So what is the problem? Wikipedia is supposed to contain information that can be verified. The information exists in "questionable newspapers," but it can still be verified in those newspapers. If this is a problem then Wikipedia needs to change its policy on what can be used for verification.
Its been how long since the files were released? What national security was damaged? Shouldn't we have evidence by now that some damage actually occurred?
For a system of this size, It's expensive. I agree with GP, $600 million is pretty cheap for a system intended to serviced over 100,000,000 people. Less than $6 a user is a pretty good deal.
Perhaps that is the first problem. Perhaps they should do a better job of estimating how many people will actually use it. There are only 100,000,000 households in America. Roughly half can't use the website, as their state has their own site. And then how many of these people also have insurance through their work? Throw in the fact that the users will use it over several months, and will most likely only use it a few times, and then never again... $6 per user is pretty excessive.
. This report tells us what many of us already knew/suspected. Still, kudos to the LSE for making the effort! +1
What was it the report told you, and what did you KNOW or suspect? The report appears to say that the people who pirate spend more than those who don't pirate. But what does that tell us? Not a whole lot really. Perhaps those who don't pirate don't consume very much. Based on the article we don't really know anything more than we did before.
You're leaving out something really important and the real reason that he got caught: the casino was cheating too. Otherwise they wouldn't know that he had good cards when he folded.
That's like saying everyone who watches the World Series of Poker on ESPN is cheating. The Casino isn't really playing, so its ok for them to know what your cards are... doesn't mean they are cheating.
How are Tesla's claims misleading? It lists "EFFECTIVE MONTHLY COST" and "ESTIMATED PAYMENT" The effective monthly cost is calculated based on data and numbers you provide... What is misleading?
If more than one person have a simila idea in a close enough time frame, similar enough to generate competing patents, it should be ruled as obvious and not patentable as too obvious
Why? Is something only non obvious if only ONE person in the world can figure it out? History is rife with two or three people racing to an invention. that doesn't mean the invention is obvious. I would think it would take more than two or three geniuses figuring something out to claim it as obvious.
If I own a hamburger patent, and you own a carwash that does not serve food. Can I threaten you with a lawsuit? Can I threaten you with charging you for a crime if you don't settle the lawsuit? Can I then file a fake lawsuit and make you spend time and money to get it thrown out?
Just because you own a patent, doesn't mean you can threaten people with lawsuits, and when they don't cave in, doesn't mean you can file a lawsuit incorrectly.
Suing for hate speech makes about as much sense as trying to apply RICO to completely legal activities. There is silliness from both sides here.
I'm not sure what you consider a completely legal activity. Is it legal for me to threaten you with a lawsuit, and then file what is shown to be an illegal lawsuit? Is it legal for me to claim that I will have you charged with what sounds like a legitimate crime, if you don't comply? What the troll is doing might be legal, but if it is it sure skirts the boundaries of legalities. Makes the RICO claim much more likely.
not only do they rip off anyone and everyone but they waste the courts time with absurd charges, or the courts are stupid enough to take on such cases
they aren't wasting the courts time with absurd charges (well they are, as the original patent lawsuit turns out was absurd) but they are threatening the defendant with the absurd charge. And that is the whole issue here.
Well if ones creations are not protected the group that invests (often large amounts of) money in creating something new and unique then Joe Schmuck will purchase the product when it is first available then copy it and sell it (usually cheaper) and the creator is then unable to recoup their development costs. This the discourages the creation and money put into creating new things.
This is a good summary of the arguments for the benefits of patents. However, the same reasoning applies to software patents:
Actually it doesn't. Patents are supposed to protect the implementation, not the idea. For example the one click patent, I should be able to implement one click patent myself, if I do it differently than the way Amazon does it. But I don't really know how Amazon does it, cause I can't see their code. Nor can I truly understand the patent itself.
The other issue with software patents is the majority of them are not really patent-able, as they are not novel or they have prior art.
Curiously enough, some of the points made by 'anon' in the parent post here used to be part of some patent law systems in really ancient times (like 16th-18th centuries), but they were one by one abandoned, by court decisions or legislative amendments:
>> 1) Patent times are FAR too long in many cases and should not be renewable.
An early example of a time limit, fixed in 1623 in England, was 14 years from a really early time-point when patent grant took place -- which used to be almost immediately on application (compared with today's long process).
Current patents are 20 years from the filing date. This was extended in the 90s, up from 17 years, not sure why. But 20 years isn't much longer than 14 years. I expect someone was thinking of Copyright lengths.
It isn't so much as forcing you to attacking the speaker. It is about inciting a mob to violence. According to Mr Wiki: "Under the imminent lawless action test, speech is not protected by the First Amendment if the speaker intends to incite a violation of the law that is both imminent and likely" If you have an unruly mob next to a bonfire and you shout "lets burn the courthouse to the ground" you can be arrested. But saying "let us join together and burn the government down" is probably protected.
The only "civil liberty" it attacks is the ability to fraudulently sign in for someone else.
How about the privacy of their fingerprints. Their employer does not need a record of their fingerprints.
Another problem with using biometrics for authentication, is one they are compromised, they are compromised forever.
But 1-click sales via computer were decidedly not an obvious thing until after it was done.
Of course it was an obvious thing. but any idiot who brought it up, would get shot down with "you can't just charge someone's card because they clicked a button"
That doesn't mean it wasn't obvious.
Since there doesn't seem to be a clause for lack of clarity being grounds for patent rejection (which would help a lot in situations like this), the judges just accept them instead of trying to learn or, worse, looking foolish for acknowledging that they don't understand the patent (gasp!).
But there is, inventions must be Adequately described or enabled (for one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the invention) and Claimed by the inventor in clear and definite terms.
The language is extremely formalized and very hard to read for untrained minds. And the issues are so specialized that the average judge would have to train several years in the particular field to understand what the invention is about.
Every single patent that falls into this category should NOT receive a patent.
Invention must also be:
Adequately described or enabled (for one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the invention)
Claimed by the inventor in clear and definite terms
Seems most patents today (well at least many software patents) are only readable by patent lawyers.
It sounds like you don't understand what OneClick is. Not only was it not common then, it's not common now.
It wasn't common then because people didn't think consumers would want to buy something with one click. Cause you know, spending money without authorization is kind of scary. And of course now it is patented, so its not common.
But I wouldn't be surprised if the concept of "one click" didn't already exist, just not for buying something.
Patents are only supposed to be awarded to things that do something new, or that do things that are not new, but in significantly different way. The pencil + eraser example does neither.
Where do you get that idea from? According to the government http://www.uspto.gov/inventors/patents.jsp, patents can be for an improvement to a process. Adding an eraser to a pencil is definitely an improvement, and is something new. It was also something useful. I don't see anywhere saying that it is supposed to do something new that has never ever been done before.
That is to say, it has to be or do something completely new. The point made by the court in OP's post is that it was not an invention because it was just two common things, stuck together.
An awful lot of inventions came about by taking one or two common things and sticking them together. Of course part of the process is how you stick them together.
I'm sure plenty of people thought about sticking an erase on the end of a pencil, but apparently this guy was the first to pull it off, and thus created something new. I don't see anything in the patent rules that says sticking a couple of common things together isn't new.
As far as one click, I don't believe it was new, in that purchasing something through one click probably already existed. But even if it didn't, it wasn't rocket science. There was nothing special about the concept of "we'll save your info, so you can just click a button to buy something." I can say that because other similar things existed at the time. But back in 1858 did erasers already exist stuck on the end of a pencil?
TFS was very accurate. The company did indeed say "somewhere between one-third and two-thirds of all MP3 audio players" I'm not sure why you stopped reading a summary or an article, because they quoted someone.
Slashdot Mirror
So what is the problem? Wikipedia is supposed to contain information that can be verified. The information exists in "questionable newspapers," but it can still be verified in those newspapers. If this is a problem then Wikipedia needs to change its policy on what can be used for verification.
If the internet organized itself with a sort of government and had votes and such on laws and such governing it, this wouldn't be a problem.
What exactly is the problem? That someone maintains a wikipedia page? That someone PAYS someone to maintain the page?
Noooo! Not a Formula Translator!
Its been how long since the files were released? What national security was damaged? Shouldn't we have evidence by now that some damage actually occurred?
For a system of this size, It's expensive. I agree with GP, $600 million is pretty cheap for a system intended to serviced over 100,000,000 people. Less than $6 a user is a pretty good deal.
Perhaps that is the first problem. Perhaps they should do a better job of estimating how many people will actually use it. There are only 100,000,000 households in America. Roughly half can't use the website, as their state has their own site. And then how many of these people also have insurance through their work? Throw in the fact that the users will use it over several months, and will most likely only use it a few times, and then never again... $6 per user is pretty excessive.
>
Also, is there any danger posed by dozens of Kindles flying around the cabin in the event of a crash landing?
Probably not as dangerous as having all the dinner trays (still used on international flights) flying around... or anything else for that matter.
. This report tells us what many of us already knew/suspected. Still, kudos to the LSE for making the effort! +1
What was it the report told you, and what did you KNOW or suspect? The report appears to say that the people who pirate spend more than those who don't pirate. But what does that tell us? Not a whole lot really. Perhaps those who don't pirate don't consume very much. Based on the article we don't really know anything more than we did before.
You're leaving out something really important and the real reason that he got caught: the casino was cheating too. Otherwise they wouldn't know that he had good cards when he folded.
That's like saying everyone who watches the World Series of Poker on ESPN is cheating. The Casino isn't really playing, so its ok for them to know what your cards are... doesn't mean they are cheating.
The BSA is not some poor group that is "forced" to do anything here by big bad government copyright law.
I'm struggling to understand what BSA and their trademark has to do with copyright law?
Tesla's claims ARE misleading.
How are Tesla's claims misleading? It lists "EFFECTIVE MONTHLY COST" and "ESTIMATED PAYMENT" The effective monthly cost is calculated based on data and numbers you provide... What is misleading?
If more than one person have a simila idea in a close enough time frame, similar enough to generate competing patents, it should be ruled as obvious and not patentable as too obvious
Why? Is something only non obvious if only ONE person in the world can figure it out? History is rife with two or three people racing to an invention. that doesn't mean the invention is obvious. I would think it would take more than two or three geniuses figuring something out to claim it as obvious.
If I own a hamburger patent, and you own a carwash that does not serve food. Can I threaten you with a lawsuit? Can I threaten you with charging you for a crime if you don't settle the lawsuit? Can I then file a fake lawsuit and make you spend time and money to get it thrown out?
Just because you own a patent, doesn't mean you can threaten people with lawsuits, and when they don't cave in, doesn't mean you can file a lawsuit incorrectly.
Suing for hate speech makes about as much sense as trying to apply RICO to completely legal activities. There is silliness from both sides here.
I'm not sure what you consider a completely legal activity. Is it legal for me to threaten you with a lawsuit, and then file what is shown to be an illegal lawsuit? Is it legal for me to claim that I will have you charged with what sounds like a legitimate crime, if you don't comply? What the troll is doing might be legal, but if it is it sure skirts the boundaries of legalities. Makes the RICO claim much more likely.
not only do they rip off anyone and everyone but they waste the courts time with absurd charges, or the courts are stupid enough to take on such cases
they aren't wasting the courts time with absurd charges (well they are, as the original patent lawsuit turns out was absurd) but they are threatening the defendant with the absurd charge. And that is the whole issue here.
Well if ones creations are not protected the group that invests (often large amounts of) money in creating something new and unique then Joe Schmuck will purchase the product when it is first available then copy it and sell it (usually cheaper) and the creator is then unable to recoup their development costs. This the discourages the creation and money put into creating new things.
This is a good summary of the arguments for the benefits of patents. However, the same reasoning applies to software patents:
Actually it doesn't. Patents are supposed to protect the implementation, not the idea. For example the one click patent, I should be able to implement one click patent myself, if I do it differently than the way Amazon does it. But I don't really know how Amazon does it, cause I can't see their code. Nor can I truly understand the patent itself.
The other issue with software patents is the majority of them are not really patent-able, as they are not novel or they have prior art.
Curiously enough, some of the points made by 'anon' in the parent post here used to be part of some patent law systems in really ancient times (like 16th-18th centuries), but they were one by one abandoned, by court decisions or legislative amendments:
>> 1) Patent times are FAR too long in many cases and should not be renewable.
An early example of a time limit, fixed in 1623 in England, was 14 years from a really early time-point when patent grant took place -- which used to be almost immediately on application (compared with today's long process).
Current patents are 20 years from the filing date. This was extended in the 90s, up from 17 years, not sure why. But 20 years isn't much longer than 14 years. I expect someone was thinking of Copyright lengths.
It isn't so much as forcing you to attacking the speaker. It is about inciting a mob to violence. According to Mr Wiki: "Under the imminent lawless action test, speech is not protected by the First Amendment if the speaker intends to incite a violation of the law that is both imminent and likely" If you have an unruly mob next to a bonfire and you shout "lets burn the courthouse to the ground" you can be arrested. But saying "let us join together and burn the government down" is probably protected.
The only "civil liberty" it attacks is the ability to fraudulently sign in for someone else.
How about the privacy of their fingerprints. Their employer does not need a record of their fingerprints.
Another problem with using biometrics for authentication, is one they are compromised, they are compromised forever.
But 1-click sales via computer were decidedly not an obvious thing until after it was done .
Of course it was an obvious thing. but any idiot who brought it up, would get shot down with "you can't just charge someone's card because they clicked a button"
That doesn't mean it wasn't obvious.
Since there doesn't seem to be a clause for lack of clarity being grounds for patent rejection (which would help a lot in situations like this), the judges just accept them instead of trying to learn or, worse, looking foolish for acknowledging that they don't understand the patent (gasp!).
But there is, inventions must be Adequately described or enabled (for one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the invention) and Claimed by the inventor in clear and definite terms.
The language is extremely formalized and very hard to read for untrained minds. And the issues are so specialized that the average judge would have to train several years in the particular field to understand what the invention is about.
Every single patent that falls into this category should NOT receive a patent.
Invention must also be:
Seems most patents today (well at least many software patents) are only readable by patent lawyers.
It sounds like you don't understand what OneClick is. Not only was it not common then, it's not common now.
It wasn't common then because people didn't think consumers would want to buy something with one click. Cause you know, spending money without authorization is kind of scary. And of course now it is patented, so its not common.
But I wouldn't be surprised if the concept of "one click" didn't already exist, just not for buying something.
Patents are only supposed to be awarded to things that do something new, or that do things that are not new, but in significantly different way. The pencil + eraser example does neither.
Where do you get that idea from? According to the government http://www.uspto.gov/inventors/patents.jsp, patents can be for an improvement to a process. Adding an eraser to a pencil is definitely an improvement, and is something new. It was also something useful. I don't see anywhere saying that it is supposed to do something new that has never ever been done before.
That is to say, it has to be or do something completely new. The point made by the court in OP's post is that it was not an invention because it was just two common things, stuck together.
An awful lot of inventions came about by taking one or two common things and sticking them together. Of course part of the process is how you stick them together. I'm sure plenty of people thought about sticking an erase on the end of a pencil, but apparently this guy was the first to pull it off, and thus created something new. I don't see anything in the patent rules that says sticking a couple of common things together isn't new.
As far as one click, I don't believe it was new, in that purchasing something through one click probably already existed. But even if it didn't, it wasn't rocket science. There was nothing special about the concept of "we'll save your info, so you can just click a button to buy something." I can say that because other similar things existed at the time. But back in 1858 did erasers already exist stuck on the end of a pencil?
TFS was very accurate. The company did indeed say "somewhere between one-third and two-thirds of all MP3 audio players" I'm not sure why you stopped reading a summary or an article, because they quoted someone.