What is Digg?Sponsored by Travelzoo
Take Advantage of Ridiculously Low Holiday Airfares view!
travelzoo.com - Flights $52 and up for Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Year. But move on it now.
49 Comments
- !3en, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14To view:
Username: brillemann
Password: brillemann
[From Bugmenot.com] - iSEPIC, on 10/12/2007, -6/+18Same as Apple making all the dough from the mag power connector - which they did not invent, but did patent. The Deep Fry cookers are the ones who made it but never saw a reason to patent it. Doesn't make them evil.. just first to think of it in a selfish way... same with this and lots of other things. The one that really pisses me off though is the Walkman. The dude who invented it did patent it, and faught it out with Sony for 30 years---all while Sony reaped the profits.
- dasunst3r, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Well... he earns $0, but he does earn something priceless: The reverance of the tech community! :)
- chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I'd patent my time machine if I could go back in time.
Oh, wait...what was the question again (: - kalisphoenix, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I dunno. Mag power connectors aren't sold separately :-) I just see it as a feature, not the principal selling point of the machine. I agree with your point, though.
This sort of thing is tough for me to really figure out where I stand. (Yeah, I know that the Digg-reading population is really waiting with baited breath for my conclusion on the ethics of patents...) I'm definitely in favor of people earning from their inventions, but I think it's ***** that, for instance, the hyperlink is patented. Jesus Christ. Or that a company like Microsoft (or Apple, for that matter) can have so many fundamental patents for ideas that have no efficient competitors. Like the mouse cursor, for instance -- what exactly would be the alternative? Just guessing where the pointer would be?
In this situation, it's really screwed up because the guy invented it over two decades ago and it wasn't more-or-less mainstream until very recently. Should NTP be getting any money at all from RIM? I don't believe so, unless they turn right around and give it (or a good-sized chunk) to this guy.
At the same time, should you really be forced to give your (relatively) hard-earned money to someone who invented something before you did, simply because he was born a couple decades before you? I can't agree with that either.
It's a lot of messy *****. If someone has some clear, hard, and fast rules to make patent systems work, then please enlighten me. I sure can't think of any fair, solid approach. - Rice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Yes, I'd patent it in a heartbeat.
- kindrobot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"You don't patent the obvious"
If only the people who approve patents would consider this. - chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7There's more to life than money. Sure, he should be bummed out- because he made a mistake, but as long as he is credited with inventing it, that's the best gift any inventor would want.
The money is just the icing on the cake. - Rigbymatt, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8you had better be being sarcastic
- antdude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Non-registration link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/technology/16wireless.html?ex=1302840000&en=76984460580ca72a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
- radu79, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I think that patents should not be granted for obvious things like that.
Actually, I thought a patent requires soemthing more than just an idea: A method. A very specific method.
Sending wireless e-mails is something trivial, which has been done at least 100 year ago, before even the radio has been invented. Sure, at that time it was more code, and it wasn't really e-mail, but the concept is pretty much the same: encoding characters and sending them through the air.
What kind of ***** up jury would let NTP win that case? - Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The ship is sinking, game the system while you can.
- Lounger540, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'm going to patent e-mail transmission through the 'ether' and sue NASA when they give astronauts blackberries on the moon.
note: this is a satire and i am aware the ether is pre-Einstein - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3He deserves his last name!
- Chompy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Seeing as how if I didn't patent it, some gutterslime lawyer who had nothing to do with it's invention *would*, the answer is yes.
- kevenj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It wouldn't even bother me if NTP acted on the idea by developing a product... but they didn't. It was just a bunch of lawyers waiting for someone to develop something so they could license or sue. Too bad Goodfellow didn't come forward during the trial, it would have been nice to see the patent trolls put in their place.
- comeonpriitk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Even if you patent something you still might not be able to get any money from it if you used a government grant to fund the research. For example the tech in the fibre under the Atlantic was partially funded by the government, the researchers got no money from it and I suspect everyone reading this has used that fibre at least once today.
- Darkness123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This reminds me of Bill Gates and how he NOW tried to patent the FAT Partition system.
- molecool, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Hey, companies do it all the time and get away with it. He could have tried and at least made some modest living with it. I know I'm going to be blasted for saying this, but if it was you and you could go back in time, would you do it?
- ravenmuffin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Lawyers screw 'em both and walk home with the money."
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Goodfellow did get a "cent" - he got $20,000 from NTP during the RIM trial to keep his mouth shut while they extorted $600+ million from the Blackberry makers. Personally, I think he got exactly what he deserved out of this *****.
- ThinkBox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2So, companies find stuff that inst patented, and then integrate it into their product, and then patent it...
I think ill patent that patenting technique! - therernospoons, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If I had patented a few ideas of my ideas long ago, I probably would be richer than Gates now. I've thought of some things and several years later, low and behold, some company makes it. The satisfaction comes from the fact that knowing I had the idea first. Why didn't I patent or make it happen you ask? Simple. $.
- JustMatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"I think that patents should not be granted for obvious things like that."
All I can think of is Nutflix and the whole Blockbuster thing.
(By the way, is any one else having problems with the spell checker?) - w00ters, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sounds like the guy is pretty well off in spite of not getting hundreds of millions of dollars from his idea and his story is fascinating to say the least.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Situations like this are pretty explicitly spelled out in contracts - stuff that you invent on company time using company resources will belong to the company. There are contracts out there negotiated so that the employee does get to keep the patents to their inventions, but you usually need to be in a bargaining position and have a good contract lawyer on your side.
- Ayavaron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@kalisphoenix
I don't really agree with you. If that guy was able to get his patent on the walkman, than what about other companies who made portable CD players? Wouldn't that have killed their ubiquity and the ease for the consumer to get portable CD players for failry cheap? - Midnightbrewer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"At the same time, should you really be forced to give your (relatively) hard-earned money to someone who invented something before you did, simply because he was born a couple decades before you? I can't agree with that either."
Yes, as long as he also thought about it before you. You can hardly claim originality if somebody else was there first. As a matter-of-fact, you can't complain about this particular point while at the same time complaining about companies that patent things other people invented first. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Good on that guy is all I can say. Why patent something that was bound to come anyways?
- cbreaker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1No problems with Spell Check, but the god damned captcha gets me every damned time. Is that a t or a j? Wait, that looks like an upper-case W, or.. maybe not..
- ravenmuffin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Maybe. But in a society where it's hard to be happy unless you have money, it's depressing to see others make a stack of money that you should have had a part of.
- h0dg3s, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Why patent something that isn't going to come?
- SomeGuy6512, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1h0dg3s - You joke, but that's really kind of the whole point of the patent system. It's about giving people the credit they deserve for creating something that is non-obvious and useful but easily copied, so as to give proper incentive for innovation. If any reasonable person can see that a new idea is inevitable, that someone was gonna do it soon anyway, then it's just ridiculous that whoever happened to patent it first is given complete ownership.
A lot of the patents being issued today aren't just things that 50 years from now we'll be able to look back and say it was inevitable. They're obviously inevitable at the time they were patented. - jmnormand, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0reading the article it seems like ntp went through "questionable" at best, methods to keep goodfellow from coming out during the trial. im no lawyer but having some one sign a nda to keep them from disclosing evidence during a trail they have no direct connection with sounds pretty damn iffy...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1“Good artists copy; great artists steal.”
- cbreaker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Not everything needs to be patented IMO. When I design a new mount for something on my R/C car, I don't go and try to patent it. When my boss tells me to figure out a clever way to verify something on the network, I don't try to patent that either. Engineering shouldn't mean patenting.
I understand the need for patents. You don't want a huge manufacturering company taking everyone's ideas and always beating everyone to market backed by huge bank-rolls. But you also don't want to let everything obvious to be patented, and not everything that's engineered should be patented. Seven year patents can seriously hold back the new economy. - s0ny, on 10/12/2007, -5/+5what the hell are you talking about? "Same as Apple making all the dough from the mag power connector" riight, everyone I know is just running straight out to buy a Macbook Pro just because that magsafe connector is so damn cool. Its a small part of the total product, and totally different than this case is.
Also, I thought patents only lasted for a certain amount of time? Anyone know anything about this? I know that pharmaceutical companies can patent something, but after 10 years or so other companies can use it. Just curious. - jadahl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I guess he ment Should, not Can't. Patenting genes and other "obvious" stuff is just bad everyone.
- BJWisch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Welcome to life, that's what happens when you develop something under a companies supervision. My grandfather has the patents for some of the conveyor systems you see in airports yet he didn't even get a penny.
- h0dg3s, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Blackberry nothing, cellphones have been doing this for years.
- SomeGuy6512, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0To add because the edit timer ran out...
It really boggles my mind how unethical and destructive illegitimate patents are... one company putting up major obstacles to the technological advance of the human race, just to make a good amount of money by extorting it from people making a legitimate contribution to society... goddamnit, unless someone finds a way of only assigning patents to things that are VERY uniquely creative rather than the blatantly logical but unprecendented use of recently available technology, the whole ***** system has to go, and fast. - SomeGuy6512, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Agreed. Whole thing is ludicrous *****. I just hope these mind-numbingly obvious patents, which guarantee a monopoly (or at the least incredibly unethical legal extortion power) on a new wide field of business simply because they happened to be the first to use new technology for it's most obvious and necessary purposes, won't hold up in court enough to have much influence. But who knows.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0***** the patent system.
It was supposed to be used to protect people's ideas, now it's just a way for corporations to guarantee a "consumer" type way of thinking while locking into profits... ie Microsofts "patent" of devices powered by the body's on electricity.
Please.. that patent should be tossed out. So anyone who makes a device that operates like that now owes MS.
Or the ***** that patented a coding technique for 3D programming. John Carmack programmed something similar ON HIS OWN and lo and behold, two ***** douchebags from Creative patented it .. and more or less forced Carmack into using Creative ***** in his game as a settlement.
That's extortion. Like everything else this country has done in best interest since it's creation, the patent system is being abused and exploited for someone's greed. It's a shame what this country has turned into. - rushfan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2If I was him Id have patented it and squeezed every nickle and dime I could from it.
- DiggerTheDog, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Definitely. Idea patents are great, process patents are bogus.
- zatrix, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1no sarcasm there, you guys must all live under a rock
- kalphegor, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2best digg until now
- zatrix, on 10/12/2007, -19/+4"You don't patent the obvious," he said.
I'm sorry to say but the above is loser talk. But I'll step up to the plate and call him an idiot for not patenting it. Sure not EVERYTHING should be patended but still, cmon man. - konstantinr, on 10/12/2007, -21/+2dooooope
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is