To claim that Clarke wouldn't have deserved a patent for the idea on the basis that he could not plan it in specific technical detail does not make sense to me.
So you're actually saying that a science-fiction writer should be able to patent random ideas he has no idea how to implement, and then collect royalties if he's lucky enough for a team of scientists and engineers to actually invent it within the next 20 years?
(Hopefully, you didn't mean that you believe this yourself, but that the USA administration behaved as if it did. Similarly to how Tom Ridge doesn't believe there have been any terrorist attacks in the USA since 11/09/01, although I can count a few)
Do you think they should have A) Used it for a sensational fear mongering newspaper article or B) Pointed out to the airport staff that there was an obvious terrorist dry run going on under there very noses ?
Done and done. Be sure to read the original. That article caused quite a stir in the USA, providing ammunition for those people who can claim anything as factual as long as a journalist said so.
Yes it is. Have you even READ what Bin Laden wants? He wants Saudi Arabia to be freed of US military control. George W Bush has propagated the "destroy our way of life" lie. One can't win a war without learning the enemy's objective.
By the way, the last thing the Palistinians want is peace.
Both sides want peace. The peace that comes when the other side is completely gone (either dead, or no longer trying to re-enter the region). The Zionists can't kill the Arabs, because that'd cause trouble with the USA/Europe/Pakistan. (Pakistan would and could kill ALL Israelites in retaliation) The "Palestinians" can't kill the Zionists because the USA has given them too much defensive weaponry.
They patented a specific device, and amended it to more accurately reflect the technical details of that specific device.
Nintendo patent:
While the invention has been described in connection with what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited to the disclosed embodiment, but on the contrary, is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
Americans have lots of words for Indians and Native Americans, but all but two are very unkind.
And those two are completely inaccurate.
An Indian is anyone from the Asian subcontinent named "India". A "Native American" is anyone born on either continent of America.
What USA residents call "Native Americans" are actually "aboriginal Americans". "Aboriginal" means "predating colonialism", although today, unfortunately, people think it only applies to Australia.
Wrong. You're acting like patents only apply if the infringer is using every single claim. In reality, they can skip parts of a patent and still be found to violate it. In the "good old days", it wasn't like this, and someone who found an equivalent system using fewer parts could usurp the first patent. But those days are gone.
While the invention has been described in connection with what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited to the disclosed embodiment, but on the contrary, is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
That's boilerplate you can find on most patents today. See how they patented the "spirt" of an product, not just one way to implement it?
It really isn't the USPTOs job to weed through prior art and do all that investigative legwork.
No. It is their job, and they're not doing it. The USPTO should be applying at least a tiny level of common sense to these patent applications. Their mandate is to "promote the progress of science", and there's no way a kitchen-sink patent like this could possibly fit that goal. Even IF there were valid "inventions" in there, they'd be separate ideas- not one monstrous conglomeration of "stuff we can converge".
Patents should be about HOW, not WHAT. Arthur C Clarke didn't deserve a patent on the TV relay satellite, because although he was the first to think of it, he couldn't plan it in specific technical detail. Nintendo has done no better. And need I point out that Nintendo filed their patent 5 years ago, but STILL haven't built a machine embodying it (or specific blueprints for that machine).
I understand that patent examiners follow restrictive rules, so that individually they can argue "Not my job". But those rules are made by the USPTO, which is truely shirking it's public responsibility by being too lazy/corporate-friendly.
While I have no doubt you have excellent grounds for this claim, would it be unreasonable to ask you to cite your source?
If you're *really* interested in the subject, go to primary sources. Just reading over Ada's most famous document creates the impression that she was recording the ideas of others.
For much more detail, you can read many other materials in Enchantress of Numbers. Amusingly, the Amazon.com review for that book complains it had no detail on "Ada's Bernoulli program"... of course it didn't, she wrote no such program.
Depending on how you interpret history, you could decide that Ada was a publicist, an inspiration, or even a programmer herself. But if she was a programmer (a big IF, in my opinion), then she still wasn't the "first programmer", for Babbage (and male friends) had written programs years before Ada met him.
the only reason EULAs might hold any water is because of copyright law. The theory is that, in order to run a piece of software, you must *copy* that software in some fashion
Playing a CD copies it into a memory buffer in your discman... and to read a book, you copy it onto the inside of your eyeball...
The theory you describe doesn't apply in the USA. It works in the United Kingdom and Australia, but most other modern nations have considered "Copies necessary to use the work in the most normal way" to be Fair Use exceptions to copyright law.
The copyright holder cannot stop you from installing CD-ROMs to hard disk, or loading from hard disk to RAM, because those steps are the normal way to use the material.
Without this, what gives you any right to use the software?
You've internalized a lie spread by the commercial software-publication industry.
Once you have a program in your possession, you are allowed to run it. The copyright holder has no legal way to forbid you to execute a program. Earlier, he could've stopped you from taking a copy of the program- but once that's done, his control is over (unless you try to make another copy).
This comment is copyright to me- but once I allow you to get a copy in your web-browser window, I have no way to stop you from reading it. I can try: "Attention! By reading the next sentence of this comment, you agree to mail me $500!". But that silly "License Agreement" won't stand up in court.
SCO's original argument was that "the GPL is invalid, developers are effectively putting their work into the Public Domain".
But even if SCO is right about that, they still lose! Because that interpretation would've mean that THEY put Linux into the public domain (when they released it under GPL). So even if they win this, their whole $699 Linux License business model is dead.
I thought the whole point of a demo was to get wide distribution and a positive impression of your product.
Uh, no. Demos ideally shouldn't be trying for a "positive impression". First you should have a good product, and then a demo to give an accurate impression of the product- including how hard it is to get installed right on a PC.
By including the copy protection in the demos, the game publisher is upholding honesty; potential customers who dislike intrusive copy-protection are warned off from buying by their demo experience.
(Other motivations to include this kind of code in demos includes the abililty to turn off the demo after a year or so. If the demo is so much fun that people play it and don't even bother paying for the game, a publisher might want that ability)
Because she was rich and paid Babbage's rent, he allowed her publish some of his programs under her own name. But the only way she "wrote" them is in the sense of a secretary taking transcription. Possibly you could say "Ada Byron was the first tech writer"...
(In the 1970s her "first programmer" myth was revived as a push to get girls into technology studies)
It is completely unacceptable that a demo could install this dubious software
A game demo is supposed to allow a potential customer to learn how well the software will run on her computer. If the game includes obstructive copy-protection, the demo should too; otherwise it's false advertising!
By using the weird driver in the demo, at least buyers get a warning before PAYING for the thing.
So some of the traditional MMORPG crowd will go away; some of the competitive FPS crowd will join in.
Very difficult from a network hardware perspective.
Today, FPS games servers are run by numerous independent operators... which is necessary to get wide distribution for low pings. But MMORPGs are run by a handful of server-farms owned by the game publisher. Many players will have poor latency to the server, but it doesn't matter, since the skill-less game interface doesn't burden them with quick reactions.
Combining the game types would require solving the hardest problems of both network types. You can't allow volunteers to host their own servers, so you must buy servers near every city-full of customers. Expensive, and for what?
the sad part is that the player knowledge is all too often how to exploit the holes created by poorly thought out features and sometimes badly tested implementation.
That's an important point. We've seen the complaint repeated: "Success in an MMORPG isn't about skill or brains- it's all just putting in the hours".
But making a game that tests player skill/intellect would require even more skill/intellect from the developer. Otherwise, it's very HARD to make a fair game which has ways for a smart player to do better, without accidently creating an exploit (or just a limited number of optimal tactics, leaving most content/char-classes unutilized).
The only real solution to this is to decrease the player:developer ratio. That would mean that knowledge of exploits and walkthroughs will be less potentially helpful, because you are more likely to be a trailblazer, not the 9012th person to steal the Red Dragon's Crown. But of course, increasing developer hours would cut into profits, and we can't have that!
That's what Romero wanted the original Quake to be... and that's part of why he left idsoftware.
There was a lot of net speculation on how the persistent FPS world would work... much of it completely outlandish.
Someone needs to come up with something that has the fun eye candy of CoH, but adds "player skill" to the "character skill".
It might work, although there are some serious downsides, from a gameplay-theory perspective. Hybrid ideas often do poorly, because each individual player usually prefers one side or the other, and can choose to just go play a "pure" game, rather than this mix.
RTCW: Enemy Territory is a useful example of blending character skill and player skill. It's team FPS deathmatch, but you get XP for each kill, which eventually boosts your character's abilities (health, damage, speed). It's non-persistent, though, so you start over from zero on each reconnect.
The effect is twofold: Players that have been online for 30+ minutes are encouraged to keep playing, because they've now collected skills. And newly-joined players have trouble beating enhanced ones, even if they're much more skilled.
But make player skill ACTUALLY count.
Game designers have little economic incentive to do this. They want money, which comes from subscribers. If a wealthy 28-year-old with a high-level Wizard is beaten by a newbie teenager's Ninja because of perfect evasive timing, the company might lose a lucrative customer.
What counts today is dedication / "addiction". And it's obvious that the publisher's motivation is to keep it like this.
One final note: MMO games tend to get far more complaints about the "level grind" than any other style of RPG.
Because, unlike other computerized RPGs, they have no ending. Think of the name "Everquest".
Most RPGs have some level-grind... but then you beat all the quests, watch all the videos, rescue the princess, and the game is OVER. But MMORPGs aren't allowed to be over- so once you've exhausted the custom-content, the only option is more grinding.
AC says: The scammer could conceivably be brought to justice according to the law. EULAs aren't the law.
A clickthrough or shrinkwrap EULA for software is legally very weak, and can probably be defeated in court by the right high-priced lawyer. But the EULA for an online service is very different. If you have an ongoing monthly payment, then the license is far stronger.
But in this case, it doesn't matter. No real property was ever exchanged... not just because the EULA said it's not real, but because it's simply not real. If there was no EULA, there'd still be no case.
The games require just enough twitch to make socializing difficult.
On the other hand, are you really supposed to be socializing, or playing a game? Some online games which don't require constant button-pushing evolve to be "a chatroom with monsters", where players discuss completely irrelevant topics as they play. Anyone who chats too much about the game is branded a newbie (because if you think you need to discuss something, it demonstrates that you haven't played it enough to already know what everyone needs to do)
I keep thinking that the games need to have a queue for commands, much like The Sims. I can tell the program, "attack, parry, dodge, thrust, heal self,"
You might like queueing, but the game developers intentionally disallow it. Some of them will ban you for using 3rd-party software allowing macroing of commands.
You see, queueing commands reveals to the player how uninvolving the game actually is. Forcing you to click on the monster again for each new axe-swing keeps your attention on the game, creating the impression of "playing". Allowing the character to go on autopilot as you sit back and type chat commands would also give him the freedom to get a sandwich or read slashdot... or even find something else more fun to do. The profit-minded game company can't risk you slipping away if the losen the chains.
Correct. And now the football season is over, and the players are on the yearly vacation. It's important for their training schedules that they have this time off to relax.
The winner, Brazil, did not qualify to the Olympics.
Wrong. Whole countries don't play football. The Brazilian players that won Copa America didn't even try to enter the Olympics. None of the good ones did.
The Olympic football competition is designed to be a weakened tournament with age limits
Which reinforces my point that Iraq's accomplishment isn't great, because actually good teams were excluded.
Having said that Portugal fielded Cristiano Ronaldo, on e of ther best players in the past Euro Cup in
Uh, Ronaldo was the ONLY player on Portugal's Olympic team to have been in the Euro Cup. All the rest of their Olympic contenders weren't good enough to be in the real championship earlier.
If Iraq had played against the true Portugese team, their victory would be worth something. But all they beat were 2nd-string substitutes.
Slashdot Mirror
To claim that Clarke wouldn't have deserved a patent for the idea on the basis that he could not plan it in specific technical detail does not make sense to me.
So you're actually saying that a science-fiction writer should be able to patent random ideas he has no idea how to implement, and then collect royalties if he's lucky enough for a team of scientists and engineers to actually invent it within the next 20 years?
Does that "promote progress of science" ?
Before 9/11, the crux of security checks was finding drugs, not stopping terror, because terror had never happened on American soil.
That is such a horrible lie, I can't even decide where to begin.
(Hopefully, you didn't mean that you believe this yourself, but that the USA administration behaved as if it did. Similarly to how Tom Ridge doesn't believe there have been any terrorist attacks in the USA since 11/09/01, although I can count a few)
Do you think they should have A) Used it for a sensational fear mongering newspaper article or B) Pointed out to the airport staff that there was an obvious terrorist dry run going on under there very noses ?
Done and done. Be sure to read the original. That article caused quite a stir in the USA, providing ammunition for those people who can claim anything as factual as long as a journalist said so.
It is not a war for 'independence' or 'freedom.'
Yes it is. Have you even READ what Bin Laden wants? He wants Saudi Arabia to be freed of US military control.
George W Bush has propagated the "destroy our way of life" lie. One can't win a war without learning the enemy's objective.
By the way, the last thing the Palistinians want is peace.
Both sides want peace. The peace that comes when the other side is completely gone (either dead, or no longer trying to re-enter the region). The Zionists can't kill the Arabs, because that'd cause trouble with the USA/Europe/Pakistan. (Pakistan would and could kill ALL Israelites in retaliation) The "Palestinians" can't kill the Zionists because the USA has given them too much defensive weaponry.
Nintendo patent:
Minna Kirai:
Americans have lots of words for Indians and Native Americans, but all but two are very unkind.
And those two are completely inaccurate.
An Indian is anyone from the Asian subcontinent named "India".
A "Native American" is anyone born on either continent of America.
What USA residents call "Native Americans" are actually "aboriginal Americans". "Aboriginal" means "predating colonialism", although today, unfortunately, people think it only applies to Australia.
Wrong. You're acting like patents only apply if the infringer is using every single claim. In reality, they can skip parts of a patent and still be found to violate it. In the "good old days", it wasn't like this, and someone who found an equivalent system using fewer parts could usurp the first patent. But those days are gone.
Just read the last paragraph of Nintendo's patent:
While the invention has been described in connection with what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited to the disclosed embodiment, but on the contrary, is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
That's boilerplate you can find on most patents today. See how they patented the "spirt" of an product, not just one way to implement it?
It really isn't the USPTOs job to weed through prior art and do all that investigative legwork.
No. It is their job, and they're not doing it. The USPTO should be applying at least a tiny level of common sense to these patent applications. Their mandate is to "promote the progress of science", and there's no way a kitchen-sink patent like this could possibly fit that goal. Even IF there were valid "inventions" in there, they'd be separate ideas- not one monstrous conglomeration of "stuff we can converge".
Patents should be about HOW, not WHAT. Arthur C Clarke didn't deserve a patent on the TV relay satellite, because although he was the first to think of it, he couldn't plan it in specific technical detail. Nintendo has done no better. And need I point out that Nintendo filed their patent 5 years ago, but STILL haven't built a machine embodying it (or specific blueprints for that machine).
I understand that patent examiners follow restrictive rules, so that individually they can argue "Not my job". But those rules are made by the USPTO, which is truely shirking it's public responsibility by being too lazy/corporate-friendly.
While I have no doubt you have excellent grounds for this claim, would it be unreasonable to ask you to cite your source?
If you're *really* interested in the subject, go to primary sources. Just reading over Ada's most famous document creates the impression that she was recording the ideas of others.
For much more detail, you can read many other materials in Enchantress of Numbers. Amusingly, the Amazon.com review for that book complains it had no detail on "Ada's Bernoulli program"... of course it didn't, she wrote no such program.
Depending on how you interpret history, you could decide that Ada was a publicist, an inspiration, or even a programmer herself. But if she was a programmer (a big IF, in my opinion), then she still wasn't the "first programmer", for Babbage (and male friends) had written programs years before Ada met him.
the only reason EULAs might hold any water is because of copyright law. The theory is that, in order to run a piece of software, you must *copy* that software in some fashion
Playing a CD copies it into a memory buffer in your discman... and to read a book, you copy it onto the inside of your eyeball...
The theory you describe doesn't apply in the USA. It works in the United Kingdom and Australia, but most other modern nations have considered "Copies necessary to use the work in the most normal way" to be Fair Use exceptions to copyright law.
The copyright holder cannot stop you from installing CD-ROMs to hard disk, or loading from hard disk to RAM, because those steps are the normal way to use the material.
Without this, what gives you any right to use the software?
You've internalized a lie spread by the commercial software-publication industry.
Once you have a program in your possession, you are allowed to run it. The copyright holder has no legal way to forbid you to execute a program. Earlier, he could've stopped you from taking a copy of the program- but once that's done, his control is over (unless you try to make another copy).
This comment is copyright to me- but once I allow you to get a copy in your web-browser window, I have no way to stop you from reading it. I can try: "Attention! By reading the next sentence of this comment, you agree to mail me $500!". But that silly "License Agreement" won't stand up in court.
SCO's original argument was that "the GPL is invalid, developers are effectively putting their work into the Public Domain".
But even if SCO is right about that, they still lose! Because that interpretation would've mean that THEY put Linux into the public domain (when they released it under GPL). So even if they win this, their whole $699 Linux License business model is dead.
I thought the whole point of a demo was to get wide distribution and a positive impression of your product.
Uh, no. Demos ideally shouldn't be trying for a "positive impression". First you should have a good product, and then a demo to give an accurate impression of the product- including how hard it is to get installed right on a PC.
By including the copy protection in the demos, the game publisher is upholding honesty; potential customers who dislike intrusive copy-protection are warned off from buying by their demo experience.
(Other motivations to include this kind of code in demos includes the abililty to turn off the demo after a year or so. If the demo is so much fun that people play it and don't even bother paying for the game, a publisher might want that ability)
She wrote programs
No. She never wrote a program.
Because she was rich and paid Babbage's rent, he allowed her publish some of his programs under her own name. But the only way she "wrote" them is in the sense of a secretary taking transcription. Possibly you could say "Ada Byron was the first tech writer"...
(In the 1970s her "first programmer" myth was revived as a push to get girls into technology studies)
It is completely unacceptable that a demo could install this dubious software
A game demo is supposed to allow a potential customer to learn how well the software will run on her computer. If the game includes obstructive copy-protection, the demo should too; otherwise it's false advertising!
By using the weird driver in the demo, at least buyers get a warning before PAYING for the thing.
If you knew your history, you'd know a woman likely *wrote* this device driver...
If you knew history, you wouldn't say that.
Ada Byron was NOT a programmer.
So some of the traditional MMORPG crowd will go away; some of the competitive FPS crowd will join in.
Very difficult from a network hardware perspective.
Today, FPS games servers are run by numerous independent operators... which is necessary to get wide distribution for low pings. But MMORPGs are run by a handful of server-farms owned by the game publisher. Many players will have poor latency to the server, but it doesn't matter, since the skill-less game interface doesn't burden them with quick reactions.
Combining the game types would require solving the hardest problems of both network types. You can't allow volunteers to host their own servers, so you must buy servers near every city-full of customers. Expensive, and for what?
the sad part is that the player knowledge is all too often how to exploit the holes created by poorly thought out features and sometimes badly tested implementation.
That's an important point. We've seen the complaint repeated: "Success in an MMORPG isn't about skill or brains- it's all just putting in the hours".
But making a game that tests player skill/intellect would require even more skill/intellect from the developer. Otherwise, it's very HARD to make a fair game which has ways for a smart player to do better, without accidently creating an exploit (or just a limited number of optimal tactics, leaving most content/char-classes unutilized).
The only real solution to this is to decrease the player:developer ratio. That would mean that knowledge of exploits and walkthroughs will be less potentially helpful, because you are more likely to be a trailblazer, not the 9012th person to steal the Red Dragon's Crown. But of course, increasing developer hours would cut into profits, and we can't have that!
Know what I'd sign up for? Q3 as an RPG.
That's what Romero wanted the original Quake to be... and that's part of why he left idsoftware.
There was a lot of net speculation on how the persistent FPS world would work... much of it completely outlandish.
Someone needs to come up with something that has the fun eye candy of CoH, but adds "player skill" to the "character skill".
It might work, although there are some serious downsides, from a gameplay-theory perspective. Hybrid ideas often do poorly, because each individual player usually prefers one side or the other, and can choose to just go play a "pure" game, rather than this mix.
RTCW: Enemy Territory is a useful example of blending character skill and player skill. It's team FPS deathmatch, but you get XP for each kill, which eventually boosts your character's abilities (health, damage, speed). It's non-persistent, though, so you start over from zero on each reconnect.
The effect is twofold: Players that have been online for 30+ minutes are encouraged to keep playing, because they've now collected skills. And newly-joined players have trouble beating enhanced ones, even if they're much more skilled.
But make player skill ACTUALLY count.
Game designers have little economic incentive to do this. They want money, which comes from subscribers. If a wealthy 28-year-old with a high-level Wizard is beaten by a newbie teenager's Ninja because of perfect evasive timing, the company might lose a lucrative customer.
What counts today is dedication / "addiction". And it's obvious that the publisher's motivation is to keep it like this.
One final note: MMO games tend to get far more complaints about the "level grind" than any other style of RPG.
Because, unlike other computerized RPGs, they have no ending. Think of the name "Everquest".
Most RPGs have some level-grind... but then you beat all the quests, watch all the videos, rescue the princess, and the game is OVER. But MMORPGs aren't allowed to be over- so once you've exhausted the custom-content, the only option is more grinding.
AC says:
The scammer could conceivably be brought to justice according to the law. EULAs aren't the law.
A clickthrough or shrinkwrap EULA for software is legally very weak, and can probably be defeated in court by the right high-priced lawyer. But the EULA for an online service is very different. If you have an ongoing monthly payment, then the license is far stronger.
But in this case, it doesn't matter. No real property was ever exchanged... not just because the EULA said it's not real, but because it's simply not real. If there was no EULA, there'd still be no case.
10 is another WW2 shooter, but one of the better ones, and one of the firs successful ones
Bzzt! The first successful WW2 shooter was published twelve years ago.
The games require just enough twitch to make socializing difficult.
On the other hand, are you really supposed to be socializing, or playing a game? Some online games which don't require constant button-pushing evolve to be "a chatroom with monsters", where players discuss completely irrelevant topics as they play. Anyone who chats too much about the game is branded a newbie (because if you think you need to discuss something, it demonstrates that you haven't played it enough to already know what everyone needs to do)
I keep thinking that the games need to have a queue for commands, much like The Sims. I can tell the program, "attack, parry, dodge, thrust, heal self,"
You might like queueing, but the game developers intentionally disallow it. Some of them will ban you for using 3rd-party software allowing macroing of commands.
You see, queueing commands reveals to the player how uninvolving the game actually is. Forcing you to click on the monster again for each new axe-swing keeps your attention on the game, creating the impression of "playing". Allowing the character to go on autopilot as you sit back and type chat commands would also give him the freedom to get a sandwich or read slashdot... or even find something else more fun to do. The profit-minded game company can't risk you slipping away if the losen the chains.
Diablo is a good example of this.
(none of whom actually served with Kerry; everyone still living who actually did serve with him supports his story)
Wrong. One (1) of them did serve with Kerry, and doesn't support him. The guy is a staunch Republican, of course.
Steve Gardner.
Copa America finished 3 weeks ago.
Correct. And now the football season is over, and the players are on the yearly vacation. It's important for their training schedules that they have this time off to relax.
The winner, Brazil, did not qualify to the Olympics.
Wrong. Whole countries don't play football. The Brazilian players that won Copa America didn't even try to enter the Olympics. None of the good ones did.
The Olympic football competition is designed to be a weakened tournament with age limits
Which reinforces my point that Iraq's accomplishment isn't great, because actually good teams were excluded.
Having said that Portugal fielded Cristiano Ronaldo, on e of ther best players in the past Euro Cup in
Uh, Ronaldo was the ONLY player on Portugal's Olympic team to have been in the Euro Cup. All the rest of their Olympic contenders weren't good enough to be in the real championship earlier.
If Iraq had played against the true Portugese team, their victory would be worth something. But all they beat were 2nd-string substitutes.