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Why Apple’s ITC patent victory over HTC Android phones is scary

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Re: Why Apple’s ITC patent victory over HTC Android phones is scary

#41

Post by econgeeker »

sek wrote: post #35
raganwald wrote: post #32

There are three salient questions: First, is Apple a troll seeking rents or a functioning entity that invests in research and seeks to make money from products? Second, are the patents valid given the current patent system and laws (prior art, obviousness, &c) or not. And third, is the current system broken? I think there's room to debate the second and third points. But with respect to the first point, Apple is usin…

They are abusing the patent system to push competitors out of the market. They used a trivial patent to do this, these things are not valid in Europe. These things are not a problem for the real innovation guys the USA likes so much. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2729720

If you don't like the patent system, I have a sympathetic ear. I have issues with it as well. I've yet to see any proposals for an alternative, though, and an alternative would require amending the constitution.

If you're going to abuse the system to push competitors out of the market, you can do this with every competitor. Apple has not sued RIM, Palm, Microsoft, or any of the feature phones that -- from an abusive, overly broad perspective-- infringe on Apple patents.

Apple has only sued the people who took the iPhone design and replicated it. Apple is going after the cloners, not the competitors.

Before the iPhone was announced, android was an OS for a blackberry type device. It was better than RIM's OS, I believe, but it was the RIM formfactor and UI style. After the iPhone was announced, suddenly android became a touch-screen phone OS, copying the iPhone.

It is important to remember that a touch screen UI was never done before in this way. There were no touch screen phones prior to the iPhone announcement. It isn't like the iPhoen was just another phone... the iPhone was a new kind of phone. It created a new category. Just as the iPad created a new category (despite there being table PCs in the past, going way back, there was no tablet device market prior to the iPad.)

Apple invented the touchscreen UI, and much of the technologies for the modern smartphone. Apple started working on the iPhone and iOS system for the iPad project sometime around 2002-2003. Google started working on the touch version of android in 2007- after the iPhone was announced. If google had decided to compete, and launched a massive R&D effort, and invented a bunch of stuff, then they'd have patents of their own to defend with. They didn't, they just copied the iPhone.

There is no question android is designed to be an iPhone like OS running on touch screens with multi-touch. Apple invented this category of product, Apple has patented it with legitimate, innovative, non-obvious inventions.

Calling this "abuse" communicates to me that you think when it comes to software, people should be able to copy whatever they want.

I think that's bad. I think google should have innovated, and if they aren't willing to do so, then I don't think the should be able to just outsource their R&D to Apple and get the results for free.

The purpose of patents is to open the kimono and let everyone know what you've done. Apple did this, which gave google a heads up for starting their own innovations. This is good for innovation because it means companies don't have to start from scratch. It isn't a license to just copy the patent and not innovate.

Re: Why Apple’s ITC patent victory over HTC Android phones is scary

#42

Post by cageface »

Terretta wrote: post #34
flocial wrote: post #20

These patent stories get more and more ridiculous by the day. We need a major software patent amnesty event to just wipe the slate clean. Patents were originally for protecting tinkerers and original thinkers from getting their ideas ripped off by some corporation. I love myself too much to read through the meat of the patents but it sure sounds so vague and general to software in general. Any idiot who took CS101 co…

> Anything that hampers the next wave of innovation is pure evil. You were on a roll, saying people shouldn't have to innovate, then suddenly you worry about hampering innovation. Which is it? You want to be able to copy freely instead of innovating, or you want innovation to be protected? Many comments in these threads seem to think Apple woke up one day in 2007 with the completely obvious idea of an iPhone. That's…

And Apple was in a position to make those investments in the first place because they profited handsomely from copying wholesale the fundamental ideas of the Mac UI. Now that the tables are turned they want to change the rules of the game.

Android brings more than enough innovation to the table to justify its existence. If anything Apple is borrowing more from Google now than vice-versa.

Re: Why Apple’s ITC patent victory over HTC Android phones is scary

#44

Post by lucian1900 »

flocial wrote: post #20

These patent stories get more and more ridiculous by the day. We need a major software patent amnesty event to just wipe the slate clean. Patents were originally for protecting tinkerers and original thinkers from getting their ideas ripped off by some corporation. I love myself too much to read through the meat of the patents but it sure sounds so vague and general to software in general. Any idiot who took CS101 co…

I've read part of both patents. Yes, they are very, very silly and obvious.

Re: Why Apple’s ITC patent victory over HTC Android phones is scary

#45

Post by cageface »

econgeeker wrote: post #41
sek wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are abusing the patent system to push competitors out of the market. They used a trivial patent to do this, these things are not valid in Europe. These things are not a problem for the real innovation guys the USA likes so much. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2729720

If you don't like the patent system, I have a sympathetic ear. I have issues with it as well. I've yet to see any proposals for an alternative, though, and an alternative would require amending the constitution. If you're going to abuse the system to push competitors out of the market, you can do this with every competitor. Apple has not sued RIM, Palm, Microsoft, or any of the feature phones that -- from an abusive,…

I don't understand how Apple proponents can claim on one hand that iOS is vastly superior to Android but on the other that similarities between the two systems pose an existential threat to Apple's ability to innovate. Either execution counts or it doesn't. If Android is outselling the iPhone at similar price points it's obviously doing more than just copying. What's worse, the patents with which Apple is actually litigating are trivial.

The defenses I hear of the patent system remind me a lot of defenses I hear for American drug policy. At this point the evidence is overwhelming that current U.S. patent law does more to stifle than to foster innovation and this is going to hurt American global competitiveness in the long run.

Re: Why Apple’s ITC patent victory over HTC Android phones is scary

#46

Post by mbreese »

sek wrote: post #35
raganwald wrote: post #32

There are three salient questions: First, is Apple a troll seeking rents or a functioning entity that invests in research and seeks to make money from products? Second, are the patents valid given the current patent system and laws (prior art, obviousness, &c) or not. And third, is the current system broken? I think there's room to debate the second and third points. But with respect to the first point, Apple is usin…

They are abusing the patent system to push competitors out of the market. They used a trivial patent to do this, these things are not valid in Europe. These things are not a problem for the real innovation guys the USA likes so much. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2729720

They are using the patent system exactly as it has been setup. You can argue about the system, but they are definitely not acting as patent trolls here. If the patent was too trivial, then expect HTC to argue for patent invalidation - exactly as the system was setup.

Re: Why Apple’s ITC patent victory over HTC Android phones is scary

#47

Post by adbge »

raganwald wrote: post #32

There are three salient questions: First, is Apple a troll seeking rents or a functioning entity that invests in research and seeks to make money from products? Second, are the patents valid given the current patent system and laws (prior art, obviousness, &c) or not. And third, is the current system broken? I think there's room to debate the second and third points. But with respect to the first point, Apple is usin…

> Apple has been researching personal computing since it was founded, and invests heavily in figuring out exactly what works to make viable products.

Apple actually does comparatively little spending on R&D when contrasted with the likes of Microsoft or even Google. [1] When it comes to design, it's well known that Apple is of the mentality that good design is something recognizable and, that being the case, they don't invest in human-computer interaction research. [2]

[1] http://b2bspecialist.posterous.com/chart-randd-spending-comp...

[2] http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/97958-why-is-great-desig...

Re: Why Apple’s ITC patent victory over HTC Android phones is scary

#48

Post by kenjackson »

raganwald wrote: post #32

There are three salient questions: First, is Apple a troll seeking rents or a functioning entity that invests in research and seeks to make money from products? Second, are the patents valid given the current patent system and laws (prior art, obviousness, &c) or not. And third, is the current system broken? I think there's room to debate the second and third points. But with respect to the first point, Apple is usin…

But with respect to the first point, Apple is using the patent system exactly as it was intended. Apple has been researching personal computing since it was founded, and invests heavily in figuring out exactly what works to make viable products.

How do you feel about the MS attacks against Android? I find it odd that so many have come out in support of Apple, but against MS. MS has taken a much softer position (licensing fees vs injunctions) and frankly the Apple patents are no stronger than MS's in these cases. In fact, I think that one of Apple's patents have prior art in Windows Mobile.

Personally, I've come around to believing that we should end SW patents (if you can actually separate them from patents at all), but as long as they're on the books a public company that isn't utilizing them to the best of their ability is violating their fudiciary duty.

Re: Why Apple’s ITC patent victory over HTC Android phones is scary

#49

Post by gvb »

Terretta wrote: post #15
microtonal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as one can dislike the guy's drivel. There is some truth to his statements as well. It does not bear repeating that so many patents describe mathematical truths, trivialities, and common sense, that it is hard to make a product that does not violate a patent. Also, banning a product is one of the possible outcomes of a patent violation (besides working around the patent, or settling). Wouldn't it be nicer if…

I've lived in countries where copyright and patents were not enforced. One country didn't even have a copyright law until this century. I've seen the results of your theory, and it's not pretty. > Wouldn't it be nicer if everyone just competes on quality and price? No. To be worth while , investment in R&D needs to be recouped. If cloning finished products is legal, the clone makers don't need to recoup R&D, so can u…

"Copyright" and "patent" are different concepts and saying the two together, e.g. "copyright and patent", is wrong. People that write "copyright and patent" are almost invariably defending patents by arguing copyrights are important.

Cloning products is primarily copyright and trademark infringement. The companies that are victims of cloning fight back with trademark and copyright laws, typically not with patent laws.

Copyright is primarily for preventing others from directly copying a specific implementation (source code, MP3 player look & feel, etc.). Patents cover an invention, a conceptual thing. An invention doesn't need to have a physical implementation to be patentable.

For instance, LAME[1] is copyrighted itself and does not violate anyone else's copyrights, but anybody that does any MP3 encoding[2] without having an appropriate license to the underlying MP3 patents is infringing patents.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAME

[2] In a country that the MP3 encoding patents are registered, of course.

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