Gah, it's not a matter of copyright law here. Fleischer sold the rights to the Betty Boop to another studio, who in turn sold it to Paramount, who in turn sold it to Harvey. The whole thing comes down to whether the Fleischer estate can sue someone for the rights they gave up half a century ago. The Reuters article linked to by the blog actually states this, while the blog turns it into some sort of copyright spin, which doesn't matter so much as Fleischer's estate had no ownership interest in the property itself.
Remember the story a few days ago about why Ubuntu no longer gets love from slashdotters and the Linux community? I think shenanigans like this says it all.
At least it looks like Assange won't be extradited to the US in connection to any Wikileaks related investigation, as Sweden did not ask the UK court for onward extradition.
I bought and rooted my Nook Color ($250). The battery lasts fairly long, it's got fairly decent performance (I think it uses an 800 or 850 MHz ARM processor?), it's easily modifiable, and very difficult to brick. It also has a very nice 7 inch color screen. It does everything I would want on a tablet. Why not look into that?
Yeah, exactly. If I recall, Vodafone also reported that Mubarak strong-armed them into sending out mass text messages to pro-Mubarak supporters, police and other government workers to get them to go out and beat up the protesters in Tahrir Square those two days. That's why the counter-demonstrators showed up suddenly and then disappeared suddenly two days later.
It's a legitimate complaint that Obama's administration certainly haven't lived up to their promises on stuff like this - domestic information gathering and other powers. But I think we must also realize there are legitimate real-world problems that they have to contend with - for example, terrorism threats. It's always hard to give up powers and tools that may potentially make it easier to track and thwart terrorist attacks. This isn't a failure of idealism - this is pragmatism (albeit in an undesirable form).
Frankly, I think the current president realizes he's especially vulnerable to any potential terrorist attacks that may happen. When attacks on the US like The September 11 attacks and the thwarted Shoe Bomber attack during President Bush's administration, he got emergency legislation to institute all these domestic spying powers in place. When thwarted attacks like the Underwear bomber (Northwest Flight 253 incident) occurred or the Major Nadal Hassan shootings occured, the current president got blamed for failing to keep America safe. There is a lot of political pressure on the President to prevent any terrorist attacks on the US because he'll get more blame for it than for other presidents who had similar attacks.
Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I'm clearly no art critic and claim no deep understanding of art, but what does this bring as "art"? This brings no insights and adds nothing. And frankly, the fact that it's funded by a new museum in Qatar makes it worse in my eyes. Places like Qatar and Abu Dhabi have demonstrated that they have more money than sense for decades, building one extravagant, useless building after another. This "art" project is about as artful as having a toddler splatter his spaghetti on a canvas.
I don't think this teacher's suspension over the blog is a violation of her rights online. Everyone is free to say what they wish without risk of government censorship. But on the flip side of the coin, everyone must also bear the consequences of their speech. She went online, said something stupid and now she has to deal with the consequences of that.
And frankly, she deserves to be suspended. Clearly, if she's posting this kind of stuff, her ability to teach those kids she refers to as idiots and rats is compromised. Does anyone want to be taught by someone who feels nothing but contempt for them?
Actually, cpt. kangarooski, the first-to-invent vs. first-to-file system comes into play in situations where two independent inventors or groups of inventors invent the same thing within a very close time frame. With your example of the later inventor of fire, well, that wouldn't matter, since it'd be long since been prior art. (Also, fire isn't a patentable subject matter, being a natural phenomenon, however, if you come up with a new and novel way to create a fire, that can still be patentable).
Think of it this way, suppose we have one inventor in New York and another inventor in Anchorage. Both were, at the same time working on a device that can teleport pineapples. The inventor in New York manages to get the invention to work 1 minute before the guy in Alaska. The law considers them both to be inventors - the fact that one got his invention to work a minute before the other did doesn't mean the later inventor is less of an inventor. What is affected, however, is whether one party is able to get the patent or not.
The proposed change neither makes it harder nor easier. The prior inventor can, of course, cite the relevant prior art to the USPTO and request an ex parte re-examination of the issued patent. This could result in the USPTO invalidating a patent on the basis of anticipation, obviousness, etc.
Only if it's within the 1 year bar after publication. The US Patent system doesn't want people to dedicate new inventions to the public (by publication) and then, after some indeterminate time, take it back from public domain by filing a patent on it. If you published and more than a year went by before you file a patent, then your own publication will act as prior art against you.
I keep seeing this type of argument here, but this is untrue. Prior art isn't being abolished by a first-to-file situation. Remember, prior publications constitute prior art. The open source project, by virtue of being earlier and published (wouldn't be much of an open source project if it wasn't) to the public would constitute as prior art to Big Company (tm)'s patent and can be used to invalidate Big Company (tm)'s patent or application.
Also, in regards to business model patents - they are rather weak now after the In Re Bilski case, which essentially invalidated a hedge fund business model as unpatentable subject matter. Same thing with algorithms, by statute, mathematical algorithms and other similar things like physical laws, things found in nature, etc, etc, are not patentable subject matter. Also, pure software patents are also found by the USPTO to be unpatentable (they must be tied to a device or some sort of transformation).
No, this is untrue. As noted by myself and others, prior art remains in place. Anything that was published (i.e. those open source software resources you mentioned) prior to your invention is prior art.
Replacing first-to-invent with first-to-file doesn't mean it also gets rid of prior art. In the situations you presented above, your solutions will act as prior art which may anticipate or render the subsequent invention obvious during prosecution or during reexamination or during litigation.
Well, there are two major reasons why a first-to-file system may be advantageous. First, the United States is unique among the nations of the world in having a first-to-invent system. This means an inventor can gain priority over another inventor who filed before the first inventor if he can prove that they invented something first. Every single other country in the world uses a first-to-file system. To change US law to permit the first-to-file system would harmonize US law with every single other country's laws, simplifying the matter for inventors. It also gets rid of weird results like a family of patents that protect in every other country but the US.
Secondly, it's cheaper for all parties. A first-to-file system can determine who gains priority in a patent by simply looking at the dates. On the other hand, a first-to-invent system almost always devolves into massive lumbering multi-million dollar litigation suits where hundreds of attorneys and document reviewers pour though millions of pages of notes to prove one party reduced something to practice before another party. It also takes years to go through the courts, which is not helped by the already heavy backlog of cases in the Federal Courts. Plus, while a first-to-file system doesn't help the small inventor, a 102(g) fight priority fight in the courts REALLY doesn't help small inventors. They can't afford the potential millions of dollars that may be lost permanently if they lose such a case, or even to settle.
In 2010, 237 nominations were made for the Peace Prize, 38 of which were organizations. While it's of some apparent interest that Wikileaks got a nomination, it is one of many and nomination is open to a lot of people.
You know, it's actually interesting that Facebook opted to allow themselves to be sued in court rather than forcing their users into binding arbitration like pretty much every other company that provides some service (mobile phones, utilities, cable, internet, etc.). Of course, since the terms of facebook limits liability to $100 dollars or whatever you pay facebook within 12 months, the recovery from such a suit would probably wind up being less than the court fees, or arbitration costs.
It's just ridiculous how the popular political pinata today seems to be teacher's unions. I still can't believe that people complain that they're overpaid. If anything, compared to the highest ranking countries in terms of education, they're way underpaid and undervalued. As you said, they get paid peanuts, especially in the first few years, which isn't very conducive for retaining new teachers. A lot of them also work in dangerous schools, their students don't respect them, and they get grief from the parents who foist off all educational responsibility onto the teacher.
Schools should be cathedrals to learning, but so many politicians in America would rather see it turned into an outhouse.
I think it's probably because most science majors don't go into teaching. From what limited information I gleaned from some of my friends who are teachers, a lot of them have some sort of general education degree rather than a specialized background. Unlike other developed countries (especially the ones who kick our butts in education), we don't recruit teachers from the top of the graduating classes in their fields, which is why we have such terrible science education.
If the video for the story is correct, then that's not a catapult, it's a trebuchet! (Albeit it replaced the counterweight with some sort of elastic cabling.)
Slashdot Mirror
It's natural gas. There aren't any "drops" of it, at least not straight out of the ground.
If earthquakes and environmental damage are a small price, then what would be a big price?
Gah, it's not a matter of copyright law here. Fleischer sold the rights to the Betty Boop to another studio, who in turn sold it to Paramount, who in turn sold it to Harvey. The whole thing comes down to whether the Fleischer estate can sue someone for the rights they gave up half a century ago. The Reuters article linked to by the blog actually states this, while the blog turns it into some sort of copyright spin, which doesn't matter so much as Fleischer's estate had no ownership interest in the property itself.
Remember the story a few days ago about why Ubuntu no longer gets love from slashdotters and the Linux community? I think shenanigans like this says it all.
At least it looks like Assange won't be extradited to the US in connection to any Wikileaks related investigation, as Sweden did not ask the UK court for onward extradition.
I bought and rooted my Nook Color ($250). The battery lasts fairly long, it's got fairly decent performance (I think it uses an 800 or 850 MHz ARM processor?), it's easily modifiable, and very difficult to brick. It also has a very nice 7 inch color screen. It does everything I would want on a tablet. Why not look into that?
Yeah, exactly. If I recall, Vodafone also reported that Mubarak strong-armed them into sending out mass text messages to pro-Mubarak supporters, police and other government workers to get them to go out and beat up the protesters in Tahrir Square those two days. That's why the counter-demonstrators showed up suddenly and then disappeared suddenly two days later.
It's a legitimate complaint that Obama's administration certainly haven't lived up to their promises on stuff like this - domestic information gathering and other powers. But I think we must also realize there are legitimate real-world problems that they have to contend with - for example, terrorism threats. It's always hard to give up powers and tools that may potentially make it easier to track and thwart terrorist attacks. This isn't a failure of idealism - this is pragmatism (albeit in an undesirable form).
Frankly, I think the current president realizes he's especially vulnerable to any potential terrorist attacks that may happen. When attacks on the US like The September 11 attacks and the thwarted Shoe Bomber attack during President Bush's administration, he got emergency legislation to institute all these domestic spying powers in place. When thwarted attacks like the Underwear bomber (Northwest Flight 253 incident) occurred or the Major Nadal Hassan shootings occured, the current president got blamed for failing to keep America safe. There is a lot of political pressure on the President to prevent any terrorist attacks on the US because he'll get more blame for it than for other presidents who had similar attacks.
Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I'm clearly no art critic and claim no deep understanding of art, but what does this bring as "art"? This brings no insights and adds nothing. And frankly, the fact that it's funded by a new museum in Qatar makes it worse in my eyes. Places like Qatar and Abu Dhabi have demonstrated that they have more money than sense for decades, building one extravagant, useless building after another. This "art" project is about as artful as having a toddler splatter his spaghetti on a canvas.
I don't think this teacher's suspension over the blog is a violation of her rights online. Everyone is free to say what they wish without risk of government censorship. But on the flip side of the coin, everyone must also bear the consequences of their speech. She went online, said something stupid and now she has to deal with the consequences of that.
And frankly, she deserves to be suspended. Clearly, if she's posting this kind of stuff, her ability to teach those kids she refers to as idiots and rats is compromised. Does anyone want to be taught by someone who feels nothing but contempt for them?
Who actually constructs the buildings?
Somehow, I had a mental image of a bunch of engineers trying to erect a building. None survived.
Actually, cpt. kangarooski, the first-to-invent vs. first-to-file system comes into play in situations where two independent inventors or groups of inventors invent the same thing within a very close time frame. With your example of the later inventor of fire, well, that wouldn't matter, since it'd be long since been prior art. (Also, fire isn't a patentable subject matter, being a natural phenomenon, however, if you come up with a new and novel way to create a fire, that can still be patentable).
Think of it this way, suppose we have one inventor in New York and another inventor in Anchorage. Both were, at the same time working on a device that can teleport pineapples. The inventor in New York manages to get the invention to work 1 minute before the guy in Alaska. The law considers them both to be inventors - the fact that one got his invention to work a minute before the other did doesn't mean the later inventor is less of an inventor. What is affected, however, is whether one party is able to get the patent or not.
The proposed change neither makes it harder nor easier. The prior inventor can, of course, cite the relevant prior art to the USPTO and request an ex parte re-examination of the issued patent. This could result in the USPTO invalidating a patent on the basis of anticipation, obviousness, etc.
Only if it's within the 1 year bar after publication. The US Patent system doesn't want people to dedicate new inventions to the public (by publication) and then, after some indeterminate time, take it back from public domain by filing a patent on it. If you published and more than a year went by before you file a patent, then your own publication will act as prior art against you.
I keep seeing this type of argument here, but this is untrue. Prior art isn't being abolished by a first-to-file situation. Remember, prior publications constitute prior art. The open source project, by virtue of being earlier and published (wouldn't be much of an open source project if it wasn't) to the public would constitute as prior art to Big Company (tm)'s patent and can be used to invalidate Big Company (tm)'s patent or application.
Also, in regards to business model patents - they are rather weak now after the In Re Bilski case, which essentially invalidated a hedge fund business model as unpatentable subject matter. Same thing with algorithms, by statute, mathematical algorithms and other similar things like physical laws, things found in nature, etc, etc, are not patentable subject matter. Also, pure software patents are also found by the USPTO to be unpatentable (they must be tied to a device or some sort of transformation).
No, this is untrue. As noted by myself and others, prior art remains in place. Anything that was published (i.e. those open source software resources you mentioned) prior to your invention is prior art.
Replacing first-to-invent with first-to-file doesn't mean it also gets rid of prior art. In the situations you presented above, your solutions will act as prior art which may anticipate or render the subsequent invention obvious during prosecution or during reexamination or during litigation.
Well, there are two major reasons why a first-to-file system may be advantageous. First, the United States is unique among the nations of the world in having a first-to-invent system. This means an inventor can gain priority over another inventor who filed before the first inventor if he can prove that they invented something first. Every single other country in the world uses a first-to-file system. To change US law to permit the first-to-file system would harmonize US law with every single other country's laws, simplifying the matter for inventors. It also gets rid of weird results like a family of patents that protect in every other country but the US.
Secondly, it's cheaper for all parties. A first-to-file system can determine who gains priority in a patent by simply looking at the dates. On the other hand, a first-to-invent system almost always devolves into massive lumbering multi-million dollar litigation suits where hundreds of attorneys and document reviewers pour though millions of pages of notes to prove one party reduced something to practice before another party. It also takes years to go through the courts, which is not helped by the already heavy backlog of cases in the Federal Courts. Plus, while a first-to-file system doesn't help the small inventor, a 102(g) fight priority fight in the courts REALLY doesn't help small inventors. They can't afford the potential millions of dollars that may be lost permanently if they lose such a case, or even to settle.
In 2010, 237 nominations were made for the Peace Prize, 38 of which were organizations. While it's of some apparent interest that Wikileaks got a nomination, it is one of many and nomination is open to a lot of people.
You know, it's actually interesting that Facebook opted to allow themselves to be sued in court rather than forcing their users into binding arbitration like pretty much every other company that provides some service (mobile phones, utilities, cable, internet, etc.). Of course, since the terms of facebook limits liability to $100 dollars or whatever you pay facebook within 12 months, the recovery from such a suit would probably wind up being less than the court fees, or arbitration costs.
I think this is the kind of terrorism we can all get behind - where the terrorist blows himself up without harming other people.
It's just ridiculous how the popular political pinata today seems to be teacher's unions. I still can't believe that people complain that they're overpaid. If anything, compared to the highest ranking countries in terms of education, they're way underpaid and undervalued. As you said, they get paid peanuts, especially in the first few years, which isn't very conducive for retaining new teachers. A lot of them also work in dangerous schools, their students don't respect them, and they get grief from the parents who foist off all educational responsibility onto the teacher.
Schools should be cathedrals to learning, but so many politicians in America would rather see it turned into an outhouse.
I think it's probably because most science majors don't go into teaching. From what limited information I gleaned from some of my friends who are teachers, a lot of them have some sort of general education degree rather than a specialized background. Unlike other developed countries (especially the ones who kick our butts in education), we don't recruit teachers from the top of the graduating classes in their fields, which is why we have such terrible science education.
If the video for the story is correct, then that's not a catapult, it's a trebuchet! (Albeit it replaced the counterweight with some sort of elastic cabling.)