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Patents

Submission + - Patenting the Use of a Computer to ...

aoheno writes: A recent story at http://harmfulpatents.org/ highlights the disadvantages of patents when they are approved for broad and established ideas that can be considered too general to be patented:

USPTO issued two patents simply on the concept of using a computer to help physicians choose medical treatments. A company that purchased these patents claims that "the diagnosis and treatment of most chronic diseases will fall under the claims of these patents."

Rather than fight the patent, Stanford University negotiated a licensing agreement to avoid the expense of litigation. Dr. Robert Schaffer created the website to both inform researchers and solicit funds to invalid the two patents involved.

If the precedent set by this broad use of patents gains momentum, anyone can obtain a patent simply for "the use of a computer to _________" (fill in the blank). Since almost everything from the air we breath, the food we eat, and the stuff we have, has a computer involved somewhere in the supply chain, a cheaper alternative is to obtain a patent for "the use of a computer to do anything even remotely related to a patent" would render the patent system useless.

Comment Re:So instead... (Score 1) 120

.. the law lobby will try to make it illegal for the "proles" to discuss case law.

That includes lawyers, politicians (who are lawyers), lobbyists (who are lawyers), judges (who are lawyers), district attorneys (who are lawyers), doctors (who try to become lawyers when medicine exhausts them), special interests (who hire lawyers), as well as regulators and law enforcement (who do the bidding of lawyers).

That leaves the rest of us at the mercy of natural selection instead of creationism.

Comment Re:Great news! (Score 2, Funny) 207

I have four SPARCstation4s in my attic.

Tough machines. Temperatures can swing over 100 fahrenheit up there, not to mention birds nesting in enclosures, rats feeding on cables, snakes feeding on rats, and Bear Grylls feeding on snakes.

Make sure IBM guarantees the same level of durability.

Comment No CPU Needed! (Score 1) 618

If the GPU can boot the machine, load drivers, and do a few more CPU oriented 'things', then we will finally have a gaming PC that costs as much as a game or two.

Open Source the tiny motherboard needed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_hardware/ and soon it would be miniaturized so you could carry it around to the nearest HD monitor. Add GE's holographic memory and you don't need a {DV}{B}D drive.

Heck, the military could use the thing to test out different attack scenarios in real-time during battle, lobbying virtual shells to see which one has the biggest bang, and then shoot the real one that way. With a link to Google Earth, military version, a soldier could see around the corner or over the ridge, in real-time.

Scatter a few in the mountains of Afghanistan with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare loaded, and the Taliban will think they have tapped into our network and can actually see what our forces are doing.

It may finally help answer the question, "Where in the world is BL?", unless the soldier thought the fire button also fired the real shell.

Comment Dust The Anti-Trust RuleBook (Score 1) 170

If the anti-trust rulebook is dusted and opened, the deal may fall apart or be watered down because of the intricacies involved.

Oracle and Sun are not completely isolated from the rest of the world. IBM is likely to have patents that can be leveraged to throw a wrench in the works. They are not out of the picture, unless their coterie of lawyers is of the 'wimpy' kind likely to be waterboarded into submission.

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