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Authored by wol on Feb 28, 2017 13:02:40 GMT
Bear in mind I'm not an American, so when you go on about "the first amendment" I don't have a clue what you're talking about. I could look it up ...
BUT. As I understand it, the police are NOT allowed to search your mobile phone, not allowed to search your house, not allowed to search a lot of stuff without a lot of legal palaver to get permission. And the police have pulled all sorts of stunts to avoid having to ask for permission - in short, they want to go on "fishing trips" is I believe the common term.
This thing sits in your house. This thing records a lot of your private conversations. This thing would be a policeman's wet dream of a fishing trip.
So I can understand Amazon wanting to have *extremely* clear guidelines - judicial ones at that - as to what is and is not acceptable.
You're very much coming over as "let the police rummage through everything, who cares", and there's an awful lot of people who care an awful lot. Americans as a whole seem to make a very big fuss over "due process". I care a hell of a lot about Justice. And the potential for abuse here is so fricking MASSIVE, I don't want an extremely damaging precedent rushed through with no thought as to the consequences.
Is the guy in jail? If it's not incrimating, why doesn't he give the police permission? If it is incriminating and he's in jail, then it doesn't matter how long it takes to go through the courts for them to get permission. If he's on bail, well, that's a *bit* different.
But if this case hands the police carte blanche for fishing trips through peoples' private conversations in their own homes, then I think a LOT of people (many of them innocent) will rue the day this was rushed through. The police aren't allowed to fish through phones. They aren't allowed to fish in private homes. Why should they be allowed to fish through private conversations people didn't even know were being recorded?
Don't forget - "knee jerk reactions make very bad law" - lots of Americans can't understand our gun ban. I agree, it's bad law, it was rushed through without thinking, and it was a kneejerk reaction to ?Dunblane and has done sweet FA to prevent a repeat!
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Authored by wol on Feb 24, 2017 22:21:28 GMT
"What justification is there for this physical evidence to be treated differently from other types of physical evidence?"
Because it isn't being treated any differently?
I'm not an American, so I don't understand it all, but as I understand it it is accepted as the norm that the constitution says the police are not allowed to search a phone because it is an intimate container of a person's personal life (something like that, anyway). They are not allowed to enter someone's house without a search warrant.
This thing is a private personal thing that sits in your house, recording everything. Allowing the police into it is just as great a violation of privacy as allowing the police to search your house, or go through your phone.
And note, I'm not saying I agree with it. I'm just saying I think it's actually on the same level as searching a phone, or searching your home. And it needs to be protected in the same manner.
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Feb 24, 2017 18:33:05 GMT
So it is the *defendant's* echo device.
I hate to say it, but I'm inclined to agree with Amazon. They want a high-level ruling on whether to hand over the recordings, as all this stuff falls over the problem of self-incrimination.
"and to prevent people from being forced to make speech that they do not agree with" - isn't this exactly what the subpoena is demanding? (Or rather "to make speech that they do not want to", in this case, not that much different.)
Yes I hope the court of appeal does say it should be handed over - at least as far as a Judge - and if it's relevant it should be used. That to me is the best option - hand the recording over to a judge and if they think it is relevant, they can (a) quash the case if it proves innocence, or (b) hand it over to the attorneys, under seal if necessary, to be used either way.
But I can very much understand Amazon's reluctance to just hand the stuff over.
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Jan 5, 2017 20:07:39 GMT
Hmm...
I've only just glanced at the first few pages of that Public Domain article, but it reminds me of a comment by a composer (reference long forgotten ... :-) "If the typical contract assigning copyright to a movie studio was strictly enforced, composers would never write another work again".
Bit like programmers take code snippets and ideas from job to job ...
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Jan 4, 2017 20:44:17 GMT
What's unusual about "scenes a faire"? It basically means "independent creation of what ends up looking very similar", or in biological terms, "convergent evolution" - two animals that end up looking very similar due to environment pressure, despite being genetically very unrelated.
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Dec 23, 2016 15:04:54 GMT
> These actions have been filed with the Regional Courts in Dusseldorf, Mannheim and Munich in Germany and the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, with 32 patents in suit across all of the actions, covering technologies such as display, user interface, software, antenna, chipsets and video coding. Nokia is in the process of filing further actions in other jurisdictions.
And how many of these are software patents? Sorry Nokia, but "user interface", "software", and "video coding" all look like they are going to fall foul of the recent change of heart by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeal. Those patents are hopefully dead in the water.
As for "display", "antenna" and "chipsets", they look more promising. But we'll see ...
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Dec 7, 2016 23:36:54 GMT
It strikes me also, that Apple's reading - "the whole profit from the device" - is very unfair to third parties.
Let's say, hypothetically, in the wake of Apple suing Samsung, Motorola decides that its patents, too, are infringed. How is Motorola to get redress? Samsung's profits are now nil, Apple having taken them all, so there is nothing left for Motorola to sue for, despite them being an injured party.
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Nov 23, 2016 21:11:23 GMT
If there were a competition for lawsuits with the greatest product of stupidity times elapsed time, I do believe this one might be exceptional. In fact, even if this case isn't totally dead yet, it might already be well in the lead. I think it's got a Loooonnnngggg way to go, actually, to catch up with Jarndyce vs Jarndyce - or rather the real case that this was based on. Iirc, in both the fictional, and the real, case the lawsuit outlived the original protagonists. Cjeers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Oct 31, 2016 7:24:50 GMT
Hopefully, the recent case where the Judges saw the light and realised that software should not be patented, will realise that it's a wider issue :-)
The other point is, they're asking the Appeal Court to overturn a jury verdict. There's a good chance the Appeal Court will refuse even to hear it ...
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Oct 12, 2016 12:59:51 GMT
So, to protect ourselves from further CAFC madness; Anything which [actually *improves* *the* *approximation* and] is within one of the classes of patentable subject matter according to USC 35 ยง101 IS patentable subject matter.
:-) Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Oct 11, 2016 15:22:53 GMT
Any computing device that can be programmed to do processing by employing an approximation to a universal algorithm is a standard computer. That is what puts it outside of the bounds set by USC 35 Section 101 for patentable subject matter. This is actually a wonderful example of what is, and what is not, patentable subject matter. Anything which assumes it *is* employing a universal algorithm is NOT patentable subject matter. Anything which actually *improves* *the* *approximation* IS patentable subject matter (okay, it may be disqualified by other considerations, but that is a patentable invention). Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Oct 10, 2016 16:23:57 GMT
Stoll dissents and says that "the 610 patent is eligible becauses it pushes processing off the end-user's computer and moves it to the internet".
He misses the fundamental point that, when correctly implemented (as hopefully will again be the case when IPv6 becomes common) THE END USER'S COMPUTER IS PART OF THE INTERNET.
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Aug 27, 2016 15:07:38 GMT
I wonder what happened to the reputations of the lawyers acting for SCO? They got a boost too? For keeping a dead turkey airborne for so long? Cheers Wol
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Authored by wol on Jul 25, 2016 6:12:28 GMT
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Authored by wol on May 31, 2016 18:57:08 GMT
The court of appeals has to take the case - it is a right. The Supreme Court can choose to hear or deny the case. If that's true. then I would expect every appeals court to be overwhelmed. Everyone has the right to appeal. They do NOT have the right to be heard. The trial court can grant or deny leave to appeal. The loser can appeal anyway over the head of the trial court. The appeals court can choose to hear or ignore the appeal (if they had to hear it, as I say, we would probably still be waiting for cases from the century before last to be heard!) And then if the appeals court ignores, or hears, the appeal then the loser has the right to appeal to the Supreme Court (again, with or without the blessing of the Appeal Court) The Supremes will then ignore or hear the case, and that decision is final. Cheers, Wol
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