Yeah, but the problem is that if you say "you're listening to someone who is well-meaning, but wrong, and here's why," they'll listen. If you say "you're listening to a liar who wants to kill kids," they won't listen. You're misrepresenting her position in the latter, which reduces your credibility, even if you're 100% right about the science.

It's referenced in the BA piece. The full quote is:

That's consistent with her stated belief that there are too many vaccinations, given too quickly, and doesn't show any change in her position.

I agree that this does harm, but it's mainly because there are real anti-vaxxers who don't get any vaccines, primarily out of religious belief. The ones who are following McCarthy aren't in that camp, but are simply misinformed and gullible people who want to do the best they can for their kids. Their minds can be changed, but not with hyperbole and misrepresentations.

I did. Did you? Here's a quote from her in January 2011:

That seems to coincide with what she's saying now - that she's in favor of slower and reduced vaccination schedules.

Similarly, here's the transcript of her Larry King appearance, where she says (emphasis added):

Again, that's not anti-vaccination generally, that's opposed to the current schedule. Farther down in the transcript:

Again, that was 2011. If she's in favor of measles, mumps, and polio vaccinations, it's tough to claim she's anti-vaccination, and you can't really claim she's changed her story by saying she's not anti-vaccination now.

Now, let me be clear - I disagree with her about the science, and don't believe that the vaccinations contain toxins that must be "cleaned out" between rounds, nor do I think there's any link between autism and vaccination. I also think that many of the new vaccinations are great and should be given to kids, such as the HPV vaccination. But this isn't a dichotomy - she's clearly not "anti-vaccination" in any general sense, and she doesn't appear to have changed her argument at all from "let's space out vaccinations and return to the fewer number that were given in the 80s". I can disagree with her without having to call her a liar.

Then why are you asking it on Slashdot? Isn't this really just shouting to an echo chamber, and not really attempting to get a response?

Except that's not what she means. From her op-ed:

If, as you say, she refused vaccines until they were 100% effective with no side effects and no unexpected reactions, then she wouldn't be vaccinating her child at all. Instead, she is vaccinating him, just at a slower rate. She even quotes another blogger, saying:

Now, that may not comport with the science, nor is it what the AMA or APA advise, but it's a far cry from being "anti-vax" or lumping her in with people who are opposed to all forms of medicine and use "prayer" instead. Consider this parallel - there are plenty of people who are anti-GMO food, even though there are no scientifically proven adverse effects from it. But we don't brand them "anti-food".

No, this whole thing is a hit piece, trying to lump her in with the real anti-vax loonies, and in doing so, it does a disservice to people like her who don't understand the science behind vaccinations, and nonetheless want what's best for her kids. This is not a religious fight with people who will never change their minds, but rather an argument with a bunch of well-meaning idiots who can still be educated... unless we treat it as a religious fight and refuse to try to enlighten them.

You're confusing two concepts: "different" and "innovative", or in legal terms, "new" and "nonobvious". Something can be new, but obvious - and similarly, something can be different, but not innovative. As I've said and as you admit, both of the features we're discussing are not shown in the prior art reference - they are different, period, full stop. Whether they're innovative is a separate question, and nothing about that is implied by admitting that, yes, the video shows three frames of movement, while the patent claims "continuous" movement.

So, yes, the patent claim is different from the video. The claim has at least those two features that are not shown in the video. But I'm sure you can find them elsewhere in other prior art references, no? If so, you can use the combination of the two references to show that everything recited in the patent claim is known. That's the legal process - you can't simply pound the table and say "clearly obvious", because without using prior art references, at best, all you've done is shown that it's obvious now to someone who has lived with iPhones sliding-to-unlock for years. Show me that it was obvious in 2006. And that requires evidence, not just you saying that it's "clear".

With all due respect, that's not only not slander, and you'd lose any such suit, you'd also make yourself permanently unemployable - no company would ever touch you with a ten foot.

Not if, as you acknowledge, you are unable to complete the services for which you were paid. While you may think that you weren't hired to make bug-free software, the employer - and any jury - would disagree.

Although it would be a good idea, it'll never happen... at least not until get you get Engineer Unions who refuse to work unless a company implements those clauses and prevent any scabs from working. And with the libertarian bent of most Engineers, that will never happen. Otherwise, you'll simply have the engineer refuse to sign the company's boilerplate employment agreement because it doesn't include an indemnity clause; and the company will show him the door and bring in the next candidate who will sign it.

Not necessarily, depending on what was said. Slander requires that the statement be false. Did the engineer screw up? If so, then it's not slander. The only way it would be is if the engineer did nothing other than follow explicit instructions from his superiors, and considering that he apparently made a change without changing a part number, that would seem unlikely.
Also, there's no such things as "intentional negligence" - that's an oxymoron, and would mean that you intended to do something by accident. What you may be thinking of is gross recklessness.

There's a gloss here - these are Professional Engineers, with certifications, licensing, and ethical requirements. PEs are also responsible for the things they sign off on, and may be held professionally accountable for their screw-ups. Now, that said, yes, the company is the one who is civilly liable for any damages from their products and no customer can sue the engineer directly, but that doesn't mean that (a) the company can't sue the engineer if they really were reckless; and (b) the company can't even name the engineer.

Well, you admit that this - "the only difference is that they specified the post operation action" - is not in the prior art video.

There's also the feature about continuous movement of an image corresponding to a finger position. That's not in the video.

Now, might there be another reference that shows those? Sure. Go find it.

Uh... I think you may be confused. Let's run through it together.

The test: "show that every element of a patent claim existed in the prior art"
The example: "existing idea" + "on a handheld device"
Application of the test:

• Does "existing idea" exist in the prior art? Yes.
• Do "handheld devices" exist in the prior art? Yes.

Conclusion: "Every element of a patent claim existed in the prior art" and therefore the patent is invalid.

So what exactly is screwed up there, and who is calling that "innovation"?

Considering that your example fails the test and would be invalidated, I don't see why it's not.

It is, with very slight glosses... Instead of being "obvious", Europe and a few other countries say that something "lacks inventive step". And there are also a few registration-only systems, in which patents are not presumed valid, and no examination occurs. But generally, the various tests for whether something is "new" or whether it is "nonobvious"/"has an inventive step" are identical everywhere. That's a result of the Paris Convention treaty, decades ago.

Yes, but it's really specific to patents. Like, patent appeals only go to the Fed. Circ., rather than, say, the 9th Circ. or the 1st Circ. Basically, the numbered circuits are regional; the Federal Circuit is subject matter based. They handle patent appeals, other article I appeals (federal claims, trademarks, government contracts, veterans stuff, etc.), and some weird article III stuff, like natural gas and petroleum .

The original prohibitions on patent eligibility expressed by the Supreme Court of "laws of nature, natural phenomenon, and abstract ideas" were not in the statute, but were a clumsy interpretation as SCOTUS wrestled with a more fundamental problem: patents allow the patent owner to seek an injunction, ordering people to stop infringing... If the patent claims a previously undiscovered law of nature such as, say, gravity, how do you order people not to fall? Similarly, if the patent claims a mere abstract idea or mathematical algorithm that could be done in someone's head, then how do your order people not to think?

For example, if the patent claims a diagnostic method involving noticing that a patient has a blood level of X of n ppm, and determining that therefore they have disease Y, and I tell you I have a patient with a blood level of X of n+1 ppm, you just infringed the patent, simply by recognizing that fact. How can a court order you not to think of something? Or, conversely, how can a court fairly order you to pay royalties for thinking, or for falling, or otherwise involuntarily infringing a patent?

... which gets to the real point. Patents shouldn't be able to claim something that can be infringed involuntarily - whether that's a law of nature that one uses constantly without realizing it, or a mental algorithm that one can infringe merely by being told about it. So, that's my boundary - if the claim can be infringed through mental steps alone or otherwise involuntarily, then it should not be patent eligible. If the claim requires programming a computer to do something, however, then one may avoid infringement simply by not programming the computer to do that thing.

Mind you, this is all about patent eligibility under 35 USC 101... We've been talking about novelty under 102 and nonobviousness under 103, and those are separate and independent requirements. I agree that the quality of examination needs to be better. Part of why courts keep falling back to 101 for invaliding patents is because they can't believe that the patent isn't obvious under 103, so they refuse to hold them valid, but they don't have any good prior art to point to, so they instead wave their hands and claim it's abstract, without ever defining what "abstract" means. That's just bad law.

Ah. Wiki has attempted to dumb things down a bit, but unfortunately, appears to have created confusion. Here's the real definition:

This thread started with my post about legal definitions, so if you'd like to change the definition to a colloquial one, it would be good if you'd inform me first.

But trivial and obvious have little to do with each other. E=MC^2 is trivial, but not obvious.

You can make an FPGA as complicated as you want and its reconfiguration can be a "higher level program". In fact, forget even field programmable arrays - from a purely theoretical basis, you can make a fixed (albeit huge) circuit that will execute a specified program, even a "higher level one". You could hard code Diablo III, if you had enough transistors and an infinite amount of patience. Are circuits patent eligible?

What's your boundary? You said "higher level program", but as noted above, any program can be high or low level, depending on the circuit you execute it on. Your argument would seem to imply that the exact same program - say, Mr. Bilski's hedging algorithm - would be unpatentable if you wrote it in C, but patentable if you built it on a bread board.

Sorry, typo - isn't valid anywhere outside the US. As you note, patent law is country specific.