None of that is necessary. Just broaden the research exemption, which has been proposed many times.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1124465

http://www.brinkshofer.com/resource_center/85-the-hatch-waxman-act-research-exempt-from-patent-infringement

The US is converting gradually to the metric system, and NIST towards that for decades. The definitions of official US units in metric terms was one of those steps.

A lot of things sold in the US are sold in metric containers, for example 2L soft drink containers, many food packages and so on.

The US has also been signatory to every metric measurement treaty.

The petition is really rather silly. Changing the measurement system of a nation is a long and slow process. Even the French had to put it aside for a while (Napolean discontinued the process for a while).

The real shame is the US didn't start this process sooner. Thomas Jefferson actually advocated a decimal system of measures well before the French adopted the metric system but Congress (setting an alarming precedent) failed to act on the proposal. Later Jefferson was successful in getting the US to use a decimal currency, which was the first of it's type in the world.

Is it in contemplation with the House of Representatives to arrange our measures and weights [the same as the coinage] in a decimal ratio? The facility which this would introduce into the vulgar arithmetic would, unquestionably, be soon and sensibly felt by the whole mass of the people, who would thereby be enabled to compute for themselves whatever they should have occasion to buy, to sell, or to measure, which the present complicated and difficult ratios place beyond their computation for the most part

--Thomas Jefferson

This is all on the courts who in a totally moronic decision greatly narrowed the research exemption back in 2002.

This decision needs to get overruled like right NOW.

In fact this really pisses me off. The court of Federal Appeals is supposed to be subject matter experts on patents. Instead they are the maroons who have done more to expand the patent system to cover all sorts of malarkey that should have never been covered.

When I first heard about establishment of this court I thought it sounded like a good idea because in theory it was going to put an end to crap like venue shopping for patent appeals.

Well, I was dead wrong about that. These nuts turned out to be more radical than any of the existing venues.

Arrgh.

Yes, that was my impression as well. In fact I used to routinely investigate patented techniques in my research when I worked in R&D.

Ah the frigtarded Courts screwed us over:

From Wikipedia:

"In 2002, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dramatically limited the scope of the research exemption in Madey v. Duke University, 307 F.3d 1351, 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2002). The court did not reject the defense, but left only a "very narrow and strictly limited experimental use defense" for "amusement, to satisfy idle curiosity, or for strictly philosophical inquiry." The court also precludes the defense where, regardless of profit motive, the research was done "in furtherance of the alleged infringer's legitimate business." In the case of a research university like Duke University, the court held that the alleged use was in furtherance of its legitimate business, and thus the defense was inapplicable."

this is disgusting

The purpose of patents is to "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".

2012 GDP Rank: 1 15T USD

Pretty well, thanks.

Verizon is pretty good about over-provisioning FIOS.

The long fuckton is a British unit (i.e. imperial fuckton) slightly larger than the fucktonne. In the US we use short fucktons.

Never sign a contract with a phone company.

They didn't say they don't allow that kind of usage. They said they don't allow servers (it's right in the TOS).

Fucktonne is the metric unit. You said fuckton so it's ok in the US too.

Domain names are not objects, however they also are not intellectual property like copyrights or patents because a domain name does not have the same ability to be used by many without depriving the original owner of it's utility.

CMM LEVEL RATING -2 LUNATIC

Were you even alive before weather satellites? I remember what it was like 40 years ago, and the accuracy of prediction is now far superior to what it used to be.

The prediction of storm tracks in particular has gotten to be really good. For example the Sandy track prediction was excellent despite the complexity of the situation.

So a gross miscarriage of justice is averted. Now it's time to sack all those involved.

And while we are at it the same penalty should be administered to those who involved in charging Kaitlyn Hunt with two felony counts for having consensual lesbian sex with her high school mate.

What is it about Florida anyway?