Semi Conscious
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C VanDorne
Stephan, doesn't the time limitation of a patent represent the compromise here, ...
C VanDorne
Nah, too many vested interests.
Is emulating a product the same as stealing?
Dylan McGrath
8/7/2012 1:50 PM EDT
Since the original iPhone was introduced, competing smartphone vendors have understood that it was light years beyond anything that they had produced. And since that day in January 2007 every company that has produced or thought about producing a smartphone has had at some level a discussion about how it could create a product that emulates the iPhone. Companies have sought to understand why the iPhone is such a runaway success and tried to rub a little bit of that magic on their own products.
It's human nature and common sense. If you are getting your brains beat out by a game-changing product, you need to figure out why and what you can do to produce something that appeals to consumers for the same or similar reasons. Otherwise, you need to pack it up and go home.
This is true in most industries. When one company introduces an innovation that changes everything, competitors must adapt or die.
The great Irish poet and writer Oscar Wilde famously said, "Good writers borrow, great writers steal." It is the same in business and in virtually any other endeavor in life. If we do not learn lessons from those who are successful, we are doomed to failure.
At the same time, we can all agree that it is fundamentally unjust for anyone to blatantly rip off and profit from the genuine innovations of others. The question is, where do you draw that line? When does admiring and emulating a competing product that is kicking your butt become intellectual property theft?
This question is central to the trial currently taking place in San Jose between Apple and Samsung. Apple revolutionized the smartphone market when it launched the first iPhone and proceeded to stomp the field. It now argues that that it has been wronged because a competitor has successfully taken a page from its book in designing its own smartphones with a similar look and functionality.
Make no mistake: everyone has tried to emulate the iPhone, whether it was spelled out in an email or not. Every smartphone worth its salt today uses touchscreen technology and is rectangular in shape. Apple did not invent either of those characteristics, but it used them to great effect and continues to laugh all the way to the bank.
If Samsung had not taken a hard look at the iPhone and asked why it was successful--and what it could do to incorporate some of the same features in its own products--the only reasonable thing for the company to do would be stop making smartphones. The same goes for any other smartphone vendor.
The San Jose patent trial has exposed the fact that our patent system is fundamentally flawed. But anyone who has been paying attention already knew that. It's also brought to light a larger question: Where is the line between learning from the success of a competitor and stealing?
We may never be able to pinpoint where this line lays, and even a completely overhauled patent system may not be able to define it. But until we know where to mark that line, there won't be justice in the Apple-Samsung case or any other instance where a company conducts a thorough analysis of a competing product and tries to top it.
Related stories:
Samsung phones confused graphics expert
Frustrations bubble over in Apple versus Samsung
Expert says Samsung phones, tablets infringe
IPhone created ‘crisis of design’ at Samsung
Apple v Samsung: Rights and Wrongs
Analyst: Apple, Samsung snagged over 100% of Q2 handset profits
It's human nature and common sense. If you are getting your brains beat out by a game-changing product, you need to figure out why and what you can do to produce something that appeals to consumers for the same or similar reasons. Otherwise, you need to pack it up and go home.
This is true in most industries. When one company introduces an innovation that changes everything, competitors must adapt or die.
The great Irish poet and writer Oscar Wilde famously said, "Good writers borrow, great writers steal." It is the same in business and in virtually any other endeavor in life. If we do not learn lessons from those who are successful, we are doomed to failure.
At the same time, we can all agree that it is fundamentally unjust for anyone to blatantly rip off and profit from the genuine innovations of others. The question is, where do you draw that line? When does admiring and emulating a competing product that is kicking your butt become intellectual property theft?
This question is central to the trial currently taking place in San Jose between Apple and Samsung. Apple revolutionized the smartphone market when it launched the first iPhone and proceeded to stomp the field. It now argues that that it has been wronged because a competitor has successfully taken a page from its book in designing its own smartphones with a similar look and functionality.
Make no mistake: everyone has tried to emulate the iPhone, whether it was spelled out in an email or not. Every smartphone worth its salt today uses touchscreen technology and is rectangular in shape. Apple did not invent either of those characteristics, but it used them to great effect and continues to laugh all the way to the bank.
If Samsung had not taken a hard look at the iPhone and asked why it was successful--and what it could do to incorporate some of the same features in its own products--the only reasonable thing for the company to do would be stop making smartphones. The same goes for any other smartphone vendor.
The San Jose patent trial has exposed the fact that our patent system is fundamentally flawed. But anyone who has been paying attention already knew that. It's also brought to light a larger question: Where is the line between learning from the success of a competitor and stealing?
We may never be able to pinpoint where this line lays, and even a completely overhauled patent system may not be able to define it. But until we know where to mark that line, there won't be justice in the Apple-Samsung case or any other instance where a company conducts a thorough analysis of a competing product and tries to top it.
Related stories:
Samsung phones confused graphics expert
Frustrations bubble over in Apple versus Samsung
Expert says Samsung phones, tablets infringe
IPhone created ‘crisis of design’ at Samsung
Apple v Samsung: Rights and Wrongs
Analyst: Apple, Samsung snagged over 100% of Q2 handset profits
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Bert22306
8/7/2012 2:26 PM EDT
When one is a devout, fervent member of a particular religious group or sect, call him a "zealot," then the differences between his faith's detailed teachings and those of other faiths seem enormous. What to most other mortals appear to be minutiae are instead all-important to the devoted.
I think this is what we're up against. It's a wonder that this sort of ridiculous nonsense didn't occur when Compaq and many others started to market PC clones. They're rectangular! They have a dispay and keyboard!
I have to admit. What is most offputting to me is that all this brouhaha is caused by something as, honestly, trivial as a brand of smartphone.
Perhaps Apple should start putting brightly lit Apple symbols on their iPhones, so that the faithful devoted will be sure to let everyone around them know that they have The Original.
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pmoyle111
8/9/2012 2:47 PM EDT
back in the day boards that plugged into an ibm also plugged into a competitor such as compaq if the competitor thought fit, and there were no license fees or royalties reqiured.
Meanwhile, the same was not true with the apple II. Nor the Lisa, nor Mac.
Apple was fairly quickly relegated to a cadre of users that drank the koolaid or graphics (which was a near 100% intersection of sets anyway).
When ibm came out with the PS2 and attempted to pull the same shenanigans, they were pushed out by the "gang of 9".
ibm's success was it's open architecture.
At the end of the day, a company that succeeds by innovating does not need the lawyers.
lawyers are a large part of what is wrong with america today and if we could remove about 80% of them, consumers would benefit immensely, not only in choice of selection, but also in price.
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spoli
8/9/2012 3:24 PM EDT
I couldn't agree more!
"Give me enough money and resources and I'll hire a lawyer to prove that you infringed some of my IP".
That's why big companies with deep pockets look like bullies. What we see happening with Apple and Samsung is a battle between two thugs while we (the customers) are just spectators taking sides in the same divisive ways as our political fights shaped our psyche.
I found the following article very intriguing:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-copyright-law-the-real-reason-for-germany-s-industrial-expansion-a-710976.html
Excerpt:
"Did Germany experience rapid industrial expansion in the 19th century due to an absence of copyright law? A German historian argues that the massive proliferation of books, and thus knowledge, laid the foundation for the country's industrial might."
It's time to learn something from our past... and something from our present (see the open source movement).
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DrewTech
8/7/2012 3:05 PM EDT
Thomas Jefferson wrote:
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me."
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dylan.mcgrath
8/7/2012 3:11 PM EDT
@DrewTech- Thanks for adding the quote. A very good contribution.
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studleylee
8/7/2012 3:39 PM EDT
Interesting quote! When my time machine is done, he's on the list to visit :-)
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Daniel Payne
8/7/2012 3:06 PM EDT
Bert,
The difference is that when IBM entered the PC market they sold a license to clone their architecture.
I agree with you that Apple's patent of a rectangular smart phone, or the concept of a hyper link should never been granted by the USPTO.
The Palm Pilot PDA pre-dates Apple iPhone and it was rectangular, was touch sensitive and used the concept of hyperlinks.
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Bert22306
8/7/2012 3:19 PM EDT
Yes, I figured I'd get that reply. But there were also Apple II computers in those days. They too had keyboard and display.
I don't think it would have dawned on anyone to raise a big stink about a box with attached keyboard and display?
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jaybus
8/8/2012 3:07 PM EDT
I do not disagree with the prior art argument against the validity of the shape patent. However, I think the answer is simpler than that. An invention has to be novel and not obvious to others skilled in the same field. All LCD screens that might possibly be used in a handheld device are rectangular. What other shape for a phone could possibly be more obvious than a rectangle slightly larger than the rectangular LCD screen it must by force use? I don't think one need even be skilled in the art to see that as obvious.
It may well be the most obvious thing that has ever been filed for, and certainly the most obvious that has had a patent actually granted. Even the Microsoft button push patent is less obvious.
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MikeSmith2011
8/7/2012 3:10 PM EDT
Apple has a dilema - it's design philosophy is simplicity, pureness, elegance- The iphone was certainly the first phone to simplify the look - a smooth touch screen interface devoid of busy buttons. But this also makes it difficult to patent. It is easier to patent complex buttons and shapes - remember that RIM had patented its keyboard buttons and had sued Palm when the treo came up with similar ones.
Apple certainly charted a new path with the first iphone and showed the world that phones could be made simple but unfortunately simplicity cannot easily be protected.
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dylan.mcgrath
8/7/2012 3:14 PM EDT
Any third grader knows that its wrong to copy. But at the same time, every great product stands on the shoulders have previous inventions. I think the precise location of the line here is very difficult to pinpoint; maybe impossible.
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selinz
8/7/2012 3:24 PM EDT
Well stated, Bert. It's interesting that when you have a Zealot for product A, it follows that there will be "anti-zealots" with the same degree of fervency. Apple needs to go back to winning on the technical front, something that they've not been doing in the last 12 months or so...
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abrokalakis
8/7/2012 3:32 PM EDT
This trial I think represents the death of the patent system.
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3Stanly
8/8/2012 2:42 AM EDT
I can only hope you are correct - at least in it's current form.
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C VanDorne
8/13/2012 11:13 AM EDT
Nah, too many vested interests.
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bigspark
8/7/2012 3:34 PM EDT
There are a variety of ways to protect a competitive edge: patents, copyright, design patents, trade secrets, etc. Each has its legal domain and limitations. Modern concepts of "intellectual property" have only developed since the appearance of the personal computer. For many that grew up before the 70s, the current mentality in indefensible. True, it is costly and frustrating for the originator of an idea to have it copied. But where there is no legal basis for preventing copying, that's life.
The combination of a touch screen on a mobile computer would certainly be "obvious to the man skilled in the art," and arguably not patentable just because you were the first to implement it. Would not the versatile characteristics of the touch screen be the reason to invent it?
What is worse now is that big money is paying to skew laws even more in favor of more big money. If Col. Edwin Armstrong couldn't meat RCA in the 40s, what chance does the maverick inventor have now?
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j-l
8/7/2012 3:42 PM EDT
The older PDA-based phones using the legacy Palm, Windows Mobile and Blackberry OS with their one-finger touchscreens were so limiting in functionality, they still required extra buttons and navigation pads to be of any use. Apple designed a phone with a responsive multitouch screen with unique gestures adapted from their laptop trackpads that allowed their streamlined design. While much of the technology was not new (e.g. multitouch screens), Apple's application of it to a handheld smartphone via a set of intuitive gestures was. Regarding the trial, as some of the witnesses testified and the evidence alluded to, there were many design choices SamSung could have made to make their own devices more distinctive. They chose not to, and now we have a jury deciding how similar is too similar.
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green_ee
8/7/2012 3:46 PM EDT
How hypocritical of Apple !! Anyone remember the Xerox Alto ? Yes, we're talking 1970's. It had a mouse, and a GUI. Several years later, the Macintosh appeared. The first thing that came to my mind was: When is Xerox going to sue Apple ? But Goliath did not sue David, and look what happened....
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digital_dreamer
8/7/2012 4:17 PM EDT
"How hypocritical of Apple?" Excuse me?
Read a little about the actual history of Xerox and Apple. Xerox had little interest in marketing and developing further the limited GUI in their lab. Apple saw the potential and made a deal worth millions in stock. What Xerox had was a stepping stone and Apple paid for it and advanced it in the Mac. Proof that Xerox management couldn't see the potential of this GUI was the fact that a number of Xerox engineers jumped ship and joined Apple in working on this GUI, as they knew it had a future there.
MAJ
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PuterGeek
8/10/2012 12:14 AM EDT
I had never heard this 'license' Apple got until recently. Since Xerox did try to sue Apple, I'm guessing this 'license' is revisionist history.
By the way, the Xerox suit was dismissed because they waited too long (i.e., they lost on a technicality, not because of the facts).
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shikantaza
8/7/2012 3:55 PM EDT
Reply 1: Bert, this "ridiculous nonsense" didn't occur because IBM PUBLISHED the backplane spec as an open standard so people could build compatible hardware. Remember them little 3-ring binders that came with each and every PC? IBM PUBLISHED the SOURCES for DOS and BIOS to make sure apps and hardware would be guaranteed to work. When (ahem) overseas companies started selling clones, IBM had to wade into messy, and eventually fruitless, legal battles to block imports.
This never happened to Apple because, while they were building "a computer for the rest of us," they also never published a danged thing about hardware or low-level APIs. I always found it really odd that the "computer for the rest of us" was so stalwart about being data-incompatible with the PCs that comprised the other 95% of systems in use: moving files back and forth was a major pain. The clones chased sales volume, while Apple did everything Steve's way.
Salamat.
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spoli
8/9/2012 3:47 PM EDT
But we learned so much from those little 3-ring binders. A lot of engineers (including many from Apple) have been studied these documents and became eventually better engineers.
I bet there are a few that started their careers trying to build their own PC's based on those 3-ring binders! I was definitely one - the whole experience shaped my career and, even I did not end building PCs, I feel that I own something to IBM's decision to make it public. Apple didn't do the same: their closed approach, while profitable at first, almost destroyed them as a business before the iPhones and iPads. It will eventually happen the same now. Maybe not Samsung, maybe not HTC, maybe not ASUS or others but the competition will cut their profits sooner or later the same way PC's in the past almost reduced Macs to a niche market for the wealthy and the snobs.
Smartphones shaped like rectangles with touch and voice technology are here to stay despite the legal battles between Apple and the rest of the world that tries to catch up. And this is good and healthy: it will force Apple to reinvent themselves every few years or slip into oblivion.
Thank you IBM!
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shikantaza
8/7/2012 3:55 PM EDT
Reply 2: It ISN'T wrong to emulate. It IS wrong to copy verbatim without paying a royalty. In many cases it may be unethical to claim patent or commercial rights to some forms of IP.
Recall that essentially EVERYTHING the user sees in computers, hardware and GUIs, are offshoots of research performed by Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) under (largely) ARPA contract during the mid-1970s. This technology was placed in the public domain before the government started paying for research AND allowing contractors to claim it as "proprietary." (An immoral use of my tax money, whether you ask me or not.)
PARC invented the personal computer (the Alto) and the windowing interface that Apple ripped off... uhhh... RESEARCHED... to deliver the pre-Mac Lisa. They also invented the laser printer, but OOPS! like computers in general, Xerox didn't really understand how to market anything that wasn't a copier.
Xerox, like IBM, created some revolutionary technology, but failed to continue to push products according to market demands. Nope, they continued to do it their way. (Lesson: evolution exacts a pretty heavy price for stupidity.)
The computer mouse was invented at Stanford Research Institute (SRI, now a non-profit on it's own) in the early 1970s(?) using ARPA funding. Public domain. The Alto GUI wouldn't have been possible without the mouse.
Apple set the standard and other companies invested heavily to develop their own products. Now Apple is crying "Foul!" when newcomers maybe do it better and cheaper. (Well, "cheaper" is deceptive: the purchase price of phones, PARTICULARLY the iPhone, is (somewhat stupidly) subsidized by the wireless companies. Wireless costs are going up because carriers have figured out they've been diddled by the arrangement: user fees don't make up the actual cost of the devices.)
Gassho.
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SPLatMan
8/7/2012 6:27 PM EDT
Didn't Apple then sue IBM and HP for stealing "their" windowing interface? And win?
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PuterGeek
8/10/2012 12:10 AM EDT
No. they sued Microsoft and lost.
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weflynnJr
8/7/2012 4:02 PM EDT
"If Samsung had not taken a hard look at the iPhone and asked why it was successful--and what it could do to incorporate some of the same features in its own products--the only reasonable thing for the company to do would be stop making smartphones. The same goes for any other smartphone vendor."
So then, is that how Apple came up with the iPhone? They looked at someone elses phone and said "How can I incorporate that?"? I don't think so, and that statement from the article is shortsighted. If that person worked in my engineering department and that was the best they could come up with, I'd fire them.
This whole discussion chain seems to be missing one important fact: Apple was disruptive about how they made a phone. It was completely different. It's not about the shape or the touchscreen, but about how those pieces were brought together.
It used to be (and may still be) that a program written for an Apple computer started with a system call to Gestalt(). I never got that until I looked it up. It means the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. That's how they think. And obviously Samsung doesn't. I mean really, Android with a look and feel of iPhone? Did they engineer anything unique? Or is it all just open source, and whatever isn't is "lifted"?
Samsung copied. They had a choice. They could have gone off and leapt OVER Apple like Apple did to the rest of the world. But they couldn't or wouldn't, so they copied. It's expensive being disruptive. And time consuming. It's easier and faster to just steal. How pathetic. I won't buy a Samsung on principle.
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dylan.mcgrath
8/7/2012 7:28 PM EDT
@weflynnJr- you make a good point. Before the iPhone existed, Apple conceived of it and made it a reality. As is pointed out in this forum, the various technologies all existed in some form (and I have no doubt that when it decided to launch a smartphone, Apple took a detailed look at the products that were out there--including those made by Samsung). But Apple put it altogether and did it with typical Apple flair, creating a beautiful product that took the world by storm. It was great work, a homerun by any definition. And Apple has profited handsomely.
To your point: Yes, Samsung could have (and probably did) try to think about how to leap over Apple. I don't know enough about the specific handsets, but by all accounts Samsung did not necessarily raise the bar. But they did create a product that could compete with the iPhone. I was only arguing that once Apple turned the smartphone business on its head with the iPhone, Samsung would be foolish not to look at the product, what people liked about it, and try to create something that would have that appeal.
Also, I am not attempting to argue that Samsung did or did not cross the line and steal Apple's intellectual property. I don't know enough about the facts of the case to have an opinion on that (I'm only reading the excellent first rand reports from our Rick Merritt). I am simply arguing that anyone who wants to compete with a product that is dominating in the market would be foolish not to take a real hard look at that product and why it is so successful. In my opinion, that's fair game and common sense.
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DickH
8/10/2012 5:25 PM EDT
I think you're completely wrong. Things like design are protected and proprietary, but none are patentable (nor should be - the fact that a phone is flat and rectangular is not 'an invention'). If you take a competent engineer who has never seen an iPhone, and you describe its operation (but omitting to describe its appearance) to him/her, that it has a touch interface which is the display, and then ask him/her to design one, they will look out the necessary chips, and displays and in the event that some of them don't already exist, design them, or at least try, since it's obvious what's necessary, and the other parts, and come up with something that very probably looks like the iPhone. They are unlikely to make the display circular or spherical. Apple's advantage was to be first. That's their market advantage. It has worked, so far. They should be content with that. Even a lot of genuine inventions become obvious once someone has made the first, without any knowledge of the actual detail. Would you have wanted Benz or Daimler to have had a world-wide 'patent' on 'the idea of' a car?
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Bert22306
8/7/2012 4:20 PM EDT
I guess one of my problems is that I don't see much that is "disruptive," even when others rave about it. Mostly what I see is an obvious evolutionary path.
There were PDAs and cell phones before smartphones. PDAs didn't seem disruptive, and it seemed rather obvious that eventually one could browse the web with them. Same with my first 3G smartphone. Except for the tiny screen, why would anyone be amazed that a fast enough wireless phone could browse the web? I didn't rave about PDAs, Blackberries, or iPhones. It just seemed like natural progression.
Touch screens weren't invented by Apple. They existed long before the iPhone. The use of a touch screen on a PDA-style device seems as obvious as it is limiting.
I have a really hard time raving about apps. I have tons of "apps" installed in my PC, no one ever called them "apps," but that doesn't make them less useful.
Store clerks, UPS delivery guys, and rental car companies, used pad-like devices for a long time before the iPad came out. So Apple comes up with a shiny pad that can browse the web, and that's "disruptive"?
People need to get real. Especially engineers, who should know what's behind these things.
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Sparky_Watt
8/7/2012 6:12 PM EDT
I think the real contribution that Apple made with the iPhone was actually in the iPad. That is the multi-touch gesture oriented GUI. Of all the things talked about in this thread, that I think is the patentable technology. If Apple patented that, they could keep Samsung from copying based on the fact that they used multi-touch gestures for control. If they didn't, I don't think they have a leg to stand on. None of the rest makes sense. It is either obvious or already done under another name.
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3Stanly
8/8/2012 3:08 AM EDT
I don't agree that multi-touch gestures is anything but obvious. As previously stated (repeatedly) multi-touch was around long before the iPhone (long before Apple?). As for using it for gesturing, I cannot think of another way to use multi-touch?
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SPLatMan
8/7/2012 6:21 PM EDT
The iPhone was evolutionary, not revolutionary. We had touch screens in other products like HMIs, information kiosks and special purpose CRT monitors. I cannot believe that at the time there weren't many engineers in the field world-wide dreaming of putting one in a 'phone.
So Apple had the cojones and resources to do it. Full marks for that. BUT, it was going to happen anyhow. I bet, even, that there exist several science fiction stories describing such a device - Prior Art!
Apple deserve a commercial benefit for being first. They have that.
When I was an engineering student (in Australia) I was taught that you could patent a physical means-whereby, like a process or a mechanism. You can't patent an equation or a shape shape (unless it's central to the invention, like the shape of the cogs on a gear wheel). IMHO, the iPhone could attract copyright, which could cover icon designs and possibly screen layouts and fancy scrolling effects. But a patent? No way!
Now, I believe you have "design patents". That sounds like some pure BS cooked up by a bunch of lawyers to stifle progress and make them richer.
OTOH, I understand Samsung have patents on some of the core signal processing technology. Now THAT's a patent.
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SPLatMan
8/7/2012 6:33 PM EDT
Looking at all the comments, I come to the conclusion that it is the multitouch screen technology that should be patented. Everything else is lego block stuff.
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Stephan Kinsella
8/7/2012 10:32 PM EDT
" we can all agree that it is fundamentally unjust for anyone to blatantly rip off and profit from the genuine innovations of other" -- this is false. We do not all agree. Most libertarians are opposed to IP on principle, including me, a libertarian and practicing (EE) patent attorney. There is nothing wrong at all with competition, emulation, learning. Patent and copyright law should be completely abolished. The are state-granted anti-competitive monopolies that violate property rights and are counter to the free market. They distort and reduce innovation and societal wealth, give rise to oligopolies, and so on. For more see http://c4sif.org/resources.
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Scott Elder
8/7/2012 11:29 PM EDT
As you should well know, a patent is an award from a country for willfully disclosing to the world what one has discovered so that others can then study and build upon that innovation. If one is not granted a patent, why would one ever disclose to the world what they have discovered?
For every referred journal article that presents novel work there is invariably a filed patent that covers the novel work. And usually filed a few years before the publication. Again, public disclosure to teach the world in return from some limited protection to profit from the work.
I suppose we could all sit around a fire and sing Kumbaya freely sharing our work product, but I think the free world has decided patent protection in return for educating the world is a good thing.
But hey, if you can help write perfect property rights laws where all people are happy you should run for political office. Until then, majority rules and some people go home unhappy.
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants". Isaac Newton. A metaphor that applies to all patent holders. Should be on Apple's front door.
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jackOfManyTrades
8/8/2012 3:26 AM EDT
Exactly, Joe.
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GordonScott
8/8/2012 4:10 AM EDT
Sadly modern patents seem mostly not to protect innovation, but to be 'spoilers' .. obstacles dropped to make it difficult for others.
Example:
If I want a low-profile multiple compartment screening can over a relatively broad region of a PCB, the obvious way to make it is to punch and press it out of a single sheet, then as we've done for many, many, years, I'd also use a pressed-out clip-on lid for easy access to the content. It's a 'no brainer'! Oops, sorry, that's been patented.
In fact it's _so_ obvious, that to this day I cannot comprehend how on earth was ever granted .. but it was.
There are many more examples.
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Stephan Kinsella
8/8/2012 6:37 PM EDT
Gordon: I gave a link earlier (www.c4sif.org/resources) if you are really interested in looking into this.
"As you should well know, a patent is an award from a country for willfully disclosing to the world what one has discovered so that others can then study and build upon that innovation. If one is not granted a patent, why would one ever disclose to the world what they have discovered?"
Well, if you want to keep something private, that's your right. But if your goal is to make a profit, you will have to publicly reveal information as part of selling a product or service. If it is successful this sends a market signal to others to compete with you to capture the profit. This is called the "free market." I realize patent advocates hate the idea of unbridled competition and the free market, but some of us are in favor of justice, property rights, competition, and the free market.
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C VanDorne
8/13/2012 12:01 PM EDT
Stephan, doesn't the time limitation of a patent represent the compromise here, so that the IP originator can profit exclusively for a predetermined period of time? And then after that the free-for-all begins?
Also, I understand your libertarian impulses but I think that out of necessity you will be sourly dissapointed in the coming years. What else can America produce profitably but ideas - intellectual property.
(Note the use of the word "profitably". I fully understand that many are quite able, and too willing, to produce the by-product of bureaucrasy - paper, lots of it.)
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sean.raman
8/7/2012 11:01 PM EDT
Dylan:
The lawsuit between Apple and Samsung is definitely interesting and raises a lot of questions about Apple. If Apple is redefining 'Emulation' as 'Stealing', it should look at itself. Apple 'Emulated' the GUI from Xerox Parc in the early 80s when Steve and Bill visited the campus and discovered the GUI. Without this emulation, Apple would not have been a successful PC vendor and this success allowed Apple to invest in R&D that created iphone, ipads etc. Does this mean they owe Xerox Parc a multi-billion dollar royalty?
Sean Raman
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SPLatMan
8/9/2012 9:04 AM EDT
Yes
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Carlo.Barbaro
8/8/2012 3:02 AM EDT
If every improvement of human knowledge would be locked by some sort of patent, civilization wouldn't have arrived at this point.
It is ridicolous claiming to put a patent on rectangular shape.
Companies have to do profit, it is right, but they can do it until they are the the only ones with the know-how to produce a particular product.
After that, they have to invent something else...
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Colin ONeill
8/8/2012 3:30 AM EDT
Apple put a lot of existing tech together into a nice package that sold well. I don't see any innovation there worth patenting. As others have mentioned, Samsung developed new technology. That is worth patenting. As far as the rectangle with round edges, I have a nice table at home that is the same shape. Can the table manufacturer sue Apple for stealing its design?
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htk_#1
8/8/2012 10:42 AM EDT
The patent is for an electronic device in that form.
e.g. http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-All-Terrain-FireWire-Portable-301371/dp/B0018B5CA8/ref=pd_sxp_grid_pt_0_0 infringes on their patent... or shows prior art....
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elctrnx_lyf
8/8/2012 8:18 AM EDT
I believe this fight will go on and probably will never be own by Apple. Its very difficult to draw the line when you engineer something it looks like others products.
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chipmonk
8/8/2012 10:57 AM EDT
Apple sued Samsung because they are really scared about Samsung's integrated capablities from components ( memory, display, SoCs, Fabs ) all the way up to system design. Samsung used the age old strategy used by Asian suppliers to sell appliances ( from cars to cameras ) in the US ( to overcome cultural barriers - unlike the more confident Euro suppliiers ), use a physical package that the US customer already likes. That is how trivial all of Apple's claims in their lawsuit really are - rounded corners included, because there is not much else they could claim.
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DAH2136
8/8/2012 11:04 AM EDT
Copying of any form, whether look and feel (legal), interoperability (cleanroom reverse engineering), or sharing a copyrighted file or using a similar trademark IS NOT STEALING.
When you steal, you deprive others of the goods themselves. Not just some "rights". Steal my loaf of bread, I have no bread.
Copying something may or may not be legal, it may be fraudulent, but it is distinct from theft.
This is important if you have kids to educate.
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timbo_test
8/8/2012 1:13 PM EDT
The iPhone (and any other 'smartphone') is brimming with technology that was not invented by its maker, some is licensed, some is copied, some is co-invented, some is no longer protected by any patent or design rights,some even may be 'stolen'. (I don't disagree with DAH2136 on this - I just cant find a better word!)
What Steve Jobs and the iPhone team did was maybe not so much to invent, but what they did was they brilliantly integrated so many (known, obvious and fully understood) technologies into one seamless and nearly faultless package, in a way nobody else had the fore-sight, in-sight or audacity to attempt! Then they did it again and again and again, creating newer and better products!
Is this patentable - I don't know, I'm not a lawyer probably some aspects are and probably some aspects are not.
In the iPad vs Galaxy tab lawsuit in the UK Apple won - because the Galaxy was 'not as cool'.
Who can disagree with that?
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res213
8/8/2012 4:00 PM EDT
'Good engineers create, great engineers copy'
Or so I've been told.
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rangecheck
8/9/2012 2:41 PM EDT
Apple needs this "trade dress" argument to succeed when it fail with M$. It is a way to get to Google who is, by market share, cornering the market. Not going to work here either but it is worth a try. Apple makes some great products but they have done themselves a disservice by bringing this silly law suit. Backlash is gonna hurt. Now, that is not to say that this biased and ill prepaired judge can't make it go to Apple in the short term.
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Phil.Gillaspy
8/9/2012 4:10 PM EDT
I'm way late chiming in, but I for one see no revolutionary or unique design introduced by Apple. There is nothing that is not a natural evolution from the graphical desktop customized for touch screen and sans keyboard/mice.
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timemerchant
8/9/2012 8:09 PM EDT
Many years ago, the IBM plug-compatible mainframe vendors forced IBM to divulge interface specifications. They even sold hardware that ran IBM operating system software. Now Apple does not allow their software (Darwin derived from BSD Unix) to run on other suppliers' hardware. Apple was sued by Exponential in 1997 for sinking their PowerPC efforts, and PA Semi were acquired, sinking their PowerPC work, with little obvious gains to Apple. Freescale and IBM were gratuitous enough not to air their side of the Apple switch from PPC to Intel. My iPhone, iPad and other computer hardware have many faults that the equivalent in the auto industry would never get away with, so while people are jumping out of buildings and Apple sits on a pile on money, they should try to fit in a little better instead of such anti-social behavior. This court case is going to really harm their business, as the real patents are the wireless ones, and here Nokia (no longer king), plus Google with their recently acquired bunch will fend off Apple. Mobile phones come an go, but the innovation in my opinion was to include the iPod into the iPhone and have an ecosystem like iTunes that worked seamlessly. It is no better than any other phone for making calls (with a camera is worse than many other phone makers').
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Fred.Ford
8/10/2012 5:47 PM EDT
Might we think back a little farther, say about a hundred years. Where would we now be if USPTO had granted a patent to Henry Ford or one of his competitors for a steering wheel, or the arrangement of brake, gas and clutch petals that we now accept as standard. Progress requires that some great ideas are in the public interest and every ones success requires that they be available for all to use.
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RWatkins
8/10/2012 11:37 PM EDT
Some things just never change. How many of you still remember Apple suing over GEM, when HP and Microsoft joined in, and the farce of the "Apple" OS for the MacIntosh was revealed. Apple is and has long been suit happy.
What HAS changed is what the USPTO is required to accept for patents. The real problem is that much (my searches have lead to a more likely conclusion of MOST) of the software and business practices "art", is not truly new but couched in obfuscated terminology to confuse the examiner to prevent his finding other prior art.
So, often the "inventor" is in fact the copier! And then he goes off with the full intent of truly stealing from others who also copied similarly. Once again, fact is often stranger than fiction.
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