Valve losses Steam controller patent lawsuit.

[sub68]

On 2/3/2021 at 5:14 PM, Doug_Dangger said:

Apple did patent rectangles with rounded corners.

breaking news razer is in a lawsuit from apple over ther blades

[wanderingfool2]

27 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

 I give as evidence the TIZIO lamp.  It’s a great desk lamp.  Much better design than spring arm lamps.  It’s based on weight and friction.  Springs wear out.  Weights don’t.  It does everything that a spring arm desk lamp does except it lasts multiple times longer than a spring arm lamp.  And they still cost a couple hundred bucks only because copywrite.  The thing is because the inventor was an artist he managed to get a copywrite rather than a patent.  Copywrite lasts a lot longer than patent. So the dude managed to squat on his design for a very long time. Spring arm desk lamps shouldn’t exist anymore.  Shouldn’t have for near 20 years.  They still do though because the dude effectively has a lifetime patent. 
 

So the problem is you’ll have entities attempting to get their device used for one thing classified as another thing so they can get a longer patent.

If you keep trying to make claims relating copyright to patents, at least show evidence....because spoiler alert....it's not an issue with it being a copyright holding people back.  The spring one is simply just more popular and mass produced which likely is why it's cheaper (feedback loops at it's finest).  A company, or individual could actually create their own lamp without having to pay royalties...they just aren't allowed copying the design itself.  (e.g. if they used a single rod they would likely avoid any copyright infringement...or if you tell someone who doesn't know about Tizio to create a counterbalanced lamp and they come up with something similar it wouldn't be enforceable).

 

If you don't believe me, Lite Source LS-306BLK, it can be had for $131...similar quality lamps from them costs about the same (LS-23046GREY at $116)...and this was done with very little research as well..

 

I think the issue here is that the way patent's are given, Steam would have effectively needed to show prior art (and not just a progression of prior art to the patent)...but actual prior art of what the patent covers...which is where patents really need to change.  The natural progression of thoughts should not be patentable.

[Bombastinator]

33 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

If you keep trying to make claims relating copyright to patents, at least show evidence....because spoiler alert....it's not an issue with it being a copyright holding people back.  The spring one is simply just more popular and mass produced which likely is why it's cheaper (feedback loops at it's finest).  A company, or individual could actually create their own lamp without having to pay royalties...they just aren't allowed copying the design itself.  (e.g. if they used a single rod they would likely avoid any copyright infringement...or if you tell someone who doesn't know about Tizio to create a counterbalanced lamp and they come up with something similar it wouldn't be enforceable).

 

If you don't believe me, Lite Source LS-306BLK, it can be had for $131...similar quality lamps from them costs about the same (LS-23046GREY at $116)...and this was done with very little research as well..

 

I think the issue here is that the way patent's are given, Steam would have effectively needed to show prior art (and not just a progression of prior art to the patent)...but actual prior art of what the patent covers...which is where patents really need to change.  The natural progression of thoughts should not be patentable.

*sigh* it was a copywrite that should have been a patent.  It was an example of what happens when patents go on too long.  What I’m getting from you is “I’m declaring this thing to be verboten”. 

[wanderingfool2]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

*sigh* it was a copywrite that should have been a patent.  It was an example of what happens when patents go on too long.  What I’m getting from you is “I’m declaring this thing to be verboten”. 

No, it shouldn't be part of a patent (it's a simple counter-balance)...it justly fits under copyright as well.  You clearly don't understand the differences between copyrighting a work and patenting an invention.  The design/look itself is copyrighted, all it means is that people can't copy it.  People are more than allowed to create similar lamps (using the same concept of counter-balance).

 

If it had been patented, then no one would be allowed creating a counter-balanced lamp...so in a case like this, applying for a registered copyright is more beneficial to the public than applying for a patent (because a patent would mean no one could make even something similar without paying royalties).

 

Your example is nonsensical to your argument, as copyrights != patents, you did nothing to show that they used copyright to suppress the market longer than a patent (i.e. you can find similar lamps for roughly the same pricing similar quality spring lamps), and the fact that by using copyright over patenting the concept meant there could be more competition.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

This is why patents were created in the first place.  Patents created the industrial revolution.  There was a period when there were no such things as patents.  This is what happened.  There was next to no innovation for literally hundreds of years.  

I doubt that's the case.

 

Patents should largely not exist on things that are not novel. If I glue googly eyes to things, and patent something and the adding googly eyes was the only thing differentiating it from the previous patent, there's nothing stopping someone from using the previous patent, but I, the one with the googly eye version could claim that anyone using the previous patent is still stepping on mine. That's drug patents in a nutshell.

 

Algorithm patents should not exist, because they're math. They're not inventions. If someone patented the switch statement in programming, then everyone uses if-else statements (which is really how the underlying assembly compiles it to anyway (jump if zero/if-not zero.)) 

 

So with those two categories, patents have largely prevented innovation by locking down the obvious solution in favor of inefficient alternatives. In the time period before the industrial revolution, the king of the country would lay claim to everything the peasants made, and just take what they wanted. You owned nothing, you were a tool in a toolbox for the king to use as they please. There are plenty of geo-political reasons why this was awful, and patents had nothing to do with it. There was also a time where you could just buy slaves and children to use as free disposable labor, that also had nothing to do with patents. We look back today and go, "wow, our ancestors were cruel", yet slavery still exists today as prison labor, and patents still get used to stifle innovation.

 

There is no reason why a corporation should own patents, trademarks or copyrights. These should be assigned to a living human, and for the corporation to use such IP, they must employ every human creator/inventor in a position that allows for that IP to be used. If that creator dies, the IP should expire immediately except when the IP has not come to market, in which case the IP is assigned to survivors until the product comes to market. Especially in the case of trademarks.

 

Everything below is hypothetical before someone skips ahead and nitpicks something.

 

eg:

Someone invents, magic tape. It replaces glue, and most other kinds of adhesives. Let's call this SuperTape(tm). The patent on how to make it is assigned to inventor A. The trademark of "SuperTape(tm)" is assigned to inventor A. The company that exclusively produces it, Company B, pays Inventor A for the right to use the patent and trademark for a fixed amount of time (eg 20 years) after which the patent expires, but "SuperTape(tm)" can only be used on products using the original adhesive formulation. It can not be used on reformulated, cheaper, alternative products. "SuperTape(tm)" remains trademarked and owned by Inventor A. Should Company B decide they want to improve the formula, they can not call it "SuperTape(tm)", and can cease paying Inventor A for the trademark. Inventor A is then free to license SuperTape(tm) using the original formula to another company, or even just produce it themselves. If Company B instead returns to the original formula after abandoning the use of the trademark, they can't call it SuperTape(tm) anymore.

 

Now if Inventor A dies, the trademark dies with them. SuperTape(tm) then becomes SuperTape(gen) (as in generic), any any product using the original formulation can still be called SuperTape, but lacks any protection for quality control. So if more than one company wants to produce it, they are competing directly on quality, and making substandard/cheaper versions, and any third party can go look at the patent and produce their own until an acceptable market exists for the adhesive, and competitors exit the market that produce substandard versions. You know, assuming people actually cared about the quality control.

 

Something like 80% of a price of food and office stationary products today goes into marketing/packaging/shipping. You can't tell me it costs $10 to produce a box of cereal when input costs for the food portion are like 10 cents. Patents, Trademarks and Copyrights should have long expired on every item found in the grocery store.

 

Copyright has this unfortunate problem caused by corporate ownership that causes the corporation to try and extend the life of IP perpetually because the corporation exists in perpetuity. So the while I covered trademark and patents above, I'll cover this below.

 

Again, the creator (the copyright owner) is permitted to have exclusive control over their creation. At the time of the the content's creation, both a Copyright and a Trademark are created. The copyright covers the creation as a whole, and the trademark covers the individual components within the creation. Any creation that involves more than 1 person, must have permission from everyone in the creation before it can be licensed to another. So to use Disney any Mickey Mouse. 

 

Walt Disney (who died in 1966), should have had all trademarks extinguished (Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, etc) in 1966. The copyrights on everything produced that Walt had a hand in, should expire after the last person involved in the creation dies, or agrees to release it into the public domain. Steamboat Willie, under this form of copyright and trademark regime would have entered the public domain in 1988 when Wilfred Jackson (one of the animators) died. Up until the last person dies, the last person involved in the production that is still alive can have the final say if the copyrighted can be used. 

 

No "work-for-hire"'s are permitted. If someone creates something, they own it, even if someone else paid them to create it. The creator can license it exclusively to another, but it still ultimately expires when the creator dies.

 

That's a more fair way to deal with pretty much everything except software. The problem with software, is that the hardware it runs on "dies" before the software's authors do. For this reason, the hardware is considered a key part of the "creator" copyright. So a software product, say a NES game, or a PCjr/Tandy 1000 game which works only on the target hardware. The copyright is assigned based only to the hardware it runs on. Once the hardware is withdrawn from sale, all software for that platform becomes copyright-free. The creators still own the trademarks on the titles of the software, and any trademarks to the characters in games/logos, which prevents someone from releasing counterfeit versions for another computer system with the same title, but there's nothing preventing someone from making copies of the original media, converting the media to work on new hardware, or converting the software/assets to be used on new hardware.

 

Case in point, if someone really liked Super Mario Bros 1, and wanted a native PC version, they could copy the NES version of SMB1 to the PC, as long as no changes are made to the game assets and code. Hence emulators and re-implemented game engines that can use the existing ROM as-is are legitimately permitted, considered copyright-free, and obtaining the original ROM would be something that the original copyright owner has a responsibility to release copyright-free in a form that can be used on any hardware device once the original hardware is no longer for sale.

 

So hypothetically, a company could produce a NES, PC, Sega Master System, Atari/Coleco version of a game. Each version of these games are tied to the lifespan of the console/hardware, with the PC version surviving until the original IBM PC /MS-DOS is withdrawn from sale. Even though game may still even work on a "PC" in 2021 through emulators, the original hardware would have been defined by the published system requirements, thus the installation media (eg floppy disks) or operating system requirement, defines the hardware expiry. The title could be re-released on CD-ROM, USB, and digital(internet distribution) to retain the copyright on the software, but it still only applies to that version. If someone does their own media shifting from a floppy or cd-rom version to a usb-drive, to use it on a 2021 PC, that copyright on the 1984 or 1991 version is still expired. If a game was designed for a 68K mac, as soon as the 68K macs were withdrawn from sale, all 68K software (including MacOS) would become copyright free. Windows and MacOS X versions become copyright-free as soon as they are replaced by a newer OS version, including the OS. If the requirements to run a specific game is Windows XP, and XP is no longer for sale, then you can install XP, even to a 2021 PC just to run that XP-era game, without any permission from Microsoft or the game developer.

 

Again, all hypotheticals. In a perfect system nobody would abuse the system in the first place, and the need for copyright, trademark and patents wouldn't need to exist. It's just human nature to want to find short-cuts and put oneself before others, hence the rules. But corporations are not people, and should not own IP because they do not die.

[StDragon]

28 minutes ago, Kisai said:

There is no reason why a corporation should own patents, trademarks or copyrights. These should be assigned to a living human, and for the corporation to use such IP, they must employ every human creator/inventor in a position that allows for that IP to be used.

"Corporate personhood" status. 

[Brooksie359]

10 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

They will copy it regardless, very blatantly in some cases and you cant do anything about it if they are outside of the country where the patent was registered. No to mention all the patents like this one where there is no investment and work was done. Just an empty money grab that has no real value behind it. Or to bring up one other which is a bit off for this topic: asetec (this one got invalidated though).

No as you can see patents still get enforced case in point this entire thread is about one getting enforced. Sure if they are outside your country they can still copy and get away with it but you can still ban them from being sold in the country in which you hold the patent. And usually you patent your design in more than one country for this very reason. If someone copies your design in say China yeah you probably can't do much about it on China but you can still ensure that they can't sell their product outside of China giving you a market to yourself in every other country and allowing you to make profit off of the money you put into research. Are patents perfect? Absolutely not as seen by the ridiculously vague paten in this article but you can't throw away the baby with the bathwater. There needs to be patent reform not just getting rid of it. 

[whm1974]

11 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Absolutely not. If patents didn't exist then most expensive research would be pointless. If you spend tons of money trying to find out a way to do something only to have it copied as soon as you release it to market then nobody will want to invest alot of money into research. 

People were doing research and inventing things long before anything close to patents existed. The main reasons progress was so slow was the lack of education for most people during the vast majority of Human History, No easy way to spread knowledge.

 

Their was no Scientific Method until fairly recent. That had to be slowly developed over a long period of Time.

[Pc6777]

all these stupid patents do is make it so you can never have one thing that has all the best features nd are forced to compromise. 

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

No, it shouldn't be part of a patent (it's a simple counter-balance)...it justly fits under copyright as well.  You clearly don't understand the differences between copyrighting a work and patenting an invention.  The design/look itself is copyrighted, all it means is that people can't copy it.  People are more than allowed to create similar lamps (using the same concept of counter-balance).

 

If it had been patented, then no one would be allowed creating a counter-balanced lamp...so in a case like this, applying for a registered copyright is more beneficial to the public than applying for a patent (because a patent would mean no one could make even something similar without paying royalties).

 

Your example is nonsensical to your argument, as copyrights != patents, you did nothing to show that they used copyright to suppress the market longer than a patent (i.e. you can find similar lamps for roughly the same pricing similar quality spring lamps), and the fact that by using copyright over patenting the concept meant there could be more competition.

No, the judge didn’t.  The company was able to enforce copywrite for what were effectively patent level concepts.  Specifically the use of counterbalance instead of springs.   Don’t assume what I do and do not understand.  I don’t think I’m the one that lacks understanding here in this case.  In a lot of cases, yes.  I watched the tizio thing very carefully I bought two of them.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Pc6777 said:

all these stupid patents do is make it so you can never have one thing that has all the best features nd are forced to compromise. 

And that has not been the case when?   The problem is without the concept patent there might not be any new features at all. 
Creating a new thing can be gigamtically difficult.  
Another example.  I was told this story as a thing that happened.  It’s third hand though so it may be a parable type thing rather than something that hapened.  I was told it was a major reason General Mills pulled out of China some years ago.

The story goes that a man decided to make a bun machine an assembly line device for Chinese style steamed buns.  Took ten years of his life and a marriage but he did it.  He went to China to have the thing produced.  There were reports of problems and delays.  He traveled to the factory in China to find out what was going on.  He wound up traveling down a corridor he was told not to travel down, and found rows and rows of the machine he spent a good chunk of his life designing finished.  The company had been lying about the delays, and selling the product without telling him, paying him, or even giving him credit. He confronted the owner of the company who merely grinned AMD said “whatcha gonna do round eye? Take me to world court?”   If there were no patents the man wouldn’t have lost his marriage and ten years of his life, but there would also be no bun machine at all. 

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

I doubt that's the case.

 

Patents should largely not exist on things that are not novel. If I glue googly eyes to things, and patent something and the adding googly eyes was the only thing differentiating it from the previous patent, there's nothing stopping someone from using the previous patent, but I, the one with the googly eye version could claim that anyone using the previous patent is still stepping on mine. That's drug patents in a nutshell.

 

Algorithm patents should not exist, because they're math. They're not inventions. If someone patented the switch statement in programming, then everyone uses if-else statements (which is really how the underlying assembly compiles it to anyway (jump if zero/if-not zero.)) 

 

So with those two categories, patents have largely prevented innovation by locking down the obvious solution in favor of inefficient alternatives. In the time period before the industrial revolution, the king of the country would lay claim to everything the peasants made, and just take what they wanted. You owned nothing, you were a tool in a toolbox for the king to use as they please. There are plenty of geo-political reasons why this was awful, and patents had nothing to do with it. There was also a time where you could just buy slaves and children to use as free disposable labor, that also had nothing to do with patents. We look back today and go, "wow, our ancestors were cruel", yet slavery still exists today as prison labor, and patents still get used to stifle innovation.

 

There is no reason why a corporation should own patents, trademarks or copyrights. These should be assigned to a living human, and for the corporation to use such IP, they must employ every human creator/inventor in a position that allows for that IP to be used. If that creator dies, the IP should expire immediately except when the IP has not come to market, in which case the IP is assigned to survivors until the product comes to market. Especially in the case of trademarks.

 

Everything below is hypothetical before someone skips ahead and nitpicks something.

 

eg:

Someone invents, magic tape. It replaces glue, and most other kinds of adhesives. Let's call this SuperTape(tm). The patent on how to make it is assigned to inventor A. The trademark of "SuperTape(tm)" is assigned to inventor A. The company that exclusively produces it, Company B, pays Inventor A for the right to use the patent and trademark for a fixed amount of time (eg 20 years) after which the patent expires, but "SuperTape(tm)" can only be used on products using the original adhesive formulation. It can not be used on reformulated, cheaper, alternative products. "SuperTape(tm)" remains trademarked and owned by Inventor A. Should Company B decide they want to improve the formula, they can not call it "SuperTape(tm)", and can cease paying Inventor A for the trademark. Inventor A is then free to license SuperTape(tm) using the original formula to another company, or even just produce it themselves. If Company B instead returns to the original formula after abandoning the use of the trademark, they can't call it SuperTape(tm) anymore.

 

Now if Inventor A dies, the trademark dies with them. SuperTape(tm) then becomes SuperTape(gen) (as in generic), any any product using the original formulation can still be called SuperTape, but lacks any protection for quality control. So if more than one company wants to produce it, they are competing directly on quality, and making substandard/cheaper versions, and any third party can go look at the patent and produce their own until an acceptable market exists for the adhesive, and competitors exit the market that produce substandard versions. You know, assuming people actually cared about the quality control.

 

Something like 80% of a price of food and office stationary products today goes into marketing/packaging/shipping. You can't tell me it costs $10 to produce a box of cereal when input costs for the food portion are like 10 cents. Patents, Trademarks and Copyrights should have long expired on every item found in the grocery store.

 

Copyright has this unfortunate problem caused by corporate ownership that causes the corporation to try and extend the life of IP perpetually because the corporation exists in perpetuity. So the while I covered trademark and patents above, I'll cover this below.

 

Again, the creator (the copyright owner) is permitted to have exclusive control over their creation. At the time of the the content's creation, both a Copyright and a Trademark are created. The copyright covers the creation as a whole, and the trademark covers the individual components within the creation. Any creation that involves more than 1 person, must have permission from everyone in the creation before it can be licensed to another. So to use Disney any Mickey Mouse. 

 

Walt Disney (who died in 1966), should have had all trademarks extinguished (Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, etc) in 1966. The copyrights on everything produced that Walt had a hand in, should expire after the last person involved in the creation dies, or agrees to release it into the public domain. Steamboat Willie, under this form of copyright and trademark regime would have entered the public domain in 1988 when Wilfred Jackson (one of the animators) died. Up until the last person dies, the last person involved in the production that is still alive can have the final say if the copyrighted can be used. 

 

No "work-for-hire"'s are permitted. If someone creates something, they own it, even if someone else paid them to create it. The creator can license it exclusively to another, but it still ultimately expires when the creator dies.

 

That's a more fair way to deal with pretty much everything except software. The problem with software, is that the hardware it runs on "dies" before the software's authors do. For this reason, the hardware is considered a key part of the "creator" copyright. So a software product, say a NES game, or a PCjr/Tandy 1000 game which works only on the target hardware. The copyright is assigned based only to the hardware it runs on. Once the hardware is withdrawn from sale, all software for that platform becomes copyright-free. The creators still own the trademarks on the titles of the software, and any trademarks to the characters in games/logos, which prevents someone from releasing counterfeit versions for another computer system with the same title, but there's nothing preventing someone from making copies of the original media, converting the media to work on new hardware, or converting the software/assets to be used on new hardware.

 

Case in point, if someone really liked Super Mario Bros 1, and wanted a native PC version, they could copy the NES version of SMB1 to the PC, as long as no changes are made to the game assets and code. Hence emulators and re-implemented game engines that can use the existing ROM as-is are legitimately permitted, considered copyright-free, and obtaining the original ROM would be something that the original copyright owner has a responsibility to release copyright-free in a form that can be used on any hardware device once the original hardware is no longer for sale.

 

So hypothetically, a company could produce a NES, PC, Sega Master System, Atari/Coleco version of a game. Each version of these games are tied to the lifespan of the console/hardware, with the PC version surviving until the original IBM PC /MS-DOS is withdrawn from sale. Even though game may still even work on a "PC" in 2021 through emulators, the original hardware would have been defined by the published system requirements, thus the installation media (eg floppy disks) or operating system requirement, defines the hardware expiry. The title could be re-released on CD-ROM, USB, and digital(internet distribution) to retain the copyright on the software, but it still only applies to that version. If someone does their own media shifting from a floppy or cd-rom version to a usb-drive, to use it on a 2021 PC, that copyright on the 1984 or 1991 version is still expired. If a game was designed for a 68K mac, as soon as the 68K macs were withdrawn from sale, all 68K software (including MacOS) would become copyright free. Windows and MacOS X versions become copyright-free as soon as they are replaced by a newer OS version, including the OS. If the requirements to run a specific game is Windows XP, and XP is no longer for sale, then you can install XP, even to a 2021 PC just to run that XP-era game, without any permission from Microsoft or the game developer.

 

Again, all hypotheticals. In a perfect system nobody would abuse the system in the first place, and the need for copyright, trademark and patents wouldn't need to exist. It's just human nature to want to find short-cuts and put oneself before others, hence the rules. But corporations are not people, and should not own IP because they do not die.

let’s examine the first statement.  You don’t think patents created the industrial revolution.   Keep in mind the nature of patents has changed drastically over many many years.  There was a patent filed very famously by Abraham Lincoln for a steamboat that used paddles.  It’s so well known partially because one of the requirements was he actually had to create a scale model of the device which is still in the hands of the patent office.  Not a modern requirement.  The first patents were “royal patents” which were lifetime things given out by the king.  They even still exist, but have changed character immensely.  The british royal family and the Pope still issue them.  There was an Italian car maker who gained fame selling a car that came with driving shoes made by the pope’s cobbler.  A rather brilliant marketing strategy imho.  You seem to be arguing about the particulars of a given patent law within specific segments.  Something I incidentally agreed with earlier.  You’re not touching on the concept of patent.

[Bombastinator]

3 hours ago, StDragon said:

"Corporate personhood" status. 

A late breaking development.  It absolutely has its uses.  It’s not even law though.  Just a judicial decision that was never countermanded by a new law.

[wanderingfool2]

33 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

No, the judge didn’t.  The company was able to enforce copywrite for what were effectively patent level concepts.  Specifically the use of counterbalance instead of springs.   Don’t assume what I do and do not understand.  I don’t think I’m the one that lacks understanding here in this case.  In a lot of cases, yes.  I watched the tizio thing very carefully I bought two of them.

You do lack understanding, if you can't tell the differences between trademark, copyright and patent law.  I looked up court cases relating to Tizio, it's a trade dress (trademark) lawsuit, not a copyright lawsuit.  In fact it does appear there was a patent on the design as well, to which the trademark dress shouldn't have been granted (which would have eventually killed the case).  Couldn't find any outcomes of the case, other than a temporary injunction but that doesn't mean a lot really...even if it was successfully litigated, the trade dress/trademark should have been invalidated (but that creates a headache of trying to get a trademark already established invalidated...which would have taken resources).  Ultimately though a trade-dress granted was an error, as the design existed prior to the trademark and was patented (so there was the right-to-copy  doctrine).  Even with a trademark granted, it would have taken taking to court to invalidate the trademark.

 

Again, it is not right to say it's "Disney's fault" and it's not right to assume patents and copyrights are interchangeable.

[Bombastinator]

15 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

You do lack understanding, if you can't tell the differences between trademark, copyright and patent law.  I looked up court cases relating to Tizio, it's a trade dress (trademark) lawsuit, not a copyright lawsuit.  In fact it does appear there was a patent on the design as well, to which the trademark dress shouldn't have been granted (which would have eventually killed the case).  Couldn't find any outcomes of the case, other than a temporary injunction but that doesn't mean a lot really...even if it was successfully litigated, the trade dress/trademark should have been invalidated (but that creates a headache of trying to get a trademark already established invalidated...which would have taken resources).  Ultimately though a trade-dress granted was an error, as the design existed prior to the trademark and was patented (so there was the right-to-copy  doctrine).  Even with a trademark granted, it would have taken taking to court to invalidate the trademark.

 

Again, it is not right to say it's "Disney's fault" and it's not right to assume patents and copyrights are interchangeable.

Ah the great IF which I have explained no less than three times.  It is you that seem to not understand that while they are different they are effectively related because their meaning has morphed from one to the other in the past, they tend to be litigated in the same suits, and are used to cover the same things quite often.  I do understand there is a difference.  You seem to refuse to understand that there is also a similarity.  Similar things are not the same.  This is not sympathetic magic.

[Kisai]

49 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

A late breaking development.  It absolutely has its uses.  It’s not even law though.  Just a judicial decision that was never countermanded by a new law.

Corporate "personhood" unforunately allows for IP to never fall into the public domain because you can not jail a corporation, and you can not execute one. So if they can't die, then corporations should not be able to own IP, only the people they employ. A corporation can not hire someone they want the IP for, build the thing, and then fire them. They have to be employed in some capacity involved with building the the thing.

 

That's why a patent and a copyright on something are different. A patent is "how to make something novel" and a copyright is "the right to copy something novel". Trademarks are branding, words, names, and shapes that identify a brand. Let's say you had the patent, trademark, and all copyrights associated with a certain product, and are employed by a company. Hypothetically, that company needs to employ you for life if that company produces nothing but your product. If they no longer want to produce your product, then they can get rid of you, but they must cease building, selling and using the names of the product you made. If you die, say you fell into an open sewer in front of the company's HQ one day, just vanished without a trace. You didn't show up for work, nobody in the office has been permitted to make decisions on your behalf. They company continues as though you are still alive until you're found dead, or declared dead.

 

To prevent corporate assassination as a side business, but also to prevent dynasty's regarding IP (which is the real concern when things are not returned to the public domain), IP can not be transferred, only licensed. If the creator dies, it should expire immediately unless the creator dies from unnatural causes, in which case their survivors continue in their place until such time the creator's natural life (eg age 70) would have come up.

 

 

That is why copyright term extension should never be a thing. Copyright should expire, when you expire, or what would have been your 70th birthday if you don't. Corporate authorship should not be a thing, and 120 years is absolutely ridiculous.

 

 

 

[wanderingfool2]

24 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Ah the great IF which I have explained no less than three times.  It is you that seem to not understand that while they are different they are effectively related because their meaning has morphed from one to the other in the past, they tend to be litigated in the same suits, and are used to cover the same things quite often.  I do understand there is a difference.  You seem to refuse to understand that there is also a similarity.  Similar things are not the same.  This is not sympathetic magic.

"Effectively related" does not mean you can use them interchangeably like you have.  There are very very drastic differences between how they operate, and how a suit would proceed. Not going to respond anymore, as it is pulling it a bit too far from the topic...but in relations to the topic.  This is entirely regarding patents, not copyright and not trademark.  You are claiming it's Disney's lobbying that lead to patent reform, which it wasn't (they did copyright reform).  It's false to assert they are at fault; as this was patent.

 

I'm not saying that there aren't similarities, I am saying it's stupid using them interchangeably which you are; as the laws regarding them are vastly different.  Trademarks don't expire, copyrights expire after 95 years, and patents expire after 20 years.  Recent lobbying has little to do with how the patent system is broken, the concept has been broken for a long time (and not in the sense of the 20 years), but in the sense of what can be patented.

 

In this case, it doesn't matter that 20 years but just how absurdly stupid the patent system is to allow such a patent (similar to patenting the "Method of exercising a cat" US5443036A which was a patent granted for essentially a laser pointer).

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

Corporate "personhood" unforunately allows for IP to never fall into the public domain because you can not jail a corporation, and you can not execute one. So if they can't die, then corporations should not be able to own IP, only the people they employ. A corporation can not hire someone they want the IP for, build the thing, and then fire them. They have to be employed in some capacity involved with building the the thing.

 

That's why a patent and a copyright on something are different. A patent is "how to make something novel" and a copyright is "the right to copy something novel". Trademarks are branding, words, names, and shapes that identify a brand. Let's say you had the patent, trademark, and all copyrights associated with a certain product, and are employed by a company. Hypothetically, that company needs to employ you for life if that company produces nothing but your product. If they no longer want to produce your product, then they can get rid of you, but they must cease building, selling and using the names of the product you made. If you die, say you fell into an open sewer in front of the company's HQ one day, just vanished without a trace. You didn't show up for work, nobody in the office has been permitted to make decisions on your behalf. They company continues as though you are still alive until you're found dead, or declared dead.

 

To prevent corporate assassination as a side business, but also to prevent dynasty's regarding IP (which is the real concern when things are not returned to the public domain), IP can not be transferred, only licensed. If the creator dies, it should expire immediately unless the creator dies from unnatural causes, in which case their survivors continue in their place until such time the creator's natural life (eg age 70) would have come up.

 

 

That is why copyright term extension should never be a thing. Copyright should expire, when you expire, or what would have been your 70th birthday if you don't. Corporate authorship should not be a thing, and 120 years is absolutely ridiculous.

 

 

 

Preventing IP dynasties seems to have failed.

 

This gets into the specific differences between copywrite and patent though.  

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

"Effectively related" does not mean you can use them interchangeably like you have.  There are very very drastic differences between how they operate, and how a suit would proceed. Not going to respond anymore, as it is pulling it a bit too far from the topic...but in relations to the topic.  This is entirely regarding patents, not copyright and not trademark.  You are claiming it's Disney's lobbying that lead to patent reform, which it wasn't (they did copyright reform).  It's false to assert they are at fault; as this was patent.

 

I'm not saying that there aren't similarities, I am saying it's stupid using them interchangeably which you are; as the laws regarding them are vastly different.  Trademarks don't expire, copyrights expire after 95 years, and patents expire after 20 years.  Recent lobbying has little to do with how the patent system is broken, the concept has been broken for a long time (and not in the sense of the 20 years), but in the sense of what can be patented.

 

In this case, it doesn't matter that 20 years but just how absurdly stupid the patent system is to allow such a patent (similar to patenting the "Method of exercising a cat" US5443036A which was a patent granted for essentially a laser pointer).

Yes yes. I am well aware of that.  I only did it where they are similar.  I cannot be held responsible for compartmentalized thinking by others. 

[Rugg]

Good. patents, especially with the likes of this, are terrible.

Edit: Wait, if I understand this correctly now, Valve has to pay, because they used licensed content? Boo. That's dumb.

[Brooksie359]

7 hours ago, whm1974 said:

People were doing research and inventing things long before anything close to patents existed. The main reasons progress was so slow was the lack of education for most people during the vast majority of Human History, No easy way to spread knowledge.

 

Their was no Scientific Method until fairly recent. That had to be slowly developed over a long period of Time.

The problem with that is a long time ago it was much harder to copy designs and also the cost of research was lower for alot of things. You can't even compare the two time periods as what laws are nessisary today weren't always necessary a long time ago. 

[sub68]

1 minute ago, SGT-AMD said:

What about trademarks?

true...

but the post was meant as a joke

[Bombastinator]

42 minutes ago, SGT-AMD said:

What about trademarks?

https://www.zdnet.com/article/cisco-sues-apple-over-the-iphone-name/

 

Cisco bought a small company that had software called IPhone. Worked pretty good, but the public internet was young back then.

Apple jumped the gun and named their phone the same. Cisco decided not to fight Apple too long, as it was costing lots of money to do so. They settled...

If Cisco didn't have that trademark, Apple could have done what they wanted, and Cisco would not be able to do anything about it, thus, losing their investment.

 

 

 

 

Got another cute one.  In minneapolis there was an independent book store called Amazon books that predated Amazon by like a decade.  Big oof.  It all turned out well though.  The owner eventually retired and got a good price for their business from Amazon.com.  Proprietor retired well, Amazon protected their trademark for cheap. Everyone was happy.

[Bombastinator]

5 minutes ago, SGT-AMD said:

But, CBS wanted to fly with this one:

https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-1993-08-05-0000006439-story.html

The little guy against the big one...The littile guy won.

 

I don’t know from CBS.  My step-sister liked the place because it was a lesbian book shop.  I knew about it years before Amazon.com did.  When Amazon first started doing book stores I actually asked the owner if there was some sort of financing deal to use the name.  She didn’t know what I was talking about. 

[Mark Kaine]

On 2/6/2021 at 3:00 AM, Rugg said:

Good. patents, especially with the likes of this, are terrible.

Edit: Wait, if I understand this correctly now, Valve has to pay, because they used licensed content? Boo. That's dumb.

Actually it's not dumb, it's just. 

 

Valve knew exactly what they're doing. 

big corporations are like toddlers and in this case telling valve "no you cannot steal other kid's toys" was exactly the right thing to do.