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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"
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...
Uh, Konfabulator stole their widgets from NeXTStep.
Which is owned by who, again? Oh, right. Apple.
Shinma
"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
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
Without the players, there is no game.
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.
Without the players, there is no game.
My kids like to play punch-buggy...you know that game where when you see a volkswagen beetle, you get to punch anyone near you as long as you get your punch in first. My daughter, when she starts losing claims she's "not playing". This never deters my son, who sees this as an opportunity to roll on to victory completely unopposed. It seems that in punch-buggy, not playing means at best, everyone leaves you alone, and at worst, you get the crap kicked out of you constantly. Sorry...what were we talking about again?
If you read the patents you would see that Apple is doing something innovative in comparison to what Intellisync is doing. It's obvious, but also different.
Intellisync's idea is to provide you a message center while the lock screen is up.
Apple's patent is to provide you a message board before and after you dismiss the lock screen.
Right now no one does it. I haven't seen it anywhere in any OS or operating environment, and in that case it is innovation. Obvious, but innovative.
GPL Deconstructed