Once your currency drops, they up the price. When your currency goes back up, you're already use to the higher price so it remains the same. Thieving pricks

Re: Prior art

Town crier, the dark ages...

Re: What a crock

If he tried to extort AT&T then he would have been charged with extortion

Re: Its a fair sentence.

"If you steal from an unlocked home it is still burglary. It you steal a car that has the keys in the ignition it is still car theft."

Lets use the car theft example

He saw the car with the keys in it. He knocked on the door and said "Excuse me but did you know you you left your keys in the car?"

The owner responded with "Fuck off you snot nosed little twerp and mind your own business"

Not happy with the reponse, he hopped in the car and did a massive burnout out the front of the house.

As a result he's now charged with car theft and sent to jail. If the idiot car owner had listened and did something, then everything could have been avoided.

Re: Server

Three things to never believe

1: I love you

2: The cheque is in the mail

3: Anything EA says

Total publicity stunt. It got them into the media at no cost banning an item that isn't even released yet

Re: How to decide. How not to decide.

Why is it the stupidest? It's an amount locked to the government's budget so the next time the Amercian government decides to have another war on terror, it can at least leave NASA alone.

America is at the point where it can no longer even get it's own astronaughts into space but has to rely on Russia to ferry them.

Re: above ground not an option everywhere

"the libs have no idea when it comes to a next gen network, wireless don't make me laugh"

Considered the congestion problems already with 3g and 4g in the early evening, I'm sure adding a few million new wireless devices won't affect the service.

Then considered that currently the fastest wireless is 1/4 of the current limited fiber, why would you want to go that way?

Re: Just remember...

"I am a non-producing entity, and have no way of producing it. Should I have to post the billions in a bond just to be able to sue them for stealing the idea?"

It's risk and reward. You could spend $100K to produce 1/2 a dozen motors and sell them and then sue or post a billion dollars and sue or weep quietly into your beer.

What posting a bond does is stop the $2 company with the patent on rounded corners suing you, costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars and folding up when they lose leaving you bankrupt even though you won.

As for your car example, I invented an improvement for engines, got sued by another company, won and was still left with a massive debt despite winning. I've experienced this crap first hand.

Re: Just remember...

"Most members of congress are lawyers, and the trial lawyers association is a VERY powerful lobby."

Whomever wins or loses, the lawyers always get paid anyway. A bond means the winner get his money back instead of the loser going bust instead of paying up

Re: turbo-tastic

Damn cyclists destroying the environment....

That'll wipe the smug holier than thou attitude off their faces

Re: You almost had me...

"Everything is under the pavement."

Assuming you live in the city. I'm regional and the phone line is buried and power is overhead

Re: How about SHAFT

Then companies might feel better about being shafted...

Re: Just remember...

"I invent some new computer gizmo, I patent it and show it to IBM/Samsung/Apple"

You start producing the item and then sue and you're not a NPE anymore

Re: Still a fail...

"It actually does require them to stump up a bond."

Where does it say that? All I read was it required them to pay the costs if they lose.

If they lose, they go bankrupt and the $2 company falls over leaving the winner to pay the costs

Sorry. Knowing Apple, it will be as broad as rounded corners.

This is something that should be knocked on the head. Phones already come with GPS, microphones, camera, compass, NFC, gyroscope and on and on. If this patent goes through any software interfacing to one of these will breach the patent.

There is already a million different devices which has situational awareness

Re: mute point

No Palpatine is only retiring from being Pope so he can concentrate on the Deathstar project

Re: "it lacks the secure element..."

"Without the security who is going to trust their money to the system. All you need is a stronger wifi transmitter secreted somewhere"

Simple. You transmit a single use password with the payment

Re: Quite Sensible: Don't Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater

"I'm not so sure about no patents on genes - in order to maintain investment into gene science and research there needs to be some reward for the companies taking the risks, but I believe patents should be limited in a similar way to pharmaceuticals - you get ~5 years to use your patents, then it gets opened up."

There is a reward for taking the risk, it's called patenting the solution. They should be able to patent a test or a drug or a treatment. They however shouldn't be able to patent the gene causing the problem and halt research on a cure to extort money.

Re: Quite Sensible: Don't Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater

Disagree. Patenting genes is the first that should go. You shouldn't be able to patent discoveries. All gene patenting is patenting the problem and screwing everybody who tries to find a solution.

Re: Genius

"3) CIAPC finds a technical legal hole in PBs argument and nobody wins except for the lawyers, as usual."

PB won't got to that much effort and expense. It's just a publicity stunt to make CIAPC look stupid.

Re: Petty or dense?

It may not excuse it but everyone including TPB is amused by it. Nothing funnier than making your enemy look like an idiot.

Re: Tricky balancing act

The problem is patents are handed out like candy and is very hard and expensive to defend in court. You need to make your patent as broad as you can get away with as to make it more defendable (a shotgun instead of a rifle)

Patents should be very hard to get but very easy to defend.

In this case I disagree with the inventor. Winding a spring to run a generator to run a radio isn't the same as winding a generator to charge a battery to run a radio. It's a vast improvement over his concept and shouldn't be covered by his patent.

Probably means people would pay not to see it....

Re: Supraluminal?

"Maybe the reason we don't see people visit the toilet in Star Trek is that the transporter can be used to displace bodily waste directly from the bowel and bladder."

And those jumpsuits are a bitch to get on and off.....

Re: If the lady is simply (according to you) some kind of "lefty lesbo" whose opinions.......

"First off, the minister in question is male, hardly lesbian as such."

He might be a lesbian trapped in a man's body.....

I'd like to know how they plan to stop it?

China is now planning banning VPNs cause their firewall works so well.

"A troll is simply someone who has patent property rights who has the gall to enforce those rights"

No a patent troll is someone who has patented an idea (usually something obvious) and then proceeds to threaten anybody who tries to make something to extort money from them.

There one patent lawyer who's whole existance is working out where technology is heading and patenting the ideas before someone makes it happen. He's a lawyer. He invents nothing. He earns around millions every year because for most companies, it's cheaper to "licence" it than to fight him.

The problem is now, that there is so many trolls all wanting a cut that there is little left for inventors.

The problem is the patent office hands out patents like lollies and it costs a fortune to fight it. Yes you may well win the fight but if the fight will cost you a million and licencing it will cost you $100K, do you fight? If you fight, will you get your costs back? No you won't. Trolls make nothing and the patents are owned by $2 shell companies with no assets. You win and the shell company vanishes leaving you with squat.

Problem is you end up feeding the trolls cause it's cheaper than fighting them and the real problem is now that there are so many trolls you can't afford to feed them all.

I've been there. I fought. I won. I lost a stack of money even thought I won

Re: This whole debate...

"Putting the time/money into building a framework - libraries, tools, etc - that would allow a remnant of the population to survive the harshest conditions following a major event seems better. For the cost of a program to build a self-sustaining colony on Mars, we could surely build 100 equivalent kits which could be used to re-colonise Earth!"

Aren't you assuming there will be an earth to re-colonise? There are plenty of potential disasters which could mean that the earth can't be re-colonised. A good bet is another planet and the best bet is another star system

Re: 550MB per day for fapping?

"You've got a problem mate."

Not enough bandwith?

And considered all the unemployed judges and lawyers if the trolls couldn't sue people, I can't see it getting passed

Re: I have to agree with this article's title

"And which step is figuring out a way to feed everyone on this planet?"

Soylent Green

More food and less people eating. Problem solved!

Re: none of this is new

"Traveling to distant planetary systems is impossible. I repeat, impossible."

Why is it impossible? Even with current technology we could build a multi generational colony ship. The only reason why we haven't is politicians won't spend money on something that you won't see the results for hundreds of years.

If they knew the earth was going to be wiped out and knew it couldn't be stopped, then money is no object.

If you look at possible improvements in robotics, cryogenics and zero G manufacturing, getting to another star system becomes a real possibility. The first step is to work out where our best bet is as far as possible star systems.

Re: A little more background...

"I fail to see why Coke should give compensation here. When your dentist says "Gee, maybe you should let up of the coke, hun?" As he's pulling rotting teeth out of your face, you should probably take that as a hint to cut down a bit."

At least she'll never have to see that smug bastard of a dentist again...