I'm a lawyer. I work in this field and have been following this case. It's very unlikely to overturn PTAB trials (known as IPRs).
The apellant's argument about "real property" is weak. The Supreme Court has held many times that patents are in essence a public right, or at most quasi-private. They haven't ruled on that question explicitly, but that's consistent with all their recent patent rulings (past 30+ years). A ruling against would also upset settled administrative law precedent in many other agencies that have nothing to do with patents. I expect a decision that's 9-0 or 8-1 in favor of PTAB. Not even close.
The S Ct likely took this case not to overturn the law but to settle the question once and for all. Many patent holders who lose at PTAB appeal to federal court on Constitutional grounds, among other things. This case should finally put those appeals to rest and quit clogging up the lower courts.
FWIW the best interpretation I've heard is that while the rights to exploit a patent are private property, the scope of the patent itself is a public right. That means the scope is properly subject to administrative adjudication by competent federal agencies such as PTO, while the right to exercise that patent is not. That view is entirely consistent with both the appellant's position that patents are real property (at least in part) and that PTAB trials are constitutional. However I don't expect the S Ct will adopt such a clean distinction, given their lack of expertise in this area.
Good, maybe we can finally do away with the damn things now. The twisted overlapping letters take me so long to decipher that half the time I just give up and go elsewhere. The other half it takes me 3+ attempts to finally get the captcha right. A pox on everyone who still uses captchas.
I've got a better system. Present an indecipherable captcha to the user. If they try to solve it, they're a bot. If they try to leave the page, they're a human and will be allowed in.
Incorrect. Lost means the liquid asset is gone. You already spent the cash. Yes you can sell the asset, but it's still a sunk cost.
I build a factory. The cost is a sunk cost. Whether I use the factory, abandon it, or sell it, the cost to build the factory was already paid and is not directly recoverable.
I work with economists. I know these terms.
With Tuesday's announcement, those costs are sunk costs now.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Sunk costs are costs that are already spent. The $800 million was a sunk cost long before this announcement. What you mean is those costs are now a write off due to obsolescence.
You can glance at a screen under the table, or slip the top part of the phone just out of your pocket to check your messages. Good lord, do I have to explain everything? It's like you've never been in a meeting before.
Someone please tell me how I'm supposed to scan my face discreetly in the middle of a meeting? I can do a fingerprint unlock in my pocket or under the table.
Congress will handle that. Just as soon as they fix health care, eliminate all taxation, straighten out the Middle East,
I read that as Congress will straighten out Middle Earth. My first thought was, Sauron already tried that and it didn't go very well. Then I remembered this is Congress we're talking about. Dark Lords have nothing on 100 incumbent Senators...
But I do deny the right of the state to gainsay an adults freedom to choose either to work or not work, to go to college or to spend a few years mooching off his willing parents, to take on debt or hang out in the basement writing or inventing or starting a business or playing video games.
That same state paid for the kids education. 12-13 years of public schools paid with state tax dollars to reach graduation. Requiring the kid to do something in return for that massive gift isn't unreasonable. Some schools require kids perform a certain number of hours of public service to graduate. Same basic principle.
Now this idea stinks for many reasons. It's paternalistic, it's classist, it hurts the most disadvantaged. But the govt's right to do it isn't one them.
It's true, US allows private arbitration when many countries don't. It's a by-product of our legal system.
Litigation in the US is both more expensive and more common than in most other countries. It has been designed to be more forgiving, permit broader latitude in developing a case. The idea is to allow greater access to the courts for poor and disadvantaged groups.
US courts allow more discovery (forcing opposing party to turn over documents) than most countries. Some cases are very hard to prove, particularly discrimination cases. So we give plaintiffs ample time and opportunity to compel discovery and uncover documents to prove their case.
Discovery is very expensive. All documents have to be reviewed by attorneys before being handed over, and reviewed by attorneys after they're received. This adds up to many many billable hours.
Further, each party typically pays their own legal costs in the US. In other countries, the loser of the litigation pays all the legal costs. This discourages frivolous litigation. The US system permits and in some ways encourages such behavior.
All this means that litigation is both more costly and more frequent in the US than elsewhere. US companies are tired of dealing with frivolous litigation and "nuisance suits", designed to get a quick payout settlement. Companies use the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) to alleviate these problems by "opting out" of federal courts.
That's not how it was supposed to be. The FAA was originally intended as a way for businesses to resolve disputes among themselves more quickly and cheaply with arbitration, since the federal courts are clogged as a result of permissive litigation rules. It was never meant to be a weapon for companies to immunize themselves against suits from their customers.
But that's why we have arbitration in the US when many other countries wouldn't stand for it. Frankly they never needed it, because litigation is less frequent, less expensive, and the loser usually pays the entire cost. Hooray for freedom.:/
Am I supposed to point my phone at my face discreetly in the middle of a meeting? I can use a fingerprint sensor with the phone still in my pocket or under the table.
If you really drill down into the story and the linked documents, you will find that the official statement from the USPTO that wants to permanently legalize the right to repair was prepared by the previous head of the patent office Michelle K. Lee (Obama appointee) and signed by Karyn Temple Claggett (Obama appointee) who became acting head of USPTO after Lee resigned on June 6.
You are confused. USPTO and CO (Copyright Office) are separate entities. USPTO is executive branch, CO is legislative branch (it falls under Library of Congress).
Michelle Lee (USPTO) has nothing to do with this directive. It comes from the CO. Maria Pallante was the Registrar of Copyrights until she was let go late last year. Karyn Temple Claggett is the current acting head of the CO until a replacement is appointed. She is not an Obama "appointee" because her previous position is not confirmed by the Senate. She is an ordinary employee of CO who is temporarily serving as the head.
USPTO does have copyright attorneys who advise on copyright policy. The USPTO may have provided public comments on this proposed policy, as many members of the public do. USPTO may have even endorsed this policy. But USPTO has no official standing to do anything here. This is pure CO territory.
tl;dr - Karen Claggett didn't sign anything prepared by Michelle Lee. They head different agencies in different branches of govt.
Taking the sun's-eye view of Life As We Know It, it can all go away with a massive asteroid (that we can't see), a freak solar storm (that we'd see for about 8 minutes), or other event that could take us all out.
After that, all the science, all the technology, all the things we've done to separate ourselves from the rocks we kill each other with are gone.
And you know what? If that happens, chances are 99.9999% that me and all my friends and relatives will be gone to. Only a miniscule number of people will ever leave the planet for a Mars colony. And they're all complete strangers to me.
I don't care whether "humanity" survives or not. What good is the human race surviving when me and everyone I care about are dead? Let us all burn together.
Ah, so you're the jerk who does my office's IT purchases. Thanks for sticking us with the largest, heaviest, most unwieldy and least portable laptop known to man. That part was bad enough - but the sharpened corners is just mean.:P
Maybe I'm using the wrong editor, but I get annoyed at the number of times it seems to forget that I'm using spaces to indent and adds a tab, throwing off the code. I have to keep running the "convert tabs to spaces" function on it before I save.
Well there's your problem. Only heathens use spaces to indent. Switch to tabs and bob's your uncle, problem solved!
There was an XKCD what-if about toasters vs freezers. While a CPU doesn't run as hot as a toaster, the end result should be pretty much the same: inside the fridge ends up hotter than outside.
https://what-if.xkcd.com/155/
Conduction through air is poor at removing waste heat. And you don't get much convection in an enclosed space.
This. This is why slashdot has gone to hell. A rational, reasoned argument that's unpopular gets modded flamebait. If you disagree, give a cogent argument instead of hiding behind fake moderation.
To those who say it's unconstitutional - you don't know wtf the constitution says or how it works. The Constitution doesn't mean whatever your 21st century addled brain reads into the words. There are 200+ years of jurisprudence defining the breadth and extent of Constitutional rights. Border searches (including phone searches) are not unconstitutional. But don't take my professional word for it (IAAL). Ask the ACLU. If it were unC, the ACLU and others would have a field day hauling the CBP into court (not that they haven't tried).
The whiny adolescent anarcho-libertarian groupthink around here is out of control. Time to raze slashdot to the ground and start over. I'm done. Peace out.
This won't be popular but: grow up. Nobody cares what's on your stupid phone. Border guards are mostly worried about - wait for it - protecting the border. They're not snooping people's Facebook accounts so they can post "ZOMG I eat dicks!" on there.
Nobody cares about the following items on your phone: your super-secret plans for an internet startup; your questionable pics in various states of undress (unless you're a supermodel); your ebook copy of Das Kapital; those drunks texts you sent your ex at 2am; or anything else personally sensitive / embarrassing. It's garbage. Border guards couldn't give a shit. All they want to check is that you're not posting pro-ISIS messages or smuggling drugs. That's it. Anything else is tinfoil hat delusional fantasies.
That's not to say all border guards are saints. Some may give you a hard time just because they can. But if you could show any of them took material from your phone and used it outside their job, they would be insta-fired and probably be incarcerated. No one's going to risk their career and their freedom for a few naughty pics.
If you're engaged in illegal activity, by all means refuse to unlock your phone. If you're paranoid about Teh Fedz sending black helicopters to trail you, then don't unlock your phone (also, seek mental help). Otherwise just do it and get it over with.
I'm not saying "you should unlock your phone because only criminals have something to hide". Not at all. I'm saying it's like a proctology exam. Yeah it sucks, and in an ideal world we shouldn't have to do it. But the best thing for all involved is to just man up and get it over with, then get on with your life. Not everything is worth making a federal case about.
If you're traveling to shady third-world banana republics or anywhere the standard response is "da, komrade" - then it may be worth getting a burner phone. But for western democracies, nobody gives two shits what crap you have on there.
It seems to me that if more people sued when patents were not implemented, we might have less patents out there making every developers life worse.
There never has been and never will be a practice requirement in US patent law (i.e. use your patent or lose it). Tons of things are patented because they are technically possible, but never marketed for a variety of reasons: too expensive to manufacture, not enough consumer demand, can't get enough financing, etc. Sometimes these inventions turn out to be useful later when technology / market demand catches up.
You will never convince the vast entrenched interests (companies, universities, solo inventors) to sacrifice these potential future gains just to hamper patent trolls. I suspect the trolls would adapt anyway ("See, we have one guy making widgets to sell on the street corner! We're a manufacturer!").
Let's understand the REAL issue here; the PATENT prevented everyone else from implementing a safety.
Nope, not at all. I work in patents. Another company could easily implement this feature exactly as claimed in the patent by negotiating a license with the patent holder (Apple). Or they could devise another system that works much the same way but avoids the precise bounds of the patent. Companies do this all the time, it's called design-around.
I'm dubious whether the patented system is feasible anyway. You would need some extra hardware in the phone and/or car to determine an occupant's position, or some heavy-duty AI / object recognition to tell where every person is sitting in every car in the world using the view from the phone's camera. A patent just means it's possible on a technical level, it may be completely impractical (read: expensive) to do in practice.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a lawyer. I work in this field and have been following this case. It's very unlikely to overturn PTAB trials (known as IPRs).
The apellant's argument about "real property" is weak. The Supreme Court has held many times that patents are in essence a public right, or at most quasi-private. They haven't ruled on that question explicitly, but that's consistent with all their recent patent rulings (past 30+ years). A ruling against would also upset settled administrative law precedent in many other agencies that have nothing to do with patents. I expect a decision that's 9-0 or 8-1 in favor of PTAB. Not even close.
The S Ct likely took this case not to overturn the law but to settle the question once and for all. Many patent holders who lose at PTAB appeal to federal court on Constitutional grounds, among other things. This case should finally put those appeals to rest and quit clogging up the lower courts.
FWIW the best interpretation I've heard is that while the rights to exploit a patent are private property, the scope of the patent itself is a public right. That means the scope is properly subject to administrative adjudication by competent federal agencies such as PTO, while the right to exercise that patent is not. That view is entirely consistent with both the appellant's position that patents are real property (at least in part) and that PTAB trials are constitutional. However I don't expect the S Ct will adopt such a clean distinction, given their lack of expertise in this area.
You heard it here, folks - 2020 will finally be the year of the Windows Desktop!
Whew. That doesn't sound so bad. For a minute there I was worried...
Good, maybe we can finally do away with the damn things now. The twisted overlapping letters take me so long to decipher that half the time I just give up and go elsewhere. The other half it takes me 3+ attempts to finally get the captcha right. A pox on everyone who still uses captchas.
I've got a better system. Present an indecipherable captcha to the user. If they try to solve it, they're a bot. If they try to leave the page, they're a human and will be allowed in.
Incorrect. Lost means the liquid asset is gone. You already spent the cash. Yes you can sell the asset, but it's still a sunk cost. I build a factory. The cost is a sunk cost. Whether I use the factory, abandon it, or sell it, the cost to build the factory was already paid and is not directly recoverable. I work with economists. I know these terms.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Sunk costs are costs that are already spent. The $800 million was a sunk cost long before this announcement. What you mean is those costs are now a write off due to obsolescence.
What, you never heard of Banana Montana?
You can glance at a screen under the table, or slip the top part of the phone just out of your pocket to check your messages. Good lord, do I have to explain everything? It's like you've never been in a meeting before.
Someone please tell me how I'm supposed to scan my face discreetly in the middle of a meeting? I can do a fingerprint unlock in my pocket or under the table.
Or Silicon Valley.
I read that as Congress will straighten out Middle Earth. My first thought was, Sauron already tried that and it didn't go very well. Then I remembered this is Congress we're talking about. Dark Lords have nothing on 100 incumbent Senators...
That same state paid for the kids education. 12-13 years of public schools paid with state tax dollars to reach graduation. Requiring the kid to do something in return for that massive gift isn't unreasonable. Some schools require kids perform a certain number of hours of public service to graduate. Same basic principle.
Now this idea stinks for many reasons. It's paternalistic, it's classist, it hurts the most disadvantaged. But the govt's right to do it isn't one them.
FTFY
It's true, US allows private arbitration when many countries don't. It's a by-product of our legal system.
Litigation in the US is both more expensive and more common than in most other countries. It has been designed to be more forgiving, permit broader latitude in developing a case. The idea is to allow greater access to the courts for poor and disadvantaged groups.
US courts allow more discovery (forcing opposing party to turn over documents) than most countries. Some cases are very hard to prove, particularly discrimination cases. So we give plaintiffs ample time and opportunity to compel discovery and uncover documents to prove their case.
Discovery is very expensive. All documents have to be reviewed by attorneys before being handed over, and reviewed by attorneys after they're received. This adds up to many many billable hours.
Further, each party typically pays their own legal costs in the US. In other countries, the loser of the litigation pays all the legal costs. This discourages frivolous litigation. The US system permits and in some ways encourages such behavior.
All this means that litigation is both more costly and more frequent in the US than elsewhere. US companies are tired of dealing with frivolous litigation and "nuisance suits", designed to get a quick payout settlement. Companies use the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) to alleviate these problems by "opting out" of federal courts.
That's not how it was supposed to be. The FAA was originally intended as a way for businesses to resolve disputes among themselves more quickly and cheaply with arbitration, since the federal courts are clogged as a result of permissive litigation rules. It was never meant to be a weapon for companies to immunize themselves against suits from their customers.
But that's why we have arbitration in the US when many other countries wouldn't stand for it. Frankly they never needed it, because litigation is less frequent, less expensive, and the loser usually pays the entire cost. Hooray for freedom. :/
Am I supposed to point my phone at my face discreetly in the middle of a meeting? I can use a fingerprint sensor with the phone still in my pocket or under the table.
I say, old chap! What a marvelous idea! Just abduct, er, "hire" some natives as porters and away we go! Jolly good show!
You are confused. USPTO and CO (Copyright Office) are separate entities. USPTO is executive branch, CO is legislative branch (it falls under Library of Congress).
Michelle Lee (USPTO) has nothing to do with this directive. It comes from the CO. Maria Pallante was the Registrar of Copyrights until she was let go late last year. Karyn Temple Claggett is the current acting head of the CO until a replacement is appointed. She is not an Obama "appointee" because her previous position is not confirmed by the Senate. She is an ordinary employee of CO who is temporarily serving as the head.
USPTO does have copyright attorneys who advise on copyright policy. The USPTO may have provided public comments on this proposed policy, as many members of the public do. USPTO may have even endorsed this policy. But USPTO has no official standing to do anything here. This is pure CO territory.
tl;dr - Karen Claggett didn't sign anything prepared by Michelle Lee. They head different agencies in different branches of govt.
And you know what? If that happens, chances are 99.9999% that me and all my friends and relatives will be gone to. Only a miniscule number of people will ever leave the planet for a Mars colony. And they're all complete strangers to me.
I don't care whether "humanity" survives or not. What good is the human race surviving when me and everyone I care about are dead? Let us all burn together.
Ah, so you're the jerk who does my office's IT purchases. Thanks for sticking us with the largest, heaviest, most unwieldy and least portable laptop known to man. That part was bad enough - but the sharpened corners is just mean. :P
Well there's your problem. Only heathens use spaces to indent. Switch to tabs and bob's your uncle, problem solved!
There was an XKCD what-if about toasters vs freezers. While a CPU doesn't run as hot as a toaster, the end result should be pretty much the same: inside the fridge ends up hotter than outside. https://what-if.xkcd.com/155/ Conduction through air is poor at removing waste heat. And you don't get much convection in an enclosed space.
This. This is why slashdot has gone to hell. A rational, reasoned argument that's unpopular gets modded flamebait. If you disagree, give a cogent argument instead of hiding behind fake moderation.
To those who say it's unconstitutional - you don't know wtf the constitution says or how it works. The Constitution doesn't mean whatever your 21st century addled brain reads into the words. There are 200+ years of jurisprudence defining the breadth and extent of Constitutional rights. Border searches (including phone searches) are not unconstitutional. But don't take my professional word for it (IAAL). Ask the ACLU. If it were unC, the ACLU and others would have a field day hauling the CBP into court (not that they haven't tried).
The whiny adolescent anarcho-libertarian groupthink around here is out of control. Time to raze slashdot to the ground and start over. I'm done. Peace out.
This won't be popular but: grow up. Nobody cares what's on your stupid phone. Border guards are mostly worried about - wait for it - protecting the border. They're not snooping people's Facebook accounts so they can post "ZOMG I eat dicks!" on there.
Nobody cares about the following items on your phone: your super-secret plans for an internet startup; your questionable pics in various states of undress (unless you're a supermodel); your ebook copy of Das Kapital; those drunks texts you sent your ex at 2am; or anything else personally sensitive / embarrassing. It's garbage. Border guards couldn't give a shit. All they want to check is that you're not posting pro-ISIS messages or smuggling drugs. That's it. Anything else is tinfoil hat delusional fantasies.
That's not to say all border guards are saints. Some may give you a hard time just because they can. But if you could show any of them took material from your phone and used it outside their job, they would be insta-fired and probably be incarcerated. No one's going to risk their career and their freedom for a few naughty pics.
If you're engaged in illegal activity, by all means refuse to unlock your phone. If you're paranoid about Teh Fedz sending black helicopters to trail you, then don't unlock your phone (also, seek mental help). Otherwise just do it and get it over with.
I'm not saying "you should unlock your phone because only criminals have something to hide". Not at all. I'm saying it's like a proctology exam. Yeah it sucks, and in an ideal world we shouldn't have to do it. But the best thing for all involved is to just man up and get it over with, then get on with your life. Not everything is worth making a federal case about.
If you're traveling to shady third-world banana republics or anywhere the standard response is "da, komrade" - then it may be worth getting a burner phone. But for western democracies, nobody gives two shits what crap you have on there.
There never has been and never will be a practice requirement in US patent law (i.e. use your patent or lose it). Tons of things are patented because they are technically possible, but never marketed for a variety of reasons: too expensive to manufacture, not enough consumer demand, can't get enough financing, etc. Sometimes these inventions turn out to be useful later when technology / market demand catches up.
You will never convince the vast entrenched interests (companies, universities, solo inventors) to sacrifice these potential future gains just to hamper patent trolls. I suspect the trolls would adapt anyway ("See, we have one guy making widgets to sell on the street corner! We're a manufacturer!").
Nope, not at all. I work in patents. Another company could easily implement this feature exactly as claimed in the patent by negotiating a license with the patent holder (Apple). Or they could devise another system that works much the same way but avoids the precise bounds of the patent. Companies do this all the time, it's called design-around.
I'm dubious whether the patented system is feasible anyway. You would need some extra hardware in the phone and/or car to determine an occupant's position, or some heavy-duty AI / object recognition to tell where every person is sitting in every car in the world using the view from the phone's camera. A patent just means it's possible on a technical level, it may be completely impractical (read: expensive) to do in practice.