...The system is broken. People here are just asking that it be fixed.
Um...Have you read the posts? They're not merely asking that it [the patent system] be fixed. They've vilified this couple; calling them names, wishing them harm, etc. And for what? Because they had the temerity to call Apple on some pretty shady business practices? Talk about "sweet."
Were it simply a matter of expressing a desire for tort reform, I'd have kept my mouth shut. But that isn't the case at all. Perhaps, as you suggested earlier, this is just "how things work" on this board. If so, that's a shame. As an Apple aficionado myself, I like to think that we are a little more...enlightened than that. Clearly, I am mistaken.
It sure is easy for people to act tough over the internet...
Um...Have you read the posts? They're not merely asking that it [the patent system] be fixed. They've vilified this couple; calling them names, wishing them harm, etc. And for what? Because they had the temerity to call Apple on some pretty shady business practices? Talk about "sweet."
Were it simply a matter of expressing a desire for tort reform, I'd have kept my mouth shut. But that isn't the case at all. Perhaps, as you suggested earlier, this is just "how things work" on this board. If so, that's a shame. As an Apple aficionado myself, I like to think that we are a little more...enlightened than that. Clearly, I am mistaken.
It sure is easy for people to act tough over the internet...
You are fighting a loosing battle and not really participating in the boards at all. You just seem to be jumping up and down in this one issue in defense of the plaintiffs. Who's playing tough in their anonymity? The irony! The horr-rah!
All six posts in a single thread, rolling in guns-a-blazin, and no mention of being an "Apple person" until you try to use that as a duck and dive defense play. Sorry, you're just acting like a single topic troll playing the faux wounded feelings Bambi card. Until you prove otherwise that's just the label you are stuck with.
You are fighting a loosing battle and not really participating in the boards at all. You just seem to be jumping up and down in this one issue in defense of the plaintiffs. Who's playing tough in their anonymity? The irony! The horr-rah!
All six posts in a single thread, rolling in guns-a-blazin, and no mention of being an "Apple person" until you try to use that as a duck and dive defense play. Sorry, you're just acting like a single topic troll playing the faux wounded feelings Bambi card. Until you prove otherwise that's just the label you are stuck with.
You prove my points perfectly. Thank you.
I have no need to "duck and cover," and I need no defense. I've made statements of fact. You have no facts to back up your fallacious position, so you resort to the sort of juvenile name-calling you left in your last comment. Typical.
I have no need to "duck and cover," and I need no defense. I've made statements of fact. You have no facts to back up your fallacious position, so you resort to the sort of juvenile name-calling you left in your last comment. Typical.
Hardly! Your total lack of initiative to read the whole thread has shown you to not only be incomplete in your own fact gathering, but to be less than prepared in your statements.
If you had even tried, you would have noticed I have not posted once on the merits of this particular patent. But you didn't try and just accused me again of acts which I provably have not committed. Not a single one of your points has been directed at me or my posts, but always at others. So it is quite impossible for me to have a fallacious position compared to yours. Your debate skillz are pathetic, your own posts are testament to that, they provide a quite nice poseurs.
I also am not name calling. I am label providing. The important difference is a label derives from independently verifiable information and that the label adheres to a common societal standard. As long as the label is not connected to a readily identifiable personal physical attribute it does not fit the sub-type of stereotype, so don't bother going there. The societal standard of "troll" and your previously displayed 6 posts style mesh wonderfully. Labels serve to identify and allow easier filtering of incoming information. Name-calling on the other hand is simply made up derogatory fluff with no greater purpose than to disparage.
Labeling you a troll explicitly serves the purpose of letting others know you aren't making the faintest attempt to be part of the community and have simply wandered in to stir things up. Thus they can more easily filter your posts.
It should be quite obvious that in this public forum, you have already lost the opportunity to acquire whatever credibility you hoped to gain. And without credibility nobody gives a rats ass about your message. In fact all you can do now is hurt the overall cause of those you purport to support. It should be quite obvious the plaintiffs had very little sympathy here, whether justified in legal basis or not. And since this is a public forum it does not have to be justified at all. The other posters can say whatever their feelings are about the patent system and dubious new art and perceived patent squatters. You just have to accept it since this isn't a court of law, it is in the jurisdiction of the court of public opinion and even after you tried it, you have not made your case.
It seems like many of the replies in this thread have not even tried to really understand the article or what the patent is really about.
1. They say things like it is too simple and anyone could have invented it ("I invented that while I was drunk and asleep"). You could say that about almost any really great idea or invention. The autombile windshield sunshade for example; should that guy not have gotten a patent because it was too simple. Things are always simple when you already know the answer.
2. They assume the people protecting their patent have done nothing. Wrong. It seems the people with the patent filed in 2000. That means they probably invented it well before then. I found that they have a website at http://www.vibme.com which was started in 2004. On that site they claim to have also had ripsave.com and non-virtual.com before that and those were successful.
3. They assume the invention is just plain gift card. Wrong. The invention is for specific merchandise gift cards. You can't go into wal-mart or toysRus and pick up a gift card for a specific item. You have to get a gift card for a dollar amount and use that towards a general purchase. This really is different.
4. They assume that Apple wasn't first approached and asked to license. The actual court papers which can be downloaded if you belong to a service (I do) say that they contacted people like Apple as early as 2000 and have been ever since. How would you like it if you kept telling someone your idea over and over and they keep telling you it's no good and then they just turn around and just do it making millions of dollars on something they stole from you.
5. They assume the patent office just screwed up. The fact is that Apple and everyone in the download business has patents and they certainly expect you to pay if you are going to use it. Just go to USPTO.gov and look up all the "simple" patents Apple has. The fact is computer implemented business methods patents are a major part of Apple's portfolio. Ever since 2000, art section 705 (computer business methods) require double examination and allow for outside input on whether it can be patented or not. That is making the computer business method patents among the strongest, hardest to get, and hardest to defeat.
6. They assume a patent is easy to get (one says, "I'll patent 1s and 0s used in computing"). No you won't. Most patents cost at least $100K to get now days. I'm sure these people paid through the nose. An invention must be new, useful, and non-obvious. It took the patent office 6 years to go over this one. My hat goes off to them thinking of a much more consumer focused way of doing gift cards. Those stupid money store cards I'm told have up to 60% waste (putting money on the card that never gets used). This new gift card is something great for the user. Let's applaud them for working to bring it to the public. Most of these home based inventors don't want much. Just to be acknowledged and not tossed aside.
Well, let's just say I know this guy working in the PTO ...
1. Innovation = Patent. But innovation does not require one to be smart. That is why the average Joe can also get a patent if invention is new. Works to your advantage! Merely setting the bar higher will hurt the common folks and benefit corporations.
2. Patent Office is not a legal body, it does not process litigation or police the world. Sometimes I feel it is the legal system and business practice that needs to be reformed.
3. Only the US allows "Business Methods" patents. Most of these appear abstract and conceptual, but can actually be reduced to practiced and repeated consistently, if you read the entire patent.
4. Many of you are using hindsight. It's like "Where Is Waldo?" gets easier the 2nd time because you know where to look. What is obvious today, was not 6-8 yrs ago.
5. Patent laws are vague like "non-obvious" or "novelty". That actually gives more power to the Office to reject applications, and prevents bad patents from getting out. Asking to specify the law is going the wrong way. Think about it for sec.
6. The examiners do a decent job. The pilot project of peer review from the industry was not well received. Rarely did the industry provide adequate references for the Office to use at all.
Finally, I think we are beginning to see a change in IP rights. The common people are getting more familiar with what IP is and how to use it. Keep in mind, those cases you hear about suing millions of dollars is like drop of water in the ocean compared to the number patents currently out there, like the lottery chances of winning; so for VCs, IP is a very bad indicator for investment purposes. But the idea and use IP will continue to grow there is no doubt about it. Let see if you hop on the train in time.
Comments
A few links:
First, a Google search result:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&c...oblems&spell=1
Some actual sites (you can tell who they are from the addresses):
http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~...t%20reform.pdf
http://www.news.com/Invention-interv...3-5817175.html
http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...220_827695.htm
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4548.html
The system is broken. People here are just asking that it be fixed.
...The system is broken. People here are just asking that it be fixed.
Um...Have you read the posts? They're not merely asking that it [the patent system] be fixed. They've vilified this couple; calling them names, wishing them harm, etc. And for what? Because they had the temerity to call Apple on some pretty shady business practices? Talk about "sweet."
Were it simply a matter of expressing a desire for tort reform, I'd have kept my mouth shut. But that isn't the case at all. Perhaps, as you suggested earlier, this is just "how things work" on this board. If so, that's a shame. As an Apple aficionado myself, I like to think that we are a little more...enlightened than that. Clearly, I am mistaken.
It sure is easy for people to act tough over the internet...
---
All bickering, ranting and arm-chair lawyering aside, I wonder how this case is progressing?
Um...Have you read the posts? They're not merely asking that it [the patent system] be fixed. They've vilified this couple; calling them names, wishing them harm, etc. And for what? Because they had the temerity to call Apple on some pretty shady business practices? Talk about "sweet."
Were it simply a matter of expressing a desire for tort reform, I'd have kept my mouth shut. But that isn't the case at all. Perhaps, as you suggested earlier, this is just "how things work" on this board. If so, that's a shame. As an Apple aficionado myself, I like to think that we are a little more...enlightened than that. Clearly, I am mistaken.
It sure is easy for people to act tough over the internet...
You are fighting a loosing battle and not really participating in the boards at all. You just seem to be jumping up and down in this one issue in defense of the plaintiffs. Who's playing tough in their anonymity? The irony! The horr-rah!
All six posts in a single thread, rolling in guns-a-blazin, and no mention of being an "Apple person" until you try to use that as a duck and dive defense play. Sorry, you're just acting like a single topic troll playing the faux wounded feelings Bambi card. Until you prove otherwise that's just the label you are stuck with.
You are fighting a loosing battle and not really participating in the boards at all. You just seem to be jumping up and down in this one issue in defense of the plaintiffs. Who's playing tough in their anonymity? The irony! The horr-rah!
All six posts in a single thread, rolling in guns-a-blazin, and no mention of being an "Apple person" until you try to use that as a duck and dive defense play. Sorry, you're just acting like a single topic troll playing the faux wounded feelings Bambi card. Until you prove otherwise that's just the label you are stuck with.
You prove my points perfectly. Thank you.
I have no need to "duck and cover," and I need no defense. I've made statements of fact. You have no facts to back up your fallacious position, so you resort to the sort of juvenile name-calling you left in your last comment. Typical.
You prove my points perfectly. Thank you.
I have no need to "duck and cover," and I need no defense. I've made statements of fact. You have no facts to back up your fallacious position, so you resort to the sort of juvenile name-calling you left in your last comment. Typical.
Hardly! Your total lack of initiative to read the whole thread has shown you to not only be incomplete in your own fact gathering, but to be less than prepared in your statements.
If you had even tried, you would have noticed I have not posted once on the merits of this particular patent. But you didn't try and just accused me again of acts which I provably have not committed. Not a single one of your points has been directed at me or my posts, but always at others. So it is quite impossible for me to have a fallacious position compared to yours. Your debate skillz are pathetic, your own posts are testament to that, they provide a quite nice poseurs.
I also am not name calling. I am label providing. The important difference is a label derives from independently verifiable information and that the label adheres to a common societal standard. As long as the label is not connected to a readily identifiable personal physical attribute it does not fit the sub-type of stereotype, so don't bother going there. The societal standard of "troll" and your previously displayed 6 posts style mesh wonderfully. Labels serve to identify and allow easier filtering of incoming information. Name-calling on the other hand is simply made up derogatory fluff with no greater purpose than to disparage.
Labeling you a troll explicitly serves the purpose of letting others know you aren't making the faintest attempt to be part of the community and have simply wandered in to stir things up. Thus they can more easily filter your posts.
It should be quite obvious that in this public forum, you have already lost the opportunity to acquire whatever credibility you hoped to gain. And without credibility nobody gives a rats ass about your message. In fact all you can do now is hurt the overall cause of those you purport to support. It should be quite obvious the plaintiffs had very little sympathy here, whether justified in legal basis or not. And since this is a public forum it does not have to be justified at all. The other posters can say whatever their feelings are about the patent system and dubious new art and perceived patent squatters. You just have to accept it since this isn't a court of law, it is in the jurisdiction of the court of public opinion and even after you tried it, you have not made your case.
It seems like many of the replies in this thread have not even tried to really understand the article or what the patent is really about.
1. They say things like it is too simple and anyone could have invented it ("I invented that while I was drunk and asleep"). You could say that about almost any really great idea or invention. The autombile windshield sunshade for example; should that guy not have gotten a patent because it was too simple. Things are always simple when you already know the answer.
2. They assume the people protecting their patent have done nothing. Wrong. It seems the people with the patent filed in 2000. That means they probably invented it well before then. I found that they have a website at http://www.vibme.com which was started in 2004. On that site they claim to have also had ripsave.com and non-virtual.com before that and those were successful.
3. They assume the invention is just plain gift card. Wrong. The invention is for specific merchandise gift cards. You can't go into wal-mart or toysRus and pick up a gift card for a specific item. You have to get a gift card for a dollar amount and use that towards a general purchase. This really is different.
4. They assume that Apple wasn't first approached and asked to license. The actual court papers which can be downloaded if you belong to a service (I do) say that they contacted people like Apple as early as 2000 and have been ever since. How would you like it if you kept telling someone your idea over and over and they keep telling you it's no good and then they just turn around and just do it making millions of dollars on something they stole from you.
5. They assume the patent office just screwed up. The fact is that Apple and everyone in the download business has patents and they certainly expect you to pay if you are going to use it. Just go to USPTO.gov and look up all the "simple" patents Apple has. The fact is computer implemented business methods patents are a major part of Apple's portfolio. Ever since 2000, art section 705 (computer business methods) require double examination and allow for outside input on whether it can be patented or not. That is making the computer business method patents among the strongest, hardest to get, and hardest to defeat.
6. They assume a patent is easy to get (one says, "I'll patent 1s and 0s used in computing"). No you won't. Most patents cost at least $100K to get now days. I'm sure these people paid through the nose. An invention must be new, useful, and non-obvious. It took the patent office 6 years to go over this one. My hat goes off to them thinking of a much more consumer focused way of doing gift cards. Those stupid money store cards I'm told have up to 60% waste (putting money on the card that never gets used). This new gift card is something great for the user. Let's applaud them for working to bring it to the public. Most of these home based inventors don't want much. Just to be acknowledged and not tossed aside.
Well, let's just say I know this guy working in the PTO ...
1. Innovation = Patent. But innovation does not require one to be smart. That is why the average Joe can also get a patent if invention is new. Works to your advantage! Merely setting the bar higher will hurt the common folks and benefit corporations.
2. Patent Office is not a legal body, it does not process litigation or police the world. Sometimes I feel it is the legal system and business practice that needs to be reformed.
3. Only the US allows "Business Methods" patents. Most of these appear abstract and conceptual, but can actually be reduced to practiced and repeated consistently, if you read the entire patent.
4. Many of you are using hindsight. It's like "Where Is Waldo?" gets easier the 2nd time because you know where to look. What is obvious today, was not 6-8 yrs ago.
5. Patent laws are vague like "non-obvious" or "novelty". That actually gives more power to the Office to reject applications, and prevents bad patents from getting out. Asking to specify the law is going the wrong way. Think about it for sec.
6. The examiners do a decent job. The pilot project of peer review from the industry was not well received. Rarely did the industry provide adequate references for the Office to use at all.
Finally, I think we are beginning to see a change in IP rights. The common people are getting more familiar with what IP is and how to use it. Keep in mind, those cases you hear about suing millions of dollars is like drop of water in the ocean compared to the number patents currently out there, like the lottery chances of winning; so for VCs, IP is a very bad indicator for investment purposes. But the idea and use IP will continue to grow there is no doubt about it. Let see if you hop on the train in time.