[ale] Ale Digest, Vol 145, Issue 9

Wed May 16 04:09:37 EDT 2007

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Today's Topics:

1. Re: Segue from MS threatening the community (Jeff Lightner)
2. Re: Segue from MS threatening the community (JK)
3. Re: Segue from MS threatening the community (David Tomaschik)
4. Re: Segue from MS threatening the community (Thompson Freeman)
5. free monitor and computer disposal (deritchie at earthlink.net)
6. Re: free monitor and computer disposal (Stephen R. Blevins)
7. Re: Segue from MS threatening the community (Brian Pitts)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 14:46:13 -0400
From: "Jeff Lightner" 
Subject: Re: [ale] Segue from MS threatening the community
To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts" 
Message-ID: <99E6A67A9DA87041A8020FBC11F480B301ADBE5F at EXVS01.dsw.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I remember back when Lotus was successfully winning "copyright" suits
over "look and feel" against others who were making spreadsheet
products. Somewhere along the way they lost out (probably to MS-Excel
which even has an option for Lotus 123 menus). M$ didn't get huge in
word processing over word perfect because they were the best or in
spreadsheets over Lotus for that reason - they got their through
"patently" monopolistic practices.

M$ has a long history of bullying people to get its way so this really
shouldn't come as a surprise. What it does however is bespeak the
success of Linux by showing how worried they are now. 

This is what comes of W dropping the anti-trust case against M$ when his
admin took office. M$ thumbs their noses at EU court decisions and
continues business as unusual in the U.S. 

Of course M$ will not actually sue the companies selling Linux and OSS -
they'll find a few big corporations (but not so big they can fight back
easily) to make examples of for using it.

All the above of course being my own not so humble opinion.

________________________________

From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Rev.
To: ale at ale.org
Johnny Healey
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 1:24 PM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [ale] Segue from MS threatening the community

Virtually anything can be patented in the US, including the user
interface. One-Click is a good example of this; you don't need to see
the source code to know that the patent has been violated.

On 5/15/07, Thompson Freeman wrote:

All the harrumphing and such about MS announcing patent
infringement leads me to a question which should be asked 
of a lawyer, but I'll ask it here. How do you show patent
infringement by software without the source code?

Ok. That marks me as legally simple minded, but I am
curious about the concept.

Thanks for the bandwidth 
_______________________________________________
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Message: 2
Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 12:49:30 -0600
From: JK 
Subject: Re: [ale] Segue from MS threatening the community
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts 
Message-ID: <464A00BA.20103 at kneuro.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed

Rev. Johnny Healey wrote:

> Virtually anything can be patented in the US, including the user interface.
> One-Click is a good example of this; you don't need to see the source code
> to know that the patent has been violated.

IATotallyNAL, but I suspect that, while this may appear to be the
current state of affairs, it doesn't reflect legal reality. For
example, it's my belief based on, basically, me reading Groklaw
a lot, that reverse engineering has always been explicitly
*permitted* under US patent law. IOW, if you can figure out how
to do what a patented product does, more power to you, as long
as you don't actually *copy* the patented product.

I suspect that something like One-Click, which takes the average
web-aware developer about 75 milliseconds to "reverse engineer",
should qualify as "obvious" even under the current US patent regime,
and therefore shouldn't have been granted at all. The strategy of
choice seems to be, "file patents (pat. pending) for everything (pat.
pending) in sight (pat. pending), and count (pat. pending) on the
patent office review process (pat. pending) to drop (pat pending)
the ball (pat. pending) sufficiently often that you get a few
granted."

I think there are a few ideas in software that legitimately
deserve(d) patent protection (for a brief period!). The notion
of function calls implemented by a stack, for example, is
brilliant, fundamental, and not totally obvious if you don't
already know about it. However, most software behavior, if
you describe it to an experienced developer, she'll be able
to think of two or three implementations for that behavior
in ten minutes or so. Such things ought not to be patentable,
IMO.

-- JK

-- 
"What can be asserted without evidence can also be
dismissed without evidence." -- Christopher Hitchens

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 15:06:22 -0400
From: David Tomaschik 
Subject: Re: [ale] Segue from MS threatening the community
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts 
Message-ID: <464A04AE.7040002 at webgroup.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

In many cases, the patent office pretty much grants any patent that
comes with the right paperwork and fees, under the assumption that IF it
ever comes to a legal issue then the courts will deal with determining
if the patent is valid. Just look at the number of patents that have
been invalidated by the courts on the case of prior art or obviousness.
The patent 'examiners' seem to be little more than paper-pushers who
don't know the difference between paper and reality.

What's more is that, IMO, being able to patent something without a
workable demonstration is evil. In fact, all those Intellectual
Property companies that make money off of nothing but licensing should
be shut down. If you want to make money from an idea, fine, but then
you should produce the idea. Knowledge is not a product.

David

JK wrote:
> Rev. Johnny Healey wrote:
> 
>> Virtually anything can be patented in the US, including the user interface.
>> One-Click is a good example of this; you don't need to see the source code
>> to know that the patent has been violated.
> 
> IATotallyNAL, but I suspect that, while this may appear to be the
> current state of affairs, it doesn't reflect legal reality. For
> example, it's my belief based on, basically, me reading Groklaw
> a lot, that reverse engineering has always been explicitly
> *permitted* under US patent law. IOW, if you can figure out how
> to do what a patented product does, more power to you, as long
> as you don't actually *copy* the patented product.
> 
> I suspect that something like One-Click, which takes the average
> web-aware developer about 75 milliseconds to "reverse engineer",
> should qualify as "obvious" even under the current US patent regime,
> and therefore shouldn't have been granted at all. The strategy of
> choice seems to be, "file patents (pat. pending) for everything (pat.
> pending) in sight (pat. pending), and count (pat. pending) on the
> patent office review process (pat. pending) to drop (pat pending)
> the ball (pat. pending) sufficiently often that you get a few
> granted."
> 
> I think there are a few ideas in software that legitimately
> deserve(d) patent protection (for a brief period!). The notion
> of function calls implemented by a stack, for example, is
> brilliant, fundamental, and not totally obvious if you don't
> already know about it. However, most software behavior, if
> you describe it to an experienced developer, she'll be able
> to think of two or three implementations for that behavior
> in ten minutes or so. Such things ought not to be patentable,
> IMO.
> 
> -- JK
> 

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 16:14:09 -0400
From: Thompson Freeman 
Subject: Re: [ale] Segue from MS threatening the community
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts 
Message-ID: <1179260049l.1363l.0l at intel.digichem.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; DelSp=Yes; Format=Flowed

On 05/15/2007 03:06:22 PM, David Tomaschik wrote:
> In many cases, the patent office pretty much grants any
> patent that
> comes with the right paperwork and fees, under the
> assumption that IF it
> ever comes to a legal issue then the courts will deal with
> determining
> if the patent is valid. Just look at the number of
> patents that have
> been invalidated by the courts on the case of prior art or
> obviousness.

A friend of mine has six or seven patents, all assigned to 
his employer of course. Every one of them was turned down 
at least once, only to be granted after being hammered in 
the head with more paper. Admittedly, these patents are 
chemical, not software, so there may be some differences 
here, but my impression is that the patent examiners and 
the patent office are working under a system rigged to make 
them idiots. IMHO of course.

> The patent 'examiners' seem to be little more than
> paper-pushers who
> don't know the difference between paper and reality.
> 
> What's more is that, IMO, being able to patent something
> without a
> workable demonstration is evil. In fact, all those
> Intellectual
> Property companies that make money off of nothing but
> licensing should
> be shut down. If you want to make money from an idea,
> fine, but then
> you should produce the idea. Knowledge is not a product.

Amen. Patent trolls steal from the mouths of usefully 
creative people. Competition should be in the marketplace, 
not courtrooms.

> JK wrote:
> > Rev. Johnny Healey wrote:
> >
> >> Virtually anything can be patented in the US, including
> the user interface.
> >> One-Click is a good example of this; you don't need to
> see the source code
> >> to know that the patent has been violated.
> >
> > IATotallyNAL, but I suspect that, while this may appear
> to be the
> > current state of affairs, it doesn't reflect legal
> reality. For
> > example, it's my belief based on, basically, me reading
> Groklaw
> > a lot, that reverse engineering has always been
> explicitly
> > *permitted* under US patent law. IOW, if you can figure
> out how
> > to do what a patented product does, more power to you,
> as long
> > as you don't actually *copy* the patented product.
> >
> > I suspect that something like One-Click, which takes the
> average
> > web-aware developer about 75 milliseconds to "reverse
> engineer",
> > should qualify as "obvious" even under the current US
> patent regime,
> > and therefore shouldn't have been granted at all. The
> strategy of
> > choice seems to be, "file patents (pat. pending) for
> everything (pat.
> > pending) in sight (pat. pending), and count (pat.
> pending) on the
> > patent office review process (pat. pending) to drop (pat
> pending)
> > the ball (pat. pending) sufficiently often that you get
> a few
> > granted."
> >
> > I think there are a few ideas in software that
> legitimately
> > deserve(d) patent protection (for a brief period!). The
> notion
> > of function calls implemented by a stack, for example,
> is
> > brilliant, fundamental, and not totally obvious if you
> don't
> > already know about it. However, most software behavior,
> if
> > you describe it to an experienced developer, she'll be
> able
> > to think of two or three implementations for that
> behavior
> > in ten minutes or so. Such things ought not to be
> patentable,
> > IMO.
> >
> > -- JK
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> 
> 

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 17:44:08 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
From: deritchie at earthlink.net
To: ale at ale.org
Subject: [ale] free monitor and computer disposal
To: ale at ale.org
Message-ID:
<28573880.1179265448383.JavaMail.root at elwamui-mouette.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

The county governments have been sponsoring periodic recycling days,
which are ran by Atlanta Recycling Solutions (www.arsrecycling.com). 
I have gotten rid of truckloads of scrap computers with these folks at
these events, all at no charge.

------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 17:57:32 -0400
From: "Stephen R. Blevins" 
Subject: Re: [ale] free monitor and computer disposal
To: deritchie at earthlink.net, Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts 
Message-ID: <464A2CCC.6000106 at worldnet.att.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed

Per Google, the corrected URL is: http://www.arsrecycle.com/

deritchie at earthlink.net wrote:
> The county governments have been sponsoring periodic recycling days,
> which are ran by Atlanta Recycling Solutions (www.arsrecycling.com). 
> I have gotten rid of truckloads of scrap computers with these folks at
> these events, all at no charge.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>
> 

-- 
Stephen R. Blevins
srblevi at worldnet.att.net

------------------------------

Message: 7
Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 18:08:22 -0400
From: Brian Pitts 

Subject: Re: [ale] Segue from MS threatening the community
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts 
Message-ID: <1179266902.7044.7.camel at powerbook>
Content-Type: text/plain

On Tue, 2007-05-15 at 12:49 -0600, JK wrote:
> IATotallyNAL, but I suspect that, while this may appear to be the
> current state of affairs, it doesn't reflect legal reality. For
> example, it's my belief based on, basically, me reading Groklaw
> a lot, that reverse engineering has always been explicitly
> *permitted* under US patent law. IOW, if you can figure out how
> to do what a patented product does, more power to you, as long
> as you don't actually *copy* the patented product.

Also NAL, but it's my understanding that reverse engineering is
permissible to reproduce a product protected by trade secrets, but not
by patents. You don't have to reverse engineer a patented product to
figure out how to do what it does, since that's what the parent tells
you.

http://www.chillingeffects.org/reverse/faq.cgi#QID201

-Brian

------------------------------

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End of Ale Digest, Vol 145, Issue 9
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