It's not completely irrelevant, because the root problem with the USPTO is the cause of both things being patented which already are, and things being patented that had already been invented by another inventor
As for your semantical flights of fancy, I would seriously doubt that there is a patent for anything for which no one wanted to go get a patent. If you don't want to go get a patent on something, you...wait for it...don't go get a patent on it. Therefore, your desire to get a patent is why you go get a patent, for which part of the process is submitting an application. You really have to twist hard to misapply what I said.
You should be able to come up with multiple ways in which it is a problem off the top of your head if you actually know anything. But I'll give you a hint to one: You had the nerve to try to call me on the difference between "should work" and "does work", but now in your fanciful rewording of your original post you say that the patent will be reassigned if proper measures were taken so everything is fine.
I see. When I try to answer out of your framework, you complain that I am not in your framework. When I answer WITHIN your framework, you accuse me of exiting my own framework. In YOUR WORLD, there are protections. That's how I approached that answer. You cannot have it both ways.
And I did think of it when I thought of how nice it would be to be able to search for types of stores in my geographic area, and someone else obviously not only thought of it but implemented it because I went on the net and found such a search engine in 1995.
Then there's a reason to challenge the patent. Really, I don't see how any patent office is supposed to be able to keep up with everyone in the country and whether or not they thought of something first. I agree that duplicate patents are a problem, but those ARE NOT what the discussion was about. Your claim was that the patent office should know if the person submitting the application thought of the idea or not, which is not possible. It is up to whoever disputes the patent to prove their case.
And that's just a publicly accessible example. In fact in this particular case many people thought of it, and most likely based on that fact none of them thought they would be able to receive a patent.
So now you know the motivations of people you have never met? Maybe you should get a job in the patent office.
Little did they realize how the USPTO had and would continue to degrade into a rubber-stamping engine.
How would they do anything different? Do you want to pay for the patent office to exhaustively research every patent application in the kind of detail required to catch things like this? I don't. It should be trivial to prove that a redundant patent has been issued. It would be much harder for the patent office to prove that the submittor did not think up the submission. How exactly would that be done, in the real world?
Little did they realize that people like you would think this is okay.
There's a difference between thinking something is okay and thinking that it's pretty much inevitable. Example: I don't think that corruption in public service is okay. However, I do think it's pretty much inevitable. Can you wrap your brain cell around that concept?
I wouldn't know, but I hear ignorance is bliss, in which case yeah I bet you're happy.
Of course you wouldn't know. You don't know much. I know that there are many areas in which I'm ignorant. You, of course, believe that you know everything. That's the surest sign of a fool that there is. BTW, that saying does not mean that people who know nothing are happy. It means that sometimes, knowing the truth of things can make you unhappy. For example, if you believe that your relationship with your wife is going along well, you are likely to be happy. If she is cheating on you, and you don't know it, you are still happy. If you find out, you will not likely be happy.
Let me sum up your situation in a way even you can understand:
And you assumed that meant nothing. Indicating it is you who is not aware of what else they could do.
Keep repeating that to yourself. Maybe that will make it true. YOU ASSUMED that I was not aware of something because I didn't explicitly state it, the VERY THING of which you accuse me. Incorrectly. As with almost everything you do.
What's sad is that you still can't explain your original statement and prove that it is not you who are wrong. Your retroactive statements -- which STILL show great ignorance about patents and prior art -- don't explain your original retarded comment. Because you can't do it, you know it was wrong and stupid, and you just can't admit it.
What a shocker! Wrong again. You're the Texas Rangers of./
I DID NOT assume you were so retarded that you would see the absence of a statement, and make the most stupid inference about what wasn't said possible.
Apparently you don't give yourself the same credit. I attempted to, and look where it got me.
You make yourself look retarded through retarded assumptions, then turn around and say "Oh, I didn't mean that! You just didn't tell me not to assume that!" Well why did you assume in the first place, moron?
No, I corrected YOUR 'retarded assumptions' and stated pretty clearly that I was going by what you said, not what you meant.
USPTO is responsible for granting or rejecting patent applications.
Exactly. They are NOT responsible for causing someone to want to patent something. Exactly as I said, and in DIRECT contradiction to what you said.
Lemme guess... management?
As with so much else, you are incorrect.
I'm curious as to what you think the actual cause is then.
People wanting to patent something is the cause of things getting patented. I'm truly sorry that I had to explain that to you.
Pedantry can be an effective tactic, but not when taken to insane extremes.
How ironic.
Yes the problem is I didn't understand your post because you are a piss-poor communicator. I know it's fun for you to write one thing, think another, and then blame the difference on everyone else. Sorry, man, but I'm not enough of a genius to figure out what you're thinking from your retard-scratchings.
Right. Because when you don't understand something, it's obviously everyone else's fault but yours.
I notice you still are not able to explain what the fuck you were actually trying to say such that you aren't exactly as ignorant as I've been saying.
Here you are apparently unaware of the difference between 'can't' and 'won't'. This is a good thing to know. Let me help you. Have not and will not are not equivalent to can not. Hello, first grade!
"If it was so 'clearly obvious', why did it take until 1996 before anyone thought of it? Why didn't YOU patent it first, if it was so damn obvious to you?"
Why, if the idea were so obvious, were no measures, patenting or otherwise, taken to protect this so clearly obvious idea? Why should I care who owns the patent when whoever came up with the idea did not care enough about it to protect it in any way? If they DID take pains to protect it, then what's the problem? The patent can be challenged and will be removed or reassigned to the proper inventor if proper measures were taken. One of these measures, not the only one but certainly the most common, would be patenting it. Now, if the idea were so obvious, why did you not think of it? If you DID think of it, why did you not take some measures, one of which but not the only one being patenting, to protect it? If very few people thought of it, then it wouldn't really qualify as 'obvious' until AFTER it had been disseminated.
Not that I have much hope that you'll be any more capable of understanding this.
Zing! I'm glad I forgot to hit Preview. I gave you this jewel, this actual minor victory, that you can cling to. I'm sure it will keep you warm at night. Maybe you could find a typo in this post too, and have two things to feel good about rattling around in the vacuous space called your mind.
Right. Because obviously I can't feel I've won any points, since you said so and all. Believe me, I have plenty to keep me warm at night, and my sense of well-being is not affected either positively or negatively by you. Hi! Welcome to the real world, where you don't matter. (No, to forestall you, neither do I. The difference is that I am fully aware of that, whereas you appear (surprise, surprise) to be ignorant.
Of course *I* knew it wasn't true. I was simply pointing out that YOU did not appear to. You're the one who insinuated that the only way to protect an idea was to patent it. I didn't see you saying anything about alternative methods of protection. You said that they 'didn't think to patent it' but failed to go any further about what they *did*. It does not follow from that that I think the only way to protect an idea is to patent it. In fact, the quote I provided earlier wherein I said that they could spread their idea far and wide to build prior art completely blasts your theory. I said that BEFORE your insane accusation. What's sad is your inability to admit that you were wrong.
Well, I'll probably get flamed for this, but then what's new?
I like Cingular. I hate the fact that they're called at&t now, but I've had cingular plans with motorola phones for about 3 years now and I have had maybe 5 dropped calls, and about the same number of times when I've been unable to make a call. I do dislike having to unlock my phones, but then again afaik most providers have that problem. The data plan I use is $20/mo unlimited, fairly comparable to other providers, I think. I could be wrong on that...but then I've had so little trouble that I haven't really looked around. I bounced from the old at&t to sprint to voice stream to verizon (that last without me actually doing anything) and finally to cingular, where I've been happy enough to stay. I know a few people who dislike their service, who've had bad experiences with billing/customer support...but I haven't. Maybe it's your region? Or, I suppose...maybe it's mine.:)
"Guns are deeply rooted within Swiss culture - but the gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept."
It appears that Japan has some competition...from a country with at least one gun per 3 people. Perhaps it isn't the availability of guns that is necessarily the problem.
Funny how taking away guns takes away the potential for gun crime, isn't it?
Tell that to Britain:
"Gun crime has risen by 35% in a year, new Home Office figures show. There were 9,974 incidents involving firearms in the 12 months to April 2002 - a rise from 7,362 over the previous year. That represents an average of 27 offences involving firearms every day in England and Wales, with guns fired in nearly a quarter of cases."
Let me put it another way - which would you rather lose, your guns or your privacy?
Neither. Let me also point out that losing the latter is far easier once you lose the former.
Losing your guns only affects gun owners;
Tell that to the non-gun-owning victims of gun crimes in Britain.
losing privacy affects everyone.
Again, who do you think will protect your privacy once everyone is disarmed? The government? They're the ones trying to TAKE your privacy. The people? Hard to rise up with only broomsticks and rocks.
Arguments like yours are the way gun owners try to pretend they don't have blood on their hands.
The only gun owners with blood on their hands are the ones that have used their guns to murder. That's like saying that all steak knife owners are murderers because some people choose to murder with steak knives. Same with any other implement that has ever been used to take a life. Which is, in a word, stupid. Bathtubs kill over 11,000 people a year. Where is your crusade against bathtubs?
Please note that I am not a gun owner. I was brought up to know how to use and respect guns, and I would have no problem owning a gun, but to date have not found it necessary.
Does not follow from anything that has been said, you do not have to patent your idea to protect it, and you knew this.
The whole reason these submarine patents become problems is because someone did think of it, but didn't think to patent it.
I'll just let you answer you. I can't say this has been fun, but then some of it was amusing. Mostly I'm just sad for you and any drooling, mouth-breathing, destined-for-a-life-of-food-service children you may inflict upon this already oafish world. I hope you're pretty, because otherwise I fear for your future.
No, I never said that, I never said anything about someone patenting something they never heard of.
Sure, whatever. Of course not. Anything to get you through the night, I suppose.
Here's what I said: "Are you seriously trying to state that inventors don't know about the patent system?"
From this, you infer something that isn't there. I asked you a simple question. If that wasn't what you were trying to state, then the correct answer to this question is: "No, I'm not trying to state that". Instead you respond with, "You don't think people know about patents" which is not at all a sane response. I really can't make it any clearer to you. Even if an inventor CHOOSES NOT to patent his or her invention, that doesn't mean that they are unaware of the patent system. It means they chose to do something else, while knowing that patenting was an option. Now, there may be one or two inventors who don't know about the patent system, but I doubt it. You even said "The whole reason these submarine patents become problems is because someone did think of it, but didn't think to patent it." This DOES NOT SAY that they are taking a bunch of other measures to protect their invention. It says they did not think to patent it. That infers that they were either unaware of the patent system (unlikely) or they didn't care enough to protect their invention. You didn't say that they couldn't afford to patent it, or that the man was keeping them from patenting it somehow, or that they didn't WANT to patent it. You said they didn't THINK to patent it. If that wasn't what you meant, you should have said something different.
You're right though,
Of course.
I should have read more carefully,
Yes, you should have. It's about time you manned up and admitted some of your mistakes. That wasn't so hard, was it?
knowing you would start to contradict yourself as the inevitable back-pedalling began.
It's not a contradiction. In fact, it was within the SAME POST and was what, one or two sentences later? I suppose that for someone like you, I should explain every little thing in excruciating detail in every single sentence of my post, otherwise you can't wrap your head around it.
If it comes up in a lawsuit, then yeah, they probably will.
Sure they will. Of course they will. Go back to sleep.
It's not completely irrelevant, because the root problem with the USPTO is the cause of both things being patented which already are, and things being patented that had already been invented by another inventor. The system is oblivious to both cases.
So the USPTO is responsible for other people deciding to patent something which is already patented? Perhaps they don't provide a good enough screening process but they did not cause the person to want to patent anything. They also are not responsible for knowing psychically that someone else thought of something first. To think that they would be able to know that the person applying for the patent heard about it from someone else and did not think of it is ludicrous. That is the whole point of having a legal remedy for someone else doing this.
If you can't see the relevance of a common root cause, then you should probably never take a job in engineering (or anything else that involves real-world problem solving).
I don't think that assigning causes which aren't causes is a good trait for problem-solving. Usually you want to find the actual cause, rather than making it up. I have been employed as a real-world problem solver for 15 years now, and I'm very successful.
Equivalent statements. Most people are exposed to the concept in algebra class.
In your case, exposure certainly didn't lead to understanding. You must be a public-school graduate.
Which, given how this whole thing was predicated by you saying "why didn't they patent it?!" strongly indicates you thought patents were the only protection.
What YOU don't seem to understand is that HE WAS talking about it while trying to relate it to what EVERYONE ELSE but YOU was talking about. HE was doing this while implying that the definition of revolution DID NOT APPLY to anything other than ARMED CONFLICT. That is not correct. That is why I corrected him. Not because I even disagree with the point he was attempting to make. But because he committed an error while trying to make it.
Moron. No one was talking about a revolution in the phone industry having anything to do with anything that you just typed. What they were talking about was a marked or sudden change in the way mobile phones are used, which is not the same thing as a revolt against tyranny. You would have been better served actually making the OP's point for him instead of trying to defend his fallacious rant. Perhaps you should have said, "Any interest at all in mobile phones, or revolutions within the world of mobile phones, should take a back seat to more pressing issues such as..." and then gone from there. Your complaint about whoever the SMS generation are rings ironic and hilarious to me.
So by starting with an illogical scenario that is not what I was describing, you eventually work your way through the logic to what I was actually getting at. Congratulations!
I went by what you said. I said that what you said was illogical. You said that what I said (which was what you said) was illogical. Thanks for agreeing with me!
Mostly because you somehow conceived the inane concept that people don't patent because they are ignorant of the existence of patents.
Straw man. I certainly did NOT say that. I said that they were most likely NOT IGNORANT of patents. Learn to read.
Which would have completely defeated the purpose of Franklin not patenting his stove in the first place. Your advice is terrible. And not just in Ben's case.
Maybe you should have read this part, as it is DIRECTLY applicable to what you just said:
"But if you don't want someone else to patent it, you better either keep it to yourself or get it out everywhere so that there's prior art."
Hmm. Kind of shoots your theory down, doesn't it? Isn't that EXACTLY what Franklin did? And didn't I just give as advice exactly what he did? And didn't you use him as an example? So if my advice is so bad, why are you using as an example someone who took it?
If you keep your invention to yourself, then truly independent discovery is more likely, as should be obvious. If you keep your invention to yourself, and someone finds out about it anyway, steals it, then patents it, then you won't have any proof that you actually invented it first. Dissimenating information about your idea is important because it provides this evidence.
You think? Maybe that's why I said this: "But if you don't want someone else to patent it, you better either keep it to yourself or get it out everywhere so that there's prior art."
You are basically saying "I have no sympathy for people who do nothing to protect their ideas... But if you don't want to patent, don't do anything to protect your ideas!" That's very foolish.
Not really. I mean, that WOULD be foolish but that isn't what I did. I won't re-paste the same quote. I will (perhaps wrongly) assume you have the intelligence to look up a bit.
Do you think that patents are the only way inventions are protected, and that if an inventor doesn't get a patent then everyone else is free to steal their idea and patent it? Or do you just normally give advice in direct opposition to your stated moral position?
Neither. Are you still stupid?
And by "supposed to work" I meant "as a matter of law".
Well, then you should have no fear. The gubmint will step in and shut down those nasty people. Right? Right?
The office's mentality of "grant the patent and let the courts sort out any problems" has resulted in things getting patented that were already patented.
Completely irrelevant to the discussion. Obviously patenting things that are already patented is EXACTLY the same as patenting something that hasn't been patented yet. That last sentence was sarcasm.
Why would anyone come crying to someone who doesn't understand the situation and gives terrible advice?
I have no idea. I didn't tell them not to come crying to someone who doesn't understand the situation and gives terrible advice. I told them not to come crying to me.
You keep making inane assumptions.
As shown above, you are incorrect.
First that inventing and patenting were the same,
That claim is nowhere in anything I've ever written in my life.
then that anyone who doesn't patent an invention must not know about patents,
Nope. Proven incorrect above.
and finally that if you don't get a patent then you are doing nothing to protect your invention.
Again, nowhere did I say that. I said that if you do nothing to protect your invention I don't want to hear you crying about it. You should
It is not logical to say that someone can patent something without knowing it exists. If that person did not think of it, then they had to see it somewhere. If they saw it somewhere, and get it patented, then we can assume that the original inventor(s) did not patent it. As to WHY they didn't patent it...what does that matter? If you want to invent something but not patent it, you should probably keep it to yourself. If you don't, someone else might 1. think of it themselves and patent it or 2. hear about it somehow, which will have to involve you telling someone about it, and patent it. If you can't afford to patent your idea, call Inventor's Submission Corp. which will do it for you. Sure, it's not a good deal, but it's better than losing your idea altogether. Or...you can keep your trap shut until you can get a patent. I really have no sympathy for people who do not protect their ideas but then expect someone else to protect them. Why should they? It's not their responsibility.
This is how it is supposed to work.
Do you really want to get into things in this world that don't work how they are 'supposed to work'? Seriously? You should be more concerned with how things ACTUALLY work than how they are 'supposed to' work. Especially where money is involved.
You do not have to patent an invention.
You certainly don't. But if you don't want someone else to patent it, you better either keep it to yourself or get it out everywhere so that there's prior art. The point is that YOU have to do SOMETHING to protect YOUR invention. If you don't, don't come crying to me about it.
If we could have the type of revolution our forefathers had for silly import taxes for health coverage, worker's rights,the ability for criminal corporations to poison our environment, politicians that adhere to big business's needs more than the will of the people, that'd be really doing something, but no, we'd rather have a phone "revolution."
Well, they should have some sort of a system in place for when people try to patent things that are already in widespread use. If I were designing such a thing, I'd call it 'Prior Art' or something flowery like that. I can't believe no one's thought of that before...I should go patent the idea.
So...I think you have a logical breakdown here. How can someone patent something without thinking of it unless the original inventor did not patent it themselves? If they saw it somewhere or heard it somewhere...then the person who DID think of it had ample time to patent it. Are you seriously trying to state that inventors don't know about the patent system? If that's true, then I certainly don't sympathize with them. It would be like a Catholic priest that's never heard of Vatican City. If you don't patent your idea, someone else may. They might not even steal it; it might be concurrent development. Or, as in the case of scotch tape and post-its, you could just give your ideas to your company and let THEM get rich off them.
Slashdot Mirror
No, I don't know much about deliberate ignorance.
Of course you don't. That's because you're ignorant. *zing*
U r dumb.
Thank God you weren't using AIX and JFS. They'd NEVER have been able to figure that one out.
You keep saying things...then expecting me to just accept them because you say them. You'd make a good politician. That is not a compliment.
U r dumb.
It's not completely irrelevant, because the root problem with the USPTO is the cause of both things being patented which already are, and things being patented that had already been invented by another inventor
As for your semantical flights of fancy, I would seriously doubt that there is a patent for anything for which no one wanted to go get a patent. If you don't want to go get a patent on something, you...wait for it...don't go get a patent on it. Therefore, your desire to get a patent is why you go get a patent, for which part of the process is submitting an application. You really have to twist hard to misapply what I said.
You should be able to come up with multiple ways in which it is a problem off the top of your head if you actually know anything. But I'll give you a hint to one: You had the nerve to try to call me on the difference between "should work" and "does work", but now in your fanciful rewording of your original post you say that the patent will be reassigned if proper measures were taken so everything is fine.
I see. When I try to answer out of your framework, you complain that I am not in your framework. When I answer WITHIN your framework, you accuse me of exiting my own framework. In YOUR WORLD, there are protections. That's how I approached that answer. You cannot have it both ways.
And I did think of it when I thought of how nice it would be to be able to search for types of stores in my geographic area, and someone else obviously not only thought of it but implemented it because I went on the net and found such a search engine in 1995.
Then there's a reason to challenge the patent. Really, I don't see how any patent office is supposed to be able to keep up with everyone in the country and whether or not they thought of something first. I agree that duplicate patents are a problem, but those ARE NOT what the discussion was about. Your claim was that the patent office should know if the person submitting the application thought of the idea or not, which is not possible. It is up to whoever disputes the patent to prove their case.
And that's just a publicly accessible example. In fact in this particular case many people thought of it, and most likely based on that fact none of them thought they would be able to receive a patent.
So now you know the motivations of people you have never met? Maybe you should get a job in the patent office.
Little did they realize how the USPTO had and would continue to degrade into a rubber-stamping engine.
How would they do anything different? Do you want to pay for the patent office to exhaustively research every patent application in the kind of detail required to catch things like this? I don't. It should be trivial to prove that a redundant patent has been issued. It would be much harder for the patent office to prove that the submittor did not think up the submission. How exactly would that be done, in the real world?
Little did they realize that people like you would think this is okay.
There's a difference between thinking something is okay and thinking that it's pretty much inevitable. Example: I don't think that corruption in public service is okay. However, I do think it's pretty much inevitable. Can you wrap your brain cell around that concept?
I wouldn't know, but I hear ignorance is bliss, in which case yeah I bet you're happy.
Of course you wouldn't know. You don't know much. I know that there are many areas in which I'm ignorant. You, of course, believe that you know everything. That's the surest sign of a fool that there is. BTW, that saying does not mean that people who know nothing are happy. It means that sometimes, knowing the truth of things can make you unhappy. For example, if you believe that your relationship with your wife is going along well, you are likely to be happy. If she is cheating on you, and you don't know it, you are still happy. If you find out, you will not likely be happy.
Let me sum up your situation in a way even you can understand:
U r dumb.
And you assumed that meant nothing. Indicating it is you who is not aware of what else they could do.
./
Keep repeating that to yourself. Maybe that will make it true. YOU ASSUMED that I was not aware of something because I didn't explicitly state it, the VERY THING of which you accuse me. Incorrectly. As with almost everything you do.
What's sad is that you still can't explain your original statement and prove that it is not you who are wrong. Your retroactive statements -- which STILL show great ignorance about patents and prior art -- don't explain your original retarded comment. Because you can't do it, you know it was wrong and stupid, and you just can't admit it.
What a shocker! Wrong again. You're the Texas Rangers of
I DID NOT assume you were so retarded that you would see the absence of a statement, and make the most stupid inference about what wasn't said possible.
Apparently you don't give yourself the same credit. I attempted to, and look where it got me.
You make yourself look retarded through retarded assumptions, then turn around and say "Oh, I didn't mean that! You just didn't tell me not to assume that!" Well why did you assume in the first place, moron?
No, I corrected YOUR 'retarded assumptions' and stated pretty clearly that I was going by what you said, not what you meant.
USPTO is responsible for granting or rejecting patent applications.
Exactly. They are NOT responsible for causing someone to want to patent something. Exactly as I said, and in DIRECT contradiction to what you said.
Lemme guess... management?
As with so much else, you are incorrect.
I'm curious as to what you think the actual cause is then.
People wanting to patent something is the cause of things getting patented. I'm truly sorry that I had to explain that to you.
Pedantry can be an effective tactic, but not when taken to insane extremes.
How ironic.
Yes the problem is I didn't understand your post because you are a piss-poor communicator. I know it's fun for you to write one thing, think another, and then blame the difference on everyone else. Sorry, man, but I'm not enough of a genius to figure out what you're thinking from your retard-scratchings.
Right. Because when you don't understand something, it's obviously everyone else's fault but yours.
I notice you still are not able to explain what the fuck you were actually trying to say such that you aren't exactly as ignorant as I've been saying.
Here you are apparently unaware of the difference between 'can't' and 'won't'. This is a good thing to know. Let me help you. Have not and will not are not equivalent to can not. Hello, first grade!
"If it was so 'clearly obvious', why did it take until 1996 before anyone thought of it? Why didn't YOU patent it first, if it was so damn obvious to you?"
Why, if the idea were so obvious, were no measures, patenting or otherwise, taken to protect this so clearly obvious idea? Why should I care who owns the patent when whoever came up with the idea did not care enough about it to protect it in any way? If they DID take pains to protect it, then what's the problem? The patent can be challenged and will be removed or reassigned to the proper inventor if proper measures were taken. One of these measures, not the only one but certainly the most common, would be patenting it. Now, if the idea were so obvious, why did you not think of it? If you DID think of it, why did you not take some measures, one of which but not the only one being patenting, to protect it? If very few people thought of it, then it wouldn't really qualify as 'obvious' until AFTER it had been disseminated.
Not that I have much hope that you'll be any more capable of understanding this.
Zing! I'm glad I forgot to hit Preview. I gave you this jewel, this actual minor victory, that you can cling to. I'm sure it will keep you warm at night. Maybe you could find a typo in this post too, and have two things to feel good about rattling around in the vacuous space called your mind.
Right. Because obviously I can't feel I've won any points, since you said so and all. Believe me, I have plenty to keep me warm at night, and my sense of well-being is not affected either positively or negatively by you. Hi! Welcome to the real world, where you don't matter. (No, to forestall you, neither do I. The difference is that I am fully aware of that, whereas you appear (surprise, surprise) to be ignorant.
Of course *I* knew it wasn't true. I was simply pointing out that YOU did not appear to. You're the one who insinuated that the only way to protect an idea was to patent it. I didn't see you saying anything about alternative methods of protection. You said that they 'didn't think to patent it' but failed to go any further about what they *did*. It does not follow from that that I think the only way to protect an idea is to patent it. In fact, the quote I provided earlier wherein I said that they could spread their idea far and wide to build prior art completely blasts your theory. I said that BEFORE your insane accusation. What's sad is your inability to admit that you were wrong.
Well, you aren't Muslim, then, are you? :)
Well, I'll probably get flamed for this, but then what's new?
:)
I like Cingular. I hate the fact that they're called at&t now, but I've had cingular plans with motorola phones for about 3 years now and I have had maybe 5 dropped calls, and about the same number of times when I've been unable to make a call. I do dislike having to unlock my phones, but then again afaik most providers have that problem. The data plan I use is $20/mo unlimited, fairly comparable to other providers, I think. I could be wrong on that...but then I've had so little trouble that I haven't really looked around. I bounced from the old at&t to sprint to voice stream to verizon (that last without me actually doing anything) and finally to cingular, where I've been happy enough to stay. I know a few people who dislike their service, who've had bad experiences with billing/customer support...but I haven't. Maybe it's your region? Or, I suppose...maybe it's mine.
No, WTC7 was blown up by God. He's the only one I know of that can bring down a building without any planes, fires, or explosives.
We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from the machinations of the wicked.
You would be correct were it not for so much of the latter being disguised as the former.
From link:
"Guns are deeply rooted within Swiss culture - but the gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept."
It appears that Japan has some competition...from a country with at least one gun per 3 people. Perhaps it isn't the availability of guns that is necessarily the problem.
Funny how taking away guns takes away the potential for gun crime, isn't it?
Tell that to Britain:
"Gun crime has risen by 35% in a year, new Home Office figures show. There were 9,974 incidents involving firearms in the 12 months to April 2002 - a rise from 7,362 over the previous year. That represents an average of 27 offences involving firearms every day in England and Wales, with guns fired in nearly a quarter of cases."
Let me put it another way - which would you rather lose, your guns or your privacy?
Neither. Let me also point out that losing the latter is far easier once you lose the former.
Losing your guns only affects gun owners;
Tell that to the non-gun-owning victims of gun crimes in Britain.
losing privacy affects everyone.
Again, who do you think will protect your privacy once everyone is disarmed? The government? They're the ones trying to TAKE your privacy. The people? Hard to rise up with only broomsticks and rocks.
Arguments like yours are the way gun owners try to pretend they don't have blood on their hands.
The only gun owners with blood on their hands are the ones that have used their guns to murder. That's like saying that all steak knife owners are murderers because some people choose to murder with steak knives. Same with any other implement that has ever been used to take a life. Which is, in a word, stupid. Bathtubs kill over 11,000 people a year. Where is your crusade against bathtubs?
Please note that I am not a gun owner. I was brought up to know how to use and respect guns, and I would have no problem owning a gun, but to date have not found it necessary.
Does not follow from anything that has been said, you do not have to patent your idea to protect it, and you knew this.
The whole reason these submarine patents become problems is because someone did think of it, but didn't think to patent it.
I'll just let you answer you. I can't say this has been fun, but then some of it was amusing. Mostly I'm just sad for you and any drooling, mouth-breathing, destined-for-a-life-of-food-service children you may inflict upon this already oafish world. I hope you're pretty, because otherwise I fear for your future.
No, I never said that, I never said anything about someone patenting something they never heard of.
Sure, whatever. Of course not. Anything to get you through the night, I suppose.
Here's what I said: "Are you seriously trying to state that inventors don't know about the patent system?"
From this, you infer something that isn't there. I asked you a simple question. If that wasn't what you were trying to state, then the correct answer to this question is: "No, I'm not trying to state that". Instead you respond with, "You don't think people know about patents" which is not at all a sane response. I really can't make it any clearer to you. Even if an inventor CHOOSES NOT to patent his or her invention, that doesn't mean that they are unaware of the patent system. It means they chose to do something else, while knowing that patenting was an option. Now, there may be one or two inventors who don't know about the patent system, but I doubt it. You even said "The whole reason these submarine patents become problems is because someone did think of it, but didn't think to patent it." This DOES NOT SAY that they are taking a bunch of other measures to protect their invention. It says they did not think to patent it. That infers that they were either unaware of the patent system (unlikely) or they didn't care enough to protect their invention. You didn't say that they couldn't afford to patent it, or that the man was keeping them from patenting it somehow, or that they didn't WANT to patent it. You said they didn't THINK to patent it. If that wasn't what you meant, you should have said something different.
You're right though,
Of course.
I should have read more carefully,
Yes, you should have. It's about time you manned up and admitted some of your mistakes. That wasn't so hard, was it?
knowing you would start to contradict yourself as the inevitable back-pedalling began.
It's not a contradiction. In fact, it was within the SAME POST and was what, one or two sentences later? I suppose that for someone like you, I should explain every little thing in excruciating detail in every single sentence of my post, otherwise you can't wrap your head around it.
If it comes up in a lawsuit, then yeah, they probably will.
Sure they will. Of course they will. Go back to sleep.
It's not completely irrelevant, because the root problem with the USPTO is the cause of both things being patented which already are, and things being patented that had already been invented by another inventor. The system is oblivious to both cases.
So the USPTO is responsible for other people deciding to patent something which is already patented? Perhaps they don't provide a good enough screening process but they did not cause the person to want to patent anything. They also are not responsible for knowing psychically that someone else thought of something first. To think that they would be able to know that the person applying for the patent heard about it from someone else and did not think of it is ludicrous. That is the whole point of having a legal remedy for someone else doing this.
If you can't see the relevance of a common root cause, then you should probably never take a job in engineering (or anything else that involves real-world problem solving).
I don't think that assigning causes which aren't causes is a good trait for problem-solving. Usually you want to find the actual cause, rather than making it up. I have been employed as a real-world problem solver for 15 years now, and I'm very successful.
Equivalent statements. Most people are exposed to the concept in algebra class.
In your case, exposure certainly didn't lead to understanding. You must be a public-school graduate.
Which, given how this whole thing was predicated by you saying "why didn't they patent it?!" strongly indicates you thought patents were the only protection.
You are too free with
What YOU don't seem to understand is that HE WAS talking about it while trying to relate it to what EVERYONE ELSE but YOU was talking about. HE was doing this while implying that the definition of revolution DID NOT APPLY to anything other than ARMED CONFLICT. That is not correct. That is why I corrected him. Not because I even disagree with the point he was attempting to make. But because he committed an error while trying to make it.
Moron. No one was talking about a revolution in the phone industry having anything to do with anything that you just typed. What they were talking about was a marked or sudden change in the way mobile phones are used, which is not the same thing as a revolt against tyranny. You would have been better served actually making the OP's point for him instead of trying to defend his fallacious rant. Perhaps you should have said, "Any interest at all in mobile phones, or revolutions within the world of mobile phones, should take a back seat to more pressing issues such as..." and then gone from there. Your complaint about whoever the SMS generation are rings ironic and hilarious to me.
Right. Sure. My problem with reading comprehension is that I actually have some. GJ.
So by starting with an illogical scenario that is not what I was describing, you eventually work your way through the logic to what I was actually getting at. Congratulations!
I went by what you said. I said that what you said was illogical. You said that what I said (which was what you said) was illogical. Thanks for agreeing with me!
Mostly because you somehow conceived the inane concept that people don't patent because they are ignorant of the existence of patents.
Straw man. I certainly did NOT say that. I said that they were most likely NOT IGNORANT of patents. Learn to read.
Which would have completely defeated the purpose of Franklin not patenting his stove in the first place. Your advice is terrible. And not just in Ben's case.
Maybe you should have read this part, as it is DIRECTLY applicable to what you just said:
"But if you don't want someone else to patent it, you better either keep it to yourself or get it out everywhere so that there's prior art."
Hmm. Kind of shoots your theory down, doesn't it? Isn't that EXACTLY what Franklin did? And didn't I just give as advice exactly what he did? And didn't you use him as an example? So if my advice is so bad, why are you using as an example someone who took it?
If you keep your invention to yourself, then truly independent discovery is more likely, as should be obvious. If you keep your invention to yourself, and someone finds out about it anyway, steals it, then patents it, then you won't have any proof that you actually invented it first. Dissimenating information about your idea is important because it provides this evidence.
You think? Maybe that's why I said this:
"But if you don't want someone else to patent it, you better either keep it to yourself or get it out everywhere so that there's prior art."
You are basically saying "I have no sympathy for people who do nothing to protect their ideas... But if you don't want to patent, don't do anything to protect your ideas!" That's very foolish.
Not really. I mean, that WOULD be foolish but that isn't what I did. I won't re-paste the same quote. I will (perhaps wrongly) assume you have the intelligence to look up a bit.
Do you think that patents are the only way inventions are protected, and that if an inventor doesn't get a patent then everyone else is free to steal their idea and patent it? Or do you just normally give advice in direct opposition to your stated moral position?
Neither. Are you still stupid?
And by "supposed to work" I meant "as a matter of law".
Well, then you should have no fear. The gubmint will step in and shut down those nasty people. Right? Right?
The office's mentality of "grant the patent and let the courts sort out any problems" has resulted in things getting patented that were already patented.
Completely irrelevant to the discussion. Obviously patenting things that are already patented is EXACTLY the same as patenting something that hasn't been patented yet. That last sentence was sarcasm.
Why would anyone come crying to someone who doesn't understand the situation and gives terrible advice?
I have no idea. I didn't tell them not to come crying to someone who doesn't understand the situation and gives terrible advice. I told them not to come crying to me.
You keep making inane assumptions.
As shown above, you are incorrect.
First that inventing and patenting were the same,
That claim is nowhere in anything I've ever written in my life.
then that anyone who doesn't patent an invention must not know about patents,
Nope. Proven incorrect above.
and finally that if you don't get a patent then you are doing nothing to protect your invention.
Again, nowhere did I say that. I said that if you do nothing to protect your invention I don't want to hear you crying about it. You should
Nothing gets past you.
Of course not.
Now how is that a logical breakdown exactly?
It is not logical to say that someone can patent something without knowing it exists. If that person did not think of it, then they had to see it somewhere. If they saw it somewhere, and get it patented, then we can assume that the original inventor(s) did not patent it. As to WHY they didn't patent it...what does that matter? If you want to invent something but not patent it, you should probably keep it to yourself. If you don't, someone else might 1. think of it themselves and patent it or 2. hear about it somehow, which will have to involve you telling someone about it, and patent it. If you can't afford to patent your idea, call Inventor's Submission Corp. which will do it for you. Sure, it's not a good deal, but it's better than losing your idea altogether. Or...you can keep your trap shut until you can get a patent. I really have no sympathy for people who do not protect their ideas but then expect someone else to protect them. Why should they? It's not their responsibility.
This is how it is supposed to work.
Do you really want to get into things in this world that don't work how they are 'supposed to work'? Seriously? You should be more concerned with how things ACTUALLY work than how they are 'supposed to' work. Especially where money is involved.
You do not have to patent an invention.
You certainly don't. But if you don't want someone else to patent it, you better either keep it to yourself or get it out everywhere so that there's prior art. The point is that YOU have to do SOMETHING to protect YOUR invention. If you don't, don't come crying to me about it.
Obviously he didn't. Here is the relevant quote:
,the ability for criminal corporations to poison our environment, politicians that adhere to big business's needs more than the will of the people, that'd be really doing something, but no, we'd rather have a phone "revolution."
If we could have the type of revolution our forefathers had for silly import taxes for health coverage, worker's rights
Learn to read.
Thanks. I think my favorite of theirs is "Boot Stamping On A Human Face Forever".
Well, they should have some sort of a system in place for when people try to patent things that are already in widespread use. If I were designing such a thing, I'd call it 'Prior Art' or something flowery like that. I can't believe no one's thought of that before...I should go patent the idea.
Well, let that be a lesson to you. In other news, I am patenting the process of human locomotion using controlled falling. So obvious!
Yeah, I did. Damn you, brain. You let me down again.
So...I think you have a logical breakdown here. How can someone patent something without thinking of it unless the original inventor did not patent it themselves? If they saw it somewhere or heard it somewhere...then the person who DID think of it had ample time to patent it. Are you seriously trying to state that inventors don't know about the patent system? If that's true, then I certainly don't sympathize with them. It would be like a Catholic priest that's never heard of Vatican City. If you don't patent your idea, someone else may. They might not even steal it; it might be concurrent development. Or, as in the case of scotch tape and post-its, you could just give your ideas to your company and let THEM get rich off them.