Patent Potholes

English: Portrait of Judge Elbert Tuttle, taken by United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, from here. It is a work of the federal judiciary, so it is in the public domain. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Software is like music. Notes can not be patented.

Top patent court struggles to decide when software is patentable

the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that upheld a patent on the idea of using a computer to perform a particular kind of financial transaction. Now, just a couple of weeks later, the same court has reached the opposite conclusion about a patent on using a computer to manage a particular type of life insurance policy. ..... The courts have long ruled that "abstract ideas" and "mental processes" are not eligible for patent protection. And that has implications for the patentability of software. .... Every computer application, no matter how sophisticated, consists of nothing more than "the performance of repetitive calculations." .... At root, the judges of the Federal Circuit appear confused about how computers work

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Real Time

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

We can’t entrust Twitter with the future of the real-time web

Twitter is an important development. The ability of individual users to pool their efforts to essentially document, minute by minute, every day on an Internet-connected planet Earth, is an amazing gift...... a snapshot of humanity on a speed and scale that we’ve never known in the past. .... It is either a broadcast network for brands, which happens to host conversations of individuals, or it’s a platform for discussion in which brands can take part, just like the rest of us

Trees were still falling fine before Twitter came along.

I am not at all opposed to Twitter monetizing. Twitter should make money so it can keep the service free and improve on it.

There was not only one email service. There was not only one Instant Messenger. But there is only one Twitter. I find that amazing. How do you explain that?

The Twitter Book By OReilly, Tim/ Milstein, Sarah

The Twitter Workbook

Twitter Power 2.0 By Comm, Joel

Twitter

Twitter Tree iPhone 4 Slider Case by CafePress

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August NY Tech MeetUp

Check out the 7 startups demoing at August’s New York Tech Meetup

Simple Banking

Much of banking is just moving around data. And that should be kept out of sight.

First Look: Simple Reimagines Banking

one fundamental axiom of modern life: banking sucks..... Banking sucks a lot. What’s worse, when it sucks, not only does it drive you insane, it costs you money. Lots of money. ..... they would use the large charges to make the balance fall to zero as quickly as possible, then hammer the account with the small charges to rack up overdraft fees ...... the bank’s abusive fees and seeming inability to block fraudulent charges from hitting my account — even after being notified multiple times — he was apologetic but unable to offer much help. ..... Simple, and the company’s stated goal of removing abusive fees ..... The bank’s phone support was a nightmare ..... “Simple replaces your bank, but we are not a bank.” ..... The company’s drive for simplicity permeates everything from the packaging that the card is shipped in, to the massive “Call Customer Service” button in the app, all the way to its promise to never punish its customers with hidden fees; yes, the overdraft fees that decimated my PNC account a few years back are gone. Kaput. ..... “Our stated mission is that we don’t profit from fees

There's moving around money. That's data. Then there are abusive fees. That is behavioral. And then there is customer service. Three different things, all related.

The no abusive fees part should fall in the public policy domain, one would think.

And great technology should free up resources to provide amazing customer service.

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