It take to patentee to file the patent but then the USPTO to grant the patent and those involved in granting this patent need to be fired for their incompetence. Characachers have been around for a long time and I have seen booths at arcades and Dave & Busters that do exactly this since the late 90s. This is beyond obvious prior art.

WooHoo! What I wish patent limitations here would be is 1) must be a tangible inventions (in other words, no software, business models, etc. Must have physical form) 2) Must be something that was invented and not simply discovered. ( no patenting of genes) 3) The person(s) or company that filed the patent must be a practicing entity ( R&D, manufacturing and marketing of that invention must be conducted otherwise the patent will be voided) 4) Patents must be specific to the invention (in simplest terms, meaning that invention 10 + 10 =20 would not be a violation of invention 4 * 5 =20 patent) 5) Patent refers to the specifics of the final product only( the final product of a genetically engineered seed and not just a strand of its DNA. meaning that cross-pollenization and hybridization conducted by nature that creates a new seed that contains that gene does not violate the patent. Up yours Monsanto!!)

I don’t know exactly what is causing the problem, but when I used to be on Time Warner, we once went down for 4 days due to a DNS issue. I just modified the router settings to go to Google’s DNS servers and my problem was solved.

A few year ago a similar act was proposed in Maine but abandoned after realizing that due to Facebook’s privacy policy and ToS agreements (at the time), By the employee giving his/her password to their employer and the employer accessing the account (which violated Facebook’s ToS because the employer was not the owner of that account), if Facebook wanted to, they could file criminal charges against the employer which due to the ToS would link the employer’s action to violating the computer fraud and abuse act

The problem with stronger consumer protection laws is that the publishers can nullify them by altering their ELUA. What needs to be done is a law that forbids EULAs from trumping laws and civil rights.

Be careful what you say here or they might sue us too.

I believe Frivolous Software Patent Litigation to be a major impeder.

Companies that use such draconian DRM and treat their customer like this are one of the major causes of mass piracy of games. I believe the publisher should be held accountable in some way for causing the growth of pirated software.

These are the people the RIAA, MPAA, etc. should be focusing on and suing for the large sums of money. Not the little sharer that makes no money off downloading media.

Try to become a witness in a high profile case that will require that you be put into the witness protection program. Problem solved. No more obligation to pay $1.5 million fine.

I'd prefer to be de-rezzed like on the Tron movies

if it was creating gold from a cheap abundant element, this technology and research would be destroyed and the scientists involved, killed. Such technology would radically change the global market and such change is greatly feared and those with the power will do everything possible to prevent the change of the status quo. Legal or illegal

Ok, so gold chloride, a worthless substance, can be converted to gold. Now, how abundant or rare is gold chloride?

Things are very different now than they were pre-1710. Today, money and greed run the world. There are the few who care more about the message than the money.

If patents and copyrights were abolished, there would be little motivation to create anything. No more music, movies, TV, books...need I go on? Same with new technologies. Progress would cease.