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Apple scores limited victory in smartphone patent war

reuters.com

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Re: Apple scores limited victory in smartphone patent war

#11

Post by Karunamon »

talmand wrote: post #7

"Limited victory" is right, starts with 10 patents and gets reduced to one patent covering automatically linking phone numbers to bring up the dialer on click? Seems to me the result is that Apple lost rather badly in this case. This is the second time I've seen a misleading headline suggesting a Apple victory in a patent case but turns out to be a loss once you've read the details. What's the deal with that? But rea…

I'm pretty sure I saw that functionality in devices that existed long before the iPhone.. fucking patents.

But to be fair, an import blockade is a pretty solid victory. Unfortunately for Apple, HTC can release a software update to disable the "infringing" functionality and quite possibly reinvent it in a way that isn't infringing anything.

Re: Apple scores limited victory in smartphone patent war

#12

Post by rayiner »

rheeseyb wrote: post #5

I love this quote - "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours." Reminds me of that time when Apple invented the mouse-driven GUI.

Apple licensed Xerox's tech. For a song because Xerox didn't know what it was worth.

Re: Apple scores limited victory in smartphone patent war

#13

Post by vidarh »

Karunamon wrote: post #11
talmand wrote: post #7

"Limited victory" is right, starts with 10 patents and gets reduced to one patent covering automatically linking phone numbers to bring up the dialer on click? Seems to me the result is that Apple lost rather badly in this case. This is the second time I've seen a misleading headline suggesting a Apple victory in a patent case but turns out to be a loss once you've read the details. What's the deal with that? But rea…

I'm pretty sure I saw that functionality in devices that existed long before the iPhone.. fucking patents. But to be fair, an import blockade is a pretty solid victory. Unfortunately for Apple, HTC can release a software update to disable the "infringing" functionality and quite possibly reinvent it in a way that isn't infringing anything.

A blockade now would have been a solid victory. A blockade months into the future for a trivially disabled feature is pretty much a joke.

I worked on a touch pad in '99 that had this functionality, and I'm pretty sure we didn't come up with the idea.

Unfortunately we never got it into mass production, and I doubt sufficient details were released to use it as prior art. Nokia's Screen Phone might have had similar functionality.

(Search for FreePad if interested - still a few articles available)

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