loquitur

The problem with patents like those held by VirnetX is multi-fold.
Not only were they purchased by a troll (i.e., a patent assertion entity [or PAE]
and also a non-practicing entity [NPE] at first), but they are overbroad,
which slipped by the patent office when issued.  

The PTO realized their mistake and had them invalidated by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB),
whose decisions oddly run in parallel with the courts, who have different technical
breadth requirements for claims, and who use non-technical juries to adjudicate.

So they are simultaneously held invalid by the PTO as a regrettable mistake
(they are basically warmed-over public Internet committee RFCs) and held
valid by the Texas troll-friendly courts.   Only a higher court can resolve
PTAB vs. CAFC appeals.

Simultaneously the (tentative) judgement awards are completely out-of-proportion
to any value added to a product such as the iPhone, even if the patents were
deemed valid.   Juries have been fooled into thinking that the bogus patents
are worth $1.20 per unit, even though the underlying idea (e.g. adding security
to iMessages enough to turn them from color green to blue) is one of literally
thousands of ideas within Apple software.   So, until rationality can come to jury
damages, it's rather random.

Richard Stallman was right that software patents are like minefields.

thrang said:

Apple seems insanely careful to NOT do what she says is endemic in the tech industry. It doesn't mean they don't swing and miss on occasion, but I suspect Apple is treading VERY deliberately with Health initiatives...

True, because (and you likely know this but not many others) the chairman of the board of Apple is Dr. Art Levinson, erstwhile CEO of biotech giant Genentech until they were absorbed by Roche.   He certainly knows about proceeding deliberately with the inherently conservative FDA, achieving successful scientific outcomes with statistical significance, and marketing any resulting medical products with aplomb, not bombast.   Dr. Levinson is an enormous behind-the-scenes mover and shaker of Apple Inc.

sirozha said:

loquitur said:

sirozha said:

Tim, keep donating your personal wealth to LGBT rights. Good job!

Just please leave Apple out of your social agenda. 

Apple, like many corporate entities (public or otherwise), co-sponsors various activities ranging from charitable contributions
to agencies involved in humanitarian disasters (e.g. via donations to the American Red Cross), efforts supporting
a greener planet (Apple being nearly "net zero" here), and also human rights issues such as the LGBT movement.

Just looking at the 2018 sponsor list for SF Gay Pride, this includes Budweiser, Hilton Hotels, T-Mobile, Smirnoff,
Salesforce, the Commonwealth Club, Amazon, AT&T, intel, PG&E, airbnb, Lyft, many health orgs such as
the Kaiser Foundation, Genentech, Gilead, etc., and retail ops ranging from Safeway to Nordstrom.

Now you may be anything from a capital-L libertarian, a religious practitioner, a Leninist, or amongst those believing that any
corporatist involvement in "social agendas" constitutes anathema.   Meanwhile, Apple and the LGBT
rights movement marches on.

Wrong. I’m none of the above. I‘m a shareholder with a sizeable AAPL portfolio. I don’t hold any positions in any other corporations that actively support social agendas. Let LGBT CEOs support LGBT charities. Let evangelical CEO support Christian fundamental charities. You get the drift. I don’t care what they do with their own money. I want them to keep the corporations they were hired to run out of their social agendas. I want them to focus on the main purpose of the corporation they run, i.e. increasing the value for the stockholders.  

Insofar as one can be "purist" about shareholdership, it's tough out there!  E.g. tobacco companies may be pure profit machines,
so I guess it's OK to mine the high-profit vein there as long as the company CEOs don't make an issue of whether or not they smoke cigarettes.  By this reasoning, profitable coal companies (are there any?) are great, too, as long as the CEO disdains lobbying the criminal enterprise operating out of the Whitehouse.  (Oops, sorry I meant the working-for-the-people civil servants within.)  Apologies for the
whataboutism here, just barely.

Although I am also in the category of having sizable AAPL holdings, I've bet that the net present value of AAPL shares also include a component inculcated by Tim Cook's tenure (that scoundrel, standing up for privacy rights, amongst other things.) Perhaps your
philosophy of filtering via a Capitalist Purity Test can still obtain.   How about hedging your polluted AAPL bet with calls or puts
bought or sold in companies that go overboard in not having the CEO care a whit about their corporate values.

sirozha said:

Tim, keep donating your personal wealth to LGBT rights. Good job!

Just please leave Apple out of your social agenda. 

Apple, like many corporate entities (public or otherwise), co-sponsors various activities ranging from charitable contributions
to agencies involved in humanitarian disasters (e.g. via donations to the American Red Cross), efforts supporting
a greener planet (Apple being nearly "net zero" here), and also human rights issues such as the LGBT movement.

Just looking at the 2018 sponsor list for SF Gay Pride, this includes Budweiser, Hilton Hotels, T-Mobile, Smirnoff,
Salesforce, the Commonwealth Club, Amazon, AT&T, intel, PG&E, airbnb, Lyft, many health orgs such as
the Kaiser Foundation, Genentech, Gilead, etc., and retail ops ranging from Safeway to Nordstrom.

Now you may be anything from a capital-L libertarian, a religious practitioner, a Leninist, or amongst those believing that any
corporatist involvement in "social agendas" constitutes anathema.   Meanwhile, Apple and the LGBT
rights movement marches on.

dewme said:

[....]

Except for ... the Escape key.

The Escape key is a special case. The fact that it happens to be on the same row as the function keys makes its inclusion in the Touch Bar unfortunate. In fact, the Escape key should be treated as a special key and perhaps even be elevated  in status and prominence to double wide treatment like the Return key, even if doing so limits the number of top row function keys to ten (10). I'm totally in favor of promoting the the Escape key to double wide status. That would be a big deal for me while the Touch Bar is still a little deal thing for me.

Implementing this is as simple as replacing the vestigial caps lock key, which very few use except by accident.