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How To Avoid Infringing On Apple's Patents
bdking writes "In a public legal brief (PDF), Apple offers numerous design alternatives that Samsung could have used for its smartphones and tablets to avoid infringing on Apple's patents. Basically, as long as competitors' smartphones and tablets bear no resemblance to smartphones and tablets, everything's cool."
Translation: a completely impractical eyesore that nobody would buy is something we will accept you selling.
Simple, don't make anything electronic, or that uses touch as a method of operation.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
USPTO drops any apple patent that implements obvious designs with established prior art.
That's not how to avoid infringement, that's how to avoid litigation. And in this game, that's not the way business is done. There's "what's illegal" and there's "what you'll get called on". Somewhere in between there lies "what I can get away with". And that's generally what many shoot for. Staying in your comfort zone will just get you buried in the harsh world of business.
So really, getting a suit brought for infringement at this level really isn't big news. Losing said fight is bad, for whoever loses. It either gives someone a free pass to continue without (as much) further harassment, or tosses a large bucket of water in your foundry. It's a gamble for both sides.
Apple has a pisspile of ("good" and "bad") patents and prior art on tablet design and touch interfaces, and if you try to compete in their market with something they think they can shove you out with, you can absolutely bet on them trying. It's just good business. And in this case Apple has a strong upper hand because of their early successes in these markets. Don't blame Apple. Whoever made it to the top of the hill first is naturally going to work hard to push the others off as they approach, that's just how the game is played. Doesn't matter if it was Samsung, Google, Nokia, Microsoft, whoever. They'd be doing exactly the same thing if they were in Apple's position right now, fighting to stay on top.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Another good way to avoid Infringing On Apple's Patents, Just don't even make a device cause no matter what apple will sue claiming infringement to block competition.
What's notable about this list is that nearly all items are either industry-wide practices (rectangular phones with flat surfaces) or obvious design choices (a thin rim around the front maximize screen area compared with a thick rim). In particular Apple opted for choices anyone facing the design problem would make, but is now trying to prevent others from making the choices.
Even worse is that the remaining items reflect aesthetic choices on the part of Apple (no adornment, for example). Such choices should indeed be protected, but they are not inventions which deserve patent protection. Instead they are identifying marks which should be protected under trademark law.
I guess that means don't even bother innovating or building anything. I hate the patent system - it has become so broken as to be sorry. I thought patents should protect truly innovative ideas not commonly thought up things such as shapes. What next, someone will try and patent the tri-angle (hyphenated on purpose.)
A direct copy of an iPhone is a lot like porn. You know it when you see it. Samsung, et. al. flat out copied the iPhone, and then the iPad. Nothing that came before it looked anything like it. Now everything looks just like it. The entire industry copied the crap out of Apple's new devices. The purpose of a patent system is to allow someone who creates something entirely "new" to profit fully from their ingenuity. That is it's full and complete purpose. If the system is very flawed, don't bash Apple for trying to use it as best they can to accomplish the goals of the patent system. Bash the very flawed patent system. If, on the other hand, you disagree with the purpose of a patent system, then you should move to a communist country where nobody benefits from their own ingenuity.
Apple finally joins Microsoft at the bottom of the ethical barrel.
Yep. And it's still crazy. They're all logical improvements. Thin bezel? Remember old TVs and how they were 90% bezel? Rectangular? Wtf? Lack of buttons? You've got a touchscreen, why do you need extra buttons? A non-flat screen? On a tablet? And so forth. The simple combination of these things shouldn't be protected.
The problem with your claim is that everything listed in TFA is generic design elements, and none of them are remotely patentable, either individually OR together. No rounded corners? Seriously? Nothing rectangular? No clear or black screen? I mean really, WTF. Honestly, what would you be saying if the first LCD screen manufacturer had included such outrageous things as part of their patented design?
Patents have never been about how something looks. They're about how something works.
Any respect I had left for Apple is completely eradicated after reading that article.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
Samsung have market share, that's why. Samsung has problems because Apple want to give Samsung problems.
Apple just hasn't gotten around to suing the other companies yet. Samsung is the biggest threat, so they're trying to cut the head off the snake. It's not like Apple steals liberally from Android, either... biggest bunch of hypocrites. They do good design, but they take liberal inspiration from other products and then somehow convince their faithful that they're unique. They execute well, but they don't design in a complete vacuum.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Sometimes "a more nuanced opinion" is really "idiots who can't accept reality". The issue is that the Samsung phone looks too much like the iPhone according to Apple. It's not a strawman argument to repeat what Apple has actually claimed. Yes, there's some additional parts to, but it's basically it's black, rectangular with square corners. Every other part of the claim is equally stupid. The reason the Samsung phone looks too much like the iPhone is that they're both constrained by the same design limitations and there are a limited number of ways to solve the problems. Smart phones with touch screens are going to be rectangular, with few buttons and most of the space dedicated to the screen or they're going to be terrible.
In this case the "more nuanced opinion" is an apologist trying to invent a rational where it isn't Apple trying to establish a legal monopoly on smart phones. The alternatives suggested by Apple are ridiculous at best.
Fanatically anti-fanatical