borfast Posted May 19, 2004 Posted May 19, 2004 I hope this falls right on their feet, so they can feel the weight of their own actions... http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/05/18/186228.shtml?tid=123&tid=155&tid=99 Quote
Deverill Posted May 19, 2004 Posted May 19, 2004 Cool, I'm off to patent "Goto" (Patent Pending) Seriously, though, aren't we burdened enough by the morass of litigation now? We have people suing for spilling hot coffee on themselves and they sue McDonalds for making them fat -- it would be impossible to have progress if we have to do patent searches on code and worry about getting sued. Does this mean we have to make all of our source code available to the patent office so they can be sure we aren't violating someone's patents? When this happens wouldn't it become public information available to anyone? (Yes, I am speaking in US-centric terms but it's probably similar in other countries.) This reminds me of the time a friend and I got tired of seeing "Unix is a registered trademark of AT&T / Bell Labs" and decided to trademark the word "trademark." Pure foolishness. Quote
borfast Posted May 19, 2004 Author Posted May 19, 2004 (edited) The problem is that the patents will not apply specifically to the source code but to the ideas/concepts! So if someone thinks of patenting, for instance, "tabs as a means of separating various parts of related information through several 'sheets' in the same program window" or something similar, you can say bye-bye to tabbed browsing and all those things that make use of tabs. Well, unless the makers of that software are willing to pay the fees, and thus increasing the software price for the end-user, that is.... Note that I'm not against people receiving money for their inventions! But there has to be limits... Edited May 19, 2004 by TCH-Raul Quote
Deverill Posted May 19, 2004 Posted May 19, 2004 If it is that broad then there will be no more program development because pretty much everything that can be is at that level. All of the controls and such on our programs and websites pretty much exhaust the possibilities - it's only the unique combination that makes this program different than that one. I hope they never get the idea here in the US to do that, but it would be messy enough if other countries do. Quote
DarqFlare Posted May 19, 2004 Posted May 19, 2004 I think that's really stupid myself. I'd love to be the one to patent mouseover images. Or, for that matter, flash-enabled menus... - 468x60 banner advertising system. - Login pages. - Logout pages. - Confirmation emails. - Form mailers. - Website viewing preferences. - Forums. - Blogs. - LINKS! Yes indeedy, I'll patent the idea of links. Something that allows you to directly visit one page from another by clicking something. I'll make billions. Quote
jslagle Posted May 19, 2004 Posted May 19, 2004 Anyone hear what the outcome of SBC claiming a patent on frames a year or so ago? nukecops.com/article8.html Quote
Deverill Posted May 19, 2004 Posted May 19, 2004 The hyperlinks is already taken by a guy that tried to sue but I never heard anything more about him. Maybe he has cement shoes at some lake? Quote
DarqFlare Posted May 20, 2004 Posted May 20, 2004 lol... I really hope this blows up in their faces. Quote
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