Adam Wasserman 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Time Warner Cable Stands Up To Automated Copyright Infringement Filing Factory

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 17 May, 2010 @ 01:20pm

    Legal Obligations?

    An anonymous coward writes:

    >it is clear that widespread infringement is happening on
    >their system, and they need to staff up to meet their legal
    >obligations

    I was wondering if, by the same logic, gun manufacturers had a legal obligation to "staff up" and somehow prevent the widespread (and very well documented) illegal uses their customers put the firearms to.

  • On the post: USPTO Ramping Up Patent Approvals

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 10 May, 2010 @ 03:40pm

    where to put those pesky lawsuits

    Mike wrote:
    "The real way to decrease the time it takes to review a patent is to stop approving bogus patents."

    and Hulser wrote:
    "As I alluded to in another post, they don't even seem to be considering the option of just rejecting more applications."

    Well, as I have pointed out before (but so directly): in our litigious society and entitlement culture, lawsuits over patents are inevitable because everyone wants a piece of a monopoly so they can get rich without really working.

    Suing someone is the next best thing to a patent because it still does not involve anything real work for the plaintif, the lawyers do all the work, and if there is the possibility of a sweet monopoly at the end of the rainbow there will be plenty of folks willing to roll the dice.

    I maintain that the USPTO can do nothing to stem the tide of lawsuits as long as the prospect of easy street exists.

    What the USPTO can influence however, is *who* gets sued. If they start rejecting patents it will be the USPTO that gets sued.

    If they approve patents willy nilly than it is everyone else that gets sued.

    And as far as any danger to the USPTO themselves because of causing all of these lawsuits through irresponsible patent approval... if I were they I would not be worrying. If they were going to get into any trouble for it it would have been quite a while ago.

    Presidents come an go, but their IP maximalist overlords look to me like they are good for another decade or so before the bubble bursts.

  • On the post: Apple Sued For Patent Infringement Over One Of The Broadest Patents You'll Ever See

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 05 May, 2010 @ 02:21pm

    small clarification

    I just realized I only mention percentages, not volumes for 95 and 98.

    Volumes look like this:

    1991 107K
    1995 114k
    1998 163k
    2009 192k

  • On the post: Apple Sued For Patent Infringement Over One Of The Broadest Patents You'll Ever See

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 05 May, 2010 @ 02:18pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: What could have been going on in the mind . . .

    I clearly remember back when... in 1997-98 before things got too seriously crazy, I was following what was then a minor amount of static emanating from the USPTO.

    USPTO was *begging* for increased budgets to handle both an increase in patent application volumes of about 6% but more importantly the ability to hire new examiners qualified to asses the new breed of patent applications claiming software and business process. In 1995 the existing examiners had not a clue, but had maintained some integrity up to that point. But pressure was mounting to clear out the backlog, and that meant either hiring new qualified people, or somewhat blindly approving or dismissing applications.

    Their pleas were completely ignored by Congress so the choice was to blindly approve or reject.

    Well approving applications rarely increases the workload. Rejecting them however ensures that some percentage of those applications will contest and drag out and just be a general nuisance.

    Guess which road the USPTO chose? That (IMO) led to State Street which led to a gold rush of patent speculation. Patent awards increased by over 30% 1998, God only knows by how much patent *applications* increased.

    Guess what else: processing volumes went up over 30%. Budget (which in those days was collected fees minus a 10% kickback that Congress skimmed off the top) went up almost 100%! Ho ho, maybe rubber stamping patent applications isn't so bad after all.

    Just for giggles, here is a point of comparison USPTO is now approving 190k patents per year and is collecting/spending 2.3 billion.

    You do the math. Hulser has a good point.

  • On the post: Now That The Exaflood's Debunked, Fear The Exacloud!

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 04 May, 2010 @ 06:19am

    Re: Loss of Information

    >Entropy Economics - What kind of a name is that?

    A tautological name.

  • On the post: The MPAA Doesn't Want Anyone Shorting Movies

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 16 Apr, 2010 @ 04:39am

    Re: CFTC backs film futures

    Mario wrote:

    I can even see anti-anti-piracy groups using this to mess with the movie industry. That would be some sweet irony - the regulators finally create some rules to hurt one of the tentacles of the vampire squid for a change, not just the main street folk.
    Ok, I'll bite: how specifically do you see anti-anti-piracy groups using this to mess with the movie industry?

  • On the post: Son Gets Mom Charged With Harassment Over Facebook Account Hijacking

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 08 Apr, 2010 @ 04:37pm

    Harassment sharassment...

    ...this a clear case of cyber-bullyig.

    The only kind of bullying that counts.

  • On the post: Teens Face Felony Charges Over Girl Who Committed Suicide

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 30 Mar, 2010 @ 07:37am

    Re: Cyber(?!) Bullying

    I read the news story. It focused on physical violence. These were not cyber-books that were continually pushed out of her hands.

    This was not virtual sex that occurred with the two young men.

    A can of red bull to the head does not leave an online bruise or cut.

    So help me understand why this is all about cyber-bullying?

    Is that what *extreme* cyber-bullying is - when it spills over to real-life?

    Or is it the other way around - plain old real world bullying and violence spills over into twitter and facebook because everything a 16 year old does spills over into twitter and facebook?

  • On the post: Yet Another Study Shows File Sharers Buy More Media

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2010 @ 06:51am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Finally got around to reading your comment - not funny
    Killed myself as per your suggestion - not funny either

  • On the post: Can Someone Explain How Making French Cultural Works More Available Takes Away French Heritage?

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2010 @ 06:44am

    Re: Re:

    Sorry for the delay, holidays and all that.

    To answer your question, I am not sure what the entirety of Sarkozy's comments were. A full text seems impossible to come by, and the possibility exists that these were carefully crafted sound bites released to the press to stimulate support for his (then) upcoming announcement of a large appropriation which included a budget for strengthening the digital capabilities of the French equivalent of the Library of Congress. (part of what I meant by context)

    The quote above that was widely translated into English was accompanied by another quote which was not widely translated into English (the other part of what I meant by context,pardon my rough translation):

    "It is unacceptable that we allow ourselves to lose control over the works of generations upon generations of French authors simply because we are unable (unwilling) to allocate the budget needed for us to be technologically capable of digitizing books."

    Bear in mind that French is a very "dramatic" language (by this I mean more elaborate in its phrase construction than English), and that adjusted for "tone", I feel that "We should be doing this ourselves rather than relying on another country to do it for us." is a fair paraphrasing of what Sarkozy said.

  • On the post: Nintendo Shuts Down Fan-Made Zelda Movie

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2010 @ 06:14am

    Lawyers and legal advice

    Quite possibly (I would say probably) Nintendo's lawyers advised them that allowing the movie to be distributed would open the door for competitive platform manufacturers to port the Zelda game to their platforms without Nintendo's permission.

    Lawyers are funny that way.

  • On the post: Can Someone Explain How Making French Cultural Works More Available Takes Away French Heritage?

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 09 Dec, 2009 @ 10:47am

    Re:

    Just a tiny little bit.

  • On the post: Can Someone Explain How Making French Cultural Works More Available Takes Away French Heritage?

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 09 Dec, 2009 @ 10:21am

    Sarkozy is making a valid observation on the importance of information infrastructure and national interests.

    Large well indexed collections of information are a tremendous national asset. Consider this interesting quote from the US Library of Congress website: "The development of the Library of Congress cannot be separated from the history of the nation it serves".

    It is indisputable that Google is able to do things (as a "superuser") with Google Books in terms of information mining that we as humble users can not do.

    It is most certainly in France's interests to make sure that French institutions have the same kind of "superuser" powers over any vast collection of digitized French language information that is compiled.

    When I read Sarkozy's statements in context, in French, I am left with a different impression. I understand him to be saying: "Shame on us if we are unable to undertake for ourselves work of cultural significance."

    No one can deny that the project is culturally significant. No one can deny that France should be asking itself that question - why rely on someone else to do it?
    Sarkozy is not being an idiot about this, quite the opposite.

    As usual, you have to be very careful with taking news reporting at face value. Quotes are presented in the most sensational way possible, not to inform, but to inflame - because that sells better. When translations are involved even more care needs to be exercised.

  • On the post: Gimmicky Augmented Reality Videos Popping Up In Music Videos And Magazines

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 03 Nov, 2009 @ 04:24am

    My favorite augmented reality is VH1's Pop-Up Video. That is the info I have *got* to have.

  • On the post: Bad Ideas: Trying To Build Patent Marketplaces

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 22 Sep, 2009 @ 07:48am

    Might be interesting

    I for one would be interested in seeing a mechanism for determining actual market value of a patent. It could possibly even help sort out the good one from the bad ones, and I can not see how it would make things worse than they already are.

    So without arguing the merits of patents themselves, I can see an argument for a patent market. There might even be a bubble, followed by the inevitable collapse, and that could conceivably bring some long overdue sanity and critical evaluation to bear.

    For example I would love to see the market value of this one: http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220090132950%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20090132950&RS=DN/20090132950.

    We can only pray that the filing fees would be higher than the value.

  • On the post: In Case You Didn't Know… People Hack Email Accounts All The Time

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 09 Sep, 2009 @ 03:22am

    Look up what stealing is

    There is a strict legal definition of what theft is, and none of the commenters above know what it is.

  • On the post: Yet Another Study Shows File Sharers Buy More Media

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 29 Aug, 2009 @ 06:06am

    Re:

    Inappropriately attaching the label Nazi is always relevant to some people.

    Not entirely sure why, I class it with similar examples of bad taste, like compulsive overuse of popular movie catchphrases. They're both unattractive.

  • On the post: Why Just Copying Isn't Enough: Cargo Cult Science And Copycats

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2009 @ 05:44am

    Re: Re: Re:

    I knew someone would end up correcting me. :-)

    Perhaps it is fair to say that *no human endeavor whatsoever* is a complete break from the past. In which case building on the past can not be the defining characteristic of innovation because logically *everything* would be innovation in that case.

    Which by the way - is pretty much true. Humans are innovation machines. It is what we do, and have been doing since the dawn of time. Most of that time (as you and many others point out) with no form whatsoever of "intellectual property" protection.

  • On the post: Why Just Copying Isn't Enough: Cargo Cult Science And Copycats

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 27 Aug, 2009 @ 05:13pm

    Re:

    True innovation?

    Is that like the One True Brace Style?

    It seems you are saying that since True Innovation learns from the past, something that was a complete break from the past - let us consider quantum theory compared to Newtonian physics - could not be considered innovation.

    As for your comments about copycats "stealing away" "the profits" it sounds to me (and it could just be me) as if you would like a sinecure.

    Well, that is just not the way the world usually works, and when some artificial mechanism is put into place to provide a sinecure, the historical reality has been that it disappears (along with the regime that instituted it) when the inequities inherent in the system become intolerable for the common people who shoulder the burden.

  • On the post: Swedish Pirate Party Wins Two One Seat In EU Parliament

    Adam Wasserman ( profile ), 08 Jun, 2009 @ 07:38am

    Re: Bad name?

    "So, he also doesn't care which party he joins into a coalition with."

    Not a statement easily understood by people with no experience in coalition governments.

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