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  1. Originally Posted by adam
    The patent office is extremely critical of patent applications. Most patents have to be submitted 3 times before they get approved.
    http://www.politechbot.com/p-03405.html
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  2. Originally Posted by cyflyer
    So, HP stands for:
    High Price,
    Hiked Products,
    Hello Poverty,
    Heaven Prevent,
    Hell (to) Pay,
    H'ouch Please !
    Holly Printouts !
    Handover Plenty,

    anymore ?
    You forgot to mention that they also last better than other brands. We're still running Laserjet II and III's I'm still running a 890C. OTOH the Epson photo printer I bought after the 890C clogged the heads and wasn't worth fixing. Clogged heads on a HP inkjet, Change the cartridge and done.

    Only reason I bought a Epson R200 was to print on DVDs and CDs, And of course because HP doesn't have one to print DVDs. And I worry about the R200s durability.

    At work we see more customers bring in more Epson/Cannon and Lexmark printers despite that they have a lower market share.

    YMMV
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  3. Originally Posted by Wile_E
    This whole industry has got to change. They are giving away the printers, and price gouging on the ink. I am surprised no one has filed a lawsuit against all printer manufacturers, for their FIXED PRICING of consumables!

    I got an Epson R200 and this d*mn thing is programmed to waste ink every time you turn it on. It goes through a priming process. Just for the heck of it, I power cycled the printer about 10 times. Guess what, a couple of the cartridges wasted 1/4 ink. There is no way I'm paying $70 for a set of tiny ass cartridges with little ink. I would not even pay $40. Look back at older inkjet printers. 10 years ago, you got a printer that came with cartridges filled with a lot more ink. Even if it was one cartridge, the amount was more than these multi-cartridge printers.
    What price fixing?

    The point about the Epson wasting ink is why I save my DVD printing and do them in batches and do most of my printing from a HP inkjet.

    Look for the R200 on sale and buy a spare printer for the ink alone. I know I've seen them on sale for less than the cost of the ink.
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  4. adam,

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_v._Diehr

    http://www.bitlaw.com/source/soft_pats/final.html

    I'll try and find that downloadable video patent.

    But in the meantime, how would you describe Amazon's One-Click patent? This doesn't exist out of software.

    Also what about the Eolas vs. Microsoft case. Eolas has a patent on plug-in software.
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  5. Member p_l's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by CaptainVideo
    Cost per gallon of fluid.

    Gasoline $3.00
    Milk $2.99
    Coca-Cola $2.84
    Gatorade $5.20
    Evian Water $5.60
    Orange Juice $6.64
    Crisco Oil $7.44
    Perrier Water $8.16
    Snapple $10.32
    Scope $27.20
    Lemon Oil $27.22
    Olive Oil $51.04
    Shampoo $40.44
    Real Maple Syrup $57.08
    Jack Daniels Bourbon $101.12
    Visine Eye Drops $995.84
    Nasacort Nasal Spray $2,615.28
    Printer Ink $8,895.72

    Calculation based on HP Ink jet cartridge number 58, which contains 17ml of black ink at the typical list price of $39.95.

    Patents are one way of monopolizing a product...
    This is great! What's your source?
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  6. Member adam's Avatar
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    CaptainVideo: like I just explained, mental steps processes such as software are not patentable. You can patent a machine that uses software because you are patenting the machine, which can cause a non-mental step process (physical change). The software is just part of it. Patents require that the invention result in a physical change brought about by a tangible process. Software cannot do this so at the most it can only be incorporated into another patentable invention which does. Even when this combination exists the source code is still only an expression of the process, not the process itself, therefore the source code is not protected by the patent. Source code is protected by copyright only...period.

    The Amazon 1-click patent is on the process not the software. The source code used to implement it is NOT patented!

    I really have no interest in trying to prove what has come to be recognized as a universal and accepted truth in patent law...that software is NOT patentable in the United States. Instead I will just post you a quote from a Patent Court case and leave you to your research if you still don't believe it.

    By statute, a patent may issue on a new and useful "process," and the fundamental difficulty in respect to patenting computer programs has been the universal acceptance of the principle that where the process does not employ and affect physical elements, but is concerned solely with intangibles, it is not patentable. In the latter group have been placed: mathematical, mental, or logical formulae, methods, or steps; discoveries of physical phenomena or natural laws; printed matter; and methods of doing business. The courts seem to suggest that if the above intangibles were patentable, "large segments of knowledge would be withdrawn from public use and subjected to intellectual monopolies. This result would contradict one of the basic policy reasons for granting patents, that of encouraging scientific advancement."

    In 1968, the Patent Commissioner adopted a set of Guidelines, which stated that "computer programming per se, (legally means automatically and absolutely) whether defined in the form of process or apparatus, shall not be patentable," but that "a programmed computer may be part of a patentable combination," or a computer programming process may "form part of a patentable invention," where the computer or process is combined with other elements or physical steps to produce a physical result, such as "the alteration of the form, composition or condition of a physical substance or object."
    @junkmalle wtf is your point? There are alot of patents that people would consider bad...certainly in hindsight, and there are alot of patents that people would consider trivial...I think the patent on the comb-over hairstyle is an even better example than the swing. There is no non-triviality requirement to patents; it is encompassed in the non-obvious requirement which is 100% subjective on the part of the patent reviewer. I think some reviewers have better senses of humor than others. The swinging on a swing patent and the comb over patent and such are considered finder's patents. It allows the user to market products as "for use with X brought to you by the inventor of X." Other than that, the patents don't really do anything. Its still incredibly hard to get a patent that actually restricts use (ie: brings in royalties and/or gives you a competitive advantage.)

    As for the breath of these patents they are still ridiculously narrow. Consider the Amazon 1-click patent. To get around it you could make it 2 clicks instead...and no you can't then go patent the 2 click process because the 1 click process constitutes prior art. I think its a bad patent all around...a silly one even...but I never understand how someone can post 4, 5, or even 100 silly patents approved over the years when there are hundreds of thousands of patents out there. The patent system is hardly perfect...its underfunded and overworked, that's why there is a 2-3 year turn around process on just one patent and why patents have gone through the entire acceptance process entirely by MISTAKE. Despite the inherant checks against triviality, obviousness, and such...bad patents still get approved. But the fact of the matter is that these bad apples don't represent the patent system in the slightest.
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  7. Originally Posted by adam
    @junkmalle wtf is your point?
    Entertainment.
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  8. Member adam's Avatar
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    Good point then.

    Edit per your edit: But my point was not to entertain, rather to inform.
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  9. Originally Posted by adam
    There is no non-triviality requirement to patents; it is encompassed in the non-obvious requirement which is 100% subjective on the part of the patent reviewer.
    I think this is the real problem. The non-obvious requirement refers to practitioners in the field. I suspect most patent reviewers have never practiced in the field of the patents they're reviewing. Or have any real current knowledge of the current state of the art.

    Relying on the applicant to bring up prior art is just plain silly. I've been involved in discussions where applicants decide not to mention certain prior art because it doesn't suit them. They simply hope the patent reviewer won't notice. I'm sure this happens all the time.

    Maybe there should be an open comment period where anyone can bring up prior art and novelty issues. Or maybe they should be refereed by true experts in the field, like articles in scientific journals are.

    BTW: I removed the "Same as you" line from my earlier response because I know you are simply trying to educate people.
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  10. Member adam's Avatar
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    All patent reviewers are required to be "skilled in the art" which they are reviewing. If the patent reviewer lacks the knowledge and skills necessary to reduce the invention to practice, then they are not qualified to review the patent and another reviewer must do it instead. All patent reviews trigger a search of prior art regardless of whether the applicant lists those sources or not. You are required to list at least 2 sources that you used in your research when applying for a patent.

    All patent approvals trigger an open challenge period. Anyone can request another review of the patent and put on evidence of prior art and/or arguments as to why it simply should not be patentable. This is an entirely free process.

    So you can see that all of your suggested ideas are good ones and have already been put into place at least to some degree. And yet, bad patents still get through.
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  11. I understand better now, thanks adam. But to me it looks like it's a loop hole. All you have to do is describe a "process" to patent it. That process could require software of which the software is copyrighted.

    I guess another way around 1-click is not just two clicks. What about a mouse-over? Oh, but you probably can't because there is probably already a "process" patent on mouse-overs.

    This is what makes it ridiculous.
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  12. Originally Posted by adam
    All patent reviewers are required to be "skilled in the art" which they are reviewing.
    I know that. I'm questioning the level of their skills. The non-obvious bar needs to be raised.

    Originally Posted by adam
    All patent reviews trigger a search of prior art regardless
    Yes, and the applicant works very hard to obfuscate the nature of their device to make it difficult for the reviewer to find prior art. Don't call it a wheel, call it a self adapting, cylindrical section, torque conversion device.

    Originally Posted by adam
    All patent approvals trigger an open challenge period.
    I was unaware of this period. How much harder is it to overturn a patent after this period, ie, when your being sued? I suspect it's much harder. How about extending the period until 1 year after the applicant files the first infringement law suit? Obviously people have better things to do than sit around browsing through recently granted patents looking for problems.
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  13. I recently bought a new HP printer for $70.00. It was cheaper than buying refill ink cartridges.
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  14. Member adam's Avatar
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    Pretty much all patent reviewers have as a minimum a bachelors degree in some scientific field. Many have PhDs and/or law degrees and there are always employed certain managers who are required to have a PhD, and they review any suspect or overly complex patent application. The patent office also has a very robust set of guidelines that all patent reviewers follow. And then of course there is an exam that you must pass in order to be a Patent Reviewer and it is regarded as one of the most difficult examinations administered by any governmental agency. Patent law is also one of the few areas of law that attorneys must become specifically licensed as a specialist for. The patent bar is probably harder than any state's bar.

    As soon as a patent is applied for it is disclosed through the patent office's web page...and there are numerous circulars that publish patent notices first when they are applied for and later when/if they are approved. I can assure you that LOTS of people and companies keep tabs on these things. Lots of IP attorneys find clients this way by contacting someone saying, "did you see this patent, it will have an effect on your industry...you can challenge this." And then any large scale company has employees who do nothing but research recent patents.

    As soon as the review process begins anyone can file an opposition for free with the Patent office and this right continues for 3 months after the patent has been granted. During the review period you can also file your own patent on the same subject matter and this will trigger an interference where the Patent Office will decide who discovered the claimed invention first...so you could say you thought up the swinging on a swing invention first.

    A reexamination can be requested anytime after the 3 month period. You file the request and include any evidence of prior art and the Patent Office reinvestigates/researches. If they do conduct a formal reexamination it costs you $2500. Basically how it works is you file a request...if granted the patent holder files a response (basically challenging your claim of prior art) and then you file a second response...after which the patent holder and patent office can basically continue discussions.

    Then there is an inter partes reexamination process that costs $8,800 but the challenger is much more involved in the process.

    All of this is intended to be a quick and relatively easy way to determine a patent's validity without having to go to trial. Relatively few patents are completely invalidated during this process but a significant number are reduced in scope which is often all it takes to defeat their claims against you...assuming that's why you requested the reexamination.

    Finally, the Patent Office has the authority, and frequently does, initiate the reexamination period all on its own.

    If reexamination is not granted, or does not invalidate/narrow the patent and a 3rd party still wants to challenge it then they must either wait to be sued for infringement or they can file for a declaratory judgment on their own...but of course this can be very costly.
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  15. Originally Posted by p_l
    Originally Posted by CaptainVideo
    Cost per gallon of fluid.

    Gasoline $3.00
    Milk $2.99
    Coca-Cola $2.84
    Gatorade $5.20
    Evian Water $5.60
    Orange Juice $6.64
    Crisco Oil $7.44
    Perrier Water $8.16
    Snapple $10.32
    Scope $27.20
    Lemon Oil $27.22
    Olive Oil $51.04
    Shampoo $40.44
    Real Maple Syrup $57.08
    Jack Daniels Bourbon $101.12
    Visine Eye Drops $995.84
    Nasacort Nasal Spray $2,615.28
    Printer Ink $8,895.72

    Calculation based on HP Ink jet cartridge number 58, which contains 17ml of black ink at the typical list price of $39.95.

    Patents are one way of monopolizing a product...
    This is great! What's your source?
    I think its being passed along through email, I have no idea who came up with it so the numbers are not to be taken as fact, but it's not far from the truth.
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  16. i bothered to do the calculations myself, and i know how much a lot of those things do in fact cost...and that list is actually pretty dead on....gas got slightly cheaper, then again thats one of those things that just fluxuates all the time...a lot of those other things are pretty close, if not dead on........all i gotta say, is that it makes me sick that printer companies charge that much for ink...thats part of the reason that i dont use a printer, nor do i personally own one...there's one in the house, but its the wife's printer for her laptop...she has a semi valid reason to as she prints out schedules, ect....i dunno, i just dont like the fact that MANY differant industries artifically inflate the bejesus out of prices like that....take the instance of a music cd...with the cover art, and EVERYTHING put into it, it costs LESS that 25 cents to make (probably FAR less these days, im going by numbers that i saw like 4 years ago!!!) and yet they still continue to sell them when they first come out for 10-15 dollars each.....another industry that does similar is the movie industry with dvd's......by the time they have hit dvd, MOST (mind you not all) have recouped a large chunk of the costs for making the movie, in some cases a LOT more than that even......some dvd's come with next to no special features (a great example recently is batman begins...at lest the 1 disc version) and some come even without a chapter listing!!! not that its the biggest deal in the world, but still.....and those couldnt cost that much more to make than a music cd....last time i saw, this was for pressing like 1000 copies of a disc in that manner, they costed like 1.50 each (mind you, they probably cost less if they are printing in the kind of bulk most hollywood movies are pressed in) and yet ANOTHER artificially inflated industry is the diamond industry......a while back i saw an article that spoke about them actually MAKING diamonds from raw materials, and they could be sold for like less than 5 dollars a pound or something rediculous....yes, i realize that to get your products to stores does cost money, and to pay the artists (in the examples of music and movies) also costs money........but honestly, is a 10 to 20 TIMES cost inflation really nessacery? look at over in china....piracy has hit such an all time high that they are starting to release retail dvd's at the equivelent of around 3 US dollars...given they are barebones dvd's but they are probably still churning a profit (no where near as much, obviously, but the point still stands) there is no reason that i shouldnt be able to go to a store and pick up the latest music cd for less than 5 bux, and the latest movies for no more than 10 dollars other than corperate greed........same thing goes with diamonds...there's no reason i shouldnt be able to go and buy a chunk of diamond, hack it apart myself and use it as insilation for a cup holder for under 15 dollars......it all boils down to corperate greed and them thinking that they can and have the right to basically inflate the prices of stuff however they see fit.....
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  17. Member adam's Avatar
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    Hmmm, this is kinda a random post but...

    whitejremiah most of cost of cds is in distribution (including retail markup), not in manufacturing, though your numbers still seem very low.

    Here is a recent stat: For a $17 CD. $6.23 of this goes towards retail markup. $3.34 to overhead and shipping. $1.99 to royalties. $ .75 to CD printing costs. The result is that each CD sold brings in a profit for the studio of $ .59. More than half of all albums actually lose money overall (have to payback price of marketing and production), so of this $.59 some has to go towards recouping losses.

    The real culprit behind high CD prices are the retailers. They markup way more than other industries do. You've got the exact same thing in the furniture and jewelry industries.

    From the music industry's position, they really couldn't lower music prices anymore for hard sales than they already do. That's why online sales make so much sense.
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  18. Originally Posted by adam
    Hmmm, this is kinda a random post but...

    whitejremiah most of cost of cds is in distribution (including retail markup), not in manufacturing, though your numbers still seem very low.

    Here is a recent stat: For a $17 CD. $6.23 of this goes towards retail markup. $3.34 to overhead and shipping. $1.99 to royalties. $ .75 to CD printing costs. The result is that each CD sold brings in a profit for the studio of $ .59. More than half of all albums actually lose money overall (have to payback price of marketing and production), so of this $.59 some has to go towards recouping losses.

    The real culprit behind high CD prices are the retailers. They markup way more than other industries do. You've got the exact same thing in the furniture and jewelry industries.

    From the music industry's position, they really couldn't lower music prices anymore for hard sales than they already do. That's why online sales make so much sense.
    Actually this is an area where I have expertise.

    A CD that LISTS, not retails for $16.99 would cost an independent music store anywhere from $11.99 to $12.60, not including the cost of shipping. A BestBuy or CircuitCity would get it for $1 less. They would also sell it at a loss or for cost to drive people into stores, while the independent music store has to sell it between $14.99 and list. The distributors usually pay the recording companies somewhere between $8.99 and $9.99 depending on volume. So the record companies are getting for a $16.99 CD more than half the value. That money goes towards production which is far more than $0.25 a piece. Granted it is below $1.00. But also it goes towards marketing and advertising costs as well as packaging for shipment and storage facilities. Then the artist gets a very very tiny share. The share they receive largely depends on if the artist wrote the music themselves and how many tracks are on the CD. But it is usually less than $1 a CD.

    The money usually doesn't make it to the artist however because the record companies usually front the money for the studio recording time, any travel expenses or other recurring expenses, faxing, telephone blah blah blah, any music video production and any personal marketing beyond the marketing of the CD itself. Then if those costs are fully recouped by the record company the artist starts to receive payments.

    Hope this clears that up.
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  19. I'd have more sympathy with Courtney Love if she didn't sign the contract. I really have no sympathy for any band that signs a default record label contract.

    Also why on earth did it cost her $500k to record an album??? That is just insane.
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  20. Member adam's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by CaptainVideo
    Hope this clears that up.
    How so, aren't your numbers basically IDENTICAL to mine? But the price I mentioned is the actual retail price. That's just the number they used in that statistic. I got it from the Bureau of Statistics.

    @junkmalle, I chuckle a little each time I read the title of that article.
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  21. Originally Posted by CaptainVideo
    Also why on earth did it cost her $500k to record an album??? That is just insane.
    Keep in mind that article was written in 2000 and probably relfects her experiences in the early 1990's -- before a rookie band could afford thier own recording equipment. So $500K represents what the record label charged the band for the album production. So it's just another way the label is ripping them off.
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  22. Originally Posted by adam
    Originally Posted by CaptainVideo
    Hope this clears that up.
    How so, aren't your numbers basically IDENTICAL to mine? But the price I mentioned is the actual retail price. That's just the number they used in that statistic. I got it from the Bureau of Statistics.
    Basically with one caveat, retail is not the culprit. The labels set the list price which determines how much they charge distributors or big box retail. Then big box retail sells at cost or below and the mom & pop shops disappear because they can't compete. The retailers are actually trying to get prices down. In fact the FTC successfully sued the labels for their MAP's (Minimum Advertised Pricing) requirement. MAP was implimented to cushion the margins of struggling retailers. It was an effort to set a level playing field for music retail, a chance for independent retail to compete with the predatory, loss-leading pricing of mass merchants. But the hidden reason is they didn't want CD's to have a lower perceived value.

    And the markup of CD's is much lower than markup for Books, DVD's and computer/console games.
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  23. Originally Posted by junkmalle
    Originally Posted by CaptainVideo
    Also why on earth did it cost her $500k to record an album??? That is just insane.
    Keep in mind that article was written in 2000 and probably relfects her experiences in the early 1990's -- before a rookie band could afford thier own recording equipment. So $500K represents what the record label charged the band for the album production. So it's just another way the label is ripping them off.
    The record label has nothing to do with the cost of recording. The label fronts the artist money, it is up to the artist/manager how to spend it. Just because a label gives you a million dollars doesn't mean you have to spend all of it. But yes, the cost of recording has come down. But even in the '90's you had the ability to record a record cheaply, and it usually would sound like the artist did.
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