Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kosh on April 09, 2008, 07:33:45 pm
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Appearently a company called Ultra Products says they recieved a patent for the modular power supply and are suing all the other power supply makers, such as Antec, etc (http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-flmdce/case_no-6:2008cv00503/case_id-212287/)
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:eek2:
I like Ultra because all of their products come with a lifetime warranty. But this is just crazy.
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They may actually have a case here. They did release the first such PSU on the market, although it was a fairly mediocre one that I've heard many failure cases about. Their newer ones are supposed to be much better though.
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Well I'll be voting down this patent trolling idiocy with my dollars. I suggest others do the same. If thats what they want to do...make them suffer.
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i find it hard to believe you can get a patent for sticking a power supply into a box, and putting an industry standard connector on it. its rediculous what counts as an invention. i demand patent reform! make it smarter or get rid of it all together.
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i find it hard to believe you can get a patent for sticking a power supply into a box, and putting an industry standard connector on it. its rediculous what counts as an invention. i demand patent reform! make it smarter or get rid of it all together.
Actually you can get patents for almost anything. Right now the number one holder of patents is some guy who patented every possible design of flowerpots he could think of. You can get patents for writing a few lines of code, and you could also patent business methods such as outsourcing.
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IIRC some companies have patented proteins found in the human body because they got bacteria to produce the same proteins :rolleyes:
The world is crazy these days...
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Thats it...I'm patenting the pinky finger. Everyone on the planet now owes me billions.
(I realize thats not quite how it works...but hey)
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I'm surprised this isn't on Slashdot yet.
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Thats it...I'm patenting the pinky finger. Everyone on the planet now owes me billions.
(I realize thats not quite how it works...but hey)
It is if it's genetically engineered. One of the issues with GMO foods is that the seeds are totally patented. If some of their seeds accidently gets on your land without you noticing, you're violating their "intellectual property" and can be sued for millions of dollars.
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I'm going to patent god and jesus. That way people will know that god and jesus are one in the same and are patentable. I'll be receiving royalty tithes. Dumb example of course, but then again most patents these days seem just as dumb.
My next mission will be to patent my ass impression in a couch. Only if other people find my ass impression in a couch comfier than the other over all ass impressions in couches. My ass impression in a couch could be paid to be scientifically proven to release stress and other therapeutic and ergonomic healthy abilities. If not, then i'll just plain old patent ass impressions in couches altogether. I'll make a **** load of money in the ass pillow industry. :yes:
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i find it hard to believe you can get a patent for sticking a power supply into a box, and putting an industry standard connector on it. its rediculous what counts as an invention. i demand patent reform! make it smarter or get rid of it all together.
Is it? The entire point of patents is to reward those who come up with an idea that would otherwise be nonprofitable without the protection of a patent. It seems to me that the modular power supply is the perfect example of such a parent. Something more complex that required advanced technical knowledge and a large, highly developed manufacturing infrastructure would by its nature be limited to large companies. An idea as simple and as effective as what you've described could easily be copied by any number of companies, and the original inventor would be put out of business simply by not possessing the same manufacturing capability at the outset as a company that had been producing slightly similar products and simply retooled their line to accept the improvement.
Simple ideas that make sense are some of the most widely beneficial ones.
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IBM could have been just like Apple in 1981 and introduced a totally patented and locked down computer, but they didn't and society benefited from it.
Fact is, why do this now? Modular power supplies have been in use for PCs for almost 30 years. That they waited THAT long before going after these companies is blatant trolling.
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Patents like trademarks should require defence. That would stop a lot of this stupidity. If you invented the hyperlink you can't wait until the internet has been around for 10 years before trying to sue on it. If you didn't sue as soon as you become aware your patent was being infringed you should lose the right to do so.
I agree with WMC that patents are there to protect the small inventor. However patents are not supposed to allow you to pretend to ignore that your design is being infringed until everyone is using it so you can then spring a surprise lawsuit on every single competitor on the market designed simply to trick them into using your design so that you can make money from them.
Putting a defend or they expire clause on them would make them a lot more sensible and cut out almost every single one of these ridiculous patent infringement cases that we seem to hear of from time to time.
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i think there should be a complexity requirement to the invention. sure you can describe a modular power supply in a paragraph, but it will most likely be bloated to make it seemingly more complex. they should crack down on this.
a natural progression also should not count as an idea. like the nail claw on the back of the hammer. it used to be you had to have a crowbar to pull messed up nails as well as a separate hammer which was essentially double headed. surely a bunch of different blacksmiths all over the place got the idea at the same time, and started making hammers with a nail claw in the ass end. that would be something patent worthy perhaps, so its not the best example. duct tape inventions, in which two gadgets are merged into a single gadget that has the functions of both, should not count.
i also think that you must have a working prototype to show that the idea isn't completely bogus. in theory patents should not be allowed. if you want an invention to make you the inventor money, then you are gonna need to market it to corporations or take out a loan and start your own business. if you want inventor to be a job title, it better be work you're doing. people see inventions as a get rich quick scheme. they think if the come up with a simple device they can make millions for at most what amounts to a couple years work.
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Thats it...I'm patenting the pinky finger. Everyone on the planet now owes me billions.
(I realize thats not quite how it works...but hey)
It is if it's genetically engineered. One of the issues with GMO foods is that the seeds are totally patented. If some of their seeds accidently gets on your land without you noticing, you're violating their "intellectual property" and can be sued for millions of dollars.
It doesn't even need to be genetically modified. Rent The Future of Food (http://www.thefutureoffood.com/). You can catch the first ten minutes of it on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNezTsrCY0Q).
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There was an Aussie who tried to patent the wheel. Rejected, he went in a week later and tried for fire... And then air... Water...
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Sounds like that guy was seeing what he could get away with. Maybe when his list runs out he'll try to literally patent nothing. Nothing as in patenting vacuum.
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Sounds like that guy was seeing what he could get away with. Maybe when his list runs out he'll try to literally patent nothing. Nothing as in patenting vacuum.
That's the basic premise. That, and he wanted to show the absurdity of some patents people have made.
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Didn't Coca-Cola patent Santa Claus™?
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Pepsi should patent the polar bear if coke hasn't done it yet.
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Didn't Coca-Cola patent Santa Claus™?
That would be trademark...which you should have realized right away.
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This is getting ridiculous!
I'm going to patent the patenting form, so no one will be able to file a new patent without paying me!
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im gonna patent the asshole.
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Fine, but no illustrations in the application, please :P
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im gonna patent the asshole.
Insert joke about x being an example of prior art. :p
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Heh I'm just going to patent the universe. Anyone in it or passing thought it will have to pay me royalties. Might as well patent the mulitverse while I'm at it. Wouldn't want anyone trying to get around the fee by jumping to a parallel dimension.
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im gonna patent the asshole.
Just wondering, is that literately or not. If so you could sue everyone, if it is both however you could sue alot of people twice, including a good bit on this forum. Ofcourse since you have the patent you would not have to sue yourself. :p
Heh I'm just going to patent the universe. Anyone in it or passing thought it will have to pay me royalties. Might as well patent the mulitverse while I'm at it. Wouldn't want anyone trying to get around the fee by jumping to a parallel dimension.
I'm gonna patent the thought process of patenting. No more thinking of patents unless I get paid.
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Heh I'm just going to patent the universe. Anyone in it or passing thought it will have to pay me royalties. Might as well patent the mulitverse while I'm at it. Wouldn't want anyone trying to get around the fee by jumping to a parallel dimension.
I'm gonna patent the thought process of patenting. No more thinking of patents unless I get paid.
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Your thought process patent exists in my patented universe therefore you both you and the person thinking have to pay me for them thinking of a patent.
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I'll patent energy and matter. and since universe is made out of both, you'll have to pay ME!
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I'll patent energy and matter. and since universe is made out of both, you'll have to pay ME!
Sorry but that energy and matter would be covered under the multiverse patent.
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I choose to patent the passage of time. Everyone who doesn't want to pay will have to live in a time freeze.
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patents are really useless if you cant back it up legally. not like the feds crack down on patent violators. really it violates the whole purpose of patents, to give the average poor joe blow inventor a chance at making money on an idea. if that inventor cant provide legal support to defend their patent then its as good as worthless.
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For the people who have really good inventions and they're poor people. Then patents are generally a good thing. But, when like apple comes along and does something like patenting the ipod user interface, then i guess it gets sort of dumb. Patenting a user interface? What if someone else in the world makes a blender with the ipod interface not even knowing that ipods exist? You could like use the touch sensitive wheel to change the speed and whatever, etc (might actually make a really fun and easy to use blender that would really hit off with ipod owners).
How many manufacturers of media player devices use the ipod interface, but with some slight differences so that it becomes an ipod like media player interface. I know sansa has for sure, the only difference for them is that they have an outer wheel you need to physically turn to raise or lower the volume (better in my mind because touch interfaces at many times can suck). My meizu m6 even has an ipod like interface, it looks different, but really works on the same principles. When there's dumb patents, people will continue to baby sidestep issues so they don't get a lawsuit. Unfortunately, ipods are really popular, which also makes their interface really popular too, which also means that every mp3 player brand needs to try to replicate the ipod interface differently every time. I personally really preferred my old cowon iaudio g3 interface to my meizu m6 interface (it had tactile buttons that were positioned great that even a blind person could use the player, if they just replaced that tiny joystick with 4 separate directional buttons instead i'd still have my old player). The ipod like interface i'm still getting used too (i like my buttons). Now a good deal of everyone who buys mp3 players may suffer the bad fate of the evil ipod interface. You can bet that when people make something like a user control interface for a device that their going to accidentally rip on another device that has a similar interface regardless of whether they like it or not (there's thousands of devices out there, there's going to be 100% exact similarities sometimes).
Which reminds me. Has someone patented general voice activation technology (another part of some other interfaces like ms sync or hand free car cellular systems)?