Slashdot Mirror
Apple Granted Broad Patent On Wedge-Shaped Laptops
Nick Fel writes "Apple has been granted a broad patent (PDF) on the wedge-shaped design of the MacBook Air. The design has been copied by most ultrabooks, and their manufacturers are likely starting to feel a little uneasy about the news."
i kinda like the icon for the topic here, who cares about patents .. the chinese dont, the russians dont, the indians dont, and if africa ever gets on its feet i'm sure they wont
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
This comes up occasionally and this is not a traditional patent, but a design patent. You can still build a wedge-shaped laptop, you just can't have it look exactly like a MacBook Air. There are lots of ways of designing around it. You could make it almost the same, but with a different finish, for example.
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The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.
It's a design patent. It's closer to trademark protection than patent protection in how its used. It protects the look of an item. A particularly famous example is the design of the Coke bottle.
You can't get a design patent for basic functional details. The fact that it's made of two parts, that the front is thinner than the back, and it's hinged are purely functional. The specifics - the curves and contours that only serve an aesthetic purpose - can be protected.
Patents and copyrights are used only to protect past acompilishments not create new ones. Stronger IP protections are only used to slow down growth. It is all but ignored by growing economies.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Patents and copyrights are used only to protect past acompilishments not create new ones.
The entire purpose of patents and copyrights is to create incentives for new works. Patents and copyright attempt to address the free rider problem. Without some reasonable assurance of protection, a lot of beneficial works would never be created.
None of this is to say the laws for patents and copyrights aren't badly in need of updating. They very much are broken in their current form. But the idea of protecting inventive works against the free rider problem is demonstrably beneficial.
Stronger IP protections are only used to slow down growth. It is all but ignored by growing economies.
This is where your argument falls apart. Without relatively strong IP protections, there are fewer incentives to create new work because there are so many copycats. Those same growing economies grow largely by imitating established economies with established IP protections. They tend to create very few (not zero but few) new and innovative works. You can only grow to a limited extent by copying other people. Eventually you have to create your own works and sooner or later that requires some form of IP protection. The exact model can vary but for better or worse there is presently no better solution to the free rider problem out there.
This is a design patent. It does not need to be inventive. The slashdot summary that said it was a "broad" patent is completely false.
This prevents other companies from making knock-offs of this particular design. If the ornamentation on a knockoff is changed, for example, so that it no longer looks exactly like this Mac Book Air, then the knockoff is ok. It's only if it matches exactly what is in this design that it would be infringing.
The slashdot summary makes it sound as if wedge-shaped laptops are now all covered by this patent. Whether it's just written poorly or intentionally designed to cause FUD is anyone's guess. Maybe the submitter will respond.
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The concern here is the the same as the rounded corners things last year. Apple designs are, intentionally, minimalist designs. Granting of design patents on what amounts to purely functional designs is problematic. The Dutch court last year struck down the rounded corner design patent (called community design in Europe) because there were not any non-functional elements and the court held that purely functional designs are less worthy of protection. I think the U.S. would be wise to adopt the same stance.
Just to reiterate, the problem with this patent is not design vs. utility, it is the functional nature of the design that should not be worthy of design patent protection.