Sorry, but I just simply can't understand why "swipe to unlock" can be a patent...
HTC wins swipe to unlock patent dispute against Apple
81–89 of 89 posts
Re: HTC wins swipe to unlock patent dispute against Apple
#82Well, this is interesting! This is a valid patent in the U.S., but not in the U.K. - I guess that the UK had a more sensible patent system. A real pity for consumers in the U.S. I guess.
Re: HTC wins swipe to unlock patent dispute against Apple
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. You're arguing precisely the fallacy I tried to refute. The fact that you personally (or any given judge or patent officer) didn't think of something isn't reasonable grounds for making it non-obvious, which is a technical (legally "objective", if not logically) distinction. So if you want to make that case, make it . Show me the "brilliance" in Slide-to-Unlock that makes it a unique flower worthy of protection.…
Show me the "brilliance" in Slide-to-Unlock that makes it a unique flower worthy of protection. It's not clear how one would do this. You could reply to any evidence presented "meh, not impressed." Your position is basically the mirror of the fallacy you're arguing against. The fact that you personally are not impressed doesn't make it non-obvious either. [oops, meant obvious]
Certainly it can be done for some inventions. The RSA cryptosystem patent comes to mind as something that even experts wouldn't have seen. Likewise much of the original work on image compression, etc... You don't have to look that far to find brilliance -- we're swimming in it. So again, that just sounds like a platitude to me. Rather than try to defend the nonsense, you're hiding behind the fact that you can't be proven wrong.
Or conversely: the world you apparently want to live in is one where "protectable innovation" is cheap and worthless. Every simple improvement on an existing system becomes someone's property. Do you really want that? I don't think you do -- I think, frankly, that you want every simple improvement made by Apple Computer to be protectable. Prove me wrong. I don't think you can. :)
Re: HTC wins swipe to unlock patent dispute against Apple
#84"We remain disappointed that Apple continues to favour competition in the courtroom over competition in the marketplace." This. I do think that Apple is an innovative company which creates great products. But this does not in anyways justifies its actions in courtrooms all over the world trying to exploit a system that is clearly outdated.
I would also like to see Apple drop these suits and focus on making great products. But regarding that quote, I wouldn't say they favor competition in the courtroom over the marketplace, they're just doing both.
It's not as if the legal professionals working on these suits would otherwise be writing code for iOS features. And it's not as if Apple is just waiting for the outcomes of these suits, letting their products stand still in the meantime.
Re: HTC wins swipe to unlock patent dispute against Apple
#85We need an independent invention defense. If I can show I had no knowledge of your patent and came up with the idea on my own then it must have been obvious. If 2 other parties did also, then it must of been painfully obvious.
That's a cool idea, but how would you prove you came up with an invention independently if the patented device/software is already out there?
One idea: White room. Similar to copyright avoidance.
Re: HTC wins swipe to unlock patent dispute against Apple
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. I think the obviousness of an idea might change throughout time. 2. What if one industry is dominated by two companies, in the sense that all the experts are employed by one or the other, then how could they be unbiassed?
1. I think the obviousness of an idea might change throughout time. Sounds like an excellent reason not to allow someone to own the idea for 20 years.
Yes, or changing it from a binary system to a continuum that maxes out at 20 years. Software patent? 5 years. New drug - 20 years. New algorithm (can't patent math of course) 10 years.
Re: HTC wins swipe to unlock patent dispute against Apple
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Patents aren't like copying someone's homework - that's copyright. It's important to remember, there's no suggestion in any of these cases that anyone stole Apple's source code. There isn't even an allegation that they did any nontrivial reverse-engineering of an iPhone (it clearly wasn't necessary). Instead, at most, people saw a behavior and independently re-implemented it (and often might not have even seen the be…
>getting a good grade because you wrote a paper on the Roman Empire and then accusing someone of cheating because they decided to write their own paper on the same subject No, what actually happened would be more like writing a brilliant paper on Roman Empire exploring it in a way that no one had before, and suddenly this guy who's been stuck for years suddenly "comes up with" a paper that appears to borrow heavily f…
What's the problem with that as long as it is plagiarized? If it actually borrows directly it just needs citations.
Re: HTC wins swipe to unlock patent dispute against Apple
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Show me the "brilliance" in Slide-to-Unlock that makes it a unique flower worthy of protection. It's not clear how one would do this. You could reply to any evidence presented "meh, not impressed." Your position is basically the mirror of the fallacy you're arguing against. The fact that you personally are not impressed doesn't make it non-obvious either. [oops, meant obvious]
Certainly it can be done for some inventions. The RSA cryptosystem patent comes to mind as something that even experts wouldn't have seen. Likewise much of the original work on image compression, etc... You don't have to look that far to find brilliance -- we're swimming in it. So again, that just sounds like a platitude to me. Rather than try to defend the nonsense, you're hiding behind the fact that you can't be pr…
RSA is an interesting example, because that definitely seems to fall into the territory of "you can't patent math". "Oh, it's just some multiplication, how hard can it be? You can fit the whole thing on a single whiteboard."
Re: HTC wins swipe to unlock patent dispute against Apple
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Certainly it can be done for some inventions. The RSA cryptosystem patent comes to mind as something that even experts wouldn't have seen. Likewise much of the original work on image compression, etc... You don't have to look that far to find brilliance -- we're swimming in it. So again, that just sounds like a platitude to me. Rather than try to defend the nonsense, you're hiding behind the fact that you can't be pr…
RSA is an interesting example, because that definitely seems to fall into the territory of "you can't patent math". "Oh, it's just some multiplication, how hard can it be? You can fit the whole thing on a single whiteboard."
You're on a tangent. The point wasn't whether or not RSA is patentable (it was patented, obviously, though it was released to the public and would have expired by now anyway). It's that even among people ("experts in the field", legally) who understand modular exponentiation and can implement RSA correctly, the discovery of public key encryption represents a sublime moment of brilliance. I certainly never would have seen it, nor do I know anyone who claims they would have. Your point was that this kind of certainty didn't exist, and thus you're wrong (or else you're actually claiming that you think RSA was an obvious innovation, in which case let me compose myself before continuing...)
Even to someone (Hi!) who thinks all software patents are bad, RSA is patentable if anything is patentable. Slide to unlock, not even remotely so.