Take all the subscribers, assume 20% growth in subscribers per year, factor in for interest, compounded continuously. Then take the resultant number and multiply by zero.
The summary didn't do a good job of explaining the appellate court order in this case. The judges were essentially saying that the issue was not ripe for consideration at their level, because Hansmeier needs to make the request in district court and have it denied there first. He can appeal the district court's refusal to issue a stay, but only after that decision is actually made.
Clearly, you don't know how the count system works at the USPTO. Here's how it works:
For each case, you get a total of two counts. You get 1.25 counts for the first action on the merits in the case, which can be a non-final rejection or an allowance. You get 0.25 counts for an action that closes prosecution (which can be a final rejection or an allowance). And you get the remaining 0.5 counts when the case is disposed of (which can be from an abandonment, from writing an answer to an appeal brief, from an allowance, or from an RCE).
Some definitions: A final rejection is when, after a non-final rejection, you do another rejection where you either don't change any of the grounds of rejection or your new grounds of rejection are because the applicant amended the claims. An RCE is when, after a final rejection, the applicant wishes to continue prosecuting the application; a fee is due at this point.
So, allowing a case on first action gives you 2 counts right now. On the other hand, rejecting a case takes more time, but can lead to an RCE, after which the process of non-final/final rejections begins again with another 1.75 counts available (1.5 following second and subsequent RCEs); after RCE, prosecution tends to be much easier because the case is familiar and has hopefully already been well-searched.
Newer (junior) examiners don't have authority to allow cases on their own accord, so they rely more heavily on RCEs to make production, while older (primary) examiners have earned this "signatory authority" and can make an effort to find something in the application that is allowable and convince the applicant to take that subject matter in order to speed things along.
Ultimately, however, the main impact on quality for junior examiners is that someone else is signing their work, and this typically makes it harder to allow something than to reject it. Primary examiners are still spot-checked for quality purposes in their own work; when they sign a junior examiner's work, they will sometimes let a bad rejection go out the door because it teaches the junior examiner a lesson when the attorney shows them how they're wrong (it means a second non-final for zero counts).
What it comes down to is that most attorneys know how the game is played. There are options when an examiner gives you a bad rejection, and there are options when they keep giving you bad rejections. But I guess there are a few - like this guy - who don't understand this.
Actually, this is just a really really horrible summary.
What really happened: IP Nav had approached Rackspace, claiming that Rackspace was infringing some patents of an unnamed client of theirs. IP Nav told Rackspace that they would disclose neither the identity of their client nor the patents in question unless Rackspace signed an agreement not to sue without giving 30 days written notice that their side was terminating licensing negotiations. As it turns out, the agreement went both ways, with IP Nav agreeing to the same 30 day written notice provision. (Peculiarities of patent law are such that if a patentee approaches you about your potential infringement, you can sue them for a declaratory judgment of noninfringement in a federal district court of your choosing; IP Nav was trying to avoid this so they could choose the venue.)
Rackspace agreed to those terms, and found out the patents in question as well as the identity of the patent holder: Parallel Iron.
After some time had passed, licensing talks weren't really going anywhere, so IP Nav/Parallel Iron filed suit against Rackspace and others in federal district court in Delaware.... without providing 30 days written notice to Rackspace. So Rackspace - indicating that since IP Nav/Parallel Iron breached the contract not to sue, Rackspace was no longer bound by the agreement - filed suit in Texas (where Rackspace is HQed) for a declaratory judgment of noninfringement as well as damages for the breach of contract.
This is exactly the advice I was going to give. The $5-$10 price point already sounds pretty reasonable, so, as you mentioned, the other thing this guy needs is to make sure it's easy to buy. Paypal is good, for instance, because a lot of people have a Paypal account already. When I start having to create an account on some fly-by-night third party shopping cart website, it's a big disincentive to complete the purchase.
Photos now make up nearly 50% of news feed stories and are now front and center.
That's because Facebook doesn't let you share text-only status updates. Most of the crap on my Facebook feed would undoubtedly be just text (because it's easier than finding an image and captioning it) if they let you share text, but instead, it's about a hundred times as annoying.
Yes, I don't want to speak to a human. Humans are rude and unhelpful, and they don't need to give me askance looks when they see all the weird stuff that I'm buying at the drugstore.
But I don't want to speak to a computer either, because I don't like repeating myself. Just let me push buttons.
I'll readily admit to spending money on microtransactions that I thought were worthwhile. Turbine's games, for instance, at least have some value in some of the transactions. The issue is that EA is so bad at veiling their attempt to suck their customers dry.
Take, for instance, today's reports from The Verge on EA's Real Racing 3. In this game, you pay Real Money to repair damage to your car, and you pay More Real Money to make those repairs take less time.
What they essentially did was say, "Here's a game that totally looks awesome, but we made it suck so that you can pay us money to unsuck it." And worse yet, they did this in a game that already has ample opportunities for purchasing value-added content (e.g., new cars, new tracks, new music, special paintjobs, etc.).
I guess when they sued Zynga over that whole Sims ripoff, they started looking at what Zynga was doing and thought it was a wonderful idea, so then they just ripped off Zynga's entire business model and turned it to eleven.
Coble is well-known as Public Enemy #3 when it comes to copyright, with Mary Bono Mack being #2 and Howard Berman at #1. Fortunately for us, Mack and Berman both lost during the last election, but Coble is still a very dangerous man in this regard.
We can only hope that Zoe Lofgren will start a caucus in support of the rights of the public.
Actually, patent trolls are fundamentally an artifact of flaws in the law.
Take, for example, another (short-lived) attempt to exploit the law for unjustified gain: the (now amended) statute on false marking of patents.
The old law allowed anyone to file suit on behalf of the federal government when a product was falsely marked as being patented, and then the plaintiff would pocket half of the damages awarded. Numerous lawsuits were filed in cases such as products being sold that had been marked with a patent number during manufacture but where the patent had since expired. It was also unclear whether the damages to be awarded were per each falsely marked item or not, which led some defendants to settle rather than pay large attorneys' fees and risk an unknown judgment in court.
The flaw was that the law allowed a virtually risk-free suit to be filed with a potential for a huge payout. That's the same problem that leads to patent trolls and copyright trolls*, and it's one that is greatly mitigated by implementing a "loser pays" system.
(* Copyright trolling is further exacerbated by the statutory damages provision that allows for recovery of damages far out of proportion to the actual damages suffered. There is a "loser pays" provision in copyright law, but it is at the discretion of the court and is usually only applied in extraordinary circumstances.)
Low patent quality does play a role in patent trolling, but primarily by providing more ammunition for patent trolls to troll with. Speaking from experience, the USPTO examiners' hands are tied when it comes to patent quality (sideways swings and cat laser pointers aside), because case law and office policy don't give us the tools we need to say that a set of claims are so far removed from the disclosed invention as to be ridiculous; and in many cases, the relevant prior art is "in use" but the details are not published, which prevents us from making a prima facie case to sustain a prior art rejection.
Incremental changes might be a better idea. Two such changes, for starters:
Loser Pays. In Europe, when a patentee files an infringement lawsuit and loses, they are liable for the defendant's court costs and attorney's fees. In the US, unless the suit was frivolous (and this is a high bar to meet), each party pays its own costs.
Compulsory Licensing. Consumers lose when a patentee uses patents to exclude other innovation from the marketplace. Rather than allowing a patentee to exclude others from producing an infringing product, allow infringers to continue paying a reasonable licensing fee. Essentially FRAND, but covering all patents.
It actually expires 15 November 2013, 20 years from the filing date, because patents in force or pending as of the 1995 change in patent term get whichever term would be longer.
Keep in mind that the expiration of a patent doesn't immediately mean that you're in the clear. You can still be sued for infringement that occurred during the patent term, and they can file the suit anytime until the statute of limitations runs out (I think that's 3 years, but ask a lawyer).
This depends a lot on where they come from. Indian students mostly come here on their family's dime, which means that they can enroll without finding a faculty member to support them on a research grant. Chinese students, on the other hand, almost invariably require faculty financial support.
I won't miss highways... I always hated them, since they were big, inflexible, and a pain to plan in advance. They also didn't have enough benefit to be worth the hassle.
In that sense, art imitates life. There are lots of cities that today can't figure out where to build much-needed highways because the cities grew too fast and squeezed out all the available space.
As for their usefulness in SC4, they were pretty useless in vanilla, but some of the highway mods helped out a lot with that. You were still constrained to a grid, though, which tended to make interchanges turn into sprawling monstrosities. That's why I was really hoping that the next generation of SC would fix that, especially since CitiesXL was already doing curved roads a couple of years ago.
SimCity is worse... How exactly do you make a better version of SimCity 4?
You take your hints from the mod community, which did some awesome things with SC4 in terms of expanding road building, architecture, etc. You combine that with the new developments in automata simulation (everything in the new SimCity is a fully-simulated automaton), and you leverage increased computing power for a more accurate experience.
Instead, the new SimCity *reduces* player flexibility in these areas. You can build dirt roads up through avenues, but that's it. There are no highways in the city; the only highways depicted are in the region map, shown passing by the various city plots but not actually passing through them and not buildable by the player.
That's really the thing that kills me. It may be better than SimCity Societies, but it's still SimCity Lite, and I have no interest in going on a Sim Diet. So I guess it's back to SC4 and the various player mods.
Slashdot Mirror
Take all the subscribers, assume 20% growth in subscribers per year, factor in for interest, compounded continuously. Then take the resultant number and multiply by zero.
Oh, multiply by zero. Our bad.
- NASDAQ
The summary didn't do a good job of explaining the appellate court order in this case. The judges were essentially saying that the issue was not ripe for consideration at their level, because Hansmeier needs to make the request in district court and have it denied there first. He can appeal the district court's refusal to issue a stay, but only after that decision is actually made.
...the definition of extortion? For example:
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+18.2-59
http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2905.11
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&group=00001-01000&file=518-527
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/875
Seriously? And here I thought I was being clever. I bow to the master.
Wake me up when they move the keyboard on-die.
Clearly, you don't know how the count system works at the USPTO. Here's how it works:
For each case, you get a total of two counts. You get 1.25 counts for the first action on the merits in the case, which can be a non-final rejection or an allowance. You get 0.25 counts for an action that closes prosecution (which can be a final rejection or an allowance). And you get the remaining 0.5 counts when the case is disposed of (which can be from an abandonment, from writing an answer to an appeal brief, from an allowance, or from an RCE).
Some definitions: A final rejection is when, after a non-final rejection, you do another rejection where you either don't change any of the grounds of rejection or your new grounds of rejection are because the applicant amended the claims. An RCE is when, after a final rejection, the applicant wishes to continue prosecuting the application; a fee is due at this point.
So, allowing a case on first action gives you 2 counts right now. On the other hand, rejecting a case takes more time, but can lead to an RCE, after which the process of non-final/final rejections begins again with another 1.75 counts available (1.5 following second and subsequent RCEs); after RCE, prosecution tends to be much easier because the case is familiar and has hopefully already been well-searched.
Newer (junior) examiners don't have authority to allow cases on their own accord, so they rely more heavily on RCEs to make production, while older (primary) examiners have earned this "signatory authority" and can make an effort to find something in the application that is allowable and convince the applicant to take that subject matter in order to speed things along.
Ultimately, however, the main impact on quality for junior examiners is that someone else is signing their work, and this typically makes it harder to allow something than to reject it. Primary examiners are still spot-checked for quality purposes in their own work; when they sign a junior examiner's work, they will sometimes let a bad rejection go out the door because it teaches the junior examiner a lesson when the attorney shows them how they're wrong (it means a second non-final for zero counts).
What it comes down to is that most attorneys know how the game is played. There are options when an examiner gives you a bad rejection, and there are options when they keep giving you bad rejections. But I guess there are a few - like this guy - who don't understand this.
...the future is here:
http://www.google.com/patents/US20120040655
Actually, this is just a really really horrible summary.
What really happened: IP Nav had approached Rackspace, claiming that Rackspace was infringing some patents of an unnamed client of theirs. IP Nav told Rackspace that they would disclose neither the identity of their client nor the patents in question unless Rackspace signed an agreement not to sue without giving 30 days written notice that their side was terminating licensing negotiations. As it turns out, the agreement went both ways, with IP Nav agreeing to the same 30 day written notice provision. (Peculiarities of patent law are such that if a patentee approaches you about your potential infringement, you can sue them for a declaratory judgment of noninfringement in a federal district court of your choosing; IP Nav was trying to avoid this so they could choose the venue.)
Rackspace agreed to those terms, and found out the patents in question as well as the identity of the patent holder: Parallel Iron.
After some time had passed, licensing talks weren't really going anywhere, so IP Nav/Parallel Iron filed suit against Rackspace and others in federal district court in Delaware.... without providing 30 days written notice to Rackspace. So Rackspace - indicating that since IP Nav/Parallel Iron breached the contract not to sue, Rackspace was no longer bound by the agreement - filed suit in Texas (where Rackspace is HQed) for a declaratory judgment of noninfringement as well as damages for the breach of contract.
Ars has more details, including a link to Rackspace's complaint.
In fairness, it does actually say "Pikoro writes" in TFS.
Their best one was OMG PONIES, but they can't do that one ironically anymore because people actually like ponies now.
This is exactly the advice I was going to give. The $5-$10 price point already sounds pretty reasonable, so, as you mentioned, the other thing this guy needs is to make sure it's easy to buy. Paypal is good, for instance, because a lot of people have a Paypal account already. When I start having to create an account on some fly-by-night third party shopping cart website, it's a big disincentive to complete the purchase.
I picked up a few hundred shares at $12 ~6mo ago and sold them at $18.50
That's pretty good. Of course, I consider it a success when I can pick a stock and not lose 10% all in one day after the next earnings report.
Photos now make up nearly 50% of news feed stories and are now front and center.
That's because Facebook doesn't let you share text-only status updates. Most of the crap on my Facebook feed would undoubtedly be just text (because it's easier than finding an image and captioning it) if they let you share text, but instead, it's about a hundred times as annoying.
Yes, I don't want to speak to a human. Humans are rude and unhelpful, and they don't need to give me askance looks when they see all the weird stuff that I'm buying at the drugstore.
But I don't want to speak to a computer either, because I don't like repeating myself. Just let me push buttons.
I'll readily admit to spending money on microtransactions that I thought were worthwhile. Turbine's games, for instance, at least have some value in some of the transactions. The issue is that EA is so bad at veiling their attempt to suck their customers dry.
Take, for instance, today's reports from The Verge on EA's Real Racing 3. In this game, you pay Real Money to repair damage to your car, and you pay More Real Money to make those repairs take less time.
What they essentially did was say, "Here's a game that totally looks awesome, but we made it suck so that you can pay us money to unsuck it." And worse yet, they did this in a game that already has ample opportunities for purchasing value-added content (e.g., new cars, new tracks, new music, special paintjobs, etc.).
I guess when they sued Zynga over that whole Sims ripoff, they started looking at what Zynga was doing and thought it was a wonderful idea, so then they just ripped off Zynga's entire business model and turned it to eleven.
Coble is well-known as Public Enemy #3 when it comes to copyright, with Mary Bono Mack being #2 and Howard Berman at #1. Fortunately for us, Mack and Berman both lost during the last election, but Coble is still a very dangerous man in this regard.
We can only hope that Zoe Lofgren will start a caucus in support of the rights of the public.
Actually, patent trolls are fundamentally an artifact of flaws in the law.
Take, for example, another (short-lived) attempt to exploit the law for unjustified gain: the (now amended) statute on false marking of patents.
The old law allowed anyone to file suit on behalf of the federal government when a product was falsely marked as being patented, and then the plaintiff would pocket half of the damages awarded. Numerous lawsuits were filed in cases such as products being sold that had been marked with a patent number during manufacture but where the patent had since expired. It was also unclear whether the damages to be awarded were per each falsely marked item or not, which led some defendants to settle rather than pay large attorneys' fees and risk an unknown judgment in court.
The flaw was that the law allowed a virtually risk-free suit to be filed with a potential for a huge payout. That's the same problem that leads to patent trolls and copyright trolls*, and it's one that is greatly mitigated by implementing a "loser pays" system.
(* Copyright trolling is further exacerbated by the statutory damages provision that allows for recovery of damages far out of proportion to the actual damages suffered. There is a "loser pays" provision in copyright law, but it is at the discretion of the court and is usually only applied in extraordinary circumstances.)
Low patent quality does play a role in patent trolling, but primarily by providing more ammunition for patent trolls to troll with. Speaking from experience, the USPTO examiners' hands are tied when it comes to patent quality (sideways swings and cat laser pointers aside), because case law and office policy don't give us the tools we need to say that a set of claims are so far removed from the disclosed invention as to be ridiculous; and in many cases, the relevant prior art is "in use" but the details are not published, which prevents us from making a prima facie case to sustain a prior art rejection.
Wait, are they trying to discourage bad spelling and grammar, or encourage it?
Incremental changes might be a better idea. Two such changes, for starters:
Loser Pays. In Europe, when a patentee files an infringement lawsuit and loses, they are liable for the defendant's court costs and attorney's fees. In the US, unless the suit was frivolous (and this is a high bar to meet), each party pays its own costs.
Compulsory Licensing. Consumers lose when a patentee uses patents to exclude other innovation from the marketplace. Rather than allowing a patentee to exclude others from producing an infringing product, allow infringers to continue paying a reasonable licensing fee. Essentially FRAND, but covering all patents.
Wrong yourself. See 35 USC 154(c)(1) (as well as MPEP 2701). Nothing "special" has to happen, and I have no idea where you got that from.
It actually expires 15 November 2013, 20 years from the filing date, because patents in force or pending as of the 1995 change in patent term get whichever term would be longer.
Keep in mind that the expiration of a patent doesn't immediately mean that you're in the clear. You can still be sued for infringement that occurred during the patent term, and they can file the suit anytime until the statute of limitations runs out (I think that's 3 years, but ask a lawyer).
This depends a lot on where they come from. Indian students mostly come here on their family's dime, which means that they can enroll without finding a faculty member to support them on a research grant. Chinese students, on the other hand, almost invariably require faculty financial support.
I won't miss highways... I always hated them, since they were big, inflexible, and a pain to plan in advance. They also didn't have enough benefit to be worth the hassle.
In that sense, art imitates life. There are lots of cities that today can't figure out where to build much-needed highways because the cities grew too fast and squeezed out all the available space.
As for their usefulness in SC4, they were pretty useless in vanilla, but some of the highway mods helped out a lot with that. You were still constrained to a grid, though, which tended to make interchanges turn into sprawling monstrosities. That's why I was really hoping that the next generation of SC would fix that, especially since CitiesXL was already doing curved roads a couple of years ago.
SimCity is worse... How exactly do you make a better version of SimCity 4?
You take your hints from the mod community, which did some awesome things with SC4 in terms of expanding road building, architecture, etc. You combine that with the new developments in automata simulation (everything in the new SimCity is a fully-simulated automaton), and you leverage increased computing power for a more accurate experience.
Instead, the new SimCity *reduces* player flexibility in these areas. You can build dirt roads up through avenues, but that's it. There are no highways in the city; the only highways depicted are in the region map, shown passing by the various city plots but not actually passing through them and not buildable by the player.
That's really the thing that kills me. It may be better than SimCity Societies, but it's still SimCity Lite, and I have no interest in going on a Sim Diet. So I guess it's back to SC4 and the various player mods.
Suicide rate is higher in the US than in a Foxconn factory.
Who has time to commit suicide?