Google's Top Lawyer: Some Apple Inventions are Commercially Essential, Should Be Made Into Standards

[cankster]

"Saint Peter don't you call me, 'cuz I can't go. I owe my soul to the company sto!'"

My favorite quote come from a novel published over a hundred years ago:

Blasphemy!!! Everyone is exactly equal. Their intellect. Their talents. Their ambition, their ability to save and try to get ahead. Their vision. It's only bad luck that separates people. That's why we need to have an all powerful government that smashes the successful down and brings the lowest up so we can have only one class. A uniform class, where all have exactly the same. This is clearly self evident. It's only fair!!!

----------

Before the iPhone, I had a Nokia clam shell. Or maybe it was a Nokia candy bar. How great would it be to go back in time and stop the iPhone and see how long it would have been till someone made one? You want to talk about a lack of innovation, or sucking every dollar out of old tech? Christ! The last 3 years of Nokia phones I had were the same i think I can only thank Apple for saving me from more Nokia clam shells, or blackberries.

Thank you Apple.

 

[twilson]

I agree... Next Thing, Apple patents the thickness of a smartphone or the default brightness. Its obnoxious. Imo, Apple seems to be loosing their edge a bit. I think even the rMBP is not quite the seller that they expected. People prefer not to over pay for a non-servicable product a take the chance of having a huge repair bill after 1 year or it turning into a $3k boat anchor.

The first iteration of the MBA was expensive and not the greatest seller. But, 2-3 years down the line the MBA is the best selling laptop, at a reasonable price and the competition, yet again, is falling over themselves to copy it.

Apple sees the bigger picture and really can afford to play the long game. It's not all about how well something does in it's first 3 months alone and can it if it doesn't do well in that timeframe.

 

[SeaFox]

Where are the negative votes? This is, for example, an obvious troll that should be voted negative.

And how do you suggest we do that? Do YOU have a downvote button on your Macrumors comments? Because I sure the hell don't.

 

[Renzatic]

Of course balance is key. Even if I had the perfect solution, I could not explain it all here . it's just a concept. I am all for everyone being able to live the lifestyle they deserve. Balance is very important.

Yup. Though the idea of a balance itself is sort of a vague thing, it's just kind of a general idea to aim for, rather than something any government should hope to achieve. That one thing that sorta clicks for everyone, and makes everyone happy. But then you have to realise the next step of this equation. That there's no one answer to all your problems, the answer that worked before might not work the next time, and no one thing that works for everyone.

...man, all this thinking is giving me a headache. I'm not used to it.

Im just saying all I hear about here in USA is how much more everyone "deserves". How evil companies are. How evil corporations are. How evil the rich are. And how since most people are "like this" ie below average or average achievers, everything should be designed for them. Such as our society in general. Oh, and the lack of the realization that the government is the biggest company/corporation of all and is no less capable of abuse then any private company. Perhaps worse.

You know what? I'll try reply to you later about this, cuz right now, I am tired as hell.

I'll sum it up. It's all about transparency, checks and balances. Everything is answerable to everything. Companies aren't evil by default, but they sure as hell have been a bunch of bastards recently, and the whole "reward mediocrity" thing does sorta get on my nerves.

 

[BC2009]

Maybe if the USPTO did not take 5 years to issue patents to Apple these innovations would not have become ubiquitous. Had Apple been granted their patents within 10 to 12 months of filing then they could have enforced them before everybody else was copying.

Can you imagine this back during the Gold Rush of 1849?

Google: Since most of the gold is on Apple's claim and we've been pilfering it for years anyway to make our knock-off jewelry it is clearly in the public interest to force Apple to lease parts of their claim so we can keep making jewelry for our customers.

Apple: We tried to keep Google off our claim and stop them from making knock off jewelry, but we had to wait 5 years for the claims office to issue our deeds to this land.

 

[cankster]

Yup. Though the idea of a balance itself is sort of a vague thing, it's just kind of a general idea to aim for, rather than something any government should hope to achieve. That one thing that sorta clicks for everyone, and makes everyone happy. But then you have to realise the next step of this equation. That there's no one answer to all your problems, the answer that worked before might not work the next time, and no one thing that works for everyone.

...man, all this thinking is giving me a headache. I'm not used to it.



You know what? I'll try reply to you later about this, cuz right now, I am tired as hell.

I'll sum it up. It's all about transparency, checks and balances. Everything is answerable to everything. Companies aren't evil by default, but they sure as hell have been a bunch of bastards recently, and the whole "reward mediocrity" thing does sorta get on my nerves.

Agreed on some ****** ceo crap lately. As far as the balance, the trick is in the impletation isnt it? IMO the primary issue at hand, the primary problem as it were, is how far truth has been driven from importance. Can't speak for the rest of the world but here in USA most are actively offended by it. And clearly don't want it in their politicians. Hell "truth" might even be a four letter word now . And without truth how do we solve anything? We don't. We just change liars.

 

[dba415]

FACT: Apple didn't invent multitouch
FACT: Apple didnt invent a shape.
FACT: Apple didn't invent the app store.
FACT: Apple didn't invent the smartphone.

Apple will not win any of these cases, if apple wants to remove android its not going to work.

Essentially, apple is wasting money and googles money and the lawyers are making bank. That is all that is going to happen.

 

[cankster]

FACT: Apple didn't invent multitouch
FACT: Apple didnt invent a shape.
FACT: Apple didn't invent the app store.
FACT: Apple didn't invent the smartphone.

Apple will not win any of these cases, if apple wants to remove android its not going to work.

Essentially, apple is wasting money and googles money and the lawyers are making bank. That is all that is going to happen.

Must be awesome to know better than Apple. If I were Tim Cook I would hire you to tell me how to run Apple better and explain corporate strategy to me in between. .

 

[MacGit]

("thusly"? 'Thus' maybe? Or just ":" - or would that leave the dummies in the wilderness, not knowing what's coming next in the paragraph?
Jesus H!!! Where have all the educated, literate Hacks gone?)

But wasn't it Google who, like a whore in a brothel complaining about morality, complained about people using the term "Google/Googling" as a verb; and that anyone doing so should cease and desist before the proper name, "Google", becomes corrupted by irregular and unjustified use?

What a bunch of red-necked, greedy, bloated ar5eholes.

 

[dba415]

Must be awesome to know better than Apple. If I were Tim Cook I would hire you to tell me how to run Apple better and explain corporate strategy to me in between. .

Same as people on here thinking they know everything about patent law and the judicial system. Maybe the judge in these cases should contact macrumors for advice.

 

[cankster]

Everyone is looking out for themselves. The important thing is that "thats" ok. Greed is one of the most powerful human forces. As a society we just need to realize that and harness it for the betterment of the "community". God I hate that term. But it's true. You just can't bleed the golden gooses to hard or you kill them. Then you just have the rabble left, and who wants that?

 

[vvswarup]

It may have been too expensive to gain traction as a casual device at the time. Even kindles started at several hundred when they debuted, although I liked the lower contrast monochrome screen for reading.



You're responding to someone who lacks the capacity to come up with a response beyond flavor of the month political rhetoric.

Also note updated signature. I wonder how many people will get my nerdy reference, or if it's been used on here before and I just missed it.



A lot of this implies that they were the first. They weren't so much the first as they were the first to be a huge success.




You should consider that Apple has pushed through patents that not everyone would have considered patentable. Rejected---> make revisions--->rejected ----> make revisions----rejected---> appeal rejection. Patent granted. Push broad interpretation of already excessively broad patent (patents are meant to be extremely specific) in order to sue competitors. It's just a tactic of building an invisible wall around the product. It's not that they don't want copying. They want to 100% own the entire product class and restrict anyone else from building anything with remote similarity.

Who doesn't want to own an entire product class? Google is the number one player in search. Do you think they don't want it to be that way forever?

 

[btbeme]

Allow me to sum up Google's argument (and Motorola's, and HTC's, and Samsung's, et al.):

"IT ISN'T FAAAAIIIIR!!!!"


Let's be honest - Android, in all of its myriad forms, formats, and implementations, pretty much sucks. It was amusing at first - one of my friends buying an Android phone because he "couldn't be locked in to a single ecosystem." Fast-forward to today, when he couldn't answer his phone when it was ringing, because the "obvious" gesture to unlock his screen was non-responsive and required a reboot to get the voice-mail message.

Hey, I love techie, tweaky stuff. But most of the time I just want it to work.

 

[Thex1138]

Google

Want a free ride on Apple's innovations and investments in new technology.
None of Google's hardware/software vendors are doing any research nor innovative design or research.... They're relying on Google.
But that's a fail/fail outcome... Now they want it for free.

 

[cankster]

Same as people on here thinking they know everything about patent law and the judicial system. Maybe the judge in these cases should contact macrumors for advice.

They might even be these commenters based on their vast, impressive knowledge on these subjects. Their understanding of patent law and corporate strategy is beyond my limited understanding.

 

[Karma*Police]

I feel like I'm seeing "patents" being interchanged with "code" or "entire concepts." The fact of the matter is Google is doing what Apple has always done, during their entire 30+ year history: see what everyone else is doing and putting their own spin on it. The fact of the matter is Google HAS been putting their own spin on a mobile interface. ICS (and Jelly Bean, for that matter) is vastly different than iOS 5 (and 6, for that matter), even though the basic concepts are similar. Google IS developing their own OS, and HAS been since their purchase of Android. Furthermore, it is my belief (and, really, anyone with some common sense's) that Android, from the start, has always been a very different experience than iOS, and they have indeed been innovating in their own right as well, which iOS then took and put their own spin on it (see slide-down notification bar and long-press to copy/paste, just to name a few). That's just the way software development works, and has worked since the early days. You see an idea and you try to do it better or differently. Windows and OSX are different experiences, but similar in basic concepts. Apple needs to step down, because they sure as hell won't be doing much innovating with no competition.

The basic concepts are similar because Google copied the entire iOS concept and added their own spin on it. Yes, this is how Apple came up with the Mac, but the difference is, they paid Xerox for that privilege.

And I don't see how anyone can even begin to compare copying an entire concept to features. Adding features is relatively easy, once the basic concept has been laid out... which is very hard. That's why you see hundreds of features being added every year to any number of OSes, but breakthroughs in UI concepts happen once every few decades or so.

As for software development and building on previous ideas, that's how everything operates. Ideas aren't born in a vacuum. However, that doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to protect your inventions or that competitors should be able to freely profit from your inventions.

 

[Technarchy]

Super. Tell me all the things Apple invented.

Clearly nothing, that is why Google wants Apple's patents to thin air to be FRAND...

 

[btbeme]

Theft of music. Cheating on your SATs and midterms. Downloading bit torrent movies. Rent and rip. Android.

All of these shortcuts might make you feel like you "put one over" on someone. Stuck it to The Man. Got what you "deserved" for free.

All you are doing is missing out, because you feel the cheap and easy imitation is the same as the real thing.

Enjoy the mediocrity. I think I'll own an iPhone until someone does it better. So far, all I see is McDonalds.

 

[Karma*Police]

FACT: Apple didn't invent multitouch
FACT: Apple didnt invent a shape.
FACT: Apple didn't invent the app store.
FACT: Apple didn't invent the smartphone.

Apple will not win any of these cases, if apple wants to remove android its not going to work.

Essentially, apple is wasting money and googles money and the lawyers are making bank. That is all that is going to happen.

The fact that the SG3 looks nothing like the iPhone is a strong indication that Apple used their money wisely, not wasted it. They're forcing competitors to come up with their own designs because Apple knows they have the advantage there, and having a distinct design is part of their core strategy.

 

[swagi]

Apple didn't invent the smartphone. If these innovations were "essential" to smartphones, wouldn't others have thought of them before Apple did?

Actually - to put it in a neat way - noone ever thought that the consumer would want "slide to unlock" as a feature, because it's a main security risk.

And I sure as hell hope they get it sorted out, because I don't want you poor iPhone users to miss the security feature of display locking in a way that Android has (speaking from G3 usage, where I have a defined 7-letter alphanumerical password at will and could even use a longer one).

"slide to unlock" is hardly an invention, same applies to typical multitouch gesture vocabulary. Patents granted on this stuff should be invalidated ASAP.

 

[btbeme]

).

90% Of Apple's " innovations " that are patented are a bunch of crap anyway, I still can't think of anything I couldn't do on my old Windows Mobile Phone, or my BB that an iPhone can do.

I'd say that the free market pretty much disagrees with every letter you typed.

 

[iBug2]

Other software did exist before Apple patented them. So many of the things Apple has patents for now existed on Windows Mobile phones in applications created by random people on the internet or other companies. My god every day I see Apple get a patent for something I had used 5-6 years ago on a Windows Phone let alone a Palm device. Its just out of control.

Apple just feels like since the iPhone revolutionized the smartphone industry, which I agree it did. It made smart phones easy and for the masses. They feel like they own the term smart phone. The problem is they don't. Not even close, they copied so many other devices to get the iPhone where it is today as well. A bunch of copy cats themselves. They stole so many ideas its not even funny.

The majority of patent applications are for things which people have thought about it years ago, maybe centuries ago, but nobody patented it so far.

 

[swagi]

The first iteration of the MBA was expensive and not the greatest seller. But, 2-3 years down the line the MBA is the best selling laptop, at a reasonable price and the competition, yet again, is falling over themselves to copy it.

Apple sees the bigger picture and really can afford to play the long game. It's not all about how well something does in it's first 3 months alone and can it if it doesn't do well in that timeframe.

Actually the bigger picture of that business decision was:
"Hey people. Let's kill the entry level Macbook. I guess we'll see at lot of people going the upsell route to the MBA, as the MBP is too expensive."

Don't believe it? Research when the Macbook was EOL'd ant then come back.

 

[reyesmac]

Ein? They didn't invented that market

Oh ok, so who exactly was betting their company on touch devices that you could touch with your finger and not a stylus? Who was using multitouch and not some inferior tech before the iPhone? Why is it that all touch screen phones now can do what the iPhone did then but not before it came out? Any phone that sold less than 500k units in its lifespan need not apply. Apple saw what was out there and made a product that put the markets leading products to shame using software they had at their disposal.

They turned the whole phone industry around and made them follow their lead. All top smartphones now look and act like the iPhone. Before the iPhone they all tried to be like blackberries or razors. But ok, they didn't invent that market, they forced that entire market (the stylus touch screen market and the phones with keyboards market) to go all touch screen on the front with apps and app stores and multitouch and swipe to unlock and pinch to zoom. There were no iPhones until the iPhone. Everyone else saw what Apple did and tried to out iPhone the iPhone Without getting sued. That's not innovation. And neither is what google is doing. They could go the windows rout and at least make it look so different that you are duped into thinking its not a rip off of the iPhone too.

 

[bushido]

I see this a lot. Ideas. Capitalized. Sometimes italicized. To people saying this, the iPhone itself is The Idea.

Not some internal programming BS that parses numbers. Not making a scrollbar disappear when not in use. Not beveled edges. None of the things that Apple has sued over these past few years.

No. There's the iPhone as a whole. The Idea that Apple thought of first, and all companies pathetically strive for by making other phones that are similar to the iPhone.

These iPhone like phones that came out before the iPhone were NOTHING like the iPhone. How could you mix up the two? Such as...

This...

Image

Is absolutely nothing like this...

Image.

But this...

Image

...is a cheap ripoff. A stolen product, if you will.

Jesus. Can't you people think objectively?

lol okay ... they are both touch screen smartphones. are they supposed to add even more buttons and maybe use it upside down just to make it "look" not like an iPhone which isnt even true.

all smartphones look the same, its just how i expect a smartphone to look in the first place. the iphone is the only exception now because its TINY
and no, i dont even like HTC and their plastic crap, but that claim is redic