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Re: undefined

#71

Post by polshaw »

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.

I kind of agreed with your first post; patents mean that the inventor will share with the world how to make the invention. (although, i am generally anti-patent for several reasons; much too great scope and time-length especially for the technical world).

But you really lost me here with your rookie 'causation Vs correlation' point. Alternative thesis; powerful corporations (which occur in rich nations) have more government sway to enable protectionism.

Re: undefined

#72

Post by bokonist »

apendleton wrote: post #18
Osiris wrote: post #10

I've been thinking lately that with the number of patents in existence, the likelihood that a newly submit patent application is truly novel without any invalidating prior art is probably very low. The USPTO should start each review under the premis that the application will probably be denied unless the application includes sufficient justification for it being truly novel. If the USPTO started denying the majority…

USPTO denies over 90% of initial applications, and even with appeals factored in, less than 50% of applications end up getting approved (it was 48% in 2011).

The problem as I understand it from people who have worked in the industry, is that if you have the money, you can keep adjusting the application and resubmitting, and eventually the probability of getting the bogus patent approved approaches 1.

Re: undefined

#73

Post by stock_toaster »

rhizome wrote: post #30
mtgx wrote: post #4

Nice of them to invalidate them - now - after they already passed them and Apple already used them in lawsuits - and won with them. But better late than never, I guess.

Companies should be securing clawbacks in patent settlements upon invalidation.

Does it work like that? If you were bootlegging during prohibition, and convicted, would your conviction be repealed afterwards? It was technically illegal at the time.

Maybe someone with more knowledge of law on here knows if this is the case with patent law or not.

Re: undefined

#74

Post by ghostnappa »

jhaglund wrote: post #26
danilocampos wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. If it was so "easy", why wasn't it invented a long time ago?

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…

Capacitive touchscreens were invented in the 1960s. Resistive touchscreens were invented twenty years later. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitive_touchscreen#History

Re: undefined

#75

Post by brianpan »

georgemcbay wrote: post #22
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 first saw pinch-to-zoom I thought it was really cool, but in the long run it is one of those things that works better in "delightful" demos than in the real world. In the real world I much prefer double-tab and two-finger tap to zoom in and out. You don't get quite the same level of "accuracy" as you do with pinch, but precise zoom is largely useless on phone/tablets anyway.

The strength of pinch-to-zoom as a UI interaction is that it is direct manipulation. It has less to do with accuracy. Two-finger tap is a "computer command" to do something. Pinch is you doing the thing you want to do.

Re: undefined

#76

Post by bluedanieru »

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.

Out.

Re: undefined

#77

Post by astral303 »

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.

I'm with you on the one handed use, but I think pinch to zoom is awesome. It's very natural and its implementation feels "direct", not laggy. It seems simple now, but it's one of those "why is it that nobody actually did it right?" until Apple did it. Just shows you that the devil is in the details and the balance, not the grand concept of pinching to zoom.

I've owned lots of Palm-based PDAs and a Dell Axim with Windows Mobile, for my pre-iPhone touchscreen background. I was horrified at the prospect of owning a Palm Treo or anything with Windows Mobile at the time.

Re: undefined

#78

Post by fpgeek »

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.

You also might ask: How did the US get to the top in the first place? It was not exactly known for respecting English and German patents in the 19th century...

Re: undefined

#79

Post by wwwtyro »

M8R-fhlcjm wrote: post #32

R&D costs money, and lots of it. So in the end, patents provided the incentive to innovate and $spend on R&D in America, and now free for all to copy. Without patents, smart investors will start to look at where they can most cheaply copy American innovations.

How much money did it cost to come up with "pinch-to-zoom"? I bet I could pay a gaggle of 5th graders 10$ to come up with it (and several other ideas) in an hour.

Re: undefined

#80

Post by georgemcbay »

brianpan wrote: post #75
georgemcbay wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I first saw pinch-to-zoom I thought it was really cool, but in the long run it is one of those things that works better in "delightful" demos than in the real world. In the real world I much prefer double-tab and two-finger tap to zoom in and out. You don't get quite the same level of "accuracy" as you do with pinch, but precise zoom is largely useless on phone/tablets anyway.

The strength of pinch-to-zoom as a UI interaction is that it is direct manipulation. It has less to do with accuracy. Two-finger tap is a "computer command" to do something. Pinch is you doing the thing you want to do.

eh, sort of.

I mean, I understand the basis of this argument but pinch-to-zoom doesn't actually map to anything we do in the real world.

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