Good point. I always thought that you could not patent the thing at all, ever, if it had been published or used generally ("prior art") before applying for the patent. Maybe it is not so in the US.
If the invention has been published, for sale, general available, or publicly known for more than 1 year prior to filing the application for patent (US) the claims will be rejected on prior art.
HTML Applications (HTAs) appeared with Internet Explorer 4.0, which was introduced in 1997, I believe. Long before the Mozilla project started.
must be referring to something other than the patent. If they distributed and sold their patented invention in the US two years before filing an application the patent would not be valid. So either the patent is on something else or the USPTO screwed up.
That's a fair statement of the facts. However, by addressing Darl's argument directly and not explaining why even the basis of the argument is fundamentally flawed Linus is lending some credibility to the argument. But the fact is that even if we used Darl's definition of "financial gain" and not Linus' it would *still* be the case that Darl is wrong. Which is why Linus' comments kind of missed the point.
Just because the rights are limited to a duration does not mean it is not ownership (or like ownership). IANALY (IANAL Yet) but patents *are* considered property even though the monopoly is not eternal. How the law treats copyrights I don't know but the temporary monopoly argument is a non-starter.
Anyway the GPL does not "give things away", the copyright holder retains their copyright.
True. I wasn't making a statement about the GPL but rather the assumption that a profit motive *must* be involved for copyright to be valid (Lessig apparently read my post because his analysis was basically the same:)
We believe that the "progress of science" is best advanced by vigorously protecting the right of authors and inventors to earn a profit from their work.
What he seems to be arguing here is that it is unconstitutional to give inventions or works away without charging for them.
The FSF and Red Hat believe that the progress of science is best advanced by eliminating the profit motive from software development and insuring free, unrestricted public access to software innovations.
This passage (and the first one) seem to stem from a belief that there are forces out there trying to forcibly remove the right of inventors to receive patents and authors to maintain copyright over their works.
Does he not understand what "voluntary" means? No one is trying to take those rights away.
Furthermore, any other drive formatted with NTFS that I wanted to access, like a USB or Firewire hard drive, would be similarly difficult with a Linux machine.
I had a computer at work die recently. The motherboard popped a chips as it turns out. The problem was that it messed up the hard drive (NTFS) in the process. I couldn't get the drive to mount on any other NT machines so I tried running a Linux distro from CD. It mounted the drive without problem and was able to read most of the contents (some of it was still gone but I was able to recover my work from that day at least). So in this case Linux was better at handling NTFS than Win2K was.
Microsoft probably set the maximum at $250,000 because it would cost more than that for a company to litigate the issue.
Of course....I suppose that begs the question of whether Microsoft would actually file suit against a company when the most they could hope to gain would be $250k. Maybe they would just to "make an example" out of someone. Who knows....this all seems rather petty for a company with $40-50B in the bank.
These patents, as has been mentioned before, cover only long file names.
Based on my cursory reading of the patents: A device that merely formats a storage device so it can be used by an infringing writing device would not by itself infringe these patents.
Similarly, if a camera (for instance) does not contain logic capable of writing long file names it would also not infringe these patents.
Microsoft probably set the maximum at $250,000 because it would cost more than that for a company to litigate the issue.
The RIAA needs to be considered in a different light than its individual members. The proposed legislation would essentially allow the RIAA members to act together as a cartel legally. This isn't the same thing as allowing the RIAA members to buy each other or others without government review. Even though such reviews would be irrelevant in light of the legalized monopoly they would still likely continue. Kind of like the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.
Ok, now that I have read the rest of the comments let me be the first to ask for a -1 Redundant mod for this post.:)
Re:Odds are it -was- a commercial
on
iPod-Jacked
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
if this was an attractive, 30ish woman listening to techno in an urban area (fitting the marketing profile of 'hip huppie' to a T), approaching a 51 year old male cto... he's just been marketed to.
Consider that the gentleman in question already owned the product supposedly being marketed. That makes this angle very unlikely.
But this kind of thing is not without precedent. I remember hearing about a company marketing their gadget-with-a-camera product by hiring actors (a man and a woman) to ask strangers to take a picture of them with it - and then going into a sales pitch on the product.
Right, and medium-sized CRT or any-sized LCD is about 6" below my eye-line on a desk of appropriate height (so the keyboard is slightly higher than my elbows and my knees and waist are at right angles). Ergonomically the iMac is a dream because it lets you position the monitor in exactly the right spot above your desk.
After staring *down* at a monitor all day I can see why someone would refer to an appropriately positioned monitor as being "up".
The assumption, when you work for a company, is that you will not be attempting to compete with the company you work for. It's like doing freelance consulting in your spare time when you work for a consulting company during the day.
I understand the consulting argument but if you give it away are you competing?
I am most upset about the general trend towards increased prison sentences.
Is taking a camera into a movie theater something that is on par with accidently killing someone?
Is taking a camera into a movie thater enough of an offense that it is worth spending $150,000+ to incarcerate someone for 5 years, not to mention the costs to actually convict them?
This is the kind of criminal act that would be very unevenly applied. And the penalties seem very extreme compared to the seriousness of the offense.
Remember that these penalties often stack. If you film a movie, put it on the internet, and burn a copy for your friends they will probably get you on at least three offenses right there. That's the kind of thing that leads to outrageous prison term (that and stupid drug laws!)
Wouldn't shorter durations for technology patents increase revenue from fees? Or do they collect many times during the term of the patent? I would think that shorter durations / more fees would make their flow of revenue a little more even.
As I am studying for the patent bar right now I can answer that....
Maintenance fees (for utility patents) are due at 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years.
Given how many people are stilling running Windows 9x/ME plus all the people who will not upgrade to Longhorn from XP, not to mention those using *gasp* other operating systems it seems to me that focusing on the fancy new graphics features of Longhorn as a selling point is, well, missing the point.
Flash, as annoying as it is, just has such a huge cross platform installed base. I doubt ad agencies are going to jump and use something just because it is from Microsoft if they risk losing a huge number of potential customers.
But the iPod synching is a totally different animal (that renders even MY analogy a poor one in some respects).
Think about it for a minute. Let's say I have 100 songs in iTunes and a DIFFERENT 200 songs in MM. So I synch it with iTunes. my iPod now has the 100 songs on it from iTunes. If I later synch it with MM will my iPod have 300 songs on it? Likely not. MM will delete those 100 songs because they are not in MM anymore and any good synching program should delete the songs from the player that are no longer in the library (since they would likely have been deleted from the library and we don't want strays around). So you will now have the 200 songs from MM but none of the ones from iTunes. This is rather pointless.
So it makes total sense that only a SINGLE application on your system would be responsible for synching with your iPod. So it makes sense that Apple would make iTunes the synching software if you choose to install it.
Apple didn't do users any favors by burying these in Mail and Safari - that's not the obvious behavior for setting a preference, that's the Redmond behavior.
The point is that all email applications will be able to put those preferences inside their application preferences.
The reason they were "buried" was so they were no longer restricted to a pre-programmed list of default application types (email, browser, etc...). Now there can be an unlimited number of types and each application of that type can set them.
Slashdot Mirror
Good point. I always thought that you could not patent the thing at all, ever, if it had been published or used generally ("prior art") before applying for the patent. Maybe it is not so in the US.
If the invention has been published, for sale, general available, or publicly known for more than 1 year prior to filing the application for patent (US) the claims will be rejected on prior art.
Considering this:
the patent was filed May 20, 1999
it means this:
HTML Applications (HTAs) appeared with Internet Explorer 4.0, which was introduced in 1997, I believe. Long before the Mozilla project started.
must be referring to something other than the patent. If they distributed and sold their patented invention in the US two years before filing an application the patent would not be valid. So either the patent is on something else or the USPTO screwed up.
That's a fair statement of the facts. However, by addressing Darl's argument directly and not explaining why even the basis of the argument is fundamentally flawed Linus is lending some credibility to the argument. But the fact is that even if we used Darl's definition of "financial gain" and not Linus' it would *still* be the case that Darl is wrong. Which is why Linus' comments kind of missed the point.
Just because the rights are limited to a duration does not mean it is not ownership (or like ownership). IANALY (IANAL Yet) but patents *are* considered property even though the monopoly is not eternal. How the law treats copyrights I don't know but the temporary monopoly argument is a non-starter.
Anyway the GPL does not "give things away", the copyright holder retains their copyright.
:)
True. I wasn't making a statement about the GPL but rather the assumption that a profit motive *must* be involved for copyright to be valid (Lessig apparently read my post because his analysis was basically the same
We believe that the "progress of science" is best advanced by vigorously protecting the right of authors and inventors to earn a profit from their work.
What he seems to be arguing here is that it is unconstitutional to give inventions or works away without charging for them.
The FSF and Red Hat believe that the progress of science is best advanced by eliminating the profit motive from software development and insuring free, unrestricted public access to software innovations.
This passage (and the first one) seem to stem from a belief that there are forces out there trying to forcibly remove the right of inventors to receive patents and authors to maintain copyright over their works.
Does he not understand what "voluntary" means? No one is trying to take those rights away.
I thought it was more like "Walk over ya"
Furthermore, any other drive formatted with NTFS that I wanted to access, like a USB or Firewire hard drive, would be similarly difficult with a Linux machine.
I had a computer at work die recently. The motherboard popped a chips as it turns out. The problem was that it messed up the hard drive (NTFS) in the process. I couldn't get the drive to mount on any other NT machines so I tried running a Linux distro from CD. It mounted the drive without problem and was able to read most of the contents (some of it was still gone but I was able to recover my work from that day at least). So in this case Linux was better at handling NTFS than Win2K was.
Microsoft probably set the maximum at $250,000 because it would cost more than that for a company to litigate the issue.
Of course....I suppose that begs the question of whether Microsoft would actually file suit against a company when the most they could hope to gain would be $250k. Maybe they would just to "make an example" out of someone. Who knows....this all seems rather petty for a company with $40-50B in the bank.
These patents, as has been mentioned before, cover only long file names.
Based on my cursory reading of the patents:
A device that merely formats a storage device so it can be used by an infringing writing device would not by itself infringe these patents.
Similarly, if a camera (for instance) does not contain logic capable of writing long file names it would also not infringe these patents.
Microsoft probably set the maximum at $250,000 because it would cost more than that for a company to litigate the issue.
The RIAA also claims that its tactics are actually working -- to increase awareness and reduce online piracy
For some reason I tend to believe that it has simply reduced online piracy....in the places the RIAA can look for it
There are still plenty of other piracy options and I am sure most people have just migrated to those.
The RIAA needs to be considered in a different light than its individual members. The proposed legislation would essentially allow the RIAA members to act together as a cartel legally. This isn't the same thing as allowing the RIAA members to buy each other or others without government review. Even though such reviews would be irrelevant in light of the legalized monopoly they would still likely continue. Kind of like the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.
Ok, now that I have read the rest of the comments let me be the first to ask for a -1 Redundant mod for this post. :)
if this was an attractive, 30ish woman listening to techno in an urban area (fitting the marketing profile of 'hip huppie' to a T), approaching a 51 year old male cto ... he's just been marketed to.
Consider that the gentleman in question already owned the product supposedly being marketed. That makes this angle very unlikely.
But this kind of thing is not without precedent. I remember hearing about a company marketing their gadget-with-a-camera product by hiring actors (a man and a woman) to ask strangers to take a picture of them with it - and then going into a sales pitch on the product.
So is this the 2000's version of casual sex?
Adaptive Enterprise.....as explained by the .NET marketing team!
Right, and medium-sized CRT or any-sized LCD is about 6" below my eye-line on a desk of appropriate height (so the keyboard is slightly higher than my elbows and my knees and waist are at right angles). Ergonomically the iMac is a dream because it lets you position the monitor in exactly the right spot above your desk.
After staring *down* at a monitor all day I can see why someone would refer to an appropriately positioned monitor as being "up".
When I said "giving it away" I was referring more to the possibility of giving away free & GPLed software.
The assumption, when you work for a company, is that you will not be attempting to compete with the company you work for. It's like doing freelance consulting in your spare time when you work for a consulting company during the day.
I understand the consulting argument but if you give it away are you competing?
I am most upset about the general trend towards increased prison sentences.
Is taking a camera into a movie theater something that is on par with accidently killing someone?
Is taking a camera into a movie thater enough of an offense that it is worth spending $150,000+ to incarcerate someone for 5 years, not to mention the costs to actually convict them?
This is the kind of criminal act that would be very unevenly applied. And the penalties seem very extreme compared to the seriousness of the offense.
Remember that these penalties often stack. If you film a movie, put it on the internet, and burn a copy for your friends they will probably get you on at least three offenses right there. That's the kind of thing that leads to outrageous prison term (that and stupid drug laws!)
Wouldn't shorter durations for technology patents increase revenue from fees? Or do they collect many times during the term of the patent? I would think that shorter durations / more fees would make their flow of revenue a little more even.
As I am studying for the patent bar right now I can answer that....
Maintenance fees (for utility patents) are due at 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years.
I hope I got that right!
Given how many people are stilling running Windows 9x/ME plus all the people who will not upgrade to Longhorn from XP, not to mention those using *gasp* other operating systems it seems to me that focusing on the fancy new graphics features of Longhorn as a selling point is, well, missing the point.
Flash, as annoying as it is, just has such a huge cross platform installed base. I doubt ad agencies are going to jump and use something just because it is from Microsoft if they risk losing a huge number of potential customers.
But the iPod synching is a totally different animal (that renders even MY analogy a poor one in some respects).
Think about it for a minute. Let's say I have 100 songs in iTunes and a DIFFERENT 200 songs in MM. So I synch it with iTunes. my iPod now has the 100 songs on it from iTunes. If I later synch it with MM will my iPod have 300 songs on it? Likely not. MM will delete those 100 songs because they are not in MM anymore and any good synching program should delete the songs from the player that are no longer in the library (since they would likely have been deleted from the library and we don't want strays around). So you will now have the 200 songs from MM but none of the ones from iTunes. This is rather pointless.
So it makes total sense that only a SINGLE application on your system would be responsible for synching with your iPod. So it makes sense that Apple would make iTunes the synching software if you choose to install it.
this thread is full of people making poor analogies
Apple didn't do users any favors by burying these in Mail and Safari - that's not the obvious behavior for setting a preference, that's the Redmond behavior.
The point is that all email applications will be able to put those preferences inside their application preferences.
The reason they were "buried" was so they were no longer restricted to a pre-programmed list of default application types (email, browser, etc...). Now there can be an unlimited number of types and each application of that type can set them.
This is a good thing.