I’ve already found some bug in the default templates that try to stick paragraph tags in silly places.

These are my links for January 23rd from 04:38 to 04:41:

• Dutch government study: net effect of P2P use is positive – The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs commissioned a study by research company TNO about how much Dutch Internet users download music, movies, and games, and what the social and economic effects of this downloading are.
• Practika: A Free Icon Set – Practika: a free set of 11 practical and useful high-quality icons, designed by DryIcons, especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers. The icons are available in resolutions 64×64px, 128×128px

According to Ravicher, roughly half of all patents in the United States are illegitimate, meaning they should have never been granted. Illegitimate patents restrict the availability of critical medications to the public and deprive small businesses in information technology industries of fair opportunities to compete in the marketplace. Utilizing legal action, advocacy and public education strategies, the Public Patent Foundation will work to expose and neutralize illegitimate patents through various mechanisms, including filing requests with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to have such patents revoked. Prominent law professors from Columbia, Georgetown and Stanford law schools have already pledged support for the organization.

The Public Patent Foundation is a non-profit foundation whose goals, according to this interview with the founder are:

(1) challenging patents that threaten the public’s health, freedom, or other interests, (2) helping small businesses defend themselves from patents being asserted against them, (3) establishing patent commons within markets crippled by patent thickets, and (4) educating the public regarding these issues and advocating for reform of the patent system.

I’m thoroughly sickened by the latest influx of absurd patents, like a patent on playing card games on a computer, a patent on URLs, burning CDs, online testing, instant messaging and interactive gaming servers. And that’s just a quick search of recent patent stories on Slashdot.

Here’s how you get a patent granted in USA:

1. Take an utterly obvious idea that nobody else would ever think of patenting
2. Add “on the Internet” to the claim
3. Sue everyone who is remotely close to using your brand-new, never-before-heard-of technology
4. Profit!

If I were an American citizen, I would patent the following:

• Rolling a die… on the Internet!
• Watching a movie… on the Internet!
• Writing the word “and”… on the Internet!
• Watching porn… on the Internet!

I recall a story that circulated around 1997 — someone had a patent about “digitized images of human characters acting as avatars,” originally aimed at a tennis game where the player characters were animated images of actual tennis players. This was broad enough to apply to every single computer game containing a human figure!

Ils sont fous. <toc-toc-toc>