Apple loses German patent court case • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple loses German patent court case

#51

Post by w1ntermute » Tue, Sep 25, 2012, 5:27 AM UTC

kgarten wrote: post #49

w1ntermute wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with Maps is the data. Open source is about code, not data.

Yes, then what about the source code for google maps, gmail and google play? Are they open source? Do you get them doing your git checkout?

My point is that the value of Google Maps is not in the interface, it's in the data. Apple Maps has the interface down ― that's the easy part.

Google has never claimed that apps specific to its services were part of Android to begin with, so your point is moot.

Re: Apple loses German patent court case

#52

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 25, 2012, 11:30 AM UTC

cooldeal wrote: post #37

Tichy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, the OS is open source, even if some of the apps are not. Number of installs is not a relevant metric for open sourceness.

The OP I was replying to said that projects like CM won't be popular if Android wasn't open source. I replied that CM's popularity is a direct result of people committing copyright infringement by providing and downloading non-open source Google apps. Won't cutting that off reduce the popularity of CM? AOSP is open. Android? Probably not so much, since it includes the Play Store and Google Apps in common usage of the…

[deleted]

Re: Apple loses German patent court case

#53

Post by tobias3 » Tue, Sep 25, 2012, 11:22 PM UTC

tveita wrote: post #44

tobias3 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how they plan to win that one, given that there are no software patents in Germany. (Only if software is used in connection with a "technical" invention)

To be clear, Apple already did win that case: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/sep/14/motorola-mo... Nothing about that makes sense to me, but that's patents for you.

I'm confused as well. Every claim of the patent begins with "A computer-implemented method..." so it is definitely a software patent.

I think this is just for damage and they have to counter-sue for invalidility separately.