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Apple Launches New Legal Attack On Samsung
walterbyrd writes "Apple Inc has asked a federal court in California to block Samsung Electronics Co Ltd from selling its new Galaxy Nexus smartphones, alleging patent violations. In a suit filed last week in San Jose, Apple said the Galaxy Nexus infringes on patents underlying features customers expect from its products. Those include the ability to unlock phones by sliding an image and to search for information by voice."
These kinds of software patents are patently bogus.
....has been on Android long before it was on iOS. I guess we know Apple is going to use their warchest to be anti-competitive.
Yay software patents.
No slide to unlock? Perhaps we should make a "place genitals here" unlock mechanism. At least that may not be patented yet.
This is starting to become childish.
I like my Apple products, but this endless pissing match between them and Samsung doesn't endear them to me.
That has been going on since the advent of language. Walk into a crowded room... "HAS ANYONE SEEN MY KEYS?!?"
:)
Nothing new...
This will become interesting only when Apple files suit against Microsoft (one if Apple's largest shareholders) for searching for information by voice -- a long time feature of Windows phones.
That google has had for a long time, and they had search by image. Please apple try and infringe on this. I hope google sue you into oblivion.
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
Apple is an outsourcing manufacturer of niche products. Samsung is a global innovator AND manufacturer.
"search for information by voice"?!
Telephones do that. We had automatic, electronic voices answering questions more than five years ago.
They were as stupid as Steve Jobs and Siri combined and either stood no Turing test at all.
It's not like Apple has the vision and single-mindedness of Steve Jobs to fall back on any more.
In the end, this only benefits lawyers and kills future innovation.
I don't see how Apple is benefitting long-term from this mentality and cultural mindset. It's a shortterm win at best and then a death by a thousand cuts as any of it's own innovations will be dealt with the same way by other companies.
I don't particularly blame Apple for this, but they certainly could afford a few lobbyists to turn this crap system around.
Buried with Jobs, along with those awesome keynotes. Damn shame, but at least my stock is still climbing.
Apple should of never been allowed to get that patient! I would say the ability to unlock a phone through touch motion is active public domain knowledge and should fall outside the requirement for filing a patient. I think it's time for some major change in the US patient office. Technically Apple can now block EVERY single touch screen phone on the market and being developed. They have been allowed to secure a monopoly in a growing field, how on earth it that fair? Whats next is Apple going to patient toilet paper and go to court with everyone who goes to the bathroom?
No Bonch post the exact second the article is posted thats 3 pages long on how Samsung had it coming?
What is up with the first sentence of TFA?
"In a suit filed last week in San Jose, Apple said the Galaxy Nexus infringes on patents underlying features customers expect from its products."
I think it's supposed to be saying "patents OF underling features THAT customers expect"... But this seems to imply that the reason that the patents are valid is because customers expect Apple to have the features that these patents cover, which is not a basis for a patent, and certainly not the basis for a patent infringement claim.
I am very, very frustrated with the state of tech reporting regarding patents, and the tortured English and tortured understanding of the nature of the suit even in the very first sentence of this article just makes it worse.
Microsoft is one of Apple's largest shareholders? Are you talking about the stock they bought in the 90's? Because even then, they weren't one of the largest stockholders, and they sold that stock ages ago. I bet they wish they'd kept it now.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/02/apple-launching-sidelong-attacks-against-google-with-new-lawsuits-in-us.ars
Including a breakdown on FOSS Patents blog:
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2012/02/apple-requests-us-preliminary.html
HAL 9000 ?
The Slide-to-unlock patent in question: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7657849.PN.&OS=PN/7657849&RS=PN/7657849
It's important to mention that a Dutch court where Apple tried to claim infrigement on the same patent has already ruled it as invalid, after Samsung presented the Neonode N1m as prior art.
Dilbert RSS feed
Hey Apple, Fuck You!
Not a valid legal argument, but it's the patent system. Not sure any of it is valid.
Mod me down to a Higgs Boson, but Apple's lawyers have advised them as to a simple truth: If you don't zealously defend your intellectual property, you lose it. The system is hopelessly broken and needs to be fixed by the world's governments.
Memorable quotes for
Looker (1981)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082677/quotes [imdb.com]
"John Reston: Television can control public opinion more effectively than armies of secret police, because television is entirely voluntary. The American government forces our children to attend school, but nobody forces them to watch T.V. Americans of all ages *submit* to television. Television is the American ideal. Persuasion without coercion. Nobody makes us watch. Who could have predicted that a *free* people would voluntarily spend one fifth of their lives sitting in front of a *box* with pictures? Fifteen years sitting in prison is punishment. But 15 years sitting in front of a television set is entertainment. And the average American now spends more than one and a half years of his life just watching television commercials. Fifty minutes, every day of his life, watching commercials. Now, that's power. "
"The United States has it's own propaganda, but it's very effective because people don't realize that it's propaganda. And it's subtle, but it's actually a much stronger propaganda machine than the Nazis had but it's funded in a different way. With the Nazis it was funded by the government, but in the United States, it's funded by corporations and corporations they only want things to happen that will make people want to buy stuff. So whatever that is, then that is considered okay and good, but that doesn't necessarily mean it really serves people's thinking - it can stupify and make not very good things happen."
-- Crispin Glover: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000417/bio [imdb.com]
"It's only logical to assume that conspiracies are everywhere, because that's what people do. They conspire. If you can't get the message, get the man.'' -- Mel Gibson (from an interview)
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, CIA Director
George Carlin:
"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else.
But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.
You know what they want? Obedient workers people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and yo
This is purely anticompetitive on Apple's part. What is so despicable is that Apple relies on the IP of others. They built their current business on the backs of BSD developers/open source software. Those same developers are now at risk from getting SUED by apple over software patents. The hypocrisy of this company is astounding. They are trying to remove open source from the marketplace. They want to own all code. Its pathetic really. You write some code on your computer that is completely different from anything Apple has written. Your code becomes successful then here comes Apple trying to sue you out of the marketplace. Its incredible despicable and wholly egregious. Will I ever recommend another Apple product after seeing these practices? NO. I fully expect them to sue ANY linux distribution if it ever gets any decent marketshare. Both Microsoft and Apple HATE open source and this is their way to kill it. Will it work? who knows.
I am long time apple user. I love their OS, their software, and they way they implement those things on elegant hardware. I will probably always be a mac (and linux) user. (disclaimer: I use an android).
But all I can say anymore to mainly apple and a lesser extent other manufactures is:
Give me a fucking break already! Aim for cooperation and interoperability. Those two things would benefit end users on both sides more than spending billions on squabbling! All of these endless back and forth lawsuits is ruining both the mac and android experience for me. I know I'm kinda rambling but I'm getting to a tipping point. Looking forward to WebOS this September.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
"Search for information by voice"? Prior art: 411
Not to mention, of course, that the concept of making any sort of vocal request and having it acknowledged and responded to in a comprehensible fashion is entirely obvious, even if the exact implementation of how to get a computer to do it is not.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
...
If you can't innovate
litigate!
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
A kitten dies every time Apple sues Samsung!
... When tech companies actually sold products consumers wanted, instead of suing each other over the common features of said products?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
and the turtle necks, dont forget the poor turtle necks.
We may not completely understand Apples position.
Apple is a great company and they provide quality products.
I'm OK with the phone in my hand being a product of slaves. Successful nations and people groups (ie. companies) have been using cheap human labor for a very long time. How else do you expect companies to make a profit.
If apple is filing a claim then they have a good reason, after all they invented the smart phone, so everything it could possibly do is copyright by them.
This is what happens when I dont read my morning "paper" before I post. Looks like sony is still king - http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/sony_music_jacks_price_of_whitney_houston_music_immediately_following_her_death
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I don't what it will take for you, but Apple has no allure for me anymore. I have had their products for many years and still have three in house, but I am done with buying their products going forward.
Fortunately Samsung just announced a Android 4 tablet coming in March, seven inch form factor which the Kindle Fire convinced we was best, so I may just be able to ditch that iPad.
This certainly ain't a property of Apple post Steve, they started down this road before he died and after reading quotes attributed to him I am quite sure this direction came from him too.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Can Apple sue Bell laboratories- the earliest phones were voice operated for searches.
"Operator, can you connect me to Oswaldina McWeaney in Memphis Tennessee please?"
- incidentally I wonder if any operator was named Siri?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Please do not blame Samsung, that is just not fair. If a guy gets mugged in an ally, and tries to fight back, do you blame the victim or the mugger? Apple is the mugger.
I remember when Amiga and Atari both came out with machines based on the Motorolla 68000 processer (the same as the first mac). I owned an Atari ST during that time. Apple sued Atari over the TOS desktop, specifically they were mad about the Trash Can icon (among other things).
Then there were the emulators. Since they shared the same processor it was only a matter of time before someone wrote an emulator to let Mac run on Atari. "Gadgets by Small" was hounded by Apple's lawyers when they published Spectre 128 and Magic Sac. The ST ran 68000 Mac software with very little impact in performance.
Actually, I hope that this results in an all-out patent war between the big players. Right now, they have little incentive to pour money into lobbying Congress to change the patent system because they're all benefiting from it. As long as they all don't sue each other and only pick on little guys, why would they want to upset the status quo?
However, if the mutual assured destruction scenario actually plays out and they all start suing the crap out of each other, only then would they finally realize that buying tens of thousands of patents as a defensive measure against getting sued is not an acceptable solution to the patent problem. Ultimately, the answer is that software/business process patents need to permanently go away. That can only happen when they stop spending so much on lawyers building, defending, and in some cases, using as weapons their patent portfolios and start actually making meaningful changes in the system.
Yes, they'd have more competition. Yes, that means that sometimes, competitors might mercilessly steal some of your clever ideas. But it also means that instead of spending billions of dollars on lawyers, you can now redirect that money towards research and development to blow competitors away with awesome products (thus gaining brand and product loyalty) instead of trying to blow them away in a courtroom (which is nothing but a colossal waste of time and money).
given that Android has had voice search for more than two years now (introduced i think in 2.0 or so) and Winmobile had it also for 7 or more years.
When will this patent madness finally end?
Apple is using Tonya Harding tactics, just like MS routinely does. Apple is abusing the system because Apple does not want to compete in a fair market.
These junk patents, and junk lawsuits, have nothing to do with Apple defending any real IP.
I've been waiting a while for data plans to no longer cost extra (or at least minimal extra) before buying a smart phone.
Yes, I'm going to be a late adopter- but at one point I was fairly neutral in the whole Apple/Android debate. I wasn't keen on Apple's "everything goes through us" approach- but I was aware that Apple was, at least nominally, more sound. I had planned to research heavily prior to buying- but until then, take a hands-off approach.
I must say, whilst taking a back seat view with my pop-corn, I've been put off by apple. I was once a potential customer but their legal shenanigans have made it very unlikely (not impossible but unlikely) I would consider them when I finally do take the plunge and get a smartphone. In fact- despite previously being apple-neutral, this has put me off buying ANY of their products in the future. I don't want my hard-earned money going towards some lawsuit to squish innovation.
I wonder if I am an "odd one out" or if I represent a larger portion of society. At what point do their legal games drive away more customers than they gain by throwing out competitors from the ring? The consumer doesn't win; Samsung doesn't win; I'm not sure Apple wins- at the end of the day there are a lot of happy lawyers but everyone else misses out.
To be fair, just like the Foxconn scandals- Apple is not the only one to blame so I (and the public) are probably a little unfair- but Apple are the most prominent. Everyone sues everyone it seems- but Apple seems to be going "above and beyond". Is it because they are just more letigious- or because they have more resources to pay countless lawyers?
Either way- each lawsuit makes it less likely I will buy from them- and probably puts more people in the anti-apple camp. Even if they are the best- if they turn everyone towards the "anti-apple" castra; they will eventually marginalise themselves.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Apple is using junk patents, to file junk law suits, in an effort to use MS/Tonya Harding tactics against the competition.
This is 100% Apple's fault, and 0% the fault of Android makers.
Apple is a scummy company, just like Microsoft. That is the truth of the situation.
In view of the actual lifetime of a mobile phone, and the Apple cash mountain, I'd suggest a realistic valuation is between $200 and $300 billion.
In order to maintain the appearance of invulnerability Apple must sue, sue and sue again - just like SCO - as part of the preservation of the image that no other company can (or will be allowed to) possibly compete. If it starts to lose too many patent suits, its share price will suffer, and if, post-Jobs, it has somewhat lost direction (or is up against growing technological barriers like battery life), it doesn't really have a counter.
While the Chinese economy continues historically weak I don't thing the rulers of China will rock the boat - but at some point I suspect they will look at Apple's profits and say, in effect "Hey, we do all the work, we deserve some of that". One option would be a dramatic rise in factory gate prices. Another would be a slow rise in the currency.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Please explain how raising prices, reducting choice, and stifling innovation is a benefit to consumers?
MS, Apple, and Oracle; are all working together to beat up google. Or do you actually think it's just a coincidence that all the bogus lawsuits against Android started at the same time?
These patent fights are making me dislike Apple and MS more and more. I have never been huge fans, but for them to make it impossible to get the products I desire so I have no choice but to accept their crap alternatives simply won't work. They can't put the cat back in the bag, and by making it harder to get these devices will only make them more aluring. In short, you will have to pry my android phone from my cold dead hands!
Jobs loved junk patents, and bogus lawsuits, more than anybody. Apple's Tonya Harding tactics started long before Jobs died.
Does this mean that I owe Apple £0.10 every time I mutter to myself to help me remember something?
And behold, a command prompt and he who sat upon it, his name was shutdown and -h 3:11 followed with him
My better half is a handheld device at times. Does this mean I am violating Apple's patent anytime I shout, "Honey, where are my keys?"
The iPhone completely revolutionized telephones and general personal gadgets unbelievably. They freakin took the risk of designing and producing a device no other company would (or at least apparently could) have dared produce. They freakin deserve to be able to protect their work from theft. If all one had to do to make the best products was wait for someone else to sink all the resources into coming up with and trying out new ideas, and then steal them and clone them, then naturally it would be a losing proposition for anyone to ever do anything innovative. We don't want this. We want companies to be able to invent revolutionary devices like iPhones without it being bad business. So Apple needs to and deserves to be protected. I'mbewildered by the incredible Apple resentment people have toward Apple. It's as if no one hear has ever had anything they did ripped off and taken advantage of by somebody in a manner that made them benefit at your cost. Don't tell me it isn't obvious these Galaxy phones aren't blatant knock-offs because we all know they are. Frankly, we all know Android immediately morphed into an iOS clone as soon as the iPhone was released as well. Don't tell me you think these phones wouldn't look and function 90% the same as iPhones if Apple hadn't taken the risk and investment. For the previous 20 years before the iPhone phones advanced a fraction of the amount they advanced when the iPhone came out. 5 years later and every phone's a damn iPhone clone. Unfortunately, patent law is the only thing we have to force companies to innovate. If companies like Samsung can't come up with their own ideas then they should be required to at least compensate other companies for the investments they have made in creating the ideas and technologies Samsung would like to rip off. I'm outraged by the outrage over this.
I think Apple's goal is to get to the point where it extracts enough licensing deals out of Android manufacturers that Apple starts to make more off of Android sales then Google does. Cornering the market by extortion.
Am I the only one to think as a hardware company the sentence "Apple Launches New" should be followed by the name of a new gadget? Apple got loved for launching iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. Lately, the only thing they're launching is frivolous lawsuits.
To date, the first "voice operated computer search" i can remember was in the "star trek" series, which also appears to have prior art on wireless flip-phones.
(automatic sliding doors? hand-held medical scanners?)
Maybe gene's estate should just issue a mass lawsuit and have the settlement be "you cannot patent any idea that was in any science fiction story before it was on your technology"
I had a first gen iPhone and now an HTC Evo. I'm pretty darn sure my next phone will be a Samsung running Android.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
Yes, I can understand that Apple is trying to maintain its position as a leader in smartphones and tablets and suing competitors is one way to do that. However, Slashdot posts stories about Apple suing other companies so often that I now view it as petty bickering. Every time I read a story Apple suing a company, I cannot help but picture a spoiled 3 year old that refuses to share toys while screaming "It's my toy!"... even if it isn't his toy.
It's really just part of the broken patent system. All these big corporations sue each other all the time over trivial and/or obvious patents. Then they kiss and make up and share their patents (and some money, etc). Then they sue all over again. In the mean time, consumers are the big losers. And this is all because the USPTO does not check patents for appropriateness with regard to the original purpose of patents (to encourage innovation of things that could not be created by someone else knowledgeable in the current science and art involved). They just let anything go through, and 99% of what is issued in the past few years is junk we either do not need, or someone would still do it anyway without a patent system.
Apple's behavior is just a symptom of the problem.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I always said Apple would be worse than Microsoft if it was ever given a chance. I hate being so very right.
It's a shame that companies can't compete.
Imagine if Ford tried to prevent other car companies from putting doors on vehicles, or maybe said they couldn't put locks on the doors.
It's for your own good. Not only is your post irrelevant to the subject being discussed, it seems to be irrelevant to everything.
Okay, nevermind, I will leave to scream hysterically, and incoherently, about google.
Apple is using junk patents to mug Apple competitors. We both know it. Why do you pretend otherwise?
DISCLAIMER: The lawsuit farce is just getting silly, and software patents are getting ridiculous.
And yet you defend Apple? Hypocrisy much?
.......... dude. just, let it go, alright ? there's no point in that anymore. be rational.
Read radical news here
This is just a case of Apple using junk patents, to file bogus lawsuits, because Apple want's to pull a Tonya Harding and break the knee caps of Apple competitors.
Do you actually believe otherwise? Then please tell us what Apple actually invented?
really. we can do it. we are all tech people, developers, bloggers, administrators, moderators, networkers, this that. we all have participation in communities and we have our own small or big websites. if we start educating people as to what apple is doing, and we advocate for prevention of it, we will make them stop it. or, we will make others stop it. so much that all we need is to talk, advocate, put up banners and informational pages and so on.
dont think we can ?
well, we did it with firefox.
even google used the power of these crowds ( small webmasters and developers and communities ) with adsense/adwords - which propelled them into the predominant status they have today.
so, we can do it. its our internet. our phones. its our digital age. apple and all others should be obliging to us, not us to them. lets make them. setting apple straight in that fashion, would send a message to all the other 'big' ones out there.
Read radical news here
The iPhone is a beautiful, quality, product. Apple deserves a lot of credit for making a great product, that has sold very well.
But, in deference to the Apple zealots, Apple did not invent the smart phone, or a handheld device with icons, or rounded corners, or a device that accepts voice commands, or everything shiny.
Ever think of that? I wonder if Foxconn workers love Apple?
It's really just part of the broken patent system.
No, Apple chose to file all these junk patents, and Apple chose to file all the bogus lawsuits.
Of all the stupid comments about "patent laws are dumb" and "how can you patent an image" is so far off base of what is really happening that the /. crowd is beyond amusing.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/308995-the-apple-samsung-patent-fight
In short, Samsung have Apple over something of a barrel here. Apple must have access to those 3G patents and it's entirely possible that given the insistence upon FRAND terms for such patents in a standard, that Apple must either cough up 2-4% of sales to Samsung and/or licence their intellectual property to them.
The key is Samsung wanted Apple to share the licensing of Apple's IP over some of their designs, Apple said no dice and would rather pay the licensing for the 3G chips instead of giving Samsung rights to some of Apple's patents. Who cares who patents what, it is part of the laws and WON'T CHANGE. Amended, maybe, changed, no way. Apple is just slinging shit back at Samsung for Samsung's dirty games. They both play them.
It is nothing to do with "Ice Cream Sandwich" or "Android". Who cares.
...but just last week wasn't there was an article from apple saying stuff like this should stop?
Oh...of course...they just meant stop against them.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Time to erase the word 'patent' out of the dictionary - oh, and 'lawyer' too....while we're at it, 'politician'
Especially if it's something that cost Apple a huge amount of R&D. And especially, especially, if it pertains to the flood of lawsuits coming from Apple these days.
Please name some that is an actual, non-obvious, Apple invention.
Name something that - irrefutably - Apple was the very first to implement. An Idea that absolutely did exist before Apple. Something that Apple spent a huge amount of money developing.
Do you really expect anybody to believe that rounded corners, or voice commands, are Apple "inventions?"
I'm talking about the straight up Samsung copied the iPhone 3G suit
Exactly what, in the suit, is an actual Apple invention? Can you specify something that nobody did before Apple? How about something that took a load of R&D dollars?
I always wanted to make my own unlock screen for android, but you cant do that, you have to code an entire launcher which is annoying.
What i wanted in an unlock though was for 3 buttons to come up on the screen in some random locations and have to click them all in order... slide to unlock just annoys me personally.
Name something of Apple's that was copied by Samsung, other than an obvious junk patent.
Clearly, Apple did not invent slide to open, or rounded corners. Such things are junk patents anyway.
So what did Apple spend so much money inventing, that Samsung copied?
A lot of cars do look a lot alike.
As I posted before, I can tell the difference between the apple product, and the so-called samsung ripoff with my eyes closed. I can do it easily, With my eyes open, I can the difference in a fraction of a second.
Furthermore, wouldn't that be a trademark issue, and not a patent issue?
To extend the car analogy, if ford acted like apple, ford would be suing other car makers who put the steering wheel on the right, or had four wheels on their car. In fact, those would be ford patents.
If you doubt that, then look at the laughably silly "inventions" that apple is claiming.
Are you on drugs Basil? I just got the iphone 4s and its a piece of crap with shit battery life and a soso OS. Very disappointed, and stuck with the piece of shit for 2 years.
Just to get rid of all the tension between them. It's like a badly written sitcom.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Are you serious? You want to stop them from selling because of using a sliding motion to disable the screen saver? Because they can search by voice? I am going to claim prior art on both of those. To unlock my magazine, I use my finger on the "page" with a sliding motion, the same way I navigate between pages. I place the magazine in my lap, on a desk, on the buttocks of my sleeping girlfriend, and slide using my fingers. Apple did not "invent" this. As for voice searching, I think that was invented by Pericles, when he famously asked the Athenians "where may I drain the lizard?" That was a voice search, executed thousands of years before that patent troll masquerading as a computer company "Apple" came into being. Pericles should sue Apple.
The reality is that Apple just doesn't like having to compete with someone who is using an OBVIOUS feature they stole from elsewhere to compete with their overpriced crap. Remember when they sued M$ for stealing the thing they themselves stole from XEROX PARC?
Why not make a patent on bogus patents, or patent patents, or just to avoid this patent patenting patents and so on..
infringes on patents underlying features customers expect from its products
That sounds like "whatever anyone else thinks of that we or our customers like for our product, we've already got a patent on it"
Rushes to patents office and takes out a patent on "All your base are belong to us"
Was able to search for information by voice, in Dragon Dictate in 1996!
Though of course it's completely legal for companies to enforce their IP against their competition, I am ambivalent; is it ethical for corporations to use patent litigation merely as an anti-competitive tactic, or should these disputes be settled in the marketplace, where they belong?