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Even experts get it wrong
31–40 of 147 posts
Re: Even experts get it wrong
#32I keep on hearing about the Eastern Texas courts that are consistently plaintiff friendly. Just seems messed up that you could sue someone wherever it's most convenient for you.
This American Life did a show recently (in the past year) about patent trolls (focusing on Intellectual Ventures): http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/w... Their explanation of the venue choice was that the other federal courts were choked with drug-related cases and going to East Texas was a way to get a speedier trial.
Thanks for mentioning this! I'll take a look when I have some time.
Re: Even experts get it wrong
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Bad Javascript idiom you won't find in many other languages. It's not an idiom, and identity tests exist in other languages. You may know them as "==" (Java), "is" (Python), "eq?" (Scheme) or "object.ReferenceEquals" (C#). Now the syntax is ugly and this does not excuse the fucked up non-overridable equality, but aside from that `===` works pretty well in Javascript. As opposed to PHP, which famously did manage to…
This is irrelevant, but it blows my mind that "[1] == [1]" returns False in JS.
I'm "ok" with that, it's a property of non-overridable equality tests, where arrays are "standard objects" (with natively implemented lots of things, but still objects) rather than built-in magical special cases of the language (although there are still things done by arrays I don't think you can do without recent extensions to the spec, such as
js> var a = []
js> a[42] = 3
3
js> a.length
43
It bothers me significantly more that
[1] == 1
Re: Even experts get it wrong
#34Re: Even experts get it wrong
#35What I don't get, and I hope somebody can enlighten me here is this: Isn't Mojang a swedish company, registered in Sweden? How can the US patent law apply to Sweden since Sweden has a different patent law?
For example, I have my company in Germany, where it's (almost) impossible to get a patent for software patents. So if a greedy patent troll in Texas decides that one of my apps infringes their patents, can they even sue since my company is obviously in Germany? Or can they only stop me from selling in the US? (which would be a huge drawback, of course).
How is such a situation handled?
Re: Even experts get it wrong
#36What I don't get, and I hope somebody can enlighten me here is this: Isn't Mojang a swedish company, registered in Sweden? How can the US patent law apply to Sweden since Sweden has a different patent law? For example, I have my company in Germany, where it's (almost) impossible to get a patent for software patents. So if a greedy patent troll in Texas decides that one of my apps infringes their patents, can they eve…
If you're selling to the US (as Mojang is), then you can be bought to trial there.
Re: Even experts get it wrong
#37Notch knocking down a strawman frontpages on HN.
This isn't even close to being a strawman. The argument put forward by Ric Richardson, Inventor is a bad one but that doesn't mean he intended it to be. On the contrary, Ric Richardson, Inventor intended it to justify predatory action against a real inventor and belittle anyone who has a problem with that.
It gets my goat to hear people like this talk about others "stealing" technology they "invented". What these parasites invent is paperwork, the purpose of which is legalized extortion from people who really do invent things. They brazenly label themselves The Innovators to win the sympathy of a public (especially legislators and juries) who don't know enough to tell that they are frauds.
Re: Even experts get it wrong
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to mention Uniloc doesn't even have technology. They do not create or sell software.
I was going to respond by playing devil's advocate and defending Ric and Uniloc. But a quick glance at their site proves you absolutely right. Here are some gems: Uniloc's surprising honesty: >And it fits our straightforward development model. Look at many ideas. Pick an outstanding one. Patent it. Commercialize it. Reap the rewards. Uniloc's vast knowledge of technology: >After all, Bell Labs did develop some fairly…
These are the same people whose patent claim addresses Mojang's well-known product Mindcraft, so a little illiteracy obviously isn't costing them much on the bottom line.
Re: Even experts get it wrong
#39> Patents are there to stop people stealing a technology you invented and letting you have a fair shot at making a living from it. Patents are quite explicitly not there to stop people "stealing a technology". You can already do this by keeping your invention secret (which many jurisdictions grant some form of protection). The purpose of patents is to encourage inventors to publicly disclose their inventions so that…
I keep hearing this "purpose of patents", and while it's a common belief today, I don't know that it really fits in with what historically has been the purpose of patents. Much 19th century writing on patents and intellectual property saw them as fundamental property rights that protect the fruits of one's labor.
I wouldn't say 'much.' The issue was about as controversial then as it is now. The controversy surrounding the 'Statute of Anne' around that time (being a little loose with 'around') is particularly informative.
Regardless, American 'intellectual property' law (which is the set being applied here) exists explicitly for the public good (that is, it's written into the constitution as such). The authors thereof debated the upsides and downsides of the whole idea quite a lot too, so we have a fair bit of insight into their thought process.
Re: Even experts get it wrong
#40ITT: Angry nerds who have no idea what they are talking about.