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In UK, HTC Defeats Apple's "Obvious" Slide Unlock Patent
An anonymous reader writes "In a move that is likely to have wide-ranging implications for patent rulings around the world, a High Court Judge in the UK has ruled that HTC did not infringe on a number if Apple's patents. 'He said Apple's slide-to-unlock feature was an "obvious" development in the light of a similar function on an earlier Swedish handset.' Two other patents that Apple had claimed were infringed were ruled invalid, while a third was found not to apply to HTC. A statement from the Taiwanese firm said: 'HTC is pleased with the ruling, which provides further confirmation that Apple's claims against HTC are without merit. We remain disappointed that Apple continues to favour competition in the courtroom over competition in the marketplace.' Apple declined to comment on the specifics of the case. Instead it re-issued an earlier statement, saying: 'We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.'" This after a similar victory for HTC in a different venue, when Apple's request for an injunction on some HTC devices was rejected in the U.S.
Yesterday's discussion
Since apple tried to sue then with a bs patent they must be seen as a threat. This suit is nothing more then a stall tactic by apple to hopefully get a ban on import of HTC device even for a week or a month its a win for apple if that happened
Just end all software or method patents?
This is the problem and until it is fixed more of this sillyness will happen.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
So what is HTC doing right that Samsung is doing wrong?
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
Apple is not nearly as innovative as the fanboyz think. Apple just protecting it's IP? Apple is stealing the IP from Android.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-ios-5-copied-android-2012-5#notifications-appear-at-a-bar-at-the-top-1
Apple doesn't understand the meaning of "copycat" at least not in the sense of when they do/did it.
Younger Steve Jobs understood the importance of copycats in the market place... too bad older and now dead Steve no longer understand it. No matter. It will all result in something good for the market eventually and Apple will exhaust the patience of the judiciary of all nations and eventually win some legislation and perhaps some patent reforms around the world to prevent "everyone" from doing what Apple is doing.
The thing that will erode Apple's margin is when users realize they get the same sweatshop hardware for 10x the price from them.
What exactly in the iPhone is new or novel? Everything done in it has been done in other phones before it, all they did was package up everyone else's innovations make it pretty and slap a logo on it and claim they invented the phone market. Slide to unlock was as obvious as it gets when your dealing with a touch screen. How would you propose you unlock a smart phone?
I guess they need to listen to their same line of not stealing others tech, because that's precisely what they did when they made the iPhone.
Well considering apple has been in courts saying they couldn't compete with Samsung if the courts didn't grant the injunction against the galaxy tab back in 2011...
Samsung is the big dog on the block, and apple is afraid.
Good ruling. Here are some other slide-to-unlock devices which have been around for a while.
Proverbs 21:19
They made everything better. AND they sold the Sizzle, not the steak.
This is what the haters will never understand. All they see is 6oz bacon wrapped Filet, and say "I could do that cheaper" after looking at the $60 price tag. But what they mean is they can do a 12 oz Flank Steak on a BBQ for $6. It isn't the same.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I'm a patent geek. Patent attorney, undergrad in Comp Sci, and working in-house at a software company. Of course my view somewhat differs from the vitriolic responses of most commenters on here.
Nevertheless, I enjoy the patent stories.
While I will concede the point they sold the sizzle and not the steak (brilliant phrasing BTW), I don't necessarily agree with the point that the iPhone is the fillet. In light of the fact that their hardware has always been near the middle of the pack in the market but their price points have always been near the top I think they are selling flank and calling it fillet.
I got here through a series of tubes
No problem with being the best at something and trying to sell it for more, that is called healthy competition. The problem is Apple is trying to put the Flank Steak people out of business by saying that they are the only ones who should be allowed to BBQ. They are saying that the invented the beef and the bbq and no one else should be able to do this. Just because you are good at perfecting something, doesn't mean you should take credit for inventing something and claim broadly that no one else should be able to make any product remotely similiar to yours.
a car analogy to counter.
nobody but ferrari can make a ferrari..
but pininfarina still made the nicest designs and some of the nicest were done for alfa romeo and all italians have the same shit electronics bought from the same shit suppliers.
apple has sold others parts as their own inventions ever since 6502, only sprinkled with "magic" and claiming that anyone who buys the same parts from the same outside inventors/manufacturers is a stealer.
your steak analogy isn't that good either because it would have to be a 120$ steak served on a silver platter while the restaurant next door had filet mignon with bacon for 60$- only done properly(not wrapped) and with sauce of your choosing and fries instead of pickled dicks.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Apple should have gone with the "They're a rectangle" thing. Wonder why they didn't. Maybe HTC isn't rectangle-y enough.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
And you can take a Fillet Steak, marinate it and cook it for around $8 and have it taste far better than the restaurant mass cooked crap that usually has no flavor. Your not really helping the argument with that.
The sizzle as you put it is flair, its glitter, its not innovation. Suing over that is like suing because someone else went to your Halloween party dressed as your favorite character from a shitty book or movie. As for better, what did they do better? I know on my iPad (yes, I have one, doesn't mean I still don't think apple is a shithole of a company that does more harm than good) I experience 10x the crashes than I do on my android tablet. I can watch flash on my android tablet. What is better about an apple device? I don't see any better. I see a reality distortion field and too many people are drinking from the apple kool-aid to realize how little that company has actually done.
OK. I've never owned an iPhone (I tend to like WiMo7 or Android a lot better), but iPhones tend to have upper end hardware - not the best out, but typically the phone with better hardware are rarely more than a couple months older than the iPhones - for when they are released, the iPhones do then to have upper end, though not quite bleeding-edge hardware.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
And now the Apple shills...
It's a bullshit patent. In a proper patent system, the patent would never have been granted.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Selling the sizzle usually indicates that the product isn't really significantly better - you just generate hype about it. So, I'd agree with that part of your statement.
As far as comparing types of steak - it's more like a 6oz bacon wrapped fillet from Apple for $60, while the high end competition offers 5-7 ounce fillets for $40-$50, just usually with marginally less bacon. If you really like bacon, then the Apple might be fore you - but otherwise, it's probably not worth the hype (sizzle).
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Not only is this a dupe of another article on the front page, the summary quotes the same BBC article. Doesn't Slashdot have a system for at least checking the URLs of submitted stories?
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
I'm sure they differ, as you are about to become part of the problem.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This is obviously an issue near and dear to your heart so I cordially took the time to read your entire rant waiting for the part where you would explain what Apple had actually invented rather than a list of simple iterations on the hard work put forth by others previous to them.
Thanks for nothing, man.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
They can't. Samsung is both manufacturer and software developer. Apple is just software, all of their manufacturing is outsourced.
Samsung is a -VERY- known quantity and has been playing in the electronics industry in far more areas than apple for a very long time in the high-end stuff. Even their low-end items however are very high quality, I have yet to own a samsung product that I can complain about beyond "I wish it had feature x" which is usually available on the model up Samsung product.
Every LCD or LED panel in my house right now is a Samsung panel. I'm not normally brand loyal but Samsung has been so good to me for so long that if Samsung has a product in category x I just buy that one.
The only exception for me is some appliances. You can't beat a Maytag.
No one who used smartphones prior to iPhone can possibly take you seriously. By comparison all of the sucked unequivocally.
And Apple took all of that precedent learned from it and cleaned it up, and now therefore can tell everyone else they aren't allowed to take the iphone, learn from it, and and release a new product themselves? Say what now?
Its not like apple invented long battery life or good call quality. Lots of SmartPhones existed with that, they might otherwise have been crap, but the battery and or voice was good. Phones without carrier junk software? Hello Blackberry. Hello Windows Mobile 6. Lousy interfaces? Blackberry had a fine interface built around the clickwheel.
If you wanted to do an all touch interface, then the interface had to be designed for it, and it wasn't so much people copying apple, as people being forced to make many of the same design choices apple was because that's what makes sense for an all touch device.
And sure, as the other manufacturers went all touch, they followed the conventions that Apple had popularized (not invented) and that the market wanted.
As for slide to unlock, what phones had slide to unlock prior to iPhone?
According the article this thread is linked to the Neonode nM1 had a touch interface where you slide from left to right along the bottom of the touch screen to answer calls. Sound familiar?
As for all phones looking like a flat rounded rectangle? What other shape could they possibly have? The second the market shifted to smartphones that was inevitable. Form follows function. 10 years ago phones could be all different shapes... you had your round pod shaped ones, your flat Razrs, your long thin ones that slid, but the moment the smartphone became about the screen the shape of the phone becomes rounded rectangle to hold the screen... some had a phsysical keyboard along the bottom, some with a sliding keyboard, and some with no keyboard. (the iphone wasn't even the first all touch smartphone).
Now 5 years on, the market has shown a strong preference for the on-screen keyboard -- so that pretty much forces phones to be flat round rectangles with no keyboard.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with cherry picking the best bits of existing technology and putting them together to make a better product. And nothing wrong with making that product aesthetically pleasing and putting your company's logo on it.
Well, nothing wrong when apple does it. But apparently god forbid anybody else do it?