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Software patents is something as stupid as patenting trousers! Imagine that M$ patents a "Box that actuates when pressed"-i.e. a button!!! Fortunatly, that will never happen in europe, we are not stupid enough to be mislead by big companies!
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Miguel Lopes wrote:
we are not stupid enough to be mislead by big companies
We are not stupid, our parliament is not stupid... but enough EU politicians are stupid enough, or at least corrupt enough. 
I hope they'll keep on discussing for years.
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Miguel Lopes wrote:
Box that actuates when pressed
This is why I hate software patents. Trivial things get patented. Good thing they don't always hold up in court. I mean BT believing it held the patent on hyperlinks and then wanting to charge everyone royalties to use a web browser... Big companies also acquire patents and then use them to extort little companies out of business.
John
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Miguel Lopes wrote:
Fortunatly, that will never happen in europe, we are not stupid enough to be mislead by big companies!
Except where big companies and government are one in the same, eh? Doh!
It's laughable when people use the term "we" to denigrate some "they". Does your "we" include all of Europe or just the parts you happen to approve of? Nevermind, I really don't give a sh*t.
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When i said "we", i was taking an average measure of intelligence here and comparing it with US. Im sorry if i offended you, i didnt meant that ALL the europeans are more intelligent than ALL the americans. I just meant in average :P
And if you come with that economical superiority bullshit, ill just tell you one thing: Intelligent people are lasy! For example, my goal in life is to reach 30y and stop working, even if i have to kill myself working till im 30!
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Worse yet...it is like patenting language expressions...can you imagine having a patent on a popular english, french, or spanish phrase!
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software patents are good idea, but that must be strictly follow all the
industrial ethics.
i never agree with free software becausem if all the softwares are plane and free, what will we do for our daily breads..????
mind is everything.
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software patents have *****nothing***** to do with free software. dont confuse implementation with sanction.
you wouldnt have a job if the first guy to create an embedded system pateneted an "Operating System"
just remember that when you dont have a job because of software patents (not like it will ever pass, but if it does... you should worry).
what would you do with all the gold in the world if there were no where to spend it?
/bb|[^b]{2}/
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What are industrial ethics? Bis companies don't know bout ethics, they only know money and laywers.
Free software has got nothing to do with patents, and it won't destroy your daily work.  Not all software can be free, there'll always be software that's only free for personal use, and there'll always be custom software developed especially for the needs of one customer. Beyond that, there'll always be a need for installation and maintenance services, consultants, support... Just think about how many people make money with Linux and Apache despite these products are free! So if you think free software is dangerous for your job, you think a little too simple.
Assuming that you don't use any free software, what did you pay for your home computer? Do you have one at all? Or don't you know what to do with one, because there is no non-free software you could afford?
Another point: You are welcome to the CP forums, but please stay away from the articles. They contain a lot of free code. You might lose your job because a solution for your current task already exists there. That's no good for you. Just act as if tehy didn't exists. 
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>> You are welcome to the CP forums, but please stay away from
>> the articles. They contain a lot of free code. You might
>> lose your job because a solution for your current task
>> already exists there. That's no good for you. Just act
>> as if tehy didn't exists.
LMAOROFL&EVERYOTHERINTERNETACRONYMICANTHINKOF!!!!!!
true true.
/bb|[^b]{2}/
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Corinna John wrote:
What are industrial ethics? Bis companies don't know bout ethics, they only know money and laywers
If so... nothing can be done...
Thanks for your comments..i think it is the time to change my concepts abt the patents..!!!!
mind is everything.
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Eolas is a one-man company that holds a patent having to do with loading plug-ins to display embedded content in a browser (see [1] for more info). For those that think patents are only good for "Big Companies", can you please explain this one?
Obviously there are a lot of strong yet uniformed opinions out there. That's too bad, because the law is just another tool; A tool that can only be used well once you read the instruction manual.
[1] http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=us&ie=ascii&q=Eolas
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fun... you *know* what the eolas patent is, right?
Tools have one advantage: Your neighbour can have a ful shack of Bosch tools, and you could not care less. laws, in this sense, are no tools.
we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is Vonnegut jr.
sighist || Agile Programming | doxygen
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peterchen wrote:
fun... you *know* what the eolas patent is, right?
Tools have one advantage: Your neighbour can have a ful shack of Bosch tools, and you could not care less. laws, in this sense, are no tools.
One of the fun things about patents (or any aspect of the law, really) is that even after it's granted nobody knows what a patent means until a judge decides a case based on it, or the USPTO revokes it. So, no, I don't know what the patent is beyond what Eolas is claiming.
Did you know that once granted a patent can't be challenged unless the owner files an infringement suit? And even then, only the party named in the suit can request the review. The only other way to get a review is for the USPTO to decide to do so of its own volition; as it is doing with the Eolas patent.
Here's another observation for you. If patents are trading cards, then what happens when you have one really nice card, but the other guy has 10,000 you don't care about? The not-so-obvious answer is that the other guy gets screwed. See Pitney Bowes suit against HP, and the resulting $400M+ cash settlement[1]. That's one good patent versus thousands of irrelevant ones. If the suit had been brought by Epson, HP would have been able to "trade cards" with them and avoid paying-out cash (Espon has a lot of patents, too). Not so with PB, because HP didn't have anything relevant to their business.
If you can make the effort to understand MFC and/or .Net you can sure as heck understand patent law. And, if you're an independent or professional developer, you'd be an idiot to not try.
[1] http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2001/010604c.html
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I wonder what will happen if our predecessors had patterned the literatures, sciences, religions and other knowledges earlier in their time.
I think most likely in even now, we will still stuck to simple civilization and yet arguing about who own the patterns of the past.
Sonork 100.41263:Anthony_Yio
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I am working for one of the biggest software companies in the world. We were instructed to invent new patents because they need them to get patent exchange agreements with the other players in the game. If we have too less good patents we have to pay the others what we do not want of course.
The goal of patents is very clear: Patents are used as weapons against competitors. This creates far to much overhead with legal issues, going to court, paying a lost patent case, getting money for winning a patent case and so on. In the US you have to pay at least 500 000 USD to the court only to start a patent case. I cannot see how this will help our business.
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In the US you have to pay at least 500 000 USD to the court only to start a patent case.
There goes any help patents might be to small businesses/lone entrepreneurs. 
"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind."
-- John F. Kennedy
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well. For software, you just need to hide your dirty tricks in binaries, perhaps also to eliminate all those who've inside knowledge of your secret recipe 
Norman Fung
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Have you ever had a second thought that politicians and lawyers may lie? If you think politicians and lawyers always tell the truth, read no further.
Politicians love to tell they have created a 'patent system' to protect the little guy, but in fact, they have created a patent system to protect the big corporations. The patent system was lobbied and drafted by BIG corporations. Why would big corporations want a patent system? To protect themselves... surely not to help the little guy.
Try to start your own pharmaceutical company and see how many legal problems you will get. People are scared to start a business in many areas because of the number of patents and high legal fees. The big corporations can afford to pay a few million dollars for a license or a patent, but the little guy cannot. The goal with patents is to create a monopoly of an idea, or in the worse case, a cartel where a few big players makes the rules. Now, look who is lobbying for software patents and new regulations: Microsoft and Oracle. I wonder how many self-employed individual at CodeProject are lobbying to get new software regulations. Yes, the big corporations (M$ and Oracle) wants to have rules to release software, apparently to protect the public from viruses and security holes. The goal is to make it illegal to distribute software without the approval stamp from 'them'. To get approved, the software developer would have to pay a fee - a fee high enough to keep him away from entering into the software industry.
The idea of rewarding the author of an idea is completely absurd. If you have a good idea, write the code, keep your code secret, and sell your software. Your reward will be the sales from happy customers.
If you are interested to learn about monopolies and how they are created, I am inviting you to visit http://www.danmorin.com/audio/[^]. These audio MP3s will reveal the other side of the coin.
Sincerely,
-- Dan Morin.
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Engineers! Just do something "less" professional if you want to make money
Norman Fung
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I think that patents are good but it's the system which sucks. Patents are there to protect the little person or company.
E.g.
Imagine that your company has invented an extroadinary new 'thing'. It can only be protected by copyright laws.
The next week MS announces that your idea will be integrated in the next version of their OS. Besides that an other company enhances your 'thing' and makes an awfull lot of $$$ on it. Second your company goes out of business because you couldn't get your 'thing' going.
So IMO patents are good, but the system needs to be improved.
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I completely agree.
If you really work hard, you want to earn some money for your work. The way the big companies work when you only have your work protected by copyright laws is plain evil. MS is simply walking over you and takes you over, or worse... destroys your company.
I think patents are a good way to protected your work. But the system isn't all good at the moment.
"Every rule in a world of bits and bytes can be bend or eventually be broken"
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patents are bad for software. they are good for tangable items, bad for concepts. copyrights are all you need for intellectual property, patents are good for politicians (it gives them something to talk about and it *gives the appearance* that they are doing something with your money).
and thats the bottom line.
>>>>>>>see this post for further info.
/bb|[^b]{2}/
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Ever get a patent submitted and accepted? Ever pay the thousands to keep it that way?
Patents are there for the people / businesses that can afford to get them not the little shop or individual. They wouldnt cost so darn much if it where for the little person. Anyway the line between copyright and patents are getting very blurry.
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The cost to file a patent is $250, I think. And, you can do it yourself if you're comfortable with the process and requirements.
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