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Apple Never Invented Anything

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Re: Apple Never Invented Anything

#81

Post by r00fus »

mtgx wrote: post #60
mbell wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One interesting point is he brought up Einstein's invention of relativity. He didn't invent, he discovered. I'm not just being pedantic, I think the approaches signified by these two words goes to the root of the differences your describing.

Apple could say they "discovered" how to do pinch to zoom well or something.

The sure can, but that means they would be forced to share their "discovery". Discovery and Invention are two different domains when it comes to patent law.

Re: Apple Never Invented Anything

#82

Post by _delirium »

001sky wrote: post #61
_delirium wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think what Apple does is important, but I don't think profits are really distributed in proportion to contribution, because the final product is an accumulation of work done by different people and companies, but there's no real accounting mechanism to distribute the profits accordingly (patents are a largely failed attempt at one). The best place to be in business for profitability is to do that last 10-20% tha…

The last 20% of the work takes 80% of the Effort --The 80/20 rule [Old saying] Monetization does seem to be maximized at a bottleneck or stumbling block. Like bridge tolls. Or that final thing that makes the whole worth more than the sum of its parts. Apple does seem to do both.

I would say that closeness in time to commercialization is more important than bottlenecks per se: doing research that will enable great products in 20 years is rarely lucrative, because it's difficult to capture any of that future value (especially if it's further out than the length of patents, and often even if it's within that length).

So it's smarter (if you want to make a profit) to let someone else do that, e.g. someone who's paid as a researcher and isn't trying to turn a profit, and instead look for things that are 1-3 years out. You even see it within academia; applied math pays a lot more than pure math, for example, even though both are quite important to mathematical progress.

Re: Apple Never Invented Anything

#83

Post by surrealize »

podperson wrote: post #63
cromwellian wrote: post #42

One interesting point is he brought up Einstein's invention of relativity. Notice that in the scientific community, humanity has been building upon previous work for centuries with no copyright or patent protection, and nothing more than honor, citation, and shame against plagiarists. The fundamental defense made by many is that without patent protection for software, people would not put much effort into innovating.…

> But 20? It's absurd. If pinch and zoom is such a trivial thing then invent some other thing to use instead. The patent system by-and-large doesn't pick and choose patent durations based on the kind of patent. Theoretical physics and patentable technology are quite different things and the comparison is not helpful. Before patents we had a guild system where people who made almost anything -- pottery, telescopes, po…

> Knowledge of key manufacturing processes was a trade secret.

So, without patent protection, pinch-to-zoom would have been a secret and the rest of us would never have been able to figure it out? Or, without patent protection, no one would have put in the R&D effort to come up with pinch-to-zoom?

Obviously not.

The benefits that patents are supposed to provide to society just aren't benefits at all in this case. So, as a society, we ought to figure out a way to change the law so that it provides benefits where needed without doing more harm than good. It's clearly doing more harm than good in software right now.

Re: Apple Never Invented Anything

#84

Post by webwright »

potatolicious wrote: post #23
drats wrote: post #5

I made this case last week. "Apple products are like a good classy restaurant or hotel chain. They take ingredients everyone has and put a lot of work into fit and finish, they make the customer feel special for a slightly higher price."[1] And I stand by it. I'll go even further actually, I think Apple is one of the least innovative big companies. Look at all the big research labs at Microsoft, Yahoo, IBM or Google.…

UI and UX are innovations. The silly notion that only hard, technical inventions with academic papers attached are innovative is the reason why Apple has eaten everyone's lunch up till now. "Fit and finish" is as innovative as a new algorithm, it's shocking how much of the industry still treats it as a footnote and a detail, despite the entire history of the tech world since iPhone 1 would indicate.

Ugh, by this logic the first person to use drop-down menus should be the only person to use it (without licensing) for 20 years. Or a hover-event on a link. Or a hyperlink. Or real-time form validation. Or neverending scrolling instead of pagination. Or facebook style side menus on mobile devices.

Certainly there is UI innovation, and certainly it can move mountains-- I think arguing that fact is a straw man-- no one is saying that you can't be innovative with UI. We're just saying that most/all of it isn't worthy of patent protection.

Re: Apple Never Invented Anything

#85

Post by wallflower »

A better article on the Counternotions site, "Why Apple doesn’t do 'Concept Products'"

"Concept products are like essays, musings in 3D. They are incomplete promises. Shipping products, by contrast, are brutally honest deliveries. You get what’s delivered. They live and die by their own design constraints. To the extent they are successful, they do advance the art and science of design and manufacturing by exposing the balance between fantasy and capability."

http://counternotions.com/2008/08/12/concept-products/

Re: Apple Never Invented Anything

#86

Post by podperson »

cromwellian wrote: post #74
podperson wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But 20? It's absurd. If pinch and zoom is such a trivial thing then invent some other thing to use instead. The patent system by-and-large doesn't pick and choose patent durations based on the kind of patent. Theoretical physics and patentable technology are quite different things and the comparison is not helpful. Before patents we had a guild system where people who made almost anything -- pottery, telescopes, po…

Trivial doesn't mean valueless. A "1 click buy" patent is trivial, but forcing everyone to "invent something else instead" (e.g. 2 clicks) is stupid. And what if 2-click is patented? Then the next guy to come along has to have a 3-click system, or some obfuscation that convinces a jury. Pretty soon, consumers are confused, because every website they go to has a radically different user interface brought on by patents…

> I really don't see how anyone who writes software for a living can defend these things and defend the status quo of not even supporting reform.

I agree that it seems like things are a bit screwy right now, but I don't claim to know what the solution is, and I'm not sure that things haven't always been a bit screwy (Alexander Graham Bell got the telephone patent because he was ahead of some other guy in line, Farnsworth died poor having invented TV).

Abolishing software patents is -- in my opinion -- not the solution since -- given the direction technology is headed -- this is going to be disturbingly similar to abolishing patents altogether. Most suggested "reforms" of the patent system seem to satisfy Mencken's criteria ("neat, simple, and wrong")

Note that genetic and chemical-engineering patents are pretty close to software too.

1-click is one of my least favorite patents, but it really comes down to an argument about obviousness -- an argument it appears to have lost in Europe (where the patent was never granted). The patent has been challenged, most of its claims thrown out, and its remaining claims narrowed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click

I'd suggest that in the end its a question of application not theory. In this case the Europeans have arguably done a better job of applying patent law than the US.

Re: Apple Never Invented Anything

#87

Post by podperson »

linuxhansl wrote: post #79
podperson wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But 20? It's absurd. If pinch and zoom is such a trivial thing then invent some other thing to use instead. The patent system by-and-large doesn't pick and choose patent durations based on the kind of patent. Theoretical physics and patentable technology are quite different things and the comparison is not helpful. Before patents we had a guild system where people who made almost anything -- pottery, telescopes, po…

pinch-and-zoom is a good idea. But it is just that: An idea. Its invention cost no money and society as a whole is not served by granted exclusive monopoly over it to any entity. The entire discussion is turning to be absurd. Is pinch-and-zoom (and friends) all that separates Apple from the competition? In other industry manufacturers learn from each other (seatbelts, suspensions systems, transmissions, etc), but som…

It's a very refined implementation of an idea. Try pinch and zoom on an iPad and then try it on an Android device.

Re: Apple Never Invented Anything

#88

Post by gnaffle »

jlgreco wrote: post #51
gnaffle wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's better to compare Apple to a high-end restaurant. You don't get three Michelin stars just by making the customer feel special and having lots of fit and finish, the food also has to be something special. Yet still, of course there are lots of people that will claim that those restaurants can't possibly be worth the price, and _has_ to be mostly about making the customers feel special, after all they use…

"the food also has to be something special" "those restaurants can't possibly be worth the price" First off, there is more to a dinning experience than the quality of the food, so even if the food is the same a price increase can be justified. You could serve me a McDonald's hamburger for 20USD and leave me satisfied with the transaction provided the burger was not all that I was getting... That burger would not be w…

Of course, all of what you say is true.

But I think it's difficult to quantify quality differences like that. For instance, when watching the movie Jiro Dreams of Sushi, I had a hard time thinking that a sushi meal could be worth more than $400 (starting price). It would certainly be wasted money on me, since I'm not a big sushi fan. But to the reviewers, apparently it was worth a dedicated trip to just eat there, so they would probably say yes if asked if it was 10x better than a $40 sushi meal.

Re: Apple Never Invented Anything

#89

Post by tedunangst »

smartkids wrote: post #26
drats wrote: post #5

I made this case last week. "Apple products are like a good classy restaurant or hotel chain. They take ingredients everyone has and put a lot of work into fit and finish, they make the customer feel special for a slightly higher price."[1] And I stand by it. I'll go even further actually, I think Apple is one of the least innovative big companies. Look at all the big research labs at Microsoft, Yahoo, IBM or Google.…

Yes, but perhaps _making things easy to use_ and _sexy hardware design_ might have something to do with their success? The problem with the research labs at those example companies you cited is that those businesses have little incentive to introduce innovation that would compete with "yesterday's ideas" that are driving their profits. This is why Bell Labs was so unique. They could basically do whatever they wanted…

The funny part, considering how everyone complains about not really getting to "own" their device, is bringing up AT&T as a good guy. The company who literally would not let anyone own a telephone.

Re: Apple Never Invented Anything

#90

Post by fffggg »

cromwellian wrote: post #42

One interesting point is he brought up Einstein's invention of relativity. Notice that in the scientific community, humanity has been building upon previous work for centuries with no copyright or patent protection, and nothing more than honor, citation, and shame against plagiarists. The fundamental defense made by many is that without patent protection for software, people would not put much effort into innovating.…

Regarding the expense of clinical trials, it's important to note that the scientific results of a clinical trial are not protected by either patent or copyright. Pure research data cannot be restricted under any form of IP. Factual data without a creative element is explicitly exempted from both the patent and copyright system.

A published paper on the results of a trial may fall under copyright, but the factual observations and conclusions cannot be.

The "clinical trials are expensive" argument is incredibly disingenuous.

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