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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.
Did apple patent gestures? Because i'm giving apple one right now.
I have to wonder if this does more harm than good for Apple's case. It points out the absolute absurdity of how far they are reaching. Not have a flat front? Not be rectangular? Not use black?
I know that any of these would have significantly distinguished these products from Apple''s, but so too does the "Samsung" emblazoned on the device. Looking at the front with the screen off, sure, my iPod touch might look a bit like a Samsung device. From 10 feet, it also looks like my wallet. This isn't quite as forehead slapping as Samsung's crack legal team not being able to tell the difference between a Galaxy Tab 10.1 and an iPad, but it's pretty close.
That, or these attorneys have an amazing sense of humor.
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.
Obviously Apple is holding it wrong...
Front surfaces that are not black or clear
The screen on the Galaxy tab is on the back.
-- Terry
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.