He has a right to his opinion and he has a right to the freedom of voicing it.
How do you figure ? Trade secrets are usually used to protect food recipes.
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Apple-Motorola Judge Questions Need for Software Patents
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He has a right to his opinion and he has a right to the freedom of voicing it.
How do you figure ? Trade secrets are usually used to protect food recipes.
Hmmm now I can see how Spelunker stole Super Mario's thunder.
What will sell your game/movie/phone is not how good it is but how much you market it. In other words you probably want to save two to three times more of development cost just for advertising. Your development cost has nothing to do with how good your game is going to sell. Just ask EA, they have been selling biggest POS video games for a decade now and people still buy them.
Agreed. But we had plenty of patents pre-iPhone and yet all phones were still the same at that time.
Copyright does protect look, so does trademark. Apple has trademarked their iOS icons. A picture is copyright to its photographer. In the case of a video game, I can't use a fat italien plumber in a red shirt with a red cap and blue overalls, because I'd probably be guilty of trademark infringement.
Like all modern OSes are ? Really, as far as OS functions go, what does Windows, OS X, HP-UX, Solaris, etc.. have that are all so different from each other ? All are multi-user systems with process schedulers, driver architectures, etc.. etc.. etc..
Copyright and Trademark covers those, not patents.
You're talking OS features here. Apple didn't invent HTML rendering engines or Icon grids or even process schedulers, background wallpapers, OTA updates either. So why should these features be exclusive to Apple ?
Isn't it amazing that all these food producers from General Mills to Nestlé to Coke to KFC to Budweiser survive without being able to patent their recipes?
Amazing isn't it?
/sarcasm
Software patents need to go, pure and simple. If Coke has been able to survive this long as the number one brand in the world without recipe patents, I'm sure Apple, Google, MS, etc can survive without software patents.
w00master
The issue I see with the judge making comments like this is that it may give Apple a reason to call for a new judge and a re-trial, if they can show that his biased remarks have negatively impacted them (which clearly they have).
I do understand his comments and agree to a point, but as someone with a few patents under my belt I also believe that there is a valid need for patent protection, even when it comes down to electronic ideas. Really, the thing that needs to change is the patent process.
I do understand his comments and agree to a point, but as someone with a few patents under my belt I also believe that there is a valid need for patent protection, even when it comes down to electronic ideas. Really, the thing that needs to change is the patent process.
Apple was granted patent on slide to unlock, even though it existed 2 years before they invented it
The Neonode N1m says you lie btw (that's what the Judge based his decision on in the UK, a 2005 touchscreen phone using Slide-to-Unlock, as patented by Neonode).
Exactly.
The way I see it, fair or not, regardless of Apple's principles on protecting their IP, Apple's lawyers will push the line as far as they can get away with. And this is the problem, the state of patent laws.
Posner has valid points, but the problem is identifying worthy patents that protect a truly original idea, versus incremental bits which are much more vague in nature and hinders competition and innovation.
If you didn't have stolen source code, it's ok if you build something from the scratch. Unlike pharmaceutics where, once you have a formula, it's usually straightforward copying other's idea, in software there is a lot of work involved, so if you code an application that works like another one, it doesn't mean that it "came for free".
Or, on the other hand, if something is easy to copy on the software side, then it's a pretty cheap idea and it doesn't deserve any "intellectual property" protection. Let's face it, you can only call something "intellectual property" if it has a lot intellectual work involved.
You can appeal only if the judge made errors on points of law, not because of his personal opinion.
Here in the UK at least, it is up to the judge and jury to decide whether a law is fair. If they believe it is not then they can find the defendant not-guilty, even if 'according to the book' the defendant has 'crossed the line'.
This I hope is true for the US too.
It's worth noting however that even in UK many judges will insist to the jury that their 'oath' means they must rule in accordance with 'the law / the book'. However this is not true.
I completely disagree with this. I find it offensive that someone who has never created a single thing in his life can decide that your work does not deserve protection. If I can be thrown out of school because I had the same idea as someone else then software patents are needed. There are a number of companies who no longer exists because people stole their ideas and ran them out of business by copying them. Apple was almost one of them. They got lucky. This makes me so angry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am a creator not a thief!!!!!!
Many food companies have spent billions on their recipes, but guess what
You cannot patent a food recipe.
Amazingly... These food companies still do amazingly well.
Software patents need to go, pure and simple. Frankly, many of these software patents are so broad, it would be like Nestlé patenting chocolate chip cookie recipes. That's how ludicrous software patents are. They need to go.
w00master
It's not just that. Patent process takes effort and because of that, small companies usually only go through it if they feel it's worth the effort. That is not the same as to how these big companies work the patent system. To them, it's like throwing spagetti onto the wall and see if it stick. Anything remotely new, they will just submit them. I believe some big companies even use patents count as a performance gauge for employees.
I don't think the game business is a good example. Game mechanics (or the codes) are pretty similar all over the place in the industry.
This is one half on the same argument that will keep these "copying" discussions going on and on and on. All invention is built on ideas that were discovered/invented by others. The fact that Apple, for example, didn't invent the parts does not mean that it did not invent the whole. Prior art for parts is not prior art for the whole.
(The other, equally divisive, half of the argument is that people cannot discern the difference between legally copying ideas and stealing IP.
)
Bzzt! Wrong! Remember Apple suing Microsoft over the look and feel of Macintosh and losing?
Wow. You seem a bit emotional about is. Did you code iOS? Do you work for Apple? Are you a stockholder of Apple?
I'm betting no.
Why so emotional about this?
Also, since you're so "hard up" in support for apple and their software patents, answer this one question:
Why can't Coke patent their recipe for Classic Coca-cola?
Isn't it amazing they survive and are the number one brand in the world? Amazing! All without recipe patents.
Software patents are unnecessary and need to go away.
Period.
w00master
Apple never sued microsoft over the look and feel of the macintosh. Apple sued microsoft over the use of the GUI of windows and Microsoft calling it windows.
I was initially commenting on the _relevance_ of the judge's opinion on the matter at hand, not the particulars of patent law. He is a Judge, and while he is duly entitled to his opinion just like everyone else, as far as i know, patents are still legally valid.
So if he is going to express his concern that they are abused (which we have illustrated in the discussion here for sure) then he needs to be careful not to just ignore them and let legal infringements pass. There is a great way to change law, but afaik this was not the case that would determine the validity of software patents.
That case may be around the corner tho, unless the patent laws are updated.
What happened to the days of patenting something that was truly novel. The truly novel is often the most sensitive to cheap rip-offs. I don't think much of what is patented that we are discussing in the way of software fits the intent of patent law.
Remember apple suing Samsung over the look of their icons based on trademarks ?
Try to use Mario or Luigi in a video game you wrote with 0 Nintendo code and comeback to tell me how it went.
How the hell am I wrong ? video games don't use patents for protection and are doing just fine. You're the one who brought up the analogy. Microsoft didn't not take any trademarked/copyrighted elements from Apple and you can't exactly patent "Look and feel", only specific designs.