These patents are pretty clear. The villains here are not really Logan, Goessling and Call - they are playing entirely by the rules as our (supposedly representative) government has set them.
The villains are the incompetent schmucks in the Patent Office who should never have allowed these patents (on grounds of obviousness and lack of "genius" as required by law) and - even more so - the greedy schmucks in the US Congress in 1870 who opened the floodgates by removing the requirement for working models, which restricted the patentability of ideas in an extremely useful and equitable way. Back in the day, if you couldn't build a model of it inside a 12inch by 12inch cube, it just wasn't patentable.
But all that aside, here's a question for Logan: When wealthy corporate patent owners shake down small businessmen [techdirt.com] and individuals, the White House is all in favor of "protecting American innovation". But recently the Obama adminstration has had strong words for "patent trolls" - at odds with Joe Biden's long history of support for absurdly strong intellectual property laws and ever-growing length of monopoly. Do you think your successful efforts to get wealthy zaibatsus like Apple to pay off your small company is the reason for the Obama/Biden White House's sudden and uncharacteristic distaste for so-called "patent trolls?"
Yes. This particular troll isn't the problem. The system that allows people to patent ideas, rather than inventions, is the problem. The notion, however, that taking advantage of a broken system to one's own advantage, even if it hurts everyone else, is blameless? That's crazy. Of course this troll is morally accountable for their actions. But to put it in question form:
Why do you believe you deserve any money in licensing fees at all, when you haven't apparently done any of the work required to produce a product?
Why does saihung believe that no work has been done, when Logan spent 1.6 million of his own money to bring a product to market before anyone else?
The guy built the invention. He played by both the spirit and the letter of the rules. The rules suck but you are just scapegoating this guy for that - maybe you should do some research before you start publicly calling people out?
I live in Argentina. Our economy sucks, we can barely get foreign currencies if we want to live the country, we can't import almost anything, and we've like a millon of other really sucky problems.
But here, we only patent inventions, not ideas, and that's the one (and only) thing that makes me proud about this so very problematic country.
Inventions are ideas. The problem is that we allow obvious inventions/ideas to be patented. This results on wasteful litigation and stifles innovation.
Patents if done properly can encourage innovation, but we are doing it completely wrong. In this climate there is more incentive to be a patent lawyer than an inventor.
"The villains here are not really Logan, Goessling and Call - they are playing entirely by the rules as our (supposedly representative) government has set them."
Way to shift the blame... The people running the Gas chambers at Auschwitz were not villains, it was all Hitlers fault.
The villains here are not really Logan, Goessling and Call - they are playing entirely by the rules as our (supposedly representative) government has set them.
Way to shift the blame... The people running the Gas chambers at Auschwitz were not villains, it was all Hitlers fault.
You win the prize, in the form of "insightful" mods by people who apparently can't discriminate between mass murder and unsavory business practices. Congratulations!
That's not sarcasm. I sincerely admire the way you've gamed the sys
You can make an analogy by relating the holocaust with patent trolling. It doesn't mean that you can't discriminate between mass murder and patent trolling. But it does indicate that you don't know what an analogy is.
If someone makes an analogy between running a multinational corporation and a lemonade stand, the proper response is not "Corporations are much bigger than lemonade stands, why can't you see that?", the proper response is "I think this is a good/bad analogy because..."
Just because a system (the patent office in this case) permits an immoral act (patenting something obvious with no intention of using it in any form except as leverage for extortion) doesn't absolve you of your responsibility to act morally.
Capitalism, on the other hand, does require you to act immorally in this case. (Because if you don't, your competitor will, to your disadvantage. Hence patent war chests.)
You've made several good points, but I still feel compelled to repeat that Logan et al clearly did intend to use their patents, since they did build devices and did attempt to market them. These were never submarine patents (despite all the giant corporations crying bitter crocodile tears) and perfectly valid moral objections to that practice are not applicable here.
People are choosing to ignore certain realities because they don't want to pay the patent owner. It makes them feel morally righteous to pret
> "since they did build devices and did attempt to market them."
The "devices" they created existed decades before Jim Logan came along to patent it: "The National Talking Express is a monthly stereo tape magazine for the blind and visually impaired. It was launched in 1979 and was the first tape magazine in the UK to go stereo. It has a national and international membership."
Unless the National Talking Express had a method for selecting per-user content before delivery, that ain't prior art.
However, in any case, thank you for adding something to the conversation! I would not be surprised if the patent was invalid, and personally I think it never should have been granted - but these claims that Logan never did any work and never created anything seem to be false, so wasting time on lame accusatory "questions" in this thread is stupid.
Links to patents (Score:5, Informative)
What will you do about White House intervention? (Score:4, Interesting)
Thanks for that, very informative.
These patents are pretty clear. The villains here are not really Logan, Goessling and Call - they are playing entirely by the rules as our (supposedly representative) government has set them.
The villains are the incompetent schmucks in the Patent Office who should never have allowed these patents (on grounds of obviousness and lack of "genius" as required by law) and - even more so - the greedy schmucks in the US Congress in 1870 who opened the floodgates by removing the requirement for working models, which restricted the patentability of ideas in an extremely useful and equitable way. Back in the day, if you couldn't build a model of it inside a 12inch by 12inch cube, it just wasn't patentable.
But all that aside, here's a question for Logan: When wealthy corporate patent owners shake down small businessmen [techdirt.com] and individuals, the White House is all in favor of "protecting American innovation". But recently the Obama adminstration has had strong words for "patent trolls" - at odds with Joe Biden's long history of support for absurdly strong intellectual property laws and ever-growing length of monopoly. Do you think your successful efforts to get wealthy zaibatsus like Apple to pay off your small company is the reason for the Obama/Biden White House's sudden and uncharacteristic distaste for so-called "patent trolls?"
Re:What will you do about White House intervention (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. This particular troll isn't the problem. The system that allows people to patent ideas, rather than inventions, is the problem. The notion, however, that taking advantage of a broken system to one's own advantage, even if it hurts everyone else, is blameless? That's crazy. Of course this troll is morally accountable for their actions. But to put it in question form:
Why do you believe you deserve any money in licensing fees at all, when you haven't apparently done any of the work required to produce a product?
Re: (Score:2)
Why does saihung believe that no work has been done, when Logan spent 1.6 million of his own money to bring a product to market before anyone else?
The guy built the invention. He played by both the spirit and the letter of the rules. The rules suck but you are just scapegoating this guy for that - maybe you should do some research before you start publicly calling people out?
Re: (Score:2)
I live in Argentina. Our economy sucks, we can barely get foreign currencies if we want to live the country, we can't import almost anything, and we've like a millon of other really sucky problems.
But here, we only patent inventions, not ideas, and that's the one (and only) thing that makes me proud about this so very problematic country.
We don't you guys learn from us!!
Re: (Score:2)
Re:What will you do about White House intervention (Score:4, Insightful)
"The villains here are not really Logan, Goessling and Call - they are playing entirely by the rules as our (supposedly representative) government has set them."
Way to shift the blame... The people running the Gas chambers at Auschwitz were not villains, it was all Hitlers fault.
Nice Godwin, Lumpy! (Score:2)
You win the prize, in the form of "insightful" mods by people who apparently can't discriminate between mass murder and unsavory business practices. Congratulations!
That's not sarcasm. I sincerely admire the way you've gamed the sys
Re: (Score:2)
You can make an analogy by relating the holocaust with patent trolling. It doesn't mean that you can't discriminate between mass murder and patent trolling. But it does indicate that you don't know what an analogy is.
If someone makes an analogy between running a multinational corporation and a lemonade stand, the proper response is not "Corporations are much bigger than lemonade stands, why can't you see that?", the proper response is "I think this is a good/bad analogy because..."
In this case, I definite
Re: (Score:2)
Just because a system (the patent office in this case) permits an immoral act (patenting something obvious with no intention of using it in any form except as leverage for extortion) doesn't absolve you of your responsibility to act morally.
Capitalism, on the other hand, does require you to act immorally in this case. (Because if you don't, your competitor will, to your disadvantage. Hence patent war chests.)
They have a patent, prior art and sold product too (Score:2)
You've made several good points, but I still feel compelled to repeat that Logan et al clearly did intend to use their patents, since they did build devices and did attempt to market them. These were never submarine patents (despite all the giant corporations crying bitter crocodile tears) and perfectly valid moral objections to that practice are not applicable here.
People are choosing to ignore certain realities because they don't want to pay the patent owner. It makes them feel morally righteous to pret
Re: (Score:2)
The "devices" they created existed decades before Jim Logan came along to patent it: "The National Talking Express is a monthly stereo tape magazine for the blind and visually impaired. It was launched in 1979 and was the first tape magazine in the UK to go stereo. It has a national and international membership."
Re: (Score:1)
Unless the National Talking Express had a method for selecting per-user content before delivery, that ain't prior art.
However, in any case, thank you for adding something to the conversation! I would not be surprised if the patent was invalid, and personally I think it never should have been granted - but these claims that Logan never did any work and never created anything seem to be false, so wasting time on lame accusatory "questions" in this thread is stupid.