Agreed. First-to-file is a bit of a misnomer. It's more like a first-inventor-to-file regime. If anything, the first-inventor-regime is actually more protective because it has an absolute novelty requirement. If someone else publishes before you file, you get nothing. You get no grace period over someone else publishing, using or marketing an invention -- you do get a grace period with respect to your own publication.

There is not going to be a rush to the patent office to file a patent on sex.

Because he read some place that African trolls are starving?

My post was written mostly with tongue firmly planted in cheek.

That said, the Republican party is hell-bent on running part of this race on the idea that individuals, not government, creates things. That the government does almost nothing -- other than defense -- right. Heck the whole theme of this convention goes directly to this: "We built this" (which gets singulars and plurals mixed up and makes Obama right, but that's irrelevant) by turning a truism about modern society on its head: nobody builds anything by themselves. Maybe Ted Kaczynski-types, but otherwise, every private endeavor is supported by millions of publicly financed goods.

Not to mention I'm sure they're tracking this approaching storm using the national weather service, relying on local emergency response services, using publicly-funded roads, hosting the event in a taxpayer-funded stadium, etc.

Let the spin, begin.

Having now read the opinion, here's how the judge came out:

1. The jury found this guy guilty of infringement.
2. The guy had 8 years of known infringing activities
3. The guy destroyed evidence
4. The guy lied repeatedly
5. It wasn't just a matter of him downloading songs, he was uploading them too
6. The jury got to see all the evidence
7. Congress set the bounds for copyright infringement's statutory damages
8. The jury pick something on the arguably low end of the range
9. When looking at the common law rules the judge did not feel the case was inequitable under the circumstances.

I would wager good money that had 2-5 been different, the judge WOULD have found the award inequitable.

That said, I have some questions about why 2 and 5 were even in evidence at all. They seem irrelevant to copyright infringement of the songs at issue here. I haven't kept pace with this case, but I should think those are irrelevant unless they were themselves proved to be infringements.

Also, it helps not to destroy evidence or lie.

This distinction is actually quite blurry for most municipal fines and citations. A number of states, for example, allow you to pay your speeding ticket fines directly at the time of the citation via credit card. How you'd distinguish this case from that case, I'm not sure.

Obama said, Pelosi said costs would go down, we could keep our existing plans and our doctors.

Clearly you can't afford your meds, so I'm certain the new system will help you. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to take on your crazy.

First, the economics of the system aren't that controversial. More people paying into the system means more money, fewer "takers" per capita, and, thus, lower premiums. The whole point of the mandate/tax was to make those without insurance, typically, the young and/or healthy, enter into the insurance system. And just to clarify, this part of Obamacare is the clearly Republican part of the scheme.

There is another factor that works to lower overall costs: more insured means less reliance on the more expensive ED system. Because under the prior system, hospitals were obligated to treat everyone, there was an overuse of the most expensive, least efficient health care delivery vehicle: the emergency department. Since those people also can't afford to pay, those costs were passed along to everyone else. Now, in theory, if fewer people have to use the ED for basic healthcare and there is better access to non-emergent care, you will lower everyone's costs.

Second, I'm pretty sure the last clause of your sentence is not even accurate. There are whole categories of "insurance" that are going away. In particular, those include insurance plans that put people in the "under-insured" category. Perhaps, put another way, you can certainly try to buy such insurance packages, but you will not escape the individual mandate.

Third, whether you can keep your doctors is still up to your insurance company, not the government. This really has nothing to do with Obamacare. What's more, there was no guarantee -- even under the old system -- that an insurance plan would allow you to keep your doctor. Of course, when the government is the insurance company, they are in the same spot as an insurance provider (think the VA).

You realize that your insurance company does the same thing, right? Or your insurance company's pharmacy benefits manager (PBM) or some other entity even further divorced from the doctor patient relationship. If you want something other than by formulary under almost any health insurance plan, you pay out of pocket. There is almost no other way to control expenses: you negotiate until you get a good deal and in exchange for the good, you lose exclusivity.

Moreover, you're trolling isn't really helping your cause here. First, most of the United States won't get government sponsored health insurance. Nope, that's reserved for politicians, soldiers, and the very poor. Everything else is going to be by the same commercial insurance companies that already dictate healthcare. Good try though.

Second, control over individual medicaid expenses is something that the RIGHT wants, not the left. It allows states to prioritize their healthcare expenses and make decisions at a state level. You know, the whole "laboratory of states" thing.

I'm a patent geek. Patent attorney, undergrad in Comp Sci, and working in-house at a software company. Of course my view somewhat differs from the vitriolic responses of most commenters on here.

Nevertheless, I enjoy the patent stories.

So, the real question is: Our government is imposing an illegal tax on the people in direct violation of the Constitution; what do we do now?

That's not a real question that comes out of this ruling. In fact this ruling said the opposite: the "tax" is constitutional.

Moreover, the basic premise of your argument is wrong.

As the mandate is to give money to private insurers, and not the government itself, it does not fall under the Constitutional definition of a legal tax.

The mandate/tax is paid to the government, not directly to private insurers. The only direct payment to an insurer is for those people that ACQUIRE insurance.

The upside is you can now include the relevant links. You could also include the following money quote:

Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had thepower to impose the exaction in 5000A under the taxing power, and that 5000A need not be read to do more thanimpose a tax. That is sufficient to sustain [the individual mandate].

I'm reading that part right now. The opinion is the Medicaid portion of the opinion says that the loss of funding will be narrowly construed. So it doesn't seem to be a total loss of all funding, just the additional funding. This is one long opinion.

And if that one is down, here's another: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/123538217/11-393c3a2

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf