Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 11 Dec 2018 @ 11:55am
Re: Re: Re: Fines that work, make it personal
That is an important point. Any positive should be verified by a human, and then due consideration taken before any action is taken. That due consideration might be some additional investigative work to make sure the 'identified' individual is actually who you are looking for.
Systems will likely have error, but if sufficient due diligence is applied those errors should be minimized, and the 'then' person making that error held accountable. If the due diligence causes too much wasted work on the users part, they will probably take care of the manufacturers themselves, though I would still be for making the manufacturers accountable for the accuracy rates they claim at the time of sale.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 11 Dec 2018 @ 7:21am
Fines that work, make it personal
Where is the call for severe penalties, both to the government entity that is using it, and the companies that produce the systems for each and every false positive?
On the government side, garnish the salaries of the people that took the system provided error and failed to properly verify it before acting (let them apply for food stamps), as well as the operating budget of the department. On the provider side, something that would shock the consciousness of each and every shareholder.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 10 Dec 2018 @ 2:44pm
Re: Re: Re: Another Option
The way I understand the concept, loser pays requires there to be a loser. If there is no lawsuit filed, how can there be a loser?
If the only thing copyright trolls do in court is request discovery (the billing information associated with an IP address) then, so far as the court is concerned, there was no specific accusation. If a lawsuit gets filed (a specific accusation) and someone pushes back and the plaintiff walks away, there is no loser. Yeah it costs some money to push back. No one said it didn't.
So the question is whether it is cheaper to pay the extortion or pay to push back enough to get the trolls to walk away. If you don't respond and get sued, and then don't show up in court, they can get a default judgment against you, even if you did nothing wrong. I also suspect that if you show up in court without a lawyer, the other side will just laugh and expect to win.
Better yet would be to counter sue, if there is a basis for that, but that costs money too, and since we don't have loser pays, a big risk, and then even if you win you have to pay your side of the argument.
I don't know what it takes to make an extortion or fraud case, but apparently the trolls are careful about not going far enough for that to happen, Prenda and a few others excepted.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 10 Dec 2018 @ 1:11pm
Re: Another Option
Read the article. If and/or when there is a lawsuit and there is any push back the trolls run away. They are in court for the purpose of discovery so they can send out their extortion letters.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Dec 2018 @ 3:20pm
Re:
Then we come to the problem where one sovereignty might claim the ability to control what happens in yet another sovereignty. This concept is already being breached, or the breach at least attempted. If the US finds a way to ban porn, then any US porn service will just move to another sovereignty, and continue to provide porn to their US customers. And vice versa. Until there is some actual sovereignty superiority, legally enacted, that ain’t gonna happen.
I think it will come down to what Hustler went through, which will then be dependent upon the courts.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Dec 2018 @ 2:53pm
Re: Re: Just a thought/comment on cleaning up Porn..
I should have added that none of this means that rules banning porn won't come forth. The question here is whether one actually 'knows porn when they see it' or doesn't. Of course new, politically appointed rather than constitutionally cognizant appointed justices might just veer from the course. Then it will be up to the populace to convince our ever behaving legislators to conform to our will. Ha, ha, ha!
And none of the above will actually stop porn, as ECA said.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 9 Dec 2018 @ 2:25pm
Re: Just a thought/comment on cleaning up Porn..
The problem with trying to get rid of porn is that it has been around for thousands of years. How do these newcomer 'moralistic idiots' think they are going to get around thousands of years of culture?
To add to the problem, I think but don't know, that these 'moralistic idiots' are in a severe minority. And add to that, many of them are hypocritical, 'moralistic' in public but not so much in private. How many so called 'moralistic polititians' have been caught doing things they claim are abhorent? Then there are the ones that haven't been caught.
Now to be fair, most change comes from a small groups of people. In those instances, though, they had a lot of silent support. Silent until things started to go their way, either through dramatic action or an upswelling of the silent becoming vocal. In the case of porn, I think there are more supporters of porn than there are degenetors of porn (taking Sesta/Fosta into account, I am not so sure political grandstanding actually counts, especially when the supposed result fails so misserably), so neither dramatic action nor an upswelling will actually take place.
This may be modified by the upswelling of Social Justice Warfare (SJW), though in time I think those that are following this creed will begin to understand how it will eventually hurt them as well (they ask for rules, and down the road those rules work against them).
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Dec 2018 @ 7:33pm
Winning Ideas and the Idea of Winning?
Given that the rate of change is increasing, I suspect that we will see more incredulity. That is, if the systems in place and the ways they are being used don't kill the messengers before their messages get out.
Innovation and value are not one in the same, even for those that think they are. How many patents have been put into the public domain? How many ideas have been put out there for 'others' to patent? Where is it written (so to speak) that the purpose in life is to become rich?
Who are the winners? The people that suck the 'value' out of a patent, or the rest of us? Is the uninhibited pursuit of mammon the ultimate human value, or is it supplementing humanity? Creation is not always done for economic reward, but for rewards of other kinds. Satisfaction. Contribution. Achievement. Self fulfillment.
There are some, I know, who will argue that creators need to eat, and I do not disagree with that. The question is how does one go about doing that? Is it necessary that creation be the method of eating? Not really, as patronage has, both in the past and I hear sometimes in the now, has worked for the expectation of creation. The expectation of creation, and creation are not the same things. Eating can be achieve otherwise. The market will decide if a creation is worthy, and contrary to your immediate needs, they might make that decision after your demise. Oh, and none of that has to do with ‘pirating’ of electronic copies of something, that has to do with hardcopy, materialistic works of art. Read your history.
So we come to the tension between having an idea and trying to monetize it, or having an idea and giving it to the world. One still needs to eat. One way might make you rich, but then we need to define what ‘rich’ is. Is it solely monetary richness, or could it be something spiritual (see above)? The other way might give you sufficient notoriety to, well, become rich by being an innovator, but giving your ideas away. What might that difference be? Giving your documented (prior art) ideas to companies exclusively so that they might develop a product and be first to market could give a significant reward and not tie anything up in nefarious legal machinations.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Dec 2018 @ 6:46pm
Re: Re: Re: As noted yesterday, you seem for sex-trafficking:
Wow. Your advocating mob rule? What about competing mobs?
They are called gangs, aren't they? Who is to decide which mob rules? Talk about anarchy.
Methinks anarchists are more about a change to something that makes more sense, even if via violent means, rather than to something that demands more violence. I don't see violence as a selling point to anarchy, though it might be a means to an end, it is not the end that is purported. Usually.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Dec 2018 @ 6:40pm
Emmy, a name that knows no bounds
Does this mean I cannot name my pet Oscar, or that I cannot name my new company after him/her? (What, you don't think Oscar is a good name for a female pet?). How about Grammy, can I no longer call my grandmother Grammy? (if only either was still alive).
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Dec 2018 @ 6:17pm
Re: Re: Can't fix this from the inside
The problem with this idea is how does one prevent a nonoccurence of the same thing? Who's going to get hired? 'Experienced' LEO’s from another jurisdiction? Inept not experienced persons who do what they ‘think’ is right?
There needs to be a process. The corrupt and the bosses that allowed the corrupt must be expunged, no question. But there are some apples, not yet rotted, that might be allowed to flourish. The management level, however is a different story. The best manager is not necessarily the best employee. One could be a good employee, and a lousy manager. Managers (or supervisors, etc.) need to be chosen for their supervisory or managerial skills. They must have knowledge (experiential or otherwise, though experiential will create a better bond) of the underlying activities, and empathy for those activities, or they will get no consensus from their employees. And that is what we actually want.
Then they can go about teaching them the laws that they are supposed to be enforcing and disciplining them when they fail to follow procedure or go outside of bounds, rather than protecting them, and your own ass.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Dec 2018 @ 5:56pm
Re: Re:
Does that not depend upon ones perspective as to who is winning or not? If the 'winning' depends upon incremental steps towards ones goals, and other perceive those steps achieved as 'winning' then is it not appropriate to discern them as winning?
Of course, in the end, will the folks who deny sex win? Even if they decry depictions of sex? Even if they wish to ban any thought of sex? Probably not. Sex has been around a long time. In fact it is part and parcel of our existence. If one looks at ancient civilizations closely, and without blinders, they would find that sex has been part of the entertainment schema for millennia.
Is sex a bad thing? Not if you want progeny. But if you want to entertain yourself, or participate in sex without progeny then, to some, it is abhorrent. What’s the difference? If private, nothing, if public, or semi public then apparently a whole lot. It comes down to some individuals thinking they can determine what others think.
Then, once accomplished, what other things can they determine whether you think them, or not? Stepping stones. Thought processes. Imagination. Sex. OMG, if there is one, what are the differences? And if there is one, and those thoughts are bad, why haven’t they been stopped already? Could we consider that a failure of God? Not so sure as many of the depictions of God are not actually interactive, and there is no actual expectation of intervention from above.
Who are you to say what anyone else can see, say, imagine or think? Should the EU have that say? Should the Taliban? Should Protestants? How about Baptists? Or Mormons (or whatever the hell they want to call themselves now)? Or should it be Shinto’s, or Buddhists, or Amer Indians, or atheists, or any of the other thousand or so religions that currently exist and strive to say they are the one and only, but might not actually be because none of them have any actual proof? Or maybe some non religious sect? Why should you, or any government, or any group however defined, be able to tell anyone else how to think?
I think for myself. I am influenced by others, both positively and negatively. I look for additional understanding. Others don’t, or are unable to for a variety of reasons, some of which are technical, and other are environmental (I cannot see other thinking because I am not allowed to). The better place is to have access, and think for oneself, rather than being indoctrinated and prevented from seeing other points of view.
Make your own decisions, and then be prepared to stand by them. How are ‘they’ not winning?
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Dec 2018 @ 5:11pm
Re: How do you object to content without knowledge of it?
Maybe a more relevant question would be, how does one go about creating the 'town square' environment where anything that does not incite riot is allowed to be said? Is there a way to listen to what you want to listen to without screening things you don't want to hear but are legitimate to be heard and might, at some point, change minds? Is there a legitimate way to discern hate speech and leave it aside? Is there a legitimate way for one to mount the soapbox in the town square and for others to walk away when they don't like what they hear?
Leaving it to algorithms means that the decisions are made by the algorithm makers, which is different than me deciding I don't want to hear from, well 'that asshole', however I decide what 'that asshole' is.
The problem is that some governments are pushing to control speech with financial/legal burdens, and that some corporations are acquiescing to those controls for, well let's face it, financial reasons, even if those burdens are for some part of their market, maybe a big part, maybe a small part, but sufficient a part to effect the whole system.
There is nothing that says that corporations must have values. That is for their customers to decide. The question must be resolved by users understanding the difference between their being user, or customers. The ad buyers are the customers, and the users are the product. Not news to many here, but new to many users.
Then there is the question, where is the town square in the Internet age? The consideration of where you are is both important and unimportant as not all of us are part of your struggle, though letting the rest of us know that you are in a struggle might be benificial to both you and us.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Dec 2018 @ 1:00pm
Re: As noted yesterday, you seem for sex-trafficking:
It certainly appears that you have had a major attack of reading comprehension failure. Or is it just your agenda that is blinding you? Or that of your employers.
Oh, and do you have any actual citations for any of your accusations? Many of the contributors here know exactly where Techdirt stands, and it isn't anywhere close to what you're saying.
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Dec 2018 @ 7:11am
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I am not arguing against patents, but the system we have devised for their implementation, and the value placed in the protection a patent provides rather than efforts to compete. Many companies like to bask in the protection of the patent and fight via lawyers rather than the marketplace. Once a product is created, doesn't mean that one should stop development, not listen to the marketplace, not pay attention to what competitors are doing, and look for new and different ways to differentiate proving how they are different and better.
First to market only lasts a short time. Better quality, new actually useful features (that consumers want and you know about because you listen to them), better customer service, etc. are better ways to earn a place in the market. But these things are viewed as harmful to short term profits, which is yet another issue that needs addressing. Could we show that buy and hold has better prospects than churning stock for micro profits? Possibly not, at least in individual cases, but if we look at the market as a whole?
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 6 Dec 2018 @ 7:48pm
Re: Re:
The things that are wrong with the US patent system are the way patents get approved (due in part to the limited ability of patent examiners to research outside of the patent system or published papers) and the ability to patent things that should not be patentable, if for no other reason that they are already covered by copyright. There are probably others.
Ideas are not patentable, products are. There are a whole lot of ideas that have patents, but no products to go along with them. There is also the problem with how one goes about voiding bad patents. The time and expense when one has good evidence is horrendous. Things should be favorable to good patents, not all patents.
There are naturally occurring flora that have been patented by those that want control of such things simply because no one else applied for such a patent, and they have gotten away with splicing two plants together to make a new plant and claimed patentablility. Does patenting naturally occurring things seem right to you?
Innovation is valuable, but it is not an isolated thing. First the innovation must take place, then a way to use that innovation, then some product development, and then some marketing. None of those things by themselves create value. All of them together create value. And, as history shows, some do some of those things well, and others not so much.
An idea conceived by disparate parties both follow the same path. Who wins? The organization that does all of those things better, inclusively. One organization might doe one or two of those things better, but not all of them. The other organization might do the other things better and win. So who should get the patent? Our system is first to file, but the first to file might not be the one that has the first product. Such a quagmire.
So it isn’t just innovation that is valuable, it is the ability to bring a product to market, and then to listen to the marketplace and make adjustments as necessary. Then, one must differentiate their product from followon’s, which will happen, and not necessarily violate the precious patent. How does one differentiate? By telling the market how they are different and better. Oh, and more importantly, by being so.
So, now we consider followon’s that don’t violate the patent. What makes that patent so valuable?
On the post: Microsoft Posts List Of Facial Recognition Tech Guidelines It Thinks The Government Should Make Mandatory
Re: Re: Re: Fines that work, make it personal
Systems will likely have error, but if sufficient due diligence is applied those errors should be minimized, and the 'then' person making that error held accountable. If the due diligence causes too much wasted work on the users part, they will probably take care of the manufacturers themselves, though I would still be for making the manufacturers accountable for the accuracy rates they claim at the time of sale.
On the post: Microsoft Posts List Of Facial Recognition Tech Guidelines It Thinks The Government Should Make Mandatory
Fines that work, make it personal
On the government side, garnish the salaries of the people that took the system provided error and failed to properly verify it before acting (let them apply for food stamps), as well as the operating budget of the department. On the provider side, something that would shock the consciousness of each and every shareholder.
On the post: Federal Courts Aren't ATMs, Angry Judge Reminds Copyright Troll
Re: Re: Re: Another Option
If the only thing copyright trolls do in court is request discovery (the billing information associated with an IP address) then, so far as the court is concerned, there was no specific accusation. If a lawsuit gets filed (a specific accusation) and someone pushes back and the plaintiff walks away, there is no loser. Yeah it costs some money to push back. No one said it didn't.
So the question is whether it is cheaper to pay the extortion or pay to push back enough to get the trolls to walk away. If you don't respond and get sued, and then don't show up in court, they can get a default judgment against you, even if you did nothing wrong. I also suspect that if you show up in court without a lawyer, the other side will just laugh and expect to win.
Better yet would be to counter sue, if there is a basis for that, but that costs money too, and since we don't have loser pays, a big risk, and then even if you win you have to pay your side of the argument.
I don't know what it takes to make an extortion or fraud case, but apparently the trolls are careful about not going far enough for that to happen, Prenda and a few others excepted.
On the post: Federal Courts Aren't ATMs, Angry Judge Reminds Copyright Troll
Re: Another Option
On the post: Latest EU Copyright Proposal: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, But Don't Use Upload Filters
Re:
Hmm, could you elucidate us on the compensation package you would offer?
On the post: New York Police Union Says More Reporting On Stops/Frisks Will Hurt The NYPD's Effectiveness
Re: Re: Stats driven management
Well, the press would, if they could get their hands on the information. That does not seem likely, though.
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re:
Then we come to the problem where one sovereignty might claim the ability to control what happens in yet another sovereignty. This concept is already being breached, or the breach at least attempted. If the US finds a way to ban porn, then any US porn service will just move to another sovereignty, and continue to provide porn to their US customers. And vice versa. Until there is some actual sovereignty superiority, legally enacted, that ain’t gonna happen.
I think it will come down to what Hustler went through, which will then be dependent upon the courts.
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: Re: Just a thought/comment on cleaning up Porn..
And none of the above will actually stop porn, as ECA said.
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: Just a thought/comment on cleaning up Porn..
The problem with trying to get rid of porn is that it has been around for thousands of years. How do these newcomer 'moralistic idiots' think they are going to get around thousands of years of culture?
To add to the problem, I think but don't know, that these 'moralistic idiots' are in a severe minority. And add to that, many of them are hypocritical, 'moralistic' in public but not so much in private. How many so called 'moralistic polititians' have been caught doing things they claim are abhorent? Then there are the ones that haven't been caught.
Now to be fair, most change comes from a small groups of people. In those instances, though, they had a lot of silent support. Silent until things started to go their way, either through dramatic action or an upswelling of the silent becoming vocal. In the case of porn, I think there are more supporters of porn than there are degenetors of porn (taking Sesta/Fosta into account, I am not so sure political grandstanding actually counts, especially when the supposed result fails so misserably), so neither dramatic action nor an upswelling will actually take place.
This may be modified by the upswelling of Social Justice Warfare (SJW), though in time I think those that are following this creed will begin to understand how it will eventually hurt them as well (they ask for rules, and down the road those rules work against them).
On the post: It's Been 50 Years: Take Some Time This Weekend To Watch Doug Engelbart's Mother Of All Demos
Winning Ideas and the Idea of Winning?
Innovation and value are not one in the same, even for those that think they are. How many patents have been put into the public domain? How many ideas have been put out there for 'others' to patent? Where is it written (so to speak) that the purpose in life is to become rich?
Who are the winners? The people that suck the 'value' out of a patent, or the rest of us? Is the uninhibited pursuit of mammon the ultimate human value, or is it supplementing humanity? Creation is not always done for economic reward, but for rewards of other kinds. Satisfaction. Contribution. Achievement. Self fulfillment.
There are some, I know, who will argue that creators need to eat, and I do not disagree with that. The question is how does one go about doing that? Is it necessary that creation be the method of eating? Not really, as patronage has, both in the past and I hear sometimes in the now, has worked for the expectation of creation. The expectation of creation, and creation are not the same things. Eating can be achieve otherwise. The market will decide if a creation is worthy, and contrary to your immediate needs, they might make that decision after your demise. Oh, and none of that has to do with ‘pirating’ of electronic copies of something, that has to do with hardcopy, materialistic works of art. Read your history.
So we come to the tension between having an idea and trying to monetize it, or having an idea and giving it to the world. One still needs to eat. One way might make you rich, but then we need to define what ‘rich’ is. Is it solely monetary richness, or could it be something spiritual (see above)? The other way might give you sufficient notoriety to, well, become rich by being an innovator, but giving your ideas away. What might that difference be? Giving your documented (prior art) ideas to companies exclusively so that they might develop a product and be first to market could give a significant reward and not tie anything up in nefarious legal machinations.
On the post: After Getting FOSTA Turned Into Law, Facebook Tells Its Users To Stop Using Naughty Words
Re: Re: Re: As noted yesterday, you seem for sex-trafficking:
They are called gangs, aren't they? Who is to decide which mob rules? Talk about anarchy.
Methinks anarchists are more about a change to something that makes more sense, even if via violent means, rather than to something that demands more violence. I don't see violence as a selling point to anarchy, though it might be a means to an end, it is not the end that is purported. Usually.
On the post: The Emmys People Are Opposing A Pet Products Company Named After A Dog Named 'Emmy'
Emmy, a name that knows no bounds
The imperiousness of these souls, astounds.
On the post: Indiana Police Chief Promoting As Many Bad Cops As He Can To Supervisory Positions
Re: Re: Can't fix this from the inside
There needs to be a process. The corrupt and the bosses that allowed the corrupt must be expunged, no question. But there are some apples, not yet rotted, that might be allowed to flourish. The management level, however is a different story. The best manager is not necessarily the best employee. One could be a good employee, and a lousy manager. Managers (or supervisors, etc.) need to be chosen for their supervisory or managerial skills. They must have knowledge (experiential or otherwise, though experiential will create a better bond) of the underlying activities, and empathy for those activities, or they will get no consensus from their employees. And that is what we actually want.
Then they can go about teaching them the laws that they are supposed to be enforcing and disciplining them when they fail to follow procedure or go outside of bounds, rather than protecting them, and your own ass.
On the post: After Getting FOSTA Turned Into Law, Facebook Tells Its Users To Stop Using Naughty Words
Re: Re:
Of course, in the end, will the folks who deny sex win? Even if they decry depictions of sex? Even if they wish to ban any thought of sex? Probably not. Sex has been around a long time. In fact it is part and parcel of our existence. If one looks at ancient civilizations closely, and without blinders, they would find that sex has been part of the entertainment schema for millennia.
Is sex a bad thing? Not if you want progeny. But if you want to entertain yourself, or participate in sex without progeny then, to some, it is abhorrent. What’s the difference? If private, nothing, if public, or semi public then apparently a whole lot. It comes down to some individuals thinking they can determine what others think.
Then, once accomplished, what other things can they determine whether you think them, or not? Stepping stones. Thought processes. Imagination. Sex. OMG, if there is one, what are the differences? And if there is one, and those thoughts are bad, why haven’t they been stopped already? Could we consider that a failure of God? Not so sure as many of the depictions of God are not actually interactive, and there is no actual expectation of intervention from above.
Who are you to say what anyone else can see, say, imagine or think? Should the EU have that say? Should the Taliban? Should Protestants? How about Baptists? Or Mormons (or whatever the hell they want to call themselves now)? Or should it be Shinto’s, or Buddhists, or Amer Indians, or atheists, or any of the other thousand or so religions that currently exist and strive to say they are the one and only, but might not actually be because none of them have any actual proof? Or maybe some non religious sect? Why should you, or any government, or any group however defined, be able to tell anyone else how to think?
I think for myself. I am influenced by others, both positively and negatively. I look for additional understanding. Others don’t, or are unable to for a variety of reasons, some of which are technical, and other are environmental (I cannot see other thinking because I am not allowed to). The better place is to have access, and think for oneself, rather than being indoctrinated and prevented from seeing other points of view.
Make your own decisions, and then be prepared to stand by them. How are ‘they’ not winning?
On the post: After Getting FOSTA Turned Into Law, Facebook Tells Its Users To Stop Using Naughty Words
Re: How do you object to content without knowledge of it?
Leaving it to algorithms means that the decisions are made by the algorithm makers, which is different than me deciding I don't want to hear from, well 'that asshole', however I decide what 'that asshole' is.
The problem is that some governments are pushing to control speech with financial/legal burdens, and that some corporations are acquiescing to those controls for, well let's face it, financial reasons, even if those burdens are for some part of their market, maybe a big part, maybe a small part, but sufficient a part to effect the whole system.
There is nothing that says that corporations must have values. That is for their customers to decide. The question must be resolved by users understanding the difference between their being user, or customers. The ad buyers are the customers, and the users are the product. Not news to many here, but new to many users.
Then there is the question, where is the town square in the Internet age? The consideration of where you are is both important and unimportant as not all of us are part of your struggle, though letting the rest of us know that you are in a struggle might be benificial to both you and us.
On the post: After Getting FOSTA Turned Into Law, Facebook Tells Its Users To Stop Using Naughty Words
Re: Re: There's an upside, I guess
On the post: After Getting FOSTA Turned Into Law, Facebook Tells Its Users To Stop Using Naughty Words
Re: As noted yesterday, you seem for sex-trafficking:
Oh, and do you have any actual citations for any of your accusations? Many of the contributors here know exactly where Techdirt stands, and it isn't anywhere close to what you're saying.
On the post: What Do Pot And Software Have In Common? Stupid Patent Thickets Based On A Lack Of Patented Prior Art
Re: Re: Re: Re:
First to market only lasts a short time. Better quality, new actually useful features (that consumers want and you know about because you listen to them), better customer service, etc. are better ways to earn a place in the market. But these things are viewed as harmful to short term profits, which is yet another issue that needs addressing. Could we show that buy and hold has better prospects than churning stock for micro profits? Possibly not, at least in individual cases, but if we look at the market as a whole?
On the post: What Do Pot And Software Have In Common? Stupid Patent Thickets Based On A Lack Of Patented Prior Art
Re: Re:
Ideas are not patentable, products are. There are a whole lot of ideas that have patents, but no products to go along with them. There is also the problem with how one goes about voiding bad patents. The time and expense when one has good evidence is horrendous. Things should be favorable to good patents, not all patents.
There are naturally occurring flora that have been patented by those that want control of such things simply because no one else applied for such a patent, and they have gotten away with splicing two plants together to make a new plant and claimed patentablility. Does patenting naturally occurring things seem right to you?
Innovation is valuable, but it is not an isolated thing. First the innovation must take place, then a way to use that innovation, then some product development, and then some marketing. None of those things by themselves create value. All of them together create value. And, as history shows, some do some of those things well, and others not so much.
An idea conceived by disparate parties both follow the same path. Who wins? The organization that does all of those things better, inclusively. One organization might doe one or two of those things better, but not all of them. The other organization might do the other things better and win. So who should get the patent? Our system is first to file, but the first to file might not be the one that has the first product. Such a quagmire.
So it isn’t just innovation that is valuable, it is the ability to bring a product to market, and then to listen to the marketplace and make adjustments as necessary. Then, one must differentiate their product from followon’s, which will happen, and not necessarily violate the precious patent. How does one differentiate? By telling the market how they are different and better. Oh, and more importantly, by being so.
So, now we consider followon’s that don’t violate the patent. What makes that patent so valuable?
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