Japanese Nobel Laureate Blasts His Country's Treatment of Inventors 191
schwit1 writes: Shuji Nakamura won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with two other scientists) for his work inventing blue LEDs. But long ago he abandoned Japan for the U.S. because his country's culture and patent law did not favor him as an inventor. Nakamura has now blasted Japan for considering further legislation that would do more harm to inventors.
"In the early 2000s, Nakamura had a falling out with his employer and, it seemed, all of Japan. Relying on a clause in Japan's patent law, article 35, that assigns patents to individual inventors, he took the unprecedented step of suing his former employer for a share of the profits his invention was generating. He eventually agreed to a court-mediated $8 million settlement, moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and became an American citizen. During this period he bitterly complained about Japan's treatment of inventors, the country's educational system and its legal procedures. 'The problem is now the Japanese government wants to eliminate patent law article 35 and give all patent rights to the company. If the Japanese government changes the patent law it means basically there would no compensation [for inventors].'"
There is a similar problem with copyright law in the U.S., where changes to the law in the 1970s and 1990s have made it almost impossible for copyrights to ever expire. The changes favor the corporations rather than the individuals who might actually create the work.
"In the early 2000s, Nakamura had a falling out with his employer and, it seemed, all of Japan. Relying on a clause in Japan's patent law, article 35, that assigns patents to individual inventors, he took the unprecedented step of suing his former employer for a share of the profits his invention was generating. He eventually agreed to a court-mediated $8 million settlement, moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and became an American citizen. During this period he bitterly complained about Japan's treatment of inventors, the country's educational system and its legal procedures. 'The problem is now the Japanese government wants to eliminate patent law article 35 and give all patent rights to the company. If the Japanese government changes the patent law it means basically there would no compensation [for inventors].'"
There is a similar problem with copyright law in the U.S., where changes to the law in the 1970s and 1990s have made it almost impossible for copyrights to ever expire. The changes favor the corporations rather than the individuals who might actually create the work.
Comment Re:Remember the Maine! (Score 1) 154
Actually, the second bomb and the threat of 9 more produced "peace".
Many have suggested that the second bomb brought hostilities to a close a day or two earlier than would otherwise have happened. It was taking the Japanese a while to get their heads around the problem of not being invincible.
Others have suggested it was removing the clause to indict the Emperor for war crimes (and instead leave him be head of state) from the conditions of surrender that let the Japanese allow to surrender without losing face.
Micromax Remotely Installing Unwanted Apps and Showing Ads 50
jones_supa (887896) writes "Reports are coming in that users of certain devices by Indian phone manufacturer Micromax noticed apps being silently installed without their consent or permission. Uninstalling these apps won't help, as they will be automatically reinstalled. Alternatively, instead of downloading apps, the phone might litter the UI with stack of notifications which are advertisements for online stores and other apps. It turns out that the "System Update" application is responsible for all of this. When starting to tear down the application (which is actually called FWUpgrade.apk on the filesystem), the first thing you notice is that it's a third-party application. A Chinese company named Adups developed it as a replacement for the stock Google OTA service. The article shows the potential abilities of this app and how Micromax customers can work around the disruptive behavior."
19,000 French Websites Hit By DDoS, Defaced In Wake of Terror Attacks 206
An anonymous reader writes Since the three day terror attack that started in France on January 7 with the attack on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, 19,000 websites of French-based companies have been targeted by cyber attackers. This unprecedented avalanche of cyber attacks targeted both government sites and that of big and small businesses. Most were low-level DDoS attacks, and some were web defacements. Several websites in a number of towns in the outskirts of Paris have been hacked and covered with an image of an ISIS flag. The front pages of the official municipality websites have been covered with the Jihadist militant group's black flag. In a report, Radware researchers noted that Islamic hacker group AnonGhost has also launched a "digital jihad" against France.
Comment Buzz Aldrin (Score 1) 894
Didn't people here defend Buzz when he punched Bart Sibrel in the face after he merely called him "a coward, and a liar, and a thief."?
Comment Re:Pope Francis - fuck your mother (Score 1) 894
If you poke a bear cub with a stick long enough, its mom might come and maul the shit out of you.
Yeah... you do know that bears are not people, right? We generally try to hold Muslims to higher standards than we do bears.
Or Pro-Lifers. Yes, all of them, because all Muslims raided Charlie Hebdo.
Comment Re:smarter than many people I know (Score 1) 111
>. If the trap captures the first ant, it won't be able to capture many more ants later.
I wish all people were as smart as this plant.
I hope more people would be so smart as not to listen to life tips by people who accredit "smarts" to a plant. That's just bananas.
Comment Re:That's the 2nd sentence of the article (Score 1) 180
You might like the second sentence of the article:
things that were new to x86 were old hat to supercomputing, mainframe, and workstation folks.
Just curious, did you read one sentence of the article before commenting on it?
At least he didn't stop at "asked" and immediately fired off a diatribe against Ask Slashdot.
Comment Re:Stop trying to win this politically (Score 1) 786
The working model exists, you wonk. You just deny it.
Comment Re:Stop trying to win this politically (Score 1) 786
The sea level rise is probably the best thing to talk about. From what I've seen of the data, we're looking at about 2 mm per year throughout most of the world right now. At that rate, we're looking at about 7 inches per 100 years. At that rate, it is hard to argue we have a problem.
Yeah it's really hard to argue with someone who ignores that the sea level rise is accelerating and pretends he can do linear extrapolation. An easy way to tell it's accelerating is that the actual rise is 3 mm / year, not your old value.
Comment Re:On the other hand... (Score 1) 786
Nature has been known to sometimes print dodgy articles, so you'll need to get more verification before making a claim, search for "Nature magazine controversies"
It's not so much that the article is dodgy, more that what Tony Wazzup tells him the article says is dodgy. Which is a total surprise. Not.
Comment Re:Makes sense. (Score 2) 629
Something isn't right here. Google can and does patch older versions of Android via the Play store app, which can patch the system.
That only can patch APIs, not anything in the kernel. The only thing not right here is your Fandroidish "Google can do no wrong".
Comment Re:Stop trying to win this politically (Score 1) 786
Funny, this article is by a climate scientist.
Karmashock is just trying to misdirect by pointing fingers at unrelated political arguments to create FUD and guilt by association. All of which are decidedly political tactics.
"Advice"...? Not so much.
Well, his advice is to tell people you love guns. Maybe Mann should just threaten to shoot some deniers to change their minds?
Comment Re:Stop trying to win this politically (Score 1) 786
Oops, forgot to add:
talk to someone that wins. Talk to Bill Clinton.
Bubba torpedoed Hillary's last campaign. He's not a winner anymore.
-jcr
LOL are you really sure about that ?
I am pretty sure it keeps him the winner in his home, and about the last thing he wants is a president Hillary.
Why - that would be the best way to keep her off his back.
