They patented "a grid of icons" when it's literally the first way you'd think of doing the UI - basically the definition of an "obvious patent". Not to mention that it'd already been done that way many times before and was the standard thing on smartphones by that point. So both obvious and massive prior art. For instance here's a Nokia phone from 2005: https://phys.org/news/2005-03-nokia-3g-imaging-smartphone-sh...…
Hmm I'm not convinced. If the iPhones home screen was so obvious why didn't others do it before? Those examples you listed are fairly different from iPhone at the time in a way that the Samsung phone wasn't.
Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial
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Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your anecdote is valid, but there are A LOT of PDA's out there. Many of them have a grid of icons layout. For instance, consider the Sharp PDA's GUI -- it's a grid of rectangular icons broken up into pages (albeit with named tabs). That being said, there may be something unique to Apple's patent, but on its face, "grid of icons" as a UI pattern predates the iPhone considerably.
You know we are talking about design patents. In which case Apple's patent is completely legitimate since the home screen remains unique to this very day. And Apple never patented a grid of icons.
And the samsung design is different. The rounded rects have different curvature, and there is no home square.
Apple's design looks the same as Windows 3.0
Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a book which explains this phenomena : "Everything is Obvious ... Once you know the answer" http://everythingisobvious.com/the-book/
One of the Android engineers (back when Android was going to be a Blackberry knockoff) made a similar comment about his reaction to the iPhone unveiling. >“As a consumer I was blown away. I wanted one immediately. But as a Google engineer, I thought ‘We’re going to have to start over.’” What we had suddenly looked just so . . . nineties,” DeSalvo said. “It’s just one of those things that are obvious when you see it."…
That's because Apple had a touchscreen, and Google had a keyboard at the time.
Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just "rounded corners." The patent addresses a very specific design, with rounded corners, a border, etc. It is basically only infringed if you try to make your product look like an iPhone, in order to free-ride on the iPhone brand, which is exactly what Samsung did.
Not to mention that Apple's rounded corners are not just a quarter of a circle stuck on the corner of a rectangle. Their corners are actually a specific design for their icons and their devices. [1] It's worth noting that they actually didn't at the time of writing have a patent on their specific corner design. I haven't read it yet but it would be interesting if corner shape this is mentioned as part of this patent.…
Then why is it a design patent violation to have circles on a square?
Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial
#65From OP: > Apple said in a statement that the case “has always been about more than money.” > “We believe deeply in the value of design, and our teams work tirelessly to create innovative products that delight our customers,” the company said. > After the 2012 jury sided with Apple, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said the lawsuit was about values, and that the company “chose legal action very reluctantly and only a…
That Groklaw article is quite biased. I see a lot of talk about the rounded rectangle while the case was never just about that. Many other vendors had rounded rectangles and weren’t sued because the phones were clearly different from the iPhone. It’s about a series of elements that were really close and made it confusing to distinguish them.
Also it states Apple was brand new in the mobile space but that was dead wrong. The Newton wasn’t a runaway hit like the iPhone but did quite ok. It was the first device to be coined pda (appeared a few months later than the Palm though). Also it was the first device with an ARM chip which was built in a joint venture with Acorn.
Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Both, to me, appear to be an evolution of this: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&ua...
This is a design patent. Does that look like an iPhone home screen ?
I wrote they both appear to be an evolution of the visor's design. Which makes me wonder why something like the iPhone's home screen could be patented in the first place. Where's the novelty?
Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is that comment being voted down? It's exactly on point.
The iPhone was always going to happen as soon as capacitive multitouch technology became feasible at the consumer level. It was never going to happen a minute earlier, and it was absolutely inevitable a minute later. It was just a question of who was going to build it. Apple kept their eye on that particular ball, while Microsoft, Nokia, Blackberry, Samsung, and others did not. As a result, Apple was (properly) rewar…
This is such a blatant attempt to diminish the massive effort huge numbers of very talented people put in in order to make the iPhone a reality when it became one.
And I’m not at all convinced that it was such an obvious idea given the development of multitouch. I think it only seems obvious after the fact.
Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial
#68They patented "a grid of icons" when it's literally the first way you'd think of doing the UI - basically the definition of an "obvious patent". Not to mention that it'd already been done that way many times before and was the standard thing on smartphones by that point. So both obvious and massive prior art. For instance here's a Nokia phone from 2005: https://phys.org/news/2005-03-nokia-3g-imaging-smartphone-sh...…
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Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial
#69They patented "a grid of icons" when it's literally the first way you'd think of doing the UI - basically the definition of an "obvious patent". Not to mention that it'd already been done that way many times before and was the standard thing on smartphones by that point. So both obvious and massive prior art. For instance here's a Nokia phone from 2005: https://phys.org/news/2005-03-nokia-3g-imaging-smartphone-sh...…
That is a component of the design patents Apple claims are being violated. They are much more specific than you appear to believe.
If it were truly as simple to show prior art as you think it is, this case would have been thrown out a decade ago.
Re: Apple Wins $539M from Samsung in Damages Retrial
#70They patented "a grid of icons" when it's literally the first way you'd think of doing the UI - basically the definition of an "obvious patent". Not to mention that it'd already been done that way many times before and was the standard thing on smartphones by that point. So both obvious and massive prior art. For instance here's a Nokia phone from 2005: https://phys.org/news/2005-03-nokia-3g-imaging-smartphone-sh...…
Hmm I'm not convinced. If the iPhones home screen was so obvious why didn't others do it before? Those examples you listed are fairly different from iPhone at the time in a way that the Samsung phone wasn't.
Palm Pilot did it almost a decade before.