Videos:
Threat speech
Software as speech
Patent examples
paper 3, due 6/30
Microsoft is trying to buy Activision for $69 billion. But there's a problem: Microsoft bought Zenimax in 2021, and at the time promised to keep Starfield on the competing Playstation. They did not.
LexisNexis is the big "data bureau". The data includes location and license plates, apparently. More at theintercept.com/2023/06/20/lexisnexis-ice-surveillance-license-plates.
https://twitter.com/stevekrenzel/status/1589700721121058817
1. A large telco wanted to pay us to log signal strength data in N. America and send it to them.
2. When we sent this data to the telco they said the data was useless. They switched their request and said they want to be able to tell how many of our users are entering their competitors’ stores.
3. The Director [of the telco] said “We should know when users leave their house, their commute to work, and everywhere they go throughout the day. Anything less is useless. We get a lot more than that from other tech companies.”
Twitter apparently did not follow through at that point.
That's the rule. Now you have to interpret it. novehiclesinthepark.com.
Rules are hard!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VlmxehNLAWjL5POYTQzVU3T1kTzvq63ine46NujeZ5w
finished pharmaceutical patents
Maybe the core problem with software patents is that so many of them are so weak? This encourages patent trolls.
start with Citrin
Two patent examples
6,865,185, Patel et al
There are a lot of claims for this patent. Claim 1 recites:
A method for queuing traffic in a wireless
network, comprising:
receiving a stream of packets for transmission in a
wireless network, each packet including a flow identifier uniquely
identifying the flow;
determining for each packet based on the included flow
identifier a location for a corresponding flow, the location comprising at
least one of a sector in the wireless network, a latitude and a longitude
of a mobile device associated with the flow, and a specific beam within a
sector of the wireless network; assigning each packet to
one of a plurality of virtual groups based on the location for the
corresponding flow, the virtual groups comprising discrete transmission
resources, and queuing each packet in an assigned virtual group for
transmission in the wireless network.
So far, so good: packets are assigned to virtual groups based on data. But then many later claims add additional possible data, without specifying how the data should be used. In effect, the patent covers any use of data from a large number of categories:
These are all legitimate network parameters, but they are also extremely
well known.
8,793,151
Claim 1 is about risk analysis. But there are no details about the "'adaptive risk analysis engine".
10,826,941
Claim 1: A method for protecting an enterprise
network, the method comprising, at a system comprising one or more
processors and memory that are remote from the enterprise network:
controlling communications to and from the enterprise network according to
a set of security policies;
controlling endpoint to endpoint connections within the enterprise network
according to the set of security policies;
receiving a request for modifications to one or more policies of the set
of policies;
automatically generating a policy digest formatted according to a
predefined format, the policy digest comprising the modifications, and
storing the policy digest in the memory;
retrieving the policy digest from the memory;
generating one or more calls to one or more system components that control
the communications to and from the enterprise network and the endpoint to
endpoint connections based on the policy digest; and
modifying control of the communications to and from the enterprise network
and the endpoint to endpoint connections based on the one or more calls.
Security policies are well-known. The patent does not define them. Another part of the patent is about central control of security, but this isn't new either.
Claim 1 is the "method" claim and Claim 12 is the nearly identical "system" claim. Most patents do this.