The one in the picture is quite unsafe, but it's soooo much cooler looking than the Centaur. And we all know that looking cool is the most imporant thing out there!
Yawn. It's an electric stripped down four wheel ATV- likely many times the cost of other ATVs. Oh wait, this one can, get this, TURN AROUND ON TWO WHEELS. Turning around on four wheels is for sissies anyways.
I am floored that there have been only 13 comments as of my posting, a week after this story was run on/. Every time there is a story about online rights being erroded, people take off their tin foil hats and rant about how we need politicians who listen to the people, and not the RIAA/MPAA/Satan/etc. Finally we have an organization that will advocate our side, and back candidates who agree with us. We talk how we can be a political force here on/., but I think this shows that people like to rant and not do anything otherwise. I myself am joining, and will be sending money.
European law and US law obviously are different. According to the article you cited, there's an interesting tidbit. To register a trademark in the EU, you need a graphical representation. You have to show the mark, and describe it if need be (such as the case for the color orange for cell phones, you just describe the color). I'm not sure how you graphically represent a smell. TFA mentions describing "rose scent for tyres [UK]," but rejects Chanel No. 5, since although they did describe the general smell and its ingredients, you could not get a full idea of the smell.
I think he meant that there are trademarks of logos that involve colors and trademarks of jingles that involve sounds, not that a solitary color or sound itself can be trademarked. (the implication being that there would be trademarks that are partly smell)
Adding colors to logos and marks expands the amount of marks available. It expands the possible permutations available, and gives you a way to differentiate marks that might be considered similar. You cannot trademark a sound & words- that would be covered by copyright, which is a whole different kettle of fish.
That said, it's taken 100 years for colors to be brought into the international trademark framework, and very few sounds. I doubt smells will be included in our lifetime.
I'm an IP attorney, and I have a few beefs with this article.
1. In one sentence Frey refers to trademarks of smells, and then in the next sentence wonders if smell patents can be close behind. For the last f'ing time, patents != trademarks.
Patent: protects an invention (but not an idea itself)
Trademark: identifies a source of goods or services (usually through a name or logo)
Patents and trademark are quite different, so please stop confusing them- especially people writing scholarly articles.
2. There are not "many" color or sound trademarks. There are very few sound trademarks- the NBC chime comes to mind, and Harley Davidson recently lost their attempt to trademark the Harley engine sound. As for colors, you can get your trademark in a specific color (to distinguish it from similar marks, but there are very few color only trademarks. The only one I know of is Orange, which gets the color orange for cell phones. Using colors for trademarks is more of a European thing, as the US only within the last year began accepting color drawings in trademark applications.
3. I think Frey is going too far. Sure patent attorneys like to stretch the limits of the law for their clients (like all attorneys), but there needs to be something codified in the law to allow patenting of a smell. Currently a smell by itself does not reach the minimum definition of patentable subject matter. To have something that is patentable, you need a physical invention that does something useful, and I don't see how a smell in itself provides this usefulness. I can see smell as part of an invention, such as a fire alarm system or adding smells to movies. Throwing out wild hypotheticals, I guess you could patent a smell that makes the person inhaling it do a specific reaction- but then that raises ethical questions that the patent office might use as a rejection.
There is something called a design patent, which protects the ornamental features of an invention (like the propeller people put on their trailer hitches). With a design patent, you do not have claim any useful features, you just show drawings. This could logically be extended to smells, but you need to have a change in the laws.
It's not just beer that Americans like to drink weak as well- coffee as well. We prefer to get the buzz over the taste. This applies equally to coffee and beer.
It's not that things are marketed to the population because that's what the want, it's because that's what the market has been providing for so long, everyone is used to it. How else can you explain marketing beer because it makes you a man, and not taste? (the beer in questions tastes like piss). This also explains why instant coffee is so popular, and why Folger's brags about their "flavor crystals." Last time I checked coffee beans, there were no "flavor crystals."
Simply put, American tastes have been dulled by years through marketing, and most people don't know any better.
As this is something new that PC users might not expect, I wonder if IBM is taking any effort to educate purchasers about the "new functionality." While people might like to know that this might help stop the evil hackers, they should be told that software might stop functioning like they want (assuming the user does something bad, like use pirated copies). I can imagine the increased tech support calls arising from this...
The RIAA might be onto something. Instead of charging people money upfront (e.g. when they buy or download music), you can sue them on the backend. Likely they will have illegally downloaded more than they would've legally purchased, so this is a great way to earn more money! Sure the costs might be higher in suing people, but you can write those off for tax purposes.
The answer lies in the patent lawyers who draw up the papers. What they'll do, is that they'll draw up revision after revision of the idea until the patent office is confused enough to grant it. (Or perhaps they lucked upon a new patent officer.) That's why most of these patents seem so vague.
I have to strongly disagree here. I am a lawyer, and I work in an IP firm. I draft patent applications. There is a fine line that is walked when drafting patent applications. You have to be specific in what you're covering. If not, you can later lose the patent for not specifying what you invention actually does. That said, you do not want to be so narrow that you get limited rights. In many technological areas, you attempt to anticipate where the technology will go, and draft a patent application that can be applicable to other embodiements of your invention in the future. That said, in the patent application you also do have to provide specific examples of how your invention is used. Failure to do so means you did not fully enable your patent application, and can mean losing your patent.
The applicants are making sure that there's no way someone who doesn't have a very thorough education in the field of the patent could understand that the idea is unpatentable. Thus the idea passes through the process and must be challenged in court or via reexamination later.
Again, this is wrong. To be granted, a patent application has to fully enable the invention. That means someone reasonably skilled in the art has to be able to duplicate the invention. It does not have to be a common person, it has to be someone who competent in that field. Thus, you're not writing gene therapy patents so that grandma can understand them, and you're also not writing automobile suspension patents so that a computer programmer can understand them.
That said, until the past 5 years or so, all computer related patent applications, including software, were reviewed by electrical engineers. The computer science degree was not recognized as a qualification to take the patent bar (and be able to submit or review patent applications). I think this is because places like ITT Tech give out CS degrees that are basically network tech certificates. The USPTO now recognizes accedited CS degrees, and have been hiring people with CS degrees. I predict in the future, as we have people who have been educated in CS, have written code, etc, we will see better computer-related patents in the future. I myself have a poli sci degree, but have been programming since age 6- thus I have written several patent applications that include computer code embodiments.
I checked USA Today, Google News, and Yahoo News, and was not able to find the actual story in USA Today. Doesn't USA Today put everything on the web? Shouldn't a rumor like this be substantiated a little bit more?
Come on, you don't really want "real facts" to get in the way of "forceful conjecture?" It really is amazing how pretty much everything in the news is based upon what people say or think, and is not reporting facts.
In this case, there could a legal opinion drafted, a ruling from a judge, etc, and not merely "expert opinions." An expert opinion varies from a regular opinion only in the fact that the expert one costs more.
Hey, I'm 6'5", and my office has a casual dress code- I usually wear jeans, shorts, or sandals (assuming I'm not wearing sandals during the fight.) I think that should push more bets my way.
The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
You'll note that there is no distinction between governments or civilians. One could argue that a rebellion (and yes, the Founding Fathers were British citizens at the time) is a form of terrorism, as is destruction of property like the Boston Tea Party and other attacks on forts & munitions before the Revolution was official.
IAALT (I Am A Lawyer Too), and this judgement is binding in his federal court's jurisdiction. It might just be his part of district two (which I think covers NY), or it might be all of district two (which I think covers NY and some surrounding states). It is good law there, until either overruled by the Supremes, or made the Law of the Land by the Supremes.
The judge agreed, stating that the provision "effectively bars or substantially deters any judicial challenge."
Under the provision, the FBI did not have to show a judge a compelling need for the records and it did not have to specify any process that would allow a recipient to fight the demand for confidential information.
Checks and balances is overrated anyway. I mean, those Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution several hundred years ago when there were no terrorists. Oh wait, didn't they act like terrorists against the British...?
When you install some P2P software, it gives you the option to "Find media to share," and sometimes you can choose where, and sometimes it does it by itself. I imagine most non-savy users choose this default option, and share everything- because:
1. The don't know how to share less files
2. Users trust the software they install
3. A popular/. complaint- they don't know any better.
Just for kicks I search for.pst every now and then, and am amazed at the number of people who are sharing their entire outlook file.
Micro$oft shared Hotmail addresses with InfoSpace.com, where these were available for "harvesting" (that sounds sooo quaint!). Somehow these addresses ended up getting spam- even if they were never used. Source
New addition to the Patriot Act?
on
Nuclear Batteries
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
...tracking how many people buy batteries, especially at Costco. A terrorist could walk in, buy several thousand cases of nuclear batteries, and have a dirty bomb by sundown.
In the last campaign, you were asked a question about the biggest mistake you'd made in your life, and you used to like to joke that it was trading Sammy Sosa.
You've looked back before 9-11 for what mistakes might have been made. After 9-11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have learned from it?
BUSH: I wish you'd have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it.
John, I'm sure historians will look back and say, gosh, he could've done it better this way or that way. You know, I just -- I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with answer, but it hadn't yet.
... Stuff about he's sure we'll find WMD in Iraq deleted...
I hope -- I don't want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't -- you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one.
When I was taking intro to macroeconomics in college in 1994, our professor noted that 1 of every 7 dollars the federal government spends is to pay interest on the federal debt (I imagine it's closer to 1:6 or 1:5 now). Of that interest, 2/3 was paid to entities outside of our country. Our national debt thus earns money for the rest of the world.
Decreasing the amount of debt held by foreign entities should also be considered, so that we can keep the interest dollars in our country. Significantly cutting the debt would allow less interest to paid. This would allow the government to maintain the same levels of funding, perhaps increase funding, and perhaps lower taxes. If the ratio is pushed to 1:15 or even 1:20, imagine what we could do.
My questions is this: if this realization came easily to a sophomore in college, why is this not screamingly obvious to politicians in Washington? What are your realistic ideas about significantly reducing the debt over the next 5-10 years? (Note: I do not want vague answers like "cut the debt in half," I want specific ideas and plans.
I'm not going to wear my thumb drive until some cool hiphop star like Nelly of 50 Cent starts sporting their own thumb drive as bling. Then it stops being "geeky" and starts being "cool" or "badas$$".
I, of course, did not use my iPod out of the house until 50 Cent was brave enough to wear his in a video.
Things are just getting worse for Kyrptonite Corp. Not only do their locks suck, now DC comics can pursue their trademark case. From the article:
DC Comics filed suit alleging infringement, unfair competition and dilution of the trademark, as well as state law claims that Kryptonite Corp. was using kryptonite and other words containing "krypto" to confuse consumers into believing there was a connection between its products and the Superman legend.
The judge ruled against a summary judgment motion, which means that DC does make a case that should be allowed to go to trial.
You're confusing the definition of the word spam with the definition for the word advertising. Spam is a specific subcategory of advertising, the qualifier being that it intrudes into email. Not all ads are desired, but they are nowhere near as intrusive, time consuming, or resource consuming as spam.
Slashdot Mirror
The one in the picture is quite unsafe, but it's soooo much cooler looking than the Centaur. And we all know that looking cool is the most imporant thing out there!
I'll ride a four wheeler over this piece of crap Centaur.
Yes, that is me on the four wheeler.
[puts tin foil hat on after rant]
European law and US law obviously are different. According to the article you cited, there's an interesting tidbit. To register a trademark in the EU, you need a graphical representation. You have to show the mark, and describe it if need be (such as the case for the color orange for cell phones, you just describe the color). I'm not sure how you graphically represent a smell. TFA mentions describing "rose scent for tyres [UK]," but rejects Chanel No. 5, since although they did describe the general smell and its ingredients, you could not get a full idea of the smell.
Adding colors to logos and marks expands the amount of marks available. It expands the possible permutations available, and gives you a way to differentiate marks that might be considered similar. You cannot trademark a sound & words- that would be covered by copyright, which is a whole different kettle of fish.
That said, it's taken 100 years for colors to be brought into the international trademark framework, and very few sounds. I doubt smells will be included in our lifetime.
1. In one sentence Frey refers to trademarks of smells, and then in the next sentence wonders if smell patents can be close behind. For the last f'ing time, patents != trademarks.
Patent: protects an invention (but not an idea itself)
Trademark: identifies a source of goods or services (usually through a name or logo)
Patents and trademark are quite different, so please stop confusing them- especially people writing scholarly articles.
2. There are not "many" color or sound trademarks. There are very few sound trademarks- the NBC chime comes to mind, and Harley Davidson recently lost their attempt to trademark the Harley engine sound. As for colors, you can get your trademark in a specific color (to distinguish it from similar marks, but there are very few color only trademarks. The only one I know of is Orange, which gets the color orange for cell phones. Using colors for trademarks is more of a European thing, as the US only within the last year began accepting color drawings in trademark applications.
3. I think Frey is going too far. Sure patent attorneys like to stretch the limits of the law for their clients (like all attorneys), but there needs to be something codified in the law to allow patenting of a smell. Currently a smell by itself does not reach the minimum definition of patentable subject matter. To have something that is patentable, you need a physical invention that does something useful, and I don't see how a smell in itself provides this usefulness. I can see smell as part of an invention, such as a fire alarm system or adding smells to movies. Throwing out wild hypotheticals, I guess you could patent a smell that makes the person inhaling it do a specific reaction- but then that raises ethical questions that the patent office might use as a rejection.
There is something called a design patent, which protects the ornamental features of an invention (like the propeller people put on their trailer hitches). With a design patent, you do not have claim any useful features, you just show drawings. This could logically be extended to smells, but you need to have a change in the laws.
It's not that things are marketed to the population because that's what the want, it's because that's what the market has been providing for so long, everyone is used to it. How else can you explain marketing beer because it makes you a man, and not taste? (the beer in questions tastes like piss). This also explains why instant coffee is so popular, and why Folger's brags about their "flavor crystals." Last time I checked coffee beans, there were no "flavor crystals."
Simply put, American tastes have been dulled by years through marketing, and most people don't know any better.
As this is something new that PC users might not expect, I wonder if IBM is taking any effort to educate purchasers about the "new functionality." While people might like to know that this might help stop the evil hackers, they should be told that software might stop functioning like they want (assuming the user does something bad, like use pirated copies). I can imagine the increased tech support calls arising from this...
The RIAA might be onto something. Instead of charging people money upfront (e.g. when they buy or download music), you can sue them on the backend. Likely they will have illegally downloaded more than they would've legally purchased, so this is a great way to earn more money! Sure the costs might be higher in suing people, but you can write those off for tax purposes.
I have to strongly disagree here. I am a lawyer, and I work in an IP firm. I draft patent applications. There is a fine line that is walked when drafting patent applications. You have to be specific in what you're covering. If not, you can later lose the patent for not specifying what you invention actually does. That said, you do not want to be so narrow that you get limited rights. In many technological areas, you attempt to anticipate where the technology will go, and draft a patent application that can be applicable to other embodiements of your invention in the future. That said, in the patent application you also do have to provide specific examples of how your invention is used. Failure to do so means you did not fully enable your patent application, and can mean losing your patent.
The applicants are making sure that there's no way someone who doesn't have a very thorough education in the field of the patent could understand that the idea is unpatentable. Thus the idea passes through the process and must be challenged in court or via reexamination later.
Again, this is wrong. To be granted, a patent application has to fully enable the invention. That means someone reasonably skilled in the art has to be able to duplicate the invention. It does not have to be a common person, it has to be someone who competent in that field. Thus, you're not writing gene therapy patents so that grandma can understand them, and you're also not writing automobile suspension patents so that a computer programmer can understand them.
That said, until the past 5 years or so, all computer related patent applications, including software, were reviewed by electrical engineers. The computer science degree was not recognized as a qualification to take the patent bar (and be able to submit or review patent applications). I think this is because places like ITT Tech give out CS degrees that are basically network tech certificates. The USPTO now recognizes accedited CS degrees, and have been hiring people with CS degrees. I predict in the future, as we have people who have been educated in CS, have written code, etc, we will see better computer-related patents in the future. I myself have a poli sci degree, but have been programming since age 6- thus I have written several patent applications that include computer code embodiments.
I checked USA Today, Google News, and Yahoo News, and was not able to find the actual story in USA Today. Doesn't USA Today put everything on the web? Shouldn't a rumor like this be substantiated a little bit more?
In this case, there could a legal opinion drafted, a ruling from a judge, etc, and not merely "expert opinions." An expert opinion varies from a regular opinion only in the fact that the expert one costs more.
Hey, I'm 6'5", and my office has a casual dress code- I usually wear jeans, shorts, or sandals (assuming I'm not wearing sandals during the fight.) I think that should push more bets my way.
The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
Source
You'll note that there is no distinction between governments or civilians. One could argue that a rebellion (and yes, the Founding Fathers were British citizens at the time) is a form of terrorism, as is destruction of property like the Boston Tea Party and other attacks on forts & munitions before the Revolution was official.
IAALT (I Am A Lawyer Too), and this judgement is binding in his federal court's jurisdiction. It might just be his part of district two (which I think covers NY), or it might be all of district two (which I think covers NY and some surrounding states). It is good law there, until either overruled by the Supremes, or made the Law of the Land by the Supremes.
Under the provision, the FBI did not have to show a judge a compelling need for the records and it did not have to specify any process that would allow a recipient to fight the demand for confidential information.
Checks and balances is overrated anyway. I mean, those Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution several hundred years ago when there were no terrorists. Oh wait, didn't they act like terrorists against the British...?
1. The don't know how to share less files
2. Users trust the software they install
3. A popular /. complaint- they don't know any better.
Just for kicks I search for .pst every now and then, and am amazed at the number of people who are sharing their entire outlook file.
Micro$oft shared Hotmail addresses with InfoSpace.com, where these were available for "harvesting" (that sounds sooo quaint!). Somehow these addresses ended up getting spam- even if they were never used. Source
...tracking how many people buy batteries, especially at Costco. A terrorist could walk in, buy several thousand cases of nuclear batteries, and have a dirty bomb by sundown.
From the Washington Post:
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.
In the last campaign, you were asked a question about the biggest mistake you'd made in your life, and you used to like to joke that it was trading Sammy Sosa.
You've looked back before 9-11 for what mistakes might have been made. After 9-11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have learned from it?
BUSH: I wish you'd have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it.
John, I'm sure historians will look back and say, gosh, he could've done it better this way or that way. You know, I just -- I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with answer, but it hadn't yet.
I hope -- I don't want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't -- you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one.
Decreasing the amount of debt held by foreign entities should also be considered, so that we can keep the interest dollars in our country. Significantly cutting the debt would allow less interest to paid. This would allow the government to maintain the same levels of funding, perhaps increase funding, and perhaps lower taxes. If the ratio is pushed to 1:15 or even 1:20, imagine what we could do.
My questions is this: if this realization came easily to a sophomore in college, why is this not screamingly obvious to politicians in Washington? What are your realistic ideas about significantly reducing the debt over the next 5-10 years? (Note: I do not want vague answers like "cut the debt in half," I want specific ideas and plans.
It does not appear that I acheived the goal of my original post. I apologize for my poor effort, and shall endeavor to do better in the future.
I, of course, did not use my iPod out of the house until 50 Cent was brave enough to wear his in a video.
DC Comics filed suit alleging infringement, unfair competition and dilution of the trademark, as well as state law claims that Kryptonite Corp. was using kryptonite and other words containing "krypto" to confuse consumers into believing there was a connection between its products and the Superman legend.
The judge ruled against a summary judgment motion, which means that DC does make a case that should be allowed to go to trial.
You're confusing the definition of the word spam with the definition for the word advertising. Spam is a specific subcategory of advertising, the qualifier being that it intrudes into email. Not all ads are desired, but they are nowhere near as intrusive, time consuming, or resource consuming as spam.