Do Apple have a patent on 4 sides and a screen? Am I likely to see all TV's withdrawn from sale or is it just competitors that happen to be slowly taking their market share away that are sued? Does this mean I won't get another cheap mobo?
Hey, guys! It's your old friend Nikola Tesla here. I hope you are enjoying your world after I was driven out of business by capitalists and patents. Patents sure are useful. So is free energy, but I guess you guys like money better.
Yep, because Nikola Tesla never filed for any patents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nikola_Tesla_patents Don't get me wrong, he was a great inventor, but yeah he used the patent system to protect his work just like you're supposed to.
Google has a patent pending and you can be sure that Apple will have to pay a truckload once they are granted that patent.
Yes it sure as hell looks like a ripoff of the Blackberry but even in that case there are only so many ways a phone with keyboard below the screen can look like. Either way we're talking about a rounded rectangle with a large screen here, not about their other designs. One of Apple's claims is that the design for the the rounded rectangle was copied, which is absurd considering how generic that is. Obviously because he was forced to play the game. I certainly would like to have had free wireless energy.
But then what's the solution? How do you protect yourself? A small time inventor spends hundreds of hours developing something truly innovative only for a large company to steal it and produce it en masse. Or even a large company who invests billions of dollars into a product, how do you stop other companies from taking the final product, reverse engineering it and profiting off your investment? I mean I agree that the patent industry is flawed, I've been saying it for years. And I think companies like say, RAMBUS who don't actually produce anything, just patent ideas all day are the worst offenders. And I think there should be rules in place to stop that. But for this particular case? I don't know. Apple created and patented a number of UI innovations that Samsung clearly copied off of. How do you change the rules to protect Apples investments while not being ridiculous to offenders?
Samsung ripped off the design by making a phone with a keyboard below the screen. Blackberry and Palm did it first. Also, still proves my point that Samsung has a history of stealing designs.
Surely a PC had a keyboard below a screen before Blackberry and Palm did, and even then the keypad has always been below the screen. Apple copied Blackberry and Palm by having the keyboard at the bottom of the screen as well in that case.
How about making it law that something extremely generic can't be patented with solid examples put into place? Using the rectangle as an example would be a nice start. That way companies can protect their intellectual property without having the power to troll their way into a monopoly. That's the problem right there, that is so ridiculously generic. Don't get me wrong, I agree that Samsung blatantly ripped that design off of RIM but the issue is that the design would have come up regardless. It's so generic that it was bound to be made sooner or later. What makes it really bad in this case is that the entire thing looks like a Blackberry rather than just the screen having a keyboard below it, being able to sue another company based on that alone would be absurd, and that's the level of generic patent trolling Apple is doing.
The problem with this, is that when you're delaying with UI design, it's pretty much all generic. What would stop Samsung from literally recreating the entire apple UI entirely? How would your average consumer be able to tell the difference between two devices of the same size, shape, color, interface and behavior? Where exactly do you draw the line?
Perhaps they shouldn't be allowed to patent it. UIs will always naturally converge to whatever is most convenient/desirable for the device. Microsoft tried to patent their UI and failed for good reason, it's extremely likely that regardless of what MS did that UIs would have ended up like that. There aren't exactly a lot of different ways that an interface would be convenient for a human given the technological limits of the time. That's not exactly the best example as many believe the Android UI is superior anyway. Even if they did, once again, the entire UI is as generic of an idea as you can come up with for a very small touchscreen device. It's no surprise the Android UI is pretty similar, there aren't any other convenient ways to go about it. But to answer your question, I believe the line needs to be drawn at what is obviously unique and unlikely to have occurred naturally. How do you determine that? How about some unbiased common sense? To that point, do any of you disagree that if Microsoft didn't come up with the Windows UI, that we would still have it today anyway?
all these 'generic' patenting should stop. rectangular device with rounded corners? come on.. they making the patent system look like a fool
Just reminded myself something very true that Job's said http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU Made me giggle so much that i just ordered S3, screw you Apple. now i need to find a fool who will buy my iPhone4 :banana:
The point may be... dichotomy between company that generated hundreds of billions $, holds thousands of patents and is widely regarded as great tech innovator, yet hasn't ever invented anything, and one of the greatest inventors ever who died poor and alone. Often not patenting his work, but we still benefit from his work.
so ? thats more money then 99% of ppl will earn in their lives. is that fair to any one man or woman? no the fact that a law exists that makes it possible to cripple somebody for a lifetime is the big problem. there are unjust laws and there are unjust individuals - when both collide you have the worst of the worst
So, instead we should just ignore copyright laws? The penalties are there as an attempt to dissuade people from breaking such laws. If they choose to break the law knowingly/willingly, they should be subject to the harshest penalty permitted.
Exactly, while it may look unfair, its there as a deterrent and it will work more than the softly softly moral approach. Looking through all this i can see how Apple won this, not saying i agree, but there are some valid reasons in there, just a pity it gets lost in the scummy business practices of Apple. A shame as Apple have been more responsible than anyone else for pushing phone tech forward, anyone claiming otherwise is either lying to us, or their themselves. When it comes to phones, i actually quite like iphones, they are stable and very fast, wouldn't use one myself though as the geek in me loves the many custom Android roms and the freedom Apple likes to take away. Not forgetting things like iphone screens being too small for my hands and no expandable storage, but if storage isn't an issue and stability is, and you also think Samsung/HTC phones are too big, then nothing wrong with an iphone, so no-one should be listening to the pretend tech experts/idiots who try to make people feel small if someone wants one. We all know Samsung have previous for copying other people, and tbh they have gotten so big they are nearly as bad as Apple, so it can't feel sorry for them. In the long run this might be better for everyone as Samsung need to bring something truly new, as all the have been doing is increasing cores and screen size, and Apple need to do the same, so will be interesting how this plays out.
it's not about Apple appearing to be the bully in all these, but it's on how Apple goes about and the grounds they're suing companies for. Seriously, 'rectangular device with rounded corners'? 'slide to unlock'? Anyone would honestly say 'WTF' on these occasions. Would you like IKEA to patent something like 'rectangular or square appliance with 4 legs'? or Toyota patenting a 'box with 4 wheels? then see news of IKEA suing table manufacturers, or Toyota going after car manufacturers. It's so vague and generic, it shouldn't have been awarded a patent! As i have said on the other thread, Apple TECHNICALLY won, but on ridiculous grounds.
