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Re: undefined

#51

Post by antiterra »

programminggeek wrote: post #39

I think this is actually a bad thing because at a certain point it discourages innovation and the creation of new things because competitors will just copy whatever you create. I'm not for patent trolls making money for simply owning someone else's invention, but I feel like if you invent something, patent your invention, and build a real product around that invention, then the patent should be upheld. Otherwise, you…

> I think this is actually a bad thing because at a certain point it discourages innovation and the creation of new things because competitors will just copy whatever you create.

That's an absolutely ludicrous conclusion in this case, irrespective of the suitability of software patents. The patent office has said these specific patent claims are unpatentable due to prior art. That means that they're saying Apple didn't actually make anything new.

Further, in 2011 the US moved to first-to-file, so expect unpublished prior art to matter far less and give even more security to those who file patents.

Re: undefined

#52

Post by btilly »

seles wrote: post #16

I don't even like pinch to zoom. It is hard/impossible to do when using the phone one handed. It is also annoying in apps like google's new maps for iOS because it is hard to not also rotate the map, which is hardly ever the desired outcome.

When I saw pinch to zoom, my first thought was, Minority Report.

Can a 2002 movie be prior art for a user interface? Because in this case it really deserved to be.

Re: undefined

#53

Post by guelo »

programminggeek wrote: post #39

I think this is actually a bad thing because at a certain point it discourages innovation and the creation of new things because competitors will just copy whatever you create. I'm not for patent trolls making money for simply owning someone else's invention, but I feel like if you invent something, patent your invention, and build a real product around that invention, then the patent should be upheld. Otherwise, you…

There are thousands of developers working right now on coming up with new ways of interacting with touch-screens and coming up with new gestures. The market is providing plenty of incentive for these innovations. The only thing that is discouraging innovation are these patents and lawsuits.

Re: undefined

#54

Post by sridharvembu »

programminggeek wrote: post #39

I think this is actually a bad thing because at a certain point it discourages innovation and the creation of new things because competitors will just copy whatever you create. I'm not for patent trolls making money for simply owning someone else's invention, but I feel like if you invent something, patent your invention, and build a real product around that invention, then the patent should be upheld. Otherwise, you…

That being said, as it gets cheaper to distribute information and turn that information into physical goods, the amount of value in the production of physical goods is going to approach the cost to manufacture those goods. There will always be some money in service, repair, etc. but a lot of things value will be destroyed along the way and it is not yet clear if that is a net positive for society at large.

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Let's assume that because of patent protection not being available, smartphones are widely copied and become really cheap and all the 5 billion adults in the world have access to them. Clearly the smartphone makers themselves would make less profit. Now what? Would it make society as a whole worse off? There would be a lot of ideas that will be born on top of the smartphone - in fact, we are already seeing many of them. And profit would shift to people who execute on those ideas.

There was a time not that long ago AT&T used to justify its monopoly and sky-high prices for long distance calls on the investment it was making in Bell Labs. The profits that used to be enjoyed by AT&T have become distributed (to Apple, Google, Qualcomm and so on) and the R&D has also become distributed. If you looked at Bell Labs in isolation, the end of AT&T monopoly was a big negative. But if you look at the ecosystem as a whole, there is no contest.

Re: undefined

#55

Post by elpool2 »

seles wrote: post #16

I don't even like pinch to zoom. It is hard/impossible to do when using the phone one handed. It is also annoying in apps like google's new maps for iOS because it is hard to not also rotate the map, which is hardly ever the desired outcome.

After finally using Google's new maps for IOS last night (to actually find a destination I was trying to get to, as opposed to just playing around with the app), I'm really liking the ability to control zoom with a double-tap-drag. Its especially nice being able to quickly zoom out then back in with just one gesture, so you can figure out where you are within the larger map.

Re: undefined

#56

Post by marshray »

M8R-fhlcjm wrote: post #41
marshray wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could start by backing up the statements patents provided the incentive to innovate and $spend on R&D in America, and and now free for all to copy and especially Without patents, smart investors will start to look at where they can most cheaply copy American innovations . It would be especally impressive if you could show that all these putative benefits were, in fact, a net gain over all the very tangible downsi…

economies of countries with patent rights exceed economies without patents. And at the top is the U.S.A. with strongest patent rights.

Well if you look at regular GDP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nom... , China is right there at #2. They are hardly known for their strong patent enforcement. To the contrary, they're known for "lax IP" and as a place where anyone can start a factory and start making almost anything for export. They're said to be growing faster than the US too, probably in no small part because it's easier to make things there.

If you look at per-captia GDP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP... instead, the US is way down at #8, behind Luxembourg, Qatar, Macau, Norway, Singapore, Kuwait, Brunei, Hong Kong, and Switzerland. How many of those countries are known for having "strong patent rights" and $B lawsuits and sales injuctions by patent holders against vendors?

Hmm, looks instead like most of those are countries known for their ability to produce things of value and export them to other countries such as the US.

Re: undefined

#57

Post by nmcfarl »

cmelbye wrote: post #19
mtgx wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying you can't use drop-down menus on the web, because one site did it first. I'm not saying in other cases that it might not have taken longer for the others to figure it out (months, years?). I'm saying that they shouldn't be able to patent something as easy to implement as that for 17 years, or whatever the patent age is. Maybe if the patent system made a bit more sense, we wouldn't be so much agains…

You obviously misunderstand patents, as they have absolutely nothing to do with how easy something is to implement. They're awarded to companies that take risks, research, and invent something new. It's a fundamental mistake to write off a "simple" invention as easy to come up with, obvious, a no-brainer, etc. Simplicity is difficult.

The fact that simple ideas can be truly novel inventions, worthy of protection, is the main problem with our patent system at this point. Not everything that is simple is an invention - and that means the only way you can tell if something is worthy of protection is to have some deep domain knowledge. The one thing our patent examiners do not have.

Re: undefined

#58

Post by megaman821 »

programminggeek wrote: post #39

I think this is actually a bad thing because at a certain point it discourages innovation and the creation of new things because competitors will just copy whatever you create. I'm not for patent trolls making money for simply owning someone else's invention, but I feel like if you invent something, patent your invention, and build a real product around that invention, then the patent should be upheld. Otherwise, you…

How much R&D went into pinch-to-zoom?

When they first launched a product with pinch-to-zoom, Apple did not know if they would be granted the patent. They launched it anyway because it made the phone better just like any other company would do, regardless if someone could copy it. The patent in question has nothing to do with innovation and everything to do with threatening competitors.

Re: undefined

#59

Post by elpool2 »

ars wrote: post #44
jhaglund wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, early touch screens were resistive, rather than capacitive, which didn't support multi-touch. without multitouch, no pinch. the interface has existed in movies for a long time and it just took bringing down the cost of capacitive touch screens. If Apple chooses, their size and market following allow them to bring tech to the consumer faster. That's why they got pinch to zoom first, not because of clever innovat…

It's a nice theory, but resistive supports multi-touch just fine. (Although I'm not sure that any shipping products back then actually supported it - but it's certainly possible to do it with resistive.)

But we're not talking about a patent on multi-touch, we're talking about pinch-to-zoom. I'm sure its very difficult to make a good multi-touch screen, especially one small, efficient, and precise enough to use on a smartphone. But once you have good a good multi-touch screen, it doesn't seem that hard to implement a pinch gesture. Every single demo of a multi-touch interface I've ever seen (even from before 2007) has had some sort of pinch-to-zoom gesture, it seems to be one of the first things everyone thinks of doing once you've got the capability in the hardware.

Re: undefined

#60

Post by CamperBob2 »

zmmmmm wrote: post #46

It's curious that Samsung's lawyers didn't manage to bring about the invalidation during trial, if its lack of validity was evident enough that the patent office is now retracting it. I'm curious if a) Samsung did present the evidence that the patent office relied on to invalidate but it was rejected by the jury or b) Samsung wasn't allowed to present it for some reason or c) Samsung didn't try to present it Option a…

Yeah, I don't get the impression that Samsung's lawyers were the snappiest sharks at the beach. Their incompetence at letting Hogan slip through voir dire is hard to get past... unless they saw it as a deliberate opportunity to have an unfavorable verdict thrown out, I guess.
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