Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: And a nobel prize winner's opinion is valuable because...?
Lonnie,
The double-click is a software technique to launch "alternate applications" from a "device with limited resources." No special hardware involved, and no physical implementation either: they have patented a behaviour.
When patents like this are granted, the system IS broken. Lets face it: the law says that the patent system was put into place to encourage innovation and the sharing of discoveries. Software patents do neither. The code can always be discovered with a decompiler, and the patent kills innovation in that branch of the field for 15 years. The law also states that for a patent to be valid, there should be steps written down to reproduce the invention. What would be more obvious than the actual code of the algorythm in the patent application? And yet, have you ever seen code in a software patent? I certainly have not, and IMHO that makes software patents null and void. The fact that software is copyrighted (protected for the life of the creator +75 years!) further reduces the need or logic of software patents.
If a car doesn't take you where you need to go, it is broken. If the patent system doesn't encourage innovation and sharing of ideas for all the fields it is used in, it is broken as well. It may only have one flat tire, but broke is broke.
Compare your examples to radio, television, the gun, the rocket, the airplane. Unrelated things that are brought together to make something entirely new. I'm talking an entirely new paradigm. A "signal that travels over a thousand miles instantly", not "another way to talk to people via radio" when we already have phones and radios. I guess that's really the point: corporations innovate "just enough" to bring a new product to market. And considering that the first cellphones ended up in a landfill, even that non-paradigm shifting idea was too radical for the corporate mentality.
I'm not saying that those inventions were obvious or simple (although I don't find infrared missles as impressive as you do: the Nazi's had camera-guided bombs!), I'm simply saying that Individuals have always been responsible for the radically innovative designs.
Your point is made... Sorta.
You are right that in the realm of chemistry, patents are better than secrets. Now take your same arguement and apply it to software.
Be warned, I've been programming since '84, so make sure you're accurate.
An absolutely excellent suggestion! Suddenly the consiousless, money-grubbing, immortal monstrosities can no longer bar innovation, and the individual (which this country was founded upon) is actually REWARDED for his accomplishments!
Unfortunately, those monstrosities have bottomless pockets and an army of lobbyists, so good luck getting it into law...
And for anyone who thinks this is a BAD idea, please tell me the grand invention, the radical innovation, that came out of a corporate R&D department? All the truly original ones I can think of came from kitchen-sink inventors.
Anonymous Coward is absolutely right. The Microsoft of today is the IBM of 1985 - an 800-pound gorilla with a pea-brain. If you were alive and in the game then - which I was - you saw this underdog company called Microsoft take it to the man. Everyone ripped off Microsoft, trying to make their own flavor of dos, but there was only one that worked across all the machines. Microsoft was the seal of quality. Now, they actively ignore the bulk of their users in favor of the vocal few, and shove garbage like the Ribbon paradigm in Word (users kept asking for features already in Word!) and "limited rights" in Vista (It's too insecure! We need to make it so that even the administrator doesn't have administrator rights!) Now smaller, lighter, cheaper, less powerful netbooks are coming out running Linux and giving people what they need, basic e-mail, browser, and word processing. No massively bloated OS requiring 4gig and a half-gig video card. Microsoft jumped the shark with Office 2007, and it's time for Potsie to sing his song...
This software is free and open source, used by over 100 institutions including MIT. It also converts many other formats, so if they aren't allowed to read this one, no big deal. They can host this plugin in a country who doesn't care. However, by attacking this software, they are attacking Universities, large numbers of impressionable youth. Maybe they'll get off their duffs and fight this crap, instead of sitting on their duffs like the rest of my generation.
Your post is pointless: it has nothing to do with the topic at hand. However...
a. You have to own the console in question
b. You have to have a game written to use said peripherals
c. You can't play the game years later, 'cause you've probably sold the console and all the games, good and bad alike, unless you use a PC EMULATOR. (You're gaming on a PC again!)
d. There is no trackball/mouse for any console that I have ever seen mass-produced, which kills accuracy.
Can you tell I've heard these comments before, and they drive me nuts? People buying $600 consoles and $50 games, and selling or throwing the whole mess away once the next gen hits the streets. I still play Quake 1, no DRM EVER, and I love it! Of course, the lack of drm is primarily due to John Carmack, as he always removes the drm if it is distributed that way. Quake 1, 2, 3, 4, Doom 1, 2, 3, all work without even a key CD! (see, I got my post on subject, smeghead!)
McCain campaign: We'll play 'Baracuda' to show what a bad-ass Sarah is!
Heart: We wrote, composed, and performed the song, and we would like it if you didn't use it to promote your campain, because we don't agree with it.
McCain campaign: Screw you! We paid our performance fees! We can do whatever we want with your song!
Heart: You know, a ferocious, schooling, stupid fish is appropriate for this campaign...
For your information, since the publishing of "IT doesn't matter", IT jobs have been slashed, and anyone who doesn't do Java or .NET has had a very hard time finding a job, much less keeping one. Most of my friends are very competent in their fields, but since they made the mistake of not hitching on to the "big 2" (like myself) they have been relegated to short-term employement or government work. Even I have had a hard time finding a good job, although crummy-to-average jobs have been a dime-a-dozen.
nearly as much as the precident it sets. From here on, if this decision stands, no unauthorized works on copyrighted material will withstand a lawsuit, regardless of the judges comments on the matter.
I just took a look at the site (used the cached main page from Google, as the main page is down on the site) and I certainly did NOT see "simply a collection of quotes" there. Actually, I saw only a single quote in the 12 pages I looked at. This adds validity to the accusations of corruption I saw earlier.
As I have said before, it was not a jury who pronounced this verdict, but a single judge of questionable character. A court of appeals should overturn this easily, but we'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, it is good to see that JK has lost in the court of public opinion.
Strange, I always thought that "Copyright" was for exact or nearly-exact works. Then I found out that it could somehow be extended to similar characters, situations, etc. especially in Hollywood. However, if you really want to understand Rowlings' emotional appeal, check out this link: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E2DA143BF93AA3575AC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon= &pagewanted=1. She was playing to an emotional judge. This ruling should easily be overturned on appeal.
But of course, if she wanted to keep all her rights, she should have patented the story while it was on her computer. That's all it takes, right?
Yay, more non-obvious patents! I never would have thought of this, had I not read it in every friggin' sci-fi mag and paperback for the last 40 years! I guess fiction doesn't count for "prior art", but un-implemented stories count for legal patent documentation...
Your criticism only furthers the point of this article - that the system is broken. You are also obviously not a programmer of any sort, otherwise you would not constantly declare very general directions as "specific implementations." Any actual coder employed in the patent office would laugh these patents out. Perhaps you should pick up a book on coding before commenting on things you obviously know nothing about.
Here's a quiz: This program constantly uses large amounts of RAM, CPU time, and interferes with other applications. It also constantly uses bandwidth contacting a host computer. Is it:
So Microsoft will be forced to stop doing business in a country where they're not doing business, just having their software pirated? Man, Microsoft sure is screwed. I guess they'll just have to limit their business to paying customers (the horror!)
On the post: Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Explains How Intellectual Property Damages Innovation
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: And a nobel prize winner's opinion is valuable because...?
The double-click is a software technique to launch "alternate applications" from a "device with limited resources." No special hardware involved, and no physical implementation either: they have patented a behaviour.
When patents like this are granted, the system IS broken. Lets face it: the law says that the patent system was put into place to encourage innovation and the sharing of discoveries. Software patents do neither. The code can always be discovered with a decompiler, and the patent kills innovation in that branch of the field for 15 years.
The law also states that for a patent to be valid, there should be steps written down to reproduce the invention. What would be more obvious than the actual code of the algorythm in the patent application? And yet, have you ever seen code in a software patent? I certainly have not, and IMHO that makes software patents null and void. The fact that software is copyrighted (protected for the life of the creator +75 years!) further reduces the need or logic of software patents.
If a car doesn't take you where you need to go, it is broken. If the patent system doesn't encourage innovation and sharing of ideas for all the fields it is used in, it is broken as well. It may only have one flat tire, but broke is broke.
On the post: Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Explains How Intellectual Property Damages Innovation
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Artificial entities and patents don't mix.
I'm not saying that those inventions were obvious or simple (although I don't find infrared missles as impressive as you do: the Nazi's had camera-guided bombs!), I'm simply saying that Individuals have always been responsible for the radically innovative designs.
On the post: Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Explains How Intellectual Property Damages Innovation
Re: Re: Re: Artificial entities and patents don't mix.
So far in your list I count... zero.
On the post: Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Explains How Intellectual Property Damages Innovation
Re: Patents Hindering Innovation?
You are right that in the realm of chemistry, patents are better than secrets. Now take your same arguement and apply it to software.
Be warned, I've been programming since '84, so make sure you're accurate.
On the post: Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Explains How Intellectual Property Damages Innovation
Re: Artificial entities and patents don't mix.
Unfortunately, those monstrosities have bottomless pockets and an army of lobbyists, so good luck getting it into law...
And for anyone who thinks this is a BAD idea, please tell me the grand invention, the radical innovation, that came out of a corporate R&D department? All the truly original ones I can think of came from kitchen-sink inventors.
On the post: Microsoft Expands Program To Bribe Users Into Using Its Search
Lets face it...
Now, they actively ignore the bulk of their users in favor of the vocal few, and shove garbage like the Ribbon paradigm in Word (users kept asking for features already in Word!) and "limited rights" in Vista (It's too insecure! We need to make it so that even the administrator doesn't have administrator rights!)
Now smaller, lighter, cheaper, less powerful netbooks are coming out running Linux and giving people what they need, basic e-mail, browser, and word processing. No massively bloated OS requiring 4gig and a half-gig video card. Microsoft jumped the shark with Office 2007, and it's time for Potsie to sing his song...
On the post: Thomson Reuters Sues George Mason University For Making Its Software Output More Useful
Hilarious
On the post: Who Said DRM Is Necessary For Video Games? Not According To These Execs...
Re:
a. You have to own the console in question
b. You have to have a game written to use said peripherals
c. You can't play the game years later, 'cause you've probably sold the console and all the games, good and bad alike, unless you use a PC EMULATOR. (You're gaming on a PC again!)
d. There is no trackball/mouse for any console that I have ever seen mass-produced, which kills accuracy.
Can you tell I've heard these comments before, and they drive me nuts? People buying $600 consoles and $50 games, and selling or throwing the whole mess away once the next gen hits the streets. I still play Quake 1, no DRM EVER, and I love it! Of course, the lack of drm is primarily due to John Carmack, as he always removes the drm if it is distributed that way. Quake 1, 2, 3, 4, Doom 1, 2, 3, all work without even a key CD! (see, I got my post on subject, smeghead!)
On the post: McCain Campaign Ignores Cease-And-Desist; Keeps Playing 'Barracuda'
It's like this...
Heart: We wrote, composed, and performed the song, and we would like it if you didn't use it to promote your campain, because we don't agree with it.
McCain campaign: Screw you! We paid our performance fees! We can do whatever we want with your song!
Heart: You know, a ferocious, schooling, stupid fish is appropriate for this campaign...
On the post: Like Clockwork: Question Raised About Techies Unionizing
Re: Yeah...THAT'S what IT needs...
P.S. You're an ass, and probably a phb.
On the post: Terrible Ruling: Judge Halts Publication Of Harry Potter Lexicon
It isn't this case...
I just took a look at the site (used the cached main page from Google, as the main page is down on the site) and I certainly did NOT see "simply a collection of quotes" there. Actually, I saw only a single quote in the 12 pages I looked at. This adds validity to the accusations of corruption I saw earlier.
As I have said before, it was not a jury who pronounced this verdict, but a single judge of questionable character. A court of appeals should overturn this easily, but we'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, it is good to see that JK has lost in the court of public opinion.
On the post: Terrible Ruling: Judge Halts Publication Of Harry Potter Lexicon
Perhaps the source should be considered...
On the post: Immersion Settles Lawsuit Over Teledildonics Patent Royalties
Great patents
On the post: Yet Another Example Of Why Google Would Be Better Off Without Patents
Re: Incorrect
On the post: Premiere/Diebold: You're Doing It Wrong
Re: Re: Re: Be Very Afraid
a: a virus
b: an anti-virus program
I hope some old guys point has been made.
On the post: If Everyone's Using Your Pirated Software, Are You Still A Monopolist?
Silly
On the post: We're The US Government, So We Can Ignore Pesky Things Like The DMCA
Wow! Point missed...
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