More "Smart People" Jokes

Following up yesterday's post, here are some more nerd jokes.  And still more.  There is some overlap.

UPDATE:  Reddit has a whole thread of these.

"Explanations To 15 Jokes Only Smart People Can Understand"

How many of these jokes can you get without the explanation?

How NOT to Babysit

The American Red Cross has released this helpful video on how NOT to babysit.  With lines such as, "Wait, you mean you have a THIRD kid?"

What Happens When a British Cricket Commentator Calls a Yankee-Red Sox Game

A British Cricket commentator calls a Yankee-Red Sox game.  This might be why we seceded from Britain.  Featuring  "Joseph Gordon-Levitt" playing baseball.

The Hitler "Downfall" Meme Explains Patent Trolls

Patently-O has uncovered this clever use of the Hitler "Downfall" meme video to explain patent trolls.  The native YouTube link is here.  Turns out someone got a patent for "a method and system for world domination."  Anyone who thinks business methods should be patentable must leave the room.

Supreme Court Decides "Reverse Payments" Case

Today the Supreme Court decided FTC v. Actavis, the "reverse payments" case. This case arises in generic drug litigation, where the patent owner pays the accused infringer to stay out of the market until the patent expires.  Because the settlement requires the patent owner to pay the alleged infringer, rather than the other way around, this kind of settlement agreement is often called a “reverse payment” settlement agreement. The lower courts have struggled with whether this violates the antitrust laws.

In today's opinion, the Supreme Court reverses the 11th Circuit, which had dismissed the FTC's antitrust complaint.  However, the Court declines to hold that reverse payment settlements are presumptively unlawful. Rather, they are to be reviewed under the rule of reason analysis. The FTC will be given a chance to prove its case. The vote was 5-3, with the majority opinion by Justice Breyer (Justice Alito is recused). 

SCOTUSblog reports that this potential antitrust exposure "is likely to essentially put an end to such payments in the future."  In the long run, this will hopefully make generic drugs more widely available.

Supreme Court Decides AMP v. Myriad (Breast Cancer Gene Patenting Case)

The Supreme Court just decided Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc.   The case involved the patentability of genes used to detect breast cancer.

As was expected after April's oral argument, the court held that isolated DNA is not patentable, but synthetic DNA is patentable.  The holding is summarized as follows:

For the reasons that follow, we hold that a naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated, but that cDNA is patent eligible because it is not naturally occurring.

This reverses the Federal Circuit in part, in a unanimous decision by Justice Thomas (Justice Scalia joined the majority opinion only in part, and wrote a brief concurring opinion disclaiming any knowledge about the "fine details of molecular biology").  I had previously written about the Federal Circuit's two decisions here and here.  The Supreme Court agreed with the Patent Office that isolated genes are not patentable.

At one point, the Court repeated an interesting statement from its 2012 opinion in Mayo v. Prometheus:

As we have recognized before, patent protection strikes a delicate balance between creating “incentives that lead to creation, invention, and discovery” and “imped[ing] the flow of information that might permit, indeed spur, invention.” 

The Myriad decision will likely reduce the costs of breast cancer testing such as the type Angelina Jolie recently publicized.

UPDATE:  Here are posts about this case by EFF, SCOTUSblog (also in plain English), Patently-O, and Techdirt.

Headline of the Day

As usual, I am not making this up.
"Schoolgirl, 9, passes through Turkish customs with toy passport identifying her as a UNICORN."

Millennials in the Workplace Training Video

Does your business employ "Millennials"?  Having difficulty understanding them?  Watch this helpful training video.

White House Releases Serious Patent Reform Proposals

Today the White House released "Fact Sheet: White House Task Force on High-Tech Patent Issues."  This includes some serious patent reform proposals, some by executive order and some by proposed legislation.  The Fact Sheet was accompanied by a report about the current problems with the patent system.

EFF's blog post about this important development is here.

UPDATE: Here's a cute animated GIF of a patent troll by the White House.   Techdirt has two stories about this development.  Here is Patently-O's post.

Sex Education FAIL

Keep scrolling until the bottom.

"Sadly, This Is Not The Onion" Added to List of Humor Links

Along the left side of the blog, I have a list of interesting links.  Today I added to the list of humor links the web site "Sadly, this is not The Onion."  The real Onion has been there for quite some time, but I added this new twist on that site.  As you know, The Onion features fake stories that sound real.  To be the ying to The Onion's yang (or is it yang to the ying?  I can never get those two straight), "Sadly, this is not The Onion" features real stories that sound fake.

There is a related subreddit, r/nottheonion, which appears to be a feeder site to the real "Sadly, this is not The Onion."  Or maybe vice versa, it's hard to tell.

Time for Some Baby Ducks

This isn't really humor.  But I bet that these baby ducks make you smile anyway.  Good way to start the weekend!

Computer Scientists' Brief in Oracle v. Google

Yesterday EFF filed the latest amicus brief on which I worked, in the Oracle v. Google appeal.  As I previously discussed, Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California had ruled that Java APIs are not copyrightable, at least to the extent of Google's limited use of the APIs in Android.  Judge Alsup relied on the Lotus v. Borland case I worked on many years ago, and other similar cases, to reject Oracle's copyright claim.

Oracle appealed the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and it is now being briefed.  Groklaw has detailed discussions of Oracle's opening brief and of Google's brief.

EFF's amicus brief is filed on behalf of 32 notable computer scientists, including Larry Roberts (one of the inventors of ARPANET), Tim Paterson (who wrote the original MS-DOS program), Bjarne Stroustrup (the inventor of C++), and many others.  Their bios are here.  EFF's press release about the brief is here; Groklaw's article is here.

 The computer scientists' brief traces the history of APIs in the computer industry, starting with the original IBM PC thirty years ago, and continuing up until the present.  The brief shows that the exclusion of APIs from copyright protection has been essential to the development of modern computers and the Internet, and the key to competition and progress in the computer field.  Examples include PC clones, operating systems such as UNIX and Linux, programming languages such as "C,", Internet network protocols, and cloud computing.  Because APIs are open, developers can create compatible new programs, and users can use their data in different applications without being locked into a single platform.

The brief also explains that the uncopyrightable nature of APIs encourages the creation of new software that otherwise would have been written, and also helps rescue users when software goes "orphan" because its original creators have abandoned their product.  In both cases, the open nature of APIs enables the creation of compatible software.

The case is being heard in the Federal Circuit because Oracle had also sued Google on patent claims.  Oracle lost those at trial, but is only appealing its copyright loss.  The Federal Circuit must apply Ninth Circuit copyright law, which together with the First Circuit's decision in Lotus strongly suggests that Google should win this case.

   

Giant Rubber Duck Update

In early May, a Dutch artist created a giant rubber duck and let it go sailing in Hong Kong harbor.  Sadly, a few weeks later, the duck deflated.

Good news: this 54-foot tall duck has returned!  One can only hope that the duck will now go on a world tour and someday visit the San Francisco bay.  If so, this blog will be there.

Hamlet: The Short Clips Version

Want to see Hamlet, but you only have 15 minutes?  Watch THIS video. 

"The 12 Most Terrifying Things Ever Invented for Babies"

These are all actual patents.  Sorry to say.

Need Dessert Ideas for Mother's Day?

How about a nice Pop-Tart?

CLS Bank v. Alice Corp.: Abstractness Seems to Be a Problem With No Easy Solution

Today the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals released its decision in CLS Bank v. Alice Corp.  As I explained in a previous post about the case, in recent years, both the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court have struggled on what  35 U.S.C. § 101 means and how and when it limits what can be patented.  As EFF explains on its Abstract Patent Litigation page, things like laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas can't be patented.  I helped write EFF's amicus brief in the case.

Today, the struggle continued.  Rather than decide anything, the Federal Circuit's opinion is a mess.  All the court agreed on was this brief "per curiam" decision:

PER CURIAM.
Upon consideration en banc, a majority of the court affirms the district court’s holding that the asserted method and computer-readable media claims are not directed to eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. An equally divided court affirms the district court’s holding that the asserted system claims are not directed to eligible subject matter under that statute.
AFFIRMED

Ten judges decided the case (newly-appointed Judge Taranto did not participate) and there was one vacancy at the time.  As a result, it's not clear this case has any precedential value whatsoever.  (See footnote 1 of Chief Judge Rader's dissent/"concurrence".)  There is a 5-judge plurality opinion by Judge Lourie that holds all the claims patent ineligible.  Two other judges agreed the method and computer-readable medium claims were patent ineligible, but for different reasons than Judge Lourie's plurality.  See Chief Judge Rader's dissent/"concurrence".  Five judges believed the system claims were patent eligible, leading to a 5-5 tie and an affirmance by an equally divided court on that issue. 

Judge Lourie's plurality opinion contains some nice language about when things won't be patent eligible.  For example:

An “inventive concept” in the § 101 context refers to a genuine human contribution to the claimed subject matter. “The underlying notion is that a scientific principle . . . reveals a relationship that has always existed.” Flook, 437 U.S. at 593 n.15. From that perspective, a person cannot truly “invent” an abstract idea or scientific truth. He or she can discover it, but not invent it. Accordingly, an “inventive concept” under § 101—in contrast to whatever fundamental concept is also represented in the claim—must be “a product of human ingenuity.” See Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. at 309.

In addition, that human contribution must represent more than a trivial appendix to the underlying abstract idea. The § 101 preemption analysis centers on the practical, real-world effects of the claim. . . . Limitations that represent a human contribution but are merely tangential, routine, well-understood, or conventional, or in practice fail to narrow the claim relative to the fundamental principle therein, cannot confer patent eligibility.

In a claimed method comprising an abstract idea, generic computer automation of one or more steps evinces little human contribution. . . . Furthermore, simply appending generic computer functionality to lend speed or efficiency to the performance of an otherwise abstract concept does not meaningfully limit claim scope for purposes of patent eligibility. . . . Because of the efficiency and ubiquity of computers, essentially all practical, real-world applications of the abstract idea implicated here would rely, at some level, on basic computer functions—for example, to quickly and reliably calculate balances or exchange data among financial institutions. At its most basic, a computer is just a calculator capable of performing mental steps faster than a human could. Unless the claims require a computer to perform operations that are not merely accelerated calculations, a computer does not itself confer patent eligibility. In short, the requirement for computer participation in these claims fails to supply an “inventive concept” that represents a nontrivial, nonconventional human contribution or materially narrows the claims relative to the abstract idea they embrace.

But since that opinion only got 5 votes out of 10, it's not binding precedent.  Either the Federal Circuit or the Supreme Court will have to work on this issue some more. 

Here are discussions by EFF (suggesting that the Supreme Court decide the case), Patently-O, and Techdirt (which called the opinion "one of the most bizarre and useless rulings ever concerning software patents").

"Does Size Matter?"

A strip club sued the City of San Antonio to try to enjoin a statute requiring exotic dancers to wear larger pieces of fabric.  A highly entertaining opinion denied the request for a preliminary injunction. 

Some of the best lines in the opinion:

Thus, the age old question before the Court, now with constitutional implications, is: Does size matter?

Plaintiffs clothe themselves in the First Amendment seeking to provide cover against another alleged naked grab of unconstitutional power.

The Court infers Plaintiffs fear enforcement of the ordinance would strip them of their profits, adversely impacting their bottom line.

While the Court has not received amicus curiae briefs, the Court has been blessed with volunteers known in South Texas as "curious amigos" to be inspectors general to perform on sight visits at the locations in question.

An Appendix is attached for those interested in a lengthy exposition, those who wish to appeal and those who suffer from insomnia.

To bare, or not to bare, that is the question.

Indeed, this case exposes the underbelly of America's Romanesque passion for entertainment, sex and money, sought to be covered with constitutional prophylaxis.

Should the parties choose to string this case out to trial on the merits, the Court encourages reasonable discovery intercourse as they navigate the peaks and valleys of litigation, perhaps to reach a happy ending.