On 5/17/2010 3:02 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Good example, from the video.
>
> That was a stupid video. Giving them names isn't what made it patentable.
>
>
> That's like saying "Mixing together chemicals to get a new chemical
> isn't patentable. But specifying *what* chemicals you mix together *is*
> patentable! How stupid is that?"
>
> The patentable part wasn't "describing the data and mixing it together."
> The patentable part was "determining compatibility".
>
> Just like "discrete log isn't the patentable part. Using it to do public
> key encryption is the patentable part." You can still use discrete log
> for any other purpose.
>
> Now, granted, the patent system may or may not be working. But that
> video is disingenuous in describing *what* part of the system is patented.
>
> I have a patent on sending email. It's for sending email in a certain
> pattern for a certain purpose. That doesn't mean sending email is patented.
>
Whether you agree with the video or not, the fact is, often the patents 
are not much *less* vague that the sentence you just used to describe 
them, and, they are damn close to unlimited, in a medium where half of 
them may be of little or no use at all within 5 years. Mind, that 
assumes they are specific. Its possible for one to be vague enough that 
they apply to thing they where never intended to, thus "accidentally" 
making them still useful. Its practically what is intended at this point.

And, no, as the video points out, as long as you don't use the "same" 
data, or the same names, you could, more or less, do the same thing. 
There are more than one site using "compatibility" stuff like it, they 
just are not using the same "specific" ones. Which makes it even more 
damn silly. Because, in this case, you accidentally stumble over the 
exact same criteria, you infringe? Oh, wait, sorry.. You would have had 
to a) read about, b) visited their site, or c) otherwise been anything 
but fracking completely blind, and therefor even remotely aware that 
they had a patent, and what it covered, to "infringe". So.., how exactly 
do you avoid infringing, with that kind of stacked deck? Give me a break.

You may disagree if the video got it 100% right, but you have to 
seriously be a narcissist to fail to grasp that the system has changed 
recently, and that everyone *except* the companies with huge stock piles 
of patents, see them as a detriment (and even a few that do have them 
see them as a pain in the ass too), and its precisely because of the 
mind field like nature of how many there are, and how they are both 
written and interpreted, *as well as* how little effective review takes 
place in determining if they should even be provisionally approved, let 
alone made official.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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