Palm Pre - Patent Violations?

[HBOC]

To avoid a patent violation, all Palm has to do is slightly change the coding for the multi-touch screen. There is an asus netbook out right now that has a multitouch screen. We haven't heard any rumblings from Apple about this.

For example, not so much with technology, but ever wonder how all these drugs that do the same thing come out? There are many statin drugs (cholesterol lower meds) on the market that all do the exact same thing. They all have patents on them. The way that they avoid a patent violation is they very very slightly change the molecular formula or structure of the chemical. They can't change it too much or it won't bind the enzyme it has to inhibit. Look at any other technology; cars, TVs, stereos, etc. They all have their own proprietary patented feature that do the same thing, but there are no violations per se.

As far as the prescription drugs go, they pay for a patent for say, 5 years. Zertec was perscription only for years, and then their patent ran out, thus now it is OTC and every company has their own zertec equivalent. It is the EXACT same ingredients. Same thing with advil, claritin, etc etc...
All the drug companies pay buko bucks for these patents to make their money for a few years....

 

[HBOC]

As with auto manufacturers, a lot of them pay a royalty to a company who developes the technology. IE; many manufacturers paid Toyota for their hybrid technology...they still do. WHat about airbags or ABS.. i do believe Volvo and MBZ invented these, respectively. I doubt they still get paid royalties, however.

 

[Palm Pimp]

Did they patent video voicemail? Cause that coupled with Synergy on the Pre would make it a monster.

 

[branjosef]

Did they patent video voicemail? Cause that coupled with Synergy on the Pre would make it a monster.

Most likely not. I know vonage is now offering visual voicemail

 

[firewood]

Patents are the worst thing ever. Get rid of it!

Really?? If it weren't for patent rights, AT&T might have never funded Bell Labs and the invention of the transistor. A computer powerful enough to play your mp3's might still be larger than your house and require more electricity than a small factory. A lot of other inventions by the big corporate research labs (including maybe some drugs that kept your elderly relatives from dying years ago) might also be missing from your life. Wouldn't that be even worse?

.

 

[kdarling]

Did they patent video voicemail? Cause that coupled with Synergy on the Pre would make it a monster.

Apple and ATT were sued for infringing the patent of a guy who came up with visual voicemail years ago. They settled last summer.

Most carriers have now licensed it. Verizon, Sprint, Vonage, you name it.

 

[kas23]

As far as the prescription drugs go, they pay for a patent for say, 5 years. Zertec was perscription only for years, and then their patent ran out, thus now it is OTC and every company has their own zertec equivalent. It is the EXACT same ingredients. Same thing with advil, claritin, etc etc...
All the drug companies pay buko bucks for these patents to make their money for a few years....

Zyrtec, Claritin, & Allegra all do the very same thing. They block histamine type-1 receptors. The reason these drugs WERE not in violation of each other's patents is because they all differ in their molecular formula and structure. Same thing can be said for lovastatin, simvastatin, atorvastatin, etc. They all block the same enzyme, but they have different molecular formulas and structures - so no patent violations occurred.

I used meds as an analogy because 2 companies may have multi-touch screens and still not violate each other's patent is they modify the code that produces the multi-touch. That is, Palm cannot develop multi-touch using the exact same method/code Apple uses to render their multi-touch. But, Palm can certainly develop their own version of multi-touch without violating any patent.

 

[Acronym]

It seems everything's a patent violation these days. Just the other day, I went to the bathroom (a number #2) only be sued by my neighbor claiming he did that before I did. What is this world coming tooo!!!!!!

Ahahahahaha that's too funny

 

[goosnarrggh]

Zyrtec, Claritin, & Allegra all do the very same thing. They block histamine type-1 receptors. The reason these drugs WERE not in violation of each other's patents is because they all differ in their molecular formula and structure. Same thing can be said for lovastatin, simvastatin, atorvastatin, etc. They all block the same enzyme, but they have different molecular formulas and structures - so no patent violations occurred.

I used meds as an analogy because 2 companies may have multi-touch screens and still not violate each other's patent is they modify the code that produces the multi-touch. That is, Palm cannot develop multi-touch using the exact same method/code Apple uses to render their multi-touch. But, Palm can certainly develop their own version of multi-touch without violating any patent.

If Palm had used the exact same code as Apple to generate their multi-touch, then they would have been in violation of Apple's copyright on that code. Even without a patent, Apple's ownership of the exact code that generated their particular implementation of multitouch is protected by copyright for a period of 120 years from the date of publication.

Since Apple's multitouch source code would have already been securely protected by copyright (for 120 years) even if there hadn't been a patent (which cannot last longer than 20 years), it follows that there must be some other, broader layer of protection provided by a patent, that goes beyond preventing simple verbatim copying of the code, or else there wouldn't be any point of going through the expense of securing any software patents in the first place.

 

[deadsouls]

To avoid a patent violation, all Palm has to do is slightly change the coding for the multi-touch screen. There is an asus netbook out right now that has a multitouch screen. We haven't heard any rumblings from Apple about this.

For example, not so much with technology, but ever wonder how all these drugs that do the same thing come out? There are many statin drugs (cholesterol lower meds) on the market that all do the exact same thing. They all have patents on them. The way that they avoid a patent violation is they very very slightly change the molecular formula or structure of the chemical. They can't change it too much or it won't bind the enzyme it has to inhibit. Look at any other technology; cars, TVs, stereos, etc. They all have their own proprietary patented feature that do the same thing, but there are no violations per se.

you clearly have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. please stop with your inane ramblings.

 

[kas23]

you clearly have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. please stop with your inane ramblings.

Thanks. Please speak up and elaborate. I have a degree in pharmacology.

 

[rjohnstone]

Since Apple's multitouch source code would have already been securely protected by copyright (for 120 years) even if there hadn't been a patent (which cannot last longer than 20 years), it follows that there must be some other, broader layer of protection provided by a patent, that goes beyond preventing simple verbatim copying of the code, or else there wouldn't be any point of going through the expense of securing any software patents in the first place.

120 years.
Pulled that number out of your...
Copyrights are good for the life of the author plus 70 years.
Or in the case of multiple authors, it's the life of the last surviving author plus 70 years.

Patents and copyrights are two entirely different things.
Patents cover inventions.
Since Apple didn't invent the concept of a multi-touch display, they do not hold the patent for it.
They do hold patents on the way they implement it.
They also hold the copyright on the software they wrote to run their implementation of multi-touch.
But to quote a popular analogy, "there is more than one way to skin a cat".
Just like there is more than one way to implement multi-touch.

 

[cellocello]

I just don't get how Apple can't patent anything about the iPhone (such as "multi-touch on a cell phone for use in UI navigation"), but some random company can patent the broad, general IDEA of "visual voice mail".

 

[rjohnstone]

I just don't get how Apple can't patent anything about the iPhone (such as "multi-touch on a cell phone for use in UI navigation"), but some random company can patent the broad, general IDEA of "visual voice mail".

That's the joy of patents.
You can patent an idea a lot easier than an actual product.
The iPhone is comprised of a lot of components to which individual patents already exist.
You cannot patent the "package" unless you own all the components or have been granted irrevocable rights by the subsequent patent owners.

 

[dissdnt]

Really?? If it weren't for patent rights, AT&T might have never funded Bell Labs and the invention of the transistor. A computer powerful enough to play your mp3's might still be larger than your house and require more electricity than a small factory. A lot of other inventions by the big corporate research labs (including maybe some drugs that kept your elderly relatives from dying years ago) might also be missing from your life. Wouldn't that be even worse?

.

Yah those are patents that people actually do stuff with. Most people patent and sit on it so they sue later.

Let the free market decide. If someone steals it and does it better, it's better for the consumer.

I think it creates a more competitive market.

 

[goosnarrggh]

120 years.
Pulled that number out of your...
Copyrights are good for the life of the author plus 70 years.
Or in the case of multiple authors, it's the life of the last surviving author plus 70 years.

I definitely didn't pull it out of my anything.

I took it from this website.
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/public_domain/

However, I just noticed that I took if from the "sound recordings" section of the site. In fact, this is not a sound recording, so I should have looked at one of the previous sections, "Works first published inside the US." For works published after 2002, it is 70 years after the death of the author, or 95 years after first publication for "corporate works". As a corporate work, that makes Apple's software 95 years after publication.

Patents and copyrights are two entirely different things.

I agree with you entirely. I was trying to refute a previous poster whom I was quoting, who had implied that all that would be necessary to get around any patents on multitouch would be to "change the code" a little bit. Preventing verbatim copying of source code is, as I said, perfectly protected by copyright. The claims in a patent are more general, providing greater protection. It is plausible that many different permutations of source code might, upon inspection, all end up being covered by essentially the same claim in a patent.

For example, here is one of the claims in one of the Fingerworks (whose assets now belong to Apple) patent applications:

1. A method for extracting multiple degrees of freedom of hand motion from successive proximity images, the method comprising: tracking a plurality of contacts associated with a plurality of hand parts across the successive proximity images; finding an innermost finger contact and an outermost finger contact for a given hand from the plurality of contacts; computing a scaling velocity component from a change in a distance between the innermost and outermost finger contacts; and transmitting the computed scaling velocity component as a control signal to an electronic or electromechanical device.

The claim, if found to be valid, would claim ownership of all implementations, no matter what permutation of source code is used, that has the effect of tracking the rate of change in length and direction of an imaginary line drawn between the innermost and outermost finger contacts as they move through successive snapshots taken by a proximity sensor.

 

[LiveForever]

A patent can be used to protect a concept not just how to do something. You can patent the pinch if no one can show that it hasn't been done before.

Patents are often best done at very early stages before too much detail is known so they are as broad as possible.

If they have patented multitouch (and I don't know if they have or not) then even if someone else used different code but it essentially did the same thing then the patent would be violated.

apple would have put in many embodiments on how it could be done even if they only use one, just to stop other people using it.

I am in two minds about it.

1) I hope apple sues the a%4e off palm as they took former employees, used what they did at apple and produced the pre (which of course they will do big time , yes this will get messy. No way will they license it, they will be out to destroy palm)

2) Great, now we will see apple reacting with the iphone we all know they can deliver but seem too stubborn to give us.

 

[kdarling]

Patents have to be novel and non-obvious.

After the pinch was shown off by Sun in 1992, it became impossible for others to get a broad patent on it because of prior art. You could still try to patent a software method of detecting it.

Multi-touch itself has also been around since the 1980s, so no broad patent available for that now either. Extending the idea of looking for two fingers, to three or more, would of course be a case of being too obvious. A particular screen with embedded sensors could be patented though.

As for employees moving from one company to another. Being in that position, I appreciate States that prohibit companies from barring employees using their non-company-secrets knowledge in a new position.

If one company won't let you innovate, then too bad for them. Palm allowed multitasking methods that Apple would not, for instance. Let people bring the R&D to the public. Apple's employees came from other places, as well.

 

[kdarling]

Speaking of patents, I see the news that Microsoft just acquired N-Trig, similar to the way that Apple bought Fingerworks a few years ago.

http://www.n-trig.com/

They have nice technology for touch tablets, as it supports both capacitive touch and pen input.