John VanSickle wrote:
> The person who discovers this algorithm has done just that, he has 
> *discovered* it.  The USC grants authority to protect the interests of 
> "Authors and Inventors," and not to discoverers.

I disagree. The person who "discovered" how to send motion pictures over the 
air, or who "discovered" how to record those signals reliably onto a piece 
of magnetic tape also simply "discovered the best way to do that."

The algorithms aren't sitting around waiting to be dug up out of the ground 
any more than the steps for turning five poisonous chemicals into a 
beneficial medicine are sitting around waiting to be "discovered".

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
     Is God willing to prevent phrogams, but not able?
       Then he is not omnipotent.
     Is he able, but not willing, to prevent phrogams?
       Then he is malevolent.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   Isn't there a constitutional right to get free legal defence?

> Only in criminal cases. I.e., if the government arrests you and threatens to 
> put you in jail, then the presumptions are that the government (a) has so 
> many more resources than any individual could muster and (b) is supposed to 
> be working for the people anyway, so you get the free lawyer if you want.

> If Company A says Company B owes them money, then no, Company B doesn't get 
> any lawyers for free.

> Once again, it's protection from the government and not so much from each 
> other that's written into the constitution.

  So if a company sues you and you have no money to hire a lawyer, you lose
automatically regardless of whether you are guilty or not?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   So if a company sues you and you have no money to hire a lawyer, you lose
> automatically regardless of whether you are guilty or not?

Or a lawyer will take it on contingency. Usually what you do in that case, 
assuming the company suing you doesn't have a good reason to do so, is you 
counter-sue the company for your expenses in defending the suit.

In any case, I don't know for sure how that all works. I just know it isn't 
in the constitution. :-)

Remember that all this "the company sues you" is state laws, so there are at 
least 53 different ways it can play out (50 states, district of columbia, 
federal rules that override state laws, and whatever territories we still 
have that aren't states).

But yeah, if you're too broke to hire a lawyer, chances are good you're too 
broke to be worth suing, too.  Plus, if the amount of money is small enough 
(like, $1000-$10,000 is the range of limits) then neither side gets to have 
a lawyer. That's "small claims court" you might have heard mentioned.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
     Is God willing to prevent phrogams, but not able?
       Then he is not omnipotent.
     Is he able, but not willing, to prevent phrogams?
       Then he is malevolent.

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:32:59 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> They still search these things using filing cabinets and punch cards
> don't they?

I don't believe so - there's several publicly accessible PTO database 
search engines; IBM used to have one (don't know if they do any more) and 
I believe Google does as well now.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:35:01 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> I've never seen a UNIX system that would say "you can't delete that
> file, but do you know the password to any of these accounts that are in
> the same group as that file? If so, type it in."  That would be user
> friendly, and UNIX doesn't like user friendly. ;-)
> 
> Actually, it's more like a leak of security information you probably
> shouldn't be leaking. That's a joke.

That's an interesting view, actually - "you don't have permission to do 
this so authenticate as one of these users" does seem like a security 
breach to me - since it tells a hacker who they need to authenticate as 
in order to do 'x', the hacker can concentrate on that account.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:39:33 -0300, Nicolas Alvarez wrote:

> Warp wrote:
>> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>> Which doesn't happen with sudo, since there's only one privileged
>>> account.
>> 
>>   Actually you can create different accounts in unix, which may belong
>>   to
>> different groups which have different access privileges, and then you
>> can use sudo to perform a command with the privileges of any of those
>> accounts (not just the root account).
>> 
>>   (Granted, I don't know if graphical sudos allow you to do this in any
>> system, but at least the command-line version does.)
> 
> And there's even something called "PolicyKit" that lets you elevate
> enough privileges to execute one particular operation, instead of
> getting full- blown root access.

Yes, as well as things like SELinux and AppArmor which provide MAC.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:36:19 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> Trouble is, as I understand it, in the US the winner is always the side
> with the most money, regardless of the facts of the issue.

Not always the case, but certainly often is.  I know there are cases 
where the underdog has won in a patent infringement suit.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:00:03 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> But yeah, if you're too broke to hire a lawyer, chances are good you're
> too broke to be worth suing, too

That hasn't stopped RIAA....

Jim

Post a reply to this message

>> But yeah, if you're too broke to hire a lawyer, chances are good you're
>> too broke to be worth suing, too
> 
> That hasn't stopped RIAA....

Different motivation.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson wrote:
> the hacker can concentrate on that account.

User-friendly is always in counterpoint to secure. No way around it.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
     Is God willing to prevent phrogams, but not able?
       Then he is not omnipotent.
     Is he able, but not willing, to prevent phrogams?
       Then he is malevolent.

Post a reply to this message