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Apple v. Samsung Verdict: Could Bill Gates Have Patented The iPhone in 1995?

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Re: Apple v. Samsung Verdict: Could Bill Gates Have Patented The iPhone in 1995?

#41

Post by nirvana »

tensor wrote: post #38
Cushman wrote: post #10

These articles are getting a bit tiring. > On December 14, 2007, Apple laid claim to the supposed novel invention of “list scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display,” the formal title of United States Patent 7,469,381 B2 For those of you who just joined us, you do not get patents for ideas , you get patents for inventions. The named patent is not for "List scrolling and docum…

As a minimum test for whether something is non-obvious enough to be patented, I like to think of whether it could have been published in a computer science or UI journal. Similarly, if it has already been published in a journal, then it should be off limits for being patentable. Let's consider multitouch. This invention has already had numerous articles written about it [1]. Thus it is patentable, but Apple is decade…

Repeat after me: Patents do not cover ideas. Patents do not cover features. Writing about an idea or a feature in a computer science journal is not prior art.

Star Trek has the warp drive. So, if someone invents the technology to give us a warp drive, you think that it isn't novel because we've seen it on TV going back to the 1960s!

Re: Apple v. Samsung Verdict: Could Bill Gates Have Patented The iPhone in 1995?

#42

Post by mratzloff »

felipeko wrote: post #13
twoodfin wrote: post #5

...with a patent application granted after a year-long review by the patent office that apparently didn’t include watching this scene from 2002’s Minority Report, where Tom Cruise does all of those things and more with a spiffy 3D interface. This is silly, as is the Gates analogy. I assure you, if anyone manages to develop a practical holodeck, they will be able to patent the hell out of it. Star Trek is not prior ar…

You don't need to develop neither have a pratical thing to have a patent over it on USA. You can read a time machine patent here: http://www.google.com/patents?id=hNHIAAAAEBAJ&printsec=f... If you ever happen to develop this machine, this person who just imagined it can ban you from selling. So tell me, who do you think worked harder on this invention? And why would this paper (the patent) be worth more than the real…

It's an application, not a patent. Anyone can apply for a patent, but they're not always granted.

Re: Apple v. Samsung Verdict: Could Bill Gates Have Patented The iPhone in 1995?

#43

Post by mindslight »

Cushman wrote: post #10

These articles are getting a bit tiring. > On December 14, 2007, Apple laid claim to the supposed novel invention of “list scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display,” the formal title of United States Patent 7,469,381 B2 For those of you who just joined us, you do not get patents for ideas , you get patents for inventions. The named patent is not for "List scrolling and docum…

> you do not get patents for ideas, you get patents for inventions

That's how it's supposed to work, which is a large part of why people are up in arms about the broken patent system. A patent on an idea and a patent on any possible implementation of that idea are effectively the same thing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4440807

> It is for a specific claimed method of enabling that task, involving the display of an area outside of and distinct from the document or list, which then disappears when the scrolling input ends.

That supposed specificity is nothing but a way of describing an aspect of the general idea in terms of generic implementation details. Any implementation will have some part that can be construed as similar ("they're just generating the 'area' on demand", etc)

Re: Apple v. Samsung Verdict: Could Bill Gates Have Patented The iPhone in 1995?

#44

Post by skywalk »

SubFuze wrote: post #31
felipeko wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to develop neither have a pratical thing to have a patent over it on USA. You can read a time machine patent here: http://www.google.com/patents?id=hNHIAAAAEBAJ&printsec=f... If you ever happen to develop this machine, this person who just imagined it can ban you from selling. So tell me, who do you think worked harder on this invention? And why would this paper (the patent) be worth more than the real…

If you ever really developed a time machine, you could go back in time and either pay off (with money made from placing bets on events you know the outcome of) or in some other way prevent the original filer from submitting his claim.

Unless the original filer happened to be your grandfather

Re: Apple v. Samsung Verdict: Could Bill Gates Have Patented The iPhone in 1995?

#45

Post by regularfry »

nirvana wrote: post #36
MaxwellKennerly wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it had occurred to other people, and lots of them. You can even watch Tom Cruise pinch-to-zoom, and scroll by waiving his hands. Look at the prior art in the patent itself, e.g.: US5844547 May 9, 1995 Dec 1, 1998 Fujitsu Limited Apparatus for manipulating an object displayed on a display device by using a touch screen US6567102 Nov 25, 2001 May 20, 2003 Compal Electronics Inc. Touch screen using pressure to contr…

>Look at the prior art in the patent itself, e.g.: Since the patent itself cites prior art, obviously the patent isn't patenting the same thing as the prior art. >All Apple did was jumble these same longstanding .... was at best modestly different from prior implementations You have provided no evidence or reason to believe this. In fact, I've seen this claim hundreds of times, and never seen anyone even attempt to p…

> Graham demonstrated and patented the telephone, therefore phones are longstanding and the cellphone is just "modestly different from prior phones".

I've seen you mention this a couple of times now. I know you mean it to be ridiculous, but it's actually a true statement: once you have a telephone, and a radio, then the concept of a cellphone in itself is an obvious step. There are scads of patentable details in the implementation, but nothing to say that the concept of a cellphone itself should be protected. Perhaps you should find an alternative example?

> The iPhone doesn't have cameras three feet behind the screen taking photos of your fingers. But you would have us believe that a patent on using that method of touch interface

None of the prior art listed above claims anything to do with cameras.

Re: Apple v. Samsung Verdict: Could Bill Gates Have Patented The iPhone in 1995?

#46

Post by luser001 »

nirvana wrote: post #41
tensor wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a minimum test for whether something is non-obvious enough to be patented, I like to think of whether it could have been published in a computer science or UI journal. Similarly, if it has already been published in a journal, then it should be off limits for being patentable. Let's consider multitouch. This invention has already had numerous articles written about it [1]. Thus it is patentable, but Apple is decade…

Repeat after me: Patents do not cover ideas. Patents do not cover features. Writing about an idea or a feature in a computer science journal is not prior art. Star Trek has the warp drive. So, if someone invents the technology to give us a warp drive, you think that it isn't novel because we've seen it on TV going back to the 1960s!

I think you mischaracterize how CS journals work. What is described there is usually the characteristics of and results from a particular implementation.

Re: Apple v. Samsung Verdict: Could Bill Gates Have Patented The iPhone in 1995?

#47

Post by cheald »

doktrin wrote: post #25
MaxwellKennerly wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The patent system is supposed to encourage the commoditization of inventions by using a trade-off: if you invent something novel and useful, you can get a patent that gives you a complete monopoly for a limited amount of time, but in return you have to completely disclose how your invention was made, so that, first, others can see if the intention would be useful for them right now (and thus negotiate a license with…

I'm glad to see someone highlight the fact that design patents are inherently illogical, and in fact run altogether counter to the purpose of the patent system. Too often this is obscured, and/or all patents are lumped together as being generally awful. I personally do not ascribe to the notion that all patents should be outright abolished. Design patents, however, should simply not exist. Rounded corners, rectangles…

To be really pedantic about it, it's arguable that they are inventions (someone had to be the first to put four rocks in a row), but it's such a blindly obvious "invention" that it's insanely laughable to afford it any kind of protections at all.

Re: Apple v. Samsung Verdict: Could Bill Gates Have Patented The iPhone in 1995?

#48

Post by bsphil »

MaxwellKennerly wrote: post #6
martythemaniak wrote: post #3

The verdict was a monumentally stupid decision and I hope it won't prove to be too harmful in the long run. One way to look at innovation and progress is that all inventions must eventually become a commodity. Something which is novel, hard, expensive and rare today must become a cheap and ubiquitous commodity tomorrow. It is this process that allows you to "stand on the shoulders of giants" and easily leverage past…

The patent system is supposed to encourage the commoditization of inventions by using a trade-off: if you invent something novel and useful, you can get a patent that gives you a complete monopoly for a limited amount of time, but in return you have to completely disclose how your invention was made, so that, first, others can see if the intention would be useful for them right now (and thus negotiate a license with…

Also, the evolution time of tech is remarkably fast. 10-20 years (I'm not sure how long these patents are valid) is an incredibly long time in computing to hold a patent on a small feature. Look at where tech devices/interfaces were 20 years ago. Prototyping something digital is far faster, and things can be changed and refined at a rate that physical objects just can't match.

Re: Apple v. Samsung Verdict: Could Bill Gates Have Patented The iPhone in 1995?

#49

Post by Goronmon »

nirvana wrote: post #30
Joeri wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know it wouldn't have occurred to someone else working in the same field? I find the assumption of the patent system that the patented innovations wouldn't have happened without being patentable to be fundamentally flawed. That may be true for fields with huge R&D cost, like medicine, but in fields with near-zero R&D cost like software I find it hard to argue for the necessity of any sort of patent protect…

And yet, repeatedly in its history, Apple has come out with major new inventions, while its competitors seem to just ship the same old stuff. The primary improvement for most PCs has always been the work of Microsoft or Intel, not Dell, HP, et al. Yet Apple has worked to actually improve the design and technology of the PC itself. The truth is, genuine innovation is exceedingly rare. Nobody was working to revolutioni…

Anyway, patents don't require that nobody else be working on the same thing you are, quite the opposite: patents are designed to get everyone working on this new invention, by publishing it.

They seem extremely poorly designed for this goal.

Edit: Just as an example. Our company had one of the lawyers come in and talk about patents in our office for a couple hours one day. They wanted to encourage us to file them for any work we might be doing. One of the first things he told us was to not ever search through existing patents for any reason whatsoever.

Re: Apple v. Samsung Verdict: Could Bill Gates Have Patented The iPhone in 1995?

#50

Post by wtetzner »

Cushman wrote: post #10

These articles are getting a bit tiring. > On December 14, 2007, Apple laid claim to the supposed novel invention of “list scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display,” the formal title of United States Patent 7,469,381 B2 For those of you who just joined us, you do not get patents for ideas , you get patents for inventions. The named patent is not for "List scrolling and docum…

"your invention is so obvious that you shouldn't be incentivized for inventing it..."

Isn't selling iPhones enough of an incentive?

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