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Meet The Man Who Designed a Tablet Computer 15 Years Before the iPad
Doofus writes "The Washington Post has a profile of Roger Fidler, who 'invented' the tablet computer in the 1990s, while working as a visionary for newspaper firm Knight-Ridder. He is now embroiled in the Apple/Samsung legal war, as an expert witness. Fidler admits that other prior art influenced him, such as the tablets being used as computing devices in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Prior prior art."
Not sure why that was rated informative, when it completely misstates Apple's legal position. When Samsung's lawyers couldn't tell the devices apart in court, there's a problem of trade dress, which is basically the IP equivalent of fraud.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
I find interesting that someone claims he invented the tablet computer in the 90s.
Why do I find this interesting? I owned my first tablet computer in the 90s. Yep, that's right. Even funnier is that this tablet computer was from Apple computers - but this is completely irrelevant. Point is, development of tablet computers began much before the 90s in order to be released as commercial products in the 90s. And this guy predicted tablet computer around 1994... coincidentally the year when Apple Computer released its first tablet computer.
The day it was released I both wanted one and was convinced it could have a great future. I imagine thousands of possible use for such tablet computers. But I didn't invent the iPad. Or the Samsung Galaxy. Or what ever.
What I'd like to know is how Samsung's lawyers could be unable to tell the difference between an Apple and a Samsung product from ten feet away, yet you assume that the casual viewer will totally know the difference.
If the only way you can tell between an "authentic" Louis Vuitton purse and a $10 streetcorner bargain made by "Louise Vitton" is through close inspection of the packaging, labels, and finish, then you have produced what is commonly known as a "knockoff." And that's precisely what Apple has alleged - that Samsung's new tablet "slavishly" copies their design so that only a close inspection will allow you to tell the two apart.
Again, you can certainly argue whether or not design patents should be allowed, and you can certainly argue that Samsung's device is not "too similar" to Apple's, but let's at least get the substance of the allegations right. Apple is not saying that they "own roundrect tablets with a black front." They are alleging that the specific design of the specific tablets from Samsung violates Apple's design patents by copying a substantial portion of Apple's trade dress.
I could probably make one out of plexiglass and plywood that could fool them from ten feet away. It's a shiny black rectangle with rounded corners.
You do sound angry and really have little clue.
Both black, flat, rounded-rectangles with a touchscreen that covers substantially the whole front of the device. Where's the novelty in Apple's design then
In the rest of the patent claims?
This is how all patent trolls work.
You have no clue what patent trolls are. Patent trolls *do not* implements their own patents. They sue to make money, no to protect their IP (however ridiculous the IP).
It is more about legal strategy than anything else.
No it's not. They sued Sammy because Sammy if *dumb fuck stupid* enough to dive in and make devices that actually infringe patents that *Steve Jobs* himself swore he would protect right on the 2007 keynote stage while announcing the first iPhone. "And boy, have we patented it." were his own words. Seriously, he said that on stage to the whole world.
And only one company is stupid enough to design a device that *is* just a copycat in enough ways to actually infringe on one of those patents.
there isn't a case for Apple here
Apparently, at least one german judge disagreed with you. So clearly you have no clue of how the German legal system work. A German judge *is* at a better place than you to assert such a statement, and he did.
Does Apple plays a smart game here? All bets are off. But they were very straightforward about their strategy, publicly, a long time ago.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Like the summary said. 2001: A Space Oddessy beat them both by about 40 years. Apple's "design patent" is even mor e absurd than their other patents and a lot of those are total rubbish to begin with.
Actually, no. One judge did actually look at footage from 2001: and said that it was impossible to see any details, so it is impossible to say whether the screen showed in the movie matches Apple's design patent in any way.
And it seems that you don't have a clue what a design patent means. You design a product, then you make drawings that describe as precisely as possible what the product looks like, and then you get a design patent. It doesn't have to be innovative whatsoever. It just has to be a design that wasn't there before, quite possibly by putting together a dozen different design decisions that have all been made before, just not in that particular combination.
To infringe on a design patent, you have to copy all the design decisions. Not just "rectangle with rounded corners" but all the other things in the design patent as well. That's why Apple is suing nobody but Samsung for copying their design, because everybody else of any importance has designed tablets that look different. Including lots of tablets with rounded corners that look different from the iPad by making substantially different design decisions somewhere.