1) They don't want people bringing these things as harassment 2) They don't even have the time to properly look over the patent application in the first place. They are under staffed and over worked 3) Patents are presumped valid, and it is up to you to disprove it, and in the American legal system you pay your own legal fees
The flaw in your strategy is that, Each patent will run you $10k+ and take you over 2 years to obtain. Furthermore, you have to enforce it so you will have to watch everywhere for violations. Then you will have to litigate it. Should you win, and your patent be found valid, then you can sell it for big money.
The difference is with hollywood you cannot replicate something as easily. There aren't two Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts. So you can only get that PR a couple times a year. You have to think of each big star as a brand name, and not just somebody who has talent. Almost everybody behind the screen doesn't count for anything and can be replaced. Director and Writer are really as about as far as it goes, and most people can't run off more than a dozen of each.
As for the gaming industry, I am not by any means knocking their ability. But how often does anybody really say "That is some awesome code, nobody else could do this". This isn't to say that what was produced was obvious, but it certainly can be duplicated. Every gaming revolution in the game industry has been followed with a hundreds of clones. Game Developers and software engineers are selling what they can do. Actors/actresses are selling what they are, and that can't be duplicated
This actually makes sense. I mean after your economy hits a wall going 100, you need to hire lawyers to figure out who is to blame. When the economy picks up again the lawyers will go back to contract negotiations, and tax evasion. Stuff that isn't really interesting.
Actually what I think it is, is that the internet bubble created a lot of things, so the judicial system is now trying to sort out what is what and which laws apply to them. This has an effect on geeks so to speak
VoIP isn't regulated as a Telecommunications company, yet. They do not pay into Universal Service, and they do not have to pay the local telephone company for completing the long distance call. AT&T does. for every 10 cents you pay AT&T, your local phone company gets a penny (or some percentage)
Furthermore VoIP is an emerging market with competitive growth. The FCC is actually optimistic that VoIP is going to be a true competitor to local bell.
Generally speaking forcing somebody to lease their equipment out is the extreme end. And really is a last resort strategy. The US takes property rights very seriously
This probably won't happen just yet. For one, AT&T and MCI have entered into contracts with the local bell companies. So you probably could have upwards of a few years before the loval bells could close their monopoly. Two, there is still one more appeal to go. Three, the old law was legal. The one that barred the local bell companies from manufacturing equipment, and providing long distance.
This double standard was necessary. Those complicated steps were to make sure the Baby bells released their monopoly control over one area in order to compete in long distance. The long distance market was already competitive. If the Baby bells were allowed to bundle long distance with their local monopoly they would destory the competition in the long distance market.
Currently all the local bells are allowed to compete for long distance in their regional area save for a few holdout states. SBC has become the worst telemarketing offender placing 6 calls since 2004 asking me to switch. Now here is the funny thing the no monthly fee rate they are offering me for long distance is 5 cents a minute. The local toll rate (calls over 15 miles) I have to pay is 7 cents a minute.
AT&T is currently the largest competitor in the local bell monopoly system.
My mom used to have their digital phone line, and when they sold their cable division to Comcast they called her about a month later telling her they would appreciate her business. She asked them if the aprreciated it so much, then why did they sell it to another company
No store gives a crap about your taste, few people make money selling to a person. Grocery Stores work something like Real Estate. Most companies have to purchase a right to place their product in the store. Groceries are looking to maximize this and reduce waste.
As far as trying to eek out the most amount of money for a product, there is nothing wrong with that. And they could do that even if you didn't use the card/paid in cash b/c they can still track everything coming into and out of the store.
I don't know how they do it around you, but before I actually got their data mining card I would just tell them I lost it, or left it in the card. The cashier would always enter in either his/her card or some generic one the stores had for such a purpose.
I do find those cards vital b/c I generally have 10-15% of my grocery bill in "savings", and some weeks I can clear 25%.
Back in my college days local bars used to sell 20 oz. cups of Bud Light for as low as 10 cents. I suspect similar dirt cheap A-B products at all college areas
This has some interesting effects
1. The college students can get drunk on a couple bucks 2. College students acquire a taste for A-B 3. Later in life college students pay a profitable rate on these products 4. A-B sells a bajillion barrels of beer a year
Looks a little like pushing a drug doesn't it? First hit is free, you pay for it the rest of your life
Topics in which when discussed have incited illegal acts
1. Civil Rights 2. Labor Rights 3. Aborotion 4. Animal Rights
And what about Responsibility for ones Actions?
Somebody saying something or posing a demonstration is a far cry from somebody putting a gun to your head and telling you to do something.
Should I really be held accountable if I happen to be speaking to a group of reasonable people with one mentally disturbed person who goes off because of what I said? Should I give everybody a pyschological profiling before I begin talking?
ah, but my point was the Quicktime has 100% penetration on Apple, like Media player has 100% penetration on Windows. So if you were targeting only apple users quicktime is your format of choice. There are many reasons why you may want to do this.
Yes if I wanted to target ALL PC users or just windows users I would use whatever MS stuck on the machine, but this does not change the fact that there is a monopoly in the Apple PC market.
1) our high speed internet penetration is pathetic
2) what high speed internet there is, is in the hands of our local monopolistic telecom
3) Media streaming requires high speed connection
4) monopoly profits MS reaps ends up being Taxed in the US quite nicely
5) MS pays nice amounts of money to people getting elected
6) MS gives all kinds of free stuff to US schools
While in college I purchased my copy of win2k, winXP, Office, and frontpage for $5 each. I was then given Visual Studios and Visual SourceSafe
You should welcome MS move to antivirus for the following reasons
1) Any dominance found with antivirus will result in Windows being open sourced as that is the only way anybody could compete with a windows antivirus software
2) If MS antivirus division can protect against something their OS division hasn't fixed, this shows the company has knowledge of a defect in their software, and could put them on the level of gross negligence
Microsoft more or less exists on one big campus in Washington. You can't effectively split the company in two fairly. They have one legal department, one marketing department, one accounting department, etc. If you wanted to split them you might as well just suggest we dissolve the company.
The EU will require MS to price the WMP-free version cheaper. After all, you *are* paying for WMP's development when you buy Windows.
Really? prices being set by the government where there isn't a natural monopoly? I didn't think the EU was this far along the road to communism. The cost of development is already paid for. So you are talking about the extra cost to put it on. Lets approximate that to be about 3-5 cents.
Ah yes the AT&T breakup, one of the greatest travesties the world has ever known. We had the best most advanced phone system in the world and we destoryed it. And you know what, after 20 years prices for landlines are almost back down to inflation adjusted cost they were in 1984
MS - Hello Dell/Compaq/HP/IBM/Gateway I have this CD that will allow you to install this O/S and all these other neat features your customers want
Real - But we have a CD that can provide you with the same cool apps
MS - this is true they can, we also have this CD with just the O/S, but since the cost of the 2 CD's is the same we are going to charge the same price
Dell/Compaq/IBM/HP/Gateway - hm... we can deal with just MS and all the legal negotiations that will result with that, or we could deal with these 5 or 6 other companies with MS. Oh wait, we would also have to retrain our software installation teams, and reconfigure our software installation process. Oh and we would have to renogitiate our techsupport contracts.
MS - So what are you trying to say?
Real - pick me pick me pick me!!!
Hadware - I am sorry, MS did you hear something, let us close the window. We would like to continue our current relationship
Yes I can see where the stripped down version would cost less
$100 Windows XP - $0 windows media player - $0 internet explorer - $0 MSN crap ----
$100 bare bones Windows XP
There is no way a regulating agency can justify telling MS to charge less when their competition doesn't charge anything for the same products.
And this is stupid too b/c if I were MS my barebones operating system would include no application that could get you to the internet and I would charge the same price b/c all that stuff is free else. So I am still getting my $100 for the Slashdot crowd who will by it to play their games and install what they need, and every Suzy Kim is going to get all my cool features because more for the same price is better.
I have read the IE-Netscape case. the problem wasn't just that MS wasn't charging,
The problem was that
- MS contracted with Computer manufactures saying they couldn't install Netscape
- MS told ISP that if they want their software loaded on the machine they couldn't use Netscape
This basically screwed netscape as it had no cost effect means of distributing their product. Sure they could carpet bomb like AOL, but they didn't have that kind of money. So really the only way people could get it is if they went to netscape and downloaded it.
Slashdot Mirror
Over 50% of all land in California is owned by one government or another.
1) They don't want people bringing these things as harassment
2) They don't even have the time to properly look over the patent application in the first place. They are under staffed and over worked
3) Patents are presumped valid, and it is up to you to disprove it, and in the American legal system you pay your own legal fees
The flaw in your strategy is that, Each patent will run you $10k+ and take you over 2 years to obtain. Furthermore, you have to enforce it so you will have to watch everywhere for violations. Then you will have to litigate it. Should you win, and your patent be found valid, then you can sell it for big money.
The difference is with hollywood you cannot replicate something as easily. There aren't two Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts. So you can only get that PR a couple times a year. You have to think of each big star as a brand name, and not just somebody who has talent. Almost everybody behind the screen doesn't count for anything and can be replaced. Director and Writer are really as about as far as it goes, and most people can't run off more than a dozen of each.
As for the gaming industry, I am not by any means knocking their ability. But how often does anybody really say "That is some awesome code, nobody else could do this". This isn't to say that what was produced was obvious, but it certainly can be duplicated. Every gaming revolution in the game industry has been followed with a hundreds of clones. Game Developers and software engineers are selling what they can do. Actors/actresses are selling what they are, and that can't be duplicated
Does this mean instead of a "loading please wait" screen we will see "Coke proudly present ... grab a coke while you wait"?
This actually makes sense. I mean after your economy hits a wall going 100, you need to hire lawyers to figure out who is to blame. When the economy picks up again the lawyers will go back to contract negotiations, and tax evasion. Stuff that isn't really interesting.
Actually what I think it is, is that the internet bubble created a lot of things, so the judicial system is now trying to sort out what is what and which laws apply to them. This has an effect on geeks so to speak
I for one like refering to it as its merger name of Satan's Bastard Child
Well if you have a bunch of people stuck paying high monopoly phone rates they will flee like rats off a sinking ship.
This encourages people to figure out how to transmit voice of cable lines, power lines, and wireless.
VoIP isn't regulated as a Telecommunications company, yet. They do not pay into Universal Service, and they do not have to pay the local telephone company for completing the long distance call. AT&T does. for every 10 cents you pay AT&T, your local phone company gets a penny (or some percentage)
Furthermore VoIP is an emerging market with competitive growth. The FCC is actually optimistic that VoIP is going to be a true competitor to local bell.
Generally speaking forcing somebody to lease their equipment out is the extreme end. And really is a last resort strategy. The US takes property rights very seriously
This probably won't happen just yet. For one, AT&T and MCI have entered into contracts with the local bell companies. So you probably could have upwards of a few years before the loval bells could close their monopoly. Two, there is still one more appeal to go. Three, the old law was legal. The one that barred the local bell companies from manufacturing equipment, and providing long distance.
This double standard was necessary. Those complicated steps were to make sure the Baby bells released their monopoly control over one area in order to compete in long distance. The long distance market was already competitive. If the Baby bells were allowed to bundle long distance with their local monopoly they would destory the competition in the long distance market.
Currently all the local bells are allowed to compete for long distance in their regional area save for a few holdout states. SBC has become the worst telemarketing offender placing 6 calls since 2004 asking me to switch. Now here is the funny thing the no monthly fee rate they are offering me for long distance is 5 cents a minute. The local toll rate (calls over 15 miles) I have to pay is 7 cents a minute.
AT&T is currently the largest competitor in the local bell monopoly system.
My mom used to have their digital phone line, and when they sold their cable division to Comcast they called her about a month later telling her they would appreciate her business. She asked them if the aprreciated it so much, then why did they sell it to another company
This is true. I know SBC runs up several million in fines every year for failing to keep the unbundled lines they are forced to sell operational.
No store gives a crap about your taste, few people make money selling to a person. Grocery Stores work something like Real Estate. Most companies have to purchase a right to place their product in the store. Groceries are looking to maximize this and reduce waste.
As far as trying to eek out the most amount of money for a product, there is nothing wrong with that. And they could do that even if you didn't use the card/paid in cash b/c they can still track everything coming into and out of the store.
I don't know how they do it around you, but before I actually got their data mining card I would just tell them I lost it, or left it in the card. The cashier would always enter in either his/her card or some generic one the stores had for such a purpose.
I do find those cards vital b/c I generally have 10-15% of my grocery bill in "savings", and some weeks I can clear 25%.
Back in my college days local bars used to sell 20 oz. cups of Bud Light for as low as 10 cents. I suspect similar dirt cheap A-B products at all college areas
This has some interesting effects
1. The college students can get drunk on a couple bucks
2. College students acquire a taste for A-B
3. Later in life college students pay a profitable rate on these products
4. A-B sells a bajillion barrels of beer a year
Looks a little like pushing a drug doesn't it? First hit is free, you pay for it the rest of your life
How can you reasonably determine what to outlaw if you cannot discuss it?
"incite to commit illegal act"
Topics in which when discussed have incited illegal acts
1. Civil Rights
2. Labor Rights
3. Aborotion
4. Animal Rights
And what about Responsibility for ones Actions?
Somebody saying something or posing a demonstration is a far cry from somebody putting a gun to your head and telling you to do something.
Should I really be held accountable if I happen to be speaking to a group of reasonable people with one mentally disturbed person who goes off because of what I said? Should I give everybody a pyschological profiling before I begin talking?
ah, but my point was the Quicktime has 100% penetration on Apple, like Media player has 100% penetration on Windows. So if you were targeting only apple users quicktime is your format of choice. There are many reasons why you may want to do this.
Yes if I wanted to target ALL PC users or just windows users I would use whatever MS stuck on the machine, but this does not change the fact that there is a monopoly in the Apple PC market.
It is just a matter of how you define the market
Reason why US doesn't care
1) our high speed internet penetration is pathetic
2) what high speed internet there is, is in the hands of our local monopolistic telecom
3) Media streaming requires high speed connection
4) monopoly profits MS reaps ends up being Taxed in the US quite nicely
5) MS pays nice amounts of money to people getting elected
6) MS gives all kinds of free stuff to US schools
While in college I purchased my copy of win2k, winXP, Office, and frontpage for $5 each. I was then given Visual Studios and Visual SourceSafe
You should welcome MS move to antivirus for the following reasons
1) Any dominance found with antivirus will result in Windows being open sourced as that is the only way anybody could compete with a windows antivirus software
2) If MS antivirus division can protect against something their OS division hasn't fixed, this shows the company has knowledge of a defect in their software, and could put them on the level of gross negligence
Microsoft more or less exists on one big campus in Washington. You can't effectively split the company in two fairly. They have one legal department, one marketing department, one accounting department, etc. If you wanted to split them you might as well just suggest we dissolve the company.
The EU will require MS to price the WMP-free version cheaper. After all, you *are* paying for WMP's development when you buy Windows.
Really? prices being set by the government where there isn't a natural monopoly? I didn't think the EU was this far along the road to communism. The cost of development is already paid for. So you are talking about the extra cost to put it on. Lets approximate that to be about 3-5 cents.
Ah yes the AT&T breakup, one of the greatest travesties the world has ever known. We had the best most advanced phone system in the world and we destoryed it. And you know what, after 20 years prices for landlines are almost back down to inflation adjusted cost they were in 1984
Yes this is how it will go.
MS - Hello Dell/Compaq/HP/IBM/Gateway I have this CD that will allow you to install this O/S and all these other neat features your customers want
Real - But we have a CD that can provide you with the same cool apps
MS - this is true they can, we also have this CD with just the O/S, but since the cost of the 2 CD's is the same we are going to charge the same price
Dell/Compaq/IBM/HP/Gateway - hm... we can deal with just MS and all the legal negotiations that will result with that, or we could deal with these 5 or 6 other companies with MS. Oh wait, we would also have to retrain our software installation teams, and reconfigure our software installation process. Oh and we would have to renogitiate our techsupport contracts.
MS - So what are you trying to say?
Real - pick me pick me pick me!!!
Hadware - I am sorry, MS did you hear something, let us close the window. We would like to continue our current relationship
Yes I can see where the stripped down version would cost less
$100 Windows XP
- $0 windows media player
- $0 internet explorer
- $0 MSN crap
----
$100 bare bones Windows XP
There is no way a regulating agency can justify telling MS to charge less when their competition doesn't charge anything for the same products.
And this is stupid too b/c if I were MS my barebones operating system would include no application that could get you to the internet and I would charge the same price b/c all that stuff is free else. So I am still getting my $100 for the Slashdot crowd who will by it to play their games and install what they need, and every Suzy Kim is going to get all my cool features because more for the same price is better.
I have read the IE-Netscape case. the problem wasn't just that MS wasn't charging,
The problem was that
- MS contracted with Computer manufactures saying they couldn't install Netscape
- MS told ISP that if they want their software loaded on the machine they couldn't use Netscape
This basically screwed netscape as it had no cost effect means of distributing their product. Sure they could carpet bomb like AOL, but they didn't have that kind of money. So really the only way people could get it is if they went to netscape and downloaded it.