tkeller

Well, maybe so. But I stand by my disappointment at the lack of knowledge about patents around here. We don't understand patents, but we're mad as hell about them!

> Do you work in patent law?

Yes. As for the effect on the community... well, are you just talking about the way that patents make software developers feel? Because obviously developers would know more about that than I do. But it's also not a particularly relevant question--patents are what they are, and the way they make you feel doesn't really matter.

Well, that may be. But almost all of the posts you see around here decrying them are just steeped in ignorance. Titles like "Microsoft has patented <whatever the title of the patent is>. Software patents have to go." When the reality is that they have merely applied for a patent (not gotten one granted), and it's actually something really narrow if you read the claims.

Stuff like that does not fill me with humility and make me think, hey, maybe these folks are right and I'm the one who doesn't know what he's talking about. Because I do know what I'm talking about. There are defensible arguments for why software patents may not be a good thing... but you don't see them here. You don't often see anything well-reasoned, just a bunch of groupthink.

No, I don't. I just get annoyed at all the misinformation that gets repeated about patents in general and software patents specifically.

The discourse around HN is generally of a pretty high level, and it's disappointing to see people just blindly accepting the party line: software patents bad, I don't know how to read a patent and that's ok, and anyone who disagrees is just stifling innovation.

Rabble rabble rabble. I hate this attitude: I don't understand software patents, and I'm not going to take the time to learn about them, therefore they need to go.

> Basically, Allen got an omnibus patent that covers all these characteristics

No. He didn't. And regardless of whether software patents need to go, ignorant media coverage certainly needs to go.

Do I think it's acceptable that adults are required to have some understanding of how the world around them works? Yes, I do.

The claims really are not particularly vague.

That's kind of my point. The title means nothing. The abstract means almost nothing. The figures mean almost nothing. Have a look here for a brief guide to reading a patent, written for nonlawyers. http://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2010/09/how-to-read-a-patent-...

Have you actually read them? Read the claims? They're software patents, so plenty of folk will hate them just based on that... but they really are not poorly drafted patents.

Why would any of these people have consented to a search? If a cop approaches you in the parking lot, be polite but firm, and waive no rights.

He's trying to write this up as a neat hack ($300 for an hour of work? where do I sign up?), but all he's really done is waste a lot of other people's time to exploit a silly loophole. I wonder how many man-hours the bank spent moving and counting 300 pounds of coins, not to mention how much tax money was spent shipping the damn things to him. What an unproductive waste.

"It's funny how often we hear patent system supporters tell us that if you haven't actually gotten a patent for your invention, it's perfectly reasonable for someone else to go and patent it instead."

I'm not sure I've heard anyone say this, ever.

I've read it twice. That says it all, I guess.

I see what you're saying, but... it's copyright infringement and license violation. Politeness is not a requirement.

Go back to Linux, this is iOS.

... eight months ago.

Exactly. There's nothing dishonorable about arbitrage.

Where would the U-232 contamination come from, if it's bred U-233? Does thorium also just sometimes decay into the lighter isotope?

It is, certainly. My only issue is that it wasn't treated like an approximation.

"... except for the problem of too many layers of indirection." (David Wheeler's corollary)

I am going to have to steal that line about the trees and the forest.

"Brazil's inflation rate hit 80 percent per month. At that rate, if eggs cost $1 one day, they'll cost $2 a month later."

Really.

But this is true even if you never had an account. That's like saying you can't leave the internet, because people can still talk about you online.

> If the universe lasts forever, then any event that can happen, will happen, no matter how unlikely. In fact, this event will happen an infinite number of times.

Umm... this does not follow. Their argument surely must be more convincing than this nonsense.

Should it? I don't know. Will it? Absolutely.

And what does "aggressively" mean? Making a patent unenforceable will have the same effect as invalidating it.

Seriously? This is your argument? Comparing software patents to slavery trivializes the suffering and evils of slavery.

This is simply not true. Regardless of how, say Microsoft, uses or doesn't use its patents, they account for a substantial percentage of its value on the books. If the accountants suddenly had to revalue them to $0, it would unquestionably have a big impact on the share price.

There are some big companies out there with a lot of their on-the-books valuation existing in the form of software patents. If they suddenly have to mark that stuff down to zero, imagine the crash...

As a commenter there noted,

[thing] = stuff

works too. I think I like that even better.