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Authored by: Gringo_ on Wednesday, August 29 2012 @ 11:29 AM EDT |
It so is encouraging to see the US patent system's
problems being so widely
discussed in forums well removed
from the usual tech columns. In Patent Law Needs Update
in Age of Apple, Bloomberg's Evan
Soltas concludes...
There are many signs that the economic
rents
from patents are excessive, in effect short-changing the
public
interest. Apple, for one, has clearly recouped the
value of its investment in
R&D and likely even the full
social benefit of its touchscreen technology
-- its
incredible accounting profits and record market
capitalization make
that clear. Apple has the legal right to
pursue Samsung for patent violations,
but the larger system
of patents is broken and blameworthy. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 29 2012 @ 11:49 AM EDT |
Companies that acquire the nation's imprimatur often, if not
invariably, over-reach. It is a characteristic of American capitalism: the price
of getting really big and overbearing is that you incur an inverse
reaction.
In the early 1990s, an ambitious department of justice (a
Republican administration DOJ at that) commenced its assault on Microsoft. For
better or worse, by the time the feds were finished, the company, with its
rotten operating system, besieged and beleaguered, had become just one of many
not-very-adept players in the space – an unimaginable outcome if you remember
the once God-like power and scorched-earth wrath of Microsoft.
Apple, and
its rotten phone, have a ways to go. But karma should not be underestimated as a
factor in this game.
Michael Wolff, The Guardian[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 29 2012 @ 11:53 AM EDT |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet_%28Terminator%29 [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 29 2012 @ 01:18 PM EDT |
That is all...well it's not all I like, but that's all I'm tellin youse guise [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Tim on Wednesday, August 29 2012 @ 01:56 PM EDT |
I have remarked in these forums that OPEN STANDARDS are the way to
avoid
problems with patents and many other
types of "intellectual property". If you
specify the way that a document is
displayed, and describe the metadata used to
construct it, it does not matter what hardware or software was used to
create
it, anyone can read the information -
This is a way that we can all advance
together.
Fortunately, the OpenStand.org movement seem to be trying to put a
suitable cure in place. This would seem to have
come from the lessons learned
from the ODF/OOXML saga. It might
also
make many hardware standards
problems
disappear.
Link -
Principles
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 29 2012 @ 02:45 PM EDT |
"On May 7th and June 8th, 2010, Microsoft and IBM met
privately with members
of New Zealand's Ministry of Economic
Development (MED). They convinced the
Ministry to abandon
plans to exclude software from patentability, as can be
seen
in the new version of the text which was finally published
on 28 Aug
2012", lin
k [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 29 2012 @ 05:16 PM EDT |
Right now, a group of 600 industry lobbyist "advisors" and
un-elected government trade representatives are scheming behind closed doors to
craft an international agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP).
Why the secrecy? We know from leaked documents that
the TPP includes what amounts to an Internet trap that would:
- Criminalize some of your everyday use of the
Internet,
- Force service providers to collect and hand
over your private data without privacy safeguards, and
- Give media conglomerates more power to fine you for Internet
use, remove online content—including entire websites—and even
terminate your access to the Internet.
- Create a
parallel legal system of international tribunals that will undermine national
sovereignty and allow conglomerates to sue countries for laws that infringe on
their profits.
The TPP's Internet
trap is secretive, extreme, and it could criminalize your daily use of the
Internet. We deserve to know what will be blocked, what we and our families
will be fined for.
Stop the
Trap - petition[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 30 2012 @ 12:00 PM EDT |
By the way, for any who might not know, hacker from the beginning
usage of the word means something good to programmers. Crackers are the bad
guys. The non-technical world gets that mixed up all the time, but programmers
know the difference.
The non-technical world gets this wrong all
the time because there is 200 plus years of prior usage of the word "hack" with
a generally negative meaning - for example hack writer - someone who
does low quality work and is purely motivated by money.
I realize that language
changes and the "hacker" truly is a new usage with it's own meaning but, for
some of us, the old associations die hard. I simply avoid the term altogether.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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