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Apple Tries To Patent 3rd Party In-App Purchasing
bizwriter writes "Apple has spared no effort in trying to injure its arch mobile rival through the courts, like blocking Android vendors from important markets through patent and trademark infringement suits. Now it's developing an additional angle: an attempt to patent in-application purchases from third parties, as an application filed on April 26, 2010 and made public on Thursday made clear."
Steam is a third party from Windows, I can buy programs/apps through that years before this filing. I am sure some 3rd party apps on the iPhone had in-app purchasing pre-filing of this. It wouldn't be the first time Apple patented something it saw a third party app do, however.
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
I've finally realized how these types of patents keep cropping up.
The dumber the population gets, including experts, the more the phrase "non-obvious" covers.
Don't Lodsys already have a patent on this?
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/06/11/164209/Lodsys-Expands-Patent-Lawsuit-to-10-More-Companies
Lawsuits and appeals last longer then that.
There had better be a very good reason why 'in-app purchases from 3rd parties' are somehow not similar to buying stuff through a web browser...
Nah they still have to work on that other 60% market share.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I am a patent attorney. You are clearly not.
You have no idea what you are talking about. First to file did not change anything prior art-wise. It did not get rid of prior art. I cannot see you doing something and then file a patent application on it myself. Please, for the love of god, stop spreading this bullshit FUD around. You and everyone like you that keeps saying this is making the slashdot community dumber with your posts.
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
I am a patent attorney.
I wouldn't say that too loudly around here, doc. We hang boys like you in this town...
PS - the above was an attempt at humor. If you find it offensive, well, too bad.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
No offense taken. I've been around slashdot a long long time (see userid).
I am usually hesitant to say I am a patent attorney. And once upon I time I tried to educate the slashdot crowd and help them navigate the nuances of patent law. But it's gotten so bad over the last four or so years I don't even bother unless I something egregiously wrong. This first-to-file-means-I-can-steal-your-invention or prior-art-no-longer-exists keeps getting posted and I just had to say something.
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Yes and Kimberly Clark has 100% of the Kleenex market. Wtf is wrong with you? An iPad is a tablet computer, and there are plenty of other tablet computers that are not iPads.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Thanks to Apple though it does appear to becoming standard
That has always existed. Various tech companies have sued competitors like crazy - all the big corps have tons of cross licensing agreement. For some reason, big companies managed to convince us that they were nice people and only got patent to protect against evil companies (troll). That is simply not true - they use their patents in the way that is the most profitable to them, like they do with everything else. They are companies, not some sort of charity.
A person buying produce in a Middle Aged marketplace was most likely buying from a 'third party' because the Feudal Lord du jour was the owner of the land and made the rules. I'm sure similar circumstances existed way back into late prehistory.
So?
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
We shifted to first to file to get rid of "interferences" which, contrary to the hype, were really not much of an issue. The rest of the world is first to file, so it made sense for us to shift too. Here's what it means:
Under the old system, say I invented X on January 1st and you invented X (exact same thing) on March 1st and neither of us know about the other person's inventing X. If you immediately file a patent application on April 1st, and I continue tinkering and perfecting, and finally file a patent application on September 1st, I win because I was the first to invent (assuming I can prove it by documentation and I was in fact diligent).
Under the new system, you win because although we both invented the same thing, you filed your patent application first. That is all first to file means.
Now, if I publish about my invention on March 15th, after you invented but before you filed your patent application, my publication is prior art and kills your patent application. DEAD. This is why prior art is not gone under first to file. It used to be that my publication would not autokill your application and you could "swear behind" my publication, showing you invented it before I published.
Now, same set of facts, but say you didn't really invent anything and instead knew about my work, when you file your application on April 1st, you still need to submit an Oath that you believe you are the first to invent X. If you sign that oath and you in fact didn't invent X - you just copied my work - you have committed fraud on the Patent Office and your patent is unenforceable. DEAD. This is true under the old system and the new system. This has nothing to do with the change to first to file and this is why first to file does not allow you to just copy someone's idea and get a patent on it even though there isn't one.
The last scenario is a bit of a prickly pear, but it's not because of first to file - it's the same under the old system. If I invent X and sit on it, using it in secret for years and years and then you independently invent X and file a patent application on it, and your patent is granted, you can then sue me for something I have been doing for years. Remember, if I had published, your patent application would have been DOA, so it is designed to encourage people to publish early.
Hope this helps.
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Want to have some real fun? Find a recording of Apple's 1984 Olympic ad and compare Big Brother's selling points to Apple's mode of operation over the last ten years or so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_(advertisement)
Perhaps if Microsoft had successfully banned the sale of all non-Windows computers on the grounds that they came in rectangular boxes, there might be a comparison. As it stands, Apple is far, far worse than any major corporation in memory.
sue 'em until you can!
Obiviously /. has forgotten, but it was not long ago when iOS -and- Android developers started getting sued by Lodsys for apps that used in-app purchasing. I know Apple is a big bad evil company, but my first thought actually is that this is to cover the angle and protect third party devs, before some patent troll comes along to cover it from this angle too.
That choice was dictated by the market. When all useful apps are written for one platform, and there are proprietary file formats (and back then there weren't specs for .doc etc on MSDN) which are only available in such apps, there is a strong detriment from running any alternatives.
Anyway, it sounds like you're using the libertarian definition of monopoly, which is basically "someone forces you to use this". That's not the one that most people use in real life. Having a sufficiently large marketshare alone is enough, since it gives one undue influence on the market. On the other hand, being a monopoly is not a crime in and of itself - but using your advantageous position as such to stifle competition (by tie-in etc) is.
According to TFA, they are trying to patent malware (and same could be considered prior art).
Claim 1: A method comprising: presenting an application offering a product for purchase, the application being from a first entity; presenting a purchase interface overlaid the application, the purchase interface being from a second entity; and completing a sales transaction without navigating away from the application.
The method of claim 1, wherein the application is an advertisement.
The method of claim 1, wherein the application is from an application server that targets applications to users.
The method of claim 1, wherein the purchase interface is for purchasing a product directly from an online store.
This sounds like a common practice by which old-school adware and malware operated - in the case of ad-supported software, an ad for a purchaseable product would be presented in the supported application's window. When clicked, either the user's already-installed browser or an embedded MSIE instance would open for the user to complete the purchase using 'the internet'. For bona fide malware, the ad-spawning application was windowless and lurked in the background, popping up ads on top of whatever "app" the user is currently working in, and obviously without quitting said app (being a multitasking OS and all). Oftentimes, the specific ad would be triggered by what the user was doing in the other app (e.g. by monitoring for specific words typed or URLs visited). Knowing lawyers, the nuanced prior-artiness of each case might hinge on whether an IE instance and webpage embedded the the app constitutes a third-party "purchase interface" or not.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Maybe. But maybe their above someone having ordinary skill in the art. I'm not disagreeing with you - it's a common theory.
What is "obvious" is a very muddy lake. I mean, you have to compare the claims to this nebulous test of what a hypothetical person having "ordinary" skill in the art would know.
But I hear ya.
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Rather than make a better product or compete on their merits, apple continues to try and get ahead by litigation, frivolous patents, and buying up the competition.
This is par for the course for the company.