As it stands, they did prove that it wasn't a valid patent- but the Jury believed "the little guy's attornies" all the same
The jury was never asked to rule on the validity of the patent.
The jury was asked three questions which must be answered consistently:
[Paraphrased]
1 Did Bedrock prove by the weight of the evidence presented here that Google infringed on its patent?
On Claim 1 - Yes. On Claim 2 - Yes.
2 Did Google prove by the weight of the evidence presented here that it did not infringe on the patent?
On Claim 1 - No. On Claim 2 - No.
3 If you find that the patent was infringed, what would be fair and reasonable compensation for Bedrock, based on the weight of the evidence presented here?
For the case to reach the jury in this form, Google must have lost every argument with the judge at every stage in the case where the validity of the patent could be contested.
That does not bode well for an appeal.
The jury trial was demanded in this case - and it is an expensive and high-risk proposition.
The appellate court judge does not second-guess a jury on matters of fact.
The most he is likely to allow is an argument that any damages awarded were "excessive."
Neither are you likely to get very far arguing that the jury was biased or incompetent.
They have a game, they have a dashboard, and that's it.
Not any more.
Not with multimedia apps, upload and download services, Skype, social networking and god alone knows what other software and services will be added in the future.
Yes, once again the loop will continue. That damn sony adds Linux support and then removes it.
The PS2 lost Linux support with the PS2 Slim. The PS3 Slim shed PS2 emulation and Linux with a positive impact on costs and sales.
The DIY sysytem install and dual-booting into a desktop GUI with limited access to system resources was not the way to sell Homebrew and Linux-on-the-console to the masses - and without mass support you are in the same predicament as the audiophile who purchased the PS3 for SACD support.
The right way to go is with the PS6 is a free Sony supported SDK and an app store like XBox Live! Where there can be quality control, marketing support, and a clear distinction between the comercial and non-commercial product.
That's brilliant. Should be the footer on every slashdot page.
I have often thought it a pity that a younger Heinlein never had the chance to see the geek in full flight.
The resistance to metrification is the kind of story the old time reporter called an "evergreen" ---
something which could be retrived from the quack files, like calendar reforn or decimal time ---
given a fresh coat of paint and re-printed on a slow news day.
0 to 100 degrees Farenheit closely aproximates the range in which humans can live and work safely and comfortably without extraordinary precautions.
It is finely grained and base ten where base ten is most useful.
Homes are designed and built to meet the physical and psychological needs of those who will live in them.
The real estate agent won't need a measuring tape to tell him that the stairs are too steep, clearances too low or the halls too narrow for his clients.
Their body language will tell him that - and that ultimately what customary measures like the inch, foot and yard are all about.
The truth is that in the U.S. politicians are afraid of offending the majority of people, and a significant amount of them are just a bunch of redneck morons.
Making friends everywhere you go. Just making friends.
This passage from the Wikipedia seems relevant:
In his 1998 monograph Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, James C. Scott argued that central governments attempt to impose what he calls "legibility" on their subjects. Local folkways concerning measurements, like local customs concerning patronymics, tend to come under severe pressure from bureaucracies. Scott's thesis is that in order for schemes to improve the human condition to succeed, they must take into account local conditions, and that the high-modernist ideologies of the 20th century have prevented this. Scott cites the enforcement of the metric system as a specific example of this sort of failed and resented "improvement" imposed by centralizing and standardizing authority.
The geek tends to see himself as anarchic-libertarian. But technocratic and elitist would be closer to the truth.
The solution imposed from on high.
The vast majority of U.S. customary units have been defined in terms of the meter and the kilogram since the Mendenhall Order of 1893 (and, in practice, for many years before that date).
The question then becomes why it should anyone but the architect or mechanical engineer particularly care that room temperatures continue to be displayed in degrees Farenheit.
But the Android smartphone - as a mass market consumer product - is defined by Google and the cell phone carriers.
At any time, 'The Geek' can take it and change it to behave more like "The Geek' wants it to behave, in the mean time closed source propriety software dominance outside of games is 'DEAD', 'The Geek" wins/
20% of prime time Internet traffic in the states was a Netflix stream before Netflix offered a streaming only service.
The Internet "app" can be installed on your HDTV set, PS3 video game console, Roku set top box, home theater receiver, etc.
It doesn't need a browser.
The app store is owned by Sony or Mitsubishi Electric.
The hardware can ship as a big ticket home appliance.
The $5 to $15,000 home theater system install your wife isn't going to let you hack into this side of Divorce Court.
At any point, someone not part of the group could pipe up and sue h264 for patent infringement
There are about thirty H.264 licensors and one thousand H.264 licensees, who, collectively, manufacture essentially 100% of the hardware and software used in the chain of high definition television production and distribution from the studio camera to the motion picture theater and home television set.
The licensors include global industrial powers like Mitsubishi, Philips, Samsung and Toshiba.
Even the smallest players here would be considered giants in R&D.
Each and every one dangerous adversaries in court - with virtually unlimited funds to defend their position.
H.265/HEVC should be ready in about a year or two.
Scales well from the smartphone to the 4Kx2K projection screen. Half the bitrate of H.264/WebM for the same perceived video quality.
Some meaningful improvements in color reproduction, sound, etc. Content protection when desired.
The geek is like the general who fights the last war when the new war has already begun.
It takes a damn good lawyer to get a cop tried for deprivation of rights under color of law. It ought to happen every time the exclusionary rule is applied.
The exclusionary rule exists only because of the belief the cop or the prosecutor cannot be effectively disciplined in any other way.
But it goes against the grain to exclude evidence that on its face is relevant and truthworthy.
And Linux has already beaten them both in server,mobile devices and embedded systems market. What's your point again?
It depends on how you define "Linux."
The community-oriented Linux client distribution is all but dead.
The smartphone and tablet markets are being defined by Apple and the iOS, Google and Android, Microsoft and Windows.
The Internet Suite for your HDTV , video game console or set top box may run under an embedded Linux OS.
But the content - music, video, and games - will be purchased from your Vizio or Samsung app store, distributed and protected using the latest and greatest in licensed codecs.
The geek will have "won" the victory for "openess" in the browser and lost the war.
Does anyone really care about this anymore? Everyone I know who has started using the GIMP had a chuckle about the name, then really forgot about the name and got on with editing photos. Basically, noone cares anymore.
The key words here are "everyone I know."
The geek notoriously suffers from a kind of tunnel vision. If it isn't a problem for him, it can't be a problem for others.
The port to other operating systems and environments can be a humbling experience. Reaching out to new users can be a humbling experience.
But there is no intelligible reason for "saddling" your port with a name the sums up decades of off-color jokes.
I'm amazed at the comments on the linked Playstation page.
I can't imagine why.
This is the core constituency for the PS3:
49 million consoles. 69 million PSN accounts. 17 million PlayStation Home accounts. 4 million MOVE controllers.
There have been seven firmware upgrades since 3,21 in April of last year - an entire Christmas shopping season has come and gone.
In which the departure of the OtherOS had no visible impact on sales.
The 2,843 Walmart Supercenters in the U.S. position the PS3 Slim at the center of a golden triangle of console video games, HDTVs , DVD and Blu-Ray videos.
Which is where it belongs.
The OtherOS implies dual booting and a DIY Linux install.
That and maintaining two operating systems, software libraries and skill sets has all the mass market appeal of root canal.
The geek talks about his "right" to mod his own hardware.
In the real world, the high-end video game console or HDTV set is a big-ticket home appliance that is shared with other family members -
and history lessons. Tell them about the rootkits, the disabling of features on customers devices, the lawsuits, and anything else screwed up that Sony has done to their customers
Remember the scene in "Airplane" where Robert Stack bulldozes his way through every sort of missionary zealot?
It's cherished because no one welcomes the intrusion - and the more obscure the cause the less anyone is willing to listen.
Airplane - Airport Missionaries
It has been a year since the OtherOS made its departure from the PS3 - there have been seven firmware upgrades since - and no one but the geek gives a damn.
.
I was wondering: what countries have the best privacy laws and what are some good hosts to use?
You are a foreign national routing allegedly innocent e-mails through an unfamiliar host 1,200-12,000 miles distant. Do you really think that won't attract unwanted attention on both sides of the border?
Hmm, that argument doesn't hold very far IMO.. they could save a lot more money by just withdrawing the lawsuit altogether versus what they are going to lose from this action.
There are 27 Sony stores in the United States.
2,800 Walmart Superstores.
Where you will find the PS3 comfortably positioned among big screen HDTV sets and rack after rack of console video games, DVD and Blu-Ray videos.
Threatening politicians gets you shipped to gitmo. Threatening normal, everyday citizens? Police care less because their ticket quotas are more important.
The mod up to "Insightful" for a post like this is lazy, stupid -
and utterly predictable.
Google News will return 3,000 hits in a search for a phrase like "convicted [of] threats against."
It is a small but much needed corrective.
But less effective, I suppose, than simply drop-kicking the modder into the chill waters of Lake Huron.
It's not a free market while copyright and patent monopoly laws are distorting it. Face it, the free market won't sort it out, because sony has been rendered largely immune to free market effects by government-granted imaginary property monopolies.
The geek's dismissal of "imaginary" property is ludicrous.
His entire existence is built on the value of intangibles.
Bits and Bytes.
Five years out from the introduction of the console, the free market won't punish Sony for the removal of the OtherOS any more than it did for the removal of SACD support and PS2 emulation.
There are lessons to be learned here:
Linux as a DIY system install has no mass market appeal. Dual-booting or virtual machines on a video game console even less so.
That limits the remedies the geek can reasonably ask for.
The only way to make Indie or Homebrew gaming on the console work is with the full support of the console manufacturer. You need development tools like XNA and Visual Studio Express. You need the app store.
The console manufactuer will ultimately do whatever it thinks it has to do to protect the integrity of the multiplayer game, DVD and Blu-Ray content, the Netflix stream and other online sources of revenue.
The cloud is not your friend.
You wife and kids won't take kindly to the hack that bans them from PSN.
They will be even less understanding when they see you mucking about with the wall mounted $4,000 Internet-enabled HDTV in the family room.
Slashdot Mirror
As it stands, they did prove that it wasn't a valid patent- but the Jury believed "the little guy's attornies" all the same
The jury was never asked to rule on the validity of the patent.
The jury was asked three questions which must be answered consistently:
[Paraphrased]
1 Did Bedrock prove by the weight of the evidence presented here that Google infringed on its patent?
On Claim 1 - Yes. On Claim 2 - Yes.
2 Did Google prove by the weight of the evidence presented here that it did not infringe on the patent?
On Claim 1 - No. On Claim 2 - No.
3 If you find that the patent was infringed, what would be fair and reasonable compensation for Bedrock, based on the weight of the evidence presented here?
$ 5 million.
Bedrock v. Google
For the case to reach the jury in this form, Google must have lost every argument with the judge at every stage in the case where the validity of the patent could be contested.
That does not bode well for an appeal.
The jury trial was demanded in this case - and it is an expensive and high-risk proposition.
The appellate court judge does not second-guess a jury on matters of fact.
The most he is likely to allow is an argument that any damages awarded were "excessive."
Neither are you likely to get very far arguing that the jury was biased or incompetent.
They have a game, they have a dashboard, and that's it.
Not any more.
Not with multimedia apps, upload and download services, Skype, social networking and god alone knows what other software and services will be added in the future.
Yes, once again the loop will continue. That damn sony adds Linux support and then removes it.
The PS2 lost Linux support with the PS2 Slim. The PS3 Slim shed PS2 emulation and Linux with a positive impact on costs and sales.
The DIY sysytem install and dual-booting into a desktop GUI with limited access to system resources was not the way to sell Homebrew and Linux-on-the-console to the masses - and without mass support you are in the same predicament as the audiophile who purchased the PS3 for SACD support.
The right way to go is with the PS6 is a free Sony supported SDK and an app store like XBox Live! Where there can be quality control, marketing support, and a clear distinction between the comercial and non-commercial product.
That's brilliant. Should be the footer on every slashdot page.
I have often thought it a pity that a younger Heinlein never had the chance to see the geek in full flight.
The resistance to metrification is the kind of story the old time reporter called an "evergreen" ---
something which could be retrived from the quack files, like calendar reforn or decimal time ---
given a fresh coat of paint and re-printed on a slow news day.
0 to 100 degrees Farenheit closely aproximates the range in which humans can live and work safely and comfortably without extraordinary precautions.
It is finely grained and base ten where base ten is most useful.
Homes are designed and built to meet the physical and psychological needs of those who will live in them.
The real estate agent won't need a measuring tape to tell him that the stairs are too steep, clearances too low or the halls too narrow for his clients.
Their body language will tell him that - and that ultimately what customary measures like the inch, foot and yard are all about.
The truth is that in the U.S. politicians are afraid of offending the majority of people, and a significant amount of them are just a bunch of redneck morons.
Making friends everywhere you go. Just making friends.
This passage from the Wikipedia seems relevant:
In his 1998 monograph Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, James C. Scott argued that central governments attempt to impose what he calls "legibility" on their subjects. Local folkways concerning measurements, like local customs concerning patronymics, tend to come under severe pressure from bureaucracies. Scott's thesis is that in order for schemes to improve the human condition to succeed, they must take into account local conditions, and that the high-modernist ideologies of the 20th century have prevented this. Scott cites the enforcement of the metric system as a specific example of this sort of failed and resented "improvement" imposed by centralizing and standardizing authority.
Metrication opposition
The geek tends to see himself as anarchic-libertarian. But technocratic and elitist would be closer to the truth.
The solution imposed from on high.
The vast majority of U.S. customary units have been defined in terms of the meter and the kilogram since the Mendenhall Order of 1893 (and, in practice, for many years before that date).
United States customary units
The question then becomes why it should anyone but the architect or mechanical engineer particularly care that room temperatures continue to be displayed in degrees Farenheit.
I have to ask myself why such a modest and plausible argument gets modded down from +4 Insightful to 0, Troll in less than one hour.
Android is a Linux based client distribution
But the Android smartphone - as a mass market consumer product - is defined by Google and the cell phone carriers.
At any time, 'The Geek' can take it and change it to behave more like "The Geek' wants it to behave, in the mean time closed source propriety software dominance outside of games is 'DEAD', 'The Geek" wins/
20% of prime time Internet traffic in the states was a Netflix stream before Netflix offered a streaming only service.
The Internet "app" can be installed on your HDTV set, PS3 video game console, Roku set top box, home theater receiver, etc.
It doesn't need a browser.
The app store is owned by Sony or Mitsubishi Electric.
The hardware can ship as a big ticket home appliance.
The $5 to $15,000 home theater system install your wife isn't going to let you hack into this side of Divorce Court.
The geek loses.
At any point, someone not part of the group could pipe up and sue h264 for patent infringement
There are about thirty H.264 licensors and one thousand H.264 licensees, who, collectively, manufacture essentially 100% of the hardware and software used in the chain of high definition television production and distribution from the studio camera to the motion picture theater and home television set.
The licensors include global industrial powers like Mitsubishi, Philips, Samsung and Toshiba.
Even the smallest players here would be considered giants in R&D.
Each and every one dangerous adversaries in court - with virtually unlimited funds to defend their position.
H.265/HEVC should be ready in about a year or two.
Scales well from the smartphone to the 4Kx2K projection screen. Half the bitrate of H.264/WebM for the same perceived video quality.
Some meaningful improvements in color reproduction, sound, etc. Content protection when desired.
The geek is like the general who fights the last war when the new war has already begun.
It takes a damn good lawyer to get a cop tried for deprivation of rights under color of law. It ought to happen every time the exclusionary rule is applied.
The exclusionary rule exists only because of the belief the cop or the prosecutor cannot be effectively disciplined in any other way.
But it goes against the grain to exclude evidence that on its face is relevant and truthworthy.
And Linux has already beaten them both in server,mobile devices and embedded systems market. What's your point again?
It depends on how you define "Linux."
The community-oriented Linux client distribution is all but dead.
The smartphone and tablet markets are being defined by Apple and the iOS, Google and Android, Microsoft and Windows.
The Internet Suite for your HDTV , video game console or set top box may run under an embedded Linux OS.
But the content - music, video, and games - will be purchased from your Vizio or Samsung app store, distributed and protected using the latest and greatest in licensed codecs.
The geek will have "won" the victory for "openess" in the browser and lost the war.
Except America had abundant resources, shared the same atmosphere, gravity, and temperature?
In 1624 Capt. John Smith published a list of supplies he thought absolutely essential for every immigrant to Virginia.
Everything needed to keep your family warm, dry, housed, clothed and fed for at least a year. Harvests fail. The fishing in poor. Winters are cold.
The supply ship is lost at sea. Never assume you can live off the land. John Smith's Bill: Then & Now
Great marketing for alternative browsers :^)
"Runs well on Windows XP." (RTM August 2001)
"Runs well on Windows Vista." (RTM November 2006)
What nefarious character is going to draw attention to themselves when trying to get away with something evil?
The problem with the geek is that he assumes people will behave rationally under stress.
The pro will keep his emotions in check.
The amateur. The nut case. You just don't know.
Does anyone really care about this anymore? Everyone I know who has started using the GIMP had a chuckle about the name, then really forgot about the name and got on with editing photos.
Basically, noone cares anymore.
The key words here are "everyone I know."
The geek notoriously suffers from a kind of tunnel vision. If it isn't a problem for him, it can't be a problem for others.
The port to other operating systems and environments can be a humbling experience. Reaching out to new users can be a humbling experience.
But there is no intelligible reason for "saddling" your port with a name the sums up decades of off-color jokes.
By dealt with, we can only assume he meant 'been paid handsomely to let governments read what they wish.'"
Tell me why you get to assume that.
I'm amazed at the comments on the linked Playstation page.
I can't imagine why.
This is the core constituency for the PS3:
49 million consoles. 69 million PSN accounts. 17 million PlayStation Home accounts. 4 million MOVE controllers.
There have been seven firmware upgrades since 3,21 in April of last year - an entire Christmas shopping season has come and gone.
In which the departure of the OtherOS had no visible impact on sales.
The 2,843 Walmart Supercenters in the U.S. position the PS3 Slim at the center of a golden triangle of console video games, HDTVs , DVD and Blu-Ray videos.
Which is where it belongs.
The OtherOS implies dual booting and a DIY Linux install.
That and maintaining two operating systems, software libraries and skill sets has all the mass market appeal of root canal.
The geek talks about his "right" to mod his own hardware.
In the real world, the high-end video game console or HDTV set is a big-ticket home appliance that is shared with other family members -
and when they have the final say,
The Yellow Dog always gets voted off the island.
and history lessons. Tell them about the rootkits, the disabling of features on customers devices, the lawsuits, and anything else screwed up that Sony has done to their customers
Remember the scene in "Airplane" where Robert Stack bulldozes his way through every sort of missionary zealot?
It's cherished because no one welcomes the intrusion - and the more obscure the cause the less anyone is willing to listen. Airplane - Airport Missionaries
It has been a year since the OtherOS made its departure from the PS3 - there have been seven firmware upgrades since - and no one but the geek gives a damn. .
You'd only get a benefit if the car was coasting downhill by turning the potential energy into electric energy.
If you are coasting downhill, it seems to me that what you really need is power for the steering and the brakes.
I was wondering: what countries have the best privacy laws and what are some good hosts to use?
You are a foreign national routing allegedly innocent e-mails through an unfamiliar host 1,200-12,000 miles distant. Do you really think that won't attract unwanted attention on both sides of the border?
You sound like a shill because the PS3 is not open. Not anymore, if you're running PSN that means you have upgraded and lost the OtherOS feature.
He sounds like a customer who is satisfied with what the PS3 Slim has to offer.
The PS3 Fat has been out of production since 2009. There have been seven firmware upgrades since 3.21 in April of last year.
In April 10 of this year, about 7 of the top 25 bestsellers in video gane hardware and software at Amazon.com are games for the PS3.
The PS3 is "closed" to the OtherOS.
But it is "open" to the 1080p Netflix stream with theater surround sound. The MOVE controller, sterographic 3D and so on.
Features which actually sell product in the home entertainment market.
Hmm, that argument doesn't hold very far IMO.. they could save a lot more money by just withdrawing the lawsuit altogether versus what they are going to lose from this action.
There are 27 Sony stores in the United States.
2,800 Walmart Superstores.
Where you will find the PS3 comfortably positioned among big screen HDTV sets and rack after rack of console video games, DVD and Blu-Ray videos.
Threatening politicians gets you shipped to gitmo.
Threatening normal, everyday citizens? Police care less because their ticket quotas are more important.
The mod up to "Insightful" for a post like this is lazy, stupid -
and utterly predictable.
Google News will return 3,000 hits in a search for a phrase like "convicted [of] threats against."
It is a small but much needed corrective.
But less effective, I suppose, than simply drop-kicking the modder into the chill waters of Lake Huron.
What kind I wonder? The term has been diluted to meaninglessness by systematic abuse.
I have said this before, but it will bear repetition:
Your state or county registry of sexual offenders is easily accessible online.
It will be in no way pleasant - but an hour spent there will erase every fantasy the geek holds dear about who makes these lists and why.
The age of the victims will sicken you.
That I guarantee.
If you read TFA, the guy was a REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER in California according to TSA records.
WHOAH, how is that fact even relevant?
It is relevant if he is violating the terms of his release.
It is relevant if he is considered dangerous to himself or others.
Replace 'sex offender' with the word 'jew' and try to repeat your statement without sounding like a Nazi. Go on, I dare you
I double dare you.
The most likely reason your name will be added to a registry of sexual offenders is a long history of violence against women and children.
You are a repeat offender under long-term - perhaps lifetime - supervision and you have no unlimited right to travel.
Passport Information for Criminal Law Enforcement Officers
It's not a free market while copyright and patent monopoly laws are distorting it. Face it, the free market won't sort it out, because sony has been rendered largely immune to free market effects by government-granted imaginary property monopolies.
The geek's dismissal of "imaginary" property is ludicrous.
His entire existence is built on the value of intangibles.
Bits and Bytes.
Five years out from the introduction of the console, the free market won't punish Sony for the removal of the OtherOS any more than it did for the removal of SACD support and PS2 emulation.
There are lessons to be learned here:
Linux as a DIY system install has no mass market appeal. Dual-booting or virtual machines on a video game console even less so.
That limits the remedies the geek can reasonably ask for.
The only way to make Indie or Homebrew gaming on the console work is with the full support of the console manufacturer. You need development tools like XNA and Visual Studio Express. You need the app store.
The console manufactuer will ultimately do whatever it thinks it has to do to protect the integrity of the multiplayer game, DVD and Blu-Ray content, the Netflix stream and other online sources of revenue.
The cloud is not your friend.
You wife and kids won't take kindly to the hack that bans them from PSN.
They will be even less understanding when they see you mucking about with the wall mounted $4,000 Internet-enabled HDTV in the family room.