POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : Excellent news! Server Time
6 Sep 2024 17:19:00 EDT (-0400)
  Excellent news! (Message 1 to 9 of 9)  
From: Warp
Subject: Excellent news!
Date: 11 Nov 2008 17:02:04
Message: <491a00dc@news.povray.org>
With all the later development of big companies getting more and more
control over intellectual property at the cost of individuals, it's really
refreshing to read something going to the opposite direction:

http://www.itexaminer.com/us-court-throws-out-most-software-patents.aspx

-- 
                                                          - Warp


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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: Excellent news!
Date: 11 Nov 2008 17:48:46
Message: <491a0bce$1@news.povray.org>
Warp wrote:
>   With all the later development of big companies getting more and more
> control over intellectual property at the cost of individuals, it's really
> refreshing to read something going to the opposite direction:

Very cool. Contrary to the last sentence, I don't think Microsoft's or 
Oracle's primary value is in its patent portfolio. :-) I may be wrong 
there tho. I haven't seen much news about MS enforcing its patents on 
people. (Threatening, perhaps.)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)


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From: Nicolas Alvarez
Subject: Re: Excellent news!
Date: 11 Nov 2008 18:00:52
Message: <491a0ea4@news.povray.org>
Darren New wrote:
> Very cool. Contrary to the last sentence, I don't think Microsoft's or
> Oracle's primary value is in its patent portfolio. :-) I may be wrong
> there tho. I haven't seen much news about MS enforcing its patents on
> people. (Threatening, perhaps.)

http://www.microsoft.com/iplicensing


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From: Warp
Subject: Re: Excellent news!
Date: 11 Nov 2008 18:12:07
Message: <491a1146@news.povray.org>
Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   With all the later development of big companies getting more and more
> > control over intellectual property at the cost of individuals, it's really
> > refreshing to read something going to the opposite direction:

> Very cool. Contrary to the last sentence, I don't think Microsoft's or 
> Oracle's primary value is in its patent portfolio. :-) I may be wrong 
> there tho. I haven't seen much news about MS enforcing its patents on 
> people. (Threatening, perhaps.)

  Btw, on the subject of intellectual property, I recently read an
interesting article about why fair use is actually important for
consumers. (Sorry, I can't remember where the article was anymore.)

  Most people think that "fair use" is just a certain amount of liberties
people get to use parts of someone else's intellectual property, as long
as it's "fair" (ie. not stealing nor benefiting from it). In other words,
it's just a leeway. However, fair use is important for slightly different
reasons.

  For example, product reviews (such as for example book or video game
reviews) fall (in most countries) under fair use, even though most reviews
use copyrighted and trademarked material (such as for example screenshots,
quotes and trademarked terms). This is important from the consumer's point
of view because if they didn't fall under fair use, companies could sue
any reporter who made a negative review of their product for copyright and
trademark infringement. This would make impartial and objective product
reviews on popular media an impossibility. Basically reporters could only
make positive reviews, or not any at all. Thus people would have hard time
getting information from impartial sources before they decide if they will
buy the product or not.

  Likewise quoting copyrighted material or photographs and using trademarked
terms is usually considered fair use in historical textbooks and other media
of historical documentary type. Without this right, writing history books
and creating historical documentaries could be seriously hindered by greedy
companies, and this could end up hurting the entire humanity in the long run,
as significant events in history could perhaps be lost if they are not
properly recorded.

-- 
                                                          - Warp


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From: John VanSickle
Subject: Re: Excellent news!
Date: 11 Nov 2008 21:12:27
Message: <491a3b8b$1@news.povray.org>
Warp wrote:
>   With all the later development of big companies getting more and more
> control over intellectual property at the cost of individuals, it's really
> refreshing to read something going to the opposite direction:
> 
> http://www.itexaminer.com/us-court-throws-out-most-software-patents.aspx

The article finishes with "only the nimble will survive," but it really 
should have said, "Only the companies selling stuff we actually want to 
pay for will survive."

Regards,
John


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From: Invisible
Subject: Re: Excellent news!
Date: 12 Nov 2008 04:03:52
Message: <491a9bf8$1@news.povray.org>
John VanSickle wrote:

> The article finishes with "only the nimble will survive," but it really 
> should have said, "Only the companies selling stuff we actually want to 
> pay for will survive."

PWN3D!

Of course, if only it were actually that simple...


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From: Warp
Subject: Re: Excellent news!
Date: 12 Nov 2008 10:41:46
Message: <491af93a@news.povray.org>
John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> The article finishes with "only the nimble will survive," but it really 
> should have said, "Only the companies selling stuff we actually want to 
> pay for will survive."

  Patent trolls deserve to die. :)

-- 
                                                          - Warp


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From: Nicolas Alvarez
Subject: Re: Excellent news!
Date: 12 Nov 2008 17:09:48
Message: <491b542c@news.povray.org>
#fsf

<PovAddict>
http://www.itexaminer.com/us-court-throws-out-most-software-patents.aspx
\o/
<sinuhe> PovAddict: That article is misleading. The court didn't throw out
the patents.
<PovAddict> so "Much of the patent portfolio of some of the world's biggest
software companies has become worthless overnight" isn't true?
<sinuhe> No. There is the potential threat, though. Read the groklaw
reference.
<sinuhe> The article you quoted was written by a journalist that needs to be
slapped for telling white lies for the sake of a gripping headline.


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From: somebody
Subject: Re: Excellent news!
Date: 13 Nov 2008 09:50:39
Message: <491c3ebf$1@news.povray.org>
"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:491a00dc@news.povray.org...

>   With all the later development of big companies getting more and more
> control over intellectual property at the cost of individuals, it's really
> refreshing to read something going to the opposite direction:
>
> http://www.itexaminer.com/us-court-throws-out-most-software-patents.aspx

Nothing to get overexcited about. That case was not about software patents
but a business method or somesuch. Software patents still satisfy the
patentability clause when formulated as affecting a state change (and they
are).


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