Posts by Matthew Poole
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No refs, but I believe the argument is that cellphones can't actually "interfere" with the aircraft electronic systems - but a passenger could become unmanageable as a result of a mid-flight phone call.
No, there's concern that electronic transmitters could cause interference with flight systems. Think of the noise when you place a transmitting GSM phone near a speaker, for example. In the absence of testing, it's a reasonable expectation that similar results could be observed with avionics systems, especially in large aircraft where you might have dozens of passengers on the phone at the same time and the effect could be amplified by the hundreds of kilometres of systems wiring running through the fuselage.
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Businesspeople don't generally put money into R&D out of altruism.
In NZ they don't put money into R&D at all, as we've seen. Clearly the patent system is far from the only motivator to innovate.
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So, just how very unambitious is 20Mbps in five years' time? Try USD26/month for 1Gbps in Hong Kong. Yes, I know, I know, population density, excuses, fudging, justifications, but the point holds: we're pretending that 20Mbps is some kind of ambitious target, at the same time as other countries are seeing 1Gbps as to-the-residence services at realistic prices.
Yes, Shon Key is clearly very embishus for New Zealand.
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skilled practitioner, and the innovative steps are rarely significant.
I have to disagree there. Obvious does not necessarily equal logic, or the other way round.
Maybe not, but that's not what's required. For the purpose of examining patents, it is assumed that the innovative step must not be obvious to an expert in the field. If a person can produce software only by collecting together the work of others, they are not qualified as an expert. That's about the extent of my ability to produce software in any language other than shell, and I certainly don't consider myself to be anything vaguely expert on the subject despite knowing quite a lot about the theory of software development.
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Russell, you've got a broken link, to Crosby Walsh's blog.
As for the actual topic at hand, it's very explodey-head-ish that News Ltd is the beacon of goodness and light in the whole situation. What's more incredible is that Baianimaramara is playing the game as though the rest of the world will capitulate on sanctions and other measures taken against Fiji.
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However government money is not spent on expensive fashionable versions of drugs. Or on expensive drugs of limited value.
(cough) Herceptin (cough)
Which was driven by political interference. That was about the first act of interfering in public service decisions that National carried out once they took the reins.
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And dual protection is not at all unique. Most new inventions involve more than one form of IP.
Ignoring trademark, since it's aimed entirely differently, and software, since that's a ground of significant contention, which new inventions get multiple grounds of protection? Plant species? Not last I knew. Mechanical devices? Nope. Circuit boards? Nope. Embedded systems? Arguably, though the copyright protection is pretty minimal and there's recognition of that in the new Bill.
Here's a challenge for you, Scott. Find us some disinterested support for the proposition that software patents are not economically harmful. That is, research that hasn't come from the software patent industry itself. There's plenty of research from economists with no ties to software that shows that software patents are a net economic harm, but all I've seen from the "pro" side is stuff that I regard as about as credible as the numbers trotted out by Big Media about how "piracy is destroying the industry."
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do you know if other industries use patent tit-for-tat in disputes like large software companies seem to?
Almost certainly they do, it's just that non-software patents are far less controversial so it's not such big news.
The big thing about software is that the barrier to entry to the global market is so, so small. A single person with a computer can produce a product that millions will use, and it's a complete product not just a component for one. That's pretty much impossible in other fields of endeavour, making it much less likely that an upstart will patent something radical and then try to blackmail existing players, or that existing players will use their portfolios to try and block new entrants.As an example, even where disruptive innovations occur from sole inventors in other fields those inventions are almost always single parts of a greater whole. A new fuel injection system, or a better headlight assembly. The idea of a lone inventor, or even a global team of inventors, producing an entire car that can be given away is unthinkable, for reasons not least of which is that the parts of a car cost money to produce. With software, all you need is time.
Patents work when you can assemble dozens, hundreds, thousands of patented parts into a whole, yet still point to any individual part and say "That part is under patent 123,4567, and that part is under patent 123,4568". Try doing that with software, and see how far you get.
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There is nothing inherently special about the software industry.
Maybe that the lifetime of software is so brief that patents are ridiculously too long to be of anything other than inhibitive use? Or how about that software is a literary work,and thus should not be burdened by the restrictions on independent development that apply to patents?
There is very little in software that doesn't qualify as obvious to a skilled practitioner, and the innovative steps are rarely significant. That you've had clients who filed patent applications (successfully?) for software doesn't mean that software patents are not, in general, bad for the NZ software industry. As an IP lawyer of course you're going to have some experience with contrary cases, but it's hardly a flood of evidence.
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I am also tempted to ask what is so wonderful about that particular development, but I fear a copyright flamewar would erupt
Particularly for a country that is full of tiny software houses, software patents are a significant hindrance to innovation. They're frequently very broad in description, and often used as a shield against competition. Look no further than Microsoft's claims about Linux, alleging infringement of unspecified patents covering unspecified functionality.
The major international patent players do almost no local development work, so any notional benefit offered by software patents isn't observed by our economy. This is all the more so when much of the software that is developed here is built on open source projects. The spectre of proprietary software companies wielding patents as a defensive measure against Kiwi developers is very real, and quite chilling. Hopefully we will see an increase in local development operations in the future, now that we're a safe haven against Microsoft's anti-competitive rumbling.