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Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

bbc.com

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Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#91

Post by jlarocco »

Kristine1975 wrote: post #47

>The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university So it's a university [mainly] funded by the tax-payer. How can it be that the research of this university isn't in the public domain? The public paid for it, the public should reap the benefits without paying again. Sure, Apple tries their hardest not to pay taxes, but the patent isn't limited to them.

I don't know. I kinda like the idea of public universities licensing their research and patents to raise money, and I think the public benefit there outweighs making the research public domain, by decreasing the amount of public funding needed, and/or lowering tuition.

I mean, let's be honest here, a patent like this is isn't particularly useful to the public because almost nobody outside of a few very large corporations can afford to implement it, and they stand to make a ton of money from it. The last thing Apple needs is publicly subsidized research.

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#92

Post by rayiner »

simonh wrote: post #28
abluecloud wrote: post #2

$862m isn't that huge in the grand scheme of things. Not to mention, it's most likely not going to be $862m, my guess is it'll be less.

It's more than double what Apple paid for P.A. Semi and Intrinsity put together, the fabless semiconductor design firms that are the foundation of Apple's processor engineering capabilities.

That's really more an indictment of how little PASemi and Intrinsity sold for (in a world where WhatsApp sells for $20 billion).

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#93

Post by RIMR »

tambourine_man wrote: post #62
kumarm wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The patent is at least more innovative than Slide to Unlock. If you encourage crappy patents, they are gonna bite you some day.

I actually think slide to unlock is brilliant, specially the old skeuomorphic ”track on rail” one. The new, cleaner one is made possible by old one being burned into our collective unconscious. I also think “one click to buy” is brilliant. Since it's impossible to unambiguously distinguish between crappy and worthy patents, we should either abolish them, or have them last for a really short time, like a year or two.…

>slide to unlock is brilliant

How? It's a digital slide bolt. They just digitized a simple mechanism that's been in use for hundreds of years.

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#94

Post by RIMR »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #90
tambourine_man wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think slide to unlock is brilliant, specially the old skeuomorphic ”track on rail” one. The new, cleaner one is made possible by old one being burned into our collective unconscious. I also think “one click to buy” is brilliant. Since it's impossible to unambiguously distinguish between crappy and worthy patents, we should either abolish them, or have them last for a really short time, like a year or two.…

Something can be brilliant without being innovative. Most people have no problems operating a "slide your finger on the screen to do more" widget, even without being trained by Apple's original visuals. Think about it. A touch screen can only detect a limited number of basic interactions. All interactions with the software must occur through those basic primitives. Touching the screen and moving your finger are reall…

I think you're conflating "brilliant" with "obvious".

It's like if someone was called brilliant for suggesting that we should turn our phone screens off when they aren't in use to save battery. It's just the obvious solution, and patenting it and enforcing that patent is just meant to create obstacles for competitors.

Apple thinks it own the very idea of the smartphone. They even claimed they owned curved corners... It is nice to see them get a taste of their own medicine.

It would be great if they won, just so we could use the precedent to make them lose all of the asinine lawsuits they start.

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#95

Post by mzs »

masklinn wrote: post #13
timthorn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bear in mind the patent was filed in 1996 when considering the level of innovation.

There were branch-predicting mainframes back in the 80s, though it really came to the fore with the advent of superscalar microprocessors in the early 90s (MIPS R8000 and DEC Alpha 21064), what is the paper's innovations above these?

None of those processors had anything like this.

The innovation of the UWM paper was the MDPT and DDST, then due to practical manufacture reasons merging them, and then studying the trade-off with a simulator to arrive at a very efficient system.

For comparison, here is the IBM patent for the bigger more expensive approach used in Power4:

http://www.google.com/patents/US5615350

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#96

Post by matsur »

Kristine1975 wrote: post #47

>The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university So it's a university [mainly] funded by the tax-payer. How can it be that the research of this university isn't in the public domain? The public paid for it, the public should reap the benefits without paying again. Sure, Apple tries their hardest not to pay taxes, but the patent isn't limited to them.

To complicate things a little bit, Intel actually funded the research underlying this patent. This was the crux of the WARF vs Intel suit a few years ago — Intel argued they received a license to the patent as part of their grant.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1557536/intel-settl...

"Intel had supported Sohi's research with about $90,000 in gifts in the 1990s and argued it was entitled to the intellectual property that resulted from Sohi's work.

However US District Judge Barbara Crabb laughed Chipzilla's argument out of court and ordered the case to trial.

She said that the funding terms did not give Intel the right to use patents resulting from the work. However she said that any infringement by Intel was not willful because the funding agreements were ambiguous."

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#97

Post by netcan »

tambourine_man wrote: post #62
kumarm wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The patent is at least more innovative than Slide to Unlock. If you encourage crappy patents, they are gonna bite you some day.

I actually think slide to unlock is brilliant, specially the old skeuomorphic ”track on rail” one. The new, cleaner one is made possible by old one being burned into our collective unconscious. I also think “one click to buy” is brilliant. Since it's impossible to unambiguously distinguish between crappy and worthy patents, we should either abolish them, or have them last for a really short time, like a year or two.…

I think brilliant or even innovative should not be the same thing as patentable. The (possible impossible) standard should be "would someone else have come up with this." In both of those example, I think the answer is almost certainly yes.

Give 100 UI designers a touch screen and ask them to design a few unlock mechanisms each, I think you will get a slide to unlock pretty quickly. On click purchase (is this a troll) is basically saving billing and shipping details.

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#98

Post by desireco42 »

bshimmin wrote: post #14
brownegg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's $862m, last I checked, it will take them about 30 hours to bring in the necessary revenue--if they want to pay out of profits (I'm totally guessing here, what are real net margins on their hardware? 15-20%?), it'll take a couple days.

Man, that's such a humbling stat. Many of us here don't even earn that in a year !

this is the best! I certainly don't make this much in a year.

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#99

Post by jsprogrammer »

RIMR wrote: post #94
jsprogrammer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something can be brilliant without being innovative. Most people have no problems operating a "slide your finger on the screen to do more" widget, even without being trained by Apple's original visuals. Think about it. A touch screen can only detect a limited number of basic interactions. All interactions with the software must occur through those basic primitives. Touching the screen and moving your finger are reall…

I think you're conflating "brilliant" with "obvious". It's like if someone was called brilliant for suggesting that we should turn our phone screens off when they aren't in use to save battery. It's just the obvious solution, and patenting it and enforcing that patent is just meant to create obstacles for competitors. Apple thinks it own the very idea of the smartphone. They even claimed they owned curved corners...…

I think they might be synonyms. Finding the obvious could be considered the pinnacle of insight. Of course, once it is found, it is obvious, but until someone says it, it may not be.

I agree that finding the obvious should not entitle you to "own" it or allow you to prevent others from using the insight.

Anyone who does claim that (e.g. Apple) should be ridiculed mercilessly for it.

Re: Apple facing huge chip patent bill after losing case

#100

Post by SixSigma »

wmf wrote: post #55
Kristine1975 wrote: post #47

>The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university So it's a university [mainly] funded by the tax-payer. How can it be that the research of this university isn't in the public domain? The public paid for it, the public should reap the benefits without paying again. Sure, Apple tries their hardest not to pay taxes, but the patent isn't limited to them.

I guess the university can provide better services[1] to the public if it's profitable. [1] Like an NFL-class stadium.

I'm not trying to be snarky but are you being serious ?

Because NFL-Class Stadium is not one of the features I would think of if I was doing a bullet list of things a university should have.

My 30k student university has a sports hall and a gym.

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