FTFY.

Well, I intended it as a joke, but time shifting is also used to refer to streaming video, not just broadcast. And not just "live" streams, either. "Selective" time shifting might be a harder sell - but Microsoft is more or less built out of lawyers.

So Microsoft could time shift the ads to allow people to watch them at a later time.

In fact, while double checking that time shifting gets used for streaming ...

WO 2000060820 A3

Applicant: Microsoft Corporation

Streaming information appliance with buffer for time shifting

WO 2000060820 A3

ABSTRACT

An information appliance (110) for receiving streaming information includes a buffer (124), a writer module (122) which receives blocks of streaming information and writes the blocks to the buffer (124), and a reader module (126) which selectively reads the blocks from the buffer (124).

Google/Youtube is still the distributor; Microsoft isn't making copies and running them from their own servers. I think what would get them is "unauthorized access" under the computer fraud and abuse act. The justice department has used that to go after everyone from people using phony myspace accounts (against the TOS) to harass kids to Aaron Swartz. From the esteemed legal journal The New Yorker:

The broadest provision, 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2)(c), makes it a crime to “exceed authorized access, and thereby obtain information from any protected computer.” To the Justice Department, “exceeding authorized access” includes violating terms of service, and “any protected computer” includes just about any Web site or computer. The resulting breadth of criminality is staggering. As Professor Kerr writes, it “potentially regulates every use of every computer in the United States and even many millions of computers abroad.” You don’t have to be a raving libertarian to think that might be a problem. Dating sites, to borrow an example from Judge Alex Kozinski, usually mandate that you tell the truth, making lying about your age and weight technically a crime. Or consider employer restrictions on computers that ban personal usage, like checking ESPN or online shopping. The Justice Department’s interpretation makes the American desk-worker a felon.

But Microsoft could turn it into a time shifting argument. Their app could just shift Google's ads so they run after the video, instead of before.

Kagan was pretty specific about saying that patent exhaustion was irrelevant, so I dont think the stewardship agreement really taints the decision at all. I'm not sure what you think I think the case is about: I think it is about infringement through making copies without a specific license to do so, the same as most patent infringement cases.

I went back and read the decision; it mentions over and over that Bowman sprayed his crops with glyphosate and he was thus intentionally utilizing and reproducing the roundup ready trait. They think it's important, but don't go so far as to say that behavior was necessary to prove infringement. Beats me what the lawyers will make of it.

You sir or maam, are spectacularly ignorant about:

this case (The seeds he bought from the elevator were almost entirely grown from Monsanto RR strains)

how pollen works (hint: it's only viable for a short period of time, usually hours)

I think that's still a question in the USA as well. Today's decision brings up taking actions (spraying glyphosate on plants from the saved seed) to keep the RR trait over and over when describing the infringement:

But to reduce costs for his riskier late-season planting, Bowman purchased soybeans intended for consumption from a grain elevator; planted them; treated the plants with glyphosate, killing all plants without the Roundup Ready trait; harvested the resulting soybeans that contained that trait; and saved some of these harvested seeds to use in his late-season planting the next season

...

Each year, that is, he planted saved seed from the year before (sometimes adding more soybeans bought from the grain elevator), sprayed his fields with glyphosate to kill weeds (and any non-resistant plants), and produced a new crop of glyphosateresistant—i.e., Roundup Ready—soybeans.

They don't address a case where they're grown like normal soybeans.

While the Nelson and Stratemeyer cases are pretty damn evil, Monsanto sued them for saving Monsanto RR seed and planting it, not for saving cross-pollinated seed. Stratemeyer admitted it, but like Bowman, didn't think it was infringement. I can't tell if Nelson sprayed their fields with glyphosate, something they only would have done if they knowingly planted RR seed as opposed to conventional seed cross-pollinated with RR.

By at most a little regardless of whether they are dominant or recessive. The vast majority of the seed (99%) will have been fertilized by other plants in the same field. This might cause issues with organic certification, but not with seed germination yield. http://www.agbioforum.org/v4n2/v4n2a02-jemison.htm

That would be really interesting.

The original roundup resistance gene is from bacteria; I don't think it's very likely for a natural vector to shuttle a gene from a bacteria to a plant (viruses sometimes do that between plants though). His defense would probably fall apart as soon as they examine the seeds and determine Monsanto's version of the EPSPS gene is in there.

Lets say a plant naturally developed a version of the RR trait and you go out and discover it. You could take out a plant patent on it, even if it was uncultivated and out in the wild. Plant patents get their own section of U.S.C. 35 and play by different rules from other patents when it comes to invention vs discovery. Your patent would cover hybrids made with this plant, such as hybrids with useful crops. Monsanto's patents may well include claims for introducing a RR trait via hybridization into crops; I don't know if they would hold up over your hybrids though, or if that would be considered too broad.

Monsanto also has method claims; those cover the method of spraying glyphosate on RR crops to get rid of weeds without harming your crops. The one in the patent involved in the Bowman case is much more narrow though and really only covers GM crops, not hybrids, and definitely not natural plants

No it's not. This machine is designed to have all sorts of superior characteristics when planted on a soybean farm, among them resistance to glyphosate. The reproductive trait was already there, not designed.

And even if the VNM was first designed and built as a self replicating machine and then later sold as a way to make arduinos, you could still sue for infringement if someone used it to make more VNMs.

That might also create a pretty nasty precedent: You didn't control the locusts on your organic farm, then they came over and ate my crops!, etc.

To continue the analogy Toyota only sued you after you started farming Toyotas: you put your toyota in a field full of scrap metal and plastic feedstocks, fed it lots of energy, culled all of the Hyundais that appeared amongst the Toyotas, and then sold some of your new Toyotas and kept the rest to make even more.

If you had just driven it around and hadn't hit the "copy myself" button: no infringement.

Kagan emphasizes the purpose: "to make and market replicas of them", but does not mention whether taking extra steps to ensure fidelity of the final product was necessary for infringement. Would a final product that was still 81% pesticide resistant (punnett cross for 90% of the starting seeds being RR, I really don't have a clue what to expect though) be a good enough replica to be infringing?

Maybe.

Everyone screamed at Monsanto for developing the terminator trait in seeds, because everyone thought it would be used to stop farmers from saving seed. Monsanto dropped it, partly from bad press, partly because the trait was a bit too sensitive to temperature to be reliable. The thing is, traditional hybrid seeds already tend to lose their carefully selected traits if you save them and plant another generation. If you want to save seed you would want to start with a stable variety in the first place.