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HTC Already Finished with Workaround for Patent Issue

rtdunham said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

If it was that fast and easy, why not do that in the first place and avoid the cost of defending that part of the suit?
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The antidote for getting booted around by Apple is to invest in being a "first mover" and doing the work yourself. You'll notice, there are no patent or trademark suits against Windows Phone 7, as far as I can remember? I think Microsoft has spent a long time developing their interface. All those sliding cards and such, that's not copying from the beginning. Their failure has forced them to rethink and rework. So they now have a decent chance of picking up more users.

Here's the truth about Microsoft: most of its market dominance comes from its near-total adoption by business in the 1980s of DOS and then Windows. That's their customer: the IT guy or the VP of office supplies. American business retooled in the '80s by investing in low-cost and business-friendly PCs. Now, after the iPhone and iPad, when a business gives their staff their choice of devices, Apple takes a big share of their purchases.

Microsoft's Windows was designed for a centralized business command structure with professional users-- and young porn-seeking game-playing nerds at home learned BASIC and wrote software. Now these kids are taking over the world. Hierarchical networks aren't cool.

Sony took over its market not in the beginning, when they copied American technology for the most part, but then they started designing new things. Trinitron. Walkman. Betamax. Then they switched their business model by buying Columbia Pictures. Sounds good, but the business model is monopolism.
 
kasei said:
I was thinking in place prior. It is hard to believe their legal team did not look at patents prior to development and recommend contingence be put in place in case legal action occurs. However, it was mentioned in a previous post we do not know how big of fix was required for HTC to get around the tech in question.
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Do you know exactly how many patents are active ? It's impossible to go through all the patents and even if you could, these things are sometimes worded so vaguely that it might not even be evident that you are infringing on them until someone brings it up in a lawsuit and arguments are made on both sides.
 
*LTD* said:
I was guilty of saying this too. Then, red-faced, I remembered that the market was wide open for a horizontal, universal-licensing business model to push capacitive-touch based smartphones in high volume. In other words, the Microsoft of smartphones. License (in this case a free OS) to anyone and their dog, damn what happens afterward, and let OEMs race for the bottom. Boom. Instant market share.

Google just got to it before MS got their ish back together.
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Capacitive touch has nothing to do with Android, Android is an embedded software framework. There is more to an OS than just a user interface, Android can easily be customized for TVS, keyboard smartphones, laptops, tablets, and regular old Candybar touchphones. Android does have a UI but most manufacturers customize because well they are making product and they believe the ui is important to there product, but they will use a the stock ui if they believe that helps their product. User interfaces aren't difficult or costly to develop so that is why manufacturers like to use things like Android or Windows CE.
 
dethmaShine said:
HTC is NOT. But if they did, they should pay penalty for that.

Bouncy scrolling may sound trivial but its a great UI design which Apple came up with. Now that its common and has been there for a while doesn't give them (HTC) any permission to use it in their products.
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Do you have proof that Apple came up with it? I seem to recall some older Palm devices that had a similar bounce feedback.
 
rmwebs said:
Do you have proof that Apple came up with it? I seem to recall some older Palm devices that had a similar bounce feedback.
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What does bouncy scrolling and HTC have to do with each other anyhow ? HTC's infringement was on parsing data and attaching an action to said data based on the type guessed by the parser.

The bouncy scrolling was a patent infringement by Samsung.
 
KnightWRX said:
Do you know exactly how many patents are active ? It's impossible to go through all the patents and even if you could, these things are sometimes worded so vaguely that it might not even be evident that you are infringing on them until someone brings it up in a lawsuit and arguments are made on both sides.
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Exactly! Because they are so vague and there are so many there is always a possibility of a violation some where and possible lawsuit. Thus contingency
are put in place.

I completely understand what you are saying and the enormity of the problem at hand. I find it interesting that we have seen more of these lawsuits when it comes to mobile devices and their OS's. We have not seen this level of activity in the car industry or appliance industry. All of which have been around far longer than mobile devices. Do you think this is the nature of the industry or is it solely based on gaining or maintaining a completive advantage?
 
kasei said:
Exactly! Because they are so vague and there are so many there is always a possibility of a violation some where and possible lawsuit. Thus contingency
are put in place.

I completely understand what you are saying and the enormity of the problem at hand. I find it interesting that we have seen more of these lawsuits when it comes to mobile devices and their OS's. We have not seen this level of activity in the car industry or appliance industry. All of which have been around far longer than mobile devices. Do you think this is the nature of the industry or is it solely based on gaining or maintaining a completive advantage?
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That's because until someone fires the first shot, patents are mostly used as a MAD scenario. Basically, all players have them and going to court over them means "thermonuclear" warfare erupts.

Someone pressed the button on the mobile industry and now they are all at each other's throats. In the end, us consumers lose.
 
juliusaugustus said:
Capacitive touch has nothing to do with Android, Android is an embedded software framework. There is more to an OS than just a user interface, Android can easily be customized for TVS, keyboard smartphones, laptops, tablets, and regular old Candybar touchphones. Android does have a UI but most manufacturers customize because well they are making product and they believe the ui is important to there product, but they will use a the stock ui if they believe that helps their product. User interfaces aren't difficult or costly to develop so that is why manufacturers like to use things like Android or Windows CE.
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This is the problem with Google/Android. But from a market share perspective it makes no difference what UI OEMs use. The focus is on pushing volume as cheaply as possible.
 
KnightWRX said:
That's because until someone fires the first shot, patents are mostly used as a MAD scenario. Basically, all players have them and going to court over them means "thermonuclear" warfare erupts.

Someone pressed the button on the mobile industry and now they are all at each other's throats. In the end, us consumers lose.
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I agree on both points. The mobile industry has gone nuts with all of these lawsuits and for what.
 
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*LTD* said:
This is the problem with Google/Android. But from a market share perspective it makes no difference what UI OEMs use. The focus is on pushing volume as cheaply as possible.
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No - the focus is on offering a variety of options for people who have different needs and use cases.

"cheaply" has nothing to do with it in the way you want to define...
 
*LTD* said:
This is the problem with Google/Android. But from a market share perspective it makes no difference what UI OEMs use. The focus is on pushing volume as cheaply as possible.
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To me that's the beauty of Google/Android. If I want a different form factor or can't afford the best of the best there's an option for that.

It's funny, the 1984 commercial is starting to describe apple. Everyone falling in line to what Apple says you want with very little room for options. You could look at 20 different iPhones and they'd all basically look the same w/ the icons and folders. Might be in different spots but there is very little personalization as Apple determined what it will look like. Look at 20 different Android phones(even the same models) and there will be great variation. You may not prefer the way I have my phone set up, but it works amazingly well for me and I can do things much faster than my friends w/ iPhones. Their overall experience is admittedly more refined, but mine is more personalized. I prefer function over form.
 
*LTD* said:
This is the problem with Google/Android. But from a market share perspective it makes no difference what UI OEMs use. The focus is on pushing volume as cheaply as possible.
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Why does this concept allude most don't know what android is and android just a software component. If the use doesn't like the software experience provided by the manufacturer then they don't like the manufacturer and they buy a product from someone else. Android products in most people's eyes aren't representations of Android but Representations of HTC or Samsung products ETC.
 
dethmaShine said:
Well, it would be great if you can show me some prior art.

You disprove a theory or supposed fact by giving an exception not by proving how that theory is valid. [Set Theory]
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I disproved it because you provided no initial evidence. I've not got a source, hence the 'IIRC'. You've come across and stated something as fact, so please - back it up.

I'm not saying you are wrong at all - I'm simply asking for some factual evidence that Apple was the ones who first had it.
 
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*LTD* said:
This is the problem with Google/Android. But from a market share perspective it makes no difference what UI OEMs use. The focus is on pushing volume as cheaply as possible.
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Since when is a Samsung Galaxy S, HTC Sensation or LG Optimus 3D 'cheap' exactly? These are three phones that cost around the same as an iPhone.

Granted, there are a number of low cost android handsets out there, the obvious reason for this is that there is no licensing to use the OS. That doesn't devalue the more expensive phones, which are in most if not all cases, a hell of a lot better (hardware wise) than any iPhone thats on the market.

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juliusaugustus said:
Why does this concept allude most don't know what android is and android just a software component. If the use doesn't like the software experience provided by the manufacturer then they don't like the manufacturer and they buy a product from someone else. Android products in most people's eyes aren't representations of Android but Representations of HTC or Samsung products ETC.
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Very true. I myself regularly use an 'Orange San Francisco' which is a debadged 'ZTE Blade'. A very little known company. IMO their handsets are better than HTC's and give a much better representation of stock android, allowing you to modify it as you wish without having to deal with multiple layers of UI.
 
rtdunham said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

If it was that fast and easy, why not do that in the first place and avoid the cost of defending that part of the suit?
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Cause this is really a case of Apple just patten trolling. I imagine it's like Apple suing another company because they own the patten for the phrase, "Hot tea is great," and the other company just has to change it to, "Hot tea is awesome." Different wording to express the same point that others have made before (on phones before the iphone).
 
rmwebs said:
I disproved it because you provided no initial evidence. I've not got a source, hence the 'IIRC'. You've come across and stated something as fact, so please - back it up.

I'm not saying you are wrong at all - I'm simply asking for some factual evidence that Apple was the ones who first had it.
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Are you kidding me? How do I back it up that Apple's bouncing feature exists before anyone? Maybe I'm wrong, but its up to you to provide prior art and dismiss my statement.

To disprove a statement is to reveal its falseness, perhaps by example, or by proving its negation. Very often all it takes to disprove a statement is to find a counterexample, i.e. an example that satisfies the conditions of the statement, the premises, but not its conclusion. For this reason, disproving something may be easier to start with.
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If that's not enough for you, please understand this from the prospective of set theory:

To disprove a Statement of the form:

∀ x ∈ D, if P(x), then Q(x)

Find a value of x in the domain D for which antecedent P(x) is true and consequent Q(x) is false. Such an x is called a counterexample.
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I am totally open to a counterexample and happy to be proved wrong. But you need to show me one and I'll happily take my claim back.

What is it that you even want me to prove? How can I prove Apple was first? Well, I can just claim that Apple was first because no body else implemented that feature before Apple. If you wish to disprove my statement, you need a counterexample.

And people unranked you for that? Unbelievable.

Let me know if I need to link to some discrete mathematics to help you out there. No hard feelings but you're just taking a dump here.
 
benthewraith said:
So of all the patents Apple accused HTC of supposedly infringing on, it was solely the auto-detect phone number application that the ITC claimed was a valid violation?
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No, it covers the entire suite of system-wide data-detection services.

It appears, although there is basically no real info here, that HTC has turned off the system-wide service and replaced it with a phone-number only system within certain apps. That is, one might expect to be able to click a phone number in the browser, but not mail (etc).

While this would certainly bypass the patent, it makes the system far less useful. The CEO downplays this by stating no one uses it, which, IMHO, is complete BS.

If, on the other hand, the new code is in a shared library, it is highly likely they will lose this as well.
 
rtdunham said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

If it was that fast and easy, why not do that in the first place and avoid the cost of defending that part of the suit?
Click to expand...

Because this is the kind of stuff you automatically do when you copy someone. Had it been innovative design, they would have automatically done some things different, maybe even better.

However, it this case, it was easy to just remove some functionality that they now claim was rarely used. The functionality as it was employed on the iPhone is actually highly useful and makes the iPhone far more integrated in how it operates for the user.

Competition is good when both competitors are innovating and not one being an echo of the other.
 
SGMD1 said:
Non-Apple software called SideKick by Borland was using this feature a decade before Apple obtained the patent, which would invalidate it. $100 says this would easily get overturned on appeal.
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Inevitably when these patent threads come up, it quickly becomes clear that most people complaining about prior art have never actually looked at the patent in question.

In this case, Apple's patent is for a system-wide utility that can do data detection against a consistent database in all applications. For instance, a data detector that suggests address book entries can find things that look like addresses in your e-mail, text editor and even Word.

SideKick is a single application (or bundle really) and did not offer system-wide data detection. You could not, for instance, find phone numbers in your text editor and dial them directly (at least not the versions I used).

Are you ready to send me the $100?
 
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