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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"
Really, GREAT job with this! I hope you don't get it, and are forced to pay all sorts of fines.
Sick of software patents. "Oh, this makes your screen tell you something is happening!" Yeah, real fucking original.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Someone should probably let them know that they can't do that...
Expect this behavior as long as it is financially beneficial to engage in it. There is no dis-inscentive for this type of lying. There is no reason NOT to do this if you can afford it. They could hit the jackpot with minimal risk.
Avast, Apple! Ye scurvy dogs may have forgotten that we be havin' this provision in our rules statin' that something ye patent must not already be bein' made by someone else.
Foolish landlubbers need to walk th' plank, says I!
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
The relevant patent seems to be roughly a year old. And the priority date on it is...? Whether or not Intellisync has priority (and, as with all these stories, whether the comparison of the patent to the existing product is even accurate), it seems pretty clear that Apple didn't "steal" the idea.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
"Apple is applying for a patent...which could be detrimental to the original manufacturer of the software, who is actively selling it for Jailbroken iPhones"
Wow. Patent against software being sold for illegal phones. I'd sue, but I'm not quite sure where to start on that one.
Uh, Konfabulator stole their widgets from NeXTStep.
Which is owned by who, again? Oh, right. Apple.
Shinma
Man, that Konfabulator vs Dashboard thing again? Didn't we already decide that Apple did it first? Like, 20 years ago?
If I could rearrange the keyboard, I'd put U and I together.
"OK, fuck it, we're evil. But you don't care because our stuff is sooo good. It works well. So bend over and TAKE IT from our patents. Or we'll make you use a Windows CE phone instead."
Mac users are surprised when things don't work well and smoothly; Windows users are surprised when they do. Microsoft wouldn't have had half the trouble with antitrust and crappy Seinfeld ads if their stuff actually worked.
Same with Google. "Sure, you're worried about our tentacles in your life. But it's not like you're going to use Windows Live Search. Muwaaaaahahaha."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
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.
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?
It doesn't fit into the sensationalist summary, but Mac OS 1 included desk accessories in 1984. Dashboard (and Konfabulator) are an updated version of that concept.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
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
Here is the patent application in question.
You'll notice the June 28, 2007 filing date. The earliest reference I can find to Intelliscreen is that it was in early beta in May of 2008. Indeed, Intelliborn didn't apply for a trademark on "Intelliscreen" until May 23, 2008 (TM App. Serial No. 77482276). Also note that the product requires a jailbroken iPhone. The iPhone wasn't even first jailbroken until July, 2007!
Thus, it seems almost certain that Apple came up with the idea long before Intelliborn had a product on the market and very likely long before Intelliborn came up with the idea at all.
People should understand that patent applications are (generally) not published the moment they are filed. Instead, they are usually published 18 months after the filing date. Just because we are now seeing the application does not mean that it was only now filed. In fact, it usually means just the opposite.
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.
Ye landlubbers never seen such a frightful sight as the Flyin Apple on the starboard with the Skull-n-Bones flyin.
Ay she's a fast ship the Flyin Apple. Her hull like dull silver. No good ever come of her. I've seen her come aboard a ship in the Carribbean and all the crew were turned to shredded paper!
ARRRRR!!
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Whatever, it's sad when a phone running a Microsoft OS is more open than one running UNIX. :p
Just be glad it's not a phone running Solaris.
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
CUPERTINO, Transylvania, Friday - After bricking unlocked iPhones, kicking applications off the iPhone store that might even slightly compete with iTunes in the far future, and filing a wave of patents on basic well-known computer science, Apple Inc. today filed a 10-Q with the Securities Exchange Commission declaring that it was openly adopting Evil(tm) as a corporate policy.
"Fuck it," said Steve Jobs to an audience of soul-mortgaged thralls, "we're evil. But our stuff is sooo good. You'll keep taking our abuse. You love it, you worm. Because our stuff is great. It's shiny and it works. It's not like you'll go back to a Windows Mobile phone. Ha! Ha!â
Steve Ballmer of Microsoft was incensed at the news. "Our evil is better than anyone's evil! No-one sweats the details of evil like Microsoft! Where's your antitrust trial, you polo-necked bozo? We've worked hard on our evil! Our Zune's as evil as an iPod any day! I won't let my kids use a lesser evil! We're going to do an ad about that! I'll be in it! With Jerry Seinfeld! Beat that! Asshole."
Sergey Brin of Google said, "Of course, we're still not evil. You can trust us on this. Every bit of data about you, your life and the house you live in is strictly a secret between you and our marketing department. But, hypothetically, if we were evil, it's not like you're going to use Windows Live Search. Ha! Ha! I'm sorry, that's my 'spreading good cheer' laugh. Really."
http://rocknerd.co.uk