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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.
Apple is becoming an evil empire!
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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.
From TFA:
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?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
http://www.itc337update.com/tags/337ta710/
Can we elect people who will terminate software patents, please?
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...
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
No your wrong, there IS somebody who wins. The lawyers win, and the more something is tied up in court the more they win.
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.
or does Apple have that patented too.
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.
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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.
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You can't come up with an alternate approach to an idea. Software patents are ridiculous because a completely different implementation still infringes.
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.
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.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
uspto.gov requries the use of Apple Quicktime to view images. Whats wrong with gif, jpg, png...
umm, what? try read what the patent covers and see if your point stands up to the stupidity of the situation.
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.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
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.
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.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
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?
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....
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.
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.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
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.
Except, of course, that Apple didn't come up with this solution themselves either, they ripped it off from other companies.
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.
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.
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?
Citation please. Baseless accusations are worthless without some sort of backing.
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?
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:
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".
Digital Citizen
You've heard of Google? Are you incapable of formulating a simple query?
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.
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?
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
dreaded scurrilous bit-twiddler from Oklahoma
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ....
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
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.
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.
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.
Apple Wins Injunction Banning Import of HTC Devices _In the US_
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).
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.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Let me guess...you're running Windows as OS?
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.
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." Oldest excuse in the book.
Though I'm sure /. will come up with an older one.
I8-D
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?!?
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
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.
Carol vs. Ghost
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.
--- When I grow up, I want to be a legislator of scientific laws.
In the time it took you to post your rant, you could have found the prior art I was referring to.