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Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

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Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#2
Your product is in the shape of a rectangle, we invented rectangle. Pay us money for our invention or we will sue you in 50 different nations. there needs to be a penalty for the attacking company when frivolous patent suits are shown to be ridiculous.

Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#3
Apple's aggressive patent strategy is really turning me off; as it should for other people as well. I hope this is understand not only by the Tech community, but also average consumers.

I don't know their claims, but given the past, this is getting out of hand. Last month, I would have said that I would consider buying an Ipod because it is a great product; but because of the past events, I would not consider buying an Apple product whatsoever.

Man up, Apple. You are going to have competitors in the mobile and tablet industry. Stop trying to cop out with all this patent crap.

Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#4
post #2

Your product is in the shape of a rectangle, we invented rectangle. Pay us money for our invention or we will sue you in 50 different nations. there needs to be a penalty for the attacking company when frivolous patent suits are shown to be ridiculous.

The problem is that very few claims are genuinely ridiculous.

There can be differences of opinion on what's valid, and things which are untested in law, but for the most part there will be a germ of something at the heart of the claim which will make it potentially reasonable.

Judges tend to throw the genuine dross out very early on.

The one that always springs to mind is the MacDonald's too hot coffee case. On the surface it sounds like complete nonsense but when you look at the detail the claim was perfectly reasonable and deserved to win (which it did).

Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#5

Apple's aggressive patent strategy is really turning me off; as it should for other people as well. I hope this is understand not only by the Tech community, but also average consumers. I don't know their claims, but given the past, this is getting out of hand. Last month, I would have said that I would consider buying an Ipod because it is a great product; but because of the past events, I would not consider buying…

You can only hope that Apple is being as obnoxious as possible to spark interest in patent reform.

Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#6
This sort of behaviour isn't visible to consumers, so it doesn't hurt them in the short term.

But it does piss off developers. If they keep up pissing off developers with patent & app store shenanigans they'll lose their most passionate developers and end up with just those who are in it for the money.

And we know how that ends up. ~10 years ago passionate developers jumped from Windows to OS X, even though at the time there was virtually no money in OS X application development. And the availability of some very nice applications was a large driver of the OS X market share increase from 2% to 15%.

Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#7

This sort of behaviour isn't visible to consumers, so it doesn't hurt them in the short term. But it does piss off developers. If they keep up pissing off developers with patent & app store shenanigans they'll lose their most passionate developers and end up with just those who are in it for the money. And we know how that ends up. ~10 years ago passionate developers jumped from Windows to OS X, even though at the ti…

  > And the availability of some very nice applications was a
  > large driver of the OS X market share increase from 2% to 
  > 15%
I doubt it very much. I'd say people came to OS X by discovering other Apple products first (iPod and iPhone).

Also, developers who would be most pissed of by this most likely are Android developers already.

Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#8

Apple's aggressive patent strategy is really turning me off; as it should for other people as well. I hope this is understand not only by the Tech community, but also average consumers. I don't know their claims, but given the past, this is getting out of hand. Last month, I would have said that I would consider buying an Ipod because it is a great product; but because of the past events, I would not consider buying…

You can only hope that Apple is being as obnoxious as possible to spark interest in patent reform.

Unfortunately this is clearly not the case. There actions are clearly harming both competitors (Samsung, etc) and consumers (through less consumer choice in the tablet market).

Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#10
post #2

Your product is in the shape of a rectangle, we invented rectangle. Pay us money for our invention or we will sue you in 50 different nations. there needs to be a penalty for the attacking company when frivolous patent suits are shown to be ridiculous.

The problem is that very few claims are genuinely ridiculous. There can be differences of opinion on what's valid, and things which are untested in law, but for the most part there will be a germ of something at the heart of the claim which will make it potentially reasonable. Judges tend to throw the genuine dross out very early on. The one that always springs to mind is the MacDonald's too hot coffee case. On the s…

I think there are plenty of frivolous cases.

When I looked at the details of thee hot coffee case the claim seemed even more absurd.

The physical damage was worse than I expected but that doesn't make her less responsible.

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