Re: non-free firmware in kernel modules, aggregation and unclear copyright notice.

[Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org>]

On Fri, Apr 08, 2005 at 08:31:22PM -0400, Raul Miller wrote:
> The U.S. patent office, at least, has granted patents on natural laws,
> on stuff that's already patented, on stuff with clear prior art, on
> trivial math operations and so on.  Patents are being granted so quickly
> there's no way of even knowing what's patented.

Here's the best one yet: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18624944.600
(Standard patent warnings apply, but this is too ludicrous to skip and the
article is vague.)

   Elizabeth Boukis, spokeswoman for Sony Electronics, says the work is
   speculative. "There were not any experiments done," she says. "This
   particular patent was a prophetic invention. It was based on an
   inspiration that this may someday be the direction that technology will
   take us."

Natural laws, trivial math operations, and Prophetic Patents.  "If somebody
actually invents this, it's ours!"

(I'm bordering on being happy to see this level of lunacy--the further
patents are pushed, the more likely it is we'll see some patent reform
in our lifetimes ...)

-- 
Glenn Maynard