Why Apple’s ITC patent victory over HTC Android phones is scary • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by flocial » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 3:14 PM UTC

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…

Where did I say people shouldn't have to innovate? My main gripe is with broad patents on software metaphors. You certainly have a point that Apple has every right to bear the fruits of their years of research and hard work. But what do you know, they already are because they redefined the smartphone market and are leagues ahead of the competition. Their mastery of intuitive and elegant interface design just can't be copied. Copycats can only do so much by emulating functionality. I find Android severely lacking and love my iPhone but shutting them out with patent suits isn't going to give them an an economic advantage beyond what they have for creating a fundamentally better product and it's going to be bad for consumers if we have to wait for these patents to run out before we can see competitive devices or buy devices that are perennially more expensive and inferior due to licensing fees.

I just find the legal framework in place for copyright and software patents out of touch with reality and far from ideal. It just seems that with the way the system currently works, science fiction writers should have a mountain of patents covering the next hundred years if only they would do the paperwork and pay the legal fees. We'd still be stuck in a pre-industrial society if we had current patent laws in the 18th century.

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

#62

Post by domador » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 3:17 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #48

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 (licen…

Software patents and public companies' fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder wealth: two legally-enthroned perverse incentives.

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

#63

Post by rbarooah » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 3:21 PM UTC

cageface wrote: post #42

Terretta wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

This argument is based on repeating an easily debunked falsehood.

Apple did not 'copy wholesale the fundamental ideas of the Mac UI'. They paid Xerox for a license to commercialize the technology via a stock deal, and then they spent significant effort refining it to make a consumer product.

So Apple really just wants other people to play by the same rules they do.

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

#64

Post by rbarooah » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 3:27 PM UTC

soulinafishbowl wrote: post #7

Apple and Lodsys are in the same category.

Right because Lodsys also transformed the landscape of the mobile industry by selling a revolutionary new device that everyone else is competing with.

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

#65

Post by flocial » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 3:35 PM UTC

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…

You lost me at the last paragraph (otherwise a really nice argument). Launching into a tirade against Viagra ads doesn't do much for your case IMO. I suppose making a multi-billion dollar bid for relevant smartphone-related patents isn't doing enough for your partners? Google never really tried to "make" these phones. You could argue that Samsung, HTC, et al. "fell for it" without realizing all the legal ramifications riddling the platform now that they're fully invested in it. However, while I'm sure Google didn't buy Android based on altruistic impulse, you make them out as a villain straight out of a James Bond movie, "we'll create a 'open' mobile OS based on Linux to sell more Viagra ads. mwahhaha".

Provided these patent claims are valid and honored, from this point on the only end game I can see is the big platform companies racing to acquire more and more obscure patents to play a game of chicken, until they reach a point of mutually assured destruction of "you can't make phones, I can't make phones so there".

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

#66

Post by fauigerzigerk » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 3:39 PM UTC

garbowza wrote: post #31

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #18

The first patent is described as a "system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data," which Apple says applies, for example, to tapping a phone number and being prompted options to call or look it up on the web. So they have basically patented the context menu. How broken can a patent system possibly become before it crashes an entire economy?

You must examine a patent based on the specific claims, not the title. Many people make this mistake and assume the patent is much broader than it actually is.

Apple's claim does sound pretty broad and the court apparently found their claim to be legit.

I have not read a single software patent (and I have read some, if not this one) that was not completely obvious to me, and I am "one of ordinary skill in the art".

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

#67

Post by Kylekramer » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 3:45 PM UTC

Bungholio wrote: post #56

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…

So if Apple are against software patents (IIRC this is their official stance) then that leaves us having to believe what they say and not what they do. BTW, why is it Google's responsibility to "spend billions dismantling the patent system"?

Apple is definitely not opposed to patents. I remember slides from the original iPhone announcement touting how much they patented their multitouch system (which apparently wasn't that well considering how I don't see those patents in any of their suits).

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

#68

Post by rufugee » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 3:47 PM UTC

Why do we not see video game patents? Why don't we see, for example, Rockstar patenting "a mechanism for allowing a character to navigate a three dimensional space" and then suing the hell out of everyone else?

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

#69

Post by alain94040 » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 3:52 PM UTC

I read patent 5,946,647. It's actually a smart patent. It was written in 1996, and it basically describes what the Mail app on my Mac does when it sees a phone number or a date in an email: it automatically detects it and gives me contextual choices, such as move the phone number into my address book (automatically extracting the sender's name), or create an appointement based on a piece of text that says "let's talk tomorrow at 3pm".

I'd say it's pretty smart. I can't guarantee it had never been done before 1996, but if I had come up with that at the time, I would have felt happy to file a patent for it.

That being said, that patent is not critical to Android. Worst case, you can't auto-extract phone numbers and emails from random text. Big deal.

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

#70

Post by Kylekramer » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 4:03 PM UTC

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,…

Look towards iOS 5, you could easily say Apple outsourced their notification system R&D to Google. And that is the problem with software patents. Everyone borrows bits from here and there, sometimes there is just one obvious way of doing things, sometimes there is parallel inspiration. As long as peope aren't actually stealing code or intentionally trying to deceive customers, it is a pretty large grey area.