Companies Petition Congress To Reform 'Business Method' Patent Process 78
ectoman writes "This week, a coalition of more than 40 companies sent a letter to Congress asking for legislation that expands the Covered Business Method (CBM) program, a move some feel would stem patent abuse in the United States. Expanding the scope of CBM—a program that grants the Patent and Trademark Office the power to challenge the validity of certain business methods patents—would expedite the patent review process and significantly cut litigation costs, they say. "The vague and sweeping scope of many business method claims covering straight forward, common sense steps has led to an explosion of patent claims against processes used every day in common technologies by thousands of businesses and millions of Americans," says the letter, signed by companies like Amazon, Netflix, Red Hat, Macy's, and Kroger)."
FTFA: Interesting consortium (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder why the lack of Microsoft and Apple.
Amazon.com, Inc.
AOL Inc.
Dell Inc.
Demandware, Inc.
Dropbox Inc.
EarthLink, Inc.
eBay, Inc.
Eddie Bauer LLC.
Facebook, Inc.
Gilt Groupe, Inc.
Google Inc.
Hearst Corporation
HomeAway, Inc.
HTC Americas Inc.
J.Crew Group, Inc.
Netflix, Inc.
Newegg.com Inc.
Overstock.com
Priceline.com Incorporated
Public Service Enterprise Group Inc.
QVC Inc.
Rackspace Inc.
Red Hat, Inc.
Safeway Inc.
Salesforce.com Inc.
Samsung Electronics America
SAS Institute Inc.
Southern Company
Spotify USA Inc.
SurveyMonkey
Jewelry Television
The Kroger Co.
LinkedIn Corporation
Macyâ(TM)s, Inc.
Media Temple, Inc.
Morgan Stanley
Mozilla
Twitter, Inc.
Verizon Communications Inc.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Whataburger
XO Communications
Yahoo! Inc.
Zynga, Inc.
Re:You see! (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes. And that's one of the reasons why we need regulated capitalism. It's a means of harnessing sociopaths. In unregulated capitalism, the sociopaths will run rampant with their businesses. In communist societies, lacking other outlets, the sociopaths seem to take power in the government where they tend to do a lot more harm.
Re:You see! (Score:4, Interesting)
Profits are bad, because profits are not the point of society nor a benefit to society. Society is a benefit to society, not profits.
Understanding that the ideal just expressed is utopian and unrealistic at this point in time does not change the fact that profits are bad.
Consider Socrates and the Allegory of the Artisan. The duty of the Republic is to ensure that a good artisan remains a good artisan. Pay him too much, and he will no longer produce works. He will not only stop producing, but spend his time and money meddling in other peoples affairs. The Republic has given him an opportunity to harm others as well as no longer be productive for society. If the Republic does not pay the Artisan enough, he will no longer produce. The artisan will be worried about the welfare of his children and home, and seek opportunities other than being an artisan to ensure survival.
The duty of the Republic is to ensure that people are rewarded for producing in society, but never so much that they become unproductive. This does not just go for the artisan, but also the farmer and cobbler and baker and every other job we have deemed critical to societies purpose and function.
Now if you consider that among Americans if you ask people "How much money is too much money?", you know damn well that the answer will be "no such thing". This is a socially deficient teaching which is not beneficial to society. People have been duped.
**and now I step down from my philanthropic soap box.**
Re:You see! (Score:4, Interesting)
Businesses are, by DEFINITION, primarily interested in profits.
Not in Germany, where by law they must consider the social good as well.