Apple Sued Over OS X Quick Boot

An anonymous reader writes "With a patent originally owned by LG in tow, a Florida based company called Operating Systems Solutions LLC recently filed suit against Apple claiming that OS X's use of quick booting infringes the aforementioned patent." The company in question is a bit suspicious — having formed very recently — and so others are speculating it was created for a proxy battle against Apple by LG.

Comments

These patent lawsuits are getting out of hand.

[firex726]

These patent lawsuits are getting out of hand.

Everyone is suing everyone else, minimal innovation is happening and when it does it's from some upstart who gets buried the moment it makes a press release.

Re:These patent lawsuits are getting out of hand.

[Gaygirlie]

These patent lawsuits are getting out of hand.

You make it sound like they weren't _already_ out of hand.

Re:These patent lawsuits are getting out of hand.

[DurendalMac]

Everyone slings patent shit around. Kodak had basically patented putting an LCD on a camera and using that instead of a viewfinder, an idea that had certainly been around prior to Kodak's patent and had possibly been implemented before then, too. I'd have to go back and check. Yes, Apple is slinging stupid patent crap around. So is LG. So are just about all the major players in the industry, and everyone needs to knock it the hell off. Google is about the only one who hasn't gone willy-nilly with patents as they seem more interested in violating them than attacking with them.

Re:These patent lawsuits are getting out of hand.

[Baloroth]

I think you mean pre-iphone we had this. Look like anything you've seen before? Pics came out ~6 months before the iPhone was announced. Apple made it "cool", they didn't invent the modern smartphone by a long shot.

Re:These patent lawsuits are getting out of hand.

[Dragonslicer]

The LG Prada was announced December 12, 2006 and came out May 2007. Apple showed the iPhone January 9th 2007 and released it June 29th 2007.

To go from seeing the Prada in December to a workable prototype iPhone in less than a month would be very difficult. Apparently the Prada did win an award in Sept. 2006, but even if someone from Apple saw it then, that's still a huge leap to think Apple could design the iPhone and write iOS up enough to show it in Jan 2007.

The point isn't to show that Apple copied LG. The point is to show that a company other than Apple had the same idea before the iPhone was released. As for tablets, those have been around for 20+ years, Apple simply recognized that the hardware was finally good enough to make a marketable tablet.

Re:These patent lawsuits are getting out of hand.

[Cyberllama]

Taste of their own medicine? I take it you completely forgot about Nokia suing them, and Kodak before that? Or how about the company that sued them on the basis of the iPod's playlist?

To say that "Apple started it!" is extremely childish and naive.

But in the case of HTC and Samsung, Apple most certainly started it. It's like an elementary school. Some 6th grader beats up on a 4th grader, so he goes and picks on the 2nd graders. The 4th grader in question is no less a bully simply because he was bullied himself.

When Apple counter-sued Nokia, that was just perfectly reasonable self-defense. Nokia was the bad guy there. When they sued HTC with a collection of completely bogus patents simply because HTC had fewer patents for self-defense, Apple was being evil.

In the past few years we've seen some of the bigger and better-known names in tech resort to patent trolling simply because they find themselves falling behind their competitors due to a failure to innovate. Nokia, Microsoft and TiVo are all guilty. Apple, however, is about the only big name to start patent trolling before they hit their decline. They're doing it while on top. In that particular way, Apple's patent lawsuits are unique in the industry.

So while they certainly did not start the patent wars, they have definitely distinguished themselves with their misbehavior as of late and they undeniably did start the fights between HTC and Samsung.

Re:Prior art?

[DJRumpy]

I think this is the info you are hinting at. the patent in question specifically mentions config.sys and auto exec.bat, as well as POST processes.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/08/apple_sued_over_mac_x_fast_boot/

"The method for a quick boot process includes the steps of performing a power-on self test (POST) operation when a personal computer system is powered on or a reset button is pressed; performing a normal boot process after the POST operation; saving the contents of memory and the status of the attached devices to a hard disk; checking if a reboot is requested; restoring the saved boot configuration information from the hard disk, after POST is completed during the reboot process; checking whether or not an initial device configuration file and/or an automatic batch file were changed; and executing commands in the two files and saving a newly created boot configuration information to the hard disk for future boot," the patent reads.

"The personal computer system, may reboot quickly because of omission of execution of the initial device configuration filed and the automatic batch file."

Yes, the patent specifically discusses CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files, carefully laying out the entire boot process for an IBM PC running MS-DOS. But it says the scope of the method is broader. "Though the description hereinbefore may refer to terms commonly used in describing particular computer systems and software, such as IBM personal computer and Windows95 operation system, the concepts equally apply to other systems and software," it reads.