What bugs me the most about this whole problem of publicizing "online sexual predators" is that most children that are victims of sexual molestation are assaulted by close family, friends, or neighbors. All we hear about from media windbags (and fat windbags) is that we need to protect kids from predators prowling the 'net.
Somegood sites actually point out that most molestations are perpatrated by "non-strangers." One site has the audacity to quote statistics:
Ninety percent of them already know the child, often because we invited them into our lives as friend, neighbor or family member. source here
All this attention is placed on 10% of the victims, while nothing is done to publicize the other 90%- and to protect them. I can just see the stories now: "Tonight on Dateline, why children should fear their parents!"
I think the posting is incorrect regards the "change in strategy." As Darl says in the article:
"I think right now we've got the claims in front of the various courts that we need in order to get our complaints heard and to get them argued and to get resolution. With respect to being more vocal or going after new targets at the customer level, we don't see the need for that. We had the need to get the basic issues on the table, but we're fine to argue the merits of what we have out there right now (in) the current litigation setting."
There's something in law called "res judicata," (incorrect definition here) which means if something is decided by one court, it's binding on a court in another jurisdiction. The definition given is incorrect in stating that it applies only to the parties in the original suit. It can be used against a party in the original suit, if it's the same facts/situation, and the original party had ample and adequate opportunity and reason (motivation) to provide a full defense in the first case.
If there is going to be a lot of cases, usually a company will do several, in different forums/jurisdictions, and see if they get a good result. If they do, such as SCO getting a ruling that all Linux violates their copyright/trade secrets/whatever, then they can use that in subsequent cases when suing. The inverse is also true. If a court finds that SCO is a bunch of mindless jerks that will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes (e.g. their claims are totally without merit), then they really cannot go after anyone else without overcoming some really large hurdles.
Not only do I play an attorney on TV, I am an attorney in real life as well.
Take a look in the URL for the image, and you'll see how Google does their ranking. They don't analyze the picture, they do keywords. For example, the URL for the stuffed bear is "rooth.org/check/ ebay/logo.jpg"
I imagine most of the "loss" was in intangible assets, such as brandnames, goodwill, etc. To buy Lycos, Inc., Terra just printed $12.5 billion in stock certificates (see this article), which made the then stockholders of Lycos (valued in 2000 at $70ish per share) significantly happy. Terra is owned by Telifonica, which is the national phone company of Spain.
bad TV. I'm more offended that we see all the WWF wrestling and shows like "Saved by the Bell." Once sex and violence is gone, then we can get rid of the crud, and we'll only have good wholesome shows like "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman." Star Trek is out, because they have guns.
Even better, search for.pst and find email, or "My Documents" to find lots of fun files.
I think the problem is not necessarily better security, but increased user education. Tell people not to "search my hard drive for files to share," to choose what folders are being shared, and to verify periodically what folders/files are shared.
We do more than just look up their term. It includes often looking through several hundred registrations/applications, for various terms, synonyms, and combinations. We also research registrations we find, plus provide an analysis of the search results. We do a consultation about the results and discuss what might come up after filing an application in light of the results. Our search fee is flat rate, and I often spend more time working on it than is dictated by my hourly rate. We're a small firm with startup clients, not ambulance chasers and over-billers, thank you very much.
Not to reveal any of our secrets for conducting a brief trademark search, let's say a search engine might be used.
If you search for Froogle, the first 20 results (and on) show only Google's sites and references to them. Froogle is number 1. If you search for Froogles, the results show a lot of froogles related links, but not the site froogles.com itself. Perhaps a little extra special engineering chez Google?.
First we've heard about the Gmail trademark problems. Then there was the problem with Googles. Now Froogle. You think they would research these things extensively first before filing. Trademark applications are interesting in that you do not have to file immediately to obtain protection- you can obtain trademark protection from the day you first use the mark, and then more protection when you first use it in commerce.
In the case of Froogles, they filed on September 8, 2003, but claimed their first use in commerce as December 31, 2001. Google, although they filed earlier on November 22, 2002, their first use in commerce date is December 11, 2002. Since the marks are so obviously similar, any moron trademark attorney (I consider myself a non-moron trademark attorney) would at a minimum search for the exact same term in the USPTO public database.
In the case of a multibillion dollar search engine company with dozens, if not hundreds, of trademark applications worldwide, you would think they would perform a small federal trademark search (my firm charges $300). One would also assume that such an important mark would also have a comprehensive trademark search, checking magazine references, state trademark registries, domain names, etc.
The failure to research this mark before proceeding with use, and filing a trademark application, shows that the Google trademark team screwed up big time. They will likely either eventually lose use of this mark to Froogles, or pay Froogles a lot of money for their mark, both of which will cost a lot more than performing trademark search in advance.
In case someone from Google is reading, I did apply to be one of your trademark attorneys, and my webpage is number two in Google for "Who wants to work for Google?". I'm still interested...
This is crap. My wife got an iPod for her birthday, and the most annoying thing about it is using iTunes. We burn our own MP3s from CD, or use allofmp3.com to grab what we want. iTunes is annoying. I'm a tech savy guy, and I find iTunes counter-intuitive for adding songs to our iPod's library. The directions don't help much, since there's not really that much included with the iPod. A nice device, especially with a car charger and FM broadcast, but putting songs on the device sucks.
I don't recall the exact reason why they couldn't do that (stupid beers I drank while watching!), but I think it had to do with regulations- such as numbers cannot be covered up. Lance ran into problems a year or so back with a redesigned sprinting helmet. It was really aerodynamic, but the Tour organizers wouldn't allow it because it did not conform to the rules. The rules were slightly changed, and now he can wear a revolutionary design. I susepct the number thing will change as well.
Lance et al have spent a lot of time in wind tunnels reducing drag (see Trek). I watched a bunch of the Lance Chronicles on OLN. One significant source of drag they discovered- the race numbers on their backs. All riders have their number attached to their jersey on their lower back, on both sides (as seen here). They found that the number caused significant drag, and they were quite unhappy that there was no way to design a sharkskin suit or the like to include the number. Technology taken down by paper!
Don't forget the "medical" exception. I remember when MTV showed the breast operation show, they would show the full breast while being operated on, but not when the doctor was feeling the breast during an exam. Talk about splitting hairs.
It always steams me that they'll edit out breasts and other "sex" things in movies, but movies like "Predator" and "Resevoir Dogs" will be shown on TV, with lots of people getting shot up and spewing blood all over. Is that really a better image we'd like kids to see? I myself would just prefer not to edit anything out.
I recently read The Informant by Kurt Eichenwald, which was about the worldwide price fixing that ADM and other producers did for fertilizers and the like. It was a really good read, and in the end it turns out the main guy (the informant & whistleblower) was motivated to expose his company to cover up his use of company funds for a 419 scam. He was duped out of something like $8 million, which he paid for through ADM money. This guy was a rising star VP at one of the biggest companies, which confirms my believe that even really smart people can be morons.
One thing that amazes me about the American box office numbers is that it is always about the amount of money, and not the number of people who viewed the movie. With inflation, increased ticket prices, matinees that end by 1pm, etc, it's the nature of the beast to have progressively better box office tallies. While "Star Wars" (including before the re-issue) had a huge take, it is smaller compared to "Titanic," although I suspect many more individuals saw Luke as opposed to Leo. Top Box Office
I know some countries like France do both (entries and box office take), which gives you a more accurate picture of how many people are seeing movies. Sure, it doesn't sound as sexy as "Biggest grossing weekend ever," but I'd give more credance to the title "Most viewed movie ever."
Once a patent is granted, you have to pay maintenance fees at 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years after the issue date of the patent. If you don't pay the fee, the patent is no longer valid, is surrendered- and becomes public domain.
I'm wondering if you could recommend any bad sites that I could take people to. Often when I try to convince people to switch to Mozilla/Firefox, they choose a site that happens to be built for IE, and I immediately lose their interest.
It's the Friday version of NPR's "Talk of the Nation" (2-4 PM EST). Ira Flatow hosts it, and his topics are all science, often things that are in the news that week. Although it's on NPR, this show is pretty viewpoint neutral, and if it's a controversial topic, there are people from both sides (and they all get to talk, respond to each other, and no one ever has their mics cut.)
Per the Science Friday Archive page, archived audio is available for shows broadcast after mid-1996. You can search by date & topic. The stream is Real Audio, but appears to sans-membership. You can search by date and topic.
"It doesn't mean bees can't fly, or that engineers say they can't fly. It just means that insect flight is very complicated and, even with computers, our fluid dynamic modeling techniques aren't yet able to quite handle such a complicated problem. Then there's the problem of verification. If you can't measure the pressures and velocities around a wing, how can you verify your calculations?"
This granted patent came from a patent application claiming priority to a provisional patent application filed in 1999, so you need to find art prior to Mar. 5, 1999.
Trademarks protect names, logos, slogans and the like. Trademarks apply to different classes of goods and services, thus computer-related goods are in 1 class (class 9), and record production is another class (41). You can have similar (or the same) marks for different goods/services without issues. Apple (computer) got in trouble from Apple (records) with regards to music, as Apple (records) had been using the trademark longer in that area. They signed a big settlement back in the 80s or 90s. Apple (computer) is currently being sued by Apple (records) over the iPod- as Apple (computer) had agreed to stay out of the music field. D'oh!
Copyrights protect "original works of authorship," which have to be fixed in some sort of medium of expression.
Slashdot Mirror
Some good sites actually point out that most molestations are perpatrated by "non-strangers." One site has the audacity to quote statistics:
Ninety percent of them already know the child, often because we invited them into our lives as friend, neighbor or family member.
source here
All this attention is placed on 10% of the victims, while nothing is done to publicize the other 90%- and to protect them. I can just see the stories now: "Tonight on Dateline, why children should fear their parents!"
For those interested in a larger discussion of how the media whips up false stories and miss the underlying true issue, read The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things
Time to go back to yelling at the TV news programs...
Free advice? You kidding? How else am I gonna pay off my $100,000 in law school loans?
So I made up that first part, but I did play a law student on an episode of "Win Ben Stein's $" I did not win any of his money.
"I think right now we've got the claims in front of the various courts that we need in order to get our complaints heard and to get them argued and to get resolution. With respect to being more vocal or going after new targets at the customer level, we don't see the need for that. We had the need to get the basic issues on the table, but we're fine to argue the merits of what we have out there right now (in) the current litigation setting."
There's something in law called "res judicata," (incorrect definition here) which means if something is decided by one court, it's binding on a court in another jurisdiction. The definition given is incorrect in stating that it applies only to the parties in the original suit. It can be used against a party in the original suit, if it's the same facts/situation, and the original party had ample and adequate opportunity and reason (motivation) to provide a full defense in the first case.
If there is going to be a lot of cases, usually a company will do several, in different forums/jurisdictions, and see if they get a good result. If they do, such as SCO getting a ruling that all Linux violates their copyright/trade secrets/whatever, then they can use that in subsequent cases when suing. The inverse is also true. If a court finds that SCO is a bunch of mindless jerks that will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes (e.g. their claims are totally without merit), then they really cannot go after anyone else without overcoming some really large hurdles.
Not only do I play an attorney on TV, I am an attorney in real life as well.
Take a look in the URL for the image, and you'll see how Google does their ranking. They don't analyze the picture, they do keywords. For example, the URL for the stuffed bear is "rooth.org/check/ ebay/logo.jpg"
I imagine most of the "loss" was in intangible assets, such as brandnames, goodwill, etc. To buy Lycos, Inc., Terra just printed $12.5 billion in stock certificates (see this article), which made the then stockholders of Lycos (valued in 2000 at $70ish per share) significantly happy. Terra is owned by Telifonica, which is the national phone company of Spain.
bad TV. I'm more offended that we see all the WWF wrestling and shows like "Saved by the Bell." Once sex and violence is gone, then we can get rid of the crud, and we'll only have good wholesome shows like "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman." Star Trek is out, because they have guns.
I think the problem is not necessarily better security, but increased user education. Tell people not to "search my hard drive for files to share," to choose what folders are being shared, and to verify periodically what folders/files are shared.
We do more than just look up their term. It includes often looking through several hundred registrations/applications, for various terms, synonyms, and combinations. We also research registrations we find, plus provide an analysis of the search results. We do a consultation about the results and discuss what might come up after filing an application in light of the results. Our search fee is flat rate, and I often spend more time working on it than is dictated by my hourly rate. We're a small firm with startup clients, not ambulance chasers and over-billers, thank you very much.
If you search for Froogle, the first 20 results (and on) show only Google's sites and references to them. Froogle is number 1. If you search for Froogles, the results show a lot of froogles related links, but not the site froogles.com itself. Perhaps a little extra special engineering chez Google?.
In the case of Froogles, they filed on September 8, 2003, but claimed their first use in commerce as December 31, 2001. Google, although they filed earlier on November 22, 2002, their first use in commerce date is December 11, 2002. Since the marks are so obviously similar, any moron trademark attorney (I consider myself a non-moron trademark attorney) would at a minimum search for the exact same term in the USPTO public database.
In the case of a multibillion dollar search engine company with dozens, if not hundreds, of trademark applications worldwide, you would think they would perform a small federal trademark search (my firm charges $300). One would also assume that such an important mark would also have a comprehensive trademark search, checking magazine references, state trademark registries, domain names, etc.
The failure to research this mark before proceeding with use, and filing a trademark application, shows that the Google trademark team screwed up big time. They will likely either eventually lose use of this mark to Froogles, or pay Froogles a lot of money for their mark, both of which will cost a lot more than performing trademark search in advance.
In case someone from Google is reading, I did apply to be one of your trademark attorneys, and my webpage is number two in Google for "Who wants to work for Google?". I'm still interested...
This is crap. My wife got an iPod for her birthday, and the most annoying thing about it is using iTunes. We burn our own MP3s from CD, or use allofmp3.com to grab what we want. iTunes is annoying. I'm a tech savy guy, and I find iTunes counter-intuitive for adding songs to our iPod's library. The directions don't help much, since there's not really that much included with the iPod. A nice device, especially with a car charger and FM broadcast, but putting songs on the device sucks.
I don't recall the exact reason why they couldn't do that (stupid beers I drank while watching!), but I think it had to do with regulations- such as numbers cannot be covered up. Lance ran into problems a year or so back with a redesigned sprinting helmet. It was really aerodynamic, but the Tour organizers wouldn't allow it because it did not conform to the rules. The rules were slightly changed, and now he can wear a revolutionary design. I susepct the number thing will change as well.
Lance et al have spent a lot of time in wind tunnels reducing drag (see Trek). I watched a bunch of the Lance Chronicles on OLN. One significant source of drag they discovered- the race numbers on their backs. All riders have their number attached to their jersey on their lower back, on both sides (as seen here). They found that the number caused significant drag, and they were quite unhappy that there was no way to design a sharkskin suit or the like to include the number. Technology taken down by paper!
Don't forget the "medical" exception. I remember when MTV showed the breast operation show, they would show the full breast while being operated on, but not when the doctor was feeling the breast during an exam. Talk about splitting hairs.
It always steams me that they'll edit out breasts and other "sex" things in movies, but movies like "Predator" and "Resevoir Dogs" will be shown on TV, with lots of people getting shot up and spewing blood all over. Is that really a better image we'd like kids to see? I myself would just prefer not to edit anything out.
ADM & Mark Whitacre
I know some countries like France do both (entries and box office take), which gives you a more accurate picture of how many people are seeing movies. Sure, it doesn't sound as sexy as "Biggest grossing weekend ever," but I'd give more credance to the title "Most viewed movie ever."
Once a patent is granted, you have to pay maintenance fees at 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years after the issue date of the patent. If you don't pay the fee, the patent is no longer valid, is surrendered- and becomes public domain.
I'm wondering if you could recommend any bad sites that I could take people to. Often when I try to convince people to switch to Mozilla/Firefox, they choose a site that happens to be built for IE, and I immediately lose their interest.
infowants
tobefree
However I got a password error when logging in. I wonder if it was a bad logon, or if this entry was changed prior to running the story here...
Per the Science Friday Archive page, archived audio is available for shows broadcast after mid-1996. You can search by date & topic. The stream is Real Audio, but appears to sans-membership. You can search by date and topic.
"It doesn't mean bees can't fly, or that engineers say they can't fly. It just means that insect flight is very complicated and, even with computers, our fluid dynamic modeling techniques aren't yet able to quite handle such a complicated problem. Then there's the problem of verification. If you can't measure the pressures and velocities around a wing, how can you verify your calculations?"
At least says Dr. Galapagos
This granted patent came from a patent application claiming priority to a provisional patent application filed in 1999, so you need to find art prior to Mar. 5, 1999.
Copyrights protect "original works of authorship," which have to be fixed in some sort of medium of expression.
Patents protect inventions.