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

Post by edrowland » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 5:37 PM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #72

nirvana wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>so that patents are routinely granted for designs, devices, and methods that are already effectively commoditized You are confusing utility patents and design patents. They are very different things, and design patents are intended for "designs" and the designs of devices. This is not a perversion, this is just you not understanding what patents are ! Secondly you guys constantly claim that these things are not nove…

There's been ample citation of prior art, everything from prior working and publicly shown prototypes to actually shipping devices. Apple was not the first company to show a capacitive multitouch screen (LG Prada was), they were not the first to show pinch-to-zoom (numerous examples, Jeff Han, Diamond Touch, 20 years of research prototypes), they were not the first with double-tap to zoom (there's 2 decades of ZUIs,…

It's not that difficult to read the claims. Apple's patent covers distinguishing between pinch-to-zoom and scroll gestures based on whether one or two figures are touching. Prior art on pinch-to-zoom seems to show scrollbars for scrolling instead of single-finger-to-drag.

The simple workaround to apple's patent: allow two-finger drag. One or Two fingers close together (or moving in parallelt) is a drag. Two or more fingers far apart is a zoom. As long as there's no line of code that goes "if one finger down then it's a drag else if two fingers down it's a zoom" then the code doesn't infringe the apple patent. Easy peasy.

Post by Joeri » Wed, Aug 29, 2012, 9:12 PM UTC

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…

You make a fair point.

But, let me make a few others:

1. It's not apple that put a PC on every desk, but microsoft. It's not apple that put a smartphone in every pocket, but google.

2. If genuine innovation is exceedingly rare, why is there almost one patent granted per US citizen per year?

3. Nobody working in software looks at patents. The whole idea that software patents are published to spread ideas is absolutely laughable to a programmer.

4. Two people arriving at the same idea independently and then arguing over who stole whose idea is a constant throughout history. Many inventions are misattributed. See newton v leibniz, edison v tesla, bell v gray, and many incidents along the same vein.

5. Samsung has always spent more than apple on R&D. That's why the iphone is filled with samsung hardware. Much of what the iphone is wouldn't have been possible without businesses like samsung ensuring the hardware existed in the first place.

But yeah, samsung did rip off the icons and bezel, and for that you're right to blame them. I don't consider that issue related though to apple's heavy-handed claim on multitouch utility patents. Apple isn't just going after samsung, they're going after everyone. They started with samsung to get a precedent.

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

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