You're probably going to run into problems. Not because of the patent application, but because of the trademark. Amazon has a trademark application in on the term that sounds very similar to what you are using the term for.
The output of DJing is certainly music. The only difference is in the complexity of the input. But if we're going to go there, then we could just as easily argue that someone who didn't write their own songs is not a musician because they were just playing someone else's music. The bottom line is it takes talent to make good music and if someone else makes substantial modifications to a song so that it sounds very good but also very different, they should be considered a musician.
Contracts should bind those that agree to the contracts, not third parties
Why? Contracts are a man-made construct. We can make them apply to whomever we want. I believe tortious interference only applies when the third-party is aware of the contract. As such, it will never surprise anyone.
There are good arguments for getting rid of tortious interference. The primary one would have to be that it discourages efficient breach. But given your other comments I bet your opinion is based more on some sort of conservative "personal responsibility" voodoo.
Let me explain something. Tortious interference is when YOU, the third party, actively try to get someone to break their contract. If THEY come to you and volunteer information it's not tortious interference. You may still be breaking trade secret laws if you know (or should have known) that the information was confidential. However, it would not be tortious interference. You make it out to be the tools of the devil when in fact it is a very important part of contract law.
The difference with Wigand may be that he was covering up criminal activity by honoring his NDA.
Freedom of the press should not extend to: 1) actively soliciting people to break their non-disclosure contracts 2) publishing information which you actually know to be protected by a non-disclosure contract covering the person who gave you the information
There is no property right at stake here. The first place you start is tortious interference with a contractual duty. Then you get into trade secrets and it gets a bit more complicated.
This is a terrible day for anyone who thinks that being a "journalist" should give you a free ride to break any contract or trade secret laws you want in the name of "freedom".
Sure, Check out this case: Associated Industries of Missouri v. Lohman, 511 U.S. 641
In case you don't have access to Westlaw or LEXIS, the crux of the ruling was that the SC partically struck down a Missouri law because the use tax it charged was in some cases more than the tax it applied to in-state industry. Out-of-state use taxes are legal if they are not greater than in-state taxes (ie. if they do not discriminate against out-of-state sellers).
I agree with you. Unfortunately the Supreme Court doesn't agree with you. So unless the judicial landscape thanges, they are not violating the Commerce Clause.
Many states have what they call a "use" tax. In other words if you bring something into the state (and "use" it?) that was not purchased in the state you have to pay tax on the purchase price. This allows them to circumvent the Commerce Clause and effectively charge a sales tax on out-of-state purchases.
Keep in mind that there is a difference between "voluntary" and "unenforceable." They can't directly collect the sales tax (from downloads or from, say, book sales) but you are still technically breaking the law if you don't "voluntarily" pay the tax.
Of course I am still of the opinion that this violates the commerce clause.
There is no such thing as an "international patent." The closest you'll get is a patent covering a small group of countries (like the EU).
The Patent Cooperation Treaty does allow for initial review of patent applications. Those applications are then reviewed in each country's patent officer. A patent will be granted in each country. The purpose of the PCT is simply so you can easily get a priority date for prior art purposes and won't waste your time and money prosecuting a patent in a dozen countries if it turns out there is prior art.
The thing is though, that you could DOUBLE the price paid on AllOfMp3.com and give the rest to the artist. That would result in the artist getting paid about as much as they do now and the price would still be a tiny fraction of what you pay for the song on any US service.
Sure, the RIAA can sue. But that does not mean they would win.
Your analysis seems to result in this conclusion:
If a Russian person bought songs at AllOfMp3 and carried them into this country on a laptop - the next time they played those songs (thereby making a copy in RAM) they would be violating US copyright law.
Here's the problem: often the company that has the right to distribute something in the US is not the company that has the right to distribute that work overseas. So does that mean no one can bring any copyrighted works into the US unless they pay the US copyright holders? Or do they only need to have a "valid" copyright from overseas? If so, WHO decides whether that overseas copyright is valid? If the other government decides whether it is valid, then why am I breaking the law if I pay for a license overseas but don't pay the US license-holder.
Now, of course, this probably won't apply to AllOfMp3.com because you're not actually purchasing a license under Russian law. It's worth thinking about, though.
Vinci is a great game. To me, it plays a lot like History of the World but without HotW's problems (lack of balance, takes too long, plays poorly with certain numbers of players).
Another game I didn't see mentioned is Titan. It takes forever to play but it's a heck of a lot of fun.
Keep in mind that Shogun was reprinted under the name "Samurai Swords." You can still find some of these in hobby shops and the ebay prices are often pretty reasonable.
Why? Why should internet technology forever be frozen "pre-Javascript"? Is this a new form of the Amish tradition? Why not roll it back to pre-images? No site should require that my browser display images.
The only reason sites should restrict Javascript is popup ads. But so many people don't care about them that there's not exactly a big incentive to stop using it....
You're right, of course. I am not sure what I was thinking about.
Generally speaking, though, unless you are making commercial use of an invention, they're not going to be able to collect damages in excess of the lawyer's fees. And if you are making significant commercial use of Linux you're in a much different situation that is presumed in most of the posts in this thread.
Thanks for being polite about it, unlike that little a-hole anonymous coward.
Patent's don't work that way. Patents prohibit you from manufacturing or selling the patented invention. If you're just using one you got from someone else they can't come after you. They would have to go after the person who gave/sold it to you.
2. Issue an injunction to the end user to cease using their IP - immediately.
Courts issue injunctions, not patent-holders. What the patent-holder would do is send a cease-and-desist letter. If it is ignored then the patent-holder would have to go to court.
Study concludes A MS decides that A is bad and tells everone about it.
It's certainly disingenuous of them to change "potentially" to "does." But other than that they really aren't contradicting the study. This just falls under the category of "lies, damn lies, and statistics"
Paragraph 13 shows a pretty clear case of when a claim should be rejected for obviousness. If the same basic concept has already been invented and all you are doing is making a trivial combination, you don't deserve a patent.
Each claim stands on its own unless it makes reference to another claim. Claims 1, 15, and 21 are independant claims - that do stand on their own. The others are additional "inventions" that are narrower than the independantly claimed "inventions."
So if Claim 1 would cover something that C or another language already does, the claim is invalid and should be rejected.
Slashdot Mirror
You're probably going to run into problems. Not because of the patent application, but because of the trademark. Amazon has a trademark application in on the term that sounds very similar to what you are using the term for.
e =o n881u.2.1
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&stat
You may be looking at a name change soon. Good luck!
The output of DJing is certainly music. The only difference is in the complexity of the input. But if we're going to go there, then we could just as easily argue that someone who didn't write their own songs is not a musician because they were just playing someone else's music. The bottom line is it takes talent to make good music and if someone else makes substantial modifications to a song so that it sounds very good but also very different, they should be considered a musician.
That's like saying that an instrument isn't music because it is just taking a bunch of noises made by an instrument and mixing them.
Contracts should bind those that agree to the contracts, not third parties
Why? Contracts are a man-made construct. We can make them apply to whomever we want. I believe tortious interference only applies when the third-party is aware of the contract. As such, it will never surprise anyone.
There are good arguments for getting rid of tortious interference. The primary one would have to be that it discourages efficient breach. But given your other comments I bet your opinion is based more on some sort of conservative "personal responsibility" voodoo.
Let me explain something. Tortious interference is when YOU, the third party, actively try to get someone to break their contract. If THEY come to you and volunteer information it's not tortious interference. You may still be breaking trade secret laws if you know (or should have known) that the information was confidential. However, it would not be tortious interference. You make it out to be the tools of the devil when in fact it is a very important part of contract law.
The difference with Wigand may be that he was covering up criminal activity by honoring his NDA.
Freedom of the press should not extend to:
1) actively soliciting people to break their non-disclosure contracts
2) publishing information which you actually know to be protected by a non-disclosure contract covering the person who gave you the information
There is no property right at stake here. The first place you start is tortious interference with a contractual duty. Then you get into trade secrets and it gets a bit more complicated.
This is a terrible day for anyone who thinks that being a "journalist" should give you a free ride to break any contract or trade secret laws you want in the name of "freedom".
Can you provide any SC rulings on this issue?
Sure, Check out this case:
Associated Industries of Missouri v. Lohman, 511 U.S. 641
In case you don't have access to Westlaw or LEXIS, the crux of the ruling was that the SC partically struck down a Missouri law because the use tax it charged was in some cases more than the tax it applied to in-state industry. Out-of-state use taxes are legal if they are not greater than in-state taxes (ie. if they do not discriminate against out-of-state sellers).
I agree with you. Unfortunately the Supreme Court doesn't agree with you. So unless the judicial landscape thanges, they are not violating the Commerce Clause.
Many states have what they call a "use" tax. In other words if you bring something into the state (and "use" it?) that was not purchased in the state you have to pay tax on the purchase price. This allows them to circumvent the Commerce Clause and effectively charge a sales tax on out-of-state purchases.
Keep in mind that there is a difference between "voluntary" and "unenforceable." They can't directly collect the sales tax (from downloads or from, say, book sales) but you are still technically breaking the law if you don't "voluntarily" pay the tax.
Of course I am still of the opinion that this violates the commerce clause.
There is no such thing as an "international patent." The closest you'll get is a patent covering a small group of countries (like the EU).
The Patent Cooperation Treaty does allow for initial review of patent applications. Those applications are then reviewed in each country's patent officer. A patent will be granted in each country. The purpose of the PCT is simply so you can easily get a priority date for prior art purposes and won't waste your time and money prosecuting a patent in a dozen countries if it turns out there is prior art.
Maybe it's just late or I'm being senile, but doesn't this sound a teensy bit like kerberos?
The thing is though, that you could DOUBLE the price paid on AllOfMp3.com and give the rest to the artist. That would result in the artist getting paid about as much as they do now and the price would still be a tiny fraction of what you pay for the song on any US service.
Sure, the RIAA can sue. But that does not mean they would win.
Your analysis seems to result in this conclusion:
If a Russian person bought songs at AllOfMp3 and carried them into this country on a laptop - the next time they played those songs (thereby making a copy in RAM) they would be violating US copyright law.
Here's the problem: often the company that has the right to distribute something in the US is not the company that has the right to distribute that work overseas. So does that mean no one can bring any copyrighted works into the US unless they pay the US copyright holders? Or do they only need to have a "valid" copyright from overseas? If so, WHO decides whether that overseas copyright is valid? If the other government decides whether it is valid, then why am I breaking the law if I pay for a license overseas but don't pay the US license-holder.
Now, of course, this probably won't apply to AllOfMp3.com because you're not actually purchasing a license under Russian law. It's worth thinking about, though.
Vinci is a great game. To me, it plays a lot like History of the World but without HotW's problems (lack of balance, takes too long, plays poorly with certain numbers of players).
Another game I didn't see mentioned is Titan. It takes forever to play but it's a heck of a lot of fun.
Keep in mind that Shogun was reprinted under the name "Samurai Swords." You can still find some of these in hobby shops and the ebay prices are often pretty reasonable.
Actually, Microsoft has trademarked "Windows" by itself for many different uses. Check out uspto.gov sometime.
No site should *require* Javascript.
Why? Why should internet technology forever be frozen "pre-Javascript"? Is this a new form of the Amish tradition? Why not roll it back to pre-images? No site should require that my browser display images.
The only reason sites should restrict Javascript is popup ads. But so many people don't care about them that there's not exactly a big incentive to stop using it....
You're right, of course. I am not sure what I was thinking about.
Generally speaking, though, unless you are making commercial use of an invention, they're not going to be able to collect damages in excess of the lawyer's fees. And if you are making significant commercial use of Linux you're in a much different situation that is presumed in most of the posts in this thread.
Thanks for being polite about it, unlike that little a-hole anonymous coward.
...or maybe the patent owner will decide to:
1. Collect royalties directly from the end user
Patent's don't work that way. Patents prohibit you from manufacturing or selling the patented invention. If you're just using one you got from someone else they can't come after you. They would have to go after the person who gave/sold it to you.
2. Issue an injunction to the end user to cease using their IP - immediately.
Courts issue injunctions, not patent-holders. What the patent-holder would do is send a cease-and-desist letter. If it is ignored then the patent-holder would have to go to court.
No, really
It's more like:
Study concludes A
MS decides that A is bad and tells everone about it.
It's certainly disingenuous of them to change "potentially" to "does." But other than that they really aren't contradicting the study. This just falls under the category of "lies, damn lies, and statistics"
The patent only applies to the BASIC language.
Not true, since claim 1 stands on its own and makes no reference to BASIC.
Paragraph 13 shows a pretty clear case of when a claim should be rejected for obviousness. If the same basic concept has already been invented and all you are doing is making a trivial combination, you don't deserve a patent.
Each claim stands on its own unless it makes reference to another claim. Claims 1, 15, and 21 are independant claims - that do stand on their own. The others are additional "inventions" that are narrower than the independantly claimed "inventions."
So if Claim 1 would cover something that C or another language already does, the claim is invalid and should be rejected.
Are you suggesting that the government stop trying to aprehend and prosecute hard drug users/dealers?
The problem is that when the US government declares war on something the penalties grow to be grossly out of proportion with the actual harm caused.