M.S. Word is illegal because it uses XML!
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@tster said:
Honestly, you have no fucking idea what you are talking about when it comes to developing new drugs. If drug companies could not patent drugs there would be 0 new drugs.
So...to beat a dead horse...did people develop the first drugs because there were patents and they could lock in getting paid for them? Or maybe because there was a need for those drugs? (And yes, I do realize that's a bit simplistic.)
Anyway, I'm not advocating abolishing of the idea of property in general (sorry if I gave that impression to some). I don't even want to abolish the concept of compensating people for their work (either developing ideas or actually bashing matter). What I would like to see is some method of facilitating the compensation of people for their work without imposing restrictions on using knowledge. So while patents help facilitate the compensation for people, they do restrict use of knowledge. I like to believe there's a solution out there (maybe patent worthy? =D) that can achieve both goals.
(Note that I don't think copyright is the same as patents because copying something is not "using" the knowledge - it's making knowledge/concepts/images/sounds/etc. available to others. I don't really have a problem with copyright in general, though I do appreciate that like anything else it can be abused.)
Hopefully that has clarified my philosophy a little...and for the record, I do write a bit "work in progress" and agree that I can be a bit vague and confusing (heck, I confuse myself most of the time).
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@too_many_usernames said:
So...to beat a dead horse...did people develop the first drugs because there were patents and they could lock in getting paid for them? Or maybe because there was a need for those drugs? (And yes, I do realize that's a bit simplistic.)
Then why mention it?@too_many_usernames said:
What I would like to see is some method of facilitating the compensation of people for their work without imposing restrictions on using knowledge. So while patents help facilitate the compensation for people, they do restrict use of knowledge.
I disagree. Patents require a full detailing provided to the public. Without patents you'd see a lot more technology kept secret, and thus the knowledge wouldn't really exist at all, except to a very select few. How does that help anyone?@too_many_usernames said:
Note that I don't think copyright is the same as patents because copying something is not "using" the knowledge - it's making knowledge/concepts/images/sounds/etc. available to others.
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
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@belgariontheking said:
Who hasn't
seenbought a fake gucci or chanel handbag?Not I. Not being a fag, and not really caring what fucking bag the slut I'm with carries, I have no need for these.
Do you find yourself buying a bunch of gucci bags?
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@belgariontheking said:
@morbiuswilters said:
@too_many_usernames said:
Indeed. I would begin selling iphomes and vi@gra at a significantly reduced cost over their legit counterparts. You may laugh, but companies in non-America (and probably some in America) are dedicated to this very thing. Who hasn'tIf there were no such things as patents, people would probably still spend money on these things, but they would spend less money.
A lot less money.seenbought a fake gucci or chanel handbag?Who needs viagra when they have BTK around? ;-D
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@amischiefr said:
Not being a fag, and not really caring what fucking bag the slut I'm with carries, I have no need for these.
You are my hero. <3
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Wow, I started a 50+ post debate.
I should have posted this earlier while the debate was still raging, but better late than never:
"The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying." - John Carmack
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@bstorer said:
I disagree. Patents require a full detailing provided to the public. Without patents you'd see a lot more technology kept secret, and thus the knowledge wouldn't really exist at all, except to a very select few. How does that help anyone?
Patents give people the knowledge, but at the same time they restrict the use of that knowledge. They teach people how/why something works, but then say "you are only allowed to use this knowledge under certain circumstances." This just rubs me the wrong way because use of knowledge does not prevent other people from using that knowledge (unless of course there is a finite set of resources available to "implement" an idea, but that's generally not the case). "Trade secrets" don't actually restrict the use of knowledge, they just make it more difficult to obtain the knowledge. So trade secrets solve the "no restriction on use" bit, but don't solve the "easy to share knowledge or compensate the originators of the knowledge" bits.
@bstorer said:
@too_many_usernames said:
Note that I don't think copyright is the same as patents because copying something is not "using" the knowledge - it's making knowledge/concepts/images/sounds/etc. available to others.
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
If I write down the instructions on how to build a machine, copying the instructions of how to build the machine doesn't actually "implement" the instructions - it just allows more people to have access to those instructions. In fact, you don't even have to understand the instructions to make a copy of them. When making a copy of instructions, or a book, or whatever, there are two things that have value: the ideas which can be interpreted from the copy, and the physical storage of those ideas. Those are separate things. For instance, the memory of a landscape has value to me, but the ability to refresh my memory at any time by looking at a picture has additional value. A story has entertainment or educational value which is separate from the value of having that information written down so I can remind myself of bits of it that I might forget.
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@too_many_usernames said:
Patents give people the knowledge, but at the same time they restrict the use of that knowledge. They teach people how/why something works, but then say "you are only allowed to use this knowledge under certain circumstances."
Uh, yeah.@too_many_usernames said:
This just rubs me the wrong way because use of knowledge does not prevent other people from using that knowledge (unless of course there is a finite set of resources available to "implement" an idea, but that's generally not the case). "Trade secrets" don't actually restrict the use of knowledge, they just make it more difficult to obtain the knowledge. So trade secrets solve the "no restriction on use" bit, but don't solve the "easy to share knowledge or compensate the originators of the knowledge" bits.
WTF are you babbling about?@too_many_usernames said:If I write down the instructions on how to build a machine, copying the instructions of how to build the machine doesn't actually "implement" the instructions - it just allows more people to have access to those instructions. In fact, you don't even have to understand the instructions to make a copy of them. When making a copy of instructions, or a book, or whatever, there are two things that have value: the ideas which can be interpreted from the copy, and the physical storage of those ideas. Those are separate things. For instance, the memory of a landscape has value to me, but the ability to refresh my memory at any time by looking at a picture has additional value. A story has entertainment or educational value which is separate from the value of having that information written down so I can remind myself of bits of it that I might forget.
They say an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters will eventually write Shakespeare, but you're only one monkey and only have one keyboard and have only used it for 15 seconds.Read what you wrote before clicking "Post"
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@Huf Lungdung said:
I should have posted this earlier while the debate was still raging, but better late than never:
"The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying." - John Carmack
and he should know."carmack's reverse" is another example why the patent system is far from being perfect.
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@Huf Lungdung said:
Wow, I started a 50+ post debate.
I should have posted this earlier while the debate was still raging, but better late than never:
"The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying." - John Carmack
His complaint applies to patents being granted on obvious ideas. I'm not sure why you think this makes a good argument against all software patents, though.
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@too_many_usernames said:
Patents give people the knowledge, but at the same time they restrict the use of that knowledge. They teach people how/why something works, but then say "you are only allowed to use this knowledge under certain circumstances."
I refuse to simply grant you this point. You are begging the question when you claim that the knowledge is somehow the property of everyone, not the one who discovered it.@too_many_usernames said:
"Trade secrets" don't actually restrict the use of knowledge, they just make it more difficult to obtain the knowledge.
They certainly restrict the use of knowledge. That's the point of NDAs.@too_many_usernames said:
So trade secrets solve the "no restriction on use" bit, but don't solve the "easy to share knowledge or compensate the originators of the knowledge" bits.
Do you propose to prohibit trade secrets, too? Because now you're just talking crazy talk. My point is that, without patents, the knowledge never reaches the public (barring reverse engineering) because every company will hold all innovations as tightly to their chest as possible. That keeps people from building on that knowledge, which slows down the rate of progress.
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@belgariontheking said:
They say an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters will eventually write Shakespeare, but you're only one monkey and only have one keyboard and have only used it for 15 seconds.
Read what you wrote before clicking "Post"
Apparently I need more bananas, because I reread my post a couple times and still don't understand what's so confusing about it.
My ideas might be flat out wrong (they often are), but I thought I was pretty clear in that presentation. If the concepts are wrong, and there is evidence to suggest that an idea is inseparable from its physical embodiment I'm willing to revise my opinions on such evidence.
At any rate, it's not possible to learn from lack of discussion - for instance, what is so confusing or nonsensical? You could say "I think you're trying to say X - if so I disagree and you're loony for thinking that" or "that sentence structure is just so terrible I have no clue what you're saying." I'm honestly not sure of which form of babbling I've been accused.
Also, I wish I'd seen that Carmack quote sooner.
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@morbiuswilters said:
His complaint applies to patents being granted on obvious ideas. I'm not sure why you think this makes a good argument against all software patents, though.
What is an "obvious" idea? Who gets to decide whether an idea is obvious or not? Just because an idea can be independently discovered twice, does that by definition make it obvious hence unpatentable?
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@too_many_usernames said:
At any rate, it's not possible to learn from lack of discussion - for instance, what is so confusing or nonsensical? You could say "I think you're trying to say X - if so I disagree and you're loony for thinking that" or "that sentence structure is just so terrible I have no clue what you're saying." I'm honestly not sure of which form of babbling I've been accused.
It's tough to put together how anything you said in your more acid-induced posts has anything to do with whether patents are good, bad, or should be allowed or disallowed. Perhaps your whole point has been lost to the monkey.Basically, some your ramblings seem to indicate that you believe information should be free and open, and that noone should be allowed to protect the things they've thought up/created. I read them with this idea in mind, but you go all over the place talking about pictures, instructions, and trade secrets.
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@bstorer said:
I refuse to simply grant you this point. You are begging the question when you claim that the knowledge is somehow the property of everyone, not the one who discovered it.
Fair enough - I happen to believe that facts exist even if they are not discovered so aren't really "property" and can't be owned. I might consider a record of the findings property, but not the information itself. (If I tell you a fact, I'm not deprived of the fact. It's not something that can be "denied" other than by not revealing the fact. Markedly different than if I give you my car, I'm deprived of my car.) Apparently that's a philosophical difference - and it is the one at the core of the debate I think.
@bstorer said:
@too_many_usernames said:
"Trade secrets" don't actually restrict the use of knowledge, they just make it more difficult to obtain the knowledge.
They certainly restrict the use of knowledge. That's the point of NDAs.@too_many_usernames said:
So trade secrets solve the "no restriction on use" bit, but don't solve the "easy to share knowledge or compensate the originators of the knowledge" bits.
Do you propose to prohibit trade secrets, too? Because now you're just talking crazy talk. My point is that, without patents, the knowledge never reaches the public (barring reverse engineering) because every company will hold all innovations as tightly to their chest as possible. That keeps people from building on that knowledge, which slows down the rate of progress.I was referring more to the "reverse engineering" kind of trade secret than the "NDA" type of trade secret. And I wholly agree that a system only supporting trade secrets and reverse engineering is also non-optimal. In fact I'd even agree that patents are better than trade secrets because patents do eliminate having to reverse engineer things and violent protectionism of those secrets. So patents allow progress faster than trade secrets, but they still hold it back compared to a system that did not have to work around patents. Note that if the patent system worked properly patents wouldn't hold things back because the requested compensation for the patents would be an acceptable cost. Since people are willing to spend time to "work around" the patents, the cost of patents is apparently too high.
Yes, working around patents does create new innovation, but if you're working around a building block, you could have gotten further in whatever needed that building block if you didn't have to find a workaround. That's where I see patents currently hinder things in certain situations.
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@belgariontheking said:
Basically, some your ramblings seem to indicate that you believe information should be free and open, and that noone should be allowed to protect the things they've thought up/created. I read them with this idea in mind, but you go all over the place talking about pictures, instructions, and trade secrets.
Ok - so no examples. Simply stated, this is where I'm at:
1. Information cannot be owned.
2. People should be compensated for finding new information if other people find that information valuable and they get that information from a discoverer, but not if they perform tasks necessary to obtain the information themselves (e.g., they do their own measurements, etc.).
3. People should always be allowed to use the facts they know without encumbrance.
4. The current patent system doesn't always simultaneously meet the first three items in the list.
5. Copyright doesn't refer to information but to records of information so is a separate discussion.
6. I don't know how to create a system that simultaneously meets the first three items in the list.
And now the weekend's here, so that's it!
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@too_many_usernames said:
WTF? Of course it prevents people from using knowledge. Lets say I invent something. Then I start manufacturing it and tell the world about it. I put my product for sale for $50. It costs $10 to make. However, inventing it cost me $1,000,000. I expect to sell 50,000 if these things leaving me with a $1,000,000 profit. Now someone else takes my idea andwants to also make a product with it. Since they are just using my idea it only costs them $10,000 to figure out how to make it. Their cost to make it is also $10,000, but since they are not as invested in it they decide they can sell them for $20 each and expect to sell 100,000 of these items.Patents give people the knowledge, but at the same time they restrict the use of that knowledge. They teach people how/why something works, but then say "you are only allowed to use this knowledge under certain circumstances." This just rubs me the wrong way because use of knowledge does not prevent other people from using that knowledge (unless of course there is a finite set of resources available to "implement" an idea, but that's generally not the case).
So now I won't sell anything because my price 150% higher and they end up with a $1,000,000 profit on $2,000,000 revenue. To compete I could drop my price to $20 and sell about 50,000 (remember, our competition is still selling for $20 too) and I end up loosing $500,000 on my invention. Not to mention my competitor will probably just lower his price more to outsell me since he doesn't have to worry about the initial investment.
@too_many_usernames said:
???If I write down the instructions on how to build a machine, copying the instructions of how to build the machine doesn't actually "implement" the instructions - it just allows more people to have access to those instructions. In fact, you don't even have to understand the instructions to make a copy of them. When making a copy of instructions, or a book, or whatever, there are two things that have value: the ideas which can be interpreted from the copy, and the physical storage of those ideas. Those are separate things. For instance, the memory of a landscape has value to me, but the ability to refresh my memory at any time by looking at a picture has additional value. A story has entertainment or educational value which is separate from the value of having that information written down so I can remind myself of bits of it that I might forget.
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@too_many_usernames said:
2. People should be compensated for finding new information if other people find that information valuable and they get that information from a discoverer, but not if they perform tasks necessary to obtain the information themselves (e.g., they do their own measurements, etc.).
3. People should always be allowed to use the facts they know without encumbrance.
4. The current patent system doesn't always simultaneously meet the first three items in the list.
6. I don't know how to create a system that simultaneously meets the first three items in the list.
And now the weekend's here, so that's it!
point 4 and 6 are obvious given points 2 and 3. Point 2 states that people that have information obtained from someone else should have to compensate the other person for using that information wheras point number 3 states that once someone has information they are completely free to use it in any way. Obviously point 2 and 3 conflict and no system could ever satisfy both.
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@belgariontheking said:
@morbiuswilters said:
@too_many_usernames said:
Indeed. I would begin selling iphomes and vi@gra at a significantly reduced cost over their legit counterparts. You may laugh, but companies in non-America (and probably some in America) are dedicated to this very thing. Who hasn'tIf there were no such things as patents, people would probably still spend money on these things, but they would spend less money.
A lot less money.seenbought a fake gucci or chanel handbag?Thankfully, I haven't. (Of course, I've never bought or considered buying a handbag in the first place.)
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@morbiuswilters said:
@Huf Lungdung said:
His complaint applies to patents being granted on obvious ideas. I'm not sure why you think this makes a good argument against all software patents, though.Wow, I started a 50+ post debate.
I should have posted this earlier while the debate was still raging, but better late than never:
"The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying." - John Carmack
His ideals applies to all patents, such that as long as you come up with the solution yourself then you should be entitled to use it. This is, after all, coming from the guy who would love to release all his software opensource and free of charge if he could. Given, maybe. some sort of fair use licence (you make money from it then you give us money). But, yeah, he believes ALL technology should be open and free, which in an IDeal world should be the case, but we don't live in an IDeal world.
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@Hitsuji said:
His ideals applies to all patents, such that as long as you come up with the solution yourself then you should be entitled to use it. This is, after all, coming from the guy who would love to release all his software opensource and free of charge if he could. Given, maybe. some sort of fair use licence (you make money from it then you give us money). But, yeah, he believes ALL technology should be open and free, which in an IDeal world should be the case, but we don't live in an IDeal world.
In an ideal world, everything would be free, we'd all live forever in ever-increasing ecstasy and I'd crap gold. Actually, that's my "nice" ideal world. In my real ideal world, I would have non-stop orgies with supermodels and you all would be my slaves who would have to dance for my amusement. I'd also have unlimited ice creams.
The point is, we can dream up all sorts of impractical "better" worlds, but implementing them is hard work. Capitalism is by no means perfect, but it's far better than anything else out there. By the same token, intellectual property is by no means perfect, but it is an attempt to establish standards similar to those of tangible property for works of the mind rather than hand. This allows the market mechanism to function within the realm of mental labor and leads in the best efficiencies (and hence, progress) that we are currently capable of. There's always tuning that can be done and I'm by no means close-minded enough to reject small, incremental changes that try to increase the efficiency of the system. Broad, sweeping "reforms", though, are a tough sell, and for good reason. In the history of the world, major revolutions have tended to result in a worse outcome in 99% of cases.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm not so committed to software patents that I can't be convinced they should be abandoned, but I have never heard a reasonable argument in favor of that. Every argument essentially boils down to "restrictions on information suck" which is true, I suppose, in a very generic sense. Restrictions on tangible property also suck (I mean, why can't everyone have a BMW and a mansion and tech gadgets?). The thing is, the restrictions on tangible property are based on fundamental problems of production and consumption and the Capitalist system has acheived the best results in maximizing wealth for everybody. In trying to establish rules for the realm of intellectual production, you can do far worse than mimicking the system we have for tangible property (read the comments on Slashdot sometime, for example). In fact, this is what America's founders did (borrowing the idea from the British, of course) and so far it has resulted in the wealthiest nation on Earth and has been copied by almost every nation on the planet (or at least those where the leaders are interested in advancing the lives of their citizens rather than just enriching themselves).
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what the hell? morbs, delivering a calm, measured argument, acknowledging not only the existance of the other side but also its opinions as well, AND not deriding them, and finally coming to a conclusion that advocates moderate, limited progress rather than extreme progressiveness, extreme fundamentalism, or the deaths of millions of (barely, somewhat) innocent people?
Did I just end up in bizarro-world or something?
(IMO, software patents need closer scruitiny, shorter periods of exclusivity, and genuine innovation; i.e. a dlg box shouldn't be patentable, but if it was patented, the patent should only last like two years, no patent on dlg boxen with differently named buttons or an icon in the buttons, perhaps patent on vista "task panes" which use multiple lines of text and such. But that's just MHO, no reason behind it.)
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@belgariontheking said:
vi@gra
wtf is viatgra.
@belgariontheking said:
Who hasn't
seenbought a fake gucci or chanel handbag?*hand*
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@morbiuswilters said:
Capitalism is by no means perfect, but it's far better than anything else out there.
Yes it it. It's just that we don't practice perfect capitalism.
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@morbiuswilters said:
stuff
+1
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I would like to know how I missed this last page full of delicious text.
@morbiuswilters said:
#1 Broad, sweeping "reforms", though, are a tough sell, and for good reason.
#2 In the history of the world, major revolutions have tended to result in a worse outcome in 99% of cases.I move to strike sentence #2 from consideration on the grounds that it can be reformatted into "for good reason" , which is the same category of unsubstantiated claims as the "for good reason"in sentence #1.
#2 may be reconsidered if and only if a set of direct examples of statistically significant size is provided.
@morbiuswilters said:
I guess what I'm trying to say is,
+3 Wise, up to but not including "In fact, this is what America's founders did..." and further, where it gets a little ew patriotic.
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@dhromed said:
@morbiuswilters said:
I guess what I'm trying to say is,
+3 Wise, up to but not including "In fact, this is what America's founders did..." and further, where it gets a little ew patriotic.
Wait, are you trying to say there is a wealthier country?
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@tster said:
@morbiuswilters said:
Capitalism is by no means perfect, but it's far better than anything else out there.
Yes it it. It's just that we don't practice perfect capitalism.I'd be afraid of "perfect capitalism", or any system that ensures only the most greedy and power hungry people wind up in power.
Is there a viable government/economic system whereby those in power do not want/seek it? Might that be a better system?
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@Huf Lungdung said:
@tster said:
@morbiuswilters said:
Capitalism is by no means perfect, but it's far better than anything else out there.
Yes it it. It's just that we don't practice perfect capitalism.I'd be afraid of "perfect capitalism", or any system that ensures only the most greedy and power hungry people wind up in power.
Is there a viable government/economic system whereby those in power do not want/seek it? Might that be a better system?
All systems end up with the greediest and most power-hungry in power. That's why the point of a constitutional, representative democracy is to limit the power that any single person has over others.
Of course, your point is kind of stupid, anyway. Why would having non-greedy, careless people in positions of power be better? Do you really want someone in power to be so lacking in motivation that they would not care one way or the other? Also, "greedy" is a loaded word. If you mean "greedy" as in "wanting to take from others to further one's self", then "greedy" sucks. But most of the time "greedy" people just want to better themselves and with a free market the best way to do that is to satisfy other people. This is seriously Econ 101 stuff. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be rich and making that happen, so long as you are taking what belongs to other people.
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@morbiuswilters said:
Do you really want someone in power to be so lacking in motivation that they would not care one way or the other?
No, certainly not. You're right in that there's nothing wrong with wanting to be wealthy - it all depends on how you acquire that wealth. A good leader's primary motivation, however, wouldn't be prestige or money but rather a desire to do something good for others.
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Re: Patents!
I dislike patents, I think the patent system should be completely abolished (with a transition time of one year, or maybe only six months). If someone keeps their idea secret, someone else will eventually figure it out anyways. And, whoever makes competition, and both sides can even improve their own products too, to make more improvement of the product better than if it were patented instead. (I mostly agree with too_many_usernames about these ideas.) You can also find various things about abolishing patents (both for and against it, and also for software patents being abolished only), on search engines and books.
Against patents is even on my Wikipedia user-page. User:Zzo38/Userboxes/nopatents
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@too_many_usernames said:
More seriously, though, there is a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing going on with things like Big Medicine. Development costs are probably high because they can get high payback due to patent monopoly. If there were no such things as patents, people would probably still spend money on these things, but they would spend less money. Is that good or bad? I don't know. It's just different. (Big Medicine may be a bad example in general because that field just has a huge barrier to entry in the first place - and much of it isn't technical. High costs due to technical barriers I can accept, but social or legislative barriers just leave a bad taste in my mouth.)
Big medicine is the one area where I think patents are really necessary. It's not for the technical expenses of making a new drug, it's for the technical expenses of making a new drug ethically, and enforcing that in spite of the fact that we're talking about some of the greediest corporations in the world today. The legislative barriers are high, but my impression is most of that barrier is needed.
Anyone with any questions can look up the 'Tuskegee Syphillis Trials".
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Back in the day, as I understand it, patents in this country were approved for the specific purpose of promoting the public good, in those areas of endeavor that required such enticements.
Computer programming was out of scope for patents for most of the time since integrated circuits were invented. The software business was booming exponentially before software patents were approved.&nbps; I fail to see the public good in granting patents in this area.
When granting a monopoly, the burden of proof should not be on "why not allow it", but on "why allow it".
As far as what the harm is, we have a patent system which is being inundated with far more work than they can competently perform. They are mostly not trained for reviewing software patents - at least for the first few years of offering software patents, they were not even hiring any programmers or software engineers to review them. Their search system is not apparently capable of performing comprehensive prior art searches. It is my opinion that the most broken thing about the patent system today is that software patents have overburdened it.
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@morbiuswilters said:
His complaint applies to patents being granted on obvious ideas. I'm not sure why you think this makes a good argument against all software patents, though.
Two points:
1. The vast majority of software is made up of obvious parts. After the smaller parts have been assembled, how to assemble them into the mid-sized parts is obvious. Assembly of the mid-sized parts into large parts is also obvious. This continues onwards. The vast majority of all software is obvious.
2. What is obvious to any programmer is rarely obvious to anyone who is neither a programmer, a mathematician or a logician. For example, just about any patent examiner.
For more thoughts on this matter, see http://www.researchoninnovation.org/dopatentswork/
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@henke37 said:
Doesn't patents have to not be based on common knowledge? You can't patent the wheel even if it isn't patented yet.
It is called prior works. If there already exists that for which you are patenting before the patent is requested, not made by you, the patent is deemed invalid and void. Such as what happened for the company who claimed to own a patent filed in 94 i think (citation needed) giving them exclusive rights to create operating systems. Also this happened for MMORPGS, the patent was deemed invalid since it was filed in 2002 (or 2004) waaay after many MMOS have been out.
In any case this is good that this case is happening.
Either:
a) MS will buy the patent.
b) MS will buy the company, thus fulfiling a.
c) The patent will be deemed invalid due to prior art. This means that MS's patents are void as well on the xml format, which is good for open standards since one chief complaint was that any program that can read this xml format would have infringed on Microsoft patents.
I think C may be the greater of three evils for Microsoft. They will probably try to fight tooth and nail to claim the patent does not apply to word.
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@XIU said:
@ajp said:
I like how this Canadian company decided to sue an American company based in Washtington in an East Texas District Court.
Because the Texas court is known for these kind of cases. And always in favor of the one who sues.
Fair enough, but how do they have the right to pick this court to sue in anyway?
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@zzo38 said:
I dislike patents
Half of all the arguments against patents in this thread have boiled down to this.@zzo38 said:
whoever makes competition, and both sides can even improve their own products too, to make more improvement of the product better than if it were patented instead
What in the name of god are you trying to say?@zzo38 said:
You can also find various things about abolishing patents... on search engines and books.
No fucking shit?@zzo38 said:
Against patents is even on my Wikipedia user-page. User:Zzo38/Userboxes/nopatents
Congratulations?
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@tgape said:
I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one.1. The vast majority of software is made up of obvious parts. After the smaller parts have been assembled, how to assemble them into the mid-sized parts is obvious. Assembly of the mid-sized parts into large parts is also obvious. This continues onwards. The vast majority of all software is obvious.
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@tgape said:
1. The vast majority of software is made up of obvious parts. After the smaller parts have been assembled, how to assemble them into the mid-sized parts is obvious. Assembly of the mid-sized parts into large parts is also obvious. This continues onwards. The vast majority of all software is obvious.
You could make the same argument for any mechanical device. After all, they're all just a bunch of simple machines assembled together.
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@bstorer said:
@tgape said:
But ... there is only one obvious way to put together a car, and Ford patented that years ago!1. The vast majority of software is made up of obvious parts. After the smaller parts have been assembled, how to assemble them into the mid-sized parts is obvious. Assembly of the mid-sized parts into large parts is also obvious. This continues onwards. The vast majority of all software is obvious.
You could make the same argument for any mechanical device. After all, they're all just a bunch of simple machines assembled together.
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@belgariontheking said:
@bstorer said:
@tgape said:
But ... there is only one obvious way to put together a car, and Ford patented that years ago!1. The vast majority of software is made up of obvious parts. After the smaller parts have been assembled, how to assemble them into the mid-sized parts is obvious. Assembly of the mid-sized parts into large parts is also obvious. This continues onwards. The vast majority of all software is obvious.
You could make the same argument for any mechanical device. After all, they're all just a bunch of simple machines assembled together.So that's why Ford is doing well after turning down a government bailout but GM and Chrysler are still bleeding to death!
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@tster said:
@zzo38 said:
I dislike patents
Half of all the arguments against patents in this thread have boiled down to this.@zzo38 said:
whoever makes competition, and both sides can even improve their own products too, to make more improvement of the product better than if it were patented instead
What in the name of god are you trying to say?@zzo38 said:
You can also find various things about abolishing patents... on search engines and books.
No fucking shit?@zzo38 said:
Against patents is even on my Wikipedia user-page. User:Zzo38/Userboxes/nopatents
Congratulations?This is the guy who wrote a gopher daemon in BASIC, IIRC. I didn't even bother reading his points, let alone responding.
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(No Subject)
@morbiuswilters said:
This is the guy who wrote a gopher daemon in BASIC, IIRC.(...)
That isn't the only thing, I also wrote a web-browser (and gopher client) in JavaScript (using XUL-runner), and a IRC client in PHP, and a firmware menu for Nintendo DS in C, and I added a Forth interpreter (and other features) to MegaZeux. (Ignore it if you want to, but that's what it is)
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@zzo38 said:
@morbiuswilters said:
This is the guy who wrote a gopher daemon in BASIC, IIRC.(...)
That isn't the only thing, I also wrote a web-browser (and gopher client) in JavaScript (using XUL-runner), and a IRC client in PHP, and a firmware menu for Nintendo DS in C, and I added a Forth interpreter (and other features) to MegaZeux. (Ignore it if you want to, but that's what it is)Thanks for the resume. Now why are software patents bad again?
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@morbiuswilters said:
I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm not so committed to software patents that I can't be convinced they should be abandoned, but I have never heard a reasonable argument in favor of that. Every argument essentially boils down to "restrictions on information suck" which is true, I suppose, in a very generic sense. Restrictions on tangible property also suck ... [snip]
It's not a problem with software patents, it's a problem with patents in general, or rather the way they're interpreted/enforced today. Earlier you said that all patents are on ideas - while I can see what you were getting at, it's the wrong language. The distinction needs to be made (and used to be made) between concept and implementation. If you come up with a new sorting algorithm that's faster than all the others, great, that's a specific implementation of a general concept. On the other hand, you can't patent the concept of arranging a set of items in alphabetical order. That's because what you've described is really just the end result, not the steps you need to take to get there.
Let's say I have an idea, I think that all appliances should have retractable cords (these already exist, but they're rare, so pretend it's never been done). Well, great idea, but how do you do it so that it's not prohibitively expensive to the manufacturer, or so that it doesn't introduce all sorts of other unreasonable trade-offs? Nobody's going to want to put a $5 piece of electro-mechanical equipment on a toaster that sells for $10, never mind the extra space and weight requirements. My idea is worth squat. If I come up with an implementation using monofilament blarnication quasiconductor in a wear-resistant MINO klaxosilicate insulation jacket (yes, that's made-up) that pivots around a lite-brite peg and can be manufactured in bulk for 25 cents and takes up less than 1/2 cubic inch of space, that is worth something. But that's the only part that's worth something. Anybody could have come up with the idea of a retractable cord, and thousands or millions of people probably already did before me; just because I came up with the first viable implementation doesn't mean I own the idea.
So it is with software patents like this. Their patent appears to be for "an extension to MS word that lets you do stuff with XML." Well, sorry, but that ain't worth sh*t. That's just a concept, and I seriously doubt that MS used the same specific design that i4i did.
To put it bluntly, a patent is not supposed to answer the question, "what does it do?", it's supposed to answer the question "how does it do that?". You might have to answer both, just so the people reading it know what the hell they're reading about, but the only part you own is the "how". With software patents, so few people in the patent office understand the inner workings, that they basically mistake a feature description for an actual design. My invention is a web browser, and it works by having an address bar where you type in a URL and it shows you that web page, and the patent office would probably accept that. If they don't, it's only because they already know what a web browser is and know about the "prior art".
The way patents are enforced today, the analogy to "tangible property" is effectively, if I buy a house, then nobody is allowed to enter my house or any other house on the street or any house at all, ever, without my explicit permission. Obviously that makes no sense; I bought a specific house, I didn't buy every house that ever existed or will exist.
Somewhere along the line, people forgot what patents were supposed to do. A drug patent is there so other companies can't just steal the formula and make generic versions of the same drug. But Roche doesn't get to have an exclusive patent on "a pill you can take to cure headaches." It's not the obviousness that's the problem, it's the fact that there's more than one way to do that. The patent system is actually fine, the problem is judges who have no clue what a patent really is or how it's supposed to be enforced. We don't need reforms, we just need to educate these judges with a 2-by-4.
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@tster said:
Because without software patents, you could write your own XML word processor in Forth. Or a 1-click ordering system, also in Forth. WHY ARE SOFTWARE PATENTS HOLDING BACK FORTH?!@zzo38 said:
@morbiuswilters said:
This is the guy who wrote a gopher daemon in BASIC, IIRC.(...)
That isn't the only thing, I also wrote a web-browser (and gopher client) in JavaScript (using XUL-runner), and a IRC client in PHP, and a firmware menu for Nintendo DS in C, and I added a Forth interpreter (and other features) to MegaZeux. (Ignore it if you want to, but that's what it is)Thanks for the resume. Now why are software patents bad again?
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@bstorer said:
@tster said:
Because without software patents, you could write your own XML word processor in Forth. Or a 1-click ordering system, also in Forth. WHY ARE SOFTWARE PATENTS HOLDING BACK FORTH?!@zzo38 said:
@morbiuswilters said:
This is the guy who wrote a gopher daemon in BASIC, IIRC.(...)
That isn't the only thing, I also wrote a web-browser (and gopher client) in JavaScript (using XUL-runner), and a IRC client in PHP, and a firmware menu for Nintendo DS in C, and I added a Forth interpreter (and other features) to MegaZeux. (Ignore it if you want to, but that's what it is)Thanks for the resume. Now why are software patents bad again?
I LOL'd.
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Someoneh needs to holdh back the forth, or the enemies wouldh surely gain vantageh over our kingdomh.
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@Zecc said:
Someoneh needs to holdh
backthe forth, or the enemies wouldh surely gain vantageh over our kingdomh.FTFY.
