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?"

Comments

Apple

[sexconker]

This is typical Apple behavior.
And they'll get away with it.
They always get away with it.

Re:Apple

[Vintermann]

and people who should know better will still jump on every new release because everyone else does.

Re:Apple

[Prophet of Nixon]

They used to pull this shit back in the 90s when I used them too. Back when System 7 was out, there were tons of freely available system extensions and control panels on the web, and small applications that added desktop gadgets and whatnot. Well, both System 7.5 and System 8 were nothing but Apple ripoffs of extensions and control panels stolen from the community and packaged into overpriced OS upgrades. Systems 7 and 7.5 even had compatible Finders (shells), there was practically nothing different about the OSs aside from the stolen extensions. I put up with that behavior then since at the time Apple was years ahead of the rest of the personal computer market, but I jumped ship as soon as I could get a good alternative.

Re:Apple

[Myopic]

Yeah I remember that. Apple was definitely borrowing some ideas. Some ideas, also, it purchased -- such as WindowShade, which was a third-party Control Panel which Apple straight-up bought and dropped wholesale into the OS.

However, when any OS, any piece of software, gets upgraded, the upgrades typically address the weakest parts. That means there is a natural overlap with the third-party add-ons, which also naturally address the weakest parts. Some of the implementations of these fixes are straightforward and obvious.

For example, consider AdBlock Plus. If Firefox were to implement a built-in content filter, the result might resemble AdBlock (or it might not). Would that mean Firefox ripped off AdBlock? Yeah, maybe, nor maybe not so much.

Really, it depends.

Re:Apple

[ensignyu]

There's really nothing wrong with copying ideas, and furthermore ideas can't be copyrighted. (And don't tell me that you're in favor of patenting this kind of stuff.) Otherwise, we wouldn't have the computer industry or really any other industry.

I do think credit should be given where credit is due, though.

Great: We know you love Product X so much, so we hired the developer / bought the company and we're including it in our OS.

• Good: We saw this awesome feature by Developer X, and now we're incorporating into our OS.
• OK: We're introducing this great feature as a core feature of our OS.
• Bad: We just invented this totally radical new feature. See what happens when innovative minds get to innovating new innovations.
• Worst: ... and boy, have we patented it.

Adding to the list of Apple's offensiveness

[erroneus]

Things like the Beatles owning the rights to the "Apple" brand and allowing them to use it so long as they stay out of the music business, and then doing the iTunes music store was bad enough... then challenging Apple Records over their name which predate's Apple Computer's? Putting a rightful competitor (Franklin) out of business when they improved on the Apple 2 computer they were allowed to create. There's probably a lot worse things that just aren't coming to mind at the moment and these multi-touch patent holders who were somehow unsuccessful in stopping Apple from selling their multi-touch devices and especially unsuccessful at preventing Apple from bringing new infringing devices to market.

Apple is a pretty evil company. I know... -1 troll, but new like this is bringing Apple closer to the level of Sony in my mind.

Why develop for the most closed company?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why people should think twice about making things for apple products. It is like operating in China, you can make a lot of money, but the big brother can pull the plug and smash you at any moment.

Re:Short answer:

[Nadaka]

They probably think they can get away with it because they have gotten away with it multiple times before.

USPTO uses first to file rule not first to invent

[presidenteloco]

If you file at USPTO in September 2008, you get
priority over inventions revealed by others as early
as October 2007.

Wacko system. Yes. But that's the way the US patent law
works. It basically means, file your patent as soon as designed, before you reveal your invention.

I'm not supporting this system. Just saying how it is currently
defined.

Re:The US' legal system follows the Golden Rule:

[Major Blud]

"He who has the gold makes the rules.
So yeah, Apple will try, and Apple will succeed in steamrolling through them."

Not necessarily. See BlackBerry vs. NTP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry

Heads , I win, Tails, You Lose.

[westlake]

How on earth does a company like Apple seem to think they can steal someone's idea and get away with it?

You can't patent an idea, you can only patent an implementation of an idea.

If Apple's controlller is significantly different - Apple wins because users rarely look beyond Apple and the Apple app store - and developers will follow their lead.

If the controllers are too much alike, Apple wins on the patent.

If Apple loses on the patent, it wins on mass production, shelf space, visibility, marketing - and price, if it chooses.

Re:Heads , I win, Tails, You Lose.

[butlerm]

You can't patent an idea, you can only patent an implementation of an idea.

That is the rhetoric, but in actual practice the raison d'etre of patent attorneys is to make the patents they write so broad that they encompass entire classifications of inventions. A land grab, more or less.

If an "implementation" were all that was at issue, in the field of software copyright would be more than adequate. Instead we get patents granted for the entire field of social networking implemented using the industry standard technology that has been around for decades. Or purchasing things on a web browser with one click. Or any conceivable copy on write filesystem, etc.

Re:Short answer:

[clone53421]

Independent invention is possible.

True enough... but it also throws the non-obviousness of the patent into question. If multiple people came up with the idea simultaneously it might have been obvious, and if so it shouldn’t be a patentable idea.

Wrong

[Dachannien]

The US is the only country in the world that has a first-to-invent system. Resolution of this (when two applicants each believe they separately invented the same invention) is called an "interference" between the two conflicting parties, in which each inventor attempts to prove that they were the true first inventor of the claimed invention.

For publications, the one year "grace period" is only guaranteed for one's own publications of an invention. If you publish an invention on 1 September 2007, you have one year, until the first business day on or after 1 September 2008, to file your application for that invention. But if the prior art is a publication authored by someone else, the grace period does not apply unless you can prove either (a) reduction to practice of the invention before the prior art date, or (b) complete conception of the invention before the prior art date coupled with due diligence until reduction to practice or the filing date.

Any publication more than one year before the filing date always counts as prior art, even if you can prove you had reduced your invention to practice before that publication - and even if the publication was your own work. Public use or sale in the US more than a year before the filing date also counts for this.

Did anyone else notice...

[BillX]

that the product is not the only piece of IP being steamrollered? As late as Nov. 09, posts on http://icontrolpad.com/ have referred to the product under the shortened name 'iPad' (or Ipad, or ipad). Apple's iPad announcement probably put a formal stop to that (Jan 2010?)

Re:The US' legal system follows the Golden Rule:

[cusco]

You shouldn't **have** to file for a patent just to make something. Patents are only for keeping other people from making something. If 20 companies want to make versions of the iControlPad that's fine, but apparently Apple feels the need to keep anyone but themselves from making a device like that (including the original inventor). Hope you enjoy your over-priced proprietary version (with trendy styling) of a product that could have cost a frack of a lot less if anyone but Apple were making it.

Even if the patent is invalidated the iControlPad guys are out in the cold, because Apple will drown them under a flood of lawyers.

Re:Short answer:

[clone53421]

After reading all TFAs, I found the relevant detail: According to the iControlPad guys, their idea predated the filing date on the patent (which was late 2008) by 6 months.

If this is well documented, it should be an open-and-shut case. Apple’s patent is invalid due to prior art. Since apparently iControlPad’s makers didn’t already patent it, Apple would be free to make a competing product, but they can’t patent it.

what else is new?

[pydev]

I looked through Apple's patents that they are asserting against Nokia and have been following Apple patents in general.

My observation has been that many of Apple's patents are write-ups of well-known techniques or even small variations on other people's existing products. This is the way Apple operates.

I'm glad this patent illustrates that a bit more clearly than others, but it's basically standard operating procedure for Apple.