aforu

How has the process and cost of getting a patent changed over the years? Same for the value of owning a patent.

After reading some of this AMA and much of BolshevikMuppet's excellent commentary in another related thread, it strikes me that the common sense of justice that an ordinary intelligent person has does not lend itself towards understanding the procedure that takes place in one of these cases. In other words, the specifics of Prop 8 case is not strictly about 'Should gay people be allowed to get married,' though the public discourse certainly centers on that topic. It seems like most of the cynicism and anger about the country, laws, lawyers, the Supreme Court, etc, stem from convoluting a discussion about the content that people actually care about, like what should people be able to do or what would be best for them, with what the court actually cares about, like what is constitutional for a state to do based on standing, scrutiny, classification, etc., regardless of how good the law actually is for anyone. Can you identify, and hopefully clarify the misconceptions that most people seem to have about how the Supreme court, and perhaps the law in general, actually works?

Edit: Like this would be a good one: "Discrimination, legally, is allowable so long as it is justified. The level of justification required depends on the group that is being discriminated against and the nature of the discrimination."

too much ice?

I'd really like to see it in terms of 'X pennies from every gallon of gasoline you buy ends up funding an anti-Obama ad!'

To follow up, do they seem to come out with 'obscured' code, for the sake of making it difficult to do the type of thing you're doing?