ITC Rules For Apple in HTC Patent Case

[hchung]

I tried to read the second patent but I had to give up half way through. It seems to be a description of some kind of demuxer.

If someone read that patent, understood it, stole the idea, and then reimplemented it I'd be very impressed.

I tried too and also got pretty confused but I think you're right.
It appears to me they're patenting some sort of device that takes multiple streams of data combined together, and then runs them through some sort of processor to manage and route them independently with regards to data communication and DSPs.

It sounds to me like they just patented the early soft-modem.

A bit of wikipedia/google lookup found two interesting facts.
1) Softmodems rose on the PC platform around 1997 when it became possible to use spare cycles from high end 486s to do the computation in place of dedicated modem CPUs.
2) In 1993, Apple released a Mac with a DSP onboard which was used as a coprocessor to handle misc signal processing. With that ability came the ability to turn your mac into a telephone, an answering machine, a fax machine, and a modem, and handle some other pro-audio tasks powered by the Mac itself. Essentially, the precursor to softmodems. And something like that would need to be able to distinguish between audio, fax, modem, and other data in some sort of software/hardware demuxer.

How that relates to the modern smartphone is not certain to me, but I'm guessing it might be related to how voice and data make it from the baseband to the CPU.

Suppose one smartphone has a baseband which sends serial data to the desktop like a traditional modem, and then has separate audio lines for voice.

Contrast this to a smartphone where the baseband which has some advanced data port which transfers control signals, modem data, and voice data all over the same port to the CPU?

Or something like that?
Like I said before, I get the idea, but I don't understand it's significance. And it's made harder by the fact that I don't really remember all the details of what tech was available when I was in middle school (which is when this patent was filed)

 

[Popeye206]

I agree. Apple should licence those patents on a fair and reasonable basis. They should be awarded some retroactive money based on historical sales, and HTC should be made to pay Apple an additional punitive amount based on damages to Apple.

However, they should not be prevented from selling their phones. That is not the point of the patent process.

No... that is not the point of a patent. You're not suppose to use someone else's IP without their permission and a license. The IP holder has the right to keep the technology to themselves. The point of invention is not always to license it to everyone.

More than likely Apple will license, but they don't have to. They can demand their tech is pulled from the product.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Hilarious coming from a man (who I idolize) that stole all his ideas from Xerox. Too funny drill Sgt!

For someone who claims they idolize the man you have zero knowledge of the relation that was PARC and Apple.

XEROX got $125 Million in stock they immediately sold when Apple had their IPO.

If they held onto it it would be in the tens of billions, in today's valuation.

XEROX licensed their IP to Apple and had no interest in the personal computer paradigm. They were the fools.

 

[mac9000]

Let's face it: Apple, a company that is well established in the consumer electronics market for over 30 years now, is scared by a company that most consumers didn't even know 3 years ago.

They're up against a team of smartphone makers who have a considerable marketshare. I'd be concerned enough to sue them for copying my stuff, which they did.

 

[hchung]

" By way of one example, the Droid X includes Android’s “Linkify” functionality, which “take a piece of text and a regular expression and turns all of the regex matches in the text into clickable links. This is particularly useful for matching things like email addresses, Internet URLs, etc. and making them actionable.” Exh. I-1 [Android Developer Site at Linkify]. In particular, the matching functionality within Android’s “Linkify” engine searches text strings for structures representative of Internet URLs, telephone numbers, email addresses, and map addresses. Id."

That is from the Moto Apple case on the same patent. The patent may cover more than just a simple regex but it seems Apple think it covers a simple regex.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, I'm also not that adept at reading patents, but I am a software dev and periodically have to worry about writing software that works outside the US.

My interpretation is that:

Email, telephone, and urls would be a simple regex and would not infringe.

Map addresses would infringe since think about how different addresses look in the US, Japan, and UK. Distinguishing between them, especially when it's not your locale sounds more like it has coverage in the patent.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Then we'll have to go to Lynx from 1992 for "prior art" - which can trump any filing date....




Yes, I find it amazing that Apple still does not have even the option for builtin WWAN (3G/4G) radios - something that Windows portables had 5 years ago. Nor the option to read HD optical disks from roughly that era.

Apple *is* amazing.

You think Lynx trumps any patents for prior art. Do more homework. It goes farther back and it was patented.

The back references go all the way back to 1971 and the patents moving forward that were granted recognized the earlier work and built upon them in a novel way.

 

[miografico]

You missed the "patented" part in the post you were responding to.

It makes no difference who invented it. If you have a wonderful idea scrawled onto a napkin while you were drunk at a bar and you didn't take steps to patent it and assert your rights, then probably all you'll get is a mention in the history books.

Ideas are a dime-a-dozen. Taking them and turning them into something useful and workable (and then asserting your rights) is what counts.

Good For Bell Labs and Mr. Wellner. Now that that's out of the way, we can move right along to pre-ordering the iPhone 5 in a couple of months, which, by the way, is an example of wonderfully usable multitouch technology - and some of it's patented, too.

Actually it does, or it is supposed to, it's called Prior Art. It just so happens you rarely see engineers step up the table and get involved with things they may have technically invented 20 years ago. Most engineers aren't those types of people. Most engineers just care about creating and not selling. Most engineers/inventors couldn't afford to fight that battle even if they wanted to. If it weren't for those fact then we wouldn't have 3/4 of the companies we have today.

On to your, "Good for Bell Labs" comment. If AT&T Bell Labs were never to have existed Apple wouldn't exist in the mobile market and OS X wouldn't exist either. Bell Labs was at one time the de facto innovative company in the US . Whether it was for software or hardware an enormous amount of the ideas today are not original and were being either developed/tested in some capacity at Bell Labs. That amount goes even higher when you are talking about telecommunications.

What's my point in all that? The point is whether it's from Xerox Parc or to FingerWorks Apple is like every other tech company today: Buy someone else's technology, fix it up a bit, get a piece of paper saying it's yours to shutdown any semblance of competition, profit. The problem as many have already stated in this thread and others is the piece of paper saying its yours. It allows you to bully or destroy any or all competition if you have big enough purse strings and it kills innovation.

These suits kill innovation. Do you understand what happens when you completely kill innovation and are left with Apple, Microsoft, General Electric, Boeing etc. etc. etc.? You kill this country. It isn't these giant corporations that do the most hiring it's the two guys in a garage that develop something cool, get seed money and grow. If those two guys in a garage shut the door and turn the lights off because they are afraid to even dip a toe in the water with this climate - you kill not only innovation, but the economy here in general.

LTD you act like Apple is a living breathing entity. You have some sick obsession with a label, a brand. Are you that obsessive about other things? Do you hug your General Electric washer or dryer every time you use it? Do you stroke your vehicle's dashboard and call it sweet names before you turn over the engine?

Every-time something is brought up to counter Apple all you get is doublespeak. The poster claimed Apple developed multitouch and patented it. That is not true end of story. Apple has a patent for multitouch they did not invent multitouch.

 

[*LTD*]

Hilarious coming from a man (who I idolize) that stole all his ideas from Xerox. Too funny drill Sgt!

Someone who truly idolizes him would know his history. You don't.

You're just not hardcore.

Return the badge and the robe.

 

[DeathChill]

I am interested to see how this plays out. If HTC really is infringing then they should pay; the same goes for Apple.

 

[shompa]

This is not accurate. IP exists to benefit the user. The idea is that it provides an incentive to innovate, which benefits the user. When IP starts suppressing innovation, then it is defeating its own purpose.

WP7, WebOS, even Blackberry's new OS are good attempts at innovation. The original Android was anything but. It was simply a ripoff of many different technologies.

Yes!!
WebOS is a great example.
If a small company as Palm can do such a good product, why can't Nokia, Samsung or other companies use the same strategy?

 

[*LTD*]

Actually it does, or it is supposed to, it's called Prior Art. It just so happens you rarely see engineers step up the table and get involved with things they may have technically invented 20 years ago. Most engineers aren't those types of people. Most engineers just care about creating and not selling. Most engineers/inventors couldn't afford to fight that battle even if they wanted to. If it weren't for those fact then we wouldn't have 3/4 of the companies we have today.

On to your, "Good for Bell Labs" comment. If AT&T Bell Labs were never to have existed Apple wouldn't exist in the mobile market and OS X wouldn't exist either. Bell Labs was at one time the de facto innovative company in the US . Whether it was for software or hardware an enormous amount of the ideas today are not original and were being either developed/tested in some capacity at Bell Labs. That amount goes even higher when you are talking about telecommunications.

What's my point in all that? The point is whether it's from Xerox Parc or to FingerWorks Apple is like every other tech company today: Buy someone else's technology, fix it up a bit, get a piece of paper saying it's yours to shutdown any semblance of competition, profit. The problem as many have already stated in this thread and others is the piece of paper saying its yours. It allows you to bully or destroy any or all competition if you have big enough purse strings and it kills innovation.

These suits kill innovation. Do you understand what happens when you completely kill innovation and are left with Apple, Microsoft, General Electric, Boeing etc. etc. etc.? You kill this country. It isn't these giant corporations that do the most hiring it's the two guys in a garage that develop something cool, get seed money and grow. If those two guys in a garage shut the door and turn the lights off because they are afraid to even dip a toe in the water with this climate - you kill not only innovation, but the economy here in general.

LTD you act like Apple is a living breathing entity. You have some sick obsession with a label, a brand. Are you that obsessive about other things? Do you hug your General Electric washer or dryer every time you use it? Do you stroke your vehicle's dashboard and call it sweet names before you turn over the engine?

Every-time something is brought up to counter Apple all you get is doublespeak. The poster claimed Apple developed multitouch and patented it. That is not true end of story. Apple has a patent for multitouch they did not invent multitouch.

tl;dr

Well no, I actually bothered to read your novel. It's great and all, just don't sell it.

Most of the philosophy you reproduced in your post has nothing to do with this case. We can get into deep discussions about property rights and the whole notion of innovation.

It might be best to stick to the limits of the law and determine whether something has been infringed, who did the infringing, and who the injured party is. Debating the rightness or wrongness of Apple exercising their legal rights is about as useful as a pair of thermal underwear in Death Valley at high noon.

If you hate the laws that apply here or wish they could be improved, then call your congressperson or something, or if you're outside of the US, your local gov't representative. At least that way you'll actually be doing something about it.

 

[hcho3]

HTC at least try to use their Own custom skin called HTC sense. It doesn't look a lot like apple's iOS.

Samsung is absolutely nuts about copying apple. Their UI looks exactly like Apple's iOS.

If HTC violated 2 patents, then Samsung will face even more.

 

[The Mad Hatter]

Hilarious coming from a man (who I idolize) that purchased most of his Macintosh ideas from Xerox. Too funny drill Sgt!

Here, let me fix that for you.


Oh, and by the way, you do realize that Jobs & Woz were rockin' it way before the Mac even came on the scene, right?

Just a little insight for ya.

 

[lhawkins]

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?

I really don't care about the price of the iPhone. It's the price of the 2 year contract with limited data that I feel is unjustified. Apple is the only company out there that actually has a chance of breaking the cell phone oligopoly. Realistically we should be paying around $20-40 a month for unlimited data... and voice is just data like any other thing transferred over the frequencies that the US government auctioned off to the highest bidder.

In 5 years the charge should be down to around $10 a month and in 10 years it should be almost free.

 

[kdarling]

The most interesting thing is that Apple just got the Multi touch patent. It took almost 4 year to get it approved. All other companies infringe on this.

That patent was only about using different numbers of fingers to scroll windows within windows.

When Jobs said "we patented the hell out of it", he wasn't kidding.

Whatever Jobs said doesn't matter in this case, as these are not iPhone related patents... they're far, far older. Moreover:

1) 8 of the 10 Apple patents didn't pass the initial inspection.

2) Five other judges have to agree with this first one about the 2 patents he thought were violated.

It's always hard to gauge "obviousness" in hindsight.

Yes, however IMO, when multiple programmers all come up with the same idea when they reach a certain point in development, I would argue the invention is pretty obvious.

This idea wasn't stolen from some old Apple patent. It's just a natural thing to do. For example, Blackberries have recognized phone numbers for years. Stepping from there to having multiple options is easy. Right-clicking on Windows PCs has had that kind of option forever.

 

[miografico]

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.

Name one judge or lawyer depending upon the nature of the invention that has a mechanical, electrical or computer science background and who is capable of hearing arguments, looking at the evidence and determining if a patent is valid or not.

Name one judge or lawyer who can look at a diagram for something as simple as a servomechanism for activating a camera shutter and make a competent case for whether that is broad based or not.

Name the amount of all the highly qualified engineers who go to work for the US Patent Office to determine the eligibility of patents.

Its an irrevocably broken system and lawyers, judges and the office itself are the problem.

 

[vvswarup]

I agree. Apple should licence those patents on a fair and reasonable basis. They should be awarded some retroactive money based on historical sales, and HTC should be made to pay Apple an additional punitive amount based on damages to Apple.

However, they should not be prevented from selling their phones. That is not the point of the patent process.

So in other words, someone should be able to break into your house, take your diamond rings and when you try to make him give them back, he should be able to offer to pay you for them and you should just accept that. And before you refute the claim that HTC did not steal anything, an impartial judge has determined that HTC infringed on two patents that legitimately belong to Apple.

A patent gives the holder exclusive rights. The patent-holder is under no obligation whatsoever to share it with others.

 

[Kar98]

Fair to Apple to have a big slice of the smartphone cake since they were the ones who sparked the smartphone market in the first place.

Really?

 

[AidenShaw]

Apple needs to look at what Microsoft learned the hard way

The patent-holder is under no obligation whatsoever to share it with others.

If the patent holder is judged to be a monopoly, then all sorts of things change from being legal to being "restraint of trade".

And "monopoly" has never meant 100% of the market outside of the board game. It means having a large enough share of the market that the company is able to strongarm suppliers and set retail pricing (and some other things).

Apple should be paid for its legitimate IP, under FRAND terms. If Apple tries to kill competitors through denying FRAND licensing, though, Apple should be nailed to the cross of "monopoly" and shackled with decades of regulatory oversight.

Every day, in every way, Apple becomes more and more evil.

(Two Aiden-points for citing the movie reference the last line is based upon. Four Aiden-points for citing both the movie reference and the original quote that was adapted for the movie.)

 

[miografico]

So in other words, someone should be able to break into your house, take your diamond rings and when you try to make him give them back, he should be able to offer to pay you for them and you should just accept that. And before you refute the claim that HTC did not steal anything, an impartial judge has determined that HTC infringed on two patents that legitimately belong to Apple.

A patent gives the holder exclusive rights. The patent-holder is under no obligation whatsoever to share it with others.

That's not even a valid counter argument.

If it's hardware:

1.) Was the PCB an exact duplicate down to the number of connections and how they were routed.
2.) Same exact placement of chips: microprocessor, microcontrollers gps chip etc etc
3.) Same exact design and specifications of unit housing. (The casing)

If it's software:

1.) Line for line duplication of source code.
2.) Proof that code was confiscated or binaries were decompiled in the first place.
3.) Exact replication of art/interface.

I see number three under software being a point of contention i.e. Samsung, but I have yet to see a case for the rest of those points!

You have patents for interface that should fall under copyright and be in copyright court for violators. But, the rest is suing for the end result of a computational operation throwing away the argument of what it truly means to copy and rip someone else off.

Another poster brought up the fact the patent system has been around as long as this country has - this is true, but the fact of the matter is that was a very different time and a very different world. If I took you to court in 1820 because you violated my patent on a firearm, the judge had to look at a very primitive assembled and disassembled mechanical device and make a call. Today sometimes they have to go through a telephone book sized amount of paperwork and make a call about a field in which the judge nor the lawyers have any clue what they are arguing about.

 

[Zaim2]

http://allthingsd.com/20110715/itc-rules-htc-violated-two-apple-patents/

Decided to list out the claims the ITC say HTC are infringing on for clarity:


From "System and method for performing an action on a structure in computer"

1. A computer-based system for detecting structures in data and performing actions on detected structures, comprising:

• an input device for receiving data; an output device for presenting the data; a memory storing information including program routines including;
  an analyzer server for detecting structures in the data, and for linking actions to the detected structures;
• a user interface enabling the selection of a detected structure and a linked action; and
• an action processor for performing the selected action linked to the selected structure; and a processing unit coupled to the input device, the output device, and the memory for controlling the execution ofthe program routines.

8. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the user interface highlights detected structures.

15. In a computer having a memory storing actions, a method for causing the computer to perform an action on a structure identified in computer data, comprising the steps of:

• receiving computer data;
• detecting a structure in the data;
• linking at least one action to the detected structure;
• enabling selection of the structure and a linked action;
• and executing the selected action linked to the selected structure.

19. The method recited in claim 15, wherein the memory contains strings, and wherein the step of detecting a structure further comprises the steps of retrieving a string from the memory and scanning the data to identify the string.


From "Real-time signal processing system for serially transmitted data"


1. A signal processing system for providing a plurality of realtime services to and from a number of independent client applications and devices, said system comprising:

• a subsystem comprising a host central processing unit (CPU) operating in accordance with at least one application program and a device handler program, said subsystem further comprising an adapter subsystem interoperating with said host CPU and said device;
• a realtime signal processing subsystem for performing a plurality of data transforms comprising a plurality of realtime signal processing operations; and
• at least one realtime application program interface (API) coupled between the subsystem and the realtime signal processing subsystem to allow the subsystem to interoperate with said realtime services.

2. The signal processing system as set forth in claim 1, wherein said signal processing system receives and trans- 4J mits a plurality of datatypes over a plurality of different wide area networks (WANs).

24. The signal processing system of claim 1, wherein said realtime signal processing subsystem comprises:

• a realtime processor including an operating system for executing a plurality of realtime functions;
• a realtime communications module which is independent of said realtime processor and is coupled to receive a plurality of communications commands from said application programs via said device handler program and said realtime API, said realtime communications module operating in response to said communications commands to issue a plurality of requests for realtime services to said realtime processor;
• and a translation interface program which is specific to said realtime processor and is coupled to receive said requests for realtime services from said communications module and provide said requests to said realtime processor.

29. The signal processing system of claim 24, wherein said realtime processor is embodied in a hardware device and includes realtime function libraries that are embodied in programmable software.


So even ignoring Android, basically any modern competitive OS would infringe. Not sure why people are celebrating this ruling.

 

[weespeed]

So in other words, someone should be able to break into your house, take your diamond rings and when you try to make him give them back, he should be able to offer to pay you for them and you should just accept that. And before you refute the claim that HTC did not steal anything, an impartial judge has determined that HTC infringed on two patents that legitimately belong to Apple.

A patent gives the holder exclusive rights. The patent-holder is under no obligation whatsoever to share it with others.

So what you're saying is, when Apple and Nokia settled their dispute over GSM technology and Nokia said, thanks for the money for using our GSM patents in the past. Now we revoke your right to use that. And Apple would then have no phones running GSM. That would be ok with you?

 

[MJL]

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?

I agree with the poster. IMHO Apple is turning into a bully just like M$N used to be before Linux really took off. In the western world patents are being observed but what about China and the rest of Asia?

( Did you guys ever look to see what M$N charges for a license in some of those countries - it is a pittance in comparison to what you pay elsewhere in the west. )

 

[mccldwll]

Just do what some of the rest of us do. If the argument is from LTD consider it the fanboy argument and therefor invalided [sic].

.....said the dude with a kid's cartoon character for an ID.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

A patent gives the holder exclusive rights. The patent-holder is under no obligation whatsoever to share it with others.

OK. So what say everyone about the Lodsys patents, which were granted by the very same patent processes? Let me guess, since those don't benefit Apple and Apple developers, those are stupid, useless, obvious and should have never been granted (Consider that rhetorical: I've (we've?) already seen that case throughly made overwhelmingly against Lodsys patents in a number of other threads... by some of the very same people arguing so pro-Apple in this one).

And should it go to trial and a ruling go in favor of Lodsys patent validity, what say you then? Again rhetorical; I'm sure that judge will be as wrong as this judge is right.

And how about Kodaks patents? Samsungs? W3C? Motorola? Etc. Let me guess, all of their patents are wrong, invalid, stupid, etc. Only Apple's patents should be fully upheld and everyone else should have theirs (those that work in some way against Apple's best interests) invalidated, etc?