How to stop Piracy?

You are clearly cluess WRT the patent process.

It ceartainly wouldn't be, since you *do* have to show workability (at minimum no physical laws broken).

Your cenario is impossible anyhow. Please do play agian.

IIRC, it *WAS* death + 25 years. MM has extended tat to 75, IIRC.

I *DON'T* know the answer here. I can imagine some patentable ideas in software (processes, even business process are), but I'm not "at one" with this. Let's just say that I don't understand it well enough, and raise that objection every time I have to pass judgement on a software disclosure. Needless to say, I've never submitted one.

Not having read the entire patent, I can't say (and I wouldn't since I'm not paid to), but at first blush it does look silly. I may add this to my silly_patent_file though (along with the cat LASER pointer and toilet queueing system).

Later...

What you are still missing is that the legal determination of ownership is practically immaterial until someone tries to enfoce an ownership right. Only then does it matter - until then, everyone is free to do whatever they want. You seem to have inordinate difficulty in understanding this, despite it being part of the present form of US law. In many cases it's even true of physical property that there are no impediments to unauthorised use until someone who asserts an ownership claim objects to that use.

It might suprise you to hear this, but I'm not really advocating changing the structure of the present system at all. All I am really doing is reminding those who've forgotten that the legal status of intellectual property is not the same as physical property, and then suggesting that it would be better if the ownability of and ownership rights to this 'idea property' were slightly narrower than they have recently become.

Compared to your wild misreadings, my positions are downright conservative - they suggest very, very minor adjustments to the status quo. Your arguments however seem to indicate a severe misunderstanding of the present nature of the world - you confuse the absolute ownership of intellectual property you wish existed, with the more limited ownership which actually does exist.

Before anyone jumps to conclusions, "no impediments to unauthorised use" does not rule out retroactive penalties or royalties for the use which took place before the objection was raised and any related ruling on ownership was decided. Sometimes the scope of the damages may be dependent on if the infringer was or should have been aware that what they were doing was infringing. But it's quite rare that government will proactively prevent someone from doing something because they can't prove that they own the involved intellectual property or that there action won't infringe someone else's owernship right to an intellectual property. The real trial of an owernship claim comes only after that claim has been used as a basis to attempt action against an alleged infringer.

Don't foget this one.

these rules aren't enforced for software. software/algorythms that claim to do the impossible are patentable, eg: United States Patent 5488364

Bye. Jasen

Method of swinging on a swing Document: United States Patent 6368227 Abstract: A method of swing on a swing is disclosed, in which a user positioned on a standard swing suspended by two chains from a substantially horizontal tree branch induces side to side motion by pulling alternately on one chain and then the other.

my brother and I used to do that, but we had two swings supported by a metal beam and would sit astride and swing towards each other like a game of "chicken"

We agree!! :)

Language can be trademarked and copyrighted..

Wow indeed. I'm surprised that nobody can defend IP laws without resorting to name calling. How about a logical argument supporting your assertions? I guess it's harder than I thought.

If I'm a common thief for copying a book, than the library must be organized crime. They're giving away the information for free. In fact, that's why your suggested business plan above doesn't work very well.

But libraries don't "deprive authors of their rightful income", any more than a supermarket also deprives those authors of their rightful income - by taking peoples money that could be going to the authors. Used book dealers also don't take money from the author.

Competition is not theft!

- shevek

I'm aware of the current laws, yes.

He is in violation of copyright law, yes. But he is not a thief in my opinion. If I was a juror I would declare him innocent.

I entirely agree with you on the status of the law currently. My point is that this law may be in need of serious changes, being inherently of the nature of many laws which place central government in charge of industry instead of allowing free market forces decide. I'm saying, lets consider the libertarian or free-market ideal for this question.

Take your Coke sign. The government decides what you are and aren't allowed to paint on a paper. To scratch on the ground. Is that the kind of world we want our children to grow up in? Is that kind of big-brother really needed by CC corp. in order to make just profits?

Bottlers of water with and without flavorings can sell a good product to us for a good price and stay in business. The arrival of competion, means that the original seller is going to have to work a little harder to stay on top. While he suffers, consumers benefit as the prices will go down. As a producer of a new product you should know that if some gizmo is selling well it will be reverse-engineered and others will try to sell it too. You have that much time to press your time advantage due to you having the idea first, learning how to build it, etc. If we can't stay ahead of the game and innovate enough to make our products new and/or attractive against competition.. then I say we should go out of business.

I could perhaps argue a defense of Socialism and IP laws.. want to switch sides?

Actually, libertarians are divided on the issue of the proper degree (if any) of IP protection.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

OK, the teleportation was not a good idea. Something else that hasn't been invented but certainly looks possible - or just is invented but in a very young stadium - and patent its use with say computyers, or with whatever other technology you think will fly (wireless? optical?).

My point is that I invent nothing: I merely take the effort to take two separate things from separate fields and combine them. How to do that, and what to achieve exactly, I leave as excercise to the reader.

Well,

Even if it IS an invention (or it WAS when it was filed) it shows the problem: independent invention is no excuse. And it means that somebody somewhere who writes software as a hobby can be liable for a lot of money.

In other fields this is less severe. A carpenter may unknowingly violate a patent, but he is operating on a small scale and will not be noticed. Software's zero cost of replication changes that (would happen to the carpenter if he published his drawings, I suppose).

Requiring a legal department for everyone is what I don't like.

Thomas

I'm

my

pulling

Did you publish?

My brother and I would swing double (one standing, one sitting) on the swing at the school across the road from my grandparents' farm and try to go all the way around the bar.

Never made it, or we might have had a patentable method ourselves.

The public group of consumers may wish to purchase the original product, for whatever reason. It is therefore in the public interest to allow only the original producer to use a original distinctive trademark.

Ok, but it's the linguists job to study language and perhaps its history, not invent it. But true, one you copyright a language if you're its author. You can even keep it as a trade secret, for all the good it'll do. So?

No name calling. A simple statement of fact.

Now who's pulling out the adhominem artillery? The fact remains that you openly advocate theft of property, and are a thief.

Try copying an entire book at the library some time. Do look up the copyright laws before you do so though.

It is when you sell their property without compensation. You may own the deat tree the ideas are transferred on. No one may own the ideas, but the author owns the expressions of the ideas. If you copy those ideas and sell them you've stolen property from the author.

Yes, and yes. The patent houses could be transformed into the role of any other public journal.. IEEE transactions for example.

Alas, proof in a mathematical sense is impossible in economics and social science. Which of my arguments do you find not persuasive?

An interesting argument! You defend IP law, by saying it allows one to compete fairly in a marketplace which alread has IP law?

it's

So that's a riduculous abuse of governmental power, I argue. Freedom of speech is more my speed.

Why don't you show what I stole? Put a tag on it marked "exhibit a".

That "fact" remains false.

Tell it to print.google.com. Easier to copy a book if you cut the binding off, but then you have to pay the library fees. Kind of a pain reading looseleaf photocopies though, isn't it. I'd gladly pay a publisher for a nice binding job instead.

Again, could put the property on exhibit for the court to see? I want to see this property you are accusing me of stealing. How much does it weigh? When did the plaintiff come into possession of this property?

Did I violate a contract that I had agreed to?

- shevek

OK, I'll use little words. What you create is yours. By default. By definition. Say, for example, your hair. You create it from oxygen, water, and protien. Right from scratch. Is it your hair, or does some nebulous authority own it? Who owns you? Who owns your ideas?

Answer that question - I mean, name names! And maybe we'll have something to discuss.

Thanks, Rich

For many engineers the answer to who owns their ideas is their employer - it is often written into the employment contract.

Ian