Apple Wins Injunction Banning Import of HTC Devices

Newly accepted submitter squish18 writes "All Things D reports that Apple has won an injunction banning the import of some HTC phones starting in April 2012. The ruling by the ITC stems from two claims of the '647 patent concerning software used to enter personal data in mobile devices. It is interesting to note that the ITC has also reversed previous rulings regarding regarding infringement of two other '647 claims, as well as patent '263 claims." It looks like Apple's victory is relatively minor. They lost claims on all patents except for one, and HTC/Google can work on implementing similar functionality in a non-infringing way.

Comments

Evil Monopoly

[YayaY]

Apple is becoming an evil empire!

Re:Evil Monopoly

[ClaraBow]

NO! The patent system, as it stands, is the reason why every company seems to be suing every other company! It's completely broken, and it seems like companies have to sue each other as part of their operating procedures so they can have leverage when they negotiate cross-licensing! It's completely maddening!

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Samantha Wright]

have to

Nope. It's a choice. Apple is choosing to strangle the competition while they have the strong hand. Microsoft chooses to set up a protection racket with companies that infringe on their vaguely-defined Linux patents. In contrast, IBM and Google (generally?) don't pursue patent suits unless they're attacked first. (At least, that's the impression that's been put forth by tech journalism.)

Re:Evil Monopoly

[eparker05]

Essentially apple patented a method where an 'analyzer program' checks text for patterns (such as phone numbers and email addresses) and makes them actionable with a click.

The patent goes on to discuss that arbitrary patterns can be searched for using a plugin and that the analyzer software allows for users to select the program that handles the type of link. It seems that Android does indeed violate this patent in every way possible. I wonder if automatic hyperlinking of email addresses count as prior art; although this does not include the user interface element asking which program to use.

Either way; I think this is a sucky patent to have to contend with. It reminds me why I don't like software patents to begin with.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[jo_ham]

Monopoly?

I'm not sure you understand what that word means. At least, if you believe that they really are a monopoly then those market share figures for Android must be made up. I mean, I know it's hard to imagine anyone buying an Android phone, but I suspect the figures are accurate ;)

DISCLAIMER: The last sentence is A JOKE (except the part about the numbers not lying).

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, companies are choosing to act the way they are, but the current patent system is incentivizing this behavior. The question should be whether there is a system with better incentives, not whether companies should stop doing what they are doing, because some companies will behave responsibly, but others invariably won't and you have to expect that behavior.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Nerdfest]

I find it completely incomprehensible that anyone in the software development field can defend Apple in any way, or buy or recommend any of their products with the attitude and behaviour they've had the last couple of years. Yes, they have some nice hardware, and used to be the underdog, but enough is enough. They need to be shown that it's not acceptable behaviour.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

It's interesting how we have checks and balances in the different branches of government to help stop there from being too much power in one or another and to keep one from 'running the show' on everything...yet this same useful feature is entirely absent from the judicial system itself. There should be a limit because all these patent lawsuits are a malicious abuse of the system. Perhaps there should be a law set in place outlawing malicious use of the judicial system? --If there already isn't a law that's just being entirely ignored here. That could prevent such things from happening in the future because it's our tax dollars paying for those courts and considering all the tax breaks people with larger incomes and companies themselves get, this cost is on OUR dime more than anyone else's...

Re:Evil Monopoly

[mug funky]

so long as the case is resolved at some point, the costs are usually paid by the loser.

if a case draws out forever, both parties pay.

taxpayers are relatively protected from all this.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[mug funky]

i believe word processing software does this with spell checkers.

the first example of a realtime spell checker i encountered in 1997 with MS Word.

autofill has been in all browsers since about that time as well.

google does the same as you type into the search box.

Apple are full of the worst kind of shit in this case.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Before:
Sun sued Microsoft over Java. Netscape sued Microsoft over Java. Apple sued Microsoft over the Windows UI.

Now:
Oracle is suing Google over Java. Apple is suing Google (through HTC) about several UI elements. Apple is suing Samsung over the tabled look and feel.

Who's the Evil? The inventor or the copy?

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. Corporations are profit-maximizing actors. You're a biologist, and you should know that game theory always wins out in the end. Corporations that have a culture that prohibits their using antisocial business methods are just out-competed by ones that have no such inhibitions. There's no element of choice at all. If you want to change corporate behavior, you must change corporate incentives. Anything else is dreaming.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, I know it's hard to imagine anyone buying an Android phone, but I suspect the figures are accurate ;)

DISCLAIMER: The last sentence is A JOKE (except the part about the numbers not lying).

The only reason you have to post this disclaimer is because you're generally such a douche that people might think you're serious.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

It is like that Simpsons episode where they are in familty therapy and everyone is hooked up to electro-shock device so everyone can give each other shocks. These patent suits doesn't really do any substantial damage, they are just pressing the buttons because they are available(id est. the lawyers have been hired and it would look bad if they didn't sue someone).

Re:Evil Monopoly

[mgiuca]

I wonder if automatic hyperlinking of email addresses count as prior art; although this does not include the user interface element asking which program to use.

In that case, it isn't an invention, it's just two old and obvious ideas put together. For decades, programs have detected patterns in text and automatically linked them or associated a particular action. For decades, programs have asked users what program to use to handle a particular type of content. The idea of "let's detect patterns in text to determine the type of content, and then ask users what program to use" is a simple combination of the above two ideas. It does not constitute an invention that you should be able to destroy all sales of your competition.

Once again, Apple is using a law supposedly about innovation to ruin everybody else's chances in the marketplace. Their time on top is over, and legal protection for bogus patents is the only thing they have left.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[icebike]

Once again, Apple is using a law supposedly about innovation to ruin everybody else's chances in the marketplace. Their time on top is over, and legal protection for bogus patents is the only thing they have left.

Further, this was a horribly expensive "win" for Apple. They lost claims on 4 or 5 patents (these can never be re-asserted) and they won a tiny UI feature, that can easily be programmed around. Apple won't be able to enforce those patent claims against any other phone makers either.

The permanent loss of the patents far outweighs a UI quirk that can be avoided with a minor programming change which will be in place before the ruling takes affect. Its like going to war with 4 entire divisions, getting totally out trounced, but coming home with a mess-hall cook as a POW.

A few more wins like this and Apple will need a whole new patent portfolio.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[VortexCortex]

Like this?
http://adult.engrish.com/2005/09/20/think-really-different/
ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/debian-cd/

Hmm. Seems ALL browsers and OSs can be configured via to allow arbitrary:// protocols to be opened with a specific program, indeed the latter can do so with plugins... Even when echoed to my xterm, that FTP line creates a link that opens my FTP program.

Who cares when the patent was granted. It's iterative and obvious, and it has been such since the late 80s wherein I played MUDs that had this sort of behavior... Certain words in certain contexts while in the hub-world would become highlighted by the software when written and when activated (by typing a command or "tabbing" to them), would launch another BBS "door" program.

eg: Hey, don't forget to use up your LoRD forest fights today!

Re:Evil Monopoly

[webdog314]

Do you seriously believe that if it wasn't Apple, it wouldn't be someone else? That's the epitome of naive.

The fact that they happen to currently be the biggest and baddest on the block means this shouldn't surprise you. Microsoft had its own form of evil, usually just stealing an idea from someone else and getting it to market first. That Apple uses a legal (if marginally unethical) method to do the same thing shouldn't even raise an eyebrow.

Apple is a company. They're in it for the money. Stop treating them like a person and this is all perfectly logical. HTC is a direct competitor. Why would Apple not do everything in its power to hinder or stop them from being a competitor?

Re:Evil Monopoly

[abhi_beckert]

Nope. It's a choice. Apple is choosing to strangle the competition while they have the strong hand.

Which is something the patent system is specifically designed to encourage. The idea is to encourage entities just like Apple to spend billions of dollars researching some new technology, in full confidence they will be able to recover those billions of dollars in future by having a high profit margin on their product.

If someone else has the right to bring the same technology to the market with razor slim profit margins, then nobody will spend billions of dollars researching new technology.

Say what you want about Apple, they *do* spend billions researching new technology. And they should be allowed to recover that money.

Personally I'm not convinced the patent system is a net positive. But calling it an "evil monopoly" is a bit much I think.

In contrast, IBM and Google (generally?) don't pursue patent suits unless they're attacked first. (At least, that's the impression that's been put forth by tech journalism.)

I don't know anything about IBM, but Google seems to run around with their head in the sand until someone slaps them in the face with a patent lawsuit. They were told by their lawyers not to create Dalvik without a licensing agreement with Sun, but they ignored the advice. And now their getting their ass handed to them in court, because Sun/Oracle wants compensation for their inventions, and Google isn't making enough money off Dalvik to pay any reasonable sum.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[meerling]

I remember using a word processor over a decade ago that would recognize internet addresses and ask me if I wanted to turn it into a hyperlink.
Too bad I can't recall which software that was right now.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[elashish14]

I suppose the only thing left to lament is all the money HTC had to waste to bring this common sense to light. Money that could have been spent on, well, something useful.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anthony Mouse]

Sun and Netscape sued Microsoft for antitrust violations. Oracle and Apple have sued over software patents. And Apple pretty much just sues everybody in the phone book, so that isn't really a bellwether of anything.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Nerdfest]

Each of these wins keeps competition out of the market for a while. Most of their competitors come out with new hardware and new features much faster than Apple does. Every little delay is a win for them.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Apple is making a choice. The same choice that a drowning man makes in grasping the point of a knife. The Android phones have gained major market share and Apple is trying whatever it can to slow down the competition.

Apple is simply scared sh*tless.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[esocid]

Yeah, but this patent adds "on a touchscreen device that makes calls and has rounded corners."

eh? eh?

Re:Evil Monopoly

[abhi_beckert]

Sure, companies are choosing to act the way they are, but the current patent system is incentivizing this behavior. The question should be whether there is a system with better incentives, not whether companies should stop doing what they are doing, because some companies will behave responsibly, but others invariably won't and you have to expect that behavior.

I'm not convinced any companies, even patent trolls, are truly acting irresponsibly. It's impossible to know if a patent is/isn't valid without going to court. And it's impossible to know if a patent is/isn't being infringed without going to court.

This leads to disagreements between patent holders and potential licensors about just how much should be paid in any licensing agreement, or whether any licensing fees should even be paid at all. To make matters worse, the courts are making stupid decisions all the time.

In my mind, this is a clear situation where we need to blame whoever wrote patent law in the first place for failing to predict the mess they created. And blame more recent government(s) for failing to do anything about it.

But how to solve it? That's the trillion dollar question.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[ccalvert]

The point is that Apple is suing HTC because they are using a map to pinpoint a location. I bet that in the last month, there have been a thousand courses taught in colleges and high schools that tell students how to pinpoint locations on maps. Why isn't Apple suing those community college profs instead of HTC?

Do I really need to answer that?

Who came up with mapping technology first? Was it perhaps Google Maps?

Re:Evil Monopoly

[mgiuca]

Well Microsoft Word 97 certainly did it. I'm not sure if anything predates that, but that is fourteen years old.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[pdabbadabba]

How many times do I have to say it? You can only patent a method of implementing a system, not just the idea of a system itself. Take a moment, click the link in the summary to the actual patent, read the claims section (not just the abstract), and then tell us whether you still think the prior art you list is actually prior art.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[sdguero]

I think what Apple has been doing in the courts recently goes far beyond "marginally unethical." I mean, the company is actively trying to stymie innovation in the mobile space, and this is after they have made BILLIONS of dollars off of other companies/peoples work (and much of their own hard work but that is beside the point). It is a public company, so being driven by profit and being too short sighted to recognize that they tarnishing the brand really isn't that rare or surprising. At this point, I only know one engineer worth his salt that is still on the iOS platform (out of dozens). Those that have jumped ship from Apple cite itunes, Apple's recent legal wrangling, and/or the flexibility of the Android environment (for users and developers) as their reasons for switching.

Maybe I'm just a weird case study but a year ago I could not of said that, and I don't think it bodes well for Apple when nerds are running from their platform. Just read the /. comments. The vast majority are negative regarding Apple's recent moves.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[icebike]

Each of these wins keeps competition out of the market for a while. Most of their competitors come out with new hardware and new features much faster than Apple does. Every little delay is a win for them.

But this one won't keep any HTC phones out of the market place.

HTC can program around this prior to the effective date. The effective date is April 2012. And it only affects phones coming into the country after that date. So HTC ships its entire warehouse inventory over now, beating the injunction, then quietly slips in a few programming changes, and never misses a beat.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[jo_ham]

The latter of those reasons, yes.

The former isn't really in any doubt on slashdot - I mean, I have the audacity to say positive things on /., that's pretty douchey.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[heinousjay]

No one failed to predict that there would be conflict in business. They instead instituted the court system to handle such issues. Which is what we see here.

I find it instructive that the "can't we all just get along" crowd doesn't understand how things work in the real world.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[kiwirob]

What a log of nonsense. IBM is the grandaddy of Mob style stand over tactics for licensing their huge patent portfolio.

IBM: here is a list of 20 patents we believe you infringe, pay us $20 million.
Company X: But we don't' even use any of those 20 patents you listed!
IBM: Ok, here is a list of another 20 patents we believe you infringed, pay us $20 million.
Company X: But we didn't use those either!
IBM: We got all day to play this game if you want. Just pay us the $20 million, we have 10,000s of patents and there is bound to be 20 you have infringed so pay up.

Google on the other hand doesn't really have any patents which is why they went on a multi-billion dollar buying spree recently to try and catch up. Heck Stanford University even owns the main Search Algorithm patent that Google, Inc. licenses.

Nokia and Apple both with a shit load of patents ended up agreeing for Apple to cross-license Nokia's GSM and other industry standards patents, paid them a few $100 million in back payments and ongoing royalties for FRAND based patents.

HTC, Samsung, Motorola have all used denied Apple licensing for their GSM and related standards based patents they are obligated to under FRAND terms. Instead they have said Apple should cross license the iOS specific patents in exchange for FRAND standards based patents. Additionally Motorola have changed the cross license agreements with Qualcomm to specifically exclude the Qualcomm cross-license to apply when Apple is a purchaser of Qualcomm chips in iPhones. This is why the EU is currently investigating the lot of them for Anti-trust violations.

The reason for all of this is Google decided very early in Andriod's development that they wouldn't bother with any patent licensing with Andriod. Because they would not "sell" the software only give it away and make money down the road from advertising on Andriod devices they figured they where immune. Andriod uses a Java based language but decided not to pay anybody for it, so Oracle is suing them as they are the current owners of Java. Google developed open source implementations of key technology that Apple developed for iPhone and told the world quite clearly they had patents on. Google decided that patents suck and they wouldn't bother even talking to Apple about getting licenses.

Lets face it Google is the guy who goes to a party empty handed and gets drunk on the "free beer" everybody else paid for any brought to the party. Whats more Google gave away other peoples "free beer" to get some girls drunk at the party (HTC,Moto, Samsung) so it could get into bed with them. For some reason Slashdot seems to think that taking other peoples beer at a party to try and get chicks drunk so you can fcuk them is cool. I personally think it's just pathetically cheap and Google deserves a punch in the face for being a dick.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anthony Mouse]

If you know anything about game theory you know that the optimal strategy depends on the behavior of the other participants. For example, if there is one company that is offering a high quality product for a low price, competitors must do the same thing or no one will buy from them. However, there is a technique called "conscious parallelism" that allows companies to screw over their customers in concert with each other without actually having any formal agreement (which would violate the antitrust laws), and it works like this: One company raises their prices, or imposes some new restriction, or offers a shorter warranty, etc. As soon as they announce this, every other company in the industry does the same thing, with the expectation that as long as they all do it, customers will have no choice but to go along with it. Then all the companies benefit and all the customers are screwed.

This doesn't work if any one of the companies decides that they would rather compete on the merits by offering a quality product for a low price, because naturally all of the other companies that don't want to compete on the merits will lose customers to them (which is why company that doesn't join the implicit cartel wants to do it). This is why you see everybody trying to fight Google: They're offering decent products basically for free, which screws up the whole cartel dynamic, so they have to be "punished" by all the people who want to use conscious parallelism to line their pockets rather than working hard to earn honest money.

I mean look at what they've done to the whole curated computing scheme: If your only choice was between Apple's app store and Microsoft's, and you could only make that choice once every two years when you get a new device, and they both used all the same terms as one another and slowly made them more onerous... think about all the money those two would be able to extract from customers and software developers once they had them by the short hairs like that. But Google is upsetting the Apple cart, so to speak, because allowing developers to reach users outside of the "official" channels means that the different app stores have to compete with one another on the merits. Apple can't start ratcheting up their own margins because if they do then more users and developers will go to Android, where there are several markets and Apple can't expect everyone to follow their lead on pricing. Hence the litigation.

So I guess what I'm saying is, companies don't inherently have to screw over their customers, but if they choose to buck the trend then they can capture a majority market share... at the cost of having to deal with a bunch of sore losers flinging lawsuits at them.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea is to encourage entities just like Apple to spend billions of dollars researching some new technology, in full confidence they will be able to recover those billions of dollars in future by having a high profit margin on their product.

But then every other person in the country who has a similar idea, cannot recover their research investment simply because they didn't win the race to the patent office. The problem with patents today is the absolute guarantee of unlimited exclusive use of said idea for so many years it might as well be a lifetime. And especially software patents. They don't cover just one implementation. They end up covering every potential implementation of an idea.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anthony Mouse]

Say what you want about Apple, they *do* spend billions researching new technology. And they should be allowed to recover that money.

You're ignoring the fact that they already have. Apple is about as far from losing money on the iPhone as you can possibly get, and the patent lawsuits have had nothing to do with that.

They were told by their lawyers not to create Dalvik without a licensing agreement with Sun, but they ignored the advice.

You are referring to this email by Tim Lindholm, who is not a lawyer. Moreover, the context of the email is not 'if we use Dalvik we will need a license to Java,' it is 'I think we should just use Java.'

And now their getting their ass handed to them in court

Any evidence of that?

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry but that does not make sense to me. Of course Apple is suing over an idea. It's unlikely that Google implemented the idea in the exact same way as Apple, unless Google is using Apple's copyrighted code.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Patents aren't lost if they're invalidated by the ITC, fyi.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[whisper_jeff]

the first example of a realtime spell checker i encountered in 1997 with MS Word.

And this patent predates that. Filed for on Feb 1, 1996. http://www.google.com/patents/US5946647

So, before you go citing prior art that isn't actually prior, how about you do some basic investigation so you can be informed.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

What a log of nonsense. IBM is the grandaddy of Mob style stand over tactics for licensing their huge patent portfolio.

IBM: here is a list of 20 patents we believe you infringe, pay us $20 million.

Company X: But we don't' even use any of those 20 patents you listed!

IBM: Ok, here is a list of another 20 patents we believe you infringed, pay us $20 million.

Company X: But we didn't use those either!

IBM: We got all day to play this game if you want. Just pay us the $20 million, we have 10,000s of patents and there is bound to be 20 you have infringed so pay up.

Google on the other hand doesn't really have any patents which is why they went on a multi-billion dollar buying spree recently to try and catch up. Heck Stanford University even owns the main Search Algorithm patent that Google, Inc. licenses.

Nokia and Apple both with a shit load of patents ended up agreeing for Apple to cross-license Nokia's GSM and other industry standards patents, paid them a few $100 million in back payments and ongoing royalties for FRAND based patents.

HTC, Samsung, Motorola have all used denied Apple licensing for their GSM and related standards based patents they are obligated to under FRAND terms. Instead they have said Apple should cross license the iOS specific patents in exchange for FRAND standards based patents. Additionally Motorola have changed the cross license agreements with Qualcomm to specifically exclude the Qualcomm cross-license to apply when Apple is a purchaser of Qualcomm chips in iPhones. This is why the EU is currently investigating the lot of them for Anti-trust violations.

The reason for all of this is Google decided very early in Andriod's development that they wouldn't bother with any patent licensing with Andriod. Because they would not "sell" the software only give it away and make money down the road from advertising on Andriod devices they figured they where immune. Andriod uses a Java based language but decided not to pay anybody for it, so Oracle is suing them as they are the current owners of Java. Google developed open source implementations of key technology that Apple developed for iPhone and told the world quite clearly they had patents on. Google decided that patents suck and they wouldn't bother even talking to Apple about getting licenses.

Lets face it Google is the guy who goes to a party empty handed and gets drunk on the "free beer" everybody else paid for any brought to the party. Whats more Google gave away other peoples "free beer" to get some girls drunk at the party (HTC,Moto, Samsung) so it could get into bed with them. For some reason Slashdot seems to think that taking other peoples beer at a party to try and get chicks drunk so you can fcuk them is cool. I personally think it's just pathetically cheap and Google deserves a punch in the face for being a dick.

Stupid ass analogies thrown in with stupid ass allegations of IBM. Stupid ass is stupid ass. Idiot.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[bratwiz]

Apple is becoming an evil empire!

Becoming ??

Re:Evil Monopoly

[kiwirob]

This theory doesn't hold true. Apple makes more money from the iPhone than all of the rest of the mobile industry combined. They set their price based on perceived customer value and struggle to make enough devices to meet demand.

Google on the other hand gives away "free" software that it knows infringes other peoples patents, but has argued in court (the Oracle, Java case) that it shouldn't have to pay anything because it gives the software away free. Fact is their business model is to raise revenue from advertising once Andriod users are into their eco-system. They don't get paid up front but they do get paid down the road.

Everybody else pays to use other peoples patents, but Google thinks it's advertising and giving away free model makes it immune from having to pay. Why on earth should a $200B market cap company like Google not have to pay to use other peoples technology and fly in the face of 200 years of establish business process regarding other peoples inventions?

Heck even Apple pays Nokia for the use of Nokias GSM and related industry standard patents. Apple have offered to pay Motorola and Samsung for their GSM and other industry related patents under FRAND terms like they pay Nokia. Apple even offered to license one of the key iOS scrolling patents to Samsung when it licensed it to Nokia and IBM.

But no, the Andriod way is to use other peoples patents and inventions for free because the money comes from advertising???.... Samsung, HTC have already agreed to pay Microsoft for their technology but refuse to recognize Apple's patents and get a license before using technology that is known to be patented.

So Apple is the bad guy for saying that Andriod needs to recognize the existing laws and patents granted. I don't like the open road speed limits but if I get caught speeding I pay my fine. Andrioid doesn't like the current patent laws because it means they need to pay people money for technology other people have got patents on, but instead just ignores the law. Come on guys, its not like Google can't afford to pay to clear up this whole mess, they made $2.5B from mobile advertising revenue in the last 12 months. They just don't like 200 years of convention and are too cheap to pay. What a bunch of dicks.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[zippthorne]

Considering what Microsoft was trying to do to Java.. Nothing that Apple or Oracle do can even come close in terms of total evilness (not to diminish their actions, they're just dwarfed in comparison). The truly horrifying thing is that Microsoft basically got away with it scott free.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[aztracker1]

Well, first off, it it a software/design/conceptual patent... it probably shouldn't be valid... If it occurs in nature via breeding, it shouldn't be valid... If it's a business, not a technical process, it shouldn't be valid.

That would be three good rules to start with.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[aztracker1]

With a rather large market share, and a more consistent platform to develop against, it's hard to ignore. I know more iOS devs, than I do Android. For that matter, a lot of dev's are liking that Windows Phone users are more willing to part with cash for useful apps than either of the former. That said, I'm an android user out of philosophy as much as anything else.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Been around a long time in the web-advertising industry. A java scriptlet runs which would search a page and then add links to various keywords and/or highlight them. As it got more advanced, it would show an on-hover ad or whatever.

Some forums etc still use it. It's annoying, but would also seem to be somewhat of prior art.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[aztracker1]

eg: Hey, don't forget to use up your LoRD forest fights today!

LOL, OT: but you can do that here.. ;)

/self:promotion

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

True. But the essence remains.

Microsoft was lagging behind Netscape, and was afraid of becoming irrelevant on the Internet. So they copied Netscape and used the tactics that became part of the lawsuit in order to gain the lead.

Google copied Apple, period. Yes they had Android, but it was more a copy of the Palm/Blackberry before Apple came up with touch. Google is also using a tactic to gain the lead, they are copying, like MS did with Windows.

If Apple is suing Samsung and HTC, it's because they came up with "killer" products, which is just an euphemism for "copy". Apple has to sue them and protect their IP.

For once, Microsoft is taking the long road and doing its homework. Its approach might become the alternative, because it think differently. It has learned with Zune not to copy.

Look at Android, iOS, and Windows Mobile. Can you spot who is copying and who is innovating?

Re:Evil Monopoly

[perryizgr8]

Look at Android, iOS, and Windows Mobile. Can you spot who is copying and who is innovating?

android an ios, at this point, both have features they copied from the other. whereas win phone is something completely different. and lame, imo.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. Nothing is forcing Apple to keep suing these companies. They're doing it because they're total abusive dicks. They can't compete with their products, so they're trying to shut down their competitors.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[E IS mC(Square)]

s/is becoming/has already become/^M

Re:Evil Monopoly

[perryizgr8]

my nokia dumbphone was doing this ~10 years ago.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

They licensed Spyglass, Inc's browser just as Apple legally obtained the ideas of icons from PARC.

For shame!

To the sickos at /.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[exomondo]

Look at Android, iOS, and Windows Mobile. Can you spot who is copying and who is innovating?

Android and iOS took quite a lot of cues from Windows Mobile smartphones and have come up with just as many different methodologies wrt user experience and Windows Phone has done a similar thing, taking cues from Android and iOS but putting a different spin on it.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[KlomDark]

What were they trying to do to Java?

Re:Evil Monopoly

[KlomDark]

A wise man once said "Why buy the cow when the milk is free?"

Usually applies to a completely different "action", but works just fine in this scenario.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Rexdude]

I don't think it bodes well for Apple when nerds are running from their platform. Just read the /. comments.

Nerds have never been part of Apple's target demographic since the days of the IIe which shipped with circuit schematics. The vast majority of people are looking for a computer/phone that works like an appliance, and are never going to tinker with or tweak them in any way.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only do I know more iOS devs than I do Android (and I'm currently an Android dev), but many open job listings still list iOS experience as "required", plus an app in the iTunes stores, and often list Android as "desired". So despite the handset market share, it seems iOS still has the most mindshare from employers, regardless of whether devs like it or not, regardless of Apple's policies, and regardless of any legal battles.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, "Apple says use your own technology, don't steal ours."
What's wrong with that?
Every google phone is an obvious ripoff of the iPhone.
It's readily apparent.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[mr100percent]

I haven't used the NeXT email browser, but I think this was in it back in 1988, before Word. Ergo, Apple would own the patent.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad deed is a bad deed, it needs to be punished.
Doesn't matter if someone is doing some thing bad and that person is replacable, replacement needs to be punished too. Plain and simple.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[TennCasey]

They made their own version that was incompatible with Sun's that was intended to eventually be built into Windows to effectively wrestle the control of Java away from them.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has been an evil empire for the last 30 years. Just ask anyone who tried to make an Apple clone.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Belial6]

Now, if only I didn't have more trouble getting apps to run on my iPhone than I don on my Android.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[hawk]

>the first example of a realtime spell checker i encountered in 1997 with MS Word.

Yeah, but that was Word 5.1 (Mac), which was released in '92 or '93--it just took that long to do "realtime" checking . . .

I got 5.1 when it came out, and had the fastest mac available at the time (SE/30). I saw the grammar checker, and thought it a cool idea, and turned it on.

Then I made the mistake of running it.

It took a full minute for every paragraph,

That might have been bearable, but *every* *single* suggestion it made was *wrong*.

I believe, though, that it flagged spelling errors in the background, but it's been 20 years.

Still, that was the last microsoft product I met that was worth buying (coupled with its companion Excel 4 (mac)).

A couple of years later, I'd switch from mac to unix over LyX' equation editing capacity

hawk

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Solandri]

Say what you want about Apple, they *do* spend billions researching new technology.

Apple is pretty close to the bottom of the barrel when it comes to R&D spending by tech companies in recent years. I think this is part of the reason they so irk technology enthusiasts. We don't like having proof that marketing > technology rubbed in our faces.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of the children^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H lawyers!

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Google on the other hand gives away "free" software that it knows infringes other peoples patents

Are you trolling, or do you really believe all that crap about patents? The blatant lie above leads me to believe you're trolling (it won't be the first astroturfer here spewing what his marketing boss tells him to write), but you could also be so immersed in the distortion field you don't know otherwise.
How does Google "know" its software infringes on other "peoples" patents? Just because every crappy idea is patentable in the USA? Nothing you write here contradicts the previous poster assessment on the situation under the light of game theory.
And claiming Apple paid for Nokia's patents, you're conveniently ignoring they refused until forced to an agreement by the approach of a very likely huge court defeat. The same way Apple is refusing to license FRAND patents; they might have offered Motorola or Samsung some payment, but just as a smoke screen, they refused the same conditions under which all other players had refused the patents. And FRAND doesn't mean Samsung, Motorola have to make exceptions for Apple and their bullying tactics, you know?

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

And I will continue to purchase nothing from companies that behave irresponsibly. If you buy any Apple products you are not just an idiot, you are a bad person.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[EzInKy]

All it takes to make a law inconsequential is for everyone to ignore the law. Every time Apple instead chooses to use law to its advantage it legitimizes the law. Think about that for a minute. When enough people refuse to enforce a law, there is in fact no such law. Czar Nicholas, King Louis, and King George can all explain to you what happens when they disagreed with this fact.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[EzInKy]

I have to disagree. If Apple, IBM, Intel, Cisco, Microsoft, and every other large tech company refused to play the game then the game would simply not exist.c

Re:Evil Monopoly

[moronoxyd]

Apple has to sue them and protect their IP.

What IP? "rectangular with rounded corners" is no IP, it's something that was around for thousands of years. (clay tablets, anyone?)
Putting the screen more or less in the center was there before (just about any TV).

Apple did NOT invent the MP3 plaer.
Apple dit NOT invent the smartphone.
Apple did NOT invent the touch screen device.

Apple itself is only copying.
Mouse? GUI? Design of iAnything?

Apple is not willing to pay for past use of somebody elses IP (current Motorola case in Germany), but everybody is supposed to respect Apples IP.

Apple is evil.
I'm not saying that the other players aren't, too.
But Apple is EVIL, and the worst of the bunch, in my book.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[moronoxyd]

So Apple is the bad guy for saying that Andriod needs to recognize the existing laws and patents granted.

No, Apple is the bad guy for expecting everybody to respect Apples patents, but being not willing to do the same for others.
The case Motorola agains Apple in Germany is about Apple not being willing to pay for infringing on Motorolas patents for several years!
It is NOT about Motorolo not being willing to grant Apple a FRAND licence (they are more than willing), bot about Apple not being willing to pay for past infringment of these patents.

What do you call somebody who is not willing tho stick to the rules he expects others to follow?
The word 'hypocrit' comes to mind.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

You like how Google copied Java, call it "Dalvik", introduced incompatibilities with Java in it, and then gave it away to everyone so their OS could quickly gobble up the market?

Oh wait... I can hear the replies before they're typed "GOOGLE DIDN'T COPY JAVA!"

Funny. If you've been following the Oracle vs Google pretrial proceedings you'd know that two damning emails came out (The 2005 Rubin email and the 2010 Lindholm email) in which Google execs admit that they needed Java licenses... but if Sun wasn't going to play ball then Google was going to go ahead anyway "even if it makes us some enemies along the way".

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

We can say the same about Apple: they also spent a lot of money litigating and could have spent it on something useful. Consumers lost twice.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[moronoxyd]

HTC, Samsung, Motorola have all used denied Apple licensing for their GSM and related standards based patents they are obligated to under FRAND terms.

I call BS.

Motorola IS willing to grant Apple FRAND licences.
But Apple wants to get jack free for past use of these patents, and Motorola says (rightfully so!) 'no'.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[bryan1945]

Clay tablets had sharp, point corners. That was the only anti-piracy they had back then- you'd poke the thieves with the pointy corners saying "Bad Sumerian IP thief!"

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

> Money that could have been spent on, well, something useful.

Yes, like copying someone else's product... Oh.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[myowntrueself]

I suppose the only thing left to lament is all the money HTC had to waste to bring this common sense to light. Money that could have been spent on, well, something useful.

Something useful like Australian judges and politicians. Apple probably just spend more in that area than HTC.

How are Australian election campaigns funded?

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Darfeld]

It's understandable, based on the fact that most HR aren't techies and mostly look at popular trend... Iphone is still the trendiest smartphone, therefore Iphone devs are more researched. It really comes down to an advertising matter, not that it doesn't make sense from the employers point of view...

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

gnome-terminal highlight web links as you hover over them and it has been there for many years.

Now, it doesn't have a plugin mechanism, but that's a trivial extension. Of course, I also think just because something is mobile or on a computer, doesn't warrant a new patent.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[anomaly256]

Maybe stop letting the tech-ignorant courts decide such things. Let the IEEE or some other tech-skilled body determine them, perhaps? But one that doesn't have vested interests in the outcome of the decisions, obviously

Re:Evil Monopoly

[jasomill]

What IP? "rectangular with rounded corners" is no IP

This claim concerned a design patent, specifically granted for the "ornamental nonfunctional design" of an object. The prototypical example is the Coke bottle: there's no functional reason it has to be shaped like that.

Alas, there are rather good functional reasons for a tablet to be flat and rectangular with an aluminum body, rounded corners, and a black bezel.

On the other hand, it seemed to many observers inside and outside the courtroom that the Galaxy Tab was not only flat, rectangular, ..., but in fact designed to look like an iPad.

In my eyes, it's just a silly game, really, and most likely intentional on Samsung's part, a calculated risk that, at worst, might lead to iPad-related publicity for the Galaxy Tab, not so much because they're "shameless cloners," but simply because they're trying to sell stuff and the press likes to talk about the iPad.

Apple may be similarly silly, but this hardly arises to the level of "evil," if only because, in the grand scheme of life and death, we're talking about somewhat trivial aspects of somewhat trivial products, and marketing stunts that are mildly entertaining rather than either "soul-sucking" or invasive. Evil is the assholes who want to enjoin medical diagnoses derived from "protected knowledge."

Re:Evil Monopoly

[MrNthDegree]

Except Dalvik VM is free software, MS JVM is not.

Therefore, who cares?

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is Google doesn't claim it's Java platform they implement, but Java language compiled to Dalvik VM.

In MS's case they were adding extensions to Java platform and sticking "Java-compatible" on it, hoping to get to Extinguish step next.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a good comment. It has scientifically proved what everybody knew all along!!!

Re:Evil Monopoly

[hitmark]

Becoming? Freakin' 1984 ad was a exercise in self-deprecation.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[AmiMoJo]

Sure, companies are choosing to act the way they are, but the current patent system is incentivizing this behavior.

If you own a shop and someone sets up a similar one across town and takes away some of your business you are incentivized to throw a petrol bomb through their window, but that doesn't make it right. In both cases the incentive is profit, and profit can never justify being evil.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Theaetetus]

i believe word processing software does this with spell checkers.

the first example of a realtime spell checker i encountered in 1997 with MS Word.

autofill has been in all browsers since about that time as well.

google does the same as you type into the search box.

Apple are full of the worst kind of shit in this case.

No, you are. From the patent: "Filed: February 1, 1996". That MS was doing something marginally similar a year later, that browsers have had the ability to autofill a text box from a stored data file (which is entirely unrelated) a year later, and that Google did something at least two and a half years later, since they didn't exist in 1996 is irrelevant.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Theaetetus]

How many times do I have to say it? You can only patent a method of implementing a system, not just the idea of a system itself. Take a moment, click the link in the summary to the actual patent, read the claims section (not just the abstract), and then tell us whether you still think the prior art you list is actually prior art.

I'd go one step farther and ask him how he thinks stuff "in 1997" or in Q4 1998 when Google was founded are "prior" art for a patent application filed in Feb. 1996.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[hitmark]

My understanding is that making a profit on the Apple App Store is a crap shot these days. Unless your some big name outside the store or get mentioned on some top 10 list your just another sardine in the school. The software business has always been like that. Pages like download.com are overflowing with various "me too" programs.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Theaetetus]

They lost claims on 4 or 5 patents (these can never be re-asserted)

Not so... They lost infringement claims on those patents, but not validity. They can be re-asserted against other devices.
For example, if you sue me for trespassing on your lawn, and you lose your trespass claim in court, your lawn doesn't become public land. You can still sue others, or, if I trespass again, you can sue me again.

But more importantly:

and they won a tiny UI feature, that can easily be programmed around.

This is true, and seems to be something a lot of posters have missed in their rush to rail about overly broad patents and Apple somehow patenting "the idea of touching a phone number on a screen". No, they haven't - they patented one specific implementation, and the fact that it can be easily programmed around means that they didn't didn't patent the general idea.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[AmiMoJo]

Apple did NOT invent the MP3 plaer.

In fact they didn't invent the iPod's two main "innovations", the scroll wheel (Synaptics) and the 1.8" HDD (Toshiba).

Apple dit NOT invent the smartphone.

Nor did they invent Siri or the A4/A5 CPUs, they just bought the companies that made them.

Design of iAnything?

Braun should sue.

Apple doesn't innovate technologically very much, they just buy ideas and figure out how to market them as lifestyle accessories.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Theaetetus]

Well Microsoft Word 97 certainly did it. I'm not sure if anything predates that, but that is fourteen years old.

The filing date for this patent is 1996.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[AmiMoJo]

Apple managed to do something that Microsoft could only dream about. They created an OS that only runs software they approve of and take a cut of the sale price from. They convinced people that they don't need control over their own phone or the ability to install their own software on it. Imagine if Windows required apps to be signed just to run...

Re:Evil Monopoly

[stewbacca]

More like Apple takes half-baked and poorly executed ideas and executes them excellently.

And call it "lifestyle accessories" if you want, but I can't think of what else you could call a music player or a computer. They accessorize my lifestyle very nicely. It would hard to be a computer geek without a computer, for starters.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[imahawki]

have to

Nope. It's a choice. Apple is choosing to strangle the competition while they have the strong hand. Microsoft chooses to set up a protection racket with companies that infringe on their vaguely-defined Linux patents. In contrast, IBM and Google (generally?) don't pursue patent suits unless they're attacked first. (At least, that's the impression that's been put forth by tech journalism.)

You're making it sound like these same companies don't already have lawsuits against Apple. Excuse me but I see your fanboi is sticking out a bit. Cite a reference if you're going to claim that Apple is striking first.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[stewbacca]

Except Dalvik VM is free software, MS JVM is not.

Therefore, aliens?

FTFY.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[imahawki]

Sure, companies are choosing to act the way they are, but the current patent system is incentivizing this behavior. The question should be whether there is a system with better incentives, not whether companies should stop doing what they are doing, because some companies will behave responsibly, but others invariably won't and you have to expect that behavior.

I'm not convinced any companies, even patent trolls, are truly acting irresponsibly. It's impossible to know if a patent is/isn't valid without going to court. And it's impossible to know if a patent is/isn't being infringed without going to court.

This leads to disagreements between patent holders and potential licensors about just how much should be paid in any licensing agreement, or whether any licensing fees should even be paid at all. To make matters worse, the courts are making stupid decisions all the time.

In my mind, this is a clear situation where we need to blame whoever wrote patent law in the first place for failing to predict the mess they created. And blame more recent government(s) for failing to do anything about it.

But how to solve it? That's the trillion dollar question.

If I figure it out, I'm patenting it!

Re:Evil Monopoly

[imahawki]

The point is that Apple is suing HTC because they are using a map to pinpoint a location. I bet that in the last month, there have been a thousand courses taught in colleges and high schools that tell students how to pinpoint locations on maps. Why isn't Apple suing those community college profs instead of HTC?

Do I really need to answer that?

Who came up with mapping technology first? Was it perhaps Google Maps?

Because the high school teacher presumably isn't doing it in binary computer language or any other method that copies Apple's. Worst analogy ever.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[stewbacca]

No, what they did was convince millions of customers that ease-of-use is more important to most people than the false dichotomy of "control" over their own phones.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. I have to buy stuff from the iTunes Store, granted, but the rest of the phone is fully in my control. It's not like I have to submit a ticket to Apple to request a phone call, or log into their servers to use an app I've already purchased and installed.

Where you see lack-of-control (logging into iTunes with an AppleID), others see a feature of having all your apps, music, photos, whatever on any device you own. Wipe your phone on accident? Log into your AppleID and it's all back in minutes. Own an iPad and a couple of iPhones? Buy an app once in the Store and it shows up on all of your devices in seconds.

Software and hardware are all about tradeoffs. What Apple does, and what irks slash dotters, is they get the balance correct for the vast majority of users. Since slash dotters are nothing but a loud minority, there will always be an acrimonious relationship between them and consumer-friendly products.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[scubamage]

Becoming?

Re:Evil Monopoly

[penguinbrat]

I'm no Apple fan, but their R&D has been increasing year after year - the percentage is dropping because they are making more...

$2,398,000,000 (2.2% of est $109,000,000,000) 2011
$1,760,400,000 (2.7% of $65,200,000,000) 2010
$1,329,900,000 (3.1% of $42,900,000,000) 2009
$1,105,000,000 (3.4% of $32,500,000,000) 2008
$792,000,000 (3.3% of $24,000,000,000) 2007
$714,100,000 (3.7% of $19,300,000,000) 2006
$556,000,000 (4% of $13,900,000,000) 2005
$331,200,000 (4% of $8,280,000,000) 2004
$496,000,000 (8% of $6,200,000,000) 2003
$437,600,000 (8% of $5,470,000,000) 2002
$428,800,000 (8% of $5,360,000,000) 2001
$399,000,000 (5% of $7,980,000,000) 2000

(same link)

Re:Evil Monopoly

[GameboyRMH]

Becoming? This isn't 2007 anymore. Apple *is* an evil empire, at least on par with Microsoft.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[AdamJS]

More like Apple takes half-baked and poorly executed ideas and executes them excellently

Sure. Regardless, they did not greatly innovate nor invent the ideas nor practicalities of the whole thing, and their claims otherwise are really fucking annoying.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[GameboyRMH]

LMFAO!! XD

Best line of the post:

...before Apple came up with touch.

Good thing I wasn't drinking when I read that! XD

Re:Evil Monopoly

[AdamJS]

"Other than the whole sleeping in a cell and working on a chain gang thing that makes up prison existence, my life is totally in my control!"

There honestly does not have to be a trade-off. You can allow users to install their own apps from external sources, and still lock down your own marketplace - they could go out of their way to get their own, unofficial one! That is actual control, while still keeping the majority of the users within the default walled garden.

Ease of use doesn't have to be at all compromised. You can always obfuscate or hide ugly customization options and techniques, so long as they are still there and they still work.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[GameboyRMH]

Executes them excellently? More like dumbs them down so that every grandma can use them, at the expense of functionality.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[GameboyRMH]

That's nowhere near as bad as making curated computing commercially successful IMO. Geeks always knew it was possible but didn't try, not only due to the risk of epic failure but because they knew it was both bad for the customer and bad for geeks' hobbies and careers. It was a genie that should have been kept in the bottle for as long as possible, and Jobs the artist let it out.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[GameboyRMH]

Yes, good little sheep. You still have control. You can freely make calls and freely use the Apple-approved apps you've paid for (unless we decide to remote-wipe them, but we'll never do that!). Give us more power and we'll just make it better for you, never abuse it.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[LordLimecat]

In fact they didn't invent the iPod's two main "innovations", the scroll wheel (Synaptics

If synaptic is capable of such a responsive touch device, why cant they make a laptop touchpad that doesnt suck with multitouch?

Re:Evil Monopoly

[alexo]

[...] and profit can never justify being evil.

Yet somehow it always does.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, HTC, Samsung, and others are stealing ideas that Apple popularized. Maybe they should come out with their own products instead of cloning what Apple puts out.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[alexo]

Apple has to sue them and protect their IP.

What IP?

> nslookup apple.com

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: apple.com
Addresses: 17.149.160.49, 17.172.224.47

Re:Evil Monopoly

[AmiMoJo]

If synaptic is capable of such a responsive touch device, why cant they make a laptop touchpad that doesnt suck with multitouch?

a) What does the scroll wheel, a single touch device, have to do with multi-touch? Actually the wheel is very simple because it is only one dimensional, unlike a touchpad or screen that is 2D. They just thought of it first and figured out how to make one.

b) Patents.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[AmiMoJo]

More like Apple takes half-baked and poorly executed ideas and executes them excellently.

Debatable. Having a multitouch UI that can be used with your fingers on a thin mobile device just wasn't possible until a few years ago because the technology didn't exist or was too expensive/power hungry. While Apple did invent a few gestures and come up with a reasonable UI based on them I don't think you can blame years of crappy devices on their manufacturers not being Apple.

And call it "lifestyle accessories" if you want, but I can't think of what else you could call a music player or a computer. They accessorize my lifestyle very nicely. It would hard to be a computer geek without a computer, for starters.

What I mean is they are not the best music players or particularly competitively priced, but people want them because they have a certain image. Samsung and HTC are challenging that and this is Apple's reaction.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this word 'becoming' you throw around so easily?
Apple, as run by the god Jobs, was always an evil empire. Only Apple Fan Boys ever thought otherwise.
From the start, Apple always wanted to be Sony + Microsoft and now they have achieved that goal. Go Apple!

Re:Evil Monopoly

[rozap]

And Apple has wrestled any creativity or innovation from their curated App Store (TM). Can you really say one is better or worse?

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Samantha Wright]

I assume that is some kind of canned reply—first because me having a "fanboi" would require gender reassignment surgery, and second because I pointed out that the opinion I was giving was admittedly framed by the potentially rosy-tinted glasses of tech journalism.

However, if you absolutely must rake the mud some more, here is a summary of HTC's position. Searching for "google sues apple" yields no results, and "ibm sues apple" only returns results relating to a case where an executive chip designer chose to move to Apple.

In light of the above, I kindly invite you to shut the fuck up.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[stewbacca]

I don't think you can blame years of crappy devices on their manufacturers not being Apple.

We can't? This is what sets Apple apart. It's sort of what they're known for. Other companies plod along with crappy devices, then Apple comes along and makes a crappy device not crappy.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[AmiMoJo]

My point was that Apple didn't really invent most of that stuff, they were just the first to put it together and market it well. For example the on-screen touch keyboard had been around for ages, as had predictive text and automatic correction of incorrect key presses. In other words they waited until the technology was there to make it good, while everyone else was struggling along with some useful but kinda niche products that didn't have mass appeal due to their limitations.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Shompol]

Sun sued Microsoft over Java trademark, not a software patent. MS made their version of Java that was not compartible with Sun's Java, so Sun forced them to rename it to .Net.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[the_B0fh]

You don't think http://www.tuaw.com/2011/09/28/no-comment-proof-that-samsung-shamelessly-copies-apple/ shows Samsung taking that copying thing just a bit too far?

Re:Evil Monopoly

[the_B0fh]

What I mean is they are not the best music players or particularly competitively priced, but people want them because they have a certain image. Samsung and HTC are challenging that and this is Apple's reaction.

I could have sworn every report out there says no one else can make a 10" tablet and offer it at the price point Apple could. I'm not very sure how that is not "competitively priced".

Re:Evil Monopoly

[the_B0fh]

you are frothing at the mouth. The hundreds of thousands of apps don't seem to indicate any lack of creativity or innovation.

Just because you can't load it from another source or buy it from another source doesn't mean the stuff in it isn't creative or innovative.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[the_B0fh]

Since your biggest issue is the remote wipe, I take it you are also against Windows Phone 7 and Google's Android since both of them has stated that they will remote wipe apps as well?

Re:Evil Monopoly

[anonymov]

I always felt that this image was put together by some anti-Apple troll and less clever of Apple fans swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[GameboyRMH]

Remote wipe isn't my biggest issue, it's just an aspect of my biggest issue, which is removal of the user's control over the devices they've purchased.

I'm against all remote-wipe capability in general as with all aspects of curated computing.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Begging your pardon...How does the prospect of going to jail for a long time incentivize such behavior?

We were talking about how a government-sanctioned system incentivizes bad behavior because the rules of the game maximize success through following that behavior, and then you came along with a false analogy.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[mgiuca]

Fair enough. But I'm sure someone thought of this before 1996.

More to the point, it just shows how brutally broken the patent system is when a completely obvious (but useful) idea, trivial to implement and trivial to understand without reading about how it was made*, can be used to legally block the sale of an entire product fifteen years after it was invented, during which time the entire industry exploded and was reinvented several times.

*The point "trivial to understand without reading about how it was made" is important: the only reason the patent system exists at all is to convince inventors to describe the details of their inventions to the public. Without the patent system, the theory goes, we would have a lot more trade secrets and we would lose the secrets of useful technology. So when you have a patent describing something that could trivially be re-implemented without underlying knowledge of how it was made -- something like "automatically link text that appears to be in a certain format" or "swipe to unlock" or "arrange buttons in a rectangular grid" -- there is no value to society. So it shouldn't be patentable.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Google developed open source implementations of key technology that Apple developed for iPhone

[citation needed]

Re:Evil Monopoly

[AmigaMMC]

Apple is becoming an evil empire!

That's why I'm so pissed at Apple. 10-15 years ago they would not stop criticizing Microsoft for being the Evil Empire (tm) but they have become worse than Microsoft with all their stupid restrictions and obsessive controlling behavior.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[mjwx]

What do you call somebody who is not willing tho stick to the rules he expects others to follow?
The word 'hypocrit' comes to mind.

It's spelled "hypocrite" But your point is quite good.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[mjwx]

Can you say "tax dodge".

Yes, R&D comes off your taxes, regardless of weather anything is produced.

The point the OP was making is that Apple isn't making new technologies, they are buying companies and making patent claims not actual R&D. M$ does the same except, if you bothered to read the article, M$ spends 13% of it's revenue on R&D (they also produce some good concepts, even if 3/4 of them never make it beyond a tech demo) Whilst Apple only spends 2.2% of it's revenue on R&D.

But what irks people who understand technology is that Apple does not produce much actual technology, they produce few tech demo's and no real world technologies per year.

Most of Apple's alleged ground breaking technologies can be traced back to companies that have been bought by Apple or FOSS that has been co-opted.
OSX/IOS = Modified NetBSD with proprietary GUI.
CUPS = Purchased in early 2000
WebKit = KHTML

The list goes on.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

The system may provide incentives for those who exhibit bad behavior, and the system should be changed. But this doesn't free companies from their moral responsibility to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Once people feel free to fuck over anyone and everyone because they feel they can get away with it, no system will work well. It's really a question of ethics. And if you say businesses don't have ethics, well, that's another topic.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[mjwx]

I don't think it bodes well for Apple when nerds are running from their platform. Just read the /. comments.

Nerds have never been part of Apple's target demographic since the days of the IIe which shipped with circuit schematics. The vast majority of people are looking for a computer/phone that works like an appliance, and are never going to tinker with or tweak them in any way.

True, but this is why Android is taking off like it is. Google got the geeks on side first. Then when the average clueless luser asks for tech advice, they dont go and ask the Hipster, they ask the geek and the Geek recommends Android.

Apple has never understood the relationship between Geeks and tech adoption. For a long time it's been their biggest enemy and still is.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Theaetetus]

Fair enough. But I'm sure someone thought of this before 1996.

Sure, but this is a legal decision. You can't throw someone in jail because "you're sure they did it." You need evidence. So find evidence someone was doing this before 1996. Same thing.

More to the point, it just shows how brutally broken the patent system is when a completely obvious (but useful) idea, trivial to implement and trivial to understand without reading about how it was made*, can be used to legally block the sale of an entire product fifteen years after it was invented, during which time the entire industry exploded and was reinvented several times.

Actually, it shows that the system is working properly. We don't throw people in jail because we're "sure they did it". We throw them in jail because we've proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they did it. Here, the bar is lower - more likely than not. But if you can't provide evidence to show a patent is more likely than not obvious, given the prior art that existed at the time of invention, and a patent results, then the system is working properly. This is justice, not emotion.

The point "trivial to understand without reading about how it was made" is important: the only reason the patent system exists at all is to convince inventors to describe the details of their inventions to the public. Without the patent system, the theory goes, we would have a lot more trade secrets and we would lose the secrets of useful technology. So when you have a patent describing something that could trivially be re-implemented without underlying knowledge of how it was made -- something like "automatically link text that appears to be in a certain format" or "swipe to unlock" or "arrange buttons in a rectangular grid" -- there is no value to society. So it shouldn't be patentable.

If no one ever thought of combining chocolate and peanut butter, then the Reese's cup is pretty freakin' inventive. Even if it's trivial to do without reading how it was made. No one even ever had the idea, so, the inventor's disclosure is really important to the public.

Better example? White chocolate and caviar. WTF? Fish and sweets? No, it's incredible. And no one would ever have thought of it, if it weren't for the inventors, even though it's relatively trivial to implement.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[mgiuca]

Okay, three things.

But if you can't provide evidence to show a patent is more likely than not obvious, given the prior art that existed at the time of invention, and a patent results, then the system is working properly. This is justice, not emotion.

First, this doesn't account for the lengthy (insane) time that a patent lasts. Twenty years? In an industry where the entire landscape changes every three or four years, why should one company be able to hold back the innovation of all others for maybe ten generations of devices? Just because you invented something useful (and perhaps non-obvious), it doesn't necessarily follow that nobody else should be able to use it for a quarter of a human lifetime.

If no one ever thought of combining chocolate and peanut butter, then the Reese's cup is pretty freakin' inventive.

Second, this line of reasoning essentially assumes that all inventions are obvious. Everything ever invented had, at some point, never been thought of before. That does not automatically make it non-obvious. I would say that detecting URLs in text and linkifying them is an obvious invention. Someone was bound to invent it sooner or later. That doesn't mean that whoever invented it first ought to have a monopoly on the invention for twenty years. The patent system specifically has a clause for obviousness, and that doesn't appear to be followed very much.

Even if it's trivial to do without reading how it was made. No one even ever had the idea, so, the inventor's disclosure is really important to the public.

Thirdly, that's a fallacy. In the case of such a product (where it is trivial to reproduce without reading how it was made), simply selling the invention is disclosure. There is no need for a patent. So to take your example, if I invented and sold a Reese's cup, that may be an important contribution to society. But if I also published a patent on the Reese's cup, that doesn't add any further contribution to society: merely having the product tells us everything we need to know. To quote Wikipedia, "the temporary monopoly on the subject matter of the patent is regarded as a quid pro quo for thus disclosing the information to the public." In these cases, there is no quid pro quo, so you don't deserve a 20-year monopoly in exchange for telling us absolutely nothing extra.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

One might say, those who invented the gun are irresponsible.
But really a gun by itself is harmless.

Some one needs to intentionally pull the trigger. The one who pulled the trigger is more responsible in my mind. Knowing the result and for their own benefit.

I'm sorry, but Apple is Evil. Some say they are becoming evil, I have always believed they where evil, people just don;t remember or where not as close to the industry as some of us long tooth IT people.

Bill, at least seems to be trying to clean up his name before he moves on. Steve had no remorse even in the face of death. It only showed his face even more in his BIO. "Kill Android" for copying him... When it may have similarities to iPhone most likely based on how iPhone has changed the industry. While Steve blatantly stole other people ideas to make his own.

Steve was a genius is some ways but he was also a very ugly "person".

Re:Evil Monopoly

[olau]

I'm not convinced any companies, even patent trolls, are truly acting irresponsibly.

Just because something is legal doesn't make it right. Especially not if the law is obviously stupid.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I'd say that they take (multiple) excellent Ideas and bake them together to a neat, but certainly not excellent product that the masses love.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

And with proper "loser pays" rules, Apple would end up paying 4/5 of the court costs and HTC's lawyers (at some rate based on Apple's claimed (or awarded) damages).

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep first to file over first to invent was a drastic mistake, as it truly favors the big guys over the little.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[AberBeta]

Not to take away from your humorous reply, but clay, wax, slate tablets had more pronounced rounded corners than the iPad.
I assume Apple truly held back their own innovating.

Re:Evil Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely. Corporations must, to meet their duties to shareholders, push for every gain or advantage they can within law, and the lawyers paid to do this have to be terriers in their pursuit of such legalistic advantages.

The evil empire was always capitalism, in which Apple, Macroslop, Google and HTC are just small pawns.

Screwed up Patent System

[nikomen]

Just another reason why our patent system needs to be changed. And another reason I don't know who to vote for these days. It seems that all politicians (or most) support the current patent system or don't care to do anything about it. I mean, how can you patent touching a phone number on a screen? That isn't even close to an invention. Absurdity.

Re:Screwed up Patent System

[BasilBrush]

Well someone must have invented it, otherwise it wouldn't exist in any product.

Re:Screwed up Patent System

[mug funky]

i think you, like the USPTO, have confused "invented" with "implemented".

it's the implementation of a blindingly obvious idea. it's not (or should not be) patentable in any way.

Re:Screwed up Patent System

[Anonymous Coward]

And somebody invented having an entry/exit hole to get into your house or car, too. Some (most) things should not be patentable, because they are so incredibly obvious to anybody with even the vaguest inkling of an idea about the field in question. The issue is that our current patent system doesn't hold submissions up to even a relatively low standard such as this -- it's pretty-much a given that whatever a big corporation submits an application for will be granted, and it will take a lengthy court battle to have it overturned later, even when it is clear to everybody involved that it never should have been granted in the first place.

That leaves us in a situation where whomever has the deepest pockets (and thus the best lawyers, at least in terms of ability to drag a case out for the longest possible time) will always win, and all the patent process does is prevent innovation, and prevent the little guy from succeeding.

Re:Screwed up Patent System

[Anonymous Coward]

In the long term the current patent regime is going to kill US tech industry. The only way to avoid the demise is if congress is willing to use military force to enforce the same regulations world wide.

Re:Screwed up Patent System

[BasilBrush]

i think you, like the USPTO, have confused "invented" with "implemented".

Nope. It has to be invented before it can be implemented.

Whether or not software should be patentable is a separate matter.

Re:Screwed up Patent System

[lexman098]

His point is that novelty is a factor; or should be.

Re:Screwed up Patent System

[E IS mC(Square)]

Like how you are a fanboi is a fact, but whether you are an asshole too or not is a separate matter? I see.

Re:Screwed up Patent System

[BasilBrush]

"Novel : new and not resembling something formerly known or used"

Everything man has created was once novel.

Re:Screwed up Patent System

[Theaetetus]

i think you, like the USPTO, have confused "invented" with "implemented".

it's the implementation of a blindingly obvious idea. it's not (or should not be) patentable in any way.

But they didn't patent "touching a phone number on a screen." As you say, they patented one specific implementation. That's why the article notes that Google (and thus HTC) can get around the patent if they implement it in a different way. You are correct that the base idea is not patentable, but you're wrong in thinking that the USPTO doesn't already know that.

Re:Screwed up Patent System

[lexman098]

Ok, the idea was once novel, but was that recently? Phones have had push buttons for each number since rotary went out of style. Suppose I made a dialer for a smartphone that allowed you to "push" imaginary number-buttons. Not only that, but if after a few numbers it aligns with one of your contacts the phone will autocomplete and let you dial it or keep pressing new numbers (kind of like google instant). Neither dialing with number-buttons nor auto-completion could be considered novel these days, but patents are granted for this sort of thing just because the features have never been implemented at the same time and on a smartphone before. The ideas were novel at one time, but not when the patent was filed. All that happened was new implementation.

"Implement: To put into practical effect; carry out"

Re:Screwed up Patent System

[BasilBrush]

Why are you describing a hypothetical patent? This story is about a particular patent, and it's not one of those "... on a phone" patents. The patent refers to the invention on a computer.

The question os whether it is novel or not is what the entire patent system is about.

I don't know whether its novel or not, but the first time I saw the system described was indeed on an Apple Mac.

If you're saying it isn't novel, then you need to point to prior art. The idea that it seems obvious now, some time after you've seen heard about it, is not enough. The wheel seems obvious, but it didn't occur to generations of man.

Re:Screwed up Patent System

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL @ Apple fanboys with their "It was totally non-obvious until Holy Apple came"

Just to give you a reference point, as you obviously don't ever see anything outside the apple garden, regexes was here since 1970s, sed was here in ~1975, perl in ~1985, hypertext since about ~1985 as well.

Do you really think nobody before Apple looked at a .txt file and s// and thought "Hey, I can use those to make it a properly hyperlinked text"?

even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[Trepidity]

From TFA:

So what Apple has won is a formal import ban scheduled to commence on April 19, 2012, but relating only to HTC Android phones implementing one of two claims of a "data tapping patent": a patent on an invention that marks up phone numbers and other types of formatted data in an unstructured document, such as an email, in order to enable users to bring up other programs (such as a dialer app) that process such data.

So the non-frivolous claim on which Apple actually prevailed was essentially a regex to find things that look like phone numbers in unstructured text documents, which then link to a dialer app?

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[makomk]

So the non-frivolous claim on which Apple actually prevailed was essentially a regex to find things that look like phone numbers in unstructured text documents, which then link to a dialer app?

It's slightly more complicated than that IIRC, but pretty much.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

>

So the non-frivolous claim on which Apple actually prevailed was essentially a regex to find things that look like phone numbers in unstructured text documents, which then link to a dialer app?

And even worse, there was a phone Zimlet available prior to the release of the iPhone that did exactly the same thing, minus the touchscreen equivalent of a click. This is a poor decision at best.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[jhantin]

Now if only they'd clout Kontera and similar advertising providers with this patent. I don't want the word "books" to automatically become a pay-per-click link to Amazon, thanks.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[errandum]

Skype did that before apple every launched an iPhone (obviously, not on a phone, but using phone numbers).

Whoever allowed them to get a patent like that is an idiot. It's not just the system that is wrong, is the ones controlling it and that should be evaluating patents for things like prior art and actual invention that are failing.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

This type of function has been available in web documents for tens of years now! Just think of the e-mail links that come up when you see someone's e-mail address online...and what happens when you click them in ANY browser? They open Outlook or Thunderbird or the like... That's the function right there...and by NO means is it new! OR in regards to Google, Gmail itself has had the feature where it will take things like tracking numbers from e-mails and provide you with a link to UPS (or the like) to track it. This feature has existed for a long time...though technically it doesn't lead to a "program" or "app" when the link is clicked, it is a remarkably similar feature which goes on the same basis of allowing something else to take charge. Still, going on the basis of a link linking to a program, that's what those e-mail links have done for tens of years now. They can't claim the right to that...it's the same underlying idea. Simply because it's a phone number instead of an e-mail address doesn't get rid of the underlying idea of it being information formatted to be used by another program -- same principle. If this is truly what they had patented for themselves and were arguing about, it's a b.s. patent.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[dgatwood]

Maybe you didn't read the date on the patent. It was filed in 1996 and granted in 1999. This patent isn't an iPhone patent. It's a Newton patent.

More to the point, the patent application was filed before Google, HTC, or Zimbra were even founded—back in the day when Palm was just starting to take off. You're going to have to look a lot farther back than the Zimlet for prior art.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[DJRumpy]

Actually Apple patented this in the mid 1990's.

And even worse, there was a phone Zimlet available prior to the release of the iPhone that did exactly the same thing, minus the touchscreen equivalent of a click. This is a poor decision at best.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

There's plenty of prior art.. heck how about awk?

In any case this patent is completely and totally obvious to even a CS101 student... and that should be grounds for invalidation

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[dgatwood]

Email links are explicitly marked. This patent is about detecting things that look like email addresses that are not marked with links in the HTML.

Also, all of your "prior art" examples were invented more than a decade after this patent was filed. Google didn't exist when this was filed, and neither did Microsoft Outlook. Netscape Navigator was still the most popular web browser—Netscape Communicator hadn't scared everyone over to IE yet. JavaScript had just been invented.

Remember, what's obvious now was not necessarily obvious fifteen years ago.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[dgatwood]

Yeah, but Apple did it and patented it seven years before Skype was even founded. Everything seems obvious fifteen years after its invention....

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[dgatwood]

Awk isn't prior art. It might be possible to implement a small portion of this using Awk (though it would be a royal pain in the backside—Perl would do a much better job given that we're talking about detecting data in free-form text, not formatted records), but that doesn't make it prior art. Prior art has to do everything that the patent covers, not just one little piece.

Prior art for this would be a graphical (or text-GUI) application that, as part of its normal operation, detected email addresses and other piece of information and acted on them in some interesting way. For example, if you could find a USENET news reader from 1995 that automatically detected email addresses outside the To and From fields and converted them to clickable links, then you would have prior art. The fact that someone could have implemented this using software that existed prior to 1996 is immaterial. As far as patent law is concerned, the only thing that matters is whether someone else actually did implement it prior to 1996.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[dgatwood]

Actually, correction, on further searching, Data Detectors were initially a Copland UI feature (though it might have appeared in Newton at some point as well). My bad.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[Zalbik]

Everything seems obvious fifteen years after its invention....

But some things are also obvious before their invention...like the thing Apple is suing over.

"New" should not mean the same thing as "Invention" as far as patent law is concerned.

It quite obviously doesn't promote innovation, and is tying up our legal system with stupid lawsuits that do nothing but harm the consumer.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you miss the word 'obvious' in GP's post? Obviousness is also part of patent law.

This is blatantly obvious and trivial. You find the phone number with a regex and then wrap it up in a link. This was not an innovation at the time of application.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[shutdown -p now]

I don't understand this fixation many Slashdot readers have on prior art, especially when examples brought in are much more generic than patent in question (and hence can only do what the patent describes if explicitly set up / programmed that way). I guess it's an attempt to game the existing system, but I very much doubt a non-lawyer's prior art claims would be of much use here.

Instead, we should be focusing on the real problem, which is how ridiculously broad and over-reaching these patents are. I mean, seriously? a patent on highlighting phone numbers in the text? even if no-one implemented that by 1996, most certainly a lot of people have done it independently since then, when devices where this feature is actually useful have appeared - and that's because the idea is extremely obvious.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[whisper_jeff]

http://www.google.com/patents/US5946647

This patent was filed for _and granted_ years before Skype was even conceived. Not sure how you got modded "insightful" given how utterly uninformative and inaccurate your post is...

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[BillX]

The actual claims (1 and 8 were found to infringe) are even vaguer than that - not only "phone numbers"; it covers ANY findable data structure in ANY data:

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-based system for detecting structures in data and performing actions on detected structures, comprising:

an input device for receiving data;

an output device for presenting the data;

a memory storing information including program routines including

an analyzer server for detecting structures in the data, and for linking actions to the detected structures;

a user interface enabling the selection of a detected structure and a linked action; and

an action processor for performing the selected action linked to the selected structure; and

a processing unit coupled to the input device, the output device, and the memory for controlling the execution of the program routines.

[...non-infringed claims...]

8. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the user interface highlights detected structures.

This patent appears to cover the entire internet without even having to add "...on the internet" as a claim.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure how you got modded "insightful" given how utterly uninformative and inaccurate your post is...

Because this is Slashdot and his comment was anti-Apple. Therefore it's the most insightful comment ever written, despite being complete fantasy.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[hawk]

Are you sure it's a Newton patent? I didn't 2k35hl any spelling errands in 453k;jk15k . . . :)

hawk

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

So what Apple has won is a formal import ban scheduled to commence on April 19, 2012, but relating only to HTC Android phones implementing one of two claims of a "data tapping patent": a patent on an invention that marks up phone numbers and other types of formatted data in an unstructured document, such as an email, in order to enable users to bring up other programs (such as a dialer app) that process such data.

So the non-frivolous claim on which Apple actually prevailed was essentially a regex to find things that look like phone numbers in unstructured text documents, which then link to a dialer app?

If your description is true(ish), then Opera did this when it displayed text files, c:a 1996-97. But it applied to other kinds of "links" than phone numbers as well, most notably "http:"-links.

I've used email applications, possibly Pegasus Mail, in the 1990's that did the same thing.

I've seen a text editor used with ABC 80 (Swedish home computer from the late 1970's) that also recognised phone numbers in a plain text file, marked them and provided dial-up through the computers speakers. This was sometime around 1980.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[errandum]

As I said earlier, I'd mod myself down if I could, but the main point still stands. This is a ridiculous patent and those taking care of the system should never allow it to pass. And I'm not saying this because it's apple, it's just that things like this are in the same bag as real innovation (I don't mind if apple finds a new more efficient and secure protocol and then patents it), but as it stands now, they all loose credibility by sharing the same boat.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[errandum]

I'd mod myself down if I could, but even though the example is wrong, the idea still stands. Those who grant patents can't allow these kind of things to go through. These patents share the field with real inventions that end up not getting the credit they deserve because almost no one still believes in the system.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[gl4ss]

the patent is so old that the prior art would have to be from 80's/early 90's.

BUT.. there would be plenty of that, too. I'm 99.99% sure you could find the same thing implemented in some bbs and terminal sw.(because it's so broadly worded)

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[gmueckl]

Back in 1996 it was at least very uncommon to actually do that. This kind of automatically filtering arrived in common desktop software many years later, if I'm not mistaken.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[oodaloop]

Hey, that sounds cool. Maybe one day my HTC Android phone will be able to do that.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[Sepodati]

No, Apple recognizes parsing as existing prior to this invention. They also acknowledge that some applications allow the user to select certain data and perform an action (highlight a phone number -> tell application to dial). The truly novel part of this invention is that Apple does all of this automatically!! It parses for data, validates the data and when the data is selected by the user, MULTIPLE options are presented to the user! Previous inventions have only allowed a single action, but this allows MORE THAN ONE!

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[Sepodati]

The novel part is Apple gives you MULTIPLE options based on the data... not just a dialer-app!

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[Theaetetus]

Instead, we should be focusing on the real problem, which is how ridiculously broad and over-reaching these patents are. I mean, seriously? a patent on highlighting phone numbers in the text? even if no-one implemented that by 1996, most certainly a lot of people have done it independently since then, when devices where this feature is actually useful have appeared - and that's because the idea is extremely obvious.

It's not a patent on "highlighting phone numbers in text." They patented one specific implementation. That's why the article notes that Google (and thus HTC) can get around the patent if they implement it in a different way. You are correct that the base idea is not patentable, but that's not really relevant. .

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[Theaetetus]

Everything seems obvious fifteen years after its invention....

But some things are also obvious before their invention...like the thing Apple is suing over.

"New" should not mean the same thing as "Invention" as far as patent law is concerned.

It quite obviously doesn't promote innovation, and is tying up our legal system with stupid lawsuits that do nothing but harm the consumer.

In what way? They filed this application 15 years ago, and now, everyone does this. Apparently, they promoted innovation.

Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous

[dzfoo]

Some people must believe in the system, or else they wouldn't be using it to argue over this.

Perhaps you meant that almost no one those who is inconsequential to and disconnected from the system believes in it.

        -dZ.

More details

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.itc337update.com/tags/337ta710/

Minor victory?

[nightfell]

It looks like Apple's victory is relatively minor. They lost claims on all patents except for one, and HTC/Google can work on implementing similar functionality in a non-infringing way.

It seems like this is exactly what Apple wants, other companies coming up with their own solutions. This should also be want Slashdot wants. Isn't competition what drives innovation? Where's the innovation if everyone just does what everyone else is doing?

Re:Minor victory?

[0123456]

Isn't competition what drives innovation? Where's the innovation if everyone just does what everyone else is doing?

Who's going to be able to innovate if they're being forced to waste their time looking for ways to work around stupid patents instead?

Re:Minor victory?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like Apple wants other companies to waste time and money on lawyers fighting these lawsuits and developers coming up with non-obvious techniques for doing obvious things to get around the patents.

Things like this force wasted effort that could better be spent pushing the boundaries of what is available rather than going back and redoing things that have been around for literally (figuratively) billions of years.

Full Disclose: I own both a Macbook Pro and an iPhone.

Re:Minor victory?

[sideslash]

This should also be want Slashdot wants.

I like diversity in Slashdot opinions. If all Slashdot readers were Apple fanboys like you, it would be boring around here.

Isn't competition what drives innovation? Where's the innovation if everyone just does what everyone else is doing?

It's ironic that you chose the word "competition" to describe forcing people out of a space via an effective monopoly.

Re:Minor victory?

[Bert64]

Why reinvent the wheel? Take what already exists as a base, and innovate beyond it... That's how progress works!

Or would you prefer that the wheel was patented and every vehicle manufacturer but one had to waste huge resources creating an "innovative" replacement for it?

While a company is expending resources to create an inferior replacement for something that already exists, they can't be using those resources to create something truly new and innovative....

You'd end up with a situation where company A has a patent on round wheels, while company B has a patent on square wheels and spent years developing an extremely advanced suspension system to try to bring the ride comfort of their square wheels to be competitive with the round wheels... Meanwhile everything else in the cars would be antiquated because they spent all their time trying to work around each other's patents.

Re:Minor victory?

[nightfell]

This should also be want Slashdot wants.

I like diversity in Slashdot opinions. If all Slashdot readers were Apple fanboys like you, it would be boring around here.

Yeah, I must be a fanboy because my opinion is different than yours...

Isn't competition what drives innovation? Where's the innovation if everyone just does what everyone else is doing?

It's ironic that you chose the word "competition" to describe forcing people out of a space via an effective monopoly.

Not sure what you mean here. Where is Apple trying to force anyone out of a market?

Re:Minor victory?

[nightfell]

Isn't competition what drives innovation? Where's the innovation if everyone just does what everyone else is doing?

Who's going to be able to innovate if they're being forced to waste their time looking for ways to work around stupid patents instead?

Apple went through the trouble coming up with it in the first place. What's so wrong with expecting others to do the same? Are Apple somehow more capable than the rest of the industry combined or something? That doesn't seem likely.

Re:Minor victory?

[Nerdfest]

You can't come up with an alternate approach to an idea. Software patents are ridiculous because a completely different implementation still infringes.

Re:Minor victory?

[mug funky]

umm, what? try read what the patent covers and see if your point stands up to the stupidity of the situation.

Re:Minor victory?

[Zalbik]

Isn't competition what drives innovation? Where's the innovation if everyone just does what everyone else is doing?

Not if the "innovation" involves coming up with a non-obvious way to perform a task due to the fact that some company has patented the obvious way of performing that task.

Re:Minor victory?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some things that need to be improved, and some things everyone should be able to do in the same way.

Re:Minor victory?

[khipu]

It seems like this is exactly what Apple wants, other companies coming up with their own solutions

Except, of course, that Apple didn't come up with this solution themselves either, they ripped it off from other companies.

Re:Minor victory?

[stephanruby]

It seems like this is exactly what Apple wants, other companies coming up with their own solutions. This should also be want Slashdot wants. Isn't competition what drives innovation? Where's the innovation if everyone just does what everyone else is doing?

Yes, pray tell. Let the innovation begin. How would you suggest going around this particular invention in question for instance?

a patent on an invention that marks up phone numbers and other types of formatted data in an unstructured document, such as an email, in order to enable users to bring up other programs (such as a dialer app) that process such data.

Re:Minor victory?

[Stewie241]

No, Steve Jobs said fairly clearly that he simply wants Android to die, and I somehow doubt that sentiment was isolated to him alone, especially considering he personally groomed Tim Cook.

Considering the majority of the patents were invalidated, it isn't driving innovation they were after. If it were, they would limit their claims to those that are copying their innovative ideas. Rather, they are trying to impede the success of their competitors.

Re:Minor victory?

[shutdown -p now]

Apple went through the trouble coming up with it in the first place. What's so wrong with expecting others to do the same?

I'm inclined to believe that others who implemented this have also came up with the idea themselves, without reading Apple's patent. It's a rather obvious thing. The reason why Apple was there first was simply because they were the first ones trying to make a portable device for which this feature made sense (i.e. Newton). The device itself was too early for the market, though. But when the time for such devices came, everyone came up with that same idea - which just goes to show how obvious the thing is.

Or do you seriously think that someone at Google is sifting through Apple's patents to see what else to steal?

Re:Minor victory?

[whisper_jeff]

Citation please. Baseless accusations are worthless without some sort of backing.

Re:Minor victory?

[khipu]

You've heard of Google? Are you incapable of formulating a simple query?

Re:Minor victory?

[whisper_jeff]

Are you incapable of formulating a simple query?

Sure I am but I think you're full of shit so I'm challenging you to put your money where your mouth is. But you'll reply with stuff like that because you have no proof what so ever. Do you even know when the patent in question was filed for? Do you know when it was granted? Here's a secret - I do. So, before you challenge my ability to use Google, perhaps you'd like to give it a try before you spout off stupid nonsense that has no foundation in fact.

Re:Minor victory?

[steveaustin1971]

Except for this is kind of a common sense feature... they have also tried to go after tablet makers for using a rectangular shape with rounded corners... where does it end?

Re:Minor victory?

[JasterBobaMereel]

Reinvent the wheel is more like

Company A patents wheels - does no more work on them and sells licences, and sues anyone who makes anything like a wheel, you get treetrunks on all vehicles for the next 70 years

Company B makes a walking car, it's clunky slow and costs 10 times company A's but can cover terrain company A's can't - Sells only to specialist buyers

Company C makes a vehicle with Septagonal wheels, and Company A sues them anyway ...

Meanwhile everyone just wants an improved wheel but no-one has any incentive to do this ....

Re:Minor victory?

[Xest]

Being forced to reinvent the wheel isn't innovating, it's time and money wasting.

Humanity will get nowhere if it's forced to invent the same things over and over, rather than focus on inventing new things.

Re:Minor victory?

[sFurbo]

The wheel was patented in 2001. I don't think that patent will survive a lawsuit, but it does show how much of a rubber stamp getting a patent has become (in Australia, and for one type of patents).

Re:Minor victory?

[khipu]

In the time it took you to post your rant, you could have found the prior art I was referring to.

Re:Minor victory?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never seen any source code or binary code in any of these so-called "software patents". They're obviously not patenting an invention, but an idea and every possible implementation of such idea. Clearly the patent system is very broken.

I'm getting sick of these news stories...

[c0mpliant]

These are basically irrelevant stories which only last for a few weeks at most and serve only to annoy everyone concerned. It Isn't benefiting consumers, its not beneficial to either company and only wastes court time. No one wins from this tit for tat patent challenges

Re:I'm getting sick of these news stories...

[Delarth799]

No your wrong, there IS somebody who wins. The lawyers win, and the more something is tied up in court the more they win.

2012 Elections - Any Hope?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we elect people who will terminate software patents, please?

Re:2012 Elections - Any Hope?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please.
I'd prefer a patent on terminating people we elected via software.
2012? We can Hope.

Re:2012 Elections - Any Hope?

[shutdown -p now]

You should vote for the candidate who's most likely to get U.S. involved in an all-out nuclear war. It'll take care of a lot of things in the long term, software patents likely being among them. ~

Re:2012 Elections - Any Hope?

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Most countries has a pirate party that wants to remove software patents.

So yes there is - just vote for them.

Re:2012 Elections - Any Hope?

[Gaygirlie]

You can't: there are none in the political field, they're too busy shoving money in their pockets to care.

has it always been like this?

[Sebastopol]

The flurry of international tablet lawsuits seems much more rigorous than I remember for any past technology. Was it always this bad?

Smart phones didn't sue each other this badly. Nor did DVD manufacturers. AMD & Intel went at it hard during the 80's & early 90's. Sony & Betamax sorta duked it out. But the tablet wars seem to be nutso.

At least the economy for lawyers is booming...

Re:has it always been like this?

[exomondo]

At least the economy for lawyers is booming...

Eventually people will just stop bothering to make things.

Re:has it always been like this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony was Betamax, they also worked on VHS but broke away.

Re:has it always been like this?

[drinkypoo]

Smart phones didn't sue each other this badly.

Smartphones are STILL suing each other, including involvement by Apple. DVD was handled by a consortium and there's no money in going after unlicensed players, although the low-hanging fruit is picked just to keep the people making such things on their toes. Intel totally boned AMD. Betamax was a Sony technology, ITYM Betamax and VHS, but putting onerous licensing terms on a technology and killing it is actually called "Betamaxing".

Re:has it always been like this?

[tgd]

The early 21st century can't touch the end of the 19th where patent litigation is concerned.

Everything from telepgraph technology, loom technology, sewing machines... you name it, there were companies suing each other into oblivion, blocking entire industries for years or decades.

We've got it *good* these days.

Re:has it always been like this?

[phantomfive]

Here's the smartphone lawsuit graph. Qualcomm and Broadcomm fought each other just as hard a few years back (and also ended up with an injunction against importing phones), but it didn't make as much noise in the press. I think because Apple news is good for selling newspapers, the fight has taken places a bit more publicly. The good thing is that the larger media has started to take notice of the evils of patents.

Re:has it always been like this?

[steelfood]

No, it wasn't. Apple's terrified of Android--not necessarily what it is, but what it may become, which is another Windows against their MacOS. That's history they don't want to see repeated on the smartphone and tablet. Except, they're a little too late, so they're scrambling around desparately throwing out whatever they can against Android hardware manufacturers in hopes it'll be enough to cripple Android and Android's ecosystem for the near future.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is just stalling while they try to get their house in order and put out a decent smartphone and tablet OS. This is why they're compelling other companies to pay royalty instead of outright taking them to court over the supposed infringed patents. They want these same companies to make Windows Mobile phones, not to go out of business.

Re:has it always been like this?

[kiwirob]

Apple has $80B+ cash and short term marketable securities in the bank. That is enough to purchase the mobile divisions of every Andriod hardware maker in the world. Apple have problems making enough iPhone and iPad devices to meet demand globally. Apple is currently the largest market capitalization company in the world with $355B.

Can you please tell me again how Apple is terrified???? These lawsuits relating to Andriod cost them such a small amount in legal bills relative to the companies size that it doesn't even make it onto the companies SEC registered public accounts.

Apple is just pissed off because Eric Schmidt lied to Steve Jobs about what Google was up to with Andriod while he was sitting on the board of directors of Apple. Schmidt took a couple years of Apple's strategic plans in the mobile space and told key people at Google so they could reorganize what their own plans where. Jobs felt betrayed and got Apple all worked up about how evil Google was. It's kinda like some dude at high school befriending you to get to know your girlfriend better, and just when you think you've got a new best mate he steals your girlfriend and kicks sand in your face. That and the fact that Google is the only multi-billion dollar company in the world that thinks because it makes money form advertising instead of selling widgets it doesn't have to pay anybody for technology other people have patents on.

Re:has it always been like this?

[gl4ss]

it doesn't matter how much money you have in the bank if you stop making more. the investors will just take it before you have chance to burn through it.

and meh, plenty was happening in the mobile space without apple. an android like system was being built by many players in the industry a lot before iphone hit the scene.

Re:has it always been like this?

[AdamJS]

Apple was also on top of the a couple decades ago.

Re:has it always been like this?

[Gumbercules!!]

As I believe 2008 should have shown you, market cap can disappear awfully, awfully fast - it's simply an estimated value of investor sentiment based on the last share sold. Mid October Apple's market cap was $420b. 30 days later it was $80b less and Exxon was the biggest market cap company again (and still is). That would clean out the supposed $80b cash pretty quick, if it happened again - and it could. Not saying it will but pointing out that market cap is great and all but damn is it unstable.

As for your last sentence, it's so ludicrous hypocritical it barely justifies a response. iOS was once innovative - no question. Now every release just wholesale rips off (older) Android functionality while claiming innovation (notifications, as one single example, though iOS 5 was basically a first attempt at emulating cupcake, without the widgets functionality) and the faithful jump to their feet and cheer (watch youtube for the release of iOS 5 and people literally do this at notifications, as though it's in some way new). Check Google's behaviour towards Motorola's GSM patents.

Re:has it always been like this?

[Sebastopol]

Doh. Thanks for the correction. :-)

Re:has it always been like this?

[Sebastopol]

Good point(s). Yeah, I totally forgot about AC vs DC / Tesla vs Edison. Whew.

Re:has it always been like this?

[Sebastopol]

Lol! That is a fantastic graph. Thanks!

Re:has it always been like this?

[phantomfive]

Also an interesting parallel is the sewing machine patent thicket of the 1800s. Do a Google search for that, there's been some interesting research done on that topic.

when a win is barely a win

[StealthHunter]

HTC gave Android Central the following statement (updated 6:20 EST): We are gratified that the Commission affirmed the judge’s initial determination on the ‘721 and ‘983 patents, and reversed its decision on the ‘263 patent and partially on the ‘647 patent. We are very pleased with the determination and we respect it. However, the ‘647 patent is a small UI experience and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon.

Re:when a win is barely a win

[lobos]

I agree. I think this being negative for HTC and positive for Apple is a bit overblown. Here's some quotes from some Wall Street research that puts it in perspective:

"Many observers may hastily claim this is a victory for Apple; we believe the exact contrary. HTC and Android won this first battle. This ruling is very disappointing to the Cupertino firm, in the sense that only 2 claims relating to only one patent have been recognised as true by the ITC, out of dozens relating to 10 patents that formed the initial filling of Apple. It is also disappointing in the sense that it won’t disrupt at all, at least in our analysis, HTC’s and Android’s businesses. Much ado for nothing."

" Most interestingly, the ITC stated that the ban will not take effect until April 19th, which in essence means that the ITC gave HTC and US carriers ample time to work around the limited violation.... HTC confirmed to us several months ago that they have a work around ready to ship for this patent. Our own “layman” assessment of the feasibility of such a work around is also very straight forward: it is very easy, best proof being that blackberry users have been able to call a number part of the body of an email since before the iPhone existed"

"This ruling shows that judicial authorities care about market disruption. The time they gave before the ban is enforced, specifically mentioning in their official communication that it was for carriers to organise transition."

Legal costs

[multiben]

I would love to know what fraction of total expenditure for some of these companies is spent on legal tangles. All these cost are of course passed on to the consumer at the end of the day, so the longer this ridiculous farce of a patent system is allowed to continue the longer it will be that we continue to pay inflated costs.

Re:Legal costs

[0123456]

The whole point of the patent system is to increase costs to consumers by reducing competition. There'd be no reason to have it otherwise.

Re:Legal costs

[Anonymous Coward]

The true legal cost is that no amount of advertising is ever going to repair the damage to Apple's image.

Re:Legal costs

[Anonymous Coward]

There used to be plenty of reason for having it. Technology started a exponential increase around the same time patents became more common. There is a link between the two things, though I'm not sure how strong the relationship is personally, if you check your history, it is undeniable there is some sort of relationship. Unfortunately the pendulum has swung quite part part the sweet spot and is going to start to hurt this innovation more and more if we do nothing.

Re:Legal costs

[Vinegar Joe]

I would love to know what fraction of total expenditure for some of these companies is spent on legal tangles.

Hey! You don't think lawyers have to eat too?

Re:Legal costs

[tgd]

I would love to know what fraction of total expenditure for some of these companies is spent on legal tangles. All these cost are of course passed on to the consumer at the end of the day, so the longer this ridiculous farce of a patent system is allowed to continue the longer it will be that we continue to pay inflated costs.

Its usually low -- most companies enter cross licensing agreements and it all balances out. This only happens when either a company doesn't have a defensive portfolio, or (as in Apple's case here), they think they've got a stronger portfolio than they actually have.

Re:Legal costs

[hawk]

personally, I welcome our new overlords that will feed all the lawyers . . .

hawk, esq.

Re:Legal costs

[JasterBobaMereel]

...and the cost of licensing patented items in a smartphone is already a significant proportion of the cost of all smartphones

Re:Legal costs

[JasterBobaMereel]

which very effectively stops any new players entering the market.....

Re:Legal costs

[tgd]

Actually, it makes it easier. But those players have to pay for the imbalance in IP.

If you want to design a new phone, you don't need to spend a billion dollars to hire RF engineers, Micro-E's, mathematicians, auditory experts, mechanical engineers and the like, and invent everything from scratch. You can start, already standing on the shoulders of the people who came first, and innovate from there.

The one thing you can't do is take a cell phone and start knocking it off and pretending it was your invention.

Re:Legal costs

[JasterBobaMereel]

...but you have to licence all the IP ... and so your phone will be more expensive than all the competition so you had better have a killer feature

Apple did ... now they don't, and this is one of the reasons they are trying to stop the rest of the market

Such as inventing Ogg Vorbis, which is better than

[MichaelCrawford]

MP3?

I agree that the patent system is broken because patents are granted for frivolous claims such as XOR cursors.

But to the extent that inventions really are novel and unobvious, and the claims non frivolous, continuously reinventing the wheel is really what we want. if we never reinvented wheels, we would still be rolling things around on the trunks of fallen trees.

Further I do not agree that software should be exempt from patents for the reason that the patent office gave, that software is an inherently mathematical concept. Anyone who does not agree that software is just as mechanical as an automobile engine has never written any code.

Fuck Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

or does Apple have that patented too.

Re:Fuck Apple

[gmhowell]

or does Apple have that patented too.

In this case, Penny Arcade has the prior art.

Re:Such as inventing Ogg Vorbis, which is better t

[Bert64]

That's not reinventing the wheel, thats improving the wheel... Something you couldn't do if the wheel was patented because your improved version would still infringe on the original.

No matter what they do to try to force me to own a

[Anonymous Coward]

No matter what they do to try to force me to own an Apple product I never will. I was actually cheering Jobs on in the book until they got to the iPod and then I was cheering him to the grave.

Patentable inventions must be novel and unobvoius

[MichaelCrawford]

I would hardly say that turning phone numbers into hyperlinks qualifies as novel and unobvoius.

A real problem is that fiendishly expensive lawsuits are required to overturn patents. we would be much better off if just anyone could point out prior art that would get the patent office to overturn patents that aren't really novelmor unobvious.

the patent examiner who decides the unobvious part really should be an expert in the given technology. had some examiner ever studied the most elementary graphics, they never would have granted a patent for the XOR cursor.

USPTO in bed with Apple?

[viperidaenz]

uspto.gov requries the use of Apple Quicktime to view images. Whats wrong with gif, jpg, png...

Re:USPTO in bed with Apple?

[mambru]

It "just" embeds a tiff file. Maybe your browser is fooling you.

Re:USPTO in bed with Apple?

[viperidaenz]

Damn you firefox!

Message Broker / ESB w/ workflow

[Anonymous Coward]

This kind of thing has been done forever in distributed systems.
Analyze the data and trigger an action based on the content within the context of processing a workflow.

RIM did this a long time before apple. Windows always asked how to open a file w/ out an associated application.

This isn't a new problem.

I'm available for part time work if google needs someone to implement a message based ESB-lite on Android.

In a vague sense carrier IQ was violating parts of these patents w/o UI elements.

And maybe that is a win!

[robbak]

Not having this 'feature' may be a win for HTC. I find it really annoying when I touch a date and have my phone set itself up to dial '2011'. It also doesn't work, because when I try to use this feature, it only recognizes part of the number : usually just the '1800' of '1300' part, which is completely useless.

Re:And maybe that is a win!

[horza]

Of course having a patent on something that is blindingly obvious and not at all original (even back in the time it was filed) is that nobody can then build on and improve it. For instance recognising if the number has the correct amount of digits for a phone number, checking if it is a mobile or fixed prefix and tagging it as such, detecting the origin of the sms and if necessary inserting the correct international dial code in front, etc.

Let this post be prior art for the following:

Detecting a date and turning it into a link or an area of the screen whereupon selecting or touching it triggers an action. The date may be descriptive, eg 'tomorrow', contain a time either in 12hr or 24hr format, or may follow a date convention such as 'dd/mm/yy'. Trigger actions may include bringing up a calendar event, the contents of the message may be included if there is a "Description" or "Comments" field, be passed through as an argument to an external application or url, or changing the selected text for example to a predefined date format.

I hereby understand the above paragraph to be published in the public domain on 20th December 2011. Any patent application filed subsequent to this date will be deemed invalid if the above is critical to its novelty or inventiveness.

Phillip.

Patents need infringment time limits

[viperidaenz]

If you filed a patent 15 years ago and there have been infringements of your patent for the last 10 or so years without you even blinking an eye about, it should be declared invalid.

I recall my pocket pc doing something like this. I bought it in 2002.

Sorry to be pedantic

[hellfire]

Call them an evil empire all you want, I'm not doing to argue. That's the point you are trying to make. But don't call them an evil monopoly. They aren't a monopoly by any definition. I'm tired of people using that word and not understanding what it properly means.

It's like calling Sarah Palin a stupid man.

Re:Sorry to be pedantic

[YayaY]

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/02/16/does-apple-have-a-monopoly/

cheers :-D

Re:Sorry to be pedantic

[Totenglocke]

They may not currently be a monopoly, but at the rate the "justice" (I use the term sarcastically) system is sucking their dick, they will be soon because all other companies will be banned from competing with Apple.

Re:Sorry to be pedantic

[siddesu]

Sarah Palin is a stupid man. The word "man" means two things, one is an adult of the male gender, and the other is a human person of either sex. As in, you know, "mankind".

Re:Sorry to be pedantic

[exomondo]

They aren't a monopoly by any definition. I'm tired of people using that word and not understanding what it properly means.

Ok then, let's hear your definition of what constitutes a monopoly, let's see how well you understand it.

Re:Sorry to be pedantic

[hellfire]

Figures that are 10 months old are ancient in the world of computing. I hear plenty of posts on slashdot about dwindling market share and increase size of the android market, and there are tons of pro-android articles disputing all of those figures so why did you even try?

Re:Sorry to be pedantic

[hawk]

It would be tough to come up with a definition of "monopoly" which includes having a competitor (android) which has a larger market share than your own (iphone).

While someone in such a position *could* be part of an oligopoly, the notion of "oligopoly" includes cooperation by the oligopolists--not bitter, to-the-death litigation.

But what do I know; I'm just an antitrust attorney and economist . . .

hawk, j.d., ph.d., esq.

Re:Sorry to be pedantic

[sFurbo]

Apparantly, in the UK, a monopoly is defined as anyone having more than 25% market share. That probably assumes that the competition is split between many, smaller entities, so that 25% market share actually gives you market dominance. Whether the relevant competition for the iPhones is android, or each of the companies using android, is an interesting discussion.

Re:Sorry to be pedantic

[Anonymous Coward]

but when you precede 'man' by an article such as 'a', it takes on the former meaning. Man used generally for mankind is used as an independent word: "Man did something", as opposed to "A man did something", which would then be referring to an adult male.

Re:Sorry to be pedantic

[exomondo]

It would be tough to come up with a definition of "monopoly" which includes having a competitor (android) which has a larger market share than your own (iphone).

Well that depends on what you're judging it on, you seem to be looking at it as the iPhone vs Android smartphones. Look at the iPhone 4's (and then 3GS's) share of the smartphone market over any other phone, or Apple's share of music downloads, or of video downloads, or of the tablet market, or all of the iOS devices (not just the iphone).

Re:Sorry to be pedantic

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. Such usage has recently declined with the ascent of political correctness, but it was still in wide use in as recently a 1969. See, for example, the famous "one small step for a man" quote.

wtf @ this patent

[arbiter1]

So apple has a patent for just entering personal data in a mobile device? WTF is next they are ruled to own the patent on the idea of a smart phone?

Re:Such as inventing Ogg Vorbis, which is better t

[Zalbik]

Anyone who does not agree that software is just as mechanical as an automobile engine has never written any code.

Sorry, but anyone who things that software is just as mechanical as an automobile engine has never rebuilt an engine.

Spoken as someone with a math degree who earns a living coding....

Re:Patentable inventions must be novel and unobvoi

[Kenja]

I would hardly say that turning phone numbers into hyperlinks qualifies as novel and unobvoius.

In 1996, it kind of was. The issue is that the duration of a patent is too long and what was once novel has become obvious.

In a certain way...

[Anonymous Coward]

this is actually a good thing.

Once Apple has pushed everybody else of the smartphone market, it has been proven that patents are just another extortion mechanism for large companies.

Also, hasn't anybody noticed that Windows phones aren't targeted? Time and again google seems to be the target.

BT too, since they can't get net neutrality removed from the picture, they abuse patents for their extortion schemes.

WHEN DOES THE WORLD REALIZE THAT PATENTS ARE JUST ANOTHER EXTORTION SCHEME FOR LARGE COMPANIES? They don't help the small man at all, as maintaining patents is really expensive and proving that a patent has been violated is even more expensive... and money is something small companies don't have.

another Apple rip-off

[khipu]

What Apple patented in '647 was standard functionality on other devices before. Right now, Apple can merrily rip off other companies and they can get away with it because there is no money in overturning their patents. We need to change the patent system so that if companies succeed in overturning a bad patent like '647, companies like Apple are on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in damages, plus an obligation to replay all related licensing fees.

HELP!! a slashdotter whose family's facing cancer

[big-giant-head]

URGENT!!! Please help a family facing cancer!!! My FIL has stage 3 colon cancer and is currently undergoing chemo. My wife, who is a stay at home Mom has entered a craft into a contest. She’s currently in second place to a professional craft blogger with a huge fan base. If she wins, she will turn the prize into cash for her father who lives on a very low budget. The hospital is 75 miles each way which is a lot of gas money. As you know, there are expenses associated with chemo. Her father will need medicine and supplies. PLEASE, vote for my wife’s craft by leaving a comment. That’s all we are requesting. You can vote/comment as often as you like. Just keep it, clean. (It’s a family website) We would appreciate that so much and it would make my in-laws Christmas a happy one to know that others care. The contest ends December 31st. Thanks in advance for your help!
http://moneysavingqueen.com/December-2011/Frugal-Christmas-Gifts-Day-9-Christmas-Bath-Bombs/

Streissand Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been putting off buying an HTC merge. Maybe its time now.

Inevitable "Apple Sucks" Comments

[nathanh]

No mention that HTC sued Apple and attempted an injunction against most Apple products. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/267160,htc-sues-apple-over-patents.aspx Because only Apple sucks, right? I think the only real story is Slashdot is so predictable.

Re:Inevitable "Apple Sucks" Comments

[0123456]

Did you actually read the article you linked to?

Apple has accused HTC of patent infringement through its smartphones, and filed several patent lawsuits against the Taiwan-based company in Delaware in the last two years.

So Apple sued HTC and two years later HTC sued Apple, and HTC are the bad guy?

Re:Inevitable "Apple Sucks" Comments

[nathanh]

So Apple sued HTC and two years later HTC sued Apple, and HTC are the bad guy?

So you really are defending these frivolous patent lawsuits from HTC and your justification is "they are countersuing Apple, that makes HTC the good guys"? Astounding.

The Slashdot anti-patent brigade must have a special exemption for when patents are enforced against Apple. Hypocrites.

Re:Inevitable "Apple Sucks" Comments

[DECula]

I think the overall comments reflect a dislike for software patents, be they Apple, HTC or ,* .
The ".* sucks" comments will probably be thrown at any company bold enough to sucker
punch someone that actually is doing a good job.

Like BT

Re:Inevitable "Apple Sucks" Comments

[nathanh]

I think the overall comments reflect a dislike for software patents, be they Apple, HTC or ,* . The ".* sucks" comments will probably be thrown at any company bold enough to sucker punch someone that actually is doing a good job.

Nonsense. Even when it was pointed out that HTC is doing the exact same thing, the only response was somebody defending HTC.

You don't need to look hard at Slashdot to figure out the bias.

Re:Inevitable "Apple Sucks" Comments

[dell623]

HTC ONLY sued Apple in retaliation, Apple were the first to go after every Android manufacturer claiming Android copied their 'inventions'. Apple have never denied that and are completely unapologetic about the fact that they started the war. HTC are NOT doing the same thing. If they were doing the same thing as Apple, HTC would be launching lawsuits against other Android manufacturers like Samsung based on the same patents they are trying to use defensively against Apple, and even against other companies like Nokia, RIM etc.

Re:Inevitable "Apple Sucks" Comments

[nathanh]

HTC ONLY sued Apple in retaliation,

Right, so in your world it's acceptable for HTC to launch frivolous patent lawsuits because it's retaliation against Apple.

That's exactly what I surmised. That's also why I said you and your ilk are hypocrites. If you were consistent you'd be heaping as much scorn on HTC as you heap on Apple.

Re:Inevitable "Apple Sucks" Comments

[dell623]

Apple is suing for preliminary injunctions in several countries asking for a ban on the sale of *all* HTC devices. Even if such an injunction lasts a few months in a major market like the U.S., it will simply destroy the company. Even a massive company like Apple sitting on a huge pile of cash would be severely affected by such an injunction, a small company like HTC with comparatively limited resources, and in the fast moving world of mobile technology, will be decimated.

I know I am invoking Godwin's law, but I presume you are unhappy that people do not "heap as much scorn" on the Polish Resistance Movement as they do on Hitler because the former chose to fight back with whatever they could lay their hands on?

If HTC start suing other companies using the same patents they are using against Apple, then you would have a point. But they're not. It is clearly self defence.

Apple get roasted on patent issues on slashdot because anyone with even basic programming knowledge (i.e. almost everyone on slashdot) knows how ridiculous Apple's lawsuits are, and how destructive such patents are for the industry.

Re:Inevitable "Apple Sucks" Comments

[nathanh]

It is clearly self defence.

So your argument is that for reasons of "self-defence" it's OK for HTC to use frivolous patent lawsuits and injunction requests to try and destroy another company.

So if Apple were to assert that HTC attacked first by blatantly ripping off Apple's inventions, and that Apple was merely "retaliating" against HTC by asserting their legal property rights, you would defend Apple?

Or does "self-defence" only extend to lawsuits, not to property rights? Or, as I said earlier, are you just giving HTC a free ride because you're an Apple-hating Slashbot.

Apple get roasted on patent issues on slashdot because anyone with even basic programming knowledge (i.e. almost everyone on slashdot) knows how ridiculous Apple's lawsuits are

It's not for you to decide whether a patent is trivial or ridiculous. From reading other comments, most Slashbots don't even know the details of the patent, let alone the subtleties of patent law.

Re:Inevitable "Apple Sucks" Comments

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple's just barely defending itself!

Those lawsuits only serve to spur real innovation!

War is peace!

Freedom is slavery! ... And here I thought RDF should be dissipating little by little after its source died.

Re:Inevitable "Apple Sucks" Comments

[dell623]

it's OK for HTC to use frivolous patent lawsuits and injunction requests to try and destroy another company.

Who said anything about destroy Apple? Some dude called Steve Jobs did say something about destroying Android..

HTC didn't start the war and they are still willing to negotiate and settle the legal issues, hell they even paid off Microsoft's extortion racket, I bet they would even pay Apple for their ridiculous patents.

So if Apple were to assert that HTC attacked first by blatantly ripping off Apple's inventions, and that Apple was merely "retaliating" against HTC by asserting their legal property rights, you would defend Apple?

No I wouldn't, because Apple's 'inventions' are mostly trivial and/or have tonnes of prior art e.g. slide to unlock, multi touch

It's not for you to decide whether a patent is trivial or ridiculous. From reading other comments, most Slashbots don't even know the details of the patent, let alone the subtleties of patent law.

That's the biggest load of crap I ever read. When the words of patent lawyers and Florian Muller count for everything and those of John Carmack and Linus Torvalds count for nothing, we are truly f##ked. And by we I mean the west, and especially the U.S. because China and the rest of Asia will go on without being encumbered by such stupidity. I have read and tried to understand more than enough of these patents and the words of patent lawyers to know that what you're spreading is pure FUD. You're insulting the intelligence of people on slashdot by trying to tell them that a software patent on a simple algorithm or process is beyond their comprehension because it is clouded in pages of incomprehensible legalese and entirely superfluous details (e.g. describing the inner working of an operating system and the mobile device which have no bearing on the funcitonality described)--that stuff is to fool the morons in the patent office (and the people who approve these patents are morons, I don't care if they are overworked underpaid morons, they're morons) and the courts. It doesn't fool us.

Re:Inevitable "Apple Sucks" Comments

[nathanh]

HTC didn't start the war

Really? Because Apple claims that HTC did start the war. HTC stole Apple's property, Apple responded by using legal injunctions to stop the theft, and you're claiming Apple is the bad guy?

Bias showing much?

That's the biggest load of crap I ever read.

The Slashbots are claiming Skype and 2001-era Nokia phones as "prior art". If that's the level of understanding you consider to be "intelligent", then god help us all.

Of course, you've already compared me to a Nazi sympathiser, claimed FUD, and used potty language like "crap", so I honestly doubt you know what you're talking about either.

That you can't see the obvious - HTC is a rip off merchant who just steals from other companies - is your blind spot here. I'm not an Apple fanboy. I think software patents suck. I prefer Linux and GNU. But I'm not so blind as to defend HTC when clearly HTC is in the wrong. HTC stole technology from Apple, Apple took them to court, and Apple won. Good for Apple.

Unfortunately you are so blinded by your hatred of Apple that you would blame them no matter what the facts.

Re:Inevitable "Apple Sucks" Comments

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, any rational human would recognise that when the glaringly obvious was pointed out to them, that HTC aren't the bad guys, because they only launched a counter-suit 2 years later, as a defensive measure against Apple's aggression in the courts, that person would recognise they were wrong.

You however, are still pursuing the same line, that somehow HTC are the bad guys.

This is why you are a fanboy, you lack any ability to perform basic logical reasoning in the face of your pet brand. It must suck to be as blindingly ignorant as a religious zealot, are you really incapable in your mind of recognising why you are wrong? is that thought process so impossible for you?

I can't grasp how hard such a life of ignorance must be to live. Oh well, your problem I suppose.

Re:Inevitable "Apple Sucks" Comments

[dell623]

Actually Apple lost, they wanted to ban the import of HTC devices in the U.S., they got a verdict over one software patent that is easily worked around and will not be able to use the patent claims that were rejected against anyone else.

Re:Inevitable "Apple Sucks" Comments

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming from someone who ignores reality in order to paint Apple as the poor victim in this situation... You need to look at your own pimply-face in the mirror. If I were to walk up to you and start pounding in your zit-covered face, would you try to punch me back and defend yourself? If so, by your own logic, you're doing exactly what I did to you.

Nerd rage away.

[Anonymous Coward]

The business climate in the US is hardly Apple's responsibility, and I'm not going to blame them for playing by the same rules as every other fucking company out there.

Now, if you want to go trade in your iPod for a used Zune, feel free. But as for me, I'll stick to good hardware and good software and lawsuits over shit hardware, shit software and lawsuits.

IBM avoids the trouble, actually.

[jbn-o]

IBM stands alone in the world of patents because IBM holds the most patents. This fact places IBM in a unique position: IBM can leverage the power of cross-licensing more than any other patent holder. This is a formidable power. For IBM the trouble of licensing patents is mostly hypothetical. In "Think" magazine, #5, 1990, IBM estimated the value of this cost. As the link above says:

The value IBM gets from cross-licensing measures the trouble that the patent system would cause IBM if IBM could not avoid it. IBM's estimate is that the trouble could easily be ten times the good one can expect from one's own patents--even for a company with 9,000 of them.

IBM doesn't pursue patent lawsuits because IBM can pressure virtually any patent holder into cross-licensing. IBM isn't failing to sue because they're choosing to take a defensive position (whether reluctantly or not). IBM's power here puts the lie to the 'lone inventor' myth the patent system sometime engenders just as it puts the lie to any "protection" a small software developer would gain should they discover IBM believes they're competing with IBM.

A transcript of Richard Stallman's talk on this problem (including mention of the above article) is online (1, 2), as are audio and video recordings of him giving this talk. I highly suggest reading and/or watching the entire talk because the talk is highly informative, and he is clear to separate his work on free software from the trouble with software patents. The danger of software patents "relates to the question of whether the programs are free or not, the dangers of the same for all software developers".

In your FACE, anti hipster hipsters!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it funny how the "anti-hipster" crowd depends on Apple to exist before they can show how much they supposedly aren't ironic hipsters? Wouldn't that simply make them hipsters themselves?

Re:In your FACE, anti hipster hipsters!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up fuckface.

And I'm saying that in a totally non-ironic way.

Fixed the title for you

[mshenrick]

Apple Wins Injunction Banning Import of HTC Devices _In the US_

Re:Patentable inventions must be novel and unobvoi

[gl4ss]

meh it wasn't. I think you're forgetting how 1996 was. you could select email addresses back then in some sw and send email. even 1993 you could find prior art.

when was lynx made? because what it actually does if there's an email tag is analyze the input and make it clickable and give you a choice to send email, no? the patent is so broadly worded that it's rather irrelevant if there's the tags around it or not.

Re:No matter what they do to try to force me to ow

[Robert Zenz]

Let me guess...you're running Windows as OS?

Sreiously...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just ridiculous that a patent like that is allowed. It might as well have been invented by a child. The US really is the laughing-stock of the world.

Fuck Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

That is all.

Re:Patentable inventions must be novel and unobvoi

[Sepodati]

The idea is obvious since it's exactly what you or I would do as we read through a text document. Oh, there's a phone number, let me store/dial/copy it. This "invention" just automates everything and adds the typical "on a computer" or "on the internet" clause. It's not a novel combination of prior actions.

The actual code, algorithms, modules, etc. used to implement this on a computer, phone, PDA, etc. would (and should) be protected by copyright. There is no "invention" to patent, though.

Missing the forest

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest winner in the game of corrupt, unjust law is government. No matter who wins or loses, the business of government always wins. Imagine if the law was simple, efficient, based on common sense and human morality -- what's in that for government? A loss of hundreds of billions of dollars per year, that's what.

uhhhhhhh

[amoeba1911]

these are supposedly the patents, although they could be dismissed as entirely being bogus:

A data transmission system having a real-time data engine for processing isochronous streams of data includes an interface device that provides a physical and logical connection of a computer to any one or more of a variety of different types of data networks. Data received at this device is presented to a serial driver, which disassembles different streams of data for presentation to appropriate data managers. A device handler associated with the interface device sets up data flow paths, and also presents data and commands from the data managers to a real-time data processing engine. Flexibility to handle any type of data, such as voice, facsimile, video and the like, that is transmitted over any type of communication network with any type of real-time engine is made possible by abstracting the functions of each of the elements of the system from one another. This abstraction is provided through suitable interfaces that isolate the transmission medium, the data manager and the real-time engine from one another.

A system and method causes a computer to detect and perform actions on structures identified in computer data. The system provides an analyzer server, an application program interface, a user interface and an action processor. The analyzer server receives from an application running concurrently data having recognizable structures, uses a pattern analysis unit, such as a parser or fast string search function, to detect structures in the data, and links relevant actions to the detected structures. The application program interface communicates with the application running concurrently, and transmits relevant information to the user interface. Thus, the user interface can present and enable selection of the detected structures, and upon selection of a detected structure, present the linked candidate actions. Upon selection of an action, the action processor performs the action on the detected structure.

"They made me do it."

[Kamiza Ikioi]

"They made me do it." Oldest excuse in the book.

Though I'm sure /. will come up with an older one.

The patent tard strikes again!

[sgt scrub]

Naner naner naner! I'm performing an action on a stucture. What? A web page is a computer generated structure and I'm performing an action on that structure. What completely ignorant fucktard allowed this patent through?!?

Why is that bad?

[dzfoo]

and HTC/Google can work on implementing similar functionality in a non-infringing way.

Isn't that what they would want, and the whole point of an IP fight? Or are you one of those conspiracy theorists that imagines Apple being evil at all costs and doing this just to prevent competition?

      -dZ.

Re:Why is that bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely Apple was just irked by them using their secret patented "Use regexes to turn text into hyperlinks" technology.

Injunction - as in "stopping the imports over something you can hack together in 5 minutes with perl" - is merely an insignificant side effect and purely judge's idea.

Surely Apple doesn't have to fear competition, it's not like they didn't release a major new product for almost a year in fast changing market like consumer electronics.

I wish I could get worked up over this

[meta_gorn]

Normally I'd hate on Apple for this, but when people start feeling the full brunt of the telecoms' limited data plans and ever-increasing feature lockdown of their phones, it's not going to matter whether an embedded phone number is one tap or two taps away.

Strong Bad has to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

PALIIIIIIIN!
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Palin is a man!
I mean, she is a woman man!
Or maybe she is just a woman,
But still she is
PALIIIIIIIN!
PALIIIIIIIN!