Slashdot Mirror
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."
Really, this is not the first time and will not be the last. Parents are forcing all companies in the same direction. I've been in the business long enough, and never forgot what I learnt all those years ago at HP. One night I was working late on some server monitoring software that never saw release. My boss was a pretty old guy but he knew his stuff. We were talking about patents when he invited me to join him for a coffee and a chat. He explained how he saw the globalization and increased competition from overseas leading to American companies being forced to increasingly restrictive and paranoid levels of protection for "IP". I suppose I didn't understand the whole idea of IP and us repeated explanations didn't make it any clearer to me. He shoved me roughly to the floor, and snapped the leg from a chair. Before I could protest he handed it to Lord Elrond who jammed it in to my ass. I called for parlay, remembering my pirate code, but Spock would have none of it. While Kirk sniggered, Spock gingerly pounded my prostate until I came to understand IP.
I was fortunate to learn about the industry from such experienced old hands. Captain Picard went on to found Oracle, Elrond went on to found something called Google. My boss quit, had a sex change and did enough poppers until she was suitably brain damaged enough to return to become HP's CEO. I founded the RIAA, and believe by sodomizing so many music lovers I've played my part in passing on the wisdom given to me by the old curmudgeon at HP.