Because after the flurry of papers, alligations, and FUD by their pack of million-dollar-priced lawyers, there's not a jury or judge in the world that will rule in my favor.
Actually, that wouldn't likely be decided by a jury. It's possible that it would be decided in an interference proceeding by the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. You would attempt to show (based on your *documentary evidence*) that you invented your fabulous product first. Also, only the true inventor can file a patent application, so if you can show that MS "derived" their invention from you, they don't get a patent. It may be true that the party with more money (or the one with Lawyers on salary) can make things difficult for the one with less, but that's a product of the capitalist economic system in which we live rather than of the legal system. The law is balanced toward all parties. It's what allows small companies to prevail over large ones, even if you choose not to acknowledge those triumphs. It's the economics of the world in which we live that favors the wealthy, the law is an attempt to bring balance to an unbalanced world.
SURE, the law might SAY incremental changes can't be patented...
Where does the law say that? The law says that an invention must be "useful," "novel" and "non-obvious." Nothing about no "incremental changes." How would that be defined, anwyway?
And by the way, the word "obvious" has a different meaning in patent law than it does in normal English. In normal English, the word means, "readily apparent, or easily understood." In patent law, it means something closer to "A person having ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was made (usually seen as the filing date) could have made this invention by combining the teachings of prior art references A, B and C." This is a very subjective definition, so of course it can always be argued that my invention is not obvious. Apparently Amazon was able to convince the patent Examiner that the invention claimed in the One-click patent was not obvious. It's a point on which reasonable people may (and clearly do) disagree. The real problem with software/internet patents seems to be a lack of a useable database of prior art that includes all of the things that people seem to think it should.
Perhaps the ISP's are concerned about their own liability for their customers' (potentially illegal) activities. The question of whether an ISP is liable or not appears to still be up in the air in some countries. It makes sense that they would take actions to reduce their liability. Which do you think is likely to cost them more, a lawsuit from a record company or a few lost customers?
It's not "naturally occurring" if it requires human manipulation to make the result. In this case, the clinically useful strain has been genetically modified from it's "naturally occurring" form, so the product can't be described as "naturally occurring." At least not in the patent sense of the words.
The confusion comes from the fact that FDA approval can be accelerated if one can show that a drug is "substantially similar" to something that already exists and has a known effect on humans. In the scientific/FDA sense, it may be a naturally occurring virus, but not in the patent sense.
Actually, since this was filed after June 8, 1995, it has an enforceable term of 20 years from the filing date plus any time added back by adjustments. On the front page of the patent, it says that the term is adjusted by 1184 days (~3.2 years). This means that assuming Microsoft pays the maintenance fees (and assuming I did the math right), this patent will expire in March of 2020.
Also, just to clarify, patents are not "retroactive" in the sense that a patent can only be enforced against activities occurring after the date the patent issued.
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Because after the flurry of papers, alligations, and FUD by their pack of million-dollar-priced lawyers, there's not a jury or judge in the world that will rule in my favor.
Actually, that wouldn't likely be decided by a jury. It's possible that it would be decided in an interference proceeding by the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. You would attempt to show (based on your *documentary evidence*) that you invented your fabulous product first. Also, only the true inventor can file a patent application, so if you can show that MS "derived" their invention from you, they don't get a patent. It may be true that the party with more money (or the one with Lawyers on salary) can make things difficult for the one with less, but that's a product of the capitalist economic system in which we live rather than of the legal system. The law is balanced toward all parties. It's what allows small companies to prevail over large ones, even if you choose not to acknowledge those triumphs. It's the economics of the world in which we live that favors the wealthy, the law is an attempt to bring balance to an unbalanced world.
SURE, the law might SAY incremental changes can't be patented...
Where does the law say that? The law says that an invention must be "useful," "novel" and "non-obvious." Nothing about no "incremental changes." How would that be defined, anwyway?
And by the way, the word "obvious" has a different meaning in patent law than it does in normal English. In normal English, the word means, "readily apparent, or easily understood." In patent law, it means something closer to "A person having ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was made (usually seen as the filing date) could have made this invention by combining the teachings of prior art references A, B and C." This is a very subjective definition, so of course it can always be argued that my invention is not obvious. Apparently Amazon was able to convince the patent Examiner that the invention claimed in the One-click patent was not obvious. It's a point on which reasonable people may (and clearly do) disagree. The real problem with software/internet patents seems to be a lack of a useable database of prior art that includes all of the things that people seem to think it should.
Perhaps the ISP's are concerned about their own liability for their customers' (potentially illegal) activities. The question of whether an ISP is liable or not appears to still be up in the air in some countries. It makes sense that they would take actions to reduce their liability. Which do you think is likely to cost them more, a lawsuit from a record company or a few lost customers?
It's not "naturally occurring" if it requires human manipulation to make the result. In this case, the clinically useful strain has been genetically modified from it's "naturally occurring" form, so the product can't be described as "naturally occurring." At least not in the patent sense of the words.
The confusion comes from the fact that FDA approval can be accelerated if one can show that a drug is "substantially similar" to something that already exists and has a known effect on humans. In the scientific/FDA sense, it may be a naturally occurring virus, but not in the patent sense.
Words don't always mean what you think they mean.
Actually, since this was filed after June 8, 1995, it has an enforceable term of 20 years from the filing date plus any time added back by adjustments. On the front page of the patent, it says that the term is adjusted by 1184 days (~3.2 years). This means that assuming Microsoft pays the maintenance fees (and assuming I did the math right), this patent will expire in March of 2020. Also, just to clarify, patents are not "retroactive" in the sense that a patent can only be enforced against activities occurring after the date the patent issued.