ITC Rules For Apple in HTC Patent Case

[dethmaShine]

Why? i kinda like being right.

When reality happens to suck, and some of us point that out (and have pointed it out well in advance), we're not fan-anythings.

Just prescient. In fact, it shouldn't have taken too many brain cells to see this coming. Everyone knew the precarious position Google was in. It was just a matter of time.

Eric Schmidt was almost in a state of abject panic in his most recent patent-related interview. Why do you think that is?? MS, for example, is already on the road to pulling money from Google. Like I said, one is forced to wonder what in Android is actually Google's.

The hilarious part in all this is that both Google and their partners are at risk. One necessarily follows the other.

Do you really read my posts?

I myself believe that Eric Schmidt played an important role in leaking the iPhone project to Google. I have no proofs; some might have. But I do believe that Android is a sad iOS ripoff.

What do you wish to hear now?

All I am saying is that the way you wrote that post loudly speaks that Apple has got all rights to all kinds of patents for a touch-screen smartphone. It also sounds that Apple is the only one innovating in the mobile space which is not true.

Just to end this discussion:

- HTC will have to pay if they have gotten sued for the right thing.
- Apple is not the only one innovating.

Thanks
Regards

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Yeah, they basically patented a regular expression that's probably the first assignment in many Computer Science 101 classes.

The first assignment in CS 101 is not Regular Expressions. In fact, the first assignment typically is Hello World, and learning about Pointers.

 

[yg17]

The first assignment in CS 101 is not Regular Expressions. In fact, the first assignment typically is Hello World, and learning about Pointers.

I know, I realized my mistake but didn't edit in time. It's probably the first assignment in the lesson on RegEx in CS 101. It's something so simple, basic, and one single line of code. It shouldn't be patentable.

 

[*LTD*]

Thank god Apple never invented the motor car

Thank god Apple never invented the motor cycle

Thank god Apple never invented the Television

Thank god Apple never invented the Flat screen computer monitor.


Seriously, Even people who like Apple, must realise, all this does at the end of the day is to hurt the consumers.

Some things should be so basic and fundamental to a world wide technology that no-one should be able to claim it for themselves.

This has nothing to do with consumers. Consumers have no say in this, nor should they. It's about competing fairly. The same rules apply to Apple. You patent something, and apart from a few exceptions, it's YOURS.

Don't forget, a lot of people who rely on the integrity of IP law are consumers themselves.

 

[BC2009]

http://www.google.com


Oh look, vBulletin turned that into a link. Apple better sue!

I know it may seem like this patent is trivial today, but Apple filed this patent application way back in 1996. That's back when Netscape Navigator was the best browser out there and Internet Explorer was a joke. I don't think folks were thinking about this back then and it was pretty darn novel.

It's always hard to gauge "obviousness" in hindsight. Surely this invention is ubiquitous today -- and it is likely that many of the major players are licensing it. Apple may have chosen it because HTC was not cross-licensed on it.

Both GMail and Yahoo! mail do the same thing -- not sure if either company has licensed this patent.

NOTE: If Apple has included this patent in large bundles of cross-licensing to other players then the effect on Android as a whole may not be as extreme as the author of the original article lets on. Patent licensing deals are typically confidential. We can only assume that Motorola is NOT licensed because they are trying to get that patent invalidated -- which usually means you immediately forfeit your license.

 

[yg17]

This has nothing to do with consumers. Consumers have no say in this, nor should they. It's about competing fairly. The same rules apply to Apple. You patent something, and apart from a few exceptions, it's YOURS.

Don't forget, a lot of people who rely on the integrity of IP law are consumers themselves.

It has everything to do with consumers. If Apple had their way, consumers would have no choices when it comes to buying smart phones. Competition and choices benefit consumers. Not that I expect you to understand that.

 

[dethmaShine]

No one does, which is why software patents are so stupid. I don't believe for a second the judge who ruled on this case had a clear understanding of what those patents mean. I'm a software developer myself and those patents don't make any sense, they're so cryptic and vague. Someone who spent his entire life in the legal profession and not a computer science profession can't possibly have a full understanding of them.

So are you claiming that you have a better understanding of software-patents and the patent law than the ITC judge?

I think software patents like any other patent should be granted only if they provide some means of actual invention.

For e.g. the present state of comparable algorithms have a running time or complexity of at the least O(nlogn). This can be proved asymptotically using a hypothetical sorting algorithm for n-inputs, i.e. its a fact and an identity.

sorting(n) >= O(nlogn)

If some genius comes up with a sorting algorithm that takes some what lesser than that, he should be given a patent for the same. It's truly an invention and he deserves the right to the same.

 

[gohanmzt]

...
For example, Apple scans text and finds phone numbers and makes them tappable so you can call them.
...

So Skype's toolbar is infringing too? Damn

 

[h4lp m3]

Depending on which two patents HTC infringes and on whether the Commission affirms the ALJ's decision, this could in a worst-case scenario result in a shutdown of many or even all Android-based HTC products in the U.S. market.

Music to my ears. I completely HATE Google.

 

[*LTD*]

All I am saying is that the way you wrote that post loudly speaks that Apple has got all rights to all kinds of patents for a touch-screen smartphone.

It would appear they do. Add to this, a court order for Samsung to hand over their goods. The evidence is piling up.

also sounds that Apple is the only one innovating in the mobile space which is not true.

Sure it's not true. I just don't se a lot of moving and shaking done by anyone else. For now, it looks like most of Google's "innovations" are suspect. MS did some interesting things with WP7, but no one is really noticing apart from the tech community, which is altogether bad news.

There's a whole lot of duplication and inspiration going on, but not a whole lot of innovating. But granted, "innovation" is a term used loosely these days. So maybe I'm not acknowledging certain achievements that I should.

Just to end this discussion:

- HTC will have to pay if they have gotten sued for the right thing.
- Apple is not the only one innovating.

Thanks
Regards

I see we're mostly on the same page.

It has everything to do with consumers. If Apple had their way, consumers would have no choices when it comes to buying smart phones. Competition and choices benefit consumers. Not that I expect you to understand that.

If ANYONE had their way consumers would have no other choices when it comes to buying smartphones.

Which major player actually *wants* competition?? NONE OF THEM.

Intellectual property rights exist and are enforced irrespective of anyone.

I know FOSS is cool and all and so very counterculture, but don't go all Richard Stallman on us.

Besides, if these patents are critical enough for the health of the industry (and thus us little consumer-folk) then regulatory powers will step in and require fair licensing thereof. The ITC isn't on Apple's payroll. And HTC might still win on appeal if in fact they played fair. However, don't go blaming the game when the players can't stick to the rules.

 

[ratzzo]

Thank god Apple never invented the motor car

Thank god Apple never invented the motor cycle

Thank god Apple never invented the Television

Thank god Apple never invented the Flat screen computer monitor.


Seriously, Even people who like Apple, must realise, all this does at the end of the day is to hurt the consumers.

Some things should be so basic and fundamental to a world wide technology that no-one should be able to claim it for themselves.

Yep. Apple did invent and patent these though, so it's fair in a juridical way. But in reality it just sets back the competition and eventually the end user can't enjoy most of today's fundamental-basic features on a smartphone. IMO most of these should be similar and let the user choose what he likes best in a smartphone but with Apple's way of shutting down the competition like this, it'll eventually come down to choosing Apple over anything else given the advantage it has in features just because of patents.

 

[BC2009]

Yeah, they basically patented a regular expression that's probably the first assignment in many Computer Science 101 classes.

Come to think of it... I don't think many of the regular-expression replacements for URLs into links are going to violate this patent. A link in and of itself is a passive thing. If Google or Yahoo Mail automatically replace a URL with a link they have done nothing to actually handle it -- the browser handles it for them.

What Apple has patented is recognizing the data and linking an event handler directly to that and having an "action processor" that ingests that and handles it all on the same system.

No website could actually infringe this patent since nobody is doing all of this -- just parts of it. However, a smartphone that does it at a core level and has built-in handlers for each kind of recognized data would infringe the patent.

This would be like the browser itself automatically recognizing URLs in web pages that the website neglected to markup as a URL. Or an email program automatically recognizing email addresses and dates within the body of a message (rather than the headers).

 

[Piggie]

It's called competition on a level playing field. HTC has equal rights to patent their IP and defend it against Apple or any other competitor.

Either one can invest into R&D and actually hire professionals to do the research or risk legal action for IP theft.

It appears this generation thinks now, more than ever, that IP theft is virtuous and investing in the education of a growing technical staff is not an action of virtue.

I don't think this, however, I do think that some inventions that create a new "base product" so to speak and set in motion some fundamental designs, should be open to all for the good of the world actually.

What if No-one else was allowed to make a car that used a steering wheel to control the direction of the front wheels?

Or that no-one could make a TV based upon the cathode ray idea (over the past many decades)

Some things are fundamental and benefit the whole human race.
It is not right to hold the whole world back from moving on, due to one company

 

[clarkent5477]

Don't piss in the sandbox

Apple's going to piss off a lot of people if the ruling causes a shutdown. That's no way to win customers, but the best way to win haters.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

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?

Not here. Here anytime patent laws or decisions favor Apple, all is well & fine with the patent system. And anytime the patent laws or decisions go against Apple, the chorus wails against the sensibilities of the patent system. Here, all things that are with Apple are good and all things that are against Apple (or that Apple is against) are bad. Many here will rally against what's best for even us consumers if whatever it is appears to be against what's best for Apple.

Personally, I own plenty of Apple products and can thoroughly appreciate many things that Apple does. But it's not blind admiration. I think defensive patents are one of the fundamental causes for the foundational pains in America. It seems like the patent system has turned into one which is more about suppressing or limiting innovation than protecting it. IMO, software patents are stupid; software should be protected by copyright law, not patents. Etc. Etc.

You are right. Allowed it's natural progression, the big companies with the deeper pockets will eventually have such massive patent portfolios for such nothing little functions that no small business will be able to afford to innovate (won't be able to pay for all of the patent licenses nor pay for legal defense should they go to market and see what happens). Of those big boys who are left to be the "innovators," all that licensing cost will be passed on to the consumers in the form of much higher prices than necessary. Either way, we- the consumers- lose.

In many cases with how patents are being used now, we're not rewarding genuine innovation but instead rewarding companies with the deepest pockets to attempt to patent every little thing possible- even when they have no intention of ever actually taking what they are patenting to market. The working model has become: wait, let someone else launch something that seems to infringe, wait a while for the potential prize (the litigation reward) to become big enough to make it worth filing suit and then attack.

IMO, if a company holds patents, there should be a time limit to take their patent to market or license it at a cost low enough to motivate it to go to market via licensees, or else the patent becomes public domain... a kind of "use it or lose it" model. Implemented, our country would be overloaded with new business and jobs to rapidly bring so much to market and/or capitalize on great patents that become public domain.

Our system has turned into one in which the increasingly few with lots of money on hand leverages their wealth to maintain the status quo, rather than allow anything that might allow a disruption of their cash flows to come to market. For example, instead of big oil holding back the very best battery technologies because they've bought up those patents for defensive purposes, that battery technology should come to market... or become public domain (so others can bring it to market). Instead, they just sit on it protecting their oil revenues by buying select patents that could challenge that business model. Real innovation used to be about disrupting the status quo to move us all along (candles to light bulbs, horse & buggies to automobiles, etc). Now it seems to be increasingly squeezed to fit into any remaining cracks where it can't harm existing business models. Today, the candle makers or horse & buggy companies would buy the patents that might allow a light bulb or automobile to come to market, suppress them, and keep those candles and/or buggy revenues rolling.

Here again, I feel no love for HTC or Android. But all such events will ultimately accomplish is higher prices for consumers driven by less competition. We lose so that Apple can win (this one)... and HTC can win others... and Samsung can win others... etc. They all ultimately will have to pay each other for rights to every little function and guess who will cover all that cost of licensing?

 

[Mr. Gates]

Oh Apple .....

Stop it

 

[unlinked]

Come to think of it... I don't think many of the regular-expression replacements for URLs into links are going to violate this patent. A link in and of itself is a passive thing. If Google or Yahoo Mail automatically replace a URL with a link they have done nothing to actually handle it -- the browser handles it for them.

What Apple has patented is recognizing the data and linking an event handler directly to that and having an "action processor" that ingests that and handles it all on the same system.

No website could actually infringe this patent since nobody is doing all of this -- just parts of it. However, a smartphone that does it at a core level and has built-in handlers for each kind of recognized data would infringe the patent.

This would be like the browser itself automatically recognizing URLs in web pages that the website neglected to markup as a URL. Or an email program automatically recognizing email addresses and dates within the body of a message (rather than the headers).

Why would a browser parsing HTML links not be covered? Sounds like it would.

 

[iansilv]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_8 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E401 Safari/6533.18.5)

Oh F! I just pumped gas and ate a McDonald's cheeseburger- I think I violated their patents too!

J/K! Go apple! Stomp the copy Cats!

 

[miografico]

Patent #1:

System and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data

A system and method causes a computer to detect and perform actions on structures identified in computer data. The system provides an analyzer server, an application program interface, a user interface and an action processor. The analyzer server receives from an application running concurrently data having recognizable structures, uses a pattern analysis unit, such as a parser or fast string search function, to detect structures in the data, and links relevant actions to the detected structures. The application program interface communicates with the application running concurrently, and transmits relevant information to the user interface. Thus, the user interface can present and enable selection of the detected structures, and upon selection of a detected structure, present the linked
candidate actions. Upon selection of an action, the action processor performs the action on the detected structure.


Patent #2:

Real-time signal processing system for serially transmitted data

A data transmission system having a real-time data engine for processing isochronous streams of data includes an interface device that provides a physical and logical connection of a computer to any one or more of a variety of different types of data networks. Data received at this device is presented to a serial driver, which disassembles different streams of data for presentation to appropriate data managers. A device handler associated with the interface device sets up data flow paths, and also presents data and commands from the data managers to a real-time data processing engine. Flexibility to handle any type of data, such as voice, facsimile, video and the like, that is transmitted over any type of communication network with any type of real-time engine is made possible by abstracting the functions of each of the elements of the system from one another. This abstraction is provided through suitable interfaces that isolate the transmission medium, the data manager and the real-time engine from one another.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

These are the brief synopsis about the two patents.

The two out of then ten they won on... Because they lost on their primary hearing for 8 others (But that wouldn't come up here...) are an entire risk to the mobile ecosystem - not JUST HTC, but Motorola et. al and Android in general.

They are progressively broad and could do a lot of damage to the entire mobile market now that the preliminary ruling from the ITC gives them weight.

So cheer all you want. Cheer all the way until Apple becomes the only mobile hardware maker in the United States. With their Nortel patent portfolio purchase(s) that's what is happening and fast.

Cheer for the death of fair competition. The death of choices and a completely controlled environment where you are on the only existing train or you go nowhere.

Cheer until it becomes 100% impossible for anyone to compete in the United States unless they aren't an already a huge conglomerate. All of this has become absolutely insane.

Unless there is an exact replication of a device there shouldn't be any patent claim. Unless there is an exact replication of code there shouldn't be any copyright claim. You should have to make your market based upon the merits of you device/software and how good you are at getting your message across in a marketing sense. You should have to make your market based upon consumer sentiment toward your product(s) not how much paper you have on file with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

We Americans live in such a litigious society today that any small business with a design they want to put into production is much better off targeting: Europe, South America, and Asia to keep from being suffocated from what is essentially a fascist system.

The best possible thing HTC can do is pull their products out of the United States, explain why and let the consumer tell their congressman how they feel about Apple being the new aged Bell Laboratories.

 

[unlinked]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_8 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E401 Safari/6533.18.5)

Oh F! I just pumped gas and ate a McDonald's cheeseburger- I think I violated their patents too!

J/K! Go apple! Stomp the copy Cats!

Browser useragents really are a mess these days. Yours looks like they took a little bit of everything and blended it together.

 

[blackpond]

It has everything to do with consumers. If Apple had their way, consumers would have no choices when it comes to buying smart phones. Competition and choices benefit consumers. Not that I expect you to understand that.

If consumers had their way everything would be free and these companies and products wouldn't exist.

 

[Westside guy]

Wow. That first patent appears suspiciously similar to simply parsing vCard information - which Apple indeed had a hand in developing, but handed over to a standards body three years before that patent was granted. Having an application always running to parse address book info isn't particularly innovative.

Seems to me this is a good example of what's wrong with the US Patent system. Just because it's being used in Apple's favor this time doesn't make it right.

Of course it's too much to expect most of you to actually look up the patents being referenced, apparently - it's certainly easier to just wave the fanboi flag (on both sides).

 

[WiiDSmoker]

Win for Apple. Loss for Consumers.

 

[*LTD*]

Patent number #1:

System and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data

A system and method causes a computer to detect and perform actions on structures identified in computer data. The system provides an analyzer server, an application program interface, a user interface and an action processor. The analyzer server receives from an application running concurrently data having recognizable structures, uses a pattern analysis unit, such as a parser or fast string search function, to detect structures in the data, and links relevant actions to the detected structures. The application program interface communicates with the application running concurrently, and transmits relevant information to the user interface. Thus, the user interface can present and enable selection of the detected structures, and upon selection of a detected structure, present the linked
candidate actions. Upon selection of an action, the action processor performs the action on the detected structure.


Patent #2:

Real-time signal processing system for serially transmitted data

A data transmission system having a real-time data engine for processing isochronous streams of data includes an interface device that provides a physical and logical connection of a computer to any one or more of a variety of different types of data networks. Data received at this device is presented to a serial driver, which disassembles different streams of data for presentation to appropriate data managers. A device handler associated with the interface device sets up data flow paths, and also presents data and commands from the data managers to a real-time data processing engine. Flexibility to handle any type of data, such as voice, facsimile, video and the like, that is transmitted over any type of communication network with any type of real-time engine is made possible by abstracting the functions of each of the elements of the system from one another. This abstraction is provided through suitable interfaces that isolate the transmission medium, the data manager and the real-time engine from one another.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

These are the brief synopsis about the two patents.

The two out of then ten they won on... Because they lost on their primary hearing for 8 others (But that wouldn't come up here...) are an entire risk to the mobile ecosystem - not JUST HTC, but Motorola et. al and Android in general.

They are progressively broad and could do a lot of damage to the entire mobile market now that the preliminary ruling from the ITC gives them weight.

So cheer all you want. Cheer all the way until Apple becomes the only mobile hardware maker in the United States. With their Nortel patent portfolio purchase(s) that's what is happening and fast.

Cheer for the death of fair competition. The death of choices and a completely controlled environment where you are on the only existing train or you go nowhere.

Cheer until it becomes 100% impossible for anyone to compete in the United States unless they aren't an already a huge conglomerate. All of this has become absolutely insane.

Unless there is an exact replication of a device there shouldn't be any patent claim. Unless there is an exact replication of code there shouldn't be any copyright claim. You should have to make your market based upon the merits of you device/software and how good you are at getting your message across in a marketing sense. You should have to make your market based upon consumer sentiment toward your product(s) not how much paper you have on file with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

We Americans live in such a litigious society today that any small business with a design they want to put into production is much better off targeting: Europe, South America, and Asia to keep from being suffocated from what is essentially a fascist system.

The best possible thing HTC can do is pull their products out of the United States, explain why and let the consumer tell their congressman how they feel about Apple being the new aged Bell Laboratories.

Your argument is against IP law, not against Apple, who is simply using mechanisms available to them. Others would be the first to use the same mechanisms. But it's usually the ones that appear to have a case that do.

 

[wonderspark]

What I don't want to see is people patenting every dang thing that comes along. If some automaker patented putting swinging doors on a car, all cars made by other people would have to crawl in and out through a hole or something. That's stupid. I'm not keen on patents for things like multitouch. I guess I would be if I invented it, though, because $$$$$$$$ über alles and stuff.