I have to say that, after waking up this morning, I realize my point about innovation is flawed. You cannot innovate on top of a patent, you are absolutely right. You can try to make something covered by a patent differently (and innovate in parallel) but then again, you do not even have to own the patent for that.

The rest of my point, that defensive patents are silly, is still valid. There's one kind of patent: offensive. You want to make money out of it (either by buying a patent you know you infringe upon or sue someone infringing). You cannot innovate with it (if you got the patent yourself you already innovated) and cannot retaliate against a patent troll since they don't have any products. That doesn't leave much "defensive" actions.

Defensive patents do not hurt innovation because... well, they don't exist. That's kind of the point. Defensive patents makes no sense by definition. A patent is, in and of itself, offensive: you use it to make money out of someone who infringe or you prevent someone from using your ideas.

In this case, they are buying it either to sue Google, or prevent Google from defending against other legal actions because they do not have a big enough "arsenal" to retaliate. How can that be defensive?

Thing is, patent trolls are inherently a product of the patent system, they realized they don't need an actual product or the means to produce it to make money. (I'm not gonna be debating the state of the patent system here, that's another subject)

What you need to realize with them is that you cannot defend against a patent troll with "defensive" patents because... well.... they do not have any products. They don't care how much patents you have. So what are those "defensive" patents defending you against then?

Are you starting to understand how silly it is to name patents "defensive"?

It's not silly, but then again you just don't BUY computer security (especially at $4B+), you spend resources to implement and develop it. You can follow that spending, compare it to profit, take decision (like decrease funding) and audit the effectiveness. You are able to put a "value" on it. There are profit centers in business, but also cost centers (regulations, security, support, etc.) so this isn't new.

You cannot manage $4B+ of defensive patents. You put that in your spending column, and then they'll have to make it go away. You cannot put a real value on it except the $4B+ you spent.

Then the only way to really make something out of it is... to sell it? You're gonna sell one or more defensive patent to your competitor? Of course not. What are your other options? Oh right, use it offensively! That's why I find it silly.

I am also not saying that trying to buy a patent that you know you infringe upon (instead of licensing it) isn't good business. This is an effective protection. Buying a large portfolio of "defensive" patents is still silly.

(I am aware not just one company paid the full price tag, but that's beside the point.)

How are either offensive or defensive patents better than the other really? They both make a joke of the patent system. The question should be: do they intend to use them to innovate or not? Isn't that the reason we have patents?

Buying defensive patents is, IMHO, worse than buying submarine patents and suing someone. I mean business-wise. You are spending millions to buy something that will not even help you make money or be more profitable. Use that to do R&D and innovate. Don't they have shareholders? At least patent trolls have a clear business plan...

This is the (corporate) cold war all over again: My arsenal is bigger than yours!

At least there's a silver lining there if we get to the state of Mutually Assured Destruction: they will stop attacking each others with patents and we will move on with our lives. Or so we can hope...

Why does it have to be either an argument for or against? Can't it simply be a fact?

Since it's a pet peeve of mine, the following is a biased rant that I have to get out of my chest...

A fact shouldn't be encumbered by bias. The rest is up to you.

You can try to make one or many "general" conclusions(which are somewhat biased) based on the fact in the parent post :
- Regulation might be lacking
- They were short sighted and should have known better
- It was extraordinary circumstances and thus couldn't/wouldn't plan for it
- It is a design flaw/bad maintenance ... or more, any, none of the above

You can _then_ interpret it based on your views and bias and make it means whatever you want:
- Since nuclear power is unsafe and dangerous, it should never fail under any circumstances and thus shows why it is dangerous!
- It is perfectly safe since it needed an unlikely chain reaction of events led to this state, which is more than we can say about BP's Oil Rigs.
- Hey so let's plan against nuclear strike and alien invasion then!?
- It is just propaganda by the media and environmentalists to slander nuclear power's rock solid reputation! .. or whatever bias you want.

Why do you want someone else to interpret it for you? We can do that ourselves. ... Something the media should understand but obviously don't. (my biased conclusion)

I am not certain, but by my count, at least one of the dead worker was on a crane and died because of the earthquake itself, is it the same for the 4 others (out of the 5 you quote) or are they attributed directly to the meltdown itself? Maybe I missed some, but I have yet to see a death related to the meltdown itself. For me the earthquake itself followed by the tsunami is still a much much bigger tragedy and concern.

The incident level is still 5 of 7, so it's the same as the Three Mile Island incident in 79. Could it go further up? Maybe. Probably. Probably not. I don't know. They just got backup power up at unit 5 and 6 and they seem to be working harder than ever to try and keep it under control. Emergency agencies must plan for the worst of course, but the media doesn't have to fuel that at every turn. I still wish them luck and hope they keep all of it under control.

Here are the reading outside the 20km zone as of yesterday (it doesn't include background count) for those interested, I am no expert tho. I see they don't have monitoring posts much in the south.
http://www.mext.go.jp/component/a_menu/other/detail/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2011/03/18/1303727_1716.pdf

As far as I know, 400 mSv was the highest they recorded and that was between 2 reactors. Where's the source on the 1 Sievert? I probably missed it, quited interested in hearing about it.

Exactly, look at the 2 long scenes in Children of Men (ok, one, the car sequence is spliced... although perfectly), that added so much to the movie even if you didn't realized it as you watched it. The tension was intense. You felt the scenes.

As for composition of shots, textures, and general cinematography, etc... I still find that 99% of films still can't even start to touch STALKER by Tarkovsky. You can say what you want about the pace, story, etc.. but the photography in that film made you... feel.

The first thing that popped into my head as I read the summary: How many requests were made? Is the ratio different?

After looking closely at TFA, I came to this gem of a paragraph:

Ok, I might have failed to read TFA properly, but this bit there says:
Requests made in 2009: 444,924
Exemptions cited(request denied) in 2009: 466,872

It seems they REALLY don't want to process any request as they deny them more often than the actual amount of requests made!

That was the only part of the TFA that talked about requests made vs requests denied. Anyone got any accurate info beside the poorly written article?

"Late 1930s" is not wrong. In fact, it IS accurate. Of course, it is less specific than a precise date, but it is not wrong. In fact, they might have used it because there was some concerns about using a date like september 1st or 3rd which are in contention (did it start when Germany attacked or when the Allies declared war?). So in fact, Late 1930s could be more accurate than a specific date for some people.

So, I do not understand your concerns. If I did something on september 8th 2008 and I refer to it as : "Last year", or "last september", am I wrong? Didn't think so.

I'd understand if the entry said : On "August 9th" or an obvious innacurate date, but it's not the case. You're obviously grasping at straws in hope of making an attack on Wikipedia or something, because I cannot understand your argument. I can see where you want to go, but it is based on a false premise and puts in doubt your motives.