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Apple's New Patent Weapon — Location Services
DaveyJJ writes "Once again, it seems Apple is about to take intellectual property claims to a new level. Apple has been reissued a patent they acquired from Xerox that pretty much wraps up what we know as 'location services' as their own. In the overview, the patent says the system involved will display information specific to the location the device is in. The language used in the patent is broad and powerful. I guess now we wait and see whom Apple will use this against?"
>> we wait and see whom Apple will use this against?
Not willing to kill the suspens but I think it will be a company whose name starts with the letter G.
If prior art ever meant shit, 99% of these BS software patents wouldn't exist.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
In what way do roadside maps and sextants transmit information to a distributed system in order to retrieve information about the location you've found yourself in?
The only way that any argument that software patents are stifling innovation can ever work is if you don't lie when you make an argument about them.
Seriously?
A movie prop is not prophetic enablement.
For apple to have been granted the patent as it is written, they should have had to prove novelty. "Your invention must be different from that which already is publicly known or available." The look and feel of the iPad is not novel, as demonstrated by the movie I referenced. I'm not suggesting that Kubrick or Roddenberry should have been granted a patent for the idea. Instead, I'm suggesting that the idea as written should not have been patentable at all since it does not meet the basic criteria for a patent to be granted.