I have seen this solution before Starbucks even existed.

I'm ideologically opposed to all patents but I'm pretty startled that people actually think stuff as trivial as this should be patentable. In fact I don't even understand the mindset of someone who files such a patent. Look at the genius that is me...I have wrapped stuff around a hot container. Take that cancer research!

What?

I mean seriously, why would filing a patent imply anything about the idea's worth relative to cancer research?

What do you mean you're opposed to patents? You can't think of any situation where the person who came up with an idea first should have protection to exploit that idea and recoup his investment in it?

And as annoying as patent trolls are - the equivalent in no-patent land is probably companies that never innovate but just rip off the ideas of others so that they can get all the benefit but pay none of the research/development cost.

I can understand the reasoning behind it but I think being opposed to all patents is more consistent. Exloiting said idea should be part of the business model and not require any additional protection. I don't think anyone should have "the right to profit"

Meh, I think this is the same reasoning as "ZOMG I WON'T TELL YOU MY STARTUP IDEA"

Execution matters more than ideas. There's still advantages to being a first mover and some stuff is hard or impossible to copy even without any patent protection (knowledge/understanding of a situation, team markup etc). A reputation as an innovator is also worth something.

I'm well aware that my vision is just theoretical and will never happen and I'll gladly settle for getting rid of software patents and trivial patents instead.

[also lets not forget all the potential innovation that gets crowded out by patents, broken window and all]

It seems totally different to me. "Stealing" a vague unimplemented idea doesn't mean anything since implementing that idea takes a lot of work.

Look at a drug example:

Copying the idea of a pill that cures cancer is worthless since its figuring out how to build that pill that takes all of the work.

Copying a physical pill that cures cancer is almost trivial and would have a ton of value since the company copying could avoid billions in research costs.

Getting rid of all software patents seems equally bad. Theres tons of stuff that still seems worth patenting in the software world.

Perhaps a better way of saying it is a right to sell the product without unfair competition. Without some legal protection anything new would be instantly copied and produced cheaper by a larger corporation with more resources. How do you prevent that in your business model?

The problem with software patents is that the idea is being patented, not the implementation. I have no problem with preventing someone from stealing code that does something interesting, but the idea that "something interesting" can't be implemented by someone else seems ridiculous and counter to standing patent laws about business processes.

I agree that this is often true. One click purchasing seems like a ridiculous thing to patent.

But its not clear that its as simple as saying the idea is generic and the implementation is protected. Sometimes the thing being implemented is the interesting part and should be protected.

I'm thinking of an example like an advanced machine learning algorithm that someone creates. The implementation should obviously be protected - but the implementation is probably pretty trivial if you know the algorithm used. I feel like something like that is also worth protecting and rewarding the researcher that came up with the algorithm.

I guess the difficulty is in defining what constitutes an algorithm and figuring out how advanced it needs to be to be protected.

It's easy to see that there is a line there, not so easy to see where it goes...

FWIW = more than you realize.

****

Irt to the patent discussion. My old boss held a few patents and he gave me a little run-down on what some of it means.

There are three basic kinds of patents: Plant, Utility, and Design, and I think that any discussion on patents should revolve around exactly what is meant by "patent."

So, according to his finite wisdom, all patents aren't created equal, and the most simple patent, and most difficult to protect, is the Design patent, thus, many patents you see are in fact Design patents. This is why you see Cool Item X come out, and then you see Cool Item Y come out that is barely discernible from X and they are both patented.

This was something that happened quite often in the industry. Everyone generally "stole" product ideas from each other. If one was patented, then something else with a silly change like a longer part or larger handle would be patented by another company.

I suspected that the Starbucks sleeve is a design patent, but it appears there are two patents. One is clearly plant and the other is either utility or design, but since I'm not a lawyer, I'm not sure:

http://www.google.com/patents/US6863644

http://www.google.com/patents/US5205473

I really should read more patents. These guys and gals can write some convincing copy.

My stance on patents is pretty much that, if you aren't personally utilizing it to make money, then you shouldn't have the right to enforce it. It's a very simple stance that would eliminate much of the issues, especially irt patent trolling.

In regards to one-click buy. I'm sort of on the fence about that one. Clearly it is "obvious" in one sense, but to tie all those loose ends together and make it work, especially on 1999's internet when everyone was just starting to figure out web design, security, online credit card processing, etc., must have been a hell of a feat.

And as much as I hate to defend Apple, the iPhone is clearly an iconic design. Basically to the level of Blackberry when it was popular.

No, it was not a feat then or now

Amazon's one click boils down to 'Hey, cookies exist. Let's use them in commerce.' It was an incredibly stupid patent to award.

I think it was Dish Network, or one of the cable companies patented the idea of showing a quick channel guide in grid format. So now no other provider can do it. Awesome.

Right now, whats bugging me the most about patents, are the patents on genes.

I have a 2nd interview with a company of about 40 for a lead (and only) front end role and they badly need someone like me. Thoughts on making a page that details the ideas for upgrades and changes I would make if I had the position and "presenting" it during the interview?

Apparently ketamine may work wonders for severe, otherwise untreatable depression, and this has been known for over a decade. But because the patent is expired no one wants to fund the extensive studies it would take to get FDA approval.

grue,

as an interviewee, i have done similar things with great success. as an interviewer, i find that kind of preparation very impressive, especially if your ideas are any good at all.

How do you all like this as an interview question:

I have a test suite that runs 100 test scripts. I find that one of the tests in one of the scripts is failing when run in the test suite, yet everything passes when I run that test script alone. How do you debug this issue?

it's hard to say without knowing what kind of position/expected experience/etc. but if that's the kind of thing that happens in your org (it certainly is in mine!) then i think it's a good one. you can reason about it even if you don't have experience with this specific issue, and it scales well: with a new grad, maybe you talk about debugging in general. with an experienced release engineer[1], this can be an hour-long conversation including war stories about impossible side effects and absurd use of randomness.

I do interviews for junior/senior development positions - 2-8 years of experience typically.

Yesterday an issue of this nature was called to my attention and I had to track it down. That was the motivation - as I was figuring out the issue I thought "maybe this would be a good interview question?"

Fine fine, I stand corrected. I just a faint memory of the internet really sucking back then.

The largest companies in said Industry earned about $100m / year, but the lions share only earned about $20m / year. Reality is that the industry as a whole is so hog-tied and backwards that no company is really making money and I would guess that over half of them -- including the large ones -- are operating in the red.

So, patents, trademarks, and all those other add-ons were really vanity costs. A company could say "Patented Item!" and it would take but a button click to find 20 more products that were indistinguishable from the patented product, and in fact, because of something silly like, you only have to screw the lid 3 times as opposed to 4 times, both of the products were patented (once again, most of them design patents). <- obvious exaggeration

The others were usually blatant rip-offs with no care or respect to the patented product. Why? Well, this is the big issue: no one can afford to protect their patents. I think this is a terrible thing, not because I am "for" patents, but because it is misleading to the customer. The only advantage is that it assumes that the product is licensed from the patent-holder, when clearly this isn't the truth.

About 2 months ago, I interviewed with a company that held the obvious TMs on their name and logo. I did some research on the company before going in, and there was no less than 3 other companies with the exact same name, and there was one other that stole their logos. Since I didn't know, I asked if they were also those companies, and they told me that they couldn't afford to fight off those people that stole all of their logos and names.

The supposed promise of patents and trademarks is that the company should be the sole profiteer of the product, and others can emulate and improve, but not copy, but when you combine the thick quagmire of patent law, the costs of protecting the patent, and the ability to call China to create a copy of another product, the entire idea no longer holds any value.

As for drugs, I think that the remarketing of life-affecting generics as if it is brand-new, especially direct-to-customer, is reprehensible.

[sry]

"I prefer to program in functional programming languages because it is easier to logic about the environment."

[/sry]

Speaking of which, I created my first devastating bug today. Wow, it was bad and the solutions all across the internet were bad, and I wasted a good hour of the boss's time, and it was just bad.

Then it was lunch time.

Got to start picking my dissertation for next year. The only thing im passionate about and know ill be interested in doing is something related to poker. Anybody got any suggestions or things they wish they done for it?

Obvious ones are: poker bot (although haven't done too many AI modules so may struggle with this?), tableninja or the dreaded seating script. Any recommendations?