I agree that obviousness is a big problem and I agree that it needs to be fixed but that is only one of many problems. If you believe that cleaning up standards will magically fix everything, I say that is a bit naive. The ability to aggregate (even non-obvious) patents and use them to leverage unrelated business areas because you don't like to play fair will still be a problem.

I'm coming from the perspective that the patent system should do just enough to encourage people to release their ideas and nothing more. I've yet to see how the ability to sell them is required for this to happen. Anything beyond the bare minimum that is required is what will cause negative consequences.

If you have an idea and someone else licenses it and implements it then there's no reason you should have any legal problems since you weren't involved. If you do then that is a problem with the legal system, not the patent system. Now, if you are the one that implements it then yes you should assume all relevant liabilities just like any other person or corporation marketing something.

I'm sorry, someone came up with a better idea without infringing on yours? That's life. You're not entitled to profit from a now worthless idea. And I don't think the prospect of a better idea eclipsing yours is going to make you keep it a secret to the grave (the only concern of the patent system) as you will have lost before you even began, so to speak.

Not necessarily. A license, even exclusive, doesn't grant you everything that ownership does. For one, it doesn't grant you carte blanche use of that patent as a weapon.

I didn't say that people had to produce their own ideas personally. In many cases that's just not practical. But I would argue that the ability to profit from the license of your idea is incentive enough. I don't see why the patent system needs to go any further than that to work as intended.

And yes I understand that the ability to sell and not just license would be an additional incentive but at what cost to the system as a whole? We have huge corporations buying up all sorts of patents so they can stifle competitors on unrelated products. We have trolls who have never had an original idea in their life buying patents so they can extort money out of legitimate businesses. This doesn't magically go away if patent sales were eliminated but it at least puts a few road blocks in the way.

^H^H^H^H undue

None of that sounds like a problem. So what if they would prefer to sell it? Tough luck IMO. Pay someone to manage your licenses if it becomes an undo burden. Remember that the purpose of patents is to provide protection so that people will be able to bring their ideas to realization without someone stealing it. Making patents non-transferable doesn't undo that but it could sure fix a lot of what's wrong with the patent system as it stands.

Maybe you were. Speedometers aren't perfect so unless you've had your speedo checked against a calibrated device it could be wrong.

Netflix charges an extra $3/mo for Blu-Ray while BB does not. Combine that with the ability to swap in store with BB (one about a mile away from me) and BB is cheaper with an extra feature.

Perhaps he just didn't want to bother the owner with wrapping up his free comic.

So what exactly was so wrong about my original assertion?

Other than the fact that ingredients are different from nutrition information?

Perhaps these pirates just feel such extreme guilt for copying Windows that they are rejecting patches and virtually flogging themselves with malware.

I thought exactly the same thing. Lock it up and charge insane license fees please!

Heavy metal or whatever, you can change the look of most netbooks with a vinyl skin. They can make them look serious or wild. I got an istyles skin for my aspire one and people think it's paint at first glance. They don't sell one for the Wind though.

I know skinit lets you design your own lid with anything you want and they have an option for the msi wind. I've never seen one applied though.