Re: A thought about patents
> The problem is that a patent provides a presumption of validity. Thus, > even if the patent ignores prior non-patent art, the creator of that > prior (published) art has to spend time and money defending himself in > court. Ultimately, that favors the big corporation with a standing army > of lawyers over any small or not-for-profit outfit. I'm not worried > about the stupid ideas (yes, there's a patent on including a list of > destination network addresses in a packet header to do multicast), but > rather the previously published and slightly non-obvious results. True. Which still doesn't say that any "peers" would be the more favourable choice of review. What's needed is a prior-art database run by the PTO into which people can submit their pointers. Without that the PTO can really only well look up prior art that has been filed for patent. And the knowledge of prior art by "peers" is very selective too. Cheers Toerless
Standards and patents
All, Knowing my interest in this subject, Randy Bloomfield of the International Center for Standards Research (university of Colorado, Boulder International Telecommunications Program) has been kind enough to forward a number of e-mails on this issue. Enough, so that I thought I might try to contribute. The IETF has taken a unique position in the world of standardization organizations. The IETF is not a formal nationally recognized standardization organization, yet the IETF is far too important to operate as a fora or consortia. By way of explanation, fora or consortia are almost always commercially funded and quite often have, as part of their "ground rules," a requirement that all participants enter into some form of technology sharing (cross licensing or negotiated). In other words, IPR is not only identified in most fora or consortia, it is also negotiated. This is a distinct difference from the formal standardization (recognized by one or more governments) organizations where IPR is usually identified, but negotiation is not allowed. The IETF, in regard to IPR, acts like a little like a formal standardization organization. It identifies intellectual property rights (IPR) but leaves off requiring negotiation of IPR. This, as is being shown in many formal standardization organizations, may cause standards development to migrate to organizations that identify and negotiate. I don't offer this approach as a solution, only an alternative, as such negotiation in some fora or consortia smacks of coercion (IMO) when smaller companies are negotiating with larger. I make no arguments that the current patent system is useful to any but lawyers. But changing such a system is a lengthy political process. I suggest that the grounds for changing the existing patent system may be based on the concept that patents were designed to award value to the inventor of "similar" products. That is, for each incarnation of a product that was "similar" to the invention, the inventor could receive a new form of value (credit creation for the economists in the crowd). Now patents are being used to control a different property - "compatibility" and controlling "compatibility" feels more like controlling access and therefore unfair. Of course, there is enormous value in controlling compatibility (e.g., Microsoft APIs, Intel software compatibility, IBM data communications until recently) and so companies attempt to do so. Some day, likely far in the future, possibly patent law can change to recognize that allowing commercial control of compatibility, except in most unique circumstances, is of less benefit to society. But the patent law for the control of similarity for over 200 years has worked reasonably well to reward inventors, yet distribute their inventions more widely and more rapidly. For further comments on this topic please see Communications Standards and Patent Rights: Conflict or Coordination? http://www.csrstds.com/star.html Ken Krechmer Fellow International Center for Standards Research Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program University of Colorado at Boulder
Cartridges
I have a customer wanting to purchase 400 or more new cartridges, as an initial order, for sale in Africa. The model numbers are as follows: HP 29A HP 45A HP 40A HP 23A I did not see these numbers on the HP list. Are they only available in Europe or do you have these? If so, please provide quantity pricing. They also want to purchase "Tambourd G1" (French). Do you know what this is? Can you get it? Pricing? Thank you, Karen Marx I need the info asap - of course!
firstuse.com for Invention protection registry service.Check for yourself
To whom it may concern: A electronic date/time STAMP service available on-line. You will not disclose your file contents! A alternative to a NONDISCLOSURE form and faith in trust. Goto www.firstuse.com d.
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RE: A thought about patents
Henning Schulzrinne [[EMAIL PROTECTED]]> writes > > In looking in multimedia-related patents, I'm also utterly > amazed by the > complete lack of citation of published technical articles or related > work (RFCs, Internet drafts, etc.). The problem with many patents is > that if submitted as a technical paper at even the lowliest > conference, > it would be laughed out of the program. I have been on internal patent evaluation committees of my previous employers (that doesn't mean I support idea of software patents.). I would like to clarify a bit on the subject. Granting of patents only means that a person grated a particular patent was first to make "a claim" about the novelty of an idea or technique as far as the patent office knows on the basis of "previous claims submitted to it.". It is impossible for them to evaluate every claim on its scientific or intrinsic merits (even then they do a fairly decent job). The patent office basically notarizes the claim, date of a claim and the person who made a claim. It doesn't guarantee any usefulness or scientific merits of a claim (though the person making a claim has to justify usefulness of a claim). It doesn't mean that there are no better ideas already published or known to others in the field, or the patent is of any great use to others. How do you expect them to know just about every thing under the sun? > Maybe we need a peer review > (under suitable secrecy arrangements) of patent applications by real > experts, not the one patent examiner that seems to have missed the > existence of engineering libraries in his or her undergraduate > education. Remember, a patent office works within a legal framework and is not a ACM/IEEE technical review committee. Only a US law can stop software patents. All said, software patents should be declared crime against software engineers (if not against, humanity.). The problem is that no big company is likely to lobby for banning software patents because of their vested interests since they already have a number of patents in their portfolios. Cheers, --brijesh
Re: A thought about patents
I suppose it depends which conferences you attend. I can tell you from personal experience (and the angry phone calls...) that papers from "famous" people do get rejected, frequently. Are you arguing that there should be no peer review, given that it fails on occasion or because some people are unethical? Indeed, peer review can help catch the case of intentional or otherwise duplication of earlier work. The problem is that a patent provides a presumption of validity. Thus, even if the patent ignores prior non-patent art, the creator of that prior (published) art has to spend time and money defending himself in court. Ultimately, that favors the big corporation with a standing army of lawyers over any small or not-for-profit outfit. I'm not worried about the stupid ideas (yes, there's a patent on including a list of destination network addresses in a packet header to do multicast), but rather the previously published and slightly non-obvious results. Henning -- Henning Schulzrinne http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs
Re: A thought about patents
On thought of 'peer review' I remember going to ATM Conference a few years ago where at the end of a joint paper by three 'well-known' contributors a 'not-at-all-known' engineer from another company got up from the rear rows of the audience and complained that his paper had been stolen and was being resubmitted. When he was told there might have been a confusion, he pointed out that he presented an exactly the same concept, in the same sequence, and with similar examples a few months ago and was voted down unanimously by the 'gurus' on the grounds that the idea wasn't good enough. He demanded withdrawal of the paper, with a public apology. Despite protests, he lodged his formal complaints. They budged, offering to include his name in the author list. He wouldn't settle initially, but later he accepted after receiving an apology. Later either his name was added to the author list or to the acknowledgment section, I do not remember. This kind of "peer review" is common. There is a common resistance by frequent contributors to a newcomer's bold new ideas. Especially when it challenges other technologies developed by established companies. And this is human nature. People love credit, and sharing the glory is not part of usual human psychology. Companies use patents to guard exactly that - if you don't think it's good enough, don't worry, you do not have to use it. If you think otherwise, we're willing to sell you results of our investment in R&D. Unfortunately, people don't mind buying products for a price but they don't like buying a technology for a price. They both cost money and are of value to the company that owns them. As far as some patents being laughed out of lowliest of technical conferences, I agree. By the same token, however, I find some technical contributions in respected technical journals by "well-known" people that I can only laugh at. So it goes both ways. (Can you ever imagine a famous person submitting a draft/paper and not being accepted by the technical committee? For them, it's an honor to have the paper.) Although many times the stupidity of patents does surpass every limit, often it helps a company secure a place for its own credibility. It also allows it time to develop products. If a new technology is given to public for general education the big companies will immediately copy it and come out with a new product. They already have everything else. The startup company, however, has to build everything else before it has a chance to put its own technology into its products. Most startup companies take a third approach - they do not announce their product or technology until they are done. Their websites have nothing more than directions to their office. And they hope that no one will invent the method before they are out with their products. I think the policy of allowing patented ideas to appear in technical journals (on way to standards development), with a permission to other companies to use the technology on a non-discriminatory, open licensing terms is quite fair. Two benefits are: companies get the credit they deserve, and they are able to swap their patents for free with some other company for some other patents that they would like to have. Patents are often used to cross-license technology, and are as good as cash in that regard. This, I feel, is a fair way for a company to benefit from the technology that they have developed. Peer review may not do much to achieve the objective. Patents that are technically stupid are of no use to anyone anyway. If patents cover too broad an issue, they will anyway get challenged successfully. -Pankaj Henning Schulzrinne wrote: > In looking in multimedia-related patents, I'm also utterly amazed by the > complete lack of citation of published technical articles or related > work (RFCs, Internet drafts, etc.). The problem with many patents is > that if submitted as a technical paper at even the lowliest conference, > it would be laughed out of the program. Maybe we need a peer review > (under suitable secrecy arrangements) of patent applications by real > experts, not the one patent examiner that seems to have missed the > existence of engineering libraries in his or her undergraduate > education. > > Graham Klyne wrote: > > > > As many of us are finding, it seems to become more and more difficult to > > develop or implement a standard without tripping over somebody-or-other's > > patent for some piece of technology that many of us would regard as fairly > > obvious or lacking in novelty. > > > > The recent announcement from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office about > > overhauling their scrutiny of applications for online business patents > > seems to imply a tacit acknowledgement that their is a problem with the > > review process with respect to discovery or prior art or determination of > > novelty in a claimed invention. > > > > My thought is this: I'd like to see a presumption of lack of novelty if an > > idea gets rai
SourceXchange wish (was Re: support for...)
Andrew, Thank you for your kind reply: >> Suppose that when ACCEPT includes "audio/*" that another button, >> labeled "Record...", for example, would be rendered, set up to >> launch an external recorder helper application instead of set >> within the layout. And for "image/*" there would be a button >> with "Capture photo..." or something like that [...] > > This is a great idea. The only change needed would be a Note in > the HTML to say that user agents MAY choose to do it, where an > API exists on the host platform for device capture of that type. I've put a corresponding wish up on SourceXchange: http://www.sourcexchange.com/WishDetail?wishID=227 Anybody who would like to sponsor this development should please submit an official SourceXchange RFP and/or comment the wish. As for any more NOTEs, I am out of that business but I encourage anyone with a friendly W3C Advisory Committee representative to do whatever needs to be done. >> [MS and Netscape should fix ACCEPT] > > Quite so. Even with a DEVICE attribute, the ACCEPT setting would > *still* have to implemented properly; giving it a different > syntax for file and device as in device-upload.html loooks like > an unnecessary and confusing wart to me, not to mention it > breaking the HTML 4 definition. Agreed; in pursuit of backward-compatibility it is best to emphasize compatibility over backwardness. If MSIE and NS stop interpreting ACCEPT as a filename pattern (which I hope they both already have; I haven't checked lately) then I will expunge that wart from the versions over which I have control. > I can't see anything a server could usefully do with > Client-file-maxlength or Content-type-alternates, and I can't > think of any reason it should need to know Content-source-device. > Are there any particular circumstances where these could be used? Yes, Client-file-maxlength would be useful for an ultra-thin client with limited buffer memory, for example a wireless phone with only a few MB of recording RAM. Lets hope Moore's law buries that need. Content-type-alternates was for lightweight content negotiation, and depended on the server regenerating (or redirecting) the HTML with different ACCEPT parameters; more trouble than it has been worth, for certain. As for Content-source-device (which I've accidentally called "Content-device" once on these lists.) There is probably some OCR application that could benefit from figuring different optical contrast expectations from scanners and cameras, but that is near the least of my worries. If anyone ever ends up needing that, it could be done with creative use of x-tra parameters on the Content-type header of the multipart/form-data submission, e.g: Content-type: audio/... ;x-source-device=microphone > Then there's only MAXTIME left in the specification. Could you > suggest an application where this might be useful? The guy who suggested it used to put together television shows. All of these pie-in-the-sky features are distractions until the basics are implemented on common browsers. Since SMIL seems to want to be just like teevee, lets wait until browsers implement a user-specified maximum time that SMIL presentations are allowed to play before bothering device upload with MAXTIME. And about the security considerations, lets just hope that Java/J/ECMAscript and the DOMs aren't allowing write access to the INPUT TYPE=FILE VALUE attributes and submitting forms by themselves these days. Cheers, James
RE: hacker invasions
www.argo.es - Original Message - From: Betsy Brennan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2000 3:50 AM Subject: hacker invasions > Can anyone help me find documentation of a hacker attack that includes > details of the attack and what was done to prevent similar attacks in > the future? Respectfully, Betsy B. >
