Stupid patent lawsuits
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@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
Why? Do you think some lives are worth more than others?
No, but the value added is greater from some people.
Outside of friends and family, I value people pretty equally, whether they are Hitler or Ghandi. But that doesn't mean the behavior of people doesn't carry a measurable quality, or that the work they contribute doesn't carry a measurable value.
Another way of putting it.
I wish all people would just do the right thing, and be proactive in taking care of themselves and their families.
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@Polygeekery said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
Why? Do you think some lives are worth more than others?
Of course they are. You are an idiot if you think they are not.
Welcome to the thread. You may have missed a few postings.
But here's a sappy quote to keep your mouth on foaming:
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.”
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@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@anotherusername said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@Rhywden how do you figure that?
Well, considering that you're regularly releasing people from death row due to their innocence, it only follows that some of the already executed people were also innocent.
I agree with you, but your premise is deeply flawed.
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@CrazyEyes said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@Rhywden That's a very good analogy for this situation. Using FaceTime while driving is obviously dangerous and obviously no one should do it -- but at the same time, why would Apple not have released the safety feature they patented several years ago to prevent exactly this?
This appears to be the patent in question. From the language in the filing, it sounds like it was entirely theoretical at the time the patent was submitted – meaning that Apple may not have even had something that worked reliably. The biggest hurdle would have been meeting the requirement that the lockout only affected the driver, and not passengers in the vehicle, as outlined in the patent. For all we know, the lockout is still under development. Maybe it's an underfunded project, or maybe they threw it out when they realized that they couldn't get it to work the way they wanted.
@RaceProUK said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@anonymous234 If I had to guess, it's basically just using the GPS to detect when its moving above, say, 10mph.
The patent indicates that it would detect if the phone is being used by a driver or a passenger and lock accordingly.
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@gleemonk said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
Isn't the patent system itself a Big Government thing?
Not really. Even when the government was much smaller, patents were considered a valid and important government function. Patents have been a thing since the founding of the US, when the Federal government was only ~2% of GDP, vs. >20% now. (I couldn't find a per capita comparison in a few minutes of looking.)
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I'm somewhat surprised that we went for the death penalty flamewar over a software-patents-are-patently-stupid flamewar.
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@antiquarian said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@anotherusername said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
They actually didn't proven that even one single innocent person had been executed.
Michigan
History of Death Penalty Only 13 executions were carried out in Michigan's history, just 6 of which occurred after Michigan officially became a territory…
In 1828, Patrick Fitzpatrick was hanged after being declared guilty for the rape and murder of an innkeeper's daughter. In 1835, Fitzpatrick's former roommate confessed to the murder on his deathbed, proving that Fitzpatrick had been executed for a murder in which he was innocent.
But what about the rape?
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@Groaner said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
I'm somewhat surprised that we went for the death penalty flamewar over a software-patents-are-patently-stupid flamewar.
But how many people here support software patents?
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It's pretty lol-worthy for somebody to put survival analysis in quotation marks while discussing statistics...
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@djls45 Allow me:
Does software not require as much work and research as any other piece of engineering? Then why shouldn't it be covered by the same patent system?
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@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
Welcome to the thread. You may have missed a few postings.
Did i miss any chances to call you an idiot? If so, remind me and I will be sure to get up to speed.
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@abarker said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
This appears to be the patent in question. From the language in the filing, it sounds like it was entirely theoretical at the time the patent was submitted – meaning that Apple may not have even had something that worked reliably. The biggest hurdle would have been meeting the requirement that the lockout only affected the driver, and not passengers in the vehicle, as outlined in the patent. For all we know, the lockout is still under development. Maybe it's an underfunded project, or maybe they threw it out when they realized that they couldn't get it to work the way they wanted.
You missed the most likely outcome: They realized that if they implemented it and their competitors did not it would kill their market share and idiots would still be driving and using their phones.
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@Groaner said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
I'm somewhat surprised that we went for the death penalty flamewar over a software-patents-are-patently-stupid flamewar.
There is little disagreement on the second point. Those who don't think that software patents are stupid are in
level minority.
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@djls45 said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@Groaner said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
I'm somewhat surprised that we went for the death penalty flamewar over a software-patents-are-patently-stupid flamewar.
But how many people here support software patents?
@anonymous234 said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@djls45 Allow me:
Does software not require as much work and research as any other piece of engineering? Then why shouldn't it be covered by the same patent system?
I think software is sufficiently different from the expected uses of both copyright (software has a much shorter lifetime) and patents (still basically written material, and * ) that it deserves its own category, with its own rules.
I also think it might be a good idea to require patent suits to require a jury of people sufficiently skilled/knowledgeable in the area concerned so as not to need elementary training/education at the beginning of the trial.
*: Patents and copyright, in the US, are also predicated on the notion that it becomes public after expiration. This is part of why you have to file a copy of whatever it is you want to protect in order to get full-strength copyright protection, and likewise for patents. Software needs a filing method much closer to the copyright model (ie, complete source of a/the working implementation, and possibly the environment it compiles in) than the patent one (which only requires the gist of it).
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@djls45 said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@antiquarian said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@anotherusername said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
They actually didn't proven that even one single innocent person had been executed.
History of Death Penalty Only 13 executions were carried out in Michigan's history, just 6 of which occurred after Michigan officially became a territory…
In 1828, Patrick Fitzpatrick was hanged after being declared guilty for the rape and murder of an innkeeper's daughter. In 1835, Fitzpatrick's former roommate confessed to the murder on his deathbed, proving that Fitzpatrick had been executed for a murder in which he was innocent.
But what about the rape?
Hey hey hey fucker. I am the flame war scientist around here.
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@abarker I think that detecting whether the user is driver or not can be somewhat straight forward - just look for something that looks like steering wheel.
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@Polygeekery said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@djls45 said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@antiquarian said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@anotherusername said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
They actually didn't proven that even one single innocent person had been executed.
History of Death Penalty Only 13 executions were carried out in Michigan's history, just 6 of which occurred after Michigan officially became a territory…
In 1828, Patrick Fitzpatrick was hanged after being declared guilty for the rape and murder of an innkeeper's daughter. In 1835, Fitzpatrick's former roommate confessed to the murder on his deathbed, proving that Fitzpatrick had been executed for a murder in which he was innocent.
But what about the rape?
Hey hey hey fucker. I am the flame war scientist around here.
Can you point me to your patent on flamewar science? Or is it a copyright? I'm not sure for this type of thing.
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@CrazyEyes said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
Using FaceTime while driving is obviously dangerous and obviously no one should do it -- but at the same time, why would Apple not have released the safety feature they patented several years ago to prevent exactly this?
My first thought is because it's basically useless (haven't read patent). You'd have to have a way to say "I'm a passenger" because users would revolt otherwise. That then means there's nothing to stop the driver from saying that - and we're right back where we are - except the driver is even more at fault.
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I, for one, do not support the death penalty for patent attorneys.
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@dcon said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@CrazyEyes said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
Using FaceTime while driving is obviously dangerous and obviously no one should do it -- but at the same time, why would Apple not have released the safety feature they patented several years ago to prevent exactly this?
My first thought is because it's basically useless (haven't read patent). You'd have to have a way to say "I'm a passenger" because users would revolt otherwise. That then means there's nothing to stop the driver from saying that - and we're right back where we are - except the driver is even more at fault.
It could be a "this data is not encrypted and will be given to the cops if they ask" type override. So can't prevent it, but can make them feel the pain for it if something happens.
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@Gąska said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@abarker I think that detecting whether the user is driver or not can be somewhat straight forward - just look for something that looks like steering wheel.
Phone is in a holder on the dashboard. Driver asks passenger to text someone saying when they'll be arriving. How does the phone know?
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@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@boomzilla said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
Of course. Don't you?
Oh, we've been there, done that. 'tis a bit of a slippery slope.
You don't value your life over that of a random stranger? What about family members? Assigning a different value doesn't have to mean that you're willing to annihilate vast swathes of people on a whim. The values can still be quite high.
You're just sticking your head in the sand here.
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@Greybeard said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
I, for one, do not support the death penalty for patent attorneys.
What about patent legislators?
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@Gąska
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=8,706,143.PN.&OS=PN/8,706,143&RS=PN/8,706,143 .The scenery analysis programming can be based on any suitable algorithm. In one embodiment, for example, the algorithm may specify that if the picture/video data shows only one face and a vehicle operating mechanism (e.g., a steering wheel in an embodiment in which the vehicle is an automobile) in separate images, then it may be determined that the holder of the device is in a driver compartment area of the vehicle (e.g., such as in the driver seat within unsafe operating area 110 of vehicle 100). The algorithm may also specify that if the picture/video data shows more than one face and a vehicle operating mechanism, with one of the faces and the vehicle operating mechanism in one image or video frame, then it may be determined that the holder of the device is not in the driver compartment area of the vehicle, but rather in a passenger compartment area of the vehicle (e.g., such as in the front passenger seat within safe operating area 120 of vehicle 100). Further, the algorithm may specify that if the picture/video data does not show a vehicle operating mechanism, then it may be determined that the holder of the device is in a passenger compartment area of the vehicle (e.g., such as in a rear seat within safe operating area 120 of vehicle 100, or in a passenger compartment area in some other form of transportation, such as a train). In order to prevent the holder of handheld computing device 200 from tilting the camera in different ways during a panning operation (e.g., to avoid capturing an image of the vehicle operating mechanism if the holder is in a driver compartment area of a vehicle), the scenery analysis programming can use accelerometer output to ensure that level and proper panning is implemented.
It uses a "scenery analyzer" but I'm pretty sure the details of its algorithm (aka the actual fucking problem) are not covered by the patent.
So yes, it's a bad patent and it should not exist.
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@RaceProUK said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
If I had to guess, it's basically just using the GPS to detect when its moving above, say, 10mph.
If only there was some other method to make a phone go faster than that speed that doesn't involve such a degree of hazard. Such a method might be called being a passenger in a bus or a train or even a plane these days! Goodness me, were such a thing to exist, it might be totally impossible to use the speed measurements from GPS to work out that sort of thing at all…
:p
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@CrazyEyes said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
We're programmers, right?
No. We have people here who are not programmers.
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@anotherusername said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
The list of those 40 people up there tells a bit of a different story. In dubio pro reo, my ass.
Let me rephrase. If anyone actually was trying to execute a person they personally knew or believed to be possibly innocent, they are guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, and should be brought to justice for that. It doesn't mean the legal system should be modified to make it impossible to give the death penalty to those who actually do deserve it.
I'll have to disagree here regarding modifying the justice system. If you could be 100% accurate in conviction, I'd not really have a problem with the death penalty. If you send somebody to prison and they're innocent, you can always release them and make some restitution. Even if the really-innocent rate is <1% that's too high given the inability to make things (kind of) right.
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@boomzilla said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@Greybeard said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
I, for one, do not support the death penalty for patent attorneys.
What about patent legislators?
Or how about patent trolls... can we at least agree on that?!
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@anotherusername said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@boomzilla said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@Greybeard said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
I, for one, do not support the death penalty for patent attorneys.
What about patent legislators?
Or how about patent trolls... can we at least agree on that?!
Should be exempt from restrictions on cruel and unusual punishment, since they're trolls, not humans.
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@HardwareGeek said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
Should be exempt from restrictions on cruel and unusual punishment, since they're trolls, not humans.
But PETA might have something to say about that…
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@mikehurley said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@anotherusername said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
The list of those 40 people up there tells a bit of a different story. In dubio pro reo, my ass.
Let me rephrase. If anyone actually was trying to execute a person they personally knew or believed to be possibly innocent, they are guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, and should be brought to justice for that. It doesn't mean the legal system should be modified to make it impossible to give the death penalty to those who actually do deserve it.
I'll have to disagree here regarding modifying the justice system. If you could be 100% accurate in conviction, I'd not really have a problem with the death penalty. If you send somebody to prison and they're innocent, you can always release them and make some restitution. Even if the really-innocent rate is <1% that's too high given the inability to make things (kind of) right.
I can respect that position. I don't agree, but I understand your point.
You can't give someone years of their life back, either. If they've lost jobs or loved ones due to their incarceration, you can't just wave a magic wand and make that right.
There should always be a very high standard of guilt required to incarcerate someone. Even higher to apply the death penalty. But the death penalty should exist, and should be used in cases where the crimes were particularly egregious and there's absolutely no doubt of the accused person's guilt.
There's a reason there are 12 people on the jury and they're required to come to a unanimous decision. If one juror has a significant doubt as to the person's guilt, the jury should not convict.
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@aliceif said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@CrazyEyes said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
We're programmers, right?
No. We have people here who are not programmers.
raises hand
Not that I haven't tried, I did code up one stupid little program for work in VB once, and I tried to learn Python to be able to maintain/contribute to an EVE-related project I was using, but never got very far with it before my end of that imploded.
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@anotherusername said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
If one juror has a significant doubt as to the person's guilt, the jury should not convict.
BTDT. (Not death penalty; life without parole.) One single juror harbored doubt based on a time of death estimate. To have been guilty, the accused would have had to commit the crime about an hour before the estimated time of death. However, the estimate (based on body temperature, ambient temperature, state of rigor mortis, etc.) was so uncertain that the later end extended several hours after the body had been found. The rest of the jurors had no problem with accepting that the estimate was so fuzzy that extending it an hour earlier was perfectly reasonable, that the victim might have been still alive but fatally injured when the murderer left the scene, or some combination of the two. But in that juror's opinion, the fuzzy estimate exonerated the accused, or at least created reasonable doubt. (Of course, since the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict either way, the judge declared a mistrial. The accused was convicted in a second trial.)
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@anotherusername said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
Even higher to apply the death penalty. But the death penalty should exist, and should be used in cases where the crimes were particularly egregious and there's absolutely no doubt of the accused person's guilt.
Why? It doesn't change what happened, it's not useful as a deterrent and in fact serves absolutely no practical use whatsoever.
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@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@anotherusername said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
Even higher to apply the death penalty. But the death penalty should exist, and should be used in cases where the crimes were particularly egregious and there's absolutely no doubt of the accused person's guilt.
Why? It doesn't change what happened, it's not useful as a deterrent and in fact serves absolutely no practical use whatsoever.
I think this is a case of "prison should be primarily used for punishment" versus "prison should be primarily used for rehabilitation".
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@e4tmyl33t said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@anotherusername said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
Even higher to apply the death penalty. But the death penalty should exist, and should be used in cases where the crimes were particularly egregious and there's absolutely no doubt of the accused person's guilt.
Why? It doesn't change what happened, it's not useful as a deterrent and in fact serves absolutely no practical use whatsoever.
I think this is a case of "prison should be primarily used for punishment" versus "prison should be primarily used for rehabilitation".
I'm rather thinking of "justice versus revenge".
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@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
I'm rather thinking of "justice versus revenge".
There's also “deterrence of others”.
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@dkf said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
There's also “deterrence of others”.
For which capital punishment simply does not work. At all.
For deterrence to play a meaningful role in a deliberate action, you need three factors:
a) You have to certain that you're caught
b) The punishment has to fit the crime
c) You have to be punished very fast after having committed the deed.a) is usually a bit dubious and c) is the real deal breaker - you're executed decades after the verdict.
And, of course, a murder done in a rage, for example, is completely outside anything where deterrence might even play a role.
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@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
it's not useful as a deterrent
I wonder if that could be partly because all of the appeals take so long that in some cases more death row inmates have died of old age than from being executed.
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@anotherusername said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
it's not useful as a deterrent
I wonder if that could be partly because all of the appeals take so long that in some cases more death row inmates have died of old age than from being executed.
See above. But if you shorten the process you'll execute more innocents.
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@Gąska said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@abarker I think that detecting whether the user is driver or not can be somewhat straight forward - just look for something that looks like steering wheel.
That's easy enough to subvert: cover the back camera with your finger. Now what does the software do? In any case, the patent indicates the software assumes you are the driver then tries to determine if you are not. Still, that would probably be easy enough to subvert. And if it was wrong often enough:
@Polygeekery said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
it would kill their market share and idiots would still be driving and using their phones.
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@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
serves absolutely no practical use whatsoever
It prevents a murderer from murdering again. I'd call that a practical use.
@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
it's not useful as a deterrent
This stems in large part from the punishment being so far removed from the crime and so uncertain in application that the causal link is lost. When it takes so long to apply the punishment that the person is fairly likely to die of natural causes before being executed, it does tend to lose its deterrent effect; when the execution was carried out the next morning in the middle of the town square, the deterrent effect is a bit stronger.
Of course, immediate execution increases the probability of false convictions, since there is no opportunity to appeal; I'm not in favor of that. However, when the appeal process can drag on for 20 years, with appeals based on flimsy premises that have no chance of succeeding, but the courts have to hear them anyway, the pendulum has swung too far the other way.
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@dkf said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@RaceProUK said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
If I had to guess, it's basically just using the GPS to detect when its moving above, say, 10mph.
If only there was some other method to make a phone go faster than that speed that doesn't involve such a degree of hazard. Such a method might be called being a passenger in a bus or a train or even a plane these days! Goodness me, were such a thing to exist, it might be totally impossible to use the speed measurements from GPS to work out that sort of thing at all…
:p
Or, and stay with me here, what if the phone user disabled the GPS?
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@HardwareGeek said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
serves absolutely no practical use whatsoever
It prevents a murderer from murdering again. I'd call that a practical use.
Imprisonment does the same. So, again, capital punishment has no additional use in comparison to prison.
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@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
Imprisonment does the same.
Not really; prison inmates have on very rare occasions been known to kill other inmates.
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@HardwareGeek said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
Imprisonment does the same.
Not really; prison inmates have on very rare occasions been known to kill other inmates.
So, your death row candidates are not in prison before they're executed?
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@abarker said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@dkf said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
@RaceProUK said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
If I had to guess, it's basically just using the GPS to detect when its moving above, say, 10mph.
If only there was some other method to make a phone go faster than that speed that doesn't involve such a degree of hazard. Such a method might be called being a passenger in a bus or a train or even a plane these days! Goodness me, were such a thing to exist, it might be totally impossible to use the speed measurements from GPS to work out that sort of thing at all…
:p
Or, and stay with me here, what if the phone user disabled the GPS?
And the camera? And the compass and inertial sensors?
If they somehow figured out how to disable all of that and/or the software still can't determine (from whatever data it can get) that they're not in a car and/or not driving one, then I guess it would assume that they are.
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@Rhywden said in Stupid patent lawsuits:
Imprisonment does the same. So, again, capital punishment has no additional use in comparison to prison.
The last execution in Canada was December 11th, 1962.
Capital punishment in Canada | CBC News
Two minutes after midnight on Dec. 11, 1962, Arthur Lucas and Robert Turpin became the last people to be executed in Canada.
We have crime rates WAY lower than the US.
Not sure the death penalty is an effective deterrent.
