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Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury

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Re: Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury

#31

Post by deerparkwater »

msbarnett wrote: post #26
deskamess wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the patent number link: """ Method and apparatus for recording and storing video information April 1, 2008 A personal video recording/storage apparatus for downloading streaming video and data contents from a number of sources and storing the video files to an internal storage device, such as a disk drive. ... """ Would a video cassette recorder (VCR) fit the bill for prior art? The source in this case would be…

You need to look at the Claims to figure out what the patent covers. The title and abstract have no legal force. And since the claims include such things as the compression algorithm being user-selectable, it's trivially obvious that a VCR is not covered.

Are you trolling? A video compression algorithm being selected is not obvious? Has the patent office/this scumbag troll not heard of gnu video libs?

Re: Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury

#32

Post by syjer »

nirvana wrote: post #14
woodchuck64 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Groklaw's comment ( http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012082510525390 ) " If it would take a lawyer three days to make sure he understood the terms in the form, how did the jury not need the time to do the same? There were 700 questions, remember, and one thing is plain, that the jury didn't take the time to avoid inconsistencies, one of which resulted in the jury casually throwing numbers around, like…

The jury had 14 days of hearing evidence. It is quite possible that the case was so compelling that it didn't take them very long to decide the points. I've yet to see any argument that the verdict is wrong, based on an understanding of the patents in question.

They found that the nexus s infringed the bounce back patent. But this is impossible as it use vanilla android which has never implemented this behaviour.

So it looks like kinda rushed for _some_ decisions.

Re: Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury

#33

Post by JoelSutherland »

nirvana wrote: post #2

I think this is actually bad news. Since the guy has a patent to his name, that means he understood what patents are. (EG: protection for unique inventions, not monopolies on features or ideas.) If the jury had been completely non-technical, and subjected to the nonsense propaganda you see so much these days (that patents are "trivial" and that they cover ideas) and still found in Apple's favor, then this would bolst…

Hi, I'm a poster on Hacker News and I can read.

Here is the core claim from the '915 patent:

  A machine implemented method for scrolling on a touch-sensitive display of a device
  comprising:

  1. receiving a user input, the user input is one or more input points applied to
  the touch-sensitive display that is integrated with the device;

  2. creating an event object in response to the user input;

  3. 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;

  4. issuing at least one scroll or gesture call based on invoking the scroll or
  gesture operation;

  5. responding to at least one scroll call, if issued, by scrolling a window having
  a view associated with the event object based on an amount of a scroll with the
  scroll stopped at a predetermined position in relation to the user input; and

  6. responding to at least one gesture call, if issued, by scaling the view
  associated with the event object based on receiving the two or more input points in
  the form of the user input.
Here is text from the paper (http://www.sonycsl.co.jp/person/rekimoto/papers/chi02.pdf) that accompanied this 2002 video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waSXkJBKT1s#t=2m20s) of this exact same behavior:

  Figure 12 shows a map browsing system. The user scrolls the map by sliding a finger
  along the sensor surface. If the user touches the surface with two or more fingers,
  by changing the distance from the fingers to the surface, he/she can control the map
  scale. Simultaneous control of scrolling and zooming is intuitive, because the user
  feels as if his or her fingers are fixed to the map’s surface.
It is true that I don't understand patents very well. But, those are the same thing.

Since you seem to understand the patent system well enough to drop generalizations about the HN population, would you please explain how this can be and also why it should be.

Re: Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury

#34

Post by nohat »

nirvana wrote: post #13
nohat wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that the apple patents are unique inventions? I ask for clarity because that is not a common position on hackernews.

It is common for android fans on hacker news to assert that the patents are invalid because the same features exist in android phones, but this is not only a temporal error, but implied a lack of understanding of what patents even are. I've not seen any arguments on hacker news that the patents are invalid. Period. Full Stop. I've seen this assertion many times and the claim that it is "obvious" but it is clear to me…

I find it difficult to believe that you've never seen an argument that the patents are invalid. You may not agree, but the argument has been made many times. The usual argument is that the patents are obvious. Bouncy scrolling, double tap to zoom, pinch to zoom and one fingered scrolling. Do you find these non-trivial and non-obvious? You mentioned that ideas are not patentable, but in practice that is exactly what is protected - the fact that a machine implementing them is technically what is patented makes little practical difference.

Re: Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury

#35

Post by nigori »

nirvana wrote: post #10
jlgreco wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain how patents don't grant a type of legal monopoly? This seems non-obvious to me, and poking around on Wikipedia has only served to reinforce my suspicion that they are.

They do grant a type of legal monopoly... but on an invention, not on a feature. So, in my example, Jeff Han demonstrated pinch to zoom using cameras photographing your hans, while Apple has a patent on an invention that lets a screen figure out where your fingers are. They both could be patented and have a legal monopoly on their inventions even though they are the "same thing". If your objection is to there being a…

I'm having trouble with this concept because Apple already seems locked down to me. Would you provide some plausible and probable examples of how you think Apple would be more locked down in a world without patents?

Re: Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury

#36

Post by cromwellian »

msbarnett wrote: post #26
deskamess wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the patent number link: """ Method and apparatus for recording and storing video information April 1, 2008 A personal video recording/storage apparatus for downloading streaming video and data contents from a number of sources and storing the video files to an internal storage device, such as a disk drive. ... """ Would a video cassette recorder (VCR) fit the bill for prior art? The source in this case would be…

You need to look at the Claims to figure out what the patent covers. The title and abstract have no legal force. And since the claims include such things as the compression algorithm being user-selectable, it's trivially obvious that a VCR is not covered.

But VCRs did allow one to select SP, EP, and SLP modes, arguably a user selectable 'analog compression' setting to trade off quality for storage space.

It's the idea that adding a drop down menu to select installed compression codecs constitutes the ability to differentiate something enough to make it patentable that really irritates people.

Almost any modern operating system sports abstract interfaces or services which have a number of pluggable providers: compression codecs, cryptography algorithms, database drivers, input and output drivers. The idea that anytime there's more than one choice, if you simply add a user selectable feature as a claim, you can then obtain a new patent, is a very annoying feature of software patents.

If every software patent currently not-expired on record was maximally enforced, the courts would meltdown, and everyone would go bankrupt from legal fees. The only way the industry has been able to avoid gridlock and continue innovation is by essentially ignoring 99.99% of all software patents. The fact that no one pays attention to them, until one is losing in the marketplace or attempting to blockade competitors indicates that the system is broken.

Re: Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury

#37

Post by ojiikun »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #21
nirvana wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to imply you've read the patent. Could you find the specific claims and then show us some prior art for them? Many things become "obvious" after they have entered commercial production, but are not obvious at the time they are invented. The car is obvious now, for instance. Your comment about the jury assumes there were touch interfaces 20 years ago (of a type relevant to this case.) Apple started in the 199…

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sec...

Perused the patent. As far as I can tell, this guy is a patent troll, plain and simple.

The patent basically describes every DVR that geeks were building 10 years before it was filed. True, it's fancied up in exactly the sort of language that would make it sound novel to a clerk, but I can't find any particular provisions that aren't normal software/hardware operation.

I have renewed hope that this could force an end result where the whole software patent system is torn apart.

Re: Apple v. Samsung - Meet the foreman of the jury

#39

Post by msbarnett »

cromwellian wrote: post #36
msbarnett wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to look at the Claims to figure out what the patent covers. The title and abstract have no legal force. And since the claims include such things as the compression algorithm being user-selectable, it's trivially obvious that a VCR is not covered.

But VCRs did allow one to select SP, EP, and SLP modes, arguably a user selectable 'analog compression' setting to trade off quality for storage space. It's the idea that adding a drop down menu to select installed compression codecs constitutes the ability to differentiate something enough to make it patentable that really irritates people. Almost any modern operating system sports abstract interfaces or services wh…

I'm not arguing for patents, merely attempting to explain to the OP how to evaluate what they cover. You're ranting to the choir.

And EP, SP, SLP aren't compression algorithms in the sense that any court would recognize. Let's not engage in sloppy thinking merely because we dislike software patents. There are plenty of rigorous reasons to oppose them.

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