The Supreme Court doesn’t understand software, and that’s a problem

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The evidence suggests that in the software industry, the patent system does more to hinder innovation than to reward it. Inventors spend more money defending themselves against patent lawsuits than they earn from patent royalties. More and more entrepreneurs are losing sleep about the risk that patent litigation will drive them into bankruptcies. And companies that traditionally haven’t had to worry about the patent system, like restaurants, grocery stores, and casinos, are facing demands from trolls over dubious patents, most of which involve software.

via The Supreme Court doesn’t understand software, and that’s a problem – Vox.

Former FCC Commissioner: “We Should Be Ashamed Of Ourselves” For State of Broadband In The U.S.

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He led off by agreeing with the several executive speakers that true competition is the way of the future, and the best way to serve consumers. “But we haven’t given competition the chance it needs,” he continued, before referring to how poorly U.S. broadband compares on the global stage. “We have fallen so far short that we should be ashamed of ourselves. We should be leading, and we’re not. We need to get serious about broadband, we need to get serious about competition, we need to get serious about our country.”

via Former FCC Commissioner: “We Should Be Ashamed Of Ourselves” For State of Broadband In The U.S. – Consumerist.

Malware Posing as Official Google Play App Found in….Official Google Play Store

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When you click on it, the app asks for administrator privileges of the device. Once opened the sole user interface FireEye observed for the app contains pops up saying “Program Error” and “It’s Deleted!” when translated to English from Korean.

via Malware Posing as Official Google Play App Found in….Official Google Play Store.

These exploits usually require the user to approve of something first.

The app captures text messages, security certificates and banking details which it then sends to a Gmail address included in the malware – an email address which Google has now terminated

B.C. Court Orders Google To Remove Websites From its Worldwide Index

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The implications are enormous since if a Canadian court has the power to limit access to information for the globe, presumably other courts would as well. While the court does not grapple with this possibility, what happens if a Russian court orders Google to remove gay and lesbian sites from its database? Or if Iran orders it remove Israeli sites from the database? The possibilities are endless since local rules of freedom of expression often differ from country to country. Yet the B.C. court adopts the view that it can issue an order with global effect.

via Michael Geist – Global Deletion Orders? B.C. Court Orders Google To Remove Websites From its Worldwide Index.

It’s Time For a Hard Bitcoin Fork

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GHash is in a position to exercise complete control over which transactions appear on the blockchain and which miners reap mining rewards. They could keep 100% of the mining profits to themselves if they so chose. Bitcoin is currently an expensive distributed database under the control of a single entity, albeit one that requires constantly burning energy to maintain — worst of all worlds.

via It’s Time For a Hard Bitcoin Fork :: Hacking, Distributed.

Vigilant Solutions National Vehicle Location Service

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The largest pool of data is that harvested by Vigilant from commercial sources, most notably, Vigilant’s subsidiary, DRN (Digital Recognition Network). This pool of LPR data totals over 1.8 billion detections and grows at a rate of almost 70 million per month. This data is available via an annual subscription and greatly enhances an agency’s investigative reach.

via Vigilant Solutions National Vehicle Location Service.

Microsoft demos breakthrough in real-time translated conversations

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Skype Translator results from decades of work by the industry, years of work by our researchers, and now is being developed jointly by the Skype and Microsoft Translator teams. The demo showed near real-time audio translation from English to German and vice versa, combining Skype voice and IM technologies with Microsoft Translator, and neural network-based speech recognition.

via Microsoft demos breakthrough in real-time translated conversations – The Official Microsoft Blog – Site Home – TechNet Blogs.

EU Set to Probe Ireland’s Tax Arrangements with Apple

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Ireland’s taxation laws allow multinationals to set up subsidiaries that effectively turn them into stateless entities whose revenues are subject to no jurisdiction. It’s the definition of entirely legal tax avoidance, and Apple has been among the most successful companies in routing much of its international revenues and earnings through its Irish subsidiaries.

via EU Set to Probe Ireland’s Tax Arrangements with Apple – The Mac Observer.

How Amazon got a patent on white-background photography

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The problem is not with the examiners, but with the law that governs that examination. That law makes it possible to get patents on ideas that any ordinary person would find old, well-known, and obvious.

via How Amazon got a patent on white-background photography | Ars Technica.

The result in Hear-Wear explains the result in the Studio Arrangement patent application. In both cases, the inventive idea, embodied in the independent claim, was shown to be old and well-known by a prior art reference. And in both cases, a seemingly trivial add-on feature in a dependent claim ended up being the feature that tipped the balance from obvious to nonobvious—a multi-pronged plug in one, and a distance ratio in the other. Because in both cases, that trivial feature was so ordinary that no one would have taken the time to describe it in a printed publication, but without such a publication, according to the Federal Circuit’s rules, obviousness cannot be proved.

This, in my view, is why the examiner did not even attempt to reject claim 3. A distance ratio may seem trivial, unimportant, or uninventive, but absent a written prior art reference, that distance ratio can sustain a whole patent claim. However obvious such an element may sound, it remains nonobvious according to the letter of the law, and that is all that is needed for the patent application to leave the examiner’s desk and move to allowance.