I am trying to present an argument for patent holding companies. I am no big fan of the current patent situation but for arguments sake in the most ideal light, they can be good. Personally I would rather see NTP hold a garbage patent than a Microsoft, because MS has an incentive to kill startup companies, whereas patent squatters on the other hand do not, they have an incentive to extract royalties from companies. In your example above, would you rather have one guy kill a prospector and and sell it to another guy, or a mining company kill the guy, not mine it and thus the public gets no gold. In the first place although the rightful person is rewarded the net effect on the public is the same, in the second case, the public has suffered a loss, less gold on the market.
From what I read these patent holding companies do not go out and bleed the smaller companies dry. They end up asking for a nominal license fee and those that choose to fight are the ones that are bled dry. You are right, I wasn't totally serious in my response. But thereotically patent holding companies would be no different than BMI or Ascap. Not that they are the harbingers of class. But in many ways BMI and Ascap made making art a lot easier. If you want to insert music into your intro to your video game, you look at the catalog, see the price and then you buy it, no need to negotiate personally with the artist. Seemless. That said, I am pretty anti patent laws especially for business method and software patents. But I can see in theory anyways, it may not be all bad mold but just some stinky cheese. Either way though, I aint eating it.
Another Example would be Mcintosh audio and Macintosh computers. Porsche the automobile and Porsche design studio. However those people's names and courts generally won't give a company exclusive rights to that name. But if you make up a name, then you are entitled to that name for all products. That's why drug companies make up nonsensical names, like Viagra. You can't make up Viagra Golf Clubs.
Well you can argue that the original Explorer/Mosaic was usable and also was a loss leader. Remember you had to pay for Netscape back in those days. But the first one where people said Explorer is getting to just as good as Netscape and took signicant market share is version 3.0. Right now Xbox can't touch the PS2 in the market like Netscape back in 93 or 94. But version 3.0. I hate to admit it Xbox will be really good.
It takes a lot of money to enter an unfamiliar (and unfriendly) market. I don't see how investing in a poorly-run company with questionable practices is the solution to this.
Gizmondo Europe was the poorly run company with the questionable practices. I was saying they should buy Gizmondo North America which is still alive today.
If they buy a company, then they also buy experience within that familiar market.
Kidding aside. Why Gizmondo would be good for MS?
Gizmondo already has a powerful system running Windows CE.
Gizmondo has a Car Nav system. Right now MS is flirting with media products for the car however they don't have any after market products. Apple right now has mindshare with their iPod products. MS right now probably has the best stand alone map software but no Nav functions. Gizmondo Car Nav would be great addition.
MS would probably want to enter the hand held market some time. Even if Gizmondo is not launched by MS. MS can use the knowledge gained by its employees on issues of handheld gaming. This also allows MS to prevent Sony and Nintendo from hiring away these people. Granted these people may not be great hires, but who knows.
MS wants to enter the hand held entertainment/communication market that Nokia left. Mobile gaming is the last frontier in gaming. MS wants to be on top of that.
MS bought WebTv. Is webTv profitable? No. Is hotmail profitable? no. But combine the technologies of hotmail, messenger, webTV and gaming and you have Xbox Live which is profitable. So there, my case why MS should be looking into buying Gizmondo.
There is a reason for trademark laws and this is a good example of where a good law suit would've been a good idea. You are right, Tiger Electronics made Game.com another portable game console that failed. My comment about the mafia ties still stands.
My point in tongue in cheek comment is that after the first failure, they can go one and release 2.0 which in turn they will release 3.0. Ms version 3.0 is always the first usable version. NT 3, Windows 3.0, Word 6, Explorer 3.0 etc.
They are still selling them in America. Not sure how much longer. You can probably import one. Although I don't think they sell the Bangers and Mash sim over this side of the pond.
Tiger is a toy company famous for those little portable lcd football games. They launched Gizmondo to compete with Gameboys, Psps, and the like. In Europe there were reports of financial mismanagement at its best and mafia ties at its worst.
What are the chances that a Microsoft will buy Gizmondo North America to enter the handheld market. To those that say why would MS buy garbage like the Gizmondo. Its because MS doesn't do things very well in their first interation. Xbox lost a lot of money and things that were not quite right in the first generation got rectified in the Xbox 360 namely the size of the console and size of the controller. The Gizmondo is freakin huge. Thus the Gizmondo can be the first generation abortion that MS is famous for. I look forward to playing DNF on my MS picaXBox.
Borders is a competitor to Amazon. What happened was Borders.com was set up as a seperate entity from Borders the store so people who buy books online wouldn't need to pay sales tax. The courts ruled that Borders.com and Borders for all intents and purposes was the same company. So borders.com had to change their name or partner with Amazon. Borders the store is still a seperate entity and if they wished to there is nothing stopping them from creating a BordersOnline.com under the same umbrella as Borderstores.com. But you are right currently they are not an online competitor to Borders.
The problem with patents is that companies as long as they are not monopolies can refuse to license their patents. So how likely would Amazon license their one click patent to Corner Bookstore in Small Town USA. Probably not much, because less competition is better. But a patent holding company would favor as many licenses as possible and a license that may cost millions from Amazon may cost Small Town Bookstore a few thousand dollars.
I think it's an apt comparision. Mold is also beneficial. Actually, without mold you wouldn't have modern medicine, soy sauce or cheese. I don't know what I would do without cheese. Patent holding companies are not all bad. If patents were wholy owned by companies say Amazon, go gain competitive advantage, they might refuse to license to their competitors like Borders or Barnes and Noble which is in their right. However if a patent holding company were to hold these patents, all they want is license fees thus they are more likely to license these patents to the public. Also patent holding companies are more likely to reword the inventor of the patent. How much does an inventor at IBM get for his services, maybe a few hundred bucks bonus, and then the shareholders get the value. So in this light, patent holding companies doesn't look so bad.
However out of control mold can reek havoc and can turn your house into a toxic zone. Patent holding companies may infact make it so it is risky to do any kind of technology and to get licenses to do so will make startups much more expensive. If you look at google, if the kids there had to pay license fee to some patent company to take their search engine to the public, would they be here today. Probably not.
Someone should bring back Al Lowe type of games. But I guess kids nowadays would rather look at a nipple rather than reading about it. I wonder what kids think now of playing a text adventure LSL.
They will prob make a touchscreen or maybe even connect your DS so you can play RTS. They are making Age of Empires for DS however but I doubt that a MS based studio will make a Revo compatible AOE or a Halo.
I would play this if I can play as Martha Stewart. Some insider trading, running a sweat shop making Kmart stuff and I would also have a back door hot coffee mod where in the mini game, you make hot coffee.
I don't think Western designers would've ever made DOA: Volleyball. That's what makes Japanese designers so great, the attention to detail......Or maybe not.
I don't think so, by the time DNF comes out, mankind would be killed off and the world ends and then the big bang comes along and then civilization starts again when finally DNF is released on a new technology called an Atari cartridge format.
Powell isn't really a good guy, look at the coverups in Vietnam and war crimes in the first Iraq war. But among the bad guys, he was the least bad guy.
Slashdot Mirror
You mispelled, Nintendo Armagedden.
I am trying to present an argument for patent holding companies. I am no big fan of the current patent situation but for arguments sake in the most ideal light, they can be good. Personally I would rather see NTP hold a garbage patent than a Microsoft, because MS has an incentive to kill startup companies, whereas patent squatters on the other hand do not, they have an incentive to extract royalties from companies. In your example above, would you rather have one guy kill a prospector and and sell it to another guy, or a mining company kill the guy, not mine it and thus the public gets no gold. In the first place although the rightful person is rewarded the net effect on the public is the same, in the second case, the public has suffered a loss, less gold on the market.
From what I read these patent holding companies do not go out and bleed the smaller companies dry. They end up asking for a nominal license fee and those that choose to fight are the ones that are bled dry. You are right, I wasn't totally serious in my response. But thereotically patent holding companies would be no different than BMI or Ascap. Not that they are the harbingers of class. But in many ways BMI and Ascap made making art a lot easier. If you want to insert music into your intro to your video game, you look at the catalog, see the price and then you buy it, no need to negotiate personally with the artist. Seemless. That said, I am pretty anti patent laws especially for business method and software patents. But I can see in theory anyways, it may not be all bad mold but just some stinky cheese. Either way though, I aint eating it.
Another Example would be Mcintosh audio and Macintosh computers. Porsche the automobile and Porsche design studio. However those people's names and courts generally won't give a company exclusive rights to that name. But if you make up a name, then you are entitled to that name for all products. That's why drug companies make up nonsensical names, like Viagra. You can't make up Viagra Golf Clubs.
Well you can argue that the original Explorer/Mosaic was usable and also was a loss leader. Remember you had to pay for Netscape back in those days. But the first one where people said Explorer is getting to just as good as Netscape and took signicant market share is version 3.0. Right now Xbox can't touch the PS2 in the market like Netscape back in 93 or 94. But version 3.0. I hate to admit it Xbox will be really good.
I was actually thinking of NT4. But a case can be made for Win2k.
It takes a lot of money to enter an unfamiliar (and unfriendly) market. I don't see how investing in a poorly-run company with questionable practices is the solution to this. Gizmondo Europe was the poorly run company with the questionable practices. I was saying they should buy Gizmondo North America which is still alive today.
If they buy a company, then they also buy experience within that familiar market.
Kidding aside. Why Gizmondo would be good for MS?
Gizmondo already has a powerful system running Windows CE.
Gizmondo has a Car Nav system. Right now MS is flirting with media products for the car however they don't have any after market products. Apple right now has mindshare with their iPod products. MS right now probably has the best stand alone map software but no Nav functions. Gizmondo Car Nav would be great addition.
MS would probably want to enter the hand held market some time. Even if Gizmondo is not launched by MS. MS can use the knowledge gained by its employees on issues of handheld gaming. This also allows MS to prevent Sony and Nintendo from hiring away these people. Granted these people may not be great hires, but who knows.
MS wants to enter the hand held entertainment/communication market that Nokia left. Mobile gaming is the last frontier in gaming. MS wants to be on top of that.
MS bought WebTv. Is webTv profitable? No. Is hotmail profitable? no. But combine the technologies of hotmail, messenger, webTV and gaming and you have Xbox Live which is profitable. So there, my case why MS should be looking into buying Gizmondo.
There is a reason for trademark laws and this is a good example of where a good law suit would've been a good idea. You are right, Tiger Electronics made Game.com another portable game console that failed. My comment about the mafia ties still stands.
My point in tongue in cheek comment is that after the first failure, they can go one and release 2.0 which in turn they will release 3.0. Ms version 3.0 is always the first usable version. NT 3, Windows 3.0, Word 6, Explorer 3.0 etc.
They are still selling them in America. Not sure how much longer. You can probably import one. Although I don't think they sell the Bangers and Mash sim over this side of the pond.
Tiger is a toy company famous for those little portable lcd football games. They launched Gizmondo to compete with Gameboys, Psps, and the like. In Europe there were reports of financial mismanagement at its best and mafia ties at its worst.
What are the chances that a Microsoft will buy Gizmondo North America to enter the handheld market. To those that say why would MS buy garbage like the Gizmondo. Its because MS doesn't do things very well in their first interation. Xbox lost a lot of money and things that were not quite right in the first generation got rectified in the Xbox 360 namely the size of the console and size of the controller. The Gizmondo is freakin huge. Thus the Gizmondo can be the first generation abortion that MS is famous for. I look forward to playing DNF on my MS picaXBox.
Borders is a competitor to Amazon. What happened was Borders.com was set up as a seperate entity from Borders the store so people who buy books online wouldn't need to pay sales tax. The courts ruled that Borders.com and Borders for all intents and purposes was the same company. So borders.com had to change their name or partner with Amazon. Borders the store is still a seperate entity and if they wished to there is nothing stopping them from creating a BordersOnline.com under the same umbrella as Borderstores.com. But you are right currently they are not an online competitor to Borders.
The problem with patents is that companies as long as they are not monopolies can refuse to license their patents. So how likely would Amazon license their one click patent to Corner Bookstore in Small Town USA. Probably not much, because less competition is better. But a patent holding company would favor as many licenses as possible and a license that may cost millions from Amazon may cost Small Town Bookstore a few thousand dollars.
Is a patent for French Fried Chicken too obvious?
Ducks.....
Mold or patent squatters? I hope you weren't compared to patent squatters, our military deserve far better than that.
I think it's an apt comparision. Mold is also beneficial. Actually, without mold you wouldn't have modern medicine, soy sauce or cheese. I don't know what I would do without cheese. Patent holding companies are not all bad. If patents were wholy owned by companies say Amazon, go gain competitive advantage, they might refuse to license to their competitors like Borders or Barnes and Noble which is in their right. However if a patent holding company were to hold these patents, all they want is license fees thus they are more likely to license these patents to the public. Also patent holding companies are more likely to reword the inventor of the patent. How much does an inventor at IBM get for his services, maybe a few hundred bucks bonus, and then the shareholders get the value. So in this light, patent holding companies doesn't look so bad.
However out of control mold can reek havoc and can turn your house into a toxic zone. Patent holding companies may infact make it so it is risky to do any kind of technology and to get licenses to do so will make startups much more expensive. If you look at google, if the kids there had to pay license fee to some patent company to take their search engine to the public, would they be here today. Probably not.
Everyone knows that Hank Hill was afraid of guns until the later episodes. Hank's weapon of choice would be a broom, or perhaps butt orthotics.
Someone should bring back Al Lowe type of games. But I guess kids nowadays would rather look at a nipple rather than reading about it. I wonder what kids think now of playing a text adventure LSL.
They will prob make a touchscreen or maybe even connect your DS so you can play RTS. They are making Age of Empires for DS however but I doubt that a MS based studio will make a Revo compatible AOE or a Halo.
I would play this if I can play as Martha Stewart. Some insider trading, running a sweat shop making Kmart stuff and I would also have a back door hot coffee mod where in the mini game, you make hot coffee.
I don't think Western designers would've ever made DOA: Volleyball. That's what makes Japanese designers so great, the attention to detail. .....Or maybe not.
He/She meant Indiana Jones Four: The Search for Lucas' Millions.
I don't think so, by the time DNF comes out, mankind would be killed off and the world ends and then the big bang comes along and then civilization starts again when finally DNF is released on a new technology called an Atari cartridge format.
I know you are joking. But Toshiba does make Washer and Dryers for certain markets.
Powell isn't really a good guy, look at the coverups in Vietnam and war crimes in the first Iraq war. But among the bad guys, he was the least bad guy.