What a difference a week makes
Last week, we had snow on the ground. Today, it’s sunny and 60 degrees.
Welcome to New England. If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute. Or a week, as the case may be.
Last week, we had snow on the ground. Today, it’s sunny and 60 degrees.
Welcome to New England. If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute. Or a week, as the case may be.
Two firms begin suing the entire LCD industry asserting that at least four patents are being violated.
This is clearly an attempt to cash in on the hard work of others. Let us assume for a moment that Guardian and Honeywell do indeed have patents that are being infringed. I’ve been using products with large dot-addressable LCDs for at least ten years. Active Matrix has been around for at least 8 of those years.
The time to file these complaints was 8 years ago. But, the technology’s future was uncertain then, why spend the money to get in on the ground floor. Wait until it takes off, and then cash in on ten years of stored profits!
This should be illegal. At the very least, it must be argued that these companies knew that their patents were being violated, and they did nothing. They didn’t even attempt to mitigate any continuing violation of their patent. No request for injunctive relief. No demands for licensing fees. NOTHING.
In my world, patent reform would have at least the following characteristics:
Failure to do any of these things would result in the forfeiture of the patent to the public domain. If a patent holder decides to forgo the rigorous defense of their patents in the hope of making a much larger payday down the road, they should lose those patents.
Likewise, a patent holder that patents something with no intention or ability to produce it, hoping that someone else will either independently discover it or use their patent as a guideline to develop something similar, and again hope to sue themselves rich should lose that patent.
Some other time I’ll get into the concept of the “predatory patent”, whereby someone patents something that comes from an open forum, or public prior art, and then sues everyone in sight (hint: think RAMBUS).
One year ago, March 11, 2004. Spain got a taste of what Al Qaeda has in store for everyone that isn’t a Wahhabi.
Never forget.
This must be “piss Brian off week” in the various legislative bodies of America.
The Washington State Legislature is considering House Bill 2178 which would allow for personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits against video game manufacturers and retailers. This would apply if the person committing such injury or death was 17 years of age or younger while playing the game, and imitating it in real life.
Do I even need to tell you how bad this is?
Essentially, this tells any 17 year-old that nothing he does is his fault. It’s the fault of gun manufacturers if he shoots someone, the fault of the pharmaceutical companies if he’s taking anti-depressants, and now the video game companies too.
Of course none of these various legislatures that keep harping on video games comments on allowing the NBA to be sued if some high-school kid runs into the stands and beats a spectator down. And none of them have the testicular fortitude to consider holding the parents criminally responsible for the crimes of their minor children.
No, this is yet another attempt by the nanny-staters to stifle expression that they don’t control. Which is why piss-Christ is OK – they funded it through NEA. But no Grand Theft Auto – someone might make money on that.
On the off chance that anyone from Washington reads this, PLEASE stop your legislature before they give anyone any ideas.
hat tip: IGN, by way of [H]ard|OCP
I expect that our children may one day ask us this question. Thanks to the lapses of judgement in Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court of the United States of America, we have a law that has as its primary purpose the stifling of free speech.
In 2002, Congress passed the Bi-partisan Campaigin Reform Act (BCRA). President George W. Bush happily signed this act in to law. The Supreme Court upheld it in its entirety as compatible with the Constitution.
This article in CNET (hat tip: Instapundit) shows just how steep the slippery slope is this time. Congress sued the Federal Election Commission over internet regulation, and they won. The FEC has been tasked with determining when a posting to a web site, blog, journal, news site, whatever, is an illegal contribution to a campaign.
Their task is complicated by the fact that the law makes exemption for periodicals and news broadcasts — of which the Internet is neither, and both — but not for personal communications. The FEC has also been told that they must regulate electronic mail!
I would argue that a blog, in the simplest sense, is nothing more than a lone nut standing on a street-corner with a sign. Maybe people read it, maybe they don’t. But it’s there. Electronic mail has no marginal cost (like postage or paper), so how does one value it as a contribution?
To say that this unconstitutional law frightens me is understatement. My biggest fear is that it will ultimately lead to the suppression of actual speech, preventing that lone nut from standing on a streetcorner with a sign.
If the public cannot speak out against its leaders, then we are no longer a nation of the people, but an oligarchy; ruled by an elite that can no longer be held to account for their actions.
Sentator Ted Stevens (R-AK) has launched the opening salvo in the war to control the flow of information and entertainment.
The most worrisome part: “If that’s the issue they want to take on, we’ll take it on and let the Supreme Court decide”. If you have been paying attention lately, the Supreme Court has been falling back on foreign jurisprudence to justify their activist rulings. In a recent decision setting aside the death-row status of anyone condemed to die while under the age of 18, Justice Kennedy used European law as a justification for his decision. If past is prologue, they will use the laws on the books in France, Germany, and Canada — just to name a few — as justification for having a federally-mandated speech code for all non-print mass-communication media.
We also have the precedent of the Supreme Court deciding that the First Amendment shredding Campaign Finance Reform law was perfectly acceptable. Politicians are already crying about how it wasn’t enough, and they want to go further. The passage and acceptance of a law granting policing authority to the FCC for decency on satellite and cable will only embolden them further in their quest to ensure they never have to endure competition or a harsh opinion.
At this point, Stevens is the only one on his committee spouting off on this issue, but it resounds with all the power-seekers in Washington. He’ll find support. At the very least, my esteemed Senator Lieberman (who keeps winning no matter how many times I vote against him) will follow along in lock step.
I intend to write him a letter asking for clarification. I also plan to recommend to him that if what I have read is true that he should consider resigning his office as he will have engaged in a willful violation of the oath of office in which he swore to uphold the Constitution.