111–120 of 285 posts
That's not new. It's exactly what Intellectual Ventures was (or is?) doing.
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I'm pretty sure that if you rewrote Harry Potter from scratch with new names and wording (redoing the implementation) and published that, you would still get in trouble. So copyright is somewhat broader than you think.
Nope, it's not a violation of copyright.
It isn't clear to me whether that only covers works in a foreign language that claim to be translations of some other work, or whether it would apply to any foreign-language work that duplicates the plot of an earlier copyrighted work.
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That's a one-sentence action that's brushed over in the article. I see nothing suggesting it's novel or effective, and I don't have enough knowledge of patent suits to decide that.
There are at least two other tactics that are novel. The article as a whole indicates that this novel approach is effective.
Good point. Cloudflare should patent them!
[1] http://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/attorney-general-s-...
[2] http://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=19.350&full=true
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Land mines are a much better metaphor for patents than nuclear weapons are. Say what you will about the evils of nuclear warfare, but we haven't seen any world wars lately, and nuclear weapons are to thank for that state of affairs. Patents (and land mines) are a lot less useful to society.
> Say what you will about the evils of nuclear warfare, but we haven't seen any world wars lately, and nuclear weapons are to thank for that state of affairs. It seems disingenuous to assume that the way it happened is the only way it could have happened. MAD exchanged the near-certainty of world war for a coin-flip between mostly-peace and total annihilation. We can certainly be happy that we lucked out on the coin-…
The real concern is the ascendance of leaders who don't care if they die, or whose religion assures them that they'll come out on the winning side of Armageddon. But the analogies with patent law run out of steam well before reaching that point.
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I'm pretty sure that if you rewrote Harry Potter from scratch with new names and wording (redoing the implementation) and published that, you would still get in trouble. So copyright is somewhat broader than you think.
Nope, it's not a violation of copyright.
Republishing single sentences has previously been found to be a copyright violation, and copyright has been granted on as few as three notes. On the other hand (to pick a recent example), 50 Shades of Grey, originally written as a Twilight fan-fiction (derivative by definition) was never pursued for copyright violation (AFAIK).
I've noticed a Techcrunch comment that makes this fight about software patents and states that forbiding them would be a good solution. I think that's a very wrong view to take. The software patent fight is worth fighting, but do not conflate the two issues. Abuse by patent trolls or non-practicing entities can happen even without software patents. The law patch that shuts down patent trolls will have no effect on so…
Software patents are pointless and the only reason we still have them is it takes Congress forever to catch up with innovation. Patent trolls know this and are capitalizing on the period where they can shake down others while they still can.
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I don't think many do conflate the two, I think most people just don't see value in software patents. Software is great because it has no cost to copy, so when someone creates a new algorithm it can be put in use everywhere applicable rapidly. This pace of advancement is so awesomely powerful that many do not appreciate how much positive change it can bring or how different the world was just a few years ago. An adva…
It's not clear to me why such a hard distinction is drawn between software and hardware patents. The usual argument for this separation is that "software patents are just math", but then aren't hardware patents are just physics (which, ultimately, is also just math)? It feels like there's no clear line here, and whatever benefits, if any, are to be derived from patents, they apply equally to either side of it. Basica…
Some people feel that since there is no copying cost, software favors the little guy more than with physical goods, so normal patent protection doesn't provide an benefit. These people claim that a big big evil corporation could start making a million of their widget per month and out compete them, but with software this cannot happen per their arguments. I think these people acknowledge that both physical and software patents get abused and are imperfect but feel that physical patents provide enough gain to offset their downsides.
I disagree with those people completely. I am unaware of ANY actual evidence that patents help.
Someone should figure out a way how to put these extortionists in prison for protection racket.
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I disagree with that. Because then companies just keep new developments as trade secrets – I want to push them to patenting everything, which would require them to open up the entire technology to the public a few years later. If you protect trade secrets, companies will never release them to the public – as in the Waymo case.
If you don't patent, you lose the ability to go after others if they independently create the same invention or reverse engineer your product. And if you fail to properly document your use and someone else patents it, you could lose the rights to your invention altogether. Keeping something important as a trade secret has enough risk already.