[Mark]

On Jul 18, 4:38*pm, wrote:
On Jul 19, 4:35 am, wrote:





The reason patents have 20 years (USA) is that the slowness of the
patent office had gotten really bad and patents were extended by 3
years to compensate for the delay. Patents not long ago had only 17
years. And when you have to file for your patent within one year of
disclosure and yet the complete development of the idea to become
marketable make take years, one can easily argue that even 20 is not
enough. Many drugs require 5 years of testing to come to market. This
eats up a good chunk of the 20 years!

I understand about drugs, but not about other inventions. Delay in
issuing is to the inventor's benefit. A patent's life begins when it
issues, not when it is filed. If a patent took three years from filing
to issue, that was three years of "Pat. Pending" protection in addition
to the statuary 17. Now, inventions get 23 years of protection.

Drugs are of course the easy example. But there are other issues.
Stating your product is patent pending only allows you to sue for
infringment after your patent is issued. I know of some situations
where the you put out a product and then quickly the imitators, using
your idea, follow you to the market and by the time the patent is
issued the market is gone. Yes at this point you can sue the infringer
or even sue the purchasers of the infringing product, but by this time
the money will be gone. *To reduce the time delay, when you file, you
plunk down the money for an expedited application. This is where the
costs go up significantly for your patent since you now have to pay an
attorney to do a proper patent search. Most little guys can't afford
this process. Where I work now, we can't afford the delay and
therefore ante up the money for the faster method.

Certainly for most of what we are doing 20 years is likely more than
enough for us to consume the market. But other things such as
Seaborg's patent for Americium (assigned to U Cal in Berkely) likely
didn't make any money because the commercial application for Am did'nt
come around for many years after the invention of the element itself -
its current main use is in smoke detectors. His patent has one of the
tersest claims I've seen. He simply claims the element!

Similar scenarios (long delay from invention to product) occur with
plant patents (i.e., farming) and now the commercial fruits (pardon
the pun) for recombinant DND take many years to mature qafter the
genesis of the basic techniques.

So the proper number of years, I would say, is quite nebulus and
highly dependent on the invention itself. *This is not unlike the
problems with static speedlimits on highways without regard to weather
and time of day and other traffic safety affecting conditions.

Clay

I just feel that what is good for musical scores should also apply to
patents - nothing more. If you write an excellent piece of software
for example why should the owner not benefit to his/her death just as
the musician? I am looking for equality only.You cannot put one above
the other. It's not as if these composers are short of a bob or two in
any case.

K.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

crossposting to rec.audio.pro

[Richard Corfield[_3_]]

On 2008-07-18, Mark wrote:
On Jul 18, 4:38*pm, wrote:

I just feel that what is good for musical scores should also apply to
patents - nothing more. If you write an excellent piece of software
for example why should the owner not benefit to his/her death just as
the musician? I am looking for equality only.You cannot put one above
the other. It's not as if these composers are short of a bob or two in
any case.

crossposting to rec.audio.pro

Why should any of them benefit to their deaths? If I were a plumber and
plumbed a very good kitchen sink do I expect to be paid until my death?
A car mechanic? Any other type of job really? If I could be paid until
death for a month's work rather than having to work another month for
another month's pay....

What does paying people up to their death gain for society that the
original 15 year limit did not? Doesn't it hinder society? After all
the copyright was just an incentive, considered a fair trade for society
to give control over the art work for a LIMITED time. The phrasing of
the American original definitions of copyright and patent recognised
that society was giving up something that was its right rather than that
ownership of an idea was a fundamental right. The whole discussion has
become so twisted.

So what of patents? In the software world that has gone mad because
patents are more abstract. A piece of software is covered by copyright
and currently does have the very long term. That protects the source
code and the object code. It does not protect the basic idea or things
like the file format. Not long ago it was not possible to patent such
things and that was good for the industry. Companies could compete with
each other. They could work to read each other's file formats allowing
users a migration path. Now thanks to file format patents that is being
blocked.

Software patents are like patenting the abstract concept of opening a
bottle of wine. In the hardware world you can patent your individual
corkscrew, but that doesn't stop someone else making a different
corkscrew. Hardware patents for corkscrews are more like copyright
but shorter lived. The ability to own an abstract idea like "opening a
bottle of wine", the kinds of things we see in the software world, prevent
anyone else even approaching the problem. Software patents are so broad
that the software patent equivalent of opening a bottle of wine would
probably even stop someone smashing the top off against a wall. The cost
of arguing that in court is prohibitive making such patents a nuisance.

Bill Gates once said

"If software patents existed 20 years ago there would be no Microsoft.
We'd have not been able to even start to enter the market."

The Internet, Newsgroups, all this we are using only exist because they
were open shared formats without patents. They are free for anyone to
use. Some of the other technology at the time was technically superior,
but proprietary interests prevented it being widely used. If the core
technologies of the internet had been patented we'd have no internet
today.

I believe it's clear that software patents harm society.

- Richard

[Don Pearce]

Richard Corfield wrote:
On 2008-07-18, Mark wrote:
On Jul 18, 4:38 pm, wrote:
I just feel that what is good for musical scores should also apply to
patents - nothing more. If you write an excellent piece of software
for example why should the owner not benefit to his/her death just as
the musician? I am looking for equality only.You cannot put one above
the other. It's not as if these composers are short of a bob or two in
any case.

crossposting to rec.audio.pro

Why should any of them benefit to their deaths? If I were a plumber and
plumbed a very good kitchen sink do I expect to be paid until my death?
A car mechanic? Any other type of job really? If I could be paid until
death for a month's work rather than having to work another month for
another month's pay....

What does paying people up to their death gain for society that the
original 15 year limit did not? Doesn't it hinder society? After all
the copyright was just an incentive, considered a fair trade for society
to give control over the art work for a LIMITED time. The phrasing of
the American original definitions of copyright and patent recognised
that society was giving up something that was its right rather than that
ownership of an idea was a fundamental right. The whole discussion has
become so twisted.

So what of patents? In the software world that has gone mad because
patents are more abstract. A piece of software is covered by copyright
and currently does have the very long term. That protects the source
code and the object code. It does not protect the basic idea or things
like the file format. Not long ago it was not possible to patent such
things and that was good for the industry. Companies could compete with
each other. They could work to read each other's file formats allowing
users a migration path. Now thanks to file format patents that is being
blocked.

Software patents are like patenting the abstract concept of opening a
bottle of wine. In the hardware world you can patent your individual
corkscrew, but that doesn't stop someone else making a different
corkscrew. Hardware patents for corkscrews are more like copyright
but shorter lived. The ability to own an abstract idea like "opening a
bottle of wine", the kinds of things we see in the software world, prevent
anyone else even approaching the problem. Software patents are so broad
that the software patent equivalent of opening a bottle of wine would
probably even stop someone smashing the top off against a wall. The cost
of arguing that in court is prohibitive making such patents a nuisance.

Bill Gates once said

"If software patents existed 20 years ago there would be no Microsoft.
We'd have not been able to even start to enter the market."

The Internet, Newsgroups, all this we are using only exist because they
were open shared formats without patents. They are free for anyone to
use. Some of the other technology at the time was technically superior,
but proprietary interests prevented it being widely used. If the core
technologies of the internet had been patented we'd have no internet
today.

I believe it's clear that software patents harm society.

- Richard


Suppose you were not a plumber, but made baths. Someone could pay you
for the first bath you made, but after that you would be expected to
send them to people for nothing. That would be nice.

d

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Sat, 19 Jul 2008 08:22:11 +0100, Richard Corfield
wrote:

I just feel that what is good for musical scores should also apply to
patents - nothing more. If you write an excellent piece of software
for example why should the owner not benefit to his/her death just as
the musician? I am looking for equality only.You cannot put one above
the other. It's not as if these composers are short of a bob or two in
any case.

crossposting to rec.audio.pro

Why should any of them benefit to their deaths? If I were a plumber and
plumbed a very good kitchen sink do I expect to be paid until my death?
A car mechanic? Any other type of job really? If I could be paid until
death for a month's work rather than having to work another month for
another month's pay....

If your property is "real" - a house maybe - you have perpetual
ownership and can rent it out as long as anyone wants to live in it.

However "intellectual" property - a musical work, a book - is taken
away from you after a certain number of years.

Justify the difference?

[Jerry Avins]

Richard Corfield wrote:

...

Why should any of them benefit to their deaths? If I were a plumber and
plumbed a very good kitchen sink do I expect to be paid until my death?
A car mechanic? Any other type of job really? If I could be paid until
death for a month's work rather than having to work another month for
another month's pay....

That's a red herring. When I worked for pay, everything I created
belonged to those who paid me.

...

Jerry
--
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

[hank alrich]

Richard Corfield wrote:

I believe it's clear that software patents harm society.

Similar arguments can be made for/against any type of patent. Drug
patents help society? Etc.

--
ha
Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam

[Richard Corfield[_3_]]

On 2008-07-19, Don Pearce wrote:

Suppose you were not a plumber, but made baths. Someone could pay you
for the first bath you made, but after that you would be expected to
send them to people for nothing. That would be nice.

I would expect to be paid my time and materials and a little profit for
making the bath, or I may sell it at a fixed price ready made from the
big pile in my warehouse. In that case I'd have to compete with other
bath makers - after all making a bath is not infinitely cheap like
copying an MP3 so the situation is different.

I didn't say that copyright shouldn't exist. I said that it had gone out
of balance. Once upon a time 15 years was thought incentive enough.

If I was the first person to think of containing the water in a vessel
so we didn't have to wash in the local river (if we washed at all),
should I have a long lasting ownership of that basic idea? That and the
shower pretty much tie up cleaning oneself. Even the person who comes
up with the bed bath or the bathroom sink I could threaten with lawsuit
because of their infringement of my "containing the water in a vessel
so I can wash idea. That is where software patents are now.

- Richard

[Richard Corfield[_3_]]

On 2008-07-19, Laurence Payne wrote:

Why should any of them benefit to their deaths? If I were a plumber and
plumbed a very good kitchen sink do I expect to be paid until my death?
A car mechanic? Any other type of job really? If I could be paid until
death for a month's work rather than having to work another month for
another month's pay....

If your property is "real" - a house maybe - you have perpetual
ownership and can rent it out as long as anyone wants to live in it.

However "intellectual" property - a musical work, a book - is taken
away from you after a certain number of years.

Justify the difference?

Intelectual "Property" is a misnomer. It's not property in any sense.
It's a trade between you and the government for a time limited right.

My ownership of my house does not stop someone building an identical
house next door (planning permission might) and renting it.

- Richard

[Richard Corfield[_3_]]

On 2008-07-19, Jerry Avins wrote:
Why should any of them benefit to their deaths? If I were a plumber and
plumbed a very good kitchen sink do I expect to be paid until my death?
A car mechanic? Any other type of job really? If I could be paid until
death for a month's work rather than having to work another month for
another month's pay....

That's a red herring. When I worked for pay, everything I created
belonged to those who paid me.

When you wrote your music what happened to the physical or recorded
copy?

Some of our jobs are also creative. Should we own the way we do things?

- Richard

[Richard Corfield[_3_]]

On 2008-07-19, hank alrich wrote:
Richard Corfield wrote:

I believe it's clear that software patents harm society.

Similar arguments can be made for/against any type of patent. Drug
patents help society? Etc.


I've encountered arguments for and against those, especially things like
gene patents which are more controversial because genes are things we
naturally have and carry.

Patents were always a compromise. My argument is that compromise is
being forgotten and replaced with the property mentality.

Apparently there's a wonderful drug that could cure so many cancers.
It's not being developed because it cannot be patented. That problem
makes you wonder where the balance is.

- Richard

[Les Cargill]

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Sat, 19 Jul 2008 08:22:11 +0100, Richard Corfield
wrote:

I just feel that what is good for musical scores should also apply to
patents - nothing more. If you write an excellent piece of software
for example why should the owner not benefit to his/her death just as
the musician? I am looking for equality only.You cannot put one above
the other. It's not as if these composers are short of a bob or two in
any case.

crossposting to rec.audio.pro
Why should any of them benefit to their deaths? If I were a plumber and
plumbed a very good kitchen sink do I expect to be paid until my death?
A car mechanic? Any other type of job really? If I could be paid until
death for a month's work rather than having to work another month for
another month's pay....

If your property is "real" - a house maybe - you have perpetual
ownership and can rent it out as long as anyone wants to live in it.


This may or may not be true. It depends on the legal traditions
where the land is located. And it's never without some sort of
tax structure to pay for the protection of the property.

If you don't make the tax payments, you lose the land. So it's
not an absolute.

However "intellectual" property - a musical work, a book - is taken
away from you after a certain number of years.

Justify the difference?

They're justified by the accretion of case law. Roughly, governments
primarily exist to protect property rights and provide for
defense of them. That started with land and has been extended to IP.

--
Les Cargill

[Mike Rivers]

Don Pearce wrote:

Suppose you were not a plumber, but made baths. Someone could pay you
for the first bath you made, but after that you would be expected to
send them to people for nothing. That would be nice.

Totally absurd example. A better example would be that you made baths.
Someone buys the first one you made, makes a thousand just like it, and
offers them for sale for half what yours cost. Would anyone buy another
one from you? That's what patents are about.

Music copyright is a different story. Suppose you write a song and
record a dreadful version of it that nobody buys except George Martin
who takes it to this new band he's producing called The Beatles, they
put it on their record doing it their way, and their record is a million
seller. Are you entitled to a share of the profit? Probably. Are you
entitled to the share of the profit on records that are still selling 20
years after it first came out? That's probably when The Beatles (whoever
the entity is now) should stop sharing the profit because it's not
selling because it's your song they chose to record, it's selling
because it's their record.

But try to put that argument to a struggling songwriter, or even one who
had a hit that's still going for 90 years, and you'll get no sympathy.

--
If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach
me he
double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo -- I'm really Mike Rivers
)

[Jerry Avins]

Richard Corfield wrote:
On 2008-07-19, Jerry Avins wrote:
Why should any of them benefit to their deaths? If I were a plumber and
plumbed a very good kitchen sink do I expect to be paid until my death?
A car mechanic? Any other type of job really? If I could be paid until
death for a month's work rather than having to work another month for
another month's pay....
That's a red herring. When I worked for pay, everything I created
belonged to those who paid me.

When you wrote your music what happened to the physical or recorded
copy?

My engineering notebook was the property of my employer.

Some of our jobs are also creative. Should we own the way we do things?

If you are paid to do those things, they belong to the one who paid you.
An architect is pais well, but his client owns both the building and the
plans. (Most architects negotiate the right to keep and use copies of
the plans they are paid to create.

Jerry
--
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Sat, 19 Jul 2008 22:10:41 GMT, Mike Rivers
wrote:

Music copyright is a different story. Suppose you write a song and
record a dreadful version of it that nobody buys except George Martin
who takes it to this new band he's producing called The Beatles, they
put it on their record doing it their way, and their record is a million
seller. Are you entitled to a share of the profit? Probably. Are you
entitled to the share of the profit on records that are still selling 20
years after it first came out? That's probably when The Beatles (whoever
the entity is now) should stop sharing the profit because it's not
selling because it's your song they chose to record, it's selling
because it's their record.

That's not an argument for or against intellectual property rights -
you're admitting that SOMEONE should continue to profit. You're just
questioning how it's shared between writer and performer.

[jwvm]

On Jul 19, 5:24*am, Laurence Payne wrote:

snip
If your property is "real" - a house maybe - you have perpetual
ownership and can rent it out as long as anyone wants to live in it.

However "intellectual" property - a musical work, a book - is taken
away from you after a certain number of years.

Justify the difference?

The idea behind intellectual property protection via patents and
copyright is that in exchange for a limited government-granted
monopoly, the creator of the work agrees that the work will enter the
public domain after a designated period. This provided sufficient
motivation to the creator and has been very successful. However, it is
not clear how much Walt Disney is motivated by extending the length of
copyright for Mickey Mouse, especially since he is no longer with us.
Limited copyright worked very well in the past and there was no
justification for extending the length of copyright. Rest assured that
the media companies will go back repeatedly to congress and demand
that their monopolies be extended ad infinitum so creators have
sufficient motivation.

[Nick Delonas[_2_]]

In article BDtgk.94$X2.32@trnddc03, says...
Don Pearce wrote:

Suppose you were not a plumber, but made baths. Someone could pay you
for the first bath you made, but after that you would be expected to
send them to people for nothing. That would be nice.

Totally absurd example. A better example would be that you made baths.
Someone buys the first one you made, makes a thousand just like it, and
offers them for sale for half what yours cost. Would anyone buy another
one from you? That's what patents are about.

Music copyright is a different story. Suppose you write a song and
record a dreadful version of it that nobody buys except George Martin
who takes it to this new band he's producing called The Beatles, they
put it on their record doing it their way, and their record is a million
seller. Are you entitled to a share of the profit? Probably. Are you
entitled to the share of the profit on records that are still selling 20
years after it first came out? That's probably when The Beatles (whoever
the entity is now) should stop sharing the profit because it's not
selling because it's your song they chose to record, it's selling
because it's their record.

But try to put that argument to a struggling songwriter, or even one who
had a hit that's still going for 90 years, and you'll get no sympathy.


Is the law 75 years then public domain? It's something like that.

I think that's too long myself. It should be 50 years IMHO, if not
less. But 75 is reasonable -- covers the life of the creator in most
cases.

Disney Corp. gets no sympathy from me. Mickey Mouse belongs to all of
us now or he should.

--Nick

[Mike Rivers]

Laurence Payne wrote:

That's not an argument for or against intellectual property rights -
you're admitting that SOMEONE should continue to profit. You're just
questioning how it's shared between writer and performer.

I'm all for intellectual property rights. When an artist makes a song
his own, though, it's really not the original songwriter's any more,
it's more like a real product than intellectual property. The guy who
makes the bathtubs gets paid to sell them. The guy who designed the
bathtub 50 years ago should have designed something else by then.
Otherwise, he's not really a designer, he just got lucky (just like some
songwriters). Should luck be rewarded? I suppose so. People win lotteries.

--
If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach
me he
double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo -- I'm really Mike Rivers
)

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:29:17 -0700, Nick Delonas
wrote:

Is the law 75 years then public domain? It's something like that.

I think that's too long myself. It should be 50 years IMHO, if not
less. But 75 is reasonable -- covers the life of the creator in most
cases.

Why shouldn't the period cover the life of the creator in ALL cases?

[Mike Rivers]

Laurence Payne wrote:

Why shouldn't the period cover the life of the creator in ALL cases?

Why should it cover the period of life of the creator in ANY cases? The
idea of the royalty system (and its protection by copyright) is to
encourage creativity. If someone writes one song that's a big hit and
lasts a long time, where's the incentive to write another song if he's
collecting a decent wage from one for his whole life?



--
If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach
me he
double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo -- I'm really Mike Rivers
)

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Sun, 20 Jul 2008 11:16:34 GMT, Mike Rivers
wrote:


Why shouldn't the period cover the life of the creator in ALL cases?

Why should it cover the period of life of the creator in ANY cases? The
idea of the royalty system (and its protection by copyright) is to
encourage creativity. If someone writes one song that's a big hit and
lasts a long time, where's the incentive to write another song if he's
collecting a decent wage from one for his whole life?

I think you're reading too much moral intention into that law.

[Richard Corfield[_3_]]

On 2008-07-19, Les Cargill wrote:

However "intellectual" property - a musical work, a book - is taken
away from you after a certain number of years.

Justify the difference?

They're justified by the accretion of case law. Roughly, governments
primarily exist to protect property rights and provide for
defense of them. That started with land and has been extended to IP.

Is it valid to compare the recent increase in "IP" to the loss of common
land (at leas in the UK) all that time ago?

Supposedly we can thank the loss of common land for a lot. I'm not sure
if IP, or all forms of IP, will play out the same way.

- Richard

[Richard Corfield[_3_]]

On 2008-07-20, Laurence Payne wrote:

Why shouldn't the period cover the life of the creator in ALL cases?

Why should it cover the period of life of the creator in ANY cases? The
idea of the royalty system (and its protection by copyright) is to
encourage creativity. If someone writes one song that's a big hit and
lasts a long time, where's the incentive to write another song if he's
collecting a decent wage from one for his whole life?

I think you're reading too much moral intention into that law.

You're not saying our law makers are immoral are you?

I was under the impression that at the beginning there was moral
intention. After all, you'd just got rid of something that was meant to
be immoral. In the case of the US aren't the founding fathers seen as
moral? Their constitution is said to be what makes America morally
great.

- Richard

[Scott Dorsey]

Don Pearce wrote:

Suppose you were not a plumber, but made baths. Someone could pay you
for the first bath you made, but after that you would be expected to
send them to people for nothing. That would be nice.

On the other hand, suppose you made baths... and you could collect a
licensing fee every time someone took a bath in one of the tubs you made....
--scott

The copyright law was just and reasonable... it established that people who
did work would get paid for the use of that work. Then lobbying by Disney
repeatedly got the term of the copyright extended longer and longer... and
now it's not so reasonable any more. That's not a reason to throw the whole
thing out, but it might be a good reason to repeal the Millennium Copyright
Act and a couple other extensions.
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

Laurence Payne wrote:
wrote:

If your property is "real" - a house maybe - you have perpetual
ownership and can rent it out as long as anyone wants to live in it.

However "intellectual" property - a musical work, a book - is taken
away from you after a certain number of years.

Justify the difference?

Because intellectual property is different than real property in a lot
of other ways, including the fact that it can be easily duplicated. So
your right to profit can be taken away without your ability to use it.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

hank alrich wrote:
Richard Corfield wrote:

I believe it's clear that software patents harm society.

Similar arguments can be made for/against any type of patent. Drug
patents help society? Etc.

Software patents themselves are a good idea. It's important that when
people actually invent something new that they have the chance to profit
from their innovation. The short term of the software patent is reasonable
given the rapid innovation in the computer industry.

The current implementation of software patents is completely unworkable,
however, because none of the patent inspectors know a damn thing about
software or about current programming practice. Consequently, we get
folks like Microsoft patenting things like the ring buffer, which have
nearly fifty years of prior art, and getting away with it.

If the patent inspection process doesn't work, the patent process doesn't
work. If the PTO keeps hiring kids fresh out of school as patent inspectors,
the patent inspection process will never work.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

In article ,
Laurence Payne wrote:
On Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:29:17 -0700, Nick Delonas
wrote:

Is the law 75 years then public domain? It's something like that.

I think that's too long myself. It should be 50 years IMHO, if not
less. But 75 is reasonable -- covers the life of the creator in most
cases.

Why shouldn't the period cover the life of the creator in ALL cases?

Because the creator is sometimes not a single human being. This can
cause some severe problems in determining the patent length.

UK copyrights were for 75 years after the death of the author, and it can
be a nightmare determining what is in copyright there and what is not,
because you have to determine who the legal author is, and when he died.

Consequently all of Rudyard Kiplings' works are still in copyright, which
can be a major pain for people attempting to set his poems to music.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[anidealworld]

encourage creativity. If someone writes one song that's a big hit and
lasts a long time, where's the incentive to write another song if he's
collecting a decent wage from one for his whole life?


The incentive comes in when the song's popularity fades and he no
longer makes enough money on it to fill up the tank in his H2. But he
shouldn't have to give up rights to it just because the poplarity of
it fades either. And if he still makes good money from it for a
while, good for him (or more likely these days shame on us for buying
it).

[Richard Corfield[_3_]]

On 2008-07-21, anidealworld wrote:

The incentive comes in when the song's popularity fades and he no
longer makes enough money on it to fill up the tank in his H2. But he
shouldn't have to give up rights to it just because the poplarity of
it fades either. And if he still makes good money from it for a
while, good for him (or more likely these days shame on us for buying
it).

Wouldn't it be good if now the popularity has faded someone else can
take it and make something good out of it? We could produce some quite
interesting stuff this way.

Wouldn't it be good if a whole plethora of useful devices for things
like time shifting or format shifting were readily available rather than
either crippled to uselessness or not created for fear of legal attacks
from the media industry?

We're protecting the interests of one vocal set of people at the cost
of harming the interests of so many others.

- Richard

[Ron Capik]

Richard Corfield wrote:

On 2008-07-21, anidealworld wrote:
..snip.....
Wouldn't it be good if now the popularity has faded someone else can
take it and make something good out of it? We could produce some quite
interesting stuff this way.

Wouldn't it be good if a whole plethora of useful devices for things
like time shifting or format shifting were readily available rather than
either crippled to uselessness or not created for fear of legal attacks
from the media industry?

We're protecting the interests of one vocal set of people at the cost
of harming the interests of so many others.

- Richard

Is the copyright system the problem or is it the licensing and
performance rights/royalties system that's problematic?

Performance rights organizations like BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, etc.
perform the duty of collecting royalties for non-dramatic performances
of "intellectual property" but how are the royalties disbursed?

Copyrights (long or short) have little value to the average weekend
or semi-pro artist who's running under the media industry's radar.
However, get caught doing a derived work from millennium old
corporate owned item and you're screwed.

Golden Rule: He who has the gold...
[ and then gets more gold. ]


Later...

Ron Capik cynic-in-training
--

[Mike Rivers]

Richard Corfield wrote:

Wouldn't it be good if now the popularity has faded someone else can
take it and make something good out of it? We could produce some quite
interesting stuff this way.

This option is always available. It's called a license (compulsory, if
necessary). Sure, the copyright holder gets a cut, but there's still an
opportunity to make a successful product. Lots of people are making
money recording Bob Dylan's songs. Otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.

We're protecting the interests of one vocal set of people at the cost
of harming the interests of so many others.

Isn't that how politics always works?

--
If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach
me he
double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo -- I'm really Mike Rivers
)

[Richard Corfield[_3_]]

On 2008-07-21, Mike Rivers wrote:

This option is always available. It's called a license (compulsory, if
necessary). Sure, the copyright holder gets a cut, but there's still an
opportunity to make a successful product. Lots of people are making
money recording Bob Dylan's songs. Otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.

Maybe that's needed in patents too, thought the times can be brought
shorter.


We're protecting the interests of one vocal set of people at the cost
of harming the interests of so many others.

Isn't that how politics always works?


Unfortunately. And we have things like a software patent not long ago on
precalculating trigonometric functions. I wonder if it was defeated. My
copy of the BBC Micro Assembler Guide from quite a few years before the
patent was filed contained sample code to do just that - though it's an
obvious thing to do anyway.

From more recent news

Channel Intelligence is suing everyone from Lemonade to Remember
the Milk for infringing on patent 6,917,941, which covers storing a
wishlist in a database

Well Duh! There's this concept called Wish List which has been around for
a while, and well we think we need one as it's a nice thing to have. How
shall we implement it? I know. We'll use this thing called a database
which is designed to store lists of things really really well and is in
fact the standard industry approach to this kind of problem. Given as
any computer storage could be called a database even if it consists of
flat files this covers wish lists on computers in any form.

If you read the patent itself it covers any list stored in a database
and accessed remotely through a program designed to access the list.

I'm still wondering how a company has a patent on the concept of analog
joysticks. I was using one on my BBC Micro back in the early 80s so any
patent from then should have expired. Even then, that was just 2 variable
resistors and a stick. Fine you can patent your particular model, but the
basic idea of analog joystick should not be patentable so it should be
possible in an ideal world for Nintendo to slightly change the design
of their joystick to work around it. Apparently other companies like
Microsoft license this patent.

Now what other obvious ideas can we patent?

It would be like patenting the concept of "Love Song" in the music
industry. Some laywer apparently tried to patent the concept of "Detective
Novel". Presumably not successful, whether because of all the prior art
I don't know.

If Microsoft's lobbyists got their way and the patent system were
to switch to a "First to file" rather than a "first to invent" then
presumably this laywer would be able to trump Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
and Agatha Cristie by beating them to the patent office?

When personal greed takes over politics. Even capitalism is meant to
make a _fair_ playing field.

- Richard

[Mark]

Now what other obvious ideas can we patent?



Push to talk...

Mark

[Scott Dorsey]

In article ,
Mark wrote:

Now what other obvious ideas can we patent?

Push to talk...

I almost got a patent on a box with a switch on it that disconnects
your Ethernet physically so you can work securely. However, the company
for whom I developed it decided not to pursue the patent after all.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Richard Crowley]

"Mark" wrote ...
Now what other obvious ideas can we patent?

Push to talk...

6,360,093

[Richard Corfield[_3_]]

On 2008-07-23, Richard Crowley wrote:
Now what other obvious ideas can we patent?
Push to talk...
6,360,093

And I thought you were joking!

- Richard

[hank alrich]

Richard Corfield wrote:

On 2008-07-23, Richard Crowley wrote:
Now what other obvious ideas can we patent?
Push to talk...
6,360,093

And I thought you were joking!

"Next?!?"


g

--
ha
Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam

[Richard Crowley]

"hank alrich" wrote...
"Next?!?"

paper clip

wheel-barrow

[Chris Hornbeck]

On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:32:23 -0700, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

"hank alrich" wrote...
"Next?!?"

paper clip

wheel-barrow

Breathing.

[Richard Corfield[_3_]]

On 2008-07-25, Chris Hornbeck wrote:

"hank alrich" wrote...
"Next?!?"

paper clip

wheel-barrow

Breathing.

In defense of having allowed an Australian to patent the Circular
Transport Facilitation Device (wheel) the Australian patent office said
"It would be thrown out in court". Still, the cost and threat of court
cases is quite a powerful club to hit competitors with, even over a wheel.

There's a patent in America for "Technique of swinging on a swing". I
think you infringe if you pull on alternate chains to move sideways. This
is something that a lot of kids practice at some point in the playground
making them all little thieves in the rhetoric on Intellectual Property.

Has your child stolen anything today?

Yes - the idea of swinging sideways on a swing.

When I was a kid it was more shop keepers being worried about sweets
going missing.

- Richard

[William Sommerwerck]

There's a patent in America for "Technique of swinging on a swing".
I think you infringe if you pull on alternate chains to move sideways.

A patent can only be infringed if it is used commercially.

It's hard to believe that such a patent was granted, as any examiner with
0.1 gram of common sense would have recognized that the technique has been
common knowledge as long as there have been swing sets.