Again, the USTPO proves why it is corrupt...

[GreyGeek]

Apple was granted a patent on its "Slide to Unlock" feature. The application was filed on Dec 25, 2005, months AFTER Neonode, a small and little-known Swedish manufacturer of mobile phones, released its Neonode N1m phone running Windows CE. That phone already had a slide-to-unlock feature.

Two months ago a Dutch court ruled in favor of Samsung that the patent invalid.
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011...-slide-to.html

Several years ago the USTPO made, or was forced to make, a political decision to essentially approve all patent applications by major corporations and let the issue be decided in court if the patent is challenged. That policy benefits the deep pockets of giant corporations.

Besides career politicians and corporate "personhood", another evil that should be abolished is the patenting of software, math algorithms and business methods. This case adds yet another example to the mountain of evidence demonstrating the problem.

[sithlord48]

Re: Again, the USTPO proves why it is corrupt...

you said it GG. and the new "reform" just makes it ezer for big companies to get pattents and small ones not to ..

[SteveRiley]

Re: Again, the USTPO proves why it is corrupt...

More news from the software-patents-are-evil department: International Trade Commission to rule on Apple's charges against HTC

Some thoughts.

• Why does Apple think they can patent the idea of searching for phone numbers? Surely, such activity is obvious and not new. (*)
• Investment in legal activity necessarily reduces funds for investment in product enhancements. Has Apple run out of good ideas?
• Am I the only one who thinks that spooked investors have too much power? Eliminating wealth by acting on baseless rumors seems like a bad way to structure an economy.

(*) grep '\(([0-9]\{3\})\|[0-9]\{3\}\)[ -]\?[0-9]\{3\}[ -]\?[0-9]\{4\}' file is apparently now risky enough that to use it runs the risk of getting hauled into court. I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes!

[GreyGeek]

Re: Again, the USTPO proves why it is corrupt...

....

• Am I the only one who thinks that spooked investors have too much power? Eliminating wealth by acting on baseless rumors seems like a bad way to structure an economy.

.....

The wild fluctuations of the stock market after Iran's announcement that it was gong to "practice" closing the Strait of Hormuz aren't the result of folks running scared, it is the result of folks manipulating market outcomes by moving massive amounts of money around the market like a giant sponge.

In 1974, shortly after the Arab oil embargo, M. King Hubbert testified before Congress:

“I was in New York in the 30’s. I had a box seat at the depression. I can assure you, it was a very educational experience. We shut down the country because of monetary reasons. We had manpower and abundant raw materials. Yet we shut the country down. We are doing the same kind of thing now but with a different material outlook. We are not in the position we were in 1929-30 with regards to the future. The physical systems were ready to roll. This time it is not. We are in a crisis in the evolution of human society. It is unique to both human and geological history. It has never happened before and it can’t possibly happen again. You can only use Oil once. Soon all the oil is going to be burned and all the metals mined and scattered. That is obviously a scenario of catastrophe but we have the technology. All we have to do is completely overhaul our culture and find an alternative to money. We are not starting from zero. We have an enormous amount of technical knowledge, it is just a matter putting it all together. We still have great flexibility but our manoeuvrability will diminish with time. A non-catastrophic solution is impossible unless society is made stable. This means abandoning two axioms of our own culture, the (current) work ethic and the idea that growth is the normal state of life. Our window of opportunity is slowly closing, at the same time it probably requires a spiral of adversity. In other words, things have to get worse before they can get better.”

Hubbert didn’t mention one other notable feature of a debt-money system. It systematically pumps wealth from the bottom 80% of the population in wealth to the top 20%. The bottom 80% pay interest while the top 20% collects it, and of course most of the interest is collected by the top 10%. When all money is debt, that’s a lot of money going to the top. You can see this fact in your personal lives. Banks pay less than 2% on savings, but they charge up to 25% or more on borrowed money. Guess who owns the credit card companies?

We've had crashes in the stock market, housing and an employment crash. Oil spikes and crashes. We don’t have a real economy any more so our "solution" is creating more debt. The taxpayers took on more government debit by bailing out the criminal fraudsters on Wall St., and the Fed bailed out many banksters internationally ($12 Trillion), indenturing the taxpayers for more future debt.

Since debt represents ultimately a claim on real assets, debt cannot continue forever if growth of the real resource based economy has stopped. Most people are not familiar with Hubbert’s Third Prophecy: When economic growth cannot continue due to the lack of affordable oil, then we will have a cultural crisis.

What does our country do? The Left's solution: print more money to fund the fed’s “quantitative easing program”, increase tax payer indebtedness via interest bearing loans, called "stimulus", by selling Treasury bonds to the Fed, China, and other parties . The Right-wing solution? Cut government and social spending to the bone to “cut the deficit” which was created through monstrous social and military spending, and bribe the middle class with tax cuts. All that stuff has been tried before, and the problem remains. The problem is a structural one, in the monetary system itself. When all money is debt, there is always interest to pay and exponential growth is required. (Exponential because interest on money is exponential.) But, exponential growth of anything except interest on loans is impossible to sustain. And, in the long run, even interest on loans will be impossible to sustain, i.e., pay off.

Hubbert had this graph:
[img width=400 height=299]http://www.vtcommons.org/sites/default/files/resize/images/Screen%20shot%202011-10-31%20at%2010_36_16%20AM-454x340.png[/img]
in his article on societal issues in the American Institute of Physics, entitled "Exponential Growth as a Transient Phenomenon in Human History"

We are in the midst of a cultural shock brought on by our slide down the back side of the energy production curve caused by the fact that our energy consumption is exponentially growing our energy production is exponentially declining. That is made painfully clear by comparing what we call "Giant Oil Fields" today with what REAL giant oilfield were.

[SteveRiley]

Re: Again, the USTPO proves why it is corrupt...

I just finished reading Matt Taibbi's book Griftopia. Short summary: finance has become far too complex. The conditions leading up to the 2008 crash can't be boiled down to T-shirt or bumper-sticker slogans. Yet in the day short attention span theater, that's all most people can tolerate. So politicians (on both sides) basically make up stuff, the press is too lazy (or too underfunded) to verify, and the population remains ignorant. Meanwhile, the grifter class separates itself farther and farther from us, destroying us on the way.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Again, the USTPO proves why it is corrupt...

....
short attention span theater, that's all most people can tolerate. So politicians (on both sides) basically make up stuff, the press is too lazy (or too underfunded) to verify, and the population remains ignorant. Meanwhile, the grifter class separates itself farther and farther from us, destroying us on the way.

The "Kardashian" society, for sure. Our kids have been trained from early on to let their eyes glaze over if the explanation isn't a one-liner, and it's re-enforced by the sound BITE, video CLIP, or executive summary.

When Mother Nature finally gets their attention because there is no toilet paper on the roll, the electricity is on only 3 hours a day, and bicycles are the fastest mode of transportation, and when our high tech gadgets cannot be repaired and there are no replacements... they won't know what to do. Most won't understand even basic math, sanitation, personal hygiene, ... totally helpless... If certain 3rd world societies are any indication then sex, drugs and slavery will be the main occupations.

I'm going to check out that book...