Public Knowledge has a section devoted to patent reform. One item on their list that I wanted to comment upon that I quickly scanned or read the other day:
“Raising the standard from determination of obviousness from the person having “ordinary skill” in the art to a person having “recognized skill” in the art.
Who defines “recognized skill”? One thing I’ve learned over the years is that those who recognize “pat each other on the back” and either express disdain for, or quietly dismiss, those not in their “inner circle” however they define that phrase.
I once went to a Patent Attorney many years ago, with an ugly but functional device I’d built by hand out of PVC pipe, a dish-washing device, and he tried to convince me that no one in their right mind would buy that, that consumers want something pretty, then he spent the rest of our appointment time trying to convince me to become a petition “signature gatherer”, that’s where the money was he said, and then charged me about $250 for his time of less than 20 minutes! Another time, I went to an invention submission corporation with drawings for a specialized front bicycle wheel, that another guy appeared to study carefully. While this time there was no charge, he spent some time discussing this and some other drawings I showed him which he didn’t look at closely. While we talked, he found out I didn’t have any substantial money to spend, and then said that I should contact a bicycle company (corporation).
20-years later when doing an Internet search, I recall finding that a professor at a University had recently designed and built such a front bicycle wheel as that in my drawings.
The American revolution was fought to get rid of corporations from our lives. They didn’t precisely teach us that in compulsory education, though the educators danced around that precise point skillfully. They almost connected the dot for all of us.
It seems to me that with the explosion of the Internet, and the sharing of knowledge that now seems in the public domain, patent attorneys are probably chomping at the bit to privatize the commons of the Internet and specifically the ideas that have been freely shared.
Even Facebook was recently in the news regarding privatizing their members communal work, a policy they reportedly temporarily reversed, after a huge outcry from their members.
So the pressure to privatize others’ work is certainly there. Hopefully, Public Knowledge will change their position on at least that one item, or perhaps I simply don’t understand the strategy behind it. I did read it very quickly and probably missed important things, and it seemed like a good time for a rant.
Perhaps patents, and the protection of devices, shouldn’t be allowed at all. If there can’t be a level and equal playing field for everyone, including insuring everyone has the money that is required to be spent to acquire a patent and its implication for the masses of human beings who cannot possibly afford (hint hint) to play that game today, then why should there be any patents? Has the primary purpose behind “Limited Time”, espoused in the U.S. Constitution, now been crossed out by Orwell’s Pigs to mean something else: continually privatize the profits, and keep socializing the losses (some are more equal than others)?
According to Wikipedia, the first capacitor was invented in 1745. After its patent presumably expired, and with respect to a society that claims to want to advance knowledge and scientific understanding, shouldn’t our current compulsory schools be teaching this now common or public knowledge of what capacitors are, how they work, what they’re used for, and how to mathematically calculate what sizes are needed in particular applications? It is a ubiquitous device these days. Wouldn’t the same go for electric motors, again according to Wikipedia first invented in 1828 or thereabouts? Don’t some electric motors often accompany capacitors? When I went to public and private schools during the compulsory years, motor-winding class was never offered, even though that’s a skill I could have used many times! Instead, I’ve had to purchase (consumer) new motors when their windings did burn out, or do without.
So it seems the purpose of allowing a patent for a limited time so an inventor could profit from it, has now somehow transformed into a perpetual obscuring to the masses of knowledge gained over past years of scientific advancement, while simultaneously saying we must go to school.
Later in our adult lives our advertising supported media skillfully encourages all of us, regardless of our educational or income level, to buy, buy, and keep buying: so much so that in the last few decades we’re increasingly asked to pay for cable to watch advertising on TV, or buy the new converter box so we can keep watching the ads fed to us, or buy a magazine filled with ads.
What does any of this do for those of us who need money to eat? The last time I was in a grocery store, they still charged money for food. Recognition doesn’t bring money with it, I’m sorry to report. Just look at the homeless. They’ve been recognized at least since the 1980s. They’ve been on TV news. They’ve been studied by scientists. They have advocates working on their behalf. They’re celebrities who are eating out of trashcans because that’s all they can afford!
Think they’re planning on getting a patent anytime soon?
I’ll let you guess where this came from:
“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
When one realizes the U.S. constitutional authors didn’t intend “Authors” or “Inventors” to be corporations, the extensive undermining of our society and government created by the granting of corporate personhood, allegedly done not by a judge but instead a court clerk, becomes a lot clearer.
Are these deceptive games solely so a very few (corporations only and the wealthiest of the already wealthy who own most of the largest corporations) can profit and keep profiting until the end of Time itself? Is that how “limited Times” is currently being interpreted by some? If not, then where’s the progress to the masses within a society that continually keeps making all of us pay to keep socializing the losses of a few corporations? Is the sole purpose of the masses to be consumers and underpaid (hint hint) employees in an employment system most like the Feudal Era of Lords and serfs?
If you don’t have any money, you’re only worthy of eating out of a trashcan, or counseling that you need more education and a job so a few elitists at the top of the money pyramid can profit, and after getting that job you can barely pay your bills, never mind having enough disposable income from that job to have a professional file a patent on your behalf and defend it if need be?
Where’s the so-called “Progress”?
According to the the Wall Street Journal, referenced in the freepress.net e-newsletter regarding grants for high speed internet services, telecom carriers will be getting government grants to expand Internet access into underserved and underdeveloped areas:
“The Commerce Department’s Internet buildout grants carry several conditions, including a contentious requirement that Internet networks built with the government grants be open to all devices like cell phones and laptops, regardless of the manufacturer or provider.
CTIA, an association of wireless companies, sent a letter to committee leaders Wednesday asking that the “vague, undefined, and unnecessary ‘open access’ obligation” be removed. CTIA said carriers will be reluctant to apply for the grants if they are uncertain of their open access obligations.
Rep. Anna Eshoo (D., Calif.), an ardent proponent of an open Internet principle called “net neutrality,” brushed aside the carriers’ concerns. “These are public dollars. Networks built with this funding should be open,” Ms. Eshoo said.
While the above grants are said only for underserved areas, one has to wonder if areas already served by a few big providers couldn’t use a little more competition.
We know the huge telecom ISPs don’t seem to care nearly as much about service as profit. Today’s example is from an article titled Cox . . . BitTorrent Users with More Slowdowns:
“In February, Cox will trial a brand new throttling scheme that aims to slow down so-called “non-time sensitive” traffic when the network is congested. This includes all P2P, FTP and Usenet traffic. Although Cox announced the trials – which will start in Kansas and Arkansas – on its website, details are scarce.
. . .
Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, is also concerned with Cox’s new plans. He said in a response to the news, “The lesson we learned from the Comcast case is that we must be skeptical of any practice that comes between users and the Internet.” Indeed, network neutrality is at stake – again.
While I don’t generally use bittorrent, I do use FTP quite a bit when working on the websites, and I used to love Usenet, particularly the astrology channels, some 15 years or so back. Unfortunately, the astrology Usenet groups seemed to get taken over by activity which, for me at least, was distracting, though I know I’ve read recently that some still love Usenet, and if true, why should they be “slowed down”?
On the momentary topic of “slow downs”, recently I did some maintenance work for an old friend that required room & board (to keep commuting costs down) for a few weeks. This was in a BIG Southern California city, one with well-developed broadband markets! I took my laptop, as the residence had cable-delivered Internet and a router. Wow, what a slow down it was that occurred in the evenings, slow downs on webpage requests, and this was so-called premium Internet service! Very irritating. I was able to fix the issue on my computer by wiring around some of their systems, but how many of their customers just figure that’s the way it is and nothing can be done about it? Much better if people watch TV in the evenings is possibly the big-company “incentive” of intertwined interests we’re talking about here.
Could local public school districts provide Internet service to their surrounding communities at a competitive cost to that of the current broadband ISPs with sufficient incentives provided by the Federal government to do so? It seems the path of local school as ISP has been done in the past (link dated 1999) with dial-up Internet service:
“Although the Williamsville Community Unit School District already received Internet access courtesy of the state, reselling this access was not an option, explains Marty Benner, a board member in the district. Instead, the district installed a leased satellite system to acquire additional Internet access that could be resold. After an initial investment of $33,000, the district began selling the Internet access to the community last April. “That’s really why we did it,” Benner says. “It was not meant as a money-maker, but rather as a service to the community.”
As long as our government continues to grant corporate welfare to the largest telecom providers (privatize profits and socialize risks), it seems the likely answer is that local schools could not offer the service competitively. Can public schools receive federal government grants so they can be just as competitive in the ISP arena? If so, this might be something that schools could do to help fund their goals of educating the local community’s children, without needing to take more money from those of us without children, instead we could choose to purchase Internet access from the them.
I’d bet a lot of folks would LOVE to get high-speed broadband from the local schools, but it would have to be competitive price wise with current cable and DSL providers in order for this model to be successful. You can bet the corporatist would fight this one: ahem, only going for “underserved” areas, such as that reported by the WSJ’s article linked above. The more corporate welfare telecoms can get, the less competitive local ISPs, such as schools, could be.
Can you imagine the economic stimulus for local communities if tax monies taken by the federal government were given back to local communities as services for the commons?
It is undoubtedly true that the schools of the future will be much different from the recent past and presumably current model of Absolute Authoritarianism or Prussian methods.
Is this white paper a glance at the future of the new schools of the 21st century?
“As important as it is for physical structures to be adaptable, “it is even more important that class time be elastic. Instead of assigning a certain amount of time for teaching one subject per day, teachers need the flexibility of bigger and more adjustable time slots to truly impact learning,” said Charles Fadel, global lead for education for Cisco Systems. “There must be a renewed focus on increasing the quality of teaching by [giving] teachers more time and opportunities to plan, collaborate, and work with advanced technology systems.”
Local public schools as broadband ISPs, perhaps wireless to the local surrounding community, could be an incremental step in that direction, though it would have to be applied not only to undeveloped and underserved areas, but also to already developed broadband markets.
What better way to learn computers is there than to have students help maintain the technology infrastructure alongside true computer engineers and professional teachers?
The following website has a slideshow that offers a reasonably good explanation of how the stock market and its clearing mechanisms works, with several case studies, as well as some commentary about the SEC placed in historical context. Rather than trying to synopsize it further, it’s offered for your perusal. The show lasts for about 80 minutes, so be prepared to spend at least that much time listening and watching. As a slideshow, it’s not presented primarily as text, so it’s hard if not impossible to speed it up, making my favorite method of reading fast impossible.
The information presented is worth the time spent watching and listening, even if you have little interest in the stock market. Darkside of the Looking Glass may dispel some myths.
This evening I was tired, and fell asleep early, about 7 PM. I really hate it when I do that, invariably I wake a few hours later, then have insomnia till early the next morning. Anyway, during this nap I dreamt about being back at CMA. I was crying, crying loudly for what seemed, in the dream, like hours. Then I awoke.
Culver:
Usually, such thoughts of you are only caused by looking through Rollcall, your yearbook.
It’s now been about thirty years since I was with you:
Will your punishment ever end?
Ken Klaser
