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Samsung Cites Kubrick's '2001' Film as Prior Art Defense Against Apple's Injunction Request
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Now we can move over to discussing the retarded nature of patents for "swiping" under a touch-interaction paradigm. Come to think of it, i swiped a magazine the other day. Worked just as one would think.
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blue underlined text is as close to a standard for a link as one can get :- )
I'm not sure what's weaker, this defense or the original claim. Actually I am - this defense.
That said, NOBODY invent a matter transporter unless you want to do my R&D. You have been properly warned.
That said, NOBODY invent a matter transporter unless you want to do my R&D. You have been properly warned.
A tablet in general cannot be patented, but from my view the specific qualities of the iPad can be. Like pinch to zoom, swiping, electric multi touch surface, runs a mobile OS instead of a full OS, these are unique things and had not been seen anywhere. Just because someone had the very very rough idea of a square tablet as an idea for the future does not mean apple cannot claim their specific patents on the features they brought to the table.
Thats like claiming the maker of the 2037 flying car cannot file a patent becasue the jetsons already took the idea. Just a stupid argument.
Thats like claiming the maker of the 2037 flying car cannot file a patent becasue the jetsons already took the idea. Just a stupid argument.
Actually, we (at least those of us that pay attention) had seen pretty much all of those things before the ipad (and the iphone). In many instances technology was out of sync maturity wise though, but thats something completely different.
Sure they have, although perhaps not in a single device.
Pinch, page flipping, multitouch, mobile OS tablet... all done over a decade before the iPad.
I think this is why Samsung blurted out in the Dutch court that they "had real patents"... meaning hardware patents... not the trade dress or gesture-based software ones that Apple was using.
If one follows the reasoning of these pathetic Korean losers, Hollywood should claim patent violations against NASA when they launch a space vehicle. And the heirs of H.G. Wells must be salivating at the thought of time travel machines.
They are too stupid to live.
They are too stupid to live.
Really?
I'm surprised at how many people in here think that fiction is prior art. Lesson: It is not.
Prior art is being able to show the previous existence of an actual product or a previously patented idea. A make-believe image in a movie, magazine, book, etc. is not prior art - if it is, then let's just invalidate all patents now, since a fictionalized version of everything that exists has already been previously imagined.
I'm surprised at how many people in here think that fiction is prior art. Lesson: It is not.
Prior art is being able to show the previous existence of an actual product or a previously patented idea. A make-believe image in a movie, magazine, book, etc. is not prior art - if it is, then let's just invalidate all patents now, since a fictionalized version of everything that exists has already been previously imagined.
First, cases proving you wrong have been referenced in this very thread. Second, if something was conceived of 50 years ago it appears as far less original of an idea. The novelty of something waiting to happen is slim-to-none.
Had it been about the technology that makes the device tick, you wouldve been correct. However, to a large degree, it was/is not.
If i build a death-star, ill hard a hard time preventing others from building similar-looking death-stars of their own.
Defending IP is not an antitrust issue
you know what else benefits customers. Choice. Like the kind of choice that happens when companies actually innovate. Samsung, if guilty of copying, has potentially removed a choice from the table. I'm stuck with IPad style interfacing which I hate, but there is no other choice. Because everyone is using the same thing. As ugly as I think it is, I 'like' the whole Windows Mobile UI because it is something different.
Nope, he'll just remind the court that flat and rectangular isn't the whole list. And the clip doesn't negate the rest
Assuming that is true (and many say it is not), Apple would use that as a defense and then Samsung would toss in the whole Star Trek defense citing that JeanLuc was using his touchscreen PADD in the 80s way before the iPhone etc came out. So again, prior art
Actually I am surprised that Samsung didn't cite both sources in their claim. And even Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. I don't recall in the book, but the last movie was in 2005 and i'm fairly sure it was a touch screen
Yeah I noticed that also.
Someone else came up with the design. Making it not Apple's unique creation
Here's how that would work:
If by some means you were able to build a massive, roughly-spherical, orbiting extermination platform, and decided to put them on sale to various Sith Lords® and Galactic Emperors, you couldn't call it a Death Star, because that name is Trademarked and Copyright to Lucasfilm. (You also couldn't make it look too much like the thing portrayed in the films, but thats another story.)
On the other hand, if you developed some new technology that either made the building of the thing possible (some method of flinging huge quantities of construction material into orbit) or operating (a method of concentrating a massive planet-destroying ray) you certainly could patent those inventions.
Samsung Imperial SpaceShip Building, for instance, couldn't come along, use all the technology you invented without asking for it or paying for it, and then have their lawyers put up a still from the 1977 film and somehow claim "prior art".
Which is kind of what they've done here.
Plus they don't actually manipulate any of the information with touch or gestures. Similar look . . . maybe. But that's like Master computer from Tron being prior art for MS Surface. Why aren't art directors jumping into these patent wars?
More patent infringement
The clip from "2001" also clearly shows them using sporks so has a patent infringement case been brought against Taco Bell yet?
The clip from "2001" also clearly shows them using sporks so has a patent infringement case been brought against Taco Bell yet?
It could be depending on the nature of the patent.
Windows Phone / Metro. Second, the insides of the galaxy looks very different to the insides of the pad. Metaphorical insides that is.
They seem to have lost (in Europe) already. That (obviously) wont cut it.
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Samsung havent "use[d] all the technology you invented without asking for itor paying for it". So no, its not even close to "kind of what they've done here".
correction
You're right about the old-school technique of masking film, then exposing it with a different background image. It's pretty clever. I just wanted to point out that you are only partially correct about filming a projected image. You actually can film a projected image if you do it right. Studios (in the old days) did it all the time...
Film (not video) runs through a projector vertically, momentarily stopping each frame in front of the lens as a shutter opens letting light through, and then closing again (the 'shutter' is actually just a rectangular opening on a rotating wheel). This is done at a rate of 24 frames per second, fast enough to convince the human eye of reasonably fluid motion.
If you have a film camera recording the projection and it is not in absolute perfect sync with the projector, then your background image will appear to be moving up or down with obvious frame lines showing, instead of staying stationary.
How to fix? Use a projector running the film through horizontally (with the frames on the film oriented horizontally). But that doesn't solve the entire problem - if the timing is still not synchronized, you might see some frame lines (the black area between each image in a film strip) in your image, but the image won't migrate up or down.
That's better, but how do you make it even better? Run the projector faster. (That also means you use a faster camera when recording your background footage - unless you want objects in the footage to look like they're in "fast-forward").
If you project your background image at say 30 frames per second or faster, then the recording camera which is only capturing 24 fps is going to record a much more stable image without flickering, and frame lines become nearly unnoticeable.
You're right about the old-school technique of masking film, then exposing it with a different background image. It's pretty clever. I just wanted to point out that you are only partially correct about filming a projected image. You actually can film a projected image if you do it right. Studios (in the old days) did it all the time...
Film (not video) runs through a projector vertically, momentarily stopping each frame in front of the lens as a shutter opens letting light through, and then closing again (the 'shutter' is actually just a rectangular opening on a rotating wheel). This is done at a rate of 24 frames per second, fast enough to convince the human eye of reasonably fluid motion.
If you have a film camera recording the projection and it is not in absolute perfect sync with the projector, then your background image will appear to be moving up or down with obvious frame lines showing, instead of staying stationary.
How to fix? Use a projector running the film through horizontally (with the frames on the film oriented horizontally). But that doesn't solve the entire problem - if the timing is still not synchronized, you might see some frame lines (the black area between each image in a film strip) in your image, but the image won't migrate up or down.
That's better, but how do you make it even better? Run the projector faster. (That also means you use a faster camera when recording your background footage - unless you want objects in the footage to look like they're in "fast-forward").
If you project your background image at say 30 frames per second or faster, then the recording camera which is only capturing 24 fps is going to record a much more stable image without flickering, and frame lines become nearly unnoticeable.
You are thinking backwards. Have Taco Bell brought a case against someone else for selling sporks?
No he wasn't given the original tent because of prior art. He was awarded 25 other patents related to waterbeds. Be had to come up with wavy mattress and soft sided waterbed mattress and years later was given patents. Actually in 1971.
So IMO, Samsung is showing the courts prior art for tablets and that Apple should never have been granted that patent. In fact I believe Samsung is gonna say that if a patent was to be granted than Apple should have came up with a design that isn't a flat square rectangle with a screen on the front with a bezel.
It's actually pretty smart. Whether it will work or not who knows. But I'm simply pointing out why Samsung brought up 2001 Space Oddyssys NewsPad.
Um, no.
Copyrights protects works of authorship. (Utility) patents protect useful processes, machines, manufactured things, or compositions of matter. (Design) patents protect ornamental designs.
You can patent the concrete implementation of a product. In fact, a patent has to disclose the best mode known to the inventor for carrying it out, and must disclose sufficient detail to enable a person having ordinary skill in the art to practice the invention. You can't patent the idea of faster than light travel, but you can patent a mechanism for allowing faster than light travel if you can describe, in sufficient detail, how to make it work. And even then you could only patent the method you use to accomplish it - not the idea of faster than light travel itself.
You can't copyright a product (unless the product is a work of authorship, like a musical recording, software source code, printed book, etc.). You can't copyright, for example, a machine, though you might be able to copyright ornamental aspects of the machine (for example a picture painted on its side).
Apple fanatics will gladly use other competitors that differ only a slightly bit more as examples of how it can be done without copying. That is, until Apple sues those competitors aswell, then they're also blatant rip-offs according to the Apple fanatics.
But the IP Apple is trying to protect in this case is, as Samsung is pointing out, not theirs to protect
That is not the current state of patent law. It seems to me that the big tech companies a a group of patent trolls are out there suing each other based solely on cocktail napkin patents.
I think you're right and I stand corrected. And thank you for the levelheaded response, btw. I get a little tired of the tone on MR lately where everything has to be a fanboy smack-down.
I've been a fan of 2001 A Space Odyssey (the book and the film) since I was a teenager and love them both. Honestly, I'm more interested in gaining a better understanding of Kubrick and Clarke's intent with this detail than I am in the outcome of the spat between Samsung and Apple. (Although I still think Samsung citing fictional prior art is bizarre and desperate.)
The book describes the astronauts using a display built in to the ship's consoles, so clearly this was another of many instances where Kubrick and Clarke went separate ways.