It is always easier to avoid a patent than invalidate it.
Netboot is not an anticipation of the claim because it does not have the "preferences image server".
It is dead easy to avoid, though. Just don't "remove the full version of the operating system from the local device when logging off". Note the word "remove"? Do something like invladiate an encryption key that is needed to make the full version work. That is part of the OS's data, not part of the OS itself. Even just by overwiting a small but crucial part of the "full OS", such as a jump table, will get you the result you want, but not infringe the patent.
The thing about patent is to COMPLETELY ignore the abstract, read and interpret the main claims, and if you really do not know what the claims mean, condescend to read the description.
Above all, remember: It's the independent claims that matter -- almost nothing else does!
You are confusing first-to-file with a grace period.
The US allows an inventor to publish an invention before filing a patent application (although this then blows their chances of getting a valid patent almost anywhere else in the world). This is normally called a grace period. However, if two inventors file for the same invention about the same time, in the US the right to the patent is determined on who is deemed to have made the invention first.
Contrast this with the European registered design system. This also allows a 12-month grace period whereby a design can be published and then validly registered. However, if two independent design applications are filed for the same design, only the first to file has any prospect of getting a valid registration.
Several countries allow a grace period for filing patent applications (but NOT the European system) but as far as I am aware, no country other than the USA still uses first-to-invent. The real problem is that the validity of a patent under the first-to-invent régime is hugely dependent on facts that are not public and can only be revealed by discovery in legal action. This encourages litigation and vastly increases costs. The only people that benefit are the patent attorneys (and even though I am one) I believe that this is not good for technology companies or private inventors.
It is a myth that the first-to-invent system protects private inventors who may have delayed filing while getting funding because inventorship date is determined in a legal challenge - it does not just become apparent automatically. If another filed first, and an interference is raised between them in the USPTO, the costs involve spiral out of control, meaning that the richer person gets the patent, irrespective of who invented first.
This has been the case for trade marks for years. If you do not use a trade mark, your registration can be invalidated. The use has to be "bona fide" and there is a requirement of good faith for the registration to be valid in the first place. This legally prevents "parking" of trade marks, but present no obstacle to genuine trade mark users.
This, and the higher application fees, keep the trade mark system free from becoming clogged up.
It is only the claims that matter - the rest is normally irrelevant to anyone!
It is quite a narrow patent that seems to be looking to provide a spoof internet connection to wireless devices when the can connect to the claimed device but there is no available Internet connection.
I have no idea how anyone could possibly infringe this patent, given that the last-but-two and last-but-one clauses of claim 1 are virtually unintelligible. The later independent claims are even stranger and more obscure.
IAAL!
(But as a patent attorney in Europe, I think that the USPTO and US patent law is strangely weird and broken.)
Totally confused!
In the UK just now, there is the architypal "Polish Plumber".
For years, the UK has been desparately short of skilled manual workers. Since Poland joined the European Union, Polish workers (amongst all from other accession states) can work in the UK. The "Polish Plumber"b is the plumber that (unlike the local person) you can get on the 'phone, who is keen to do the job, charges a good price, and is skilled.
I really do not know why, but the term "Polish Plumber" has come to exemplify a hard-working, reliable, low-cost expert in domestic pluming installation. (I think it could be the alliteration).
So, "polak" here is probably a like a term of surprised admiration. Polish plumbers are heroes!
I do not think you do know, but here is not the place to discuss it.
Nothing that an american could write or say would "put down" any European. I am a Scot who lives in Wales and is of French descent.
Please do visit Europe and enjoy the huge diversity of lculture and language that the continent has to offer. Going back a few years, most citizens of the USA found Europeans to be most welcoming. However, Europe has had such a public battering from your current Bush that it is actually percolating down to personal feelings - and that is dreadful.
Honestly, a few years ago, I would have had no bias against any US citizen. Now, and it shames me to say it, anything that anyone from the US says or writes is tainted with that president person who presumes to speek for the nation (and whose name I will not type).
So, what I am saying is: sorry. I am uppity about those that trivialise Wales. OTOH, I am disposed to think that all Americans are ignorant, reactionary morons, just because Bush is.
Oh, to those who like Bush; I am not saying sorry. (Maybe using a semicolon in the last sentence was a mistake. It might get them stuck. Oh no!)
A
So, would you be content with making the same puns/slanders/slights against black people in your county?
Bet you wouldn't!
You seem to be suggesting that we in Wales ought to be amused by your racist quips. Would you suggest the same to a black american when you made some quazi racist remark that effectively ignored their identity?
A
This is a real shame.
People with music player 'phones in their ears are so distracted from those around them. On the othe hand, having a beer encourages chat.
Personal music (from Walkman onward) has been a de-socialising thing. A chat in the bus queue is so much harder if the next person has ear plugs and a music machine. Contrast this with going to a bar and having a beer. I travel widely by train all over Europe, and the beer in a bar is what stops me talking to myself in the hotel, because there is always someone else having a beer to chat with in whatever language we have in common.
I advocate worldwide beer from the age of 18 (going to uni). Beers make friends. Ban personal hi-fi for all under the age of 30. Make the young interact with one othether and make friends! The middle-aged can use their headphones.
A
It is rare that I get annoyed to the point of being offended, but this thread has almost done it.
For those (especially in North America) who lack education, Wales is a small western European country of about 3.5 million people. It is a semi-autonomous part of the United Kingdom.
In the 1970s and 1980s, it suffered tremendously from loss of traditional industries, but that is the past. We have have a vibrant business environment that has encouraged centres for optical technology in St Asaph, software in Bangor and biotech in Swansea. Wales now has low unemployment, and has one of the largest manufacturing installations in Europe, in Airbus (Broughton, Flintshire).
BT does not have much of an enthusiastic following in the UK. That is litotes! The Welsh Assembly Government has been central in even getting me ADSL, here in North Wales.
Artificially confusing Wales with whales is really just racism. Just because we are a small country does not mean that we should be subject to snide quips.
The comments I have read here are below the level I normally associate with slashdot.
A
To compare the latest Ubuntu and SUSE is interesting. I have used SuSE for years, but since SUSE came along, quality has gone down and 10,1 is truly dire.
The first official "Most annoying bug" is "Applying security fixes via zen-updater might not work." In other words, the core software updater is broken (which makes getting an update for it tricky). No matter (you might think) since the venerable YaST is still there, but they have broken that too for 10.0! The second official most annoying bug is "Installing an RPM which is both on the install media and on the online update source will crash YaST."
For a final release, this is a show-stopper to my mind, and signs of sevrely flawed quality control.
I beta-tested Drake (which became 6.06) and had so few problems with it, I hardly filed any bugs. Ubuntu seems to have concentrated on reliability and quality while managing to include late versions. SUSE10.1 just seems pointless in comparison - broken and a Gnome version behind.
A
(Guess which distro is installed on the machine this post comes from;-)
I hope you will next time.
We need people like this to stand up against any trend towards religiousity becoming part of government (as distinct from part of state) in the UK.
For the many people who consider religion to be no more than fiction or, at best, mythology, those who will mock its place in parliament are to be encouraged and voted for.
A
Here is the background to this story from a UK political perspective
The UK has a national census every decade. Last time, they asked for people to indicate their religious inclination. Naturally, the census form included boxes to tick for the well-known ports of religiosity, and the option for "other" where you could enter a religion.
Anyway, someone found out that if more than a certain number of people mentioned the same religion in "other", it would become officially recognised. This led to a campaign amongst those who thought that religion was either just fictional or nothing to do with the government to play with the beaurocrats.
So, those who thought that "religion" had no place on the census form were encouraged to tick "other" and write Jedi. And, guess what? Jedi passed the threshold, and the government are still trying to find some reason why it should not become a recognised religion in the UK.
I bet that the next census will not have this question.
Slashdot Mirror
I meant to say -- I am a patent attorney!
Netboot is not an anticipation of the claim because it does not have the "preferences image server".
It is dead easy to avoid, though. Just don't "remove the full version of the operating system from the local device when logging off". Note the word "remove"? Do something like invladiate an encryption key that is needed to make the full version work. That is part of the OS's data, not part of the OS itself. Even just by overwiting a small but crucial part of the "full OS", such as a jump table, will get you the result you want, but not infringe the patent.
The thing about patent is to COMPLETELY ignore the abstract, read and interpret the main claims, and if you really do not know what the claims mean, condescend to read the description.
Above all, remember: It's the independent claims that matter -- almost nothing else does!
The US allows an inventor to publish an invention before filing a patent application (although this then blows their chances of getting a valid patent almost anywhere else in the world). This is normally called a grace period. However, if two inventors file for the same invention about the same time, in the US the right to the patent is determined on who is deemed to have made the invention first.
Contrast this with the European registered design system. This also allows a 12-month grace period whereby a design can be published and then validly registered. However, if two independent design applications are filed for the same design, only the first to file has any prospect of getting a valid registration. Several countries allow a grace period for filing patent applications (but NOT the European system) but as far as I am aware, no country other than the USA still uses first-to-invent. The real problem is that the validity of a patent under the first-to-invent régime is hugely dependent on facts that are not public and can only be revealed by discovery in legal action. This encourages litigation and vastly increases costs. The only people that benefit are the patent attorneys (and even though I am one) I believe that this is not good for technology companies or private inventors.
It is a myth that the first-to-invent system protects private inventors who may have delayed filing while getting funding because inventorship date is determined in a legal challenge - it does not just become apparent automatically. If another filed first, and an interference is raised between them in the USPTO, the costs involve spiral out of control, meaning that the richer person gets the patent, irrespective of who invented first.
This has been the case for trade marks for years. If you do not use a trade mark, your registration can be invalidated. The use has to be "bona fide" and there is a requirement of good faith for the registration to be valid in the first place. This legally prevents "parking" of trade marks, but present no obstacle to genuine trade mark users. This, and the higher application fees, keep the trade mark system free from becoming clogged up.
It is quite a narrow patent that seems to be looking to provide a spoof internet connection to wireless devices when the can connect to the claimed device but there is no available Internet connection.
I have no idea how anyone could possibly infringe this patent, given that the last-but-two and last-but-one clauses of claim 1 are virtually unintelligible. The later independent claims are even stranger and more obscure.
IAAL!
(But as a patent attorney in Europe, I think that the USPTO and US patent law is strangely weird and broken.)
The quote missed out the words "what felt like" before the description of the "weapon".
How, exactly, does the feel of an automatic gun (as applied to the back of one's head) differ from that of a pointed stick?
Here in the UK, we are in the midst of a fear-of-crime epidemic, NOT a crime epidemic
A
For years, the UK has been desparately short of skilled manual workers. Since Poland joined the European Union, Polish workers (amongst all from other accession states) can work in the UK. The "Polish Plumber"b is the plumber that (unlike the local person) you can get on the 'phone, who is keen to do the job, charges a good price, and is skilled.
I really do not know why, but the term "Polish Plumber" has come to exemplify a hard-working, reliable, low-cost expert in domestic pluming installation. (I think it could be the alliteration).
So, "polak" here is probably a like a term of surprised admiration. Polish plumbers are heroes!
A
What does the word "polack" mean? A
I do not think you do know, but here is not the place to discuss it. Nothing that an american could write or say would "put down" any European. I am a Scot who lives in Wales and is of French descent. Please do visit Europe and enjoy the huge diversity of lculture and language that the continent has to offer. Going back a few years, most citizens of the USA found Europeans to be most welcoming. However, Europe has had such a public battering from your current Bush that it is actually percolating down to personal feelings - and that is dreadful. Honestly, a few years ago, I would have had no bias against any US citizen. Now, and it shames me to say it, anything that anyone from the US says or writes is tainted with that president person who presumes to speek for the nation (and whose name I will not type). So, what I am saying is: sorry. I am uppity about those that trivialise Wales. OTOH, I am disposed to think that all Americans are ignorant, reactionary morons, just because Bush is. Oh, to those who like Bush; I am not saying sorry. (Maybe using a semicolon in the last sentence was a mistake. It might get them stuck. Oh no!) A
So, would you be content with making the same puns/slanders/slights against black people in your county? Bet you wouldn't! You seem to be suggesting that we in Wales ought to be amused by your racist quips. Would you suggest the same to a black american when you made some quazi racist remark that effectively ignored their identity? A
This is a real shame. People with music player 'phones in their ears are so distracted from those around them. On the othe hand, having a beer encourages chat. Personal music (from Walkman onward) has been a de-socialising thing. A chat in the bus queue is so much harder if the next person has ear plugs and a music machine. Contrast this with going to a bar and having a beer. I travel widely by train all over Europe, and the beer in a bar is what stops me talking to myself in the hotel, because there is always someone else having a beer to chat with in whatever language we have in common. I advocate worldwide beer from the age of 18 (going to uni). Beers make friends. Ban personal hi-fi for all under the age of 30. Make the young interact with one othether and make friends! The middle-aged can use their headphones. A
It is rare that I get annoyed to the point of being offended, but this thread has almost done it. For those (especially in North America) who lack education, Wales is a small western European country of about 3.5 million people. It is a semi-autonomous part of the United Kingdom. In the 1970s and 1980s, it suffered tremendously from loss of traditional industries, but that is the past. We have have a vibrant business environment that has encouraged centres for optical technology in St Asaph, software in Bangor and biotech in Swansea. Wales now has low unemployment, and has one of the largest manufacturing installations in Europe, in Airbus (Broughton, Flintshire). BT does not have much of an enthusiastic following in the UK. That is litotes! The Welsh Assembly Government has been central in even getting me ADSL, here in North Wales. Artificially confusing Wales with whales is really just racism. Just because we are a small country does not mean that we should be subject to snide quips. The comments I have read here are below the level I normally associate with slashdot. A
To compare the latest Ubuntu and SUSE is interesting. I have used SuSE for years, but since SUSE came along, quality has gone down and 10,1 is truly dire. The first official "Most annoying bug" is "Applying security fixes via zen-updater might not work." In other words, the core software updater is broken (which makes getting an update for it tricky). No matter (you might think) since the venerable YaST is still there, but they have broken that too for 10.0! The second official most annoying bug is "Installing an RPM which is both on the install media and on the online update source will crash YaST." For a final release, this is a show-stopper to my mind, and signs of sevrely flawed quality control. I beta-tested Drake (which became 6.06) and had so few problems with it, I hardly filed any bugs. Ubuntu seems to have concentrated on reliability and quality while managing to include late versions. SUSE10.1 just seems pointless in comparison - broken and a Gnome version behind. A (Guess which distro is installed on the machine this post comes from ;-)
I hope you will next time. We need people like this to stand up against any trend towards religiousity becoming part of government (as distinct from part of state) in the UK. For the many people who consider religion to be no more than fiction or, at best, mythology, those who will mock its place in parliament are to be encouraged and voted for. A
Here is the background to this story from a UK political perspective
The UK has a national census every decade. Last time, they asked for people to indicate their religious inclination. Naturally, the census form included boxes to tick for the well-known ports of religiosity, and the option for "other" where you could enter a religion.
Anyway, someone found out that if more than a certain number of people mentioned the same religion in "other", it would become officially recognised. This led to a campaign amongst those who thought that religion was either just fictional or nothing to do with the government to play with the beaurocrats.
So, those who thought that "religion" had no place on the census form were encouraged to tick "other" and write Jedi. And, guess what? Jedi passed the threshold, and the government are still trying to find some reason why it should not become a recognised religion in the UK.
I bet that the next census will not have this question.
A