Dutch Court Says Android 2.3 Violates Apple Patents

Patent, singular by Sockatume · 2011-08-24 21:37 · Score: 5, Informative

The court find that it violated one patent. It also decided that all of the other patents Apple cited were either not violated, or were likely to be invalid. Early days but it's pretty heavy stuff.

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No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?

Re:Patent, singular by migloo · 2011-08-24 22:26 · Score: 1

A patent on a finger gesture Eh?
Re:Patent, singular by DJRumpy · 2011-08-24 23:31 · Score: 5, Informative

Actually the court found the swipe to unlock gesture that was also under consideration 'obvious' while it held that the photo app used by Android was in violation. It's likely Android will simply update the app rather than license this from Apple. They are now getting into implementations rather than physical designs. I don't recall of the top of my head if there are any physical aspects to the Samsung lawsuits. I think those are currently going for Motorola or HTC in regards to slimline rocker switches. In any case, this was a natural extension of older physical methods being implemented in software. The next 20 years should prove interesting as more and more physical aspects of devices are implemented in software and digital realms.
For example, the swipe to unlock was lost due to a previous art that samsung submitted an image from a 1992 human interface design doc that discussed toggling 'switches' via a touch interface. This was the primary reason the judge found the patent 'obvious' and dismissed it.
I'm of two minds regarding software 'patents' when it comes to this sort of implementation. For instance, take something as simple as a music player of any type. Fully implemented in a digital medium now with only the 'box' holding the software itself doing all of the work where before with something like an 8-Track or Cassette required a full hardware implementation. I have to wonder if/when they will draw a line between the digital and physical realm for implementation.
In regards to the photo patent that Samsung lost on this one, it is yet another patent that was successfully leveraged against Android. Right or wrong, it is probably making smartphone vendors a bit nervous. There are some 50 lawsuits from various companies worldwide against Android. I'm doubtful that the Motorola purchase is going to be of much help against all of those, especially if they relate to Android rather than phone functinality.
Re:Patent, singular by impaledsunset · 2011-08-24 23:51 · Score: 1

Out of a dozen patents that should be either invalid or are invalid, the fact that the court recognized one as valid is still a loss, even if it is a small one. This is a victory for Apple, even if they "lost".
http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/description?CC=EP&NR=2059868A2&KC=A2&FT=D&date=20090520&DB=&locale=en_EP
Re:Patent, singular by Yvanhoe · 2011-08-25 00:07 · Score: 0

Anything a decent engineer can come up with when given the task to solve the problem at hand should not be patentable. Period.

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Re:Patent, singular by AVee · 2011-08-25 00:20 · Score: 1

Samsung did loose the photo patent, but only because the gesture was *exactly* identical. I took a look at the ruling (available online for those who can read Dutch). The judge basically narrowed the patent beyond what Apple claimed it covers. This is why the phone are infringing and the tablets are not, even though Apple claimed they are infringing as well. Because of the narrow interpretation it's trivial to avoid violation of the patent. So even there it's hardly a win for Apple, since it's now documented and widely published how you avoid this patent.

I also liked the reasoning for dropping the design class. Basically the judge agreed with Samsung that the similarities are functionality related, not strict design choices, e.g. you want a plate of glass wider than the screen to avoid an edge which will smudge when using the tablet, you want small bezels to maximize screen size and rounded corners because sharp corners are unpleasant and might cause wear on clothing etc. Once those things where eliminated from the model design Apple was basically left with a round button below the screen as an unique feature (on the front of the tablet) which is square on the Samsung devices. And the back of the devices isn't similar enough (by far) to violate a model registration. This is also a big loss for Apple because basically sticking a logo on the back and avoiding a round button below the screen is now officially[1] enough to make sure your tablet doesn't look like an iPad.

[1] This is ruling is only a preliminary injunction, a full case might still follow and the judges in Germany might rule differently. And of course, IANAL.
Re:Patent, singular by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 00:33 · Score: 0

King Pyrrhus said the same thing, victory. He also said, "one more like these, and we're done".
Re:Patent, singular by gbjbaanb · 2011-08-25 00:54 · Score: 2

disagree - anything a decent engineer can come up with to solve a problem can be patentable as long as he shows a full working system (even if not installed or directly implemented yet), and describes what it does.
what should not be patentable is the vague idea of something that someone might implement later.
In other words, if you actually do things, they should be patentable. If you just dream about them, they should not.
Re:Patent, singular by Dragonslicer · 2011-08-25 01:25 · Score: 1

disagree - anything a decent engineer can come up with to solve a problem can be patentable as long as he shows a full working system (even if not installed or directly implemented yet), and describes what it does.
Except that "anything a decent engineer can come up with" is, by definition, not inventive, but merely the result of ordinary skill in the art.
Re:Patent, singular by sorak · 2011-08-25 01:33 · Score: 1

I was always under the impression that patents were intended for inventions, formulas/equations, and processes.

Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Now, IANAL, and this could be a misinterpretation, but it sounds like "process" is just another word for "algorithm". Either way, you do have to ask, "why is it that we don't see new software as "digital inventions" if they do something that no previous software has done"? I shouldn't be able to patent an app that can accurately determine your life expectancy by scanning your palm, but I can patent a custom-made PC that contains that app? Why is that?
(Practical matters aside, of course).
Re:Patent, singular by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 02:23 · Score: 0

All they have to do is swapout the photo app and done, they don't even have to upgrade the android platform.
Re:Patent, singular by marnues · 2011-08-25 03:43 · Score: 1

Formulas and equations are NOT covered by patents. Math is not patentable. A process that utilizes a specific equation or algorithm IS patentable. And by process, it's meant a physical process. Of course this can come down to a machine (computer) processing an algorithm (software), but then this would require a description of the machine. Software patents are difficult reads because they have to invoke the latter thinking without running into the problem that software is just math.
Re:Patent, singular by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 03:56 · Score: 0

What this kind of thing does raise are interesting questions as to multi-region development. At some point it's just not feasible to develop different versions of the same product for an increasing number of regions where different court decisions have been passed. At that point future tech will either have to be incredibly bland and generic so that it's acceptable everywhere, or else countries and companies will have to start acknowledging the system is broken and stifling innovation.
Re:Patent, singular by CheerfulMacFanboy · 2011-08-25 04:52 · Score: 1

Anything a decent engineer can come up with when given the task to solve the problem at hand should not be patentable. Period.
Exactly - only stuff that madmen can dream of in their fevered dreams should be patentable.

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Fandroids hate facts.
Re:Patent, singular by DJRumpy · 2011-08-25 05:05 · Score: 2

If that were the case we wouldn't have any patents. That's something that I don't think would be good for business or competition. If someone (including an engineer) builds a system that performs some function and it turns out to be wildly successful, that person should have a short time of exclusivity to both reap reward from his or her idea, and to also allow time to recoup any research/development costs.
I do think the length of time now being used should be reduced to a sane amount of time (say 4-7 years).
Re:Patent, singular by CheerfulMacFanboy · 2011-08-25 05:15 · Score: 1

All they have to do is swapout the photo app and done, they don't even have to upgrade the android platform.
Yeah, and until they do, they can't sell any phones. And they will probably have to pay damages for all phones sold violating the patent. Piece of cake.

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Fandroids hate facts.
Re:Patent, singular by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 05:45 · Score: 0

In the US, the purpose of the patent system is to encourage innovation. Congress is empowered
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
The point is that a patent is not intended as a reward for doing something, it's intended as an *incentive* to do something --- to "promote the progress."
Much of what is patented in the tech world would have been implemented even if there were no patent system, because it's part of the design. It's hard to argue (seems to me) that such patents promote anything other than the wealth of lawyers.
When a drug company invests tens of millions of dollars over a decade engaging in R&D for a drug, I'm more inclined to believe that patent protection has truly "promoted the progress."
Re:Patent, singular by squizzar · 2011-08-25 06:25 · Score: 2

Sorry but you've missed the point. Here's an example: Let's say that someone develops a system that can record smells - a camera for bouquet if you will - in a numerical format. At a similar time someone develops a system that can reproduce a huge range of smells based on a numerical input. For argument these inventions will be considered public domain - no patents, licenses etc. Using them has all the legal liabilities of using addition. Now to you, me and anyone who is still reading this gibberish it is quite obvious that there is probably a way of taking the numbers from the first system and feeding them into the second to reproduce a smell. You could add in some storage to reproduce smells at a later point. You could add in a computer and process smells, combining them etc. You could put the machines at either end of the world via the internet and transmit smells. I'm sure that we could come up with a huge list of things that could be done, because given the two technologies there are _obvious_ applications. You argue that the first person to think of them should be granted a monopoly on them.
Patents should apply to the revolutionary and ground breaking inventions. The first transistor changed the world and is a patentable work. What we have at the moment is a situation where people patent 'using two transistors', 'using three transistors', 'using four transistors and a light bulb' as if they had come up with some revolutionary new invention, when actually all they did was join a few things together.
Re:Patent, singular by bws111 · 2011-08-25 06:39 · Score: 1

Not this stupid argument again. Where does this supposed requirement that someone with ordinary skill could not have come up with the idea come from? There is no such requirement. The only requirement related to that is the methods described by the patent are not OBVIOUS to someone with ordinary skill in the art. And here is the important part: the obviousness test is applied BEFORE that patent is made public.
If you describe the same problem to 10 different engineers, and they do not all come up with the exact same method of solution, then the patent is NOT obvious. Furthermore, if the solution requires any sort of research, etc, then by definition it is not obvious.
And what the hell do you mean anything an engineer can come up with is 'by definition, not inventive'? The definition of the word invent is 'to think up, devise, or fabricate in the mind'. That is something decent engineers do every day. I see nothing in the definition of 'invent' that implies any sort of extraordinary skill.
Re:Patent, singular by blair1q · 2011-08-25 06:49 · Score: 1

It's pretty irrelevant now that Google owns patents on basic cellphone technology.
Gonna be a bad day for Apple when they have to send every iPhone owner a software update and a sticker that says "iPod Touch".
Re:Patent, singular by DJRumpy · 2011-08-25 07:10 · Score: 1

Taken to the extreme, every idea has a basic root. In your example, the first two would definitely be patentable, and the third to my mind, would have to license the first and the second at least for a short time but the third would not be patentable.
The first two are NOT obvious considering I know of no program that can reproduce smells. I would consider that a new invention, just as I would consider a program or method for determining 'what' a smell was as being 'new'l.
Your extremes would suggest that a truck is 'obvious' since any large group of people could and did used to do the same thing by hand, possibly by throwing a bunch of 'stuff' on a table or some other surface and carrying a large pile of 'stuff' at once rather than separately. I absolutely agree that minor variations on a design that produce a very similar result should not be patentable but with limits. In your example above, I would consider the smell producing invention a root invention, and the smell detecting invention a root device, but the one that combines the two? Not so much unless it did so using an unexpected (read: non-obvioius) way. I'm assuming that's where you're going there with your transistor example, but implying that all inventions, just because they share the same root (or basic math) are 'obvious' simple doesn't make sense. If they were 'obvious' we would have MP3/AAC/MPEG/GUI's/Multi-tasking/etc decades ago when computers were first built. These things have evolved over time. That doesn't mean they were all evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
Smart phones are a good example. Before iOS, they were very physical in nature as far as input. All buttons, toggles, keyboards, where now we have an entire breed of almost purely digital means for input. I would consider that revolutionary rather than evolutionary.
That's why I said they need to inject a little sanity into the patent process to draw a line between the digital realm and the physical realm. I can foresee a huge number of physical implementations being designed in purely digital ways and if they were to eliminate patents, there would be no incentive to release the details of how it was done. One of the primary reasons for a patent was to put the 'how' into the public view so that others could eventually expand on that work and to cultivate new ideas, while allowing the creator to profit. It was a win/win situation that both rewarded the inventory and spurred competition and other (new) inventions.
Re:Patent, singular by bws111 · 2011-08-25 07:27 · Score: 2

What are you talking about? The purpose of patents (in the US anyway) is to "Promote the progress of science and the useful arts". Progress happens in small steps as well as giant leaps. Furthermore, the patent law starts out with "Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title." It does not say "Whoever invents or discovers something completely unlike anything the world has ever seen...". Just 'new' and 'useful'.
To use your example of the transistor: in the last 60 years we have progressed from that first (gigantic) transistor to the latest microprocessors capable of doing things not even dreamed of 60 years ago. By your bizarro definition, none of the steps that got us from there to here was progress and thus worthy of patent protection (after all, a microprocessor is nothing more than an arrangement of a few billion transisitors).
Your odor system example is likewise flawed. You can not patent an 'idea' or a 'concept', you patent a working thing. Yes, millions of people can say 'it would be cool if you could smell things in a TV show'. That is not patentable. The first person to actually make that work rightfully deserves a patent.

Just upgrade to a tablet OS... by ryanmcdonough · 2011-08-24 21:38 · Score: 2

Perfect. While you're at why not install windows xp on it to avoid patent issues.

Re:Just upgrade to a tablet OS... by realityimpaired · 2011-08-24 23:42 · Score: 1

... you do realize that Apple's lawsuit was about their contention that the Samsung Galaxy Tab was a ripoff of the iPad? Putting Honeycomb on a Galaxy Tab doesn't really seem like that much of a stretch....
Re:Just upgrade to a tablet OS... by ryanmcdonough · 2011-08-25 00:08 · Score: 1

... you do realize that Apple's lawsuit was about their contention that the Samsung Galaxy Tab was a ripoff of the iPad? Putting Honeycomb on a Galaxy Tab doesn't really seem like that much of a stretch....
"but said that Samsung could get around this simply by upgrading its phones to Android 3.0" Note, not tablets.
Re:Just upgrade to a tablet OS... by zebslash · 2011-08-25 00:12 · Score: 1

Because as the court noted, their tablets are already under Android 3.0, and therefore are not affected by the patent. That's what they meant.
Re:Just upgrade to a tablet OS... by funfail · 2011-08-25 00:17 · Score: 1

And the grand-grand-grand-parent reminds that Android 3.0 is a tablet operating system, not designed for phones.

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Re:Just upgrade to a tablet OS... by FranktehReaver · 2011-08-25 00:29 · Score: 1

It already has Android 3.0 in other words... The thing in question is the phones which is a courts uneducated in tech way of saying you need change the software. It would be odd to have a tablet OS on a phone... Right apple?
Re:Just upgrade to a tablet OS... by phatphoton · 2011-08-25 01:09 · Score: 1

I pretty sure 3.* was designed to be more compatible with tablets, not to say that it is not compatible with phones. If the 3.0 interfaces turned out to be the same as 2.3 on phones, than I wouldn't see much reason to upgrading to an experimental, closed OS when 2.3 is doing fine (save for this lawsuit).
Re:Just upgrade to a tablet OS... by zebslash · 2011-08-25 01:10 · Score: 1

Yes, but only the Gallery application is concerned by the violation. Thus it is not a OS problem, just changing the Gallery in Android 2.3.4 to match the version of Android 3.0. That is most probably trivial.
Re:Just upgrade to a tablet OS... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 03:50 · Score: 0

That's the issue. The UI is not even close to the same. It's incompatible for human usage on a small screen.
Re:Just upgrade to a tablet OS... by delinear · 2011-08-25 03:59 · Score: 1

Is it not just that the UI changes based on the device? It would seem crazy if 3 is purely tablet oriented, where is development of 2.* meant to go? It'd mean phones couldn't ever go beyond 2.* unless there was a merging in a future version (4?).
Re:Just upgrade to a tablet OS... by Belial6 · 2011-08-25 04:48 · Score: 1

As I understand it, Google needed to get a tablet optimized version of Android out sooner rather than later. Android 2.3 is in pretty good shape against iOS on phones, so they moved forward with 3.0 as a tablet OS with the intention of merging the two in the following version. This was to prevent the iPad from gaining an even larger first mover advantage. It was also to address the fact that tablet makers were going to sell Android tablets. Either Google get out a version that was optimized for tablets, or version 2.3 was going to get put on the tablets.

So, Google didn't abandon the phone OS, they just acknowledged that they needed to take a shortcut to tablets.
Re:Just upgrade to a tablet OS... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 05:26 · Score: 0

You do realize that there are an uncountable infinity of real numbers between 2.0 and 3.0, don't you? This is far larger than the set of integers.
Re:Just upgrade to a tablet OS... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 07:34 · Score: 0

Apple's lawsuit was about their contention that the Samsung Galaxy Tab was a ripoff of the iPad
ROFL... If you count Apple patenting designs dating back to 1600bc as innovative, then yes, that's what the lawsuit is about.
Since the patent is groundless, it's invalid. Apple hasn't a leg to stand on.
Re:Just upgrade to a tablet OS... by daver00 · 2011-08-25 14:38 · Score: 1

Android 3.1 will be a phone/tablet OS, the two are being merged.

Slightly confused by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 21:44 · Score: 0

I may be completely oblivious to the apparent change (which is possible since it is in the morning...) but, can someone point out what the actually change between 2.3 and 3x occurs that would void it from infringing Apples patent. It was pointed out that the 3x is used for the droid tablets but I am not entirely certain what exactly changes.

Re:Slightly confused by Sockatume · 2011-08-24 21:51 · Score: 2

I believe it uses a different gallery interface.

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Re:Slightly confused by amRadioHed · 2011-08-25 04:21 · Score: 1

Right, but how is it different is what we want to know.

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Re:Slightly confused by JorDan+Clock · 2011-08-25 04:23 · Score: 1

Android 2.x is for smartphones while Android 3.x is for tablets. This difference in purpose means a number of core apps, like the Pic Gallery, are very different in design and features.

How many ways are there to use a touchscreen ? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 21:44 · Score: 0

So users of 3.0 don't use "gestures on a touchscreen" for photo management ?

And how braindead is that patent ? It's a touchscreen : you don't control it by blinking at it.
Is there also a similar patent for use of "gestures on a touchscreen" for music management ? And for file management ?
Maybe a patent "use of gestures on a touchscreen" was not specific enough ?

Re:How many ways are there to use a touchscreen ? by Sockatume · 2011-08-24 21:46 · Score: 1

They don't use those particular gestures. There is more to a patent than its title, you know.

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No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Re:How many ways are there to use a touchscreen ? by gomiam · 2011-08-24 22:17 · Score: 2

There is less too ;) If gestures have been used once and again on touchscreens since decades ago I fail to understand how a patent about using a specific gesture for a specific task can even be considered.
Re:How many ways are there to use a touchscreen ? by Sockatume · 2011-08-24 22:39 · Score: 1

Right. I was answering the AC's question about why 3.0 doesn't infringe.

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No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Re:How many ways are there to use a touchscreen ? by MadJo · 2011-08-24 22:45 · Score: 1

Well the patent is about pre-showing the next or previous photo when sliding the current photo to the side. That's what Samsung was guilty off.

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Re:How many ways are there to use a touchscreen ? by Oxford_Comma_Lover · 2011-08-24 22:51 · Score: 1

Did anyone raise the PSM issue? Has that been decided by a court anywhere? Does it vary much by country?
I'm just thinking that in the US at least, there are strong arguments against patentability of a gesture.

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Re:How many ways are there to use a touchscreen ? by umghhh · 2011-08-25 00:35 · Score: 0

well and all I'd say is this: I show to Jobs a middle-finger-gesture - he should go and patent that!

I will never buy Apple products again by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 21:48 · Score: 0

I have an iPod, I have recommended an iPod Touch to someone who would not have bought one without that recommendation. I will never buy or recommend Apple again.

Re:I will never buy Apple products again by MightyYar · 2011-08-24 23:11 · Score: 3, Informative

Right, because Samsung doesn't hold any patents and doesn't enforce them.
Unless you are an LCD maker, of course.
And they would never sue anyone for simple writing an article poking fun at their glorious leader.

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Re:I will never buy Apple products again by erroneus · 2011-08-25 00:24 · Score: 1

Okay, I didn't want to know that -- now I think a lot less of Samsung. *sigh*
Re:I will never buy Apple products again by MightyYar · 2011-08-25 02:45 · Score: 1

All the companies suck :)

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W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.

Re:More Clean! Clean, Clean, Clean! by mdjnewman · 2011-08-24 21:49 · Score: 1

lolwut?

Apple lost in Dutch court, not the opposite by Simon+(S2) · 2011-08-24 21:51 · Score: 5, Informative

No matter what alarmists will tell you, net result is:

Samsung can continue to sell current Galaxy phones and must provide a trivial change to the picture gallery in the next 7 weeks.
Samsung can continue to sell the Gaöaxy Tab.
Apple has LOST all design and copyright related claims.
Apple has LOST the infringement claim on one patent and the court deemed a third patent broken anyway.

http://jan.wildeboer.net/2011/08/samsung-v-apple-in-nl-happy-selling-samsung/ [cache]

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Re:Apple lost in Dutch court, not the opposite by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 22:44 · Score: 0

That would then be the polar opposite of NOS's reporting.
The news report that they published only states that Samsung can't sell the three phones any more, although it also says that the tablet can still be sold and it also reports on Samsung's argument that the iPad's UI was stolen from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’.
P.S. NOS = Dutch Broadcasting Foundation. Of all the Dutch public broadcasters, it's the one mostly concerned with news.
Re:Apple lost in Dutch court, not the opposite by Serpents · 2011-08-24 22:55 · Score: 1

Samsung can continue to sell current Galaxy phones and must provide a trivial change to the picture gallery in the next 7 weeks.
Yes! new android version for galaxy S II! Also, Apple lost a battle in their game of suing anyone who looks funny at them. Dutch courts FTW!
Re:Apple lost in Dutch court, not the opposite by Oxford_Comma_Lover · 2011-08-24 22:56 · Score: 1

News reports are written for a deadline by people who know (sometimes) more than a layman in a given field and (usually much) less than an expert, often while using a standard template. They serve their purpose, but they aren't terribly accurate or reliable.

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-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Re:Apple lost in Dutch court, not the opposite by MightyYar · 2011-08-24 23:13 · Score: 1

new android version for galaxy S II!
Don't get your hopes up - they'll probably just delete the "next picture" and "previous picture" preview in the photo application.

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W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Re:Apple lost in Dutch court, not the opposite by hattig · 2011-08-24 23:35 · Score: 1

It would seem safer for them to ready Android 3.x for the devices as those versions have explicitly been okayed, rather than tweak a single application whilst keeping the version that has been deemed infringing.
What it also means is that Apple can go after all Android 2.x devices to get them barred from sale, if they use the same gallery application.
All it means is that all the phone makers will be forced to provide 3.x updates for their phones - thus in the end helping the Android infrastructure move forward from 2.x.
The only issue is how ready for deployment the phone variant of Android 3.x is - I believe it is 3.2 that will have to be used, and it's probably that it won't be ready in 7 weeks time. But maybe the Android 3 gallery application can be back-ported to 2.3 initially.
Re:Apple lost in Dutch court, not the opposite by thegarbz · 2011-08-25 01:45 · Score: 1

Samsung can continue to sell current Galaxy phones and must provide a trivial change to the picture gallery in the next 7 weeks.
If they actually need to have end users updated I say good luck to them. Optus only recently rolled out 2.3.3. Virgin, Telstra and other Australian carriers still haven't made the switch. The firmware was released in Europe in March. The carriers are REALLY slow in rolling out updates provided by Samsung.
I fully anticipate 0.1% of Galaxy users to have non-infringing firmware by sometime next year.
Re:Apple lost in Dutch court, not the opposite by SETIGuy · 2011-08-25 03:34 · Score: 1

They don't need an OS upgrade. They need a replacement for the "Gallery" app through the Marketplace. Of course, they can't really force users to take the upgrade.

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Re:Apple lost in Dutch court, not the opposite by Yamioni · 2011-08-25 05:20 · Score: 1

Don't forget the failure to fact and spell check the story before posting it. Surely that's not something the slashdot editors have a patent on, is it?

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Software patents in the EU?? by sosume · 2011-08-24 21:54 · Score: 1

I am really confused now. I thought software patents weren't valid in the EU? How can this happen? Did the members of the Europarliament sneakily approve software patents anyway? Wouldn't be the first time they ignored the population. (I didn't say voters; they are not elected and the EU is not democratic)
Can someone explain how software patents became valid in the EU?

Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Haedrian · 2011-08-24 21:57 · Score: 1

Software patents aren't valid.
HOWEVER, if you can make your software patent sound like a normal patent you might get around it.
"Use of a computer device to display images controlled by swiping motions" (something I just made up) doesn't sound much like a software patent.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Spad · 2011-08-24 22:00 · Score: 2

They aren't. It's not a software patent.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by pieterbos · 2011-08-24 22:01 · Score: 1

The software patents are probably 'a device that uses specific gestures to browse through photos.'
The european parliament is democratic and has elections every five years, since 1979. Check wikipedia. There may be lots of things wrong with it, but not that...
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Sockatume · 2011-08-24 22:02 · Score: 1

It amounts to a software claim in a patent for a whole device. It'll be interesting to see how the court takes the validity of that.

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No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 22:04 · Score: 0

Weasel words. Software-implemented inventions can be patented in the EU. It's not the software that gets patented, but a device behavior which is created with software. You see, then it's a physical aspect.
The patent system is rotten to the core. Not just software patents, the entire patent system. It needs to be done away with and replaced with nothing.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 22:13 · Score: 0

The software patents are probably 'a device that uses specific gestures to browse through photos.'
The european parliament is democratic and has elections every five years, since 1979. Check wikipedia. There may be lots of things wrong with it, but not that...
That's right, We in the UK also elect new figureheads every 5 years. But the senior civil servants remain in their posts for decades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_Prime_Minister
However, Wikipedia is IMHO wrong. "Yes, Prime Minister" was not a sitcom, it was a docu-drama.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by he-sk · 2011-08-24 22:16 · Score: 1

The members of the European Parliament are directly elected by the people of the EU. It is the European institution that has the best claim to democratic legitimacy.

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Free Manning, jail Obama.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 22:17 · Score: 1

All the EU parliament can really do is to delay legislation implemented by the commissioners & council of ministers, as while the EU parliament is elected, the council of ministers and the commissioners (who create the laws & policy) are appointed posts.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by gomiam · 2011-08-24 22:20 · Score: 1

I think I will try and patent turning a screw exactly four turns around. No, I'm not going to: it's as stupid as patenting specific hand gestures over a screen.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by sosume · 2011-08-24 22:38 · Score: 2

Yes it is. There are several things wrong with this patent.
1) "[0001] The disclosed embodiments relate generally to portable electronic devices, and more particularly, to portable devices for photo management, such as digital photographing, 5 photo editing, and emailing photos."
The Galaxy phone is a phone; not a portable device for photo management. Its main function is to call and provide PIM functionality. But this is not related to software patents.
2) "5 [0008] One aspect of the invention involves a computer-implemented method in which a portable electronic device with a touch screen: displays an array of thumbnail images corresponding to a set of photographic images; replaces the displayed array of thumbnail images with a user-selected photographic image upon detecting a user contact with a corresponding thumbnail image in the array, wherein the user-selected photographic image is"
The above is clearly software.
3) "programs. The one or more program are stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors. The one or more programs include: instructions for displaying an array of thumbnail images corresponding to a set of photographic images; instructions for detecting a scrolling gesture comprising a substantially vertical movement of user contact with the touch screen display; and instructions for responding to the scrolling"
Clearly describing software.
4) "[0012] Another aspect of the invention involves a computer-program product that includes a computer readable storage medium and a computer program mechanism embedded"
Also software. The whole patent describes a software program that is used on a generic touchscreen device and describes the user interaction with photos. Flowcharts and process descriptions are given.
I tried to find where I can object to this patent, but somehow it seems this is not possible with the EPO.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Serpents · 2011-08-24 22:57 · Score: 1

They're not valid as such but..
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Oxford_Comma_Lover · 2011-08-24 23:01 · Score: 2

The patent system is rotten to the core. Not just software patents, the entire patent system. It needs to be done away with and replaced with nothing.
Um. No. I know we tend to think patents are terrible because... well... most software patents stifle new innovation and are granted on things that we think are so obvious we could come up with them in a few minutes given the problem conditions. But even if that were true for software, it's not true, for example, in biopharm. It costs hundreds of millions, or even billions, to bring a drug to market. You either need a very good government grant system that is willing to spend money on wacky ideas too occasionally (so that you don't have the best-iron-lung-in-the-world problem), or you need patents.
You can reform patents. But if you want private industry doing product innovation, then for a lot of products, you need something like patent protection.

--
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by znerk · 2011-08-24 23:15 · Score: 1

They aren't. It's not a software patent.
Hmm... quacks like a duck...

--
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 23:24 · Score: 0

Private industry will do product innovation without patents. Why? Because if they did not, they would not profit. Innovation can be expensive, but when your choice is innovate or die, then you innovate. A company that can milk one innovation for many years, by keeping the competition completely out of the market or at a severe disadvantage due to licensing fees, has much less reason to keep innovating.
We tend to think that software patents are a special kind, but that's because software is "our turf". Have you ever wondered why the news always seems to be completely out of touch with the things that you're familiar with, while they always seem more competent on other topics? Well, they are not. The impression is a result of your perception being biased by your knowledge. The same is true for the patent system. It's just as broken in other fields as it is with regard to software.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by EvilAlphonso · 2011-08-24 23:37 · Score: 1

I didn't say voters; they are not elected and the EU is not democratic
Not confused, clueless about the institutions. The European Parliament members are elected every 5 years by deirect election (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2009). You must mix up Parliament and Commission.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 23:41 · Score: 0

reminds me of the slightly older habit of taking an existing idea or patent and adding "...on the Internet" to it. Bam, new patent.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by shellbeach · 2011-08-24 23:59 · Score: 1

But even if that were true for software, it's not true, for example, in biopharm. It costs hundreds of millions, or even billions, to bring a drug to market.

Sure, like evergreening drug patents is an excellent way to bring drugs to the masses ...!
When big pharma spends more R&D money on evergreening than on new drug discovery (which is currently the case) then the patent system has problems. Big problems. I agree that we need pharma, and that drug design driven by pharma is vitally important as governments simply don't have the money. But the patent system as it applies to pharma is still rotten to the core.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Oxford_Comma_Lover · 2011-08-25 00:01 · Score: 1

> The impression is a result of your perception being biased by your knowledge.

Well, I would hope so, for all impressions that I get, although that is not one of them. =)
Software costs comparatively little to develop, with one or two major exceptions. Drugs cost a lot, with some exceptions.
Of course there will always be innovation, even with no patents, but the objective isn't just innovation, it's innovation even when a drug costs billions to bring to market. The drug will only be worth bringing to market if it can't be reverse engineered and copied quickly by competitors. This isn't software patents, where you have a thousand patents involved in your laptop. This is where you have maybe one or two key patents involved in the drug.
There are some negative side-effects even in pharm, things that do desperately need fixing--but just getting rid of patents would be a mistake.

--
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Xest · 2011-08-25 00:18 · Score: 1

Yes, in part because it also uses proportional representation so is far more democratic than even national institutions like the British parliament where a party with 30% support can get effective 100% of power, and where 60% of voters votes don't even count.
For many Europeans such as those Brits stuck under the fucked up first past the post system, they actually have more of a vote in the European Parliament than they do in their national parliaments because the proportional system much more fairly recognises their vote. 1 vote in 400,000 people or whatever under a proportional system is still worth more than 1 vote in a 30,000 person safe seat under FPTP.
Calling the European Parliament undemocratic is rather amusing in the context of most Western democracies.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Teun · 2011-08-25 00:26 · Score: 1

as while the EU parliament is elected, the council of ministers and the commissioners (who create the laws & policy) are appointed posts.
Yes?
They are appointed by the elected governments of the constituting EU nations.

--
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 00:27 · Score: 0

Parliament are the ones blocking software patents, it's the Commission that is owned by corporations trying to push this shit through.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by troc · 2011-08-25 00:39 · Score: 1

I am not going to comment on the validity of the patent as such and please don't take what I'm saying as implying in any way that I believe the patent is valid or invalid. I've not analysed it and it's not in my field of expertise anyway. Saying that, I do have a few patent law (and specifically, European patent law) related bits of info you might like to read:
1) In patent law the words "suitable for" are always implicitly present in a statement such as:
The disclosed embodiments relate generally to portable electronic devices, and more particularly, to portable devices for photo management, such as digital photographing, 5 photo editing, and emailing photos."
In this case, the Galaxy phone is quite definitely suitable for photo management.
2) - 4) No it's not software, it's a method of performing something comprising a series of technical steps. The fact that is can be implemented on a computer, or using software is secondary and irrelevant. It is the method steps themselves which are the invention and upon which the patent is based and upon which the examiner(s) will base their decision. The extent of protection granted by a patent is governed by the claims and not the description. The description merely describes aspects of the invention and will also contain quite a lot of info which is directed at the prior art or to methods of implementing the invention. The mere mention of the word software in the description does not imply that the claims are software-based. Even worse would be to use the title and/or abstract to get angry about a patent. The abstract for example has no legal value whatsoever and has no bearing on the scope of protection offered by the claimed invention. The description is there to aid the skilled man in carrying out the invention AS CLAIMED in the CLAIMS.
The EPO does, of course, have legal mechanisms for objecting to a patent and any stage of it's passage through the EPO system. Up until it was granted, anyone could have filed a 3rd party observation with the EPO which would be read and acted upon (if relevant) by the examiner in charge of the case. The patent was granted on 2010-09-29. By law you could have opposed the patent within 6 months of that date by filing a notice of opposition with the EPO, a facility open to anyone. Once this date is passed, it is no longer the responsibility of the EPO to manage or administer the patent and you would need to go to the patent offices of the individual countries where the patent has been granted to seek redress. Every country has a mechanism for opposing or fighting a granted patent.
Please go and learn some (European) patent law.

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Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by umghhh · 2011-08-25 00:45 · Score: 1
So what you did is t his:
- found out what the patent is
- investigated which parts are not valid and why
- found out the patent is not valid
- found out that EPO is right in issuing the patent as it cannot be revoked
- profit?????
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by jrumney · 2011-08-25 01:01 · Score: 1

2) "5 [0008] One aspect of the invention involves a computer-implemented method in which a portable electronic device with a touch screen: displays an array of thumbnail images corresponding to a set of photographic images; replaces the displayed array of thumbnail images with a user-selected photographic image upon detecting a user contact with a corresponding thumbnail image in the array, wherein the user-selected photographic image is"

The above is clearly software.
And possibly just a little bit obvious to one skilled in the art.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by julesh · 2011-08-25 01:25 · Score: 1

am really confused now. I thought software patents weren't valid in the EU? How can this happen? Did the members of the Europarliament sneakily approve software patents anyway?
The law was never entirely clear. For a while it looked as though the way case law was going was that most software patents were invalid, with only a certain class valid (those that had a "technical effect", which is similar in some ways to the recent US appeal case that held that a mere calculation cannot be patented). Case law since then has widened the scope, but it's still much harder to get and enforce a software patent in the EU than it is in the US.
There was an effort a few years ago to get the european parliament to amend the law to include an outright rejection of software patents, but it failed, at least partially due to idiot MEPs who didn't understand what they were voting for (one of my local MEPs stated he voted against the amendment on the basis that he was ideologically opposed to the european parliament taking any action at all -- he votes against *all* bills, whether they are helpful or not).

Wouldn't be the first time they ignored the population. (I didn't say voters; they are not elected and the EU is not democratic)
The european parliament is elected; I'm not sure why you would think otherwise. You may perhaps be thinking of the Council of the European Union, the other legislative body of the EU, but they too are elected, albeit indirectly (they are members of the elected parliaments of each member state, nominated to the post by the head of government of their particular state -- a similar mechanism to the one used by the US Senate prior to the 17th amendment).
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 01:43 · Score: 0

no, the european parliament is in fact directly elected by the EU population.
democracy only works when people make an effort to stay informed, and vote when able to. if you're an EU citizen then you've apparently failed on both. the problem then is not the lack of elections.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by JasterBobaMereel · 2011-08-25 01:46 · Score: 1

Not directly elected - Because this is Proportional Representation, you vote for a candidate, they get less votes than another candidate and get in anyway, or you vote for a candidate and another person from the same party gets in because of your vote ...
First past the post is at least a vote for a candidate not a party ...

--
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 02:39 · Score: 0

You are obviously not new here, but is this the first patent discussion you've read on Slashdot?
Because you were lucky to find someone who read even the abstract. Many others here are angry after having read the title, and posting about how stupid it is to allow a patent for touching a touchscreen a certain way.
The person to whom you replied, despite having an argument that is factually incorrect in multiple places, is in the elite 5% of patent law thinkers here at Slashdot.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by EvilAlphonso · 2011-08-25 05:23 · Score: 1

At the same time, first past the post has the potential of denying the choice of 49.9% of the voters in a 2 party system...
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 06:58 · Score: 0

Yes, it's a software patent. The software controls the actions from the movements of the user via the interface.
It's not a mechanical device making something move physically, hence it's software.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 14:53 · Score: 0

The problem is that the essential claims in the patent are software claims (as stated by the patent itself) and moreover cannot (with present state of technology) be implemented in hardware, at least not in the use case the patent envisages. The patent is a software patent.
The reason the judge held the patent up as valid is not because the patent is valid according to European patent law, but because the judge didn't understand enough about hardware and software to understand the patent.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by troc · 2011-08-25 20:30 · Score: 1

Untrue. Yes, the claims in the document everyone keeps linking to and discussing are rubbish and should never be granted - indeed they weren't as that's merely the published application. If you look at the claims of the granted patent specification (and not the published application which everyone keeps linking to) http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?FT=D&date=20100929&DB=&locale=en_EP&CC=EP&NR=2059868B1&KC=B1 which actually define the scope of protection offered by the patent, you will see 2 independent claims. One is directed towards a method and is phrased in terms of method steps i.e. a series of actions to perform to obtain a desired event or result. The other is an apparatus claim, claiming the device that carries out the method of claim 1.
The method is "computer implemented" sure, but it's not software. Each step has a technical nature "do this, do that, wait for this to occur and then do something etc".
The claims don't claim software as such, they claim a method that can be carried out by software. It is, however the method itself which is granted (rightly or wrongly, I don't know, I don't work in this field) because that combination of method steps is, in the opinion of the examining division, new and inventive. The additional "feature" of it being computer implemented or "in software" is not inventive under the guidelines of the EPC and will have been treated as such.

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Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by advocate_one · 2011-08-25 22:59 · Score: 1

The method is "computer implemented" sure, but it's not software. Each step has a technical nature "do this, do that, wait for this to occur and then do something etc".
The Hardware's not fucking doing this though... the hardware is merely a touchscreen that is providing a series of coordinates that the SOFTWARE IS USING just like a computer mouse, trackball, graphics tablet or whatever would do for the software to act on... put the exact same software on a laptop or desktop computer and drive it with a mouse and it does the same thing... it's fucking obvious and should NEVER HAVE BEEN PATENTED IN THE FIRST PLACE... the only thing that could ever be patented about the touchscreen is just exactly how it provides the coordinates from the touch input
I'm getting really pissed off with software patents where they take an idea and add with a computer or with a touchscreen or whatever and expect it to be patentable...

--
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by troc · 2011-08-25 23:23 · Score: 1

It's a METHOD of doing something. You can view each step of the method as a little black box with an input from the previous step and an output to the next. It is irrelevant TO THE METHOD what is in each black box. It could be some hardware, it could be software, it could be a little fairy with a wand and some fairy dust. It doesn't matter. What matters is whether the method - as a series of technical steps - is novel and inventive.
Maybe the method steps are not actually novel or lack an inventive step, I don't know as I've not studied the patent and related prior art and I don't intend to, it's not my field of work. I can only assume my colleagues did a thorough job and found that the method being claimed was both novel and inventive. Implementing something in a computer or with software when that is the only difference to the prior art is not patentable under the EPC as lacking (amongst other things) inventive step. This is very clear if you understand European Patent Law. There must therefore have been, in the eyes of the examiners, something inventive in the particular series of method steps as claimed in the granted patent specification. The parts of the independent claims referring to computer implementation will not have formed part of that reasoning. Furthermore, the general public (and ALL of Apple's competitors) had years in which they could oppose and comment on the application before it was granted and nobody did.
I refer you back to my point - please learn some patent law before commenting on these cases. Yes, I've been around here a while and yes I know that most people comment on stuff here without reading the stories and without actually having any knowledge of the subject in question. I can usually resist but when people are choosing to mock my chosen career and the work carried out by my colleagues in the EPO, without any form of knowledge or study to back-up their obviously idiotic bias, it annoys me a tad.

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Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
Re:Software patents in the EU?? by JasterBobaMereel · 2011-08-30 00:10 · Score: 1

Last UK election the party in charge and who is currently making all the decisions (in a coalition) got 36.1% of the popular vote ...The previous government got 35.2% of the popular vote ...
Under PR (any method) both times they would have got slightly less seats, would still have formed a coalition with the same (minority) party, and ended up with the same situation ...
In the EU a coalition is in charge, because they have PR ...
We don't have a two party system in the UK or the EU ... This is not the USA?

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Puteulanus fenestra mortis

Mandatory Android 3.0? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 21:56 · Score: 0

Does this mean that they are required to release android 3.0 upgrades to all phones or only to new phones?

(did not rtfa)

Re:Mandatory Android 3.0? by julesh · 2011-08-25 01:28 · Score: 1

Seeing as Android 3.0 reportedly does not work on phones, my suspicion is that you will just see the necessary changes backported to the 2.x series.
Re:Mandatory Android 3.0? by BatGnat · 2011-08-25 08:26 · Score: 1

It does work. But google has not released the code for android 3, and told manufacturers to not put it on phones. If you run 3 on a mobile device with a res of 800x480 or less, you will get the traditional interface (not the new tablet one). XDA had a copy of 3 on the Galaxy S that someone had hacked together, but was missing a lot of drivers as samsung has not release anything(and was useless as a phone because of it).

A Victory for Consumers by Haedrian · 2011-08-24 21:59 · Score: 1

"but said that Samsung could get around this simply by upgrading its phones to Android 3.0."

Good, I've been waiting for an upgrade to 3.0.

Thank you European Court.

Re:A Victory for Consumers by zarzu · 2011-08-24 23:02 · Score: 1

3.0 is only for tablets, so they won't update the phones to it. Next major update for phones will be Ice Cream Sandwich which isn't out yet.
Re:A Victory for Consumers by thegarbz · 2011-08-25 01:54 · Score: 1

Boy did you get this backwards.
Samsung will not upgrade to 3.0 (a tablet OS) for the phone. They will either simply remove their customized version of the gallery or release an update for it involving a whole 5min of coding.
Also how on earth can a court claim an animation that happens when a user doesn't flick his finger properly violates a patent be considered a win for consumers. If anything it just shows how absurd the patent system is and how trivial it is to reduce competition in the market.

Sigh... by JackpotMonkey · 2011-08-24 22:00 · Score: 1

Yet another reason not to listen to people who wear wooden shoes.

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______ Eagles may fly but monkeys don't get sucked into jet engines.

Re:Sigh... by pieterbos · 2011-08-24 22:03 · Score: 3, Interesting

not to listen? They refused all claims except a rather trivial one that can be easily fixed. You should definately listen to us :)
Re:Sigh... by heathen_01 · 2011-08-24 22:21 · Score: 1

Except the trivial one is a software patent.
Re:Sigh... by Cwix · 2011-08-24 22:29 · Score: 1

Yes, the wooden clad ones have earned high praise in my book today.

--
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Re:Sigh... by sorak · 2011-08-25 01:40 · Score: 1

Yet another reason not to listen to people who wear wooden shoes.
I'm sorry, but we have lost the right to make fun of other people's shoes.
Re:Sigh... by mjwx · 2011-08-25 13:17 · Score: 1

not to listen? They refused all claims except a rather trivial one that can be easily fixed. You should definately listen to us :)
Plus those wooden shoes hurt when you throw them.

I for one welcome our new windmill-building, beer brewing clogverlords, as a person of some influence may be useful in rounding up others to toil in your underground breweries (for a small sample of the produce of course).

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Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.

This is about a preliminary injunction by gnasher719 · 2011-08-24 22:10 · Score: 1

The judge decided only whether what Apple presented was enough to get a preliminary injunction or not. It is about stopping Samsung from selling right now or not. So this judge doesn't decide whether patents are valid or not. He decides whether he or she thinks that the patents would be found valid and infringed in a real court case. All the patents will be looked at for real at a later stage.

Re:This is about a preliminary injunction by servies · 2011-08-24 22:19 · Score: 2

Incorrect: the judge in this case rejected all the other patents Apple brought in... This was not for a preliminary injunction, that case is still pending in Germany and probably will be hugely influenced by this outcome...
Re:This is about a preliminary injunction by Asic+Eng · 2011-08-24 22:30 · Score: 1

that case is still pending in Germany and probably will be hugely influenced by this outcome
That's possible I suppose, but it shouldn't. The case in Germany is solely about the shape of the device, not about the software.
Re:This is about a preliminary injunction by Serpents · 2011-08-24 23:29 · Score: 1

So let's hope the German case will be influenced by the fact that Apple provided doctored images comparing iPad to Galaxy tab, and iPhone to Galaxy S II as evidence
Re:This is about a preliminary injunction by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 23:36 · Score: 2, Informative

Mod this up. The parent is right. These are expedited proceedings that only cover the question whether there is enough ground for a preliminary injunction.
IANAL, but here are some interesting snippets from the court's findings:
4.18 The court issues a preliminary judgement that the implementation used in the Galaxy S, SII and Ace is covered by EP868.
4.19 Samsung has posited that patent EP868 would be nullified by prior art WO458. However, WO458 does not in any way describe or allude to the "bounce on first move" approach covered in EP868. Therefore, EP868 is presumed valid by this court.
4.21 The GalaxyTab devices do not implement a "bounce on first move" approach. Therefore, those implementations are covered by WO458 and do not infringe on EP868.
4.35 The Samsung products are not covered by EP948 because the patent explicitly associates one "exclusive touch flag" with each view. Samsung's devices allow the association of multiple "exclusive touch flags" with each view [red: WTF?]
4.45 This court finds that there is a reasonable chance that EP022 will be found invalid in a reexamination procedure. A preliminary injunction based on this patent is therefore denied.
4.49 The court finds that there is no infringement on any Apple community designs. Contrary to Apple's assessment, only features as covered by the designs filed are eligible for protection. Physical devices based on those designs are not protected.
4.50 Assuming that CD181607 is valid, Samsung's GalaxyTab designs are unique enough to not be infringing. This is based on the observation that only the front side of the 'Tabs bear similarity, and that the front design as filed was known before the filing date [citing HP Compaq TC1000 as prior art]
4.54 regarding Apple's assertion of a "minimalist" design: minimalist implies that the design is predominantly determined by its features and ergonomics. Features such as transparent touch-surface and rounded corners are therefore not eligible for design protection, as a monopoly forces competitors to make compromise on the functionality of their designs.
4.66/4.74/4.85 from the prior items it must be concluded that the design CD748280/CD888920 and the Galaxy S/Ace will not leave the same impression on an informed user. Apple's market research findings do not sway the court to judge otherwise.
4.75 Regarding CD748694: since the design as filed does not suggest that the particular icons are ineligible for protection, the depicted icons will be considered along with their arrangement. Apple failed to supply a model in which the icons are replaced with empty squares. Also noted is that only the design as marketed by Samsung is viable for infringement. User modifications can not play a role in this process.
4.76 The Nokia 7710 predates Apple's CD748694 filing and covers much of the design: four coloured icons per row, each icon contained in a bezeled square with rounded corners, single-colour background. Black as a background colour is not eligible for protection either because that is a technical exponent (the screen itself is black, so leaving it black conserves power).
4.86 Samsung has succesfully argued that Apple's designs originate from the United States and those works do not enjoy copyright protection over there. It follows from the Bern Convention's article 2-7 that such a protection will then not be granted in The Netherlands.
My reading, all in all, is that Apple got their ass handed to them. The judge for the most part didn't even need to rule on the designs themselves.
Re:This is about a preliminary injunction by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 00:10 · Score: 0

That's possible I suppose, but it shouldn't. The case in Germany is solely about the shape of the device, not about the software.
This case concerns both. More detailed coverage here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14652482 including "However, the judge rejected several other patent issues, as well as Apple's claim that Samsung had stolen many of its design ideas."

Confusing by MrDoh! · 2011-08-24 22:14 · Score: 1

Looking at a 3.0 gallery app, and the 2.3 gallery app, they appear to do the same thing.
Wonder what the difference actually is that allows one to be ok and the other not.

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Waiting for an amusing sig.

Re:Confusing by Sockatume · 2011-08-24 22:40 · Score: 1

Given that patents are supposed to be about how your invention does something and not what it does, one would hope that this sort of thing happened more often.

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No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Re:Confusing by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 23:47 · Score: 0

see my post here, item 4.21
Re:Confusing by thegarbz · 2011-08-25 01:59 · Score: 1

Who knows, the patent seems to have some 40 claims to cover waving a fucking finger.

Re:Sigh. Trust the courts. by gl4ss · 2011-08-24 22:31 · Score: 2

the photo patent is just about a certain navigation? one that isn't particularly good either.

apples design is easy to infringe because it's actually got no design.. it's the bare minimum. galaxies have more stuff(two capacitive buttons).

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world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.

A fine example of... by Lumpy · 2011-08-24 22:32 · Score: 0

Software patents stifling progress. There is no honest use for software patents. They need to eliminate them if we are to actually encourage development and design.

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Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.

Re:A fine example of... by mwvdlee · 2011-08-24 22:54 · Score: 3, Insightful

There is no honest use for software patents.
Yes there is. Some software methods do require the investment and effort which patents are supposed to temporarily protect. The problem is the duration of "temporary"; only a few years should be enough for software IMHO. And ofcourse the issue that most software patents require very little investment and effort; their implementation may take more time and money, but that's what copyright is for.

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Re:A fine example of... by camperdave · 2011-08-25 01:24 · Score: 1

A patent (or copyright) should protect you for exactly one year. Each year you want protection, you buy another year's worth. Each year you buy costs twice what it did the previous year. Problem solved.

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When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Re:A fine example of... by fnj · 2011-08-25 02:54 · Score: 2

The concept of patents is only valid if you buy into the obsolete idea that any kind of patents really serve the public interest. Propping up capitalist self interest by government interference this way is only justified by the idea that it serves the public interest. We are expected to believe that innovation will be stifled unless it feeds greed. Would the cotton gin not have been invented without patent protection? It seems perverse to think so. I certainly don't buy that idea.
Re:A fine example of... by mwvdlee · 2011-08-25 19:08 · Score: 1

The public interest is (supposed to be) the public disclosure of the methods used, which would be free to implement after the patent expires.
And if patents lasted short enough, this public interest might actually be worth it. Sadly, the duration of patents is no longer based on what is best for the public but has shifted to what is best for the patent owners.

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Re:A fine example of... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-26 01:40 · Score: 0

There is no honest use for software patents.
Yes there is.
No, there isn't.
Investment and effort has nothing to do with whether something should be subject to patent protection or not.

This is all very odd... by jools33 · 2011-08-24 22:41 · Score: 1

Correct me if I'm wrong here - but I'm pretty sure that Android 3.0 is for tablets and not for phones.
Also why is Samsung being sued and found at fault for a software feature in an operating system that it does not own / write - its just a partner / vendor of Android - not the originator of the OS - so surely this should be a finding against Google - and not Samsung. I wonder what that dutch court is smoking...

Re:This is all very odd... by F.Ultra · 2011-08-24 22:51 · Score: 3, Informative

Every one in the chain, including the end user, is viable for patent infringement. So it does not matter who made the software, Samsung uses the software / distributes it so Samsung can be sued in a patent court. If Apple knew that you as an end user had millions they could have sued you as well (there is a case where some end users of MS SQL got sued do the patent infringement some years ago).
Re:This is all very odd... by jools33 · 2011-08-24 23:08 · Score: 1

Thanks for the informative reply (I'd mod you up if I could) - I hadn't realised that patent law worked quite like that. I doubt that end users can be sued - unless they can be proven to be profiting directly from their end user activities that violate the patent - also I would imagine that this interpretation of patent law probably varies per country - which is another reason why a European ban enforced by a single European country based on patent law - is unusual - as the interpretation of patent law across the EU is different in each member state.
Re:This is all very odd... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 23:20 · Score: 0

schmoking the pancakesch!
Re:This is all very odd... by znerk · 2011-08-24 23:39 · Score: 1

This is not a Google-written application... it was written by Samsung, thus that's who got sued.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Re:This is all very odd... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 00:22 · Score: 0

Apple doesn't want Samsung's money. They want to *block* all competition by any means possible.
Re:This is all very odd... by jrumney · 2011-08-25 01:13 · Score: 1

I doubt that end users can be sued - unless they can be proven to be profiting directly from their end user activities that violate the patent
It's not so much that they can't be, more that it isn't profitable chasing each individual infringement one by one. The damages due for each individual infringement wouldn't pay enough for the lawyer's secretary to write "John Doe" on the court filing, let alone track them down and collect the damages.
Re:This is all very odd... by sorak · 2011-08-25 01:46 · Score: 1

During the SCO case, Microsoft was touting that Windows provides "indemnification" against law suits. My memory is quite hazy, but that's where I first heard that term. Apparently, one of the advantages of closed source is that you can legally CYA better than with open source. In fact I wrote a paper discussing the possibility of a company intentionally contributing their own code to a competing open source project so that they would have the option to sue if the project got too big. (IANAL, btw)
Re:This is all very odd... by silentcoder · 2011-08-25 02:04 · Score: 1

Nope parent is right. End user's can be sued, and in rare cases HAVE been sued. It's very rare because there usually aren't enough of them but it has happened and can happen again.
There have even been cases where users of a piece of software received downgrades in the mail after the vendor's only recourse to a patent troll was to remove a feature, the downgrades came with a letter informing the users that removing the feature upstream protects the vendors but if they fail to install the downgrade they themselves would be sued and the owner of the patent has threatened to do so.
Probably the most famous case of actual end-users being sued was the Compuserv patent on GIF images. In the late 90's they sued websites for having gif images on their site without a license. They couldn't possibly get them all but they sued many, many of them. Not only did they demand licenses from gif creating software - but from users for having images in the format, most easily caught if they put them on a website.
That patent has since expired though but it was directly responsible for the creation of the mng format and the addition of animation support to png - png itself was created to work around several patents in the compress algorithm used in jpg for which the patent owners had threatened to sue users (though I don't think they ever actually did so).

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Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Re:This is all very odd... by silentcoder · 2011-08-25 02:06 · Score: 1

>. It's very rare because there usually aren't enough of them but it has happened and can happen again.
Sorry, I put that horribly, I meant there usually aren't enough money to be made that way - you have to sue them individually for amounts they may actually pay. Generally the companies demand a license fee rather than going straight to filing suit and would only go to suit if the users don't pay the license fee.
That has happened many times already.

--
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Re:This is all very odd... by ais523 · 2011-08-25 08:53 · Score: 1

(IANAL...) Indemnification is basically an insurance against being sued over a particular product; if you're indemnified to do something and get in legal trouble for doing so, the person indemnifying you had better pay up. You can be indemnified for use of open source products just the same as closed source products, but you're probably going to have to pay someone for that rather than have it included in the price of the product. (I don't know how many, or any, closed source products do indemnify their users, though. More commonly, they ask their users to indemnify the makers of the software against problems resulting from their use of it...)

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(1)DOCOMEFROM!2~.2'~#1WHILE:1<-"'?.1$.2'~'"':1/.1$.2'~#0"$#65535'"$"'"'&.1$.2'~'#0$#65535'"$#0'~#32767$#1"

Summary is quite bad. by RedK · 2011-08-24 22:42 · Score: 5, Informative

Wow, did the summary ever get this wrong. The court said that the Samsung supplied Photo Gallery application infringes on an Apple patent related to a swipe gesture to move from picture to picture that bounces back to the current picture if the swipe is not completed.

The default Android Photo Gallery application does not do this, but Samsung customized the version included on its phones with TouchWiz (hence the Nexus S does not infringe and is not part of the ban or the Tab 10.1 that uses stock Android too) to replicate this functionality of iOS.

Also, the solution is not to provide Android 3.0 for the phones, Samsung will simply remove this extra functionality from the application (either by reverting back to the stock Android application or by simply removing it from their customized app) and provide an update for the affected models, thus negating the ban.

--
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM

Re:Summary is quite bad. by Sockatume · 2011-08-24 23:28 · Score: 1

They've already announced that an update is on the way for the affected devices, removing the offending animation. Given that the decision's not effective for about two months I think they'll have it fixed before it even becomes an issue.

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No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Re:Summary is quite bad. by impaledsunset · 2011-08-24 23:53 · Score: 1

It's still bad that such simple idea is patentable according to the court.
Re:Summary is quite bad. by tlhIngan · 2011-08-25 04:09 · Score: 1

The default Android Photo Gallery application does not do this, but Samsung customized the version included on its phones with TouchWiz (hence the Nexus S does not infringe and is not part of the ban or the Tab 10.1 that uses stock Android too) to replicate this functionality of iOS.
In other words, Apple got Samsung to do what Android users could not. Get rid of TouchWiz.
There would be much rejoicing in the Android world when things liek TouchWiz, MOTOBLUR, HTC Sense and other crap disappear.
Perhaps Apple can sue to keep carriers from preloading crap on the phones too?

Steve Jobs is dead by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 22:47 · Score: 0

Mister Steve Jobs is dead so who cares about your 'patents' thing?

Re:More Clean! Clean, Clean, Clean! by MightyYar · 2011-08-24 23:01 · Score: 1

I have to assume that it's a ploy to get them in trouble for spamming. The copy is way too close to sarcasm.

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W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.

Re:More Clean! Clean, Clean, Clean! by CRCulver · 2011-08-24 23:04 · Score: 1

Awesome. This is the sort of creative trolling that I still visit Slashdot to see.

Re:Sigh. Trust the courts. by pacinpm · 2011-08-24 23:05 · Score: 1

[...] just have a look at a random phone vendor's page and see which ones look just like the iPhone... and blow me down [...]

I would but unfortunately this page is blocked in my country and all I can see is this message:

Thanks for visiting the O2 Online Shop Unfortunately, we are unable to sell to countries outside the UK.

I really can't understand this obsession with blocking. They can't possible get enough traffic from outside of UK to justify it.

Numbered releases by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 23:11 · Score: 0

Isn't it much easier to remember the difference between Android releases when using numbers? I can never remember if it's "Honeycomb" or "Gingerbread" that is the new one... And which one is is the tablet-only release again? Now I will at least know that 3.0 is the tablet-only release. It's maybe not quite as exciting, but I wish more people could stick to using numbers when talking about Android releases. (sorry for the off-topic)

Re:Numbered releases by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 01:49 · Score: 0

Learn your alphabet. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ. Then learn how to spell the first letter of words like Gingerbread and Honeycomb. Where do you think Ice cream sandwich fits in that sequence?

Mark parent troll. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 23:23 · Score: 0

Typical.

Samsung gets away with copying the distinctive look of the iPhone* to an extent that most other smartphone vendors have managed to avoid.

Then they get done for infringing a stupid software patent about scrolling photos, which shouldn't even exist in Europe but has been sneaked in dressed up as a hardware patent, which could be a royal pain for anybody trying to make a smartphone.

* Forget Apple's allegedly doctored/cherry-picked images - just have a look at a random phone vendor's page and see which ones look just like the iPhone... and blow me down, why are O2 using Apple's "fake" image of the Galaxy S: you know, the one that displaying the grid of icons instead of the Android home screen? Apart, perhaps, from the HTC HD7, all the other phones manage to incorporate the essential features of a touchscreen smartphone without looking just like an iPhone.

Am I understanding you correctly? You're bitching because the default android app picker is on the screen, instead of the home screen? Why not get bent out of shape if I show a picture of my phone playing streaming audio with the Pandora app, for the sake of being utterly retarded? Barring that, what would you suggest for a method of displaying the applications available on an electronic device, aside from using the familiar "icons" that almost any user will understand to be a small picture that starts the application when touched?

I mean, really?
For serious?

Re:More Clean! Clean, Clean, Clean! by znerk · 2011-08-24 23:29 · Score: 1

I actually assumed that domainsbyproxy was a scam/spam intended to get the email addresses of the people offended enough to say something (ie, the ones who were paying attention).

They require a full name and email address to report a domain, and their "secure site" uses flash/javascript.

Of course, I could just be being paranoid... but not giving out my email address never got it phished.

--
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

1/10000 of the functionality by Pastis · 2011-08-24 23:35 · Score: 3, Insightful

So one can block the sale of a device on a whole continent because it possibly infringes on a functionality that represents 1/10000 of the default functionality of the phone. My phone can call, video call, chat, do my email, take and edit videos, upload pictures to the net, scan bar codes for maintaining list of books and dvds, do anything a browser can do, play games like a console, be my alarm clock, and I can't buy it because of the way it reacts if I scroll half way my pictures in the photo editor ?

This is just wrong.

--
Sneak teach kids Algebra using a game

Re:1/10000 of the functionality by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 23:49 · Score: 0

Yes, something is a direct copy, that something is infringing. How large the part of the functionality is, is not for a judge to decide. The decision is, that Samsung has 1,5 month to commit changes to remove this feature. Since it is small, this should be easy.
Overall win was for Samsung however, in large part, Apple does not get what it wants, this minor victory is peanuts compared to the initial charge was, and does not entail new products.
Re:1/10000 of the functionality by jedidiah · 2011-08-25 00:51 · Score: 1

"How Large" is very much something for the judge to decide. It is entirely up to him how punitive he wants to be and how much damage he wants to inflict on the "perpetrator". He has the option to act in a more just manner.
That's why he's there to begin with.
The idea that an OS should be banned because of something like minesweeper just shows a fundemental misunderstanding of technology.

--
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:1/10000 of the functionality by Dragonslicer · 2011-08-25 01:43 · Score: 1

"How Large" is very much something for the judge to decide. It is entirely up to him how punitive he wants to be and how much damage he wants to inflict on the "perpetrator". He has the option to act in a more just manner.
I don't know exactly how the courts for the EU and the individual members work, but in the United States, there are two "courts" for patent infringement, the regular judicial courts and the International Trade Comission (ITC). The ITC is part of the executive, and the only remedy it has is to block the import of products. A regular court could in theory award $100 in damages (not that they ever would award an amount that small, but you get the point), but the ITC has no authority to award damages.
Re:1/10000 of the functionality by rocket+rancher · 2011-08-25 02:27 · Score: 1

So one can block the sale of a device on a whole continent because it possibly infringes on a functionality that represents 1/10000 of the default functionality of the phone. My phone can call, video call, chat, do my email, take and edit videos, upload pictures to the net, scan bar codes for maintaining list of books and dvds, do anything a browser can do, play games like a console, be my alarm clock, and I can't buy it because of the way it reacts if I scroll half way my pictures in the photo editor ? This is just wrong.
No, it's fucking A right. Using existing law to reduce competition is morally, ethically, and economically sound. If you disagree with the existing law, get it changed.
Re:1/10000 of the functionality by tepples · 2011-08-25 06:35 · Score: 1

My phone can [...] do anything a browser can do
Including run SWF objects and Java applets?

play games like a console
Can it play games in genres that handle better with a D-pad than with a touch screen? Can it plug into a TV or TV-sized monitor and play games with more than one person per device, such as if you have friends over at your place and they don't have 1. the same kind of phone and 2. a copy of the same game? If not, then it isn't entirely "like a console".
Re:1/10000 of the functionality by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 07:32 · Score: 0

So one can block the sale of a device on a whole continent because it possibly infringes on a functionality that represents 1/10000 of the default functionality of the phone. My phone can call, video call, chat, do my email, take and edit videos, upload pictures to the net, scan bar codes for maintaining list of books and dvds, do anything a browser can do, play games like a console, be my alarm clock, and I can't buy it because of the way it reacts if I scroll half way my pictures in the photo editor ?
This is just wrong.
You read my mind.
Re:1/10000 of the functionality by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 09:54 · Score: 0

Your phone is simply doing too much and you know it! Please hand it in for a nice NOKIA 5110. All you ever needed anyways.
This is simply the market correcting itself towards the mean of mediocricy.

Re:Clean everything! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-24 23:48 · Score: 0

This advertisement was brought to you courtesy of Microsoft's vast Windows malware ecosystem.

* MyCleanPC requires Microsoft Windows
* Most viruses run on Microsoft Windows

Meaningless victory by bhunachchicken · 2011-08-24 23:48 · Score: 0

As I understand it, the following are true:

1. Samsung only violated 1 of the patents brought before them.
2. They need only update the photo software in the phones they now ship, rather than the entire Android OS (which will be trivial and they've probably already done so).
3. The patent only applies in certain countries, not the whole of the EU.
4. The enforcement of the patents comes in somewhere around October.
5. I used to be open-minded about Apple. Now I just think they're a bunch of dicks.

--
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel

Re:Meaningless victory by YeeHaW_Jelte · 2011-08-24 23:59 · Score: 0

Yeah, especially 5.
Using the courts to stifle a competitor is cheap.
I thought Apple prided itself on making better products, but by bringing these cases before a judge they admit they are not competing on quality anymore.

--

---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Re:Meaningless victory by ppanon · 2011-08-25 01:59 · Score: 1

Steve Jobs' health has gotten so bad he's had to resign. While Apple has many creative people in its society of mind, the company just lost the ego and super-ego that made them work together. Maybe somebody will step up to the plate and fill Jobs' shoes, but he certainly won't be replaced successfully by patent barratry.

--
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Re:Meaningless victory by rocket+rancher · 2011-08-25 02:31 · Score: 2

Yeah, especially 5.
Using the courts to stifle a competitor is cheap.
I thought Apple prided itself on making better products, but by bringing these cases before a judge they admit they are not competing on quality anymore.
Why do you feel that using the courts to stifle a competitor is incompatible with making a quality product? It seems to me if you want to optimize your profit, you do both.
Re:Meaningless victory by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-28 23:45 · Score: 0

Actually, this case has probably reduced Apple's profits. They spent money on lawyering for virtually no returns. Samsung's products have still launched but have now garnered much more interest (Streisand effect), Apple basically lost all similarity claims on their iDevices, opening the door for much more "copying". The judge dismissed all but a single claim in the three patents brought to the case, devaluing those patents.
I'm not going to comment on how their actions might have affected brand recognition and consumer goodwill towards both companies. Since in my view Apple were already down there with Sony my opinion simply hasn't changed.

The headline should read by Pop69 · 2011-08-24 23:52 · Score: 1

Samsung Photo App violates one of Apples patents.

The sensational half truths that pass for headlines these days make me think I've wandered onto Digg by mistake

Re:Sigh. Trust the courts. by ReeceTarbert · 2011-08-24 23:54 · Score: 1

Samsung gets away with copying the distinctive look of the iPhone* to an extent that most other smartphone vendors have managed to avoid.

Only because (shocking, I know) there is nothing distinctive enough in Apple's design. From OS News:

Regarding the design related stuff - the Community Designs - of the iPad, the judge threw it all out, citing loads of prior art (like the Compaq TC1x00). In addition, the judge stated that only the front of the device shows some resemblance, while everything else is entirely different. The Kinght Ridder is also cited as relevant prior art - the judge threw out Apple's defense that the product never made it to market. To round it out, the judge also mentioned 'form-follows-function' several times. Most interesting note: the judge specifically mentions that by having such a minimalist design, the iPad basically makes itself less viable for design protection.

RT.

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2011-08-25 00:02 · Score: 1

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Sigh. Trust the courts. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 00:10 · Score: 0

Samsung gets away with copying the distinctive look of the iPhone* to an extent that most other smartphone vendors have managed to avoid.

1. The iPhone looks NOTHING like any product of Apple's prior to it. They abandoned their unique design approach, and went with the industry standard black. I didn't think the iPhone was a Samsung, it just looks like any other generic small electronic device.

2. From the court ruling: Further, according to the court, Samsung does not "slavishly copy" Apple's iPad and iPhone.

Apple claims that they have invented black rectangles with slightly round corners. That's the crux of their "look and feel" argument. The arrangement of icons claims have been slapped down over and over by courts in multiple countries.
And I didn't notice any significant difference in the HTC version compared to the samsung one, and have seen plenty of applications including the standard Windows Explorer view of ANY folder on a computer which look just the same. If anything, Apple ripped that off from Microsoft.

So piss off, fanboi.

Ruling by ath1901 · 2011-08-25 00:10 · Score: 1

My dutch is very limited to sinaasappelsap but I believe this is the ruling:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/62981838/KG-11-0730-en-11-731-Apple-Samsung
Maybe some dutch person can translate the it?

This is supposed to be the patent (in english):
http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/description?CC=EP&NR=2059868A2&KC=A2&FT=D&date=20090520&DB=&locale=en_EP

What really bothers me is that this is clearly a software patent of the ridiculous kind (How to stroke a touch sensitive device horizontally. There must be prior art...) How could this be valid in civilized Europe? I thought we had said no to software patents (with a few exceptions) back in 2005 or such.

So does a math proof by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 00:16 · Score: 1

But you can't patent maths.

discovering a new territory takes effort and investment, but you can't patent "The American Continent".

Hell, making a shit sandwich takes effort and investment (especially if you've not had enough fibre in your diet). You can't patent it either.

There's NO REASON to allow software patents. RSA algorithm: necessary by banks to secure their internet transactions. Without that, they have to spend MORE money on couriers with cash or notifications. Therefore it would be made whether patented or not. Video compression means you can sell a small disk about 4 inches across rather than a large platter about 15 inches across, or do without medium altogether and have VOD, which are cheaper with compression than without. Therefore it would be made whether patented or not.

Excuse me? by SlashV · 2011-08-25 00:19 · Score: 1

I thought we didn't have software patents in Europe? What's all this?

Re:Sigh. Trust the courts. by itsdapead · 2011-08-25 00:23 · Score: 1

Only because (shocking, I know) there is nothing distinctive enough in Apple's design.

There's plenty distinctive about the iPhone's design. Looks like the page I linked to above is blocked outside the UK, but try looking at the range of smartphones on the websites of some local vendors. There are plenty of competing smartphones that are, basically, dark colored rectangles with a large screen (as determined by function) yet still look nothing like an iPhone. There are a few, predominantly Samsung, that look remarkably like an iPhone, at least in the publicity photos.

It looks like Apple's problem is that its actual "community design" registration needed to be a bit more specific, and has come over as an attempt to "patent" a black slab.

--
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.

I would suspect by maroberts · 2011-08-25 00:28 · Score: 1

...that in 7 weeks you could do a patch to Android 2.3.x to match Honeycomb's handling of photos and thus bypass the issue

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Karma: Chameleon

A message to Apple Fanboiz... by advocate_one · 2011-08-25 00:32 · Score: 0

fuck off, you lost... now let's move on... Start competing on features like ease of use, interoperability, openness and some genuine innovation... and stop trying to use the courts to protect your lunch...

--
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.

It took a lot of ... by Chrisq · 2011-08-25 00:44 · Score: 1

It took a lot of Dutch Courage for the court to say that.

Not good by zer0point · 2011-08-25 00:50 · Score: 1

It seems that Apple has really been putting some steam behind using patents as weapons. Interesting article at Forbes about this whole Samsung vs. Apple mess: http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2011/08/24/why-apple-went-to-dusseldorf/

Re:Sigh. Trust the courts. by ReeceTarbert · 2011-08-25 00:52 · Score: 1

Only because (shocking, I know) there is nothing distinctive enough in Apple's design.

There's plenty distinctive about the iPhone's design.

Not according to this judge -- and that's what really matters.

It looks like Apple's problem is that its actual "community design" registration needed to be a bit more specific, and has come over as an attempt to "patent" a black slab.

Not a small problem, is it? ;-)

RT.

In Addition by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 00:59 · Score: 0

In addition to the lovely, proper, summary given by RedK the solution of upgrading to 3.0 is not even feasible. Version 3.0+ doesn't run on a cell phone yet. The highest they could upgrade would be 2.3.5. This just shows that the court doesn't really understand what it is ruling on. News is just trying to make this seem like a huge deal when it is a big loss for Apple. I think most phones should just stick to the core Android OS and not add their personal touches. Instead they should design apps to be used by the OS and available in the marketplace. Save them the potential legal troubles like this case.

Apple lost, but software patents won! by renoX · 2011-08-25 01:08 · Score: 1

You forget a major part here, sure Apple mostly lost because only one minor patent was upheld, but it still means that a judge in Europe considered (again) that a "software patent" is valid.

I would call this a victory!!!

Re:Apple lost, but software patents won! by renoX · 2011-08-25 01:12 · Score: 1

Oups sorry for the cut.
I would call this a victory for patent trolls, big companies and lawyers, but a defeat for everyone else!!!
Re:Apple lost, but software patents won! by SETIGuy · 2011-08-25 03:32 · Score: 1

For Apple, you can call it a minor victory. For Europe, it's a major loss.

--
Support SETI@home
Re:Apple lost, but software patents won! by gl4ss · 2011-08-25 04:21 · Score: 2

it's an user interface patent. you know. like patenting rectangular pixel areas as meaningful. not sw!
on the upside, this is a highly visible case bringing attention to stupid patents and stupid design/patent law.

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world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.

You don't have to disclose the product by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 01:48 · Score: 0

You don't have to disclose the product, just tell the FDA (in the USA for example).

You also have to MAKE the stuff. Making the stuff requires you either have some innovation, rather than just "put a little more lemon in", and that is patent worthy and gives you lead on the product.

Additionally, first mover.

Additionally, FluDrug becomes FluDrugPlus becomes FluDrugExtra, with about 8 years between because patents are expiring and people have worked out how to make FluDrugPlus themselves without trespassing on the patent after 5-10 years, so you need a new patent anyroad. MUCH cheaper to make a derivative and patent THAT. How much "innovation" is there in that?

Re:More Clean! Clean, Clean, Clean! by GooberToo · 2011-08-25 01:54 · Score: 1

Not only that, but reporting the spam there requires full headers which are not available on a forum posting.

Digitus Impudicus by AliasMarlowe · 2011-08-25 01:57 · Score: 1

I show to Jobs a middle-finger-gesture - he should go and patent that!

Patenting that would require quite the reality distortion effect. There is prior art on the digitus impudicus which has a document trail stretching back at least 2 millennia.

--
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire

Does this mean ... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 02:06 · Score: 0

that my Samsung Galaxy S will finally be upgraded?

Upgrade? by roc97007 · 2011-08-25 03:53 · Score: 1

> [...] but said that Samsung could get around this simply by upgrading its phones to Android 3.0."

Samsung is absolutely screwed.

--
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.

Special interests by tepples · 2011-08-25 06:32 · Score: 1

If you disagree with the existing law, get it changed.

It's hard to change some laws because of entrenched special interests. It's hard to change the laws that allow special interests to corrupt legislative processes because of constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech in effect in some countries.

Simple? by OrangeTide · 2011-08-25 07:13 · Score: 1

You can't upgrade a phone to 3.0. It's a tablet only GUI and doesn't work on small displays. Google also doesn't permit customers to ship phones with 3.0 (honeycomb).

--
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire

Yawn... Petty... Next Cool iOS Feature Please... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-25 14:55 · Score: 0

Yawn. Technology is moving too quickly for petty Shit like this.

Bump up the Release date of iCloud and iOS5 and take the smart guys in charge of this lawsuit at apple and throw them into the dev team.... Oh wait.. Theyre probably the cream of the crop apple employees and thats why they got the job of taking Samsung to court in the first place. (sarcasm if you didnt pick it up!)

Apple do have a point though, they need to continue to provide the world with fast moving technological advancement in the computing/portable device area (and in the process raking the cash in...) - and protect that ability. Who wouldnt. If I could make by 72 Billion Profit or whatever it was 73, I'd jump at the opportunity.

As far as blocking The device on a contininent goes (Previous post)... No, they shouldnt. The court should just order Samsung to pay 1/10000 (as you put it) of their profits to Apple. Lol.

Stay Tuned Guys... Next We're going to have users sued by Apple for actually using their finger to swipe images HALF WAY on a Samsung Android Phone..... : - |

uhhhhhh apple by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-26 00:22 · Score: 0

This is soooo like apple. Who else has time to sit there and complain "hey they have a similar photo management". I think apple is scared about the android system. They should, It is growing popularity. Faster than The apple iOS. BTW, who names a OS Lion? lol
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-news/stats-android-growth-continues-passes-ios-in-usage/422
(this is a little dated )

prior art exists by Envy+Life · 2011-08-26 10:32 · Score: 1

Hear hear! This is the equivalent of turning pages in a book... plenty of prior art exists, including most e-readers, unless Apple also has the patents to books, including page binding, proper paper tension/thickness, gravity, etc. What a complete waste of time and money.

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