Reading a bit further, I don't think this is relevant. Here's the only mention of patents, and it's saying there's *no* grant:
B. Residual Rights. If You examine the Technology after accepting
this License and remember anything about it later, You are not
"tainted" in a way that would prevent You from creating or
contributing to an independent implementation, but this License grants
You no rights to Sun's copyrights or patents for use in such an
implementation.
> maybe it's time to show that each of these patents wasn't new
Ever heard of 1-click?? The review took five years (!) and the end result was that it was upheld and just narrowed. I wonder how much is costs to hire a lawyer for five years... please tell me in 2015 when you've done what you suggest:-)
Problem is, it seems no real professionals were offering, so you're "only after" clause turns your proposal into "Let's never publish them".
In reality, there were only two choices. Never publish, or publish after a best-effort clean up by unpaid amateurs. Wikileaks went for the latter.
You say one person died due to Wikileaks. How many are dying in the war overall? What if the exposure of what's really happening leads to fighting ending sooner and thousands of lives being saved? I presume you'll call for those thousands of people to "come after" Wikileaks with gifts to thank them, right?:-)
From the cited ruling which discusses application of the EU ban on circumventing DRM:
Ces dispositions ne s'appliquent pas aux actes qui ne portent pas préjudice aux titulaires de droits et qui sont réalisés à des fins de sécurité informatique ou à des fins de recherche scientifique en cryptographie
Which roughly translates to:
These provisions do not apply to acts which do not interfere with rights-holders or to acts carried out for computer security purposes or for scientific research or cryptographic purposes.
So libaacs is legally 100% safe so long as it stays in those boundaries. (That EU law is unjust and should be contested.)
There seems to have been misunderstanding, leading to the fourth point in the letter wrongly being struck out. The claim was that Microsoft was the only software developer to reply. This claim is based on my analysis of the 36 submissions:
The point was struck out because there was a submission by Anthony Berglas, but I don't see any such submission. There is a submission for a different consultation (the "Options Paper") by Anthony Berglas, so I guess someone confused the two consultations. I've emailed the letter's author, so hopefully this will get looked into before the letter is sent.
What's your opinion on the other hundreds of questions the GNOME project is working on?
Most people don't have any opinion on those. Anyone can give an opinion on release dates, and everyone loves commenting about what colour the bikeshed should be...
Thanks Google, for the disclosure of this invention which society will be free to benefit from in 2030.
Some will say that the game is broken and Google is just obliged to play the game too, but in that case, they could make a promise not to use this patent aggressively. Since there's no such promise, all we can say is that they're stockpiling dangerous patents.
> Of course they should be allowed to use patents to negate court-imposed requirements.
Typing too fast, I forgot the "n't" from "shouldn't". I'm sure that was obvious anyway.
The previous US and EU cases I mentioned are EU v. Microsoft (about Samba), and US FTC v. Rambus. In both cases, there was clear abusive practices, but we didn't get a statement in either case about MS or Rambus being prevented from using their patents later to prevent competition. In the EU, it looked like we'd win, but the closing statements by Neelie Kroes left the door open for MS.
Finally, we get to the interesting part of TurboHercules v. IBM:
There's an antitrust dispute, with TurboHercules saying that IBM is abusing a dominant market position. That's normal. The cool part in this case is that IBM has mentioned that they have a pile of software patents.
That means that if the European institutions (commission and court of justice) decide that IBM has to allow interoperability, they should also have to decide if IBM can subsequently use their mentioned software patents to block that required interoperability.
It sounds like a no-brainer. Of course they should be allowed to use patents to negate court-imposed requirements. But it's not a no-brainer: It didn't work in the US, and it didn't work previously in the EU.
Abolishing software patents will take years. Most of the short-term goals are a waste of time, or a distraction by companies that don't really want to end the problem, but WebM is a project that would have a big impact, and has a good chance of succeeding. Great to hear that Xiph continues to support it!
File formats and compatibility are the biggest problem caused by software patents. They're how monopolies get too powerful, and they're how companies with people-friendly terms get locked out of commercial software development. (Commerce isn't the only valid form of software development, but it's important for the sustainability of a project.)
File formats and compatibility are the biggest problem created by software patnets.
Patent trolls and silly patents get most media attention, but that's because they cause problems for mega corporations. Those same mega corporations are the ones using patents to impede free software and new companies. So there's lots of money being invested in redirecting public dissatisfaction away from the compatibility issue toward the trolls and silly patents issues.
> Oh, come on... Click on the two PDFs in the summary.
Sorry dude. Having a busy day today and haven't read the linked patents. Can you help out by pointing out the claim numbers? the independent claims? the page numbers where the claims start? Quote the text from some claims?
Slashdot Mirror
Reading a bit further, I don't think this is relevant. Here's the only mention of patents, and it's saying there's *no* grant:
B. Residual Rights. If You examine the Technology after accepting this License and remember anything about it later, You are not "tainted" in a way that would prevent You from creating or contributing to an independent implementation, but this License grants You no rights to Sun's copyrights or patents for use in such an implementation.
Am I missing anything?
Was Google making use of the JAVA RESEARCH LICENSE?
How does this apply to today's story?
> maybe it's time to show that each of these patents wasn't new
Ever heard of 1-click?? The review took five years (!) and the end result was that it was upheld and just narrowed. I wonder how much is costs to hire a lawyer for five years... please tell me in 2015 when you've done what you suggest :-)
> The text of their lawsuit isn't available
Yes it is. I put it here:
Other info:
There's more info on en.swpat.org at:
It's a publicly-editable wiki; feel free to help out.
D'oh, test that shouldn't have gotten posted
Problem is, it seems no real professionals were offering, so you're "only after" clause turns your proposal into "Let's never publish them".
In reality, there were only two choices. Never publish, or publish after a best-effort clean up by unpaid amateurs. Wikileaks went for the latter.
You say one person died due to Wikileaks. How many are dying in the war overall? What if the exposure of what's really happening leads to fighting ending sooner and thousands of lives being saved? I presume you'll call for those thousands of people to "come after" Wikileaks with gifts to thank them, right? :-)
Small correction, the last part of the translation should be:
(I misread an "en" as an "et".)
From the cited ruling which discusses application of the EU ban on circumventing DRM:
Which roughly translates to:
So libaacs is legally 100% safe so long as it stays in those boundaries. (That EU law is unjust and should be contested.)
There seems to have been misunderstanding, leading to the fourth point in the letter wrongly being struck out. The claim was that Microsoft was the only software developer to reply. This claim is based on my analysis of the 36 submissions:
The point was struck out because there was a submission by Anthony Berglas, but I don't see any such submission. There is a submission for a different consultation (the "Options Paper") by Anthony Berglas, so I guess someone confused the two consultations. I've emailed the letter's author, so hopefully this will get looked into before the letter is sent.
What about sending email with GnuPG?
What's your opinion on the other hundreds of questions the GNOME project is working on?
Most people don't have any opinion on those. Anyone can give an opinion on release dates, and everyone loves commenting about what colour the bikeshed should be...
If anyone could post the link to that interview, it would be good to have.
I'm certainly happier that this patent is going to Google than to MS or a troll, but companies change and twenty years is a long time.
Thanks Google, for the disclosure of this invention which society will be free to benefit from in 2030.
Some will say that the game is broken and Google is just obliged to play the game too, but in that case, they could make a promise not to use this patent aggressively. Since there's no such promise, all we can say is that they're stockpiling dangerous patents.
...having read what waterboarding is, I can't see any tool being rejected for being too inhumane.
Anyone following this enough to know if attempts were made to resolve the patent issues?
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/OpenGL
Or did new issues surface? Any pointers would be appreciated, thanks.
> Of course they should be allowed to use patents to negate court-imposed requirements.
Typing too fast, I forgot the "n't" from "shouldn't". I'm sure that was obvious anyway.
The previous US and EU cases I mentioned are EU v. Microsoft (about Samba), and US FTC v. Rambus. In both cases, there was clear abusive practices, but we didn't get a statement in either case about MS or Rambus being prevented from using their patents later to prevent competition. In the EU, it looked like we'd win, but the closing statements by Neelie Kroes left the door open for MS.
Finally, we get to the interesting part of TurboHercules v. IBM:
There's an antitrust dispute, with TurboHercules saying that IBM is abusing a dominant market position. That's normal. The cool part in this case is that IBM has mentioned that they have a pile of software patents.
That means that if the European institutions (commission and court of justice) decide that IBM has to allow interoperability, they should also have to decide if IBM can subsequently use their mentioned software patents to block that required interoperability.
It sounds like a no-brainer. Of course they should be allowed to use patents to negate court-imposed requirements. But it's not a no-brainer: It didn't work in the US, and it didn't work previously in the EU.
I checked all three examples and I can't find a single word of text. It's all just meaningless pictures!!!one
I'm working on documenting it here:
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/InNova_v._36_companies_(2010,_USA)
Help welcome.
Here's Xiph's support: http://www.xiph.org/press/2010/webm/ With Xiph's support, and now ffmpeg folk working on it, WebM's looking very good.
Abolishing software patents will take years. Most of the short-term goals are a waste of time, or a distraction by companies that don't really want to end the problem, but WebM is a project that would have a big impact, and has a good chance of succeeding. Great to hear that Xiph continues to support it!
File formats and compatibility are the biggest problem caused by software patents. They're how monopolies get too powerful, and they're how companies with people-friendly terms get locked out of commercial software development. (Commerce isn't the only valid form of software development, but it's important for the sustainability of a project.)
File formats and compatibility are the biggest problem created by software patnets.
Patent trolls and silly patents get most media attention, but that's because they cause problems for mega corporations. Those same mega corporations are the ones using patents to impede free software and new companies. So there's lots of money being invested in redirecting public dissatisfaction away from the compatibility issue toward the trolls and silly patents issues.
Causes of death in Australia.
Tabacoo - 19,019
Alcohol - 2,831
Motor vehicle accidents - 1,731
Illegal drugs - 863
Murders - 203
Obviously Australia should ban cigarettes and legalise murder.
> Oh, come on... Click on the two PDFs in the summary.
Sorry dude. Having a busy day today and haven't read the linked patents. Can you help out by pointing out the claim numbers? the independent claims? the page numbers where the claims start? Quote the text from some claims?