Google Bans Online Anonymity While Patenting It
tech.slashdot.org
tech.slashdot.org
Non-professional online existence almost invariably happens under a pseudonym.
I won't post links here but from the link in your HN profile (http://web-wanderings.blogspot.com/) a Google search and thirty seconds or so of time reveals a Name, Yahoo account and Twitter handle, the lattermost of which (and a personal page linked from your Gravatar) both strongly tied to a particular religion.
Is there all that much to putting up the thin layer that is a pseudonym in the face of that?
(Hint: This is a new account created using an IP that isn't my own with no details given - it wouldn't (alone) be enough to hide me from anyone actively watching from HN's servers, but should stand up to after-the-fact checks...)
I am not making parallels but above is an example of unnatural and forced coercion into applying identities. The other is also unnatural but still a coercive strategy, perhaps just influential in method.
BTW, based on your assessment of my online identity, did you think I was a Hindu or a Buddhist? Because I'm neither.
The patent system has become a joke. Only because of how it is being used, and it's one industry that is driving things to the point of absurdity. There is no integrity to the system, no matter how well-designed it is in theory, when they keep accepting nonsense like this. If filing for these was affordable for anyone, accepting them would have to come to an end. It would not be worth anyone's time to review.
"Social computing". In other words sending messages over a wire using a computer. No one was doing that in the late 60's, in the 70's or in the 80's or even the 90's. This is totally new. Totally fresh. Bleeding edge. Hot. And patentable!
Pretty scary if you think about it that the same guy completely banned a CNet reporter from all Google briefings just because he showed a case of all the information he could find through Google on Eric Schmidt...
Apple did not patent the rounded rectangle. Rather, the rounded rectangle was a small part of what's called their "trade dress", which they successfully demonstrated Samsung copied. This wouldn't be difficult to understand if you weren't so busy with trolling.
edit: Yes, go ahead and downvote me for pointing out how stupid you are.
Of particular note:
- Be civil.
- When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
- Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.
I think you rightly recognize anti-Apple non-argued insults as being as uncivil as your own comments. So it's quite unfair you get complained at for being uncivil while people don't acknowledge the stupid, insulting-to-Apple comment as already departing from civilized and productive discussion. But still, you aren't fixing any of this.
If your goal was merely to educated other people who read the comments, I don't think your comment was well written to accomplish that. It'd be more effective for educating third parties if it was 100% impersonal and only talked about the issue in a serious way. I think you were trying to persuade the guy you replied to, not third parties, but I think you already knew that wasn't going to work when writing your comment. So there's a bit of a contradiction there.
Things like that detract from your message, especially if you are correct. And you were at least half right in that those are only part of the design patents asserted. The problem is that Apple really did argue that rounded rectangles were a protected design element. While you can argue over how big a part of the design patents that was, it was something Apple's own lawyers argued over at trial.
So the facts are that they claimed to own that idea in court and that some people think that was absurd. Everything else is a matter of opinion, especially the matter of how important those claims are to the design patents. So you're free to disagree how important that feature of the design patents was. But other people are also free to say that when they argue it in court, it's fair game for criticism. That's all a matter of opinion, and we're each entitled to our own.
I'm not seeing it. Either way Samsung had to pay a billion dollars because they made a rectangular phone with rounded corners. How would it be different if Apple actually did patent the rectangle? What's the actual, relevant difference here? How exactly is the parent wrong?
http://www.zdnet.com/the-verdict-is-in-samsung-vs-apple-7000...
You are correct that it concerns trade dress, but the rounded rectangles were more significant than you give them credit for being. The ZDNet summary helpfully lists the design features at issue for each patent. I'm listing only those that contain rounded rectangles; there were seven patents in all:
Design patents infringed?
For design patent D'677 (rounded rectangle, edge-to-edge glass, thin bezel, horizontal speaker for phone): Yes for all but Galaxy Ace.
For design patent D'889 (rounded rectangle, edge-to-edge glass, thin bezel for tablet): No for all.
HN eats the links to these patents from the original summary, so I put them below:
"Rounded corners," by itself, is out-and-out not protectable by a design patent, since they are functional. But as part of a larger body of work they can be. The classic design patent is Coca-Cola on the Coke bottle. It didn't stop other people from using any individual feature of the Coke bottle, but the sum of the features (or close enough) triggers the design patent.
Also, I don't believe there is an official list of just what is covered by a design patent. ZDNet is applying their own editorial judgment there; that's not wrong, but it's also not binding.
A couple things. First, you left out D'677 (which everything but the Galaxy Ace infringed). I was being generous in leaving out D'087, though I probably should have listed it for completeness.
Second, I believe that list is the design features were argued over at trial. The problem isn't just whether or not they own them, but whether they believed that they do. When they claimed to own them in court, that made it fair game for criticism.
1. Did Apple think they owned the patent? Yes, you're right that they did. The fact that they lost still leaves them open to accusations of patent abuse, but statements like "Apple won on their patent for a rectangle" are factually wrong.
2. Does Apple think they own "rounded corners"? I'm pretty sure they didn't believe or argue this. I would love to see a citation that Apple claimed that rounded corners on a rectangular device, by themselves, was something that they could stop competitors from including.
Patents are a thorny issue, but the facts matter. HN can't have a meaningful discussion about them if we toss facts out the window because it makes a better narrative to say things like "Apple patented the rectangle." If the situation is really bad, there should be no need to exaggerate it or make stuff up.
Who made that statement, exactly? The furthest grandparent post said that, "Apple patented a rectangle, and I haven't seen much rise in awareness." and I've said nothing more than to give the jury's own verdict on three of Apple's design patents.
For the second point, I've already said that rounded rectangles are just one part, though the original post by marcoamorales is incorrect insofar as it implies that the design patents cover only that. It's pretty much inarguable that Apple asserted design patents with rounded corners as a key design feature. It was important enough to the claims that there was a prior art search for that specific element:
[1]: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120817121126489
The fact that they were such an important part of that design patent is probably what helped Samsung win on the D'889 issue, one of their few victories in the entire verdict.
The slashdot posting seems to be little more than flamebait. Google+ is a privately held social network and Google can choose to require real names on it if they so wish. The patent deals with persona mappings on a social network and does not prevent other companies from implementing anonymous communications on their own social networks. It could prevent mapping that information in the method described by the patent but that's it.
I really have no idea why this is on HN unless it's posted as an example of what's wrong with /.
Having pseudonyms is not new. It's basically the same as having aliases for email accounts. This renders the "invention", something obvious with previous art. I can't see how this patent application can prevail.
And they define Social Network as:
"A social network is any type of social structure where the users are connected by a common feature, for example, Google Plus. The common feature includes friendship, family, work, an interest, etc. The common features are provided by one or more social networking systems, such as those included in the system 100, including explicitly-defined relationships and relationships implied by social connections with other users, where the relationships are defined in a social graph 179. The social graph 179 is a mapping of all users in a social network and how they are related to each other. The social graph 179 is included in the memory 237 that is described below in detail. "
That could describe Windows Live Messenger also:
- It is a social structure,
- Where users are connected by a common feature (contact, work, family, etc).
- It has explicitly-defined relationship between contacts.
- The common features are provided by one or more social networking systems (it allows to connect to facebook, and other services, and link contacts from there).
- It has a social graph of all users in the network (unlike mail, as somebody else suggested, but Windows Live Messenger does have this graph).
- This graph is a mapping of all users in the network and how they are related.
- (Read the definitions of memory: basically, memory of an electronic device, permanent or removable, volatile or static, etc) The graph it's stored in some kind of computer memory (As they include pretty much everything, including floppy disks!!!!!!).
--
The fact that the USPTO granted them the patent, doesn't mean that it can't be invalidated. And if Google tries to enforce this patent, it most surely will be invalidated.
> "A social network is any type of social structure where the users are connected by a common feature, for example, Google Plus. The common feature includes friendship, family, work, an interest, etc. The common features are provided by one or more social networking systems, such as those included in the system 100, including explicitly-defined relationships and relationships implied by social connections with other users, where the relationships are defined in a social graph 179. The social graph 179 is a mapping of all users in a social network and how they are related to each other. The social graph 179 is included in the memory 237 that is described below in detail. "
I would also argue that any competent attorney could argue that the other three MS services don't fit that description.
Anyway, this kind of disputes won't be solved in an online forum.
Besides, I don't think that MSFT and Google are willing to battle for this kind of issues right now. It could trigger a HUGE battle regarding all kind of assets (OS's, office suits, search engines, etc). Most probably, they would simply make a some kind of cross-licencing and forget the whole thing.
But Windows Live Messenger can be defined as a SN, with that definition. I don't know if Yahoo! Messenger could also be included, because I don't use it and I'm not very familiar with it.
Read my response above. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4541041
The fact is that product managers at Google+ want cash cow personalities like Ashton Kutcher tweeting their tweets at Larry King from Google+ instead of Twitter, and these VIPs are the bait for the rest of the faceless rabble who serve merely as an online entourage, and a justification for ad prices. Google+ is a business based on personalities. They don't come right out and tell you this, but it doesn't mean it isn't true.
Popularity and rejection cut to the heart of an individual's emotions when participating online, especially when playing for keeps with their actual identity. Google+ is forcing you to play for keeps, but what about the dangers? They want the money that comes with veracity, but they offer little in return (just like facebook). Who picks up the pieces after someone gets smeared, or execises porr judgement. There's no padding. No undo file. Just you. Left out in the cold.
Google+ is courting special people, but not everybody is special. Exclusive treatment for some, unprotected, unmitigated public exposure for others. Pay to play, but the VIP handlers probably won't pay attention to you, unless you have special representation. Need I harp on the cognitive dissonance this has with a "democratic internet"?
True, but the tons and TONS of people are harangued into using Google+ by irritating tool tips and notification messages when using other Google products (like mail, chat, docs/drive and even Chrome, which in and of itself has it's own browser campaign whenever you visit the search product with a non-Chrome browser).
If not provoked into Google+ by pushy interface cues (and don't play naive, you KNOW they've got top UX and marketing people trying to find that sweet spot of deniable annoyance, when crafting those notifications), then people are click-sniped into Google+, by stumbling into it, when they click on whatever caught their attention, simply out of curiosity and yes-ing to death EULA notices, not realizing that their publishing information publicly in the product and outward to the service, visible to other users (potentially in search results no less).
This is what happened to me, when I carefully clicked on things when it first came out, and relized I'd have to go back, delete things out and void my account and activity in Plus where I didn't want it. Add to this the recent privacy policy changes. But sure, gloss over these details.
Google learned their lessons from the Buzz debacle, and its accompanying lawsuits, so they aren't railroading people into inadvertent public disclosures anymore (like who they've been e-mailing, and their auto-contact list), but they ARE cattle prodding people into it.
And I don't think they've 'banned it online', case in point: this community.
> 'There are lots of places where you can be anonymous online,' Betanews' Joe Wilcox notes. 'Google+ isn't one of them.' Got it. But if online anonymity is so evil, then what's the deal with Google's newly-awarded patent for Social Computing Personas for Protecting Identity in Online Social Interactions?
Because they didn't say it's "so" evil, they didn't even say it's just evil, nor did they ban it, they just want you to use your real name on G+. You're still free to post on 4chan from behind two proxies, to write on reddit and traverse irc under your pseudonym, even get a random gmail address, or send encrypted posts to alt.anonymous.messages. Does every community online have to be the same?