Erwin_D - Slashdot User

Comment How would I fix it? (Score 5, Funny) 261

by Erwin_D on Friday February 16, 2007 @06:07PM (#18044978) Attached to: Congress Tackles Patent Reform

This may rquire some reform in labour laws first, but...

The USPTO needs to assemble a panel of 4-year-olds. Each time a patent application comes in, the panel would be asked how they would implement the title of the patent (they do not see the content). If the panel comes up with a process resembling the original patent, it would be denied.

Simple...

Ballmer Says Linux "Infringes Our Intellectual Property" 820

Posted by Zonk on Friday November 17, 2006 @09:38AM from the oh-it-is-so-on-now dept.

Stony Stevenson writes "In comments confirming the open-source community's suspicions, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Thursday declared his belief that the Linux operating system infringes on Microsoft's intellectual property." From the ComputerWorld article: "In a question-and-answer session after his keynote speech at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) conference in Seattle, Ballmer said Microsoft was motivated to sign a deal with SUSE Linux distributor Novell earlier this month because Linux 'uses our intellectual property' and Microsoft wanted to 'get the appropriate economic return for our shareholders from our innovation.'" His exact wording is available at the Seattle Intelligencer, which has a transcript of the interview. Groklaw had an article up Wednesday giving some perspective on the Novell/Microsoft deal. Guess we'll have something to talk about in 2007, huh?

Rockers Sue Sony Over Download Royalties 360

Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, 2006 @04:34PM from the mp3-breakage dept.

Ohreally_factor writes "According to an AP article, groups Cheap Trick and The Allman Brothers allege that Sony is paying them less than what they deserve for music downloaded from popular download sites such as iTunes. Because Sony counts such sales as the equivalent of a physical phonorecording sale, they deduct costs for packaging (20%) and breakage (15%) from the artists' royalties, just as they would if they were selling CDs through more traditional means. Seeing as how there is no physical packaging, nor physical inventory that might suffer breakage, one wonders how Sony will defend against these charges."

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