I don't know if anyone remembers this but there was a weird game of collecting followers back in the DOS days, and it had to do with possessing a Buddha statue.
The law does require slashdot to remove the material just as it requires consequences to be applied to infringers. You'll note they fought back in ways a measly little comment couldn't have. Principles applied with idiocy are not an accomplishment. In the Microsoft case, Microsoft already published the documents online and tried to restrict people from distributing what was already published.
ThTe problem is precisely the whole triviality clause.
I think it's about time we banned patenting of things which are necessary by definition in inventions. Like flammable liquids in combustion engines. To be patentable it should be necessary by innovation not by definition of the task it performs.
Thanks for the example. Why do consumers think they have a clue in these matters? We'd be better off if they went about their American dream and let developers fight with developers.
One click/button are the same as a power switches
on
One-Click Reprise
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· Score: 1
It's simply a covering or encasement of common procedures. No novelty in it whatsoever. It's no different than your computer case's power switch.
I'll add that a remote engine starter for a car is not innovative either. I find it disturbing for laymen to assume their utopian daydream logic is valid in the real world.
A remote control is novel in using radio or infrared technology to reach a distant interface. The convenience of using buttons to access functions does not qualify it for a patent.
Convenience may be desirable, but in no way does that mean it is novel. Stop drooling over it already, it's insulting to programmers.
A patent is an exchange. The United States gov't which operated somewhat sanely in the old days, took the problem of the natural need for money in any individual's life and said, "You can't make money if you can't learn. If share your ideas, you get the right to produce that and only that idea narrowly defined and exclusively."
Patents nowadays are seen as some sort of prizes. To think of patents as prizes is to ignore the real world and the goal of individuals to progress beyond mere survival and to secure some life, liberty, and happiness (not job, not car, nor anything else collectively agreed upon and wrongly assumed).
Patents do not offer any competitive advantage. The slightest improvement on your work opens up the playing field. Why is this allowed? Not everyone needs the improvement nor wants it. See the ACM complaints against Computer Scientists (granted I think the ACM went a little too far in whining).
Ability to raise capital improves to the extent people are encouraged to read patents. The more eyes that of their own voliton seek patents the less work you have to do to pitch your idea. It also means that some investors will get the idea that you might be able to improve on a pastent thereby removing your and his responsibility to the original patent owner. Our society illogically frowns upon individuals reading patents.
Marketting edge? You attract quite a few investors like the one I just described.
Problems: By whatever course of action it seems we have encouraged schemers not entrepeneurs and I'd even argued that we've alienated and discouraged entrepeneurs from profitting in marketplaces. Most entrepeneurs have a sense of pride. The current market is flooded w/ those who do not.
These schemers make no distinction between components which are necessary because they are innovative parts of their inventions and those components which are necessary by definition of the task that the invention accomplishes.
An example is the MDI (multiple document interface) of a word processor. To the layman it might seem that because Microsoft Office has so many components (an icon is a compenent right? ) it should be patentable. To computer all MDI is is multiple locations in memory. Thats it. There's nothing innovative in having more than one screw in a device, nor should it be in a word processor. To the computer programmer MDI is likewise simply multiple buffers.
What to the layman is a complicated powerful program, to the computer and programmer it is a large use of simple components.
As a programmer I see the patenting of simplicity as a threat to my job security as well as to my right to create tools I may use around the house or in my computing environment for fun and profit.
I like the US' system since iot isn't designed to create a utopian state (Europe needs to get rid of that utopian obsession), or even a homogenous one. Just one where the core laws of society don't affect people from a distance or without recourse.
States need to get some rights back from the gov't. And people need to set up a representative body which covers the people's rights.
Dude lissun mkay, you obviously haven't got the integrity to respond to a counterargument, but you have the time to whine about people not respecting your right to have the last word. Don't come in here acting like a hotshot.
When you lose your job because your employer goes broke fighting a lawsuit because some smartass got a patent for something your company implements without even thinking about since it is a common item but not a valuable tool in and of itself, you'll really be a Dancin Santa on 42nd street in Manhattan in drag calling out "Sucky sucky love you long time".
But you force people to build incompetent designs to stay legal. Only people never created anything think the world is infinite. It's not. The minute you decide that you will create something, you have thrown away a lot of freedom in creating that thing. Information theory applies to buttons and gears just as it applies to inputs and outputs. Info theory is harsh mistress. You really don't have a lot of room.
Should the power button on your computer be patentable? A one-click shopping system and a one button car start device are no more innovative than a power switch. It's not a computer thang, it's a simple get some info and cover up the process under a click. Easily done.
A particular implementation is patentable. However, no one has drawn any lines where you stop people from patenting whole markets of software including those completely unrelated to the business of the patenting party.
Just because it looks cool doesn't mean it's an innovation. It's a G I M M I C K.
To make a one button device simply take apart a radio or a remote cotrol, add a small load to power the switch, and instead of the level for the switch being your car key it's a button on the remote control.
Nah that's not a problem of patents. That's a problem of public ownership. It's communistic in that it puts idiots and others not interested in the goals of your company in control of it at gun point.
I have to disagree. Software comes from a need, a need which by simply stating the need describes 75% of what the software will look like.
No one says I want a buffer management system whereby contents maybe moved and stored to be later save to disk. We say I want a word processor.
Then we look and lo and behold common computer design requires that you must have buffers if you want to manage documents.
Software is math in the sense that when you create a product, most of the time you DO NOT HAVE A CHOICE in the components you include. A word processor without BUFFERS is like an equation without an EQUALS sign.
This where software patents go wrong, it allows corporate thieves (no different from common thieves) to control the use components which are key to a product because they're necessary by definition. If they were necessary because they was a completely new type of component which could be done in several ways I'd say sure give the guy a patent.
But the fact is there aren't many ways to do something.
Your belief that the Unisys patent doesn't cover every conceivable way of interpreting GIF bits is quite mistaken.
Think about it. I can tell you the features of the GIF format and even ways implementing it without reading the patent. I can tell you this because I have used GIFs. I can tell you this even though I've never looked at the raw bits. Knowing the features means you could write half the code without even talking about the format.
The rest is just the specific meanings of some byte strings, like the character sequence that identifies the transparency.
In any case the point is that even though there may be different ways of writing an application, you're going to force all but one company to develop low quality Rube-Goldberg designs. Just to stay legal. It's not a lack of ability or a failure to survive in a Darwinian market, it's the fact that software patents allow other companies to steal your right to use the proper tools for a particular purpose. I'm not even talking about innovative tools, if it were only that I'd have no problem with patents. But your taking away an inventors right to use tools that are required by definition. It's like saying go cut wood without using a saw or hatchet. Is it fair to force the rest of the industry to use plastic disposable knives or expensive lasers, and then to turn around and say they're not able to produce quality products because they don't know what they're doing.
They do know what they're doing, but you've made it illegal for them to get through the day in a reasonable manner.
Re:NITROGEN WARNING is similar to TCP/IP warning
on
Security Hole In TCP
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· Score: 1
I've got the following key exchange scheme. I think it's foolproof:
You can find it at moonbase.res.wpi.net/doublethink.txt
In the mechanical world we think in terms of things that can exist in a space at a particular point in time.
In the virtual world, that of recorded things, the space is already taken up. Recording simply makes that space more useful.
The net does something weird. It melds space and time into bandwidth. I have used several resources to get media that I wanted to preview.
And I do mean preview. Getting a whole series of songs or anime episodes becomes a full time job.
I wanted the VKLL fan sub of End of Evangelion which until recently wasn't licensed and as is the custom among anime producers fan subs may be sold until someone pays for the license on the original work.
It took me WEEKS to get it over the net (thank god for resume functions). I have a 10Mbit connection to the Internet as well as 100Mbit connection to the school intranet.
It's as real a handicap as you can get in the virtual world.
Why?
1. I got stuck behind 50 56kers waiting for it.
2. I lost queue slots during frequent netsplits
3. I lost queue slots while morons kept flooding the channels (which abuses everyone on that whole network).
4. Servers dropped off the face of the net
5. People from whom I got half of it got all the trades they wanted and moved the movies offline.
6. People who wanted to trade were never around
7. Kinda hard to babysit this stuff late at night during low traffic hours when you've got exams coming up.
The second reason is:
int market-interest-in-net;
int bandwidth-installation-by-companies;
int profit-intended;
int bandwidth-use-by-customers;
int average-speed;
int bandwidth-cost-for-ISPs;
int bandwidth-cost-for-customers;
Sure they're not perfectly stated, but the above relationships point out that the average-speed of the net eventually levels off.
So this so called infinite space is quite finite.
There's speed bursts at every technological evolutionary step, but eventually it decreases which forces more evolution.
The net is not infinite. Just like the in the mechanical world there IS a loss when something is transferred from one person to another even if it is a copy.
People who buy from artists can make money, which means they can guarantee their bandwidth will be better than of those who are legally required to give the copies away.
It improves the net, it gives artists an audience that can actually afford to pay for more of their stuff, and it keeps those who casually distribute out of the game.
If a seller is discovered to have sold copies without buying a CD prior to the sales he should be forced to give up the profits to the artist.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know if anyone remembers this but there was a weird game of collecting followers back in the DOS days, and it had to do with possessing a Buddha statue.
If you could fake prior art in a one-nighter why should it qualify for a patent in the first place?
Post what you found and it immediately becomes a database.
The law does require slashdot to remove the material just as it requires consequences to be applied to infringers. You'll note they fought back in ways a measly little comment couldn't have. Principles applied with idiocy are not an accomplishment. In the Microsoft case, Microsoft already published the documents online and tried to restrict people from distributing what was already published.
ThTe problem is precisely the whole triviality clause.
I think it's about time we banned patenting of things which are necessary by definition in inventions. Like flammable liquids in combustion engines. To be patentable it should be necessary by innovation not by definition of the task it performs.
Thanks for the example. Why do consumers think they have a clue in these matters? We'd be better off if they went about their American dream and let developers fight with developers.
It's simply a covering or encasement of common procedures. No novelty in it whatsoever. It's no different than your computer case's power switch.
I'll add that a remote engine starter for a car is not innovative either. I find it disturbing for laymen to assume their utopian daydream logic is valid in the real world.
A remote control is novel in using radio or infrared technology to reach a distant interface. The convenience of using buttons to access functions does not qualify it for a patent.
Convenience may be desirable, but in no way does that mean it is novel. Stop drooling over it already, it's insulting to programmers.
A patent is an exchange. The United States gov't which operated somewhat sanely in the old days, took the problem of the natural need for money in any individual's life and said, "You can't make money if you can't learn. If share your ideas, you get the right to produce that and only that idea narrowly defined and exclusively."
Patents nowadays are seen as some sort of prizes. To think of patents as prizes is to ignore the real world and the goal of individuals to progress beyond mere survival and to secure some life, liberty, and happiness (not job, not car, nor anything else collectively agreed upon and wrongly assumed).
Patents do not offer any competitive advantage. The slightest improvement on your work opens up the playing field. Why is this allowed? Not everyone needs the improvement nor wants it. See the ACM complaints against Computer Scientists (granted I think the ACM went a little too far in whining).
Ability to raise capital improves to the extent people are encouraged to read patents. The more eyes that of their own voliton seek patents the less work you have to do to pitch your idea. It also means that some investors will get the idea that you might be able to improve on a pastent thereby removing your and his responsibility to the original patent owner. Our society illogically frowns upon individuals reading patents.
Marketting edge? You attract quite a few investors like the one I just described.
Problems: By whatever course of action it seems we have encouraged schemers not entrepeneurs and I'd even argued that we've alienated and discouraged entrepeneurs from profitting in marketplaces. Most entrepeneurs have a sense of pride. The current market is flooded w/ those who do not.
These schemers make no distinction between components which are necessary because they are innovative parts of their inventions and those components which are necessary by definition of the task that the invention accomplishes.
An example is the MDI (multiple document interface) of a word processor. To the layman it might seem that because Microsoft Office has so many components (an icon is a compenent right? ) it should be patentable. To computer all MDI is is multiple locations in memory. Thats it. There's nothing innovative in having more than one screw in a device, nor should it be in a word processor. To the computer programmer MDI is likewise simply multiple buffers.
What to the layman is a complicated powerful program, to the computer and programmer it is a large use of simple components.
As a programmer I see the patenting of simplicity as a threat to my job security as well as to my right to create tools I may use around the house or in my computing environment for fun and profit.
Did I miss anything?
Nah it's just a bunch of wankers who complain that someone else's work or play doesn't benefit them.
He did the work, why should it have any practical applications for you?
"I'm sick of online rules being different than physical rules"
Well guess what they're not the same thing. The CDA is wrong because it imposes one state's community standards on another state.
If I buy a car, the seller no longer has the car.
If I look at a web page, the author still has the page.
Porn doesn't need advertising. People click on tiny banners promising giant tits only to find more ads. AND THEY KEEP ON TRYING!
Porn like Pokemon is an impulse product. There's a difference between technews and gottacatchemall.
I like the US' system since iot isn't designed to create a utopian state (Europe needs to get rid of that utopian obsession), or even a homogenous one. Just one where the core laws of society don't affect people from a distance or without recourse.
States need to get some rights back from the gov't. And people need to set up a representative body which covers the people's rights.
Dude lissun mkay, you obviously haven't got the integrity to respond to a counterargument, but you have the time to whine about people not respecting your right to have the last word. Don't come in here acting like a hotshot.
When you lose your job because your employer goes broke fighting a lawsuit because some smartass got a patent for something your company implements without even thinking about since it is a common item but not a valuable tool in and of itself, you'll really be a Dancin Santa on 42nd street in Manhattan in drag calling out "Sucky sucky love you long time".
But you force people to build incompetent designs to stay legal. Only people never created anything think the world is infinite. It's not. The minute you decide that you will create something, you have thrown away a lot of freedom in creating that thing. Information theory applies to buttons and gears just as it applies to inputs and outputs. Info theory is harsh mistress. You really don't have a lot of room.
Don't you love it when these high and mighty morons don't bother to come back and read the comments people post to them?
Should the power button on your computer be patentable? A one-click shopping system and a one button car start device are no more innovative than a power switch. It's not a computer thang, it's a simple get some info and cover up the process under a click. Easily done.
A particular implementation is patentable. However, no one has drawn any lines where you stop people from patenting whole markets of software including those completely unrelated to the business of the patenting party.
Just because it looks cool doesn't mean it's an innovation. It's a G I M M I C K.
To make a one button device simply take apart a radio or a remote cotrol, add a small load to power the switch, and instead of the level for the switch being your car key it's a button on the remote control.
Big whoop.
Nah that's not a problem of patents. That's a problem of public ownership. It's communistic in that it puts idiots and others not interested in the goals of your company in control of it at gun point.
IPOs are unamerican.
I have to disagree. Software comes from a need, a need which by simply stating the need describes 75% of what the software will look like.
No one says I want a buffer management system whereby contents maybe moved and stored to be later save to disk. We say I want a word processor.
Then we look and lo and behold common computer design requires that you must have buffers if you want to manage documents.
Software is math in the sense that when you create a product, most of the time you DO NOT HAVE A CHOICE in the components you include. A word processor without BUFFERS is like an equation without an EQUALS sign.
This where software patents go wrong, it allows corporate thieves (no different from common thieves) to control the use components which are key to a product because they're necessary by definition. If they were necessary because they was a completely new type of component which could be done in several ways I'd say sure give the guy a patent.
But the fact is there aren't many ways to do something.
Your belief that the Unisys patent doesn't cover every conceivable way of interpreting GIF bits is quite mistaken.
Think about it. I can tell you the features of the GIF format and even ways implementing it without reading the patent. I can tell you this because I have used GIFs. I can tell you this even though I've never looked at the raw bits. Knowing the features means you could write half the code without even talking about the format.
The rest is just the specific meanings of some byte strings, like the character sequence that identifies the transparency.
In any case the point is that even though there may be different ways of writing an application, you're going to force all but one company to develop low quality Rube-Goldberg designs. Just to stay legal. It's not a lack of ability or a failure to survive in a Darwinian market, it's the fact that software patents allow other companies to steal your right to use the proper tools for a particular purpose. I'm not even talking about innovative tools, if it were only that I'd have no problem with patents. But your taking away an inventors right to use tools that are required by definition. It's like saying go cut wood without using a saw or hatchet. Is it fair to force the rest of the industry to use plastic disposable knives or expensive lasers, and then to turn around and say they're not able to produce quality products because they don't know what they're doing.
They do know what they're doing, but you've made it illegal for them to get through the day in a reasonable manner.
I've got the following key exchange scheme. I think it's foolproof:
You can find it at moonbase.res.wpi.net/doublethink.txt
$9 for 128MB DIMMs on pricewatch.
In the mechanical world we think in terms of things that can exist in a space at a particular point in time.
In the virtual world, that of recorded things, the space is already taken up. Recording simply makes that space more useful.
The net does something weird. It melds space and time into bandwidth. I have used several resources to get media that I wanted to preview.
And I do mean preview. Getting a whole series of songs or anime episodes becomes a full time job.
I wanted the VKLL fan sub of End of Evangelion which until recently wasn't licensed and as is the custom among anime producers fan subs may be sold until someone pays for the license on the original work.
It took me WEEKS to get it over the net (thank god for resume functions). I have a 10Mbit connection to the Internet as well as 100Mbit connection to the school intranet.
It's as real a handicap as you can get in the virtual world.
Why?
1. I got stuck behind 50 56kers waiting for it.
2. I lost queue slots during frequent netsplits
3. I lost queue slots while morons kept flooding the channels (which abuses everyone on that whole network).
4. Servers dropped off the face of the net
5. People from whom I got half of it got all the trades they wanted and moved the movies offline.
6. People who wanted to trade were never around
7. Kinda hard to babysit this stuff late at night during low traffic hours when you've got exams coming up.
The second reason is:
int market-interest-in-net;
int bandwidth-installation-by-companies;
int profit-intended;
int bandwidth-use-by-customers;
int average-speed;
int bandwidth-cost-for-ISPs;
int bandwidth-cost-for-customers;
market-interest-in-net = k1 * average-speed / bandwidth-cost-for-customers;
bandwidth-cost-for-customers = profit-intended + bandwidth-cost-for-ISPs;
bandwidth-use-by-customers = k2 * market-interest-in-net;
bandwidth-cost-for-ISPs = k3 * bandwidth-use-by-customers;
average-speed = bandwidth-installed-by-companies / bandwidth-use-by-customers;
bandwidth-installed-by-companies = k4 * market-interest-in-net - profit-intended;
Sure they're not perfectly stated, but the above relationships point out that the average-speed of the net eventually levels off.
So this so called infinite space is quite finite.
There's speed bursts at every technological evolutionary step, but eventually it decreases which forces more evolution.
The net is not infinite. Just like the in the mechanical world there IS a loss when something is transferred from one person to another even if it is a copy.
People who buy from artists can make money, which means they can guarantee their bandwidth will be better than of those who are legally required to give the copies away.
It improves the net, it gives artists an audience that can actually afford to pay for more of their stuff, and it keeps those who casually distribute out of the game.
If a seller is discovered to have sold copies without buying a CD prior to the sales he should be forced to give up the profits to the artist.
Actuallly I would think bugs, problems, and errors are the fault of MS, Sun, Whomever.
The database patent is preposterous, as is this action by cddb owners.
Anyone interested in tweaking napster to handle this sort of thing?