At the company where I work, most of the patents are only used defensively
I think that what offends employees is when a company pays a pittance to an employee for filing the patent, but years later make a huge windfall profit out of suing others. Partial ownership of any such profits or partial ownership in any profits made through selling the patent to someone else would take away this issue. As long as there is no cash gain from the patent, the partial owner does not gain from it.
The scheme would take a couple of other provisions: a royalty free, perpetual license granted to the employer (for us of the patent in its products), valid unless there was a change of control of the company. This would also the company to use the patent, and would allow the employee to profit should the patent become so valuable that the company was bought to get control of the patent.
It the company does successfully use the patent defensively, the employee should get some kind of bonus out of it. The patent may have just saved the company from shutting down, so why not some kind of bonus?
Some companies have made huge amounts of money off a single patent. Perhaps companies could offer employees the option to take some ownership stake in the patent (5%?), provided that they grant the company full rights to use the patent -- with the intent that, if the company makes a large sum of money by selling or licensing the patent, the employee will also benefit from this.
I said "the vast majority of those packets stay within the ISPs private network", because I acknowledge that you can usually access pop servers from outside the private network. (That's how I continued to read my email while evacuated for Katrina.)
And no-one uses POP servers other than their ISP's right? Oh, but you can also access Yahoo mail through unencrypted POP, and there are perhaps hundreds of thousands of businesses whose users check their email over unencrypted POP.
So, we have:
* Users POPing their email from their normal ISP over unencrypted WIFI connections
* Users POP-ing their non-ISP hosted email over unencrypted sessions.
I suspect that the proportion of POP email that travel ONLY over a single ISP's private network is far lower than you think.
Just go to your local coffee shop with open wireless and sniff the wireless there.
But that's not within the ISP's network.
Exactly. You were the one who made the original assertion about POP packets remaining within the ISP's "private" network. I pointed out that many people use unencrypted wireless sessions at public locations, which tends to refute your point.
Modern practice, virtually all passwords when transmitted on the wire are protected through encryption
I don't agree. Maybe for webmail and other web-based authentication schemes, but there are millions of people who use unencrypted POP and whose POP credentials are sent in clear text.
The only thing this does is require the RIAA to prove distribution for the monetary value of the punishment,
This ruling also implies that the RIAA will have to prove actual distribution, not just an offer to distribute. So, it is possible that the RIAA could only show actual distribution of one song, which would reduce the damages considerably.
You can check out the press release here, and confirm that the Commonwealth of Kentucky does in fact now 'own' these domain names by performing a WHOIS search on any of the domains listed here."
If I recall correctly, the last time I traveled to USA, I had to fill a form stating that the intent of my travel was not to kill the US president. People who create such forms would probably fund a research on a "suspicious person detector"
IMHO, the USCIS (formerly called the INS) asks all kinds of unneccessary questions so that, if they ever do want you out fo the country, this can be quickly and easily achieved because you "lied to an INS agent" (the chances are that you will have made a mistake somwhere on one of those forms). For example, with an application for citizenship, you have to detail all travel outside the US since getting a green card. The actual requirement for citizenship is that you can show 5 unbroken years of residence. Theoretically, if you get the date wrong when documenting one of those trips outside the US 10 or 20 years ago, that may be a reason to revoke your citizenship and kick you out of the US.
Voting by mail is ok, as long as you put the ballot in a sealed blank envelope and at the other side people check if the envelope is really blank and closed.
I don't agree that voting by mail should be allowed for anything except exceptional circumstances. When voting by mail, people can sell their votes, or they can be coerced to vote according to someone else's wishes. Imagine a family where the dominant patriarch or matriarch gathers up the ballots and instructs each person in the family how to vote, then seals the ballots and mails them.
When someone does this sort of hacking/eavesdropping/snooping to a government official, it's called "a shocking invasion of...privacy and a violation of law."
So, you are comparing your experience with overall running MPG (I assume tank-full to tank-full) against running 100 miles along a freeway at 55mph? Yeah, let's compare apples to oranges -- that will give useful figures.
Instead, why not look at the CAFE requirements, which have shown rather more modest improvements?
Car engines have made huge improvements in efficiency, but much of those gains have been lost by increasing the overall weight of cars. Compare a modern Mini to the weight of the original -- Old: 1,360 lb, New: 2496 lb.
Interoperability - as much as it pains you to acknowledge it, most of the world still runs Windows. In some places it still requires Windows. Until that changes my statement remains true.
That is the language of defeatism, not, as you probably think, pragmatism.
Do these kids really need to exchange powerpoint presentations with customers and have them rendered exactly as the sender expects (something that PP doesn't actually do, anyway)?
The point is that, with a large enough pool of these machines, running Linux/Sugar/OpenOffice, etc., all that matters is interoperability amongst themselves.
Yes, with XP on the machines, they can learn to use XP. Now, think back 15 years. Would it really help that someone learned to run Windows 3.x now that they are running Vista? Kids will be much better prepared if they see computers as a flexible tool that they are comfortable with and are prepared to investigate it themselves than if they are locked into a particular OS. That does not make Linux/Sugar better than XP, but also the reverse is also true: XP is no better than Linux/Sugar fro this purpose. Yet, for the advanced kids, the ability to change the code and understand programming is a fantastic learning opportunity that simply won't be there under XP for these kids.
My front plate is stolen regularly... It is a hassle, I have to go to the DMV and order replacements then show up at the city office to get a sign off of my fix-it ticket once the plate is installed.
You get tickets for missing front plates? I have been driving a car for 11 years without a front plate and I have not got a single ticket in that time.
how international treaties can be signed, thus becoming laws which supersede the most supreme law of the country (constitution, charter, bill of rights etc.)
I believe that the Supremes ruled some (many?) years past that treaties cannot be used as an end-run around the constitution.
I doubt that many people in Europe will be astonished by a diesel that will do 65MPG. Even if those gallons are US gallons (approx 5/6 of an Imperial gallon), it's still not much greater than small diesel cars have achieved for a long time.
I'm sure Dell has complete control of the design of their hardware, where every nut and bolt goes. And the specifications will no doubt be very detailed, if my experience in the print industry's any indication.
Design separated from manufacturing is not a good recipe for improving quality or driving down cost. My guess is that over time the design expertise will migrate to the outsourced factories.
If that is true, they are responsible for the content they serve up.
They can't be nailed because of provisions in the DMCA (or other laws, I am not sure which). Those provisions don't require them to act like a common carrier.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that what offends employees is when a company pays a pittance to an employee for filing the patent, but years later make a huge windfall profit out of suing others. Partial ownership of any such profits or partial ownership in any profits made through selling the patent to someone else would take away this issue. As long as there is no cash gain from the patent, the partial owner does not gain from it.
The scheme would take a couple of other provisions: a royalty free, perpetual license granted to the employer (for us of the patent in its products), valid unless there was a change of control of the company. This would also the company to use the patent, and would allow the employee to profit should the patent become so valuable that the company was bought to get control of the patent.
It the company does successfully use the patent defensively, the employee should get some kind of bonus out of it. The patent may have just saved the company from shutting down, so why not some kind of bonus?
Some companies have made huge amounts of money off a single patent. Perhaps companies could offer employees the option to take some ownership stake in the patent (5%?), provided that they grant the company full rights to use the patent -- with the intent that, if the company makes a large sum of money by selling or licensing the patent, the employee will also benefit from this.
And no-one uses POP servers other than their ISP's right? Oh, but you can also access Yahoo mail through unencrypted POP, and there are perhaps hundreds of thousands of businesses whose users check their email over unencrypted POP.
So, we have:
* Users POPing their email from their normal ISP over unencrypted WIFI connections
* Users POP-ing their non-ISP hosted email over unencrypted sessions.
I suspect that the proportion of POP email that travel ONLY over a single ISP's private network is far lower than you think.
Exactly. You were the one who made the original assertion about POP packets remaining within the ISP's "private" network. I pointed out that many people use unencrypted wireless sessions at public locations, which tends to refute your point.
So, what's your point?
How is this different to sniffing passwords from unencrypted http-based logins?
Just go to your local coffee shop with open wireless and sniff the wireless there.
I don't agree. Maybe for webmail and other web-based authentication schemes, but there are millions of people who use unencrypted POP and whose POP credentials are sent in clear text.
This ruling also implies that the RIAA will have to prove actual distribution, not just an offer to distribute. So, it is possible that the RIAA could only show actual distribution of one song, which would reduce the damages considerably.
That's strange, I don't see the word "gambling" in the relevant URL, which is the last link in the summary:
http://www.holdemradio.com/smfforum/index.php?action=printpage;topic=2663.0
From the summary:
Just RTFA. It's not too difficult, I promise.
IMHO, the USCIS (formerly called the INS) asks all kinds of unneccessary questions so that, if they ever do want you out fo the country, this can be quickly and easily achieved because you "lied to an INS agent" (the chances are that you will have made a mistake somwhere on one of those forms). For example, with an application for citizenship, you have to detail all travel outside the US since getting a green card. The actual requirement for citizenship is that you can show 5 unbroken years of residence. Theoretically, if you get the date wrong when documenting one of those trips outside the US 10 or 20 years ago, that may be a reason to revoke your citizenship and kick you out of the US.
I don't agree that voting by mail should be allowed for anything except exceptional circumstances. When voting by mail, people can sell their votes, or they can be coerced to vote according to someone else's wishes. Imagine a family where the dominant patriarch or matriarch gathers up the ballots and instructs each person in the family how to vote, then seals the ballots and mails them.
Access time tracking is routinely turned off to improve performance of filesystems.
If she has nothing to hide ........
So, you are comparing your experience with overall running MPG (I assume tank-full to tank-full) against running 100 miles along a freeway at 55mph? Yeah, let's compare apples to oranges -- that will give useful figures.
Instead, why not look at the CAFE requirements, which have shown rather more modest improvements?
Car engines have made huge improvements in efficiency, but much of those gains have been lost by increasing the overall weight of cars. Compare a modern Mini to the weight of the original -- Old: 1,360 lb, New: 2496 lb.
It does. We even have traffic light cameras in my city that take pictures of the front of red-light runners -- not much use without the front plates.
That is the language of defeatism, not, as you probably think, pragmatism.
Do these kids really need to exchange powerpoint presentations with customers and have them rendered exactly as the sender expects (something that PP doesn't actually do, anyway)?
The point is that, with a large enough pool of these machines, running Linux/Sugar/OpenOffice, etc., all that matters is interoperability amongst themselves.
Yes, with XP on the machines, they can learn to use XP. Now, think back 15 years. Would it really help that someone learned to run Windows 3.x now that they are running Vista? Kids will be much better prepared if they see computers as a flexible tool that they are comfortable with and are prepared to investigate it themselves than if they are locked into a particular OS. That does not make Linux/Sugar better than XP, but also the reverse is also true: XP is no better than Linux/Sugar fro this purpose. Yet, for the advanced kids, the ability to change the code and understand programming is a fantastic learning opportunity that simply won't be there under XP for these kids.
You get tickets for missing front plates? I have been driving a car for 11 years without a front plate and I have not got a single ticket in that time.
I'm sorry, Mr. AC, but your interpretation of the constitution has no importance. All that matters is what the Supreme Court has to say
I believe that the Supremes ruled some (many?) years past that treaties cannot be used as an end-run around the constitution.
I doubt that many people in Europe will be astonished by a diesel that will do 65MPG. Even if those gallons are US gallons (approx 5/6 of an Imperial gallon), it's still not much greater than small diesel cars have achieved for a long time.
And what percent of your monthly data transfer allowance?
Design separated from manufacturing is not a good recipe for improving quality or driving down cost. My guess is that over time the design expertise will migrate to the outsourced factories.
They can't be nailed because of provisions in the DMCA (or other laws, I am not sure which). Those provisions don't require them to act like a common carrier.
Mods, please wise up: Comcast is not a common carrier
(I'll probably be downmodded to hell for pointing out the truth here, but what the heck!)
I think most conformal coatings are not good at heat transfer, which might make coating a PC motherboard problematic.