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Some null set logic | 275 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
He also said that the code was not copied
Authored by: Ian Al on Tuesday, May 01 2012 @ 08:03 AM EDT
I can imagine the jury thinking that it quacks like a null set, but if there was
no SSO-there there why would Google agree it was copied and why go to the
expense of the trial?

I hope that the judge's warning about consideration of the facts and the fairly
straightforward questions will allow the jury to decide that Oracle were,
indeed, blowing smoke as they appeared to be doing during the trial and that
there truly is a null set.

It's horribly complicated law and horribly complicated technology. I would not
want to be a juror on this one.

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

I have a bad feeling already...
Authored by: Gringo_ on Tuesday, May 01 2012 @ 09:26 AM EDT

Your comment really hit it home for me. As a thought experiment, I imagined the structure of some class, then removed the names, replacing them with lines. Lo and behold, a structure did remain, but it was pretty abstract. Then I thought about analogies, and it occurred to me - music! Music has structure like that. Music can be copyrighted too. Now music has more than structure - it has melody and harmony. So let's remove the melody and harmony, (the note) and what remains? The same thing as the SSO! Wow. How profound. I don't know where this is going...

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Some null set logic
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 01 2012 @ 10:15 AM EDT

The logic of the null set isn't quite that paradoxical. But it is true that it can look difficult if one doesn't analyze it properly.

Did google copy the empty set. Well yes because each element of this empty set was copied. Also no because each element of the empty set was not copied.

You are positing two different definitions for copying a set.

  1. Your first definition appears to be that a set was copied if "each element of [the] set was copied"; that does indeed lead to the conclusion that the empty set was copied.
  2. You reach the opposite conclusion by using a different definition: a set was not copied if "each element of [the] set was not copied". And indeed, that leads to the conclusion that the empty set was not copied.

The confusion comes from assuming that the two definitions are equivalent. They are not.

Consider the set S = {WarAndPeace,EndersGame}. Let's say I copy EndersGame but not WarAndPeace. Have I copied S?

By your first definition, the answer is clearly negative. WarAndPeace was not copied, therefore S was not copied.

Now consider your second definition. S is not copied if each element of S is not copied. But I have copied EndersGame; therefore it is not true that I have not copied S. Put more simply: S was copied.

The logical rule that explains this is the following: if you move a negation over a quantifier (either "each" or "some"), the quantifier changes to its opposite ("each" becomes "some" and vice versa). Thus the negation of your first definition is that a set is not copied if some element in it is copied". Some is not the same as each :-)


I rather think the second definition is correct for the purposes of this trial. After all, there would not be any sense in asking about de minimis if infringement could only happen if you copied everything...


Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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