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iPhone competitors copying the iPhone features & look/feel - why isn't Apple suing?

K

kharvel

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 23, 2010
20
0
Before the iPhone, nothing like the iPhone existed.

After the iPhone was launched, everybody started copying the iPhone features and iPhone look/feel.

Look at the Motorola Droid X - it's an iPhone clone with the same touch features, apps, etc. Why the heck isn't Apple suing the hell out of Motorola? This is like Apple vs. Microsoft all over again - MSFT copied the Mac stuff and put them into Windows and Apple sued.

How come we're not seeing lawsuits all over the place by Apple with regards to the iPhone competitors?
 
They are suing HTC (probably the biggest hardware threat to Apple at the moment), but you have to remember - a lot of Apple's patents are considered by some to be far too general.

Any court case would have to prove that:

a) Apple's patents are legal and correct
b) Company x has violated them

It's not as simple as it sounds and the HTC case is expected to take years.

Apple has itself (allegedly) violated patents in the iPhone's design.

What often happens is that companies agree to licence each other's patents making any lawsuit void.
 
I dont think any phone on the market looks like the iPhone.
Apps arent made by the phone company. Their made by developers that want to get their app across many platforms.
 
Why are you so upset? competition is always good, you need to be the right holder in order to sue and Apple did not invent the touch screen or many features present o current smartphone, (they did a great implementation of it, but they did not invent it). Apple however does hold some patents and trademarks and have already indeed sue (yield the famous or infamous, depend on who you ask, collective sue against HTC - indirect to Google - but there are more)

As mentioned before the iPhone "allegedly" have a lot IP from other companies.
 
Yes I remember when the iPhone first came out Steve Jobs said many elements of the iPhone were "very patented".

I think the whole strategy of Apple not suing is to discourage competitors to actually come up with anything original. As long as they are just copying the iPhone they will ALWAYS be one step behind.

So Apple is in this ideal position where their competitors have no incentive to innovate, but are still competitors with similar products so Apple would not get in trouble with DOJ for being a monopoly.
 
ImateJam.jpg

Its not like HTC came out with a touch screen, aluminum body, no keyboard, un cluttered, candy bar style, small, smartphone years before apple.

Oh wait, they did, this is from 2004 and 2005 hmm, thats years ahead off apple, why doesnt HTC sue apple for copying them:confused:
 
chakraj said:
View attachment 242098

Its not like HTC came out with a touch screen, aluminum body, no keyboard, un cluttered, candy bar style, small, smartphone years before apple.

Oh wait, they did, this is from 2004 and 2005 hmm, thats years ahead off apple, why doesnt HTC sue apple for copying them:confused:
Click to expand...

That looks like an iPod.
 
chakraj said:
View attachment 242098

Its not like HTC came out with a touch screen, aluminum body, no keyboard, un cluttered, candy bar style, small, smartphone years before apple.

Oh wait, they did, this is from 2004 and 2005 hmm, thats years ahead off apple, why doesnt HTC sue apple for copying them:confused:
Click to expand...

Yeah, Openmoko had the Interface pretty much way before IOS...

1112FIC326x550.jpg
 
I was just remmembering back to those blazing fast internet speeds I would get on my old imate Jam, 24-48k gprs , wow, and I thought I was so cool:D

Oh and it supports JAVA, Ha,ha,ha, that was five years ago :)
 
kharvel said:
Before the iPhone, nothing like the iPhone existed.
Click to expand...

Lol another clueless iphone user. let me give you a hint. If nothing like the iphone truly existed before iphone, then apple would be suing every handset maker that has a touchscreen. But that's not happening now is it?
 
kharvel said:
Before the iPhone, nothing like the iPhone existed.

After the iPhone was launched, everybody started copying the iPhone features and iPhone look/feel.

Look at the Motorola Droid X - it's an iPhone clone with the same touch features, apps, etc. Why the heck isn't Apple suing the hell out of Motorola? This is like Apple vs. Microsoft all over again - MSFT copied the Mac stuff and put them into Windows and Apple sued.

How come we're not seeing lawsuits all over the place by Apple with regards to the iPhone competitors?
Click to expand...

There's no money to be made from suing each other back and forth over who came up with what. The reason Apple doesn't sue is because they thrive off of competition. Which in turn helps the consumer (you and I).

Think about it, if Apple sued all the touchscreen smart phones for doing what they were doing, we'd never see improvements to the iPhone. Because HTC, BlackBerry, etc is pumping out new phones every month to catch up to the iPhone, Apple sees the new features they slap on their phones and in time does it better. Apple didn't invent the cell phone they just do it better than everyone else. It's a never ending cycle of giving the public just enough to be satisfied and still want more.
 
Why doesn't the Gene Rodenberry estate sue apple for using a hand held devices with a touch screen and makes noises. It is because that is a general idea. The idea if hand held devices with touchscreens has been around for decades. The general idea is not usually patentable (though some patents are more broad than they should be). However, the technological and aesthetic design is patentable. Saying "hey let's give it a touch screen" doesn't take much work, but desining the interface between screen and phone or designing the look dies take work. The patents apple refers to is likely hardware and software technilogy designs that are either truly novel, secret, or both.
 
wvphysics said:
Why doesn't the Gene Rodenberry estate sue apple for using a hand held devices with a touch screen and makes noises. It is because that is a general idea. The idea if hand held devices with touchscreens has been around for decades. The general idea is not usually patentable (though some patents are more broad than they should be). However, the technological and aesthetic design is patentable. Saying "hey let's give it a touch screen" doesn't take much work, but desining the interface between screen and phone or designing the look dies take work. The patents apple refers to is likely hardware and software technilogy designs that are either truly novel, secret, or both.
Click to expand...

Like the slide-to-lock gesture?
 
PerfSeeker said:
Like the slide-to-lock gesture?
Click to expand...

If they've patented the slide to lock feature, I can only see them winning a case if tge visual design is the same. Apple is likely not suing for these sorts of features even if they have a patent is because they know they won't win and will be out a large chunk of legal fees. Companies will also patent what ever they can his so they can say the have xx number of patents. It's like padding your resume.
 
wreckshop said:
Lol another clueless iphone user. let me give you a hint. If nothing like the iphone truly existed before iphone, then apple would be suing every handset maker that has a touchscreen. But that's not happening now is it?
Click to expand...

Those other phones might as well not have existed.
 
Even if the visual design is exactly the same. Apple should have never been granted the slide to lock patent on the first place. How the hell do you patent a gesture????
 
wreckshop said:
Even if the visual design is exactly the same. Apple should have never been granted the slide to lock patent on the first place. How the hell do you patent a gesture????
Click to expand...

Apple keeps trying to. But that's another story for later.

Apple wasn't the first with slide-to-unlock. Heck, gesture based unlocking for security was hot stuff on enterprise devices at the turn of the century. Of course, for security they did not show the user what path to take.

What Apple somehow got a patent on, was the visual aid of a combination sliding block and path marker.

The reason why I don't like this patent, is because it's obvious. Slide-to-unlock in a straight line had already been done on the all-touch Neonode in 2002:

..once you turn the phone on, you'll be greeted by the "locked" symbol. After all, you wouldn't want random touch to generate commands or calls. A set of small triangle arrows show where and in what direction to swipe to unlock the phone. - NeoNode N1 review
Click to expand...

If your UI boss said, well I'd like the user to better see that their touch is registering, then half the programmers would come up with a visual item that follows the finger. Hardly eureka science. More like a design decision.

In any case, that's why all other phones now slide-to-unlock without the patented combination of a visually defined path and finger-following block.
 
chakraj said:
View attachment 242098

Its not like HTC came out with a touch screen, aluminum body, no keyboard, un cluttered, candy bar style, small, smartphone years before apple.

Oh wait, they did, this is from 2004 and 2005 hmm, thats years ahead off apple, why doesnt HTC sue apple for copying them:confused:
Click to expand...

Oh yeah. That was a successful product. /sarcasm off
 
Devnor said:
Oh yeah. That was a successful product. /sarcasm off
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter if it was successful or not, the fact remains - the product existed long before Apple's did.

With Intellectual Property, all that matters is who did it first. Look at Cisco's iPhone trademark - all they did was shove a sticker on the box of some existing products with the word "iPhone" (that they had already trademarked) and that left Apple having to negotiate to use it.
 
Daveoc64 said:
It doesn't matter if it was successful or not, the fact remains - the product existed long before Apple's did.

With Intellectual Property, all that matters is who did it first. Look at Cisco's iPhone trademark - all they did was shove a sticker on the box of some existing products with the word "iPhone" (that they had already trademarked) and that left Apple having to negotiate to use it.
Click to expand...

Don't forget "iOS" which is also a Cisco's trademark
 
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