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Samsung Cites Kubrick's '2001' Film as Prior Art Defense Against Apple's Injunction Request

gwangung said:
Which is irrelevant.

Jeezus. For a lawyer, you make a pretty good computer geek.

Patents, as a legal concept, are not about ideas. They are about specific implementation of an idea.
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Yes, it's a functional process document.
The tablet in 2001 is clearly FUNCTIONALLY the same as the iPad, and by any interpretation of Apple's design document, exactly the same.

Remember, Apple's patent does NOT cover operational processes of the device, it covers the SIZE, SHAPE and APPEARANCE ONLY.
eg. thin rectangular device with a glass face. If you think the device envisioned in 1968 for this movie is not exactly this, then I'm sorry your fanboy blinders are impenetrable to even the most rational of thought.
 
Following this logic, one could argue that the giant slate tablets used in The Flintstones was actually the first tablet computer, with the chisel (or "rudimentary analog input device") being the earliest known stylus!
 
allmanbrother said:
"Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?"





By the way, who just felt that earthquake?
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off topic, but there was an earthquake in central Virginia. Pentagon evacuated.

Californians laughing at east coasters for worrying over a weak 5.8 earthquake.
 
chrmjenkins said:
The table is obviously meant to be vacant underneath given it is a table for eating and the occupants' legs must go under it. Furthermore, the edges of these tablets can be seen hanging over the edges of the table at odd angles. The combination of these two facts are there to make it clear that they are mobile tablets and not fixed displays.

At the time of filming, they would have only had large CRTs to do this shot with, so the actors could not move them. They had to create the illusion by placing them in an environment where it would not make sense for them to not be tablets.
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Read the book. I've read it 3 times. They're adjustable, TV-like displays built into the table which explains why they're angled toward the viewer and overlap the edges. Do you see anything else in the movie that suggests the presence of portable, tablet devices? No.

Samsung not only is showing its desperation by citing a movie as prior art, but they're also using an example and film that doesn't even support their case.
 
nylonsteel said:
tos communicators = cell phones
tos spock's data disks = memory card
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Your "-" rating is deserved. Samsung trys to invalidate a design parent. But no one currently has a silly design patent on calm shell cell phones or rectangular memory cards. So no need to invalidate anything.
 
Actually, they Are Tablets

Discussion of prior use and the patent system aside, as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vEDmNh-_4Q shows, they are clearly tablets.

At around 13 seconds when we are looking "down" on Poole, Bowman's is not on the table. At 19 seconds he puts it down. At 37 seconds you can see that Poole's overlaps the side of the table.
 
Umm, not so fast...

Seems Samsung can't use this defense, quite ironically due to prior art, in the form of Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". There, according to the guide, all copyrights were invalidated when a defendant in a infringement case sent the offending text back in time to a point before the copyright holder had published THEIR work. I'd make an exact reference, but it appears I've left it with my towel.
 
VulchR said:
I'm not a huge fan of the way patents seem to be handed out for noninventions these days. However, one can imagine this scene in a future patent office:

Pantent Officer: 'I'm sorry Dr. Cochrane, but your design of a 'warp speed' faster-than-light drive engine was shown in Star Trek. We cannot give you a patent...'

If Apple were patenting a way of simulating a tablet, then Samsung might have a point.
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If Dr Cochrane's warp drive looked exactly like the flashy lights in Star Trek, then he would be in trouble.
In reality, any sort of actual warp drive system would look nothing like that.

The functionality of the device is irrelevant in this case.
 
Apple's really might want to reconsider their strategy of trying to block their competitors' products from even being sold before somebody plays the monopoly card on them.

Unless Steve Jobs is shooting for Apple viewed as a monopolistic threat by various countries, I would probably play nice.
 
But the question is, did 2001 space odd... have the patent? Did Star Track have the patent? If not, this will be of no use to Samsung. I can create something, show it to a buddy, he puts a patent on it, makes millions, my lost. They are fishing in an empty river here.
 
Lol!

I'm not an attorney, but this seems like a really weak claim by Samsung.

But it did make me laugh! :D
 
Maybe I should start looking at that movie more often. Samsung inspired for the tablet and Apple for the iPod name. If I could only come up with something from this movie and make myself rich!
 
rhett7660 said:
Can anyone site a specific patent case that used a movie or movie's as it's defense?

This seems really far reaching to use.
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Not really it shows the solution Apple is trying to patent is obvious so therefor it should never of been granted and thus invalid.
 
D3nZ said:
Maybe I should start looking at that movie more often. Samsung inspired for the tablet and Apple for the iPod name. If I could only come up with something from this movie and make myself rich!
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Kubrick is a genius. I wish he were still alive making quality movies.

tumblr_loa8s68rcy1qe0eclo1_r1_500.gif
 
What is Apple trying to do? Are they trying to patent flat and rectangular as a shape that is exclusive to them for tablets? That would be like patenting cylindrical for writing implements. :confused:
 
Focus

Apple needs to focus on beating them in the market place, which they're doing. Ideas are a dime a dozen. All these patents have gone too far.
 
Personal portable VDUs

Samsung's argument assumes that the devices used by the astronauts are tablet computers. There is no evidence to support this. They look like 'personal portable VDUs' to me.
 
This is a silly attempt to set some kind of precedent. What's next? Invalidating all voice-command functions because someone in Star Trek used studio magic to have a talking computer? How about nullifying all medical patents because in some movies, they cured cancer? Also, if we're on a sci-fi kick, I seem to recall a LOT of variations in MANY movies that look absolutely nothing AT ALL like the iPad, especially in the interface department.
 
desperate?

This seems like really grasping at straws. Is the patent merely limited to the bezel? Because afaik those Samsung tabs copied everything from the consistent border size to the "home" button placement, to icon grid and size, which results in a identical user interface/interactions.

In the clip we see, they don't actually even move the devices or use them in any way, so we can't see the functional significance of those design choices. Samsung might as well have cited those digital picture frames as comparative evidence.

OT: my gf's hospital in Philadelphia apparently just got temporarily evacuated due to the quake.
 
Someone on 9to5mac posted a higher res capture from his Bluray. You will see it looks nothing like the iPad. It is no more similar to the iPad and PC tablets that have been on the market for years.
 
paulyras said:
I'm no biblical scholar (far from it), but I can think of at least one much older example of using a tablet of modestly similar form factor, though far more limited in capabilities.

I'd love to see the lawyers debating the 10 commandments as prior art!
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I was going to suggest Hanna-Barbera's lawyers might now want to contact Microsoft about copying the Flintstone's use of a "slate" as something to write on, but I think your example pre-dates that :)
 
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