News Apple Seeks Patent for Translucent Windows

i would disagree that revearse engineering is always a cheaper alternative to developing something yourself and definately not always faster. there are going to be cases where it takes a lot of time and money to run thousands of tests to figure out whats going on inside that microprocessor for example. progress wouldn't simply halt if ideas got ripped off all the time, because ideas do get ripped off all the time. it would simply spread out the wealth among people since everyone would be able to make money from the idea once they figured out how to re-create it.

yes, its costs a lot of money to develop a drug. but ya know who needs to pay for those costs? its not the sick people who desperately need the drug to live, its the government. the government needs to pay these companies to heal its people. and of course this money should come from taxes, taxes to better society.

intellectual property is a very screwed up system. In most cases it forces people to stay uneducated. in others it makes the rich richer. instead of looking at something and saying that its not an obvious idea and that a person owns it for 20 years or so, these "ideas" need to be constantly looked at every day to evaluate whether or not its an obvious idea that day. as soon as it becomes obvious for whatever reason, no more owning that idea. theres a big problem where if someone has come up with an idea and then someone else comes up with that idea later without having used the first guys idea, then the 2nd guy cant use this idea even though it was his own thinking. I just feel that "you cant use your idea because he came up with it first, YOU DONT GET TO KNOW THIS!!" is absolutly daft. Michael Jackson owns the rights to many songs by the beatles, how does it make sense that those songs are the intellectual property of Michael Jackson? He certainly didn't come up with them, he only owns them because he rich, he gets to BUY IDEAS because he's rich.

they wouldn't be able to get the designs for the said item unless the person who made it knowingly shared it. and, yes it is very unfortunate that capitolism makes severe social boundrys through wealth classes. And makes people into selfish sharks that care about nothing but, and will do anything for - money

 

Why would someone want to come up with an idea only to share the wealth.

I know that sounds a little selfish, but the world is a selfish place.

As an example, the majority of the funding at Oxford University, particularly the materials department comes from intellectual property developed at the university, again, mostly within the materials department. Without patents, the university simply could not fund itself, and let me tell you, there is a LOT of research going on here which will benefit a LOT of people at some point.

Research organisations can only exist on the back of previous success, ie patents, and the bigger a research organisation gets the more productive it comes generating more and more intellectual property.

That's the way it works.

Without it, we would be paying a hell of a lot more to go to university.

It's as simple as this.

Developing intellectual property, ie research, is INCREDIBLY expensive. I've probably got through several thousand pounds worth of consumables in the last year alone during my research. Diamond cutting wheels at £300 each and so on. A large corporation is funding my research. Why? Because it is their understanding that they may gain some intellectual property further down the line so that they can recoup their costs. Without the incentive granted by intellectual property rights, there would be no-one coughing up the pennies for research.

I see you have this idealised view about how everything should be, but it simply isn't that way, nor will be in the future. Very few people do anything without thinking they can get something out of it.

8-ball

 

you seem to be confusing sharing the wealth with, not getting anything out of it. your idea wont be copied immediately, and you will get money there. and when your idea is copied you won't cease selling your item you will just have competition.

college funding should come from the government. college education should also be paid for by the government (taxes and other national incomes).

people would still make things if they didn't make as much money, because money isn't what completely drives innovation (it does mostly, but money isn't going away so thats not a problem). I would still make a teleporter if i could and knew someone would copy it. why? because it would make my life easier, i would make money from it, and i would be the guy who invented the teleporter first. plus i've bettered the world in some way.

Yes i do have an idealized idea of how things should be. I'm not content with saying that the way my country governs me is always correct. I dont agree with the way a lot of things work in capitalism, because it seems to crush the little guy and give all benefits to the rich man.

but these are just my personal opinions/beliefs so ya know.. *shrugs*

 

Aye - it's all true. I argue about stuff like this all the time in uni, it's funny seeing people take things too far and get personally involved. (It's usually the right wing people aswell , but hey, I'm a capitalist that wants only income tax).

But yeah, ok, so anyone would love to invent the teleporter, or the cure to cancer etc etc.... but would you be that bothered about inventing say a kind of screw? Not so much I would guess, but if you'd get paid lots then you would.

Talking about the reverse engineering thing... A perfect example of this is Coke. They lost any IP rights awhile ago (bar some interesting arguements about glass bottles etc - but hey). No one person knows how to make Coke, the have split the instructions/ingredients into two and keep them in 2 different cities in the US. This way no-one has yet found out how to copy it. Now, without patent everyone would have to do this. Yes, ok, so it works, noone has any legal rights to coke - but no-one has been able to copy it, so no share of the information, no market competition etc.

That didn't come out aswell as I hoped - but I'm trying to suggest that IP law actually helps bring designs etc into the public domain. Ok, so you need to wait 20 years, but Coke's been kept under wraps now for ALOT longer (although I can't see an est. date on the can).


In regars Jacko - songs are different, under copyright. If you came up with a Beatles track EXACTLY the same as one Jacko owns the rights for independantly, then you can have another set of rights for yours. You'll lose nothing. Although, trying to prove you weren't influenced by the Beatles would be a difficult task

 

because AMD would use their own, better, architecture.

i do think patents are needed though, otherwise there would be a distinct slow down in technological advancement, as companies would not try to out do each others technology any more, they wouldn't need to.

but overuse of patents, and stupid patent claims are indeed also slowing development and overuse is the thing that needs to be stopped.

 

How ridiculous is that ? Patenting translucent windows ?

Can I patent the numbers 1 and 0 and charge a royalty for every computer related product ?

 

They're only patenting a special method for creating the windows - so if you have a wonderful new way to write the 1's and 0's never tried before, then you can.

Other people can still makes the windows, just not in the same way.

 

although how would you know it's done in the same way unless both companies through some stupidly complicated long and expensive legal route share their code.

 

You'd just have a look at the patent applications which are avaliable to anyone. In the UK I think that costs around £5 to £10.

 

spot on. mac are just patenting their rendering engine which can render quite a lot of GUI without using much CPU. Theres nothing to say microsoft can't make their own rendering engine thats even better and make translucent windows

from that description i'd say microsoft can still make tranparent windows if they don't make it go transparent when "the contents don't change" ... i think microsoft will say it idles out or something, or "not in focus"