Google Says Some Apple Inventions Are So Great They Should Be Shared

An anonymous reader writes "In attempting to fend off Apple's suit against Motorola Mobility and advancing its own patent litigation against Apple, Google, which is facing a lot of regulatory scrutiny in the U.S. and abroad over what some allege is abuse of standard essential patents, has been arguing that proprietary non-standardized technologies that become ubiquitous due to their popularity with consumers should be considered de facto standards."

Comments

I decree that...

[alphatel]

Translation: Steve's gone, mind if we drive?

nothing "great" about it

[khipu]

Interface standards are not about "great technology", they are about convention and usability. There's little that's ever been innovative about how steering wheels look or work, where the hand brake goes in a car, how you turn on a TV or a light, etc.; many of those are just arbitrary choices. But there is a huge benefit to having these items standardized so that consumers can easily move from one car to another. The same is even more true for user interfaces: user interfaces benefit tremendously from standardization. Apple's user interface elements aren't "great" or innovative, they simply set the standard because Apple is first.

(And most of Apple's user interface elements aren't even Apple's inventions; sliding switches on touch screens, for example, were not invented by Apple, Apple just copied them and then patented their application to unlocking.)

Re:nothing "great" about it

[Truedat]

I see a lot of these verbose types of argument that fails to get to the point. Yes Apple patents a lot of stuff that shouldn't be patentable. So does google by the way and so does Microsoft and everyone else. A lot of those inventions don't even originate in house either, just look at googles buyout of Swallow for example. However given these shitty rules that they play by are the same for all of them.

All you have done is go off on a hateful rant with nothing to back up those rantings, you have to explain why one company should have to forced to share it's own shitty patents with everybody else. What you've done is made an attack at the patent system and tried to attach Apples name to this uniquely, your words could apply equally to any of the major players. For example does google share its search patents with everybody? I don't know the answer to that but I don't see anybody looking into it round here either.

Does anybody else find it weird when supposedly intelligent people don't even _try_ to see all companies in the same light? That sort of blinkered view must spill out into other areas of thinking, in a way that must hurt reasoning skills.

Re:So would an analogue be the steering wheel?

[ninetyninebottles]

I'd like a HUD display too. Every car should have one.

Having been peripherally involved in the design of HUD systems for some american car companies, no you do not want a HUD system designed by a committee and managed by a US car company exec who still thinks more and bigger is better. Just look at some of the Windows based touchscreens in recent models and imagine a similar quality of design popping up in front of your face while you're trying to drive.

Re:Google facing regulatory scrutiny?

[ninetyninebottles]

Google bought Motorola. If you haven't heard about their FRAND patent licensing and the investigation thereof, you might want to get more background before reading this story.

Re:Bad Idea

[mwvdlee]

A point could be made that anybody trying to create a minimalist design, would invariably end up with a very similar design.