In the United States, there is no such thing as a "trade dress patent." Trade dress is a legal concept that is related to both trademark and design patents, but it is certainly not a type of patent.

As far as the rounded rectangle thing goes, look up D504889. All you need to do to violate that patent is make an "electronic device" that kinda looks like that (a flat rectangle with rounded edges), no need to involve trade dress at all.

Ah, well I stand corrected then. But it raises a new question for me: over what metric is the "1 in 30" rate measured? Per incidence of intercourse or what? It couldn't possibly be over an indefinite period of, right? Way more than 3.3% of women trying to conceive eventually get pregnant.

I'd wager a guess that this perceived anomaly has to do with the likely scenario that women engaging in or anticipating consensual sex are far, far more likely to be using one or more forms of birth control than the rape-victim population as a whole.

Choosing actions at random seems wiser than what HP are actually doing, as random actions have a non-zero probability of being beneficial. Instead, what HP seems to be doing is deliberately shooting themselves in the foot over and over again, in the hopes that more bullets will heal their injuries.

How the fuck is this modded +4 informative?

What are you smoking? The establishment clause of the first amendment pretty clearly prohibits preference of one religion over another.

Uh, pretty much any high school curriculum for a European history class reads like fucking timeline of Christianity. You know, the late Roman empire and the Vatican, Martin Luther, the Anglican church, Puritans, and all that jazz?

Uh, never at any point do I mention race or even allude to it. Perhaps my post is classist or culturalist (Is that a word?) or something of that nature, but racist?

I am not saying that most of the plagiarizers are from developing nations and Westerners are some kind of shining paragon of virtue. Quite the opposite, in fact. I am saying that those who grew up with formal schooling usually know better, and should suffer the consequences. I only said I suspect most of the students who genuinely were unaware that what they were doing was contrary to the expectation of the assignment, if there are really many cases like that, are probably people who have had little formal education.

I suspect most of the students who genuinely did not realize they were plagiarizing were actually from developing nations with little in the way of formal schooling. I've met plenty of people who manage to morally justify or rationalize plagiarism in their own mind, but I've never met an American student in high school or college, no matter how academically shitty they may be, who ACTUALLY believed cutting and pasting essays was acceptable to their respective academic institution. They may have though it was justified, or "not a big deal," but they always made some kind of deliberate effort to avoid being caught. Any of these kids who gets caught and says "I didn't know it was wrong" is full of shit, and just trying to avoid the consequences.

A student from an entirely different culture in a developing nation, on the other hand, who may not have ever had to write an original essay at any point before being exposed to free online courses, may very well be completely unaware that they are committing an act of academic dishonesty.

Uh, regarding the rounded-corner rectangle design patent thing, how are they not prior art? Design patents are specifically for an appearance/shape, irrespective of function or purpose.

You keep your unity interface the hell out of my QT!

Seriously though, it would be nice to see someone with the resources and, more importantly, the commitment to continue to develop QT. It's too good to let it waste away...

The "between 0.3 to 2.0mm thick" part of the summary is talking about the new thermal sheet, not traditional thermal paste.

Uhm, what now? The only significant piece of drug policy I could find that came out of the FDR administration, The Marijuana Tax Act, was actually ruled UNconstitutional, despite being an exercise in taxing authority rather than drug law per se.

The Controlled Substances Act of 1970, the existing carte blanche for drug prohibition currently wielded by the federal government, was signed into law by President Nixon.

If he "rips it off" then he is violating copyright protections. If he copies the look and feel of the software with the intent to deceive or confuse the customer, then there is probably a trademark violation. If he just duplicates the functionality of the software, well, that's just competition. Deal with it.

The Courier was seriously deep into "Shut up and take my money!" territory. Even if it was just a concept, the technology existed to make it happen. They could have named their own price and made Apple-style mountains of cash. Even now, there still isn't even anything on the horizon that is really comparable to what the Courier proposed to be.

It's not critical to normal, healthy adults in a resting state, but when the heat index hits 105 to 130 F (40-55C), the sick, elderly, and those performing physical labor start dying. I'd wager that over 50% of the deaths attributed to this storm are due to heat-related illness.

I used the term "patent system" to refer specifically to the administration of patents, distinct from the USPTO. Just because a single office administers both systems does not mean that "patent system," "trademark system," and "USPTO" are interchangeable. Patent law and trademark law are related, but nonetheless distinct concepts.

I should also add that I realize that design patents DO exist in our broken patent system, but my point is that design patents do not address any legitimate issue not already handled by trademarks.