Supreme Court Rules Software Patents Invalid-Without Ever Mentioning Software Once In the Decision

Posted by khalling 10 years, 10 months ago to Technology
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"What this means is that companies like Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Google and others have had the value of their patent portfolios nearly completely erased today. If they wish to remain compliant with Sarbanes Oxley and other laws and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission they will need to level with their shareholders and tell them that their patent portfolios have been decimated."

db is on a plane headed to the Atlas Summit to give a talk about Galt as Inventor. When he gets off the plane, this news will greet him. Imagine a MODERN patent system understanding the manufacturing age but not the information age....


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  • Posted by dbhalling 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I vote down people who are being intellectually dishonest or are so ignorant of the issues as to appear so. That is you blarman.
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  • Posted by dbhalling 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I vote down people who are being intellectually dishonest or are so ignorant of the issues as to appear so. That is you blarman.
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  • Posted by dbhalling 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I vote down people who are being intellectually dishonest or are so ignorant of the issues as to appear so. That is you blarman.
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  • Posted by 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes. I accept the common usage.
    1.patents do not grant the owner complete control of an entire supply-in fact they do not allow the owner to even make the good much less "control" a market.
    2. a patent does not give the owner exclusive possession or control. (Swan vs. Edison)
    3. a patent is not a commodity
    On this post, db gave you 5 articles explaining in great detail the differences between the two. It is exhausting to repeat again and again what is objectively known. We're done. Move on to another argument.
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  • Posted by 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I think you are getting downvoted for not sticking with legal definitions of terms, of refusing to acknowledge logical derivations of concepts. Go to any Objectivist site, and study up on why humans have rights in the products of their mind. We are using philosophical and legal standard definitions. Your refusal to accept those definitions, hinders the discussion not advances it.
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  • Posted by 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    yes, obviously. you are not using standard language so I'm not sure what you mean by "primacy use of property." Property rights are a bundle of different rights or different aspects. You have the right to lease, to exclude someone using your land, Land is not the property. The property right is what the owner's relationship is to the land. The land exists. If you own the land(shorthand phrase), you have certain rights associated with that land. Those rights are never unlimited nor are they a monopoly. These are the legal definitions. To move the discussion, please stick to the correct logical and legal structure of property rights. Ultimately, they are about the law, because that is how they are enforced.
    The market isn't tied to the property right.
    "The claim that the government grants a right to a market should immediately offend any true Objectivist because it is an assertion that the government has the right to create and/or control such markets in the first place! "
    THERE is the difference between property rights and Monopoly. In a patent, the government does NOT grant an exclusive right in a market. The government does NOT even grant a right to sell the invention.
    We are using standard legal definitions for these terms of property right and monopoly. Are you?
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  • Posted by 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Hi Bob. there are other laws which limit property rights. Your property rights are limited firt and foremost by others' property rights. Patent rights are one of many property rights, all with slightly different characteristics.
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  • Posted by Robbie53024 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I agree that non-obvious is subjective. As is the determination of "first." Who is first, the person who files first, or the person who can demonstrate that they had the idea first? And what about the individual who develops the same idea entirely independently? Who is "first" then?
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  • Posted by Robbie53024 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I believe that db and kh are using a strictly legal definition, not a common understanding (and common usage) definition.
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  • Posted by Robbie53024 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You won't get anywhere with this discussion. db is a lawyer and will argue fine points of legality that to the common person are a distinction without a difference. Whether a patent is a monopoly or not from a strictly legal definition is immaterial. If you have it, you can prevent others from using the technology. If they cannot legally use the technology to make a product, it doesn't matter whether they have a gov't sanction to be the sole vendor in a specific region or not, they cannot sell it if they cannot produce or procure it for sale. Thus, as I said, a distinction without a practical difference.

    And I'll likely get the down vote and ad hominem attack for writing common sense. So be it.
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  • Posted by Bobhummel 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    To your first point DBH, zoning laws , at the local county level dictate what you can "do" on your private property - commercial vs residential vs industrial. Totally agree on the clear distinction between property rights and patent rights.
    Cheers
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  • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You are a lawyer - not even a programmer - and you are trying to tell me what I have been doing for the last twenty years? What my father did for 25 years? What my father-in-law did for 40 years? What my brothers-in-law currently do for a living?

    The arrogance of presumption on your part in absolute and total opposition to the evidence is shocking - and most especially to someone who claims to place primacy of fact as the pinnacle of one's personal philosophy. I leave you to your own devices.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "you are not serious, you are not interested in logic and evidence" = ad hominem attack

    Ad hominem attack is example of logical fallacy

    Use of logical fallacy = abrogation of logical process

    Accusation of opponent failing to abide by process of logical discovery immediately after violating process of logical discovery through ad hominem attack = blatant hypocrisy.
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  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    CODE DOES NOT WIRE COMPUTERS.

    At this moment, the computer upon which I am typing has, in its ram, a specific pattern of information. By your argument, I could patent every moment I use this machine, as the pattern changes, because your argument is that I am "rewiring" the machine from moment to moment. (most of the good work being done by the MMU, granted...)


    Once you understand the difference between hardware and software, then we can talk.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    A statement that is entirely an ad hominem attack, and yet you go on as if I am the one not adhering to the principles of a logical debate. Then you downvote me for asking questions that expose the vulnerability of your positions?

    You want to call that rational? You want to set yourself up as the paragon of logic while simultaneously violating the very principles of such with the very basest of logical fallacies? And then you want to claim that I am not "advancing the discussion" simply because I have a fundamental disagreement on the definition which happens to represent the cornerstone of your argument?

    Wow. That's all I can say. Wow.
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  • Posted by Rozar 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    But you did create your body, you maintained it and fed it and took care of it. You put your labor both of the mind and body, into keeping yourself alive. That's what makes it yours. You mixed your time and energy with it. It's the same with a patent. You mixed your time and energy into establishing a new set of instructions. So it's yours, and if other people take that thing you produced, and use it without your permission, it's theft.

    Then after 20 years or whatever the government takes your property away from you for the public good.

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  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Just because someone commits a non-sequitur doesn't mean he doesn't know what one is.

    If patents protect the creations of the mind...

    Why wasn't Gone With the Wind patented?

    (for that matter, why isn't Pinnacle of Justice patented?)

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  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "All creation begins, starts with the human mind. All property rights are protecting the property of one's mind."

    So you're saying that the universe is the figment of some person's imagination?

    I've said it before, I'll say it again... gosh you're fun to play with...
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  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "that is a circular statement"

    NO KIDDING?

    No, you could have traded something else you bought. Wal-mart doesn't create, it trades existing goods.


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  • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    From Merriam-Webster:

    mo·nop·o·ly noun \mə-ˈnä-p(ə-)lē\
    1: complete control of the entire supply of goods or of a service in a certain area or market
    2: exclusive possession or control
    3: a commodity controlled by one party

    What I have been trying to point out to you all along is that you are using a definition that is incorrect when you assert that a patent is NOT a monopoly. The dictionary very clearly disagrees with you - as do I. The fundamental disagreement is not a logical one, it is a definitional one. Logic is extrapolation based on definition. One must assert A before one can assert A -> B. You are asserting A and I am pointing out that your assertion of A is fundamentally fallacious - that you are not accurately describing A.
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    Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Hm.

    That sounds like a "purist" argument one might find in a Christian cult. "We're the only *real* Christians because we're the only ones who believe and obey every letter of the Bible".

    If Objectivists reject all mysticism... why do so many of you worship at the feet of AR?

    Let me elaborate on that, for you...

    If one is unwilling to concede the possibility that AR is wrong about something... then one must logically have some mystical view of her as some godlike creature; certainly superior to the rest of us who are fallible most of the time.

    If one is willing to concede that AR is wrong about something... then AR *could* be wrong about God.

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  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I am under no obligation to protect another's invention, or even my own. Constitutionally or otherwise.
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  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I repeat my question...

    How does he know?

    There are a LOT of software companies out there; some of them are nothing more than a handful of people.

    Somehow you're proposing that software companies are paragons of virtue who would never, ever lie to their lawyers or keep secrets.
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