Free Republic

Up in the AirWill America lose its dominance of the skies? There were a number of reasons last week to look up to the sky and wonder about the future of airpower. In a world in which the United States will have smaller ground and naval forces, we will likely become more dependent on land- and sea-based airpower to deter or defeat enemies. The proper employment of air assets as part of a joint force allows for nearly instantaneous response to crises, saves American lives, and can bring pinpoint devastation to an enemy’s forces and command-and-control systems. Yet along with...

If necessity is the mother of invention, patents are its delinquent offspring, providing stumbling blocks to innovation and progress, inhibiting the free exchange of ideas, and restricting our knowledge of how things work, says Richard Hillesley… Pablo Picasso is supposed to have said that “all art is theft”. The assertion may be controversial, but the intention is clear – the creative process, which relies on the evolution of techniques, observation and criticism, is an assimilation of that which has gone before, and all creativity, whether artistic, technological or scientific, walks a thin line between innovation and originality, plagiarism and parody....

The patent goes back all the way to the original iMac in 1998 to describe a technology that enables a light source to be coordinated with certain computing events. The hardware foundation uses a light controller that is connected to the main CPU of the computer as well as a light source. In Apple's words, we are talking about: "computing device includes a housing having an illuminable portion. The computing device also includes a light device disposed inside the housing. The light device is configured to illuminate the illuminable portion." Apple expands on this idea a bit further and notes...

Obama sang a different tune at his press conference on Thursday. While he said that “patent reform” will help the country be competitive, he admitted that “there's nobody out there who actually thinks that that is going to immediately fill the needs of people who are out of work or strengthen the economy right now.”

President Obama signed a bill to help Americans get patents for inventions Friday morning, but in his speech at a science and tech school in northern Virginia, he quickly pivoted to talking about his jobs bill that has rankled both Republicans and Democrats. After acknowledging a handful of members of Congress in his audience at Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, Obama said he didn’t want to pass up the chance to make another pitch for his plan. “I’ve got another bill that I want to get passed to help the economy right away. It’s called the American Jobs Act,”...

On the day we arrived in Washington, April 12, 1997, we tuned in to C-Span just in time to see the House of Representatives pass H.400 on a voice vote. Not one member of the House of Representatives demanded a roll call vote on a bill that would severely emasculate a core function of the federal government. When we were finally able to obtain a copy of S.507, we read it very carefully and we were horrified. Never in all of our years as lobbyists had we ever read a worse piece of legislation. If we had ever wondered what...

On the one hand, the tech industry is awash in patent trolls, companies that own generally spurious patents for technologies they didn't really invent, which exist solely to sue other companies into licensing said technologies. On the other, we have tech companies that have patents for technologies that they did, in fact, invent (or at least purchase legitimately) and, as important, use in actual products. These companies, too, must sue others to protect their patents, but for far more legitimate reasons. Google is upset about the latter kind of company, and it's citing two heavy-hitters, Apple and Microsoft, as example...

The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is seeking to invalidate a pair of Apple patents so the underlying technologies can be used as part of a royalty-free HTML5 stack.The W3C's call for prior art is necessary, the organisation argues, because it maintains a strict policy of validating Web standards that can be used without paying for royalties. By finding examples of the technology in use before Apple filed the patents, the W3C can render those patents invalid. The patented technologies are core components to the W3C's Widget Access Request Policy, which specifies how mobile applications can request sensitive material. It...

America’s 200-year-old patent system is about to be reformed, and the changes will cut out the very heart of innovation in this country, warn many independent inventors, small business owners, and manufacturers, angel investors and venture capitalists. “We are playing Russian roulette with the basis of the American economy, which is innovation,” said Kevin Kearns, president of the U.S. Business and Industry Council (USBIC). Critics say the reforms will devastate opportunities for the disruptive innovators of the future—the start-ups and independents who could invent the next iPhone challenger, for example. It will also promote the domination of patents, and patent...

...The legislation, supported by the Obama administration and a broad range of business groups and high tech companies, aims to ease the lengthy backlog in patent applications, clean up some of the procedures that can lead to costly litigation and put the United States under the same filing system as the rest of the industrialized world. The Senate passed a similar bill last March on a 95-5 vote. If the bill makes it to the White House for the president's signature, it could be one of the first congressional actions this year to have a concrete effect on business after months...

Microsoft Corp suffered a defeat on Thursday when the Supreme Court upheld a record $290 million jury verdict against the software giant for infringing a small Canadian company's patent. The justices unanimously agreed with a U.S. appeals court ruling that went against the world's largest software company in its legal battle with Toronto-based i4i. The high court refused to adopt Microsoft's lower standard to replace the long-standing requirement that a defendant in a patent infringement case prove by clear and convincing evidence that a plaintiff's patent is invalid. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft had argued that a lower standard of proof involving...

Lipitor. Actos. Plavix. These are some of the most-prescribed medicines in the U.S., drugs that are so commonplace they are responsible for a huge chunk of the $300 billion spent on brand-name pharmaceuticals each year. That is about to change as patents on these pricey pills begin to expire, opening the door for generic competition. And that can translate to savings of up to 90 percent, analysts say, making these drugs affordable to more consumers. Americans will see cheaper copies of some of the biggest drug names starting this fall. Out-of-pocket costs of the generic form of Lipitor, a widely...

It is axiomatic that the struggling U.S. economy is slowly climbing out of its hole. President Obama and our elected representatives regularly wax eloquent about job growth, innovation and the opportunity and future for the once-great United States. But the recovery, critics say, given the depths of the worldwide economic melt-down of 2008, is far too anemic, and job growth too stunted, all because of cumbersome, growth-stifling laws and policies. It is also axiomatic that most, if not all, net job creation in the U.S. today comes from small, entrepreneurial companies less than five years old. As Kauffman Foundation economist...

I have been reporting on Microsoft all my journalistic life, and believe me, that's quite some time. To give you an idea how far I go back with Microsoft, let's just say I remember the occasion when I was given a personal demo of a hot new product that Microsoft was about to launch – a graphical spreadsheet for the Macintosh, later known as Excel. I was particularly impressed by the evident passion of the person demonstrating the beta code – he clearly really enjoyed his job. But perhaps that wasn't so surprising, since his name was Bill Gates.Of course,...

“Patents would be issued to whoever files applications first and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would be allowed to set its own fees under a measure introduced today in the U.S. House of Representatives [H.R. 1249],” Susan Decker and Eric Engleman report for Bloomberg. “The proposal, sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, is similar to legislation passed by the Senate in a 95-5 vote on March 8. If approved and made law, it would mark a fundamental change in how patents are reviewed and the biggest revision to U.S. patent law since 1952.” “The...

In an attempt to spur the growth of innovation in the energy sector, The US Department of Energy is slashing the costs for startup energy companies for licensing patents held by the US government's National Laboratories in a "New Top Energy Innovator" challenge.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. may put an end to patents for human DNA and other genes, potentially changing the way biotechnology companies develop new drugs, the New York Times reported late Friday. In a brief filed by the Department of Justice, the U.S. concluded genes are a part of nature, and therefore not an invention, the newspaper reported.

"Apple Inc. was ordered by a jury to pay damages to Mirror Worlds LLC for infringing patents related to how documents are displayed on a computer screen," Susan Decker reports for Bloomberg. "The federal jury in Tyler, Texas, awarded $208.5 million in damages for each of the patents infringed. The verdict form was unclear as to whether the amount applies to the three patents collectively or would be charged individually. Lawyers for closely held Mirror Worlds declined to discuss the verdict," Decker reports. MacDailyNews Take: Tyler, Texas. Rocket Docket. Decker reports, "Mirror Worlds, a software business started by a Yale...

Just one day after the Democrats seized control of Congress, the Chief Executive of Fannie Mae, Franklin Raines, received the patent for a residential cap-and-trade system (Patent 6904336), What this means is that Raines, along with several colleagues who also “own” the patent, could stand to make huge amounts of money if the cap-and-trade regime was ever brought to the residential marketplace. What does this have to do with Fannie Mae? Absolutely nothing. To understand the implications, a little discussion about patenting is needed. Patents are basically “ownership” rights to an invention. If you invent something, you can license it...

NEW YORK—Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. on Tuesday announced that it would shut down eight manufacturing plants around the world, scale back production at several other sites, and slash 6,000 total jobs in its ongoing restructuring effort to cut down on payroll expense. The job cuts are related to its $68 billion acquisition of rival Wyeth last year and part of an announced 19,000 job cuts to be enacted by 2015. Such expense reductions were expected at Pfizer, based in New York, as the company braces itself to lose its patent on cholesterol drug Lipitor, which accounted for more than $11...

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ___________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release August 7, 2009 STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY On Friday, August 7, 2009, the President signed into law: H.R. 2245, the New Frontier Congressional Gold Medal Act, to award gold medals on behalf of the United States Congress to Neil A. Armstrong, the first human to walk on the moon; Edwin E. `Buzz' Aldrin, Jr., the pilot of the lunar module and second person to walk on the moon; Michael Collins, the pilot of their Apollo 11 mission's...

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study challenges the traditional view that patents foster innovation, suggesting instead that they may hinder technological progress, economic activity and societal wealth. These results could have important policy implications, because many countries count on patent systems to spur new technology and promote economic growth.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide what sorts of business methods might be patented, an issue with the potential to reshape significant parts of the economy. “This is the most important patent case in 50 years, in particular because there is so much damage and so much good the court could do,” said John F. Duffy, a law professor at George Washington University who submitted a brief in the appeals court in support of neither side. “The newest areas of technology are most threatened by the issues at stake here,” Professor Duffy said. “The court taking...

Six months ago I noted that the European Patent Office had embarked upon a fairly abstruse process: a referral of a “point of law” concerning software patents by the President of the European Patent Office (EPO) to the EPO “Enlarged Board of Appeal”, something that seems to happen quite rarely. Now, you do not have to be a genius to see the problem with this; essentially, the EPO is asking itself whether it wants to widen its own jurisdiction, increase its power and boost its income by allowing software patents. Unless the Enlarged Board of Appeal consists entirely of self-denying,...

TomTom and Microsoft have settled the patent litigation. Here's TechFlash's coverage. According to the Microsoft press release, TomTom will remove functionality regarding the FAT patents within two years, which is no big deal, frankly, and in the meantime, they are covered "in a manner that is fully compliant with TomTom’s obligations under the General Public License Version 2 (GPLv2)": Peter Spours, Director of IP Strategy and Transactions at TomTom N.V., stated: “This agreement puts an end to the litigation between our two companies. It is drafted in a way that ensures TomTom’s full compliance with its obligations under the GPLv2,...

A Northern Arizona University political science professor is working with Southern African farmers studying their agricultural expertise and exposing trade agreements that could threaten the world's food supply. For more than 30 years, Carol Thompson has been consulting on international agriculture trade issues, spending months or years at a time living in Southern African countries studying agricultural expertise and working to "expose constraining trade agreements imposed upon African farmers." Her recent book, Biopiracy of Biodiversity - Global Exchange as Enclosure, analyzes current international agricultural trade policies, explains how they originated, and how they are impacting the world and indigenous cultures....

Confessions of a Very Old Man My name is Benjamin. Here I lie in Philadelphia. I caught lightning with a kite. wrote an Almanac. I perfected a postal service. I coaxed a treaty with France. But most important of all, 221 years ago last week I encouraged 39 men To sign a four-page document To give you a republic, If you can keep it. Yes, the 17th of September was the 221st birthday of the Constitution, and I choose to talk about it through the three great contributions that Benjamin Franklin made to that document. Plus, of course, his summary...

BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- The latest thinking in the Silicon Valley scene regarding the Microsoft-Yahoo-Carl Icahn Saga, which is not going away, might be about some sort of killer patent owned by Yahoo. Right now financial researchers everywhere are trying to figure out what exactly the patent is. The blogosphere has been abuzz with various notions that the real reason Microsoft Corp. wants Yahoo Inc. has to do with a patent that Microsoft needs to implement its future money making philosophies. One of the hot articles with the most details regarding these possibilities is written by blogger-essayist Usman Latif, who...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Two consumer groups have filed an appeal with the U.S. Patent and Trade Office contesting its March ruling upholding the exclusive patents for stem cells. The office said the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which holds the original patent on embryonic stem cells, can keep its patents. The patents cover all embryonic stem cells used in the United States and any scientists or research firms wanting them must pay WARF's hefty prices for them. The California-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights and the Consumer Watchdog Foundation are the groups behind the lawsuit and it said WARF...

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently received an application seeking a patent for what was claimed to be a better way to stand in line while waiting to use an airplane toilet. Jon Dudas, director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, said the example may be extreme, but it illustrates the declining quality of U.S. patent applications his agency has seen since 2000 as more applicants attempt to game the system. Speaking at an IP symposium here on Wednesday (April 16), Dudas said the quantity of applications for U.S. patents is skyrocketing--more than 500,000 applications are expected this...

With automakers patenting more parts to enhance dealers' service and repair revenues, the knockoff business is taking a big hit. The patenting of more run-of-the-mill auto part designs is roiling small body shops, many of which make their living by fixing cars with knockoffs of original equipment parts such as grilles, hoods, lights, mirrors, side panels and fenders. Such pieces are anywhere from 10% to 50% cheaper than the real McCoys, but increasingly, the law forbids their use. Automakers have long sought patents on certain extra-stylish ornamentation to prevent other automakers from cribbing the design for their vehicles. But the...

Within the patent attorney/patent trolling world, there's been a story gathering steam over the last couple months that seems to only get more bizarre every week. It started, simply enough, at the beginning of September when a company, which was just formed a few months ago, called Illinois Computer Research, sued Google for patent infringement. The patent in question (which amusingly enough, can be found hosted at Google) is officially for "Enhancing touch and feel on the internet". The details show that it's really just describing how you might represent a book online -- and, in fact, the lawsuit points...

(Minneapolis, Minn.) — Honeycrisp has been a sweet little item for the University of Minnesota. "It's generated over $6 million for the University," according to Jay Schrankler, director of the University of Minnesota's office for technology commercialization. That places Honeycrisp, Schrankler says, among the U's top five earners among the institution's inventions. (Royalties from a vaccine patented for fighting HIV amount to tens of millions of dollars.) The U splits royalty income three ways. One third goes to the inventors, one third goes to the college and department where the faculty work and one third goes into a fund for...

The House yesterday passed the most comprehensive patent reform in half a century, delivering a victory for computer technology and financial services companies and leaving drug companies, small inventors, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office bracing for a bigger fight before the bill hits the Senate floor. The bill, which passed 225 to 175 with strong bipartisan support, is meant to reduce the mounting number of patent infringement cases by changing the ways patents are awarded and challenged. Because much of the bill is perceived to be favorable to targets of patent-infringement suits rather than patent holders, it has...

The U.S. House of Representatives passed Friday (Sept. 7) a sweeping and controversial patent reform bill. HR1908 aims to raise the quality of patents and reduce patent litigation and abuse. Sharply divided reactions came quickly in the wake of the 219 to 176 vote that was led by Democrats. A companion bill in the Senate has yet to be brought up for a vote. President George W. Bush might exercise a veto on any final legislation that does not meet administration requirements set out in a statement released earlier today. Similar bills have been proposed in several past legislative sessions...

Congressman Rohrabacker was on the floor railing against H.R.1908 due for a vote on the floor Friday. Just caught the last three or four minutes of his speech. He called it the STEAL AMERICAN TECHNOLOGY ACT. Asked all Americans to call their congresscritters and demand that they vote this bill down as we did for the Shamnesty bill. I don't know everything this bill holds, but he was very angry so I thought I should get it out their. He claims that congress is being very quiet about this bill, because they don't want "us" to be aware of it....

AUSTIN, Texas - Millions of inventions pass quietly through the U.S. patent office each year. Patent No. 7,033,406 did, too, until energy insiders spotted six words in the filing that sounded like a death knell for the internal combustion engine. An Austin-based startup called EEStor promised "technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries," meaning a motorist could plug in a car for five minutes and drive 500 miles roundtrip between Dallas and Houston without gasoline. By contrast, some plug-in hybrids on the horizon would require motorists to charge their cars in a wall outlet overnight and promise only 50 miles of...

The companies are accused of violating a patent on automatic message routing held by Polaris IP. The patent has a long history in litigation, but all the cases have been settled out of court. Six major Internet companies have been sued for using computers to process their e-mail. AOL, Amazon, Borders, Google, IAC, and Yahoo stand accused of violating a patent on automatic message routing held by Texas-based Polaris IP. Attorneys representing Polaris IP filed a claim of patent infringement on Monday in U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall, Texas. The lawsuit charges the companies...

In extraordinary Senate-House coordination, the two Judiciary committees in the same week voted out a bill (S.1145 and H.R.1908) which, if it becomes law, will spell the end of America's world leadership in innovation. Called the Patent Reform Act, it is a direct attack on the unique, successful American patent system created by the U.S. Constitution. Prior to 1999, the U.S. Patent Office was required to keep secret the contents of a patent application until a patent was granted, and to return the application in secret to the inventor if a patent was not granted. That protected the legal rights...

James Bottomley is really on top of things (sorry -- we had to say it) when it comes to Linux. The CTO of SteelEye Technology is also on the board of the Linux Foundation. In that capacity, he helps smooth the transition of disparate Linux organizations into the still fairly new Foundation. As such, Bottomley's obviously got some insight into Microsoft's continued patent deals with Linux distributors. Those patent deals took another turn this week as Redmond claimed that its deal with Linspire didn't cover software developed under the latest version of the license that governs Linux use, the now...

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...

Paging U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab: Please call us on your cell phone. And better do it fast because cell phones may soon be harder to come by thanks to one of the dumber rulings ever by the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Excerpt - A federal agency on Thursday barred the import of new models of cell phones that contain semiconductors made by Qualcomm Inc., because the chips violate a patent held by a rival, Broadcom Corp. The U.S. International Trade Commission's decision represents a compromise between a ban on all phones with Qualcomm chips, as Broadcom requested, and a ban only on the chips themselves, as recommended by an ITC administrative law judge late last year. ~ snip ~

Microsoft should have admitted that Linux matters sooner. For years, the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant seemed to be in denial as the open-source operating software made gains against its Windows franchise. But now a series of deals is finally allowing Microsoft to argue that it's ahead of the curve--with the entertaining upside of making some of the open-source community's truest believers even angrier. Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) announced a pact with Linux software distributor Xandros Monday that will the offer tiny company's customers so-called "patent covenants," protecting them from the threat of litigation from Microsoft. So...

First you get everyone riled claiming open source and Linux infringe on your patents, then you won't detail those patents. Why? The paperwork. Yes, Microsoft cited administrative overhead for not detailing the 235 Microsoft patents its chief legal counsel recently told Forbes exist in Linux and open source. Microsoft patents attorney Jim Markwith told OSBC it would be "impossible" for Redmond's bureaucrats to respond to the volume of responses that would result form disclosure. Also, apparently, it's ungentlemanly to name names. "Most people who are familiar with patents know it's not standard operating procedure to list the patents," Markwith said....

"Microsoft patent threat to Linux! The world ... It ends!" shriek the headlines. There's so much hysteria over this it's like a being trapped in pre-teen sleepover. "And when they got home, a bloody hook was hanging from the car door handle!" "SQUEAL!!" Can we all get a grip, just for a few minutes, pretty please? Ignore all those sources of conventional wisdom who rarely dig into a story, but simply slap together a Frankensteinian blend of warmed-over press releases and quotes from random people who get quoted just because they answered the phone. I know, we all love gossip...

How is an untouchable superpower defeated? In many cases, it foolishly engages itself in an unwinnable war and simply consumes itself. Microsoft, threatened by the encroachment of competition from open source, has long waged a detached propaganda war against free software and in particular Linux, but has recently escalated its conflict into a full blown attack. Here's what's happening, and why it will greatly accelerate the company's undoing.Bill Gates' Infatuation With Software. Back in the dawn of desktop computing, Bill Gates led the ideology that software was going to be the sole currency of the new economy. Throughout the 80s...

Free software is great, and corporate America loves it. It's often high-quality stuff that can be downloaded free off the Internet and then copied at will. It's versatile - it can be customized to perform almost any large-scale computing task - and it's blessedly crash-resistant. A broad community of developers, from individuals to large companies like IBM, is constantly working to improve it and introduce new features. No wonder the business world has embraced it so enthusiastically: More than half the companies in the Fortune 500 are thought to be using the free operating system Linux in their data centers....

This morning the Supreme Court came down with two decisions about patent law that both take small, but extremely important, steps towards reigning in some of the worst abuses of the patent system. In both cases, it's disagreed with the position taken by the Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit (CAFC). This isn't a huge surprise, as many observers figured that the Supreme Court's recent interest in all sorts of patent cases meant that the justices weren't at all happy with the way CAFC was moving. This is a good thing, as the past twenty-five years or so of CAFC...

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has made a preliminary decision to revoke three fundamental patents on human embryonic stem cells. If the decision stands, some scientists and consumer groups say it could loosen restrictions on research in a promising new field. Patent examiners rejected all the claims of the three patents that are based on the work of James A. Thomson of the University of Wisconsin, who is widely viewed as having been the first to isolate human embryonic stem cells and grow them in culture. The oldest patent was issued in 1998 and the most recent was...