Fair point and agree completely.
Software patents are difficult to properly patent to begin with.
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Obama Targets Patent Trolls with Proposed Legislative Changes
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Fair point and agree completely.
Software patents are difficult to properly patent to begin with.
I hold three citizenships, visited dozen countries, lived in three, and chose to be here. And I've worked in 18 states. So don't play that card with me bud.
God knows the US has its problems, but you can't deny it is one of the best countries in the world. I hate the 'Everything is stupid in America' statements because they are simply not true.
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Question: which modern president used the most executive orders and signing statements even though he had a majority in both houses until 2006? Why, Bush. Presidents do have the power of an executive order.
So will the stop companies like Apple from drawing something on a sheet of paper in crayon with a few arrows and descriptions of what happens, when they don't have a clue how to make it, or if they ever will make it, just to stop someone else from making it, then Apple can sue.
Which IS the problem.
Which IS the problem.
The journalist phone tapping is bad I agree but you're exaggerating as it was only AP. Fast and Furious was also a disaster but that is old news. Second amendment should be restricted though. Gun nuts are doing more damage than bin laden. I think you need to check your sources, seems you have some bad intel.
Hah, it's so funny how a president gets in a scandal or two and then suddenly his smiling face starts appearing on every web site in the world with him suddenly making various announcements about this that and other -- anything to create news that is different from the scandal news
I don't mean that in negative way. although I do suppose it is a bit sad...
Yeah but what is he supposed to do? Nothing but wait for the "scandals" to pass so nobody thinks he is covering something up? Like the republics s wouldn't make up some new crap to call a scandal every month....
Anything they can do to not cooperate and ruin our nation. It's the republican way lately. They'll mostly be phased out in a couple decades when they all die off.
I agree change is needed. But not by adding more loop holes to a broken patent system!
As with all new legislation it will just mean big companies can litigate harder than the little guys.
It should be simplified and totally reworked to protect only ideas that are not under the control of a multinational or company larger than 100 people.
Hell most of the time these big companies just ignore the patents in place and do it anyway. The little guys are always just squashed.
As with all new legislation it will just mean big companies can litigate harder than the little guys.
It should be simplified and totally reworked to protect only ideas that are not under the control of a multinational or company larger than 100 people.
Hell most of the time these big companies just ignore the patents in place and do it anyway. The little guys are always just squashed.
Supporting big donners to roll over the little guy
Don't get me wrong, I don't like what Lodsys is doing to Apple, but the fault here doesn't lie in the concept of a patent holding firm; it lies in the complete inability of the lawyers & reviewers at the USPO to understand what is patentable is in the field of software.
Almost no individual can take a new product from concept to mass production these days, but plenty of folks can come up with ideas to improve one step in a process. There's no need for perpetual employment, so licensing is a great way to do it. There's no guarantee that the idea will be implemented immediately, so holding is a great idea.
This entire problem is due to the fact that the USPO granted a crap patent, or is at least applying a patent to something it really didn't describe.
We need a jury of peers (software developers) to determine whether this patent holds. It wouldn't be out long.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like what Lodsys is doing to Apple, but the fault here doesn't lie in the concept of a patent holding firm; it lies in the complete inability of the lawyers & reviewers at the USPO to understand what is patentable is in the field of software.
Almost no individual can take a new product from concept to mass production these days, but plenty of folks can come up with ideas to improve one step in a process. There's no need for perpetual employment, so licensing is a great way to do it. There's no guarantee that the idea will be implemented immediately, so holding is a great idea.
This entire problem is due to the fact that the USPO granted a crap patent, or is at least applying a patent to something it really didn't describe.
We need a jury of peers (software developers) to determine whether this patent holds. It wouldn't be out long.
HUH??
I think you might have just slightly missed the irony of the post...by a teeny bit.
(If I had put in any more smilies...)
There are lots of empirical studies done that show patents harm innovation and even those studies don't factor the brain drain caused by the need for patent attorneys.
Some people just don't get irony, and you are one of them I'm sorry to say.
But be my guest and rant on some more and keep us all entertained.
The best fix would be to eliminate all patenting including all past patents.
Perhaps you're a troll but I'll answer the question as if it were serious. The problem with the patent system is patent trolls sue without producing products, patent clerks who rubber stamp things that should never have been patented, all the money wasted on litigation that should be put into research and production, the hyper extended time frames, the failure of patents to end as they were originally intended... The list goes on. The system is a shambles and should be trashed.
Ideas are a dime a dozen. It is implementation, production and marketing that should return the reward. Eliminate patents and let people prove their ideas in the market place.
Actually, Bush II didn't sign the most executive orders either. That dubious record goes to the original socialist president, FDR. For what it's worth, Obama has a good chance of surpassing Bush II, which would just be a completely socialist president surpassing one that is only fiscally socialist.
If you think only Apple is the problem, then YOU are part of the problem. Law is for everybody or it's unjust.
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There are more gun related deaths here than bin laden has ever killed. That's nuts. But LaPierre is getting rich off your paranoia of our government.
Such agreement I can barely voice it loudly enough.
President Obama is on the wrong track with this. He is the executive; he needs to direct the USPTO to do its job properly. If they did, the patent troll problem would be significantly diminished. The system as such otherwise functions as designed and the saleability of valuable patents is an intended and positive consequence of this.
I support the President almost without exception on social matters because he generally gets it right. He is, as in this case, generally horribly wrong on economic and business matters. His Presidency would be better served if he stayed out of that sandbox and focused his efforts playing his strongest cards instead. But where's the political hay in that?
I'd make an exception for really gnarly programming, like video codecs. MPEG isn't something that just grew on trees. They all involve using new methods, not just a vague idea. To get a beautiful, high-def movie streaming into your living room is something that a lot of smart people spent a long time doing totally non-obvious work to do, and I think they have, especially when they pool fees like the MPEG-LA group, and conditional on their agreeing to fair use for non-commercial viewing, and their fee structure is not overly burdensome to commercial users, then I have no problem with their claiming a temporary monopoly on the use of the methods they developed.
It seems that when you are looking for a political dirty word to call someone..."socialist" is the new "communist".
(Seems like "commie" dies with the USSR. I mean, who remains...Cuba!?)
I disagree that patents harm innovation, and think that there would be substantially less innovation without patents.
As I stated earlier, patent trolls are terrible but their existence alone isn't enough to call the entire system broken. Patents are not generally granted on a whim and are (I can't stress this enough) frequently denied. The system as a whole functions exactly how it's supposed to function. Are there problems? Obviously, but expecting perfection is a bit idealistic.
As for the idea of eliminating patents altogether, I find the proposal to be nonsensical. Eliminating issued patents for no reason raises constitutional issues for one. Secondly, you are misinterpreting a patent. Patents don't protect ideas, they protect inventions. Your plan would have someone invent something, only to have a more powerful corporation copy the invention wholesale and place it on the market. That's not only unfair, but could cause irreparable harm to inventors.
Since the very beginning of the IT industry, software has been protected by copyright, period.
And notwithstanding the lobbies and efforts undertaken (mainly) by the US, this is EXACTLY how it is protected by most jurisdictions around the world. Software should be patentable ONLY to the extent where it is part and parcel of an industrial process. Any other conclusion leads to the disastrous scenario you have now in the US and other US-influenced markets.
And that is the main problem with software patents - due to the incompetence or negligence of bodies like the USPTO, a mere idea has become patentable, something that goes against the very core of the patent system. I know, trolls disguise this under ingenious schemes in patent applications to make such an idea look like a "process" (hierarchical menus, one-click purchase are just a few of the many ludicrous examples) - in other words, they defraud the very principles upon which the patent paradigm was created.