Kevin Patrick
Forum Replies Created
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Aren’t you (we) mixing copyright with patent?
I can understand Disney wanting to keep control of what they created, Mickey. Copyright or trademark? But not a patent.
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Andrew,
At least I didn’t get your name wrong in the title of a thread.
Then again, I may have started the confusion.
Once again, sorry.
You may call me Patrick from now on.
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I agree with your suggested intent of patents.
I agree that there should be a limited term for patents and that at some point they should expire. I thought that’s the way patents were working. Isn’t the limit something like 17 years? Which is probably a very long time for some industries, but might be justifiable for others.
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[Andrew Richards] “I expected better…”
Apparently, I not only referred to you by your last name, but I couldn’t get your last name correct either. Sorry.
Andrew,
Both your post (links) were very interesting. I can understand the concern over issuing patents that are too broad in scope. Perhaps software patents are more difficult to define than hardware patents. But I’m not sure I would go so far as to say there shouldn’t be software patents.
If a software engineer comes up with a great (unique) idea, they should be able to patent their idea. So they can protect their idea and perhaps launch a start up company based on their idea.
Are there too many patents? I don’t know how to answer that question. Do people or companies benefit from patents? I think so.
Do consumers benefit from patents. I think that’s a harder question to answer. I think consumers benefit from competition. Having many choices. If only one company sells the iPhone, only the company benefits. The consumers are stuck having to pay whatever cost that company chooses.
If one company creates a better software mouse trap, do consumers benefit if all companies have the right to build that mouse trap? Or would consumers benefit if the other companies have to figure out how to build an even better mouse trap? Which process produces more competition? Which process produces more innovation?
I don’t think I know the correct answers. But I think people should have the ability to protect their ideas, at least for some brief period of time.
Kevin
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I think I can understand the concern over what a patent is granted for. Or being concerned over granting a patent that is too broad.
I’m not sure I agree with the argument that patents should be granted to ideas that are costly to produce (or come up with) as opposed to an idea that does not have a high cost to produce. Such as the pharmaceutical industry.
Perhaps there are too many patents. I’m not sure how you quantify this, or where you draw the line.
Perhaps some patents are too broad. I can see where that can be a problem.
But I think if you have a unique idea, one which you can specifically define, you should be able to patent it. Regardless of whether the idea is hardware or software related. Regardless of how hard it was to come up with the idea. How could you get a small start up business funded and up and running if you’re brilliant, unique idea can simply be copied by anyone else?
Just my thoughts. Not necessarily the correct ones.
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[Andrew Richards] ” Software patents as a concept are bogus.”
Richard,
That’s kind of a broad statement, so I won’t try to read too much into it.
If you come up with an idea for a better mouse trap, shouldn’t you be able to protect your idea? Protect it from others who might simply copy it and profit from your idea? Protect your idea from large corporations who might copy it and also have enough money and lawyers to make it difficult for you stop them?
I thought that was one of the ideas behind patents. Protecting a person’s (corporations are apparently people too)idea. That seems like a good idea. At least from the perspective of person with the idea. The end consumer may not have the same perspective. Even though having the ability to patent and idea might be good for the consumer.
But you don’t seem to have an issue with patents in general. Specifically software patents? Why would a software idea be different from a non-software idea? Or did I read too much into your comment? (if I did, sorry) I’m just interested.
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Bill,
I clicked on your link. But I didn’t see any cat videos.
I think the appropriate response would be:
🙁
Kevin
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I think most of the people (at least here on the Cow) who have issues with FCPX can provide some tangible, objective and understandable reasons why FCPX does not work for them.
That does not see to be the case with Scott’s review of Aperture 3.3.
Which is a shame, since he has a blog where he talks about important issues to photographers, just like this particular one. A blog where some probably read what he has to say and make use of his professional opinion.
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[Gary Huff] “Retina and AppleTV support is dependent on Apple.”
So that can or could be an advantage for Aperture users. Perhaps an unfair one. Either way, it’s either an advantage for an Aperture user, or you simply have to wait a little longer for LR to catch up. Unless Adobe doesn’t even have the necessary access for ATV.
Toss this particular issues aside and I still have an issue with Scott’s reasoning/logic for why he’s making the switch to LR4. But, that’s just my opinion.
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Interesting article. In it, Scott Bourne states that as of today he’s moving himself and his staff to Adobe Lightroom 4. His reasons seem odd. The writing on the wall (as he puts it) is the integration with iPhoto’s database. I’m not sure why that’s an issue. In fact, it seems to at least make sense that both apps can access the same database, if you need it.
He states this is like the Final Cut Pro debacle. This doesn’t seem anything like it. Apple didn’t just kill off Aperture and replace with a completely new Photo application that uses a completely new methodology along with the inability to open any previous Aperture libraries. (as was the case with FCP) I think making this statement is rather (if not very) misleading.
Apple just released an upgrade to Aperture, version 3.3, not a major release. They added some features, such as painting in white balance. This was new for LR4. In fact, many of the new features Adobe highlights in LR4 were either already in Aperture or were added to the new v3.3 release.
New LR4 Features:
Highlight/Shadow Recovery (Aperture enhanced this existing feature in 3.3)
Photo Book Creation (Already in Aperture 3.x)
Location Based Organization (Already in Aperture 3.x)
Chromatic Aberration (Aperture 3.x)
Extended Video Support (Already in Aperture 3.x)
White Balance Brush (Aperture just added in 3.3)
Emailing Photos (Already in Aperture 3.x)
Online Sharing (Already in Aperture 3.x)What LR4 Does Not Have:
Retina Display Support: Added in Aperture 3.3
Photo Stream: Support of this is better in Aperture than iPhoto.
Managed Libraries: LR4 is referenced only, Aperture does both as well as mixed.
Faces: Like it or not, it there and it works.
Apple TV: If you use it, Aperture supports it.It’s odd to listen to a Pro Photo person, who is also an Apple user (he notes that he does not want to move to Windows) knock what appears to be a good Apple product. It’s why I choose Aperture over LR. I’m not an expert on either of the applications. But it wasn’t hard for me to figure out which one to use and why. If you don’t know anything about either one and simply read Scott’s article, you’d probably take his advice and avoid Aperture. Which is too bad, because Aperture is a great product.