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Electronic Frontier Foundation

Submission + - EFF Accepts Chair Endowment to Fight Patent Trolls, Funded by Patent Troll (experts-exchange.com)

EmagGeek writes: "In an astonishing piece of irony, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has accepted an endowment from billionaire investor Mark Cuban to fund a "chair to eliminate stupid patents." One might thing the EFF would have a good system for vetting potential donors for possible conflicts of interest, but apparently missed the fact that Mark Cuban, who reportedly owns a 7.4% stake in patent troll Vringo, is currently embroiled in several patent trolling lawsuits against the likes of Google and Target.

"In March, Vringo merged with Innovate/Protect, which is basically a patent troll. It ended up owning search-monetization patents from Lycos. It's using those patents in lawsuits with Google, AOL, Gannett, Target and IAC, according to a Vringo press release.

Suing Google over years-old patents that aren't being used is absurd. But that might be the appeal to Cuban.""

Comment Re:This is why... (Score 1) 592

You need to carefully read the words in my post and think about what they mean before you make such absurdly false assumptions.

I said I PREFER it, and that implies that I actually do play PC games, occasionally covered in the crumbs of cheetos and screaming at some douchebag across the Internet who just fragged someone just to be difficult.

Nothing I said implies that I don't play PC games.

Comment This is why... (Score 1) 592

... I have never and will never own a game console, or a PC game for that matter. It's not worth the hassle.

I still have a monopoly set my grandmother gave me for my birthday 30 years ago, and nobody has come and told me that I can't sell it, nor that I can't play it, nor that I have to agree to a new terms of service in order to keep it.

Same goes for the 40 or 50 other board games I own, that are incidentally a lot more fun and a lot more social than stupid internet video games. I much prefer having guests to the house with BBQ and drinks and a couple of good board games to sitting on my couch covered in the crumbs of Cheetos and empty cans of Redbull screaming over the internet at some douchebag that just fragged his own teammate just to be difficult.

Comment Probably a good idea (Score 1) 270

Since China has a penchant for surfacing their apparently undetectable submarines right in the middle of our naval battle groups, we have no reason to believe that we can detect the presence of their missile subs, nor do we have any reason to believe they don't have one or more parked off the mid-Atlantic coast.

Why our Nation's capital is still in such a vulnerable position is beyond me. A place like Omaha would be much better suited, since it's deep inland, and about the farthest you can get from the border of the continental US. It makes a sub-launched cruise missile or ICBM an untenable option for attacking the Nation's Capital.

Comment Re:Private school maybe, public no way (Score 1) 351

Almost every single taxpayer-funded public university in the entire country claims IP ownership of everything the students do that is accomplished using any campus resources, including dorms, computers, networks, telephone systems, libraries, professors, and other students.

In fact, at my alma mater, a waiver of rights and assignment of intellectual property contract is included IN THE APPLICATION for admission. By simply applying, you are agreeing to assign to them all creative works and inventions you might dream up from the date you matriculate until the date you graduate.

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