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Apple Attempts to Patent Pre-Existing Display Software Idea
Nuclear Elephant writes "Apple appears to be taking ideas from commercial software already being sold and is attempting to patent the
concepts as their own. According to Apple Insider, Apple has recently filed a patent application for a notification screen on the iPhone. The only problem with this is that Intellisync has been using this concept in their popular iPhone notification screen software for over a year now, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that this is a clear rip-off. Apple recently became famous (or infamous) for stealing other people's ideas when they rolled out their Dashboard in Mac OS X, which had many similarities to a desktop widget program named the Konfabulator, which later became Yahoo widgets. The case here isn't a simple hijacking of an idea, however — Apple is applying for a patent on Intelliscreen's concept, which could be detrimental to the original manufacturer of the software, who is actively selling it for Jailbroken iPhones"
How, pray tell, is jailbreaking an iPhone "illegal"?
Did anyone even read the links? Did the submitter? Or the editor?
Apple's patent (as silly as it is) is to make Intellisync's information available when the phone is unlocked. Intellisync only works when the phone is locked!
GPL Deconstructed
Why not?
Read the patent and Intellisync. They are different.
The patent is to make available all the data when the phone is unlocked; Intellisync makes the data available when the screen is locked!
GPL Deconstructed
I'm so not surprised by this development, obviously, Apple has never been what we can call "Fair" in the past, why start now?
A short while ago, there was an article about "Apple Rejects iPhone App As Competitive To iTunes.
I replied with the following thread: SDK Agreement, anyone read it?.
That thread has extracts of the SDK and GTM agreements and after you read it, you will see how Apple is able to take it upon themselves to patent something which "isn't" supposed to be their product.
So, unless Intellisync had an agreement that this was their product, etc... with Apple, then, they left themselves open for a take over.
Worse is that the agreements which Apple provides you with you 1) download the SDK and 2) use their Go-to-Market program to sell in their stores, are pretty clear.
But Apple has a sneaky way of delivering this information.
When you download the SDK, you don't get to see the GTM agreement clauses.
As far as I'm concerned, when you download the SDK for the iPhone, you should also be provided with the agreement for the "Go-To-Market" program. But this is how Apple gets to take advantage of people who don't read the fine lines and don't do their homework on the legal side.
It isn't illegal. A case could be made that jailbreaking is a DMCA violation, but the fact that Apple hasn't done this implies that they don't feel they could win that particular case.
What my Pocket PC mobile phone has been able to do for years?
Um...excuse, but can someone please explain what the heck I am missing on this one?
They go back even earlier than that. They were called "desk accessories" on the original Macintosh.
Unless Apple supplies an unlocked firmware, there's no way to unlock an iPhone without jailbreaking it, therefore jailbreaking it is legal.
Apple paid to be able to use the stuff they saw at Xerox Parc. Paid with stock.
MS did not pay, and in fact the only reason they didn't loos there shirts becasue they convinced the judge that there work was a derivative of the work they already did. In the contract with Apple appl allowed them to do that, except the contract wasn't for an OS it was for a different application.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
First and foremost, and very generally: just because a patent is superficially like something that already exists, that in itself doesn't mean the patent was either obvious, or automatically invalidated by prior art.
Second, and more topically, I don't know when this IntelliScreen softwareâ"which, by the way, is NOT an SDK app, but only for people who have a jailbroken iPhoneâ"came out, but the AppleInsider article clearly states that the "quick settings" patent was filed last December, and the "notification screen" patent was filed a few months before that! That is a little hazy, but could easily mean that it was filed before the iPhone was actually released to the public.
So while it is certainly possible that the filing still post-dates the release of the IntelliScreen software, I don't see how Apple can be expected to troll through every completely unsupported hacked up app for the iPhone just to see if something they've got planned to patent has already been thought up. That may not prevent the patent from being invalidated by the (potential) prior art of IntelliScreen, but it certainly puts the kibosh on the idea that Apple "stole" the idea. (I pay pretty close attention to news & stuff about the iPhone myself, and this is the first time I've heard about anything remotely resembling IntelliScreen, so it can't be a ubiquitous killer app).
But no, the truth, however obvious it may be, is boring. It's far, far more fun to run around screaming and pointing at Apple and saying, "THEY'RE STEALING OUR IDEAS! EVIL! EVIL!"
Good bleeding grief, Jonathan Zdziarski, grow up, get a clue, and stop trying to get page hits on your blog.
We have been trolled.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
It claims domestic priority from a provisional application filed January 7, 2007. Anything before that date counts as prior art, unless the inventors provide evidence that they invented the claimed invention before the prior art was published (which they can't do if the prior art was published more than a year before the effective filing date).
I'm sick of software patents, but I'm not sure it makes sense to blame Apple. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
Nope. Sorry. Bzzt. Wrong. No one would say don't hate the player if this were Microsoft or SCO. If a company behaves unethically or destructively I'll sure as hell hold those that run the company responsible. I'm tired of hearing how Apple's products "just work" and how the sun shines, the butterflies come out and rainbows appear if you'll just queue up for their days and buy their staff at launch. Corporate bullshit stinks just as much no matter the company. Companies can, will and should be held accountable for their actions.
And in case I have to spell that out more, any big company these days who has anything to do with software are going to file software patents whenever they think they might possibly be able to get one.
"In case I have to spell it out, serial killers kill innocent women and children when they think they might possibly be able to get one". Doesn't make it less heinous does it?
However, I do take serious issue with the patent system, and think it should be reformed.
At this point I can see nothing working for the patent system short of scraping it and starting afresh.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I'm, normally, a strong supporter of what you're advocating. It drives me crazy to hear people call software piracy "stealing" or "theft", as a way to trump of the seriousness. However, in this case it's, at least a little, more applicable. Through the use of our intellectual property laws (in this case the patent system) Apple will be denying the original owner/creator the right to market his invention. Of course, from a strictly literal standpoint, it still isn't concidered theft.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
-= alphaFlight =-
Actually, XP *does* tell you how many emails you have on its lock screen.
You mean the Windows Mobile "Home" screen? Why, yes, yes there is.
I think you're confused over what obvious means. It means easily discovered, seen, or understood. An idea can be new, and still be obvious. I just thought of adding a dancing baby to this patented idea. Can I patent that? Nobody thought of it before me.