You might know something about patents. But that doesn't mean you know anything about product pipelines. Just like you have to look deeper into a patent's submission process and history - you have to dive deeper in how manufacturers work. And how far ahead their product pipeline/R&D/etc has taken them.
For example - I worked, at one time, for a major phone manufacturer. This was back in 2002-2003. And there were already 2-3 full touch screen phones in the pipeline then. What OS it would have run doesn't ring a bell to me. But I worked on slide decks which contained such phones. If you think Apple, alone, came up with the idea of a touch screen phone without a keyboard and other just copied - you're naive to how long it takes for phone to reach the marketplace. The time is shorter now (9 months to 2 years) or so I've read/heard. But back in 2007 and earlier - it was considerably longer. And Apple DID break down some serious walls with how manufacturers and carriers relate. But back in 2002-2003? There were phones that were in the pipeline and under consideration for long enough that technology changed enough that they had to keep going back to the "drawing board" to keep the phone current.
Point is - the industry was already headed in that direction.
Actually, I also have experience as a practicing project manager with a decent experience of product conception to production to implementation.
The patent in question had claims relating to the "pinch to zoom" feature, not just phones with "touch screens." Did any of the phones you manufactured read on the claim relating to the pinch to zoom feature? If so, were the phones in the manufacturing pipeline in 2002 and 2003 disclosed to the public (demonstrated, sold, published, etc?)
I think this is the general problem when people analyze the patent system...they assume that a patent has all these things that aren't even in a patent and make all sorts of assumptions (like just now, you were citing products with touch screens when apple never claimed to invent the touch screen).
All that matters is what is disclosed in order to be considered as prior art. If a manufacturer keeps their product a secret, (while in the product pipeline) then it's not prior art, even if the product pipeline is indicative of where the industry may be heading. Also, if the manufacturer keeps their product a secret, and apple happens to come up with the same idea (ie, they come up with the same idea when someone had already come up with it but kept it secret), then you can't claim that apple copied someone else's idea if the idea was secret and apple had no way of knowing about it.
Again, the apple vs samsung case was based on the pinch to zoom features which, as I explained earlier, appears to be novel from the date of filing in Jan. of '07. Review the prosecution of the patent application yourself, and see for yourself that plenty of prior art (including prior art that apple, themselves, provided) was considered by the patent examiner prior to allowing the application.
I think the apple vs samsung case actually supports the need for software and GUI related patents. When a new, and improved way of doing this is developed, it must be protected so that inventors are encouraged to continue to innovate, and also disclose their ideas so that others can improve on them. This pinch to zoom is the crux of smart phone responses based on user input, and it deserves not to be copied egregiously. At the same time, it is disclosed so others can improve it, but not copy it straight up.
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Actually, I was talking about the idea of PC GUI, just the basic idea. Apple stole that from Xerox, but they still improved it a lot and made an innovative product, the Mac, which Microsoft copied.
Apple created a basic mobile OS idea, and others took it and made it worse in many ways and better in a few ways.
There is no active patent that simply claims "a PC GUI" and if there was claim that simply said "a PC GUI" or something similar to that, you can be assured that a claim of that broadness would never get allowed in a patent application (although who knows, there was a patent issued for a "method of swinging on a swing").
But specific GUIs and specific operations/responses to user input that are new and novel, yes, those are patentable, such as the patent application for the pinch to zoom feature filed in Jan. of 07. That's the basis of the iPhone GUI which others have copied.
