Apple Wins Mobile Patent On Displaying Lists, Documents

walterbyrd writes "Apple yesterday was granted Patent no. 8,223,134 for 'Portable electronic device, method, and graphical user interface for displaying electronic lists and documents.' According to the patent's description, the technology relies upon a touch-screen display and includes both the function for displaying lists and documents, and how they look on a mobile product."

Comments

who owns the uspo?

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like Apple has controlling shares in the USPO

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Tancred]

We (U.S. citizens) do, and we should be telling our congresscritters that this has to stop.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Tancred]

But I already did talk to my hopefully-soon-to-be congresswoman about it. Guess that shoots your theory.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Tancred]

Well, she's leading the polls and she agreed with me. :)

My current congressman doesn't answer his phone when I call, but I believe I did mention the USPTO to his staff when I called about SOPA.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[BlueStrat]

You've wasted time in your life that you'll never get back... "Hopefully soon to be" is not "is"... try speaking to the current congressperson...

You mean continue talking to the guys that routinely ignore their constituents, lie to us in the face of obvious factual contradictions, and only listen to those throwing hookers, bags of cash, and coke at them?

That's worked so well so far, hasn't it?

The definition of insanity comes to mind.

Toss all incumbents out. Demand term limits. Eliminate career politicians.

Strat

Re:who owns the uspo?

[TheInternetGuy]

3D porn!? That sounds great!

Sounds great, until you go to Soviet, Russia, where the 3D porn watches you!

(Sorry for perpetrating an old tired meme, but I am old and tired)

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Tancred]

You claim to know a lot about this person I haven't even named. No wonder you're cowardly posting anonymously.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[peted56]

Hey their lips were moving, that is the test if a polly is lying!

Re:who owns the uspo?

[quadrox]

To be fair, in a typical phone call you cannot determine if the other persons lips are moving. There is some slight chance she wasn't lying after all ;)

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Taco Cowboy]

... but I am old ...

Guess you ain't as old as me

... and tired

Guess I ain't as tired as you
 

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Tancred]

So you want to just roll over for the patent trolls instead of electing better candidates or convincing those in office? Do the trolls scratch your belly when you roll over?

FYI, the candidate in question actually blacked out her site for the big SOPA protest in January. She gets this stuff.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Jeremi]

Toss all incumbents out. Demand term limits. Eliminate career politicians.

Be careful what you wish for -- there's no reason to expect that the replacement politicians would be any less corrupt than the current ones, and every reason to expect that none of them would know what the hell they were doing for the first year of their first term in office. The result would be a completely dysfunctional government after every election.

The goal shouldn't simply be to have new representatives, the goal should be to have good representatives. And the way to get good representatives is to change the electoral system so that the path to getting elected isn't "raise the most money", but rather "best represent the views of the largest number of constituents". Only then will have you have politicians who are motivated to listen to people rather than to money.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[I_am_Jack]

Toss all incumbents out. Demand term limits. Eliminate career politicians.

Because of course anyone who replaces them will spring from the forehead of Athena, walk on water then turn it into wine, poop vanilla ice cream, and give us all sweet fuzzy kittens to make us happy when we're sad.

Why not try to create a better informed electorate? One which understands that software patents deter competition and stifle innovation.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[AliasMarlowe]

where the 3D porn watches you!

Your ideas are intriguing, and I wish to subscribe to your kinky newsletter.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[BlueStrat]

Why not try to create a better informed electorate? One which understands that software patents deter competition and stifle innovation.

What does it matter how informed and clued-in the electorate is if the politicians won't listen?

Don't get me wrong. I fully support efforts to inform and involve more people in the process. First, however, one must have a government that will respond and be accountable to the electorate. Career politicians have the time to form networks of cronies in and out of government to secure their positions and power, and to insulate themselves from public accountability.

As far as the new politicians, if they lie about their intentions and/or behave badly they must be voted out. There's no "Pre-Crime" that can determine this ahead of time. The electorate can only try to vet candidates as well as possible, and kick them to the curb if they prove untrustworthy.

The only course we can take to truly protect ourselves against government corruption is to limit the amount of power and wealth they control, and the amount of time they have to abuse it. Nobody is going to try to bribe/influence a politician to get government subsidies, for example, if said politician/government hasn't the power or wealth to provide such subsidies.

This in turn will be a disincentive to those contributing/spending large amounts of campaign and lobbying money, since their returns on their "investment" will be greatly reduced or eliminated. The framers of the Constitution knew this, and deliberately hamstrung the central government for precisely these reasons.

The more power and wealth government controls, the more money it's worth spending to those seeking influence. The reverse is also true, which is the point.

Strat

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Patch86]

Anyone who follows politics, anywhere in the world, knows- what a politician claims to believe during an election and what they actually do after an election are more or less completely unrelated.

Check out the UK Tories' "no reorganization of the NHS" or "we support House of Lords reform (for real this time!)", or the Lib Dems' "we'll reduce University tuition fees", or Blair's Labour's "we'll implement proportional representation", or Obama's "I'll shut down Guantanamo", or...well, anything.

Lobby your elected politicians, not the ones touting for election. At least they'll admit to you when they don't intend to do anything about something...

Re:who owns the uspo?

[umghhh]

next: Apple has wins against people using their brains for speech recognition without a license.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[erroneus]

Many of us do... the problem is the other "legal personhoods" speak louder and more frequently and with more money.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Xest]

I think it's probably harder to fix the electorate than fix the system, because the electorate is in many cases kept dumb by the system, because the system benefits from an uninformed electorate. If you want to fix the electorate you fight an uphill battle because those with the power to easily change this are working against you, whilst you, a minority, have neither power nor numbers.

Despite this I largely agree that the suggestions put forward by the GP aren't necessarily going to fix much. The fixes that are needed (not just for the US, but even countries like the UK) are:

1) Political campaigns funded purely by the public purse, relative to past popular support performance, with a cap such that the largest party has no inherent financial benefit over say, their next 2 or 3 closest competitors.

People don't like paying for politics, but this is simply the only way to ensure that parties campaign and perform in the interests of the public, rather than lobbyists. I would argue that any cost involved in this sort of thing to the tax payer would be more than made up for by the savings of having competent government that doesn't spend money handing useless contracts to lobbyists who got them in power etc.

2) A representative voting system.

There is an argument that representative voting systems like PR create governments that have little strength, but this is clearly false as Germany has proven having had coalition governments since the war. Ultimately minority or coalition governments are forced to compromise. In the UK people complain about our current coalition, citing things like the increase in tuition fees to £9,000 but they miss the fact that if it weren't for the coalition the Tories were actually going to push fees of £12,000. Our coalition has made a lot of mistakes, but it's naive to think the Lib Dems haven't had at least some degree of moderating influence on the government. The NHS changes were similarly far far worse under purely Tory proposals. Even with our shitty example of a coalition government, the coalition has led to moderation and has still been better than the alternatives - a Labour or Tory majority.

3. Limit media ownership.

Limit media ownership to say, 10% of the media, to ensure that no one media mogul can have undue influence on the media. Having a strong public broadcaster like the BBC which has a legal obligation to be impartial is also of major benefit.

Unless you do these sorts of root and branch changes you cannot have a healthy democracy, it will always be more easily corrupted, much less representative of the people and far more representative of vested interests and lobby groups.

It's unlikely America especially would ever go for these changes because many Americans have been fed bullshit about how the state is evil, but this has simply been used as a method by which to ensure corporations are strong enough to be able to control the state, which is then used as the tool by which to act against the interest of most Americans which creates this obscure feedback loop of Americans then thinking the state is evil and supporting laws that make corporations more powerful. Similarly the idea of state funding for political campaigns would probably be seen as too socialist in America, where socialism is defined to be synonymous with communism which is defined to be inherently evil because America lost the Vietnam war and failed in Korea to attain complete victory etc.

Just as religion and state should never be mixed, neither should corporate interests and state, and the only way to remove that separation is with the likes of implementations of ideas such as points 1 and 3 above. Point 2 works to limit corporate interests by itself, because it forces politicians to listen to the people if they want to be elected, it forces them to pursue moderate policies that at least half-please everyone, rather than extreme policies often pushed by corporate interests that make some people happy, whilst destroying the lives of others.

Until you solve this problem of the merging of state and corporations, you cannot have a healthy democracy and again, just as you cannot have a healthy democracy when there is a merging of religion and state.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[MitchDev]

A-fucking-men. They do realize that they are making the anti-patent crowd's argument for them with this kind of stupid shit. right?

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Aren't the examiners ever reviewed? There's nothing inherently novel in doing things on a wireless device that's already being done on a PC.

Also, lists like this are already done in car nav radios.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Toss all incumbents out. Demand term limits. Eliminate career politicians.

Oh great - then the ONLY people who will know what the fuck is going on will be lobbyists. At that point, why not just sell seats to the highest bidder? At least then, when we see an announcement about how spilled oil makes a delicious dessert topping from "The Right Honorable Bubba Teabagger, R-Exxon" we'll know why.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[cob666]

Aren't the examiners ever reviewed? There's nothing inherently novel in doing things on a wireless device that's already being done on a Piece of Paper.

Fixed that for you >br />

Re:who owns the uspo?

[labiator]

Term limits makes it more expensive for the corporations to buy representatives, hence fewer indentured servants roaming the halls of congress.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Digicaf]

The result would be a completely dysfunctional government after every election.

If only we should be so lucky.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Greyfox]

I think Apple has a patent on telling your congresscritters this has to stop, on a mobile device. This is the same pattern we saw with all the "On the internet" patents a few years ago. I suspect Google Glasses are just an end-run around a lot of these mobile device patents, and wouldn't be surprised if Google is just quietly shoveling all these "On mobile device" patents back into the office updated with "On Google Glasses."

Re:who owns the uspo?

[dontfearthereaper]

Why not try to create a better informed electorate?

In what way and to what purpose?
If we had a properly informed electorate, There would have been term limits long ago, patent trolls would have been beaten back under the bridge where they belong, and corporations wouldn't have anywhere near the power that they have now. Hell, if we had a better informed electorate, the country wouldn't be headed off a financial cliff.

Right now, they do have a 'better informed electorate,' except that in reality the electorate has been brainwashed with false truths that have been carefully crafted by the corporations and government officials, namely so that they stand to gain regardless of what the outcome of the vote is. They're simply using simple sleight of hand tactics to feed the illusion of control to the electorate.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[UltraZelda64]

I don't know why this AC was voted down. I'm from Ohio, AKA. someone born in the U.S., and as fucked up as it sounds... the AC pretty much nailed it. Apparently whoever modded him down never watched George Carlin (RIP, George--this guy was great) . Either that, or they're those assholes who get all fucking uptight about everything, probably patriotic at that.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[ranpel]

Fantastic correction.

mod parent up

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at Obama they did the usps overhaul which esentially kills inovation and puts corporation at the for front. I would rather have a republican which would be up front and state his purpose than a person who claims to be for the middle class yet has more h1b visas and is anti business.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[sl4shd0rk]

We (U.S. citizens) do

Lol.. silly ignorant non-exempt taxpayer. WE do.
sincerely,
US Corporations Inc.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Tancred]

Well, I was going to go beating up patent trolls vigilante-style, but I have this agreement with Commissioner Gordon to keep a low profile. So instead I find the good candidates, donate and do phone-banking and canvassing.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Tancred]

Just because we (U.S. citizens) are largely apathetic about this topic doesn't mean we don't own the USPTO. It's only our collective apathy that allows you corporations to effectively control the USPTO.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Tancred]

What does it matter how informed and clued-in the electorate is if the politicians won't listen?

There are elections every couple years.

The more power and wealth government controls, the more money it's worth spending to those seeking influence. The reverse is also true, which is the point.

You stopped before you got to anything concrete, but you seemed to be headed to either eliminating the USPTO or privatizing it. Neither one seems like a good idea to me.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Krojack]

3D porn? Where? I'm gonna have to look into this.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Tancred]

Well, I think voicing concerns as a constituent (or potential constituent) is good regardless of whether you support that politician overall. But yes, I've given her money, made calls and knocked on doors on her behalf.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Xest]

I'm well aware of America's founding, and don't disagree that America gaining independence was the right thing to do.

But I do question whether the founding principles of the nation were necessarily done rationally. Why do you feel these decisions, made hundreds of years ago, possibly to an extent as a knee-jerk reaction to the reasons for the war of independence in the first place, as still 100% relevant as the perfect principles of governance even today? Do you really think America's founding fathers really just somehow magically got the age old problem of governance right the first time around all those years ago? and in a manner that would never need changing?

You recognise that your current system isn't working, that it is extremely corrupt, yet rather than remove the corruption I'm assuming from your comment you believe the solution is to take power back from the system. The problem with that idea is that something will fill that power vacuum, you probably believe it will be the people, but if you really want a lesson from history then I think you'll quickly find that people will quickly self-organise into their own power structures, historically when monarchys for example have lost power, the church for example would be the one to gain it. This is because some people really do just want to be led, it's because others want to lead. Nowadays, it's most likely to be corporations that would fill any power void, as that has certainly been the trend in the US to date.

I also am well aware that public funding cannot happen in the US without a constitutional amendment but that doesn't mean it wont go a long way to separating big business from politics, it just acts as an example of why the constitution is not necessarily relevant enough to modern times to justify being a be-all and end-all document to adhere to. This very American trait of treating the constitution like a holy scripture that must not be defied, much like muslims get angry at the burning of the Koran, is indeed rather alien to me, but I guess I haven't been brought up in a system that teaches that it should be treated as exactly that.

Undoubtedly it's a cultural issue and I understand that Americans have bred into successive generations this fear of the state, and of socialism. I also wont pretend that I'm absolutely right, perhaps I am wrong, but what I do know is that the same applies to your argument. I do know that the suggestions I cited would at least cripple the current mechanisms for corrupting the state and increase accountability to citizens, and accountability matters.

There are healthy democracies in the world, Norway being one good example. These nations tend to adhere to the sorts of principles I suggested. In contrast, I'm not aware of any states with healthy democracies that also have the sort of small government that the most libertarian of Americans propose, the only states I can think of that have tried this sort of thing have collapsed into anarchy as local groups fill the afformentioned power vacuums, and then inevitably end up warring with each other for more power/resources.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[SoftwareArtist]

If only we should be so lucky.

That's exactly what we've got in California, and believe me, it is not a good thing. A major and unforeseen effect of term limits is that people in the state legislature have little interest in the long term health of the institutions they belong to. If you hope to be in office for many years to come, and you know the people you're working with may be there too, that affects what you do. Your desire to get what you want right now is moderated by the knowledge that whatever you do, you'll be living with the consequences for a long time.

But if you know you'll be out of there in another year or two because of term limits, that's much less of a concern. You won't be around to deal with the consequences of what you do. And if you know someone else will be out of there in another year or two because they'll hit their term limits, you don't care so much about destroying your working relationship with them.

The result is a dysfunctional legislature where nothing gets done. Including things that really desperately need to get done, like overhauling the state bureaucracy to reduce the massive amount of waste going on.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[mcgrew]

Your congressman sucks. I've never failed to recieve a reply when contacting any of my elected representatives, and in fact Senator Durbin is taking the time to help a crazy homeless woman I know on Social Security (she used to be a nurse before she went crazy). Now-transportation secretary Hood was my congressman once, and when I emailed asking if a certain thing was legal, he replied with a copy of the law itself. And he was one of the ones I really didn't like too much. Note that one is a Democrat and one a Republican.

And I'm no rich guy representing a corporation, and Amy certainly isn't (she's been sleeping on my couch until she can get into a shelter, her few belongings in my garage).

Re:who owns the uspo?

[StormyWeather]

I concur with term limits, however I do not agree that it's a politicians job to listen to constituents. This is not a democracy it is a republic. We elect people to make decisions, and we don't elect them if they don't make the decisions we liked. It is up to them to make decisions and decide who to listen to once elected.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[StormyWeather]

I hear this "but they won't know what they are doing!@!@!" argument all the damn time.

Well if that's the case maybe they will simplify things. I'm sorry, if we can get a new president which is one of the three branches of government for 8 years, then to say we can't replace a senator every 12 years is just silly. If we have two 6 year terms with elections every two years staggered through the states then we end up with one term where they are clueless the first year sure, but then they get their sea legs under them they get down to business for 5 years. If you need more than a year to figure out your job, then you really aren't smart enough to be there anyways.

The electoral system means that politicians have to think about all of the country, not just cities. The electoral system guarantees that even low pop states like RI and AK get a chance at some attention.

If people know they can only serve for 12 years, then they have to go live under the crap they passed into law maybe they will think twice before passing some of this garbage. And honestly, who works for one job for 12 years anymore. Sure some folks do, but it's far from the norm.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[StormyWeather]

Just to kind of clue you in a bit, we aren't a Democracy let alone a healthy one. We are a Republic.

--
At the close of the constitutional convention, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what type of government the Constitution was bringing into existence. Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Re:who owns the uspo?

[Xest]

Erm, democracy and republic aren't two mutually exclusive things. A republic is, put simply, little more than a nation where there is no monarch. It doesn't stop it being a democracy. The UK is a monarchy, but it's still a democracy too, because we vote for our government.

I hope you're not represenatative of many other Americans with this view, because if you don't even understand how your own political system works it really is no wonder your governing class can get away with whatever the fuck they want. Perhaps I should add another step to my list - 4) Make sure people actually even understand what democracy is.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[TheInternetGuy]

Guess you ain't as old as me

Well I wouldn't be too sure, your UID matches the number of Slashdot accounts I've registered and forgotten about rather well.
Settle by neck beard measurement? :D

Guess I ain't as tired as you

No argument there, son.

Re:who owns the uspo?

[BlueStrat]

Erm, democracy and republic aren't two mutually exclusive things. A republic is, put simply, little more than a nation where there is no monarch. It doesn't stop it being a democracy.

The US is a specific type of republic, a "representative republic", which, very briefly, is where citizens, divided into regional sovereign states, vote to elect representatives to protect and promote their interests, values, and views in the governance of their community, state, and nation.

You're quite correct that, up until very recently, far too few citizens had anything like a decent understanding of our government structure and the reasons why it was designed the way it was at it's founding.

However, I am cautiously optimistic and encouraged by the fact that the recent rapid and profound changes being made are causing more and more citizens to notice and begin to educate themselves and get involved, particularly as these changes are, and are increasingly going to, significantly change the conditions and type of society under which we live.

Strat

Re:who owns the uspo?

[BlueStrat]

(I suspect the Founders did not envision the massive career Congress we have now).

The Founders and framers of the Constitution were most vehemently against the idea of career politicians. They envisioned the Citizen-Statesman, who would sacrifice time away from their main jobs/careers/businesses, to briefly serve and represent their fellow citizens, and then return to their civilian lives.

The career political animals that inhabit Washington D.C. these days would horrify them.

They also envisioned that government would, as governments tend to do, grow and expand in size, power, and scope, and that citizens would need to rise up in armed revolt every few decades and hang some politicians.

We're frankly long, long overdue for some public hangings in D.C. according to those who founded this nation. The Progressives and Democrats of today who think simply reducing the rate of growth of some little government program is some kind of atrocity would be horrified at the Founders vision for government downsizing, which began at the end of a gallows's rope and at the point of civilian cannon, musket, & sword. They didn't screw around, and they took their politics with deadly seriousness.

Strat

Re:who owns the uspo?

[BlueStrat]

Only a dyed-in-the-wool Republican would be retarded enough to say in one sentence that Obama puts corporations at the for front (sic) and in the next sentence claim that he is anti business.

Obama engages in "crony-Capitalism" where favored businesses, corporations, and individuals who support he and his agendas receive special treatment, access to power, and sweetheart deals at taxpayer's expense. It could probably best be described as a form of "soft Fascism". Just look at all the Goldman-Sachs people who hold positions of power in the Obama WH.

Obama Administration: Deputy Director, National Economic Council - Former Goldman Sachs Title: Financial Analyst

Obama Administration: Chairman, President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board - Former Goldman Sachs Title: Board Member (Chairman, 1990-94; Director, 2005-)

Obama Administration: Commissioner, Commodity Futures Trading Commission - Former Goldman Sachs Title: Partner and Co-head of Finance

Obama Administration: Undersecretary for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs, State Department - Former Goldman Sachs Title: Vice Chairman, Goldman Sachs Group

Obama Administration: Ambassador to Germany - Former Goldman Sachs Title: Head of Goldman Sachs, Frankfurt

Obama Administration: Chief of Staff to Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geitner - Former Goldman Sachs Title: Lobbyist 2005-2008; Vice President for Government Relations

Obama Administration: Advisor to Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geitner - Former Goldman Sachs Title: President and Chief Operating Officer (1999-2003)

Republican or Democrat, this should make you disgusted and angry.

Strat

I don't get it

[slashmydots]

I don't quite see the business model of filing an idiotically general patent, waiting around, suing someone for using it, spending millions defending it in court, and getting the patent thrown out and paying the competitor's legal fees.

Re:I don't get it

[Skarecrow77]

I wonder... can I get a patent on filing stupid patents?

I mean just think, that will pre-empt thousands and thousands of these things.

it'll be a god damn money pit.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't quite see the business model of filing an idiotically general patent, waiting around, suing someone for using it, spending millions defending it in court, and getting the patent thrown out and paying the competitor's legal fees.

By suing someone you slow down their ability to bring competing products to the market.

Re:I don't get it

[Tancred]

But toss it on the pile of other bogus patents and it makes a good bargaining chip (threat).

Re:I don't get it

[CosmeticLobotamy]

It's not general, the summary is just dumb. As far as I can tell, it's a patent on a scrollbar that disappears when you're not dragging the view. If that's right, it's certainly a crummy patent, but not a general one.

Re:I don't get it

[Bieeanda]

They also go after an injunction on the competitor selling infringing hardware. If they manage to keep the case running long enough, their competitor's legal bills will be a fraction of what they've lost in sales. Apple profits.

Re:I don't get it

[LordLucless]

How about the business model of filing an idiotically general patent, suing a new entrant to your market before they have millions of dollars to defend themselves in court, sucking their coffers dry and driving them out of the market, thus ensuring your market position?

Re:I don't get it

[couchslug]

"How about the business model of filing an idiotically general patent, suing a new entrant to your market before they have millions of dollars to defend themselves in court, sucking their coffers dry and driving them out of the market, thus ensuring your market position?"

Your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

How about clicking the link and reading the description. It's actually pretty specific about it.

I mean, fuck Apple, but don't just jump on that bandwagon.

"Abstract
In a computer-implemented method, a portion of an electronic document is displayed on the touch screen display. The displayed portion of the electronic document has a vertical position in the electronic document. An object is detected on or near the displayed portion of the electronic document. In response to detecting the object on or near the displayed portion of the electronic document, a vertical bar is displayed on top of the displayed portion of the electronic document. The vertical bar has a vertical position on top of the displayed portion of the electronic document that corresponds to the vertical position in the electronic document of the displayed portion of the electronic document. After a predetermined condition is met, display of the vertical bar is ceased. The vertical bar is displayed for a predetermined time period when the portion of the electronic document is initially displayed."

Re:I don't get it

[jaymemaurice]

If you can, let me patent the processes of suing for patent violations on patents about stupid patents first.

Re:I don't get it

[LordLucless]

Wait, wait, get this - it's a a scrollbar, but it's on a touchscreen. What innovation! Oh, the humanity! Nobody has ever used such an interface before across so many different devices and interfaces it could possibly be called "general"!

Re:I don't get it

[justforgetme]

Good! Because for a moment I was thinking Apple went haywire and patented the <li> tag!

Re:I don't get it

[CAIMLAS]

You're missing the model, then.

The actual model is:

* file idiotically general patent based on common sense applications in existence today, but for $todays_hot_technology
* sit silently and wait for competitors to spend billions of manhours developing new product in concurrency with your product feature improvements
* pay a couple million (or billion, if you're Apple) to an unaccountable board which decides import restrictions to prevent your biggest threats from being imported for months if not permanently
* profit!

Wait for it - expect to see patents for idiotic everyday things, like touchscreen capable shovels.

What you don't seem to understand is that when you've got product cycles for hardware in the 18-24 month range, and time to market needs to be under 6 months in many cases, a delay of 3-4 months can mean death of a product, no profit, and any number of other things.

Re:I don't get it

[a_hanso]

Also, how about the patent office doing its job and determining whether something is patent-worthy or not, rather than passing the responsibility to the courts?

Re:I don't get it

[Taco Cowboy]

can I get a patent on filing stupid patents?

No, you can't

Simply because there has already been a lot of precedences

But you can try your luck on getting a patent on filing not-that-bright patents, since nobody has done that yet
 

Re:I don't get it

[vux984]

I don't quite see the business model of filing an idiotically general patent, waiting around, suing someone for using it, spending millions defending it in court, and getting the patent thrown out and paying the competitor's legal fees.

That assumes the competitor can afford the fight. Given apple's current bank balance...

Re:I don't get it

[Zaelath]

The business model is:
1. File idiotic patent with lots of prior art
2. Block your competitor from selling their equipment for 6+ months while the patent is re-examined in court
3. Pay competitor some fraction of the profit earned in stage 2.

It's a clear winner.

I still say step 2 should only work until you've reached step 3 once, i.e. if you've blocked a competitor based on a patent that gets thrown out you can no longer "win" injunctions, you can only sue for losses after the fact.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry for that. We had to display the list of comments in the wrong order because of a new apple patent.

Re:I don't get it

[MacGyver2210]

And I'm sorry, they're suing *Microsoft* for anti-competitive business practices? How is this not the definition of an antitrust situation?

Re:I don't get it

[jeti]

The lawsuit costs the competitor money. For smaller companies, the costs can be ruinous. Apple has a hundred billion dollars to burn to prevent competition.

Re:I don't get it

[oobayly]

Fine so it's not general, but guess what, my Galaxy Nexus on both ICS and MJB have done exactly this. No scrollbar is visible in the browser or lists (I just checked) until I touch the screen. When I touch the screen a UI hint appears on the right (or bottom), its size is inversely proportional to the length of the page and its location informs you of where you are. Prior art?

I'm pretty sure Unity does something like this, but that's using a scroll wheel not a touchscreen so obviously its a completely different patentable concept. </sarcasm>

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a very general patent. The broadest claim is:

1. A method, comprising: at a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display: displaying a portion of an electronic document on the touch screen display, wherein the displayed portion of the electronic document has a vertical position in the electronic document; displaying a vertical bar on top of the displayed portion of the electronic document, the vertical bar displayed proximate to a vertical edge of the displayed portion of the electronic document, wherein: the vertical bar has a vertical position on top of the displayed portion of the electronic document that corresponds to the vertical position in the electronic document of the displayed portion of the electronic document; and the vertical bar is not a scroll bar; detecting a movement of an object in a direction on the displayed portion of the electronic document; in response to detecting the movement: scrolling the electronic document displayed on the touch screen display in the direction of movement of the object so that a new portion of the electronic document is displayed, moving the vertical bar to a new vertical position such that the new vertical position corresponds to the vertical position in the electronic document of the displayed new portion of the electronic document, and maintaining the vertical bar proximate to the vertical edge of the displayed portion of the electronic document; and in response to a predetermined condition being met, ceasing to display the vertical bar while continuing to display the displayed portion of the electronic document, wherein the displayed portion of the electronic document has a vertical extent that is less than a vertical extent of the electronic document.

For a first claim, that's very specific.

Re:I don't get it

[mwvdlee]

The business model makes a lot more sense if you imagine them suing only small competitors that don't have the financial resources to battle a huge army of lawyers, even if a win is 99% certain.

Re:I don't get it

[Patch86]

I hope you like paper, because I feel a patent for "viewing newsletters on a mobile device" coming on.

Re:I don't get it

[chrismcb]

According to the patent "is not a scroll bar"
HOW is this NOVEL in any way, shape, or form? In 2007?

Re:I don't get it

[Chrisq]

I don't quite see the business model of filing an idiotically general patent, waiting around, suing someone for using it, spending millions defending it in court, and getting the patent thrown out and paying the competitor's legal fees.

The business model is "buy a few years where there is no competition". A few million in lawyers fees is nothing compared to the profits the temporary monopoly will give them.

Re:I don't get it

[ThePeices]

According to the patent "is not a scroll bar"

HOW is this NOVEL in any way, shape, or form? In 2007?

It doesnt have to be novel. It just has to be patentable.

Re:I don't get it

[cdp0]

Like the one on Nokia N9 / MeeGo ?

Re:I don't get it

[Rogerborg]

The US business model is increasingly to find employment for lawyers. If society were run by ghouls, car crashes would be positively encouraged.

Actually... given how many lawyers feed their broods by chasing ambulances, I'm not sure that even qualifies as an analogy.

Re:I don't get it

[aaaaaaargh!]

Why, the silly patents allow them to extort tens of thousands of individual developers and thousands of small businesses and destroy them whenever they like, and since we're talking about Apple they will also do that whenever it benefits them. The vast majority of small businesses does not have the resources to defend themselves against patent lawsuites, no matter how idiotic the patents might be and how much prior art already exists.

Patents like this have only one function. Keep control of business in the hand of a few cartels and prevent any smaller, potentially faster and more innovative companies from ever becoming viable competition.

Re:I don't get it

[arkhan_jg]

Apple doesn't want to licence their patents. They want to use them at the ITC and in national courts to get injunctions to stop android devices competiting in the marketplace. It might cost them millions in the inevitable court battles on those that don't get immediately dismissed, but they only need a handful to stick long enough to shut the competition down entirely. They've only had limited success so far with this strategy, but the long term goal of being the monopoly mobile device is worth hundreds of billions so they keep trying.

No need to produce a better product when you can just get import bans on the competition. Especially when apple have nicked plenty of design elements from their predecessors (palm etc) and android.

Re:I don't get it

[spacepimp]

They want injunctions, not money. Easier to compete this way. Get the good products banned from being imported/exported.

Re:I don't get it

[xigxag]

By definition, a scroll bar is a widget that can be used to scroll through a list or document. Apple's patent is for something which is purely an indicator. You can't move it around like you can with a scroll bar slider, although it will change vertical position based upon your finger scrolling thru your list.

Re:I don't get it

[thoth]

Sounds like the flip-side of the other business model the current patent system generates: filing an idiotic general patent, let it lie dormant for years, exerting no effort at all into engineering and/or bringing an actual product to market, waking up from a zombie-like state whenever somebody makes a product that might possibly infringe, identifying profitable products, and then filing suit when there is money to be made.

I'm not defending the current system - it is really and obviously broken - but the most clear side effect I can see from the way it works is that ALL corporations HAVE to file these bs patents, in order to build up a massive portfolio just so they can defend themselves when they inevitably get sued. Then in negotiations the two sides can cross-license and whatever mumbo-jumbo it takes to make most of the various threats in the lawsuit go away and pad the rest with cash.

If you tried to approach this in a principled manner, and only patented what was truly non-obvious and innovative, you'd have nothing to bargain with when you are inevitably sued.

The whole system of software patents is totally busted.

Re:I don't get it

[macshit]

By definition, a scroll bar is a widget that can be used to scroll through a list or document. Apple's patent is for something which is purely an indicator. You can't move it around like you can with a scroll bar slider, although it will change vertical position based upon your finger scrolling thru your list.

Scrollbars serve as both indicators and controls, and good scrollbars indicate both size and position.

Surely Apple's widget isn't patentable simply because it offers only a subset of this functionality?!

Re:I don't get it

[rbarreira]

Simply because there has already been a lot of precedences

Doesn't seem to stop tons of companies that register obvious and done-to-death stuff in patents...

Re:I don't get it

[amoeba1911]

Wrong, it has to be novel. Being novel is a prerequisite to being patentable.

Re:I don't get it

[Deorus]

Then you don't understand publicity.

Re:I don't get it

[Deorus]

Prior art counts from application time, not approval time, because the patenting party can always claim (with evidence in the form of the patent application itself) that they've been using the concept longer than you.

Re:I don't get it

[phorm]

I've seen this in Gnome/linux and on Smartphones for quite a long time. How is it innovative?

Re:I don't get it

[AdamWill]

iOS did it first, Android copied it in 2.3. So, no, not prior art.

Re:I don't get it

[AdamWill]

Can you find any reference to such a design prior to 2007? I had a quick look around when I read about this yesterday and couldn't find any. I suspect it's actually true that someone at Apple _did_ come up with the idea of an auto-hiding scroll widget without the bar.

Re:I don't get it

[AdamWill]

No, it's not a scrollbar. It's the sort of 'lozenge' design you get on iPhones and, these days, Android. There is no bar at all, only the little lozenge that on a regular scrollbar is the position indicator. The key realization that whoever actually invented this had is that a scrollbar is designed for direct interaction; on smartphones no-one scrolls by poking the scrollbar, they scroll by swiping. So you don't need most of the regular scrollbar design at all - you don't need the bar or the up/down arrows. All you need is something that indicates position in the document when the user is scrolling. So the lozenge appears when you're scrolling to indicate position within the document; when you stop scrolling it goes away again.

Re:I don't get it

[shutdown -p now]

It's a very specific claim for a vertical non-interactive scrollbar (i.e. the one that indicates position but cannot itself be used to scroll) that disappears when you're not scrolling. Which is something pretty damn common these days, though I can't say if Apple wasn't the first one to use it.

By the way, doesn't Unity also use something very similar for their scrollbars in recent Ubuntu versions?

Re:I don't get it

[rastoboy29]

Hmm have you looked into how often patents get thrown out?

It's far easier and cheaper to pay off the troll.

And that is the real problem.

Re:I don't get it

[macshit]

Ok, so as scrollbars often progress through a document in exactly the same way Apple's widget (that is to say, their "method" of displaying progress information is the same), and you say that a scrollbar's "extra" functionality (as a control) does not matter, that means from the patent point of view, Apple's widget is an exact duplicate of a common existing method for displaying progress, and Apple's caveat "but it's not a scrollbar" is irrelevant...

Er, right?

UITableView

[fox1324]

Did they just try to patent UITableView? as an iOS developer, I welcome our brushed-aluminum overlords.

Re:UITableView

[harperska]

No, they patented the behavior of the scroll bar in UITableView, not the view itself like the summary makes it sound.

Re:UITableView

[chrismcb]

No, they patented the behavior of the scroll bar in UITableView, not the view itself like the summary makes it sound.

BUT according to the patent "is not a scroll bar"

This is just getting ridiculous

[cb_is_cool]

Seriously.

Well there's your problem...

[Tr3vin]

The fact that we use the term "win" so often when talking about software patents shows how we really need to change how they are handled at the very least. If we could get it to the point were companies earned patents then it wouldn't be so bad.

you don't see a business model

[circletimessquare]

But Apple's law firm does, and you nicely described all of the revenue generating functions.

Of course there's a difference between a business model predicated on bringing something of value to society and the business model of a rent seeking parasite that only owes its existence to an unaddressed inefficiency.

Re:you don't see a business model

[tuppe666]

But Apple's law firm does, and you nicely described all of the revenue generating functions.

Of course there's a difference between a business model predicated on bringing something of value to society and the business model of a rent seeking parasite that only owes its existence to an unaddressed inefficiency.

I am happy for you to call lawyers, accountants, advertisers etc Devils sperm, but they are there to advise management who take the decisions. I'm not sure why we quite see the blame shifted onto the lawyers is beyond me.

Re:you don't see a business model

[don.g]

Does it make you any less of a dick because someone else paid you to be one?

Re:you don't see a business model

[circletimessquare]

Legal status quos that do nothing for society and only generate busy work for lawyers is a simple matter of parasitism.

Of course there is valid and important work lawyers do for society.

Now be intellectually honest and admit there's a whole bunch of other lawyerly work which is unjustified, wasteful and useless.

I think the word they like is "frivolous".

Re:you don't see a business model

[jaymemaurice]

Does it make you any less of a dick (or vagina) because someone else paid you to be one?

There, I fixed that for you.

~your friendly Norwegian Microsoft Developer’s Conference Incorrectly Politically Correcting Department.

Re:you don't see a business model

[no-body]

... I'm not sure why we quite see the blame shifted onto the lawyers is beyond me.

Because they sold their soul for $$'s and make all the crap possible.

Re:you don't see a business model

[wienerschnizzel]

why we quite see the blame shifted onto the lawyers is beyond me.

It's not so hard to understand

A hired hit-man that actually performs the murder is generally seen as more despicable as the person who hired him. And even if you might disagree you surely must see why that hit-man would take so much heat from the public.

Re:you don't see a business model

[BeanThere]

I am happy for you to call hit-men etc Devils sperm, but they are there to advise their employers who take the decisions. I'm not sure why we quite see the blame shifted onto the hit-men is beyond me.

DAMMIT

[cultiv8]

There goes my career as a web and mobile app developer.

Re:DAMMIT

[shutdown -p now]

Just make your web page scroll horizontally. The patent only covers a vertical scroll bar. ~

Re:I am apalled....BURN THEM!!!!!

[jordanjay29]

Don't you know that Apple products aren't that green anymore? I'd hold off on the burning party for the iOS devices. Burn something renewable instead, like real apples.

Patent Images

[grouchomarxist]

I couldn't see the images in the link above, but this site has them:
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/07/apple-wins-another-major-iphone-ios-interface-patent.html

Re:Patent Images

[Pesticidal]

Yeah I tried to view them on the USPTO site and was told to install an Apple Quicktime plugin. No fucking thanks.

Re:wow

[jordanjay29]

Yes, you were doing it wrong. Now do it right and then pay up on the royalties.

Re:Prior Art

[harperska]

Did your GUI include a scrollbar-like UI element that was only visible while you were touching the screen? If not, no, your GUI is not prior art. Yes, the patent in question is stupid, but it is not overly broad like the summary makes it sound. And not reading what the patent is actually covering just makes you look dumb.

Further proof that our patent system is broken..

[aklinux]

I always thought to to be patentable, something had to be either new, or a new way of using what's out there. Frankly, I see nothing here that should be patentable.

What gives?

New Method

[Archangel Michael]

________ with a touch interface! Patent awarded!

Re:New Method

[ChunderDownunder]

Well exactly. Wading through the patent document, it mentioned the following points:

(1) Defining scrollbar behaviour.
(2) Showing and hiding a UI element based on user input.
(3) Defining a touchscreen apparatus to use your finger as an input device.

So (1) is a scrollbar (2) is autohide. Combining them produces a scrollbar that dynamically shows or hides based on user input. Nothing revolutionary given any UI toolkit could trap keyboard or mouse wheel events and show the scrollbar only while active. That Apple never marketed a 2 button mouse with a scroll wheel as found on common desktop computers is beside the point. (3) Defines basic touch screen interaction.

(3) really defines one's finger as a scrollwheel. So unless (1) and (2) stand together on their own, how is this revolutionary?

Re:New Method

[SuperKendall]

Although I generally agree the patent is silly, Apple did and in fact still does sell two button mice with scroll wheels (that are spheres instead of simply wheels).

It's been a long time since Apple sold a single button mouse, and even then it was not really a single button mouse as the system always was defined to access contactual menus via a modifier key.

Basically your point would have driven home much harder if you didn't trot out the old fallacies of Apple mice. It cheapens your argument.

Re:New Method

[ChunderDownunder]

?? Where did I trot out the old fallacies a single button mouse?

I thought they had the following inputs
(1) Magic Trackpad - touchpad for desktop systems
(2) Mighty Mouse - touch sensitive zero button mouse

So basically devices that use multi-touch over bluetooth to simulate traditional mouse behaviour. One you slide your finger around for motion, the other that moves across the desk.

I'm not aware they actually sell Apple branded mice with buttons and a scroll wheel.

Re:New Method

[Dunbal]

Well I have an icon that only appears on my screen when I press my middle mouse button, and I can scroll up and down when this icon is visible and I hold down the button. Patent please.

Re:New Method

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a scroll-bar. A scroll-bar-like position indicator -- it differs from a scroll-bar in that it's display-only; input is through dragging the document up and down, not clicking the scroll-bar or dragging the scroll-bar's thumb.

Re:New Method

[kupekhaize]

They don't sell them any more, but: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Mighty_Mouse

BTW, Mac OS has responded to control clicks as a right click on one button mice for 15 or more years. Also, pretty much any 2 button USB mouse that is connected gets recognized for what it is, and the right mouse button works just like you'd expect it to.

Re:New Method

[Archangel Michael]

So we have "lists" and we have "touch interface". Which is the patent for? Combination of the two? That isn't obvious at all.

Re:I am apalled....BURN THEM!!!!!

[John Bodin]

How about the field of Apples aka the corporate campus?

Apple no longer a product company

[SurfsUp]

Let's take inventory. IPhone 4s. A minor upgrade. Ipad 3. A minor upgrade, and a downgrade in terms of weight, thickness and battery life. New products. None.

OK, I think I can see the pattern now. Apple plans to milk its existing assets for everything they're worth and has no intention of creating new ones. That would cost money, you see.

Re:Apple no longer a product company

[MacGyver2210]

Steve's dead, man. Nobody left at Apple has the balls to throw out aggressive new products like the Jobs did. As much as I hate the guy and his company, he definitely knew his shit when it came to generating hype out of thin air.

Re:Apple no longer a product company

[l0ungeb0y]

Because that's all he did was generate hype. It's not like he helped give birth to the Home Brew computing culture that all the Linux fags circle jerk about -- because that's what the Apple-1 was, a bare-bones integrated board that at the time was every bit as revolutionary as Linux or the Raspberry Pi. And even more so, because back then, computers weren't something people had in their homes or even at work. It was the first hobbyist board to allow enthusiasts to build their own PC in their Mom's basement.

Sure, he knew how to market -- but he had innovative products to back the hype up and it was usually the consumers that generated the hype because the products they made were actually very cool and exciting. Which is why they get copied to no end by all the shit ass, low rent PC makers you must love so much. Think about that next time you consider purchasing an Ultrabook, a Samsung Galaxy or an Android Phone.

Re:don't hate the player hate the game

[SurfsUp]

And what is wrong with hating the hateful player that plays the hateful game? Apple has gone out of its way to make itself perfectly hateful so I for one must comply.

Re:Patent Images - WARNING

[Lord Maud'Dib]

That site is terribly pro-Apple. The article itself sounds like it was written by them.

prior art

[Osgeld]

fucking paper

Re:Prior Art

[Osgeld]

so does patenting a list

What you should be most angry about

[kawabago]

What you should be most angry about is that you are paying someone tens of thousands of dollars a year to pump out this garbage so some asshole can sue your company and cause you to lose your job.

What did she agree to do?

[Taco Cowboy]

Okay, so your soon-to-be congress-woman candidate gets elected and becomes a real congress-woman

What she agrees to do now?

I mean, what can you expect _anyone_ in the Congress to do, while the USPO is protected by corporations, patent trolls, and the lawyer union?

Re:What did she agree to do?

[Tancred]

That's a good question. We didn't get much past agreeing that the current system is broken (specifically software patents).

She would be one of hundreds in Congress, so I don't expect sweeping changes from her. Patent reform is not at the top of her priorities, nor is it at mine. But restricting the influence of special interests (some of whom you list) on our politics is a top priority for both of us. And even chipping away at that is a worthwhile step.

Re:What did she agree to do?

[lonecrow]

A possible outcome is that the USPO stops being used by the rest of the world (along with your currency).

Then you can all just play with yourselves until you learn to play well with others.

No it isn't

[alvinrod]

Actually you're wrong. In the first claim of the patent they explicitly state the following: "and the vertical bar is not a scroll bar;"

Essentially if you have a scroll bar in your implementation, you can't be sued with this patent as it's explicitly stated that it's not a scroll bar.

Also, it was filed in March of this year. It would be pretty damned easy to show prior art or that in fact your own implementation of this existed prior to Apple's filing of their application.

Re:No it isn't

[LordLucless]

Actually you're wrong. In the first claim of the patent they explicitly state the following: "and the vertical bar is not a scroll bar;"

They say that. But they don't offer any definitions of a "scroll bar", and they go on to describe exactly the function of a scroll bar.

Essentially if you have a scroll bar in your implementation, you can't be sued with this patent as it's explicitly stated that it's not a scroll bar.

You can be sued for anything. They may not be successful in their suite, however...

Also, it was filed in March of this year. It would be pretty damned easy to show prior art or that in fact your own implementation of this existed prior to Apple's filing of their application.

...assuming you can afford the requisite legal costs to actually make it to court and argue that claim, along with the slew of other patent violations you'd undoubtedly be served with at the same time.

Re:No it isn't

[alvinrod]

If you read the description section, they provide more details and it becomes quite evident what is meant by the term "scroll bar". Here's a bit from the application: "In some portable devices, scroll bars are used to indicate the position in the document or list of the displayed portion. But scroll bars are fixed user interface features that take up valuable display screen area on an already small display screen." Given that, I doubt even the most gifted legal expert could argue that traditional scroll bars are covered by this patent.

You're correct that anyone can be sued at any time for just about any reason, but I doubt Apple will go after anyone with this. As far as I'm aware, no one else is doing scrolling like this. If they suddenly changed to this method, I can see Apple sending lawyers after them. If someone is hit with a frivolous lawsuit, they have legal recourse available and could conceivably countersue Apple for court fees.

If you don't think that this patent is valid, find some prior art. Otherwise if no one else has up to this point been using this idea, perhaps its more novel than most would consider now that it has been patented.

Re:No it isn't

[LordLucless]

"In some portable devices, scroll bars are used to indicate the position in the document or list of the displayed portion. But scroll bars are fixed user interface features that take up valuable display screen area on an already small display screen."

It's a scrollbar that disappears when you aren't using it. They're just trying to divorce it from the usual scrollbar to make it seem more novel.

If someone is hit with a frivolous lawsuit and have a loose million, they have legal recourse available and could conceivably countersue Apple for court fees.

FTFY

If you don't think that this patent is valid, find some prior art. Otherwise if no one else has up to this point been using this idea, perhaps its more novel than most would consider now that it has been patented.

Patents need more than to be novel. They need to be non-obvious to one skilled in the art. Just because you're the first to do something, doesn't mean you get a government-enforced monopoly on it. It's supposed to be something that significantly contributes to the body of human knowledge, something significant enough to be worth placing restrictions on the rest of the populace in order to find out how you did it.

As for nobody using it, Ubuntu's had something very similar for over a year. Of course, this wasn't on using a touchscreen, so of course, that makes Apple's implementation totally novel and innovative.

Re:No it isn't

[mrt_2394871]

If you don't think that this patent is valid, find some prior art.

The stock browser on my Android phone (2.1, which is Eclair, right?) has scroll 'indicators' which appear (right and/or bottom of the screen) when I move the view, showing where and what fraction of the overall canvas my viewport displays. After I've stopped moving the viewport, they disappear. (Of course, in true /. tradition, I've not RTFA)

Re:No it isn't

[Theaetetus]

Patents need more than to be novel. They need to be non-obvious to one skilled in the art. Just because you're the first to do something, doesn't mean you get a government-enforced monopoly on it. It's supposed to be something that significantly contributes to the body of human knowledge, something significant enough to be worth placing restrictions on the rest of the populace in order to find out how you did it.

That's absolutely right... but how do you prove that something is "non-obvious to one skilled in the art"? Patents are quasi-judicial decisions, so they're bound by the Constitutional requirement of due process. Just as a judge cannot look a defendant up on murder charges and say, without evidence, "I have a gut feeling that you're guilty," the patent office cannot look at a patent application and say, without evidence, "I have a gut feeling that this is obvious."

Currently, the test is that if one or more pieces of prior art references or products, alone or in combination, teach or suggest each and every element in the patent claim, either inherently or expressly, the claim is obvious. This eliminates hindsight - all references must be from before the application was filed - and eliminates gut feelings - since references must be shown and mapped to the claims.

I haven't looked closely at this application, but if no one was doing anything like it before, and you couldn't combine what people were doing before to get the same thing, then it probably wasn't obvious at the time of filing. It may be obvious as hell, now, in hindsight, but that's as irrelevant as determining someone is guilty based on what Nancy Grace says.

Re:No it isn't

[LordLucless]

Currently, the test is that if one or more pieces of prior art references or products, alone or in combination, teach or suggest each and every element in the patent claim, either inherently or expressly, the claim is obvious. This eliminates hindsight - all references must be from before the application was filed - and eliminates gut feelings - since references must be shown and mapped to the claims.

That's all fine and dandy, and probably judicially correct. Who cares about judicial correctness? It's a bad test. Why? Because it always passes. Everything was done first, once. That means everything's patentable (if applied by for the person who did it first, or at least, the person who first published it). Which totally discards the "non-obvious" portion of the patentability requirement, which leaves the current useless mess the USPTO is currently in.

Re:No it isn't

[macshit]

But scroll bars are fixed user interface features that take up valuable display screen area on an already small display screen.

This is not correct.

Some of the earliest GUI scrollbars, on smalltalk systems, popped up only when used, in order to conserve screen real-estate.

(the system I observed this on was a late-80s tektronix smalltalk machine, but I believe the GUI was taken pretty verbatim from earlier xerox systems)

Re:No it isn't

[Theaetetus]

Currently, the test is that if one or more pieces of prior art references or products, alone or in combination, teach or suggest each and every element in the patent claim, either inherently or expressly, the claim is obvious. This eliminates hindsight - all references must be from before the application was filed - and eliminates gut feelings - since references must be shown and mapped to the claims.

That's all fine and dandy, and probably judicially correct. Who cares about judicial correctness? It's a bad test. Why? Because it always passes. Everything was done first, once. That means everything's patentable (if applied by for the person who did it first, or at least, the person who first published it). Which totally discards the "non-obvious" portion of the patentability requirement, which leaves the current useless mess the USPTO is currently in.

Not so... I think you're confusing novelty ("something being done first, once") and obviousness. Obviousness doesn't require that it actually has been done - it merely requires that there's a combination of references that together, if combined, would teach or suggest everything in the claims. If you have a pillow, and someone else has a stool, I can't make a padded stool, even if no one's done it before.

Re:No it isn't

[LordLucless]

So, for instance, if we have touchscreen apps, scroll bars, and elements that only appear on activation, an application that combines the three of them would be rejected for non-obviousness?

Submit your padded stool patent - I give it 50/50 of being accepted.

Re:No it isn't

[Theaetetus]

So, for instance, if we have touchscreen apps, scroll bars, and elements that only appear on activation, an application that combines the three of them would be rejected for non-obviousness?

Unless any of them teach away from the combination... For example, a scroll bar that says "always display me when the material is longer than the screen" would teach away from being combined with an element that appears only on activation, or would teach that "the material is longer than the screen" is the activation, so it should always display.

Basically, you have to put yourself in the position of someone in 2007... Would you have come up with this then? And when you say "of course I would," can you prove that?

Re:No it isn't

[macshit]

Screen area was in short supply on the 1980’s machines used with Smalltalk-80. To preserve it, scroll bars were not shown all the time, but only when a scrollable view had the focus.

Not the same.

This isn't how the system I used worked. The scrollbar was only shown when the mouse was strategically positioned near the edge where it would pop up.

Re:No it isn't

[macshit]

Might not be the same. Did the scroll bar push content to the side when it popped up? It appears that this implementation is designed to prevent that.

No, it was an "overlay" (it actually popped up outside the window to be scrolled; I'm not sure what would happen if the window was full-screen sized).

Record-setting?

[blind biker]

Is this the most idiotic patent awarded to Apple, yet?

The tragedy isn't (just) that Apple had the gull to submit this shite to the USPTO, and it's not just a tragedy that it has been awarded: the other tragic fact is, Apple is actually going to use this shit, to thwart competitors.

Re:Record-setting?

[synapse7]

Close tie with a patent on overall rectangular shape. Or the slide to unlock as of recently was not bad, surely Apple won't be out done in this regard.

Re:Patent Experts

[drkstr1]

Who the fuck cares what it says? You shoud not be able to patent a god damn UI concept. I don't care how detailed the patent describes it. (I assume you are the same AC farther up, exclaiming how detailed the patent is, like that somehow fucking matters) ...ending rant before my BP spikes...

Re:Prior Art

[MacGyver2210]

No, but Facebook does...almost everywhere :o|

Perhaps they will take each other down in the ensuing legal battle, and they can both DIAF while the rest of the world benefits.

Of course, this is just the summary

[91degrees]

The claims and the description explain what the patent actually is.

However, this is Slashdot, so we'll have countless posts explaining that there are already methods for displaying lists, completely missing the point of the patent and how the patent system works.

Re:Of course, this is just the summary

[Dachannien]

Well spoken. Plus, none of these armchair examiners will put their keyboards where their mouths are and actually apply for a job (we're hiring).

Here's what the patent is actually about:

A method, comprising:
at a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display:
    displaying a portion of an electronic document on the touch screen display, wherein the displayed portion of the electronic document has a vertical position in the electronic document;
    displaying a vertical bar on top of the displayed portion of the electronic document, the vertical bar displayed proximate to a vertical edge of the displayed portion of the electronic document, wherein:
        the vertical bar has a vertical position on top of the displayed portion of the electronic document that corresponds to the vertical position in the electronic document of the displayed portion of the electronic document; and
        the vertical bar is not a scroll bar;
    detecting a movement of an object in a direction on the displayed portion of the electronic document;
    in response to detecting the movement:
        scrolling the electronic document displayed on the touch screen display in the direction of movement of the object so that a new portion of the electronic document is displayed,
        moving the vertical bar to a new vertical position such that the new vertical position corresponds to the vertical position in the electronic document of the displayed new portion of the electronic document, and
        maintaining the vertical bar proximate to the vertical edge of the displayed portion of the electronic document; and
    in response to a predetermined condition being met,
        ceasing to display the vertical bar while continuing to display the displayed portion of the electronic document,
wherein the displayed portion of the electronic document has a vertical extent that is less than a vertical extent of the electronic document.

Re:Of course, this is just the summary

[shutdown -p now]

Which is to say, it's a patent for a vertical auto-hiding non-interactive scrollbar displayed on a touch screen. How novel, indeed!

Re:Prior Art

[pmontra]

I agree it's stupid, in more than one way. A scrollbar's size hints about the size of the whole list and about the position I'm into it. Being able to see that hint only by touching and moving the list is bad. It should be always visible. Hopefully Apple will force Android to fix this conceptual bug. Thanks!

Fight innovation.

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea of a patent is to grant a limited-time monopoly in exchange for making a non-trivial technical advance available for licensing. This monopoly is supposed to be on the non-trivial technical advance and nothing else.

The current patent practice grants the same protection for trivial stuff which means you get a limited-time monopoly on the whole technical field, but this time it already expires at the end of a multi-year lawsuit. If you managed to squash your competitor in that time, you have prevented innovation against you.

If the competitor decides not to sue because he cannot afford it, he is at least disadvantaged by having to pay royalties/penalties. If you have enough trivial patents in your portfolio, that may suffice for squashing him as well.

Lists and docs on a touchscreen phone

[phonewebcam]

How fondly I remember them from the Ericsson R380 back in 2000. I guess it wasn't patented then because not only was it so freaking obvious, it had been done before with various other PDAs. Still, there's a reality distortion field to combat now, so let's see the epic battle betwixt that and prior art begin!

The "A Better Informed Electorate" oxymoron

[Taco Cowboy]

Why not try to create a better informed electorate?

 
While you may believe that a "better informed electorate" is the key to solve the problem, I'm telling you this fact:
 
90% of the human population just-don't-give-a-fuck about 90% of the things that happen around them
 
All they want is to have an easy life, get laid, and be fed
 
Most of them just do-not-care-enough to lift their little finger to make any change, unless their livelihood got threatened
 

Re:The "A Better Informed Electorate" oxymoron

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Why not try to create a better informed electorate?

While you may believe that a "better informed electorate" is the key to solve the problem, I'm telling you this fact: 90% of the human population just-don't-give-a-fuck about 90% of the things that happen around them All they want is to have an easy life, get laid, and be fed Most of them just do-not-care-enough to lift their little finger to make any change, unless their livelihood got threatened

Then they deserve the government they get.

Re:The "A Better Informed Electorate" oxymoron

[thoper]

All they want is to have an easy life, get laid, and be fed

but but... that's the dream...

Re:The "A Better Informed Electorate" oxymoron

[QuantumPion]

If 90% of the population just doesn't care than you don't have a democracy, you have an oligarchical dictatorship.

Re:The "A Better Informed Electorate" oxymoron

[JazzLad]

Then they deserve the government they get.

But what about the rest of us?

Re:The "A Better Informed Electorate" oxymoron

[Taco Cowboy]

If 90% of the population just doesn't care than you don't have a democracy, you have an oligarchical dictatorship.

Are you sure what you have now is "True Democracy" ?

How responsive is your "representative" in the government ?

How much access do you have to those who supposed to "represent your interest" ?

The so-called "Democracy" that many Western countries have are all illusions - designed in such a way to fool and pacify the masses into believing that what they have is "Democracy"

It's the "Elites" that are running the show, not you, not me, not the Johns on the street

It's time to wake up and smell the coffee beans, my friend !

Re:Patent Experts

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because every AC that doesn't agree with you is the same person.

Get a clue. Posting anything pro Apple on slashdot for a story like this will get you modded into oblivion.

Re:Patent Images - WARNING

[Noughmad]

I think the authors are sarcastic/trolling, but Apple users don't notice it.

Very similar to HTC Desire/Android picture listing

[maroberts]

Displays a non-interactive bar to indicate how far through the list you are. Not sure if the specific Apple claims are met, but may be close enough to make it obvious...

As I'm referring to an HTC Desire, the implementation is obviously more than two years old...

Pure greed

[LocalH]

That's the only reason I can come up with that we in the US still allow software patents that are non-obvious. I can't wait until these assholes see the error of their ways and use some common sense in such matters. Unfortunately, I feel that, by the time that occurs, it'll be too late for reasonable reform. Much like the rest of the political sphere, unfortunately.

For someone who care as much as I do about what technology can offer, it's hard not to get depressed. Thank God for cannabis.

Annoyed Cpt. Picard

[Coolhand2120]

Captain Picard says it all http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3q4z0l/ It's great how a meme can capture a moment like this.

"the object is a finger"

[l3v1]

Well, here you go, another idiotic patent which patents something which was already done and done, _but_ - wait for it... - this is for a portable electronic device, yay.

I won't even go into this, and don't talk about how the US SW patent system is a joke. So many people at so many places have talked this out already, without any effect whatsoever, that it seems utterly pointless to even start any new discussion about it. Yes, this is giving up from my part, since this seems just another thing that we can't seem to be able to fight.

But at least we all know from now on, that "the object is a finger" :P (ref:pat.8,223,134). Well, I hope it's the middle one, since you'll only see that one from me, from now on.

Reading the patent

[ihavnoid]

What the patent seemed to describe was the thin vertical bar which appears when you touch the screen(which represents the vertical location of the current screen) and vanishes the moment you put your fingers off.

An easy way to circumvent this patent is to display the scroll location whether you touch the screen or not. The thin bar may have been a significant display estate on the good old years, but as the display resolution increase, it may be a better idea to display the bar continuously anyway.

Not sure if the patent is actually innovative, though. It seemed to have an awful lot of clauses to avoid an awful lot of prior arts.

Re:Reading the patent

[the eric conspiracy]

It is an pretty narrow patent because of all of the qualifiers. Basically it's a vertical bar (not a scroll bar) displayed over the image of the document segment that reacts to a proximity object.

Not sure it's worth the effort to even file.

It is certainly of questionable innovative content.

In other words it should have never been filed or granted.

Claim 1.

1. A method, comprising: at a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display: displaying a portion of an electronic document on the touch screen display, wherein the displayed portion of the electronic document has a vertical position in the electronic document; displaying a vertical bar on top of the displayed portion of the electronic document, the vertical bar displayed proximate to a vertical edge of the displayed portion of the electronic document, wherein: the vertical bar has a vertical position on top of the displayed portion of the electronic document that corresponds to the vertical position in the electronic document of the displayed portion of the electronic document; and the vertical bar is not a scroll bar; detecting a movement of an object in a direction on the displayed portion of the electronic document; in response to detecting the movement: scrolling the electronic document displayed on the touch screen display in the direction of movement of the object so that a new portion of the electronic document is displayed, moving the vertical bar to a new vertical position such that the new vertical position corresponds to the vertical position in the electronic document of the displayed new portion of the electronic document, and maintaining the vertical bar proximate to the vertical edge of the displayed portion of the electronic document; and in response to a predetermined condition being met, ceasing to display the vertical bar while continuing to display the displayed portion of the electronic document, wherein the displayed portion of the electronic document has a vertical extent that is less than a vertical extent of the electronic document.

Absurd Patent Abuse

[pubwvj]

Obvious
Prior Art
Non-unique
Not patentable

The patent clerks have sunk to a new low.

Re:Absurd Patent Abuse

[synapse7]

The USPTO disagrees.

Re:Absurd Patent Abuse

[pubwvj]

The USPTO has a long history of making bad decisions. Don't confuse clerks with intelligence.

Re:Patent Experts

[StripedCow]

You shoud not be able to patent a god damn UI concept.

Indeed. Imagine somebody patenting the steering wheel of a car, or the order of the pedals, or the order of the gears. That would be ridiculous. You'd never be able to switch brands of car.

Now besides USER-interfaces, I think actually that one should not be able to patent interfaces in general. Because any patent in this area will block interoperability and, as a result, innovation.

Re:Patent Experts

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a world where a company would be able to patent EVERY SINGLE UI CONCEPT. Just think about it for 5 minutes. Cars, radios, EVERY SOFTWARE, keyboards, mouses, elevators, door handles, hell, every single activity by humans which require some sort of interaction would just infringe on the patents of this fictional company. Now in our reality we can see that Apple is becoming this fictional company with control on how we interact with our future. This has to stop.

Re:Pop-up scroll bars

[Life2Death]

If parent is true, then Android is one of the things this patent targets. You see, it does this too. However, it does it better in some instances allowing you to have a bigger "finger dragger" thingy pop up allowing you to crunch through 500 pages fast and easy

samsung music player...

[codman1]

the samsung music player and adobe reader already has this type of event when scrolling or using a list. sooooo. i expect that Samsung will again be sued for already using something that has now had a patent granted, apple are on thin ice with people.... their bubble will go pop soon.

Re:Very similar to HTC Desire/Android picture list

[rwise2112]

The Gmail app also does the same thing, but I'm not sure how long its done that.

Google Drive on Android Has This

[Jason Levine]

So this is a patent on hiding a functional scrollbar until the user starts scrolling through the list?

I just checked Google Drive on my Droid and it has this. I see a list of documents, but no scroll bar. When I touch and begin to scroll, a scrollbar appears along with an "up-down" box. If I press on the box and drag it up or down, the list of documents scrolls in that direction. (This is on Android 2.2 as Verizon Wireless apparently doesn't want me upgrading to the latest version of Android.)

Of course, Google Drive is a bit new, but I'm guessing that Drive was just taking advantage of functionality available in Android. At the very least, it shows that Apple's idea wasn't that novel that nobody else would have thought of it.

Yay..

[towermac]

Apple now gets all lists and documents on a (mobile) screen. And by God, I hope they are able to defend this patent long term.

Don't get me wrong, this might be the stupidest patent I have yet read about. (Admittedly, the bar is high for that.) But Apple doesn't license. I don't see how Android (or anybody else) can exist with this patent in place.

Which will hopefully, finally, force lawmakers to reform the patent system. I think Apple is secretly trying to break the existing patent system. If they weren't, they'd be happy to license like Microsoft. Unlike MS, Apple can compete just fine in a world without software patents. As can Samsung.

If they pull it off, I'll carry a sign to get teh Steve's face on Mt. Rushmore. I think this is one of the bigger issues our our times. Let's just hope Tim can carry Steve's torch..

this can't be true

[SuperDre]

This certainly can't be true, as what USPO officer has granted this even though it has prior art and isn't anything new. This is only possible if Apple stowed some money toward some poor civil official.. This should not have been given a patent status. what the hell is wrong with those USPO morons who didn't do their job in looking for prior art..

Re:prior art

[jbeaupre]

fucking paper

Sounds novel (I bet Doc Johnson doesn't have that) and could be patentable. But I doubt you'll make much money. Probably because of the chance for paper cuts.

Booze. The problem solver.

[garyoa1]

There are good politicians and bad ones. Problem is we have no way of knowing which is which. So the only way to sort it out would be to vote all of them out and start from scratch.

But that opens up another can of worms. If you have a country run by new politicians who have no clue how to govern... we're screwed anyway. So just go out, get plastered, forget your problems. Just whatever you do, don't sober up and you'll be fine.

Used to be "internet" now it's "mobile"

[ukemike]

It used to be if you added "internet" to any old obvious idea you could get a patent. Now you can throw "mobile" in there and any stupid, done a thousand times before, idea becomes patentable again.

Re:don't hate the player hate the game

[Gravis Zero]

don't hate the player hate the game

if there are no players, there is no game ergo the players are the game.

What's the agenda?

[__aaeihw9960]

Has anyone else started seeing much, much more of these sorts of patent related articles in the media recently? I assume that patents have always been an issue, so why the vigorous focus at this point? Hell, I thought that the big 5 movie studios were built because of patents, and that was a hell of a long time ago. So, why are almost all media sources focusing so much on patents and patent trolls? What's the agenda here?

Keeping competitors off the market is important

[walterbyrd]

When it comes to computing devices, the smart business model is: control the standard, and the big money will follow. This strategy is working very well for Apple, and Microsoft, and used to work well for IBM.

Another smart business strategy is to "tax" the competition. Microsoft makes more on Android than Google. This is because of a flood of scam patents that Microsoft owns.

Also "tax" the competiton.

[walterbyrd]

MS makes more money on Android than Google, thanks to MS's silly patents.

Taxing the competition also drives up costs for competitors, making your product more competitive.

Touchscreens have been around since early 90s

[walterbyrd]

This is just another total BS patent that should have never been granted.

Apple copies all the time.

Re:prior art

[mark-t]

Well, with multipage documents on paper, you *DO* get a visual indication of how far along you are, simply by looking at the volume of paper remaining to the volume of paper before your position. It's sort of like a scroll bar in that respect.

fork-knife-spoon icon for /. patent info?

[Locutus]

how about a toilet bowl instead?

LoB

It's not just Apple "abusing" the patent system

[DaveyJJ]

Know what tech company files nearly 10 times the number of patents in the areas of UI and what people claim are "obvious" technologies that Apple does? *Samsung*. Good for the goose, good for the gander. This is how every major (and minor) technology company plays the game these days. This isn't Apple's fault, anymore than it's the fault of IBM (huge, huge patent filer), Microsoft, Motorola, HP, Yahoo (also huge number of patents filed every year), Google, Asus or anyone else. I get tired of folks who focus solely on chastising Apple when these sorts of patents get noticed; they seem blinkered to anyone else's insane patents. For fun: take a look at the PatentBolt website and just see some of the "obvious" stuff coming out of tech firms ... Apple is no worse than any of them. A "chameleonic device" that runs different OSes from Google? A laptop with a "built-in stylus" from Toshiba! A hybrid laptop-tablet! Wow! Whatever will these multi-billion dollar tech giants "invent" next!

Re:It's not just Apple "abusing" the patent system

[MrHanky]

LOL. I searched the page for the word 'fault', expecting exactly this kind of apologist nonsense: 'it's not Apple's fault!' Apple's got thousands of paid PR shills and lawyers, they don't need your help, fanboi.

Re:It's not just Apple "abusing" the patent system

[Gumbercules!!]

Samsung also invents more than 10 times what Apple does. Apple outsources the difficult part of the engineering of every single one of their products: mostly to Samsung and Foxconn. Samsung, on the other hand, manufacture and design (see: invent) most of the components. And a shit-tonne of other things, like engines, heavy machinery, etc. So I would expect them to file 10x the patents Apple do.

Apple is way worse than the other tech firms because Apple's single strategic goal in the mobile marketplace appears to be banning competition by utilising the overwhelming-pro-US-company, US legal system. Ever noticed how Apple keeps winning bullshit patent bans at home but not overseas? So has the rest of the World. And so has Apple.

So to stay maker of the #1 selling smart phone, Apple isn't even trying to compete with Android - they're already literally years behind on the OS. They're just trying to ban the competition.

I would love to see how Steve Jobs would've reacedt to being shown this story in 1984, while hiding the name Apple until he'd passed judgement. Given time travel, I'd go record that conversation and bring it forward for all to see.

Re:It's not just Apple "abusing" the patent system

[LodCrappo]

You have it entirely wrong. It is not the number of patents that anyone has a problem with.

For instance IBM is a huge patent applicant (at one time they were the largest in the country, don't know if this is still true) because they *invent new things*. They spend a massive amount of their budget on research and have some brilliant scientists working for them. When IBM files for a patent, it is because they have created something new. They are very well respected.

Apple receives scorn and criticism because they file for patents on concepts that are not new and/or not invented at Apple.

Pretty simple really.

Legal fees

[phorm]

Because the cost of court + legal fees may be exceeded by the revenue of blocking your opponent's product from market at launch, crippling their initial sales, or damaging their reputation.

If company [S] comes out with a product that has new technology and features, but company [A] blocks it at launch for 6 months using a B.S. patent... then company [A] launches their own product with similar tech features, it's completely worth it for them to tie things up in court and even pay out legal fees. It's also terribly anti-competitive, but the courts don't seem to be dealing with that yet.

Re:Patent Experts

[Deorus]

You already live in such a world, no need to imagine it. The only thing preventing that from happening is prior art.

vertical scroll bar?

[Lawrence_Bird]

how the fuck does this shit get a patent? that it only appears when you touch the screen some how makes it magical? the one government institution al qaeda will never destroy is the patent office which seems to be able to single handly ruin the eekonomy.

Next

[Fatch Racall]

Apple will soon file a patent for "the use of ones and zeros in a mobile device for the storage of data"
I swear. the USPO has outlived it's usefulness. Ever since Edison decided to rape patent law to monopolize the film industry for many years.

Gaaah!

[Un pobre guey]

Let it be known henceforth and herafter that 1) using any kind of electronic device to store, process, or display any kind of information, and 2) providing graphical, aural, tactile, or physical controls to manipulate, browse, or otherwise act upon the data are obvious to all skilled in the art and therefore not patentable !

Jesus Fucking Christ...

Re:Patent Experts

[rwise2112]

Indeed. Imagine somebody patenting the steering wheel of a car, or the order of the pedals, or the order of the gears. That would be ridiculous. You'd never be able to switch brands of car.

It would be ridiculous now. A hundred years ago when the automobile was brand new it would've been perfectly reasonable. Henry Ford would've been totally within his right to tell competitors to find their own unique and innovative way to steer their own cars. The automobile industry would've been horrendously balkanized as a result, but a century ago the steering wheel could easily have qualified as an innovative concept worth patenting.

Except the first car to use traditional controls was a Cadilac (at least that Top Gear was able to find).

Re:Patent Experts

[drkstr1]

You've been charged with a crime? Well who the fuck cares what evidence is missing? You look guilty, or you wouldn't be in that defendant's chair. I don't care how detailed your alibi is.

Same thing.

No, it is not the same thing at all.

Let's say you get charged with the crime of wearing a funny hat. Should we look at the evidence to see if that hat was indeed funny, or should we simply say that wearing any kind of hat should not be illegal, therefore any evidence proving the funniness of the hat is completely irrelevant to the situation?

I can hear the lawyers coming already

[just another AC]

slashdot stories contain "lists (of comments) displayed on electronic devices"...

Auto-hiding scrollbars have been around for ages

[knarf]

Auto-hiding scroll widgets have been around for ages, on everything from flash-driven text display widgets through video games. Even the 'touch screen' magic does not make this innovative, as touch screen equipped kiosks have been around for a long time as well - just show one of those displaying such a flash widget from the early 2000's and this patent meets its maker.

To be honest it should not even be necessary to point at auto-hiding scrollbars to defuse this patent. In essence it comes down to auto-hiding visual interaction widgets after a period of user inactivity, so all those auto-hiding pointers (from the lowly inverse block cursor in text-based interfaces to the mouse-driven arrows and other shapes in GUIs) should be enough.

Even on a mobile device.

Or on a touch screen.

Or on a combination of both.

Or on the mobile touch-screen-driven rounded cornered internet.

Why has the USPTO not been reined in? Is it all lawyers supporting lawyers supporting lawyers (ad infinitum) or does the political establishment still believe this is the way to further progress in the arts and sciences?

Why this is a good thing...

[Eyeball97]

Because it is further proof that the patent system is not only damaged, but irrepairably broken. This will only speed up it's demise.