> What is the purpose of patents? To provide a temporary monopoly on an idea

As a reward for fully disclosing how the idea/tech works so society at whole may benefit freely after your patent expired.

Don't want other to use your idea freely? Just keep the good stuff a business secret and you can keep on milking the market until someone else figures out what you did and replicate it.

> Why reward just this one aspect?

If any awarding is needed, this is the one aspect to award. It gives individuals or companies some sort of hope that R&D investments may be covered. I would not invest 10 years and a billion to have a anti-dementia drug developed and approved, just to have some competitor copy the chemical formula of the pill days after release and selling 100% replicas for a lower cost within a month.

The problem is that reverse engineering is so easy today, that a patent is the only protection unless you really control access to the tech (e.g. tech is not present in the product you sell but only used in the manufacturing process).

Software should not be patentable for exactly the same reason. If I develop a program that does something nice, new and shiny, it would take the competition a long time to release a competing program, because they would have to make theirs from scratch. Mine is protected by (c). By the time the release their try I would already (if I were any smart) be releasing version 2 or 3 of my stuff.

Not all. While I agree that patents on software (and business processes) are plain silly, I think that patents should be allowed on medicine and machinery (sans software). It costs billions and take years to develop drugs and you should be granted protection. It costs a lot to develop a new efficient engine or display technology
But do not try to patent genes or *potential method of curing x*. Do not try to patent a medication that was previously patented, because you just discovered that it also can cure something else. Discovering a new use for something already developed gives you the right to brag, write articles, gain a nobel. Not a patent.

Ant or not? If is is locked down 100% and I only can run Amazon approved apps (like Silk), no thanks. If it is open to a reasonable degree and I can install the apps I want: yes.
But being from a Non-US country, I don't even have the choice.
I know better than to blame Amazon (entirely) - their whole concept is based on media, and they do not have license agreements in place globally. As they are selling at cost (or even a few $ loss) pr. device, I can understand they don't wan't be to buy until they can get their costs covered somehow.

"Disclosure: I am one of the researchers who worked on this."
Disclosure is an interesting word here. I would have used the word "brag" - and I think you are fully entitled to brag about that feat.

Please go somewhere else with your propaganda, exaggerations and lies. First of all, I am from Europe, so I suppose I am no so disadvantaged on other nations and cultures. A lot of people (in Europe at least) really feel sorry for the people living under some of the middle eastern oppressive regimes.

I would like to see more democracies in the middle East. You choose your form of representation. I don not advocate you choose the US system, which I consider broken. Only two parties limits real choice, and the way seats are granted in states limits real fairness. Look at other models - many reasonable multi party systems models exist in Europe. Ohh, and do NOT allow lobbyism.

By having the right model (and no lobbyists) you can prevent the coorporate world to gain too much power, and with the right parties, you even get to regulate their behavior.

As for your Axis of evil countries are without central banks, conspiracy theory: All countries that Bush named "The Axis if Evil" (Iran, Iran, North Korea) have central banks and have had that for decades. Iran wast the last country to get one, in 1964.

In the last paragraph you write "Tread slowly but surely". I agree here somewhat, but the rest of the paragraph, I interpret as: "Do not tread YET. Wait patiently like a good boy, while your current government government continue to sell your countries rices and keep the wealth for themselves (in foreign bank accounts)."

TFA suggested that Iran wanted to create a separate, isolated "Internet" for its citizens. That the Iranian government wants to cut YOU from the rest of the world.
My post was trying to point out a threat that would prevent the Iranian government doing that.

from the rest of the world, no one can stop them. But the rest of the world should, as a consequence, stop routing ANY traffic to Iran or Iranian controlled entities. That would also isolate the Iranian government and business. As a concequence:

• Any international business can only be done over phone and Fax
• Any international advertising for Iranian businesses can only be in papers
• Any international communications must be mail, phone or fax. Including communication to embassies
• It would affect international travel booking
• ... (you get the picture)

The country and regime couldn't survive that. But if they want to: Good luck in your little bubble Iran.

My country (Denmark) require, that a person must be a member of a political party, in order to be eligible.

You could correctly argue that way. In fact Google News (and /. for that matter) not only link to copyrighted material. They even copy part of the copyrighted material directly. I guess search engines could be excused, because robots.txt could forbid it.
Luckily there is no strong WSOAA (Web Site Operators Association of America) to lobby the government for ignore common sense AND law.
Of course some French newspaper sued google for copyright infringement once (links to news stories), so it goes to show stupidity (or greed) thrives everywhere.

In in best wikileaks tradiation Sony decided to sue the one responsible. It will not get the cat back in the bag, but Sony will feel happy to see the culprits in jail.

Just as the UK government (and probably other) would love to see Julian Assange disappear from the surface of the Earth. Hence the trial in London today over the dubious rape charges from Sweden.

Did you BTW noteic how Intel handled the HDCP master key disclosure affair? Basically a statement "Yep, that is they right key. Guess we lost that one. Too bad." (unless I have missed something). Granted that key isn't *that* useful.

Very funny and, sadly, almost spot on.
BTW: Use shorter words for authenticity. Eg: "accomplishments" -> deeds, "audiences" -> viewers and "acknowledgement" -> applause. Using long words are for the elite loosers.

It has been obvious for more than a decade for anyone watching USA from abroad.
From watching US TV series I learn that brains have been replaced by God or other mysticism. Pseudoscience galore and the good science (from PBS) has no viewers.
Universities are graduation foreign students in the sciences and Americans with lawyers and political degrees. Luckily you still have a private sector that has a lot of innovation and hires brains from other countries. That keeps a lot of the patents and wealth in USA.

Ethiopia is too small a country to get its currency on the list. Sorry.

I stand corrected. I wonder what part of "whichever is higher" I failed to notice.. :)

If I want the price to be free for my über game, and Amazon decides it is worth $5? They get $4 per sale and i get $1 (that I didn't ask for). Even better: I say my app is worth $2 and Amazon agrees. They keep 80%.
I don't like that manipulation room. Make the developers cut 70% regardless of how the price was set.

But at least Android developers have the option to publish their work on multiple stores. (or even their own sites)