IBM Seeks US Patents For Offshoring US Jobs 203
theodp writes "IBM and other corporations are seeking patents for inventions covering the offshoring of US jobs. The USPTO is considering IBM's patent application for Outsourcing of Services, a 'method for identifying human-resource work content to outsource offshore of an organization' to 'countries where cheaper labor prices and/or cheaper materials are available.' Then there's Big Blue's Electronic Marketplace for Identifying, Assessing, Reserving and Engaging Knowledge-Workers for an Assignment Using Trade-Off Analysis, which provides a handy-dandy IBM calculator that drives home the point that you'll pay less for IGS India workers, whether onshore or offshore. And with its System and Method of Using Speech Recognition at Call Centers to Improve Their Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction, IBM describes how to operate in 'low cost foreign countries' with 'support people not having good English language skills, or having an accent that makes it difficult to understand them' by exploiting technology developed for students who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as other accent reduction techniques."
Yet more stupid patents (Score:3, Insightful)
that what used to be called 'management'.
My how management has gotten messed up over the last 30 years.
Re:Go for it (Score:3, Insightful)
Time for the Revolution! (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the kind of thing that seeks to have the U.S. be like a third-world nation. A small group of people who control most of the wealth and everyone else not much more than slaves.
I for one, will not stand for it. I WILL rise up. I WILL start the fucking revolution. It is time for us American citizens to wake up from our slumber. We need to hang these fuckers. Every last one of them.
They have no loyalty to anything but the money in their own pockets. The rest of the worlds people should do the same in their countries. If they won't, then that is up to them to live in squalor.
I say, No Way! Not here! My ancestors didn't die in Steel Mills and Coal Mines etc. in order for the few to be permitted to take everything away from the many.
It is time to rise up! Time to start the revolution. This MUST NOT be permitted.
Only cowards will rest on their laurels while everything is stolen away from us like this. This is MY COUNTRY and I WILL FIGHT for it.
WAKE UP PEOPLE! THIS IS PURE EVIL!
Tear it down. Tear it all down. Time for a house cleaning. Time to teach the moneyed elite that we will not stand for it.
Don't give me any crappy economic arguments about comparative advantage and such. If the only comparative advantage is that one workforce has rights to decent working condition and decent wages and one doesn't, then fuck economics.
Take these people in their fancy business suits that care not one shit for you and other American Citizens. Hang them!
Rise up! Rise up! Don't be a coward! Don't sit idly by while you are robbed of everything your forebears fought and died for.
Wake up people of America! Wake up!
Fight for your rights! Fight to death if necessary! Do not allow this wholesale theft of the American Dream!
Prior Art? (Score:4, Insightful)
But with the Patent Office in its usual dysfunctional form and with IBM sitting on top of a team of patent lawyers that would not blush at arguing about IBM being the inventor of the wheel. It should be yet another step towards maintaining the status quo.
Re:At least Windows is made in the USA (Score:3, Insightful)
What must not be permitted? (Score:3, Insightful)
It is time to rise up! Time to start the revolution. This MUST NOT be permitted.
If you're upset that these big companies are seeking business method patents for processes that may or may not even pan out in the marketplace, I'm puzzled. The method patents will only allow certain companies to use certain methods to perform some of their business functions offshore. This will allow them to keep others from using the same carefully defined methods, or will force other companies to license those methods. Either way, outsourcing is no longer the Soup-to-Nuts-Slam-Dunk Solution many companies thought it would be.
If you're upset about outsourcing, I wonder how you run your Open Source consulting firm. After all, a huge chunk of the software you're dealing with was created by people in countries other than the United States, and I'd hazard a guess that most of the work done on those programs wasn't done in North-East Ohio. In essence, you've outsourced millions of hours worth of work to the people who developed the software you're using. You, as a provider of technical services, are able to compete more effectively because of their labor.
If you were truly serious about being a mercantist [wikipedia.org], you wouldn't be leveraging so much labor from outside the US in your own business.
Finally, this statement is bizarre:
If the only comparative advantage is that one workforce has rights to decent working condition and decent wages and one doesn't, then fuck economics.
The Indian economy has taken off after decades in the doldrums. There is a rapidly developing middle class in China for the first time. The United States has a tremendously powerful economy that is extremely efficient at creating new markets. Do you seriously contend that the world would be better off without global trade? Or is it just that you feel entitled, as an American, to live in a world free of competition? We got rich first, so screw everyone else?
Re:At least Windows is made in the USA (Score:2, Insightful)
If you consider Windows good, I've got some swamp land in Florida for you.
GOOD? GOOD? Wow. Some people never learn, do they.
Re:Yeah, right! (Score:3, Insightful)
Rah rah USA (Score:1, Insightful)
No, rah rah, USA, pilgrim. USA is awesome!
If you consider Windows good, I've got some swamp land in Florida for you. GOOD? GOOD? Wow. Some people never learn, do they.
Hey, I can put Windows on a machine, and watch a movie after it is installed. Can't do that with Linux, now, can you? As a developer, I have a choice of APIs for sound on Windows, and amazingly, they all work. By contrast, Linux sound is pretty rough. You've got a sound api for KDE, a sound api for Gnome, some other legacy sound apis, and none of them are as good as DirectSound and there's nothing as elegant and comprehensive as DirectMusic.
If we look at what the kernel offers, well, sure, Linux has a pretty elegant file model. But I'm aggravated that the Linux kernel lacks something basic like CopyFile, and Linux's asynch model doesn't quite stack up to the power offered by I/O completion ports.
From a user level - Linux's wireless networking is a mess compared to Windows, and even digital camera support is bad. Sure, Canon has finally upgraded to a newer standard, but older and perfectly workable cameras remain a void, but, they run ok on Windows. Linux support for Camera RAW format sucks, making it useless for any real digital photography. Of course, all of this just works on Windows.
You can go and blame manufacturers, and driver writers and whatever consumer conspiracy you want, but at the end of the day, consumers don't care. An operating system is an ecosystem, and either that ecosystem does what you want, or it doesn't, and under Linux, it doesn't, and for a lot of people.
Linux does have some advantages over Windows, I'll give you that. But, Windows has a lot of advantages of its own, as well, so many that, you can't really say that Windows is empirically bad, and in fact, for many applications, Windows is better.
Re:Rah rah USA (Score:3, Insightful)
People generally don't care too much about sharing with other OSes
Monoculture's are bad - you just pointed out part of the catch 22 that stops us getting away from 95% market dominance by Microsoft, even if you prefer windows and would stick to MS products, you would benefit by the fact that there would be real competition in the OS sector, affecting prices and with luck spurring innovation, lock ins prevent you from benefiting from competition because, well you are a captive audience.
Re:Why Microsoft is in Vancouver (Score:2, Insightful)
One wonders why Microsoft would even bother. The USA is awash in illegal immigrants, and your Danish friend, Microsoft, and the United States at large would have been better off had your Danish friend just blown off the H1-B process and just got a job as an illegal alien.