Interesting article about Sony and its dual shock...

[Flip]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... ny_lawsuit

It would suck if they were forced to stop selling them.

[Gentz]

Yup, standard corporate wisdom: Take what you want, and don't pay for it.

Until someone gets pissed off enough to sue you, that is.

[Zeus]

*Conspiracy theorist* Maybe Nintendo and/or Microshaft will get behind Immerson and try to delay the launch of the PS3, which will invariably have the same, dull, outdated controller....

[SineSwiper]

It seems like the other way around: dig up some bullshit patent that you happen to have and use that to sue. I hate patents just as much as I hate corporations, so fuck them both.

[Zeus]

Yeah, patents have no real use in business.....(I'll let ya'll guess if this is sarcasm or not)

[Nev]

It seems like the other way around: dig up some bullshit patent that you happen to have and use that to sue. I hate patents just as much as I hate corporations, so fuck them both.

Sine, it's out of some sort of love that I have to say that corporations aren't ALL bad. Neither are patents. There's a quote by Mark Twain in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court where Hank (the Yankee) says, "I knew that a country without a patent office is just a crab - can't go forwards or backwards, just sideways," or something to that effect. They're both legal concepts created to encourage business development - as I understand them, the one is primarily to encourage risk, and the other, innovation. While it's true there are attendant problems with both of them, point me towards an invention in the last thousand years that there aren't some sorts of problems with. Why do you hate big business so much?

[SineSwiper]

They're both legal concepts created to encourage business development - as I understand them, the one is primarily to encourage risk, and the other, innovation. While it's true there are attendant problems with both of them, point me towards an invention in the last thousand years that there aren't some sorts of problems with.

Patents USED to protect the little guy from theft from the big businesses. Now, they are just used as a weapon for big businesses. Amazon's One-Click patent is a perfect example. Disney's fear of Mickey Mouse's longevity is another. (Copyrights vs. Patents, but it generally amounts to the same type of issue.) Musicians no longer own their own material; they are owned by the music industry.

The system is flawed in many different ways. For example, technological patents/copyrights don't expire near as quickly as they should. (Copyrights even less so.) Pong is still a copyrighted piece of material, even though it's horrible outdated. It may be considered "vaporware", but legally, it follows the same laws as a pirated copy of Half-Life 2. The patent offices do no checking of prior art whatsoever. This results in companies buy out the most obvious of patents just to sue people out of their money. There are a few companies out there who actually do this as their sole purpose.

Why do you hate big business so much?

That's a dumb question. What is there to love about big business? They are bloated, monopolizing, and soulless. Thanks to the stock market, controlled by people who only care about rising and falling numbers instead of company values and moralistic integrity, corporations have one extremely predictable mind and personality. Here is an entity with a sole purpose to stifle innovation and promote a monopoly for their own self-interest, and they must be controlled by governmental laws.

At the same time, their promotion of self-interest encourages corruption within the government by use of their deep pockets. That Disney case is also a good example of this, but there are many, many, many others. (Ahem, tax cuts for the rich...) This also influences corruption within the individuals, all the way up to the executive level, on everything from fiscal changes to foreign policies. The United States has shown the world everything that is wrong with capitalism, and it wonders why the countries it invades are so opposed to changing to its "liberator's" form of government.