Patents Are A Big Part Of Why We Can't Own Nice Things (eff.org) 243
An anonymous reader shares an EFF article: Today, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could allow companies to keep a dead hand of control over their products, even after you buy them. The case, Impression Products v. Lexmark International, is on appeal from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, who last year affirmed its own precedent allowing patent holders to restrict how consumers can use the products they buy. That decision, and the precedent it relied on, departs from long established legal rules that safeguard consumers and enable innovation. When you buy something physical -- a toaster, a book, or a printer, for example -- you expect to be free to use it as you see fit: to adapt it to suit your needs, fix it when it breaks, re-use it, lend it, sell it, or give it away when you're done with it. Your freedom to do those things is a necessary aspect of your ownership of those objects. If you can't do them, because the seller or manufacturer has imposed restrictions or limitations on your use of the product, then you don't really own them. Traditionally, the law safeguards these freedoms by discouraging sellers from imposing certain conditions or restrictions on the sale of goods and property, and limiting the circumstances in which those restrictions may be imposed by contract. But some companies are relentless in their quest to circumvent and undermine these protections. They want to control what end users of their products can do with the stuff they ostensibly own, by attaching restrictions and conditions on purchasers, locking down their products, and locking you (along with competitors and researchers) out. If they can do that through patent law, rather than ordinary contract, it would mean they could evade legal limits on contracts, and that any one using a product in violation of those restrictions (whether a consumer or competitor) could face harsh penalties for patent infringement.
Conversely... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Patents are also why we can own^H^H^H use nice things.
There, fixed that for you.
Dear slashdot: Please add "strike" and "underline" HTML for insert-delete mark-up. Thank you.
Re:Conversely... (Score:5, Insightful)
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No. No, I was right the first time. You can't own something that doesn't exist; and patents do server the purpose of forcing dissemination of information in exchange for temporary protection.
If you had said "creation in exchange for a temporary monopoly" I'd at least be willing to discuss it. But the vast, vast majority of patented creations would be picked apart and reverse engineered in no time flat if patents didn't exist. I dare you to show me one patent made in the 21st century that you think contains a trade secret that would take more than 20 years to figure out given that it was actually used in a product, service or production process.
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I can't conclusively say "never", since a single incident would fail that threshold, but it would be such a rare occurrence that it would make no sense to base your system on that.
Let me be clear. Patents as a means of undermining trade secrets is ridiculous. If I have a trade secret that I can reliably keep secret, I would be an idiot to get a patent. Thus, the pool of ideas that are patented are filtered for those that CAN'T be kept secret.
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For people younger than 20...for the previous 1,000 years of travel, suitcases had handles and you had to carry them. This became rather inconvenient and a little painful carrying 20kg for 500m between terminals.
Re:Conversely... (Score:5, Insightful)
They are written vague on purpose, because to be specific, would allow others to build upon your patent, and patent their improvements, locking you into a stale old way of building said invention, never able to improve it.
As a libertarian, I am all for the repealing of most patents, and the shortening of the term of protection. As it stands now, patents do not protect anyone from anything for very long. If something is popular, and patented, it will be cloned and ripped off anyway.
Patent abuse is like anything else the government does, it doesn't help many people, and hurts more people than it helps.
Re:Conversely... (Score:4, Insightful)
They are written vague on purpose, because to be specific, would allow others to build upon your patent, and patent their improvements, locking you into a stale old way of building said invention, never able to improve it.
This is precisely the type of abuse, by a handful of unscrupulous assholes (patent holders being, relative to the entirety of the population, a handful of people), which I propose we amend patent laws to prevent.
And, by amend, I truly mean "actually enforce the laws as written", since they already require some degree of specificity.
For the sake of our dear readers, continuing on with your comment:
As a libertarian, I am all for the repealing of most patents, and the shortening of the term of protection.
Indeed, repealing patents which do not follow the laws as currently written, which require a degree of specificity, lacking in many, and a degree of non-obviousness to a skilled professional in the relevant field, lacking in many others, would be the first necessary step in actually enforcing those laws as written.
It's debatable whether the term should be shortened; many would argue it should be extended, as was done with copyright. Personally, I believe that patents and copyright were given the terms they were originally given based on how long it took to produce and circulate a work at the time that those respective laws were written; as both now take considerably less time, yes, I agree that the terms should be shortened.
Re:Conversely... (Score:5, Informative)
They are written vague on purpose, because to be specific, would allow others to build upon your patent, and patent their improvements, locking you into a stale old way of building said invention, never able to improve it.
This is precisely the type of abuse, by a handful of unscrupulous assholes (patent holders being, relative to the entirety of the population, a handful of people), which I propose we amend patent laws to prevent.
And, by amend, I truly mean "actually enforce the laws as written", since they already require some degree of specificity.
I am a patent lawyer, and I completely agree. My patents, of course, are clear and informative; but yes, there are many terrible ones out there. Frankly, it's partly unscrupulous assholes, but mostly incompetent and lazy assholes: to write a good patent application, you have to understand the invention... too many patent lawyers skip that step, take whatever the inventor sent them and slap some boilerplate "in some embodiments" language on it, and file it. Heck, you can still charge the same amount as a well-written patent, but can crank it out in an afternoon! What a world!
Fortunately, the courts and the patent office are finally pushing back on this. Most of the "abstract idea" rejections under Bilski and Alice Corp and other related 35 USC 101 cases are really about badly written patents that claim "A method for doing something awesome, comprising: applying rules, by an expert computer system, to do something awesome." What rules? How does it achieve that awesome result? Fark if anyone knows... the person drafting the patent sure as hell didn't. The cases that are being upheld are the ones that go into detail about what calculations are being performed, how the thing works, the low-level specifics of what it does, etc.
That said, patent law and courts and such are glacial. It'll be another decade and change before patents drafted and granted, say, 5 years ago, expire. And patent litigation with terrible patents will keep popping up over that time. But maybe by the 2030s, things'll start looking better. \_()_/
It's debatable whether the term should be shortened; many would argue it should be extended, as was done with copyright. Personally, I believe that patents and copyright were given the terms they were originally given based on how long it took to produce and circulate a work at the time that those respective laws were written; as both now take considerably less time, yes, I agree that the terms should be shortened.
Patent term has only ever been extended twice, and the second one wasn't a real extension (the change from 17-years-from-issue to 20-years-from-filing was based on an average 3 year prosecution queue, so the result is the same). Copyright has big money publishers on one side like Sony, Disney, Columbia, etc. wanting longer term and, what, pirates? The public? No money on the other side. So your bought-and-sold Congresscritter happily votes for term extensions.
But in patents, Apple, say, wants longer terms for their own patents, but shorter terms for Google and Microsoft's. And vice versa. So you get this pressure on both sides, with no real imbalance in money and lobbyists.
Incidentally, there's a safety valve in patent term already - patent owners have to pay maintenance fees that increase over the life of the patent, or it goes abandoned. Most patents in the tech sector are abandoned long before that 20 year term expires, because, after 10 years, say, they're obsolete. It's the pharmaceutical people who try to keep them alive until the very end, because of how long R&D and FDA approval takes. Increasing those maintenance fees would have the same effect of shortening patent term in fast moving industries while keeping it long where it's needed.
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Patent abuse...
What about patent theft? Most innovations come from startups. That is where almost all r&d comes from. What is to stop some giant corporation from simply keeping a lookout for new ideas and mass marketing a product using their substantial manufacturing capabilities when something new comes along before a startup can gain any market traction? It would be like Columbia Pictures watching independent film makers, finding a movie that they think could eb a block buster, duplicating the film reel and mas
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For starters, the big dogs are so big because of patents and copyright, so their absence would favor a more competitive market. Furthermore, the big dogs have enough patents that you can't build anything without infringing at least 100 MS/Apple/IBM patents.
Patents are legal monopolies, and it's ridiculous to think that a system of monopolies is going to effectively protect the little guy.
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I built a gate this afternoon, along the back fence of the dogyard. Because we're getting a new puppy on Thursday. Yesterday I bought some 1 x 6 treated boards and sawed them to length. This afternoon I went out and dug around in the junkbox parts and found enough screws and hardware to fabricate all that wood into a gate.
So don't tell me I "can't build anything."
I can also whip out the soldering iron and build a whole small computer for a needed purpose. For instance, to build a data acquisition node,
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we should, rather, amend patent laws in a way that prevents such abuse going forward.
To elaborate on that, I suppose I really mean "enforce the non-obviousness and specificity clauses as they already exist" which, in reality, is what's no longer happening in many cases, allowing broad patents to be granted for things that are obvious to anyone skilled in the relevant field. Patent laws were specifically crafted to prevent this, and that wording still exists today; the problem is not with the law, but with its application.
Don't
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Is that distinction making a difference, though? As long as I can use a shovel, do I care, whether I own it?
If the manufacturer offers me a shovel, that can dig on its own, on the condition I do not attempt to disassemble it, am I not better off than I was without the option?
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As long as I can use a shovel, do I care, whether I own it?
I can't speak for you, but I care very much whether I own it. If I don't own it, then my use is dependent on the whims of others.
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Well, the "whims" are all spelled-out for you and known before you pay for it, maybe it is not so bad...
But, if anything is not to your satisfaction, you still have the option of buying an older, unencumbered, shovel.
On the other hand, if the EFF has their way, my option of using the hypothetical "smart-shovel" without owning it may not exist... Because the EFF knows better, what's good for me...
I wish, they stuck to fighting government's [eff.org]
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Well, the "whims" are all spelled-out for you and known before you pay for it, maybe it is not so bad...
That requires trusting that the terms that were all spelled out will never change. I think that we have a long history (in the US, anyway) that indicates such trust is not warranted.
Re:Conversely... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, the "whims" are all spelled-out for you and known before you pay for it, maybe it is not so bad...
When is the last time you read an EULA?
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You may be better off without the option.
What if the options look like this:
You can have unlimited use a self-digging shovel today for $20,000. A year from now, you have also have unlimited use of a self-digging shovel for $20,000.
Or:
You cannot have a self-digging shovel today. A year from now, you can have a self-digging shovel for $5,000.
Which is the better option? The answer really depends on your needs.
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Easy to evaluate.
If having a self digging shovel for $20,000 can get me more than $20,000 worth of work, it is worth it. Future value of the shovel is always unknown, so I'll take option one if the conditions apply.
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I may be. All I am saying is, I'd like it to be my choice, not yours and not the EFF's.
As long as I'm entering into the contract with the manufacturer voluntarily, there is really nothing justifying your (and the EFF's) concern about it...
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Dear slashdot: Please add "strike" and "underline" HTML for insert-delete mark-up. Thank you.
I'd like to underscore the need for these capabilities - oh, wait...
Re:Conversely... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you wish to claim that without patents, those nice thing would not be made?
Perhaps it would take more time, effort and money to make those things, but that is debatable.
Patents are also why we can't have nice things that share some property with a patented thing.
Patents are also why those nice things are more expensive.
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The real solution is to limit the number of IP lawyers. It's a growth industry that encourages this kind of distortion.
Oh yes, and outlaw sociopaths from becoming lawyers, or even working as a paralegal, or as a janitor in a lawyer's office.
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If we could outlaw sociopaths, we wouldn't have a need for IP laws in the first place.
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Re:Conversely... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Progress tracks MUCH more tightly to things like telecommunications, literacy, personal liberties, transportation, population, existing technological progress, and economy than patent law.
If you don't believe me, put two groups of people on two separate islands. One has high speed internet access, a world class university, and access to modern technology. The other group has stone age tech and illiterate inhabitants, but has a really strong patent system. Which one do you think will produce more innova
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Correlation dose not equal causation. Things that happened after patents did not necessarily happen BECAUSE of patents. Even things that were patented cannot be assured to not exist in a hypothetical alternate reality without patents. You're just calling dibs on all the progress that happened after 1790 in the name of patents, as if that's the only and most important thing that has happened in the last few centuries (although I have no idea why you are using that date, instead of the 1624 date of the sta
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Instead, let's have you spend billions of dollars and several years developing a new drug, which you have to sell at a price point of several dollars per pill in order to recover your costs in the time in which it is protecte
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Okay, let's put it in more mathematical terms to try and clarify my meaning.
Let's say that technological progress naturally has an exponential growth pattern y=x^2. The lengths of the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age would support that notion well enough for it to be a passable placeholder for the real, much more complex numbers. On the other end, the much theorized technological singularity assumes a similar pattern.
Patents are added in as a multiplier to the base rate of progress, so progress und
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Their system was closer overall to a chili cookoff than a patent system. Also, it wasn't the Greeks in general, it was th
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Does it suck that companies must ch
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we should, rather, amend patent laws in a way that prevents such abuse going forward.
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Are you kidding me? How do you know whether patents actually make a difference?
How far did we advance before 1790? How far have we come since then? When were patent laws introduced in the US?
Our biggest advancements pre-1790 were in glassmaking and came in or after the latter half of the 1400's. Incidentally, Venice began granting a form of patent in 1450; care to guess what most Venetian patents covered?
How do I know whether patents actually make a difference? Because there are literally centuries-worth of evidence that speak to the fact.
On the other hand, we do clearly see lawyers prospering and small inventors and consumers suffering. That is counter to the spirit of patent law.
We also see broad and obvious patents bein
IP law is in danger (Score:5, Insightful)
The more it governs non-commercial activity the more it will be ignored. We are two generations in raising kids that think copyright is a joke and patents are mere excuses to sue.
Re:IP law is in danger (Score:4, Interesting)
The more it governs non-commercial activity the more it will be ignored. We are two generations in raising kids that think copyright is a joke and patents are mere excuses to sue.
What do you mean "two generations away". I'm nearly two generations older than today's kids and I know copyright is an utter joke that is routinely ignored. When I was young, non-technical people were already using Napster.
The problem with copyright isn't with age, its with lobbyists and an industry's refusal to accept change. The content industry thinks that it is still able to lock up content like the good old days before the internet. Those days are dead and gone but copyright laws are yet to change from the times when copyright infringement was an organised crime (because of the investment in investment needed to manufacture large amounts of VCR tapes). That died in the late 90's when anyone could set up a DVD burning farm on a few hundred bucks of commodity hardware, however the laws have not changed at all. This is entirely due to the content industry lobbying to prevent it and as such, we have outdated laws that are being routinely ignored because society has moved passed them
The content industry keeps pushing for harsher and harsher punishment for what is essentially a non-crime. This will never work in the long term and only prolong their demise. Just as online shopping has killed retailers who refused to adjust, the internet will kill the content industry who refuses to adjust.
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No patent (Score:2)
No patent in the world can restrict me from doing what I see fit with the things that I own. At worst, when it comes to resale, it can only affect how I do it.
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No patent in the world can restrict me from doing what I see fit with the things that I own.
Yeah, I heard the same things about DMCA.
It didn't restrict what you could do, but it did prevent others from building tools to help you do it.
So you do whatever you want with that printer cartridge.
But I hope you can build a custom fireproof printer, because printers you can actually buy will crash and burn trying to use "non-approved" cartridges.
Re: No patent (Score:2)
Technically, they can. Licensing rights aren't recursive. If I buy some product that uses a licensed, patented part, then use that part to make something else, I could still be sued for infringement. Arguing that someone else already licensed it would get me nowhere.
Courts have ruled that it's not necessarily infringement to repair a broken item, but IS infringement if the repair improves it beyond its original design. I think the key case involved a knife whose handle was prone to breakage long before the
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No, they can't. They can make laws against it, but they can't stop me from doing it.
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Yeah, just don't try to claim the insurance if you cut your arm off and burn the house down
goodbye jiffy lube hello $60-$100 dealer oil chang (Score:4, Insightful)
goodbye jiffy lube hello $60-$100 dealer oil change.
Just be lucky it's not a dealer with an $100 minute change for any service even just to get an estimate.
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John Deere tractors are already there.
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The vehicle has to be serviced at the dealer or the warranty is void. Saw that one myself just recently.
Re:goodbye jiffy lube hello $60-$100 dealer oil ch (Score:5, Informative)
Mag-Moss [wikipedia.org]: Learn it. Love it. Shove it down your lying dealer's throat.
While they are constantly trying to gut Mag-Moss and work around it with special tools that independents can't afford to stay up with, they still have zero legal power to void your warranty for having your car worked on by someone other than the dealer. They do, however, do an excellent job of convincing people that they can do it.
The other one they like to try is convincing you of is that your whole warranty is void because you made some modification (e.g. lowered suspension, replaced the radio, etc..).
Re:goodbye jiffy lube hello $60-$100 dealer oil ch (Score:4, Informative)
Ever heard of the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act [ftc.gov]? Per federal statute, if you provide a full warranty at all, you are not allowed to require servicing only at dealer facilities. If the warrantor disclaims coverage due to alleged improper parts or servicing, even self servicing, he must prove that the outside servicing actually caused damage.
Re:goodbye jiffy lube hello $60-$100 dealer oil ch (Score:4, Insightful)
My Toyota dealer charges $30. Comes with a pretty thorough inspection and a car wash. As far as I can tell, they haven't ever ripped me off. Didn't tell me my battery needed to be replaced until it was 8 years old and failed their load test. Offered to have a guy weld a hole in my exhaust for $200 rather than replacing the entire thing for 5-10x that much.
Not sure if all Toyota dealers are like this, or if I'm just lucky to have found a great one.
Problem is a matter of Fraud. Rent vs Sell (Score:5, Interesting)
Look, if I offered to sell you a home, but after putting down a downpayment you read the contract and it turned out to be a hundred year lease, you would be damn upset.
But that's what the software people do. They are actually renting licenses with all sorts of secret provisions while the salesmen are using the word 'buy' or 'sell'.
Every time you 'buy a license', it is you RENTING a license. It may be a 'lifetime' license, but that is what it is.
The only people that actually 'buy' software or music are the people that buy the copyrights.
We need a simple law that clarifies this point. Out law the use of the words 'buy' or 'sell' when dealing with a license - including physical products that include a necessary license, such as those evil John Deere Tractors.
Then when some shmuck tries to sell a John Deere tractor, arrest them for fraud, as they are actually renting it to you for an unspecified amount of time. If they want to use the words 'buy' or sell', they have to include free-as-in-speech software on it. Otherwise, it is fraud, punishable by a fine.
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Re:Problem is a matter of Fraud. Rent vs Sell (Score:5, Interesting)
We need a simple law that clarifies this point. Out law the use of the words 'buy' or 'sell' when dealing with a license - including physical products that include a necessary license, such as those evil John Deere Tractors.
Then when some shmuck tries to sell a John Deere tractor, arrest them for fraud, as they are actually renting it to you for an unspecified amount of time. If they want to use the words 'buy' or sell', they have to include free-as-in-speech software on it. Otherwise, it is fraud, punishable by a fine.
We don't need an additional law for that, we just a need a judge and/or jury to decide that it counts as fraud.
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Go talk to a lawyer. They will tell you that a) That's not how the law works. b) It works on a buyer be ware basis, c) it would have to be a Supreme Court judge to make it stick and d) laugh in your face.
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a) It depends on how the fraud laws are written. If the law says something like, "only the following specific things are fraud", then yes, it would require changing the law. If, however, the law is general, such as saying something like "any deception regarding the terms of a transaction", then that law can be applied to a case such as this one. To be honest, I don't care enough to look them up, and the specifics will vary by state anyway.
b)
Re:Problem is a matter of Fraud. Rent vs Sell (Score:4, Interesting)
difference is when you buy a house and screw something up it's on you to fix it yourself or pay someone. sometimes you might even get fined by your town or thrown in jail
with a lot of this stuff people buy and then break it with cheap supplies or bad parts and then run to the manufacturer demanding warranty service. i've used cheap off brand toner in the 90's and when i got rid of it my HP Laserjet printers suddenly stopped jamming every other day.
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That issue is already well covered by terms declaring that such use voids the warranty.
Re:Problem is a matter of Fraud. Rent vs Sell (Score:5, Interesting)
Copyright law and Patent Law are part of a bargain, a deal made where in the general public gives up some fundamantal rights, such as the right to copy things, (which you had the right to do before copyright law limited your rights to do so).
The theory is that in exchange for giving up these rights, on a temporary basis, the good that comes from it is that the public gets access to a much larger library of public domain over time. That is literally the bargain. You give up your pre-existing rights to do what you want with your media and recordings and whatever, in the hope that in the longer term, more such works exist since creators have protection.
This bargain was always supposed to be two sided. You give up your right to copy and a fair bit of tax money that goes into enforcement, and in exchange, after a brief period, the works become public domain.
Look how that worked out. As soon as the public was locked into this deal, powerful IP mills started immediately eating away at their side of the deal, extending copyright duration into infinity, consolodating power, making it incredibly one-sided. At this point I'm willing to say that the old IP deals need complete cancellation, that replacing it with literally nothing would be better for the public.
Re:Problem is a matter of Fraud. Rent vs Sell (Score:4, Insightful)
You have a solid point. To add to what you say:
A) Patents are anti-capitalism. And so are similar IP issues, such as copyrights. Patents were created under mercantilism, and they were not for inventors, but for friends of the king. Later when capitalism came along, we needed some way to encourage invention in a free market society where competition was essential. They could have set up a simple 10% fee structure, but instead went for an unlimited patent system. Big mistake. But capitalism was strong enough to handle it in most of the early cases. But in time the patent holders expanded their power, particularly in life or death situations (pay what we demand if you want this life saving medicine - or die).
B) The world has changed significantly since those IP deals were created, speeding up. What used to take 10 years now takes 1. The real time that would be appropiate for those licenses is measured in more like 5 years, not 50. I.E. most of the honest profit is made in the first 5 years, after that it's dishonest prevention of innovation.
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Look, if I offered to sell you a home, but after putting down a downpayment you read the contract and it turned out to be a hundred year lease, you would be damn upset
Haha, are you making a subtle joke here? Because in the vast majority of this nation, this is literally in the small print of house sales and is actually how it works. If you're surprised at this, then take another look at your small print. :)
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We need a simple law that clarifies this point. Out law the use of the words 'buy' or 'sell' when dealing with a license
I disagree. We need to revise copyright law and adopt more of a copyleft law system. Copyrights do exist for a very necessary reason. If you are willing to invest time and money in making and delivering a product that people want, by all means, you should have a certain right to make back that investment and profit on your product. Nonetheless, copyrights should have a certain timelimit that runs out within a generation unless significant innovation by the copyright holder can be shown to retain that copyri
what about renting = the landlord pays for service (Score:2)
what about renting = the landlord pays for service and upkeep?
Will they be so willing to say you are just renting the software / car / device / etc?
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Bastards. (Score:2)
There. I said it. Ok, that wasn't very deep was it...
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Liability (Score:3)
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It seems like there should be some kind of protection for the manufacturer in these cases.
There is. If you use or modify a product in a way that isn't endorsed by the manufacturer, and that use or modification results in harm, the manufacturer is not liable. You are.
What Liability? (Score:2)
When was the last time Ford, Smith&Wesson or even a maker of ammunition were sued when someone was killed by their products?
If I buy something (Score:2)
We have the power (Score:2)
The remedy is in all our hands. Simply don't buy (or "buy") such products at all. The owners and managers of the corporations that sell them are in business for exactly one reason: to get as much of your money as quickly as possible, with an acceptably low risk of being imprisoned. (Technically known as "business").
If we all stopped buying Lexmark products we would soon be hearing less of this nonsense. And please don't tell me that all printer manufacturers (or even most of them) would join in solidarity w
Solution: TAX intellectual property as assets (Score:2)
Cancer Economics (Score:4, Informative)
"F**K THE POLICE" (Score:2)
Situational Ethics (Score:2)
from the /. summary:
When you buy something physical -- a toaster, a book, or a printer, for example -- you expect to be free to use it as you see fit: to adapt it to suit your needs, fix it when it breaks, re-use it, lend it, sell it, or give it away when you're done with it. Your freedom to do those things is a necessary aspect of your ownership of those objects.
Yet, whenever AirbnB is discussed here, a significant contingent espouses precisely the opposite principle, that the owner should not be free to use as he sees fit.
First Sale Doctrine (Score:2)
New Age Communism: Private Ownership is Dead (Score:2)
Now you never fully own things. They are always co-owned by sellers/IP owners... You need to share your former rights with them. You must agree how will you share the thing you bought - if you want to use it, you can, if you want to fix it, only they can, if you don't need it then you must destroy it or return (you cannot resell many things like games and such)
You don't really own things anymore. Marx is half-happy because we are half-way there!
Nice! (Score:2)
I'd patent 'the knife' and forbid everybody from wounding or killing somebody or themselves with it and I would sue everybody who cuts himself.
Re:It won't matter (Score:5, Informative)
Depends on the country you're in. Especially in consumer contract areas, laws in Europe very quickly void anything that could be considered an adhesion contract.
How it is handled in the United Corporations of America, though...
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Excellent riposte.
I, too, frequently cite Bunny v. Fudd (1948), in which counsel for the defense provided the nigh invulnerable "I know you are, but what am I" defense.
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What are the odds of a 4-4 split on this - and what are the implications? I assume Gorsuch would be a pro-corporate, pro-patent vote. Don't know enough about Merrick Garland to say. But, hey, Hillary had a private email server!!!
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[...] they will rent the cartridges and sell the ink, essentially offering a "cartridge and ink supply only" service contract.
That's already being done. I buy a replacement toner cartridge for my Brother laser printer. After I switched out the cartridges, I shipped the empty cartridge back in the same box as I got the new cartridge, print out a shipping label and drop it off at the post office. Hence, I "rented" the cartridge and kept the ink.
Re:Flamebait opinion piece, not news. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately it's still an issue. And it gets a bigger one every day.
Patents were supposed to spur innovation by giving inventors an incentive to show their inventions and how they work instead of guarding them as secrets, so that others could learn from it and use the information learned to create more while the original inventor can enjoy protection for his invention for some time. This has been perverted and warped to mean that non-inventions and trivialities are being patented to stifle competition and ensure that cornering markets becomes a reality.
This has many ramifications for both, customers and competitors. Yes, patents were supposed to grant you a monopoly for your invention for a certain time. What this has been turned into is that manufacturers use that lever to eliminate competition and keep people from actually owning what they buy. If you don't want to sell me something and only allow me to rent it, fine by me, but then call it RENT. With all the relevant obligations on your side that entails. But companies want their cake and eat it too, and that's simply not how our economy works.
If you deprive me of a right I have, I will take that right from you. By force if necessary. If I buy something from you, I own it. And rest assured, I will not only find out how to claim ownership over things I buy, I will do my best to inform anyone who wants to listen how they can wrest their property from your stranglehold.
Re:Flamebait opinion piece, not news. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately it's still an issue. And it gets a bigger one every day.
You are correct, patents and copyrights are both problematic and will continue to be.
Lexmark used the DMCA several years ago to do the same thing against Static Controls and re-manufactured ink cartridges.
They lost then, now they are giving patents a try for the same thing.
If Lexmark wins, we all loose.
This will be just like John Deere is with their tractors, see the article titled "Why American Farmers are hacking their own Tractors" a couple of articles below this one. Spend 150K on a piece of Farm equipment that is not really yours, you are just renting it, if you use it for a purpose not authorized by them they will brick it.
Pretty soon Ford, GM et al will be claiming that the money you paid for that sporty CAR is only for the right to drive it a specific way, on roads they tell you can drive on and you must take the vehicle to the dealer for service since you don't really own it, you are just renting it.
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They'd be wary to say that you're renting. Renting entails that certain maintenance work has to be paid for by the owner.
the rent a car places do poor maintenance and bill (Score:3)
the rent a car places do poor maintenance and bill the renter who is renting the car at the time it brakes down unless you buy that high cost damage coverage.
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True, but who's to say that Case or International Harvester or any other farm equipment maker isn't going to try the same thing as John Deere.
They may think John Deere got away with it, look at all the money we are leaving on the table and then go and do the same thing.
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So, essentially, "You have food, you have shelter, what are you complaining about? STFU!".
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So "you have better food and a nicer house than most others. Why do you want to own anything? STFU and consume more!"
Did I get it right now?
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We've heard all the arguments for and against patents already.
The Supreme Court of the United States hasn't, and that's why this is a big deal. [bloomberg.com]