Free Republic

In 1853, the Supreme Court gave Samuel Morse some bad news. In O'Reilly v. Morse, the justices approved the inventor's patent for part of the telegraph that delivered the Morse code message "What Hath God Wrought?" but said he could not patent the idea of sending messages electronically across great distances. Ideas alone, the justices said, cannot be patented. Morse's descendants should demand a rehearing. The standards for patents are so low that simply having an idea often justifies a patent. Morse wanted a patent to cover "electro-magnetism, however developed, for marking or printing intelligible characters, signs, letters, at any...

The 18 Senators Who Approve Breaking The Internet To Protect Hollywood from the not-cool dept Last fall, we noted that the Senate Judiciary Committee had unanimously voted to approve COICA, a bill for censoring the internet as a favor to the entertainment industry. Thankfully, Senator Ron Wyden stepped up and blocked COICA from progressing. This year, COICA has been replaced by the PROTECT IP Act, which fixes some of the problems of COICA, but introduces significant other problems as well. A wide cross section of people who actually understand technology and innovation have come out against PROTECT IP as written...

Computerworld - Proposed federal legislation that would require domain registrars, Internet Service Providers and others to block access to Web sites that the U.S. contends contribute to copyright infringement has generated outrage among privacy advocates and prominent industry personalities. Proponents of the legislation argue that passing the bill would be a vital move toward protecting U.S. jobs and innovation. The bill, called the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), was introduced last week by U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). The proposed law would allow the U.S. Department of Justice to file a civil, in rem...

Probably not many people noticed, but FR changed its IP address over the weekend, from 209.157.64.201 to 209.157.64.200. I only noticed because I had hard coded the address to my HOSTS file. I just wanted to remind the admins that there are many links to 209.157.64.201 out there. Search any search engine for site:209.157.64.201 to see.

The first IP router on a commercial satellite has successfully passed its in-orbit test, moving the military and commercial customers closer to an era of faster satellite communications. The Internet Routing in Space (IRIS) technology is expected to reduce latency and increase efficiency, said Steven Boutelle, vice president of Cisco Global Government Solutions Group. Boutelle, who served as the U.S. Army’s chief information officer prior to joining Cisco, said IRIS can route data to multiple ground receivers in a single step, eliminating the need to double-hop to a teleport, reducing latency and increasing transponder utilization. The router and modem software...

Joe Repya is one old soldier who won't fade away. Repya, a 63-year-old retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel from Eagan who served in three wars, today will join a political battle by launching a campaign for the Independence Party endorsement for governor. He's a political newcomer but the veteran of 10 years of combat duty in Vietnam and of the Persian Gulf War and one of the oldest U.S. soldiers to volunteer for Operation Iraqi Freedom said Tuesday, "No other candidate is as battle-tested as I am." He planned to file paperwork with the state campaign finance board today to...

The one thing I've noticed about much of the liberal agenda is that it doesn't really change their industries that much. Liberals, by being centered economically in intellectual property fields from the media to academia, don't have to deal with federal property regulation and don't have to pay taxes on their intellectual property. Someone that owns the rights to Gone with the Wind pays less in property taxes than a guy that owns a gas station. Instead of waging class warfare, we throw out this food for thought: why not simply raise further "revenues" by taxing and regulate liberal properties...

3 strikes, Canada crackdown The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has supplied its political wish list to the Obama transition team, and thanks to new transition team policies, that means the MPAA has shared its agenda with everyone on the Internet. "Graduated response" rules are praised, anti-camcording rules are paramount, and Canada and Spain are two of the countries that need to be singled out for "priority trade policy attention." The Obama transition team is publicizing its meetings with interest groups and putting any materials provided to the team up on the change.gov web site. The MPAA document is...

President Bush on Monday signed into law an intellectual-property enforcement bill that would consolidate federal efforts to combat copyright infringement under a new White House cabinet position. The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act establishes within the executive branch the position of intellectual property enforcement coordinator, who will be appointed by the president. The law also steepens penalties for intellectual-property infringement, and increases resources for the Department of Justice to coordinate for federal and state efforts against counterfeiting and piracy. The so-called Pro-IP Act passed unanimously in the Senate last month and received strong bipartisan support in the...

A security hole in Adobe Systems Inc software, used to distribute movies and TV shows over the Internet, is giving users free access to record and copy from Amazon.com Inc's video streaming service. The problem exposes online video content to the rampant piracy that plagued the music industry during the Napster era and is undermining efforts by retailers, movie studios and television networks to cash in on a huge Web audience. "It's a fundamental flaw in the Adobe design. This was designed stupidly," said Bruce Schneier, a security expert who is also the chief security technology officer at British Telecom....

America’s Unknown Competitive Edge by: Daniel Smith, July 30, 2008 Believe it or not, America not only has not lost its competitive edge in the world, but, in at least one key sector, has achieved an advantage. For Pfizer, Inc., which employs 85,000 employees, intellectual property (IP) “is the foundation of [their] ability to discover and develop innovative new medicines,” the company CEO Jeff Kindler told a congressional committee. A generation ago, according to Kindler, Europe produced eight out of ten drug innovations. Today, however, America produces eight out of ten. Kindler encapsulated the importance of IP in a formula:...

CAMP TAJI — Getting the Iraqi Police on their feet and operating as the main effort of law enforcement in the country has been a priority of the U.S. Army. Since the force began to rebuild after the U.S. led invasion in 2003, they have been the center of controversy, often accused of rogue tactics, corruption and working for powerful political forces instead of the people. Citizens deeply distrusted those commissioned to protect them. The daunting task of rebuilding a force and putting a trusting face on the policemen fell on the shoulders of American forces. More than five years...

Iraqi police announced the arrest of five senior leaders of the Mahdi Army in the city of Karbala as assassination attempts were made on three police commanders in Baghdad and southern Iraq. The largest attack occurred in a Shia neighborhood in Baghdad, and resulted in more than 13 killed and 50 wounded. The Karbala police announced the captureof Mahdi Army commanders Ali Abd Taan, Sayyid Munadil, Muhsin Sharea, Haidar Jouri, and Razzaq al Samma. The five men lead a Mahdi Army unit in Karbala that was behind attacks on Iraqi police forces during a religious festival in August 2007. The...

Yassmin Khudair, a policewoman in Diyala Iraqi Police force, searches Spc. Stephanie Beachley of the 202nd Military Police Company during female search training Feb. 16 at the Iraqi police headquarters in Baqubah. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Russell Bassett, 4/2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team Public Affairs. < BAQUBAH — Terrorist networks in Iraq have demonstrated their willingness to use women to conduct attacks against Coalition and Iraqi security forces, as well as innocent Iraqi citizens. In Diyala province alone, there have been four female suicide bomb attacks since late November. To help combat this threat, military policewomen with the...

Discussions about Google's plan to buy DoubleClick raised the question whether an IP address is legally private. Europe's top data protection officials are working to clarify a grey area of Internet law: the legal status of an Internet Protocol (IP) address. The question of whether an IP address should be considered private data occupied much time at a hearing last week at the European Parliament regarding Google's planned acquisition of DoubleClick. If a person can be identified by an IP address, then the address is private, said Peter Schaar, the German data protection commissioner and chairman of the Europe-wide privacy...

Hi all. I would like to solicit some advice. My employer of four months is reneging on the terms of my employment. I made full disclosure during my interview process, but they are claiming internal communication errors between HR and the hiring executive. I have technical expertise that they want, and they are trying to beat me up to get the info. They are a very large multi-national. They want me to violate existing contractual obligations, and are threatening dire legal consequences if they don't get their way. Any freepers want to help a david slay a goliath?

MANSURIYAH — Six weeks since buried improvised explosive devices and sectarian violence made a road between the villages of Qasarin and Mansuriyah impassable, Iraqi Police (IP) and U.S. Army Soldiers cooperated to reestablish security in the area during Operation Patriots. In what played out like a small liberation celebration, Soldiers entered Mansuriyah to the fanfare of cheering crowds. IP then handed out humanitarian aid and began constructing security checkpoints along the embattled road. “It was kind of a pageant when we entered Mansuriyah,” said Capt. Alhaji Bangura, commander of Cobra Troop, 2nd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat...

Complaint by U.S. Cites Lax Enforcement Of Antipiracy Efforts GENEVA -- The World Trade Organization opened a formal investigation into allegations China is providing a haven for product piracy and counterfeiting, the most far-reaching of four trade disputes between Washington and Beijing. The U.S. complaint over China's enforcement of intellectual-property rights is the culmination of years of agitation in Washington and elsewhere over one of the world's biggest sources of illegally copied goods, ranging from DVDs, CDs and designer clothes to sporting goods and medications. [] The WTO panel's scope will be limited to whether Beijing has taken sufficient action...

The globalists are making a new attempt to circumvent and weaken a right explicitly recognized in the U.S. Constitution: Americans' exclusive ownership of their own inventions. Fortunately, Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., have exposed this mischief and called on Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., to slow down and discuss the proposed legislation before making costly mistakes. As we've learned with "Comprehensive Immigration Reform," we should all be on guard any time politicians patronize us with pompous talk about "reform." The so-called Patent...

The controversial patent agreement between Microsoft and Novell included an intellectual property agreement that gave Novell's engineers access to Microsoft code, as well as a covenant not to sue each other's customers, Novell has confirmed. The two companies announced their patent deal in November 2006 as part of a wider interoperability effort but described it as a covenant not to sue each other's customers in order to avoid falling foul of the GNU General Public License used for Linux. The deal also included an agreement that gave Novell engineers access to Microsoft code, however, according to the company's director of...