The Tim Cook memo: line by line • Hacker News Board

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#231

Post by enraged_camel » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 4:53 PM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #216

nirvana wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did answer your question. Nobody can patent "pinch to zoom" such that nobody else can use it. The question comes from a misunderstanding of the situation and the patent. I've met this method of arguing before and consider it a trap. "I think its this, prove me wrong!" In my experience, no amount of research on my part will meet the burden of your opinion. If you want to argue that the claim is trivial, please, feel…

I've read the patent and while you are technically correct, the effect of the patent is to grant them a monopoly on the feature pinch-to-zoom on a smartphone with a touch interface. The end result is that no one else can implement pinch to zoom on a smart phone. The patent is also overly broad in that it covers all multi-touch touch screen devices. So that whether I use an infrared overlay or a capacitive screen it i…

No one else can implement pinch to zoom, so what? Is pinching the only way, or even the best way to zoom? It may seem like it is the best and most obvious way right now but that is only because Apple popularized it and made it ubiquitous. In the future someone may (gasp) innovate and come up with a better solution, that would in hindsight seem even more obvious.

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#232

Post by danielweber » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 4:55 PM UTC

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…

If you invented something, you spent ten-of-thousands on patents, you spent huge amounts of capital in developing a product - you launch it to much positive press and then someone simply copies everything you have done. You're a small business - what do you do now ?

Been there.

Me and 2 other people invented a product that hadn't existed before and created an entire lexicon for it. Then jokers at a larger company duplicated our product. The manual and website had been at least rewritten but the similarities to our stuff were obvious.

Eventually we found evidence of typos in the internals of our product showing up in their UI. That was when we got a lawyer. We significantly slowed down their product launch and probably got a few managers fired.

It took a few years for our patent to be issued, which finally got them to fuck off. I would have gladly traded a much shorter term on our patent for a faster issuance. Those years felt like decades.

(We didn't appeal to the Internet because the Internet was a much much different creature back then. A corporate blog was unheard of. And it could have backfired: we had one loose cannon employee in our own company who went around a conference telling everyone how that company had ripped us off; the next year at the same conference everyone remembered the story but many people mis-remembered who had stolen from whom. Which is why we tried to handle things with the legal system instead of by trying to tell everyone what assholes they were. Although there is a Texas company that is now complete poison to have on your resume at any company I work for.)

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#233

Post by cwisecarver » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 5:00 PM UTC

marcamillion wrote: post #87

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…

Sucks that this post is so far down. It's the only piece of content on the page so far that doesn't seem like a biased, drunken tirade, including the OP.

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#234

Post by mindcrime » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 5:04 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #230

mindcrime wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're a small business - what do you do now? You continue to innovate. You do a better job at understanding your customer's needs and fulfilling them. You do a better job at marketing, positioning, and advertising. You give better customer service. There's tons of ways to compete, other than raw product uniqueness. According to your article you sit back and say "oh thats totally ok because thats innovation and I'm h…

>>You continue to innovate. You do a better job at understanding your customer's needs and fulfilling them. You do a better job at marketing, positioning, and advertising. You give better customer service. There's tons of ways to compete, other than raw product uniqueness. How exactly do you do a better job at marketing, positioning, advertising, customer service, etc. as a small business? The implication of being a…

The implication of being a small business is that you are resource-constrained and cannot do those things as well as the big players can

I disagree with this implication. Being small just means you have to use the resources that you do have, to greater effect. And a small business has a lot of advantages in it's own way... you can typically learn faster, react faster, give customers more personal attention, and you can pursue niches that would be too small for a larger player to focus on.

which is why you need patent protection for your innovations.

Right, because if Apple decides to use technology created by Enraged Camel Software, Inc. you're going to be able to afford the legal fight with them, even if you do have a patent?

And never mind the money you wasted getting a patent in the first place. Depending on who you believe, it can routinely cost somewhere north of $50,000 just to get a patent. What else could a small company / startup do with $50,000?

And never mind that your startup can easily be attacked by $RANDOM_BIGCORP for "violating" some submarine patent that you never knew about, if you step on their toes. IBM alone has so many freaking patents, I'd bet they could construct a reasonable enough patent lawsuit against nearly any new startup that emerges, if they felt like it. And even if they lost in the end, they'd bankrupt the startup in the process.

I just don't think patents (and software patents in particular) do any good for startups / entrepreneurs. Actually, I think they are actively harmful; especially when the USPTO is granting these ridiculously overbroad patents for trivially obvious ideas.

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#235

Post by codeka » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 5:08 PM UTC

nirvana wrote: post #165

codeka wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple revolutionised the industry - before the iPhone we were using tiny screens with Nokia SMS interfaces or Motorla RAZR Even if that were true, the problem for me is Apple didn't patent the iPhone. They patented tiny little implementation details, like pinch-to-zoom and slide-to-unlock. The iPhone was revolutionary not because of rounded rectangles and a regular grid of icons. It was revolutionary because it was…

You misunderstand the nature of patents. Patents cover inventions, which are non-obvious methods to solve problems. This is not giving apple the exclusive right to "pinch to zoom" or "slide to unlock" but the methods for implementing those features. Apple also has a great deal of very fundamental patents with regard to the unique way for reading touch screens that they invented. This does not mean only Apple can have…

I don't think I've misunderstood anything. I'm not saying patents do not work like this, I'm saying they should not - its my opinion that the way the system currently works is broken and it should not have been possible to get a patent on trivial features.

Also, I'm curious to know which are the "big gun" patents you're referring to. Does this mean Apple will be able to sue Samsung again for even more?

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#236

Post by ladzoppelin » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 5:09 PM UTC

k2enemy wrote: post #225

tripzilch wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's pretty clear that among other things, Samsung is paying damages for violating the "pinch-to-zoom on a mobile device with touch screen" patent. It is also very clearly a bounded part of the claim: if it didn't hold, the rest might still, and vice versa. Assuming your justice system somewhat works, that really should mean that Samsung is in fact guilty of violating this patent. But so far nobody has really expl…

You've mis-understood my comment. It probably wasn't clear enough. I'm talking about Apple's motivation to bring the case in the first place. It wasn't because of individual technical violations of patents -- lots of other phones violate the patents and Apple hasn't sued. It was the spirit and totality of the copying. But once you decide to sue, you have to pick out the particular patents that will be the legal basis…

Will somebody please explain what this means. Does this mean Apple can now sue someone who uses pinch-to-zoom on a touch screen? In other words can Apple now just sue for using pinch-to-zoom without having to build a huge case like it did in this one?

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#237

Post by wissler » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 5:26 PM UTC

nirvana wrote: post #206

wissler wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Apple revolutionised the industry" You give them far too much credit. Apple happened to be first in implementing an obvious conclusion in the evolution of computing: combining a true operating system with the features of a PDA and adding a radio. Many people saw this coming a decade earlier; I was one of them. The reason it happened when it did had to do with the hard work of the scientists and engineers who kept sh…

There was nothing obvious about the iPhone, otherwise Apple's competitors, who had been in the phone industry for years, would have done it already. Hell, they and much of the "experts" spent the 6 months between announcement and shipping of the iPhone claiming it was going to be a total failure. So, not only was it not obvious, even after it had been revealed, people claimed that it was a bad idea and would be a fai…

"Obvious" is a relative term. What is obvious to an adult may not be obvious to a 2-year-old. Likewise, to many engineers the iPhone was obvious. To many of the CEO's heading large cell phone companies? Not so obvious.

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#238

Post by joering2 » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 5:27 PM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #128

sjwright wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name one pre-iPhone smartphone that you'd be willing to pit against the iPhone. Oh, and Apple's vendor lock-in is still a damn sight better than the telco lock-in it replaced (in the US).

> Name one pre-iPhone smartphone that you'd be willing to pit against the iPhone. Any phone that let you install your own applications.

...not to mention Jobs with his extreme willingness to control everything, was initially against any third party apps. His vision was: you buy this device, here are the set of app, go and have fun. thats it. Its only after Cydia getting traction he changed his mind...

http://www.cultofmac.com/125180/steve-jobs-was-originally-de...

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#239

Post by learc83 » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 5:28 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #231

learc83 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read the patent and while you are technically correct, the effect of the patent is to grant them a monopoly on the feature pinch-to-zoom on a smartphone with a touch interface. The end result is that no one else can implement pinch to zoom on a smart phone. The patent is also overly broad in that it covers all multi-touch touch screen devices. So that whether I use an infrared overlay or a capacitive screen it i…

No one else can implement pinch to zoom, so what? Is pinching the only way, or even the best way to zoom? It may seem like it is the best and most obvious way right now but that is only because Apple popularized it and made it ubiquitous. In the future someone may ( gasp ) innovate and come up with a better solution, that would in hindsight seem even more obvious.

Did you read what I was replying to?

Re: The Tim Cook memo: line by line

#240

Post by pgeorgi » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 5:28 PM UTC

timmyd wrote: post #163

pgeorgi wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny to have to state this on a site where a common mantra is that "execution matters": If US entrepreneurs suck at serving a global market (and they do - failing even with covering Canada and Mexico for years, their direct neighbors), someone else is bound to fill the niche. Instead of whining about the Samwers, how about expanding as soon as possible? Either there's money to be had abroad (then go and get it)…

I totally agree with you that execution does matter. But the Samwer's don't execute - they outright copy. From reverse engineering, to out right cloning the CSS style sheets and design UI's which is totally wrong. That's not innovation in any sense and I wholeheartedly disagree if you are defending the cloning of a product completely. I'm not "whining" about the Samwers - I am bringing them into the larger context of…

What they bring to the table: experience in foreign markets (all that legal headache, market research, contacts).

They probably "should" do that by offering this as a service to promising US startups. But who would pay for that an even remotely comparable amount of $$$ than what they get now?