Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case, calls patent system “dysfunctional”

gigaom.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 133 posts

Re: Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case, calls patent system “dysfunctional”

#11

Post by colanderman »

mikek wrote: post #7

> [re a slide-to-unlock patent] Apple’s .. argument is that “a tap is a zero-length swipe.” That’s silly. It’s like saying that a point is a zero-length line. But a point is a zero-length line.

Your statement would imply that a point has a direction, which it does not. Also, a line does not have a length; both you and Posner meant line segment. So a correct statement would be:

A zero-length line segment is a point.

Edit: not even this is true if your definition of a line segment explicitly states that the endpoints must be distinct, as does PlanetMath's definition, as Aethaeryn points out below.

Re: Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case, calls patent system “dysfunctional”

#12

Post by TeMPOraL »

mikek wrote: post #7

> [re a slide-to-unlock patent] Apple’s .. argument is that “a tap is a zero-length swipe.” That’s silly. It’s like saying that a point is a zero-length line. But a point is a zero-length line.

A zero-dimmensional equivalent of line, maybe?

Re: Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case, calls patent system “dysfunctional”

#13

Post by johnpmayer »

mikek wrote: post #7

> [re a slide-to-unlock patent] Apple’s .. argument is that “a tap is a zero-length swipe.” That’s silly. It’s like saying that a point is a zero-length line. But a point is a zero-length line.

Depends on your definition.

In my interpretation, to be considered a line in any number of dimensions, it must be specified by no fewer than two points. This puts a lower bound on the amount of information to specify "lines", a bound strictly greater than specifying a "point" in a space of similar dimensions. Otherwise, is point also a polygon consisting entirely of zero-length sides?

But anyway, I think it was only meant to highlight the Judge's opinion of the absurdity of some claims.

edit: so glad this tiny portion was the subject of the most discussion

Re: Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case, calls patent system “dysfunctional”

#15

Post by kamjam »

CurtHagenlocher wrote: post #2

Nice quote from a different judge: "The court is well aware that it is being played as a pawn in a global industry-wide business negotiation."

Ha! At least they know they are being played and are not as foolish as they look! :D

So very true though! Even if nothing comes of the lawsuit, the amount of time, effort and money that is wasted in defending these must be colossal!

Re: Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case, calls patent system “dysfunctional”

#16

Post by [deleted] »

kamjam wrote: post #15
CurtHagenlocher wrote: post #2

Nice quote from a different judge: "The court is well aware that it is being played as a pawn in a global industry-wide business negotiation."

Ha! At least they know they are being played and are not as foolish as they look! :D So very true though! Even if nothing comes of the lawsuit, the amount of time, effort and money that is wasted in defending these must be colossal!

[deleted]

Re: Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case, calls patent system “dysfunctional”

#17

Post by bryanlarsen »

bokchoi wrote: post #4

The linked blog post from Posner is excellent: http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2012/06/capitalismposner.h...

The number of comments disagreeing with his post certainly helps explain why we've gotten in such a mess.

Re: Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case, calls patent system “dysfunctional”

#18

Post by Aethaeryn »

colanderman wrote: post #11
mikek wrote: post #7

> [re a slide-to-unlock patent] Apple’s .. argument is that “a tap is a zero-length swipe.” That’s silly. It’s like saying that a point is a zero-length line. But a point is a zero-length line.

Your statement would imply that a point has a direction, which it does not. Also, a line does not have a length; both you and Posner meant line segment . So a correct statement would be: A zero-length line segment is a point. Edit: not even this is true if your definition of a line segment explicitly states that the endpoints must be distinct, as does PlanetMath's definition, as Aethaeryn points out below.

  > A zero-length line segment is a point.
The Wikipedia definition of a line segment says that it is bound by two endpoints.[1] It provides a reference to Planet Math that goes into specifics.[2] In this page, it is made clear that the two endpoints cannot be equal. Planet Math provides an equation for a closed[3] line segment:

  L = {a + tb | t in [0, 1]}
This means that a line segment can be expressed as all of the points a + tb, where t is the range [0, 1] (which contains 0, 1 and all the points between them). It also limits a, b as real or complex numbers with b != 0. In other words, any line segment is just "morphing" the basic 0 to 1 range, with a shifting it and b scaling it.

Now, since b can't be 0, and 0 != 1, you're not going to get the endpoints of the range 0 and 1 to equal each other no matter how you scale them with b or shift them with a.[4] In other words, line segments will always have length.

Because you cannot get the endpoints to equal each other, a point cannot be thought of as a line segment under what appears to be the common definition.

-----

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_segment

[2] http://planetmath.org/encyclopedia/LineSegment.html

[3] Open is the exact same thing, except with (0, 1) instead of [0, 1] and it doesn't include the points 0 and 1.

[4] Of course, if b = 0 was allowed, you could just say that points are where b = 0 for all a.

Re: Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case, calls patent system “dysfunctional”

#19

Post by bostonpete »

colanderman wrote: post #11
mikek wrote: post #7

> [re a slide-to-unlock patent] Apple’s .. argument is that “a tap is a zero-length swipe.” That’s silly. It’s like saying that a point is a zero-length line. But a point is a zero-length line.

Your statement would imply that a point has a direction, which it does not. Also, a line does not have a length; both you and Posner meant line segment . So a correct statement would be: A zero-length line segment is a point. Edit: not even this is true if your definition of a line segment explicitly states that the endpoints must be distinct, as does PlanetMath's definition, as Aethaeryn points out below.

I think there's a difference between what's referred to as a "line" in mathematical terms and in conventional English. I believe the judge and mikek were both using the term in the latter sense.

Re: Famous judge spikes Apple-Google case, calls patent system “dysfunctional”

#20

Post by colanderman »

Aethaeryn wrote: post #18
colanderman wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your statement would imply that a point has a direction, which it does not. Also, a line does not have a length; both you and Posner meant line segment . So a correct statement would be: A zero-length line segment is a point. Edit: not even this is true if your definition of a line segment explicitly states that the endpoints must be distinct, as does PlanetMath's definition, as Aethaeryn points out below.

> A zero-length line segment is a point. The Wikipedia definition of a line segment says that it is bound by two endpoints.[1] It provides a reference to Planet Math that goes into specifics.[2] In this page, it is made clear that the two endpoints cannot be equal. Planet Math provides an equation for a closed[3] line segment: L = {a + tb | t in [0, 1]} This means that a line segment can be expressed as all of the po…

Ah good I was looking for the restriction b ≠ 0 but couldn't find in on the Wikipedia page. Forgot to check out PlanetMath, thanks.
Post reply on HN