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Comment Re:CMU has the right (Score 1) 85

But if CMU wins outright, it will be a clear sign to corporations that using academia as it's main R&D "arm" is bad for business...

This is only the case where corprorations try to cheat academia. Marvell had the option ~10 years ago to license the tech from CMU. They said no and used it anyway.

Comment Re:wow (Score 4, Informative) 85

You should really just read the whole FAQ.

Basically Marvell desperately need the invention after trying and failing to come up with something that could do the same thing. CMU offered to license it to them. They declined, and then used it anyway. It completely turned around their drive business. So, only 25% of the profits for willful infringement of critical technology that they could have licensed for much less if they'd played fair back in the day doesn't really seem too bad to me.

Comment Re:wow (Score 4, Informative) 85

Briefly from CMU's FAQ:

The size of the award was based on an analysis by Catharine M. Lawton, an intellectual property damages expert who testified on behalf of CMU during the trial along with CMU's technical and industry experts. Ms. Lawton applied several commonly used and court approved methods of determining an appropriate royalty for Marvell's infringement in patent cases. Ms. Lawton's analysis rested on a comparison of Marvell's business and economic circumstances both before and after it started to infringe. Her opinion and application of these accepted methods were based on a detailed analysis of the facts and financial records in the case, as well as the testimony of Dr. Steven McLaughlin, CMU's digital signal processing expert, and Dr. Chris Bajorek, CMU's expert in the hard disk drive industry.

Marvell earned an average revenue of $4.42 per chip and made an average operating profit of $2.16 for each of the more than 2 billion chips sold over more than a decade. Based upon her analysis of all the facts, Ms. Lawton determined that the proper value of the CMU invention was $.50 per chip.

Comment Re:Taxpayer subsidized? (Score 1) 85

In fact, it was funded by industry.

From CMU's FAQ on the case:

"Their work was done under the auspices of CMU's Data Storage Systems Center, which was formed as a partnership between CMU and certain members of the information storage industry and through which CMU has worked closely with industry partners for decades. The DSSC was formed to and has played a critical role in preserving research and development efforts and jobs in the hard disk drive industry in the United States."

Comment Re:Good guys and bad guys (Score 1) 85

You are correct that the specific breakdown of that 50% is entirely dependent on the percentages agreed upon when the internal invention disclosure was made, and that the assignation of those percentages between the various inventors is not dictated in any particular way by the IP Policy. What is clear, however is that 50% (minus 1/2 of the legal fees) will be distributed amongst to the two inventors.

That said, at CMU, any faculty member who tries to cut his or her grad students out of their invention disclosures will likely soon find him or herself running short on grad students, not to mention liable to be hauled into court for fraud. So there is strong self-interested impetus to make those percentages as correct as possible.

Submission + - CIA under investigation for monitoring Senate (yahoo.com) 1

An anonymous reader writes: The CIA's internal watchdog is investigating allegations that the agency improperly spied on Senate staffers probing secret details of a now-defunct interrogation program.

Senator Dianne Feinstein acknowledged Wednesday the existence of the probe, which highlights a rare public clash between lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee she chairs and the US espionage community it oversees.

Submission + - The Tangled Tale of Mt. Gox's Missing Millions (itworld.com)

jfruh writes: What went wrong to produce the spectacular implosion of bitcoin repository Mt. Gox? Well, according to some preliminary investigation from the IDG News Service, pretty much everything. There was a lack of management oversight and "culture," the code running the sight was a mess, and the CEO seemed more concerned about his plans for a "Bitcoin cafe" than he was about his Japanese bank closing the company's account.

Comment Re:you are acting like children (Score 1) 2219

So, look. The beta site... the comments section is in ruins. It should function as it already does.

...

Quit whining like little children and ruining the discussion on every single thread. You are damaging your own community with this rubbish.
Get over it. Things change, kids. This time, luckily for all of us - for the better (believe it or not).

The comments section IS the site. So how it is being in ruins "better"?

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