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I just read in Forbes magazine that Apple has a patent battle with HTC and that recently the ITC could only find one valid point in dozens of filed claims: Apple has a patent on the hyperlink in an email message.
That the ITC could ever imagine that the concept of a hyperlink is worthy of a patent when in fact hyperlinks pre-date cell phones is beyond me.
It takes little expertise to see that our system of granting patents is woefully inadequate and that common sense has long since left the patent process.
Only the lawyers are getting richer by the minute with a patent system that grants absurd patents to the hyperlink which was clearly prior art from web browsers.
ps - I own an Apple MacBook Pro, Apple iMac, and Android phone. I'm not down on Apple products, just Apple lawyers thinking that they can patent a hyperlink.
It takes little expertise to see that our system of granting patents is woefully inadequate and that common sense has long since left the patent process.
ps - I own an Apple MacBook Pro, Apple iMac, and Android phone. I'm not down on Apple products, just Apple lawyers thinking that they can patent a hyperlink.
If you have a pile of cash and a dominant market share, like Apple, it makes sense to slow down your opponents' market penetration to protect that market share and margins. It plays into Apple's strategy of profit margin vs. market share.
Apple didn't invent these silly rules, so why blame them for running the table on the house?
In time, the tables will be reversed, and Apple will cross license their IP. Till that happens, they'll be running to the bank with YOUR cash...
I can understand Apple's motivation to slow down competitors through legal claims, it just irks me that our Patent Office would grant a patent for the concept of a hyperlink when it was clearly prior art.
I also agree that most disputes like the one from Apple against HTC and Samsung will likely be settled out of court for an undisclosed sum of money.
Yes, Apple's strategy is a good business decision, but bad for technical innovation. Once upon a time, universities freely shared cutting edge research results. Now a veil of secrecy is more the norm, pending patent applications.
I think the most disturbing trend in patents is the recent change in US patent law where we changed to a "first to file" convention from the "first to invent" convention. I think the US was one of the only countries with this convention. This gave the little guy a small edge over the corporate titans. With this change in law, the US is more in tune with other nations, but we run the risk of losing technical innovation from small startup companies.
Imagine if RCA had sued Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard over their first audio oscillator product infringing on their patent for some "frivolous" reason and prevented them from selling it. I'm sure HP would have eventually evolved, but at what expense?
Well to put in place. Andriod did and still does get most of the UI from the iPhone and compared to Microsoft they do not believe in licensing, its easy to figure, iPhone give more margins then them. As for the legal patent system, everyone does it and uses & abuses it. Software patents are currently the industries most disturbing trend that is if i leave SOPA and related stuff.
Anyways this all is IMHO.
We've had touch screens for over two decades now, every bank ATM is a touch screen. Before smart phones we had PDAs with touch screens, so there's nothing really that new or novel with either iPhone or Android-based smart phones in terms of UI. The first PDAs from Palm were black and white, later color was added. I don't see that Android is copying the iPhone, because both are copying what already happened with PDAs.
If Apple can receive a patent for the old concept of a hyperlink, then I can patent every single line of PHP or Javascript code that I have ever written.
Well the hyperlink point is outright stupid, i agree with that and i do oppose it. However patents and copyrights do seem to be a very large restrain. When you cannot play "I Had a Dream.... " by MLK without paying royalties (fact) and similarly the same with software patents.
However do you know what made the iPhone so famous? Someone got the UI right. Apple did that. We all had windows with touch and stylus and stuff like that.
Apple revolutionized the multi touch and "swipe and slide" and "Pinch and Zoom". Android for it part did well "borrow" most of it out, and its not impossible to design with a different interfacing architecture :: Microsoft WP 7 is a testimone to that.
Apple, i do believe has the right to chase android/google, but then again they should not be able to patent a technology like multi touch or should have FRAND like agreements.
Again IMHO. I am not a Legal expert, just an analyst.
In the Jobs biography there was a section describing how he was willing to do anything and everything to stop Google from "stealing our IP." I'm sure he gave very detailed instructions to Tim Cook on what to do regarding this.
From an engineering stand-point it is against all that tech stands for, but from a business stand-point it is just the way the game is played.
Trademarks and Patents are different. Patent are inventions related and trademarks are related to naming.
The process which Coca-Cola is made is a patented technology/process and the name "Coca-Cola" is trademarked.
Apple may have the patent (assuming, i'm not sure) there is no guarantee that Apple can trademark "multitouch".
Again, i'm maybe wrong in my thinking. I'm not exactly pro-apple as such, i just want to know the dynamics which work in the legal system.
I believe that as software becomes and lesser hardware/archi dependent eg Windows can run on both x86 and ARM architecture and both iPhone and Android applications can be easily ported to other systems which just require a run time environment ( they are becoming more like the JS/HTML engine which allows a script/website to run on and platform ). Software patents becomes a major restrain in this regards.
Apple tried and failed to patent multi-touch. Apple lawyers are getting richer defending questionable patents, and most likely we will see Apple settle out of court with companies like Google and Samsung.
