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

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

#51

Post by Goronmon » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 9:55 PM UTC

timr wrote: post #8

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…

"One way to look at innovation and progress is that all inventions must eventually become a commodity" Yeah. They do. Patented inventions become a commodity in 14-20 years, depending on the kind of patent. "Here we see Apple (and to a lesser extent, MS, RIM and other parties) actively fighting this process." Call me crazy, but I think we're seeing Apple using the process to defend their inventions , which is exactly…

Call me crazy, but I think we're seeing Apple using the process to defend their inventions, which is exactly what the system was set up to do.

What exactly are they defending their "inventions" from? Other companies making competing products seems to be the biggest thing.

Patents aren't intended to ensure that consumers have rock-bottom prices on the latest consumer gadgets; they're intended to provide inventors with incentives to produce non-trivial inventions, by granting them temporary monopolies on their ideas.

Apple is an extremely successful business. What other incentives are necessary for companies like Apple to want to innovate?

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

#52

Post by wtetzner » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 9:57 PM UTC

Goronmon wrote: post #49

nirvana wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Especially given that the term of patent is 20 years. In the case of software, it's often the case that technology will have moved so far in 20 years that the invention will no longer be particularly useful.

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

#53

Post by Kell » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 10:04 PM UTC

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!

If you invent a warp drive you will be awarded a patent over the implementation of it, that was never explained in ST for obvious reasons. So if you invent a real one, built to look exactly like the Star Trek one with an "interface" very similar to the one in the serie, and try to patent it's design and "interface", then Star Trek's warp drive will be prior art (for the design and interface, not the way it works).

See, not all patents are of the exact same kind, and there's a lot of things to patent about any thing. That's the problem... nowadays things that shouldn't be patented, like designs and user interfaces (even algorithms), are.

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

#54

Post by learc83 » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 10:07 PM UTC

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!

Apples pinch-to-zoom patent covers what we call pinch-to-zoom on a touchscreen. There is no other logical way to implement pinch to zoom on a touchscreen.

Therefore, they effectively have a patent on the feature pinch-to-zoom on smartphones.

It is also obvious. Had I been working on the iPhone and decided I wanted to implement the pinch-to-zoom feature from minority report, I would have done it exactly as described in Apple's patent--there is no other logical way to do it--using a touchscreen.

I can't use a different underlying algorithm, or even a different kind of touchscreen. If I implement pinch-to-zoom on a touchscreen I am violating their patent.

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

#55

Post by codeka » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 10:13 PM UTC

This may be slightly off-topic, I'm not sure, but I was just reading Apple's patent on pinch-to-zoom[1], and in claim 8 (which is the one the jury were instructed to rule on) it says:

"determining whether the event object invokes a scroll or gesture operation by distinguishing between a single input point applied to the touch-sensitive display that is interpreted as the scroll operation and two or more input points applied to the touch-sensitive display that are interpreted as the gesture operation"

Now, I don't know how patents works, but on my Galaxy Nexus, you can scroll with two fingers, so this part about determining whether its a scroll or "gesture" by the number of touch points seems to work differently to what is described in the patent.

Does that mean the implementation in the Galaxy Nexus is non-infringing? I mean, if patents are supposed to protect the implementation of an idea, and the implementation is actually different then surely its not infringing?

Now admittedly I only tested a Galaxy Nexus, which is stock Android, so maybe Samsung made their version in TouchWiz different. Or maybe the implementation changed in later versions of Android, I'm not sure...

[1]: http://www.google.com/patents/US7844915

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

#56

Post by tensor » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 10:17 PM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #54

nirvana wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Apples pinch-to-zoom patent covers what we call pinch-to-zoom on a touchscreen. There is no other logical way to implement pinch to zoom on a touchscreen. Therefore, they effectively have a patent on the feature pinch-to-zoom on smartphones. It is also obvious. Had I been working on the iPhone and decided I wanted to implement the pinch-to-zoom feature from minority report, I would have done it exactly as described i…

I think Apple's patent is actually multitouch on a resistive touch screen. They do not have a patent on implementing gestures by measuring the speed and distance of multiple touch input points.

The later is what has plenty of prior art and the former is exceedingly trivial and really should not be patentable.

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

#57

Post by 001sky » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 10:17 PM UTC

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!

One legitimate line of this critique, though, is the quality of (peer?) review at the patent office. Is it doing the job at the right level?

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

#58

Post by learc83 » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 10:18 PM UTC

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…

We can all see you believe that Apple is deserving of all the patents it has been awarded.

So the question is this: Do you think that for the next 20 years Apple should be the only company with large rectangular multi-touch phones with minimal buttons, grid based icons, and pinch-to-zoom?

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

#59

Post by learc83 » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 10:23 PM UTC

Goronmon wrote: post #49

nirvana wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Has anyone ever tried reading through patents for implementation details? They are so vague (it's like technical writing translated by lawyers to be purposely vague) that it's completely useless.

The vast majority of times, there is nothing in the patent that can't be learned from just interacting with the patented object.

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

#60

Post by ender7 » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 10:27 PM UTC

The sad fact is that UI patents are even more bullshit than software patents. Does Apple have the legal high ground here? Yes, they have a patent on rubberbanding scrolling (among others). Arguments about 'prior art' and blah blah are pointless because they have been granted a patent on a UI design -- an idea, not an implementation, and not an invention. Yes, that's not what a patent is supposed to be, but that's what they've been given.

Was it a good idea? Yes. Should it be protected by a patent? No. I'm sorry, but no (and I say this as a UX designer).

Patents exist to incentivize effort. I would really like to hear someone argue that, without UI patent protection, Apple would have never bothered to implement rubberbanding scrolling. Even typing it sounds ridiculous.