It's quite hard not to get caught. The work force is, um, well seasoned these days. They are not naive - they've seen the tricks and deceptions and know what to look for. They can smell duplicity at a hundred paces.
I'm not saying that lack of integrity doesn't exist, or that it can't be profitable. I am saying that it's the exception, not the rule.
And that jives very well with what I see at work every day.
And I can only assume that you are very young or haven't spent much time in business. You appear to have drunk the cool-aid that Hollywood and others have prepared about what free enterprize is truly about.
The basic formula is this: Low integrity loses you both customers and employees. That's not to say that you can't make a profit doing this, but it's the more difficult route.
And generally they want to promote a culture of honesty and integrity. If Pepsi employees think it's okay to steal from Coke, they'll think it's okay to steal from Pepsi.
Certain political radicals would claim that capitalism is inherently dishonest and corrupt. Although there is plenty of that, they would be amazed at the degree of integrity required to run a successful business.
You don't want to ever mate northern and southern cows.
The offspring are "spinners", which are only useful as rodeo bulls or for producing milk shakes.
By the way, do rodeo bulls in the northern hemisphere tend to spin in the opposite direction as southern hemisphere bulls? Someone should do a study on this.
Fantasy and/or technology were just props for Bradbury used to reveal the human soul. The romanticism of Bradbury (in the literary meaning) is impossible to miss.
Having read the popular progressive and conservative blogs, I don't find one to be much better than the other when it comes to hatred. I've seen stuff in the Huffington Post, for example, that is every bit as bad as some of the postings in LGF.
But what is your argument here? That conservatives have caused many so-called liberals to be illiberal?
The irony is that a liberal used to mean someone who believed that freedom of speech and the press were paramount, and that it was not government's place to tell people how to run their lives.
You seemed to have missed the point that it was the PTO itself that
argued for these restrictions before the courts. They are not just bystanders following the court's rulings - they actively helped bring
them about.
We have a government agency applying a set of rules
for decades, and then arguing to the courts
that they were wrong, and those individuals and businesses who have invested large sums of money based in the trust that the agency was acting with competence and in good faith are left high and dry.
If this is the way it plays out then the behaviour of
the PTO is obscenely irresponsible.
You must have a different definition of "run-of-the-mill"
than I have.
Why? Because it is in the public interest that governments deal with businesses responsibly.
Sudden policy changes that bankrupt businesses and create huge legal problems with tens (hundreds?) of thousands of existing contracts will destroy trust in the government to provide a workable business environment.
Businesses didn't set the rules for patents. Government did. As such, government has the duty to make the transition as smooth and non-disruptive as it can, even when they recognize that the old system was a mistake.
My guess is that patent troll companies are relatively scarce compared to the number of companies that hold and use patents in good faith.
Many smaller companies use patents to protect their ideas from larger companies. The company I work for is one (although our use of patents is limited - this won't hurt us much).
Declaring that software patents will no longer be approved is fine. But many smaller companies have invested much in the assumption that their current patents will continue to be valid.
They sort-of have that already. There's a yearly fee for maintaining a patent. If you have so little interest in your own patent that you can't be bothered to pay the fee, the patent lapses.
You seem to think this is run-of-the-mill. Just another day at the office. It's not.
It's fine for government to change the rules when they need improving. Retroactive change, however, is not fine, and that appears to be what the PTO is attempting to do.
Retroactive change undercuts business confidence. It sends a clear message that government - and the PTO in particular - can not be trusted. And this trust is vital for a healthy business climate.
Running a business is tough enough trying to guess how government will change the rules for the future. It becomes really tough when you have to guess how government will change the rules for the past.
And the people who end up footing the bill? The citizen - the one who always ends up paying.
I never argued it's a power grab. But for the PTO to argue in court that the criteria they themselves have used for decades is wrong is obscene and patently (ahem) unfair. As I argued in other postings, businesses deserve better than that.
How many contracts out there involve the selling and licensing of software patents? Every one of these contracts could now be in dispute, as the very premise of these contract disappears. The legal morass would be massive. The courts better hire more staff.
Most mega-corporations would suffer but survive. Even if they lose IP, they have the size and strength to shrug it off. But for some smaller companies, their IP is a critical part of their business, and many could well fold.
Governments owe it to their citizens to provide a stable and fair set of rules for running a business. When governments fail to do that, it's the everyday Joe (the forgotten man) who finally pays the bill - as he always does.
People who say "Yeah, we shafted the big corporations!" are the same ones who later ask "Why does the economy suck?", "Why can't I find a good job?", "Why are things so expensive?"
I'm fine with changing the rules for new applications. Software patents would disappear in 20 years. Retroactive changes would be stupid beyond belief, and I'm not even sure the PTO has the right to do so.
The article uses the workd "invalidate", which sounds to me like it would cancel existing patents. My question is - would this new set of criteria be retroactive, or would it apply only to new applications?
The PTO changing the rules to cancel previously approved patents would generate massive legal problems. In particular, companies have spent billions of dollars to register patents, only for the PTO to say "Oops, just kidding. Jokes on you."
No matter where you stand on software patents (and I'm against them if they can be restricted sensibly, BTW), that's no way to run a patent office.
Slashdot Mirror
It's quite hard not to get caught. The work force is, um, well seasoned these days. They are not naive - they've seen the tricks and deceptions and know what to look for. They can smell duplicity at a hundred paces.
I'm not saying that lack of integrity doesn't exist, or that it can't be profitable. I am saying that it's the exception, not the rule.
And that jives very well with what I see at work every day.
I stand corrected. In the short run, dishonesty and deceit pays.
And I can only assume that you are very young or haven't spent much time in business. You appear to have drunk the cool-aid that Hollywood and others have prepared about what free enterprize is truly about.
The basic formula is this: Low integrity loses you both customers and employees. That's not to say that you can't make a profit doing this, but it's the more difficult route.
And no, I'm not an owner or executive.
And generally they want to promote a culture of honesty and integrity. If Pepsi employees think it's okay to steal from Coke, they'll think it's okay to steal from Pepsi.
Certain political radicals would claim that capitalism is inherently dishonest and corrupt. Although there is plenty of that, they would be amazed at the degree of integrity required to run a successful business.
You don't want to ever mate northern and southern cows. The offspring are "spinners", which are only useful as rodeo bulls or for producing milk shakes.
By the way, do rodeo bulls in the northern hemisphere tend to spin in the opposite direction as southern hemisphere bulls? Someone should do a study on this.
Fantasy and/or technology were just props for Bradbury used to reveal the human soul. The romanticism of Bradbury (in the literary meaning) is impossible to miss.
Now there's a simple, powerful, and disturbing story. I read it when I was in my early teens, and have never forgotten it.
For a (so-called) science fiction writer, Bradbury was an unabashed romantic of the American school. He goes right along Steinbeck in my view.
Having read the popular progressive and conservative blogs, I don't find one to be much better than the other when it comes to hatred. I've seen stuff in the Huffington Post, for example, that is every bit as bad as some of the postings in LGF.
But what is your argument here? That conservatives have caused many so-called liberals to be illiberal?
And how much would this technology cost in Canadian dollars?
Cause we're in the market right now.
The irony is that a liberal used to mean someone who believed that freedom of speech and the press were paramount, and that it was not government's place to tell people how to run their lives.
But I guess what was once up is now down.
Why are so many supposedly liberal-minded people so ... illiberal? Is it because they think a fairness doctrine would only be used against Republicans?
It's like they want to attack their enemies by removing the oxygen out of the air, without considering how they themselves will breath.
He obviously meant temperature, not heat.
With this correction, he's right. Nature obhors a gradient, and thus from a gradient one can extract work. Heat, in and of itself, is not free energy.
You seemed to have missed the point that it was the PTO itself that argued for these restrictions before the courts. They are not just bystanders following the court's rulings - they actively helped bring them about.
On second thought, you may be right. A government agency acting obscenely irresponsible might indeed be considered "run-of-the-mill".
We have a government agency applying a set of rules for decades, and then arguing to the courts that they were wrong, and those individuals and businesses who have invested large sums of money based in the trust that the agency was acting with competence and in good faith are left high and dry.
If this is the way it plays out then the behaviour of the PTO is obscenely irresponsible.
You must have a different definition of "run-of-the-mill" than I have.
Why? Because it is in the public interest that governments deal with businesses responsibly.
Sudden policy changes that bankrupt businesses and create huge legal problems with tens (hundreds?) of thousands of existing contracts will destroy trust in the government to provide a workable business environment.
Businesses didn't set the rules for patents. Government did. As such, government has the duty to make the transition as smooth and non-disruptive as it can, even when they recognize that the old system was a mistake.
My guess is that patent troll companies are relatively scarce compared to the number of companies that hold and use patents in good faith.
Many smaller companies use patents to protect their ideas from larger companies. The company I work for is one (although our use of patents is limited - this won't hurt us much).
Declaring that software patents will no longer be approved is fine. But many smaller companies have invested much in the assumption that their current patents will continue to be valid.
They sort-of have that already. There's a yearly fee for maintaining a patent. If you have so little interest in your own patent that you can't be bothered to pay the fee, the patent lapses.
You seem to think this is run-of-the-mill. Just another day at the office. It's not.
It's fine for government to change the rules when they need improving. Retroactive change, however, is not fine, and that appears to be what the PTO is attempting to do.
Retroactive change undercuts business confidence. It sends a clear message that government - and the PTO in particular - can not be trusted. And this trust is vital for a healthy business climate.
Running a business is tough enough trying to guess how government will change the rules for the future. It becomes really tough when you have to guess how government will change the rules for the past.
And the people who end up footing the bill? The citizen - the one who always ends up paying.
How is Mitchell's education to the story? Do he take courses on the detection of space aliens?
Perhaps the point is that being smart doesn't stop you from being crazy.
I never argued it's a power grab. But for the PTO to argue in court that the criteria they themselves have used for decades is wrong is obscene and patently (ahem) unfair. As I argued in other postings, businesses deserve better than that.
How many contracts out there involve the selling and licensing of software patents? Every one of these contracts could now be in dispute, as the very premise of these contract disappears. The legal morass would be massive. The courts better hire more staff.
Most mega-corporations would suffer but survive. Even if they lose IP, they have the size and strength to shrug it off. But for some smaller companies, their IP is a critical part of their business, and many could well fold.
Governments owe it to their citizens to provide a stable and fair set of rules for running a business. When governments fail to do that, it's the everyday Joe (the forgotten man) who finally pays the bill - as he always does.
People who say "Yeah, we shafted the big corporations!" are the same ones who later ask "Why does the economy suck?", "Why can't I find a good job?", "Why are things so expensive?"
I'm fine with changing the rules for new applications. Software patents would disappear in 20 years. Retroactive changes would be stupid beyond belief, and I'm not even sure the PTO has the right to do so.
The article uses the workd "invalidate", which sounds to me like it would cancel existing patents. My question is - would this new set of criteria be retroactive, or would it apply only to new applications?
The PTO changing the rules to cancel previously approved patents would generate massive legal problems. In particular, companies have spent billions of dollars to register patents, only for the PTO to say "Oops, just kidding. Jokes on you."
No matter where you stand on software patents (and I'm against them if they can be restricted sensibly, BTW), that's no way to run a patent office.
People should not be allowed to moderate unless they can demonstrate a sense of humour.
I work for an oil company. My big fat bonuses should handle the cost of fuel.
Besides, Ford is practically giving away their pickup trucks. Apparently they're not moving off the lot as well as they did.