bfe

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331.
by bfe 15y ago
This really seems to boil down to arguing that the patent examiners in the software art unit need to do a better job evaluating whether patent application claims really are novel and non-obvious, like they're supposed to under current paten
332.
by bfe 15y ago
The one click patent is a really unfortunate representative of software patents. I've worked on software patents where the inventors are computer science professors at top universities. Those patent applications are at least as hideously co
333.
by bfe 15y ago
It's worth dropping by Stanford if only to check out the bookstore.
334.
by bfe 15y ago
It seems like you're saying though that software patents are being applied to things that are obvious - in which case, that would just mean the patent office isn't doing a proper job of not granting patents to subject matter that's obvious
335.
by bfe 15y ago
But his examples are all physical embodiments that perform a tangible real-world function. There's no continuous progression between those and pure math.
336.
by bfe 15y ago
This is a really underappreciated distinction: the huge difference in capital investment required to develop new inventions in different technical areas. It isn't taken into account in patent law - which sort of makes sense historically bec
337.
by bfe 15y ago
This is a great point and I've seen it in action many times among clients - calculating whether to apply for a patent on a new idea or to protect it as a trade secret. In cases where the value is mainly in inaccessible firmware or a manufac
338.
by bfe 15y ago
I know one active patent troll who is also a patent attorney, who wrote and prosecuted his own patent application and now writes his own threatening letters and licenses to the patent, has made a lot of money from it, and shows only delight
339.
by bfe 15y ago
Ohmygod, a LOLCAT based Turing machine - many thanks for posting this reply.
340.
by bfe 15y ago
That's not perverse, it's a great idea. Ornithologists rely on crowdsourcing to conduct bird population surveys and track changes in bird populations from year to year. Let the volunteer surveyors sign up for twitter feeds for nearby detect
341.
by bfe 15y ago
I'd like to see it go further, and see a machine pretending to be a person tweeting, a Twitter version of the Turing test. Or you could go one better, and apply machine learning to the social media output and other electronic communications
342.
by bfe 15y ago
On the other hand, if the partner has been doing lines of coke during his last few dozen meetings with startups, he's screwed...
343.
by bfe 15y ago
They're not unheard of. Check out this classic of the genre from Philip Greenspun: http://waxy.org/random/arsdigita/
344.
by bfe 15y ago
That's exactly right, and they're also doing their job right to recommend the founders get their own separate counsel. I have seen some really surprising conflicts of interest arise between founders and investors and even between founders b
345.
by bfe 15y ago
Considering how little we know of the facts, and that it's a "very well-known Valley firm", it's a bit premature to conclude that the lawyers committed malpractice.
346.
by bfe 15y ago
The lawyers in this situation had a clearly defined client whom they had an ethical obligation to represent zealously. I don't know any of the particulars, but let's assume their official client was the corporation, and the board, stacked w
347.
by bfe 15y ago
Talk to an attorney, and one who does nothing but patent law. If you go through your regular business lawyer that's what they will do anyway.
348.
by bfe 15y ago
I love how forthright Ben is in detailing his own mistakes in management, to show how he learned from them. He's insightful here on how to avoid managing for short-term metrics in a way that sacrifices value and long-term growth, one of the
349.
by bfe 15y ago
As for the xenon ion engine vanguard, don't forget Deep Space One and Hayabusa.
350.
by bfe 15y ago
Who says Arc isn't among the Essais?
351.
by bfe 15y ago
Even for normal low standards of science journalism, this article is awful. "...such enormous gravity that it sucks in just about anything that comes light years [sic] near it." An object passing light-years away would follow the same hyper
352.
by bfe 15y ago
...but, why would you want to?
353.
by bfe 15y ago
In my experience as both a T.A. and a student, a bimodal distribution of grades wasn't uncommon in courses with a good professor with high standards teaching challenging technical material. What's the rationale for avoiding it?
354.
by bfe 15y ago
Thanks, that is helpful. It indicates there were bigger changes from 0.9 to 1.0 than any since then; The Django Book is based on 0.9, so maybe it isn't worth spending time with now.
355.
by bfe 15y ago
How significant an issue is it how old these books are? The Django Book is from 2007 and predates even Django version 1.0, and the "in progress" second edition on the website has its last update in March 2009. Practical Django Projects is f
356.
by bfe 15y ago
Sometimes the VC brings in "adult supervision" in the form of an experienced serial entrepreneur, which can be great. Sometimes the VC brings in "adult supervision" in the form of an MBA with many years of experience as a consultant or inve
357.
by bfe 15y ago
You've articulated this position about as well as I've seen it put. I'm far from an unbiased party on these issues. I've been thinking a lot on how they should be analyzed. There certainly have been quality issues, and it's vital that paten
358.
by bfe 15y ago
Ultimately any physical interaction can be abstracted into math - ultimately, in precisely the same way as software being executed by a computing system. I keep coming back to a recognition of every argument against software patents ultimat
359.
by bfe 15y ago
It looks like at least the following patents assigned at least at some point to Autitude are floating around: 7,325,013 Database with efficient fuzzy matching 7,421,376 Comparison of data signals using characteristic electronic thumbprints
360.
by bfe 15y ago
The beginning of the article is incorrect in identifying the Allen Array as the array in the film "Contact". That was the Very Large Array.

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