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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"
Palm, Nokia, and other phones have had equivalent software for years.
Apple frequently patents things and takes credit for other people's inventions. The company is evil.
Apple seems to enjoy patenting stuff that others have already come up with. Some time back, the filed a patent on voice menus, despite the fact that the rockbox project had already released such a feature(and, since rockbox development is in the open, the feature could be said to have been public even prerelease) and the Kenwood music keg had been selling with a similar feature for some time.
Slashdot also mentioned, a while back Apple's attempt to patent the same OLED keyboard that Art Lebedev has been showing pictures of since forever.
Apple does occasionally innovate, and they are quite good at executing "polished version of something somebody else did already; but not really well enough for the mass market"; but they have a downright nasty habit of patenting stuff that other people have already developed.
Except that by publishing NeXTStep and not patenting the idea, they have killed any legal possibility of patenting it later. Nevertheless, obviously the USPTO rubberstamps it even if it's illegal. The whole concept of patents today is designed to fail; when USPTO patents something, the patents leaves its jurisdiction. There's no incentive for USPTO to maintain the quality of patents. Consequently, in the US, you can patent virtually anything; no matter how obvious it is. You'll have to sue to kill the patent. Which you can't do unless you have a lot of extra cash or an omniously large patent portfolio of your own; and you'll have to be a megacorporation to have either. Hence, innovation is hindered, because you'll have to have backing of an oligarhic megacorp.
My XP box doesn't.
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