Greetings! You are in flagrant breach of numerous patents, trademarks and copyrights owned by my clients, Nike. To avoid further escalation send 28 million dollars immediately to: Account 10986754, Bank of Nigeria, Zurich CH.
But I was speaking to the theoretical condition, whereby the whole of the voting population is educated and informed
That was where my career as an aircraft designer went wrong; I designed them for the theoretical condition where you have a lever to switch gravity on and off.
no one can speak of a "real" democracy when the voter turnout is routinely around 20-30% or some such.
In some countries (Belgium? Australia?) ii's obligatory to vote - you'll get fined if you don't. If those countries were to repeal such laws, they'd suddenly cease to be democracies overnight?
If 50% of the population who aren't that bothered one way or the other decide to have a party instead, how is that worse than forcing them to turn up and vote based on some random reason like whoever's at the top of the card?
Choosing not to vote is still a choice, of kinds. Your logic is badly flawed, and shame on the people who modded you up. Turnout proves nothing. Didn't the USSR have 100% turnout?
GP is perhaps exaggerating for sarcastic effect. It's equally possible he lives in the US where, if I understand correctly, you generally can't install third party apps (or third party anything) other than through the provider's paid service, and the choice of carriers is between a bad one and a worse one - or in some areas, no choice at all. Smug dumbass limey.
It looks more like a patent on using metadata to control the behaviour of code, or to control on-the-fly code generation (anyone remeber CASE?). There again, it's so vague and broad we could both be right.
The second guy to 'invent' something is no more the inventor than the one millionth guy
If he gets to the patent office to file it first he must have invented a time machine. Either that or the first guy was too slow, which is hard luck when it comes down to it. So it goes.
You miss the point. Whatever the cost of R&D, collaboration or no, it comes down to this: if it's not profitable to develop new drugs, they won't get developed. So when darkwing_bmf (178021) wrote "We would NOT be better off if it became unprofitable to develop new drugs in the first place" he may as well have written "We would NOT be better off if we had no new drugs at all", since that's the logical outcome.
Still look on the bright side - if nobody has them, rich or poor, black or white - at least everyone's equal.
So the more that's spent in inventing it, the longer the patent lasts, i.e. the better it is from the patent holders P.O.V. Wouldn't that be a bit of a disincentive to efficiency? What next, legally mandated profit margins? It's in the same spirit, equally ridiculous in concept and probably just as unworkable in practice.
the price is set at the point where any increase in price will reduce the total amount sold.
Where any increase in price will reduce the amount sold sufficiently to offset the increase in price. A 5% increase in price that causes a 1% reduction in sales still increases revenue by nearly 4%. Otherwise you're spot on.
The advantage of the 'first to file' rule is it prevents the situation where A patents something and B goes "Oi! I thought of that last year. Honest. Ask my cousin C and pal D". Big companies have an advantage in that kind of trick: 'Sure we did, just ask employees E1... En.
It has no bearing on patenting beer, the sky or sex, which ought to be covered by other rules (novelty and non-obviousness to start, but also the fact that they naturally exist). Or at least it shouldn't have... this is the USPTO we're talking about.
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Greetings! You are in flagrant breach of numerous patents, trademarks and copyrights owned by my clients, Nike. To avoid further escalation send 28 million dollars immediately to: Account 10986754, Bank of Nigeria, Zurich CH.
Right there? The bit in bold doesn't even contain the words "prior art". Try again.
As the saying goes, you can't polish a turd ... hey wait, don't mod me down, I was referring to Vista!
So, what's your hobby?
The mistake many Western liberals make is assuming that everyone else thinks the same way they do.
If 50% of the population who aren't that bothered one way or the other decide to have a party instead, how is that worse than forcing them to turn up and vote based on some random reason like whoever's at the top of the card?
Choosing not to vote is still a choice, of kinds. Your logic is badly flawed, and shame on the people who modded you up. Turnout proves nothing. Didn't the USSR have 100% turnout?
GP is perhaps exaggerating for sarcastic effect. It's equally possible he lives in the US where, if I understand correctly, you generally can't install third party apps (or third party anything) other than through the provider's paid service, and the choice of carriers is between a bad one and a worse one - or in some areas, no choice at all. Smug dumbass limey.
It looks more like a patent on using metadata to control the behaviour of code, or to control on-the-fly code generation (anyone remeber CASE?). There again, it's so vague and broad we could both be right.
Not that it will do any good. Observers != enforcers.
In one sentence: first to file isn't necessarily fairer - that's subjective anyway - but it's simpler and a darn sight easier to administer.
You miss the point. Whatever the cost of R&D, collaboration or no, it comes down to this: if it's not profitable to develop new drugs, they won't get developed. So when darkwing_bmf (178021) wrote "We would NOT be better off if it became unprofitable to develop new drugs in the first place" he may as well have written "We would NOT be better off if we had no new drugs at all", since that's the logical outcome.
Still look on the bright side - if nobody has them, rich or poor, black or white - at least everyone's equal.
Nice idea, but don't try to patent that - there's prior art
So the more that's spent in inventing it, the longer the patent lasts, i.e. the better it is from the patent holders P.O.V. Wouldn't that be a bit of a disincentive to efficiency? What next, legally mandated profit margins? It's in the same spirit, equally ridiculous in concept and probably just as unworkable in practice.
1) Your fixed costs (development) are large and already spent.
2) The marginal cost (physical media, S&H) is a small proportion of the sale price.
- it follows that -
3) Maximising revenue is as near to maximising profits as makes any difference. Did you make it to second year Econ?
20 posts and nobody's said that the whole retail price of all M$ software is a patent tax? Did I log onto digg by mistake?
The advantage of the 'first to file' rule is it prevents the situation where A patents something and B goes "Oi! I thought of that last year. Honest. Ask my cousin C and pal D". Big companies have an advantage in that kind of trick: 'Sure we did, just ask employees E1 ... En.
It has no bearing on patenting beer, the sky or sex, which ought to be covered by other rules (novelty and non-obviousness to start, but also the fact that they naturally exist). Or at least it shouldn't have... this is the USPTO we're talking about.
Great! Replace a system that's wrong with one that's bureacratic, cumbersome and unworkable. And wrong.