401–410 of 510 posts
There's a subtle-but-sneaky way to play this game. Put in a patent application. Abandon it. Congratulations, your patent is now going to come up in any competent patent examiner's initial search as "potential prior art". Patent the core technology (the "you have to do it this way" stuff), but salt the earth around it so nobody can get a patent on the sub-optimal alternatives. Also leave subtle but important details o…
I met/had a similar experience with Google ATAP in 2013 (was Motorala ATAP then; Google recently bought them) though not for a job interview but to discuss working together to build our tech SpeakerBlast into the Moto X. They asked if we ever thought about selling our technology to them before the meeting and at the meeting they baited us for how our tech worked saying we'd like to work with you tell us how it works.…
This is a level of douchiness I cannot fathom. What possesses these people to act in this fashion and how do they sleep at night? How is this not seen as clearly unethical behavior? A clear violation of Wheaton's Law, here. I mean... I could easily take that lollipop from that naïve baby in that baby carriage... but I don't, simply because I'm Not A Dick™. Did all of Silicon Valley get the wrong takeaway from the App…
Not saying private companies can't engage in heinous shenanigans either, they sure can.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do elite decision makers, CEO's, boards of directors, make decisions that will certainly have adverse effects, that will literally kill people (eg. Trafigura), just to make more profit? Despite the fact that they are all already individually multi-millionaires and could not really materially improve their lives with more money? I've ruminated on this. I think the only reason that could explain such excess is comp…
I've tended to think that a lot of it is about different social circles. If everyone you know makes $50-100k/yr, you feel fine making that yourself, and may not even be sure what you'd do with a million dollars. If your social circle is full of millionaires and multi-millionaries, all of the sudden making a million feels like barely getting by and you think about all of the cool stuff you see people around you gettin…
It could just be people independently working on the same things, as is common in technology.
For the purpose of a patent, that doesn't help. "Independent creation" is a valid defense for copyright, but not for patents. Something cannot be patented if prior art exists before the filing of the patent. It doesn't matter if you knew about it. Even if you can prove that the prior art is not something you were aware of at the time you filed for a patent, your patent is invalid. That's how patents are supposed to w…
There are innumerable ways to implement an electronic book each novel and non-obvious way could qualify for its own patent.
If your country has "democratic" in the name it's probably not democratic. If your major has "science" in the name it's probably not science. If your company has "don't be evil" in its motto...
So Computer Science is Engineering?
If your country has "democratic" in the name it's probably not democratic. If your major has "science" in the name it's probably not science. If your company has "don't be evil" in its motto...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's sneaky and underhanded and shady and evil. Let's use a different real-world example. An acquaintance shows me an "attic treasure" that I know is worth at least $20k on the open market. Do I offer them $100 and not tell them what it might really be worth? Does it depend on how well I know them? In my case, even if I did not know the person at all and never expected to interact with them again (basically, the reci…
> (even though the particulars on how it's possible to not be zero-sum still escape me and hurt my head). If I have a hamburger patty and a hot dog bun, and you have a hot dog bun and a hamburger patty, we both win if we trade (it's not zero-sum). You can generalize this across more than one party and more than two goods pretty easily.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If people can't use the disclosures then the system serves virtually no purpose. That's not quite true - although disclosure is an often argued benefit of the patent system, there are very few inventions that cannot be copied once a working item is in someone's hands, so a formal disclosure is not necessarily required to be able to build upon and extend existing work. But even without disclosure, when appropriate p…
Yes, I was a little terse there: what I meant was the system serves little purpose for the demos who maintain it. The deal is that the inventors get their monopoly in return for the disclosure. So, without any benefit on the side of the public then their would be no purpose in maintaining the system. Of course it also serves the public to encourage inventors by giving them a limited exclusive use. But primarily when…
Yes.
> But primarily when instigated the purpose is a mutual benefit that is best embodied by education of the public arena as to the mechanisms and working of an invention.
This is the debate - how significant is the "education" aspect in promoting progress and public benefit? Is incentivizing new creation sufficient to promote progress without the (lacking) education aspect?
Then the whole question of whether the limited monopolies really create those incentives or just magnify profits that would already exist and open the door for abuse.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> (even though the particulars on how it's possible to not be zero-sum still escape me and hurt my head). If I have a hamburger patty and a hot dog bun, and you have a hot dog bun and a hamburger patty, we both win if we trade (it's not zero-sum). You can generalize this across more than one party and more than two goods pretty easily.
Assuming no caloric difference between the buns and between the meats, the perceived increase in value is purely aesthetic/intangible though!
Aesthetic value is still value. Most people would prefer not to eat Nutraloaf three meals a day.