Article: Apple suffers High Court defeat over 'prize' iPhone patents

Many of Apple's patents really don't make sense. It's refreshing to see a court realizes that. Hopefully this is the beginning of some semblance of common sense being applied to the patent system, as it is currently woefully broken.
 
EbookReader said:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...h-Court-defeat-over-prize-iPhone-patents.html
Apple suffers High Court defeat over 'prize' iPhone patents
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Is this a good thing?

Think of the unlock screen options that exist in the android world now because no one wanted to risk a patent issue over slide to unlock.

Think of the HTC One X, GNEX, and GS3 unlock. All different, and all useful in their own way. Would you rather have options or go back to slide to unlock?

This is what happens when you force companies to not imitate the competition, patent or not.
 
Technarchy said:
Is this a good thing?

Think of the unlock screen options that exist in the android world now because no one wanted to risk a patent issue over slide to unlock.

Think of the HTC One X, GNEX, and GS3 unlock. All different, and all useful in their own way. Would you rather have options or go back to slide to unlock?

This is what happens when you force companies to not imitate the competition, patent or not.
Click to expand...

I respectfully disagree. The Android world already had other lock screens, and the other lock screens such as face unlock, face unlock with voice, motion unlock, etc were not the result of them being afraid to use slide to unlock. It is more a function of inevitable innovation. In the Android world, manufacturers can't afford to sit still for long. They must constantly innovate or they will be passed by the competition. I think the various lock screens are more of a function of them trying to compete.
 
404 tech junkie said:
I respectfully disagree. The Android world already had other lock screens, and the other lock screens such as face unlock, face unlock with voice, motion unlock, etc were not the result of them being afraid to use slide to unlock. It is more a function of inevitable innovation. In the Android world, manufacturers can't afford to sit still for long. They must constantly innovate or they will be passed by the competition. I think the various lock screens are more of a function of them trying to compete.
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Officially, android was slide to unlock until late last year and GNEX/ICS

On the Gingerbread side, there was not a lot of diversity in screen unlocking until the Sensation and GS2, and both came after Apple started smacking people over patent infringement.

I think it was forced evolution in this case.
 
Technarchy said:
Officially, android was slide to unlock until late last year and GNEX/ICS

On the Gingerbread side, there was not a lot of diversity in screen unlocking until the Sensation and GS2, and both came after Apple started smacking people over patent infringement.

I think it was forced evolution in this case.
Click to expand...

But even with the Sensation, it was still a slide to unlock gesture, they just added app shortcuts to it. It still was the same concept though. They added that more so to differentiate themselves from other OEM's.
 
404 tech junkie said:
But even with the Sensation, it was still a slide to unlock gesture, they just added app shortcuts to it. It still was the same concept though. They added that more so to differentiate themselves from other OEM's.
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But the Sensation had an omni directional slide to unlock. I think that would be distinction enough to stand up to a legal challenge if the Apple patent was found valid.
 
Technarchy said:
But the Sensation had an omni directional slide to unlock. I think that would be distinction enough to stand up to a legal challenge if the Apple patent was found valid.
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It had to be slid from point A to a specifc point B. You either slid the large ring up, or you slid a shortcut into the ring. Either way, it was still a form of sliding to unlock. That was done as a means of further differentiating Sense from the other overlays. Soon other overlays such as Touchwiz followed suit and added shortcuts also. It's just a natural progression, not anything that was done in fear of a patent. If they were indeed afraid of a patent, then Google would not have used the lock screen they used in the GNex.

All in all, I'm just tired of these ridiculous suits. Some of the patents Apple holds just don't make any sense, and make you wonder how they were even able to obtain a patent of that particular thing. For example, they have a patent for searching multiple sources with one search request. How the heck can they patent that. That's been around for quite some time. Heck the website dogpile.com had been doing that for quite some time. Just because a person does it from a phone shouldn't mean it should be able to be patented. Things like that make no sense to me.
 
Other courts will likely follow the UK High Court decision with something similar.

At least that's what the analysts are saying.
 
Technarchy said:
Is this a good thing?

Think of the unlock screen options that exist in the android world now because no one wanted to risk a patent issue over slide to unlock.

Think of the HTC One X, GNEX, and GS3 unlock. All different, and all useful in their own way. Would you rather have options or go back to slide to unlock?

This is what happens when you force companies to not imitate the competition, patent or not.
Click to expand...

Yes it's a good thing. Patents stifle innovation if anything. When companies borrow something from another, they usually try to improve upon it at the same time, which results in the companies constantly one upping each other, which can obviously only be good for the consumer.

If patents worked the way Apple seems to want them to, then every other smartphone would have a completely different feature set to the iPhone and nobody would buy them.

Certain things like slide to unlock are obvious. It was an evolutionary addition to touchscreen gestures, which apple were not the first to use in a mobile device.
 
Appeals court over rules Judge Koh's ban on the GNex. It's a temp lift of the ban, bit a nice slap in the face to Judge Koh. I predicted the Gnex ban would get overruled. The quick search patent is utter crap, especially since it was never meant to apply to smartphones. It was designed for the pre-Jobs rehire and pre-osx era.

Personally, I hope the GNex continues on the market. I hate this whole idea of banning based on a line of code from 1992.

Link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57467998-94/galaxy-nexus-ban-temporarily-lifted/?tag=cnetRiver
 
What's the point of having a patent if you can't use it to ban the other phone? lol j/k

This is the modern day American Civil War... and that judge choice his side. It could take years for this war to end if all these different judges.
 
I fully believe in protecting your IP however the USPTO is rubber stamping way too many patents and has been doing so for far too long. We need a major overhaul of the USPTO now.

I also agree with Judge Posner, we do not nor should we be granting patents for software. For example I can click a URL or highlight a phone number, etc on my computer which is one of the patents Apple is fighting over. To me it is an obvious feature that would have come about naturally. For ANY company to try and stifle innovation and competition over that is ludicrous.

Apple does make great products but lately it seems to me they are more afraid of the competition than they are of innovation.

If given the choice of an device A (any other OS based device) or an Apple device and both did similar or nearly identical things which would you choose? Next are you going to confuse a Galaxy Tab with an iPad with one saying Samsung on the front and one saying nothing?

Apple users buy Apple for a reason, and don't buy another brand for the same reason. Its Apple and the other isn't.
 
I'm pretty sure the MO is really just to approve patents and then let the courts figure it out.

macMD said:
I fully believe in protecting your IP however the USPTO is rubber stamping way too many patents and has been doing so for far too long. We need a major overhaul of the USPTO now.

I also agree with Judge Posner, we do not nor should we be granting patents for software. For example I can click a URL or highlight a phone number, etc on my computer which is one of the patents Apple is fighting over. To me it is an obvious feature that would have come about naturally. For ANY company to try and stifle innovation and competition over that is ludicrous.

Apple does make great products but lately it seems to me they are more afraid of the competition than they are of innovation.

If given the choice of an device A (any other OS based device) or an Apple device and both did similar or nearly identical things which would you choose? Next are you going to confuse a Galaxy Tab with an iPad with one saying Samsung on the front and one saying nothing?

Apple users buy Apple for a reason, and don't buy another brand for the same reason. Its Apple and the other isn't.
Click to expand...
 
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