Posts Tagged ‘intellectual property’
I choose… me!
People in Western countries drown in choice. Want a T-shirt? Thousands of alternatives await you. Want some toothpaste? Sit down, we could be here a while. Many people see these options as a good thing – they’re a sign of our independence, our freedom, our mastery over our own destinies. But these apparent positives have a dark side.
Krishna Savani from Columbia University has found that when Americans think about the concept of choice, they’re less concerned about the public good and less empathic towards disadvantaged people. His work supports the idea that endless arrays of choice focus our attention on individual control and, by doing so, they send a message that people’s fates are their own concerns. Their lives are not the business of the state or public institutions, and if they fail, it is their own fault. With choices at hand, Americans are more likely to choose themselves.
Savani’s experiments and their results make for pretty bracing reading. Still, he notes, not all cultures react the same way. And as for Americans,
… Savani points out that the US is one of the world’s most charitable countries. He writes, “If Americans believe that they are choosing to help other people out of their free will, or if they can affirm their selves through making choices for other people, they may be even more charitable.” The problem lies more with “choice for choice’s sake.”
Read the whole story in Discover.
As we resolve to simplify, we might recall that it was on this date in 1718 that London lawyer, writer, and inventor, James Puckle patented a multi-shot gun mounted on a stand capable of firing up to nine rounds per minute– the first machine gun.
Puckle’s innovation was as formative in the realm of intellectual property as it was in the martial arena: Quoth to the Patent Office of the United Kingdom,”In the reign of Queen Anne of Great Britain, the law officers of the Crown established as a condition of patent that the inventor must in writing describe the invention and the manner in which it works.” Puckle’s machine gun patent was among the first to provide such a description.
The color of money…
The increasingly rapacious and reactionary corporate attitude to intellectual property rights has been the subject of several posts over at Scenarios and Strategy (c.f., e.g., “Patently Absurd…,”Caution! Pile up ahead…,” or “I was aiming for my foot, but I seem to have shot myself in the thigh…“)
Now an update for readers who might feel the urge to deliver a present in just any light blue box, or who might fancy a certain shade of orange… Tiffany Blue and Home Depot Orange are trademark-protected– “colormarked”– hues.
Qualitex Press Pad
It all started in 1989. Qualitex used the unique color blend illustrated above for their dry cleaning presses. But then competitor Jacobson began using the same shade, allegedly to more easily confuse companies into buying their product instead. Qualitex sued, won– and colormarking was born.
Readers will find a list of 10 privately-owned colors at Mental Floss‘ “10 Trademarked Colors.”
As we discard a number of our crayons, just to be on the safe side, we might recall that it was on this date in 1981 that the extraordinary Canadian athlete Arnie Boldt jumped 6′ 8.25″ at the Tribune Games outside of Winnipeg, breaking his own record for long jump in disabled competition. Boldt, who’d lost his right leg in a grain auger accident at the age of three, burst onto the parasports scene at the 1976 Paralympics, where he took gold and set records in both the long and the high jumps. He raised his high jump record at the next Paralympics in 1980, then raised both records in 1981.
Arnie Boldt in the long jump (source: Canadian Sports Hall of Fame)
Patently ridiculous…
From Donna Kossy and her Hysterical Patents, a selection of “unusual patents from the collection of a deceased patent attorney”; e.g.,
Inventor: Bernard H. Nichols, Ravenna, Ohio
Date: May 20, 1913
U.S. Patent Number: 1,062,025Description: Hat to prevent premature baldness. The hat is “adapted to fit upon the head in such a manner as not to interfere with the free circulation of blood to the scalp, and at the same time so constructed as to be worn without discomfort, and without causing a temporary unseemly marking on the forehead or scalp of the wearer where it comes in contact therewith, when the hat is removed.”
More human ingenuity at its most unrestrained at Hysterical Patents. (Thanks to reader SS for the lead!)
As we muse on the “intellectual” in “intellectual property,” we might recall that it was on this date in 1661 that the body of Oliver Cromwell– leader of the Roundhead “New Model Army” that defeated Royalist forces in the English Civil War, and subsequently the Lord Protector of the short-lived Commonwealth of England– was exhumed (he’d died of natural causes two years earlier) and ritually beheaded– on the anniversary of the 1649 execution and beheading of the king, Charles I, he’d overthrown.
Cromwell’s death mask (source)
Thou Shalt Not…
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. In the one thousand two hundred twenty-ninth year from the incarnation of our Lord, Peter, of all monks the least significant, gave this book to the [Benedictine monastery of the] most blessed martyr, St. Quentin. If anyone should steal it, let him know that on the Day of Judgment the most sainted martyr himself will be the accuser against him before the face of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Beinecke MS 214, Yale University Library
The MPAA continues to issue take-down notices, the RIAA continues to sue civilians, and the Justice Department enlists the Department of State secretly to negotiate a new– and closed– global intellectual property regime (the ACTA Treaty), but piracy of CDs, DVDs, and books continues, the industry insists, to be a problem. The problem.
So the media companies who are animating all of this frantic action have taken the extra step of admonishing its customers with “FBI Warnings” at the head of DVDs, on CD jewel cases, and the like…
But, as Carl Pyrdum, a Yale medievalist, writes in Got Medieval, history is discouraging:
Sometimes people come to me and ask, “How did medieval filmmakers protect their DVDs from piracy?” And I tell them that since so few households had DVD players during the thousand or so years between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance that it really never became much of an issue.
But this is not to say that the medievals didn’t face problems safeguarding their intellectual property. Indeed, book owners were so worried about theft and damage to their property that they often included what is known as a “book curse” on the inside cover or on the last leaf of their manuscripts [like the one illustrated above], warning away anyone who might do the book some harm. And in this, I submit, they were a lot like modern day Hollywood. For a book curse is essentially the same as that little FBI warning that pops up whenever you try to watch a movie: a toothless text charm included by the media’s maker meant to frighten the foolish. The charm only works if you believe that words are special, potent magic.
Perhaps the example illustrated above could be a model; perhaps the industry could move to something like…
As we update our copies of Handbrake, we might recall that it was on this date in 1966 that the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), later renamed the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), was formed. The UFWOC was established when two smaller organizations, the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) and the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), both in the middle of strikes against certain California grape growers, merged and moved under the umbrella of the AFL-CIO.
Before the rise of the UFW, farmworkers made, on average, about ninety cents per hour plus ten cents for each basket of produce they picked– work that many did without such basic necessities such as clean drinking water or portable toilets. Even then, unfair hiring practices, especially demands for kickbacks, were rampant. And there was little rest at the end of the day: their living quarters were seldom equipped with indoor plumbing or cooking facilities.
Under the founding leadership of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, the UFW brought these issues to the public’s attention. It won many important benefits for agricultural workers, bringing comprehensive health benefits for farmworkers and their families, rest periods, clean drinking water, and sanitary facilities.
The UFW also has pioneered the fight to protect farmworkers against harmful pesticides– an effort that continues, as California proposes to allow neurotoxin methyl iodide as a pesticide in strawberry fields.
Mexican Farm Worker at Home, Imperial Valley, CA; Dorothea Lange (source: Library of Congress)
Quod Erat Demonstrandum…
Barlow’s Wheel
St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Ireland
Today we remember Peter Barlow (1776-1862) for his mathematical tables, the Barlow Lens, and Barlow’s Wheel (1822). Electric current passes through the wheel from the axle to a mercury contact on the rim. The interaction of the current with the magnetic field of a U-magnet laid flat on the baseplate causes the wheel to rotate. Note that the presence of serrations on the wheel is unnecessary.
Thomas Greenslade, a professor emeritus at Kenyon, has a passion for the devices that have been used over the years to teach the principles of physics. Happy for us, he is willing to share: there are hundreds of fascinating exhibits like the one above at “Instruments for Natural Philosophy.”
As we sit back under our apple trees, we might recall that it was on this date in 1790 that the first U.S. patent statute was signed into law by President Washington. Although a number of inventors had been clamoring for patents and copyrights (which were, of course, anticipated in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution), the first session of the First Congress in 1789 acted on none of the petitions. On January 8, 1790, President Washington recommended in his State of the Union address that Congress give attention to the encouragement of new and useful inventions; and within the month, the House appointed a committee to draft a patent statute. Even then the process worked slowly: the first patent issued under this statute was signed by George Washington– on July 31, 1790, for Samuel Hopkins’ process to make potash and pearl ash.
It’s some measure of the power of IP to create value that, on this date in 1849, Walter Hunt of New York City was issued Patent No. 6,281– the first U.S. patent for a safety pin. Strapped for cash, Hunt spent three hours on his invention, filed, then immediately sold the rights for the $400 that he needed.
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