Even if an entire squadron of UI specialists descended on a linux distro, went through the whole thing and posted up a unified UI design for every level of the system do you really think it would get implemented?
Usability isn't entirely objective. Consistency is an important element and consistency (eg using standard widget layouts) is part of a users previous experience.
The problem I see with your scenario is that for those already using the system the usability will initially decrease. A lot of work to reduce the usability of a system! This is how you get such complaints about the "ribbon" in MS Word, etc., it's just unfamiliar.
KDE4 has changed a lot vs. 3. This sort of change is a great opportunity to introduce usability structures as users are expecting to have to relearn elements of the DE.
(remember: using starts with considering installation)
I disagree, they are nearly all points about system administration - that's not usability unless you are considering usability of a computer system from point of view of a sys admin, which I don't think you are.
I'm happy with the 'get it working first - then make it pretty' approach taken by most.
Usability and aesthetics may be closely related for technically minded people as they generally appreciated ordered structures and find a (ie their personal) logical flow to be visually comfortable. But equating aesthetics and usability is plain wrong.
Tiny example: You can make your "Yes / No" dialogs [sic] as pretty as you like but if you randomly switch the button positions and ask ambiguous questions, or don't indicate the outcomes, then your users are going to be very frustrated.
Aside: On that point about logical flow - people will use your program in a different way to how you design it. I'm always fascinated when I watch other people using browsers (testing websites I've designed). They of course take different routes through the website, but just how folks use the browser differently is quite interesting itself.
pictures that come up on the results are stock photos - not any relation to the site content at all
I've searched on a business I'm a director of, the images shown alongside our name do not reflect our product and in fact I'd say they defame it somewhat. That sucks, if we weren't such a small business I think we'd have grounds to sue them.
Also, several results come up with our page content that do not link to our site.
This overlaps with a second usage, which makes more sense to me but is less common: to use the manpage notation to indicate which type of thing you're talking about.
I think this is the only real usage I've seen in the wild. But I didn't know the exact derivation, though guessed a disambiguation mark, having only been using *nix since '94.
Yeah, we heard that they called it KDE4.0-developer-edition and clearly stated "this is a non-functional development version which will not provide a usable desktop", oh wait...
Sorry to be a huge pain but is there a repo for an Ubuntu (hardy) package that I can try. Last I tried (last week) couldn't import/open, and hence play, any music (this was on KDE 4.0.93 IIRC).
The second use of the desktop background is because files get saved there by default from your web browser. Again, this seems to be because unsophisticated users have no idea of directories and if it doesn't go on the background, they can't find it.
You make a common mistake. You believe that because you find something unhelpful that it is just "unhelpful" whilst really it is "unhelpful for you".
I use the desktop as a temporary store, eg for downloaded files and work in progress. I like them to be visible at the click of a single button (hide all windows / reveal desktop; missing in KDE4 when I last tried (2 days ago)). When I've determined the correct place to store something or when I've discerned it's proper worth it is either remains in a visually separated desktop position, is added to a hierarchical store, placed in a tmp folder, trashed or deleted.
Without a usable desktop, see KDE4, I resort to a ~/tmp directory but the utility is reduced unless I do funky things to keep this as the lowest desktop and prevent it's minimisation, etc..
I'm sure I'm not alone in finding a triage place for files to be useful?
One other use is allowing my (just turned) 3 year old to find gcompris and tuxpaint without having to navigate the diabolical new K-menu.
I would also like to point out that Konqueror was "replaced" by Dolphin, which in my opinion was a bad decision.
Given that the file management capabilities of Dolphin are exactly duplicated in Konqueror, you aren't forced to use Dolphin.
The point of Dolphin, I think, was to make things easier for newbies, and to provide a lighter-weight option for people who don't use Konqueror as a web browser.
I think the point was that the new Konq (KDE4) is arranged only for web browsing (though it still works as a file browser it's been deprecated and the features obfuscated) and that whilst Konq includes all the features of Dolphin at present the reverse is not true. In fact Dolphin is like a toy compared to Konq in KDE3. That appears to have been the aim, but Dolphin is so like Nautilus in it's [lack of features] that they might have just ported and reskinned Nautilus (they'd have had emblems too then, which I think are quite cool).
If someone can get a patent on "using a specific compression algorithm to save power", but they can't get a patent on the specific compression algorithm, then what use is their patent? Does it also prevent the use of other compression algorithms to save power?
[I'm not currently working in this field, FWIW]
How I read it is that if the subject of the application is not wholly within the excluded fields and it has a technical contribution to the art then it's patentable.
They can't get a patent of the algorithm, that prevents them from using their patent against new uses of the algorithm. They might not of considered it's use as part of a solution to some other problem for example.
"what use is their patent"
It protects their invention, namely a more efficient telecoms device in my example.
Does it prevent the use of other compression algorithms to save power - depends on the claims. If this algorithm is one of a class of optimal algorithms that can be used to save power and the claims are drafted broadly then possibly the patent covers other algorithms. But otherwise, no.
OK. Stoning is required, citation from the New Testament please.
Typical idiotic nonsense from somebody who hasn't actually bothered to read the book.
I don't have to supply a citation from the new testament. You seem to know, by your deceptive attempt to redraw the map, that there are plenty of examples in the old testament, correct?
You see the thing about the _New_ Testament is that it's new. When Jesus says he has come to fulfill "the law" (by which he means the whole canon of the Old Testament) he doesn't mean that we should still enact the Levitican and Deuteronomical laws as written instead he is saying that the law now is completed. How can I tell, well by his words and actions. If Jesus was fulfilling the law in the sense that you claim he would have encouraged the crowd to stone the woman caught in adultery. He was not and did not. Indeed much of the pharisaical objection came becuase Jesus appeared not to obey the letter of the law, that was why he made this response.
Indeed if you continue to read the passage in Matthew (I don't know what makes you think I haven't read it?) you'll see that Jesus expands on what he means: instead of just not murdering we [His followers] should harbour no murderous feelings, and if we do we should ensure we are reconciled to our brother. We should do everything we can to avoid looking lustfully at another's wife (it's figurative, before you ask). We should give to the needy. We should not judge without inspecting ourselves first. We shouldn't take an eye-for-an-eye but instead turn the other cheek. We shouldn't just love [agape] our friends but our enemies also.
Another indicator is that Christ abolished the priesthood as intermediaries between us and God (the tearing of the curtain that sets aside the holy-of-holies was a sign of this). Many of the old ceremonial laws concern the priesthood - tithing, consulting a priest, etc.. So they couldn't be enacted if it weren't for them having been fulfilled.
It's a good point that you make. Jesus Christ makes it clear that under the law all are condemned. What hope is there then? Well those who follow him ("I am the way") and accept his sacrifice are made holy, why? Because Christ is righteousness. It is through Christ we are made righteous so as to enter God's presence.
11-14 If the priesthood of Levi and Aaron, which provided the framework for the giving of the law, could really make people perfect, there wouldn't have been need for a new priesthood like that of Melchizedek. But since it didn't get the job done, there was a change of priesthood, which brought with it a radical new kind of law. There is no way of understanding this in terms of the old Levitical priesthood, which is why there is nothing in Jesus' family tree connecting him with that priestly line.
15-19 But the Melchizedek story provides a perfect analogy: Jesus, a priest like Melchizedek, not by genealogical descent but by the sheer force of resurrection lifeâ"he lives!â""priest forever in the royal order of Melchizedek." The former way of doing things, a system of commandments that never worked out the way it was supposed to, was set aside; the law brought nothing to maturity. Another wayâ"Jesus!â"a way that does work, that brings us right into the presence of God, is put in its place.
Lastly, "faith is an unmitigated evil". Sheesh. It must be hard for you if no one trusts you, no?
Andrew Wiles proof of Fermat's last theorem could be translated to a typed lisp expression (or any equivalent in some other language) and patented as a method of proving a certain fact about integers
Lacks industrial application, is a mathematical method, is a program without any real world effect (Sections 4 & 1(1)(c), 1(2)(a), 1(2)(c), UK Patent Act which align with the international patent conventions and treaties namely the EPC and PCT). No patent.
Saying that software is simply binary mathematics is like saying people are simply chemistry. True (spiritual arguments aside) but not useful.
In the UK under Aerotel/Macrossan (2007) there is a 4-step approach to determine patentablility.
(1) Properly construe the claim; (2) identify the actual contribution [over the prior art]; (3) ask whether it falls solely within the excluded subject matter [see above, things like mathematical methods are excluded]; (4) check whether the actual or alleged contribution is actually technical in nature.
It's also made clear you only look at (4) if (1)-(3) have been passed.
So a voice encoding algorithm (speex and the like) would not be patentable per se. But if it were to be used in a mobile phone to save power then it might be patentable, see the UK Manual of Patent Practice at Section 1.17:
[...] the Technical Board of Appeal rejected claims to a method of digitally filtering data
performed on a conventional general purpose computer, since those claims were held to
define an abstract concept not distinguished from a mathematical method. However, they
allowed claims to a method of image processing which used the mathematical method to
operate on numbers representing an image. The reasoning was that the image processing
performed was a technical (ie non-excluded) process which related to the technical quality of
the image and that even if the idea underlying an invention may be considered to reside in a mathematical method, a claim directed to a technical process in which the method is used does not seek protection for the mathematical method as such. Therefore the allowable claims went beyond a mathematical method as such because they specified the physical entity the data represented and the technical process in which it was used.
How useful was the matrix-like structure. Very, it reduced memory usage by 96%. How long did it take to create?
As you were doing private research you were entitled to use the patent's content (making the shaky assumption that US patents are like UK ones in this respect) so if you'd be using the patent databases effectively you could have saved some time by just appropriating this technique. That's why we give out patents, so we can get the full disclosure of innovative technology back to aid research and push forward technical advances.
Of course if the technique is common in the art, just find a prior art publication (someone else's dissertation?). In the UK such things can be filed as SS.21 observations (http://www.ipo.gov.uk/patent/p-other/p-object/p-object-observation/p-object-observation-making.htm) and can be used to invalidate a patent or at very least protect anyone from being sued under that patent.
ipso facto proof that the patent couldn't have been all that innovative, by the very fact that several other people coming up with the same solution ought to be the very definition of "obvious to someone skilled in the arts".
The point of view for an assessment of obviousness is that of the notional skilled man in the art _at the time of the application_.
Obviousness has always been a tricky one. In any well worked field, if something hasn't been [disclosed as] done already then a priori you can claim it's not obvious.
The bargain between state and applicant is one of disclosure in return for time-limited monopoly. Early disclosure benefit's the public good. That is why you get a patent even if someone did it before, provided that it wasn't made public in some way. Just because several people/groups come up with the same thing, it doesn't make it obvious - was calculus obvious in Newton/Leibniz's day? Their is an effective bonus to the first to "invent" something.
Sorry, I'm very much for things like abolition of software patents and shortening of copyright terms [...] They went so far as to use the term [Scrabble] to refer to their game, nevermind trying to actively dissuade people from confusing.
Sounds like we are on the same page when it comes to attitude to IP.
However I disagree that referring to Scrabble means they infringed Hasbro's trademark. If they had marketed it under a less similar name and simply stated that it was "like Scrabble" and been sure to make clear that "Scrabble is a RTM of Hasbro who have no association with this game". Then I think they'd be in the clear.
Under this sort of clear display of origin of the goods I can't see how there would be any confusion. They would definitely have to use a different name to Scrabulous however.
Unfortunately they didn't do that and as you rightly note Scrabulous is pretty clearly infringing the claimant's mark.
So, what exactly is the precedent here? I didn't think you could copyright the layout of a board game.
If they copy the board, even if they subsequently modify it then it's copyright infringement.
So the test is probably whether the same colours are used for the squares, and whether the double-letter, triple-word, etc., squares are in the same place.
--- <Rant on USPTO website starts here!>
Incidentally I tried to view Butts patent from 1938 but the USPTO.gov website is about the worst internet site I've seen. It took about 5 clicks, through pages with absolutlely no UI design, to get to the search. The search hasn't changed in about 10 years, which you'd think might mean it works well - you'd be wrong. Then the search results are displayed so poorly, older patents just having a list of codes next to them. Then to top it off you can't see the images because they require you to use some weird-ass TIFF viewer. Seriously, a tiff-viewer! This website is like something slowly cobbled together by someone who has no clue about the internet, UI design, accessing information.
I'm guessing there's a single "designer" who's the sort of person that simply piles everything up in his room, he can find anything at the drop of a hat. But the appearance is of absolute chaos to anyone else.
I've been on the 'net since about '94 (JANET and all that) and started surfing the www in about '96 (Mosaic on UNIX terminals at Uni). In that time I don't ever recall seeing such a poor website in terms of the expectation of a large organisation, the vast number of users that must be subjected to it and the paucity of the results it produces.
Couldn't the USPTO afford to employ one actual web designer?
Compare their patent search with that of Espacenet from the EPO or Patentscope (RTM) from WIPO or the IBM backed Prior Art DB! Can you tell which were actually designed to retrieve information from?
[...] most reasonable adults would read "Scrabulous" as meaning "Scrabble(TM)-like, but not Scrabble(TM)".
They were clever in their choosing Scrabulous - it evokes the Scrabble trademark to give you a hint that this is that game but online.
You're right, it's not scrabble, but then I didn't expect them to send me a cardboard game board and some plastic letter tiles!
I did assume, being into IP, that this was licensed from the game makers when I first played it.
Incidentally if they'd called it, say, Wordulous (lame I know) and said it was "our own version of the famous Scrabble (RTM of Hasbro) game but online" I don't see any legal (or moral) problem with that given the patents have expired.
OK. Stoning is required, citation from the New Testament please.
The "first fucking thing" to know about religion is that it's used as a means to grab power. Those that follow a set of religious routines don't necessarily have faith in Jesus, nor follow his example. This is what makes you a Christian, not going to church or calling yourself a Christian. I dont' care to know much about religion, Christianity is more about a personal faith in God; communion with other Christians is a lesser part.
As for reading the bible.
Jesus said, those that haven't sinned themselves should do the stoning - ie none of us should. He also said to the adultress to "go and sin no more". So whilst he didn't condone the sin of adultery he also condemned those who sought to stone someone for the sin.
The Epistle of James (James was Jesus brother) says: true religion is this, care for widows and orphans [paraphrase].
Jesus message on action can probably best be summed up in the passage in Matthew known as the "sheep and the goats". Jesus says that if you help the poor, the less fortunate, the hungry, the sick, those imprisoned that it is as if you are directly serving him. These are the noble virtues of Christ.
Hence to be a Christian is to be a "little Christ" that is to emulate Jesus example. I think it was St.Jerome, possibly Francis of Assisi that said we should spread the gospel, even using words if we had to - the point being that a Christians actions should be a shining example of humanity so much so that we need not use words to attract people to this way of living. Most of us fall short of that goal I think.
As for the followers of Mohammed, they seek to emulate him too I believe. He was a warrior, he laid siege to cities, killed all the men and enslaved the women and children. He married several wives, at least one [almost certainly raped] just after he killed her father and husband. He consummated his marriage to a 9 year old girl. He later gave his captives the choice (eg Sura 9:26 IIRC) to pay taxes, convert, be enslaved or die. Many died. Many entered slavery.
You seem like a smart guy but I think you have some dumb beliefs.
Slashdot Mirror
Even if an entire squadron of UI specialists descended on a linux distro, went through the whole thing and posted up a unified UI design for every level of the system do you really think it would get implemented?
Usability isn't entirely objective. Consistency is an important element and consistency (eg using standard widget layouts) is part of a users previous experience.
The problem I see with your scenario is that for those already using the system the usability will initially decrease. A lot of work to reduce the usability of a system! This is how you get such complaints about the "ribbon" in MS Word, etc., it's just unfamiliar.
KDE4 has changed a lot vs. 3. This sort of change is a great opportunity to introduce usability structures as users are expecting to have to relearn elements of the DE.
(remember: using starts with considering installation)
I disagree, they are nearly all points about system administration - that's not usability unless you are considering usability of a computer system from point of view of a sys admin, which I don't think you are.
Nielson's heuristics are a good starting point: http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html
I'm happy with the 'get it working first - then make it pretty' approach taken by most.
Usability and aesthetics may be closely related for technically minded people as they generally appreciated ordered structures and find a (ie their personal) logical flow to be visually comfortable. But equating aesthetics and usability is plain wrong.
Tiny example: You can make your "Yes / No" dialogs [sic] as pretty as you like but if you randomly switch the button positions and ask ambiguous questions, or don't indicate the outcomes, then your users are going to be very frustrated.
Aside: On that point about logical flow - people will use your program in a different way to how you design it. I'm always fascinated when I watch other people using browsers (testing websites I've designed). They of course take different routes through the website, but just how folks use the browser differently is quite interesting itself.
pictures that come up on the results are stock photos - not any relation to the site content at all
I've searched on a business I'm a director of, the images shown alongside our name do not reflect our product and in fact I'd say they defame it somewhat. That sucks, if we weren't such a small business I think we'd have grounds to sue them.
Also, several results come up with our page content that do not link to our site.
This does not look good. I'm not happy.
This overlaps with a second usage, which makes more sense to me but is less common: to use the manpage notation to indicate which type of thing you're talking about.
I think this is the only real usage I've seen in the wild. But I didn't know the exact derivation, though guessed a disambiguation mark, having only been using *nix since '94.
KDE 4.0 was [only] meant to be used by developers
Yeah, we heard that they called it KDE4.0-developer-edition and clearly stated "this is a non-functional development version which will not provide a usable desktop", oh wait ...
</sarcasm>
Sorry to be a huge pain but is there a repo for an Ubuntu (hardy) package that I can try. Last I tried (last week) couldn't import/open, and hence play, any music (this was on KDE 4.0.93 IIRC).
The second use of the desktop background is because files get saved there by default from your web browser. Again, this seems to be because unsophisticated users have no idea of directories and if it doesn't go on the background, they can't find it.
You make a common mistake. You believe that because you find something unhelpful that it is just "unhelpful" whilst really it is "unhelpful for you".
I use the desktop as a temporary store, eg for downloaded files and work in progress. I like them to be visible at the click of a single button (hide all windows / reveal desktop; missing in KDE4 when I last tried (2 days ago)). When I've determined the correct place to store something or when I've discerned it's proper worth it is either remains in a visually separated desktop position, is added to a hierarchical store, placed in a tmp folder, trashed or deleted.
Without a usable desktop, see KDE4, I resort to a ~/tmp directory but the utility is reduced unless I do funky things to keep this as the lowest desktop and prevent it's minimisation, etc..
I'm sure I'm not alone in finding a triage place for files to be useful?
One other use is allowing my (just turned) 3 year old to find gcompris and tuxpaint without having to navigate the diabolical new K-menu.
ditto
I would also like to point out that Konqueror was "replaced" by Dolphin, which in my opinion was a bad decision.
Given that the file management capabilities of Dolphin are exactly duplicated in Konqueror, you aren't forced to use Dolphin.
The point of Dolphin, I think, was to make things easier for newbies, and to provide a lighter-weight option for people who don't use Konqueror as a web browser.
I think the point was that the new Konq (KDE4) is arranged only for web browsing (though it still works as a file browser it's been deprecated and the features obfuscated) and that whilst Konq includes all the features of Dolphin at present the reverse is not true. In fact Dolphin is like a toy compared to Konq in KDE3. That appears to have been the aim, but Dolphin is so like Nautilus in it's [lack of features] that they might have just ported and reskinned Nautilus (they'd have had emblems too then, which I think are quite cool).
I actually used KDE4.0 Beta as my main desktop
You mean except for the fact there was no desktop, you couldn't put icons on it or anything.
KNetworkManager is present ... it arsed up my network so that FF now always starts in off-line mode! I just uninstalled it last night.
FWIW.
There is a checkbox that is basically the "make KDE go fast now" option, if I wasn't on a Mac right now, I'd say where it is exactly.
I have a suitcase of cash stashed only yards from your location, if I wasn't trying to be infuriating I'd tell you exactly where it is. ;0)>
If someone can get a patent on "using a specific compression algorithm to save power", but they can't get a patent on the specific compression algorithm, then what use is their patent? Does it also prevent the use of other compression algorithms to save power?
[I'm not currently working in this field, FWIW]
How I read it is that if the subject of the application is not wholly within the excluded fields and it has a technical contribution to the art then it's patentable.
They can't get a patent of the algorithm, that prevents them from using their patent against new uses of the algorithm. They might not of considered it's use as part of a solution to some other problem for example.
"what use is their patent"
It protects their invention, namely a more efficient telecoms device in my example.
Does it prevent the use of other compression algorithms to save power - depends on the claims. If this algorithm is one of a class of optimal algorithms that can be used to save power and the claims are drafted broadly then possibly the patent covers other algorithms. But otherwise, no.
OK. Stoning is required, citation from the New Testament please.
Typical idiotic nonsense from somebody who hasn't actually bothered to read the book.
I don't have to supply a citation from the new testament. You seem to know, by your deceptive attempt to redraw the map, that there are plenty of examples in the old testament, correct?
You see the thing about the _New_ Testament is that it's new. When Jesus says he has come to fulfill "the law" (by which he means the whole canon of the Old Testament) he doesn't mean that we should still enact the Levitican and Deuteronomical laws as written instead he is saying that the law now is completed. How can I tell, well by his words and actions. If Jesus was fulfilling the law in the sense that you claim he would have encouraged the crowd to stone the woman caught in adultery. He was not and did not. Indeed much of the pharisaical objection came becuase Jesus appeared not to obey the letter of the law, that was why he made this response.
Indeed if you continue to read the passage in Matthew (I don't know what makes you think I haven't read it?) you'll see that Jesus expands on what he means: instead of just not murdering we [His followers] should harbour no murderous feelings, and if we do we should ensure we are reconciled to our brother. We should do everything we can to avoid looking lustfully at another's wife (it's figurative, before you ask). We should give to the needy. We should not judge without inspecting ourselves first. We shouldn't take an eye-for-an-eye but instead turn the other cheek. We shouldn't just love [agape] our friends but our enemies also.
Another indicator is that Christ abolished the priesthood as intermediaries between us and God (the tearing of the curtain that sets aside the holy-of-holies was a sign of this). Many of the old ceremonial laws concern the priesthood - tithing, consulting a priest, etc.. So they couldn't be enacted if it weren't for them having been fulfilled.
It's a good point that you make. Jesus Christ makes it clear that under the law all are condemned. What hope is there then? Well those who follow him ("I am the way") and accept his sacrifice are made holy, why? Because Christ is righteousness. It is through Christ we are made righteous so as to enter God's presence.
Hebrews 7 (from the message; http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=hebrews%207;&version=65;)
11-14 If the priesthood of Levi and Aaron, which provided the framework for the giving of the law, could really make people perfect, there wouldn't have been need for a new priesthood like that of Melchizedek. But since it didn't get the job done, there was a change of priesthood, which brought with it a radical new kind of law. There is no way of understanding this in terms of the old Levitical priesthood, which is why there is nothing in Jesus' family tree connecting him with that priestly line.
15-19 But the Melchizedek story provides a perfect analogy: Jesus, a priest like Melchizedek, not by genealogical descent but by the sheer force of resurrection lifeâ"he lives!â""priest forever in the royal order of Melchizedek." The former way of doing things, a system of commandments that never worked out the way it was supposed to, was set aside; the law brought nothing to maturity. Another wayâ"Jesus!â"a way that does work, that brings us right into the presence of God, is put in its place.
Lastly, "faith is an unmitigated evil". Sheesh. It must be hard for you if no one trusts you, no?
Andrew Wiles proof of Fermat's last theorem could be translated to a typed lisp expression (or any equivalent in some other language) and patented as a method of proving a certain fact about integers
Lacks industrial application, is a mathematical method, is a program without any real world effect (Sections 4 & 1(1)(c), 1(2)(a), 1(2)(c), UK Patent Act which align with the international patent conventions and treaties namely the EPC and PCT). No patent.
Saying that software is simply binary mathematics is like saying people are simply chemistry. True (spiritual arguments aside) but not useful.
In the UK under Aerotel/Macrossan (2007) there is a 4-step approach to determine patentablility.
(1) Properly construe the claim;
(2) identify the actual contribution [over the prior art];
(3) ask whether it falls solely within the excluded subject matter [see above, things like mathematical methods are excluded];
(4) check whether the actual or alleged contribution is actually technical in nature.
It's also made clear you only look at (4) if (1)-(3) have been passed.
So a voice encoding algorithm (speex and the like) would not be patentable per se. But if it were to be used in a mobile phone to save power then it might be patentable, see the UK Manual of Patent Practice at Section 1.17:
[...] the Technical Board of Appeal rejected claims to a method of digitally filtering data
performed on a conventional general purpose computer, since those claims were held to
define an abstract concept not distinguished from a mathematical method. However, they
allowed claims to a method of image processing which used the mathematical method to
operate on numbers representing an image. The reasoning was that the image processing
performed was a technical (ie non-excluded) process which related to the technical quality of
the image and that even if the idea underlying an invention may be considered to reside in a
mathematical method, a claim directed to a technical process in which the method is used
does not seek protection for the mathematical method as such. Therefore the allowable
claims went beyond a mathematical method as such because they specified the physical
entity the data represented and the technical process in which it was used.
How useful was the matrix-like structure. Very, it reduced memory usage by 96%. How long did it take to create?
As you were doing private research you were entitled to use the patent's content (making the shaky assumption that US patents are like UK ones in this respect) so if you'd be using the patent databases effectively you could have saved some time by just appropriating this technique. That's why we give out patents, so we can get the full disclosure of innovative technology back to aid research and push forward technical advances.
Of course if the technique is common in the art, just find a prior art publication (someone else's dissertation?). In the UK such things can be filed as SS.21 observations (http://www.ipo.gov.uk/patent/p-other/p-object/p-object-observation/p-object-observation-making.htm) and can be used to invalidate a patent or at very least protect anyone from being sued under that patent.
ipso facto proof that the patent couldn't have been all that innovative, by the very fact that several other people coming up with the same solution ought to be the very definition of "obvious to someone skilled in the arts".
The point of view for an assessment of obviousness is that of the notional skilled man in the art _at the time of the application_.
Obviousness has always been a tricky one. In any well worked field, if something hasn't been [disclosed as] done already then a priori you can claim it's not obvious.
The bargain between state and applicant is one of disclosure in return for time-limited monopoly. Early disclosure benefit's the public good. That is why you get a patent even if someone did it before, provided that it wasn't made public in some way. Just because several people/groups come up with the same thing, it doesn't make it obvious - was calculus obvious in Newton/Leibniz's day? Their is an effective bonus to the first to "invent" something.
Sorry, I'm very much for things like abolition of software patents and shortening of copyright terms [...] They went so far as to use the term [Scrabble] to refer to their game, nevermind trying to actively dissuade people from confusing.
Sounds like we are on the same page when it comes to attitude to IP.
However I disagree that referring to Scrabble means they infringed Hasbro's trademark. If they had marketed it under a less similar name and simply stated that it was "like Scrabble" and been sure to make clear that "Scrabble is a RTM of Hasbro who have no association with this game". Then I think they'd be in the clear.
Under this sort of clear display of origin of the goods I can't see how there would be any confusion. They would definitely have to use a different name to Scrabulous however.
Unfortunately they didn't do that and as you rightly note Scrabulous is pretty clearly infringing the claimant's mark.
So, what exactly is the precedent here? I didn't think you could copyright the layout of a board game.
If they copy the board, even if they subsequently modify it then it's copyright infringement.
So the test is probably whether the same colours are used for the squares, and whether the double-letter, triple-word, etc., squares are in the same place.
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<Rant on USPTO website starts here!>
Incidentally I tried to view Butts patent from 1938 but the USPTO.gov website is about the worst internet site I've seen. It took about 5 clicks, through pages with absolutlely no UI design, to get to the search. The search hasn't changed in about 10 years, which you'd think might mean it works well - you'd be wrong. Then the search results are displayed so poorly, older patents just having a list of codes next to them. Then to top it off you can't see the images because they require you to use some weird-ass TIFF viewer. Seriously, a tiff-viewer! This website is like something slowly cobbled together by someone who has no clue about the internet, UI design, accessing information.
I'm guessing there's a single "designer" who's the sort of person that simply piles everything up in his room, he can find anything at the drop of a hat. But the appearance is of absolute chaos to anyone else.
I've been on the 'net since about '94 (JANET and all that) and started surfing the www in about '96 (Mosaic on UNIX terminals at Uni). In that time I don't ever recall seeing such a poor website in terms of the expectation of a large organisation, the vast number of users that must be subjected to it and the paucity of the results it produces.
Couldn't the USPTO afford to employ one actual web designer?
Compare their patent search with that of Espacenet from the EPO or Patentscope (RTM) from WIPO or the IBM backed Prior Art DB! Can you tell which were actually designed to retrieve information from?
http://gb.espacenet.com/search97cgi/s97_cgi.exe?Action=FormGen&Template=gb/en/advanced.hts
http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/index.jsp
https://priorart.ip.com/search.jsp?searchType=freetextSearch
[...] most reasonable adults would read "Scrabulous" as meaning "Scrabble(TM)-like, but not Scrabble(TM)".
They were clever in their choosing Scrabulous - it evokes the Scrabble trademark to give you a hint that this is that game but online.
You're right, it's not scrabble, but then I didn't expect them to send me a cardboard game board and some plastic letter tiles!
I did assume, being into IP, that this was licensed from the game makers when I first played it.
Incidentally if they'd called it, say, Wordulous (lame I know) and said it was "our own version of the famous Scrabble (RTM of Hasbro) game but online" I don't see any legal (or moral) problem with that given the patents have expired.
Damn, I genuinely thought it was 10 tiles. My bad!
I R S F T T O P S Q
OK. Stoning is required, citation from the New Testament please.
The "first fucking thing" to know about religion is that it's used as a means to grab power. Those that follow a set of religious routines don't necessarily have faith in Jesus, nor follow his example. This is what makes you a Christian, not going to church or calling yourself a Christian. I dont' care to know much about religion, Christianity is more about a personal faith in God; communion with other Christians is a lesser part.
As for reading the bible.
Jesus said, those that haven't sinned themselves should do the stoning - ie none of us should. He also said to the adultress to "go and sin no more". So whilst he didn't condone the sin of adultery he also condemned those who sought to stone someone for the sin.
The Epistle of James (James was Jesus brother) says: true religion is this, care for widows and orphans [paraphrase].
Jesus message on action can probably best be summed up in the passage in Matthew known as the "sheep and the goats". Jesus says that if you help the poor, the less fortunate, the hungry, the sick, those imprisoned that it is as if you are directly serving him. These are the noble virtues of Christ.
Hence to be a Christian is to be a "little Christ" that is to emulate Jesus example. I think it was St.Jerome, possibly Francis of Assisi that said we should spread the gospel, even using words if we had to - the point being that a Christians actions should be a shining example of humanity so much so that we need not use words to attract people to this way of living. Most of us fall short of that goal I think.
As for the followers of Mohammed, they seek to emulate him too I believe. He was a warrior, he laid siege to cities, killed all the men and enslaved the women and children. He married several wives, at least one [almost certainly raped] just after he killed her father and husband. He consummated his marriage to a 9 year old girl. He later gave his captives the choice (eg Sura 9:26 IIRC) to pay taxes, convert, be enslaved or die. Many died. Many entered slavery.
You seem like a smart guy but I think you have some dumb beliefs.
Muslims don't have a problem with dogs, they have a problem with *pet* dogs.
You can own a dog to protect your property or yourself, but it shouldn't be allowed into the house.
No that's not it, they have a problem with police dogs, you know when they're sniffing out drugs or weapons .. they get highly religious then.