Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Silencing of Maya

niederfamily.blogspot.be

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 332 posts

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#61

Post by earl »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #21
earl wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

clicking glyphs on a screen and having a device speak the words the glyphs represent is patent worthy? It's a perfect parallel to ASL. And there's enough social utility that we should help companies gouge parents $8k a pop [1] instead of $400 ipad + $unknown for software? [1] http://store.prentrom.com/

"clicking glyphs on a screen and having a device speak the words the glyphs represent is patent worthy?" I wouldn't think so, this patent is #5,920,303 which relates to a way of making is easy and efficient to access a large vocabulary from a screen with limited space. Reading through the patent just now I wouldn't say it is particularly obvious that this would be the best way to go about things. Its got about 5 year…

Dynamic keyboard and method for dynamically redefining keys on a keyboard [1]

[1] http://www.google.com/patents?id=SRQZAAAAEBAJ&printsec=f...

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#62

Post by kevinalexbrown »

There seem to be three parts: 1) Are PRC and Apple morally wrong for enforcing and not fighting patent claims? 2) Should patents work in a way that incentivizes PRC and Apple to behave this way? 3) Irrespective of (1) or (2) what can be done?

(1) The answer to this is somewhat ambiguous for any company with investors. Sure, I want my companies to behave in morally responsible ways. On the other hand, there are hundreds of other ways to save and improve lives. If we wanted the companies we invest in to maximize quality of life improvement we would get much further providing vaccinations or microloans to the third world where owning an iPad is as much a pipe dream as winning the lottery (per unit money, energy, whatever). If we want larger public access to scientific advances, perhaps we should fund more public science? Or, we should change the way patents work (2).

(2) This to me seems like a very reasonable question. Aside from patent wars that might hurt your favorite smartphone os vendor, there are real concerns. Drug companies are incentivized to create substances and methodologies that drastically improve the quality and duration of lives in both first and third world countries. On the other hand, intellectual property protection for drugs (until they become generics) does cost lives. But we shouldn't forget just how powerful those incentives are. All the awesome research done in university laboratories (one of which I work in) is nothing without the ability to take a drug from "lab-rat plausible" to "market-ready". Certainly patents don't exist to facilitate personal wealth. But just because they do generate wealth doesn't mean that their intended goal has been forgotten, short-term losses notwithstanding.

Even if we answered (1) and found PRC or Apple to be morally culpable, it misses the larger issue: if society feels that this girl, or others who benefit from patented technology should be allowed to use it, someone's got to pay. Either it's the companies and their investors (the obvious point: not just rich folks), or it's taxpayers through some form of state-sponsored licensing (edit: or some other state-funded mechanism). It's tremendously easy to blame only Apple and PRC (even if they did deserve it). It's a lot harder to put your money on the line, so that families like this one can solve a heartbreaking problem.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#63

Post by cynicalkane »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #62

There seem to be three parts: 1) Are PRC and Apple morally wrong for enforcing and not fighting patent claims? 2) Should patents work in a way that incentivizes PRC and Apple to behave this way? 3) Irrespective of (1) or (2) what can be done? (1) The answer to this is somewhat ambiguous for any company with investors. Sure, I want my companies to behave in morally responsible ways. On the other hand, there are hundre…

This would all be pertinent if the software patents in question were actually novel inventions worthy of protection.

One of the patents is for a "method for dynamically redefining the keys on a keyboard". I mean, come on.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#64

Post by surrealize »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

Ok, I've read it twice. I'm not sure I understand the argument. It reads like the argument is "This technology helps handicapped people so you shouldn't allow it to be patented." Is that a reasonable argument? PRC seems to have a valid patent, they sell a device the people in the article could use, Speak For Yourself infringed without a license and they are the good guys why? The patent argument would go, "PRC figure…

> PRC seems to have a valid patent, they sell a device the people in the article could use, Speak For Yourself infringed without a license and they are the good guys why?

The question of whether or not they've infringed is currently being litigated, so it's premature for you to say "Speak For Yourself infringed". And, therefore, it's premature for Apple to have removed the app. Does this mean you can take any app off of the store just by making a claim against it?

It's not just "uncharitable" for Apple; the action they took hurts people. And the "it's their playground" argument is getting old--yes, it's their playground, but it's perfectly reasonable for the rest of us to have (and discuss) our own opinions about how they run it.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#65

Post by prodigal_erik »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #21
earl wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

clicking glyphs on a screen and having a device speak the words the glyphs represent is patent worthy? It's a perfect parallel to ASL. And there's enough social utility that we should help companies gouge parents $8k a pop [1] instead of $400 ipad + $unknown for software? [1] http://store.prentrom.com/

"clicking glyphs on a screen and having a device speak the words the glyphs represent is patent worthy?" I wouldn't think so, this patent is #5,920,303 which relates to a way of making is easy and efficient to access a large vocabulary from a screen with limited space. Reading through the patent just now I wouldn't say it is particularly obvious that this would be the best way to go about things. Its got about 5 year…

Finding a patent triples your vulnerability to infringement claims, and since the USPTO is rubber-stamping overbroad garbage rather than sanely enforcing the novelty and non-obviousness requirements, the answer to "is this patented?" is basically always yes.

Edit: I'm not claiming that this particular patent is invalid (I can't safely read it, of course), only that invalid patents are so prevalent and dangerous that merely looking has a huge negative expected value for any practitioner.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#67

Post by cynicalkane »

asmithmd1 wrote: post #22
krschultz wrote: post #17

" To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts , by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;" - US Constitution Section 8 At the time of the writing of the Constitution something was needed to help spur innovation. It was written in the time of inventions like the cotton gin (easily copied 100x over by anyone who bought 1). But make no…

There are other alternatives. Have you ever wondered why bands are allowed to "cover" other bands music without any kind of prior permission? It is because the US Congress wrote something called a compulsory license into the copyright law. Music was thought too important to our culture to allow one person to have control over a new song. I say it is time we brought the idea of a compulsory license to patents.

Could you imagine having to pay a compulsory license to use something like Amazon's patented one-click ordering? There's nothing so horribly wrong with the patent model; there's something wrong with the system that decides one-click is worthy of patent protection.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#68

Post by monochromatic »

nl wrote: post #44
monochromatic wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> petty, pointless money Oh, you mean that same money that is literally the only reason that they provide these "essential" products?

Oh, you mean that same money that is literally the only reason that they provide these "essential" products? That simply isn't true. I know a lot of people who work on apps similar to this, or in related fields, and money is far from the only reason they do it. Infact, I know people who literally give away their work to make sure people can use it.

Yes, some people do. Not, however, Prentke Romich Company. (Which is perfectly fine of course.)

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#69

Post by asmithmd1 »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #62

There seem to be three parts: 1) Are PRC and Apple morally wrong for enforcing and not fighting patent claims? 2) Should patents work in a way that incentivizes PRC and Apple to behave this way? 3) Irrespective of (1) or (2) what can be done? (1) The answer to this is somewhat ambiguous for any company with investors. Sure, I want my companies to behave in morally responsible ways. On the other hand, there are hundre…

"or it's taxpayers through some form of state-sponsored licensing"

Why do you say taxpayers must pay the license fee? A company might be happy to pay a royalty on a patent but as it is now patent law allows a patent holder to prevent anyone from making or using a patented invention - in other words they could sue Maya directly for infringement. Music copyright law, which issues from the exact same clause in the constitution as patent law, provides for a compulsory license of any song. A band knows before hand exactly how much it will cost to "cover" someone's song.

If you are found to be infringing a patent your financial exposure is almost un-bounded. If there were a compulsory license provision in patent law like their is in music copyright, companies would know exactly how much they were risking if found to be infringing a patent

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#70

Post by asmithmd1 »

cynicalkane wrote: post #67
asmithmd1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other alternatives. Have you ever wondered why bands are allowed to "cover" other bands music without any kind of prior permission? It is because the US Congress wrote something called a compulsory license into the copyright law. Music was thought too important to our culture to allow one person to have control over a new song. I say it is time we brought the idea of a compulsory license to patents.

Could you imagine having to pay a compulsory license to use something like Amazon's patented one-click ordering? There's nothing so horribly wrong with the patent model; there's something wrong with the system that decides one-click is worthy of patent protection.

You would not be required but would have the privilege of licensing Amazon's patent. As it is now Amazon can prevent anyone from duplicating there patent for 20 years.
Post reply on HN