http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...e16190228.ece/BINARY/BlackBerryTypo+claim.pdf
read down, the actual patents in dispute are listed and described
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BlackBerry Sues Typo Again Over Second-Generation iPhone Keyboard Case
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...e16190228.ece/BINARY/BlackBerryTypo+claim.pdf
read down, the actual patents in dispute are listed and described
Then maybe they don't deserve the patent. All this does is hold back the human race for the sake of greed. Just because someone thought of something first doesn't mean that somebody else later on who is smarter could come to the same conclusion but actually build it. I've thought of tons of crazy things and how I might be able to build it but I don't go clogging up the system. I've even had ideas that turned into actual successful products. There should be a limit, like five years, that you have until you have a product ready for sale. Then you'd have to define "for sale" so that trolls can't get away with selling one thing. Things get tricky from there. I don't know all the answers either, except that there should be a limit of like three years after sometime is no longer available for sale that you lose the patent. If you stop selling something, then there should be a limit on how many times you can bring it back before the time limit runs out. Maybe once or twice. Then after 15 or 20 years it goes into the public domain and anyone can use it. Although that might vary my category. For instance, maybe information technology (software, design "look" of hardware, basebands, etc) related patents would have shorter lifespans, with more traditional type inventions (such as an engine) having a longer life span due to the nature of the products involved. Very slippery slope but something needs to be done. I'm no patent expert, those are just common sense things that I've thought about. I'm of the opinion that law should be as simple as possible within reason.
As for the actual keyboard, I'm pretty sure I said before that Seacrest should just bail. This whole thing was a terrible idea. The market isn't there, the patents are going to screw them, etc. At least if he loses all his money then maybe we won't have to hear about him and his lame ideas any more? Every time I see celebrities blowing money like this I just think about how much better I could do with that money, lol.
Problem - People abuse the laws to limit competition to benefit them. This limits opportunity and improvement of existing ideas.
Solution - Civilly disobey the laws.
So, you were trolling then. What kind of other reaction would you have expected from the people here on your first post? Why not post this in the first place and start a real discussion?
That's your opinion.
My opinion is that patents are awful, and are a massive reason behind why we aren't in flying cars from Back to the Future II.
I'm civil in my responses, and interested in the discussion. If that's trolling, I'm doing the internet wrong.
Interesting, but it would open another can of worms. Software is not created equal.
Flappy Bird will be useless two years from now, and its R&D was low.
Medical software that is used to assist surgeons is going to be useful for 10 years, and its R&D cost is going to be high.
Aerospace software is going to be used for 20 years, and its R&D cost is going to be insanely extreme.
In other words, this would cause an additional layer of "patenting" process, therefore more bureaucratic process.
However you haven't provided an alternative (which is not the "Free for all" slogan)
Indeed, in addition Tesla and SpaceX have both accumulated so much non-patented, but difficult to acquire knowledge that the open sourced technology is not very useful to anyone. Most companies, people or other entities would lack some pieces of the puzzle (capital, people, market position etc..) needed to bring the technology to market.
First of all, I think that is a very negative way to approach the problem. You're essentially saying "woe is me, all is lost, the problem is unsolvable, so why bother?" I say the problem is a tough one and the fight will be hard, but its one worth having regardless of the apparently meager likelihood of success.
Second, while I hate unfair corporate influence on government as much as most people here, I don't think its impossible for small entrepreneurs, garage inventors, and large corporations to have aligned interests. As to the topic of discussion, the premise of a patent is that in exchange for donating your idea to the public domain, the government gives the inventor a right to exclude others for 20 years - a right which can be bought and sold similar to other assets. This is great for big corporations for obvious reasons, but it's also great for small entrepreneurs. When a small entrepreneur has nothing but an idea, they need some assets to use as collateral for a loan / investment to grow and develop that idea. A patent is often exactly that asset. I don't think a small entrepreneur and a big corporation would disagree there.
You seem to have a quite well developed opinion on this, but decided to start the discussion with a statement that here typically invites responses such as mine and several others. You knew that very well, having been here more than 10 years.
So, you could also have started the discussion like this:
And the discussion would have been totally different.
This is why patents and copyrights go too far these days. It's a KEYBOARD. Guess what? Any TINY keyboard is going to look like a smart phone keyboard. Did Blackberry sue every single company that EVER made a phone with small keys? Do they have a monopoly on tiny keys???
The whole thing is RIDICULOUS (and I don't just mean putting a keyboard on an iPhone). Companies are supposed to COMPETE in a capitalist society, not sue and buy out their competition. The courts should put an end to this absurd levels of litigation that occurs constantly and on a daily basis there. Blackberry makes phones, not keyboards. The fact a keyboard bares a resemblance to the last phone maker that still uses ancient keyboards shouldn't even register on the scales of WHO CARES. To hell with Blackberry and their POS phones. They should have gone out of business already and their lawsuit shows that is exactly what they deserve as they never could compete with products like the iPhone.
When companies realize they have a losing product, they try to sue their way to the top (look at all the lawsuits filed against the iPhone, a product no one ever saw coming, yet so many claimed "copied" their POS phones that no one wanted. There's your Huckleberry! (Oh no, are the rights holders to Tombstone going to sue me for using that phrase!?!?)
Patents were designed to allow inventors to recoup their design costs from cheap imitating competitors for a time. They were not designed to prevent any and all competition for an unlimited amount of time just as copyrights were not supposed to allow Walt Disney Corporation from ever having to release a SINGLE THING into the public domain over 100 years later! Like everything else in society, the rich don't want to compete in the system. Instead, they want to RIG the system.
The whole thing is RIDICULOUS (and I don't just mean putting a keyboard on an iPhone). Companies are supposed to COMPETE in a capitalist society, not sue and buy out their competition. The courts should put an end to this absurd levels of litigation that occurs constantly and on a daily basis there. Blackberry makes phones, not keyboards. The fact a keyboard bares a resemblance to the last phone maker that still uses ancient keyboards shouldn't even register on the scales of WHO CARES. To hell with Blackberry and their POS phones. They should have gone out of business already and their lawsuit shows that is exactly what they deserve as they never could compete with products like the iPhone.
When companies realize they have a losing product, they try to sue their way to the top (look at all the lawsuits filed against the iPhone, a product no one ever saw coming, yet so many claimed "copied" their POS phones that no one wanted. There's your Huckleberry! (Oh no, are the rights holders to Tombstone going to sue me for using that phrase!?!?)
Patents were designed to allow inventors to recoup their design costs from cheap imitating competitors for a time. They were not designed to prevent any and all competition for an unlimited amount of time just as copyrights were not supposed to allow Walt Disney Corporation from ever having to release a SINGLE THING into the public domain over 100 years later! Like everything else in society, the rich don't want to compete in the system. Instead, they want to RIG the system.
Yeah, I can see this leading to more bureaucracy. Especially as my next thought is this: An impartial panel of professionals from various backgrounds determining the value of a patent. You would apply for different tiers of patents, and the higher the tier the more difficult it would be to get a patent, but the longer you could keep it. Basically patents that are really new and different would have more protection. But yeah, more and more complexity into the system. Why is there no easy answer? Surely someone smarter than us can sort this all out.
Sure I have.
The idea makers and the creators embrace open-source, which is where the world is going. The rest of us civilly disobey. Many of us disobey patents and copyrights everyday, and don't realize it. How much of the digital music that you own, was purchased? How many YouTube videos have you watched, paid for all the content in them? How many websites are properly paying, crediting, and supporting the people that they get their content and code from, that you visit?
The system is changing rapidly. Apple didn't get into the iTunes Music Store because patents were successfully winning the war against illegal downloads. They just found a solution that enough people chose to use, over file-sharing without pay. Netflix is capturing the crowd that turned to sharing movies and television shows.
These are far more attainable, than holding out for a fake reform from the same system that is unfair.
I doubt any judge will take these Mashable reviews and Mac Rumors comments as infringement evidence:
But limiting competition, temporarily, is the whole point of a patent.
It goes something like this -
Inventor: I have a great idea, it will really help you do that thing you really want to do.
Society: Oh really? Awesome! Where can I buy it?
Inventor: I'm not selling it. If I sell it, someone will reverse engineer it, and I won't get any of the profits. I will only use it on my things, so that I am the only one that benefits.
Society: But we really want it. There are over a billion of us, and we all want those things.
Inventor: I'll share my idea if you make it illegal for my competition to copy this idea.
Society: How about, if you share your idea, we will give you the right to prevent your competition from copying your idea for 20 years, but you have to prove they copied it.
Inventor: Ok fine.
----------
Open source is very very IP restrictive.
It's kind of clunky, but basically you just multi-quote some folks then move the first end-tag to be right up against the second one. So...Just a question, but how do you do the quotes like that? In the past when I've tried to quote a user's post and a quote within that post, it doesn't work like above.
(QUOTE=Billy)Intelligent comment(/QUOTE)
(QUOTE=Bob)Intelligent response(/QUOTE)
Becomes...
(QUOTE=Billy)Intelligent comment
(QUOTE=Bob)Intelligent response(/QUOTE)(/QUOTE)
That will show the whole discussion you are responding to in the nested order it flowed.
What happens when someone else, comes up with the same idea, legitimately, without knowing any of this. When they go to market, the original "inventor" or more likely the current patent owner, can sue them, and capture all their hard work and capital.
Or how about when someone comes up with an idea that is similar enough for a good lawyer, and lots of legal money, to sue them over, like nonsense associations in a KEYBOARD?
Why do you think KickStarter is popular?
We don't have to live in the same static systems of control forever. Ideas change society, and society has changing ideas. It's time to go open-source, and leave behind the years of stagnant patent holding, in the dark ages.
Perhaps, just perhaps, blackberry should focus more on their phone and care less about this $100 case that I can only imagine will not sell that great. I get they feel it is infringing on their patents and whatnot but they have much bigger issues facing the company than some overpriced keyboard case.
Solve this, please.
Mr. X, a regular non rich guy, spends weeks to develop tool Y which solves a problem. Monetary investment: $10000. He believes in tool Y, he thinks there's a lot of business behind it.
He publishes his tool's information, as openly as possible. He wants to build a business around it, but needs $20000 to start the production of such tool.
He goes around crowdfunding, he talks to people etc.
Mr. Z, a rich entrepeneur and owner of a shop, thinks that tool Y is a great idea. He developes it according to Mr. X's plans.
How can:
Mr X get his 10000 bucks back?
Mr X keep his product from being stolen?
Mr X prevents Mr Z to produce the tool, putting him out of business?
Open would work in a clean world. Sharks are around us, and Mr. X has to be protected from them.
I don't know, maybe the Apple lawyers who patented a rounded rectangle have the answer ?
First to file. Patents are public. Ignorance is not an excuse. However, it is in the economic interest of both parties to figure this out. Either the second inventor tweaks his/her idea to invent around the original idea, or comes up with a new application for the same idea and buys a license from the first inventor, or the first inventor hires the second inventor to work on improvements. Either way, your predicament is actually an opportunity to expand the market.
Sure, but whats the point? Businesses aren't dumb. They wouldn't spend $10,000,000 on a patent law suit unless they thought the competition would deprive them of at least double that. Either way, as mentioned above, it is in the economic interest of all involved to license or buy from each other. That is what happens 99% of the time. The other 1% of the time, Engadget/Verge writes a story about unfair patent lawsuits.
Because it's a neat marketplace. If anything, KickStarter proves patents are awesome. These people can put their ideas out there in the public without fear of being copied because they know their IP is protected (assuming they have taken the right steps, most of the successful ones have).
Totally agreed. But like I said above, I don't think you understand what open source means. Open source isn't a free for all. It's actually quite restrictive, more restrictive than the patent system in some ways.
Would you feel differently if another person or company shamelessly copied a product or method you had developed and was making money off of it while giving you zero credit or financial benefit in return?
I find that most people who are averse to patents change their tune considerably when they try to put themselves in the shoes of the company or individual who is defending their patent.
The sad reality is that patents are necessary because there are some human beings out there who would rather blatantly copy someone else's work and pass it off as their own instead of learning from what others have done and putting forth the effort to make a better product or method.
I can appreciate the thought due to the sheer amount of patent trolls and frivolous lawsuits out there, but that doesn't change the fact that it is always easier to steal the work of someone else than it is to put forth the effort to create something, yourself. Without patents, I have no doubt that many (most?) companies would freely steal/copy/whatever anything another person or company creates. Why wouldn't they, if there were no consequences? This would mainly hurt the smaller people and companies who innovate with ideas and new products and designs. Only the people and businesses with the most scale, power and money would benefit from the lack of patents.
Why should I pay the inventor if I can just take his idea/hard work and make money off it, myself? Why should I put forth my own effort to create something when someone else already did all the work? That's the sad reality of humanity.