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On 9/3/12 1:00 AM, "PHD-DESIGN automatic digest system" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > There are 3 messages totaling 346 lines in this issue. > > Topics of the day: > > 1. Is the patent system bad for humanity? > 2. Doing research with historical material > 3. CFPs for August 2012 > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2012 09:24:41 +1000 > From: Keith Russell <[log in to unmask]> > Subject: Re: Is the patent system bad for humanity? > > Dear Don, > > Thanks for the extended and illuminating account of issues arising. > > When I taught 3D animation stuff years ago I used to refer to the missing menu > NOUNS and VERBS. I included bounce-back and twinkle and glint and gleam and > glisten and shine and sparkle and focus-pull and flare etc. > > From your account of what goes on with the re-purposing of existing NOUNS and > VERBS from one medium to another, we should hold a pile of post-grad seminars > in which we produce "new ideas" from old stuff and then patent the junk. > > Perhaps we could get a million design student to generate original art work > for phones and tablets etc. and then publish them so we can sue the turtle > necks off Apple since it has all the money? > > By subverting the silly patent system in the name of humanity we might be able > to help form a new understanding of how to allow for innovation and > development without the evil virus of patent trolling. > > cheers > > keith > >>>> Don Norman <[log in to unmask]> 1/09/2012 11:42 pm >>> > The patent system is sick. > > On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 8:28 PM, keith.russell < > [log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> The patent for bounce back is absurd. Bounce back has been a feature in >> animations almost from the beginning. > > > But bounce back is a legal patent despite it being used in animation > studios earlier. Its done differently for a different reason in a different > medium. You may think that it is still too derivative (the patent term is > "prior art") but the law says it is OK. Note that the book on Disney > animation, The Illusion of Life, was standard reading at Apple in the > 1990s. Note too that Jobs owned Pixar (and was also CEO). > > I am angry at pinch for zoom. That was in all the labs I used to visit in > the 1990s. It is a bogus patent. The patent office in the US is really bad: > it issues lots of patents that cannot be defended because of prior art. > problem is, patent attorneys loo at prior patents, not at what actually is > being done in the industry. And 20 years after, when the patent is > challenged, it is difficult to prove what was and was not prior art at the > time. > > In this case, I think Samsung did copy Apple's Design patents, but were > innocent in the software patents. But the Jury foreman owned some patents > himself and claimed to be an expert and evidence is that he wrongly > interpreted patent law and convinced the other jurors. > > See http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120828225612963 > > I'm now starting a new company, and the patent first is monstrous. it is > almost impossible to do anything today without violating patents. And > patent trolls hire people to invent patents (not implement them, just write > down the idea, which is all that is required) and also buy up lots of > patents. Most are not defensible, but it is cheaper to pay their $250K fee > then to contest them. > > At Apple, one of my jobs was to have my 250 person team get patents: i even > had a patent attorney reporting to me. Big companies collect portfolios and > when their product impinges on another company's patent (as it always > will), they simply trade sets of patents. We did this with Microsoft, > Intel, Sun, HP, ... all the time. > > But when CEOs hate each other (Apple and Google, for example, which this > samsung case is all about. HP and Sun, also), all bets are off. > > Don > > ------------------------------ > > Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2012 09:59:40 +0000 > From: Kari Kuutti <[log in to unmask]> > Subject: Re: Doing research with historical material > > To Terry, Tim, Francois: > > Terence Love kirjoitti 31.8.2012 kello 2.04: >> One pathway I've been testing since 1999, is focusing design theory on >> 'design as specifying an intervention' rather than 'design as specifying a >> product/process/organisation'. It naturally requires a dynamic perspective > > Terry, intervention sounds good that is just what is needed in a clinical > attitude towards a "body" of our interest. Ideally each designed artifact or > system could also serve as an intervention, an experiment for design research > to prove or disprove ideas that have led to that particular design... but then > one would first need hypothesis and models to be tested :-) > > Tim Smithers kirjoitti 1. syyskuuta 2012 2.00.15 UTC+3.00 >> Histories are necessarily reconstructions (in some form) of >> dynamic processes: processes that change over time. There is >> nothing to be gained from building a history of something that >> doesn't change; in fact there is no history in them. So, all >> history making is some kind of dynamic system modelling. > > Tim, I fully agree with you, and design is indeed historical through and > through, just as you indicate in your interesting suggestion for > cultural-historical studies of trajectories and influences. This dynamic > nature of the field of study would also need that the models, methods and > theories used in design research would reflect this, but I have a feeling, > that physics ideal of general, global and timeless models has implicitly been > distorting in this respect the conceptual development of design research. > Anyway, designers at least borrow from the past, but the situation is far > worse in my own area, HCI, where the ruthless pace of technology development > has erased out most sense of and need for history. There is a healthy > subindustry producing design books full of examples what other designers have > been doing in the course of time, but for HCI designers what is available are > only a few web sites of bad examples... > > Francois Nsenga kirjoitti 31.8.2012 kello 2.04: >> Already in mid 70s, Michel Jullien et al.* had conceptualized as follows, >> for designing purpose, your "dynamics of materially-mediated relationships >> between humans and world": artefact concepts (should systematically) stem >> out of the complex dynamics between projected "produit-usagers-milieu". > > Francois, thanks for the reference, very interesting, I will follow the lead. > The "product-users-milieu" sounds very similar than what I have tried to say > with the term "practice". The "design nexus" is an expressive and concise > term, I like that. > >> complex nexus that you call a "dynamics of materially-mediated >> relationships between humans and the word" (by the way, was this a >> citation? from which source?) > > Don Norman told us last winter a lovely story about his former colleague > Jerry Fodor using a phrase: "I refer you to my about to be written paper on > the subject" -- so I dare to follow his example. I have just started a > sabbatical lasting this academical year (this explains my recent burst of > activity on the list), and the plan for the year is to finish a book project > that has been lingering on already too long. So, I refer you to my about to be > written book on the subject... :-). The phrase has been crafted to be one of > the pivot elements guiding the work (the book will be at least about this!) > but it is hardly surprising if it has already been used by somebody else (if > you know any such I am very grateful to hear). > > best regards, > --Kari Kuutti > Univ. Oulu, Finland > > ------------------------------ > > Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2012 18:23:44 -0400 > From: "Filippo A. Salustri" <[log in to unmask]> > Subject: CFPs for August 2012 > > Hi everyone, > Here's a summary of CFPs posted to http://designcalls.wordpress.com for > August 2012. > Thanks to all the contributors! > /fas ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design -----------------------------------------------------------------