It's pretty clear from your writings that you're a virtuoso (at least among Slashdotters) at hooker relations. As for the New Scientist article, it's BS. They use the example of Peter Orszag, who is "the nation's most powerful pencil-pusher". Which should be an instant hit as to why women find him sexy, and it ain't the "pencil pusher" part. I mean, Alan Greenspan used to sit around in hot tubs with hotter women; he'd have the financial news on and he'd impress them by showing how he could make the tickers change with short phone calls. Volatility? That was Greenspan having a good day.

Actually, you should have stuck with hire a lawyer. Apparently knowing about the patents you infringe upon makes your situation worse. So apparently you are better off not looking at existing patents.

It is becoming more difficult for plaintiffs to establish willful infringement. Searching patents and reviewing their abstracts is unlikely to rise to the level of willfulness (unlike, say, ignoring a letter, sent by certified mail, that says "we think you may be infrining patent XXX for reasons A, B, and C" ). Willfulness is especially unlikey to be an issue if the patents are prioritized and one seeks legal analysis for those that seem most relevant.

Instead of looking at active patents and trying to find if a new product infringes on any of them, one could look at expired patents (along with books, articles, papers, etc.) to show that nearly everything in the new product is based on knowledge already in the public domain. Not only would this likely help in trying to invalidate claims, it would show a lack of willfulness.

Alternatively, the product developer could try to find third-party component suppliers to provide the non-core pieces. If the third-party component supplier indemnifies the product developer (which they really should), then damages can be shifted away. Even if damages aren't shifted away, the fact that someone else created the infringing pieces would make it difficult to show willfulness.

As soon as you do away with translations, it is kind of hard to achieve the "public notice" function of patents in each of the applicable countries, eh?

I'm not suggesting that any country do away with a translation requirement. I'm just pointing out that it is one of those costs that adds up really quickly. It's also one of those things that would be a significant barrier to a highly harmonized international patent system.

One possible compromise would be to allow patent applicants to submit translations of only the claims. But that doesn't work out too well given that the meaning of claims often can't be determined without reading the specification (e.g., if a claim includes something like "means for X" or if the applicant especially defined a claim term in the specification).

All those national phase entry fees add up. But yes, PCT is already a pretty good system. Not sure what more cooperation we could ask for or expect. Maybe the JPO can issue Office Actions in English? (j/k)

It's not just the fees either. Getting patent practitioners who are authorized, and competent, to file at all the national stages has to be a nightmare too. And don't forget translation costs! Google Translate isn't going to cut it.

- No more than 7 years on a patent. No extensions. No exceptions.

Seven years from filing or from issue? It makes a difference. Currently the terms are up to 20 years from filing, but only if the patent holder pays all of the maintenance fees (currently $980 3 years after patent grant, $2,480 7.5 years after grant, and $4,110 11.5 years after grant). The only "extensions" currently available are those that the patent holder gets under certain circumstances when the government is somehow at fault for the delay (e.g., a special extension for pharmaceuticals that can't be marketed until they get through the long FDA approval process, or extensions for when the PTO examiners reject claims, but the rejections are reversed on appeal).

- No patenting of algorithms

Abstract algorithms already aren't patentable. Get away from the abstract and into the nitty-gritty of application and patent law becomes a lot more interesting. Keep an eye on Bilski v. Doll if you want to see where the line on patentability is going to fall.

- Patents to be awarded to individuals only, not companies

Patents are not awarded to companies in the United States. They are awarded to individual inventors. The inventors can assign their patent rights to companies, which arguably gives the company owners and managers an additional incentive to hire inventors.

The answer that question is a function of your political ideology.

Then you send them a cease and desist order as provided for by the FDCPA (fair debt collection practices act). If they are stupid enough to continue collection efforts after receiving it then you file suit against them in Federal court and collect $1,000 for each violation. They'll soon stop calling you when they realize that each phone call is going to cost them a thousand bucks.

That really can be effective. My household kept receiving calls from one collection agency that had our phone number (nothing to do with SSNs, identity theft, etc., but still annoying, especially since it was usually an automated call). For whatever reason, they kept calling even after we told them that the person they were looking for no longer used our number. So, I mailed off a FDCPA Sec. 805(c) demand that they cease communication with us.

The next time they called (with a real person fortunately for them), I pointed out that I had sent a written demand that they stop calling and that their call was in violation of the FDCPA. I didn't have to be mean...the calls stopped cold.

I don't have the time to read through all those treaties, but I doubt it would apply. The EU's current stance on software patents is, that it'S against it. So I don't think US software patents are worth anything here.

The EU's stance on software patents doesn't matter. US software patents are not worth anything outside of the US, period. For that matter, patents outside of the US aren't worth anything in the US.

Patent rights aren't recognized worldwide like copyright. You have to apply for them (and have them granted) in every country in which you seek protection). Various treaties helps smooth out the process of seeking international protection, but it is costly do so, thus most patent applicants focus on obtaining protection in key target markets.

EU customers probably don't need to be too worried. It looks like this i4i patent application was only used to obtain protection in the United States and Canada.

Ah I see. Selective law enforcement. Pardon me, I had forgotten.

No...patent scope. Notepad, older versions of Word, etc. don't have technologies built into them that could be considered infringing. If they did, then those that pre-dated the invention could have been used as prior art to invalidate the patent (Microsoft in fact had argued unsuccessfully that a bookmarking feature in a previous version of Word anticipated the i4i patent).

You can't effectively talk about a patent's scope without looking at the patent claims. An alternative technology may be used to accomplish the same goal as a claimed invention, but not have all the limitations of the claims and therefore not infringe. In talking about notepad, hex editors, etc., as being able to create custom XML, the scope of the i4i patent is being ignored. Arguing that these editors are now infringing makes as much sense as saying that notepad is an HTML editor. Yes, you can edit HTML files in notepad, but there is a difference between a text editor that treats HTML files the same as any other text file and an HTML editor that is programmed with HTML-aware features.

Is the document in .doc format?

:) No. It is a PDF. Of course, there is a good chance that it was originally drafted in Word (although the judge probably did not use the CustomXML features at issue in this case).

I can create custom XML with any text editor. i4i, whether they realise it or not, have just completely destroyed the proprietary software industry in one fell swoop.

I think you may be overreacting a bit. Whether the patent is valid or not (an appellate decision might prove that it is not), it certainly isn't as broad in scope as you are suggesting. Microsoft may end up having to remove some infrequently used functionality from Word, but the software industry as we know it is not going to come to an end because of this injunction.

The courts just don't have a clue. They do not realise the implications of this decision. Multi-billion dollar implications. The death of an entire industry implications. Lawyers will never understand science and should stop pretending they do. The DNA thing is another example, I have been telling them that for years.

Before characterizing the courts as completely clueless, you might want to go through the court's memorandum opinion and order (PACER registration required, but no cost for this document) denying Microsoft's motion for judgment as a matter of law. It is a detailed memorandum (65 pages, double-spaced, 12-pt font) that gives quite a bit of detail as to why the judge decided to uphold the jury's verdict. Go through it and decide for yourself whether the evidence and arguments presented by Microsoft were so convincing that no reasonably jury would have found for i4i.

The law has no place in science. None. To paraphrase a great Canadian: The law has no place in the laboratories of the nation.

Cute, but seriously, take a closer look at what the real issues are in this case. If you don't try to understand the facts that drive a particular case, your arguments regarding the law and the way courts apply it will sound more like pseudoscience than science. Good science is based on facts. Good legal arguments are based on facts too.

Does said death-mail have legal standing?

It would depend on the state and the intent of the mail. Wills have traditionally required a lot of formalities to be effective (e.g., signatures of the testator and witnesses) with some interesting exceptions (e.g., the "holographic" will, a will written *entirely* in the hand of the testator). Many states have loosened up on the formalities though, but the document would still need to be a clear expression of the intent of the deceased.

Plus, there could be some confusion if the document promised one thing, but another document promised something conflicting. Which one takes precedent? Would courts decide based on when the documents were created or when they were intended to be delivered?

Another thing to consider is that these messages to be sent after death would probably be easier to obtain during lawsuit discovery than a will. A will written with an attorney's assistant may be a privileged document. If subpoenaed, The Last Messages Club may (or may not) fight to protect messages not yet delivered from discovery. But courts are less likely to protect such messages from disclosure than a will (although, perhaps various courts will agree to in camera review, meaning that the judge looks at the document first to decide whether it is relevant to the litigation at hand).

One last thing to consider: your message might produce evidence that could lead to a lawsuit against your estate, and thus hold up your assets. The Last Messages Club could mitigate this problem by allowing your messages to be put on hold for a number of years after receiving proof of your death. This could help ensure that your estate has been disbursed and increase the probability of a statute of limitations being hit.

As is, The Last Messages Club should probably be used to send those personal messages that don't have any real legal implications. If you want to write a will, hire a lawyer and do it right, don't try to do it yourself with a somewhat gimicky service.

The line is thin, but I guess if different agencies or companies want to spy on people, they won't tell us in advance anyway.

You would think that putting cameras, microphones, wireless connection technologies, and autoupgrade technologies into laptops, cellphones, etc., would be more likely to give people the heebie-jeebies than a few accelerometers and other abuse-sensing devices. Is Apple going to use sensors in your iPod to tell if you take it jogging?

Problems could arise in case the "abuse detection" device malfunctions and falsely report abuse by the consumer.

You could probably reduce the number of problems by using multiple systems and only voiding the warranty if there are multiple detections of abuse. Or the impact of false reports could be reduced by only using the technologies to void warranties for customers who repeatedly return abused equipment.

One potential feature of abuse-detection technology would be that the vindication of the 0.001% or so of customers who, without fault, are unlucky enough to repeatedly get equipment that breaks. Instead of treating these customers with suspicion, Apple can continue to accept returns from them or even offer them compensation, content that they are not rewarding customers who refuse to take care of their purchases.

I know that's what the article said, but I'm sure there must have been at least some evaluation of the child. That's what I'm interested in, how badly "addicted" these kids are. (Of course, money involved, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't do any evaluation at all...)

I would be suprised if there was any evaluation. Asian parents tend to relate their own happiness with the success of their children. If a child spends a lot of time playing video games, then that can appear to be a threat to the success of the child, which makes the parents unhappy.

As for this "camp" . . . they are probably just in it for the money and would probably take any child parents send their way. Even if they do some kind of "evaluation," I'm guessing it is pretty cursory; something to try to confirm the fears of the parents that their child is doomed to a cheetos-filled, sexless life in the basement if they don't pony up the yuan.

I'm unfamiliar with the laws in China regarding how someone gets sent to one of these camps, but I'm sure you probably have serious issues if you end up in one. The problem is that most Internet addicts (the kind who are reading my post right now, instead of working *glare* ) are socially inept -- throwing them into the meat grinder is only going to make them go further into their shell.

The article was pretty clear how the kid was sent to the camp: his parents paid about $1,024 to the camp for one month of "training" for their child. This wasn't a state action. It was a private action.

The PRC government has plenty of problems, but you shouldn't blame every thing that happens in China on the government. China is a huge nation, with a huge population. Things are a no more simplestic there than they are in the rest of the world.