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from the and-copyright-while-you're-there dept.
Today, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could allow companies to keep a dead hand of control over their products, even after you buy them. The case, Impression Products v. Lexmark International, is on appeal from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, who last year affirmed its own precedent allowing patent holders to restrict how consumers can use the products they buy. That decision, and the precedent it relied on, departs from long established legal rules that safeguard consumers and enable innovation.
When you buy something physical—a toaster, a book, or a printer, for example—you expect to be free to use it as you see fit: to adapt it to suit your needs, fix it when it breaks, re-use it, lend it, sell it, or give it away when you're done with it. Your freedom to do those things is a necessary aspect of your ownership of those objects. If you can't do them, because the seller or manufacturer has imposed restrictions or limitations on your use of the product, then you don't really own them. Traditionally, the law safeguards these freedoms by discouraging sellers from imposing certain conditions or restrictions on the sale of goods and property, and limiting the circumstances in which those restrictions may be imposed by contract.
But some companies are relentless in their quest to circumvent and undermine these protections. They want to control what end users of their products can do with the stuff they ostensibly own, by attaching restrictions and conditions on purchasers, locking down their products, and locking you (along with competitors and researchers) out. If they can do that through patent law, rather than ordinary contract, it would mean they could evade legal limits on contracts, and that any one using a product in violation of those restrictions (whether a consumer or competitor) could face harsh penalties for patent infringement.
If you refill the ink in your printer cartridges, you will go to jail?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @07:12PM (5 children)
I don't even know where to begin.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday March 23 2017, @07:41PM (2 children)
That's what I get for trying to meet you halfway.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @08:04PM
... meet me ALL the way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @09:58AM
That's how imaginary property laws have gotten to the state they're currently in. People try to meet the abusers at a half way point that's "fair and equitable to all involved". Then 6 months later the abusers are back demanding even more.
It's not being unfair to stop giving in to bullies.
(I don't mind IP rules in particular. But they've long since passed acceptable limits in duration, punishments, and application.)
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday March 24 2017, @04:39AM
IP stands for "industrial protectionism"
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday March 24 2017, @05:13AM
Neither do I.
This whole concept of "owning" a concept, whether it be how to kindle a fire, rounded edges on smartphones, or whatever makes about as much sense to me as claiming ownership of a gust of wind.
The only use I see it put to is courtroom drama enriching one party at the expense of another, as we try to monetize everything for the benefit of those who deal in money.
I still hold to "free enterprise", "competition", and "monkey-see, monkey-do". The other to me is thuggery - as if someone can buy the right from some thug to tell me I can't do the same thing he's doing to make a living.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]