for internal combustion engines? If a computer or a Turing machine teaches all software patents, doesn't a machine shop with some raw materials teach all apparatus patents (where the apparatus can be constructed from machining metal)?
There's a fragile construct in patent law that few people who aren't in patent law really grasp - it's the idea of "a person of ordinary skill in the art". If you listened to patent lawyers, a person of ordinary skill in the art is lucky if he can get dressed without stabbing himself in the eye with a coat hanger. If you listened to a patent examiner, a person of ordinary skill in the art generally has a 4 year degree and doesn't stick his fingers under a running lawnmower. A patent lawyer is an expert at writing legal arguments and knows he can appeal a case until it's heard by a judge; a patent examiner has a working knowledge of patent law and has a degree in a technical field. Guess which group has a winning record during appeals.
From what you've said in your post, you're well above the legal definition of ordinary skill in the art. Hell, if you're employable, you are beyond the legal definition of ordinary skill in the art. 35 U.S.C. 103 is supposed to exist to define what an "obvious" combination of prior art is, but the case law and patent lawyers have whittled this concept down to nothing more than "not specifically said, but specifically suggested".
What is the danger of software patents (as they exist in the US - that is, a statutory process that interacts with something tangible and employs software at some point) that isn't present in mechanical patents, exactly? Don't dumb it down for me, I studied computability and algorithm analysis. I'm one of those computer scientists who doesn't use a computer. Unfortunately, I'm also a little better versed in IP law than your person of ordinary skill in the art, which prompts my questions.
It looks like a squatter sitting on an idea, and trying to extort money off of whoever happens to try to inovate.
Patents are publicly published. The whole POINT of patents is that they are publicly published, and anybody who can IMPROVE (read: innovate) on your design has the legal right to do so.
If some company has the capital to dump hundreds of millions of dollars into a product line but can't afford $1000 (at most) for a basic patent search, they're fucking retarded. If they have the smarts to "innovate" what someone else already patented, but don't have the smarts to perform a patent search, they're fucking retarded. If they're aware that someone else has a patent to the technology they're selling, they're either planning to 1) fight to invalidate the patent, 2) cut a licensing deal, or 3) admit publicly that they're fucking retarded.
Don't say "I'm all for the idea of patents" if you don't fully appreciate how the system works. If you invent something and some fucking retard comes along 15 years later, is too stupid to find your PUBLISHED patent in the publicly accessible patent database, is too stupid to approach you about a licensing deal, and doesn't stand a chance in hell of invalidating your patent, it's not YOUR fault the guy is a fucking retard.
And PS: I seriously doubt that society has been harmed because some dumbass couldn't "innovate" what someone else already invented. Keep in mind - the patent system grants legal protections to anybody who can improve on what's already patented. If it ain't an improvement, it's an infringement. Infringement isn't innovation.
This is exactly what patents are supposed to prevent. Why are you guys giving them so much crap for doing something about it?
What's more is that the patent at issue here has fewer than 6 claims, they are written in clear English, the entire application is fewer than 20 pages, and it is directed toward a physical, tangible invention.
To answer your question, because the Slashdot groupthink regarding patents is completely reTARded. There is no basis in fact, there is no interest in learning the facts, and the moderation system rewards the stubbornly retarded while burying anybody with a clue. This post contains actual facts I learned by looking at the patent - let's see how it gets moderated, eh?
Well, I meant only to be irreverent. In truth, I could have posted the same thing you did.
The basis for my jest is that if someone said that they frequently spend 5-6 hours per night and complete days on some weekends staring in a telescope at the neighbors, or collecting stamps, or rearranging photographs of their ex-lover, you'd think he was a self-inflicted social outcast. And you'd probably be right.
I'm not saying that I'm any different from you in that I often spend a lot of time playing video games, but seriously. If you admit to any socially disjointed hobby that consumes 30+ hours of your free time per week and you'll sound like a weirdo.
That's why I let you post the argument and I replied with the one-line zinger;)
I suggest to people in the US to get up in arms about Software Patents. Not only are they beyond stupidity, they are generalized and require no implementation.
Hahaha, I just got two more sentences into your post.
They are "generalized" and "require no implementation", huh? If Slashdot readers were as informed about IP law as they like to think they are, this would have been buried as a troll.
If you apply for a software patent and the independent claims do not specifically state a tangible and functional implementation, you do not get a patent. That much is a fact. Software, per se, is "nonfunctional descriptive matter". Disembodied software is protected by copywrite, not patents, and it is no more patentable than a pretty picture or a funny story. The simple fact of the matter is that a software patent, by very definition in 35 USC 101 and subsequent case law, requires a tangible implementation to be issued.
But don't like silly things like facts and reality interfere with your passionate opinions about issues affecting the future of (presumably) our shared industry. Other people hate software patents, you should hate software patents too! Just repeat the factually incorrect babbling you've read elsewhere.
The prior art on this particular patent is more than substantial. According to their patent, runtime linking to a library would be illegal without paying it up to grand daddy Kodak
I'm just curious to see if you're speaking in hyperbole or fact - which claims of Kodak's patent in question would be infringed by by runtime linking?
Then again...if everyone was seperated from everyone else...would there be violence?
Sure - but that's not my point.
Humanity, for all of it's strengths, is definitely something that should be improved upon, whether by technology or elsewise.
But isn't that the question? Pasteurization - definitely good. Polio vaccination - definitely good. Separation of church and state - hell that's another debate but I think it's good.
The internet (the REAL internet - the porn, viruses, scams, spams, 1337 5p3@k, gambling, cyber sex, and - why not? - software patents, IP law, immediate dissemination of kidnap victim video tapes, goatse guy, the list goes on...) is a HUGE debate in my book. Is humanity REALLY better off with all this crap?
What is the test? How can I look at the internet and say, "Technology is here; humanity is here. Nope, our technology has not yet surpassed our humanity." What is the guarantee that we didn't obliterate that threshold 100 years ago?
You should let Al Qaeda know that. All that modern terrorist groups seem to care about is body count.
Yeah, but come on. Who profits from which "level" of terrorism?
Body counts build sympathy among the liberal enemies, build morale among your allies, and draw attention from those not involved.
Threats of body counts builds fear that instability in your protector could give the enemy an opportunity. What else does it do? Empty threats don't draw recruits; don't draw attention from the world; and don't build sympathy among the liberal enemies.
One of the most jaw-dropping horrific parts of the "War on Terrorism" is the stupid rainbow colored FUD meter. It's LITERALLY fear, uncertainty, and doubt that it spreads. Not to be offensively callous, but the death count from 9/11 rivaled one month of our nation's automobile fatalities. 2001 had 13 months of fatal car accidents, not 12, and the death toll from 9/11 is entirely accounted for.
It was a horrible event, don't get me wrong, but the other 270 million Americans don't REALLY need a color-coded FUD meter greeting them every morning with the day's headlines. Al-Qaeda doesn't use empty threats of terrorism; the American government uses empty threats of terrorism. Why? Because the Bush administration are the people who have something to gain from empty threats of terrorism. It's a PR device. It's advertising. It's marketing FUD.
Well, that about wraps up my blithering partisanship for the day. Just to balance it out, I wish I were voting for John McCain for President, but I'll settle for John Kerry.
Now if you'll indulge me in a gratuitous attempt at being insightful, I was recently contemplating that in the long run, mastering electromagnetic waves might have been the most disasterous technological breakthrough in history. Of course, we'll never know for sure until at least a few decades or centuries, but the significance of the telephone and semiconductor cannot be underestimated. How can we be so sure that they are Good Things?
There's that quote about our technology surpassing our humanity, blah blah, and everyone always talks about cloning or flying cars or laser guns that kill without a bang (karma whore opportunity to link to the short story here). Rarely do people think about the present in that context and almost never to history. I think there is a good argument that the telephone was perhaps the first moment in history where technology played an active role in replacing a person's community. I could be full of crap (likely) but maybe THAT was the moment when our technology surpassed our humanity.
Nothing else made it possible to import someone else's community into our own. It wasn't a night and day shift from postal service to IRC addicts and kids in rural states expressing violent rage somehow related to pop culture (and I'm trolling here about violence on TV creates violence in Colorado - bear with me). The miracle of communcations at the speed of electromagnetism made it possible to inject someone else's society, customs, culture, values, ethics, and attitude into our own, no matter how poorly those things fit.
Before this stuff, if you wanted to disconnect yourself from your neighbors and your community, you were a freaking recluse - the town outcast, the weirdo who never left his house, the werewolf (karma whore opportunity to link to the hypothesis that werewolf stories grew out of society's earliest serial rapists/murderers), the drunkard, et cetera. Now you're just a normal guy/gal whose "community" consists of Jon Stewart (I'm guilty of that), CNN, Fox News if you must, Martha Stewart, Hollywood, The Sopranos, and so on. I grew up in a small town in the midwest but now I live in suburban D.C. and don't know the name of a single person in my apartment building.
Are we so sure that the future is where our technology surpasses our humanity? Are we so sure that the "technological revolution" is such a GOOD thing? I'm not even whining about violence on TV or in the movies - I'm whining about the fact that all these great inventions make it SO EASY for me to replace the life that surrounds me with a life that's imported from 3,000 miles away.
And this isn't some holier-than-thou rant, either. I'm just as guilty of living in the midst of all of this as anyone. I'm not suggesting some plan of action, either. I just wonder if, in The Big Book of Human History, there will be a chapter called, "Instantaneous Global Communication and the Five Hundred Years of Crap that Followed".
I realize that is not correct, actually. I forget the correct name of this part of grammar - "us" is the object of prepositions and the pronoun used for reflexive verbs.
Re:Tech Headlines of the Living Dead
on
Less Might Be More
·
· Score: 2, Funny
First we need to learn how to construct a sentance
sentence
I mean, 'Our parents are probably running an old Athlon 700 with half the RAM and a Rage128 videocard, and some think that's overkill while the parents think its not enough'???????????
Double quotation marks are typically used to quote someone, except when nested parenthesis are required. Also, one question mark is enough. If you'd like to indicate that you are shocked to be asking the question, some people like to double up the exclamation mark and the question mark. Didn't you know that?!
the demonic hardware from a 5th dimention paralell to ours?
dimension parallel
And when did all of us stumble across these great uber-machines?
"All of us" never do anything. "Us" is the third person form of "we". "We" can be the subject of a sentence, "us" cannot be the subject of a sentence. I won't even mention the bastardization of "über", the Deutsch which entered the English language with its current meaning as the result of the Nazi propaganda machine.
Cripes, I know journalism isn't Slashdots forte, but how this one even made frontpage in shambled state is an amazing feat in itself.
Amazing indeed. One need only look to the user comments to find helpful and friendly grammar corrections!
IPv6 presents a catch-22: the most popular web sites on the Internet don't have any incentive to switch to IPv6 until a large portion of their userbase is on IPv6, and their user base does not have a large incentive to switch to IPv6 until many of the popular Internet destinations support IPv6.
Nice try, but that's not a Catch-22.
A Catch-22 is when the solution creates the problem. From the book (yes, there was a book) if the doctor diagnosed you as crazy, you didn't have to fly any more bombing missions. The catch was that you would have to be diagnosed crazy by a doctor to want to fly more bombing missions. Thus, by achieving the status of "unfit to fly", you were actually certifying yourself to fly.
What we have here with IPv6 is two parties with no immediate reward for an investment. If one of them stepped forward, the other would step forward, and the world would enjoy IPv6. There is nothing about this that is remotely close to a Catch-22.
Another readily available fact to support your stance: Fewer than 20% of Muslims are Arabic.
For some shocking reason, neither American media nor our government seems interested in discussing the 80% of Muslims who don't have a problem with us.
Who knew? I already upgraded my web browser to not bend me over and rape me raw, so I was surprised to get this perplexing message. I, for one, am SHOCKED
Thank you for your interest in Windows Update
Windows Update is the online extension of Windows that helps you get the most out of your computer.
You need to be running a version of Internet Explorer 5 or higher in order to use Windows Update.
Download the latest version of Internet Explorer
Once Internet Explorer is installed, you can go to the Windows Update site by typing http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com into the address bar of Internet Explorer.
If you prefer to use a different Web browser, updates to Windows may be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a news article today about how a healthy majority of Bush voters think that Bush is popular in the rest of the world, Islamic nations support Bush's international war on terrorism, and that Bush supports the Kyoto air pollution agreements and the landmine anti-proliferation agreement. He is, in fact, openly against the Kyoto and landmine anti-proliferation agreements. (I'm not trying to argue the pros or cons of that political stance.) There is a clear and unquestionaly disconnect between the President's political agenda and what his own supporters believe is his agenda. How can this happen?
Our media has completely failed us. How is it that our health system is in crisis? Because most Americans are not aware that it could or should be different. Many Americans do believe that we have the best health care system in the world (not just quality of care, should you be able to afford it.) Why don't they know? Because our media has completely failed us.
"The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power"
-Benito Mussolini
(1883-1945), Fascist Dictator of Italy
I know I'm about to engage in an internet pissing contest, but since we're talking tough...
I think this invention is a great idea, and I'm the type of guy who will show up, turn off your TV, and point out that I too have a baseball bat. While the, "Leave me alone or I'll punch you" attitude might work with lots of limp wristed liberals who want to tell you how to live, it doesn't work well with the bigger bully who trains 4 times per week to punch your teeth out.
Just something to keep in mind. I like punching things and I don't like your television.
And, again, I know this is an internet pissing match and really quite meaningless, but some folks won't "provide you with the same courtesy" not because they're sorry-sick high-minded liberals but because they don't give a fuck.
Just a different angle on the same result, I guess.
Undeveloped countries are places where paved roads, hospitals, and electricity are luxuries. That's not what you're looking at in eastern Europe or the former Soviet states.
I have the front page of a patent titled "Advertising in Electronic Games" printed out and taped to my office wall. I wonder if they spent 20 minutes doing a patent search before firing up the ol' business model or if we'll all get a chance to blame the patent system for some corporation's inability to perform a trivial infringement search..
cannot stress enough how rad synergy is
I have three screens in my setup (19", 17", 15") running a win2k, win2k (soon to be something more interesting), and redhat.
I even contributed on the synergy forums with some script tips about getting synergyc to automatically start on Fedora. I know it wasn't anything special, but it does mark the first time I gave something back to an open source project.
I cannot stress how rad synergy is
How many digital cameras are used for producing porn? How many registered domain names are used for porn?
How many handguns are used (as in fired and hit something living) for hunting or self defense versus committing a crime?
How much marijuana is (debatably) purchased according to state laws versus illegally purchased in states that have legal uses?
How many people are killed by drunk drivers? Beaten by drunken spouses? How many people are really better off after a few drinks?
What's the point of making nicotine a legal drug?
How in hell is it legal for the fast food industry to sell us the unhealthy crap they do but an elderly person with a terminal illness can be court ordered to take medication to prolong his life|suffering?
I'm not refuting/supporting the implications of your question, but trying to show that without a MUCH broader context, the question cannot have much meaning. In fact, I'm inclined to agree that P2P filesharing is on shaky ground based on its "legitimate use", but then so are handguns and liquor. The bigger question, to me, is why this ought to be even considered at the federal level.
If you made a product out of coathangers, and it turned out that people discovered that they could replicate your product with their own coathangers, is it right to get a federal law preventing people from bending coathangers?
I'm more than happy to pay for copyright media if I feel like I'm getting a fair value. Throughout the whole MPAA/RIAA/P2P controversy, I've continued to buy plenty of DVDs but not a single CD. I really thought about getting The Roots latest CD, but since that group makes such a fuss about P2P crap like hookers for their record label, I just downloaded it instead. I'll still go see them live, though.
Blah, anyway, I got Columbus Day off, sat home drinking beer, and wrote a rambling 5 page response to a 2 sentence Slashdot post. How about you?
The onus is NOT on Honeywell to chase down every last nitwit who might think about maybe potentially infringing on Honeywell's patents. The onus is on the nitwits to spend 30 minutes searching the patent database and either license, avoid, or improve the technology they find.
First of all,
Along with many other computer scientists, I would like to ask you to reconsider the current policy of giving patents for computational processes.
patents are not issued for computational processes. That's pretty much covered in the first week of OTJ training to be an examiner.
Further,
For example, I developed software called TeX that is now used to produce more than 90% of all books and journals in mathematics and physics and to produce hundreds of thousands of technical reports in all scientific disciplines. If software patents had been commonplace in 1980, I would not have been able to create such a system, nor would I probably have ever thought of doing it, nor can I imagine anyone else doing so.
which is entirely true. He fails to mention that he would have been perfectly free to improve upon such a patented system. Why is it that everyone insists that it is so easy to "invent" software but that magically easy inventing always stops with what other people have done?
Again, further,
The basic algorithmic ideas that people are now rushing to patent are so fundamental, the result threatens to be like what would happen if we allowed authors to have patents on individual words and concepts.
this proves that Knuth is not spending his time looking at unexamined patent applications. They are published and made public, you know. If there's an application for bare software, it's rejected out of hand. The very thing he's arguing against is already nonstatutory.
Further still,
When I think of the computer programs I require daily to get my own work done, I cannot help but realize that none of them would exist today if software patents had been prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s.
he once again expects me to believe that anybody and everybody would have invented what we already have, but it's impossible to improve upon these existing inventions.
I like Knuth's textbooks. He's a smart guy. If he went through 2 weeks of patent examiner training, he probably wouldn't have written that letter the way he did. The stuff he is arguing against is already unpatentable.
Just to promote discussion, software is unpatentable. Software that is part of a tangible process IS patentable. If you have a blast furnace that is controlled by software, you can apply for a patent. If you have a piece of software, you cannot patent that. The problem is that case law provides precious little grounds for deciding where the line is between software in a tangible process and a disembodied piece of software; as it currently stands, instructions that control a processor to implement an algorithm IS patentable, because the abstract algorithm will NOT infringe on that patent. This falls under the same reasoning as a fighter jet that is controlled, in part, by software.
The people who make these decisions are not examiners at the USPTO. The people who decide these issues are on the appeals board and federal judges. Most people think it's not unreasonable to employ the powers of a microcontroller or a computer as part of a complicated, patentable process - such as using computer control to make integrated circuits, control the fuel injector in your car, or operate a CD player. Many "inventions" would be impossible to make without some form of computer/software. Some inventions would be impossible without certain software improvements. The issue is that there is no "rule of thumb" or checklist that differentiates between "abstract software algorithm, oh yeah on a processor" and "this computer and software keeps the nuclear reactor from exploding". Even Knuth is barking up the wrong tree (bearing in mind I have no idea how old that letter is).
So if YOU have a solution to issue, all you have to do is convince a judge or appeal board to hand down a decision that establishes the law in this regard. Good luck. It has to be unquestionably clear, Constitutional, defendable against the onslaught of 50,000 registered patent attorneys with billions of corporate money to burn, and straightforward enough that a patent examiner can apply it in about 15-30 minutes.
How do you think a mechanical engineer or a machinist feels about patents for internal combustion engines? If a computer or a Turing machine teaches all software patents, doesn't a machine shop with some raw materials teach all apparatus patents (where the apparatus can be constructed from machining metal)?
There's a fragile construct in patent law that few people who aren't in patent law really grasp - it's the idea of "a person of ordinary skill in the art". If you listened to patent lawyers, a person of ordinary skill in the art is lucky if he can get dressed without stabbing himself in the eye with a coat hanger. If you listened to a patent examiner, a person of ordinary skill in the art generally has a 4 year degree and doesn't stick his fingers under a running lawnmower. A patent lawyer is an expert at writing legal arguments and knows he can appeal a case until it's heard by a judge; a patent examiner has a working knowledge of patent law and has a degree in a technical field. Guess which group has a winning record during appeals.
From what you've said in your post, you're well above the legal definition of ordinary skill in the art. Hell, if you're employable, you are beyond the legal definition of ordinary skill in the art. 35 U.S.C. 103 is supposed to exist to define what an "obvious" combination of prior art is, but the case law and patent lawyers have whittled this concept down to nothing more than "not specifically said, but specifically suggested".
What is the danger of software patents (as they exist in the US - that is, a statutory process that interacts with something tangible and employs software at some point) that isn't present in mechanical patents, exactly? Don't dumb it down for me, I studied computability and algorithm analysis. I'm one of those computer scientists who doesn't use a computer. Unfortunately, I'm also a little better versed in IP law than your person of ordinary skill in the art, which prompts my questions.
Patents are publicly published. The whole POINT of patents is that they are publicly published, and anybody who can IMPROVE (read: innovate) on your design has the legal right to do so.
If some company has the capital to dump hundreds of millions of dollars into a product line but can't afford $1000 (at most) for a basic patent search, they're fucking retarded. If they have the smarts to "innovate" what someone else already patented, but don't have the smarts to perform a patent search, they're fucking retarded. If they're aware that someone else has a patent to the technology they're selling, they're either planning to 1) fight to invalidate the patent, 2) cut a licensing deal, or 3) admit publicly that they're fucking retarded.
Don't say "I'm all for the idea of patents" if you don't fully appreciate how the system works. If you invent something and some fucking retard comes along 15 years later, is too stupid to find your PUBLISHED patent in the publicly accessible patent database, is too stupid to approach you about a licensing deal, and doesn't stand a chance in hell of invalidating your patent, it's not YOUR fault the guy is a fucking retard.
And PS: I seriously doubt that society has been harmed because some dumbass couldn't "innovate" what someone else already invented. Keep in mind - the patent system grants legal protections to anybody who can improve on what's already patented. If it ain't an improvement, it's an infringement. Infringement isn't innovation.
What's more is that the patent at issue here has fewer than 6 claims, they are written in clear English, the entire application is fewer than 20 pages, and it is directed toward a physical, tangible invention.
To answer your question, because the Slashdot groupthink regarding patents is completely reTARded. There is no basis in fact, there is no interest in learning the facts, and the moderation system rewards the stubbornly retarded while burying anybody with a clue. This post contains actual facts I learned by looking at the patent - let's see how it gets moderated, eh?
The basis for my jest is that if someone said that they frequently spend 5-6 hours per night and complete days on some weekends staring in a telescope at the neighbors, or collecting stamps, or rearranging photographs of their ex-lover, you'd think he was a self-inflicted social outcast. And you'd probably be right.
I'm not saying that I'm any different from you in that I often spend a lot of time playing video games, but seriously. If you admit to any socially disjointed hobby that consumes 30+ hours of your free time per week and you'll sound like a weirdo.
That's why I let you post the argument and I replied with the one-line zinger ;)
Somebody smells like a level 7 magic-user...
Hey I don't disagree with your point, just thought I'd help the cause
Hahaha, I just got two more sentences into your post.
They are "generalized" and "require no implementation", huh? If Slashdot readers were as informed about IP law as they like to think they are, this would have been buried as a troll.
If you apply for a software patent and the independent claims do not specifically state a tangible and functional implementation, you do not get a patent. That much is a fact. Software, per se, is "nonfunctional descriptive matter". Disembodied software is protected by copywrite, not patents, and it is no more patentable than a pretty picture or a funny story. The simple fact of the matter is that a software patent, by very definition in 35 USC 101 and subsequent case law, requires a tangible implementation to be issued.
But don't like silly things like facts and reality interfere with your passionate opinions about issues affecting the future of (presumably) our shared industry. Other people hate software patents, you should hate software patents too! Just repeat the factually incorrect babbling you've read elsewhere.
I'm just curious to see if you're speaking in hyperbole or fact - which claims of Kodak's patent in question would be infringed by by runtime linking?
THX-1138 reference woo! Excellent collector's edition DVD if you can stomach the computer graphics! Off topic double woo woo!
Sure - but that's not my point.
Humanity, for all of it's strengths, is definitely something that should be improved upon, whether by technology or elsewise.
But isn't that the question? Pasteurization - definitely good. Polio vaccination - definitely good. Separation of church and state - hell that's another debate but I think it's good.
The internet (the REAL internet - the porn, viruses, scams, spams, 1337 5p3@k, gambling, cyber sex, and - why not? - software patents, IP law, immediate dissemination of kidnap victim video tapes, goatse guy, the list goes on...) is a HUGE debate in my book. Is humanity REALLY better off with all this crap?
What is the test? How can I look at the internet and say, "Technology is here; humanity is here. Nope, our technology has not yet surpassed our humanity." What is the guarantee that we didn't obliterate that threshold 100 years ago?
Yeah, but come on. Who profits from which "level" of terrorism?
Body counts build sympathy among the liberal enemies, build morale among your allies, and draw attention from those not involved.
Threats of body counts builds fear that instability in your protector could give the enemy an opportunity. What else does it do? Empty threats don't draw recruits; don't draw attention from the world; and don't build sympathy among the liberal enemies.
One of the most jaw-dropping horrific parts of the "War on Terrorism" is the stupid rainbow colored FUD meter. It's LITERALLY fear, uncertainty, and doubt that it spreads. Not to be offensively callous, but the death count from 9/11 rivaled one month of our nation's automobile fatalities. 2001 had 13 months of fatal car accidents, not 12, and the death toll from 9/11 is entirely accounted for.
It was a horrible event, don't get me wrong, but the other 270 million Americans don't REALLY need a color-coded FUD meter greeting them every morning with the day's headlines. Al-Qaeda doesn't use empty threats of terrorism; the American government uses empty threats of terrorism. Why? Because the Bush administration are the people who have something to gain from empty threats of terrorism. It's a PR device. It's advertising. It's marketing FUD.
Well, that about wraps up my blithering partisanship for the day. Just to balance it out, I wish I were voting for John McCain for President, but I'll settle for John Kerry.
Now if you'll indulge me in a gratuitous attempt at being insightful, I was recently contemplating that in the long run, mastering electromagnetic waves might have been the most disasterous technological breakthrough in history. Of course, we'll never know for sure until at least a few decades or centuries, but the significance of the telephone and semiconductor cannot be underestimated. How can we be so sure that they are Good Things?
There's that quote about our technology surpassing our humanity, blah blah, and everyone always talks about cloning or flying cars or laser guns that kill without a bang (karma whore opportunity to link to the short story here). Rarely do people think about the present in that context and almost never to history. I think there is a good argument that the telephone was perhaps the first moment in history where technology played an active role in replacing a person's community. I could be full of crap (likely) but maybe THAT was the moment when our technology surpassed our humanity.
Nothing else made it possible to import someone else's community into our own. It wasn't a night and day shift from postal service to IRC addicts and kids in rural states expressing violent rage somehow related to pop culture (and I'm trolling here about violence on TV creates violence in Colorado - bear with me). The miracle of communcations at the speed of electromagnetism made it possible to inject someone else's society, customs, culture, values, ethics, and attitude into our own, no matter how poorly those things fit.
Before this stuff, if you wanted to disconnect yourself from your neighbors and your community, you were a freaking recluse - the town outcast, the weirdo who never left his house, the werewolf (karma whore opportunity to link to the hypothesis that werewolf stories grew out of society's earliest serial rapists/murderers), the drunkard, et cetera. Now you're just a normal guy/gal whose "community" consists of Jon Stewart (I'm guilty of that), CNN, Fox News if you must, Martha Stewart, Hollywood, The Sopranos, and so on. I grew up in a small town in the midwest but now I live in suburban D.C. and don't know the name of a single person in my apartment building.
Are we so sure that the future is where our technology surpasses our humanity? Are we so sure that the "technological revolution" is such a GOOD thing? I'm not even whining about violence on TV or in the movies - I'm whining about the fact that all these great inventions make it SO EASY for me to replace the life that surrounds me with a life that's imported from 3,000 miles away.
And this isn't some holier-than-thou rant, either. I'm just as guilty of living in the midst of all of this as anyone. I'm not suggesting some plan of action, either. I just wonder if, in The Big Book of Human History, there will be a chapter called, "Instantaneous Global Communication and the Five Hundred Years of Crap that Followed".
Ah, more afraid of your own government than of terrorists?
Me too.
I realize that is not correct, actually. I forget the correct name of this part of grammar - "us" is the object of prepositions and the pronoun used for reflexive verbs.
sentence
I mean, 'Our parents are probably running an old Athlon 700 with half the RAM and a Rage128 videocard, and some think that's overkill while the parents think its not enough'???????????
Double quotation marks are typically used to quote someone, except when nested parenthesis are required. Also, one question mark is enough. If you'd like to indicate that you are shocked to be asking the question, some people like to double up the exclamation mark and the question mark. Didn't you know that?!
the demonic hardware from a 5th dimention paralell to ours?
dimension parallel
And when did all of us stumble across these great uber-machines?
"All of us" never do anything. "Us" is the third person form of "we". "We" can be the subject of a sentence, "us" cannot be the subject of a sentence. I won't even mention the bastardization of "über", the Deutsch which entered the English language with its current meaning as the result of the Nazi propaganda machine.
Cripes, I know journalism isn't Slashdots forte, but how this one even made frontpage in shambled state is an amazing feat in itself.
Amazing indeed. One need only look to the user comments to find helpful and friendly grammar corrections!
Nice try, but that's not a Catch-22.
A Catch-22 is when the solution creates the problem. From the book (yes, there was a book) if the doctor diagnosed you as crazy, you didn't have to fly any more bombing missions. The catch was that you would have to be diagnosed crazy by a doctor to want to fly more bombing missions. Thus, by achieving the status of "unfit to fly", you were actually certifying yourself to fly.
What we have here with IPv6 is two parties with no immediate reward for an investment. If one of them stepped forward, the other would step forward, and the world would enjoy IPv6. There is nothing about this that is remotely close to a Catch-22.
For some shocking reason, neither American media nor our government seems interested in discussing the 80% of Muslims who don't have a problem with us.
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