Patents SUCKS

[Necrópolis de Saqqara, Tumba del oficial real, Mereruka].
New York Public Library.

Dentro de la cuisine française, encontré un alimento que me llamó la atención, el Fois de gras, este es el higado de un ganso o pato sobre alimentado, debido a que estas aves guardan grasa en el higado para sus largos viajes, este fué usado como un alimento desde los egipcios en el siglo XXV antes de cristo, me sorprende el ingenio humano para hacer cosas de este tipo... y bueno no es la unica forma poco agradable de obtener productos para el consumo humano, por ejemplo, a mi me encanta la acuarela y entre mi primeras prácticas, aprendí la forma en la cual se obtenia el amarillo indigo que es un color primario muy usado, pues resulta que el amarillo indigo, se obtenia de alimentar a las vacas con hojas de mango, y la orina de las vacas salia amarilla, de donde se obtiene el color, por supuesto ahora hay substitutos que se obtienen de origen vegetal y otros minerales.

Dentro del podcast de Security now, escuche un comentario que me saltó inmediatamente sobre las patentes y como es que han llegado a limitar el desarrollo de software de una forma tan absurda, pongo el typescript al costo y para reflexionar un rato:

Steve: So, yeah, there was a - I saw some pictures of a Blackberry tablet. So but on the patent side, one of the things that's frustrated me is, for example, well, the companies that have gotten in early have all laid down various domains of intellectual property. And unfortunately they're competing with each other and being largely unwilling to share this stuff because they regard their various technologies as competitive edges. For example, I love that on my Blackberry I can hold a key down, and it will initially type in lowercase, but then I'm able, if I hold it down, it switches to uppercase. And wouldn't it be nice to have that on the iPad? But I can't. The iPad can't have it because Blackberry patented that. And so a nice feature like that is, sadly, only available on whatever platform's developer came along and created that idea first. Now, do you know about the sliding your finger off of the shift key on the iPad?

Leo: Oh, you mean, well, I know you can slide, like if you press the period, you slide up, or on the exclamation. For instance, apostrophe's not on the main keyboard, and you need it all the time. So if you tap the exclamation mark and slide it up, you get an apostrophe. Is that what you mean?

Steve: Oh, that's one I didn't know about.

Leo: That's really useful because, well, you need apostrophe; right?

Steve: Yes, I agree. And, for example, you notice that the Apple keyboard does not change the case of the letters. But the Palm keyboard does.

Leo: Oh, that is - oh, you're right, they should.

Steve: They should, but they can't because...

Leo: It's patented.

Steve: ...Palm got that.

Leo: See, that's stupid. Excuse me.

Steve: It's, well, this is what - yes, it is. And it's really frustrating. I mean, the problem is, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is now giving patents out with reckless abandon.

Leo: And for trivial applications, or even applications with prior art, frankly.

Steve: Yes. And so what's happening is the consumer is now losing because no one manufacturer is able to take a bunch of good ideas and put them together in one platform. If you want upper and lower case to display on your onscreen keyboard, you've got to go to Palm. If you want to be able to hold a button down and have it turn into capitalization, you've got to go to Blackberry. And so on. And it really is the case that this is no longer benefiting us. And, I mean, for 17 years, we have to wait for 17 years for these patents to expire, and then these ideas go into the public domain.

Leo: I agree. It's a real problem. And originally the idea of the patent system was to encourage innovation, to reward innovators. At this point it's the exact opposite.

Steve: Yup, exactly. And it's basically just giving people a license to sue each other is what it boils down to. I did want to mention that one of my - one of the things I'm very excited about is there is a very nice traditional NNTP, which is the original Internet Network News Transfer Protocol.

Security now
The "Multi"-verse
Episode #247 | 06 May 2010 | 72 min.