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Patents

Feed Magazine Commentary on Patent Insanity 72

Posted by Roblimo from the big-try-to-devour-the-small dept.
roger writes "Feed Magazine has an interesting column on etoy/eToys, Leonardo, etc., and the recent patent law insanity in the United States." Cogent commentary on *why* so many big companies are doing such dumb stuff from Hunter College Professor Clay Shirkey.
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Feed Magazine Commentary on Patent Insanity More

Feed Magazine Commentary on Patent Insanity

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  • How about a disclaimer attached to every tcpip connection status forbiding Lawyers to use or view the contents of the session? OR, and being one to seldom resort to violence, We just line up the lawyers and shoot them. Its the same reason I moved from california, the state used to be a great place to live, where citizens rights were protected by all the liberal activists passing laws to protect themselves. Problems is theres a point when you pass to many laws to protect people it becomes oppresive. The Internet used to run fine. Personally i still rue the day when my friend came to me and said "Have you tried this new program mosaic?", to which i course replied, "Saw it, sounds like a stupid program.", Well i did try it and predicted that it would bring the idiots... opps i mean the masses. and it did and this is what happens as a result, Eventually someone thaws out one of those monolithic fossils they call a lawyer and starts suing everyone they see. For the record, once and for all RTFM is a polite answer to a documented question yet people have been sued over using it. So once again, I urge the citizens of the world to unite in an effort to shoot all the lawyers.
  • While your point is a very good one, I'll note the reason why railroads are hampered the way they are is because of the anti-trust acts that were brought onto the railroads about a century ago.

    My father used to work for the railroads, and the amount of regulatory wierdness that surrounds the railroads because of their actions a century ago is just absolutely bizarre. For example, as of a few years ago it was a federal capital crime (read: death penalty) to cause the derailment of a train in a way which caused the death of any passengers on that train. Needless to say many of these laws are not enforced.
  • Your retort doesn't apply to patents concerning business models, because the method employed is transparent to everyone

    Well, if you look at current patent law, it actually has a stipulation against patenting business processes. The problem is that the courts have mangled the interpritation of process patents in general so that with a little careful wording conventional process patent law can be streached to cover business processes. This is really a screwed up situation that needs to be fixed; patents were never intended to cover business processes.

    And the USPTO isn't about to stop giving out trivial patents, because every patent issued by the USPTO to an American company/citizen is one fewer international patent that can be handed out to a foreign company/citizen. Nevermind that Americans suffer from this practice just as much as the rest of the world.

    Your point is completely spurious because USPTO patents can and are in fact routinely given to to foreign companies and citizens; in fact on the order of 1/2 of US Patents over the past decade were assigned to foreign citizens and companies. There is no restriction on non-US citizens being granted US Patents.

    If Sony wants to gain patent covereage on something they sell in the US they have to get a US Patent. If I want to get coverage on something I sell in Japan, I need a Japanese Patent. A US Patent has no standing outside the US except perhaps as prior art. In fact if I file a US Patent on MY INVENTION I have to file a European Patent about the same time to prevent my own US Patent being used against me as prior art.

  • Yes they will and it's not fair. A friend of mine registered the domain name Total-Fina.com when the huge oil companies merged. They filed suit in France. He was served by a U.S. Marshall and had to appear in Court in France if he wanted to keep the name. He obviously could not afford the trip and lost the name due to default judgement.

    He had a great name and should have made really big $$ for it, but they just screwed him because they could.

  • Being that most judges still dont know what email is, let alone how to read it maybe we should make it a point to get the address of the courthouse of the presiding judges in these cases as well as his or her name and come up with some spiffy professionally written letter (in other words i wont write it) explaining to the judge why we think the law suit sucks. I know we had some laws passed a few years back against frivilous lawsuits and if we included that it might start a judge thinking. If we all sign a copy and snail mail it to the judge or even better certified snail mail it to the judge he will be innodated with it and be forced to at least acknowldge it. If we get 1000 people to send the same certified letter to the same judge the post office will make a stink and instant press. Press loves that kinda crap. I think we have to come down to a medium that a judge can understand. Email will just get deleted or ignored. Most of you who are email savy know it will just be viewed like a spam or a DOS attack. Paper is something that sits in front of you, and if its certified, hes gotta sign for every copy that comes in and he doesnt he puts his job at risk.
  • Now that businesses are discovering the Internet, they'll want to rule it the way they rule everything else. The "Geeks" who built it are nothing more than tools for the larger firms, ways to create products for them to sell. If you get in the "big boy's" way, he'll send his lawyers out to destroy you. It's frustrating, it's depressing and it's the way things are. The worst part is, for most people in this country, a lawsuit over a URL or some other "Internet Thingy" means exactly NOTHING. The lawmakers don't understand what's at stake because the technology is literally beyoned the understanding of most of them. The big companies will continue to rule everything. It's the way it's always been. The "Old Money" is frightened by the young upstarts, and has decided to start the crackdown.

    The party's over boys and girls. Time to bend over and let the rulling class have their way with us, or get thrown in jail for resisting.

    The only way to fight back is to join my crusade to become Evil Overlord of the Earth. Follow the link below for details: http://users2.50megs.com/mattwmiller/new_laws.html

  • another problem might include the fact that an owner of a patent monopoly can choose to deny anyone else access to the invention, or set unfair terms..

    I would think under normal circumstances the patent holder would set terms that would maximize his gain. It does a patent holder no good to set prohibitive terms on widget licenses - he wants to gain a LOT of income from the sale of his patented widget. His license fees would be thusly constrained to be slightly less than the economic gain of the improved widget.

    There is also the issue of a company doing its own manufacturing of a patented item. Again the company is going to set the price so as to maximize it's economic gain. Too high and they lose out.

    It is tough for me to see the need for compulsory licensing in such cases.

    The problem comes when the patent has value because it is preventing canibillization; that is the patent holder (A) has a vested interest in something that he wants to continue, and the patent is blocking a competitor (B) from manufacturing a better, competing product. It seems like economic efficiency would be served to force licensing here. The problem is that by forced licensing you have the state abrogating property rights. This is unconstitutional in most cases; you have a very high standard to meet if you do this, and you owe compensation besides.. you owe the patent holder the value of his economic loss under eminent domain provisions of the US Constitution. I don't think we want to encourage the mess that would result from this.

    There is also a big danger with compulsory licensing. Companies that don't want to license will simply not patent and keep thier invention secret. This is exactly opposite the primary purpose of the patent; to encourage publishing.

    Personally I don't really think that there is much likelihood that a good innovation will sit idle. The hunger for innovative products is so great as to be almost unimaginable.

    The usual industrial outcome in a case like this is very complicated. Sometimes there is an exchange of assests - B will buy out both the patent and old prodduct from A because the value of both are worth more to him than to A, or A will buy out B for similar reasons. Or a joint venture will result. There is a lot of interesting stuff like this joining on in the chemical industry over mettalocene catalysts - there is a minor industrial revolution going on, and companies are restructuring to allow the best development of the new technologies.

  • I think we already have an example of what can happen when you try to hoard your technology, and not let others take the ideas and run with them - Apple. They have consistently lagged behind in the PC market, in no small part due to the fact that they refused to let anyone else build clones. MSFT and the closed-source area is another example. MSFT refuses to allow anyone to look at their code and we end up with lousy software. My refrigerator doesn't crash ever, but if it did, I wouldn't have to worry that Sears had patented the model of keeping food cold, I could just go buy a Maytag or something. One other example to consider for a second: electricity. Sounds a little ridiculous that anyone could patent electricity, but why not? Then you'd have exclusive rights to decide who could and couldn't use it, and how. *sigh* "The sincerest form of flattery is imitation..."
  • Original Post: But by not allowing dissemination and wide spread adoption of these business models it will only serve to retard the overall evolution of our economy.

    Post I'm replying: Your retort doesn't apply to patents concerning business models, because the method employed is transparent to everyone -- humanity doesn't need anyone to spell it out on paper, because anyone in the business knows what business model

    One question: So what if everybody knows what they are if they cannot use the patented business methods? The problem with patents now is that they are being used as a weapons: thus companies would rather not license patented processes so that their competition is overly handicapped or non-existent. e.g. Priceline vs. Expedia or Amazon vs. BN. This can only harm consumers in the long run because it limits choice and grants a natural monopoly to the patent holder. And we all know monopolies are a bad thing.
  • ((This article was right on the money. Somehow, we've turned into a combative culture where the power of the judiciary is being used as a weapon-- against democracy and free markets.))

    Actually, I don't think it's so much a _combative_ culture as a culture of irresponsibility. We don't so much sue for combat, we sue so we don't have to think about what we're doing before we do it.

    Got pregnant because you forgot to take your pill? No problem, sue the pill makers for not making it strong enough to catch the one day you missed. Can't take being parodied? No problem, SUE THE PARODY! Someone else has a name you want? Don't get a more imaginative name, just sue them - they probably can't afford the defense anyway.

    Now, I can see these laws being used correctly. I know someone who is having to go through a lawsuit right now, because someone saw her site (which has been up since 96 or earlier), and decided they wanted to steal her business. They set up a site which had an almost-identical URL (one hyphen difference), and put up similar content. They claimed they had 'bought the site from its previous owners' when emailed by people who had forgotten the hyphen and found them instead of the real site. They stole content word-for-word. They stole the entire idea of the site. And they weakened it (this is a women's forum, specifically anti-idiot but NOT anti-man, and they have set up a reasonably anti-male pro-shopping idiots' site, calling it by a similar name). It is hurting her reputation among the people she aims to be with and sell to. It's upsetting her business. For this, a lawsuit can be a good thing (cease-and-desists did nothing, and they have as much as admitted to doing these things - not to mention the fact that the people doing it are a big site-making company, not just some random person like they want people to think. They have Bucks to waste trying to force my friend out of business). Patent law and intellectual property can protect the little guy too, let's not lose sight of that.

    The problem is that, within almost all parts of our lives, we have lost sight of the ideal of independence. This country, our government, was created by people for whom independence was a necessity of life. You have the right to carry a gun, because you have the right to defend yourself from all the crazies out there, or from government gone wild (which is what we were under just before the declaration). You have the right to say whatever you want, about whatever you want. You don't have the right to _incite_action_, but you do have the right to talk about it. Fine line, if you ask me, but it's there.

    The problem is not with the laws in the way they were first made. It's in the changes that have been made, the evolution our legal system has gone through over time.

    It's possible to have an insanity plea. This is not always good, I think - it means that, if you are nuts and do something because you couldn't stop, you won't just be randomly put to death for it. This can be good - it can save lives of those who can be made 'normal' again. It can also, however, keep people alive who really SHOULD be put to death. Frankly, if there is someone who is so dangerous that he should never again be allowed into society (life in prison, anyone?), he should be PUT TO DEATH. That is the point of trial-by-jury, right? If we can't keep them in society, if they are that dangerous, WHY are we keeping them around? My guess at the answer? Cheap labor. We pay taxes to keep them fed and housed, and the government gets super-cheap labor to make license plates and other governmental necessities. What a joke. Before The insanity plea is highly abused. "It wasn't my fault, I was temporarily insane, but I'm fine now" has become a common cry of the criminal. Ok, so you were abused like hell and you eventually went nuts. That says something about you, as well as about them. Before anyone starts in about 'two wrongs don't make a right', let me add that _releasing_ people who are convicted of murder or heavy abuse almost invariably results in more murders and/or abuse. Reform doesn't happen in the system we have right now. You want to make the death penalty obsolete, find a way to truly change these people without threatening the rest of the populace (brainwashing does NOT count), and FIX the system. Until that happens, we have too many criminals who are STILL BREEDING.

    Also, before anyone tries to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about with 'temporary insanity of an abused person', let me state this: I have BEEN in an abusive relationship, and have BEEN raped, by family and others, have BEEN beaten. But you know, I never felt the need to cut off the penis of my abuser, or to kill him. I left him. It was hard, it was painful, it was near-impossible to get out of that cycle and to stop trusting my judgement for a while and just be with NOONE while I healed. It took me 6 or 8 months to break away completely and stop with the calling-back-and-forth, now-together-now-apart crap that follows these things. I didn't take him to court for injuring me forever, though, I took it upon myself to change myself, to not LET him have the power to destroy me. To quote Eleanor Roosevelt, "Noone can make you feel inferior without your consent."

    Too bad noone ever thinks about that before they cut/shoot/destroy. (I am in NO WAY saying that being abused is the fault of the abused. However, if you get raped in a neighborhood, staying there - or going back repeatedly - when you know your rapist lives there is a Bad Idea - pure common sense. But people don't think that way anymore).

    The same goes for a lot of things. It has become acceptable for people to be totally irresponsible, and to blame others - anyone, as long as it isn't themselves. There was a woman some time ago who sued Dunkin Donuts, or McDonald's, or somesuch. She bought a coffee, got into her car and put the coffee between her legs to hold it while she started the car. She spilled the coffee and got burned badly. What kind of MORON puts BOILING coffee between their legs?!?! And if you're stupid enough to DO something like that, don't go blaming the people who MADE it - they sold it, they didn't teach you how to be stupid.

    Remember Columbine? How easy is it to blame video games for what went wrong? Kids who were picked on, kids who had dysfunctional lives, who were abused. But we don't blame the parents, we don't blame the kids, we blame the fucking video games and music?

    Things like this happen all the time. The fact that it has spread, that it is infecting the internet, is not at all surprising. The fact that something needs to be done about it is well-known by anyone with brains.

    I seriously doubt anything WILL be done about it, though, until people stop being so stupid. I have a sneaking suspicion that there will be a core of intelligent, self-reliant people out there, who will wind up becoming outlaws because they don't want the government to think for them. Everything but the self will be blamed for any problems people have, until we have a dulled-down, pastel view of life and no movies are higher than G rated, and no music even implies bad feelings... etc. Ok, so that's a little extreme, but ... things that used to be acceptable in a 'pg' rated movie are rated 'r' now. Why is that? Swearing, which used to be perfectly fine (although not done very often) is now ILLEGAL. Not morally objectionable or socially unacceptable, but ILLEGAL. Morals don't matter, only laws matter.

    This is teaching our children bad things, and children are growing up in a culture where 'it's bad if you get caught and it's illegal', not 'it's bad because it is (rude/mean/disrespectful/horrible/whatever)'.

    Bleh. It's Christmas eve, and as usual I'm horribly bitter and annoyed by humanity tonight. If I hadn't learned how WRONG it is (not illegal, but fucking wrong!), I'd probably be out there with a shotgun or worse every christmas, trying to fix the gene pool or something. Stupidity breeds like rabbits. Too bad there are no wolves anymore.

    -Elthia
    maybe I should start drinking myself into a stupor when I feel like this. I hate drinking though, does weird things to me - not to mention the nauseous, sloshy feeling in my stomach. Bleh. Guess I'll just rant about the idiocy of the human race and hope someone out there hears me.
  • Way to be constructive, kiddies...This must be a game of "Ooh ooh! Let's see who can be the most shallow and tasteless!!" I mean, really. Enough bashing, I really don't want or need to see this shite on here, and I think that just about anyone (over the age of 12) shares my opinion. Here I am, reading replies to articles and up comes this garbage. Pull down your defenses, seriously. We don't all spellcheck our responses before we submit them. Way to be tedious and idiotic. -Quidam
  • Not only are you absolutely right but you quote the residents in your sig. Too bad you (probably) don't live in my town I'd buy the beers.
  • Actually the French originated the Lawsuit but over the Leonardo deal in the US courts because they have to many loopholes. The WTO facilitates that even more which is why there were riots about it. People are sick of it. If i could convince my wife to let me move out of the US now I would. I read a quote once by an australian citizen which hit home with me. "Thank god we got the criminals and not the puritans."

  • Re:The patent offices are at fault, too. (Score:3)

    by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Friday December 24, 1999 @03:14AM (#1448224)
    This is an International Patent

    In a pig's eye it is.

    THIS IS NOT A PATENT It is an application that was rejected by the European Patent Office.

    WO series numbers are APPLICATIONS. If you even took the time to look at it you would see that it saya APPLICATION right along the top.

  • read Atlas Shrugged. Prophesy?
  • . Lawsuits are threatening to dampen the dynamism of the internet because, even when they are obviously spurious, they add so much to the cost of doing business that soon amateurs and upstarts might not be able to afford to compete with anyone who can afford a lawyer.

    The ones who are pushing this insanity are the lawyers, in the long run, they are the ones who will be making the most money, reguardless of which side they are representing.

    It's a damn shame that the great inovational spirit we had in the 20's 30's and even up through the 80's is getting stifled because people are so afraid of getting sued.

  • Anyone who has been around online (and especially in usenet) for more than a few years will recognise the above running joke.

    Anyways, it was a good article. I hadn't heard about the Transasia case, but it's another nail in the coffin of common sense. How can a company trademark a person's name? How can suits be filed against organisations for using a name _prior_ to the suing company? This is clearly stupid.

    The real question is, WHAT CAN WE DO? Make it clear to eToys (by mailing them, phoning them (collect, no doubt), and telling your friends) that they will be boycotted. (and then carry out the boycott, of course)

    Unfortunately, while this makes us feel good, boycotts don't seem to be enough. Many people have been boycotting Spamazon for ages before this latest sleazy behaviour. They're still in business, and getting free publicity from Time to boot.

    There needs to be a fundamental change in the laws, and it has to be done on a concerted, international scope. As long as countries aren't working together on this, someone can start up a site in the most lawsuit-happy country out there, and then sue everyone else from every other country.

    Activism is the key, folks. We're headed for an international anti-establishment clash, far beyond what we say in the '60s. If we don't stand up now and fight it, you can expect to be buried six feet under, in a Sony SurroundCoffin(tm).


  • What is wrong with this article?
    Why can't I reply to the main article?
  • Responsibilty cuts both ways. Take for example a community that has abnormal rates of cancer. The corporation who has been exposing the town to asbestos dust for years will argue that nobody can PROVE 100% that asbestos caused that cancer and therefore they should not be held responsibly IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER (libby Montana Dec 1999). Not even a tiny little bit. People see this and say to themselves what is good for the goose is good for the cancer. If the mine is not resposible for the cancers in my town then I am not resposible for running the red light cos I was drunk.

    What we need is to get away from holding somebody 100% resposible or 0% responsible. In real life there is plenty of blame to go around. I say hold everybody responsible for their part.
    Example Lets say the a felon buys a gun and shoots somebody. The store that sold a gun to a felon has SOME responsibility don't you think? They shouldn't get off scott free.
  • Okay, I know we all hate eToys.com, but isn't is just a little bias to have that etoy/eToys bit in the comment block and ONLY link to etoy? How about linking to the etoy/eToys story? Link to both, or link to neither. Being so blatantly biased can only hurt /.'s reputation.

    "God does not play dice with the universe." -Albert Einstein

  • That's four words.
  • ((Example Lets say the a felon buys a gun and shoots somebody. The store that sold a gun to a felon has SOME responsibility don't you think? They shouldn't get off scott free. ))

    I agree, but only if the store has the ability to check the guy's status. In other words, if they had no idea he was a felon, they couldn't be held responsible. If they have access to his criminal record (or if they can at least see that he has been CONVICTED (not accused) of a _violent_ crime), then they probably shouldn't sell to him, you're right. However, blaming them 100% for it would also not work (as you said), because it's more HIS choice than theirs. He is totally responsible for HIS actions (the shooting). They are responsible for theirs (supplying the weapon to someone who is violent).

    I don't see a way to fix this, though, withoug pissing off everyone (the stores for lack of info and/or responsibility, and the offenders for lack of privacy of their criminal record, which I don't think is a right anyway).

    -Elthia
    the things I want would piss of a LOT of people, so they'll probably never happen unless I'm crowned queen in a theocracy (yes, god-queen, not monarchy).
  • My position on business model patents has always been quite simple. You shouldn't be able to get them. At all. It's a process patent (how to get from here to there). It should be considered a trade secret by the company in the sense that they keep their mouths shut and don't have to tell anyone how they do it (except monopolies?). But if someone else figures it out, good for them.

    Say I figure out how to mix a new drink that everyone loves at Christmas and call it "eggnog" :-). I can serve it for years without others figuring out how to make it and make money on it until someone else smartens up (think KFC's secret recipe) or I can tell everyone ... either way, my right.

    No legal protection of the process itself ...!
  • Right now we use the jury system to assign blame in these types of situations. I don't see why we can't continue using the same juries to assign a percentage of the blame. A Jury should have the right to be able to say 70% guilty your honor and let the judge adjust the punishment accordingly. In a civil case the 70% guilty party would pay 70% of the award.

  • APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING AN ANTIGRAVITATIONAL FORCE [ibm.com]

    It's not only the companies, the patent office itself is loony tunes, allowing patents on anything and everything (this is an International Patent). Given the power they are handing out (authority to kick the ass of anybody using their "patented" technology) some checks and balances are in order. Peer review at least.

  • I certainly agree with the article- we have a big problem.

    But maybe there could be some sollutions. Smaller companies could create joint funds for defence in courts. Not every company on internet is being sued, so IMHO quite small payments could acumulate enougth money to defend the company (member of the fund) which gets sued.

    Maybe insurance companies could do this too.
  • What if Henry Ford had patented the assembly line as his business model and prevented other manufacturers from adopting this process for making their goods? How would that have affected the history of the 20th century? Anyone care to speculate?

    It seems to me that this is basically what is happening with the Dell and Amazon patents and all the "business model" patents if they are enforced. I can't help but think that it would ultimately be detrimental to the public good (and to the patent holders themselves). Sure some of these companies will maybe make even more money than they already do in the short run. But by not allowing dissemination and wide spread adoption of these business models it will only serve to retard the overall evolution of our economy.

    Sharing knowledge multiplies its power and benefits everyone, including those who create it. Hoarding knowledge impoverishes us all.

    What a stupid world we are living in.

    **sigh**

    Merry Christmas everyone.

  • I wholeheartedly support boycotts of these organizations, but otherwise feel relatively helpless (one of the small guys) against them. However, one "talent" I have and am respected for (by those who don't have the talent) is my knack for "anything computer".


    I am trying to make a living with this talent and get *so* tired of those without the talent making decisions like those made by whoever at amazon and etoys (and the others), and thereby putting my livelyhood at risk. If I find out that organizations that I provide services for do crap like that, I will just withhold services from them (I will try anyway). If all who disagree with these litigous companies would do the same, I think the companies would finally wake up.


    For example, I know that VALinux provides services for etoys.com and I would bet that not many people at VA like what etoys has done. So, pull the plug on them. Withhold your services. I know that someone from VA reads slashdot, so what do you say?


    If this community is no different than what came before, then bye-bye.


    PS. I successfully posted this by replying to a reply and not previewing first. I don't know which made it work, but if you've had trouble posting to this topic, you might try one or both.
  • I understand what intellectual property law is supposed to accomplish. Stated baldly, it grants a temporary monopoly to the person or company that invents something. It creates an artificial incentive to innovate. The problem with patent law, and this article didn't touch it, is that it is prohibitively expensive and uncertain these days to even try to determine whether your new product or idea would violate somebody's patent.

    For a very readable discussion of intellectual property law, I recommend Chapter 11 of David Friedman's upcoming book, Law's Order: An Economic Account [best.com], entitled Clouds and Barbed Wire [best.com]
  • Lawsuits are threatening to dampen the dynamism of the internet because, even when they are obviously spurious, they add so much to the cost of doing business that soon amateurs and upstarts might not be able to afford to compete with anyone who can afford a lawyer.

    These big companies would do anything to find a way to use what they have -- resources -- to make up for what they lack -- drive -- and they may have found an answer to their prayers in lawsuits.

    These two quotes cover just about 90% of current patent problems and about 75% of trademark problems (squatting for greed is a factor in domain trademark wars, even if we don't like to admit it). We should also add in requests by large businesses to regulate the internet (especially things like domains).

    More importantly we can see a larger issue at work here: the use of 'good' government to hurt economic competition. Generally, most people see patents, trademarks, and regulation as government working to protect rightful owners and the public. To some degree this is true. Often, however, these same things are encouraged by larger companies to weed out competition.

    Some examples outside of computer patents and internet trademarks from the US in recent years include:

    • The cable industry: this industry bitterly waged a war in the US to be deregulated in the early 90's when it was one cable company per town. Result, prices went up and service down. Now, just by coninidence, some cable companies are venturing that maybe re-regulation would be a good thing at the same time that other services are showing up that might compete.
    • Cable again, this time using rebroadcasting rules to hurt the ability of satelite services like DSS to rebroadcast local programming. Cable signed on to back-outs and other rebroadcasting issues just as small satellite became an option.
    • For years in the US truckers could negotiate on the spot contracts (both independents and trucking companies) including price discounts. Railroads were required to post any tariff change in advance and hold public hearings to let those impacted (like truckers) protest the changes.
    • Similarly, NYC and Las Vegas limit new licenses for transportation services (vans, taxis, limos, etc) such that new licenses can only be issued when they won't impact the business (that is compete for customers or on price) with existing licenses.

    That these issues and tactics are now appearing in the Internet world is new. That they exists and endanger inovation and decreasing costs isn't.

    Herb

  • How can a company trademark a person's name?

    Like this is new. Trademarks based on names have been around since the beginning of trademarks. Ford Motor. McDonald's. Bell Telephone. Hoover vacuum cleaners.

    On the internet we have ONE namespace, and result is conflict. Until the regulatory bodies fix the internet namespace problem, there will be name conflicts. It isn't the fault of trademark law - it is simply due to the intersection of new technologies never intended for commercial activity intersecting with the business world.

  • The "American Rule" is that each side bears its own costs of a lawsuit unless a statute says otherwise. Among the exceptions, Patent, Trademark, and Copyright suits give fees in "exceptional cases" and RICO suits give fees in all cases where the plaintiff wins. I think there are also antitrust and environmental lawsuit provisions for plaintiffs also. That said in 99% of cases, each side is bearing its own costs.

    The other rule (usually the "English Rule" in most areas, but I am not sure what it is called in fees) is "loser pays." From what I understand, German civil law has "loser pays", but with a cap on the amount you can spend on the lawsuit.

    American proceedings tend to be more expensive because of the open "discovery" provisions of American law in general. You get to ask a lot of questions that other people have to answer under oath before the trial. In most countries, you do an investigation, but do not have the ability to compel testimony before trial. The UK just adopted some discovery rules, but I don't know the effect has had yet. There are other countries, like most civil law countries (France, Germany) where the judge is less a referee, and more of an investigator. Naturally, this affects who does what work, and who bears what expenses.

    I expect all systems provide some avenue for payment of the other sides fees when one side behaves abusively in the conduct of the lawsuit. (Destroying evidence, harassment, lying, etc.)

    In all systems, I suspect YMMV depending on your judge.

  • You can read about the Leonardo case at http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-journals/Leo nardo/ [mit.edu] Whats worse is that the founder's widdow of the Leonardo journal (the people being sued) home got raided by the french police. Seriously.
  • Crimminy. Henry Ford DID NOT invent the assembly line. He copied the idea from a Chicago meat packing plant.

    Sharing knowledge multiplies its power and benefits everyone, including those who create it. Hoarding knowledge impoverishes us all

    I agree. That is the purpose of a patent in the first place. A Patent is a contract between the government and an inventor; the inventor gets an exclusive right to practice his invention for a limited period of time in exchange FOR PUBLISHING THE TECHNOLOGY. If it weren't for patents people would keep as much technology secret as possible.

    It is the same thing as copyrights. The reason we have the GPL is because it is protected by Copyright law.

    The only problem we have with patents today is that the USPTO is giving them out too easily, trivializing the real value of the patent process.



  • Re:three words. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Actually, this points out an issue that is not so flattering to Libertarian political theory. Libertarians generally espouse junking regulatory structures, and when confronted with the problem of who pays for damages caused by "externalities", will argue that anyone suffering damages should use the courts to redress their damages. E.g., some petrochemical company moves in next door to your well-established dairy farm, and suddenly the milk your cows are producing tastes like floor-wax and makes your hair fall out. Current regulatory structures would legally forbid your new neighbors from pumping TCE into the groundwater you both share. Libertarians would have the little dairy farmer sue the massive petrochemical company, with all of its money and legal resources. Who do you think will prevail in court, farmer Bob or the legal "dream team" assembled by the giant corporation?

    Bringing this post back on topic, it seems pretty obvious that the WORST way for artists, merchants, small start-ups etc. to "protect" themselves from big business poaching their domain names is in court. Reality check: they will get crushed, if they can even afford to fight in the first place. Another solution is needed

  • I am afraid that our real rights and the great judical system we have will get thrown out with the bathwater. The judiciary can't be completely arbitrary for long before people lose all faith in it.

    There are so many cases I can think of right now in the US legal system that make me loose faith. I'll outline them!
    • A friend of the family is a physciatrist(psychologist.. I can never keep the two straight), and a few years ago referred a patient to a coworker. This person is now being sued because he should have diagnosed the patient's "repressed memories" in the referrel.
    • Another friend of the family is being sued for (I'm not lying) thinking about embezzeling money.. from himself.

    So where do I sign up as an offical membmer of the backlash?

    I want a rock.
  • >For example, I know that VALinux provides
    >services for etoys.com and I would bet that not
    >many people at VA like what etoys has done. So,
    >pull the plug on them. Withhold your services. I
    >know that someone from VA reads slashdot, so
    >what do you say?

    They probably can't do that, not legally. VALinux is a public company now, isn't it? Public companies have a duty to their shareholders to make the most money possible. To stop selling to a valuable client just because you didn't like what that client was doing would be a breach of fiduciary duty. The VALinux directors could end up in court over that.

    Jonathan


  • Culture of harassment (Score:4)

    by Wellspring ( 111524 ) on Friday December 24, 1999 @12:30AM (#1448255)

    This article was right on the money. Somehow, we've turned into a combative culture where the power of the judiciary is being used as a weapon-- against democracy and free markets.

    Nowadays, rather than saying "this should be legal" and then getting together with people you agree with and supporting a law to legalize something, it is easier to hire a lawyer and declare that someone's rights somewhere are being violated. Then a court rules in your favor, and no debate or legislation can overturn you. It is because a right trumps everything in this country-- including democracy itself. I'm not saying this is bad-- quite the contrary, it is a wonderful system when it is used in good faith. But right now, it is being shockingly abused.

    For one thing, people are suing each other over things they would never have bothered with before. There is a reflex now that you might as well try-- and the jackpots (monetary or ideological) that await people or corporations who do are irrestible. In this country, sometimes not suing is considered tacit permission when your rights are violated, encouraging still more knee-jerk lawsuits.

    Another factor is that the judiciary has begun to blur what a right is. There is a difference between "this is a right" and "people should be free to do this, but it isn't a right because it isn't in the constitution yet". But this distinction is disappearing-- now a judge basically gets to make our liberties up as he goes along. Because the specification for what a right is isn't being adhered to, spurious lawsuits can make up rights and hope for a judge that agrees with them.

    It's dangerous because when the backlash comes (and we are still a democracy-- when enough people's real rights are violated a la Amazon or etoy, there will be a backlash), I am afraid that our real rights and the great judical system we have will get thrown out with the bathwater. The judiciary can't be completely arbitrary for long before people lose all faith in it.

  • Re:Defence funds? (Score:3)

    by Shirotae ( 44882 ) on Friday December 24, 1999 @12:31AM (#1448256)
    What happens if the person/company supported by the defence fund loses?

    It seems that in the UK, those who contribute may be liable for the costs of the other side. See the BBC news article [bbc.co.uk] about the backers of Hamilton being pursued for costs by Al-Fayed after the recent libel case. The danger is that funds that balance the resources available to the richer party end up pushing up the total cost so lawyers get much richer, and everyone else loses. I would much prefer some way to limit permitted expenditure to what the poorer party can afford, but I doubt if that can be made to happen (too many politicians are/were lawyers for a start).

    I don't know what the situation is in the US, or elsewhere, but the international nature of the net means that people will try to fight their legal battles in the most favourable jurisdiction.

  • They do it because they can. I didn't learn anything new from the article other than that etoy.com was not-for-profit, and they registered their domain before etoys even started. It just states the obvious, which is best summarized by the closing line:

    If this spate of foolish lawsuits continues -- and there is every indication that it will -- the next few years will see a web where the law becomes a tool for the slow to retard the fast and the big to stymie the small.
  • Of course I don't know this for sure, but if I were a lawyer, what I'd be doing all day is looking for potential lawsuits. I'd find two companies with similar names or something and then I'd go to the one with the best case and I'd tell them: "Hey, you can go on doing whatever you do right, but I can make a few bucks extra on the side if you give me a fair advance payment"
    Maybe I'd even work on a no cure no pay basis.
    This problem is of course biggest in America with it's "sue-culture", but the fact that that "give in to me cause I'm bigger or I'll sue you" thing is now spilling over it's borders is plain wrong. European patent offices are in general way more carefull with dealing out patents, even though they too make mistakes, and european courts also tend to show more signs of sanity. But they are sort of forced to do it the "American way". What I'm getting at here is the fact that the internet is a worldwide thing, it has no borders, yet it's still being governed by any local law that somebody wants. Want to force a site out of existence? Just find a country where material on that site is illegal and go to court there seems to be the way to go. same goes for patents. Get something patented in one country and you can sue anyone using that technology on the internet even if the other party is not from that country.
    Internet is a country in and of itself, it should therefore get al the things a country has, and that includes it's own legal system. That way you don't have to know the laws of all the countries in the world when you do business on the internet, just the internet law.
    I see a few problems with this idea too, the main problem is: "who is going to make those laws?" But if we could get it to work (and work more efficiently than the UN and the WTO and more democratically it would be a good thing.
  • The only problem we have with patents today is that the USPTO is giving them out too easily, trivializing the real value of the patent process.

    another problem might include the fact that an owner of a patent monopoly can choose to deny anyone else access to the invention, or set unfair terms.. might compulsory licensing [ram.org] alleviate the problem?
  • >They probably can't do that, not legally. VALinux is a public company now, isn't it? Public
    >companies have a duty to their shareholders to make the most money possible. To stop
    >selling to a valuable client just because you didn't like what that client was doing would be a
    >breach of fiduciary duty. The VALinux directors could end up in court over that.

    This is not correct. Public companies have no legal obligation to do ANYTHING to make money. George Carlin has an interesting analogy to this: General Motors could make more money by, say, selling crack. Yet this is considered by our society to be unacceptable, and so they do not do so, even though it could improve their return for their shareholders. Even in cases where it's not a matter of legal problems, companies can and do all the time make decisions for humanitarian or other nonfinancial reasons, such as not doing business with companies that do business in countries that support slavery. Ford Motor Company stopped buying parts from Johnson Controls when the latter company hired replacement workers during a strike. They didn't want to support a company that didn't support its union workers.

    RAF

  • But sometimes... (Score:3)

    by / ( 33804 ) on Friday December 24, 1999 @08:13AM (#1448266)
    Your retort doesn't apply to patents concerning business models, because the method employed is transparent to everyone -- humanity doesn't need anyone to spell it out on paper, because anyone in the business knows what business model the patent-holder is using. All these patents do is give the patent-holder an exclusive right to that model. It's rather one-sided.

    And the USPTO isn't about to stop giving out trivial patents, because every patent issued by the USPTO to an American company/citizen is one fewer international patent that can be handed out to a foreign company/citizen. Nevermind that Americans suffer from this practice just as much as the rest of the world.
  • Not to be a dick or anything but I have this vague recollection that Henry Ford copied the idea of the assembly line from the gun industry. One of the few things I learned from shop class, sorry. I'm from the tool and die capital of the world, Meadville. So sue me.

  • Good luck (Score:2)

    by / ( 33804 )
    Pretty much every solution is no solution:

    Legislative action: the corporation has the money to bribe better politicians.

    Executive-agency action: police are perpetually more interested in helping corporate monied interests than in helping the little guy.

    Gladiator contest: the corporation has the money to hire better gladiators than does the artist.

    Ordeals: the corporation has the money to get the priests on its side and rig the ordeals in favor of the corp. And that's not assuming the corporation is given an ordeal like "swallow this glass of wine without choking" while the artist is given an ordeal like "carry this hot coal from here to there without burning yourself".

    Arbitration: maybe the artist will come away with something, but again because of money, it will be less than what ought to be.

    Our legal system has (more or less) successfully given the state a monopoly on violence. But, it has a long way to go before it can achieve any manner of institutional justice.

  • Honestly, in cases of Etoy/s and Leonardo, I think that the best solution is not to sue each other. Suing people just ties up courts and wasts money and throws weight around where it shouldn't be thrown.

    My solution is very simple. It is to hire goons to go to the offices of the plaintiffs in these cases, bring a baseball bat, and hit them in the head a couple times, being sure to stress that the reason that they've got this present is because they're too stupid to live.

    Seriously.

  • Do a /. search for "lawsuit" -- you get quite a number of matches. I've not sat around to check how many of them were related, but it's fairly disconcerting to see how much law has already been put to work out here.

    And, no, it doesn't look like it's going to stop anytime soon. *grumble*
  • Not to say that they won't succeed in the marketplace, given the amount of guppies running around today. To top that off, they're getting advertisement through the entire etoy issue. So, they get a bunch of new customers simply for being pains.
  • Actually, it's only because we hear about them faster in the US that we know about these things. But I do remember several silly things going on in Europe, including the UK court system upholding (!!!) the patent on the alpha channel, dispite expert testimony from several experts in computer graphics who said that the technique was actually invented almost a decade before the application was made.

  • Whats going on at the courthouse (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    why aren't these cases being turned away as being a waste of the courts time? I can understand Mr/Mrs lawyer agreeing with Mr Joe CEO that 'Yes, we have a case'. But why are they getting to trial? Surely at the initial hearing they should say 'sorry, you can't actually trademark, a common word, or commonly used (prior to it being copyrighted) phrase', is Transasia going to sue an art gallery if they have a show on da Vinci called 'Leonardo'?

    There is the process in the courts that allows them to throw cases out, why not use it, maybe get Judge Judy in on the case?

  • And merry scrote-mas to you all!
  • First point: The author's examples don't really seem to back up his point regarding big/slow companies using lawsuits to stay on top of their competition. Etoys/etoy and MIT/Leonardo don't involve competitors. Being a Microsoft unit, Expedia would probably be characterized by most people as the big and slow outfit, yet they're the ones being sued by the online whizzes from Priceline. I would imagine that Barnes and Noble is often pictured as a lumbering giant, yet it's the mercurial Amazon.com which is the one doing the suing. He refers to Amazon.com as a dinosaur later, but compared to B&N?

    Second point: Where has he been for the last two decades if he's only now noticing a lot of foolish lawsuits being filed? Forget just being filed, look at all the foolish lawsuits in the past twenty years in which the plaintiffs actually won. Hot coffee on your crotch, anyone?

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • And ofcourse the US sites are so much better... ;-)
  • Why is it that these idiotic lawsuits originate in the U.S.? My understadning is that the U.S. has more lawyers per capita than any other country. Is this true? If so, then it stands to reason that there must be some mechanism in place to keep these lawyers working. I appreciate the fact most Americans would probably agree that there must be an end to this stupidity. But is there anyone doing anything about it? Another problem I see is that since etoy.com (or Leonardo, I can't remember which) has had their URL stripped because of a U.S. instigated lawsuit, it would appear that the U.S. legal system has influence in other jurisdictions. How is this possible? If these U.S. companies can screw over foreign companies, how long until they screw over their domestic competition? The term "Only in America" is decidedly taking on negative connotations lately. I'm just glad I live in Canada where this nonsense just gets laughed out of court (assuming it even gets to court). I just hope that there is some authority in the U.S. that has the power to restore sanity to your patent system.

  • These big companies would do anything to find a way to use what they have -- resources -- to make up for what they lack -- drive -- and they may have found an answer to their prayers in lawsuits.


    An age-old method of preventing small organizations and individuals from operating.

    As for the Scum Known as eToys (SKeT). The scenario, as I've read it, indicates that SKeT, decided in their initial planning stages, to use capital to claim surrounding domain space, rather than actually performing the research, or doing the legwork required, to find a "safe" domain name. This implies that SKeT is a company based on a domain name(eToys), instead of a concept(retailing).
    I.E., SKeT seems to be a gimmick, with little potential other than to cause trouble and separate fools from their money. Not to say that they won't succeed in the marketplace, given the amount of guppies running around today.

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