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HTC Responds to Apple Patent Lawsuit

Frankly I am surprised more fan boys arent chiming in with "yay apple... blah blah blah..."

I used to be a huge fan of apple, but as of late, they've been dropping the ball big time. Patents are a necessary evil, but I really think apple needs to think about bringing some better products to market. Patenting conceptual stuff like multitouch and pinch to zoom etc... is anti-compete.

Their shenanigans are feeling more and more like the RIAA, lets just sue everyone, because we cant get our **** together and give the consumers something they want.

Frankly the lack of attention to the iphone 3gs had finally gotten to me and I ditched the iphone world. Build what consumers want, or open up your dev platform and let US build those software bits.

For the sake of free enterprise and innovation I honestly hope apple loses this... seems to me like they are making it a habit of hitting the hornets nests with a baseball bat...
 
Mr Fish said:
If this is largely about multi touch, and pinching and using the gestures, I think HTC have the moral high ground, if not the legal one.

Multi touch shouldn't be patentable, it's a logical step in touch input, and it's too important a technology for restrictions to be placed on its use by classing it as IP. Maybe there's specific objections about it's deployed by Apple and now HTC, but there's only so many ways that touch input mechanisms can be designed. I mean, it's evolutionary, not revolutionary.
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Is it a requirement that an idea be revolutionary to be awarded a patent? Frankly, if Apple holds a patent on multi-touch then HTC has no legal high ground.
 
carmenodie said:
And if HTC was so bad a** lets see them drop just ONE new phone a year. Boooya!!!!
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They can't do it. They don't have what it takes to follow that business model. Volume, volume, volume! Spread as many phone models around on as many carriers as possible and throw the OS out to all takers.
 
Whatever....

I just wanna see technology moving forward. If Apple is suing HTC, so what? It is their money and their time. We are the consumers, we are the one paying for their Ipod/Itouch/Iphone/Imac/Macbook... so they are putting money in their pockets while we empty ours. I dont give a damn who did what... all I'm concerned is that phone-makers out there to better their softwares/handsets. Face it, Iphones still has a long way to catch up in the hardware section. And designs from Apple are getting monotonous! Same design going over and over and over ... and then if Iphone is not enough, they explode it to an Ipad. So Apple, get a new design team please..... you have great softwares but you just dont know how to make full use of it. Your hardware is crap!

All other phone makers, please see how Apple started the smartphone trend, the apps, the interface, the ease of use....
 
I am a software engineer by trade, so I'm directly involved with IP and new software concepts... some of which I've come up with.

That being said, US patent stuff is complete and utter *****... patent or no patent, they are awaking the wrong giants. I heard somewhere that MS, HTC, and Nokia have hundreds of patents that the iphone supposedly violates. I wish those companies would start calling apple out on their shenanigans.

I recently purchased a google nexus one, and while I've seen a couple oddities in the software (nothing major at all), I wish I would have made the switch a long long long time ago...

You apple guys... stick with apple... they will come out with some new feature and you will be on top of the world able to show it off for about 2-3mo until a better phone comes out... and apple will still be sitting there with their thumbs up their butts
 
No more UI Patents!

I think we could solve almost all our patent problems by making it difficult or impossible to patent software interfaces. These patents are stifling innovation, and don't help anyone.
 
Mr Fish said:
If this is largely about multi touch, and pinching and using the gestures, I think HTC have the moral high ground, if not the legal one.

Multi touch shouldn't be patentable, it's a logical step in touch input, and it's too important a technology for restrictions to be placed on its use by classing it as IP. Maybe there's specific objections about it's deployed by Apple and now HTC, but there's only so many ways that touch input mechanisms can be designed. I mean, it's evolutionary, not revolutionary.
Click to expand...

You make a good point. Although I think if the competition tried hard enough, they could come up with something different and possibly even better. I don't know what I agree with here, but I feel like I want to take Apple's side because they came up with multitouch first, they should be able to keep it. I may be biased, though. My dad came up with a way to heat water on a carpet cleaning truck from the diesel engine and patented that. It seems like such a simple idea, but it seems more evolutionary than revolutionary, after all. It just pisses me off when other companies start trying to steal my dads idea and he has to go after them with lawsuits. He's in the middle of one right now for $1.2 million and I'M the one who has to lend him money through all of it. So... Go Apple, I guess. I hate rambling.
 
Palleraa said:
I believe the problem is the whole patent system. As long as Apple has a paper that says that they invented the unlock gesture noone should be able to use it without permission. The problem is the fact that is it possible to get a patent like this. I think whoever is in charge of patents should really reconsider their system. Not allowing anyone to patent things that seems so obvious. I also believe Apple have the patent of the home-screen with small icons scattered over it. Come on, Nokia have been using that for years. Maybe they should consider enforcing the patent much more but only allowing a patent like "pinch to zoom", "slide to unlock" and other technologies to stand for 2-5 years. That would really speed up innovation.

It is hard to use the "old" patent system for things that move as fast as the mobile phone business does. Especially when it comes to good ideas rather than expensive-to-develop technologies. Lets face it, if everyone was enforcing their patents 100% everything would stagger. Nokia owns GSM, iPhone owns the "app-idea" etc. They really should put down a "fair-commetee", this could work where I'm from (Denmark). But given the legal system of USA i know it would never be realistic "over there".
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I absolutely agree with all of this.

Tony
 
Reading these posts is hilarious. Apple did not "patent a gesture." and none of the patents it is asserting against HTC are related to multitouch.

kiljoy616 said:
Yes and no, its not only that patent are complex legal instruments, but now they are so broad and far more restrictive to what they where designed to do.
The only good thing is that this time its two big companies with a lot at stake to bring this problem into the open and crush it. If not what will it be like in 5 or 10 years, will simple patent statements used by patent troll companies cripple smaller but innovative companies to their knees.

Apple has basically patent a gesture not a real technology, though the iphone is a nice piece of hardware/software its off the shelve technology so Apple has basically patented a thought which is about the same for any phone that uses a finger, I have seen how the Google phone works and its not the same as the iphone, but we will have to wait and see if the courts again get lame and don't want to hear. After all this is not about Apple vs. Google or HTC its about Billion and Billions of dollars in patents that may be really all worthless junk that makes companies go to the politicians really fast.
Click to expand...
 
Mr Fish said:
If this is largely about multi touch, and pinching and using the gestures, I think HTC have the moral high ground, if not the legal one.

Multi touch shouldn't be patentable, it's a logical step in touch input, and it's too important a technology for restrictions to be placed on its use by classing it as IP. Maybe there's specific objections about it's deployed by Apple and now HTC, but there's only so many ways that touch input mechanisms can be designed. I mean, it's evolutionary, not revolutionary.
Click to expand...

It is evolutionary, but I doubt the inventors/patent holders who spent millions of dollars developing it care what you have to say. That's like telling ATT- 3G is the next logical step in wireless communications. Thanks for investing all that money in your network, we aren't going to pay you to use it. Nice job tho!
 
Mr Fish said:
Multi touch shouldn't be patentable, it's a logical step in touch input
Click to expand...

If it's so obvious and so logical... how come no one did it or even thought of it before Apple came out with the iPhone. Previous to the iPhone multi-touch phones didn't exist. Now they're a dime a dozen. Multi-touch is pretty obvious *now*. It wasn't so obvious before.
 
I don't think this lawsuit is much about Android and the Nexus One. The Nexus One is exactly flying off the shelf. And if this was just about Android, there are multiple cellphone manufacturers using Android on their phones. Why isn't Apple suing all of them?

I think Apple is looking more down HTC's pipeline at the HD2, which runs curcles around all current cellphones. Sure, it runs WinMo 7, but rumors are its also going to run Android.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/25/htc-hd2-review/
 
Josias said:
Their own innovations... which just happened to be released a few months after the iPhone! What are the chances! :eek:
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muti-touch was kicked off few months before apple's iphone launch...What are the chances.....:eek:
 
Takeo said:
If it's so obvious and so logical... how come no one did it or even thought of it before Apple came out with the iPhone. Previous to the iPhone multi-touch phones didn't exist. Now they're a dime a dozen. Multi-touch is pretty obvious *now*. It wasn't so obvious before.
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You DO realise Apple bought the company Fingerworks? Which is where they got their multi-touch technology from.
 
This is going to turn out to be another lawyer war and the courts will make some lame rulings in a couple of years, well after the effects of any (if any) IP stealing occurred. One of the companies will then be forced to pay back the other for loses. I imagine that shortly HTC will file a suit against Apple for predatory practices to help position a resolution outside of the court system. Either way, consumers win with more competition: lower prices, reduced service fees, technology improvements at a faster pace... good things.
 
seanhess said:
I think we could solve almost all our patent problems by making it difficult or impossible to patent software interfaces. These patents are stifling innovation, and don't help anyone.
Click to expand...

Well if it's patented then it's already been innovated. Have to come up with something else then.
 
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