Slashdot Mirror
Apple Files Patent For Fuel Cell Laptops
An anonymous reader writes "Apple Insider reports that Apple recently filed two patents for a new breed of fuel cell-powered laptop computers. The devices would eschew lithium ion batteries in favor of fuel cells that are capable of running for weeks without requiring a recharge. The patents are entitled 'Fuel Cell System to Power a Portable Computing Device' and oeFuel Cell System Coupled to a Portable Computing Device."
The fact that people have been talking about exactly this sort of application for decades would make it not novel and thus not patentable.
The general concept may not be patentable, but specific working implementations may very well be innovative and patentable.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Trichotomy: You'll hate it again because you can't find the apple power you travel or the one reseller over charges. Oh you better be getting there by cruise ship because NO way would these be allowed on a plane.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
The general concept may not be patentable, but specific working implementations may very well be innovative and patentable.
There, a working implementation from 2006 and as far as I remember it was not the first one.
Toshiba have demonstrated fuel cells for laptops since at least 2006. They may not be pretty, but the principle should not be patentable (at least by Apple).
http://www.pcworld.com/article/157606/toshibas_fuel_cell_laptop.html
From an extremely quick glance, Apples patent seems to be for a failry specific implementation of a hydrogen driven system, not Toshiba's methanol driven system. Also the patent diagrams illustrates a number of elements required in their design, so I would guess that it is their complete implementation that they're patenting not the general principle.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Double post but this one is from 2002
The history of patents dates back to 15th century Venice. Venice had a lucrative glass-blowing industry and major artisans had different kinds of trade secrets that related to the craft. Each artisan vigorously guarded their own trade secrets and often took those to the grave with them, so the technology didn't progress. So, they came up with a system: Artisan could claim their method of glass-blowing as patently original, have no longer the need to keep the method secret and would not take the method to the grave with them. Everyone won.
In those days, patents weren't for "Glass-blowing". That's a concept. They were for "A very specific method of glass-blowing, that the artisan had researched themselves (or learned from their master) and would otherwise have to keep secret". That much still applies to the modern patents (abominations such as "1-click shopping" being an exception). The patent isn't "The concept of using fuel cells as batteries". It is "Using specific type of fuel cells for laptop power in a specific and non-obvious way". It doesn't matter that someone else has used fuel cells for batteries before.
(FWIW: I think that there is still need for a system like that, so I also support software patents in cases where the patented idea is non-obvious enough that it probably wouldn't have became "public knowledge" in the next 20 years without the patent. This could well apply to specific encryption algorithms and stuff like that.)
You don't understand how patents work ( or at least not how they are intended to work).
The idea is pretty much the following:
Apple makes a fuel cell for laptops that runs on fuel A, using technology X. Now other companies can either license the patent from them, in which case they benefit for having invented it, or they can try to create a different type of fuel cell which doesn't infringe the patent. So say they go for the second option, creating a fuel cell running on fuel B using technology Y. Now, at least in theory, society has two types of fuel cells, and can use 2 types of fuels.
There's a lot of reasons why this may not work out in practice of course, and hence the patent system is supposed to have limitations such as obviousness and prior art, in order to stop abusive patents. Unfortunately the patent office and courts have proven unable to enforce that.
Double post but this one is from 2002
That one appears to be an external fuel cell that acts as a power supply - you plug the DC power plug directly into it, as if it was the AC-DC adapter power brick. The Apple patent claims require a bidirectional communication between the computer and a controller of the fuel cell, and that implementation doesn't include one.