Apple starts patenting mobile app ideas • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple starts patenting mobile app ideas

#61

Post by 124816 » Sat, Jul 31, 2010, 12:48 AM UTC

ergo98 wrote: post #27

timr wrote: post #7

As bad as this seems, the best thing you can do as an aspiring developer is ignore it completely , and do whatever you're going to do anyway. The only way these patents are going to matter to you is if you hit it big enough to be worth taking to court -- it's a millionaire problem. Even then, there are lots of steps between "patent granted" and "patent successfully defended in court". You're so far from that point th…

>The only way these patents are going to matter to you is ...if you want financing. The investment community keeps a close eye on patents, because it's a major potential liability. >Obviously, I don't know if Apple is being defensive or offensive here, but it's pretty difficult to imagine them going from retail hardware company to professional patent troll It's easy to imagine. Microsoft went through exactly the same…

> which is a spurious to start with -- simply documenting making an idea public is just as much of a defense

The idea behind defensive patents isn't that they defend your use of that idea, but that they defend you from competitors who have patents that might affect you. (Since they hopefully allow you to countersue.)

Re: Apple starts patenting mobile app ideas

#62

Post by patrickaljord » Sat, Jul 31, 2010, 1:46 AM UTC

silvestrov wrote: post #26

timr wrote: post #7

As bad as this seems, the best thing you can do as an aspiring developer is ignore it completely , and do whatever you're going to do anyway. The only way these patents are going to matter to you is if you hit it big enough to be worth taking to court -- it's a millionaire problem. Even then, there are lots of steps between "patent granted" and "patent successfully defended in court". You're so far from that point th…

I think Apple has been forced to patent everything they can: Nokia sued Apple for e.g. "using positioning data in applications". If Apple did not create a huge portfolio of patents, then Apple would very vulnerable from attacks from Nokia et.al. Patents are the business equivalent of the cold wars nuclear weapon: we have peace because if you bomb us, then we will make sure that you are completely bombed too: The thou…

To be fair, Nokia sued Apple because Apple refused to license their multi-touch tech to Nokia, knowing that they were themselves using many Nokia patents (according to Nokia).

Re: Apple starts patenting mobile app ideas

#63

Post by mcantelon » Sat, Jul 31, 2010, 2:10 AM UTC

silvestrov wrote: post #26

timr wrote: post #7

As bad as this seems, the best thing you can do as an aspiring developer is ignore it completely , and do whatever you're going to do anyway. The only way these patents are going to matter to you is if you hit it big enough to be worth taking to court -- it's a millionaire problem. Even then, there are lots of steps between "patent granted" and "patent successfully defended in court". You're so far from that point th…

I think Apple has been forced to patent everything they can: Nokia sued Apple for e.g. "using positioning data in applications". If Apple did not create a huge portfolio of patents, then Apple would very vulnerable from attacks from Nokia et.al. Patents are the business equivalent of the cold wars nuclear weapon: we have peace because if you bomb us, then we will make sure that you are completely bombed too: The thou…

Apple's patents aren't merely defensive. The recent suit against HTC comes to mind.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/190590/apple_sues_htc.html

Re: Apple starts patenting mobile app ideas

#64

Post by tbrownaw » Sat, Jul 31, 2010, 4:27 AM UTC

ergo98 wrote: post #27

timr wrote: post #7

As bad as this seems, the best thing you can do as an aspiring developer is ignore it completely , and do whatever you're going to do anyway. The only way these patents are going to matter to you is if you hit it big enough to be worth taking to court -- it's a millionaire problem. Even then, there are lots of steps between "patent granted" and "patent successfully defended in court". You're so far from that point th…

>The only way these patents are going to matter to you is ...if you want financing. The investment community keeps a close eye on patents, because it's a major potential liability. >Obviously, I don't know if Apple is being defensive or offensive here, but it's pretty difficult to imagine them going from retail hardware company to professional patent troll It's easy to imagine. Microsoft went through exactly the same…

I thought the "defensive patent" idea was less about "this idea is safe for me to use" and more about Mutually Assured Destruction (which doesn't work against Non Practicing Entities such as your typical patent troll, of course).

Re: Apple starts patenting mobile app ideas

#65

Post by Niten » Sat, Jul 31, 2010, 5:11 AM UTC

timr wrote: post #7

As bad as this seems, the best thing you can do as an aspiring developer is ignore it completely , and do whatever you're going to do anyway. The only way these patents are going to matter to you is if you hit it big enough to be worth taking to court -- it's a millionaire problem. Even then, there are lots of steps between "patent granted" and "patent successfully defended in court". You're so far from that point th…

pg puts forth a similar view in his essay on software patents:

http://www.paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html

But I don't think that logic applies here. Sure, if you're a small operation going head to head with some huge corporation, that attitude toward patents makes perfect sense.

But that's not the order of things in scenario; Apple doesn't see small app developers as their competitors, rather they see Google's Android and possibly Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 (and the manufacturers who build the corresponding devices) as their competitors. So Apple's most likely use for these patents is to threaten developers building apps for Android and other non-iOS platforms. And that, in light of Apple's recent history of patent abuse, gives startups every reason to worry.

Re: Apple starts patenting mobile app ideas

#66

Post by biafra » Sat, Jul 31, 2010, 7:34 AM UTC

krschultz wrote: post #13

smiler wrote: post #2

The article only looks at it from the 'Apple is evil' perspective. I wonder if Apple are patenting these purely so that others can't and thereby allowing freedom for developers to develop these apps without worrying about patent infringement

What if Apple skips sueing the guys on their own platform but does sue the guys making apps like this for Android? Thats more worrisome to me than the prospect of Apple using them against iPhone developers, which is probably something they would never do.

They probably won't sue ios developers over this, since they can easily block their apps.

Re: Apple starts patenting mobile app ideas

#67

Post by wan23 » Sat, Jul 31, 2010, 5:40 PM UTC

theBobMcCormick wrote: post #50

natrius wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a useful comparison. Companies aren't run like governments, where democracy is usually held as the ideal. The comment wasn't useful, but it was inflammatory. I don't think the commenter had bad intentions, but I agree with stanleydrew's judgment.

I've actually been wondering a lot lately why isn't democracy held as an ideal for companies? With the amount of power that large corporations have, why do we as a society not hold them to higher standards and require them to be governed more democratically?

They often are. In many large companies shareholders elect board members, and delegate their voting power to them. They effectively run the company democratically. Even though they don't actually manage the day to day affairs of the company, the C-level officials who do can be fired by the board so it's not totally unlike a parliamentary system.

Re: Apple starts patenting mobile app ideas

#68

Post by billmcneale » Sun, Aug 01, 2010, 3:27 AM UTC

timr wrote: post #7

As bad as this seems, the best thing you can do as an aspiring developer is ignore it completely , and do whatever you're going to do anyway. The only way these patents are going to matter to you is if you hit it big enough to be worth taking to court -- it's a millionaire problem. Even then, there are lots of steps between "patent granted" and "patent successfully defended in court". You're so far from that point th…

While your post gets a lot of facts right, you seem to be giving Apple the role of the good guy a bit too quickly.

Apple has been flooding the mobile phone space with patents ever since they started working on the iPhone and the industry has been suffering from crippling stifling of innovation ever since (in case you were wondering why it took so long for Android to get "pinch to zoom").

As for your other point:

> but it's pretty difficult to imagine them going from retail hardware company to professional patent troll

There is an in-between: they are working on apps that they are not sure they will be able to ship in time, so they are filing these patents to make sure nobody will beat them.

If you have a great app, the only decent way to execute is to ship it and to grab the market. Using patents to stifle competitors or blanket the market with a chilling effect is lame.

Re: Apple starts patenting mobile app ideas

#69

Post by korch » Sun, Aug 01, 2010, 5:37 AM UTC

What ever happened to Apple taking the lead, standing up, and doing the right thing, damn the consequences? One of the reasons why Apple fans have been so fanatical about Apple products is because they know Apple will do the right thing. Unlike say, Microsoft.

So now Apple is just like any other evil, scheming mega-corp. It's pretty sad actually. Like the day the music died, Apple software has died.

Re: Apple starts patenting mobile app ideas

#70

Post by prodigal_erik » Sun, Aug 01, 2010, 8:56 AM UTC

korch wrote: post #69

What ever happened to Apple taking the lead, standing up, and doing the right thing, damn the consequences? One of the reasons why Apple fans have been so fanatical about Apple products is because they know Apple will do the right thing. Unlike say, Microsoft. So now Apple is just like any other evil, scheming mega-corp. It's pretty sad actually. Like the day the music died, Apple software has died.

When has Apple ever indulged in idealism? They support a hellhole of a manufacturing plant, they willingly implemented DRM before complaining about it, everything they've made for decades has been disposable and hostile to tinkerers, and now they are starting a dystopian software market that's authoritarian in ways Microsoft never even dared.