11-26-2004, 12:00 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Patent Holders Goes on Lawsuit Rampage: Film at 11!
"Though it's not a usual part of the Thanksgiving tradition, this year you might pause to give deep and gracious thanks to lawyers. Particularly lawyers who, out of the goodness of their hearts, help downtrodden little inventors who get hoodwinked out of their patents by big, pitiless tech corporations. Who knew there were so many hoodwinkees? They've been coming out of the woodwork lately, aided by lawyers filing patent lawsuits against nearly every major tech company."
This is a must-read article: I knew there were some crazy patent suits out there, but to see so many collected in one place is nauseating. Something is so incredibly wrong with the world when people are issued vague patents and are able to threaten the very infrastructure that many of us rely on to earn a living. Where did they hire the people who approve these patents from?
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11-26-2004, 12:24 AM
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Mystic
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 1,911
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I hate it when people do that. What ever happened to making an honest living?
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11-26-2004, 01:22 AM
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Pupil
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 22
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The patent office is funded by the fees paid by people applying for patents. Spot the obvious problem.
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Mike Dimmick
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11-26-2004, 01:39 AM
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2000 Posts And This is All I Get?
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 2,017
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Back in 1990, I have this idea about 'search engine', an engine that can catalog the content of internet.
Where did I put the patent approval documents ?
 just kidding
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11-26-2004, 02:41 AM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,468
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I have the patent on making patents - I expect to be a billionaire soon...
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11-26-2004, 03:10 AM
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Mystic
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,768
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These kinds of suits are typically thrown out with a 'prior art' argument. Then, if the defendant is smart, challenges the legitimacy of the patent in court and then the patent gets put down. The justice system typically does a good job... the only way it could be better is if the loser paid the court/legal costs.
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Jonathan (JonnoB)
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." -Edmund Burke
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11-26-2004, 03:21 AM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 172
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Patent Stupidity
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Originally Posted by JonnoB
These kinds of suits are typically thrown out with a 'prior art' argument. Then, if the defendant is smart, challenges the legitimacy of the patent in court and then the patent gets put down. The justice system typically does a good job... the only way it could be better is if the loser paid the court/legal costs.
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It would be even better if the stupid patents weren't filed in the first place, of course.
Did Amazon start this madness, or did it exist before their patent that got everyone in an uproar? (If I recall correctly, it was for one-dick ordering.)
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11-26-2004, 04:00 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Re: Patent Stupidity
Quote:
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Originally Posted by bvkeen
(If I recall correctly, it was for one-dick ordering.)
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NICE TYPO! :lol:
You know, I kind of thought Jeff Bezos was one of those for trying to enforce that patent. :lol:
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11-26-2004, 05:16 AM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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A friend of mine was a patent examiner at the USPTO, until he quit out of frustration (among other things).
Even if they're smart (and he is), it's nearly impossible to know everything, and they have a quota they must meet, so invariably stupid things are going to get through. It's a problem of sheer volume, and the problem started when software patents were allowed. If software patents were allowed 20 years ago, I shudder to think what our technological world would be today.
--janak
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11-26-2004, 06:13 AM
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2000 Posts And This is All I Get?
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 2,017
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What kind of quota ?
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Linear Mode
