Followup on the amendment?
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· Score: 5, Interesting
What puzzles me is why did they not follow up on the copyright and patent assignments. I bought a house and I made certain that the deed transfer was done correctly. I would think that in a high dollar deal like that SCO's lawyers would have verified that the assignments were done.
That there was no followup makes it easier for me to believe anyone who claims this document is a fabrication.
Patents are aimed at stimulating inovation (*I agree that is very debatable, but that's the theory*). In return for publicly disclosing how the invention works, the inventor gets a 20 year monopoly on that implementation. And since there is no compulsory licensing, there may be no competition. After the patent is up anybody can implement and sell the exact same thing without having to pay any royalties. While a patent is in effect, a competitor is free to create an improved process and patent that.
That's the theory, but we all know the competitor would land in IP lawsuit hell and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending themselves.
And yes the good ol' "it works just like the real world, but on the internet" is a bogus patent (IMO).
Taking a look at the market profile for Caldera Intl (SCOX), their stock is trading at $2.60 for a market capitalization of $25M. Even if you throw in their cash on hand ($9.61M) they are barely worth $35M.
Now looking at IBM's profile, $5B cash on hand. IBM could buy them many times over.
Of course we will. By then everyone will have the MPAA/RIAA approved DRM'ed firmware replacement for their brain to make sure of it.
Other features include:
Copy Protection - No more unauthorized copies by the hippocampus. After hearing/seeing any copyrighted material you will immediately forget it. Instead you will be left with the vague feeling that you enjoyed it and really need to pay to see it again.
Quality Assurance - In order to provide the highest quality that only Hollywood and RIAA can provide all unauthorized creativity will be deactivated.
Actually in civil cases each claimant can bring separate suits for their individual damages. AOL can bring suit for antitrust damages related to Netscape, IBM could bring suit for antitrust damages related to OS/2 (*Example only here*).
This is why we have class action suits. They keep the courts from being flooded with a few thousand lawsuits because XYZ credit card company screwed their card holders. Each card holder affected could bring their own suit so the judge may opt to nip it by making it a class action.
Prewarning: IANAL, but I have done my fair share of research on Patent/Trademark/Copyright law. It is interesting stuff and everyone into writing or software development should take a look at it. www.bitlaw.com is a good source
You get points for providing examples, but your examples are phrases that entered the general lexicon well after they were trademarked. They have indeed fallen victim to genericity and would be hard pressed to win a lawsuit, but when they were first used they were "Fanciful" marks.
Illustrator was an accepted english word long before Adobe used it for a software product. As such it falls into the "descriptive" mark catagory and can serve as a trademark IF it becomes distinctive by gaining secondary meaning. It is arguable as to whether Illustrator would be upheld. If you asked me what an illustrator was my first thought would be of someone who draws pictures and then secondly of Adobe Illustrator. If you asked me what a magnavox was I would think of a TV.
This concept is why e-toys lost its trademark battle. The judge simply decided that the e on the generic term toys did not represent enough of a distinction to make the trademark fall into the fanciful catagory and that as a descriptive trademark it had not gained enough of a distinction.
Now the crux of the matter here is that they have "Illustrator" registered and they must defend it or lose it (As we all know the PTO will accept anything). The only way for them to lose it is for the whole matter to be dragged into court and have a judge make a decision one way or another. This is expensive and time consuming. The author of Killustrator must decide whether to stop using the name or wait to see if they sue him. It may be nice to be idealistic and stand up against a big corporation, but it could be expensive.
# ping pioneer6.nasa.gov
PING pioneer6.nasa.gov from earth.nasa.gov : 56 (84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from pioneer6.nasa.gov: icmp_seq=0 ttl=30 time=376667 ms
64 bytes from pioneer6.nasa.gov: icmp_seq=1 ttl=30 time=377687 ms
64 bytes from pioneer6.nasa.gov: icmp_seq=2 ttl=30 time=379852 ms
64 bytes from pioneer6.nasa.gov: icmp_seq=3 ttl=30 time=376745 ms
--- pioneer6.nasa.gov ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 376667/377737.6/379852 ms
But reverse engineering by "black box" testing has been ruled as legal by the Supreme Court. It is perfectly legal to create a device that will create the same output for the same input. It would however be a copyright infringment to copy the circuit designs or code that goes with the device.
The mistake is in equating reverse engineering with doing a straight copy of the design.
With the number of home music servers that are coming to the market all I can think is that it would be neat to build my own. The hardware is off the shelf (mC Linux, SOC, and a 20 Gig harddrive) and the software wouldn't be too hard with all of the OSS out there that could be adapted.
But the really cool part would be to make a system that goes beyond a home music server. The problem with Tivo et. al. is that they aren't designed to be expandable or extensible. What we could really use is an open solution. Hardware designs could be open and posted on the web along with the software.
Anyone could put the unit together by buying a kit or buying their own components. Someone could even provide prebuilt units to people that don't mind paying a little extra to not have to go through the trouble of putting it together on their own.
And of course if the software or the hardware don't work the way that someone wants it to they can modify either to fit their situation.
The port is being done from the OS/2 version and in order to keep compatibility with OS/2 the open source version is allowing a case insensitive mode
The latest drops however have implemented the case sensitive mode and made it the default.
For those interested the you can get on the jfs-discussion mailing list by sending email to Majordom@oss.software.ibm.com with the following command in the body of your email message:
Okay, the courts have said that someone can buy a CD and make a copy for personal use. So in the real world what we have is many individuals making many copies (hopefully 1 to 1 ratio, but we all know better).
Now mp3.com makes a copy of legally purchased music and allows access to people who have also legally purchased the same music (This is not broadcasting! Broadcasting would be allowing access to anyone. Narrowcasting?). Abstractly this would be the same case as many people listening to many copies. Why does it really matter if its many licensed users listening to their own copy or many licensed users listening to the same copy.
I guess this judge isn't much of a pragmatist and thinks there is a difference. Then again this could just be a case of cranial-rectal inversion.
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That there was no followup makes it easier for me to believe anyone who claims this document is a fabrication.
Patents are aimed at stimulating inovation (*I agree that is very debatable, but that's the theory*). In return for publicly disclosing how the invention works, the inventor gets a 20 year monopoly on that implementation. And since there is no compulsory licensing, there may be no competition. After the patent is up anybody can implement and sell the exact same thing without having to pay any royalties. While a patent is in effect, a competitor is free to create an improved process and patent that.
That's the theory, but we all know the competitor would land in IP lawsuit hell and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending themselves.
And yes the good ol' "it works just like the real world, but on the internet" is a bogus patent (IMO).
Now looking at IBM's profile, $5B cash on hand. IBM could buy them many times over.
Well this solves that old problem of how do you copy your encrypted DVD once the copyright for the content expires.
</sarcasm>
Other features include:
The best example (from the list) of this is 1947 Cell Phone. How long did it take for that to revolutionize the world?
Developer: It compiles.
Manager: Ship it!
This is why we have class action suits. They keep the courts from being flooded with a few thousand lawsuits because XYZ credit card company screwed their card holders. Each card holder affected could bring their own suit so the judge may opt to nip it by making it a class action.
You get points for providing examples, but your examples are phrases that entered the general lexicon well after they were trademarked. They have indeed fallen victim to genericity and would be hard pressed to win a lawsuit, but when they were first used they were "Fanciful" marks.
Illustrator was an accepted english word long before Adobe used it for a software product. As such it falls into the "descriptive" mark catagory and can serve as a trademark IF it becomes distinctive by gaining secondary meaning. It is arguable as to whether Illustrator would be upheld. If you asked me what an illustrator was my first thought would be of someone who draws pictures and then secondly of Adobe Illustrator. If you asked me what a magnavox was I would think of a TV.
This concept is why e-toys lost its trademark battle. The judge simply decided that the e on the generic term toys did not represent enough of a distinction to make the trademark fall into the fanciful catagory and that as a descriptive trademark it had not gained enough of a distinction.
Now the crux of the matter here is that they have "Illustrator" registered and they must defend it or lose it (As we all know the PTO will accept anything). The only way for them to lose it is for the whole matter to be dragged into court and have a judge make a decision one way or another. This is expensive and time consuming. The author of Killustrator must decide whether to stop using the name or wait to see if they sue him. It may be nice to be idealistic and stand up against a big corporation, but it could be expensive.
# ping pioneer6.nasa.gov
PING pioneer6.nasa.gov from earth.nasa.gov : 56 (84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from pioneer6.nasa.gov: icmp_seq=0 ttl=30 time=376667 ms
64 bytes from pioneer6.nasa.gov: icmp_seq=1 ttl=30 time=377687 ms
64 bytes from pioneer6.nasa.gov: icmp_seq=2 ttl=30 time=379852 ms
64 bytes from pioneer6.nasa.gov: icmp_seq=3 ttl=30 time=376745 ms
--- pioneer6.nasa.gov ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 376667/377737.6/379852 ms
But reverse engineering by "black box" testing has been ruled as legal by the Supreme Court. It is perfectly legal to create a device that will create the same output for the same input. It would however be a copyright infringment to copy the circuit designs or code that goes with the device.
The mistake is in equating reverse engineering with doing a straight copy of the design.
But the really cool part would be to make a system that goes beyond a home music server. The problem with Tivo et. al. is that they aren't designed to be expandable or extensible. What we could really use is an open solution. Hardware designs could be open and posted on the web along with the software.
Anyone could put the unit together by buying a kit or buying their own components. Someone could even provide prebuilt units to people that don't mind paying a little extra to not have to go through the trouble of putting it together on their own.
And of course if the software or the hardware don't work the way that someone wants it to they can modify either to fit their situation.
The latest drops however have implemented the case sensitive mode and made it the default.
For those interested the you can get on the jfs-discussion mailing list by sending email to Majordom@oss.software.ibm.com with the following command in the body of your email message:
Information on IBM's OSS projects can be obtained from http://oss.software.ibm.c om/ developerworks/opensource/And as far as the "buffet" of Filesystems goes: choice is always good, lots of choices even better.
Now mp3.com makes a copy of legally purchased music and allows access to people who have also legally purchased the same music (This is not broadcasting! Broadcasting would be allowing access to anyone. Narrowcasting?). Abstractly this would be the same case as many people listening to many copies. Why does it really matter if its many licensed users listening to their own copy or many licensed users listening to the same copy.
I guess this judge isn't much of a pragmatist and thinks there is a difference. Then again this could just be a case of cranial-rectal inversion.