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Saved by Alice

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Re: Saved by Alice

#31

Post by pavel_lishin »

saagarjha wrote: post #24
makecheck wrote: post #20

I can see two rules that would help immensely with trolls: 1. There should be an absolute maximum on the litigation that can be brought against any organization for any reason in a given time period (say, a year), and that total cost should not be able to exceed some tiny fraction of its total operating costs for that period (parent companies included, to avoid hiding actual illegal activities in subsidiaries). In ot…

Of course with absolute legislation like this you're going to end up with someone abusing the rules. Already been sued too many times this year (as any large company is)? Congratulations, you're now immune to lawsuits.

Plus: "Hey, Steve, buddy - I'll pay you the cost of losing if you sue us for infringement - we're one law-suit away from being invincible."

Re: Saved by Alice

#32

Post by pavel_lishin »

makecheck wrote: post #20

I can see two rules that would help immensely with trolls: 1. There should be an absolute maximum on the litigation that can be brought against any organization for any reason in a given time period (say, a year), and that total cost should not be able to exceed some tiny fraction of its total operating costs for that period (parent companies included, to avoid hiding actual illegal activities in subsidiaries). In ot…

If I can only ever be sued for a pittance, why would I ever fear lawsuits?

Re: Saved by Alice

#33

Post by lucb1e »

lisper wrote: post #5
lucb1e wrote: post #4

So... what is Alice?

Did you not read the article? Alice is the name of a company, and also the abbreviated name of a court case (Alice v. CLS Bank) in which Alice, the company, was the plaintiff.

I read the page. Somehow I didn't make the connection that Alice must be a company name (it could have been a person's name, though a first name is weird indeed). Still doesn't give me any context though.

Re: Saved by Alice

#34

Post by lucb1e »

lisper wrote: post #14
D-Coder wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us (where "us"="me") come to the HN comments first, because they load very quickly and can help us decide whether to read the article at all. Especially since many of the headlines are pretty opaque due to reuse of ordinary words in computing contexts.

You are of course free to approach HN any way you want. But if you choose not to read the article and end up asking a stupid question as a result you should not be surprised when you get called out for asking a stupid question. The signal to noise ratio here is extraordinarily high in no small measure because people are expected to do their homework. You may not realize it, but I'm doing you and lucb1e a favor by tel…

> You may not realize it, but I'm doing you and lucb1e a favor by telling you this.

I read the article before commenting, but a simple first name doesn't tell me anything so I asked. I find the way you wrote that condescending so let me do you a favor by telling you, have a care what assumptions you make.

Re: Saved by Alice

#35

Post by jfaucett »

Why not just make all patents illegal? Then just let companies mitigate the risks of IP infringement through the purchase of insurance. The insurer could offer various policies some that compensate for all losses due to infringment and/or also going after perpetrators, etc. This seems like a more optimal solution to me than the current lot of legislation and trolling, I think it would maximize rate of innovation while also allowing companies to invest and have safeguards against IP theft.

Re: Saved by Alice

#36

Post by dang »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #21
lisper wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or by reading the article. Good grief, what's the matter with kids today?

Title comes before reading. How's that workin' for you, the acting like an ass part?

Personal attacks will get you banned here. Please post civilly and substantively or not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

Re: Saved by Alice

#37

Post by mixmastamyk »

dang wrote: post #36
mixmastamyk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Title comes before reading. How's that workin' for you, the acting like an ass part?

Personal attacks will get you banned here. Please post civilly and substantively or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

You might like to read over the rest of the thread.

Re: Saved by Alice

#38

Post by throwawaykf09 »

nailer wrote: post #30
lucb1e wrote: post #4

So... what is Alice?

There's a link, but you're right it's way too subtle. Anyway: > Alice Corp.'s patent claimed a form of escrowing that was well known. Called an “intermediated settlement,” it allowed a third party to act as an intermediary by creating “shadow accounts” for parties, and only allowing transactions to go through if the “shadow account” showed the party had enough money. Oh—and it was done with a computer.

> Alice Corp.'s patent claimed a form of escrowing that was well known.

Somebody told me that it was not really well known when the patent was filed. Apparently keeping shadow accounts was not really feasible without computers and networks, so such methods did not exist previously. I'm not sure how accurate that is, though. I'm not knowledgeable about that domain.

Re: Saved by Alice

#39

Post by dang »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #37
dang wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal attacks will get you banned here. Please post civilly and substantively or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

You might like to read over the rest of the thread.

I believe I did? But you have to follow the rules regardless of how badly someone else broke them or whether they started it.

I know how annoying that is. But it always feels like the other person started it and did worse, so if we don't approach the problem this way, it's a downward spiral for the lot of us.

Re: Saved by Alice

#40

Post by cyphar »

I've always found the culture around software patents incredibly toxic. Very rarely are patents used as means to fund future work (which is their entire intention) and far more often they are used as an extortion tactic (even by non-trolls).

And even if they were being used "correctly", software development is still poorer as an industry because of them. As they say, Stallman was right all along. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/software-patents.en.html

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