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United States Government Patents Politics

A Look at Technology Legislation for 2006 77

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the bickering-like-small-children dept.
segphault writes "Ars Technica provides some insight into technology legislation scheduled for congressional review in 2006. From the article: 'Congress plans to cover some important tech issues in 2006 [...] like digital communication, intellectual property law, and computer security. [...] Patent reform is also on the menu. Industry groups have requested that the government allow them to participate in the patent review process, and some legislators have discussed imposing stricter constraints upon patent related injunctions..'"
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A Look at Technology Legislation for 2006 More

A Look at Technology Legislation for 2006

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  • It's nice to know... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by techno-vampire ( 666512 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2005 @02:37AM (#14350402) Homepage
    It's nice to know that congressmen are considering legislation to prevent ISPs from restricting third-party services and patent reform. It will be interesting to see what happens after the lobbyists get their hands on whatever bills get introduced.

  • Scary thought for nerds (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28, 2005 @02:42AM (#14350413)
    It's quite frightening the amount of control that the US government is gaining over computer technology. To me, technology, specifically the internet, is great because it offers freedom, a way to do as I like without the limitations of government and politics. Perhaps someday in the near future, that freedom will no longer exist...

    • There are two ways to go (Score:4, Interesting)

      by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2005 @03:49AM (#14350549) Journal

      The first would be to disallow any blocking of others. IOW, it is status quo when it comes to packets going over a network. This would allow services to really build, but it could curtail future build-outs.

      The second is the libertarian way. That is, we could allow anything, but we could also prohibit exclusive monopolies. Right now, govs. do a give away by allowing exclusive monopolies to various large companies. In my area, comcast has the coax rights. Qwest has the twisted pair rights. Comcast is now trying to stop Qwest from carrying iptv, by getting local legislation to block it, even though comcast has the right to offer phone and internet. By prohibiting any gov. from entering into a exclusive monopolies (or just allow very short-term ones), we would encourage huge build-outs, with the possibility of curtailments of services.

      Personally, I prefer the later, but either should work. What I do know will fail, is if we give exclusive monopolies like we do now, AND we allow the companies to control services. That will prevent build-outs (why would the big players peer with you?), and would kill services that were not developed by a company.

  • The patent reform proposed doesn't sound too good. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jZnat ( 793348 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2005 @02:48AM (#14350428) Homepage Journal
    According to TFA, it seems that this will basically be providing patent enforcement at a much quicker level. Of course, this could also lead to the realisation that patents are bullshit and enforcing anticompetitive monopolies based on patents is, dare I say, socialistic and not at all capitalistic.

    • Re:The patent reform proposed doesn't sound too go (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "...enforcing anticompetitive monopolies based on patents is, dare I say, socialistic and not at all capitalistic."

      Please dare to say it! Say it to everone you meet, shout it from the rooftops!
      I keep saying this, and I want to use this chance to shout it louder again.

      Patents are unique in being simultaneously anti-capitalist and anti-social. They screw business and they screw society equally. They are a very devious form af anti-progressive thought, skillfully sold as the exact opposite.

      "What is to be gaine

    • Re:The patent reform proposed doesn't sound too go (Score:4, Insightful)

      by pieterh ( 196118 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2005 @07:19AM (#14351039) Homepage
      Rapid patent enforcement would be quite fine if patents in general respected the original social bargain, namely exclusive rights to the inventor in exchange for a temporary monopoly.

      It's not really about politics, just that "intellectual rights" have been twisted into "intellectual property" over the last decades, with the implication being that ideas and inventions are now property. In fact they are not, it's the exclusive right that is property.

      Patents and copyrights could work very well (possibly even in software, though only with fundamental reforms) if the concept of "I.P." was replaced, by, e.g. "Intellectual License", and the terms of these licenses made much more clear and transparent.

      E.g. "the USPTO grants inventor X the exclusive commercial rights to invention Y for N years under such and such conditions, including a clear description of the invention, and fair use for all non-commercial use."

      If the patent system was reformed to clarify the license behind the property, it'd be quite fine to enforce patents rapidly and firmly. At the same time, a large part of the enforcement would be against patent holders that abused their licenses.

      Ah, in an ideal world...

  • With the heavy reliance upon such important technologies these days, many people (business elite, politicians, etc.) will have the opportunity to either help or hinder the consumers. However, the impact doesn't stop at the option of a few products here and there, but it directly hints towards our rights regarding privacy, ownership, and other things.

    Technology should be used to better the lives of the many instead of fill the pockets of the few.

  • Could be an improvement if done right (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Harmonious Botch ( 921977 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2005 @03:08AM (#14350472) Homepage Journal
    "Industry groups have requested that the government allow them to participate in the patent review process" While I suspect that this is letting the fox guard the henhouse, there is away to make it work:
    When applying for a patent the applicant would split it into 2 parts. The first states what he can do, but not how. The second says how he can do it. The first part is made public a year before the second. If during that year, someone else can show how it is done, than the patent is denied on the basis of failing the nonobvious test. ( It need not be a year, maybe a month or two would work better ) If nobody can come up with something in that year, then the patent review process begins.

    • Re:Could be an improvement if done right (Score:5, Interesting)

      by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2005 @03:25AM (#14350498) Journal
      :o\

      I think your idea fails the non-obvious test.

      If it is truly an important patent, I don't see why another company wouldn't try any and every underhanded technique they have at their disposal to try and discover the method & invalidate the patent.

      Before I get accused of being a tinfoil hat paranoid, don't forget that the U.S. has been accused by a variety of countries that they've passed along NSA intercepts containing sensitive business information to help U.S. companies win international contracts. I wouldn't put much of anything past the largest companies.

  • Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2005 @03:09AM (#14350477) Journal
    Congress is (inevitably) stuffed with men and women who do not have the time to be fully informed about the subjects they are voting on.

    This is why lobbyists get paid so much money.

    Your avg Congress Critter gets a lot of their information from lobbyists, industry groups and various other organizations with an agenda.

    Worse, sometimes the legislation put forward by Congress people is essentially a cut-n-paste job from 'model legislation' that the lobbyists like to give out.

    Occassionaly, your representatives get called on their blatant plagarizing, but more often than not, it goes unnoticed because the 'model' legislation was never made public in the first place.

    Nowadays, with MS Word documents and PDF being posted to your Congress person's website, we get the occassional meta-bomb revealing that the document was written up by some lobbyist.

    /not anti-congress, just pointing out the negatives that come with lobbying

  • Tech legislation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2005 @03:10AM (#14350478) Homepage
    Although the situation in Iraq is sure to monopolize a big chunk of their time, they also want to spend time on issues like digital communication, intellectual property law, and computer security.

    What's frightening is that the majority of congressmonkeys in office are either completely oblivious, or they consider orwellian DRM to be a "solution". I mean, honestly, can you expect a solid understanding of technology issues from a generation that doesn't even use direct deposit? [fark.com]
    • I wonder if it's not that their generation doesn't use direct deposit, but that they understand all the little things that could be taken out of your account or deposit without your knowledge until they see a statement some time in a month or 2. They like those little paper things because that somehow makes their checking and savings accounts more secure than someone that uses direct deposit.

      Um, that doesn't make any sense. I use direct deposit for my income. None of my bills are paid that way. If it was j

      • Re:Tech legislation (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Scarblac ( 122480 )

        Sorry to go even further off topic, but this is one of those 'difference between the US and Europe' moments again.

        People seriously get wages paid in checks? I had no idea the word "paycheck" was literal.

        In Europe, there used to be "Eurocheques" for use in foreign countries, but they ceased to exist in 2002 (after all, ATMs work everywhere, can just pay cash in other countries). Bills are paid electronically, or, I guess, by sending a paper transfer order to your bank. Every two months I get a paper record

  • Interested in ? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by UberWhack ( 319225 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2005 @03:17AM (#14350487)
    Our elected representatives are legitimately concerned that youngsters today aren't as interested in science as in days past,

    It seems to me that many "youngsters" aren't interested in education in general.

    I do not see, however, what this has to do with technology related legislation...


    uW

    • Re:Interested in ? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jZnat ( 793348 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2005 @03:22AM (#14350494) Homepage Journal
      Maybe if Congress stopped outlawing new technology all the time, people might actually want to try IT or CS more often. Right now there's patent minefields, outsourcing to incompetents in India, alleged DMCA-violations up the ass, and increasingly annoying companines like SCO trying to pick on the little guys just to name a few. It becomes more and more illegal to actually work in IT or CS, and they wonder why nobody wants to do it anymore...
      • i was about to say some of that. it's like asking why "youngster" arent interested in building a bicycle when you cannot use gears, interchangable parts, any type of welding device, and adding handlebars is illegal. it's also close to someone pointing a gun at you and saying, "feel free to do anything you want on this computer... just dont make me unhappy" which is quite a nebulous assertion. hmm... patent minefields... sounds like we need some of those rats [slashdot.org].

    • Re:Interested in ? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Decessus ( 835669 )
      I've always wondered if part of the reason kids are not interested in education is due to the image that people who like school seem to receive.

      If you actually like school, then you get branded a nerd and you then become somewhat of an outcast. Perhaps so many kids just want to be liked that they adopt the attitude that school and education isn't for them.

      It seems that schools encourage sports activities more than they do educational ones. My school had pep rallies, dances, and all sorts of other acti
      • Having been a nerd meself, I'd disagree with this. Most nerds act in the traditional nerdy antisocial way because they think it's expected of them. As soon as you realise that there's no need to hold up the nerd act, you cease to be a nerd. On the downside, you lose all your nerdy friends, and struggle to find anyone who can discuss quantum theory ;D It's not up to the schools. It's up to the nerds, to do well, and to ignore the stereotypes. But I still don't see what this has to do with legislation? So t

    • Re:Interested in ? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by rob1980 ( 941751 )
      I do not see, however, what this has to do with technology related legislation...

      Technology = application of science. Lose interest in science, and technology could suffer as a result.

  • It's not all bad (Score:3, Informative)

    by Debiant ( 254216 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2005 @03:18AM (#14350490)
    Jus think Skype. If big operators and telecoms have to say what can be done without any rescrictions, soon there will be no Voip, except what they want to offer.

    After all the operators are the bridges which connect customers to other bridges that form the internet.
    Do we want to allow some troll to block our way and tell how and which way we can walk in the bridge?

    I don't, but if nothing is done, that's where it will end. Because even operators have to make a buck, and that's the easiest way. And they have a point that when they say they've put money to infastructure that others use, unfortunately.

  • Lets hope (Score:3)

    by nighty5 ( 615965 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2005 @03:34AM (#14350517)
    that govenments start to wake up and actually furful their actual role and start to care about their citizens and stop caring less about greedy companies.

    Its good to be informed about the going's on in technology, but the more I read slashdot, the more cynical I become.

    I'm hoping the trend will change shortly.

    • and stop caring less about greedy companies

      Yeah, I agree, and... wait a minute, whose side are you on?

    • Re:Lets hope (Score:2, Funny)

      by Debiant ( 254216 )
      I doubt it.

      Becoming more cynical is in a direct relation to snabby, wise-ass replies you read that cynical Slashdot readers give to prove how seasoned and intelligent they are.

      Like this one.
  • I wonder how can all these laws restrict (real) freedom [wikipedia.org] for Internet users.
    I suppose that companies are concerned with P2P file sharing [wikipedia.org] and (maybe) governs are concerned with pedophilia [wikipedia.org] and terrorism [wikipedia.org].

    On the first field there is little they can really do but limiting the usage of Internet itself as a bidirectional medium. If everyone used a strong encription P2P protocol mapped over, say, TCP port 80 or 25 to do my P2P, then I'd like to see how could they stop me. Only by avoiding incoming traffic to my sys

    • Re:No way (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      On the second field there is little to do without leaking into organisations in order to grab ciphers. A simple message (email, IM, etc.) like "Let's meet at the usual pub for a couple of beers at 10" could mean everything, from a friends party to a terrorist action meeting. Who knows?

      The NSA does, after having (without a warrant) examined your call-placing patterns for the last two years and recognizing that you don't go to the pub with this person regularly at all, or even talk to them. Of course, they al
      • Nice!
        And with some hundreds thousands of targets, if not tens of millions, using wired and wireless phones, internet email and messages and even magazines ads all over the world, it cannot be done in a snap.
        IMHO, without some good hint and leak in they would have a very hard time to "recognize" anything!
  • Intentional incompatibility between systems and programs causes problems that denies efficiency to all and costs money for everyone that is slowed down. It would be a fortunate change if the "program makers" would really try to provide a service to consumers that improves the digital world instead of conflicting in a useless gambit that has failed in other industries in the past.

  • Sometimes even mr. Bush is right (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mixenmaxen ( 857917 ) <(max) (at) (maximise.dk)> on Wednesday December 28, 2005 @04:19AM (#14350634) Homepage
    "No doubt President Bush's well meaning but misguided No Child Left Behind Act is partly to blame as well. As the son of a science teacher, I regularly hear about how government emphasis on unrealistic academic standards incapacitates effective science education. And as a victim of the public school system myself, I am painfully aware of how it impedes learning"

    Although not a regular supporter of mr. Bush, I am supportive of his "no child left behind" act. If implemented correctly it raises school standards to a higher level, creating an overall more educated workforce, and thus a more educated, flexible, and innovative society in which innovation thrives, and where racial injustice, crime and other human misdeeds are at a minumum. Coming from Denmark, a country that has carried this policy for many years, I think that I am justified in saying that I know what the implications of this policy are. The current good example, of course, being Skype - Started by a Dane and a Swede. Furthermore, there is the upside of not having outrageous public discussions about whether ID should be accepted into classrooms as science, a subject Danes spend many a cold winternight joking about, and of course being scared shitless that the worlds only superpower is at an educational level where the public can be made to believe this nonsense...
    • If implemented correctly it raises school standards to a higher level, creating an overall more educated workforce, and thus a more educated, flexible, and innovative society in which innovation thrives, and where racial injustice, crime and other human misdeeds are at a minumum.

      ...thus creating a nation that will never elect people like Mr. Bush. Come on, did you really expect it to be implemented correctly?
    • The US is a much larger and more diverse country. This is why No Child Left Behind is failing. And that is why, prior to Bush, the Republican Party has held that public schools should be controlled locally. Why anyone could think that a federal government could set a standard that was approrpriate for a rural farm area with 99% white Protestants and approrpriate for an urban area with 95% minorities is beyond me. It is a hindrance to progress for those areas where the guidelines don't make as much sense.

    • Re:Sometimes even mr. Bush is right (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The "No Child Left Behind Act" can and will never be implemented correctly in this nation. One of its main issues is the fact that it holds the teacher directly responsible for how the children do on "Standardized" tests. If you were a teacher and had the monetary future of your school on your back, not to mention the Principle, fellow teachers and parents what would you do? Teach to the test. Great, so we end up with a nation of students that know how to pass a single test and a bunch of teachers who know
    • Although not a regular supporter of mr. Bush, I am supportive of his "no child left behind" act. If implemented correctly it raises school standards to a higher level, creating an overall more educated workforce, and thus a more educated, flexible, and innovative society in which innovation thrives, and where racial injustice, crime and other human misdeeds are at a minumum.

      The key words are "if implemented correctly". What NCLB does, in practice, is that it holds everyone to certain national standards, and
  • It's funny, how 50 years of fighting the communists and their adapting their policy of censorship.

    I think the US is reaching the breaking point where the government is no longer transparent.

    As soon as it reads : "FCC censorship" on your monitor when you visit Rotten.com, that's when you know the communists really have won. Plus, "FCC" kinda sounds like "KGB"... amirite, or what?

  • One law they forgot (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 28, 2005 @09:02AM (#14351264) Homepage Journal
    It looks like Congress needs to first pass a law mandating that all political candidates do a thorough class on studying the Constitution, pay for dictionaries to explain phrases such as "Congress shall make no law..." and maybe even look over a history of every fascist and socialist regime and why they always fail.

    Not one of these laws falls under any Congressional power as given to them by the Constitution. The Commerce Clause has been distorted and stretched as far as imaginable, considering the intent of the clause was to give the Feds the power to keep the states from restricting trade between each other. Instead, we're seeing it used to help the Feds restrict trade completely, or to enhance trade of their friends/cronies with subsidies or monopoly power.

    Congress has done so much damage, and it will only continue. Don't think a major change in party numbers or voting for a third party will help it -- we've lost the war again tyranny, and we have only one thing to look forward to: the continued rape we call democracy.

    Bring back, at the least, a federalist representative republic where states compete with one another for the best talent, and the feds can do nothing but look on with empty pockets.
    • before spouting off against the various congressmen for not knowing the constitution, learn it yourself.

      Article I, Section 8. The Congress shall have power...To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

      Congress may make a mess of things, but they have always had the defined power to pass laws dealing with patents, tradmarks, and copyrights.

      • Re:Just a suggestion (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 28, 2005 @09:36AM (#14351355) Homepage Journal
        I know the Constitution. I see two things in the Constitutional quote above that don't exist in the laws we have today covering patents, copyright and trademarks:

        by securing for limited times

        and

        to authors and inventors

        Patents are for authors and inventors. The fact that are sold away to lawyers and patent holding groups is outrageous. Limited times doesn't mean decades or lifetimes.
        • Current patent law has a patent lasting for 20 years, this is fine, it's Copyright lifetimes that are the problem, with a "life of the author plus 50 years".

          • Current patent law has a patent lasting for 20 years, this is fine, it's Copyright lifetimes that are the problem, with a "life of the author plus 50 years".

            Hm... life of the author is not a limited time. I don't know about you, but I plan to live forever.

            Plus 50 years is arguably not a limited time, because it's absurdly long. The U.S. has been around for what, 250 - 260 years?

            This policy will have copyright lasting for almost half the time this country has been existence, and with it likely

            • Limited time means limited time, and there must be a concrete, non-expandable, maximum limit for any one piece of work, decided at the time the right is first granted

              Most Supreme Court justices would disagree with you, telling you to go ask Congress.

  • Analog Hole (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JackL ( 39506 ) on Wednesday December 28, 2005 @11:37AM (#14351969)
    It is interesting that Ars Technica didn't include legislation introduced to close the analog hole [slashdot.org] as some of the most important in 2005. I was worried that in the flurry of activity in congress before the winter recess that it might have passed. I did a little looking [google.com] but didn't find anything about it so I assume it did not pass... yet.

  • EFF (Score:2)

    by chandoni ( 28843 )
    Time to renew your EFF membership! (there are also the tax advantages of joining before the end of the year)

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