Got to love HN, if someone copies a startup pixel by pixel and business modell, hulla, the lynch mob readies it's pitchforks. If someone copies a freelancers design, website or logo, woha, people run amok. If someone copies Apples UI, hardware, apps and app market it's "Apple Never Invented Anything."
Apple Never Invented Anything
161–170 of 217 posts
Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#162One interesting point is he brought up Einstein's invention of relativity. Notice that in the scientific community, humanity has been building upon previous work for centuries with no copyright or patent protection, and nothing more than honor, citation, and shame against plagiarists. The fundamental defense made by many is that without patent protection for software, people would not put much effort into innovating.…
It's possible that innovation, specifically scientific progress that leads to innovation, actually relies on scientists sharing stuff with collaborators that patent lawyers would not want them to share. The patent lawyers might often be "the last to know". It's possible that many scientists often put their own scientific goals, which stand to enrich the scientific community as a whole, before the business goals of the employers they work for. Something tells me that Apple's patent lawyers do not have this problem with Apple engineers.
Not that I consider software developers to be scientists but I wonder if there are any Apple engineers contributing to open source projects or even just publishing the occasional research paper.
Doesn't Apple have rules that keep all their employees from talking to anyone outside of Apple under threat of immediate termination?
No FDA for software. You can say that again. There's also no Medicaid, Medicare or health insurance that pays for it.
Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
If no one else could make mayonnaise successfully and a chef came up with the process for making it, that chef should damn well get some kind of protection from the IP system for his innovation, invention, or whatever the hell you wanna call it. That is, after all, what will make him want to share his methods instead of keeping them a secret. That's the fundamental principle of the patent system: you share, and we gi…
Mayo: Its a trade secret, not a patent.[1,2] The law of protection of confidential information effectively allows a perpetual monopoly in secret information - it does not expire as would a patent. The lack of formal protection, however, means that a third party is not prevented from independently duplicating and using the secret information once it is discovered. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_secret [1] Like Cok…
Yes, and that's the bargain that patents give. Either you keep it a trade secret, and live in constant fear that someone will leak it someday, or you get a patent, publish all the details, and get a government-supported monopoly so that you know that for 28 years no one else can make mayonnaise like you do.
Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
You said: "Apple has invented or innovated precisely bugger all there.". I was simply trying to see how unreasonable such a statement is considering the companies that Apple bought and the work those companies had done in getting stuff like multi-touch to work right. If all Apple did was turd polishing, then they could have saved themselves a lot of effort by polishing a turd called Newton (which was also quite advan…
Apple didn't innovate stuff - they bought it in and stuck it together. I would be happy with anything, but not necessarily impressed with it. A paradigm shift would be innovation but there isn't one. I'm using a Windows Mobile 6.5 kernel based device to write this on ironically (WP7.5 Lumia 710). Sony's ability was to take poor grade American products and package them up with Japanese reliability and quality. I'm con…
Who had invented Trinitron before Sony?
Or are you saying that Sony copied the basic idea of a television, so that makes it impossible for them to have contributed any innovation to the space of TV sets? If you read the history, the invention of something like Trinitron required a lot of work, a lot of trial and failure to make the basic idea of a single-gun color TV feasible.
That work isn't about "polishing the turd called color television", that's called innovation.
Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#165Got to love HN, if someone copies a startup pixel by pixel and business modell, hulla, the lynch mob readies it's pitchforks. If someone copies a freelancers design, website or logo, woha, people run amok. If someone copies Apples UI, hardware, apps and app market it's "Apple Never Invented Anything."
Did you even read the article?!
Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#166I think the article is right in what it says but is wrong because of what it doesn't say. Apple succeeded where others had failed, and that is certainly commendable, but now we have a problem: Apple doesn't have a patent on "an iPad" meaning a device with all the individual characteristics that make an iPad an iPad and make it successful, instead they have individual patents on all the individual features. But the in…
I didn't read the article getting the feeling that JLG is arguing software/UX patents are all right. I read it as an argument to those imbeciles who believe "Apple Never Invented Anything" and they "merely" took what others had invented before and smashed them together and got themselves an iPad. Go to #bycottapple at Google+ and you'll meet them.
Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to argue with your counter example, but another example re; integration. The Richochet from the 1990s was a 28.8 version of a 3/4G usb modem. But that's not a tethered iPhone, in terms of is overall ambition and functionality. Similarly, the acorn with 8MB RAM, was not an integrated multi-media device (ipod, phone, etc), limited as it was. Let us not forget the power of the sw (youtube app, for example).[1] Lastl…
Actually the connectivity problem was 100% unsolved which is what lead to the end of the device. The supporting technology wasn't available unfortunately. The basic idea of the NewsPAD was exactly the same though. They decided to move into the cable/STB market after this as they could deliver the same experience with the connectivity that was already there. They did this successfully for a few years in the late 90's…
The supporting technology was available in 1996: https://www.msu.edu/~luckie/seahorse.html
Apples innovations wasn't in "the basic idea", it was in lots of implementation details that make that basic idea into a usable product. If you don't see this, then there is no point in arguing further.
I could just as well say that there has happened exactly zero innovation in the cell phone industry in the last 30-40 years, since "the basic idea" was shown in a science fiction series in the 60s. By doing this, I would be ignoring all the inventions necessary to make that "basic idea" into a real product.
You are ignoring the inventions needed to make a finger-based multi-touch interface possible on a small device, and accurate enough to leave out a physical keyboard.
Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#168Right, because once that chef figured out just the right twist on those common ingredients no other chefs in the world were allowed to make mayonnaise any more and we would have no fine cuisine without extensive IP protection enforced by law. Oh, wait...
It's a metaphor. You don't take them seriously. They're just there to tell a cute little story and you move on to the real thing. Certainly iPad involved a little more than a twist.
Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
> UI and UX are innovations As a UX designer, the idea that UX can be patented terrifies me. It's like patenting a specific color of paint. shudders
Don't companies trademark specific colors all the time (or at least try to prevent those colors from being used in anyone else's corporate logo)?
No, or at least I believe it's more complicated than that. A logo's trademark may encompass the colors used, but that's not a legal maneuver which prevents those colors from being used anywhere else. The point of the trademark is to be able to stop competitors from making "confusingly similar" trademarks for their products or companies. I can make a cola, and I'm certainly not enjoined from using red and white in the colors on my can. If, however, I make a red can and put "Boba Cola" on it in white letters with roughly the same typography as Coca-Cola uses, I'm cruisin' for a bruisin', legally speaking.
Re: Apple Never Invented Anything
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
They offered to license them to Samsung.
For an unreasonable amount ($30-$40 per device). Looks good when they can say, "But we offered to license to them!" before they file the lawsuit.
You offer 30, they say no, 10, you settle on 15. That's called negotiation.