It seems like you could easily pay an intern for their time and at the same time charge them for the training and education they receive. This could be spelled out simply as a fixed cost for a certain number of paid training hours. The balance would be $0.00 except for cases of overtime or the like. Of course, taxes and benefits make this a bit more complicated, but it's still just "paper" money that can be tweaked to balance out.
It seems to me that publishers getting together to support some sort of pricing "policy" could easily be interpreted as illegal price fixing. It's one thing if one publisher sees how another is pricing its products and acts in a similar manner - it's quite another for them to get together to form some sort of ad-hoc alliance in support of a particular pricing policy/philosophy.
It's quite simple. The patent office just needs to find someone (or a few someones) skilled in the art and tell them the purpose of the invention and ask for a list of possible solutions. All of those ideas are obvious. If the patent covers a different solution, then it is patentable.
On the post: Be Aware Of Labor Laws Before You Decide To Hire An Unpaid Intern
Pay - Cost = $0.00
On the post: Book Publishers Circulating 'Talking Points' To Counter Arguments That Ebook Prices Need To Go Lower
Talking points = anti-trust violation?
On the post: Patent Office Issues New Guidelines On Obviousness
Obviousness test
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