Profiting From A Vague Patent HOWTO 309
tunabomber writes "IEEE Spectrum has an in-depth article about the rise of Acacia Research Corporation and its plan for enforcing its patent on 'Digital Media Technology' (which seems to lay claim to any technology that transmits audio or video digitally for entertainment purposes). You may recall that there was a story on Slashdot over a year ago about Acacia's threats and subsequent lawsuits against some small adult entertainment companies regarding their violation of the patent. There was also an Ask Slashdot posted a while back by the owner of one of these companies who had received a letter from Acacia Research demanding that they pay licensing fees. Both Slashdot stories asked how long it would be until Acacia went after the big media companies. Well, they finally did last week. It appears that Acacia just had to get enough companies (Disney and Virgin Radio, among others) to pay licensing fees before they could afford a legal adventure against the big guys. DirectTV, Comcast, Echostar, and Charter Communications are some of the defendents. Let the fireworks begin!"
Profit! (Score:3, Funny)
Some HOWTO this was... I have the 2nd step, but I thought this would answer that elusive 3rd step, but it was no help at all.
1. Obtain vague patent
2. Enforce vague patent
3. ???
4. Profit!!!
Re:Profit! (Score:5, Insightful)
>2. Enforce vague patent
>3. ???
>4. Profit!!!
After all the articles we've read, there is clearly 1 superior way to profit. Everytime I've seen someone make one of these, this one applies. Same method. Everytime.
1. Become a lawyer
2. Profit
Talk about being in high demand? There will ALWAYS be some rich asshole who wants to sue another rich asshole.
Re:Profit! (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, this was illustrated quite nicely... (Score:4, Interesting)
From that point on EVERYTHING is signed in triplicate, videotaped from every angle, and witnessed by at least three people. Funny, but I'd LOVE to see this sort of thing happen.
Re:Yes, this was illustrated quite nicely... (Score:5, Insightful)
That day is coming, the medical profession really has no alternative. Most of them have no problem with the real part of the damages if they screw up, but the awarding of punitives that are often 100x the real, or more, by a court system that thinks medicine should be absolutely infallible, all neatly defined etc etc, is the real shame of our american justice system.
Medicine, and its diagnosis and delivery are still more art, prior experience and instinct than hard fact, a situation thats slowly changeing with the ever less instrusive methods of seeing whats wrong inside the body coming online, but those methods generally cost money, lots of it. And they have to be paid for. If you are outputting 75% of the gross income in malpractice insurance, thats just that much less to spend on keeping uptodate, so its a self-defeating spiral.
If refusing service to a lawyer saves the potential of having the rates raised by another $100k next year, thats $100k that could be used as a downpayment on a cat scanner or similar gear. It makes perfect sense to me.
Cheers, Gene
Re:Profit! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Profit! (Score:4, Interesting)
How well do you think they can communicate with my grandmother, who's from Cape Cod and only ever been to Scotland in her whole life? Not well, I can tell you. It seriously pisses me off when you suggest that there's no objective difference between an immigrant in an extremely sensitive position such as a hospital, and a native English speaker.
That's bullshit. She could never get things across to the nurses she had. I don't care how much you pull the wool over your eyes, there is a difference.
This is reality, man. Not some fucking liberal paradise. I have nothing against people because of their race or where they came from. I have something against a system that puts people in a position they shouldn't be in for practical, objective reasons.
Re:Profit! (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think I can even see the topic from here anymore, but what the Hell,
How often they leave things to immigrant nurses
I used to go out with a eastern european nurse. She was very intelligent and very compasionate. There is nothing wrong with foreign medical practitioners. The point that is RARELY considered however, is what effect it has on the country of origin that is unable to compete with the USA and UK and finds it's qualified medical staff leaving en masse.
Great for 'us,' very bad for t
Yet this is the nightmare being pushed on the EC (Score:3, Insightful)
You have to wonder if there is a politician in the world that has a functioning brain cell. Why in the world would the EC even consider following the broken disaster that is the US patent process?
I'm also expecting a push from the US to "simplify" world patents a few years after that by "consolidating" the patent databases. Of course then they can claim that the whole world is subject to this insanity, and try to extort revenue from global industry.
It's not surprising the EC politicians don't see tha
Wait a second... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wait a second... (Score:2)
Re:Wait a second... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Wait a second... (Score:3, Funny)
Apologies to whomever's sig I have just trampled on...
Re:Wait a second... (Score:3, Funny)
I'm going to patent making jokes about patenting patenting; and while my patent on patenting patenting is pending, you'd best make the most of them, because patenting patenting jokes are getting patently unfunny and I (and my patent) shall soon be putting a stop to them.
So there!
"some small adult entertainment companies" (Score:4, Funny)
Re:"some small adult entertainment companies" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"some small adult entertainment companies" (Score:2)
Are there really some companies dedicated to entertaining dwarves ???
I believe the politically correct term is small adults ;)
Re:"some small adult entertainment companies" (Score:2)
Re:"some small adult entertainment companies" (Score:2, Informative)
*Grabs popcorn* (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, the sharks are rubbing their collective fins at the prospect, and ironing their armani suits no doubt.
Re:*Grabs popcorn* (Score:5, Funny)
They lawyer simple whistled. Several dorsal fins stopped circuling and headed right for the boat. They stopped in a ring as the lawyer talked to them in hushed tones. The sharks skattered underwater before the boat was suddenly lifted up, and surged forward.
The sailor gazed over the side, shocked. The sharks were carrying the boat on their backs. After a few minutes travel, they spotted land ahead. The priest said "Saint's be praised."
The boat slid onto the beach, and the three men stepped out. As they did another school of sharks appeared, and began depositing fish on the shoreline, before swimming away.
The priest said, "God has answered our prayers."
The lawyer turned and said, "Nah, this is just professional curtesy."
It's a rerun... (Score:2)
Prior art (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Prior art (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, that picture of Snoopy had all the women in the data center giggling.
Re:Prior art (Score:5, Funny)
Ten years from now, I'll be working in a large data center running primarily on UNIX variants. The company tour guide will lead his group in on the balcony, and will say, "Here are prime examples of the Berkeley Long-Hair. It's just about their feeding time."
Then the dumb waiter opens and there's some pizza...
Re:Prior art (Score:5, Informative)
So you need to see if the first ever digtially transmitted compressed audio or video file predates this patent.
I suspect it does. There must have been countless zipped audio samples on bulletin boards by 1992.
Re:Prior art (Score:5, Interesting)
That would appear to make my online chess playing qualify as prior art.
Re:Prior art (Score:2, Informative)
Were they compressed, stored, transmitted and then decompressed? And were they audioand/or video files? Looks like this is what's needed.
Compression: Glyps are compressed using ascii codes
Decompressed: Ascii-byte-codes decompress to glyps.
Video/Audio: Some ascii-art has animation and beeps.
Re:Prior art (Score:5, Informative)
Unless my memory is failing me, that was in the mid-80's. And one of the main distribution media for those files were BBS's... Can Mr. Rogers say 'prior art'?
Yes, they were. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. The final human-readable form of the characters was a 6x9 array of dots (bits) that formed a glyph on the paper. Those 54 bits were compressed into an 8-bit byte for transmission by recognizing that most combinations of those 54 bits did not result in recognizable English letters, arabic numerals, or punctuation marks.
Re:Prior art (Score:2, Funny)
Prior art is mentioned in the patent! (Score:3, Informative)
They gave a list of 9 instances of prior art, right in the patent! Any time you stream media, this patent covers it. So, for instance, the telephone (invented 1876), the television (patented 1948), and "computer channels" (Z3 built in 1941) all operate primarily (exc
Patent enforcement (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Patent enforcement (Score:2)
Re:Patent enforcement (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, that seems about right. Patents are simply broken. Their intention was to promote innovation, yet I cannot think of an example recently (past 50-75 years) where innovation happens as a result of patenting something. If anything, it actually hinders innovation.
The infamous laser patent went on for almost 20 years. I don't know of the benefits Gould got by winning the patent, but lasers have become ubiquitous. Look at how many things we use every day that have lasers in them. Bar code scanners, CD players/burners, fiber optics, laser pointers, etc etc. How much innovation would have come from lasers if there were some large tax on the technology?
Also, it seems as though the stupid patents are also the most profitable. Like the "one click" thingy, or Symbol's patent on a "bar code reader with a trigger". Yes, the next time you are at a store and you see a barcode reader with a trigger, odds are its a Symbol product. If not, the "technology" is licensed from Symbol. I used to work with hand held barcode scanners, and I've only used one that was not a Symbol. I don't see too much innovation in the "one click" or "triggered barcode scanners".
Another problem with patents, is that they do nothing to the "little guy" who patents something. First, the little guy probably has no means to mass produce the patented item, so what the hell is he innovating? Thinking of something and doing something are two different things. Also, if the little guy has a patent on something, it is up to them to defend it. This costs big bucks and takes considerable amount of time, two things a little guy does not have to spare. I laugh at those comercials where the people say "If I had a patent I'd be rich!" I doubt it. Most "self made" rich people are those that start their own business, bust their ass, and make it work (independant of patents).
Well I for one have found.... (Score:4, Funny)
Going after little guys first... (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, in court, isn't it simple enough to find bias against people who "harm society" to make judgements not based on the rule of law?
-PM
Re:Going after little guys first... (Score:3, Insightful)
Think of the children? What about the adolescents?! As an adolescent myself, I had a great interest in the porn industry, from a purely... "research-driven" point of view (grin).
I get fed up with the pr0n == evil crowd, especially in the conservative-religious parts of the U.S. (and its representatives in the U.S. court system). Yah, there's some evil exploitation there, agreed, it's a legal form of prosti
Big guys? (Score:5, Interesting)
Since when are Disney and Virgin not considered big companies?
Re:Big guys? (Score:3, Interesting)
All the sudden your properties are more valuable. You can sell them without the license feels.
Re:Big guys? (Score:2)
Re:Big guys? (Score:2)
dumb and obvious Q for the IANAL among us... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:dumb and obvious Q for the IANAL among us... (Score:5, Informative)
My vague patent (Score:3, Funny)
2. Have wet dreams about email royalties from Yahoo, Hotmail, *starts slobbering*
3. ????
4. Drive the spammers out of business
5. Profit!
Yeah, breaks with the "Slashdot-profit-haiku" rules, but who cares.
Re:My vague patent (Score:2)
Maybe you should patent it?
Re:My vague patent (Score:2)
What the patent system needs (Score:5, Insightful)
a) get through the special interest dominated congress and
b: Be effective at making huge companies afraid of the fine while at the same time not intimidating legitimate companies from applying for legitmate patents.
Scylla and Charybdis...
And yes, I do think there are legitimate software patents, for example if this company had developed it's own compression algorithm, and unique, and very specific, distribution method, then they probably deserve a patent for it, but if they just say they invented distributing entertainment digitally, then there is no basis for the patent and they should be punished accordingly.
Re:What the patent system needs (Score:4, Insightful)
A more effective deterrent to bogus patents would be for the USPTO to have to pay any damages and legal costs awarded by the courts for overturned patents.
As it stands, the USPTO has everything to gain and nothing to lose by rubber stamping everything it receives. If they had "some skin in the game" they would likely be more dilligent in their research.Re:What the patent system needs (Score:5, Insightful)
I fear to say I agree with you, to a point, al least. I think a specific technology, software or not involved, should be patentable, the problem is not with patenting thechnologies, but when ideas are patented.
For example, the mouse, if you patent the mouse, you are patenting one implementation of a device to interact with the computer in a graphical way. If you patent a way to push a button, it's not a technology, it's an idea. Same with an algorithm, the encryption idea should not be patentable, a given algorithm should.
The patent for broadcasting digital entertainment is an idea, and seems to be like patenting the use of water for thirst relieving.
With all that vague patents, why anyone has patented the operating system yet?
Re:What the patent system needs:peer review (Score:2)
Re:What the patent system needs (Score:4, Interesting)
If we are going to have a patent system then we need a fee system that doesn't show preference to corporations with deep pockets, the little guy needs access as well.
In reading the publications from the USPTO I discovered that while the fees required to submit a patent are rather low the fees required to question a patent are significantly higher, something like 4 to 10 times if I recall.
It seems that the current system has incentive for people to file patents but not for people to question them.
Now to tell you the truth I don't really believe that changing the fee structure is actually the solution. What I think needs to be changed is what can be patented and who can patent.
An idea of how you COULD do something should not be patentable. It used to be that you had to bring a copy of what you intended to patent down to the patent office. Of course that is not a reasonable practice today, however, the idea behind this practice should still be enforced. The mouse trap itself should be patented, not the idea that you could build a device to catch a small mammal.
And patents should only be given to individuals who are in business to produce the patented device, whether that be a real human individual or a company. If an individual wants to be in the business of generating patents or holding patents then they need to make their money off selling off their patents to someone who INTENDS to actually produce something. This idea of hording large numbers of patents with the hope that someday one of them will become a windfall should be outlawed for the same reason that extortion is considered a crime.
burnin
Re:OT: feeding the sig troll... (Score:3, Funny)
Finally, a HOWTO that I can profit from... (Score:5, Funny)
1) A method for translating program source code into a machine runnable format.
2) A method for displaying a computer's file system (see earlier patent for details) based on the top of a typical desk.
3) A number system based solely on the numbers 1 and 0.
4) A method for having sex with a computer (you know it'll happen one day... and when it does... I'm rolling in the cash)
Anyone have the number for a good (i.e. slimey) lawyer?
-m
Re:Finally, a HOWTO that I can profit from... (Score:3, Funny)
John Von Neumann owns that patent.
2) A method for displaying a computer's file system (see earlier patent for details) based on the top of a typical desk.
Apple owns that patent.
3) A number system based solely on the numbers 1 and 0.
Microsoft owns that patent. If the Onion didn't charge for archive access, I'd show you a link.
4) A method for having sex with a computer (you know it'll happen one day... and when it
Nuts (Score:2)
I mean, is it enough just to have an idea? If that's the case, I have lots of ideas how, for instance, nanotechnology might be used, and I'm sure I could write up some fancy papers about it. And I'm sure one day, some of them might come to fruition. Could I patent those ideas?
If I can then the patent system should be abolished, or at least completely revised. Guessing how people are going to use technology in the future and then patenting those ideas shoul
I doubt it's as bad as it sounds... (Score:3, Informative)
I can't find the actual text of the patent. I tried searching the patent search engine dealy linked to in the original article, but I couldn't find it. Could someone link to it?
And the reason they call it a patent of a HOWTO is because I do not believe Acacia Research Corporation has actually implemented the streaming video stuff that they patented. I don't think it's as broad as it sounds, but it does sound a lot like patenting an idea.
The Patents (Score:2)
Here are the patents in question (from an ExtremeTech article -- December 16, 2002 -- Porn Kings Aflame Over Multimedia Patents [extremetech.com])
Re:I doubt it's as bad as it sounds... (Score:2)
Where does it seem that way? That a common myth, but it's not true anymore since quite a while. In fact, the US, European and Japanse patent offices have made an agreement (the so-called trilateral) in which they try to use common criteria. They just use different wordings to fit it in their traditional practice (e.g., in Europe they denoted virtually everything under the Sun which you could want to patent as "technical", bec
Re:I doubt it's as bad as it sounds... (Score:4, Insightful)
Note however that the EPO is not an EU body, it lives completely outside the EU (there are countries who signed the EPC and which thus recognise the EPO, but which are not in the EU).
It's a bit more complex than that. First of all, when you go to the EPO and get a European patent, you can designate in which countries it should be valid. Since the EPO happily grants software patents, you can get software patents in all EU countries, regardless of the national patent office's practice.However, when you want to enforce a patent, you have to do so before a national court in the country where you want to enforce it. When you look at this, only in the UK software patents have been successfully enforced in the general case. In The Netherlands for example, no-one has ever even tried to enforce a software patent. In Germany, software patents have been generally unenforceable until now.
Given that all EU countries signed the EPC, there actually is already a European-wide agreement on what is patentable and what not: see article 52 of the EPC [european-p...office.org]. An EU directive cannot change anything to the EPC or the EPO however, since that these fall outside the EU. It can change things to the laws of the member states however, which means they can influence the enforceability of patents (as these have to be contested in front of national courts).As you may have seen, article 52 EPC excludes computer programs, mathematical methods and business methods from being an invention (and thus from patentability). The catch is article 52(3), which states that those exclusions only pertain to the subject matter "as such". What this used to mean, is that you could never get a patent on something where the only contribution lied in one of those things (maths etc), but that otoh an patentable invention which also contains a computer program, does not suddenly become unpatentable
Since the EPO wanted to start granting software patents (their advisory board consists of corporate lawyers from IBM, Nokia etc, and they make money per granted patent), they changed that interpretation: now they say that this exlclusion means that e.g. computer programs not as such are patentable. Now what is a computer program not as such? A computer program executed by a computer, and to make it absolutely clear those are patentable, they call those "computer-implemented inventions" nowadays.
When the patent is ruled invalid... (Score:2)
Re:When the patent is ruled invalid... (Score:5, Informative)
No, the people who would lose are the ones who settle. Since they didn't fight it, they basically said "here is free money, stop annoying me." Most settlements don't include agreements about if this patent should "go away." Though frankly, I would want to make sure my lawyer worked like hell to get it in.
Now I'm curious. Disney's lawyers are as infamous (or infamouse) as IBM's. What are they doing settling out of court for an iffy patent?
what is the desired outome of this ? (Score:3, Interesting)
I am almost hoping for a victory of Acacia in this, with the big players have to pay a lot o money and give Acacia even more strenght
what side do you stand for and why ??
Software patents for Open Source Only (Score:5, Interesting)
Seventy five years ago, if you devised a new engine for a car, your competition could buy one, rip it apart and copy your ideas. So patents made sense. But in closed source software design, the products are black boxes that frequently can be describe only on more general terms. So we get these patent applications for abstract functions.
IMHO, patents should only be awarded if a company is willing to open its source code to an extent. It can still be proprietary, but there must be the legitimate opportunity for someone else to be able to "look inside" to see how it works. If a company want to keep it's code closed, fine. But no patent.
Just my two cents.
Re:Software patents for Open Source Only (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Software patents for Open Source Only (Score:5, Insightful)
As you say, the source code goes unreleased and unpublished, so all you've got to go on is the vague description of how the "story sort of goes" to compare an potentially infringing story to.
Imagine if this was the standard for plaigarism (which is, admittedly, under copyright law, not patents, but that's mostly because you can't patent stories - if you could, believe me, plenty of people would). Madness.
Surely patents are for the implementation - didn't you have to provide actual design blueprints etc. if you were patenting a new kind of engine? If you have to patent it on that levl - that is, patent a particular set of source files (where obvious derivatives etc. would still be liable), then software patents might almost work. Then again, you'd largely be duplicating existing copyright law, and what would be the point?
Jedidiah.
Re:Software patents for Open Source Only (Score:2)
It would be different if they had a piece of software that was written and accomplishes the "idea", that pre-dates any other company's software that accomplishes the same "idea".
I think a line needs to be drawn for software patents to be approved. Don't tell me how it should work, show me that it does work.
I believe the patent office wa
Patent Office Has to Follow Rules First (Score:2)
I hear you, though in a fairly literal interpretation of the existing rules, this already is the case, sort of. Patents are (supposed to be) for a particular implementation of an invention. Part of the requirement of getting the patent (software or otherwise) is that it has to be described in sufficient detail that someone with "ordinary skill in the art" could recreate it.
So if the patent office is following th
Re:Software patents for Open Source Only (Score:4, Interesting)
If you invent something really cool, you should have a shot at making money off of it.
But--everybody else wants to use your really cool invention, too.
In the interests of fairness to you and to everybody else, the patent was created.
First, you have to tell everybody how to do what you did. You have to provide prints, drawings, an explanation of how it works, and demonstrate a working model of the invention.
Then you get your chance to make money--for a while.
After that, your invention becomes something that everyone else can build on and improve.--In fact, as soon as you submit the patent, everybody else can build on and improve your invention. They just can't actually use your invention until you get your chance to make your bucks.
This provides some incentive for inventors to invent. And some incentive for inventors to share their inventions.
This was only the explanation that was given to children. Maybe the real intent of patent law is to enable unscrupulous entities (corporate and individual) to keep the maximum amount of dollars and control for themselves.
Don't we have an organization whose job it is to tell us what the writers of those laws intended?
Are they on vacation? Or have they been bought?
With lawsuits being the "In-Thing" (Score:2, Funny)
Re:With lawsuits being the "In-Thing" (Score:4, Informative)
This might be a bit off-topic, but my curiousity is piqued.
Where exactly can I find a reliable source that quotes Al Gore as having said that he invented the internet?
I mean, I read that, in 1999, he stated in an interview, "'During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the internet," by which he meant securing funding for it, but nowhere have I found, outside of message board posts, that Al Gore actually claimed to have invented the internet itself.
I read that he told a House committee about the internet in 1989, remarking, "I genuinely believe that the creation of this nationwide network will create an environment where work stations are common in homes and even small businesses." Geez, what a crackpot!
Re:With lawsuits being the "In-Thing" (Score:3, Funny)
But I think that the Internet would not exist without one key technology - the Algorithm [wikipedia.org], obviously named after Al himself.
Prove it. (Score:2)
Re:Prove it. (Score:3, Insightful)
And what you think the Playboy lawyers didn't already look at this and say fuck it, cheaper to license than take it to trial?
Re:Prove it. (Score:2)
<anger>
SOMEONE HERE SUE THEM AND PUT THEM OUT OF BUSINESS BEFORE THEY DO TOO MUCH DAMAGE!!!
</anger>
Hustler must be able to afford it, can't they?
Please???
All patents like this do is limit what everyone can do, and stop people making proper use, rather than help the maker.
Re:Prove it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Legitimate reason for vague patents (Score:2, Informative)
The lawyers convinced us that filing the patent is the only way to prevent someone else from filing a patent, covering your technology, and then suing you, forcing you to PROVE to
Re:Legitimate reason for vague patents (Score:2)
What if everybody would do the same? (Score:5, Insightful)
Take for example IBM. They have patented everything related to object oriented operating systems [164.195.100.11] under their Taligent/San Francisco project.
They could sue Sun (J2EE) or Microsoft (.NET), and just anybody using things like Object-oriented window area display system, pat. no. 6,750,858, Object-oriented event notification system with listener registration of both interests and methods, pat. no. 6,424,354 or Distributed object networking service, pat. no. 6,223,217, just to name a few.
Crazy. We have to figure out a better patent system which stills protect intelectual property but also protects us from this nonsense.
Typical strategy (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sure the money you make doesn't hurt, of course. I mean, the big boys are going to make you pay a lot more in legal fees (more paperwork for your lawyers, more back and forth motions prior to the case, etc).
I agree with the other posters, though. We really need a better patent system because the current one is just getting abused.
Re:Typical strategy (Score:3, Insightful)
the question is... (Score:2)
Or are they going to go after vague patents like this generally?
Heres hoping that they go after the PTO as well and get these stupid vague patents gone for good (although there is about as much chance of that happening as there is of Osama Bin Laden walking into a US military base and turning himself in)
Suprised (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Suprised (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is, it's been allowed to evolve in such a way that the whole system is now really only accessible to lawyers, not inventors or engineers.
If your friend was a lawyer - or had deep enough pockets to hire one - he'd have no problem getting a patent.
this is good! (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, let it burn! I feel the same way about this as I do vulnerable windows machines. The quicker it gets to a ridiculous level of unusability level the quicker it can be fixed with a REAL fix which is a total replacement system, because sure as snot they won't fix it until then, just keep applying patches that just make it worse, because they refuse to address the core issue, which is intangible thoughts shouldn't be patented in the first place. It was an INSANE precedent to let the first intangible anything get patented.
Re:this is good! (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with waiting for the situation to get absurd (IMHO, it already has) is that yes, maybe the big companies will come to their senses...but it might be after a world of hurt has fallen on small innovators such as open source developers. As you say:
Eventually, doing anything even remotely fun, interesting, or productive will be so expensive that the system will crash and burn under it's own bloat.
Just as Disney proved by appeasing these nitwits, it will be much easier (for a while) for large com
Finally... (Score:2, Funny)
SCO Leads The Way... (Score:2)
You can license this seminar* for the low low cost of your soul.
*Seminar's are patent pending by SCO.
How About Working Systems (Score:2, Interesting)
In reviewing this patent, it doesn't appear they had much of a working system.
RealNetworks' defense (Score:2, Funny)
Small hole to drive a truck through (Score:5, Insightful)
Turns out one of the key objectives of this patent:
Seems to me that all current broadcasters I know of that are listed in the suit fail to meet this criteria of sending the signal in a fraction of real time, and hence, bye bye lawsuit. I wish they would, but I have to record only one show at a time, during the broadcast window, and cannot record anything else during that broadcast window, hence, I believe they fail to infringe upon this patent. of course, the obligatory: IANAL.This sums it up... (Score:2)
From the article, this sums up everything and this country's possible future business landscape:
Certainly, a finding in Acacia's favor will herald the arrival of a new kind of player: a company that controls technology but doesn't create it; a firm that buys patents but that patents nothing. From its roots in venture capitalism, Acacia has morphed into something that has no real peer.
We can only hope to elect officials and (indirectly) judges that frown on this practice.
This reminds me of the excel
Making new friends (Score:2, Interesting)
Bad Patent (Score:3, Insightful)
"1. A transmission system for providing information to be transmitted to remote locations, the transmission system comprising:
library means for storing items containing information; identification encoding means for retrieving the information in the items from the library means and for assigning a unique identification code to the retrieved information;
conversion means, coupled to the identification encoding means, for placing the retrieved information into a predetermined format as formatted data;
ordering means, coupled to the conversion means, for placing the formatted data into a sequence of addressable data blocks;
compression means, coupled to the ordering means, for compressing the formatted and sequenced data blocks;
compressed data storing means, coupled to the data compression means, for storing as files the compressed, sequenced data blocks received from the data compression means with the unique identification code assigned by the identification encoding means; and
transmitter means, coupled to the compressed data storing means, for sending at least a portion of one of the files to one of the remote locations."
From this description, it sounds like web, ftp and gopher servers fall under the patent. However, I would think that, since the method that is described was first published in 1971 in RFC 114 [faqs.org], 21 years BEFORE the this patent was filed, this patent would be disqualified via the prior art argument.
As for the other patents, you can find their IP list here [acaciatechnologies.com] and the USPTO patent search engine here [uspto.gov]. Have fun.
The Country of Opportunities? (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you see how far did they come? The Country of Opportunities became The Country of Unopportunities. Nothing can be done without infringing a patent. It's not possible even to use a Double Click(tm) without using a patented idea.
The patent law is becoming a drawback to the development of new technologies. Companies now have to worry about research and development, in order to avoid lawsuits in the near future, and to spend even more to make a new product avaiable.
This is a major problem to US economy. It reduces the chances of small companies being sucessful, and big companies begins as small companies.
The consequences are simple. New high-tech players will grow in other countries, like China, India and Brazil, while companies in US will remain the same. The market that could be developed inside US will be developed around the world.
It's not such a bad thing for worldwide wealth distribuition, but also isn't a good thing for US economy.
And the history books will document... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are reading this from any part of the world aside from the United States, you already know this history. Hell, you're living it. That's why you hate us. That's why you either shake your head in disbelief or merely point your finger and chuckle. You see the black muck that is the personification of the stereotypical American. From outside the bubble, man, that is one ugly sight.
No one can argue that it is sickening how members of a rich society are able to chuck their conscience and morality out the window and shamelessly take advantage of a hampered and flawed system. All this without a hint of concern on how their actions may be affecting the lives of millions of unwitting countrymen. But, what is often overlooked is the long term detrement these actions have on the American economy.
Based on this kind of crap, who in their right mind would ever consider basing a business, of any type or any size, in the United States anymore? Even the stallwarts of the ecomony are picking up and moving. Offshoring is a big a problem as most folks think it is, regardless of what the "industry insiders" have to say about it.
If asshole "business executives" and their brigades of lawyers are further allowed to get away with this type of behaviour, who is going to be left? Folks in the service industries, that's it. And they'll be catering to people from other countries who stopped by for a visit to see all the carnage. And where do you think these idiots who are causing all the problems will be? Not here, that's for damn sure. They'll be at their beach house on some remote island far, far away from the garbage they left on the curb.
This isn't about being conservative or liberal, black or white, rich or poor to us normal folks. This is about a few talentless nasty bottom feeders ruining the most powerful economy in modern history.
Well, gee, thanks. Maybe I can have a slice of apple pie with the dung heap you're feeding us. That should make it all better.
my brain is going to explode (Score:3, Funny)
How long? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget to reach out and touch someone! (Score:3, Informative)
Rob Stewart, 949-480-8300
Fax: 949-480-8301
Idea: prevent resale of patents (Score:3, Interesting)