Actually, it was broken, or at least too complex.
For common law people, it's all copyright. The term is 70 years after the maker's death.
In the EU, there are more kinds of copyright. Author's rights are different from performer's and producer's rights. The author's rights already were 70 years. The performer's and producers's rights were "only" 50 years. To a non-lawyer, this was hard to explain.
It's much more logical to award everybody the same protection. That's what happened. I would have preferred if they made our copyright a uniform lower term, but at least it is uniform now.
Gmail is the beta for the Google Apps mail component. It's not likely that it will ever come out of beta status: it being beta has a function.
In our copyright code it is expressly permitted to make a copy of music or movies for one's own use, practice or study. This copy may be made from any source, legal or illegal. The source has no effect on the legal status of the copy.
So not only is it not illegal to copy these works, it is even perfectly legal. However, copying software without permission is almost always illegal.
And yes, I _am_ a Dutch IP lawyer.
There are victors and losers in any game. There's no need to go to war.
In a war there's only losers.
They did. In europe, both Fujitsu Siemens and MSI registered netbook trademarks of their own: amilo netbook and wind netbook. I'm sure they would have registered netbook if it wasn't already taken
However, many jurisdictions including Europe rule that a registered trademark has to be in genuine use. If it has not seen genuine use, it can be revoked (art 15 and 50 of Council Regulation (EC) No 40/94.
I suspect that is also the reason for the late C&D. This ground for revocation of a trademark can be repaired. However, there is usually a grace period (3 months for a Community Trademark, art. 50 CE 40/94). I would not be surprised to find that Psion started using the trademark again a little over three or six months ago. That would mean they had to wait until now to C&D without risk to their trademark.
NB: although I'm an IP lawyer in Europe, this is _not_ legal advise.
I learned assembly when I was eleven. BASIC when I was nine. All on a commodore 64.
I know you're joking, but at the same time you're condescending. Unlike my generation, children today are exposed to computers from birth. Given an intelligent and interested kid, there's no reason he or she cannot learn a low level language like asm. For them it's like playing with lego.
I've noticed several design suggestions in your code.