Even if you did calculate that, most of which will be pennies because we're talking about millions of pallets, not just hundreds, they're still way over-charging.
You're suggesting that Wal-Mart is charging a premium to tag pallets of deliveries that they want to have tagged by the supplier rather than tagging it themselves?
Shocking. If only there were a way for suppliers to tag their own pallets for less...
You really need to stop playing amateur antitrust lawyer. Market power alone does not constitute an antitrust violation and prevent a manufacturer from making unilateral decisions concerning their business conduct.
"Second, a single firm that lawfully has acquired Stiglerian market power is permitted, without violating section 2 of the Sherman Act, to exercise that power by raising price and restraining its own output in that market. This follows from the argument, carefully set out by Donald Turner, that federal courts cannot take on the burden of detecting and remedying such price-setting behavior without becoming, in effect, public utility regulatory commissions." Thomas G. Krattenmaker (and others)mini biography
Similarly, your comments concerning the rule of reason approach adopted in Leegin Creative Leather Products are misleading at best. It is very difficult to make an antitrust case under the rule of reason analysis. In addition, it is well known that the rule distinguishes between restraints with anticompetitive effect that are harmful to the consumer and those with procompetitive effect that are in the consumer's best interest, but you're arguing that a maximum retail price policy is "anticompetitive." This simply isn't credible.
You should consider reading this case before continuing to opine as to what Nintendo can and cannot do.
[Repost - didn't notice that I hadn't logged in correctly]
Legally it's fine. Nintendo doesn't want them to, but they have to be very careful about cutting off shipments or Nintendo could get busted for price fixing.
Your first statement may be true, especially if there's no distribution agreement price ceiling. Your second statement is essentially false. There is nothing exceptional in antitrust law that prevents a company in Nintendo's position from refusing to deal with with a customer who wants to resell the product a different price, especially if that price is higher than the MSRP. In addition, the Supreme Court's Leegin Creative Leather Products decision this year made it much easier for a company like Nintendo to obtain actual agreements with its customers that products cannot be sold for less than the MSRP.
Even before Leegin, companies could impose so-called Colgate pricing policies where they could unilaterally refuse to sell to distributors that resell at prices other than list price, and terminate distributors who fail to comply with the policy. Those policies are not "agreements" under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, so that the manufacturer would have to be a monopoly under Section 2 in order to be subject to antitrust scrutiny.
In Nintendo's case, even if it were to be ruled to be a monopoly, it would be difficult to prove that the termination of a distributor for selling products at a higher price than it desires creates an anticompetitive market for consumers and creates a monopoly rent.
The summary almost criminally neglects to include the reported reason for doing this, which is entirely legitimate:
Often, surface features that show up on two strips of data have to be manually corrected to produce the finished image, due to subtle changes in perspective.
"You know that there should have been seams in that image, and I just did not look for them carefully at the time," Lakdawalla told me today.
If you've ever viewed satellite imagery, you'll recognize that the source images are not nice, ultrahigh resolution wide arc views, but instead low resolution wide arc views or high resolution narrow arc views. The 'recognizable' product that is released to a nontechnical public, such as the images used in Google Earth, are the result of post-processing including image registration, tone correction, etc. See this article on mosaicing multi-sensor images, for example.
Surprise. Some technician made a mistake. No cookie.
horny men who get chatted up by someone who claims to be a 14 year old girl and then show up at the allotted place for sex can be arrested in the US for attempted child abuse or similar charges.. sounds like thought crime to me.
That odd, because it sounds like attempted sexual assault to me. The distinguishing characteristic between thought crime and attempt being that the horny men have taken an overt and concrete step toward accomplishing the completed crime that in many circumstances (such as no other known relationship between the subjects the the putative children) can leave little doubt as to the intent and the desired result.
In your preferred universe, you would be powerless to stop me from leveling a loaded rifle across a tree branch and planting the crosshairs on your chest from 75 yards as you walked out to get the mail. After all, I haven't shot you, YET.
Oddly enough, American society won't tolerate either behavior. But American society will tolerate the second paragraph of this reply, despite it including the thought of your murder, because I haven't taken any overt and concrete steps toward carrying it out, and I haven't presented it as a threat. Thus there is very little likelihood that I will be thrown in jail for attempting to convince you of your error.
I can't believe that someone moderated this tripe up as "insightful."
It's good to see that the original inventors and holders of this patent will finally be compensated for their innovation.
You know for a fact that they weren't compensated for their invention when they assigned their patent rights to Xerox?
Oh wait... the company that holds the patent now (IP Innovation) has nothing to do with the original inventors? Well, I hope any damages they are awarded will encourage them to innovate.
If we accept your premise, "Viacom" has nothing to do with the SpongeBob SquarePants cartoons, they merely bought the rights from a production company that either bought or was was given those rights by the creators, in particular Steven Hillenbrand. Obviously SpongeBob should be in the public domain, since the money that potential infringers would have to pay Viacom won't encourage Mr. Hillenbrand to create any more SpongeBob cartoons.
Patents are alienable assets just like copyrights, trademarks, your home, and your stuff. Please explain how your argument is evidence of "brokenness," and provide evidence to support your apparent contention that patents should somehow be different from all other forms of property.
Without even delving into the facts of the dispute, it's clear that you've misconstrued "progress of science and useful arts" to mean "progress of your [the consumer's] ability to get anything in existence right now." However it's abundantly clear that the former does not necessarily entail the latter.
"First sale doctrine already does apply to patents."
True, but the article summary and your response both gloss over the interesting issue in favor of something that's irrelevant. Patent exhaustion exists. Caselaw preventing double dipping for infringement damages already exists. This situation is different.
The decision in the Federal Circuit holds that a patent is exhausted by an unconditional sale, p. 7, in line with Supreme Court precedent, but also holds that a patent rights are not exhausted by a conditional sale, pp. 7-8, in line with about 20 years of Federal Circuit precedent.
The interesting problem here is that the LGE patents do not cover the products sold by Intel. They only cover those products when combined with additional components. It appears that in the absence of a license, LGE could only have sued Intel for "contributory infringement" because Intel would be making products specially adapted to implement LGE's invention when combined with other components, see 35 U.S.C. 271(f), but not the patented combination itself. In essence, LGE and Intel negotiated a license that makes Intel a component source/supplier. Now those who purchased the specialized components and combined them in a manner that would infringe the patents are arguing that a license to manufacture a non-infringing but specialized component without fear of a patent lawsuit also conveys to the supplier's customers the right to practice the entire invention. That's not a clear cut question.
One of the axioms of property law is that you can only sell that which you yourself possess. If Intel has a license that merely permits it to manufacture and sell a specialized component, then arguably the purchasors have the right to resell the specialized component (that fraction of the patent right is exhausted), but do not have the right to manufacture or sell the patented invention because not even Intel has the right to manufacture and sell the patented invention. If Intel has a license to manufacture and sell the patented invention using its own components, with LGE getting a percentage of the revenues for the Intel components, then arguably neither Intel nor its purchasors have the right to manufacture or sell the patented invention when manufactured using non-Intel components -- LGE would be deprived it its rightful revenues, and Intel would infringe the patent for those combinations made with non-Intel parts.
The decision is unclear on the license structure, and I don't have time to dredge up the District Court decision, but there are potentially valid reasons for dividing up patent rights and royalty rates in this manner that cannot be reasonably described as double-dipping. For example, the Intel chips may still have value when combined with non-Intel chips in ways that do not produce the patented invention, but it may not make economic sense to manufacture two types of chips, one with the specialized aspect and one without. A licence with a modest royalty that is less than the entire royalty, whatever that is, benefits Intel by simplifying its product line and securing it from the potential of being sued as a result of the actions of its customers.
Incredibly, you've run into the arms of the marginal cost argument while utterly ignoring the fact that the research and development that leads to the innovation is not free. Do you plan to address this fact and offer a solution to the free rider problem, or is that none of your concern?
Private property does not exist merely because tangible property is rivalrous. You do not use your lawn 95% of the time, yet I would not be free to use it even if I were to immediately and consistently vacate it the moment that you decided to use it. Perhaps you need to read a bit more about property theory.
Actually, I was directly addressing what you both said and implied. You clearly contended that one technology for wirelessly delivering data at a certain rate or capacity was enough, and that developing another one would be a waste. The argument is simply wrong. The very fact that a design-around technology has to be different will create some comparative strengths and weaknesses, as well potentially driving innovation in its own right.
"Still economically speaking the development of DC electric power transmission was a waste. But this certainly is to some extent unavoidable."
Tell that to LBNL. The benefits of competition do not lie in merely having multiple vendors selling the same technology to a mass of consumers.
I never realized that 802.11 was the ultimate in wireless communications technology. Thank you for that insight.
"Mr. Westinghouse, Mr. Edison has already developed DC electric power transmission. Creating another power transmission technology with the same power capacity does not add economic value."
"Thank you Mr. Tesla. I'm off to buy railroad stock."
Substituting a physical object for a mens is cheap, intellectually dishonest slight-of-hand.
Whereas making conclusory statements without any support is not, I suppose.
The economic reasons for protecting intellectual property are the same as those for protecting tangible property. In the real world, substantial labor is invested into creating a marketable product, and that labor will only be systematically invested by those seeking a return on investment, i.e., a profit. Where is the incentive to invest in blue-sky R&D when the majority of research ideas fail to yield a return, and those few that are commercially viable may be reverse engineered and cloned for substantially less cost? Where is the incentive to plant an apple orchard when the apples may be freely picked by any passer-by?
The U.S. Supreme Court has already raised the bar for non-obviousness, which should sharply limit the number of patents issued for "routine technological advancement," yet it appears that you would deny protection for even acknowledged innovation. In your scheme, the rational economic actor would wait for an innovation, and then copy it as quickly as possible so that there is no R&D expense in exchange for a slight delay in entering the market. Of course, when everyone is a rational economic actor, then everyone will wait and nobody will invest, but we can be assured that technology will "naturally advance" anyway. Poppycock. It's the definition of a Prisoner's Dilemma, and limited protection for limited times is the bargain that counteracts the incentive to "cheat" in the game.
[This is just one example. Now the public may very well be deprived of this recreation center just because of these ownership concerns. So in a very resource-wasteful move, we may very well need to build another building that duplicates the existing building, not for any technical reason, but just to satisfy the legal conditions of a deed. That's clearly harmful for the economy as a whole. Those resources could have been put towards developing more jail cells, rather than reimplementing what already existed.]
Forgive me for restating your argument for you, but since you've essentially conceded that the invention is valid and useful, I thought it necessary to highlight the fact that your entire argument distills into "I don't want to pay the owner's asking price, so let's rationalize an expropriation instead."
So it's just one of those crap EULA-type clauses that's there just to hopefully scare you into believing it, not because it's actually legal or enforceable. Some corporations figured out that instead of just lobbying for more power, they'll just claw away at your rights by just telling you that you're bound to give them some powers, and hoping that you'll actually believe it.
The question of whether it's legal is irrelevant. It is almost unquestionably enforceable.
There's a critical flaw in your reasoning, in that the cable company is only selling you service month-to-month, and thus is free to say "customer, you're fired" at the end of any given month for as long as they like. That behavior is both legal and enforceable in almost all jurisdictions in the U.S.
There's also a lesser flaw in your reasoning, in that even if the cable company cuts you off in the middle of the month, their liability is almost certainly capped at the value of the service that you were denied (not including consequential damages, punitive damages, etc.), and they likely will refund you your payment for the cut-off portion of the month. That behavior is enforceable. You may be willing to sue a cable company for whatever damage you think you can prove, but you're not going to find an attorney willing to take the case.
If I'm wrong or missing something please let me know.
"Speaking on background" doesn't mean that the employee can be quoted without named attribution, it means that the employee can't be quoted period. In the journalism game, background means that the source proivdes information, but that what the source actually said cannot be repeated through quotes. Thus, the reporter has to paraphrase the content to be used, and anybody who disagrees with the source or the paraphrased information has far greater room to maneuver, because the published information effectively becomes hearsay.
A double standard is when you are inconsisent [sic].
There is nothing inconsistent about praising people for opening up a little bit, while condemning those that close down a little bit. We praise ANY move towards openness, and condemn ANY move away from it. How is that a double standard.
That is not a double standard. That is an example of framing the question. Here is an example of framing the question in combination with a double standard:
"We praise those who are following the GPL by providing the source code, while condemning those who are following the GPL by providing the source code only to their customers."
The entire criticism is that the community continually cites the text of the GPL as their standard, yet a sizable, or at least vocal, fraction of that community launches into histrionics when a company follows the text of the GPL without following "the spirit of the GPL." Of course, the spirit of the GPL is a nebulous concept consisting of undefined obligations that those in the community may not agree upon, that those adopting the GPL may not agree to, and that a certain foundation with a decade of experience, mountains of legal assistance, and legions of interested commenters were, what, just too lazy to include in the written license?
The party line was that the terms of the GPL were fine because the customers who received the source could redistribute that source to anyone, for any price, at any time. It's time for the community to live with the consequences of the GPL and the party line like a collection of adults, rather than trying to revise history to their liking.
Now, do I waste my time by pointing out the difference between students and population, or on pointing out that real-term costs must factor in both the increase in population (NOT the increase in students) and the rate of inflation?
Yes, you do. You established the $50/person/year figure as the factual basis for your polemic on the downfall of the United States. When that is rebutted, you raise irrelevant criticisms of the data, straw man arguments, and host of other fallacies to "prove" whatever point you're trying to make.
The criticisms of the data are meaningless. Students are a part of the population. If you average in the rest of the population, that only helps to dilute the allegedly deficient level of spending, yet you're complaining. To simplify issues, I'm more than happy to use the 7% of GDP figure already provided with a $13.3 trillion GDP to yield educational spending of more than $3000/person/year. No students involved, no inflation involved, no change of trimming it down to $50 with an argument that the rest of us will accept, but you're invited to try.
But that requires superior education. At the moment, the US spends $50 per person per year on education. This doesn't seem to be a whole lot. You'd certainly never reach the level of enlightenment required for a stable democracy.
The spending figure is easily proven to be false. The remainder of the argument is simply non-sensical. Has per capita education spending, on any reasonable basis, decreased since the founding of the country? Is the U.S. lagging the western world in education spending? (No)
48,132,518 students in K-12 education (2003-04) $7580 per student median spending (2002-03) 301,200,000 people in the U.S. (2007)
Yields a level of around $1200 per person excluding anything relating to college, graduate schools, professional schools, adult education, and the like. It's not even clear whether those numbers include private and parochial schools. That's an embarrisingly far cry from $50 per person per year.
hello? we're talking about standards here. choice is the wrong things. choice is bad. let me explain why.
what happens if a large company suggests that we don't just measure capacitance in farrad but also in #madeUpNameOfNewUnit? what's the point? people would have to learn, adopt and support it, all of which costs money and muddies the issue.
odf is already the standard for document exchange. we don't need and shouldn't have a second one.
So you support the United States in its refusal to adopt the metric system, right?
Thus, I expect that a court would find that Intel would be bound to the verbatim GPLv2 (which has "or any later version") unless they specifically say something of the kin of "modified GPLv2" wherever they mention the license they're using, and particularize the modifications prominently in their version.
I would not. The verbatim GPLv2 states:
If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
The verbatim GPLv2 does not prevent the licensor from specifying GPLv2, and programs licensed under "GPLv2" without "any later version" are expressly contemplated by the terms of the license.
They would also be in violation of the GPLv2 by having modified the version they are distributing, contrary to the terms of the license for distribution.
But they haven't.
However, anyone with a copy of this existing version would seemingly have the GPLv2 license in its original glory (and hence GPLv3 may apply).
And they do but it doesn't.
I haven't looked at the details; this is based on what you've just said. It's very interesting.
That is not an excuse. Your speculation concerning the terms of the GPLv2 had no basis in the grandparent's post.
As for those (not you specifically) arguing that the government already had this power - The last clause in what I bolded above makes the key distinction there. The government can seize our assets after "due process of law" has played out. Not before. After.
It does not. Without does not necessarily entail before, and there is Supreme Court precedent that is squarely on point -- the government can seize assets before due process of law has played out, so long as it does play out, in certain situations. You will notice an unsuprising similarity betweent the language in the executive order and the language of the following Supreme Court decision:
"This case presents an 'extraordinary' situation in which postponement of notice and hearing until after seizure did not deny due process, since (1) seizure under the statutes serves significant governmental purposes by permitting Puerto Rico to assert in rem jurisdiction over the property in forfeiture proceedings, thereby fostering the public interest in preventing continued illicit use of the property and in enforcing criminal sanctions; (2) preseizure notice and hearing might frustrate the interests served by the statutes, the property seized often being of the sort, as here, that could be removed from the jurisdiction, destroyed, or concealed, if advance notice were given; and (3)... seizure is not initiated by self-interested private parties but by government officials. Pp. 676-680."
"Which is true as far as it goes. The missing detail is the vouchers MS have been selling for SUSE Linux which have no expiry date. This means that, in principle, if anyone redeems such a voucher for a copy of SLES, and if that collection contains any code licenced under GPLv3 at the time they redeem the voucher, then there's a chance MS may be held to account under the terms of GPLv3."
No. The missing detail is that the vouchers do not specify the version of SUSE Linux that must be distributed, nor do they specify that it must be the latest version. Microsoft and Novell are free to amend the agreement between them, if it was at all ambiguous in the first place, to only cover versions of SUSE in existence prior to June 29, 2007, and/or versions of SUSE created after June 29, 2007 and not subject to GPLv3, and those buying the vouchers are out of luck.
Microsoft's public stance is quite rational. Customers buying vouchers prior to June 29, 2007 do not have a strong claim to fulfillment using newer versions of SUSE, and customers buying vouchers after the public announcement can no longer claim that they made the purchase with a reasonable belief that they would receive a version subject to GPLv3. Moreover, even if Novell ships a version of SUSE subject to GPLv3 in fulfilling a voucher request, Microsoft has virtually assured that such a distribution will not affect its patent rights, as Novell lacks both the actual and apparent authority to distribute GPLv3 code under the voucher program.*
GPLv3 zealots are hoping for a hook buried in the crunchy middle (the intervening 2-3 weeks since the introduction of GPLv3). While I'm not familiar with the operation of the voucher program, I would speculate that the probability of such code having worked its way into the distribution and actually been distributed through the voucher program prior to the announcement is very very low.
*This assumes that the private agreement between Microsoft and Novell, if it was at all ambiguous, was amended in response to GPLv3 to exclude patent indemnification for GPLv3-associated code.
The Aria is designed primarily to optimize large file transmissions "over long distances through large pipes," Henderson said. The Aria 2000, which is due in July, supports 1G-bps links. Existing Aria appliances support 10M-bps links, 50M-bps links and 200M-bps links.
An FTP session running over a 100Mbit LAN should see about 10MB/sec real data transfer, maxing out the line and accounting for overhead They're claiming that their gadgets could move a file between each other at 150 megabytes per second over the same cable?
No. They're claiming that their gadgets could move a file over a long distance 200Mbps link at 10-15x faster than FTP. You're claiming that you could get 10MB/sec over the same link. It's your claim that requires evidence.
Yes, you RTFAed. But you didn't RTFP. Spreading misinformation is a mistake. Correcting posters who realize that it is misinformation when you do not understand the basic facts is irresponsible. I will not keep this information to myself, and you've earned the public embarrassment that's upset you so.
I prosecute and litigate patents for a living. Your bluster concerning my ability to "muddle through a patent application" does not cure your error. Neither does your reliance on "TFA," which is egregiously wrong, nor does your reliance on the summary, which is also egregiously wrong.
To infringe the patent, if it is granted, you would have to create a set of genes where:
1. the set lacks at least 40 of the 101 protein-coding genes listed in Table 2 and 2. at least one of the genes in Table 4 is among the lacking genes and 3. the set has between 350 and 381 of the 381 protein-coding genes listed in Table 3 and 4. the set includes at least one of the genes in Table 5 and 5. the set has no more than 450 protein-coding genes.
If any single one of those conditions is not met, your engineered organism is not covered by the patent. There is nothing that requires you to strip any genes out of your organism unless you're trying to engineer a minimalist organism which simultaneously falls within those 5 criterion.
You've said "this is in effect trying to patent the single foundation of an entire emergent field." Yep. You gain that privilege when you create the field. The PCR reaction used in practically all DNA work was patented as US Patents 4,683,195, 4,683,202 and 4,965,188. The junction transistor was patented as US patent 2,569,347. Biology and electronics both survived and flourished.
Your argument that Venter is seeking to patent all viable synthetic life is quite simply wrong. Accept it and move on.
Granted, however it reads as though it seeks to cover any and all future synthetic life as well.... And that's bullcrap.
No it does not. It reads as follows:
Claim 1. A set of protein-coding genes that provides the information required for growth and replication of a free-living organism under axenic conditions in a rich bacterial culture medium, wherein the set lacks at least 40 of the 101 protein-coding genes listed in Table 2, or functional equivalents thereof, wherein at least one of the genes in Table 4 is among the lacking genes; wherein the set comprises between 350 and 381 of the 381 protein-coding genes listed in Table 3, or functional equivalents thereof, including at least one of the genes in Table 5; and wherein the set comprises no more than 450 protein-coding genes.
Claims 2-28 are all narrower than claim 1, and include the limitations in claim 1. Very little else in the application matters unless it serves to clarify the meaning of this claim (setting aside statutory subject matter, 35 U.S.C. 101, or description, enablement, and best mode issues, 35 U.S.C. 112).
Therefore if your organism lacks only 39 of the "101 protein-coding genes listed in Table 2" you do not infringe. If your organism has less than 350 of the "381 protein-coding genes listed in Table 3" you do not infringe. If your organism has 451 or more protein-coding genes, you do not infringe.
If you do not know the mere basics of patent law, your thoughts concerning the scope of someone's patent or patent application are "bullcrap."
Slashdot Mirror
Even if you did calculate that, most of which will be pennies because we're talking about millions of pallets, not just hundreds, they're still way over-charging.
You're suggesting that Wal-Mart is charging a premium to tag pallets of deliveries that they want to have tagged by the supplier rather than tagging it themselves?
Shocking. If only there were a way for suppliers to tag their own pallets for less...
You really need to stop playing amateur antitrust lawyer. Market power alone does not constitute an antitrust violation and prevent a manufacturer from making unilateral decisions concerning their business conduct.
"Second, a single firm that lawfully has acquired Stiglerian market power is permitted, without violating section 2 of the Sherman Act, to exercise that power by raising price and restraining its own output in that market. This follows from the argument, carefully set out by Donald Turner, that federal courts cannot take on the burden of detecting and remedying such price-setting behavior without becoming, in effect, public utility regulatory commissions." Thomas G. Krattenmaker (and others) mini biography
Similarly, your comments concerning the rule of reason approach adopted in Leegin Creative Leather Products are misleading at best. It is very difficult to make an antitrust case under the rule of reason analysis. In addition, it is well known that the rule distinguishes between restraints with anticompetitive effect that are harmful to the consumer and those with procompetitive effect that are in the consumer's best interest, but you're arguing that a maximum retail price policy is "anticompetitive." This simply isn't credible.
You should consider reading this case before continuing to opine as to what Nintendo can and cannot do.
[Repost - didn't notice that I hadn't logged in correctly]
Legally it's fine. Nintendo doesn't want them to, but they have to be very careful about cutting off shipments or Nintendo could get busted for price fixing.
Your first statement may be true, especially if there's no distribution agreement price ceiling. Your second statement is essentially false. There is nothing exceptional in antitrust law that prevents a company in Nintendo's position from refusing to deal with with a customer who wants to resell the product a different price, especially if that price is higher than the MSRP. In addition, the Supreme Court's Leegin Creative Leather Products decision this year made it much easier for a company like Nintendo to obtain actual agreements with its customers that products cannot be sold for less than the MSRP.
Even before Leegin, companies could impose so-called Colgate pricing policies where they could unilaterally refuse to sell to distributors that resell at prices other than list price, and terminate distributors who fail to comply with the policy. Those policies are not "agreements" under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, so that the manufacturer would have to be a monopoly under Section 2 in order to be subject to antitrust scrutiny.
In Nintendo's case, even if it were to be ruled to be a monopoly, it would be difficult to prove that the termination of a distributor for selling products at a higher price than it desires creates an anticompetitive market for consumers and creates a monopoly rent.
The summary almost criminally neglects to include the reported reason for doing this, which is entirely legitimate:
Often, surface features that show up on two strips of data have to be manually corrected to produce the finished image, due to subtle changes in perspective.
"You know that there should have been seams in that image, and I just did not look for them carefully at the time," Lakdawalla told me today.
If you've ever viewed satellite imagery, you'll recognize that the source images are not nice, ultrahigh resolution wide arc views, but instead low resolution wide arc views or high resolution narrow arc views. The 'recognizable' product that is released to a nontechnical public, such as the images used in Google Earth, are the result of post-processing including image registration, tone correction, etc. See this article on mosaicing multi-sensor images, for example.
Surprise. Some technician made a mistake. No cookie.
horny men who get chatted up by someone who claims to be a 14 year old girl and then show up at the allotted place for sex can be arrested in the US for attempted child abuse or similar charges.. sounds like thought crime to me.
That odd, because it sounds like attempted sexual assault to me. The distinguishing characteristic between thought crime and attempt being that the horny men have taken an overt and concrete step toward accomplishing the completed crime that in many circumstances (such as no other known relationship between the subjects the the putative children) can leave little doubt as to the intent and the desired result.
In your preferred universe, you would be powerless to stop me from leveling a loaded rifle across a tree branch and planting the crosshairs on your chest from 75 yards as you walked out to get the mail. After all, I haven't shot you, YET.
Oddly enough, American society won't tolerate either behavior. But American society will tolerate the second paragraph of this reply, despite it including the thought of your murder, because I haven't taken any overt and concrete steps toward carrying it out, and I haven't presented it as a threat. Thus there is very little likelihood that I will be thrown in jail for attempting to convince you of your error.
I can't believe that someone moderated this tripe up as "insightful."
It's good to see that the original inventors and holders of this patent will finally be compensated for their innovation.
You know for a fact that they weren't compensated for their invention when they assigned their patent rights to Xerox?
Oh wait... the company that holds the patent now (IP Innovation) has nothing to do with the original inventors? Well, I hope any damages they are awarded will encourage them to innovate.
If we accept your premise, "Viacom" has nothing to do with the SpongeBob SquarePants cartoons, they merely bought the rights from a production company that either bought or was was given those rights by the creators, in particular Steven Hillenbrand. Obviously SpongeBob should be in the public domain, since the money that potential infringers would have to pay Viacom won't encourage Mr. Hillenbrand to create any more SpongeBob cartoons.
Patents are alienable assets just like copyrights, trademarks, your home, and your stuff. Please explain how your argument is evidence of "brokenness," and provide evidence to support your apparent contention that patents should somehow be different from all other forms of property.
Without even delving into the facts of the dispute, it's clear that you've misconstrued "progress of science and useful arts" to mean "progress of your [the consumer's] ability to get anything in existence right now." However it's abundantly clear that the former does not necessarily entail the latter.
"First sale doctrine already does apply to patents."
True, but the article summary and your response both gloss over the interesting issue in favor of something that's irrelevant. Patent exhaustion exists. Caselaw preventing double dipping for infringement damages already exists. This situation is different.
The decision in the Federal Circuit holds that a patent is exhausted by an unconditional sale, p. 7, in line with Supreme Court precedent, but also holds that a patent rights are not exhausted by a conditional sale, pp. 7-8, in line with about 20 years of Federal Circuit precedent.
The interesting problem here is that the LGE patents do not cover the products sold by Intel. They only cover those products when combined with additional components. It appears that in the absence of a license, LGE could only have sued Intel for "contributory infringement" because Intel would be making products specially adapted to implement LGE's invention when combined with other components, see 35 U.S.C. 271(f), but not the patented combination itself. In essence, LGE and Intel negotiated a license that makes Intel a component source/supplier. Now those who purchased the specialized components and combined them in a manner that would infringe the patents are arguing that a license to manufacture a non-infringing but specialized component without fear of a patent lawsuit also conveys to the supplier's customers the right to practice the entire invention. That's not a clear cut question.
One of the axioms of property law is that you can only sell that which you yourself possess. If Intel has a license that merely permits it to manufacture and sell a specialized component, then arguably the purchasors have the right to resell the specialized component (that fraction of the patent right is exhausted), but do not have the right to manufacture or sell the patented invention because not even Intel has the right to manufacture and sell the patented invention. If Intel has a license to manufacture and sell the patented invention using its own components, with LGE getting a percentage of the revenues for the Intel components, then arguably neither Intel nor its purchasors have the right to manufacture or sell the patented invention when manufactured using non-Intel components -- LGE would be deprived it its rightful revenues, and Intel would infringe the patent for those combinations made with non-Intel parts.
The decision is unclear on the license structure, and I don't have time to dredge up the District Court decision, but there are potentially valid reasons for dividing up patent rights and royalty rates in this manner that cannot be reasonably described as double-dipping. For example, the Intel chips may still have value when combined with non-Intel chips in ways that do not produce the patented invention, but it may not make economic sense to manufacture two types of chips, one with the specialized aspect and one without. A licence with a modest royalty that is less than the entire royalty, whatever that is, benefits Intel by simplifying its product line and securing it from the potential of being sued as a result of the actions of its customers.
Incredibly, you've run into the arms of the marginal cost argument while utterly ignoring the fact that the research and development that leads to the innovation is not free. Do you plan to address this fact and offer a solution to the free rider problem, or is that none of your concern? Private property does not exist merely because tangible property is rivalrous. You do not use your lawn 95% of the time, yet I would not be free to use it even if I were to immediately and consistently vacate it the moment that you decided to use it. Perhaps you need to read a bit more about property theory.
Actually, I was directly addressing what you both said and implied. You clearly contended that one technology for wirelessly delivering data at a certain rate or capacity was enough, and that developing another one would be a waste. The argument is simply wrong. The very fact that a design-around technology has to be different will create some comparative strengths and weaknesses, as well potentially driving innovation in its own right.
"Still economically speaking the development of DC electric power transmission was a waste. But this certainly is to some extent unavoidable."
Tell that to LBNL. The benefits of competition do not lie in merely having multiple vendors selling the same technology to a mass of consumers.
I never realized that 802.11 was the ultimate in wireless communications technology. Thank you for that insight.
"Mr. Westinghouse, Mr. Edison has already developed DC electric power transmission. Creating another power transmission technology with the same power capacity does not add economic value."
"Thank you Mr. Tesla. I'm off to buy railroad stock."
Substituting a physical object for a mens is cheap, intellectually dishonest slight-of-hand.
Whereas making conclusory statements without any support is not, I suppose.
The economic reasons for protecting intellectual property are the same as those for protecting tangible property. In the real world, substantial labor is invested into creating a marketable product, and that labor will only be systematically invested by those seeking a return on investment, i.e., a profit. Where is the incentive to invest in blue-sky R&D when the majority of research ideas fail to yield a return, and those few that are commercially viable may be reverse engineered and cloned for substantially less cost? Where is the incentive to plant an apple orchard when the apples may be freely picked by any passer-by?
The U.S. Supreme Court has already raised the bar for non-obviousness, which should sharply limit the number of patents issued for "routine technological advancement," yet it appears that you would deny protection for even acknowledged innovation. In your scheme, the rational economic actor would wait for an innovation, and then copy it as quickly as possible so that there is no R&D expense in exchange for a slight delay in entering the market. Of course, when everyone is a rational economic actor, then everyone will wait and nobody will invest, but we can be assured that technology will "naturally advance" anyway. Poppycock. It's the definition of a Prisoner's Dilemma, and limited protection for limited times is the bargain that counteracts the incentive to "cheat" in the game.
[This is just one example. Now the public may very well be deprived of this recreation center just because of these ownership concerns. So in a very resource-wasteful move, we may very well need to build another building that duplicates the existing building, not for any technical reason, but just to satisfy the legal conditions of a deed. That's clearly harmful for the economy as a whole. Those resources could have been put towards developing more jail cells, rather than reimplementing what already existed.]
Forgive me for restating your argument for you, but since you've essentially conceded that the invention is valid and useful, I thought it necessary to highlight the fact that your entire argument distills into "I don't want to pay the owner's asking price, so let's rationalize an expropriation instead."
I'm not sympathetic.
So it's just one of those crap EULA-type clauses that's there just to hopefully scare you into believing it, not because it's actually legal or enforceable. Some corporations figured out that instead of just lobbying for more power, they'll just claw away at your rights by just telling you that you're bound to give them some powers, and hoping that you'll actually believe it. The question of whether it's legal is irrelevant. It is almost unquestionably enforceable. There's a critical flaw in your reasoning, in that the cable company is only selling you service month-to-month, and thus is free to say "customer, you're fired" at the end of any given month for as long as they like. That behavior is both legal and enforceable in almost all jurisdictions in the U.S. There's also a lesser flaw in your reasoning, in that even if the cable company cuts you off in the middle of the month, their liability is almost certainly capped at the value of the service that you were denied (not including consequential damages, punitive damages, etc.), and they likely will refund you your payment for the cut-off portion of the month. That behavior is enforceable. You may be willing to sue a cable company for whatever damage you think you can prove, but you're not going to find an attorney willing to take the case.
If I'm wrong or missing something please let me know.
"Speaking on background" doesn't mean that the employee can be quoted without named attribution, it means that the employee can't be quoted period. In the journalism game, background means that the source proivdes information, but that what the source actually said cannot be repeated through quotes. Thus, the reporter has to paraphrase the content to be used, and anybody who disagrees with the source or the paraphrased information has far greater room to maneuver, because the published information effectively becomes hearsay.
A double standard is when you are inconsisent [sic].
There is nothing inconsistent about praising people for opening up a little bit, while condemning those that close down a little bit. We praise ANY move towards openness, and condemn ANY move away from it. How is that a double standard.
That is not a double standard. That is an example of framing the question. Here is an example of framing the question in combination with a double standard:
"We praise those who are following the GPL by providing the source code, while condemning those who are following the GPL by providing the source code only to their customers."
The entire criticism is that the community continually cites the text of the GPL as their standard, yet a sizable, or at least vocal, fraction of that community launches into histrionics when a company follows the text of the GPL without following "the spirit of the GPL." Of course, the spirit of the GPL is a nebulous concept consisting of undefined obligations that those in the community may not agree upon, that those adopting the GPL may not agree to, and that a certain foundation with a decade of experience, mountains of legal assistance, and legions of interested commenters were, what, just too lazy to include in the written license?
The party line was that the terms of the GPL were fine because the customers who received the source could redistribute that source to anyone, for any price, at any time. It's time for the community to live with the consequences of the GPL and the party line like a collection of adults, rather than trying to revise history to their liking.
Now, do I waste my time by pointing out the difference between students and population, or on pointing out that real-term costs must factor in both the increase in population (NOT the increase in students) and the rate of inflation?
Yes, you do. You established the $50/person/year figure as the factual basis for your polemic on the downfall of the United States. When that is rebutted, you raise irrelevant criticisms of the data, straw man arguments, and host of other fallacies to "prove" whatever point you're trying to make.
The criticisms of the data are meaningless. Students are a part of the population. If you average in the rest of the population, that only helps to dilute the allegedly deficient level of spending, yet you're complaining. To simplify issues, I'm more than happy to use the 7% of GDP figure already provided with a $13.3 trillion GDP to yield educational spending of more than $3000/person/year. No students involved, no inflation involved, no change of trimming it down to $50 with an argument that the rest of us will accept, but you're invited to try.
But that requires superior education. At the moment, the US spends $50 per person per year on education. This doesn't seem to be a whole lot. You'd certainly never reach the level of enlightenment required for a stable democracy.
The spending figure is easily proven to be false. The remainder of the argument is simply non-sensical. Has per capita education spending, on any reasonable basis, decreased since the founding of the country? Is the U.S. lagging the western world in education spending? (No)
NEA data
48,132,518 students in K-12 education (2003-04)
$7580 per student median spending (2002-03)
301,200,000 people in the U.S. (2007)
Yields a level of around $1200 per person excluding anything relating to college, graduate schools, professional schools, adult education, and the like. It's not even clear whether those numbers include private and parochial schools. That's an embarrisingly far cry from $50 per person per year.
hello? we're talking about standards here. choice is the wrong things. choice is bad. let me explain why.
what happens if a large company suggests that we don't just measure capacitance in farrad but also in #madeUpNameOfNewUnit? what's the point? people would have to learn, adopt and support it, all of which costs money and muddies the issue.
odf is already the standard for document exchange. we don't need and shouldn't have a second one.
So you support the United States in its refusal to adopt the metric system, right?
Thus, I expect that a court would find that Intel would be bound to the verbatim GPLv2 (which has "or any later version") unless they specifically say something of the kin of "modified GPLv2" wherever they mention the license they're using, and particularize the modifications prominently in their version.
I would not. The verbatim GPLv2 states:
If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
The verbatim GPLv2 does not prevent the licensor from specifying GPLv2, and programs licensed under "GPLv2" without "any later version" are expressly contemplated by the terms of the license.
They would also be in violation of the GPLv2 by having modified the version they are distributing, contrary to the terms of the license for distribution.
But they haven't.
However, anyone with a copy of this existing version would seemingly have the GPLv2 license in its original glory (and hence GPLv3 may apply).
And they do but it doesn't.
I haven't looked at the details; this is based on what you've just said. It's very interesting.
That is not an excuse. Your speculation concerning the terms of the GPLv2 had no basis in the grandparent's post.
As for those (not you specifically) arguing that the government already had this power - The last clause in what I bolded above makes the key distinction there. The government can seize our assets after "due process of law" has played out. Not before. After.
It does not. Without does not necessarily entail before, and there is Supreme Court precedent that is squarely on point -- the government can seize assets before due process of law has played out, so long as it does play out, in certain situations. You will notice an unsuprising similarity betweent the language in the executive order and the language of the following Supreme Court decision:
CALERO-TOLEDO v. PEARSON YACHT LEASING CO., 416 U.S. 663 (1974)
Held:
"This case presents an 'extraordinary' situation in which postponement of notice and hearing until after seizure did not deny due process, since (1) seizure under the statutes serves significant governmental purposes by permitting Puerto Rico to assert in rem jurisdiction over the property in forfeiture proceedings, thereby fostering the public interest in preventing continued illicit use of the property and in enforcing criminal sanctions; (2) preseizure notice and hearing might frustrate the interests served by the statutes, the property seized often being of the sort, as here, that could be removed from the jurisdiction, destroyed, or concealed, if advance notice were given; and (3)... seizure is not initiated by self-interested private parties but by government officials. Pp. 676-680."
"Which is true as far as it goes. The missing detail is the vouchers MS have been selling for SUSE Linux which have no expiry date. This means that, in principle, if anyone redeems such a voucher for a copy of SLES, and if that collection contains any code licenced under GPLv3 at the time they redeem the voucher, then there's a chance MS may be held to account under the terms of GPLv3."
No. The missing detail is that the vouchers do not specify the version of SUSE Linux that must be distributed, nor do they specify that it must be the latest version. Microsoft and Novell are free to amend the agreement between them, if it was at all ambiguous in the first place, to only cover versions of SUSE in existence prior to June 29, 2007, and/or versions of SUSE created after June 29, 2007 and not subject to GPLv3, and those buying the vouchers are out of luck.
Microsoft's public stance is quite rational. Customers buying vouchers prior to June 29, 2007 do not have a strong claim to fulfillment using newer versions of SUSE, and customers buying vouchers after the public announcement can no longer claim that they made the purchase with a reasonable belief that they would receive a version subject to GPLv3. Moreover, even if Novell ships a version of SUSE subject to GPLv3 in fulfilling a voucher request, Microsoft has virtually assured that such a distribution will not affect its patent rights, as Novell lacks both the actual and apparent authority to distribute GPLv3 code under the voucher program.*
GPLv3 zealots are hoping for a hook buried in the crunchy middle (the intervening 2-3 weeks since the introduction of GPLv3). While I'm not familiar with the operation of the voucher program, I would speculate that the probability of such code having worked its way into the distribution and actually been distributed through the voucher program prior to the announcement is very very low.
*This assumes that the private agreement between Microsoft and Novell, if it was at all ambiguous, was amended in response to GPLv3 to exclude patent indemnification for GPLv3-associated code.
The Aria is designed primarily to optimize large file transmissions "over long distances through large pipes," Henderson said. The Aria 2000, which is due in July, supports 1G-bps links. Existing Aria appliances support 10M-bps links, 50M-bps links and 200M-bps links.
An FTP session running over a 100Mbit LAN should see about 10MB/sec real data transfer, maxing out the line and accounting for overhead They're claiming that their gadgets could move a file between each other at 150 megabytes per second over the same cable?
No. They're claiming that their gadgets could move a file over a long distance 200Mbps link at 10-15x faster than FTP. You're claiming that you could get 10MB/sec over the same link. It's your claim that requires evidence.
Yes, you RTFAed. But you didn't RTFP. Spreading misinformation is a mistake. Correcting posters who realize that it is misinformation when you do not understand the basic facts is irresponsible. I will not keep this information to myself, and you've earned the public embarrassment that's upset you so.
I prosecute and litigate patents for a living. Your bluster concerning my ability to "muddle through a patent application" does not cure your error. Neither does your reliance on "TFA," which is egregiously wrong, nor does your reliance on the summary, which is also egregiously wrong.
To infringe the patent, if it is granted, you would have to create a set of genes where:
1. the set lacks at least 40 of the 101 protein-coding genes listed in Table 2
and
2. at least one of the genes in Table 4 is among the lacking genes
and
3. the set has between 350 and 381 of the 381 protein-coding genes listed in Table 3
and
4. the set includes at least one of the genes in Table 5
and
5. the set has no more than 450 protein-coding genes.
If any single one of those conditions is not met, your engineered organism is not covered by the patent. There is nothing that requires you to strip any genes out of your organism unless you're trying to engineer a minimalist organism which simultaneously falls within those 5 criterion.
You've said "this is in effect trying to patent the single foundation of an entire emergent field." Yep. You gain that privilege when you create the field. The PCR reaction used in practically all DNA work was patented as US Patents 4,683,195, 4,683,202 and 4,965,188. The junction transistor was patented as US patent 2,569,347. Biology and electronics both survived and flourished.
Your argument that Venter is seeking to patent all viable synthetic life is quite simply wrong. Accept it and move on.
Granted, however it reads as though it seeks to cover any and all future synthetic life as well.... And that's bullcrap.
No it does not. It reads as follows:
Claim 1. A set of protein-coding genes that provides the information required for growth and replication of a free-living organism under axenic conditions in a rich bacterial culture medium, wherein the set lacks at least 40 of the 101 protein-coding genes listed in Table 2, or functional equivalents thereof, wherein at least one of the genes in Table 4 is among the lacking genes; wherein the set comprises between 350 and 381 of the 381 protein-coding genes listed in Table 3, or functional equivalents thereof, including at least one of the genes in Table 5; and wherein the set comprises no more than 450 protein-coding genes.
Claims 2-28 are all narrower than claim 1, and include the limitations in claim 1. Very little else in the application matters unless it serves to clarify the meaning of this claim (setting aside statutory subject matter, 35 U.S.C. 101, or description, enablement, and best mode issues, 35 U.S.C. 112).
Therefore if your organism lacks only 39 of the "101 protein-coding genes listed in Table 2" you do not infringe. If your organism has less than 350 of the "381 protein-coding genes listed in Table 3" you do not infringe. If your organism has 451 or more protein-coding genes, you do not infringe.
If you do not know the mere basics of patent law, your thoughts concerning the scope of someone's patent or patent application are "bullcrap."