Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#11

Post by ajross » Tue, Dec 20, 2011, 5:05 PM UTC

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #4

maeon3 wrote: 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…

Clearly Apple isn't dumb and won't sue where there is no chance of "victory" (defined in a business sense, not always meaning "victory in court"). And indeed: they got a injunction (albeit an ephemeral one) in Germany over the design of the Galaxy Tab 10.1. So in fact they were right, and so are you. There was enough of a case to make this advantageous to pursue.

That doesn't change the fact that this is terribly hurtful to the consumer, the market, and (I can only hope) Apple's public perception. It's just awful, sorry.

Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#12

Post by mrinterweb » Tue, Dec 20, 2011, 5:13 PM UTC

It seems thar Apple does not care about the negative PR lawsuites like this generate for them. Apple owes a lot of their success to being cool and innovative. Lawsuites like this make apple neither.

Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#13

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 20, 2011, 5:23 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#14

Post by admiralpumpkin » Tue, Dec 20, 2011, 5:32 PM UTC

scottmp10 wrote: post #8

barkingllama wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

So your implied argument is that patents hurt consumers because they don't allow one company's patented innovations to be used without restriction by other companies?

Your view is that the limit of one's benefit from an innovation should be the time between when one releases an innovative product and when your competitors release copy-cat products?

Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#15

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 20, 2011, 5:34 PM UTC

grannyg00se wrote: post #10

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#16

Post by Tyrannosaurs » Tue, Dec 20, 2011, 5:34 PM UTC

grannyg00se wrote: post #10

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The fact that:

(a) MacDonalds had been warned about this repeatedly in the past and

(b) that the coffee was being served at temperatures significantly higher than you'd normally get from a kettle at home / work thus rendering the sort of normal expectations you might have moot

didn't seem pertinent to you?

Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#17

Post by admiralpumpkin » Tue, Dec 20, 2011, 5:35 PM UTC

grannyg00se wrote: post #10

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Please explain "the details" which made it "even more absurd" to you.

At what temperature would you start to assign responsibility to McDonalds? Can they, in your mind, give out boiling coffee without culpability?

[edit: typo]

Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#18

Post by melling » Tue, Dec 20, 2011, 5:37 PM UTC

At least Apple is a company that sells something and is trying to protect their products. They are playing the game under the current law, which is clearly flawed. Rather than complain everytime Apple/Microsoft, etc go after others, can we try to get problem solved?

The game is so flawed that there's an entire industry built around it, and it's getting worse.

Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#19

Post by js2 » Tue, Dec 20, 2011, 5:38 PM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #9

So... I feel like Apple has come full circle. I find myself wishing for a Hooters waitress to come running down the aisle of the next Apple PR event and hurl a sledgehammer through the presentation.

Discus thrower - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anya_Major

Re: Apple takes patent attacks in a new direction

#20

Post by bryanlarsen » Tue, Dec 20, 2011, 5:44 PM UTC

rimantas wrote: post #7

bryanlarsen wrote: post #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 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.

Sure, the iPod got people into the store, but presumably people played with the machine in the store or at a friend's house or read reviews before actually buying the machine.

Sure, lots of developers have left already because of the app store shenanigans. But judging by the tone of comments here in Hacker News, the patent shenanigans have alienated another group.