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"

Comments

App Store or "Patent Store"

[Anonymous Coward]

Apps are going to be mysteriously pulled from the App Store... with patents being filed by Apple soon after.

Well, yes. Why is that surprising?

[argent]

Or we'll make you use a Windows CE phone instead.

If you want a smartphone, you should be using a Windows CE, Palm OS, or Mokia phone. The iPhone is not an open platform in any sense of the word, and all the people acting shocked about it have been in denial for over a year.