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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?"
This patent is from 1998. I'm not saying Xerox shouldn't have gotten a patent for this (though it is awfully broad), but that patent should be long dead by now. 13 years is an eternity in the tech world and Apple is going to lord this over Google and everyone else for ... 17 years? Longer?
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
You are in a maze of twisty little claims, all alike. It's pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a patent or copyright lawyer.
Not willing to kill the suspens but I think it will be a company whose name starts with the letter G.
Actually, I found an interesting column the other day (about the gesture-based lock screen patent) where the author opined that Apple isn't inclined to go directly after Google because Google has too much money/lawyers and any litigation against them would take years and years.
Instead, the author concluded, Apple is going to (and has already started to) go after the handset makers like HTC and Samsung. By making their life miserable for having some Android phones in their product line, Apple hopes to dissuade any other manufacturers from making 'Droid phones because it's just too expensive and/or risky.
What is the good side?
A system that costs nearly hundreds of dollars for a preliminary patent and around $10,000 for an actual patent. Essentially, putting patents beyond the reach of the common Joe.
And on the other side, we have a legal system that makes it a fortune to pursue patents. Well beyond the means of a small company. And even during blatant theft, the little companies seldom come out with their due.
When Microsoft spent a year in negotiations and review of the ball-less optical mouse. Then dropped negotiations only to release their own version. The little company won in their lawsuit against Microsoft. Who was forced to pay $1 million. But likely made far more than that off of all the Microsoft optical mice devices they sold.
Or Sony, who in trying to enforce copyrights. Stole the code of a programmer. Apparently, copyrights are only for the big fish.
If waterbed patents can be thrown out due to prior art in a sci-fi book, I don't see why prior art in a sci-fi movie would be any less valid.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Not necessarily. Taking GPS coordinates and using them to retrieve location-specific information is nothing more than an obvious application of GPS technology. Whether or not the patent is enforceable would therefore depend on whether or not the particular method covered by the patent is obvious.
Assuming the patent is enforceable, one could still make the argument that allowing such patents does nothing to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, in which case it's a perfect example of why the patent system is broken.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."