Trademarks must be defended, but patents don't have to be
Got it. So the system is set up with long term protection (17 years?) to encourage companies to hide their prior art until the time that they can jump out from behind the figurative bush (Bush?), yell "Gotcha!" and demand everything that someone else has worked for - likely completely independently.
This doesn't foster innovation - this fosters corporate muggings.
Perhaps I am confusing my types of Intellectual Property, but don't you have to show that you are actively defending your IP, or you give up your rights to it? TFA didn't list the patents involved or the dates they were granted, but if violators have to pay triple damages for 'willful' disregard, shouldn't the patent owners lose rights to damages if they willfully allow infringement until they know that the other companies are over a barrel?
(Yes, I know this is/. and software/algorithm patents are eeeevil to their core. Bad USPTO! Bad! But allowing the system as it currently exists, aren't there safeguards against stuff like this?)
We really have some serious miscommunication going on here - The protesters are demanding redress from the Danish and other European governments...but the free press does not answer to the governments in this type of issue in the West. However, in many predominantly Islamic countries, the press is a function of the government, thus their reaction is that the Prophet has been insulted by the government of Denmark, and any other country in which the cartoons are published. On the other hand, Westerners think that these people are nuts because hey, it's just a newspaper - what, are we supposed to censor everything somebody might get pissed at? Sure, people on both sides have been *told* how the other viewpoint operates, but that's different from knowing it from the inside - add to that people on both sides pushing their own agendas, and it's no wonder the powder keg has gone off.
True Communication is impossible without Understanding. Understanding is impossible without Tolerance. Tolerance is impossible without Empathy. Empathy is impossible without Communication.
"You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Unsubstantiated story, but when I was an intern at NASA, I heard the story that this method was used to prevent corrosion in some underground tanks containing pressurized cryogenics for use in blow-down wind tunnels at NASA Ames. The current was incorrectly applied, and it accelerated, the corrosion, rather than delaying it, and when the tanks failed there was spectacularly bubbling and heaving mud over the tank location for several days. Wish I could have seen that
Slashdot Mirror
Got it. So the system is set up with long term protection (17 years?) to encourage companies to hide their prior art until the time that they can jump out from behind the figurative bush (Bush?), yell "Gotcha!" and demand everything that someone else has worked for - likely completely independently.
This doesn't foster innovation - this fosters corporate muggings.
(Yes, I know this is /. and software/algorithm patents are eeeevil to their core. Bad USPTO! Bad! But allowing the system as it currently exists, aren't there safeguards against stuff like this?)
True Communication is impossible without Understanding. Understanding is impossible without Tolerance. Tolerance is impossible without Empathy. Empathy is impossible without Communication.
"You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Time to change my name to "Geroge W Bush" and get a server.
Unsubstantiated story, but when I was an intern at NASA, I heard the story that this method was used to prevent corrosion in some underground tanks containing pressurized cryogenics for use in blow-down wind tunnels at NASA Ames. The current was incorrectly applied, and it accelerated, the corrosion, rather than delaying it, and when the tanks failed there was spectacularly bubbling and heaving mud over the tank location for several days. Wish I could have seen that