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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
Isn't it enough that Apple products are already prone to fires and explosions?
...omphaloskepsis often...
More likely they're not innovative, but still are patentable.
Nothing lasts forever but the certainty of change.
Innovative stuff shouldn't be patentable in any case, only inventions are patentable. Innovation != invention.
Just skimmed the patent, so not going to make any judgement on the patentability of this. Certainly the first few claims look fairly broad but this is normal. Somewhere down in the sub-claims, there could be something new and inventive.
A couple of points though. This is just the published patent application - it has *not* been granted yet, so Apple certainly havn't succeeded in getting the patent. Also, from even a very quick search in a couple of online databases , there appears to be a load of prior art in this field as you'd probably expect. I'd expect the USPTO will find at least some of it. Chances are that either Apple won't get this at all, or they will end up with a very limited patent to a particular feature needed to make this work and not a general 'fuel cell in a laptop' patent.
Finally, check out the fuels they're proposing. Good luck getting a cartridge of sodium borohydride, or lithium aluminium hydride on an aircraft. Patented invention does not necessarily mean commercial uptake of invention.
That's not completely true, at least as the system works. If there is something sufficiently innovative that it is "not immediately obvious to someone trained in the field", then it essentially qualifies as an invention. Inventions can be small and limited in scope as well as large. The real problem is in determining what is innovative enough that it would not almost immediately occur to most people trained in the field as an obvious solution to the problem. It is a subjective test, and IMHO, too many patents are given for things that really shouldn't pass that test. Patents can always be contested, but, it is a long and expensive process, so bad patents have a way of sticking around.
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.
Double post but this one is from 2002
But has anyone patented using power cells in a robot designed to infiltrate human colonies and assassinate them from within? I think not.
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.)
That's ok with me, as long as any judge understands the patent protects specific details but just that sole working implementation --
Let's have a look at this specific case; I'll take one of the claims of the patent:
What is claimed is:
1. A fuel cell system for a portable computing device, comprising:
a fuel cell stack which converts fuel to electrical power;
a fuel source for the fuel cell stack;
a controller which controls the operation of the fuel cell system; and
an interface to the portable computing device, wherein the interface comprises,
a power link that provides power to the portable computing device, and
a bidirectional communication link that provides bidirectional communication between the portable computing device and the controller for the fuel cell system.
So; the first part is a completely normal fuel cell with controllable output. The second part is a completely standard set for any existing computer battery. In other words, this is the only possible way an reasonable person would come up with to put a fuel cell into a computer. It's beyond obvious; it's inevitable.
Claiming this as patentable is outrageous. The US patent office is clearly not even trying to do its job. It doesn't do any good to have judges which fix this after the fact since it will already scare people away from developing fuel cells.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();