Apple Files Lawsuit Against HTC Over Alleged iPhone Patent Infringement

[BaldiMac]

The problem I have is Apple using the courts to eliminate my other choices. It's evil.

Why is it evil to sue someone that you believe stole from you?

"We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."

Said the man who stole so many original ideas himself. Some of the most famous examples:

Xerox Star (including the mouse) -> Macintosh
Whatever other mp3 player/Walkman -> iPod
Slate/Tablet PC -> iPad
SmallTalk -> Objective-C
BSD Unix -> NeXTstep

And most of the stuff in the iPhone has been around since long before the iPhone. Apple added a pen-less touch interface to the mix, but they didn't invent touch interfaces either.

We have a saying in Germany: "Wer im Glashaus sitzt, sollte nicht mit Steinen werfen." (Roughly translated: Who sits in a glass house shouldn't throw stones.)

None of those examples were theft.

So out of the box (i.e., for 99% of users), the iPhone cannot multi-task applications. It can, but only by violating TOS. I don't want to do that. Nor do I want to restrict my phone's multitasking to background kernel processes.

An iPhone can multitask out of the box without jailbreaking. It is not restricted to background kernel processes.

Steve Jobs in 1996: "We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."

http://gizmodo.com/5483914/steve-jobs-1996-good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal

What an ass****.

Of course, you would have to ignore the nuance of stealing ideas vs patented IP to miss the distinction here.

Well thats what Apple is really great at.

Taking features that exist and making them seem revolutionary.

I mean, Time Machine for instance....the exact same feature exist on windows platform...its just not done in such an extravagant way ....its just a point and click affair.

What you call extravagance, some would call usability. I'd be willing to bet a larger percentage of Leopard and Snow Leopard users actively use Time Machine than Vista and 7 users use the Windows equivalent.

 

[lex750]

You might want to direct that quote to Pablo Picasso.

Picasso quote is, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”

Jobs quote is, "We have always been shameless of stealing great ideas."

Apple seems to have a "do as I say, not as I do" mentality.

Amusing isn't it?

 

[cmaier]

Picasso quote is, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”

Jobs quote is, "We have always been shameless of stealing great ideas."

Apple seems to have a "do as I say, not as I do" mentality.

Amusing isn't it?

oh stop pretending Jobs was talking about infringing I.P. When someone talks in the colloquial about "stealing a great idea" they aren't saying "I'm going to go infringe that guy's patent."

 

[lex750]

Actually Picasso said "Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal". Sorry, but I had to clarify that. And he was referring to him "stealing" the drawing style of children.

He did not say "HE" as in Picasso, he said "WE", as in Apple. Time for an ear cleaning.

 

[coleridge78]

oh stop pretending Jobs was talking about infringing I.P. When someone talks in the colloquial about "stealing a great idea" they aren't saying "I'm going to go infringe that guy's patent."

Indeed. The key, of course, being a good concept vs a specific "invention" or implementation.

 

[Lazerlike42]

An iPhone can multitask out of the box without jailbreaking. It is not restricted to background kernel processes.

It doesn't multitask in the same way as Android does or with as much usefulness. I am sure teh hardware is capable of it, but Apple hasn't implemented it yet.

What you call extravagance, some would call usability. I'd be willing to bet a larger percentage of Leopard and Snow Leopard users actively use Time Machine than Vista and 7 users use the Windows equivalent.

Well sure, I mean, Windows users don't need to worry about their hard drives failing and their manufacturers ignoring them for 3 years.

Just kidding!

Sortof. No company is perfect, and there are hardware issues with non-Macs. Toshiba had some bad HDs last year, for instance.

 

[clevin]

the list! multitouch not included, multitasking included? list scrolling? gesture to unlock the phone?.....what a troll.

Patent #7,362,331: Time-Based, Non-Constant Translation Of User Interface Objects Between States

Patent #7,479,949: Touch Screen Device, Method, And Graphical User Interface For Determining Commands By Applying Heuristics

Patent #7,657,849: Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image

Patent #7,469,381: List Scrolling And Document Translation, Scaling, And Rotation On A Touch-Screen Display

Patent #5,920,726: System And Method For Managing Power Conditions Within A Digital Camera Device

Patent #7,633,076: Automated Response To And Sensing Of User Activity In Portable Devices

Patent #5,848,105: GMSK Signal Processors For Improved Communications Capacity And Quality

Patent #7,383,453: Conserving Power By Reducing Voltage Supplied To An Instruction-Processing Portion Of A Processor

Patent #5,455,599: Object-Oriented Graphic System

Patent #6,424,354: Object-Oriented Event Notification System With Listener Registration Of Both Interests And Methods

Patent #5,481,721: Method for providing automatic and dynamic translation of object oriented programming language-based message passing into operation system message passing using proxy objects

Patents #5,519,867 and #6,275,983: Object Oriented Multitasking System and Object-Oriented Operating System

Patent #5,566,337: Method and apparatus for distributing events in an operating system

Patent #5,929,852: Encapsulated network entity reference of a network component system

Patent 5,946,647: System and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data

Patent #5,969,705: Message protocol for controlling a user interface from an inactive application program

Patent #6,343,263: Real-time signal processing system for serially transmitted data

Patent #5,915,131: Method and apparatus for handling I/O requests utilizing separate programming interfaces to access separate I/O service

Patent #RE39,486: Extensible, replaceable network component system

 

[goobot]

hey guys! i just heard this on tv

 

[coleridge78]

It doesn't multitask in the same way as Android does or with as much usefulness. I am sure teh hardware is capable of it, but Apple hasn't implemented it yet.

More specifically it's implemented, as evidenced by the many pre-installed apps that run in the background (most notably iTunes and Mail). There's just no public API for app switching without exiting. Without jailbreaking.

 

[azazel-]

I really don't get your point. I buy the best products that suit my needs at the time, not marketing hype.

...and Vista Ultimate was one of the "best" products that suited your needs?

I'd love to see your 'Microsoft Plus!' collection sometime. I'm sure it's breathtaking.

 

[lex750]

oh stop pretending Jobs was talking about infringing I.P. When someone talks in the colloquial about "stealing a great idea" they aren't saying "I'm going to go infringe that guy's patent."

"We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." Steve Jobs

Spin, spin, all you want.

Chinese proverb, "He who steals from a thief, has 100 years of pardon."

 

[clevin]

...and Vista Ultimate was one of the "best" products that suited your needs?
.

and you are so familiar with him, and with vista ultimate, that you can make a great judgment for him?

who are you? may I ask?

 

[BaldiMac]

It doesn't multitask in the same way as Android does or with as much usefulness. I am sure teh hardware is capable of it, but Apple hasn't implemented it yet.

That's true. I was just correcting your false statements.

Well sure, I mean, Windows users don't need to worry about their hard drives failing and their manufacturers ignoring them for 3 years.

Just kidding!

Sortof. No company is perfect, and there are hardware issues with non-Macs. Toshiba had some bad HDs last year, for instance.

Huh? What do bad hard drives have to do with anything?

 

[Lazerlike42]

oh stop pretending Jobs was talking about infringing I.P. When someone talks in the colloquial about "stealing a great idea" they aren't saying "I'm going to go infringe that guy's patent."

Ehhhhhhhhhhhh.... Idk. As I said above, I find Apple to be a fascinating company. That's part of my larger love of of the history of the IT industry. I try to read as much about it as I have the time and watch videos and whatnot, and I have to say from what I've read about Jobs and especially the early history of Apple and the Macintosh... Well certainly he didn't outright mean they should infringe on patents.

I think it's more of about the spirit of what he meant. The problem I have is really that he wants to take others' good ideas, but then he wants to jealously guard even the most basic of their own. Someone misunderstood (or was joking about) a patent early saying that Apple was patenting walking with your cell phone, but the reality is Jobs would do this if he could.

The problem is that he wants Apple to have everything and others to have nothing, and not in the same way most businesses would want this kind of thing - that's more the issue I have.

 

[coleridge78]

"We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." Steve Jobs

Spin, spin, all you want.

Chinese proverb, "He who steals from a thief, has 100 years of pardon."

If you are against people building on the concepts of others, I suggest you turn off your computer, forget how to read, and live in the trees without tools.

What is it, exactly, that you are for and against here?

 

[Amnak]

I love the outrageous out cries from people who think both sides are right.

And that SJ quote is completely out of context.

 

[cmaier]

"We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." Steve Jobs

Spin, spin, all you want.

Chinese proverb, "He who steals from a thief, has 100 years of pardon."

it's not spin. it's English. Steve "stole" from xerox and many other companies without breaking any laws or infringing anyone's intellectual property. When I steal someone's idea at work they can't sue me.

 

[cmaier]

The problem is that he wants Apple to have everything and others to have nothing, and not in the same way most businesses would want this kind of thing - that's more the issue I have.

Nonsense. Apple files far fewer patent infringement suits, sends out far fewer threatening "you must license our patent letters," and generally is less litigious than most any other company its size.

 

[Lazerlike42]

That's true. I was just correcting your false statements.

Well if it's true, then at least that statement wasn't false. You might argue it was incomplete.

Huh? What do bad hard drives have to do with anything?

Macbook Pros made from a certain period between 2007 and 2008 have a terrible hard drive issue. They fail at a very high rate - catastrophically. The way they fail usually prevents even expensive data-recovery services from saving your data, because the head literally rips up the platter. This was a well known issue even back in 2007/8 but Apple didn't comment or do anything else about it until this past month. It was a very controversial thing that irked a lot of die-hard Mac fans.

 

[AnalyzeThis]

Of course, you would have to ignore the nuance of stealing ideas vs patented IP to miss the distinction here.

A little detail though, many of the Apple patents are a "surface" type, sort of a "clear coat" on the "base paint".

For example, lets assume "Multi-touch gestures" will stand the scrutiny of the court, looks like a win, but unfortunately this patent has hundreds of other patents in reference and this patents owned by other inventors. Apple could sue others for infringing of their patent, but Apple could not use it as it would infringe on patents that predates it (in reference).
Another words, what this patent is worse if you can not even put two(2) fingers on touchscreen without infringing of dozens of other's patents?

None of these patents are fundamental. It seems this is why Jobs was hording money - to buy his way out of patent litigation snowball.

 

[coleridge78]

Macbook Pros made from a certain period between 2007 and 2008 have a terrible hard drive issue. They fail at a very high rate - catastrophically. The way they fail usually prevents even expensive data-recovery services from saving your data, because the head literally rips up the platter. This was a well known issue even back in 2007/8 but Apple didn't comment or do anything else about it until this past month. It was a very controversial thing that irked a lot of die-hard Mac fans.

Yeah. This one hit my wife. I much prefer OS X to Windows or Linux, but this is one of the reasons that I'm not an Apple "fan" per se.

 

[Peace]

Ehhhhhhhhhhhh.... Idk. As I said above, I find Apple to be a fascinating company. That's part of my larger love of of the history of the IT industry. I try to read as much about it as I have the time and watch videos and whatnot, and I have to say from what I've read about Jobs and especially the early history of Apple and the Macintosh... Well certainly he didn't outright mean they should infringe on patents.

I think it's more of about the spirit of what he meant. The problem I have is really that he wants to take others' good ideas, but then he wants to jealously guard even the most basic of their own. Someone misunderstood (or was joking about) a patent early saying that Apple was patenting walking with your cell phone, but the reality is Jobs would do this if he could.

The problem is that he wants Apple to have everything and others to have nothing, and not in the same way most businesses would want this kind of thing - that's more the issue I have.

After watching what has happened to the Cellphone industry since the iPhone and seeing all these new laptops that try to look like Apple products I can't blame him.

Schhesh.. Even when the iPad was "supposed" to be called the iSlate look what Balmer did at his keynote.

" these are all the new Slate's".

And puhleeze.. Don't go throwing around stuff like Slate has been around forever because they have NOT in the consumer world.

 

[Wolfie Scooter]

Apple's looking for cross-licensing

Did a quick look at patents held by HTC, and found an interesting one. Patent 7,508,412 (filed May 4, 2005; granted March 24, 2009) is video conferencing on a portable electronic device (either attached to a computer or not).

My 2 cents is that Apple is using this lawsuit to gain access to this (and most likely other) patents held by HTC for use on the next gen iPhone and iPad.

 

[Lazerlike42]

Nonsense. Apple files far fewer patent infringement suits, sends out far fewer threatening "you must license our patent letters," and generally is less litigious than most any other company its size.

Looking at the history, I have to say that that's probably got a lot more to do with trying to do what is strategically best than what they'd really prefer. Sometimes (as you obviously know), you need to let sleeping dogs lie to avoid getting yourself into trouble, too. Apple's done an awful lot of that in it's history.

That said, even if it's not about the suits, it's about the patents. They patent everything, and that's the problem I have. I believe in the right of a company to patent an idea, but some of the things Apple patents are such basic things that, well, it gives rise to jokes on this forum about patenting the wheel.

 

[DougB541]

I am serious. Aren't you?


I think it needs saying... frequently. Because there is no shortage of posters who will present lists of "facts" that read like a laundry-list of features that compares some other phone to the iPhone, with no regard for implementation.

And this is the first I've heard you admit that implementation is important. So, we agree then. Truce?

Truce indeed.