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Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

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Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#51

Post by mishmash »

CoryMathews wrote: post #35
pg wrote: post #31

If this had happened a day earlier I don't think I would have posted that RFS. Apple is inching ever closer to evil, and I worry that there's no one within the company who can stand up to Jobs and tell him so.

Apple has been evil since the first ipod when you had to use itunes to load music. They have locked people in with no cheap way out. Pure evil IMO.

Pretty sure DRM started out as an industry idea. Regardless, it all pretty much had to happen the way it did. At the time, none of the major studios would have considered releasing DRM-free music.

The had to be shown that it would work first.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#52

Post by raganwald »

CoryMathews wrote: post #35
pg wrote: post #31

If this had happened a day earlier I don't think I would have posted that RFS. Apple is inching ever closer to evil, and I worry that there's no one within the company who can stand up to Jobs and tell him so.

Apple has been evil since the first ipod when you had to use itunes to load music. They have locked people in with no cheap way out. Pure evil IMO.

Aiding and abetting totalitarian regimes by censoring search results and turning over email correspondence is evil. Making shiny toys that don't do exactly what you want is not evil. Let's stop using "evil" as a synonym for "reprehensible."

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#53

Post by nailer »

lutorm wrote: post #47
nuclear_eclipse wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering you can't sue a device, they're suing HTC...

Couldn't they sue all users of Android devices then? The complaint seems to indicated that users are infringing when they use the devices. But maybe that would tip people off to how screwed up the system is...

Until recent updates, Google branded devices didn't enable multitouch by default. That changed shortly after Eric Smidt left the Apple board and all the Nexus One's got multitouch turned on in an update.

Perhaps Apple will sue Google now?

(just a guess - I personally would prefer AT&T sue Apple for 'stealing' their 1960s multitouch technologies for pinch and zoom)

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#54

Post by evgen »

tkahn6 wrote: post #41
alabut wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Innovation and theft are two different things. Forget the hardware and architecture patents - I'm sick of design being treated as a commodity that's assumed to be freely copyable, simply because it's a user interface rather than a hardware element. Just as many hours and insights went into making the iPhone UI as it did the physical device.

Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image Maybe hindsight is just 20/20, but "slide to unlock" seems to be something pretty obvious.

It becomes obvious once you make the leap to "there is no keyboard, the touchscreen is the entirety of the interface", but prior to the iPhone no one had dared to try that particular path of development. It was probably not possible to patent the concept of only using a touchscreen for your UI, so instead Apple patented a lot of the little details that are a consequence of its innovative leap.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#55

Post by jrockway »

Roridge wrote: post #44
pg wrote: post #31

If this had happened a day earlier I don't think I would have posted that RFS. Apple is inching ever closer to evil, and I worry that there's no one within the company who can stand up to Jobs and tell him so.

It's all about control.. I often wonder if Apple have become the man in the screen, instead of the woman with the hammer.

This has been the case since they implemented PT_DENY_ATTACH. Revolutionaries that throw hammers at screens do not artificially limit their operating system.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#56

Post by jlgosse »

raptrex wrote: post #29
jsmcgd wrote: post #7

Which particular patents are in question?

Digital Daily has the documents http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100302/apples-suits-aga... Gizmodo has a summary of the patents: The ‘331 Patent, entitled "Time-Based, Non-Constant Translation Of User Interface Objects Between States," was duly and legally issued on April 22, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The ‘949 Patent, entitled "Touch Screen Device, Method, And Graphical User Interfac…

Don't the last two patents basically give them the right to sue ANYONE who has ever made some sort of GUI application, including vendors in their own app store and people who write apps for OSX? Aren't these basically design patterns?

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#57

Post by bitwize »

nailer wrote: post #48

HTC should countersue (if Apple are actually trying to sue HTC over HTC's technology and not Google's). HTC pushed pure touch-based phones for years before Apple released the iPhone in 2007 and should have a reasonable patent portfolio they can use against trolls like this.

Apple released the iPhone in 2007. They didn't even release the iMac until 1998.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#58

Post by pg »

raganwald wrote: post #52
CoryMathews wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has been evil since the first ipod when you had to use itunes to load music. They have locked people in with no cheap way out. Pure evil IMO.

Aiding and abetting totalitarian regimes by censoring search results and turning over email correspondence is evil. Making shiny toys that don't do exactly what you want is not evil. Let's stop using "evil" as a synonym for "reprehensible."

Historically the word "evil" has had a pretty broad meaning. Among tech companies the word has a new and fairly specific sense that follows from Paul Buchheit's slogan "Don't be evil." That's the sense I was using. It has a pretty low bar. It means, roughly, winning by taking advantage of people instead of by doing good work.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#59

Post by bad_user »

raganwald wrote: post #52
CoryMathews wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has been evil since the first ipod when you had to use itunes to load music. They have locked people in with no cheap way out. Pure evil IMO.

Aiding and abetting totalitarian regimes by censoring search results and turning over email correspondence is evil. Making shiny toys that don't do exactly what you want is not evil. Let's stop using "evil" as a synonym for "reprehensible."

Artificially limiting the capabilities of the hardware (people pay for) with the interest of keeping control, can't possibly be in the same league as "shiny toys that don't do exactly what you want".

People also lose the perspective of scaling the current trends set by Apple and others to everything ... what would happen if all the documents within your computer would be DRMed? What would happen if all personal PCs had software only approved by a central authority?

SciFi? They are already releasing a bigger iPhone who's functionality overlaps that of tablets / small laptops.

Also, before search engines that are censoring the results in China ... we had nothing comparable. You're also free to implement your own search-engine and index all the web-pages Google does ... but try creating a phone that connects to the iTunes store and that can run iPhone apps ;)

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#60

Post by Kadrith »

bphogan wrote: post #32
axod wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on now. Please explain to me what is revolutionary about the iPad. It is 'meh'. It's just a big iPod touch. It's like a netbook or laptop but less useful. There's nothing revolutionary about it at all. It's a slightly slicker version of all the tablet PCs that have failed to capture significant market share for the last 10-20 years. It'd be easy to say "sure but you're a geek, you just don't see how easy to use…

The only thing I can say in response to this is that I see that my dad uses his iPhone to surf the web much more than he uses his computer, and he's interested in a bigger screen to do so. He's in his 60s, and he's actually not buying another desktop computer (his is 11 years old) because his iPhone does what he needs, and more, plus he's tired of viruses and spyware. (Yes, we know it's not a target yet, but a closed…

How would your father update the iPad without a system running iTunes? That is the only major thing I do not like from what information has been released.
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