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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.
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.
Can we elect people who will terminate software patents, please?
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!
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.
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.)
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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.
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 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.
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.
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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.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Yeah, but this patent adds "on a touchscreen device that makes calls and has rounded corners."
eh? eh?
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
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.
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.
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."
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.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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