As I said have frequent "dimwit" moments before my first carafe of coffee in the morning. ;-)
The statue of Anne doesn't stand anywhere anymore. It's off cowering in a dark dusty cobweb filled corner of the Parliamentary Library in Westminster where even the British Museum can't find it!
The same concerns were raised during the debate over the Statue of Anne in the House of Commons and the House of Lords in the England before it was passed. The hope was to mitigate it by insisting that the Act was designed to promote education among other things.
The same or similar concerns were expressed again during the drafting of the United States Constitution where some felt, Jefferson if I remember correctly at this hour among them, who felt that copyright and patents should have been left out entirely.
I freely admit to being a dimwit at this hour of the day before my first carafe of coffee but not enough of one to buy into your BS. Mike, on the other hand, makes well reasoned sourced arguments something I notice you seem deficient in.
1) While registering to raise money, which seems to be where he's going with this is a bit of a pain it does link up nicely with his reference to fraud which would include things like raising money for a non existent project which never appears. And the person raising the money knew that from the start. It strikes me as a bit complicated as, in a way, someone raising money in sites like Kickstarter have to register with Kickstarter anyway so that if enough evidence exists to start a fraud investigation the information is there for the supeonaing.
2) Plenty of working and middle class people can and do make use of tax credits. Keeping in mind that these credits rarely amount to 100% of the donation, investment and so on. To many it doesn't need to be much, it's just something that attracts them. While I may have a tax credit of $100 of that all I'll see is $20 at the end of the day and I know that. For that reason I hate tax credits but as that's all that's available I'll use them.
(3) So its not just rich folks or big business (or worse for you Big Search) that take advantage of tax credits. Most of them prefer out and out deductions or exemptions.
(4) Any a government that offers these things and can't figure out that it means less revenue deserves to be fired. Something we Canadians do quite regularly.
Remember that "locations" be they cities, provinces, states countries often offer tax incentives that amount to 100% off the revenue side of the books rather than the 20% or less, effectively, that the voucher system would cost. Movie and sound studios often get large reductions in things like property taxes to set up shop in some cities, too.
(5) Just because you can't imagine a world without copyright doesn't mean that the the other proposals are dependent on it. Humanity got along very well without copyright until about 300 years ago and should it disappear we'll get along nicely without it. For now, copyright might help but as the artist in each case is required to release the work(s) free of charge if I read the proposal correctly about the only use for copyright would be the creative commons type license requiring that it stay free.
Now please explain to me just how Kickstarter qualifies as a pay wall. It doesn't prevent anyone from accessing "content" it helps to fund and aid in the creation of "content". So please explain how you see the "zillion" copies being passed about as a rip-off should that ever occur. Only you could expect to control a project for a $20 investment in it, bob. You seem to feel that investing in a Kickstarter project gives you some exclusive access to the content created and that just isn't how it works. So once again could you tell me how Kickstarter qualifies as a paywall by funding creation and broad access to "content" rather than restricting access to "content" qualifies it as a paywall.
You have valid points here until you dive back into that wading pond head first and blow them all up.
Not everyone who would invest in an arts project there are interested in a large or any monetary return. Even with copyright there is no guarantee of a return of any kind. Even if you can't see it you're wrong there too. Many lose money, self published, recorded or what have we. Still wrong, there bob.
As you obviously so love "Kumbaya" so much (a spiritual that is neither naive or cynical) may I suggest you raise some money on your favourite not-a-paywall-but-somehow-a-paywall Kickstarter after you've assembled your friends here into the Freetard Campfire Choir and Chorus and see what you can do. I'd just love to hear the high quality recording, sound and arrangement of what you come up with.
So there's your challenge, bob, instead of criticizing anything and everything how about you try your hand at creativity yourself. Not for money but just to show yourself and us that you can actually do it. I'll buy the first copy. Deal?
I'll keep busy rehearsing St Patrick's "Breastplate" while I wait.
You don't seem to think that with Sony's stellar record with malware that they're perfectly capable of writing a "piracyBot" to troll sites to make sure that absolutely none of their products are infringed on.
After all, just because it can't tell one Adele from another is no reason to dump on the super piracyBot they undoubtedly paid some script kiddie tons of money for. There is something strangely inhuman about this as it it was all automated, complete with programmed in web site references and citations.
From this comes the question. Do you charge Sony with perjury, the script kiddie or the bot? The way some US courts are acting these days they'd happily charge and convict the bot!
Ahhh, the wonderful, fascinating other worldly and totally out of touch with reality world of IP law. And those who defend it.
Minority and so called "single issue" candidates in first past the post systems like English and Canadian elections often see their first glimmer of electoral hope when a court, breaking a half thousand years of precedent along the way, decides to ban access to a site which is unenforceable, self defeating and plain stupid. That it would be asked for by a "collection agency" for royalties on songs played in pub and barber shops isn't that much of a surprise.
The recording industry morphing happily into a protection racket. Not that it's new, mind, just that they're proud of it that's amazing.
The other thing that's faintly amazing is that the Common Law was established to offer the defendant and opportunity to respond to the plaintiff in front of a judge. AND in such a way that a law was the same in Dover or Land's End to The City. (London's Wall Street.) Started by Alfred the Great and reinforced by Henry Mk II who had other things in mind than justice when he did that but more like what we'd call a police state. (Labour anyone?)
No trials, as supposedly guaranteed in Magna Charta, no chance for anyone to respond to BPI's paranoid allegations. When did the Star Chamber appear again? (No need to tell me. New Labour and PM Blair are the answers.)
So again, good luck! I get the feeling that the British public is getting just as fed up with this idiocy as North Americans and many others are. Particularly when "justice" in this case was clearly for the British branch plant of BMI/ASCAP and RIAA.
Run like hell, The eejit! Force the media to pay attention about the eroding freedoms of the British and that the courts and the common law have been corrupted to this degree.
Time for another get together at Runnymede, I'd say!
I'm sure Mike wouldn't mind. I'm sure these posts are covered by a Creative Commons license or are released to the public domain.
If they didn't want to write it on the board, by hand please and not inside a "while" or "if then, else loop", we could invite them to the next meeting of Freetards Revolutionary Front.
decoding legalese is like trying to read spaghetti coded perl without comment lines :)
Still I can't see it hurting much if it allows Bloomberg to see the amount of even the best code dedicated to copying data contained in variable "copyRightTroll" into variable techdirtPost before posting the contents of the variable. Just to see how much processor time is dedicated to copying things around that have nothing whatever to do with "piracy".
I'd be a little more concerned if he was learning that other bastion to spaghetti code called PHP though that would make the NYC web site a whole lot more interesting, I'm sure.
That one would mean becoming used to the Web and Internet and having to learn about how it works. Not entirely a bad thing for a politician to learn about.
If that's what Bloomberg wants to do by learning how to sling code around a bit then more power to him. Maybe he'd learn about the true meaning of the word "hacker" which is used by the media to describe what "crackers" do. ;-)
Backbenchers should be seen and not heard from during Question Period.
Even if they've reached the lofty level of Parliamentary Secretary which means they've reached the same level of influence as the bevy of feral cats who live and thrive on Parliament Hill. They don't serve in Cabinet either though I hear there are always two or three kitties there. Parliamentary Secretaries are locked out with the rest of us.
Because he's Prime Minister Harper's Parliamentary Secretary and chair of the committee that's looking at the new copyright act I'd have hoped he would be a little more informed about things like format shifting and the relationship with shoes and socks. I guess he's never format shifted his socks by wearing them on the wrong foot which, apparently, you can't do once this act is passed.
That he's a complete idiot doesn't surprise me at all. Peterbourgh has a history of electing people who will sit on the government side of the House. The electorate there is only concerned about whether of not the candidate is breathing or appears to be so that s/he can lobby for better goodies. Should he stop breathing during his term, Peterbrough still wins because they're certain he'll be appointed to the Senate just before rigor mortus kicks in.
Harper is usually better organized than this. Del Mastro will be spending a lot of time on the back benches now where he can't say anything quite so stupid again because the Tory House whip will ensure there's a couple of rolls of duct tape over his mouth.
Though be prepared to be betrayed by the Opposition on this bill. The Liberals and NDP were in favour of it when they had the votes to vote Harper of our office. Why they'd change now is mysterious unless one or both want a chance to grandstand on the evening news or on the TV network's web sites the next day.
One day there will be meetings of Patents Anonymous when the CEOs of such companies will admit their addiction to patents and that it was at least part of the reason their company crashed and burned when they all expired.
Of the usual baddies Big Pharma is the most patent dependent with second place to the patent trolls attacking the software industry.
And maybe our friend bob. He seems dependent on them too.
Judges are perfectly entitled to issue rulings in line with statue, precedent and the Common Law, the latter almost totally dealing with precedent in civil law. Even if that ruling appears to be a novelty to people not educated in civil and common law.
In this case that's what this judge did which appears to be in line with the three above as no court has overturned the ruling extending patents to software. As flawed and troublesome as that is.
Appellate courts and the legislative branch of the US Federal Government have had plenty of time to rewrite statue law to nullify the rulings that created patents on software and so called business methods but they haven't.
As bad or worse, the same court he was a member of ruled that applicants didn't have to come up with a working model or, at least, details of what the working model would be. (Which doesn't always mean code in glorious MS Basic, but that would have been a distinct improvement over the situation as it now exists.)
In essence they made it possible with that to patent vapour-ware. And a ton of it has been patented.
Now, if the bobs of the world would explain to me how patenting vapour-ware helps innovation as it blocks people from doing that the vapour-ware claims to do when not a single line of code has been written and the patent is held by a non-practicing entity who have no intention to bring the "invention" to market it is often used for suing others who do have an on the market product which they allege violates the vapour.
And, if the bob's of the world would tell me about the huge R&D costs of vapour-ware. Then compare that to the costs incurred by the practicing entity who, they claim, unknowingly violated their patent on their world changing vapour-ware. One innovated while the other sat on a nice set of legalese that described what didn't exist and would have never existed. Put another way, vapour-ware is a legal fiction that now has the power of law behind it as if it were real.
For all of this mess, and the 30 years or so the courts and the US Federal legislature have had to clean this up none of them have. The judges involved, though, were, like it or not well within their rights to rule as they did.
It's very hard to have a legislature overrule a court decision when those who stand to profit the most from the decision are also big donors and when the issue doesn't seem to engage many people.
If Congress Critters had done what the court did, believe me, it would be far far worse than anything this too specialized court did in its rulings.
Sadly, it's almost impossible to get a court ruling overturned at the best of times for utter and absolute stupidity which is how these look to everyone but bob now.
Then again, we're getting familiar at the misfiring of bob's synapses and ability to read and understand things he doesn't like. He can't.
Re: TechDirt totally out of touch about how much patents pay for innovation
"The fact is that Xerox funded PARC for many years on the revenues from just a few patents on the laser printer. Now that their 17-20 year term is up, everyone is free to use the information."
I hate to tell you this, bob, but software patents didn't exist when PARC was flourishing. Like everyone else in the software business PARC and it's GUI were build incrementally on what came before it. From a selfish perspective Xerox was, among other things, looking for a way to better control it's high end copiers. To make life easier for the users of copiers.
Hardware like the mouse predated PARC as did ASCII drawing which is what PARC did first before the full fledged GUI. So Steve Jobs worked around nothing though he and apple may have come close to infringing a copyright or two. Both PARC and Apple used procedural programming for their first GUI's not O-O languages which had enormous runtimes and ran almost as fast as a turtle back then.
Improvement is software and computer languages is the very definition of incremental. One innovation building on another and the next on two or three others. Like just about every innovation that's ever occurred in the history of humanity.
Well, with the exception of Kitty Litter.
Thomas Edison not only infringed on other people's patents, he was proud of it. By the time he was finished with them he'd transformed them into something that the patents did not intend or imagine.
No, no system is perfect but your idea that American innovation has accelerated as IP laws got stronger needs more than your say so. There are many studies that disagree with you. I contend that American innovation has slowed as the result of the appearance of IP maximalists such as yourself. (Being as ignorant of history as you are certianly helps too.) A place where America has out done others is to take innovation, patented or not, and work it into the general economy which has meant, post Great Depression the consumer economy and THAT is what is threatened by your and other's attitudes.
Somalia is no one's idea of a paradise, Nor is it libertarian by any stretch of the imagination. It's a blood soaked failed state and that you'd insert it into this discussion either shows how desperate you are to make your point.
All the while showing how shallow, lacking in human empathy and identification and border line racist that you are.
Oh, jackass, cancer is not a single disease it's a cluster of them with similar behaviors, most notably out of control cell growth, and multiple causes.
Keep your two bucks. I wouldn't want to lower myself to take a thing from you.
The self-same lawyers who distort the judge's (used collectively) themselves have a distorted view of the value of software patents. After all, if you can patent the design and particulars of a weed whacker head why not software?
Certainly it appears as a physical good. It often comes in boxes with pretty pictures on them. The same pretty pictures that are there when you download the. Legally of course.
And there are CDs in the boxes or DVDs that you use to install the software. After you download, legally, the software then you need to burn CDs or DVDs to install the software. All, touchable, seeable and losable physical goods so what's there must also be, right?
Not that the legal profession is stuffed to the gunwales with shysters or complete morons. They aren't. To those of us immersed in technology and the problems software patents can bring with them are as obvious as the sun on a clear day. To the tech-ignorant they just can't be because, after all, they're a good thing. Even the US Constitution says so.
Still, among the reasons patent law is held in such disregard these days are things like rulings allowing for patenting things like software and business methods which vanish only to reappear as trolls. That there's a backlash and people are "attacking" patents which would hurt the mythical single inventor in his garage out to make it rich. (No problem there either.)
It's the same dynamic from a different line of sight that what has brought copyright into deep contempt. Copyright seems destined to outlive or Sun and might even survive the Sun swelling to a Red Dwarf when it's life span comes to an end.
The concepts of copyrights and patents haven't shifted from an analog to the digital world at all well. It's not surprising given that they were and are based on norms in the analog world that fit there. In fact both are industrial age problems designed as solutions Our world is now vastly that that in which copyright and patent law came into and aren't appropriate to a digital world. In fact they are often, correctly, see as deterrence to progress rather than aids to it. I'm sorry if that bothers IP maximalists but that's how it is. And that opinion is held by far larger segments of civil society than you seem to realize.
The harder maximalists squeeze the more they're hated, the more they're hated the less chance of success they have become and the burial of that which they're trying to defend becomes.
A free market and a free people reject outside control and will fight to reject it. Whatever may be good about what IP maximalists are trying to defend will become Internet road kill the more strident the IP maximalists clamp down or create a culture for more matent trolls.
The case is being made by the researchers and not Mike who is just highlighting the conclusion of the research.
The research points to the costs outweighing whatever benefits countries may gain from draconian IP laws. Nor could they identify any gains from "strong" IP laws. A situation which also applies to the United States and the EU. Mostly costs and few, if any, identifiable benefits. In fact, reading over the linked articles, there is little or no evidence at this stage that there was a measurable increase in home grown technical innovation (patents) or arts activities (copyright).
Sure there was an increase in technology transfer from richer to poorer parts of the world when somewhat stronger IP laws came into place. But that's not home grown.
Of course this could simply be that innovation was taking place regardless and that arts communities were already creating at a high level because that's what they do -- they create -- whether or not a "strong" copyright realm is in existence or not. In fact there's far more evidence of the reverse where "strong" IP laws exist.
Here in North America we get to blame "piracy" if those "making a living" or acting as gatekeeper don't make what they anticipate they should or to rampant infringement AND piracy should someone "violate" one or two of the overly broad software patents the USPTO allows through.
I kinda liked the portable electronic mouse trap. Complete with smelly cheese!
My only question about it is whatever is wrong with the portable organic mouse trap and disposal device we call the domestic cat? At least they purr and snuggle between endless naps from over consumption of mice! And they don't reek of smelly cheeses :)
I honestly don't care if they've discovered something "new and useful" that is entirely unique in the history of humanity, which I doubt, but if they can patent a cut of beef then why does anyone bother with exclusions anymore?
Dammit, this is just a part of a dead cow (or steer) that you can toss in the general direction of the bbq after it's been "fabricated" which sounds more like pink slime than a steak to me.
This one I can't wait to read to see how it will forever change the world as most software patents do without even bothering to come up with something to "fabricate".
On the post: US Gov't Thinks Censorship Is Bad, Unless It's Paid For
Re: Re: Re:
The statue of Anne doesn't stand anywhere anymore. It's off cowering in a dark dusty cobweb filled corner of the Parliamentary Library in Westminster where even the British Museum can't find it!
On the post: US Gov't Thinks Censorship Is Bad, Unless It's Paid For
Re:
The same or similar concerns were expressed again during the drafting of the United States Constitution where some felt, Jefferson if I remember correctly at this hour among them, who felt that copyright and patents should have been left out entirely.
I freely admit to being a dimwit at this hour of the day before my first carafe of coffee but not enough of one to buy into your BS. Mike, on the other hand, makes well reasoned sourced arguments something I notice you seem deficient in.
On the post: Economist: Copyright Is An Antiquated Relic That Has No Place In The Digital Age
Re: What a nightmare! & What a challenge!!
2) Plenty of working and middle class people can and do make use of tax credits. Keeping in mind that these credits rarely amount to 100% of the donation, investment and so on. To many it doesn't need to be much, it's just something that attracts them. While I may have a tax credit of $100 of that all I'll see is $20 at the end of the day and I know that. For that reason I hate tax credits but as that's all that's available I'll use them.
(3) So its not just rich folks or big business (or worse for you Big Search) that take advantage of tax credits. Most of them prefer out and out deductions or exemptions.
(4) Any a government that offers these things and can't figure out that it means less revenue deserves to be fired. Something we Canadians do quite regularly.
Remember that "locations" be they cities, provinces, states countries often offer tax incentives that amount to 100% off the revenue side of the books rather than the 20% or less, effectively, that the voucher system would cost. Movie and sound studios often get large reductions in things like property taxes to set up shop in some cities, too.
(5) Just because you can't imagine a world without copyright doesn't mean that the the other proposals are dependent on it. Humanity got along very well without copyright until about 300 years ago and should it disappear we'll get along nicely without it. For now, copyright might help but as the artist in each case is required to release the work(s) free of charge if I read the proposal correctly about the only use for copyright would be the creative commons type license requiring that it stay free.
Now please explain to me just how Kickstarter qualifies as a pay wall. It doesn't prevent anyone from accessing "content" it helps to fund and aid in the creation of "content". So please explain how you see the "zillion" copies being passed about as a rip-off should that ever occur. Only you could expect to control a project for a $20 investment in it, bob. You seem to feel that investing in a Kickstarter project gives you some exclusive access to the content created and that just isn't how it works. So once again could you tell me how Kickstarter qualifies as a paywall by funding creation and broad access to "content" rather than restricting access to "content" qualifies it as a paywall.
You have valid points here until you dive back into that wading pond head first and blow them all up.
Not everyone who would invest in an arts project there are interested in a large or any monetary return. Even with copyright there is no guarantee of a return of any kind. Even if you can't see it you're wrong there too. Many lose money, self published, recorded or what have we. Still wrong, there bob.
As you obviously so love "Kumbaya" so much (a spiritual that is neither naive or cynical) may I suggest you raise some money on your favourite not-a-paywall-but-somehow-a-paywall Kickstarter after you've assembled your friends here into the Freetard Campfire Choir and Chorus and see what you can do. I'd just love to hear the high quality recording, sound and arrangement of what you come up with.
So there's your challenge, bob, instead of criticizing anything and everything how about you try your hand at creativity yourself. Not for money but just to show yourself and us that you can actually do it. I'll buy the first copy. Deal?
I'll keep busy rehearsing St Patrick's "Breastplate" while I wait.
On the post: Romance Author Adele Dubois Receives Takedown On Blog Post For Having The Same Name As Singer Adele
Re: Yet another reason why
After all, just because it can't tell one Adele from another is no reason to dump on the super piracyBot they undoubtedly paid some script kiddie tons of money for. There is something strangely inhuman about this as it it was all automated, complete with programmed in web site references and citations.
From this comes the question. Do you charge Sony with perjury, the script kiddie or the bot? The way some US courts are acting these days they'd happily charge and convict the bot!
Ahhh, the wonderful, fascinating other worldly and totally out of touch with reality world of IP law. And those who defend it.
Kinda like reading bad sci-fi.
On the post: Is Banning The Pirate Bay The Best Advertising A Country Can Give Its Local Pirate Parties?
Re:
Minority and so called "single issue" candidates in first past the post systems like English and Canadian elections often see their first glimmer of electoral hope when a court, breaking a half thousand years of precedent along the way, decides to ban access to a site which is unenforceable, self defeating and plain stupid. That it would be asked for by a "collection agency" for royalties on songs played in pub and barber shops isn't that much of a surprise.
The recording industry morphing happily into a protection racket. Not that it's new, mind, just that they're proud of it that's amazing.
The other thing that's faintly amazing is that the Common Law was established to offer the defendant and opportunity to respond to the plaintiff in front of a judge. AND in such a way that a law was the same in Dover or Land's End to The City. (London's Wall Street.) Started by Alfred the Great and reinforced by Henry Mk II who had other things in mind than justice when he did that but more like what we'd call a police state. (Labour anyone?)
No trials, as supposedly guaranteed in Magna Charta, no chance for anyone to respond to BPI's paranoid allegations. When did the Star Chamber appear again? (No need to tell me. New Labour and PM Blair are the answers.)
So again, good luck! I get the feeling that the British public is getting just as fed up with this idiocy as North Americans and many others are. Particularly when "justice" in this case was clearly for the British branch plant of BMI/ASCAP and RIAA.
Run like hell, The eejit! Force the media to pay attention about the eroding freedoms of the British and that the courts and the common law have been corrupted to this degree.
Time for another get together at Runnymede, I'd say!
On the post: Even The Copyright Office Won't Obey Rules That Don't Make Sense In Reality
Re: Re:
If they didn't want to write it on the board, by hand please and not inside a "while" or "if then, else loop", we could invite them to the next meeting of Freetards Revolutionary Front.
On the post: Can You Understand How Technology Works Without Understanding Code?
Re: Re: Re: Byte my Bits!
Still I can't see it hurting much if it allows Bloomberg to see the amount of even the best code dedicated to copying data contained in variable "copyRightTroll" into variable techdirtPost before posting the contents of the variable. Just to see how much processor time is dedicated to copying things around that have nothing whatever to do with "piracy".
I'd be a little more concerned if he was learning that other bastion to spaghetti code called PHP though that would make the NYC web site a whole lot more interesting, I'm sure.
That one would mean becoming used to the Web and Internet and having to learn about how it works. Not entirely a bad thing for a politician to learn about.
If that's what Bloomberg wants to do by learning how to sling code around a bit then more power to him. Maybe he'd learn about the true meaning of the word "hacker" which is used by the media to describe what "crackers" do. ;-)
On the post: Canadian Politician Claims That Ripping A CD To Your iPod Is Like Buying Socks & Stealing Shoes To Go With Them
Re: Obviously.
On the post: Canadian Politician Claims That Ripping A CD To Your iPod Is Like Buying Socks & Stealing Shoes To Go With Them
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Canadian Politician Claims That Ripping A CD To Your iPod Is Like Buying Socks & Stealing Shoes To Go With Them
Re: Re: Let me fix that for him
You need to patent this and become filthy rich!
On the post: Research Shows Little Relationship Between Stricter IP Laws And Innovation Or Economic Growth
Re: The lesson here is more research!
IF there was such a connection wouldn't we have seen something of it since 2008? But ACs and ootb's and bobs don't need no facts.
They do make for an interesting day, though. /sarc
On the post: Canadian Politician Claims That Ripping A CD To Your iPod Is Like Buying Socks & Stealing Shoes To Go With Them
Backbenchers should be seen and not heard from during Question Period.
Because he's Prime Minister Harper's Parliamentary Secretary and chair of the committee that's looking at the new copyright act I'd have hoped he would be a little more informed about things like format shifting and the relationship with shoes and socks. I guess he's never format shifted his socks by wearing them on the wrong foot which, apparently, you can't do once this act is passed.
That he's a complete idiot doesn't surprise me at all. Peterbourgh has a history of electing people who will sit on the government side of the House. The electorate there is only concerned about whether of not the candidate is breathing or appears to be so that s/he can lobby for better goodies. Should he stop breathing during his term, Peterbrough still wins because they're certain he'll be appointed to the Senate just before rigor mortus kicks in.
Harper is usually better organized than this. Del Mastro will be spending a lot of time on the back benches now where he can't say anything quite so stupid again because the Tory House whip will ensure there's a couple of rolls of duct tape over his mouth.
Though be prepared to be betrayed by the Opposition on this bill. The Liberals and NDP were in favour of it when they had the votes to vote Harper of our office. Why they'd change now is mysterious unless one or both want a chance to grandstand on the evening news or on the TV network's web sites the next day.
On the post: Patent Judges Completely Out Of Touch With How Much Patents Hinder Technology Innovation
Re:
Of the usual baddies Big Pharma is the most patent dependent with second place to the patent trolls attacking the software industry.
And maybe our friend bob. He seems dependent on them too.
On the post: Patent Judges Completely Out Of Touch With How Much Patents Hinder Technology Innovation
Re: Out of touch? But that's not their job
In this case that's what this judge did which appears to be in line with the three above as no court has overturned the ruling extending patents to software. As flawed and troublesome as that is.
Appellate courts and the legislative branch of the US Federal Government have had plenty of time to rewrite statue law to nullify the rulings that created patents on software and so called business methods but they haven't.
As bad or worse, the same court he was a member of ruled that applicants didn't have to come up with a working model or, at least, details of what the working model would be. (Which doesn't always mean code in glorious MS Basic, but that would have been a distinct improvement over the situation as it now exists.)
In essence they made it possible with that to patent vapour-ware. And a ton of it has been patented.
Now, if the bobs of the world would explain to me how patenting vapour-ware helps innovation as it blocks people from doing that the vapour-ware claims to do when not a single line of code has been written and the patent is held by a non-practicing entity who have no intention to bring the "invention" to market it is often used for suing others who do have an on the market product which they allege violates the vapour.
And, if the bob's of the world would tell me about the huge R&D costs of vapour-ware. Then compare that to the costs incurred by the practicing entity who, they claim, unknowingly violated their patent on their world changing vapour-ware. One innovated while the other sat on a nice set of legalese that described what didn't exist and would have never existed. Put another way, vapour-ware is a legal fiction that now has the power of law behind it as if it were real.
For all of this mess, and the 30 years or so the courts and the US Federal legislature have had to clean this up none of them have. The judges involved, though, were, like it or not well within their rights to rule as they did.
It's very hard to have a legislature overrule a court decision when those who stand to profit the most from the decision are also big donors and when the issue doesn't seem to engage many people.
If Congress Critters had done what the court did, believe me, it would be far far worse than anything this too specialized court did in its rulings.
Sadly, it's almost impossible to get a court ruling overturned at the best of times for utter and absolute stupidity which is how these look to everyone but bob now.
Then again, we're getting familiar at the misfiring of bob's synapses and ability to read and understand things he doesn't like. He can't.
On the post: Patent Judges Completely Out Of Touch With How Much Patents Hinder Technology Innovation
Re: Re: Re: TechDirt totally out of touch about how much patents pay for innovation
Which is what the US Government did to the Wright Brothers before entering WW1 if memory serves.
On the post: Patent Judges Completely Out Of Touch With How Much Patents Hinder Technology Innovation
Re: TechDirt totally out of touch about how much patents pay for innovation
I hate to tell you this, bob, but software patents didn't exist when PARC was flourishing. Like everyone else in the software business PARC and it's GUI were build incrementally on what came before it. From a selfish perspective Xerox was, among other things, looking for a way to better control it's high end copiers. To make life easier for the users of copiers.
Hardware like the mouse predated PARC as did ASCII drawing which is what PARC did first before the full fledged GUI. So Steve Jobs worked around nothing though he and apple may have come close to infringing a copyright or two. Both PARC and Apple used procedural programming for their first GUI's not O-O languages which had enormous runtimes and ran almost as fast as a turtle back then.
Improvement is software and computer languages is the very definition of incremental. One innovation building on another and the next on two or three others. Like just about every innovation that's ever occurred in the history of humanity.
Well, with the exception of Kitty Litter.
Thomas Edison not only infringed on other people's patents, he was proud of it. By the time he was finished with them he'd transformed them into something that the patents did not intend or imagine.
No, no system is perfect but your idea that American innovation has accelerated as IP laws got stronger needs more than your say so. There are many studies that disagree with you. I contend that American innovation has slowed as the result of the appearance of IP maximalists such as yourself. (Being as ignorant of history as you are certianly helps too.) A place where America has out done others is to take innovation, patented or not, and work it into the general economy which has meant, post Great Depression the consumer economy and THAT is what is threatened by your and other's attitudes.
Somalia is no one's idea of a paradise, Nor is it libertarian by any stretch of the imagination. It's a blood soaked failed state and that you'd insert it into this discussion either shows how desperate you are to make your point.
All the while showing how shallow, lacking in human empathy and identification and border line racist that you are.
Oh, jackass, cancer is not a single disease it's a cluster of them with similar behaviors, most notably out of control cell growth, and multiple causes.
Keep your two bucks. I wouldn't want to lower myself to take a thing from you.
On the post: Patent Judges Completely Out Of Touch With How Much Patents Hinder Technology Innovation
Certainly it appears as a physical good. It often comes in boxes with pretty pictures on them. The same pretty pictures that are there when you download the. Legally of course.
And there are CDs in the boxes or DVDs that you use to install the software. After you download, legally, the software then you need to burn CDs or DVDs to install the software. All, touchable, seeable and losable physical goods so what's there must also be, right?
Not that the legal profession is stuffed to the gunwales with shysters or complete morons. They aren't. To those of us immersed in technology and the problems software patents can bring with them are as obvious as the sun on a clear day. To the tech-ignorant they just can't be because, after all, they're a good thing. Even the US Constitution says so.
Still, among the reasons patent law is held in such disregard these days are things like rulings allowing for patenting things like software and business methods which vanish only to reappear as trolls. That there's a backlash and people are "attacking" patents which would hurt the mythical single inventor in his garage out to make it rich. (No problem there either.)
It's the same dynamic from a different line of sight that what has brought copyright into deep contempt. Copyright seems destined to outlive or Sun and might even survive the Sun swelling to a Red Dwarf when it's life span comes to an end.
The concepts of copyrights and patents haven't shifted from an analog to the digital world at all well. It's not surprising given that they were and are based on norms in the analog world that fit there. In fact both are industrial age problems designed as solutions Our world is now vastly that that in which copyright and patent law came into and aren't appropriate to a digital world. In fact they are often, correctly, see as deterrence to progress rather than aids to it. I'm sorry if that bothers IP maximalists but that's how it is. And that opinion is held by far larger segments of civil society than you seem to realize.
The harder maximalists squeeze the more they're hated, the more they're hated the less chance of success they have become and the burial of that which they're trying to defend becomes.
A free market and a free people reject outside control and will fight to reject it. Whatever may be good about what IP maximalists are trying to defend will become Internet road kill the more strident the IP maximalists clamp down or create a culture for more matent trolls.
Clear?
On the post: Research Shows Little Relationship Between Stricter IP Laws And Innovation Or Economic Growth
Re:
The research points to the costs outweighing whatever benefits countries may gain from draconian IP laws. Nor could they identify any gains from "strong" IP laws. A situation which also applies to the United States and the EU. Mostly costs and few, if any, identifiable benefits. In fact, reading over the linked articles, there is little or no evidence at this stage that there was a measurable increase in home grown technical innovation (patents) or arts activities (copyright).
Sure there was an increase in technology transfer from richer to poorer parts of the world when somewhat stronger IP laws came into place. But that's not home grown.
Of course this could simply be that innovation was taking place regardless and that arts communities were already creating at a high level because that's what they do -- they create -- whether or not a "strong" copyright realm is in existence or not. In fact there's far more evidence of the reverse where "strong" IP laws exist.
Here in North America we get to blame "piracy" if those "making a living" or acting as gatekeeper don't make what they anticipate they should or to rampant infringement AND piracy should someone "violate" one or two of the overly broad software patents the USPTO allows through.
On the post: Can You Patent How You Cut Your Meat?
Re:
My only question about it is whatever is wrong with the portable organic mouse trap and disposal device we call the domestic cat? At least they purr and snuggle between endless naps from over consumption of mice! And they don't reek of smelly cheeses :)
On the post: Can You Patent How You Cut Your Meat?
Re:
Dammit, this is just a part of a dead cow (or steer) that you can toss in the general direction of the bbq after it's been "fabricated" which sounds more like pink slime than a steak to me.
This one I can't wait to read to see how it will forever change the world as most software patents do without even bothering to come up with something to "fabricate".
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