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Samsung: Apple Stole the iPad's Design From Univ of Missouri Professor
TheBoat writes with a bit from BGR on the Apple vs Samsung case: "We're starting to see a theme develop here. Now that it's Samsung's turn to present its case in the San Jose, California patent trial that regularly has the tech media abuzz, the company is taking an interesting approach. Rather than start out by arguing that its various Android smartphones and tablets do not copy Apple's designs or infringe on its patents, Samsung is arguing that Apple's IP is invalid to begin with. On Monday, Samsung argued that Apple's pinch-to-zoom patent was stolen from Mitsubishi's old Diamond Touch and on Tuesday evening, Samsung made a similar argument regarding the design of Apple's iPad. Samsung on Tuesday presented the jury with videotaped testimony from Roger Fidler, head of the digital publishing program at the University of Missouri. In his testimony, Fidler stated that he began work on a tablet design in 1981. 'Apple personnel were exposed to my tablet ideas and prototypes,' he testified, adding that Apple staff saw his designs in the mid-1990s."
...with tales of how Apple had released the F700 way before Samsung started making phones. How Apple had invented the Diamond Touch decades ago. Apple built Roger Fidler from the ground up in 1979.
Honestly, the barrage of bizarre crap that goes on these threads takes astroturfing to a new level.
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
Many professors draw white rectangles on their blackboards.
Apple stole these ideas long ago and claims everyone else is a thief!
Apple itself has a prior art problem. Look at the Apple Newton, designed in 1987, alongside an iPhone. That was more than 20 years ago, so any patents have expired.
If Samsung can find all these examples of prior art, how is it that Apple was granted patents in the first place? These are hardly the only examples of Apple being given patents on things that were obviously done by others well before they "innovated" them.
-Lod
Every time I hear arguments like this, I can't help but think of adults whining in children's voices like those Subway commercials. "He copied my drawing!", "she keeps repeating everything I say and do!". Just shut the fuck up already. I hope one day we are able to look back on this and realized just how childish our species is acting. Nothing is created in a vacuum, so get the fuck over yourselves and get back to making products!
I'd like to see some sanity return to patents, since nothing exists in a vacuum. Everything new has been influenced in some way by past experiences and influences. From a rock rolling down a hill to rocks turned into wheels to wooden wheels to modern rubber tires, it has all been an improvement on the previous improvement. I hope Samsung prevails with this line of defense to the utter ruination of Apple's patent-ly bullshit attempt to stop their competition.
Frankly, the way things are moving, it might not be too long before software patents are gone and "look and feel" and other such patents actually have very limited lifespans or are disproven because the "look and feel" are based on a previous incarnation. I'd love to see THIS improvement made to patents and then improved upon again with copyrights included. You know, that whole "secure for a limited time" thing...
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
I'm not sure you're actually getting the point of the article.
I don't think it was his fault the technology wouldn't be ready for another 25 years...
Would you like a slice of toast?
Nice try, Apple fanboy, but the Prof isn't actually suing Apple (And others) for theft. He's merely there to state that prior art exists and Apple's Patents be declared invalid.
Check out Unsealed: Whispers of Wisdom! http://unsealed.k3rnel.net It's an action-RPG about Open Sourcerers.
The only thing Apple is "guilty" of is being the first company to make tablets that did not suck big green ones and that people actually wanted to buy and use. Nobody was able to make the technology popular before them.
Being the first one to do something well, doesn't mean you're the first one to have the idea, and it certainly doesn't give you iron clad rights to prevent anyone else from trying to make a better one.
This signature is false.
No, Apple is guilty of using ridiculous litigation to prevent anyone else from making tablets that do not suck big green ones.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
Moses did come down from the mountain caring some curiously rounded corner rectangular tablets after chatting with God. Moses was the first one to steal this idea.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
That's not really the point. If Fidler made it first, and Apple copied him, and Fidler didn't care to do anything about it, then Apple is free to continue copying it. But so is everyone else. That includes, for example, oh, I don't know, how about Samsung?
Just watch some Star Trek TNG episodes and see everyone use thin and flat touchscreen computing devices with rounded corners.
Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see by infra-red, How I hate the night.
1) Doesn't matter. All he's there for is to show prior art. The goal is not to punish Apple for theft, it is to show that their ideas are not original and thus their patents are invalid.
2) Thank you for reinforcing the invalidity of Apple's patents
3) Because people previously did not obtain patents for which his work was prior art and start suing other companies using them
4) Doesn't matter as long as prior art can be shown
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
U. of Missouri grads and employees can forget about getting job interviews at Apple, and Apple employees can forget about being allowed to collaborate with researchers at U. of Missouri.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You, a non-lawyer, would get your ass handed to you by Samsung's counsel.
The Witness isn't claiming rights to a patent, he's giving testimony that the technology Apple is claiming a patent over was already out there and known to the public. Patent law isn't just about "I was the first one to claim the exclusive right to a technology" its about invention. If someone else can show that you didn't invent it, that there is "prior art" your patent can be extinguished.
Many of apple's patents are questionable, but this and slide-to-unlock are particularly ripe for invalidation.
Why shouldn't a sci-fi show be able to qualify as prior art for design or UI patents?
I, a non-lawyer, could competently handle this part of the case for Apple
It's a good job that you aren't, since your points are invalid:
1) Apple isn't suing for "stealing" - it is suing for "patent infringement". In contrast, Fidler is not claiming that Apple infringed his patents, he is merely pointing out that his tablet designs predate the iPad and yet contain the same "original patented" design features (flat touchscreen, rounded corners etc.)
2. Irrelevant, but yes, of course he does - however, Federer's designs date back 20 years (Microsoft's "Tablet PC" was 1999) - check out this video of Fidler's working tablet in 1994 - 2m45s in - that looks remarkably like an iPad. Also see History of tablet computers
3. Irrelevant since he isn't claiming patent infringement - he is claiming prior art.
4. Good question - generally experts are paid for their time in producing a report, not for testimony as such - but only a week ago Apple was caught paying $75,000 to a professional "expert witness" (seriously, this is how this man describes his profession on his own web site).
Nobody was able to make the technology popular before them.
Capacitive touch screens large enough for a tablet and at a consumer-friendly price point did not exist before. Now, they do. Technological advances drive new products. Suppose a car manufacturer comes out with the first mass market popular electric car - does this mean that this car manufacturer should have a 20 year monopoly on electric cars, free market be damned?
...from a design POV it would be a argument worth making in court. It wouldn't even matter that they were non-functioning props. A US patent is just a drawing, it doesn't need to represent a working prototype.
How many fanboys install a Star Trek GUI app after unboxing their new iPads or Galaxy Tabs?
In 2005 I predicted on slashdot that large touchscreen phones would be a success (as did others) .. nearly 2 years before the release of the iPhone. http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=163341&cid=13644457
Samsung oughta have me testify.
The PADD devices seen on The Next Generation, DS9, and Voyager all did things that are major selling points for the iPad and iPhones.
* Touchscreen device
* Played video and sound
* dynamic user interface could be customized to serve the application
* Video conferencing
* Loaded and saved information to the remote storage (In this case the a ship or Starfleet computers would be "the cloud")
* Data could be synced between devices
* Device could be re-configured to remotely control a workstation (remote desktop)
* They even have rounded corners
* Devices could be encrypted
All of those functions are demonstrated or spoken of in episodes or described in Mike Okuda's ST:TNG Technical Manual (Okuda was the lead designer on most of the newer television Star Treks)
All of this predated any patent filings by Apple.
If there's any pattern here, it's that companies will violate a competitor's patent by claiming the patent is invalid (ergo the violation is completely justifiable.) Here's a pretty classic example from the telecom bubble:
Dr. David Huber gets booted from Ciena corporation, and founds a competing entity - Corvis. Corvis builds a product that does exactly what Ciena's products do - they multiplex several optical signals onto a single fiber. Ciena has patents for synthesizing a higher-rate signal by bundling several lower-rate signals together. The process is called "inverse multiplexing," and has been around since the analog telephony days. You can inverse mux several analog telephone modems together, and some companies did. Ciena got patents by basically putting "on fiber optic cables" after the well known technique. Since Huber used to work at Ciena, he knew the technique had a long history, and consequently moved forward with the expectation that any patent infringement could be easily dismissed by claiming Ciena's patents were invalid by prior art.
So how did that work out? As you might expect, not so well for Corvis.
The only similarity I see is that both devices have black faces with a screen in the middle.
I'm not defending Apple here, but there was no pinch-to-zoom on Newton - in fact it required a stylus. As far as design elements, the Newton splayed outward to sharp corners - pretty much the opposite of rounded corners.
Apple stealing these design elements from someone else doesn't bother me. What bothers me is stupid shit like making claims that gesture based UI elements are 'Advances in the Arts and Sciences' worthy if patenting.
Of course, with Jobs attitudes towards IP, this news is hardly shocking. He seemed willing to change his views 180 degrees when he was on the other side of the fence.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
> Next thing you know Star Trek episodes will be prior art.
For trade dress, yes they should be prior art. If an idea is that obvious, then it should not be patentable. For function (eg, Warp Drive) it should not be patentable without a working prototype. This should help illustrate the difference between meaningful technology patents (eg, cellular radios) and trade dress (eg, round rectangles, green icons with a phone handset, etc).
MCCCXXXVII intellectualis proprietas pupillam est magnum sacculum canis stercus
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Because the apple biased judge threw out those claims.
Next thing you know Star Trek episodes will be prior art.
Uh, regarding the rounded-corner rectangle design patent thing, how are they not prior art? Design patents are specifically for an appearance/shape, irrespective of function or purpose.
I think itâ(TM)s more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.
Apple had permission from Xerox to use the ideas they had as a base.
When Xerox filed suit against Apple in 1989 they swore to the courts that Apple did *not* have permission. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/24/business/most-of-xerox-s-suit-against-apple-barred.html "Apple also replied that while it might have borrowed ideas from Xerox, ideas were not protected by copyrights, only the way the ideas were expressed."
Or business method patents for that matter. To the extent that we allow people to patent "concepts", any prior mention of that concept should qualify as prior art, as it would make any product based on the concept a logical realization of a concept previously conceived.
See here for details. Or read any real history of the time - ignore self-serving crap from Gates.
Xerox was probably stupid to give Apple a license, and the actual researchers at PARC were livid, but they weren't the owners. Apple legally used Xerox IP. Note that Xerox did not take Apple to court over any of this,
Microsoft, on the other hand, was concerned about legal action from Apple on this subject, even as late as Jobs' return. One of the things exchanged between Microsoft and Apple at that time was Apple dropping the windows-copying lawsuits, which were still in the courts at the time, and would have been a world of hurt for Microsoft if any of them had succeeded.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
We wouldn't have all these other fucking car brands here in 'Merica, but cars would cost $100K each, wouldn't have hoods and the fuel tank would slowly fill with sludge forcing you to buy a new one every few years.
I remember in the 90's when all the apple fanboi's were OS8-9 is the greatest and my power-pc mac is so much better than your pentinum running Linux.
I laugh everytime I see someone using any apple product, knowing that they paid too much.
And in 2003 SCO, under Darl McBride, sued IBM because IBM's irrevocable, perpetual license to Unix didn't mean anything to SCO. Also Novell's ownership of Unix didn't seem to bother Darl McBride. Nor did SCO's prior history as Caldera as a Linux distributor. When upper management changes, sometimes the new leadership ignores what happened in the past.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
APPLE: So...um, our patent is for.. like... a um... rectangle screen... with like... ornamental curvy...um... corners. ...um....thanks.
USPO: GRANTED!
APPLE:
These are things that are more valuable than most "geeks" will ever admit to the willingness of people to buy, use, and feel good about certain products, and are therefore incredibly valuable when they're done right and worth spending a lot of money to develop a great solution.
No. Those things are gimmicks that ONLY "geeks" notice, the general populous caring much more about what the device can ACTUALLY do whether than precisely how it does it. If you can stumble upon a patent, then it's fucking obvious. To say otherwise is to sit in your conceptually constructed tower and pontificate profusely over minutia that wrongfully drains BILLIONS of dollars from the world's economies below, only for the benefit of your own sick disconnected ilk.
Take note: The Intangible Machine Invasion is upon us. The above poster is "one of them", and should be put down. Re-watch the Terminator series and the 1st (and only) Matrix movie -- The legal frameworks are the machines that rule mankind.
If your bullshit design nuances are so damn important and valuable then how do you explain the success of Fashion Industry or Automotive Industry? --Neither of which have said design patent protections, and yet remain valuable and lucrative. How much do the intellectual property taxes cost us all? I put it to you that such patents necessarily cost us MUCH more than were they eradicated; They necessarily create jobs for intangible instruction code processing units -- Lawyers -- that also otherwise would not need to exist.
You think you're a human?! NO. YOU'RE PART OF THE MACHINE!