What about those patents that require little if any work (such as 'ISNOT' or 'a method for paying freelance programmers')? Why do you patent fanboys always assume that patents are there to protect hard work?
The patent system might not be under such fire if patents had a proportionality to the amount of creative effort (original, not patent lawyer-ese) required to produce the patent. Developers often have seven reasonable (but not necessarily original) ideas before breakfast which patent offices seem only too willing to grant (provided all the fees are paid and the company is big enough...).
The EPO makes a billion Euros a year for itself (never mind what the patent lawyers make). This might be due to volume rather than quality, of course, but I understand this is sufficient income for a well run PO.
Software patent news is not that small, at least to the ministers of Trade, Science etc. Last year after just one piece of news, Lord Sainsbury (the relevant minister in the UK) received over 40,000 letters. Keep writing!
You,obviously, have never worked in the software field and never worked for small s/w companies to whom spending US$5k-10k per patent would be difficult to justify.
Actually, I have.
And did they have the cash to patent equivalent rubbish that we see patented at the moment? (If so, they would be larger than some of the five and eight man bands that I've worked for and with). Did it gain them anything by so doing? -----
You,obviously, have not read the vast amount of literature on the Web which simply shows that s/w patents are very anti-innovation.
Actually, I have read that literature and am aware of what it claims.
Could you point us to the lierature that definitively shows that software patnets aid innovation? -----
You, obviously, are completely unaware of the fact that small and medium-sized companies do not have the time, money or resources to check that every two or three lines of code may not be infringing on a patent. Go see the MIT Web site for an example of a three line program that infringes.
It is simply false that anybody (whether small or medium-sized or large) needs to "check every two or three lines of code" to see if it "is infringing on a patent."
And if they don't, and get sued by IBM, MS, Oracle, what then? Some methods are very well known to have patents attached. I worked on a system that required compression using arithmetic coding. We were all aware that IBM holds a whole bunch of patents in this area (4,122,440 4,286,256 4,295,125
4,463,342 4,467,317 4,633,490 4,652,856 4,792,954 4,891,643 4,901,363
4,905,297 4,933,883 4,935,882 5,045,852 5,099,440 5,142,283 5,210,536
5,414,423 5,546,080). Most people who go anywhere near this stuff know that. The company for whom I worked did not have the resources to check if I was infringing. I was asked to do it another way but I couldn't see how. What do I do, not write the code or check the patents?
I won a drink-driving case against the police. I strenuously disputed the 'fact' I was over the limit (the police gave me my car keys back after the breath test and told me to go home!). They simply 'forgot' to send my blood sample for testing and prosecuted me over two years later!! The phrase used in court was 'male fides' or some such. We asked for costs but the judge said no. He disliked the fact that the police had lost even though they were a right bunch of twats.
Makes sense. But some automation is simply to mitigate the stupidity of some managers. I came across a middle layer manager (who I suspected had trouble spelling 'komputer' [in HP, no less]) who insisted that (amongst other things), "IIS6" should be typed out in full on problem reports, as "Microsoft Internet Information Server version 6.0".
Why? "Because people reading this won't know what IIS6 means." "And do they know what it means when it's typed out in full? Because if they know what it is in full, they'll know it also as IIS. And if they don't, they shouldn't be reading the report." No dice. We supplied a key press macro to the poor bastards having to type all this shite in. Quite a few of them.
Sometimes, for small jobs, your outside supplier will quote ridiculous prices 'cos they don't really want the small job. It's because, in effect, they have to take the programmer back after 2/3 months and he/she can often be sitting around for a while until more work appears. But if they find someone idiotic enough to pay the inflated price, hey, they'll do it!
This was exactly the process that caused Digital to go downhill. It always starts with a little cut here and there and when the fluffy white clouds of management see little improvement, they add more and more inefficient cost savings.
It started with cutting staff who (amongst other things) loaded paper and changed cartridges on the high-speed laser printers, kept them running smoothly. Well, the average was a 3/4 minute walk to the printer. If it ran out of paper, you might not notice for a while and the all the print jobs queued up. Add paper, wait 20/30 minutes to get your printout. Multiply this by 40/50 staff and large amounts of time were now being wasted. But management decided more cuts were needed.
It got so bad, I heard in Australia, they ran out of papaer entirely and used to take a floppy to a client and get them to print out any technical specs ("...and while you're at it, you couldn't print off another couple for me, could you?").
Meanwhile, Digital had come up with figures that showed staff were consuming one roll of sticky tape each, per week. Lock up the stationery cupboards! Only designated personnel could gain access to pens and writing pads. Of course we weren't consuming all that sticky tape, it was being trucked out of warehouses (or whatever scam was being used).
One bright Harvard educated fast-track manager decided the way to save money was to order more hardware in bulk from Taiwan, get the discounts. This just meant Digital was stocking up on outdated CD-ROMs as the speed went up 4x, 8x, 32x and customers wanted the higher spec. kit. Up went costs, must cut elsewhere. And this just went on and on hitting the staff with unnecessary cost cutting.
There was a lot of conspiracy talk but, all I can say is, in the end Digital got sold out to Compaq whilst the directors of both companies were all old mates...
You,obviously, have never worked in the software field and never worked for small s/w companies to whom spending US$5k-10k per patent would be difficult to justify.
You,obviously, have not read the vast amount of literature on the Web which simply shows that s/w patents are very anti-innovation.
You, obviously, are completely unaware of the fact that small and medium-sized companies do not have the time, money or resources to check that every two or three lines of code may not be infringing on a patent. Go see the MIT Web site for an example of a three line program that infringes.
...but is made up of democratically elected ministers...
Not from the UK. And not from a lot of other countries either. They are usually political appointees, failed politicians, industry bigwigs or civil servants who happen to be the Prime Minister's mate. In our case, it is Peter Mandelson, a Labour Party spin doctor and recipient of large interest-free loans amongst other dubious things.
Writing and writing and writing to MPs and UK MEPs. They studiously ignore just about everything sent and, where they do reply, simply echo the Patent Office mantra of 'technical effect'. I have had only one supportive letter. That was from Tam Dlayell who is, unfortunately retiring in May from the UK parliament. The rest (especially Irish and UK MEPs) have simply been corrupted by Euros/Dollars and lobbyists. It's very dispiriting, especially when the Council/Commission ignore proper procedure and arrogantly ride roughshod over the democratically elected representatives who don't want to see s/w patents.
It's funny how Digital was run down in almost the same way. That is, with really bad management.
But actually, Compaq wasn't so bad until they started thinking about buying Digital (after they'd bought Tandem). They needed to generate cash up to the purchase so everything was fobidden for quite a while. And then after the deal, a lot of work (I had to integrate a ton of Web sites), it all started going downhill even more rapidly.
I left, and just about everybody I knew there left eventually, but people I know who went back on short term contracts said how awful it was.
I was completely amazed when HP announced they were going to buy Compaq. We (geeks) all shook our heads and said, "They'll regret this..." Shoulda shorted the stock.
"Natasha [Demkina] first demonstrated her extraordinary ability at the age of ten, when she told her stunned mum Tatyana she could see "two beans", "a tomato" and a "vacuum cleaner" inside her."
Two men dying of thirst in a desert staggered over a sand dune and saw a large outdoor market spread in front of them.
They dash down to the first stall and ask the vendor if he's got anything to drink. "Sorry," came the reply, "I have only these puddings made of jelly and custard, a little sherry, some cream and various sugary toppings."
They move to the next stall. Had he anything to drink? No sorry, all he had were these puddings made of jelly and custard, a little sherry, some cream and various sugary toppings.
Stall after stall. None of them had anything to drink. Only puddings made of jelly and custard, a little sherry, some cream and various sugary toppings.
The two men return to trudging the desert.
"That was very peculiar," said one after some time.
"Yes," said the other, "it was a trifle bazaar."
UK? Go to redtelecom.co.uk, sipgate.co.uk, voipuser.com (amongst others). You can get just about any area code including local, London national (02000), 08xx etc.. And I've seen US clients using UK numbers (gives them a European presence). Some say that 01/02 can only be used by UK residents. Vonage.co.uk gives London area codes at the moment.
...you're not supposed to be able to patent things that are trivial...
Like ISNOT (20040230959) or the peanut butter and jelly sandwich (6004596) or the snowman accessory kit (D382317)?
IIRC, the Japanese patent system is even more broken than the US system. So, clicking on a question mark to get help being patented doesn't surprise me.
Wouldn't be so sure about that. M$ openly bought the Irish contingent and most of the rest of the (undemocratic) Council/Commission are in the pockets of MegaCorp PLC/Inc./GmbH. Poland is growing weary of the fight, the Dutch are ignoring their parliament's wishes. The Brits are already assuming the battle is lost (for the small guy) because the UKPTO is requiring definitions of discredited phrases (which shouldn't be there) from the EU directive.
Slashdot Mirror
What about those patents that require little if any work (such as 'ISNOT' or 'a method for paying freelance programmers')? Why do you patent fanboys always assume that patents are there to protect hard work?
The patent system might not be under such fire if patents had a proportionality to the amount of creative effort (original, not patent lawyer-ese) required to produce the patent. Developers often have seven reasonable (but not necessarily original) ideas before breakfast which patent offices seem only too willing to grant (provided all the fees are paid and the company is big enough...).
The EPO makes a billion Euros a year for itself (never mind what the patent lawyers make). This might be due to volume rather than quality, of course, but I understand this is sufficient income for a well run PO.
Software patent news is not that small, at least to the ministers of Trade, Science etc. Last year after just one piece of news, Lord Sainsbury (the relevant minister in the UK) received over 40,000 letters. Keep writing!
Yes, I like the Swiss system too. At least you can get your voice heard with a bit of hard work. What's the patent situation there tho'?
You,obviously, have never worked in the software field and never worked for small s/w companies to whom spending US$5k-10k per patent would be difficult to justify.
Actually, I have.
And did they have the cash to patent equivalent rubbish that we see patented at the moment? (If so, they would be larger than some of the five and eight man bands that I've worked for and with). Did it gain them anything by so doing?
-----
You,obviously, have not read the vast amount of literature on the Web which simply shows that s/w patents are very anti-innovation.
Actually, I have read that literature and am aware of what it claims.
Could you point us to the lierature that definitively shows that software patnets aid innovation?
-----
You, obviously, are completely unaware of the fact that small and medium-sized companies do not have the time, money or resources to check that every two or three lines of code may not be infringing on a patent. Go see the MIT Web site for an example of a three line program that infringes.
It is simply false that anybody (whether small or medium-sized or large) needs to "check every two or three lines of code" to see if it "is infringing on a patent."
And if they don't, and get sued by IBM, MS, Oracle, what then? Some methods are very well known to have patents attached. I worked on a system that required compression using arithmetic coding. We were all aware that IBM holds a whole bunch of patents in this area (4,122,440 4,286,256 4,295,125 4,463,342 4,467,317 4,633,490 4,652,856 4,792,954 4,891,643 4,901,363 4,905,297 4,933,883 4,935,882 5,045,852 5,099,440 5,142,283 5,210,536 5,414,423 5,546,080). Most people who go anywhere near this stuff know that. The company for whom I worked did not have the resources to check if I was infringing. I was asked to do it another way but I couldn't see how. What do I do, not write the code or check the patents?
Loser does not necessarily pay.
I won a drink-driving case against the police. I strenuously disputed the 'fact' I was over the limit (the police gave me my car keys back after the breath test and told me to go home!). They simply 'forgot' to send my blood sample for testing and prosecuted me over two years later!! The phrase used in court was 'male fides' or some such. We asked for costs but the judge said no. He disliked the fact that the police had lost even though they were a right bunch of twats.
...an apple a day keeps the doctor away.
Trouble is, of course, if you buy a lot of apples and fall seriously ill, you're fucked...
Makes sense. But some automation is simply to mitigate the stupidity of some managers. I came across a middle layer manager (who I suspected had trouble spelling 'komputer' [in HP, no less]) who insisted that (amongst other things), "IIS6" should be typed out in full on problem reports, as "Microsoft Internet Information Server version 6.0".
Why? "Because people reading this won't know what IIS6 means." "And do they know what it means when it's typed out in full? Because if they know what it is in full, they'll know it also as IIS. And if they don't, they shouldn't be reading the report." No dice. We supplied a key press macro to the poor bastards having to type all this shite in. Quite a few of them.
Sometimes, for small jobs, your outside supplier will quote ridiculous prices 'cos they don't really want the small job. It's because, in effect, they have to take the programmer back after 2/3 months and he/she can often be sitting around for a while until more work appears. But if they find someone idiotic enough to pay the inflated price, hey, they'll do it!
This was exactly the process that caused Digital to go downhill. It always starts with a little cut here and there and when the fluffy white clouds of management see little improvement, they add more and more inefficient cost savings.
It started with cutting staff who (amongst other things) loaded paper and changed cartridges on the high-speed laser printers, kept them running smoothly. Well, the average was a 3/4 minute walk to the printer. If it ran out of paper, you might not notice for a while and the all the print jobs queued up. Add paper, wait 20/30 minutes to get your printout. Multiply this by 40/50 staff and large amounts of time were now being wasted. But management decided more cuts were needed.
It got so bad, I heard in Australia, they ran out of papaer entirely and used to take a floppy to a client and get them to print out any technical specs ("...and while you're at it, you couldn't print off another couple for me, could you?").
Meanwhile, Digital had come up with figures that showed staff were consuming one roll of sticky tape each, per week. Lock up the stationery cupboards! Only designated personnel could gain access to pens and writing pads. Of course we weren't consuming all that sticky tape, it was being trucked out of warehouses (or whatever scam was being used).
One bright Harvard educated fast-track manager decided the way to save money was to order more hardware in bulk from Taiwan, get the discounts. This just meant Digital was stocking up on outdated CD-ROMs as the speed went up 4x, 8x, 32x and customers wanted the higher spec. kit. Up went costs, must cut elsewhere. And this just went on and on hitting the staff with unnecessary cost cutting.
There was a lot of conspiracy talk but, all I can say is, in the end Digital got sold out to Compaq whilst the directors of both companies were all old mates...
You,obviously, have never worked in the software field and never worked for small s/w companies to whom spending US$5k-10k per patent would be difficult to justify.
You,obviously, have not read the vast amount of literature on the Web which simply shows that s/w patents are very anti-innovation.
You, obviously, are completely unaware of the fact that small and medium-sized companies do not have the time, money or resources to check that every two or three lines of code may not be infringing on a patent. Go see the MIT Web site for an example of a three line program that infringes.
...but is made up of democratically elected ministers...
Not from the UK. And not from a lot of other countries either. They are usually political appointees, failed politicians, industry bigwigs or civil servants who happen to be the Prime Minister's mate. In our case, it is Peter Mandelson, a Labour Party spin doctor and recipient of large interest-free loans amongst other dubious things.
Yeah, that would work well. The UKPO is one of the most in favour of s/w patents.
Writing and writing and writing to MPs and UK MEPs. They studiously ignore just about everything sent and, where they do reply, simply echo the Patent Office mantra of 'technical effect'. I have had only one supportive letter. That was from Tam Dlayell who is, unfortunately retiring in May from the UK parliament. The rest (especially Irish and UK MEPs) have simply been corrupted by Euros/Dollars and lobbyists. It's very dispiriting, especially when the Council/Commission ignore proper procedure and arrogantly ride roughshod over the democratically elected representatives who don't want to see s/w patents.
Maybe it was his DNA (which is the National Dyslexic Assoc., BTW).
It's funny how Digital was run down in almost the same way. That is, with really bad management.
But actually, Compaq wasn't so bad until they started thinking about buying Digital (after they'd bought Tandem). They needed to generate cash up to the purchase so everything was fobidden for quite a while. And then after the deal, a lot of work (I had to integrate a ton of Web sites), it all started going downhill even more rapidly.
I left, and just about everybody I knew there left eventually, but people I know who went back on short term contracts said how awful it was.
I was completely amazed when HP announced they were going to buy Compaq. We (geeks) all shook our heads and said, "They'll regret this..." Shoulda shorted the stock.
Hah! Yes, I had to read it a couple of times too...
I believe it is DRMd. Makes sense from Sony's point of view. Blachford makes a brief reference to it.
Oh yes, very believable:
"Natasha [Demkina] first demonstrated her extraordinary ability at the age of ten, when she told her stunned mum Tatyana she could see "two beans", "a tomato" and a "vacuum cleaner" inside her."
Two men dying of thirst in a desert staggered over a sand dune and saw a large outdoor market spread in front of them.
They dash down to the first stall and ask the vendor if he's got anything to drink. "Sorry," came the reply, "I have only these puddings made of jelly and custard, a little sherry, some cream and various sugary toppings."
They move to the next stall. Had he anything to drink? No sorry, all he had were these puddings made of jelly and custard, a little sherry, some cream and various sugary toppings.
Stall after stall. None of them had anything to drink. Only puddings made of jelly and custard, a little sherry, some cream and various sugary toppings.
The two men return to trudging the desert.
"That was very peculiar," said one after some time.
"Yes," said the other, "it was a trifle bazaar."
UK? Go to redtelecom.co.uk, sipgate.co.uk, voipuser.com (amongst others). You can get just about any area code including local, London national (02000), 08xx etc.. And I've seen US clients using UK numbers (gives them a European presence). Some say that 01/02 can only be used by UK residents. Vonage.co.uk gives London area codes at the moment.
Ideas need to be protected.
Corporate ideas need to be protected.
...you're not supposed to be able to patent things that are trivial...
Like ISNOT (20040230959) or the peanut butter and jelly sandwich (6004596) or the snowman accessory kit (D382317)?
IIRC, the Japanese patent system is even more broken than the US system. So, clicking on a question mark to get help being patented doesn't surprise me.
Wouldn't be so sure about that. M$ openly bought the Irish contingent and most of the rest of the (undemocratic) Council/Commission are in the pockets of MegaCorp PLC/Inc./GmbH. Poland is growing weary of the fight, the Dutch are ignoring their parliament's wishes. The Brits are already assuming the battle is lost (for the small guy) because the UKPTO is requiring definitions of discredited phrases (which shouldn't be there) from the EU directive.
Appalling behaviour by politicians (as usual).
I guess Hormel Foods (the makers of Spam) probably did...