There are something like 8 million active patents. I don't know how many inactive ones. The Patent office does not search for prior art, you are supposed to provide it. An existing patent can be prior art.
I believe Nest DID find the patents, that is why they know about them.
If they want to complain, they should be complaining about IP law rather than companies that use it as (apparently) intended.
Nest is claiming that Honywell is NOT using it as it was intended. Nest is saying that Honeywell is suing, even when they know that Nest isn't infringing any of the patents. Sort of like you have a patent on making waffles, and you sue the competition across the street for making pancakes.
Judge Kozinski has missed the biggest part of this equation: the concept that WE get to choose when we want to be private.
Ok, but consider. You KNOW friends who post EVERYTHING they do online. Now imagine a few years when their kids grow up (or they themselves grow up) and those people become our judges and our police and our political leaders. Now YOU respect your privacy. But apparently these people don't, and they don't think anyone else does either.
Remember the government isn't just a big faceless mob, it is made up of people.
Ahhh the old "don't use facebook" solution.
"I know how to solve this problem. Destroy the university, so it no longer exists. Problem solved! Now the bomber will have to blow something else up, cause I didn't really solve anything."
First of all a university is more than just a learning knowledge institution. It is supposed to be a gathering of ideas. A place for like minds to meet and discuss, and improve the knowledge of the world.
Second of all, if you disperse one thing, the bomber will just target something else.
Your cure is worse than the disease.
I always taught that responding these threats was stupid. No terrorist is dumb enough to tell you where will they strike.
You don't know history very well do you? Terrorism is about generating fear. You can do that with threats just as well with actual action.
It sounds to me like this person is instilling a lot of terror, without having to do much other than sends some threats.
And who do you blame when the one you didn't take seriously is real?
People will always find someone to blame. Look at all the finger pointing around 9/11 when people claimed the government was warned, and ignored the threat.
I used to work for a big company. I used some of the products, but honestly I didn't even know all the products they sold... let alone used them all. And some of the products were in areas I had no desire to work in.
More recently, I work for a small company, and we just released an iPad app. But I don't think ANYONE in the company (other than the VP) uses the product... Because outside of the office iPads, no one owns one.
Just because few people use the product, doesn't mean it sucks.
The OP said he was told to tell friends, or click a "like" button. I think telling friends "My company released foo, check it out" is sufficient to cover all grounds.
Caught doing what? Clicking on a "like" button? Or telling your friends "hey check out my companies new product?" Unless the product is pure crap, what credibility is he losing?
Man when my company releases a new product. I'm happy to tell people "Hey we just released this cool new product, check it out"
He drank the koolaid. I seriously doubt he was ordered to shill. Microsoft makes enough money that the pay people to do that. But when you are immersed in the culture, you see and use more of the software than you probably did before. Maybe he did like it. Maybe it was new to him and he just wanted to share it? If he went to some other company that had lots and lots of software and starting telling you about some of the cool things he saw at work, would you automatically assume his company asked him to shill?
There are two parts to this question:
A) Should I like the product?
Yes, unless you totally hate it. If you like it, then like it. If you haven't seen it, well it is YOUR companies product, so you like it right? I mean in some sense it is making you money, so why not like it? Obviously if you feel it is a piece of crap, then don't like it. Otherwise what is the problem?
B) Will there be repercussions if you don't like it? As in will some PR drone go through the list and see who liked it?
I guess that is a remote possibility, but if you are the paranoid, you might want to look for another job (to relieve your stress levels). Your company doesn't really care if you click the like button or not. They just want the like # to be larger.
If you feel THAT strongly about it, then don't like it. But from the sound of it, there are other issues going on at your company you need to resolve.
The market works both ways - sometimes prices go up, sometimes they go down.
Except in the case of ebooks, the prices don't change. Steam has sales all the time, I recently bought a couple of games at half price. Ebooks? They can't go on sale because the retailer has to sale them at the price the publisher set. That is how the market isn't working as it should
1. Open Source, for the most part, is professional.
Open Source for the most part is amateurish. Sure there are a lot of great open source products. But for every great product there are thousands of bad projects.
2. Someone who has been coding for 18 years is more experienced that most of the "pro-coders" who work for companies selling product.
The OP was referring to an 18 year old. You know a teenager that codes. Not someone who has been coding for 18 years.
I can confirm, for myself, that it works correctly
How did you do that? Do you read all of the tax code to verify it works correctly? Tax software is complicated because it constantly changes. What was true last year may not be true this year.
This isn't really about copyright infringement at all. It's about an industry that is rapidly becoming obsolete, and the greedy fat cats trying to keep it going to keep getting fatter off it.
I don't quite understand the process Boundless is using, but based on the fact that the end user selects which "fat cat" book their class is using, and that there is a "mapping of printed book to open material" Seems to imply that the Boundless product would not exist independent of these "obsolete dinosaurs."
In other words these companies are creating something that Boundless is then copying. They apparently aren't obsolete as the product is being used (and copied) The expense of making a text book doesn't lie in the photos used.
I'm curious what Boundless will do if the big 3 publishers stop publishing the books?
So... is that wrong? I don't get it. If it's Creative Commons, doesn't that allow this sort of thing, by definition?
It isn't the authors of the photo that Boundless used that is suing, it is the author of the book that Boundless copied that is suing. You can't copy someone elses work, and replace it with "open source" versions and call it good.
. An example of failing to satisfy would be failing to sell the product in a usable form, e.g. without DRM
You do realize that 99% of the population doesn't care about DRM. They just want their product for free. Shoot most people don't even know what DRM is.
It may be true that many slashdotters and other techies pirate to circumvent DRM, that doesn't most of the population does.
it is hard to argue with FREE.
Not to mention that we have DRM because of piracy. We don't have piracy because of DRM.
99% of piracy is caused by a failure to A) produce high quality content that "sattisfies" in the first place B) identify the correct "asking price" for the content and C) distribute it in a way that your target audience actually wants it to be distributed.
A) It is apparently high enough quality, because people want it
B) The "correct" asking price for most people who pirate, is ZERO. Can't make a lot of money from that
C)MOST content IS distributed in such a way. That still doesn't stop people from pirating, cause see B
Slashdot Mirror
In which case, Nest could have found them themselves just as easily.
It looks to me like Nest DID find the prior art.
There are something like 8 million active patents. I don't know how many inactive ones. The Patent office does not search for prior art, you are supposed to provide it. An existing patent can be prior art.
I believe Nest DID find the patents, that is why they know about them.
If they want to complain, they should be complaining about IP law rather than companies that use it as (apparently) intended.
Nest is claiming that Honywell is NOT using it as it was intended. Nest is saying that Honeywell is suing, even when they know that Nest isn't infringing any of the patents. Sort of like you have a patent on making waffles, and you sue the competition across the street for making pancakes.
Judge Kozinski has missed the biggest part of this equation: the concept that WE get to choose when we want to be private.
Ok, but consider. You KNOW friends who post EVERYTHING they do online. Now imagine a few years when their kids grow up (or they themselves grow up) and those people become our judges and our police and our political leaders. Now YOU respect your privacy. But apparently these people don't, and they don't think anyone else does either.
Remember the government isn't just a big faceless mob, it is made up of people.
Ahhh the old "don't use facebook" solution.
"I know how to solve this problem. Destroy the university, so it no longer exists. Problem solved! Now the bomber will have to blow something else up, cause I didn't really solve anything."
First of all a university is more than just a learning knowledge institution. It is supposed to be a gathering of ideas. A place for like minds to meet and discuss, and improve the knowledge of the world.
Second of all, if you disperse one thing, the bomber will just target something else.
Your cure is worse than the disease.
I always taught that responding these threats was stupid. No terrorist is dumb enough to tell you where will they strike.
You don't know history very well do you? Terrorism is about generating fear. You can do that with threats just as well with actual action.
It sounds to me like this person is instilling a lot of terror, without having to do much other than sends some threats.
And who do you blame when the one you didn't take seriously is real?
People will always find someone to blame. Look at all the finger pointing around 9/11 when people claimed the government was warned, and ignored the threat.
It seems the net result would be exactly the same if one skipped straight to step 3 without making any threats in the first place.
Based on the comments I've already seen in this thread, it seems that following these steps would be WAY worse than going straight to step 3.
There are a TON of popular websites in existence that run on sharepoint. They seem to work fine in other browsers.
Trixx are for rabbits, silly.
I used to work for a big company. I used some of the products, but honestly I didn't even know all the products they sold... let alone used them all. And some of the products were in areas I had no desire to work in.
More recently, I work for a small company, and we just released an iPad app. But I don't think ANYONE in the company (other than the VP) uses the product... Because outside of the office iPads, no one owns one.
Just because few people use the product, doesn't mean it sucks.
The OP said he was told to tell friends, or click a "like" button. I think telling friends "My company released foo, check it out" is sufficient to cover all grounds.
You will be caught.
Caught doing what? Clicking on a "like" button? Or telling your friends "hey check out my companies new product?" Unless the product is pure crap, what credibility is he losing?
Man when my company releases a new product. I'm happy to tell people "Hey we just released this cool new product, check it out"
He drank the koolaid. I seriously doubt he was ordered to shill. Microsoft makes enough money that the pay people to do that. But when you are immersed in the culture, you see and use more of the software than you probably did before. Maybe he did like it. Maybe it was new to him and he just wanted to share it? If he went to some other company that had lots and lots of software and starting telling you about some of the cool things he saw at work, would you automatically assume his company asked him to shill?
There are two parts to this question:
A) Should I like the product?
Yes, unless you totally hate it. If you like it, then like it. If you haven't seen it, well it is YOUR companies product, so you like it right? I mean in some sense it is making you money, so why not like it? Obviously if you feel it is a piece of crap, then don't like it. Otherwise what is the problem?
B) Will there be repercussions if you don't like it? As in will some PR drone go through the list and see who liked it?
I guess that is a remote possibility, but if you are the paranoid, you might want to look for another job (to relieve your stress levels). Your company doesn't really care if you click the like button or not. They just want the like # to be larger.
If you feel THAT strongly about it, then don't like it. But from the sound of it, there are other issues going on at your company you need to resolve.
The market works both ways - sometimes prices go up, sometimes they go down.
Except in the case of ebooks, the prices don't change. Steam has sales all the time, I recently bought a couple of games at half price. Ebooks? They can't go on sale because the retailer has to sale them at the price the publisher set. That is how the market isn't working as it should
The power to expel a Congressman should extend to anyone in the US with at least a given number of supporters.
It does. You just might need a LOT of supporters.
1. Open Source, for the most part, is professional.
Open Source for the most part is amateurish. Sure there are a lot of great open source products. But for every great product there are thousands of bad projects.
2. Someone who has been coding for 18 years is more experienced that most of the "pro-coders" who work for companies selling product.
The OP was referring to an 18 year old. You know a teenager that codes. Not someone who has been coding for 18 years.
I can confirm, for myself, that it works correctly
How did you do that? Do you read all of the tax code to verify it works correctly? Tax software is complicated because it constantly changes. What was true last year may not be true this year.
Everyone should have a free, government supplied and transparent way of completing their taxes.
They do. You can pick up most forms at your local post office. You may need to log in and print other forms, or visit your local irs agency.
Personally i wouldn't trust a closed source package at all, since i cannot verify what its doing.
Do you verify everything that every open source package does?
My first thought was "duh" my second was "so what?"
This isn't really about copyright infringement at all. It's about an industry that is rapidly becoming obsolete, and the greedy fat cats trying to keep it going to keep getting fatter off it.
I don't quite understand the process Boundless is using, but based on the fact that the end user selects which "fat cat" book their class is using, and that there is a "mapping of printed book to open material" Seems to imply that the Boundless product would not exist independent of these "obsolete dinosaurs."
In other words these companies are creating something that Boundless is then copying. They apparently aren't obsolete as the product is being used (and copied) The expense of making a text book doesn't lie in the photos used.
I'm curious what Boundless will do if the big 3 publishers stop publishing the books?
So... is that wrong? I don't get it. If it's Creative Commons, doesn't that allow this sort of thing, by definition?
It isn't the authors of the photo that Boundless used that is suing, it is the author of the book that Boundless copied that is suing. You can't copy someone elses work, and replace it with "open source" versions and call it good.
. An example of failing to satisfy would be failing to sell the product in a usable form, e.g. without DRM
You do realize that 99% of the population doesn't care about DRM. They just want their product for free. Shoot most people don't even know what DRM is.
It may be true that many slashdotters and other techies pirate to circumvent DRM, that doesn't most of the population does.
it is hard to argue with FREE.
Not to mention that we have DRM because of piracy. We don't have piracy because of DRM.
99% of piracy is caused by a failure to A) produce high quality content that "sattisfies" in the first place B) identify the correct "asking price" for the content and C) distribute it in a way that your target audience actually wants it to be distributed.
A) It is apparently high enough quality, because people want it B) The "correct" asking price for most people who pirate, is ZERO. Can't make a lot of money from that C)MOST content IS distributed in such a way. That still doesn't stop people from pirating, cause see B
Regardless, only a Person who is a Human should be able to hold Copyright.
Why?
What problems will this solve?
Why must a copyright owner be human? Corporations can't innovate and create?