Perhaps we can help here, with open source programs that can go some way to crossreferencing legislation and case law and deciphering legalese, and presenting the data to citizens in a format that they can digest.
Since the raw data is mostly available to the public in some form, and more and more of it is directly and freely available on the internet, you'd think the various law reform societies around the world would be keen to collaborate with computer scientists to build something along these lines that would be immediately usable to the citizen and professional alike, as well as being a potentially useful tool for studying effects of proposed changes in a quantifiable way.
I'm not saying that today we can use natural language techniques of advanced AI, but there are a lot of pieces of technical jargon that could be demystified by a hypertext link or three, and rewriting rules could be used to make the text more understandable in places where it is currently impenetrable to those who have no legal training.
I assume there are commercial concerns whose job it is to provide a related service, but perhaps we could 'steal a march' on them, before they get wind of this post and get a bogus patent on the idea.
A Web 2.0 OpenLaws project, anyone?
I've done little research on this, so if anyone knows of such a project, please do tell.
How would Duck Tape be applied in this scenario to protect the pursued duck?
"The strange case of the homosexual necrophiliac duck pushed out the boundaries of knowledge in a rather improbable way when it was recorded by Dutch researcher Kees Moeliker...."
I wrote:
How's a poor blind person supposed to construct a prototype and then keep it secret and secure? I know the one year rule helps here, but the clock starts ticking, and if (s)he can't get it done in time they may be short on luck. Correction: make that "but the clock starts ticking when the thing becomes public knowledge, and if (s)he can't get the patent application in in time they may be short on luck."
What the hell are you talking to me like it's my new idea for? There have been safety inspectors acting as a barrier to keep dangerous goods off the market since before I was born. Go ask them about how much of a barrier they impose.
Okay, I agree that unsafe products should be controlled, that's not the point I'm trying to make.
I don't propose anyone should get patents.
So what mechanism do you propose to replace the patent system? We have to get from here and now to a better location in spacetime, and it's got to be done in increments.
I would say, reveal your process, or you are flat out not allowed to sell anything to anyone. If you're caught, your property is seized and you go to jail, the same as if you sold cars or drugs or food without passing safety inspections right now.
Then what's to stop the big guys with most of the resources from stealing the little guys' ideas and laughing all the way to the bank?
To quote from The Simpsons: "Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts." How much did it cost the car companies after all those vehicles caught fire? I don't know, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were still before the courts. Is/Are the car compan{y|ies} now out of business? I think not.
To quote Jesse Ventura "You can't legislate morality." I know that the 'moral majority' mostly disagree, but I've looked at a whole bunch of quotes from Ventura, at
Basically, the bureaucracy - in this case the patent office - is set up in accordance with, and to carry out the functions of a particular piece of legislation - probably called something like The Patent Act (whatever year) as amended to the current date. It's all a big game to big business who are supposed to maximise shareholder value. They interact with the bureaucracy, and the judiciary and lobby the legislature in order to get the rules of the game to work in their favour.
At the moment, the criterion for 'obviousness', in particular, is being almost ignored, and AFAICT, this is causing a lot of bad patents to be issued. The criterion, I think, reads that an invention must not be obvious to someone 'skilled in the art', or at least that's what I've read in the Oz patent docs; the US should be similar. In my opinion we need a better definition of 'skilled in the art'.
What we need is a change to the effective rules of the game, in order to bring about a better outcome. A fairer outcome.
You can view it as a multidimensional optimisation problem (getting the greatest good for the greatest number, for example) but I won't go into the details of that aspect here and now.
You can change the rules of the game with a change in the law - either explicitly through legislation or implicitly as a result of the outcome of a case that goes before the courts and sets a precedent. I've read here thet the tax office over there tried to stem the tide of bad patents but got overturned in the courts.
The mechanism cannot legislate for non-greedy (moral) behaviour on the part of corporations, it can only place restrictions on how they are permitted to play the game without legal penalties and the associated bad publicity.
So what do you want to happen? More importantly, how do we tweak the system so that we get a better outcome? How do we get
Shutting out small inventors and those who lack the funding to fully develop an idea into a marketable product is not the answer. There is a rather large difference between a working prototype and a marketable product. Models don't have to be pretty, or durable, or easily mass-producable. They just have to work. They can also be expensive and time-consuming to produce. Possibly too much so.
An inventor may not have skills in some areas that are necessary for the actual construction of the prototype, yet (s)he knows that only ordinary skills in those areas would be sufficient to produce a prototype, given the inventor's own supervision.
Once the patent is granted, (s)he has a better carrot with which to attract financing for the development.
... This would be better realized in the modern age by making transparency of process a requirement to enter the market, period. We already have safety inspectors whose approval you must win to enter the market, so it's not like this would be a novel invasion of privacy or freedom that didn't exist before. Ahem... The safety inspectors you mention represent an additional barrier to entering the market. What if you can't convince the safety people of the day that your idea is not too dangerous? Would that mean you wouldn't get to keep your patent?
So you have three or four ideas with 'solid practical industrial benefit' - yet your going to take them to the grave on the chance someone else might profit on your work. Way to go!
Sounds to me like you just want something for nothing. Your ideas are so valuable you are not willing to share it for the advancement of science or mankind, yet paying modest filing fees is "unfordable". No, (s)he said he's not worried about getting the money, he just doesn't want to get ripped off. He wants credit, like scientists get when they publish first.
The system is already tilted far off-balance towards the artificial monopoly rights a patent grants you, yet your complaining it isn't easy enough for you to get those rights.
The patent system needs to be fundamentally changed so that true inventors are given extremely limited rights over their (machine, manufacture, or composition of matter) invention over a matter of years not decades. You are right that publishing should be a way to lay claim to an idea, but if something is not being actively exploited after publication it should fall into the public domain. And what if it is an invention whose time has not yet quite come, like some critical component of a successful space elevator? You're wrong - if the inventor makes a bona fide effort to realise his invention's potential, the patent should definitely go the full term.
It sounds to me like you would just publish an article on your "invention" and just wait for someone else to commercialize it before swooping in and claiming ownership. We have a name for those people, Patent Trolls. No, if he doesn't file for a patent, he can't be a patent troll. What he is is someone who is providing prior art for a possible later patent holder, which should probably invalidate their patent.
... As someone who's reasonably well educated and creative I have happened upon at least three or four ideas in my life that are worth a patent. Not silly stuff, I mean solid ideas with practical industrial benefit. Of course I cannot afford the $10,000+ to patent such ideas, I'm in the same boat.
and since publishing is no longer a protection against having these ideas misappropriated by persons in the USA I choose to keep them to myself. Really? Since when is publication not a protection of sorts? You mean that someone else can get a patent on your idea? I want names and dates.
Those ideas will probably be thought of by someone else soon enough, I am nothing special, My brain is warped, so some of my ideas will likely _not_ be thought of by anybody else anytime soon. (And, by the way, I don't really trust computers with sensitive data, so don't anybody get any ideas about cracking my system (again) to learn my secrets;-).
but for the time being they stay in my mind and may die with me. A friend told me a story of a lone inventor who developed a formula for a casting material that would give a near-perfect surface finish for aluminium alloys. He shopped it around and showed it to numerous people in industry while keeping the formula secret. It was good enough that it could cast the cylinder head for a mower engine and the part wouldn't even need machining before bolting it on the cylinder block. No-one was interested - they were happy to do it the old-fashioned way, even though it would save them money to change.
He took the idea to his grave.:-(
I have no desire to make money from them, but I cannot publish if I want the legitimate currency of recognition, nor can I patent them because it's not affordable.... If you don't want money from the ideas, just take out an advertisement in the local rag and explain your idea there. Invite comments in the letters to the editor section. Keep a few copies of the paper and make sure that the newspaper is archived somewhere where the public can look it up. Perhaps go to the politicians who represent you to see who to talk to - if you think it could help the government.
Ultimately internet publication with verifiable timestamped accountability brought about by extensive traffic logging will replace all IP claims and the old institutions, but for those of us with ideas who are caught in this transition period it's not a happy state of affairs and I suspect many valuable ideas are simply being lost or held back. Internet publication with verifiable timestamps will only partially solve the priority claim, and if you think traffic logging will identify the path of that information to someone who exploits it I think you're mistaken. In the case of patents, on which you have apparently given up, there is much more to the process.
They're distributing a cd image containing a set of.tar.bz2 archives, despite having found at least 2 defects in.bz2 software.
They do mention using using ICEOWS to decompress under Windoze, but don't endorse it or guarantee it will work:
"One suitable tool for Windows environment is ICEOWS, available at no cost. Note that each x.tar.bz2 package is first decompressed to a x.tar file, which is then similarly decompressed into a directory x containing the files. Note that OUSPG neither endorses any decompressor in particular, nor guarantee that they will not have issues with the test suite."
Why not just distribute.tgz archives, since they found no defects in.gz or.tar?
and go down a couple of screens to the section marked "Design and Analysis of Security Systems". He gives some links to his papers and presentations.
Berke Durak wrote some software called wipe to do secure file deletions, and its documentation references Peter Gutman's paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory". Wipe is available in Ubuntu's universe repository, and presumably many other places. Install it and read the docs.
I've been following the OpenFOAM user's mailing list for a while because I have an interest in CFD.
While OpenFOAM is usually used for fluid dynamics, I get the impression that if it can be done in three dimensions with PDEs and the Finite Volume method, it can be done with OpenFOAM.
I suggest you access their forums and ask what the denizens think of your problem.
Will take you to a fairly recent posting from the forum, from which you can navigate using the menu on the left of the screen to other postings, to search the site, or to register. (Can't post a query until you register.)
"The OpenFOAM (Open Field Operation and Manipulation) CFD Toolbox can simulate anything from complex fluid flows involving chemical reactions, turbulence and heat transfer, to solid dynamics, electromagnetics and the pricing of financial options. OpenFOAM is produced by OpenCFD Ltd, is freely available and open source, licensed under the GNU General Public Licence."
"Build a USD1000 desktop workstation, port Debian Linux to run on it and let the geeks out there adopt it.
There is no better way to explore a device's capabilities than to let the market do it.
I want one for myself. I am tired of the x86 architecture."
Well, in fact they've done almost this. The thing does run Linux, and they have developed a "TILExpress-64(TM) CARD" which is a PCIe expansion card with one of these things on it along with a bunch of stuff.
No word so far on pricing for that card or the development tools.
However, I have noticed something that is conspicuously absent from the coverage of the chip so far - the details of its memory management, or lack thereof. No word so far on how much memory it addresses or whether it has the sort of memory protection that we've come to expect of modern general-purpose CPUs. My guess is that what they have is an absence of any traditional MMU, and badly written code is free to run rampant in system memory. This is understandable in an embedded system.
"Computer engineering.. yeah.. I can understand that.. But man.. Computer SCIENCE ?
That's like saying 'car science', 'cooking science' or 'go at the bar and have a drink science' !"
Funny you should mention that last one. I remember reading about a study that was done by a guy in a bar that related the rate of drinking to the type of music that was being played. The guy had a drink for camouflage, but he also had a concealed tape recorder and a pencil. Every time someone took a sip of their drink he'd tap the pencil on the table near the recorder. He found that the sadder the country & western song, the more the listeners would drink. (As though they wanted to drown their sorrows, on behalf of song's protagonist.)
How's that for 'go at the bar and have a drink science'?
I'd probably try to use Debian - it's fairly stable and already compiles for quite a few architectures. Maybe you can even get Kdevelop to cross-compile for you. (If you do, please consider working on the documentation for Kdevelop).
For the smaller architectures I'd seriously consider eCos (see Embedded Software Development with eCos at http://www.phptr.com/promotions/promotion.asp?prom o=1484&redir=1&rl=1). The eCos stuff is known to work with Red Hat Linux and Windows. You may be able to get it to work under another Distro.
While eCos is not Linux, it is an Open Source RTOS, with a POSIX layer and support for quite a few architectures. Check out the freely downloadable PDF. Note: I haven't used it myself, but have looked into it a bit.
We just need some scientist in San Diego to upload the brains of these new crustaceans into computers so they can hack into the Moscow Windows NT user group, then get in touch with Manfred. He can find them jobs in deep space.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps we can help here, with open source programs that can go some way to crossreferencing legislation and case law and deciphering legalese, and presenting the data to citizens in a format that they can digest.
Since the raw data is mostly available to the public in some form, and more and more of it is directly and freely available on the internet, you'd think the various law reform societies around the world would be keen to collaborate with computer scientists to build something along these lines that would be immediately usable to the citizen and professional alike, as well as being a potentially useful tool for studying effects of proposed changes in a quantifiable way.
I'm not saying that today we can use natural language techniques of advanced AI, but there are a lot of pieces of technical jargon that could be demystified by a hypertext link or three, and rewriting rules could be used to make the text more understandable in places where it is currently impenetrable to those who have no legal training.
I assume there are commercial concerns whose job it is to provide a related service, but perhaps we could 'steal a march' on them, before they get wind of this post and get a bogus patent on the idea.
A Web 2.0 OpenLaws project, anyone?
I've done little research on this, so if anyone knows of such a project, please do tell.
Regards, Non.
How would Duck Tape be applied in this scenario to protect the pursued duck?
..."
"The strange case of the homosexual necrophiliac duck pushed out the boundaries of knowledge in a rather improbable way when it was recorded by Dutch researcher Kees Moeliker.
from:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,9865,1432991,00.html
Regards, Non.
Regards, Non.
What the hell are you talking to me like it's my new idea for? There have been safety inspectors acting as a barrier to keep dangerous goods off the market since before I was born. Go ask them about how much of a barrier they impose.
Okay, I agree that unsafe products should be controlled, that's not the point I'm trying to make.
I don't propose anyone should get patents.
So what mechanism do you propose to replace the patent system? We have to get from here and now to a better location in spacetime, and it's got to be done in increments.
I would say, reveal your process, or you are flat out not allowed to sell anything to anyone. If you're caught, your property is seized and you go to jail, the same as if you sold cars or drugs or food without passing safety inspections right now.
Then what's to stop the big guys with most of the resources from stealing the little guys' ideas and laughing all the way to the bank?
To quote from The Simpsons: "Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts." How much did it cost the car companies after all those vehicles caught fire? I don't know, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were still before the courts. Is/Are the car compan{y|ies} now out of business? I think not.
To quote Jesse Ventura "You can't legislate morality." I know that the 'moral majority' mostly disagree, but I've looked at a whole bunch of quotes from Ventura, at
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jesseventu169372.html
and I agree with the vast majority of them. I've skimmed his Wikipedia page as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Ventura
One serious dude, even if you're not into wrestling. (I'm not.)
Just assuming you can't legislate morality for a while, how does it apply here? Well it has to do with mechanism design - the game theory type:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_design
Basically, the bureaucracy - in this case the patent office - is set up in accordance with, and to carry out the functions of a particular piece of legislation - probably called something like The Patent Act (whatever year) as amended to the current date. It's all a big game to big business who are supposed to maximise shareholder value. They interact with the bureaucracy, and the judiciary and lobby the legislature in order to get the rules of the game to work in their favour.
At the moment, the criterion for 'obviousness', in particular, is being almost ignored, and AFAICT, this is causing a lot of bad patents to be issued. The criterion, I think, reads that an invention must not be obvious to someone 'skilled in the art', or at least that's what I've read in the Oz patent docs; the US should be similar. In my opinion we need a better definition of 'skilled in the art'.
What we need is a change to the effective rules of the game, in order to bring about a better outcome. A fairer outcome.
You can view it as a multidimensional optimisation problem (getting the greatest good for the greatest number, for example) but I won't go into the details of that aspect here and now.
You can change the rules of the game with a change in the law - either explicitly through legislation or implicitly as a result of the outcome of a case that goes before the courts and sets a precedent. I've read here thet the tax office over there tried to stem the tide of bad patents but got overturned in the courts.
The mechanism cannot legislate for non-greedy (moral) behaviour on the part of corporations, it can only place restrictions on how they are permitted to play the game without legal penalties and the associated bad publicity.
So what do you want to happen?
More importantly, how do we tweak the system so that we get a better outcome?
How do we get
Now this is an idea with some serious merit. :-)
Who do we go to to get it drawn to someone's attention?
Regards, Non.
An inventor may not have skills in some areas that are necessary for the actual construction of the prototype, yet (s)he knows that only ordinary skills in those areas would be sufficient to produce a prototype, given the inventor's own supervision.
Once the patent is granted, (s)he has a better carrot with which to attract financing for the development.
Regards, Non.
... This would be better realized in the modern age by making transparency of process a requirement to enter the market, period. We already have safety inspectors whose approval you must win to enter the market, so it's not like this would be a novel invasion of privacy or freedom that didn't exist before. Ahem... The safety inspectors you mention represent an additional barrier to entering the market.What if you can't convince the safety people of the day that your idea is not too dangerous?
Would that mean you wouldn't get to keep your patent?
Regards, Non.
Please report it as a bug, and draw their attention to the extremely limited width of the text box, as well.
Sounds to me like you just want something for nothing. Your ideas are so valuable you are not willing to share it for the advancement of science or mankind, yet paying modest filing fees is "unfordable". No, (s)he said he's not worried about getting the money, he just doesn't want to get ripped off. He wants credit, like scientists get when they publish first. The system is already tilted far off-balance towards the artificial monopoly rights a patent grants you, yet your complaining it isn't easy enough for you to get those rights.
The patent system needs to be fundamentally changed so that true inventors are given extremely limited rights over their (machine, manufacture, or composition of matter) invention over a matter of years not decades. You are right that publishing should be a way to lay claim to an idea, but if something is not being actively exploited after publication it should fall into the public domain. And what if it is an invention whose time has not yet quite come, like some critical component of a successful space elevator? You're wrong - if the inventor makes a bona fide effort to realise his invention's potential, the patent should definitely go the full term. It sounds to me like you would just publish an article on your "invention" and just wait for someone else to commercialize it before swooping in and claiming ownership. We have a name for those people, Patent Trolls. No, if he doesn't file for a patent, he can't be a patent troll. What he is is someone who is providing prior art for a possible later patent holder, which should probably invalidate their patent.
Regards, Non.
... As someone who's reasonably well educated and creative I have happened upon at least three or four ideas in my life that are worth a patent. Not silly stuff, I mean solid ideas with practical industrial benefit. Of course I cannot afford the $10,000+ to patent such ideas, I'm in the same boat. and since publishing is no longer a protection against having these ideas misappropriated by persons in the USA I choose to keep them to myself. Really? Since when is publication not a protection of sorts? You mean that someone else can get a patent on your idea? I want names and dates. Those ideas will probably be thought of by someone else soon enough, I am nothing special, My brain is warped, so some of my ideas will likely _not_ be thought of by anybody else anytime soon. (And, by the way, I don't really trust computers with sensitive data, so don't anybody get any ideas about cracking my system (again) to learn my secretsHe took the idea to his grave.
Regards, Non.
I looked on PubMed Central and found this:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=226096
There's a little bit in there on computer monitors.
Regards, Non.
They're distributing a cd image containing a set of .tar.bz2 archives, despite having found at least 2 defects in .bz2 software.
.tgz archives, since they found no defects in .gz or .tar?
They do mention using using ICEOWS to decompress under Windoze, but don't endorse it or guarantee it will work:
"One suitable tool for Windows environment is ICEOWS, available at no cost. Note that each x.tar.bz2 package is first decompressed to a x.tar file, which is then similarly decompressed into a directory x containing the files. Note that OUSPG neither endorses any decompressor in particular, nor guarantee that they will not have issues with the test suite."
Why not just distribute
Peter Gutman, a Kiwi, has studied this and reported on it. Find his home page at:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/
and go down a couple of screens to the section marked "Design and Analysis of Security Systems". He gives some links to his papers and presentations.
Berke Durak wrote some software called wipe to do secure file deletions, and its documentation references Peter Gutman's paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory". Wipe is available in Ubuntu's universe repository, and presumably many other places. Install it and read the docs.
Regards, Non.
I've been following the OpenFOAM user's mailing list for a while because I have an interest in CFD.
. cgi?1/5314
While OpenFOAM is usually used for fluid dynamics, I get the impression that if it can be done in three dimensions with PDEs and the Finite Volume method, it can be done with OpenFOAM.
I suggest you access their forums and ask what the denizens think of your problem.
http://openfoam.cfd-online.com/cgi-bin/forum/show
Will take you to a fairly recent posting from the forum, from which you can navigate using the menu on the left of the screen to other postings, to search the site, or to register. (Can't post a query until you register.)
If you want to read about OpenFOAM, just go to
http://www.opencfd.co.uk/openfoam/
"The OpenFOAM (Open Field Operation and Manipulation) CFD Toolbox can simulate anything from complex fluid flows involving chemical reactions, turbulence and heat transfer, to solid dynamics, electromagnetics and the pricing of financial options. OpenFOAM is produced by OpenCFD Ltd, is freely available and open source, licensed under the GNU General Public Licence."
Hope you can do C++.
Regards, Non.
"Build a USD1000 desktop workstation, port Debian Linux to run on it and let the geeks out there adopt it.
There is no better way to explore a device's capabilities than to let the market do it.
I want one for myself. I am tired of the x86 architecture."
Well, in fact they've done almost this. The thing does run Linux, and
they have developed a "TILExpress-64(TM) CARD" which is a PCIe expansion
card with one of these things on it along with a bunch of stuff.
http://www.tilera.com/products/boards.php
No word so far on pricing for that card or the development tools.
However, I have noticed something that is conspicuously absent from the
coverage of the chip so far - the details of its memory management, or
lack thereof. No word so far on how much memory it addresses or whether
it has the sort of memory protection that we've come to expect of modern
general-purpose CPUs. My guess is that what they have is an absence of
any traditional MMU, and badly written code is free to run rampant in
system memory. This is understandable in an embedded system.
Regards, Non.
"Computer engineering.. yeah.. I can understand that.. But man.. Computer SCIENCE ?
That's like saying 'car science', 'cooking science' or 'go at the bar and have a drink science' !"
Funny you should mention that last one. I remember reading about a study
that was done by a guy in a bar that related the rate of drinking to the
type of music that was being played. The guy had a drink for camouflage,
but he also had a concealed tape recorder and a pencil. Every time someone
took a sip of their drink he'd tap the pencil on the table near the recorder.
He found that the sadder the country & western song, the more the listeners
would drink. (As though they wanted to drown their sorrows, on behalf of
song's protagonist.)
How's that for 'go at the bar and have a drink science'?
I'd probably try to use Debian - it's fairly stable and already compiles for quite a few architectures. Maybe you can even get Kdevelop to cross-compile for you. (If you do, please consider working on the documentation for Kdevelop).
m o=1484&redir=1&rl=1). The eCos stuff is known to work with Red Hat Linux and Windows. You may be able to get it to work under another Distro.
For the smaller architectures I'd seriously consider eCos (see Embedded Software Development with eCos at http://www.phptr.com/promotions/promotion.asp?pro
While eCos is not Linux, it is an Open Source RTOS, with a POSIX layer and support for quite a few architectures. Check out the freely downloadable PDF. Note: I haven't used it myself, but have looked into it a bit.
Regards, Nontagonist.
We just need some scientist in San Diego to upload the brains of these new crustaceans into computers so they can hack into the Moscow Windows NT user group, then get in touch with Manfred. He can find them jobs in deep space.
If you have no idea what I mean, try:
http://www.asimovs.com/Nebulas03/Lobsters.shtml
Regards.