Troll Tracker – October 12, 2007:
Judge Folsom, in the Eastern District of Texas, granted a motion in limine in the now-being-tried (according to Michael Smith) Cybergym v. Icon Health & Fitness case, preventing the defendant from calling Paul Hickman a “patent troll” because the term “has no probative value and would unduly prejudice the Plaintiff.”
Let’s just hope the jurors don’t google “Paul Hickman” or “Cybergym,” because they’ll get my website, where I certainly have called Mr. Hickman and his non-practicing entity companies patent trolls.
Here is a link to the patent. It’s a computer system connected to exercise equipment which provides “incentive and motivation to the user much in the same fashion as a human personal trainer.” Wow, why didn’t I invent the virtual trainer?!
If it’s obvious it’s just waiting to be invented!
Ah, one correction — not wikipedia, but an online article.
The Patent office itself once said software and software concepts were unpatentable as they fell under the jurisdiction of the copyright office. It was said at the time (somewhere before Microsoft bought DOS) that it would inhibit advancement. Turns out they were dead on, why the hell did they change their mind though??????
#4 – It was said at the time (somewhere before Microsoft bought DOS) that it would inhibit advancement. Turns out they were dead on, why the hell did they change their mind though??????
Maybe to inhibit advancement?
You can’t call a fat bastard a fat bastard so I say its a fair call by the judge.
Well, if you can’t call them “Patent Trolls” can you still call them Asshats?
#4 – It was said at the time (somewhere before Microsoft bought DOS) that it would inhibit advancement. Turns out they were dead on, why the hell did they change their mind though??????
#5 – Maybe to inhibit advancement?
YOU THERE!!! The one making sense! Quiet down before you scare the normals… they think reality is linear, and not associated with future profits…
jasontheodd (#4),
I wrote some code in 1995 that people were going to start buying, met with an IP lawyer and he said exactly that, you can copyright the code but there are no patents for software… He even went further to say that people could take snippets of my code and that wouldn’t be breaking the law as long as they didn’t use it in entirety. Kinda explains Windows NT stealing so much code originally, the Windows TCP/IP stack, etc.
Come on it’s offensive to real trolls
I patented the “Enter” & “Del” keys in 1966.
You think that has any value?