not only do they rip off anyone and everyone but they waste the courts time with absurd charges, or the courts are stupid enough to take on such cases
they aren't wasting the courts time with absurd charges (well they are, as the original patent lawsuit turns out was absurd) but they are threatening the defendant with the absurd charge. And that is the whole issue here.
Well if ones creations are not protected the group that invests (often large amounts of) money in creating something new and unique then Joe Schmuck will purchase the product when it is first available then copy it and sell it (usually cheaper) and the creator is then unable to recoup their development costs. This the discourages the creation and money put into creating new things.
This is a good summary of the arguments for the benefits of patents. However, the same reasoning applies to software patents:
Actually it doesn't. Patents are supposed to protect the implementation, not the idea. For example the one click patent, I should be able to implement one click patent myself, if I do it differently than the way Amazon does it. But I don't really know how Amazon does it, cause I can't see their code. Nor can I truly understand the patent itself.
The other issue with software patents is the majority of them are not really patent-able, as they are not novel or they have prior art.
Curiously enough, some of the points made by 'anon' in the parent post here used to be part of some patent law systems in really ancient times (like 16th-18th centuries), but they were one by one abandoned, by court decisions or legislative amendments:
>> 1) Patent times are FAR too long in many cases and should not be renewable.
An early example of a time limit, fixed in 1623 in England, was 14 years from a really early time-point when patent grant took place -- which used to be almost immediately on application (compared with today's long process).
Current patents are 20 years from the filing date. This was extended in the 90s, up from 17 years, not sure why. But 20 years isn't much longer than 14 years. I expect someone was thinking of Copyright lengths.
The only "civil liberty" it attacks is the ability to fraudulently sign in for someone else.
How about the privacy of their fingerprints. Their employer does not need a record of their fingerprints.
Another problem with using biometrics for authentication, is one they are compromised, they are compromised forever.
But 1-click sales via computer were decidedly not an obvious thing until after it was done
Of course it was an obvious thing. but any idiot who brought it up, would get shot down with "you can't just charge someone's card because they clicked a button"
That doesn't mean it wasn't obvious.
Since there doesn't seem to be a clause for lack of clarity being grounds for patent rejection (which would help a lot in situations like this), the judges just accept them instead of trying to learn or, worse, looking foolish for acknowledging that they don't understand the patent (gasp!).
But there is, inventions must be Adequately described or enabled (for one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the invention) and Claimed by the inventor in clear and definite terms.
The language is extremely formalized and very hard to read for untrained minds. And the issues are so specialized that the average judge would have to train several years in the particular field to understand what the invention is about.
Every single patent that falls into this category should NOT receive a patent.
Invention must also be:
Seems most patents today (well at least many software patents) are only readable by patent lawyers.
It sounds like you don't understand what OneClick is. Not only was it not common then, it's not common now.
It wasn't common then because people didn't think consumers would want to buy something with one click. Cause you know, spending money without authorization is kind of scary. And of course now it is patented, so its not common.
But I wouldn't be surprised if the concept of "one click" didn't already exist, just not for buying something.
Patents are only supposed to be awarded to things that do something new, or that do things that are not new, but in significantly different way. The pencil + eraser example does neither.
Where do you get that idea from? According to the government http://www.uspto.gov/inventors/patents.jsp, patents can be for an improvement to a process. Adding an eraser to a pencil is definitely an improvement, and is something new. It was also something useful. I don't see anywhere saying that it is supposed to do something new that has never ever been done before.
That is to say, it has to be or do something completely new. The point made by the court in OP's post is that it was not an invention because it was just two common things, stuck together.
An awful lot of inventions came about by taking one or two common things and sticking them together. Of course part of the process is how you stick them together.
I'm sure plenty of people thought about sticking an erase on the end of a pencil, but apparently this guy was the first to pull it off, and thus created something new. I don't see anything in the patent rules that says sticking a couple of common things together isn't new.
As far as one click, I don't believe it was new, in that purchasing something through one click probably already existed. But even if it didn't, it wasn't rocket science. There was nothing special about the concept of "we'll save your info, so you can just click a button to buy something." I can say that because other similar things existed at the time. But back in 1858 did erasers already exist stuck on the end of a pencil?
if it's actually "substandard" then it means it's not a copy of the original because there is no original to copy. meaning they were selling the latest seasons of the shows which aren't on sale yet.
Well, no, it just means it was substandard. The DVD itself can be poorly written, and might not play properly. Box sets might be missing items.
There was no indication in the article that they were selling the very latest episodes.
if you want the latest season of game of thrones, you are going to have to wait until 2014.
the industry needs to learn that when there is a demand, someone will fill it. if you aren't filling that demand, someone else will.
Do you mean, when there is a demand for cheaper product? There was no indication that these DVDs weren't available anywhere else. But most likely they were cheaper than the product that is available in the store.
You cannot say what a world without copyright and such would be like; you can only spew forth random speculations.
You are right, we can only speculate what a world without copyright would be like. But I think it would be a fairly boring place. I enjoy watch movies that were made on a $100 million dollar budget. They tend to be better than movies made on a $10,000 budget. I find it hard to believe that anyone would spend $100 million dollars making a movie in a world without copyrights. I find it hard to believe people would spend significant time and effort generating content in a world without copyright.
It seems like some people believe nothing will drastically change if we had no copyright, except that they can then freely download the music they want, and the movies they want. And that is just not going to happen.
The fact is, people are greedy. They want something, someone else generated, and they want it for free.
how does that scam cost the economy as a whole anything though?
How does selling counterfeit goods hurt the economy? I'm sure there are lots of reasons, and probably tons of research and studies done over the years. But a few things that spring to mind. Typically counterfeit items are of low quality. The customer is purchasing something of a lower quality than they probably expect, and probably with no recourse. Sometimes the customer might expect that, but not always. Sometimes the product isn't made following the standards the real item is made, exposing the customer to health and safety issues. The original creator loses out on potential sales, possibly making it more difficult to improve on the product.
And you said it yourself, they were probably dodging the VAT, so the government loses some money as well.
He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion
