31 Oct 2008
Federal Circuit Appeals Court Limits Business-Method Patents

We're getting there ...

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has just issued its much-anticipated opinion in In Re Bilski [PDF]. This was a re-visit of the State Street issue of what constitutes patentable subject matter (including whether software and business methods are patentable). In summary, the court has affirmed and strengthened the 'machine-or-transformation' test, upholding the patent office's rejection of claims on a method to hedging risk in the field of commodities trading. Although the court refused to categorically exclude software patents, it is likely that the reasoning of this decision will be used to reject many software patents (note that some of the dissenting judges would have completely overturned State Street and tossed out all software and business method patents). Although not as sweeping as some had hoped for, it is certain that this decision, along with the Supreme Court's KSR decision last year, will lay a difficult mine field for those who want to patent software and business methods.

(link) [Slashdot]

08:12 /Copywrongs | 1 comment | permanent link

30 Oct 2008
The Daylight Saving Loss

Why do we insist on doing this to ourselves?

The concept of "Fall back" changes when you become a parent.

(link) [New York Times]

06:41 /Politics | 4 comments | permanent link

29 Oct 2008
Anti-white space lobby enlists God, Dolly Parton

Well, with those two on their side, surely the FCC will see the light! Or perhaps they'll just instruct microphone manufacturers to adhere a bit more strictly to the existing rules... and give wireless networks a chance.

As part of an ongoing effort to bar internet devices from the country's television white spaces, Goosoft-battling government lobbyists have rolled out two pillars of the American heartland: God and Dolly Parton.

(link) [The Register]

06:09 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

28 Oct 2008
Bio Lab in Galveston Raises Concerns

Need more proof that government does nearly everything completely bass-ackwards?

Scientists plan to study viruses like Ebola and Marburg in this Texas island where hurricanes regularly wreak havoc.

(link) [New York Times]

19:41 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

GM, Chrysler request $10 billion in aid: source

Every time I hear McCain grouse about Obama's "socialism", I wonder what the good Senator from Arizona thinks about deals like this. I'd lay even odds that he'd mutter something about "saving jobs" and vote yes, like most pols these days, and "socialism" be damned - that's something only your opponent believes in.

But step back with me for a minute, and take a deeper look. Is this the only help the government is providing the auto industry? Not by a long shot. When Honda, Suburu or other foreign companies want to set up shop here, the first place they go is local governments, and they only build when promised tax abatements sometimes totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.

Imagine for a moment that you're General Motors - you see your competitors essentially getting paid to build factories in your backyard, funded in part by the taxes you pay on real estate and capital equipment. Wouldn't you ask for your share, too? Even though your factories were built long ago, and are fully staffed? You bet you would. And that's what we're seeing today.

If we want to cut of corporate welfare, then let's cut off corporate welfare: all of it. Tax abatements are just another form of subsidy, and until we get rid of them we'll be faced with the call to subsidize everybody equally. And that, my friends, is socialism.

Reuters - General Motors Corp and Cerberus Capital Management have asked the U.S. government for roughly $10 billion in an unprecedented rescue package to support a merger between GM and Chrysler LLC, sources familiar with the talks said on Monday.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

06:45 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link

27 Oct 2008
Stevens guilty on 7 counts, won't quit Senate race

Because the rules don't apply to him ... I hope this thieving SOB get the max, 5 years on each count.

AP - Ted Stevens, a pillar of the Senate for 40 years and the face of Alaska politics almost since statehood, was convicted of a seven-felony string of corruption charges Monday — found guilty of accepting a bonanza of home renovations and fancy trimmings from an oil executive and then lying about it.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

21:39 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

26 Oct 2008
Brothers share wife to secure family land

Polyandry as a solution to an inheritance problem - interesting, considering that polygamy has much more notoriety, and has been far more common historically. Even more interesting because, according to WikiPedia the Himachal Pradesh is a very ancient Indo-European enclave.

Amar and Kundan Singh Pundir are brothers. Younger brother Amar breaks rocks in a mine for a living. Kundan farms their small piece of inherited land. They live in a beautiful but remote hillside village in the clouds of Himachal Pradesh, India.

(link) [CNN.com]

09:04 /Home | 1 comment | permanent link

Melamine found in eggs from China

WTF are they feeding their chickens?!

The discovery of excessive levels of the industrial chemical melamine in Chinese eggs has prompted the Hong Kong authorities to expand health tests to include meat products imported from China, a senior official said Sunday.

(link) [CNN.com]

08:48 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

25 Oct 2008
McCain says Democrats will Tax and Spend

You know, he may be right. But from what I've heard of his plans, he'd cut taxes and spend anyway, jacking up the deficit in the process.

Let me try to remember, where was it I read about debt getting America into trouble? It was pretty recent, too.

AFP - John McCain cast himself as the defender of the middle class and the American value of rewarding hard work Friday as he warned voters of his rival's plans to "tax and spend."

(link) [Yahoo! News]

09:39 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

And now for something completely different...

and i do mean completely different - You Stupid Relativist. Posted without comment, as it simply must be seen to be believed.

09:38 /Humor | 1 comment | permanent link

Curly Sue

The oldest ewe in our fleece flock died last night - Curly Sue, a Horned Dorset. She was something over 10, not really sure as she'd only been here since 2006. A good producer, both of fleece and lambs (she actually had one this spring). She was certainly not a pet, but I still hated to see her go. RIP - and in eternally green pastures.

09:35 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

24 Oct 2008
Christian right intensifies attacks on Obama

Have these people no shame?

AP - Terrorist strikes on four American cities. Russia rolling into Eastern Europe. Israel hit by a nuclear bomb. Gay marriage in every state. The end of the Boy Scouts. All are plausible scenarios if Democrat Barack Obama is elected president, according to a new addition to the campaign conversation called "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America," produced by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family Action.

(link) [Yahoo! News]

20:16 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Spanish discover cache of 26 Engima machines

This would be quite a find indeed, especially if they were customized in some way.

Spanish newspaper El País last week tracked down 26 examples of Franco's "secret weapon" against Republican forces in the country's civil war - a cache of perfectly-preserved Enigma machines hidden for years in a "gloomy office" in the army's main headquarters in Madrid.

(link) [The Register]

06:43 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Fee Award Shows Risks of Exposing Threadbare Patents to Light of Litigation

This is the way the system's supposed to work - the problem is that it all too rarely works this way.

In a rare grant of legal fees in a patent case, a federal judge in New Jersey has held a plaintiff clothing company liable for up to $2.5 million it cost competitors and retailers to defeat an infringement claim over a garment for nursing mothers.

(link) [Law.com]

via Overlawyered

06:31 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

23 Oct 2008
Obama to campaign in red-state Indiana

It is amazing for Indiana to be getting any attention in a Presidential election, let alone this kind of attention this late in the race.

AP - Democrat Barack Obama is showing some concern about his Republican rival's constant criticism that his tax plan would redistribute wealth, and is devoting more of his standard campaign speech to a point-by-point rebuttal of those arguments.

(link) [Yahoo! News]

19:27 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link