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3282868

macrumors 603
Jan 8, 2009
5,281
0
That's a fancy way of saying "I have no legitimate argument against those facts, so I'm going to attempt to discredit your source in order to invalidate them." Checkmate, indeed.

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Oh...well then, what about knives, hammers, and clubs? Do you need to go to extraordinary lengths to get those, or do we have special laws for their sale?

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Well, since we're comparing things that have nothing to do with each other, how many Americans were killed during the same time frame by cars? Alcohol? Tobacco?

Don't quit your day job to become a prosecutor, Mr Case Closed.

You accuse me of not having a case while regurgitating the same trite rhetoric by continuing to quote the same biased source supported by outdated survey's to base your opinions. Survey's, that's laughable. Try using actual statistics based on research and empirical studies. This is trifling. Keep your guns, I really don't care. Just don't accidentally shoot someone in your family or, god forbid, an innocent bystander as actual statistics has repeatedly proven gun owners are more likely to hurt themselves or someone in their family than actually protect them from the "liberal gov'ment".

The irony is so thick I can shoot it with a gun. :rolleyes:
 

GoldenJoe

macrumors 6502
Apr 26, 2011
369
164
Wow...did an admin just delete a bunch of posts in which portis attacked me personally, then another guy and I called him out for it? Interesting that you'd wait till the very end to censor his breakdown.
 

Thomas Veil

macrumors 68030
Feb 14, 2004
2,636
8,862
Much greener pastures
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.
SOCIALISM

1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property; b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done​
 

rdowns

macrumors Penryn
Jul 11, 2003
27,397
12,521
Wow...did an admin just delete a bunch of posts in which portis attacked me personally, then another guy and I called him out for it? Interesting that you'd wait till the very end to censor his breakdown.

All part of the socialist plot by the administration of MacRumors.
 

MagnusVonMagnum

macrumors 603
Jun 18, 2007
5,195
1,452
Learn the definition of patent troll.

"Trolling" and a "patent troll" are two different things. While Apple makes things with its patents (and so cannot be called a patent troll per se), there is simply no doubt that Apple does "troll" (i.e. file lawsuit after lawsuit on shaky reasoning like retaliatory grounds or just an opportunity to make free money; after all that's what they pay those lawyers on retainer to do, make money and the only way a lawyer can make money directly (rather than being hired by someone) is to sue the living pants off someone, whether they deserve it or not).

If only Back To The Future II's premise of abolishing all lawyers could actually happen. The world would be FAR better place, overall. Wipe out legal speak (actually write what is meant in clear concise ordinary common English that isn't 900 pages long on average; we used to do that back in the founder days with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, but now the country is controlled by lawyers who answer to scum bags called politicians that cater to the highest bidder for bribes...er lobbying).

Right. Exercising patent rights is automatically trolling. Good job.

It is when it's obviously in retaliation to someone else's lawsuit and it goes back and forth over and over like it does between Apple and Samsung. Frankly, I think patents are granted too easily for too many things and need to be scaled WAY back, software patents in particular which should not even be allowed to exist.

The worst abuses of all are when large companies sue small companies, often knowing that they would eventually lose their lawsuit against that smaller company except for the fact they know the smaller company or individual cannot afford the lawsuit and so goes out of business anyway (which is the real reason to instigate the lawsuit in the first place). That sort of thing should literally be criminal, but it would be hard to prove. But it reiterates why I think lawyers are so disgusting in general. If they had any integrity what-so-ever, they'd never take such a case. Likewise, our justice system is all screwed up. It should be about whether the person did the crime or not. How good a lawyer you have should have NOTHING to do with it. The truth often suffers and dies in cases with mis-matched lawyers and real people go to prison on crimes they didn't commit and murderers get off scot-free all because of lawyers.

It is this abuse of large corporations over small companies and individuals that is the best argument against laws that make patents only work for large companies. That case where Robert Kearns came up with delay wipers is a good example. He patented the idea and tried to market it to the big automakers. They figured they could just steal his idea instead of buying it and did exactly that. He finally won cases against Ford and Chrysler. Obviously, even though he did build a physical mechanism, he couldn't hardly implement the idea without owning a car company. So under this idea of anti-patent trolls, would that mean he would have just been swept under the rug because he held a patent that he wasn't implementing?

I've heard of a patent on brake-light brightness based on how hard you press the brake pedal (making it more obvious whether someone is just lightly touching their brakes or suddenly slams hard on them). This is a safety idea that could potentially save lives. I haven't seen it implemented yet. They probably neither want to pay the patent owner or face another lawsuit like with the delay wipers. So the patent owner is forced to sit on the thing until it expires at which point they will all probably just steal the idea anyway. Sometimes you just can't win.


Copyright is very limited in scope and it has no ability to protect actual functionality. You need patent protection for this.

Why on earth should just functionality be protected? If I created a patent on a piston engine for planes and someone else makes a jet engine design for planes, you're telling me that I should get the money for the jet engine too because they have the same FUNCTION? In other words, there's a lot of ways of getting similar results with programming that all involve unique coding methods. One person's Hoover vacuum is NOT the same as another person's Dyson vacuum even though they are both designed to suck air.

Most of the patent lawsuits I've seen with software patents, however, do exactly what you talk about. That person used my layout for a smart phone menu! That person used a WiFi antenna on a phone for god's sake! I patented the ideas of using it on a phone! Yeah, using one item on another item is SO unique.... It's all freaking ridiculous. Patent granting is out of hand and leads to lawsuits that are designed to AVOID COMPETITION.

In the field of pharmaceuticals, they're not really "creating" anything. They're discovering what chemical combinations might help with certain conditions. This costs a LOT of money to research and develop. Thus, a patent makes sense as the end result has to be EXACT. If another company just copies their end product and makes a generic, there would be no incentive for research. However, the comparison would be like the BIOS on a PC. Copying it would be like the medicine patent. Reverse engineering it without any information is legal because the end result either isn't the same code (many ways to skin a cat) or is a coincidence since no research was copied or stolen.

Thus, I don't buy this argument for things like software patents being necessary because all they do is try to thwart the market for all competition. Well, we live in a Capitalist society. That means competition. The first person to sell corn in a supermarket shouldn't get to corner the market on corn just because they sold it in such a market first. And that is what most software patents are. They're just copyrighting abstract ideas instead of actual specific code. I think it hurts competition for the consumer greatly and thus Capitalism in general.
 

vvswarup

macrumors 6502a
Jul 21, 2010
544
225
"Trolling" and a "patent troll" are two different things. While Apple makes things with its patents (and so cannot be called a patent troll per se), there is simply no doubt that Apple does "troll" (i.e. file lawsuit after lawsuit on shaky reasoning like retaliatory grounds or just an opportunity to make free money; after all that's what they pay those lawyers on retainer to do, make money and the only way a lawyer can make money directly (rather than being hired by someone) is to sue the living pants off someone, whether they deserve it or not).

You might think Apple had shaky grounds to sue Samsung, but Google doesn't agree with you. That's why Google told Samsung to change their design because it looked so similar to the iPad. Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...-make-design-less-like-apple-lawyer-says.html.

And while you may not have made this point, many have made it to justify an argument you are making that Apple files frivolous lawsuits. People say that everything Apple is suing over is obvious, like the design of the iPad, rubberband scrolling, etc. My question is if those things were so obvious, why is it that we're seeing them commonly implemented only after the iPad came out?
 

MagnusVonMagnum

macrumors 603
Jun 18, 2007
5,195
1,452
And while you may not have made this point, many have made it to justify an argument you are making that Apple files frivolous lawsuits. People say that everything Apple is suing over is obvious, like the design of the iPad, rubberband scrolling, etc. My question is if those things were so obvious, why is it that we're seeing them commonly implemented only after the iPad came out?

I think the idea of the iPhone in general and iPad were more unique, not the specific parts of them (i.e. GUI interface). But part of the thing was that Apple tried with the Newton before and it failed big time so I imagine other companies didn't think the thing would sell. I'm not sure the iPad would have sold if the iPhone didn't come first for that matter. But if the iPhone is SO much better, then it should still outsell the competition regardless, shouldn't it?
 

vvswarup

macrumors 6502a
Jul 21, 2010
544
225
I think the idea of the iPhone in general and iPad were more unique, not the specific parts of them (i.e. GUI interface). But part of the thing was that Apple tried with the Newton before and it failed big time so I imagine other companies didn't think the thing would sell. I'm not sure the iPad would have sold if the iPhone didn't come first for that matter. But if the iPhone is SO much better, then it should still outsell the competition regardless, shouldn't it?

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think Apple implemented stuff like rubberband scrolling and multitouch in the Newton.
 

MagnusVonMagnum

macrumors 603
Jun 18, 2007
5,195
1,452
Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think Apple implemented stuff like rubberband scrolling and multitouch in the Newton.

No, but moving something around with your finger isn't exactly a groundbreaking concept in and of itself. Patents are supposed to be things that aren't obvious and using a second finger isn't exactly something new, seeing as we have five of them in our daily lives.
 
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