91–100 of 127 posts
Apple has made AirPlay more open than Google has. Google Cast regularly takes 30 seconds to start streaming YouTube Music, where as AirPlay starts within 3 seconds. At least with AirPlay I can use shairplay to emulate a speaker.
Therefore I bought Sonos speakers over Google Cast speakers for use from my Android phone.
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I would welcome a world where copyright restrictions ended 15 years from date of creation as this paper suggests, which would be a huge improvement from the status quo. Sadly the paper only seems to go over copyright. But take the 3D printer example. Development by my subjective take seemed way more effective without patents. So why have them at all? More people did more work on them after the patents expired. Why ha…
The argument would probably be that without patents, what reason does companies have to disclose methods of operation? Everything would become a trade-secret. With patents the deal is as follows: Tell us how you made it and we will make sure that noone else copies it for a while. This system allows for knowledge to be shared between competing entities. One of the requirements for a patent is literally "The descriptio…
And for medication we see companies abusing the patent system, reformulating drugs and re-patenting them. Though there’s something rotten about the other parts of the system that make this worthwhile.
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On the other hand, if you're a startup founder with a brilliant new idea (say, some new way to synchronize audio across multiple speakers), why would you ever leave a cushy corporate job to build it if nothing protects you from large corporations copying everything you've made? It seems, judging by how people have been complaining that their Google Homes have been doing worse, that maybe the system is working as inte…
> On the other hand, if you're a startup founder with a brilliant new idea (say, some new way to synchronize audio across multiple speakers), why would you ever leave a cushy corporate job to build it if nothing protects you from large corporations copying everything you've made? The fact that your product will be on the market for years before competition arrives and you'll be a step ahead. Instead, we're now stuck…
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> This is the reason the physical volume buttons on Android 12 on Pixel phones no longer adjust Chromecasted music volume, unless you are in the music app in question. Are you f'ing kidding me? This has been driving me nuts, I assumed it was just another stupid Android bug that would eventually be silently patched. It's so annoying how functionality like this can be removed without a peep, at least inform me if you'r…
They could have licensed the patent, I know crazy talk, but we never see what the licensing arrangements would have been
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How could such a simple and obvious concept be patented?
Yes, I think there is value in the patent system but the concept of what qualifies as "novel" and "non-obvious" seems to be way off.
And then the world changed. A lot.
It is easy to forget that because we live in a time where this has ceased to be a problem. There is no lack of invention and creativity. Those who invent things have trivial access to communicating their idea to a global audience. Inventing something and then not communicating it one way or another isn't that common anymore. And if you make something and try to keep the secret sauce secret, there has never been a time where we collectively have been better at rapidly reverse engineering or re-inventing.
I think patents provide no value to society. And I've spent a lot of time thinking about this for a handful of areas. Including software and pharmaceuticals. It started with me thinking patents were a good idea - and then someone asked me questions that didn't have easy answers that could easily shown to be unambiguously true.
I've spent time discussing with people who were involved in designing new, patented drugs, and when you bore right down into it the argument tends to boil down to "patents are important because much of how the industry works is tied to how patents work".
You end up in circular arguments.
Yes, the economy of drugs would change if there were no patents. For the most part, that would be highly desirable. Not least because it would tie up a lot less money in work that produces few to no benefits for public health. Like developing new patentable versions of high volume drugs without actually making any progress in a medical sense. And it would be nice if we could reallocate resources to invest more in developing the kinds of drugs that are highly unattractive today, but are critically important. Like antibiotics. Or drugs that affect predominantly poor people in developing economies.
Sure, it provides value to those who have patents AND, much more importantly, the funds required to defend them. Patents protect incumbents - not the underdog challenger. Let's at least be mature enough to admit that. And if you are not a well funded corporation and you think your patents protect you from well funded parties who want to use your IPR, you are, at best mistaken.
I doubt the patent system has societal value. But I also doubt that this is something we can get rid of. Because monied incumbents are the only ones who stand to lose. And they own the politicians.
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In my opinion all intellectual property restrictions reduce the rate of innovation, with the sum total of all present day laws dramatically reducing the rate of innovate compared to what it could be. For example 3D printers were patented in 1989, then first sold for $50k in 1995, sold still under patent for $25k ten years later, then patents expired in 2008, within three years a decent printer was $1800, and ten year…
On the other hand, if you're a startup founder with a brilliant new idea (say, some new way to synchronize audio across multiple speakers), why would you ever leave a cushy corporate job to build it if nothing protects you from large corporations copying everything you've made? It seems, judging by how people have been complaining that their Google Homes have been doing worse, that maybe the system is working as inte…
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Remember the ITC is NOT a court, it's part of the executive branch. Their decisions are appealable to the federal circuit but they are effectively never stayed pending appeal (because there is already an appeals process built into the ITC). There is an interesting counterintuitive game that is played where the defendant tries to get MORE of their products included in the exclusion order to make an appeal easier. Sono…
At some point it becomes worth it to put in the effort to try to get the Sonos patents invalidated, and some of them seem very broad. Hard to believe that some of those things were “invented” only in the last 20 years. Most inventions aren’t patented, so I’d speculate that probably almost all patents could be invalidated by someone dedicated with a team of experts to scour history for prior art.
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> This is the reason the physical volume buttons on Android 12 on Pixel phones no longer adjust Chromecasted music volume, unless you are in the music app in question. Are you f'ing kidding me? This has been driving me nuts, I assumed it was just another stupid Android bug that would eventually be silently patched. It's so annoying how functionality like this can be removed without a peep, at least inform me if you'r…
They could have licensed the patent, I know crazy talk, but we never see what the licensing arrangements would have been
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My guess would be that the patent lacks some of the implementation details, and allowed them to create a product that worked as well easily. Bear in mind, most generic-sounding software patents aren't going to give you any actual code to look at.
In fact, almost none of them. It's not required, although it ought to be.
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The ITC can definitely adjudicate invalidity.
"Definitely" -- how do you know this? Citation please. I actually don't know for certain and I was in Google Patent Litigation (as tech advisor). I never had a case before the ITC so I can't say 100%, but AFAIK only the PTO or a regular Federal court can declare a patent invalid. But maybe they can say "well, this will probably be declared invalid, so we're going to stay the order." Like a German court can do. So ple…
"Infringement, validity, and/or enforceability" constrained to section 337, per the above legal analysis.
IANAL