Quotulatiousness

May 16, 2011

Josh Rosenthall tries to figure out who is behind the iOS developer patent troll

Filed under: Law, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:15

It’s not absolutely definitive, but it looks as if Nathan Myhrvold former Microsoft CTO and the founder of Intellectual Ventures might be the man:

It’s been confirmed today that a company called Lodsys recently sent out a number of letters to independent iOS developers, including James Thompson — the developer of PCalc — and Dave Castelnuovo, creator of Pocket God , informing them that their use of in-app purchases in iOS infringes upon on this particular patent. Of course, Lodsys is going after small developers who lack the resources of larger development companies to fight back, presumably to frighten them into striking a licensing deal as soon as possible.

So who exactly is behind this unabashed case of patent trolling?

Well, we did a little leg work and though we can’t say with 100% certainty who is pulling the strings, it’s looking a lot like Intellectual Ventures is behind this disgraceful lawsuit.

Intellectual Ventures was founded in part by former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold. The company’s business model is simple — it purchases and applies for a ton of patents. It then licenses out those patents to others under the threat of litigation coupled with a promise not to sue if a deal is struck.

So let’s go through the chain of patent ownership.

Stephen Gordon: should Canadians be buying cheaper US stocks?

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:02

Is now a good time to buy American stocks?

As the dollar appreciates, there are more articles in the financial press commenting on how U.S. stocks are becoming cheaper from the point of view of Canadian buyers. I am probably the last person from whom you should take investment advice, but there are some things to think about when you’re trying to decide if a stock is cheaper or if it is simply worth less.

Buying USD-denominated assets is in large part a bet against the Canadian dollar. Since 2000, Canadians who bought the S&P500 index instead of the TSX have generally regretted it [. . .] The average CAD return on the TSX was 11 per cent more than the CAD return on the S&P500 over the past decade. [. . .]

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that U.S. stocks are a bad deal, because they have one very attractive property: they generate higher returns for Canadians during bad times. This is the sort of correlation that is most valued by investors: we are willing to pay extra for assets that pay off most when extra money is most needed. For example, most people buy fire insurance, even though it is a money-losing investment for almost all households. Even though the odds of a fire are small, homeowners are still willing to pay for an asset that pays off when their house burns down.

I’m not in a hurry to invest in American stock right now, as I still see the US government’s debt addiction having the potential to drag down the US market much further. Not that staying in Canadian stocks insulates me from such things . . . but the impact should be lighter on Canadian holdings than on US positions.

A disturbing possible future: nanolaw

Filed under: Economics, Law, Media, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:48

Paul Ford writes about a morning in the near future:

My daughter was first sued in the womb. It was all very new then. I’d posted ultrasound scans online for friends and family. I didn’t know the scans had steganographic thumbprints. A giant electronics company that made ultrasound machines acquired a speculative law firm for many tens of millions of dollars. The new legal division cut a deal with all five Big Socials to dig out contact information for anyone who’d posted pictures of their babies in-utero. It turns out the ultrasounds had no clear rights story; I didn’t actually own mine. It sounds stupid now but we didn’t know. The first backsuits named millions of people, and the Big Socials just caved, ripped up their privacy policies in exchange for a cut. So five months after I posted the ultrasounds, one month before my daughter was born, we received a letter (back then a paper letter) naming myself, my wife, and one or more unidentified fetal defendants in a suit. We faced, I learned, unspecified penalties for copyright violation and theft of trade secrets, and risked, it was implied, that my daughter would be born bankrupt.

But for $50.00 and processing fees the ultrasound shots I’d posted (copies attached) were mine forever, as long as I didn’t republish without permission.

H/T to Kevin Marks, retweeted by Cory Doctorow for the link.

Christian holidays? Down the EU memory hole!

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Europe, Religion — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:34

It could hardly be an oversight that the EU “forgot” to include any traditional Christian holidays in their run of 3 million school diaries produced for students:

A year ago the European Commission (EC) printed more than three million school diaries for distribution to students. They are lovely diaries which, true to the EU’s multicultural ethos, helpfully note all the Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Chinese festivals. The diary also highlights Europe Day, which falls on 9 May. But the diary is not without some very big gaps. For example, it makes no reference to Christmas — or Easter or indeed to any Christian holidays.

However, the importance of 25 December is not entirely ignored. At the bottom of the page for that day, schoolchildren are enlightened with the platitude: ‘A true friend is someone who shares your concern and doubles your joy.’

Not surprisingly, many Europeans are not exactly delighted by the conspicuous absence of Christian festivals from a diary produced for children. In January, an Irish priest complained to the ombudsman of the EC and demanded an apology for the omission of Christian holidays and the recall of the diaries. A month later, the commission apologised for its ‘regrettable’ blunder. However, the ombudsman dismissed the demand to recall the diaries, arguing that a one-page correction sent to schools had rectified the error.

I suspect, had the complaint been from a religious leader in a non-Christian faith, they’d not have let a month elapse before springing to address the error in that faith’s holy days . . .

Ear worms

Filed under: Britain, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:08

For the last few weeks, I’ve had a musical track bothering me: I knew it very well, but didn’t know what it was called or where I’d encountered it. An unexpected earworm from the past. Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, I finally managed to track it down — it’s the theme music to a British TV show that I don’t remember watching (yet I know the theme music very well):

It’s a very distinctive late-60s to early 70s sound. I have no idea why I know it so well: perhaps my dad used to watch the show and I just heard the music in the background. Actually, that’s the only thing I could come up with to explain why I’d know the theme music, yet not remember ever having watched the TV show.

I thought I’d exorcise the earworm demon and buy a copy from iTunes. But no, they’ve got several covers of the music by various artists (including an interesting version by the Band of the 1st Battalion, the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment — currently classified as “Rock” by iTunes), but not the original. HMVDirect has a similar selection (covers, but no original performance). “Curses, foiled again!”

I found out more about the TV show from Wikipedia, the Unofficial Sweeney website, and a true labour of love, a page devoted to sleuthing up all the many musical tracks used in the original series named for the only album of music released: the Shut it! The Music of “The Sweeney” site.

This page is an ongoing development to identify the 300 different pieces of music used in the 1970s British television series The Sweeney. As is common practice with many television shows, other than the specially-comissioned title theme, Harry South’s unforgettable, rousing actioner, “ready-made” music was mostly used to provide incidental themes to the action. These came from specialist “Production Music” houses, the most well-known being De Wolfe, KPM (Keith Prowse Music), Chappell and Bruton. The years 1971 to 1978 arguably represented the genre’s most creative era (before competition and corporatism took over and strangled much artistic creativity), serendipitously co-inciding with production of The Sweeney itself.

In 2001 Sanctuary Records issued a Sweeney CD compilation with 25 tracks used in the show. As good as it was, it really only scratched the surface and sadly no further volumes have been forthcoming.

But unless I happen across a physical copy of the CD, I’m stuck with my persistent earworm. Here’s the closing credits, in hopes it’ll help banish it from my mind temporarily:

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