Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

prnewswire.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 156 posts

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#131

Post by stcredzero »

ajross wrote: post #113
stcredzero wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is forcing you to be in the iTunes store and write iPhone apps. As for all personal PCs having only software approved by a central authority -- all electrical appliances are approved by UL. I don't see that as having resulted in much evil. To get to drive in the US, everyone is approved by their State. I don't see that as being very evil. The former is opt-in and arranged by insurance interests. The latter is…

Sorry, but by filing this lawsuit, Apple is trying to force us to do exactly that . Or at least, force us to stop using HTC phones that "look like" an iPhone. You're appealing to choice in your argument, but by asserting patent rights Apple is saying that there is no choice.

You're implying that Apple's particular implementation of multi-touch is some sort of essential for life. It's not. At least not yet.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#132

Post by nailer »

rbanffy wrote: post #68
evgen wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One shouldn't be able to patent something that's a direct consequence of having a specific limitation, This slide to unlock idea is something a reasonably clever designer would figure out in about 5 minutes. And, BTW, is a common feature in many physical devices that employ a lock over a button. It reminds me of the locks I had in my car by the late 80's and the power button I had on a Compaq server in the early 90's…

Actually a patent already has to be 'not obvious to an engineer sufficiently skilled in the art' if I remember correctly, although that's almost never applied.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#133

Post by nailer »

ronaldj wrote: post #103
tsally wrote: post #90

My next computer wont be a Macbook. :-/ Which makes me really angry because I love my current Macbook. And there goes the thought of buying an iPhone as well. Unfortunately at this point I feel that I'm obligated not to buy Apple products. Walk with your feet, as the saying goes. Believing in patent reform can be damn inconvenient sometimes.

I'm in the same boat. I think Apple should consider adopting that bullshit "Don't be evil" mantra.

Apple make good laptop hardware though. Here's a better idea: keep your existing Mac, but buy an HTC Desire as your next phone.

You get a lot of features the iPhone doesn't have (pictures for your contacts, social network integration, streaming, no sync requirement, a faster CPU) and stick it to Apple at the same time.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#134

Post by nailer »

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #20

Same story for those who prefer it on TechCrunch: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1161526 ADDED IN EDIT: tl;dr - I think cross referencing is a Good Thing(tm). Clearly some people here think that this comment detracted from the value of HN. I can accept that, and I don't mind the loss of karma. Let me just explain that as a programmer I abhor unnecessary duplication. Equally, though, as an infophile I like to get…

I appreciate the need to get different angles, TechCrunch however isn't a credible source of information (they throw great parties though).

I'd love to see a Mashable or CodeSketch or whatever perspective though. Someone else contributed John Gruber's post on the topic and was modded up accordingly.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#135

Post by nitrogen »

davidw wrote: post #46
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 always been about very firm control. I don't think it's necessarily "evil", but it's not a world I want to live in, either.

Firm control over one's product and patent lawsuits against one's competitors are very different things. Firm control is annoying, frustrating, and maybe borderline evil (in the tech sense of the word as pg defined it), but suing competitors' manufacturers for treble and punitive damages is definitely evil. It would take a revelation of truly bad behavior on HTC's part for me to think otherwise.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#136

Post by ajross »

stcredzero wrote: post #131
ajross wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but by filing this lawsuit, Apple is trying to force us to do exactly that . Or at least, force us to stop using HTC phones that "look like" an iPhone. You're appealing to choice in your argument, but by asserting patent rights Apple is saying that there is no choice.

You're implying that Apple's particular implementation of multi-touch is some sort of essential for life. It's not. At least not yet.

The injunctive relief sought goes rather farther than "stop using our particular implementation of multi-touch". I think you need to go back and read the complaint (there's a great writeup right now at http://lwn.net). Yours seems to be a knee-jerk defense of your favorite company, but this is not a trivial or common license action.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#137

Post by acg »

It seems to part of a longer game, I think certain companies are not wanting "Google Voice" to revolutionise phone calls. There is a lot of companies making a lot of money for not a lot of bandwidth.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#138

Post by joezydeco »

codebaobab wrote: post #115
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.

I must confess that I was very surprised to hear that Apple initiated a lawsuit against HTC and I am wondering if there is some backstory that we don't know. I am not going to try and argue that Apple is some kind of altruistic, saintly company. But Apple's recent history lead me to believe that they viewed patents as defensive, not offensive weapons. Yes, they sued Nokia, but only after Nokia sued them first. So que…

It's easier to slap an injunction on a company shipping boxes full of patent-violating product.

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#139

Post by bphogan »

anigbrowl wrote: post #126
axod wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I say, I disagree. It's less useful for consumers, because you can't type on it properly, you can't rest it on your lap, you can't view any flash websites, etc etc. It's the geeks that are hailing it as useful. I can't see how my kids would use an iPad, and I can't see how my mum would use an iPad.

No offense axod, but you have a big anti-tablet bias, and I think it undermines your objectivity, the point that you keep repeating your anecdotal evaluation of your immediate family members not being likely adopters as if they were the median. You seem to be reasoning from an n of 3 or 4 people. I find it easy to see why Apple expects it to be popular. I may be wrong, but the (apparent) fact that lots of people are…

Just imagine some sort of ProTools, Ableton, FinalCut, or other interface on the iPad, connected to a Mac via USB. Or by wireless. Or a virtual Kaos pad :)

Re: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

#140

Post by brucejacob »

Swiping to unlock and other similar patented items are all "obvious" design decisions. All great design is obvious because great design produces things that are appropriate. Moreover, because great design is so obvious, it must be easy to design great things; the world must be full of great designs.

Right?

Um, no. The truth is that great design is NOT easy, and it stands out so prominently because the world is NOT full of great designs. Things like swiping to unlock are "obvious" only in retrospect. All great design is obvious -- in retrospect -- because great design produces things that are appropriate. But it is hard to do (PG has several essays on precisely this topic). Moreover, because it is hard to do, great designers are rewarded with some degree of protection for making the details of their innovations public (thus the legal terminology that patents "teach" a particular topic). I don't see why we should expect great designers to give up control of their ideas, willingly or otherwise, simply because those ideas are particularly good. Much of the logic in these comments amounts to "the iPhone had such a marvelously simple UI that everyone copied it, and because it became pervasive (by virtue of the copying), it must remain pervasive via Apple giving up the right to protect their IP."

I just don't buy that.

Also, people are asking "why now? why not earlier?" According to Gizmodo & other news sites, the brief is some 700 pages long. I'm sure Apple started working on this the day the Nexus One details started surfacing and it became clear it was effectively an iPhone clone. They can't sue Google (remember that Schmidt sat in Apple's huddles for years, listening to the plays, learning the playbook by heart, soaking up all insider info he could) because Google is intentionally disabling contested technology in Android -- they evidently know quite well what patent infringement means. Google is instead relying upon their handset manufacturers to enable the contested technology and thus take the bullet for them. I wonder why nobody is criticizing Google for using HTC as a "human" shield?

Post reply on HN