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David/Goliath Story Brewing Between Apple and iControlPad Makers
relliker writes "Apple has just patented a design for an iPhone gaming add-on after admitting that the iPhone is somewhat hard to use as a games machine. The catch is that the design is not theirs. It was designed by a team of gaming aficionados, one member of which, Craig 'craigix' Rothwell of OpenPandora fame, is already twittering like mad about the shot just fired by Apple in their direction. The iControlPad team are in contact with their IP lawyer, since their design is already in production. Will Apple still try to steamroll right through them?"
:-) EOM
No, Madoff had the gold and everyone wanted a piece. Since he couldn't pay off the govt he's serving a life sentence
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
That's fine and dandy, but you stil can't go around claiming someone stole your idea when you made no effort to protect it.
If you're not going to bother applying for a patent, you forfeit your right to decide who can and cannot implement your idea.
Prior art stops the second party from suing you over the patent, and may even invalidate it, but it doesn't grant you the rights of the patent holder, since, shock, gasp, you have to have applied for and be granted the patent to have those rights.
I'm pulling for Apple, personally - if you don't want anyone else to patent your idea, you should patent it before they do, even if you don't want to restrict anyone from implementing your method - get the patent and license it out freely.
Also, make damn well sure that what's being patented is in fact your method - hooking on analog controls via a chasis connected by serial connection doesn't quite qualify, and if you think it does, you forfeit ever complaining about vague patents in the future.