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oh no I really hope they aren't gonna focus on this instead of making a better iphone for may/june... common Apple I want a new iphone!

Exactly, they really have no choice but to make this next update a huge one. It's well over due and I think everyone can admit that even die hard Apple fans. Hardware and software wise, I expect big things.
 
"Our checks also suggest that these warning shots are meaningfully disrupting the development roadmaps for would-be iPhone killers. "

Judging from the constantly growing number of HTC phones, we haven't seen any evidence of that.

Top-tier handset makers continued to avoid implementing multi-touch...

Apple doesn't have any multi-touch patents that would stop anyone, and...

None of the patents they're using against HTC include multi-touch.
 
Here's why I don't believe it. If Apple goes to a handset maker and says "you are infringing my patents," and then goes and sues HTC, there would be a run on the courthouse in the N.D.CA or N.D.Ill by handset makers seeing declaratory judgments of non-infringement in "infringer-friendly" jurisdictions - why would they sit around and wait to get sued in the E.D.TX?

if Apple did what the analyst claimed, Apple handed these handset makers a justiciable case or controversy, which is exactly what lawyers know not to do after the Medimmune case.
 
If Google or HTC is messing with Apple's IP, Apple has an obligation to pursue them and anyone else.

It's interesting that Apple picked the weakest company patent wise to sue. If Apple as you say has an obligation to pursue them and anyone else, why not go directly after Google, Motorola, and Samsung?
 
It's interesting that Apple picked the weakest company patent wise to sue. If Apple as you say has an obligation to pursue them and anyone else, why not go directly after Google, Motorola, and Samsung?

A) Google makes nothing from Android - ie no damages.
B) Motorola and samsung may not be in violation in Apple's view or HTC is the worse offender. You will have to ask Apple's lawyers on their intentions. Lack of action means absolutely nothing though.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

yg17 said:
Oh, **** you Apple. I hope the DOJ goes after them.

Are you high? DOJ going after a company for filing a patent suit?
 
A) Google makes nothing from Android - ie no damages.
B) Motorola and samsung may not be in violation in Apple's view or HTC is the worse offender. You will have to ask Apple's lawyers on their intentions. Lack of action means absolutely nothing though.

Funny article about when Steve tried to sue someone else who happened to have patents.

Apple picked the weakest target because chances are Apple is infringing on many of the other players patents.
 
Maybe I don't understand, but isn't it natural for them to want to protect their innovations?
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

For example..smartphones?


I assume you're talking about RIM, the market leader by about 20 percentage points, right? (though even that suit would get dismissed approximately 10 seconds after it hit the judge's desk).



Not to sound like a know-it-all ass, but why is it that everyone out there thinks they understand complicated areas of law like antitrust and IP from reading a few news stories? Do you really think it's as simple as that? And if it were, why do lawyers get paid big buckets of money by major corporations to hash these things out?
 
It's interesting that Apple picked the weakest company patent wise to sue. If Apple as you say has an obligation to pursue them and anyone else, why not go directly after Google, Motorola, and Samsung?

First you pick on a company you can manhandle and then use that win as a precedence to herd the others into line. It's a common strategy and a good one. I think Apple learned a lot since it went after Microsoft long ago.

Incidentally, the weakest company would be Palm, but it may die before it would lose, making suing it a non-win.
 
Apple has been protected for some time now. What would happen to MS if they started manufacturing PCs? I assume the verdict would be monopoly and then the entangling lawsuits follow. How much longer before Apple becomes a target? And why not? Apple has really lost some of its appeal by virtue of their arrogant actions. No longer the cool company, but more like a behemoth that crushes others and intimidates them. IP lawsuits are difficult to prove since there are so many ways to produce the same result. Is it the feature that is protected, or the technical means to do so... Why doesn't MS go after Apple for putting a browser on a cell phone?
 
Apple has been protected for some time now. What would happen to MS if they started manufacturing PCs? I assume the verdict would be monopoly and then the entangling lawsuits follow. How much longer before Apple becomes a target? And why not? Apple has really lost some of its appeal by virtue of their arrogant actions. No longer the cool company, but more like a behemoth that crushes others and intimidates them. IP lawsuits are difficult to prove since there are so many ways to produce the same result. Is it the feature that is protected, or the technical means to do so... Why doesn't MS go after Apple for putting a browser on a cell phone?

What don't you grasp about a company that doesn't own any market to the level of extortion to one that does?

Wake me up when Apple controls 95% of the PC Market or 95% of the Wireless carriers Phone industry.

Neither will ever happen. Not even close.
 
Multi-touch has been demoed before back in 70s / 80s , and therefore depending on that implementation - may make Apple's multitouch patents prior art.

The validity of Apple's patents will have to be tested in court.

This is just for my own research but can you present specific details of multi-touch demos and prior art from "before back in 70s / 80s"? Specifically, multi-touch gestures used to control the interface as on the iPhone? I've Googled but am coming up empty.

Thanks,
M.
 
Here's why I don't believe it. If Apple goes to a handset maker and says "you are infringing my patents," and then goes and sues HTC, there would be a run on the courthouse in the N.D.CA or N.D.Ill by handset makers seeing declaratory judgments of non-infringement in "infringer-friendly" jurisdictions - why would they sit around and wait to get sued in the E.D.TX?

if Apple did what the analyst claimed, Apple handed these handset makers a justiciable case or controversy, which is exactly what lawyers know not to do after the Medimmune case.

That's why they call it unfounded analyst speculation.
 
"Bad artists copy, great artists steal"

-Pablo Picasso

2010 corollary:

"only if you have a great legal team and a boatload of money"
 
I honestly think Apple is having these talks and suing HTC not because of the technology itself, because Multi-touch as said earlier in this thread has been around.

I think they are upset because of how these companies have implemented Multi-touch. They do it in a way that Apple created.

For example, I used a Nexus One a few weeks back (nice phone btw) and I knew exactly how to navigate BECAUSE of iPhone. Unlocking the device is the same exact gesture. Why did they have to use THAT gesture? I knew to swipe left to right and rotate the phone to go to landscape BECAUSE of the iPhone.

I have to say honestly, its been 30 years, Apple has invented or popularized A LOT of things including the mouse, GUI, Widgets, iPhone and a lot of companies just "took" it.

If you really think about it, who "copied" who in regards to smart-phones?
 
First you pick on a company you can manhandle and then use that win as a precedence to herd the others into line. It's a common strategy and a good one. I think Apple learned a lot since it went after Microsoft long ago.

Incidentally, the weakest company would be Palm, but it may die before it would lose, making suing it a non-win.

Palm won't die. If, and that's a big if, if Palm ever felt the need for a hefty financial injection by every other manufacturer, they would just sell one of their patents to Nokia or Google.

Maybe someone then would sue Apple for using an ambient light sensor.

Yup...they patented it. Back in 1992. Read here.

It's a quite interesting read. And - well - The case itself is rather disturbing, as HTC doesn't manufacture the OS. So basically in the end the guys in court will be either Google or Microsoft (HTC did a lot of WinMo phones).
 
Multi-touch has been demoed before back in 70s / 80s , and therefore depending on that implementation - may make Apple's multitouch patents prior art.

Who said this was specifically about multi-touch? The HTC one is about hardware and architecture. It more than likely involves multi-touch too, but don't presume to know.
 
I read that and it sounds like Apple is scared. Apple is scared to deal with real competition. Now that the industry has adjusted to the iPhone and they are now adjusting the phones Apple does not want deal with them on a level ground. They know the iPhone has not been growing and has mostly stagnated.

They released the app store but the iPhone has not really changed much since the release and now that stagnation is catching up to them.

HTC is apple running scared. They make threats but the real question is how hard can apple push before the industry decides to push back and push back hard legally. It is odd that apple is not going after MS in anything. Hell none of the makers are going after MS for anything. But then again everyone could be scared to poke the sleeping giant because MS already has stated that if anyone one goes after one of the Windows mobile they will defend them and go after them hard. Apple could easily be more worried about the patents MS holds that could effect the core business of apple

When I have ask the question before I get BS answers.

What has apple change to the iPhone OS since the iPhone came out besides just adding features of lesser phones or even the hardware itself (3G, speed, and Memory bumps do not count as they are just keeping up with the times.)

Answer to that question is Zip.

The App store was the nicest thing and Apple has a huge lead in apps but lets face it most of those apps are crap and the must have apps apple has over it competition is falling quickly. Must have apps for example are things like face book, Twitter, IM apps and so on. Those big apps everyone wants and has. The other phones are getting them quickly or something like them so apple "killer Apps" lead is quickly dieing.

Hardware apple failed to change. It kick the touch screen revolution into high gear but everyone is catching up and even solved some of the biggest problems with touch screen only. For example HTC track ball/pad fixes the problem of how hard it is to fine tune a choice on webs sites for links. Zoom is a pain in the rear so do not call that an excuse for not having it. Everyone can zoom but I personally would rather not have to zoom in to hit a link that has lots around it. Take for example browsing these forums my iPod I have a lot of trouble hitting the correct link for moving pages. I will bump the one next to it and zooming in to have to do it is annoying as hell.

The other makers have also figured out that a lot of people do not want touch screen only for messaging and like the idea of a hardware keyboard. It allowing typing messages with out over 1/2 the screen being eaten up by a keyboard. They are experimenting and trying new things. RIM has the 9700a in carrier testing right now (slider touch screen phone). Relatively little is knowing about other than an unexpected photo leak and it been confirmed it is in carrier testing. RIM is the default standard for looking at hardware keyboards. Palm did a slider and some people love it. HTC has both designs floating around. Moto has a few different ideas on the hardware part and the flip hardware wise is a pretty new idea that has never been seen before.

iPhone just has not changed. Apple pattern most of their stuff is release and only do minor changes.

Take the iPod classic for example. Look at its first release to now and how it changed.

Size increase of hard drive (keeping up with times)
Changed to the click wheel. Interesting change. some loved it others hated it.
added a color LCD. That I put under the keeping up with the times. Color LCD were getting dirt cheap by then.

the Nano/Mini was the one that went threw the biggest changes and even then nothing major was really done other than going over to flash based memory and adding a color LCD (goes back to time argument).


In the portable MP3 player apple had an advantage that they do not have in the smart phone market and that is no one company has set all the standers everyone is competing against. It is spread out among several. Email and hardware keyboards standard is RIM. Touch screen goes iPhone. Multitasking goes to Palm. Android has some standards it has set. Nokia is unknown in the US so I do not know what it sets.
WP7 looks like it has the potentional to set some standards everyone is measured up to but no one is able to control them all like Apple pulled off with the iPod.
 
I knew to swipe left to right and rotate the phone to go to landscape BECAUSE of the iPhone.

And I knew to rotate to go to landscape because the digital
camera that I bought in 1997 had a sensor and would automatically
switch when you rotated the camera. So does the digital
camera that I bought in December.

(I assume that automatic switching between portrait and
landscape isn't one of the Iphone patents, though....)
 
And I knew to rotate to go to landscape because the digital
camera that I bought in 1997 had a sensor and would automatically
switch when you rotated the camera. So does the digital
camera that I bought in December.

(I assume that automatic switching between portrait and
landscape isn't one of the Iphones patents, though....)

It's not. Neither is the swiping.
 
This is clearly targeted at Google's Android. When Jobs demo'd the original iPhone in January 2007, he stated:

"We filed for over 200 patents for all the inventions in iPhone and we intend to protect them"

I think android is the least of Apples worries, it's a joke. It's good that Apple is finally choosing to pursue this however. Every phone that is coming out now looks exactly like the iphone as far as where the speaker is and the shape and placement of the earhole and of course the whole fact that they are touch based. It's so clear that Apple is being copied over and over and . . it's sickening actually.
 
Come on people get behind Apple here, HTC are nothing but leaches, they assemble poor quality handsets thats it, they buy a bunch of parts and throw them into a case, then try to adapt the OS to work, until Android came along all they had was WM with touch flow slapped on top, i have been using HTC handsets for years with work and not one has been any good.

HTC's whole business model rely's on others designing and marketing and then they just copy it, just another eastern knock off,

i hope Apple sue there ass back to the stone age.
 
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