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The Tim Cook memo: line by line

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#81

Post by onli »

taligent wrote: post #3

All this blog post is one person's misunderstanding of patent and copyright law. Jacques would have been better served trying to understand what trade dress means and why Apple's UI patents were about the implementation and not the idea. After all the idea of "how to let the user know they have reached the top of the scroll view" can be implemented many ways. Apples is one way. LG, Samsung and HTC all have different…

>Apple's UI patents were about the implementation and not the idea

You can't patent an implementation

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#82

Post by jahewson »

Don't shoot the messenger. If you don't like the way the patent system works, then criticise the system, but don't criticise a company for making use of it. The 800lb gorilla in the room is patent reform, not Apple. They certainly don't need the money. Given the discovery that went into this case, claims like "Apple didn't even invent it" seem rather far-fetched.

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#83

Post by wamatt »

Uggh, it's getting pretty tricky to work through the moral ambiguity of all this.

Probably because it's 3am and I'm tired, but wouldn't it be nice for a change, to let someone else convince us that "Apple == good" and "Samsung == Bad", or vice versa? But no, reality has to go and be all grey and complex. :p

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#84

Post by timmyd »

Vivtek wrote: post #69
timmyd wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then if its not innovative - show me the prior art ? There is none - so it's innovative under law - regardless of whether I agree or not. Amazon patented an innovative process unthought of at the time - the fact you apply retrospectivity to it now and look at it as ridiculous does nothing to prove it was not innovative back in 1998. If you thought of this process - would you be happy not to charge Amazon if you paten…

In the case of one-click, it's first important to note that in addition to prior art, a patent must also pass the obviousness test. One-click does not. You may not be a developer, I don't know, but I know any developer here could implement one-click in a day. Patents are not intended to be a lottery rewarding insight. Patents protect development effort . One-click fails that test. But in terms of prior art, Jeff Bezo…

But again - "i know any developer her could implement one-click in a day" and indeed a huge number of inventions could be implemented in a day. But you are again applying retrospecitivity (at least in my mind) - you need to remove that. Just because something is simple - doesnt mean it is not innovative. You contend that simply because something is simple that therefore it fails the test of obviousness - but that is not true and it's right that it's not true.

The test is asking whether the invention is an adequate distance beyond or above the state of the art. The state of the art at the time had no idea of such a simple one-click method - if it did - why wasn't it invented ? The fact it can be implemented so easily is irrelevant to fundamental idea that its innovative, non-obvious and unique. The best ideas are usually the ones no one see's and yes I am a front-end dev so I deal with more interaction components than anything.

Patents do not protect development effort - they protect novel, non-obvious and useful concept's. If they protected development effort - it would be a requirement to actually develop the idea and there is no such requirement and indeed many inventions wouldn't be possible to protect if such a requirement existed - that is, you must fully develop the invention before being granted protection. You're contention that because something is simple infers that its not patentable is incorrect in my mind.

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#85

Post by buster »

timmyd wrote: post #17

Hmm - i really dont agree with this. Apple revolutionised the industry - before the iPhone we were using tiny screens with Nokia SMS interfaces or Motorla RAZR. Apple frankly blew the industry apart. "These are not patents on innovation, they’re patents on simple ideas and features that you didn’t even think of first but you were the first to patent." Then the magical aspect of patent law called "prior art" would com…

I stopped reading after "Apple revolutionised the industry - before the iPhone we were using tiny screens with Nokia SMS interfaces".

Clearly you are very misguided. You are comparing featurephones with smartphones (the ones with screens and stuff). Smartphones existed way before the iPhone.

It makes me extremely sad that the marketing lies of Apple are taken for truth.

Apple may have invented the vendor lock-in, though! :P

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#86

Post by capkutay »

beedogs wrote: post #80
timmyd wrote: post #17

Hmm - i really dont agree with this. Apple revolutionised the industry - before the iPhone we were using tiny screens with Nokia SMS interfaces or Motorla RAZR. Apple frankly blew the industry apart. "These are not patents on innovation, they’re patents on simple ideas and features that you didn’t even think of first but you were the first to patent." Then the magical aspect of patent law called "prior art" would com…

> Hmm - i really dont agree with this. Apple revolutionised the industry - before the iPhone we were using tiny screens with Nokia SMS interfaces or Motorla RAZR. Apple frankly blew the industry apart. What? No, we weren't. I had a Cingular 8125 (HTC Wizard) a year and a half before the iPhone was introduced and it was perfectly fine. Apple just added shiny icons and took away the keyboard and stylus. BFD.

Apple just added shiny icons and took away the keyboard and stylus. BFD.

I actually think that is a BFD. If it had a keyboard, the whole idea of dynamic UI's would not exist.

Would anyone think that angry birds is cool if we had to play it with arrow buttons on the keyboard?

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#87

Post by marcamillion »

Wow Jacques, I usually love your posts and your comments here are valuable - but I think you are so off the mark with this post.

For starters, the reality is that Apple's revenue streams are quite diversified and their product portfolio is very strong. From iMac, to iTunes to iPods/iPhones/iPads.

So the notion that Apple would launch into litigation "just for the money" seems misguided, at the least - if only for the fact that if they lost the suit, there could be significant ramifications for their sales (e.g. an injunction against selling any of the products in the suit for X period of time, etc.). With sales and revenues growing as much as they are, a wrongly filed lawsuit can be even more risky than rewarding.

For a company as wealthy (and innovative) as Apple, there are more considerations than just protecting market share and trying to extract patent rent from competitors as a revenue stream.

There are many other companies that come out with many features in their products that Apple doesn't sue. See Windows, Safari vs Chrome, iPod vs Zune, Adobe Premiere vs Final Cut Pro, most "ultrabooks" vs Macbook Air, etc.

The issue here is that Samsung, HTC, et al. essentially have done what many companies in China have done. They acted like a hardware manufacturing partner - then using the inside knowledge they gained of the intimate architecture of the products, they reverse engineered them and competed directly.

That's like you hiring a web developer to build your startup - and both of you build it to traction, and once you take all the risk and prove the market, (s)he leaves and builds a direct competitor using his insider knowledge.

It's the most insiduous kind of 'IP stealing' that you can get.

If you had that done to you, and your ex-developer (in fact, he is still managing your codebase) is making a ton of money off of your ideas and IP in your market, I am sure you would be pissed too.

The money is just sprinkling on top.

Also, I think it is hard to argue that Apple doesn't pour their hearts into what they do. That's why they are the most valuable company on the planet and will continue to be for years to come. It's because of the rate at which they innovate.

Not the rate at which they copy.

So cut them some slack, and walk a mile in their shoes.

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#88

Post by robbiep »

mappu wrote: post #56
arn wrote: post #16

But it wasn't (all) about the money. It was personal. http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/20/from-steve-jobs-biograph... "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs said. "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this." With that in mind, the email reads far more gen…

It's interesting to consider what it might take for an actual war to occur. Samsung makes up a non-trivial share of the entire South Korean economy, one fifth of the country's exports and employing roughly one of every thirty people - if overnight they were barred from selling products internationally, at what point does the state intervene?

Imagine an apple battle tank. Would it whale on a samsung tank? Or Drone? Or would Samsung need to down an apple drone then reverse engineer it before they had equality in the war?

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#89

Post by ForrestN »

This is absurd and frustrating. Apple is not responsible for the broken patent system.

Apple is a public company. If Apple decided to hold itself to a set of standards more stringent than its competitors, it would be hampering itself and acting against the interests of its shareholders. Complain about, and work to fix, the system. Don't expect Apple to fix it by ceding the rights it currently has to its competitors. Especially when, as a company, Apple genuinely seems to believe that the blatant copying of iOS in Android is unethical.

Also, you know Samsung has filed similar suits around the world, and in no way is opting out of the patent system, right? Buying a Samsung as a fuck-you to patent law is a joke. They aren't working to fix the problem. They're just losing.

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#90

Post by nikic »

ForrestN wrote: post #89

This is absurd and frustrating. Apple is not responsible for the broken patent system. Apple is a public company. If Apple decided to hold itself to a set of standards more stringent than its competitors, it would be hampering itself and acting against the interests of its shareholders. Complain about, and work to fix, the system. Don't expect Apple to fix it by ceding the rights it currently has to its competitors.…

Just because you can, doesn't mean that you have to. Look at Google. That's a nice company, which keeps the patent trolling down.
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