Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

ITC Rules For Apple in Patent Case, Bans Some HTC Imports [Update: HTC Responds]

Swift said:
That's so funny. Look at your own heart, see the hatred bubbling for Apple.

I'm not entirely sure how we establish patent law to work this way, and then Apple isn't supposed to use it.
Click to expand...

LOL - I don't hate Apple. First of all - hate is an extreme emotion and second - Apple is a company not even a person - so to "hate" would be even sillier.

I am pretty technology agnostic. The right tool for the right job. As I haven't and don't currently own any Android devices - I can't comment on their OS or phones that use them other than my :30 of use case in a store.

I do have a long history with Microsoft and PCs in addition to working for a major phone manufacturer back in the 90s.

So if/when you read my comments and you think I am "hating" on Apple - I can only say that I am merely being honest and practical based on the fact that I am 100% Apple at home and also at work. Iphone, iMac, MacBook Pro, 2 Apple TVs, etc.

Just because I have Apple products though doesn't mean I would pretend that Apple as an organization is perfect nor their products.

Again - that doesn't make me a hater or someone filled with hatred.

I've made PLENTY of pro-Apple statements in my history on this site. And I've made plenty of negative comments about Apple's "competition."
 
Last edited:
Swift said:
Since the iPhone 4? The 4S? Siri? The iPad 2? Lion? iCloud? iTunes Match? New versions of all their hardware with Thunderbolt connections? New Mac Pros coming down? Or something completely new, Final Cut Pro X? I'm forgetting some things.
Click to expand...

Think you're confusing good products with great innovation.

----------
kdarling said:
Yep.

However, obviousness is a defense, if it gets the patent claims invalidated.

@ chris200x9:

This is just one of many examples why a lot of people are against software patents altogether.

Given the requirement to do something, it's not at all uncommon for programmers to come up with the same methodology independently, sometimes years apart as in this case.

Apple's slide-to-unlock patent is another good example, and judges are already letting them know it's too obvious. (Apple has withdrawn it from a couple of cases already.)

If you're using the same computer language, the code implementation can even come out amazingly similar. Just last month both I and another developer halfway around the world were accidentally given the same assignment for a rather unusual product addition. Two days later we found out and compared our code, and dang if about 50 complicated lines of it weren't almost exactly the same. We are both very experienced and we had simply both come up with the most efficient method.
Click to expand...

Slide to unlock had prior art too, which helped the throwing out part.

Software patents needs reform. Software is ubiquitous. Regulators needs to get with the times. Were not living in the 70's any more.
 
Piggie said:
Funnily enough, that's exactly how I feel.

I'd rather not buy Apple BECAUSE of the way they are acting.

I don't like negative companies and that's the way, to me, they are coming across.

I want a company that produces the very best, focusses 100% of it's effort, time and money into making the very best product and (NOTE TO APPLE......) RANGE of products so that everyone wants to buy them as this company (Apple) produces a range of products that fit various peoples needs and budgets.

If Anything, people like Samsung, Nokia etc do this. Producing everything from 50 to 500 dollar devices to appeal to all budgets and needs.

We have a company that want to make an incredibly tiny range of products and then tries to stop others making alternatives unless they are so ridiculously different (Apple wanting Samsung to make lumpy, non rectangle computer tablets) that they are starting to look bad.

I have an iPad one, and really honestly, I'd love something non Apple to come along that I can in the not too distant future replace it with.

I was actually even thinking of a very high end iMac also early this year, but after all the nasty legal rubbish coming out of Apple these days, I decided to put together a very nice (and faster than a mac) PC myself.

I see nothing positive, attitude wide coming from Apple these days I'm sorry to say :(
Click to expand...


so focus 100% of apples $80 billion the products and when others copy them do nothing. got it.
 
Those of you people vilifying Apple over this, I'd like to see how you would feel if you invested your precious resources in something only to watch someone else rip it off and profit from your hard work.
 
vvswarup said:
Those of you people vilifying Apple over this, I'd like to see how you would feel if you invested your precious resources in something only to watch someone else rip it off and profit from your hard work.
Click to expand...

The point is that in this case, the thing that Apple patented already existed many years before.
 
laughable...

HTC have said all along they had nothing to hide and were in the right, yet the designers there are well prepared for this result...

a$$holes
 
vvswarup said:
Those of you people vilifying Apple over this, I'd like to see how you would feel if you invested your precious resources in something only to watch someone else rip it off and profit from your hard work.
Click to expand...

exactly lol. some of you guys are just clueless.
 
AJH1993 said:
I'm marginally considering to discontinue buying Apple products. It seems to me that instead of innovating their products, they would rather file lawsuits.

I know Steve Jobs hated Android because he said it "ripped off iOS." Yet Mike Lazaridis didn't think iOS ripped off BBOS. Which he could have said. Steve Jobs was never my favorite person anyway.
Click to expand...

nobody's "forcing" you to buy apple.. Go buy something else.

----------
newyorksole said:
exactly lol. some of you guys are just clueless.
Click to expand...

and/or haters...
 
vvswarup said:
Those of you people vilifying Apple over this, I'd like to see how you would feel if you invested your precious resources in something only to watch someone else rip it off and profit from your hard work.
Click to expand...

Exactly.
 
divinox said:
Think you're confusing good products with great innovation.
Click to expand...

:) It was an impossible question. No matter what anyone answers, it won't meet the arbitrary standard of "great innovation." Let alone the loaded nature of the question to imply that Apple is slipping because they haven't released a "great innovation" in the last 17 months.
 
neiltc13 said:
The point is that in this case, the thing that Apple patented already existed many years before.
Click to expand...

Well to further - I think some posters are confusing people's commentary has Anti-Apple when in reality it's Anti-Patent. Additionally - the overall effect of this "win" is not dramatic in the slightest.

Since Apple DOES own the patent (agree with whether it's appropriate or not) and HTC was found in violation - the appropriate outcome will be reached. HTC will simply change their code.

The result to us, the end user won't even really be noticed.

----------
s4bones said:
because they spent money finding a way to do something better...

Isn't that the whole point.

If you make a mousetrap and I make a better one, i think i'm entitled to a patent.
Click to expand...

Bad analogy. If the first person has a patent on Mousetraps - your mousetrap, if it violated the patent is moot. No matter how good. Funny how that works.

Also - Apple didn't necc spend money FINDING a way to do something better. In SOME cases - they just BOUGHT someone else's findings.

I'm not saying Apple isn't any less entitled to IP they bought. But just wanted to clarify.
 
vvswarup said:
Those of you people vilifying Apple over this, I'd like to see how you would feel if you invested your precious resources in something only to watch someone else rip it off and profit from your hard work.
Click to expand...

Have you ever written a single line of code in your life? Sure doesn't seem like it. Not that this patent actually involves writing code. Look at the following:

The patent in question, 5,946,647 was granted in 1999 and covers identifying data "having recognizable structures," such as a "phone number, post-office address, e-mail address, and name." Then, the patent says, a "parsing process" will allow "appropriate actions" to be taken.​

Granted, the source is no expert, but from the reading by myself and others, that is the level of abstraction (read vagueness) this patent is on. Yeah, I'm sure tons of investment went into coming up with "parsing process" and "appropriate actions". Probably half a coffee break, if even that.

----------
BaldiMac said:
:) It was an impossible question. No matter what anyone answers, it won't meet the arbitrary standard of "great innovation." Let alone the loaded nature of the question to imply that Apple is slipping because they haven't released a "great innovation" in the last 17 months.
Click to expand...

Maybe - the answer was still quite off mark. I'd accept SIRI (even if that's based more on its future promise than current capabilities), since Apple did put it to market in a somewhat new way. Other than that i couldn't see even basic innovation, really.
 
SGMD1 said:
Are you guys serious or are you trolling? Did you even read the link?

This patent applied to the following functionality:



A redditor discovered that this functionality was actually seen in software from the 1980s - a good 13 years before Apple obtained the patent.

Prior art is a huge component of U.S. patent law so I have no idea how Apple won this case, but either way your posts don't really say anything of value as to why you think it doesn't apply.
Click to expand...

Yes I was serious - I found that comment to be hilarious.

Do you honestly think that HTC hasn't looked into prior art? That their IP attorneys are so incompetent that "somebody on the internet" holds the key to their defense?
 
neiltc13 said:
The point is that in this case, the thing that Apple patented already existed many years before.
Click to expand...

Plus, even my feature phone had something similar. Gee, guess that violates the patent too. Apple should ban Sony Ericsson phones too. :rolleyes:
 
neiltc13 said:
The point is that in this case, the thing that Apple patented already existed many years before.
Click to expand...

Right! Apple "patented" it. So they have the rights to go after each copycat.

The point is who owns the patent and judicial system relies on official documents.

To all Apple haters here. Don't worry. Google will utilize the Motorola patents and be a patent troll too.
 
I bet the patent is longer than that one paragraph

divinox said:
Have you ever written a single line of code in your life? Sure doesn't seem like it. Not that this patent actually involves writing code. Look at the following:

The patent in question, 5,946,647 was granted in 1999 and covers identifying data "having recognizable structures," such as a "phone number, post-office address, e-mail address, and name." Then, the patent says, a "parsing process" will allow "appropriate actions" to be taken.​

Granted, the source is no expert, but from the reading by myself and others, that is the level of abstraction (read vagueness) this patent is on. Yeah, I'm sure tons of investment went into coming up with "parsing process" and "appropriate actions". Probably half a coffee break, if even that.

----------



Maybe - the answer was still quite off mark. I'd accept SIRI (even if that's based more on its future promise than current capabilities), since Apple did put it to market in a somewhat new way. Other than that i couldn't see even basic innovation, really.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks Apple! My wife's HTC Rezound will get a software update quicker to fix the offending issue.

Apple, please sue Motorola and Samsung for the same patent so that we can get ice sandwich a little quicker. Helps with the fragmentation issue that so many people complain about. Win-win for everyone.
 
Piggie said:
And it will be till the end as Apple will lose in the long run.

Sooner or later they will get swamped. There is no way one company can hold back the rest of the competing world, Even GIANTS like IBM had their day in certain areas......
Click to expand...

You are quite the philosopher. As Keynes said, in the long run we are all dead. :rolleyes:
 
Laird Knox said:
Do you honestly think that HTC hasn't looked into prior art? That their IP attorneys are so incompetent that "somebody on the internet" holds the key to their defense?
Click to expand...
I absolutely don't, which is why the fact that Apple won this case makes little sense and is highly suspicious. I wonder if the judge was in their pocket.
 
vvswarup said:
Those of you people vilifying Apple over this, I'd like to see how you would feel if you invested your precious resources in something only to watch someone else rip it off and profit from your hard work.
Click to expand...

How much do you think one would need to invest into inventing a click-to-dial feature? Thirty dollars? It's about an hour of work to implement this (and 1 minute to "invent" because it's so obvious). The thing was not used before only because dialing from mainframe computers (and even PCs) made no sense.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back