ITC Rules For Apple in HTC Patent Case

[*LTD*]

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Things like this are the reason why so many people in the real world dislike Apple. This and the whole 'App Store' Trademark fiasco. Also explains why i get stick for owning a mac.

Is that why so many people in "the real world" keep buying "overpriced" Apple gear? Did those billions in cash on hand fall out of the sky? Are those some 200 millions of iOS users the same person? Are those tens of millions of iPad users non-existent? Wow, if consumers in "the real world" dislike Apple they must really hate folks like Motorola, etc. Apple is the only one making any real money these days. They're hitting sales records in top of a closed, proprietary platform. They can barely keep up with demand. Folks on MR are falling over each other trying to get at new Apple hardware rumours. I don't know where you've been the past few years but the big show in town is Apple and everyone wants a ticket.

The reality is that the average consumer barely notices these things - court cases over patents, motions, appeals, etc. Boring! Who the hell moralizes about consumer tech??? If they do notice, it doesn't actually register materially. They love Apple. They eat up everything Apple churns out. Lineups stretching for blocks. All that matters to them is more Apple gear. This is normal. These folks couldn't give a sweet damn about what Apple does in court. Don't kid yourself. They have other stuff to worry about. With Apple their main worry is how to get an iPad!

So all of a sudden there aren't any HTC phones on display, and what do these folks do? Move right over to the Droids or whatever flavour of the month Android handsets there are. There's tons of them, with barely any differentiation. One manufacturer is replaced by another. Isn't that supposed to be the beauty of Android?? So many choices! Your average consumer will barely notice or care whether there are any HTC handsets. In fact, they'll probably head straight to the one with the Apple logo on it instead. They sure as hell would notice the absence of the iconic Apple logo, that's for sure.

THIS is the real world. Unequivocally. Apple can go on merrily pursuing their legal rights and only folks like us on the internet would actually notice, and a minority thereof will actually care.

HTC, Motorola, Samsung, LG, etc. Same damn thing. Generic box-makers that run some version of Android. Exchange them with Dell, Acer, Gateway, HP, Toshiba, etc. They're all clones. Which is part of the reason none of them on their own can outsell the iPhone. None of them actually achieves any serious level of differentiation.

So in the REAL world, Apple has an absolutely sick amount of positive mindshare. All kinds of pull. Consumers won't shed a tear over some Android box-maker getting their imports cut. Time to look at a Samsung then, or a Motorola, or an LG, or . . . six of one, a half-dozen of the other.

 

[thedoctor]

Patently Obvious?

I tend to think anything reducible to one line of Perl should not be patentable.

Tend to agree on that one.

The first mentioned patent basically describes Apple's Data Detectors and is one of the easiest to understand patents I've read and is right on the edge of "novel" to me. See how the following line is automatically converted in to a clickable URL .. that's possibly prior art..

http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#qa/qa1495/_index.html

The second patent talks about how different streams of serialized data are manipulated/multiplexed in "real-time" ... this one strikes me as not being very novel and rather more obvious and I'm surprised it was granted [actually I'm not really that surprised as the American software patent system appears from outside of America to be fundamentally broken!] because I would think there is plenty of prior art in the fields of serial comms and packet switching in the early sixties and seventies.

By I'm just a techie who's been around the industry for 32 years .. I'm patently no patent lawyer .. thank god.

The best ideas are usually the "obvious" / "slaps forehead" type ones but are only obvious after you hear about them .. maybe that sort of insight is what should be patentable but only for a couple of years.

 

[kdarling]

Steve's words:
"And boy have we patented it"

Again, those words are meaningless in this case.

The two patents that were provisionally held to be infringed, date from 1994 and 1996... a decade before the iPhone was designed.

--

Surprisingly, they also seem to be the two most obvious and overly broad patents.

This makes me wonder if the ITC picked out those two patents because they thought they were the most likely to be overturned on appeal.

For instance, Apple claims in their filing that HTC violates the second patent by having the ability for APIs to call up a video while decoding audio. That pretty much describes every media device on the planet.

The final decisions will be interesting to see.

 

[silentnite]

If I could sit here and think of a least 3 things I would want or do to my phone how come HTC or these other big guys don't the same. I know the iPhone is a great piece of work but it's not the last phone in the world. Always room for improvement. I say Less copying apple & come up with more creative ideas.

 

[miografico]

Apple has patents on OS X updates from NeXT and Apple, plus Apple-Taligent that far supersede the crap from Google and yes Auto-Update isn't unique to Google.

Hell, Debian's Apt/Dpkg delta system predates Google by many a year.

Never mind the fact that IBM, Microsoft and any other Operating System corporation has this same functionality patented in their own unique implementation.

Enhanced queries for Geospatial isn't anything Apple doesn't already have in their arsenal of NeXT Patents on advanced queries and their Placebase patents which incorporate Geospatial solutions.

Let's be clear: Google is a kid next to the talent and personnel that has been amassed at Apple with their level of deep knowledge that spans from the 80s onwards. You really need to grasp just how much collective knowledge and IP Apple has before running around praising Google.

Google got spanked on the NORTEL auction. That's just for starters. Microsoft and Apple are long time competitors and occasional allies in arms.

Schmidt has made a career full of enemies wherever he has tread. He's no buddy to top brass at Oracle/Sun, Microsoft, Apple, IBM and many others.

Google is also despised by the Chinese Government [for better or for worse] and this deals with business [we all know the lack of respect China should get for it's Human Rights violations, but that's a orthogonal subject].

When China Telecom makes the big deal with Apple it's going to reveal just how deep and well-planned the top brass at Apple are, not to mention their long term vision when they originally announced the first iPhone which most assuredly included China as one of it's main goals of garnering a large market share.

I wasn't praising Google. I don't praise any tech company. You misunderstood my point. Yes, undoubtedly Apple has a vast amount of IP they can bring out of the closet if need be - you know substantially more than I do about that judging by your previous employer(s).

The point I was trying to get across is it doesn't matter if it's valid IP or not today. What matters is the opinion of a judge, who really shouldn't be making a call on these cases more often than not, and his feelings on the matter at that moment.

You cannot possibly believe that Google is going to let Android go off into the sunset without spending billions in a legal battle against Apple. Whether the actions they bring forward are valid do not have any merit when you are talking about two companies of this magnitude. If Google can poke any holes or get judgments on 4 things out of a dozen in their favor that could allow them to exist by forcing Apple's hands in licensing the IP it owns.

At the end of the day that's all conjecture. Just as what you wrote is all conjecture. Conjecture because the way these cases are decided today is hardly ever determined on the matter of the actual tech. Neither you, nor I, are in the business of litigation, but none of this helps the market in general. I don't know what your current position in life is, but this is not helping the midsize and small business market make purchasing and software licensing decisions in general. Try explaining to a client that yes they could possibly be sued from a troll like Lodsys and in the same breath explain to them that there may be no Android a year from now.

As for Technical Writing this is a forum not a lecture hall. I am not going to go out of my way to write what I am going to say first and then explain what I just said in human prose. My posts are long enough.

I would much rather see a circuit schematic in one of these patents that comes up here instead of what we see on a day to day basis. You and I most likely differ on opinion of what is a process and why it is patentable. To me it's always going to hardware and never software. The process of designing a device is what this country was founded on and the process of the device is the components of the system and what the device then does. At the end of the day one thing is clear you have something you can physically touch that performs a function. I do not see software in the same regard and I never will. Software patents are detrimental to the ecosystem in general and my opinion is formulated not from afar, but by seeing the day to day economic effects these broad based nonsense filings have on my own business.

The first patent as I have read it in its entirety is broad based crap. That's my opinion and you will never disuade me from it.

I am in effect lucky as my company is a third party producer. I have nothing on the App Store in my own name or my company's name and I have no interest for the foreseeable future in doing so. We make money by providing the development service(s) for various organizations. So, no I don't hold any patents at the present time as everything we produce in the end is not owned by our company, it's the client's.

I am in effect also unlucky because I need to explain just as every small shop - or large - that does what we do that you might want to retain a lawyer for this and that and this and that. As I have already stated we don't develop for fortune 100 companies. Most companies I work with on a day to day basis have less than 100 employees. I prefer it that way, but it gets harder and harder everyday when you get that phone call:

"I think I am going to hold off to see what happens with Lodsys."

"Do you think Android is going to make it in the market place?"

"I don't know we were going to purchase handsets, but I think we are going to wait to see what plays out over the next 6 months before we do."

So, while to you think debating the merits of these things is pointless, I do not.

I would prefer to keep my guys at the same rate I pay them, and hence, think it's more than worth debating whether a poster(s) know(s) what they are talking about or not - heated or not.

 

[macsmurf]

Apple has patents on OS X updates from NeXT and Apple, plus Apple-Taligent that far supersede the crap from Google and yes Auto-Update isn't unique to Google.

Hell, Debian's Apt/Dpkg delta system predates Google by many a year.

Never mind the fact that IBM, Microsoft and any other Operating System corporation has this same functionality patented in their own unique implementation.

Enhanced queries for Geospatial isn't anything Apple doesn't already have in their arsenal of NeXT Patents on advanced queries and their Placebase patents which incorporate Geospatial solutions.

It doesn't matter. All that matters is to own the patent. Whether it is obvious or already invented is secondary. What's important is that it is very expensive to defend your company from patent claims.

Let's be clear: Google is a kid next to the talent and personnel that has been amassed at Apple with their level of deep knowledge that spans from the 80s onwards. You really need to grasp just how much collective knowledge and IP Apple has before running around praising Google.

Is that true? Does it matter? BTW, Google has lots of experienced people. Vint Cerf comes to mind as one example.

Google got spanked on the NORTEL auction. That's just for starters. Microsoft and Apple are long time competitors and occasional allies in arms.

That's exactly right. The american patent system has been weaponized to such a degree that it works counter to it's original purpose. It's basically an arms race and small companies are defenseless against patent trolls. All they can do is hope to be bought out by one of the big ones or to get protection in return for license fees.

Anyone following the Lodsys case have seen a shining example of that.

Google is also despised by the Chinese Government [for better or for worse] and this deals with business [we all know the lack of respect China should get for it's Human Rights violations, but that's a orthogonal subject].

That's actually an argument for Google. That puts them on the same page as Taiwan, Tibet, Free speech, fair trials and so on.

 

[organerito]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)



Is that why so many people in "the real world" keep buying "overpriced" Apple gear? Did those billions in cash on hand fall out of the sky? Are those some 200 millions of iOS users the same person? Are those tens of millions of iPad users non-existent? Wow, if consumers in "the real world" dislike Apple they must really hate folks like Motorola, etc. Apple is the only one making any real money these days. They're hitting sales records in top of a closed, proprietary platform. They can barely keep up with demand. Folks on MR are falling over each other trying to get at new Apple hardware rumours. I don't know where you've been the past few years but the big show in town is Apple and everyone wants a ticket.

The reality is that the average consumer barely notices these things - court cases over patents, motions, appeals, etc. Boring! Who the hell moralizes about consumer tech??? If they do notice, it doesn't actually register materially. They love Apple. They eat up everything Apple churns out. Lineups stretching for blocks. All that matters to them is more Apple gear. This is normal. These folks couldn't give a sweet damn about what Apple does in court. Don't kid yourself. They have other stuff to worry about. With Apple their main worry is how to get an iPad!

So all of a sudden there aren't any HTC phones on display, and what do these folks do? Move right over to the Droids or whatever flavour of the month Android handsets there are. There's tons of them, with barely any differentiation. One manufacturer is replaced by another. Isn't that supposed to be the beauty of Android?? So many choices! Your average consumer will barely notice or care whether there are any HTC handsets. In fact, they'll probably head straight to the one with the Apple logo on it instead. They sure as hell would notice the absence of the iconic Apple logo, that's for sure.

THIS is the real world. Unequivocally. Apple can go on merrily pursuing their legal rights and only folks like us on the internet would actually notice, and a minority thereof will actually care.

HTC, Motorola, Samsung, LG, etc. Same damn thing. Generic box-makers that run some version of Android. Exchange them with Dell, Acer, Gateway, HP, Toshiba, etc. They're all clones. Which is part of the reason none of them on their own can outsell the iPhone. None of them actually achieves any serious level of differentiation.

So in the REAL world, Apple has an absolutely sick amount of positive mindshare. All kinds of pull. Consumers won't shed a tear over some Android box-maker getting their imports cut. Time to look at a Samsung then, or a Motorola, or an LG, or . . . six of one, a half-dozen of the other.

it is ridiculous to see fundamentalists claim that Apple sells a lot of iOS devices for their quality. However,when we see that OS X market share is less than 10%, they apply a different logic.

I know you are going to give a big argument. You and Apple always have to win. Insecurity? Has anyone tried to make reason a creationist, Yehova's witness or even a Tea Party member?

Apple have great products, but I am afraid they might become in the near future what they hated the most.

"Think different"

 

[Thunder82]

I'm glad Apple is defending itself here, but its not as if apple doesnt steal/borrow/copy from others - mods created in the jailbreak community come to mind. That new notification bar in iOS 5 is a blatant ripoff of Android too.

I really hope this does not prohibit HTC from creating/inventing new ideas and products. They have pushed a lot of great things into consumers hands and definitely provide good competetion to Apple.

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk

 

[pyro008]

HTC, Motorola, Samsung, LG, etc. Same damn thing. Generic box-makers that run some version of Android. Exchange them with Dell, Acer, Gateway, HP, Toshiba, etc. They're all clones. Which is part of the reason none of them on their own can outsell the iPhone. None of them actually achieves any serious level of differentiation.

At first I laughed. Then I realized you were serious.

 

[*LTD*]

I wasn't praising Google. I don't praise any tech company.

You can, if you like. Most of them don't bite, and if they're due some credit you won't be hated for giving it to them.

The point I was trying to get across is it doesn't matter if it's valid IP or not today. What matters is the opinion of a judge, who really shouldn't be making a call on these cases more often than not, and his feelings on the matter at that moment.

Valid IP is valid IP. Who should be making the call if not a judge, whose job it is to make the call? Are you going to apply?

Neither you, nor I, are in the business of litigation

I don't know about him, but you seem to think you are.

but none of this helps the market in general.

It isn't designed to help the market. It's designed to help patent holders and ensure their rights under the law. Not everything that is done is required to help the market. Some of it is unrelated. There are some things greater (i.e., legal rights) than the market at large.

I don't know what your current position in life is, but this is not helping the midsize and small business market make purchasing and software licensing decisions in general.

You're speaking for yourself, not for midsize or small businesses, because apparently your only client happens to be HTC-exclusive. At least, from what you keep saying they appear to be your only client. You appear to be placing blame with the wrong party.

I would much rather see a circuit schematic in one of these patents that comes up here instead of what we see on a day to day basis.

For what purpose?

You and I most likely differ on opinion of what is a process and why it is patentable.

It ultimately makes no difference, since we already have patent laws that determine the same.

To me it's always going to hardware and never software. The process of designing a device is what this country was founded on and the process of the device is the components of the system and what the device then does. At the end of the day one thing is clear you have something you can physically touch that performs a function. I do not see software in the same regard and I never will. Software patents are detrimental to the ecosystem in general and my opinion is formulated not from afar, but by seeing the day to day economic effects these broad based nonsense filings have on my own business.

Yikes. No point in writing software then. Sorry, small developer.

The first patent as I have read it in its entirety is broad based crap. That's my opinion and you will never disuade me from it.

Even though it's not based on law and is completely uninformed?

I am in effect lucky as my company is a third party producer. I have nothing on the App Store in my own name or my company's name and I have no interest for the foreseeable future in doing so. We make money by providing the development service(s) for various organizations. So, no I don't hold any patents at the present time as everything we produce in the end is not owned by our company, it's the client's.

Hopefully your version of patent law makes an exception for your client.

I am in effect also unlucky because I need to explain just as every small shop - or large - that does what we do that you might want to retain a lawyer for this and that and this and that. As I have already stated we don't develop for fortune 100 companies. Most companies I work with on a day to day basis have less than 100 employees. I prefer it that way, but it gets harder and harder everyday when you get that phone call:

"I think I am going to hold off to see what happens with Lodsys."

"Do you think Android is going to make it in the market place?"

"I don't know we were going to purchase handsets, but I think we are going to wait to see what plays out over the next 6 months before we do."

So, while to you think debating the merits of these things is pointless, I do not.

I would prefer to keep my guys at the same rate I pay them, and hence, think it's more than worth debating whether a poster(s) know(s) what they are talking about or not - heated or not.

So whose fault is all this? Business uncertainties are something you'll have to live with. And this isn't just over patents. Not every platform is going to make it and sometimes folks back the wrong horse. Looks like your problem has more to do with your own business decisions than patents. But it's always been fashionable to blame others for one's own problems.

You seem to place the blame everywhere other than where it actually belongs.

 

[Thunder82]

Yeah that guys off his rocker.. although I've come to expect it from most people on this forum. They have their heads so far up Apples ass that they never take the time to acknowledge the competition that pushed them to get where they are.

 

[CP123]

The point of the patent system goes back to the founding of the United States. The intentions of it were to protect mechanical innovation. Rifles, mills, steam engines. Things that would be deemed relatively simple today based upon the world's technological prowess and capability. Furthermore it was meant to protect those mechanical devices from being point blank copied.

I gave this example before, but I will repeat it again: If this were 1820 and a judge had to look at a rifle and determine if it was a copy of another - he would be looking at two pages of art and watch the lawyers compare the mechanical innards of a relatively non complex device side by side. The judge even though he would not be a mechanical engineer at that time would astutely be able to tell if it was a replication or not.

Patents were never meant to protect software. There are many ways for a programmer to arrive at the end result another programmer would with different source code. At the same time there are few ways to do selective things on a code level to get some results. Everyone over time without copying source has copied the, "idea/concept" of another programmer without even thinking about it.

Hardware is trickier, but you cannot have the mindset of an 1820's judge to make the call today on whether a complex design is a carbon copy clone:

1.) Is the PCB an exact match down to the way the connections are routed
2.) Are the chips on the board, microcontroller or microprocessor, gps chip, cell chip, resistors etc. etc. all in the same position on the board.
3.) What about the design or housing of the unit if it's simply a shell like iPhone or a complex device with moveable parts like a robotic arc welder. How does the judge determine in the case of the robot that the same mechanical design down to the joint level in the arm was used vs. a previous arm.

If you are a Macrumors lawyer you throw out that patent lawyers need to have a bachelors degree in the field they are litigating. As four years studying math and physics even remotely makes them qualified to argue validity of a complex electromechanical device. It doesn't make them qualified to see past filing a patent for a purchase button or a text parser that would above all means testing be broad based, does it?

It's corruption and greed and a mafia style system that only allows those with big enough wallets to suck the air out of the entire innovative landscape of this country.

But, hey if Apple is doing it - then it's a beautiful thing, right???

You're a pretty sensitive dude, aren't you? Macrumors lawyer??? Like you are a Macrumors engineer? Now who's being condescending? You make blind assertions that ITC judges and patent attorneys don't have an in depth knowledge of the underlying science at the root of the case. You then go on to challenge people to find one? Do you know the whole universe of patent judges and attorneys? I did a simple Google search and found many who had extensive work experience in their respective scientific fields.

I'm not a Macrumors attorney. I was just trying to inform people that the intellectual property practice of law is a very difficult one that requires a certain level of expertise. That was no knock against you. Just because some disagrees with you doesn't make them a fanboy of Apple or wrong in their argument. I couldn't care less who held the patent, Google, HTC or Apple. If it is their invention, then they have the right to protect their property.

 

[*LTD*]

Yeah that guys off his rocker.. although I've come to expect it from most people on this forum. They have their heads so far up Apples ass that they never take the time to acknowledge the competition that pushed them to get where they are.

Apple has a tendency of innovating even in the absence of competition.

iPhone, iPad, etc.

Apple is among the very few who usually pushes everyone else. For instance, the iPhone was released, and then every smartphone suddenly looked like the iPhone.

Apple releases the iPad, and suddenly there's a market for all too similar tablets (actually, not similar enough, as we're seeing.)

Our heads are right where they need to be. Credit is given where it is due. It isn't anone's fault that Apple happens to get the lion's share these days. Blame Apple for rolling out some pretty incredible products.

it is ridiculous to see fundamentalists claim that Apple sells a lot of iOS devices for their quality. However,when we see that OS X market share is less than 10%, they apply a different logic.

Entrance fee is at least $1000. Price has always been a barrier. But not a barrier to desire. So yes, different logic necessarily applies.

I know you are going to give a big argument. You and Apple always have to win.

Blame Apple. I just talk about it.

Apple have great products, but I am afraid they might become in the near future what they hated the most.

Well, the "great products" part kinda goes a long way to ensure that probability is kept to a minimum. In fact, all you really need are "great products." Apple kinda has the "near future" thing figured out. And long-term they're very well-posititoned to simply expand their influence and hold on the industry - in fact, in quite unprecedented ways. Consumer response seems to confirm this (in that, consumers respond with their wallets.)

"Think different"

Great advice. Will you be taking it?

At first I laughed. Then I realized you were serious.

Absolutely, unequivocally serious. Reality isn't anything to joke about.

 

[miografico]

You're speaking for yourself, not for midsize or small businesses, because apparently your only client happens to be HTC-exclusive. At least, from what you keep saying they appear to be your only client. You appear to be placing blame with the wrong party.

When have ever stated that was our only client? I think I have stated time and again we also produce for iOS. I think I have stated that I was going to hire Android developers specifically for this client as we haven't yet produced for Android. We do dekstop applications for Windows based systems as well. Would you like to know anything else?

I could say what I would really like to say to you, but I am not going to give you the satisfaction of getting me booted from here. So, the goading isn't going to work.

 

[*LTD*]

When have ever stated that was our only client? I think I have stated time and again we also produce for iOS. I think I have stated that I was going to hire Android developers specifically for this client as we haven't yet produced for Android. We do dekstop applications for Windows based systems as well. Would you like to know anything else?

I'd rather not, thank you.

It's just that you put the image in my head of, say, a pilot trying to speaking authoritatively on brain surgery.

But you're entitled to your opinion.

And I'm entitled to a chuckle with my morning green tea.

 

[miografico]

You're a pretty sensitive dude, aren't you? Macrumors lawyer??? Like you are a Macrumors engineer? Now who's being condescending? You make blind assertions that ITC judges and patent attorneys don't have an in depth knowledge of the underlying science at the root of the case. You then go on to challenge people to find one? Do you know the whole universe of patent judges and attorneys? I did a simple Google search and found many who had extensive work experience in their respective scientific fields.

I'm not a Macrumors attorney. I was just trying to inform people that the intellectual property practice of law is a very difficult one that requires a certain level of expertise. That was no knock against you. Just because some disagrees with you doesn't make them a fanboy of Apple or wrong in their argument. I couldn't care less who held the patent, Google, HTC or Apple. If it is their invention, then they have the right to protect their property.

Sensitive no. I think your argument for the fact that these people are qualified to do what they do is BS, and I said so. Once again whether it's the lawyers, the judge or the patent office itself, everything about software patents seems to be corrupt. I am not going to say all patent attorneys, but very few would have a history of work in their prescribed field of expertise.

It's like handing the a company to a business professor with no real world experience running any business.

If that were the case why would we see these absolutely bogus, and sometimes utterly horrendous patent approvals happen, over and over again?

Why would we have an entire district in Texas that is nothing, but a legal extortion racket?

The IP field of law as it pertains to software patents seems to be training on how to write the most ridiculously nonsensical legalese possible to ensure broad brased ideas slide through the system. The more you pay the easier it becomes. Then upon approval you don't even view it as an asset you view it as a weapon.

Please point out to me all these astute legal fellows - that if they did know what it was they were litigating - where is their moral conscious? I mean they do have their Mechanical, EE or other science degrees surely they could see what kind of damage patent(s) like Lodsys' would cause, no?

Please don't get offended that I am ragging on patent lawyers because that's not going to stop.

It's the biggest scam/racket going. From the cost of filing to the cost of defense it's a disgusting process that keeps the little guy down at every turn.

 

[*LTD*]

Sensitive no. I think your argument for the fact that these people are qualified to do what they do is BS

LOL

This is great stuff.

 

[deputy_doofy]

I fail to understand why people are upset that Apple won the ruling (so far). You need not look beyond Windows to see what happens if you don't (properly) protect your IP. Another company *will* steal it and run with it, claiming their version is "open" to the world. Sure, Windows was open to the world and, in 2011, is still open — to malware that cannot be stopped (except for the "Windows Admins" that hang out here).

Now, I agree that Apple ONLY being able to produce stuff is bad simply for the sake of competition, but the other guys MUST come up with their own stuff. I think people want others to copy because it will bring CHEAP products to market, both in price and QUALITY.

Slightly off topic, I've played with *every* tablet at Best Buy. If all these other tablet makers boast better CPUs/GPUs than the iPad, why do NONE of them have fluid scroll motion? When I move a page with my finger, I expect it to move like a sheet of paper on a smooth surface. EVERY tablet other than the iPad moves like paper on a gravel road or sandpaper. If they cannot get even the basic UI right, why should I ever give them the time of day?

 

[dethmaShine]

This isn't an invention it's a method to attain a result and then a superset of a result or perform a resulting action based off of the result. It's something these nice little boxes we call Macs or PC's have been doing since software as software existed. From the first days of software even outside of anything graphical there have been command line/shell applications that asked for input and gave a variety of options based upon that input.

You can come up with multiple ways how the claims based in the patent were already in use in the past outside of the examples you chose to give.

The answer to your last point is Apple is selectively pulling it out to attain a result. The result in this case would be to set legal precedent to HTC; which is a company that competes with them and have the net effect of that damaging as many other competitors as possible.

When you can show me point blank the replication of code used by Google and pilfered from Apple to create the mechanism in which to create these so called actionable results, you win your argument. Google and Android are then guilty of copying Apple and device makers are infringing upon Apple's patents by using their mobile operating system.

You know Google is no peanut company and what is going to come next is:

Google Patent 20110173601 OPERATING SYSTEM AUTO-UPDATE PROCEDURE


Apple wants to delta updates from here on out guess who has the patent on that?

Google Patent 20110173534 Notification system for increasing user engagement


Hmm doesn't Apple have notifications in iOS?

Google Patent 20110173066 METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR PERFORMING ENHANCED QUERIES FOR ITEMS SUCH AS MAPS AND GEOSPATIAL DATA


Wait doesn't Apple want to get in the maps game?

This is only the beginning of a long and destructive slide of the US from the top of tech to the bottom. The big boys are suing the big boys. The little boys get sued by the patent trolls. The little guys stop innovating and the cycle of innovation stops. Anyone left with a brain in their head and an idea decides to sell their wares outside of the United States. Whether that's in Brazil or Singapore doesn't matter it is what will wind up happening and only at an accelerated pace as the climate over here becomes more and more litigious.

This post in itself expectionally proves that you have absolutely no knowledge as to how patents are filed or implemented in the actual world.

I highly doubt you have a Masters from an accredited institution as one of the first things those guys see is how many papers or patents this guy has filed in his real life - working under a company or by himself/herself.

Just to clarify why I'm saying all this:

First you say:

'You can come up with multiple ways how the claims based in the patent were already in use in the past outside of the examples you chose to give. '

then:

- 'Apple wants to delta updates from here on out guess who has the patent on that?'
- 'Hmm doesn't Apple have notifications in iOS?'

What now? Is there only one implementation of 'delta' updates. Do you even realise how old is the concept of this auto-update or delta-update procedures? You may not realise but it is older than Google itself; Google may have filed these in the last 5 years but these concepts go back 10's of years and were quite functional in their devices. You necessary don't need the Internet to accomplish such auto/delta updates. A simple local network can be used as a prototype to accomplish the same.
For e.g. Simultaneous multi-threading was invented in the University of Washington and later Intel slapped it a new name - got some patents on the same and called it Hyperthreading. Apple must already be having tonnes of patents when it comes to Operating Systems. On another note, Microsoft files 90% of the patents with respect to Software, System Security, Networking, AI. (not sure about the statistic)

Do you even realise that Google is a very small player when it comes to patents as companies like Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Apple have been filing these patents for the last 30 years of their lifetime.

Google having a patent for notifications does NOT imply that they own the notifications. (Can't believe a graduate like you would argue on those terms)

Just get real.

 

[pyro008]

Entrance fee is at least $1000. Price has always been a barrier. But not a barrier to desire. So yes, different logic necessarily applies.

Of course you realize that you don't need to buy an overpriced fashion accessory to run OSX, right?

So, why do people who build their own computers not choose to use the Mac OS?

Actually, you sound much more like a troll than even an Apple fanboy. I'm a little embarassed to even have replied to your posts.

 

[PlipPlop]

I fail to understand why people are upset that Apple won the ruling (so far). You need not look beyond Windows to see what happens if you don't (properly) protect your IP. Another company *will* steal it and run with it, claiming their version is "open" to the world. Sure, Windows was open to the world and, in 2011, is still open — to malware that cannot be stopped (except for the "Windows Admins" that hang out here).

Now, I agree that Apple ONLY being able to produce stuff is bad simply for the sake of competition, but the other guys MUST come up with their own stuff. I think people want others to copy because it will bring CHEAP products to market, both in price and QUALITY.

Slightly off topic, I've played with *every* tablet at Best Buy. If all these other tablet makers boast better CPUs/GPUs than the iPad, why do NONE of them have fluid scroll motion? When I move a page with my finger, I expect it to move like a sheet of paper on a smooth surface. EVERY tablet other than the iPad moves like paper on a gravel road or sandpaper. If they cannot get even the basic UI right, why should I ever give them the time of day?

Must be something wrong with your eyes, ive used plenty of other tablets and they are all fine. The iphone 4 is very slow compared to my new HTC Sensation, menus and web pages fly up, while on iphone 4 its so slow. The new Android phones have really put the ancient iphone to shame.

 

[dethmaShine]

Of course you realize that you don't need to buy an overpriced fashion accessory to run OSX, right?

So, why do people who build their own computers not choose to use the Mac OS?

Woh! oh! oh!

Overpriced fashion accessory? Yeah right!

Are you one of those people who are somewhat pissed off with guys with MacBook airs or pros sitting at starbucks? Or one of those who think that people only buy Apple products cause they are an element of high-end fashion?

If so, get a life.

People find utility in those fashion accessories like the ones ' who build their own computers not choose to use the Mac OS'. Just let it slide and move on.

 

[deputy_doofy]

Must be something wrong with your eyes, ive used plenty of other tablets and they are all fine. The iphone 4 is very slow compared to my new HTC Sensation, menus and web pages fly up, while on iphone 4 its so slow. The new Android phones have really put the ancient iphone to shame.

Nothing wrong with my eyes. Every single Android phone I've seen is choppy with page scrolling, including the "top of the line" ones. I expect fluid motion in 2011 (4 years after the original iPhone) and have yet to see one. Now, perhaps rooted, Android-only phones work that way, but that's not what the general public generally gets. I've never seen an iPhone 4 struggle to scroll up and down a page. *Now* who has bad eyes?

 

[lkrupp]

Anyone that thinks this is good for us the consumer is wrong. This is doing nothing but turning into a lawsuit fest. Everyone is suing everyone for stupid things like "apparatus to push button to turn on." You mean the power button. Some reform is going to be necessary pretty quick here. Apple needs to defend its patents of course but at what point does common sense trump technology?




Apple wants a legal monopoly so it can keeps its 40+% margins. Doesn't that bother anyone? That they are essentially paying double for Apple products?

If it bothers you then why are you here and why do you pay "double" for Apple products, if you even have any Apple products, which I suspect you do not, but simply like trolling in Apple centric forums.

 

[*LTD*]

Of course you realize that you don't need to buy an overpriced fashion accessory to run OSX, right?

For all intents and purposes, you do. The average user (Apple's biggest market) certainly does.

So, why do people who build their own computers not choose to use the Mac OS?

I don't know why this small segment of the market does that. Nor does it really matter. Possibly because they'd rather run it on a Mac? But who really cares anyway.