Burst.com Sues Apple Over Patent Infringement 212
AWhiteFlame writes "Techdirt is reporting that Burst.com has filed a lawsuit against Apple for Patent Infringement. From the article, 'Burst.com is known for having patented a method for moving large pieces of content online at faster speeds [...] Last year, they approached Apple, suggesting that the company pay it 2% of iTunes' revenue. Apple then went on the offensive in January, proactively asking a judge to either invalidate Burst's patents or declare that Apple wasn't infringing. Just to make the litigation circle complete, after a few months of trying to reach a middle settlement ground, Burst has now gone ahead and sued Apple on its own.'"
summary (Score:5, Interesting)
1) vanilla load balancing
2) automatically resuming a download
3) playing a download while the entire file is saved to disk (regardless of how much is actually viewed?)
4) caching downloads (and/or partial downloads) on disk instead of asking the server again
I can't bring myself to actually read the patents since my Patentlawyerese-to-English translator is broken but they have a list of them here (pdf) [burst.com].
So some speculator pooled together the [cough]bullshit[/cough] IP of several defunct startups and hopes to sue everybody.
Re:summary (Score:2)
The sad part is that Burst has already one once against Microsoft, that'll weigh heavily on Apple going in to this.
Re:summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes patent trolls arent patent trolls, they are the little guys that the uber-corporations like to step on. Apple has become as bad as Microsoft in the mentality that patents are bad... errrr... except when they are ours, then they're good. Hypocrisy anyone?
When did Apple become as nasty as Microsoft? And when did ALL patents become
Re:summary (Score:4, Insightful)
What natural right do you have to prevent someone from doing something obvious, just because you thought of it first? Answer: none.
So you can take your moral arguments and... go patent them, or something, because they're certainly novel and non-obvious.
Re:summary (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:summary (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:summary (Score:5, Insightful)
And there you've nailed the real problem with patents: they don't do what they were intended. They don't protect the little guy at all. The little guy inventors always get reamed anyways because just about any verdict can be purchased with enough money. Patents just make it easier for the rich corporations that are on equal financial footing to hammer each other in court, see RIM, etc.
The philosophy of patents makes sense: provide a way to reward invention and help recoup the cost of research and development. I don't see modern patents doing this at all. Most inventors are not actually rewarded (the company they work for is) and research is usually distributed across different competing companies and then the patent holder sues whoever comes out on top.
It's just a mess. A messy mess.
I have a meeting with the USPTO this on Wednesday, and I have no idea what to say that could have any positive effect.
Cheers.
Re:summary (Score:4, Insightful)
And lots of other people did it before Burst. Caching and loadbalancing are intrinsic to the field of network services.
"And when did ALL patents become bad?"
At approximately the same time that any coercive government backed monopoly became bad.
"Without patents, there would be no small inventors,"
That is utter bullshit. If we needed a system specifically encouraging small inventors, we'd put a system specifically encouraging small inventors in place. Like attribution rights and incentives, where the government would pay out a stipend for a specific invention, or something similar. It's trivial to create a system much better suited to harnessing the innovative talent, because almost _any_ system would be superior to monopoly rights.
Monopoly rights serve only those who can use capital and legal clout as leverage, most notably those who already have money and relations to power, and they're solidly stacked against anyone else.
Re:summary (Score:2)
[sarcasm]Yeah, having the government pay for new ideas would work great! That way we won't have to worry about any undesirable inventions, you know, getting in the way. Also, this way we can make everyone pay for an invention, whether they want
Re:summary (Score:2)
That is utter bullshit. If we needed a system specifically encouraging small inventors, we'd put a system specifically encouraging small inventors in place.
You're absolutely correct... about that one tiny part. Other than that you're completely wrong.
That isn't the reason for the patent system. The reason we have patents is so that the knowledge created during the invention process becomes publicly documented. The point of the patent system isn't to prote
Re:summary (Score:2)
And lots of other people did it before Burst. Caching and loadbalancing are intrinsic to the field of network services.
There is a simple answer to this. The Cisco (or whoever they use) manufacturers that perform load balancing and fast data transfer need to go in, remove their gear, reimburse them, and say they do not want to risk infringing on their patent of allowing large data transfers at high speeds via load balancing. Oh yeah
Re:summary (Score:4, Informative)
Do YOUR research.
Resuming downloads? FTP
Load Balancing? Pretty well any large-scale internet router, database management system, web server, or any of a large number of system software packages, and most modern operating system network subsystems.
Play while spooling? Not a whole hellova lot different from double-buffering, except you're writing it to disk instead of an in-memory structure.
How a patent like that got granted in the first place is absolutly beyond me. If I can come up with reasonable (thought not necessarily *legally* acceptable) examples like that off the top of my head at 7AM after having been up all night WITHOUT doing any research, you're gonna have a very hard time convincing me that the patents should have been granted in the first place.
Re:summary (Score:2)
Log capture in my 300 baud modem software. YEARS before the internet.
Re:summary OK, get ready... it's 10:49 PST... (Score:2)
Probably because is absolutely beyond your ability to pay for it? (I'm assuming you can't cough up the cash to get a patent AND the investors AND the manufacturing and the rest of the entourage that keeps many people from filing...)
Re:summary (Score:3, Insightful)
I think Z-modem was around before Akami, Quicktime, etc.... no?
And isn't there some little detail about protecting a patent or lose it? Or is that only a copyright thing? I get so confused in all this IP quicksand....
Re:summary (Score:2)
Software Patents (Score:2)
Re:summary (Score:3, Insightful)
It say's right up there "Last year, they [Burst.com] approached Apple, suggesting that the company pay it 2% of iTunes' revenue."
now please, tell my why they waited untill LAST YEAR to file the lawsuit or claim patent infringment? couldn't this of been done, oh I don't know, 10 YEARS ago? you know when the internet became a household thing and no one knew what a lot of that stuff was?
Hell I never heard of Burst.com till the end of last year and that's as another Yo
Re:summary (Score:2, Insightful)
Life is a bummer sometimes.
Re:summary (Score:2)
Re:summary (Score:2, Insightful)
Caching is always, ALWAYS obvious. Load balancing implementations can range from obvious to genius, though, depending on what you are load balancing. I highly doubt that Burst has anything non-obvious given the problem domain. Networking? NO LOAD BALANCING GOING ON THERE EVER. NOPE. Really, being first to market with a product does not necessitate invention taking place.
Re:summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Did it happen before the Web Browsers learned to display part of a page (even title) before it finished downloading ? And did it happen before they gained a disk/memory cache ?
If not, then I'd say that parts 3 & 4 are invalid, since such a browser will show the partially downloaded page while saving it to the disk.
Also, when did
Re:summary (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe this time they'll get to two twice.
Re:summary (Score:5, Interesting)
Burst.com has not "one" (sic) once against Microsoft in any legal sense, Microsoft settled. [pcworld.com] Such a settlement does not set any legal expectation to "weigh heavily on Apple," all it does is imply that Microsoft's lawyers thought that Burst.com had a strong case.
Even that isn't directly comparable, because the suit against Microsoft included antitrust claims that aren't applicable against Apple, since (regardless of complaints
Re: (Score:2)
Oblig. Simpsons Quote (Score:2)
Homer: I reluctantly accept your proposal!
Bill Gates: Well everyone always does. Buy 'em out, boys!
[Gates' lackeys trash the room.]
Homer: Hey, what the hell's going on!
Bill Gates: Oh, I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks!
Cringely thinks Apple will lose (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason Apple changed its MacWorld announcements at the last minute was because the company sued little Burst.com a few days before, trying to invalidate the Burst patents. But since Apple sued Burst, Burst shares have gone UP by 30 percent. The market is rarely wrong. Suing Burst was an enormous mistake for Apple, casting a pall on their video strategy and potentially costing the company strategic alliances with networks and movie studios. Apple realizes this now and is struggling internally to find a way to change course and put a positive spin on the course correction. Apple will lose and Burst will win, and Apple won't be able to afford to wait for the courts to decide anything, since time is critical in staking out Internet video turf. I predict that Apple will eventually take a license from Burst, that is UNLESS SOME OTHER COMPANY (Google? Real? Yahoo?) doesn't snatch up Burst first.
Here's something I've noticed lately: Big companies believe in patents as long as they are talking about THEIR patents. Because Burst is three guys in an office in Santa Rosa, companies like Microsoft and Apple tend not to take them seriously. They forget that Burst spent 21 years and $66 million developing that IP, and the company has code that is still better than anything else on the market -- code not even Microsoft has seen. Unless someone buys the company first, Burst is going to win this and eventually license the world. They are in the right, for one thing, and in practical terms they now have as much money for legal bills as any of their opponents. Apple can't win this one.
Re:Cringely thinks Apple will lose (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like someone was asleep during the internet bubble.
Re:Cringely thinks Apple will lose (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cringely thinks Apple will lose (Score:2)
Just ask the litigious bastards themselves.
Re:Cringely thinks Apple will lose (Score:2)
The difference here is that Apple sued Burst and Burst's stock shot up. It's not uncommon for the company doing the suing to get higher stock (hey, they're committing to a lawsuit, they must have something, right?!?). But in this case, it was the opposit.
Re:Cringely thinks Apple will lose (Score:2)
The GP's argument about the dot-com bubble is somewhat valid, but falls apart on closer scrutiny. The vast majority of people who participated in the bubble were doing little to no research, much less evaluating the merits of lawsuits. The vast majority of the rest were maki
Re:Cringely thinks Apple will lose (Score:2)
Re:Cringely thinks Apple will lose (Score:2)
"Ha ha! Here's an example of Not-X! You're totally and completely wrong!"
What's wrong with this picture?
(The bubble may seem like a really big counter-example, but it's really a whole bunch of people making the same mistake, and it's still swamped by a long history supporting Cringely's argument. It's not proof, since markets can be wrong, but it's a very valid point in support of his argument.)
Cringley: wrong bold assertion, right facts. (Score:2)
Uh if the code is so super secret where how does Cringley know it's superior? And if the code is so much superior to everyones elses including Apple, then obviously apple must not be infringing much since their code is so allegedly sub par. Cringley wants it both ways.
If this IP is so dramatically enabling and un obvious then apple's quicktime should also be vastly superior to microsofts
Re:Cringley: wrong bold assertion, right facts. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think we can be pretty sure that 1) MS would not have shared this with APPLE. 2) the MS was doing this to gain a competative advantage in streaming over the fairly well established quicktime standard at the time.
Thus if Apple copied Burst technology it was at a very high conceptual level, because they woul dnot have had access to the methods like MS did. And arguably, what made Bursts techinology valuable at the time was as a response to Apple's prior art, not because it was such a world-beating technology. That is, if quicktime had not existied MS would not have felt pressured to acquire Busts technology with any alacrity but woul dhave just developed their own.
Re:Cringely thinks Apple will lose (Score:2)
If I had to choose sides, I hope Burst wins -- their tech is cool, and they worked hard for it. Having said that, I wonder if this is a
Re:summary (Score:2)
4,963,995; 5,995,705; 5,057,932 and 5,164,839 (you probably don't want the commas)
Re:summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Record audio/video to solid state device (RAM, optical disk, tape (yikes!), etc.) Transmit said media over telecommunications devices, especially using compression. Receive media over telecommunications services. This technology is especially designed for vhs duplication using a single tape deck, and intermediately storing the information on solid state devices.
read them if you like:
http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=
http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P TO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch- bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=5,995,705 .PN.&OS=PN/5,995,705&RS=PN/5,995,705 [uspto.gov]
Ok, so that covers, hmmm, most things in my office and home- which generally, means that the patent is probably excessively broad (IANAL), but that's typically how they're written- so you could sue anyone anywhere. Since it seems so broad, I imagine that there is a good chance of finding some 'prior art' (somebody who did it before and made the information public, public knowledge=not patentable), such as technology to transmit pictures from scientific and military satelites, which both seem like they fit the above points. Furthermore, the technology seems like an obvious combination of existing technologies, in which case apple may be able to really fight them.
Some might say that big companies profit off the technology of little ones like burst, but I honestly despise non-existent technology being patented, as it removes a lot of the motivation for another company to independently develop it, market it, bring to the consumers, just so someone else can say that he or she told the USPTO about it 16 years ago and scoop up 1 hundred million or so, but I guess IP portfolio companies just wait for a company to succeed and then flip through their holdings to see what they can sue them for. Big tech companies are different, as they almost all infringe on each others patents but have a more unspoken standoff relationship of not suing whenever possible, so as to prevent eternal litigation. Small companies are problematic in this, as they might have no marketed technology, yet own patents, so they rarely infringe and are not part of the 'mutual destruction' standoff. Something about a suit driven company turns my stomach.
An idea does not equal a technology, and I wish the USPTO were more stringent in the applications (only recently was a functional example of a 'Warp Drive' required for that applicant). I know that the USPTO accepts ideas alone, and need not be at all functional, but at some point this is a real obstacle for innovation. Fraunhoffer's MP3 technology was viable and not just an idea for compressing audio (and making cymbals sound crappy). Both of my patents are for developed and published techniques. If I have the idea for non-hallucinogenic chewing gum that lets you travel through time, but someone else actually makes it, my hat's off to that dude.
How does that relate to iTunes? (Score:2)
4) caching downloads (and/or partial downloads) on disk instead of asking the server again
So, why are they asking for a cut of iTMS? iTMS doesn't allow for the playing of songs or movies during download (the files are grayed out, probably due to DRM issues). And, if you've ever had a video download hang or crash, you'd know that the option for retrieving incomplete downloads involves first connectin
Re:summary Obligatory Spoonerism here... (Score:2)
curst.bom
(Cursed.bomb)
Yawn... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yawn... (Score:2)
What's different in the Us is the lack of an organisation such as FFII [ffii.org] which puts pressure on parliament and proposes solutions to solve the mess. US citizens prefer to leave Us patent reform to Ms lobbyists and the pharmaceutical industry. And then we also see some usual suspects EFF action and numerous eloquent commentators -- not the right approach to get impact and solve the dam
I wish I had a patent on Bullshit (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I wish I had a patent on Bullshit (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I wish I had a patent on Bullshit (Score:2)
You've got it all wrong. Here is the corrected text: I wish I had a patent on ELECTRONIC Bullshit
Electronic or Electronically being key words for being allowed to patent prior art
who needs f*ckedcompany.com (Score:3, Funny)
Burst Vs Microsoft?! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's kinda like how Microsoft initially bought a license from SCO several years ago, and then watched as SCO attempted to IP-attack the Linux community, again a upstart competetitor for Microsoft for Server Operating systems.
Is there a pattern emerging here, where Microsoft throws in the towel against a lowly firm IP software patents, which indirectly supports Microsoft's ultimate goals. The old adage: The enemy of my enemy is my friend!
Re:Burst Vs Microsoft?! (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think Microsoft is nefariously "funding" the IP vultures, I think they just realized that they could get away a lot cheaper by settling early on and not having to deal with it. Most people never even heard about the MS v. Burst - but you can bet Burst will whip up a shitstorm about Apple stealing their IP and thus owing the success and health of their company's only profitable sector to Burst's crackpot IP. Apple will look bad, shares will suffer, and then Apple will settle...for more than the 2% Burst originally asked...to make it all go away.
Has anyone patented "Pulling an NTP" yet? I mean, prior art and nontriviality no longer seem to determine patentability, so someone out there with the time and money to exploit the patent system should.
Re:Burst Vs Microsoft?! (Score:2)
RIM could have settled for $10 million or something but ended up losing $600 million in addition to legal fees. If you have $40 billion in cash like Microsoft, you limit your liabilities by settling. It's simple risk management. $60 million is like a week's interest or something. The fact that it hurts your largest competitor
Re:Burst Vs Microsoft?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple should have done the same...
If you look at MS's patent practices, they didn't started pushing through a ton of their work for patents until the last few years, after they started getting sued for crap that they had been using or even created years ago.
Hell, they left FAT wide open for 20 years, and FAT32 wide open
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Burst Vs Microsoft?! (Score:2)
Vista is not ripped from Apple. It implements a few features, but most people take a look a SCREENSHOTS and cry that they're stealing from Apple. The interfaces look nothing a like. Microsoft has only tried to make it more "stylish" as that seems to be the thing these days. You can't say that by trying to make an attractive UI they're copying Apple.
NOTE: I'm in no way a Microsoft apoligist. I run Windows at work and Gentoo w/ Gnome whe
Re:Burst Vs Microsoft?! (Score:2, Informative)
I rather think he does know his history better than you do. Hypertext (the 'H' in HTML) was inspired by Apple's Hypercard software [w3.org]. Tim Berners Lee's innovation, of course, was to place eve
Re:Burst Vs Microsoft?! (Score:2)
I rather think he does know his history better than you do. Hypertext (the 'H' in HTML) was inspired by Apple's Hypercard software. Tim Berners Lee's innovation, of course, was to place everyt
Re:Burst Vs Microsoft?! (Score:2)
Seems to me that both of you are getting too caught up in what you are saying to see the big picture.
For instance, back in 1987, I was running a Desk Accessory (remember those?) that linked to live data shared over the localtalk network. A few, actually. Most were set and forget (clock synchronization, network printer management, etc.), but some were mildly scriptable. Not to mention, due to the
Re:Burst Vs Microsoft?! (Score:2)
Re:Burst Vs Microsoft?! (Score:4, Funny)
LOL. By your own argument you admit that Dashboard ("HTML based Widget technology") is NOT a ripoff of Konfabulator ("XML based Widget technology"). So, which one is it?
Re:Burst Vs Microsoft?! (Score:2)
Do you even understand the difference between HTML and XML? Better yet, do you understand the similarities?
I can display a web page using either, and use the same FREAKING text in the page...
XML is a more advanced form of GML, which HTML is also based on. They also both WORK OVER THE INTERNET TO PULL LIVE DATA, AND CAN ENCAPSULATE DATA.
I sup
Re:Burst Vs Microsoft?! (Score:2)
Really, the hole you're digging is just getting deeper. Either the implementation doesn't matter, and Desk Accessories = Konfab = Dashboard, or the implementation does matter, in which case Dashboard != Konfab.
Pure and simple...
Which one are you arg
Re:that's a nice rambling rant about graphics shit (Score:2)
Applets were driver based applications, designed because of the Mac's inability to multi-task applications. PERIOD. (Multi-tasking OSes made this concept dated)
There is a difference between an application an a widget that co-exists on desktop space.
There is a difference between a static application like HyperCard and applications that pull information from a live network.
If Hypercard was what you suggest it was, there would NEVER have been HTML or a NEED FOR IT or HTTP.
But
Re:Burst Vs Microsoft?! (Score:2)
You haven't been here very long, have you?
Re:Burst Vs Microsoft?! (Score:2)
But sadly they did, and both Konfabulator and Apple are copies of ideas that started on Win98.
Here is what was different, Win98 introduced something called Active Desktop (not a wonderful idea, but it worked.) What this did was allow you to take any web page or design any type of Web page or 'gadget' that was LIVE to the internet, and would update the weather or time or news and display them on
Re:Burst Vs Microsoft?! (Score:2)
The idea of hooking Desktop Accessories to the Internet is trivial once the Internet itself is widespread.
STFU.
Not worthy of a patent (Score:5, Insightful)
They have their right to offer their products on the market, but there's totally nothing worthy of patenting and licensing there, so no wonder both Microsoft and Apple turned them down.
This is the sad story of a company with an actual product that turned into a patent troll, simply since being a patent troll pays better.
Re:Not worthy of a patent (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Not worthy of a patent (Score:2)
But load balancing and buffering is new, right?
I mean, look for yourself and go and download one of their excellent products, and just pay for it already:
http://burst.com/new/promo/main.htm [burst.com]
Re:Not worthy of a patent (Score:2)
I don't even know why I click on patent links at slashdot anymore given the mindless groupthink that goes on in these threads. But honestly, I can't believe how often I read comments along the lines of
Re:Not worthy of a patent (Score:2)
Except noone said that. Few years ago I had totally no experience with the server side of things - I'm a client side guy, y'know: Flash, HTML, JS, Java... And we had a CPU heavy component on the server and bandwidth heavy component on the server.
We were short on time and I had no time to research how we avoid our servers bursting in flames or anything, so we had to come up with solutions on the spot.
The first thing I did is dedicate a "distr
Better than NTP though... (Score:4, Interesting)
It may seem like Burst.com is simply another NTP or patent troll, but I don't think that's really true. They actually did have a product but were driven out of the market by MS and WMP
And while their technologies may seem obvious now, they may not have been so obvious when they patented them. In fact, during the tech bubble, many though Burst would be another hot company. In fact, they argue that they were driven out of business because windows media player purposely was built to be incompatible with their technology (this is second hand information not verified by me.)
I'm not sure if Burst.com actually deserves to have these patents or win these lawsuits, but it definitely seems more justified than NTP in suing MS and now Apple
Re:Better than NTP though... (Score:2)
And while their technologies may seem obvious now, they may not have been so obvious when they patented them.
Name one.
Lawsuit mushroom clouds rise over remains of USA's (Score:5, Interesting)
The USA will fall behind because ever more intellectual property will be locked up behind a multitude of corporations and individuals effectively ruled by lawyers who are more interested in earning legal fees rather than bothering to actually manufacture anything.
Other Governments and Europe's bureaucracies will not hesitate to forcibly acquire the necessary intellectual property needed get things done for large projects
Other countries and even Europe's parliament will also not hesitate to adopt more liberal intellectual property structures if you demonstrate [wiki.ffii.de] that doing so will better benefit their economies as a whole, instead of just a few major corporations.
The USA administration and even more myopic major corporations will continue to let more and more manufacturing, service industry and development to be off-shored resulting in importing permanent poverty into the USA.
You want to see the future of the USA? Visit the remnants of Detroit motor city works, Ye Mighty, and despair
Re:Lawsuit mushroom clouds rise over remains of US (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Lawsuit mushroom clouds rise over remains of US (Score:2, Offtopic)
Tell that to Iraq.
TWW
Google:Detroit "tax break" EDS/OnStar/Saab (Score:3, Informative)
Google Detroit "tax break" OnStar [google.com]
Google Detroit "tax break" Saab [google.com]
Detroit's financial woes [detnews.com].
Re:Lawsuit mushroom clouds rise over remains of US (Score:2)
On top of what? (Score:2)
Lowest external debt ? 205th out of 205, United States $ 8,837,000,000,000 30 June 2005 est. [cia.gov]
The look on a redneck's face when he finally comes to the realization that President Bush has screwed over his life savings : Priceless.
Re:On top of what? (Score:2)
America's Spiraling External Debt ... (Score:2)
Read the full art [globalresearch.ca]
Re:America's Spiraling External Debt ... (Score:2)
As an aside, I always find it morbidly fascinating to watch others rooting for their own demise. You do realize, I hope, that the Ameri
USA's world share of GDP is down to 20% (Score:2)
According to the CIA's own figures [cia.gov] the USA's world share of GDP (purchasing power parity) has fallen to 20%.
I'm over forty years old. I have lived though, vividly remember and fully comprehend the late 1970s oil crisis, New Zealand's own 1984 balance of payments crisis and the 1987 share market crash. My Father was born a year after the 1926 stock market crash and is well
Re:USA's world share of GDP is down to 20% (Score:2)
And I'm sure you have all sorts of "radical adjustments" designed to maintain the wealth of the US and prevent that from happening, right? Right.
Obviously you haven't learned much, despite your observations, if that's how you characterize capital investment. In case you need a refresher, it's not a "pyramid scheme" when you take the money invested and actually produce something
Re:On top of what? (Score:2)
The rates are still not sustainable ... (Score:2)
Re:Lawsuit mushroom clouds rise over remains of US (Score:2)
I just the other day read in the Onion "Detroit Sold for Scrap".
"Detroit, a former industrial metropolis in southeastern Michigan with a population of just under 1 million, was sold at auction Tuesday to bulky scrap dealers and smelting foundries across the United States.
Once dismantled and processed, Detroit is expected to yield nearly 14 million tons of steel, 2.85 million tons of aluminum, and approximately 837,000 tons of copper
This is good, piss off the big companies some more (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is good, piss off the big companies some m (Score:3, Insightful)
Tom
Re:This is good, piss off the big companies some m (Score:5, Insightful)
And you really think that if it's these huge corporations that finally push for patent reform it will be a kind of reform that puts the small inventor on equal footing with them? Everytime this sort of patent suit comes up someone posts "Oh goody, when the big players feel the sting they will change the system!" This is kind of a circular defeatist argument. You admit that the status quo won't change until the big companies that in reality hold the power push for change, but at the same time think that change will benefit anyone other than those big companies? The attitude needs to be that the patent system is broken, we ALL are feeling it and WE THE PEOPLE whom it is supposed to serve, not "we the corporations" need to revise it to work for everyone.
And more than anything else what the patent system needs is a way to successfully use it without having to spend thousands to millions of dollars on third party consulatations and lawyers. Forget all the actual lawsuits you're seeing, those come after a patent is granted; the fact is just to apply for and receive a patent you practically have to feed a family of lawyers. What a joke. I don't need a personal attorney with me at the RMV to successfully apply for a new drivers license, why should I need to do the same just to use the patent system with any chance of success up front?
software patents (Score:3, Insightful)
Does anyone else see this optimistic view of the future? Am I just naive?
I actually did development work for Burst (Score:3, Insightful)
streaming video back in '91 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:saw that coming.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:saw that coming.... (Score:3, Interesting)
From each according to his ability. To each according to his ability to litigate.
Re:Apple should just give it to them (Score:2)
Re:Apple should just give it to them (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Apple should just give it to them (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Well (Score:2)
On my way...