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A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

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Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#381

Post by learc83 »

veemjeem wrote: post #349
learc83 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said you didn't have a duty to defend trade dress. It can be diluted just like trademarks. There may be some overlap, and as far as what's covered by the design patent is covered by trade dress you'd have to defend it (or risk dilution), but it has nothing to do with the patent. You can register for trade dress protection without design patents. Design patents expire, trade dress does not, it's definitely pos…

Yes, because design patents expire, there's even greater reason to need to defend them while they exist. Design patents and trade dress protection often go hand in hand. In order to show trade dress infringement, one needs to show consumer confusion between the two products, and IIRC one needs around 4 years of solid registration before protection is enabled. So when you don't have trade dress protection yet, you wou…

It's still not correct to say there is an obligation to defend design patents. That term implies a certain thing--that what you are obligated to defend will be diluted if you don't do so.

The patent itself will not become diluted, thus using the term "obligation to defend" is incorrect. It may be a good idea to use it to help establish trade dress protection, but your design patent will last just as long and still be enforceable even if you choose not to defend it.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#382

Post by AllenKids »

confluence wrote: post #208

My dad: Apple just won right? Me: No - they just lost big time - Apple is done. Dad: Wait - What? They just won the court case and got a billion dollars to boot. Me: That doesn't matter - Samsung won. Dad: Explain. Me: As soon as you have to sue your competition to remain competitive - you're done. Apple did the same thing with Microsoft in the nineties. Furthermore, Samsung builds not only many of Apple products - i…

You then should have sold your AAPL the day Apple started suing Samsung.

How is the outcome of this particular case affecting your reasoning in any way?

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#383

Post by AllenKids »

cageface wrote: post #359
arn wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or that losing a key look and feel lawsuit means the competition can copy you without fear, losing your distinctiveness. I don't think its that black and white but suggesting the lawsuit, and not the lawsuit outcome, is somehow responsible for a company's lack-of-success is silly.

All Apple has gained here is an escalation in the patent war. Google's already fired back with their new Motorola patents and this verdict is going to send everybody scrambling back to the market for more patent acquisitions. In the meantime iOS is looking increasingly long in the tooth and nobody at Apple seems to be willing to take the kinds of chances that won them their success in this market in the first place.…

Apple holds on to ideas until it declares yesterday's crown jewel garbage.

Remember the funeral of classic Mac OS?

All will be dead in time.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#384

Post by confluence »

AllenKids wrote: post #382
confluence wrote: post #208

My dad: Apple just won right? Me: No - they just lost big time - Apple is done. Dad: Wait - What? They just won the court case and got a billion dollars to boot. Me: That doesn't matter - Samsung won. Dad: Explain. Me: As soon as you have to sue your competition to remain competitive - you're done. Apple did the same thing with Microsoft in the nineties. Furthermore, Samsung builds not only many of Apple products - i…

You then should have sold your AAPL the day Apple started suing Samsung. How is the outcome of this particular case affecting your reasoning in any way?

Price wasn't high enough and I wanted to see the outcome and Apple's reaction - would they leave it alone - or double down?

They doubled down.

So instead I sold at 660 instead of ~600 and got my answer.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#385

Post by sbuk »

confluence wrote: post #331
sbuk wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Nokia and Motorola did. If you are going to pontificate, get your facts right.

Go back far enough and someone's father started it - what's your point? I didn't actively buy Nokia or Motorola for this very reason. Google acquired Motorola to defend against Apple and Microsoft. They are doing so admirably.

My point is that you are trying, constantly to have the final word in a construct of your making that is based entirely on a fallacy and doing so in an extremely smug manner. To follow your line of thought, with your hubris continuing to grow you will eventually become too cocky and get you next investment increadibly wrong and lose everything in the process.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#386

Post by exodust »

mbreese wrote: post #244
dasil003 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple didn't invent touch UI. Ever been to a restaurant in the last decade?

Who is saying that Apple invented the touch UI? This is a false argument. Apple's patent is on a very specific type of touch interface and the interactions with it. Apple-style multi-touch interfaces did not exist before the iPhone. And if they did, you could be damn sure that whoever did invent it would have been suing Apple left and right.

Come off it, there's no such thing as "Apple-style multi-touch", there's only multi-touch, and it doesn't belong to anyone.

It's disappointing to see people actually siding with Apple here. Is it brand loyalty that blurs people's judgement?

The fact that icons are sized and spaced similarly across these devices is because most people have a similar index finger size. It's obvious what the ideal icon size and placement should be on any touch device for optimal touch usability.

The legal defense of "obvious concept" is absolutely true. There are limits to how design can optimize details such as icon display, and touch input. The concepts Apple are trying to own simply do no belong to them due to their obvious nature.

Slide to unlock, the page bounce, the icons, all of it is obvious stuff once you have the hardware pieced together.

As a result of this lawsuit, Apple has lost me as customer. I am not rewarding childish hypocrisy. I do not respect billion dollar playground fights in the courts because someone else made a similar phone that has icons and multi-touch. What a waste of time and money.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#387

Post by confluence »

sbuk wrote: post #385
confluence wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go back far enough and someone's father started it - what's your point? I didn't actively buy Nokia or Motorola for this very reason. Google acquired Motorola to defend against Apple and Microsoft. They are doing so admirably.

My point is that you are trying, constantly to have the final word in a construct of your making that is based entirely on a fallacy and doing so in an extremely smug manner. To follow your line of thought, with your hubris continuing to grow you will eventually become too cocky and get you next investment increadibly wrong and lose everything in the process.

I disagree with what you say unfortunately - so I guess we should just agree to disagree.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#388

Post by tjoff »

gnaffle wrote: post #297
tjoff wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point seem to imply that innovation was required, mine that it was trivial .

If it was that trivial, I would at least expect Google or Nokias Maemo to have come up with such an interface before 2007. I don't think the work put in by FingerWorks, and then the work put in by Apple to create the iOS user interface was trivial at all. It may not have been groundbreaking compared to what came before (ie most had been demonstrated by researchers), but I think it's obvious that a lot of work and des…

Of course at lot of work and design decisions went into creating it (just as any UI), but it was a logical next step.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#389

Post by damian2000 »

johndrinkwater wrote: post #95
tzm wrote: post #67

PDAs were not cellular devices. Cell phones were not PDAs. The iPhone was the first to converge them.

You’re not even wrong, there were quite a few PDA+mobile phones many years before the iPhone. Sony Ericsson’s p800 & p900 series was even referred to as PDA Phones.

I remember the O2 smartphone running some form of windows about 2005/06.

Re: A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious

#390

Post by damian2000 »

reddelicious wrote: post #253

Apple does not copy. It's against their "values". Apple steals. Starting with Xerox PARC and continuing to this day. What do they steal? User interface design and code. Why do they steal? Because Apple is a _hardware_ company who aims to compete with (and now aims to control) software developers. It started with trying to compete with Microsoft and it continues to this day. To discover where Apple's interfaces come f…

Disclaimer: I don't have any iOS devices. But AFAIK as a developer you can load anything you want onto your personal device including C/C++ and Ruby code. Check out the Marmalade game engine for example - pure C/C++ for iOS.

Getting it published it on the app store is another matter however.

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