It's not 'how,' it's 'who gets to determine.' That is, the fight is over whether validity will be decided by a Patent Office judge or Federal Court judge/jury.
>he processual possibilities to invalidate a patent in his ownership are limited.
It depends on what you mean by that... All defenses/procedures available in the PTO are also available in Federal Court, plus a bunch more. The defendant here just prefers the Patent Office because it thinks the PTO judge will be more favorable to its position.
Ignore the others... the issue here is that there are two places a defendant can challenge a patent, in federal court or in the Patent Office. In theory, the two tribunals should follow the same standard, but in practice, the Patent Office is far more willing to invalidate patents. As a result, both sides will spend big money fighting about which of the two tribunals will decide the case.
The specific 'shield' is here actually the 11th amendment (which states and tribes can't be sued in Federal court) + rules stating patent suits must be brought in federal court. The tribe's theory was that the defendant can't preemptively file in the Patent Office, and instead, must wait until it sued by the tribe. And the tribe, of course, will file in Federal Court.
This 'forum shopping,' as it's called, is an ugly situation. As a rough analogy, think of a sport event where a fan of the local team gets to act as referee and comes out with his face painted in that team's colors.
I'm sure Nintendo would be happy to license you their back catalogue for a price. It's the dream of all IP creators to generate revenue from their old/unused assets. "Rembrandts in the Attic" and all that.
The problem is that you need to offer enough to overcome any losses of current/future sales that may cause and the transaction costs for them to do the deal. Expect it to require at least a few million dollars up front.
Assuming the interfaces are publicly available, then an emulator would be perfectly legal. But, of course, that doesn't give you the right to make/distribute copies of the game itself.
>Unfortunately the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause makes it illegal to dump anything that uses any sort of copy protection.
That's a common misconception. It's totally legal under the DMCA to circumvent copy protection. The DMCA only makes illegal to circumvent access protection (e.g., streaming service*) and to sell black-boxes that circumvent copy/access protection.
*which always makes me laugh. We ended up with streaming services in large part because the Slashdot types were so adamantly against DRM.
>but rather that people who are not used to power, who are given power, and who are then encouraged to abuse it, tend to do so.
I'm not sure it really shows that either. As others in the thread point out, the fact that everyone involved knew it was fake makes the whole thing more of a role-playing exercise. It's unclear whether how/whether observed behavior under those conditions relates to 'actual behavior.'
I don't know why you assume spying/bugging. It's more likely to be a tip line. Collect evidence for us using this convenient app and we'll give you $50.00.
I respectfully disagree. Figuring out which specific genetic sequence/mutation corresponds to a specific physical condition (and thus, creating the ability to test for that condition) is a hugely important and difficult problem.
The U.S. kinda says that you can patent in this area if the test method itself is novel. But that rule ignores the fundamental nature of the problem, namely that the invention is information content itself. The way you read that information (e.g., sequencing vs. some specific test) is irrelevant.
And the U.S. rule is having practical effects. The whole field of individualized medicine is struggling with funding.
"Patent examiners only look at prior patents for prior art."
Not true. Examiners routinely cite websites (Wayback machine), books and other printed material, technical disclosure bulletins, etc., particularly in those technical areas where non-patent sources are cutting edge.
Somebody has to pay... per the article summary, "cost of sharing the data has grown as more people access it." That is, servers to handle the data, people to manage those servers, (maybe) people to load/configure the data for uploading, etc. That stuff isn't free.
The only real choices are 1) general taxpayers or 2) users. Or, I suppose, we could try to make Mexico pay for it...
Slashdot Mirror
Challenge accepted:
OpenSecrets: $150 million/yr in lobbying expenses in 2018
The best I quickly could find for R&D is $160 billion In 2016.
Conclusion, you're off by more than 4 orders of magnitude. That's might be the worst 'guestimate' of all time.
>$15M/year as the "research costs" ... and the $279.5M pharma spent in 2017 lobbying to "access" our lawmakers.
It's a cheap reply and I hate to say it, but... cite please. Even something within an order of magnitude of that research/lobby expense ratio.
>The problem is how to determine
It's not 'how,' it's 'who gets to determine.' That is, the fight is over whether validity will be decided by a Patent Office judge or Federal Court judge/jury.
>he processual possibilities to invalidate a patent in his ownership are limited.
It depends on what you mean by that... All defenses/procedures available in the PTO are also available in Federal Court, plus a bunch more. The defendant here just prefers the Patent Office because it thinks the PTO judge will be more favorable to its position.
Ignore the others... the issue here is that there are two places a defendant can challenge a patent, in federal court or in the Patent Office. In theory, the two tribunals should follow the same standard, but in practice, the Patent Office is far more willing to invalidate patents. As a result, both sides will spend big money fighting about which of the two tribunals will decide the case.
The specific 'shield' is here actually the 11th amendment (which states and tribes can't be sued in Federal court) + rules stating patent suits must be brought in federal court. The tribe's theory was that the defendant can't preemptively file in the Patent Office, and instead, must wait until it sued by the tribe. And the tribe, of course, will file in Federal Court.
This 'forum shopping,' as it's called, is an ugly situation. As a rough analogy, think of a sport event where a fan of the local team gets to act as referee and comes out with his face painted in that team's colors.
>There is a lot of money to be made.
I'm sure Nintendo would be happy to license you their back catalogue for a price. It's the dream of all IP creators to generate revenue from their old/unused assets. "Rembrandts in the Attic" and all that.
The problem is that you need to offer enough to overcome any losses of current/future sales that may cause and the transaction costs for them to do the deal. Expect it to require at least a few million dollars up front.
> copyright of that performance can be assigned to the one playing the game in that specific manner.
Even if true, they'd still be illegal. The copyright in the derivative work would be subject to the one in the underlying work.
Assuming the interfaces are publicly available, then an emulator would be perfectly legal. But, of course, that doesn't give you the right to make/distribute copies of the game itself.
>Unfortunately the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause makes it illegal to dump anything that uses any sort of copy protection.
That's a common misconception. It's totally legal under the DMCA to circumvent copy protection. The DMCA only makes illegal to circumvent access protection (e.g., streaming service*) and to sell black-boxes that circumvent copy/access protection.
*which always makes me laugh. We ended up with streaming services in large part because the Slashdot types were so adamantly against DRM.
"They're reportedly bothering pedestrians enough for the city to take notice"
This sounds like a few random complaints (possibly from competitors). Is there any real evidence that they are bothering pedestrians e.g., surveys?
>Imagine a service available for free
I imagine there will be services available for a (substantial) fee. Which is kinda the problem policy-wise; that's the last thing a start-up needs.
Presumably, they can stockpile antiviral meds, DARPA better antivirals, run quarantine drills, upgrade continuity of government plans, etc.
Just having a plan to execute will save lives vs doing nothing.
Presumably, you go bio because it has a simpler delivery mechanism.
You're missing the point of the lawsuit. For now, this is about boring legal stuff: who is able to being a lawsuit and who can't.
The Trump administration deserves credit for supporting a company with whom they have an ongoing feud.
Yea, it's weird they didn't grab some app developer, too e.g., Gab.
>but rather that people who are not used to power, who are given power, and who are then encouraged to abuse it, tend to do so.
I'm not sure it really shows that either. As others in the thread point out, the fact that everyone involved knew it was fake makes the whole thing more of a role-playing exercise. It's unclear whether how/whether observed behavior under those conditions relates to 'actual behavior.'
I don't know why you assume spying/bugging. It's more likely to be a tip line. Collect evidence for us using this convenient app and we'll give you $50.00.
"Does any one know what these patents actually cover. "
That was the old U.S. rule i.e., you could patent it if you knew what it did. Now, you're kinda out of luck.
I respectfully disagree. Figuring out which specific genetic sequence/mutation corresponds to a specific physical condition (and thus, creating the ability to test for that condition) is a hugely important and difficult problem.
The U.S. kinda says that you can patent in this area if the test method itself is novel. But that rule ignores the fundamental nature of the problem, namely that the invention is information content itself. The way you read that information (e.g., sequencing vs. some specific test) is irrelevant.
And the U.S. rule is having practical effects. The whole field of individualized medicine is struggling with funding.
" the more protection it gets."
OTOH, copyright only protects against copying the code (i.e., this specific expression), not use of the underlying algorithm.
"Patent examiners only look at prior patents for prior art."
Not true. Examiners routinely cite websites (Wayback machine), books and other printed material, technical disclosure bulletins, etc., particularly in those technical areas where non-patent sources are cutting edge.
"The Trump administration has faced criticism for a more laissez-faire approach to artificial intelligence..."
So, the R's are the pro-science / technology party now, and the D's are the luddites?
It's called a bicycle ;-)
Somebody has to pay... per the article summary, "cost of sharing the data has grown as more people access it." That is, servers to handle the data, people to manage those servers, (maybe) people to load/configure the data for uploading, etc. That stuff isn't free.
The only real choices are 1) general taxpayers or 2) users. Or, I suppose, we could try to make Mexico pay for it...
The government can't copyright works prepared by an officer or employee.