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Swiss Railway: Apple's Using Its Clock Design Without Permission
An anonymous reader writes "Apple received a lot of criticism during the Apple/Samsung litigation this past Summer as folks deemed it absurd that Apple was able to patent things such as icon design and the overall form factor of a smartphone. Well as it turns out, it appears that Apple has engaged in some copying of its own in the form of the new clock icon design used in iOS 6 on the iPad- a rather ironic turn of events given that Apple railed against Samsung for copying its own iOS icons. Specifically, the clock icon in iOS 6 on the iPad is a blatant copy of a Hans Hilfiker design to which both the trademark and copyright is owned by the Swiss Federal Railways service."
i have to pay the swiss?
Looks like the UK Railway too is not happy with them.
http://www.metro.co.uk/tech/912750-apple-ios6-maps-debacle-transport-for-london-signposts-alternative
This space for rent.
maybe the swiss are just afraid of the lawsuit that apple will throw their way after they patent the design?
not that it is especially wrong for this: everyone steal from everyone, and then improves on it. this is how creation works
which tells us how useless and ignorant intellectual property, as a concept, is
you may ask then how does the solitary inventor protect his <strike>invention</strike> incremental improvement, standing on the shoulders of others, from being ripped off by large players?
there are a number of legal ways to do this. but if you think the current system is anything but a joke that protects ONLY those large players, and consists of ridiculous wasteful absurd legal posturing games between large players where only lawyers benefit, you are an idiot. the game currently is: he with the largest legion of lawyers wins. that's it, that's the whole game
it's absurdity, and the system is profoundly broken
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
on the white background - exactly the same size and shape as the Swiss clock, as well as the arms.
Couldn't happen to a more deserving company. It is about as original and innovative as a rectangle with rounded corners
It's gotta be done!
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
you may ask then how does the solitary inventor protect his invention incremental improvement, standing on the shoulders of others, from being ripped off by large players?
The same way a automotive mechanic or home builder protects his investment in work -- Don't do the work unless you've got a contract to get paid for doing so. If we paid inventors enough up front to do the work of inventing, then they wouldn't need to use artificial scarcity to extort money from the rest of us after the fact. "Intellectual Property" is a SCAM! Work for free with no guarantee of getting paid, and if people like your work you might get paid enough to recoup costs and turn a profit! --or you might have invested your time in shite no one wants and you go to the poor house. That's Gambling folks.
Instead, put out some samples, draw up some designs, do an estimate of what it'll cost to produce some software, invention, music, video, game, whatever. Then if people agree to fund the work you do the work and get paid for doing it. You don't have to charge anything for the invention, or media once the work is done. The ideas and bits aren't scarce -- They're in infinite supply. So, you can't sell that which is in infinite supply -- Instead sell what is scarce: The ability to invent, the ability to make new software, new songs, new movies, etc. You can't sell sand to beach bums; You can't sell Ice to Eskimos; You can't sell Copies to Computer owners.
Apple today announced it has completed its purchase of the Swiss Railway System and the Museum of Modern Art, and anticipates purchasing both Switzerland and New York City by end of the quarter.
Anyone else want to criticize Apple?
You will be hearing from them.
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - the most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go against the Swiss when watches are on the line!" Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
If violating a patent is really a form of property theft, then the police (Federal, in this case) should be taking stolen IP reports. And dispatching officers to apprehend the culprits and recover the stolen property.
Just like with stolen cars*, the priority for each case isn't assigned based on the wealth or status of the complainant. A shitbox Honda gets the same attention as a Bentley. Nobody insists on you hiring your own recovery agents and attorneys to get your car back. That's the job of law enforcement.
The down side is that: If our cops get this responsibility, there are going to be the equivalent of dead pedestrians and other collateral damage resulting from the chase.
*I know, not really valid. When they steal your patent, its like your car is still parked where you left it. Someone else is just driving a copy of it around, stupid bumper stickers and all.
Have gnu, will travel.
The clock was designed in 1944. Swiss patents expire after 70 years.
I con't be the only one that finds it to be rather ugly.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Here's a Swiss railroad clock in its native habitat, at Cornavin station. There are clocks at regular intervals along platforms, and the second hands are, of course, in sync. It's part of the Swiss Railways branding - their stations tend to have a large, if not excessive, number of those clocks.
It's a famous design. A home-size version is available from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. (It does not, however, sync to an external time source.)
The difference is that the Samsung products all competed directly with the product that Apple created. With these watches/clocks, the Clock.app isn't competing with their market for expensive wristwatches and industrial clocks. While they may be able to reach some agreement to license the design itself, it won't result in the same sort of trade-dress/injunction legal issues.
Apple today announced that they have been granted a patent for using other peoples' designs. iCopy will be featured in all of their future products.
http://www.macrumors.com/2012/09/20/swiss-federal-railways-says-apple-copied-its-iconic-railway-clock/
outrage, ... outrage .... outrage .....outrage if you think something that disagrees with me ....you are an idiot. outrage ... outrage ....
In other words, the parent is outraged at the current patent and intellectual property system in the US and wants to throw the whole thing out and if you disagree with him, you are an idiot.
And he got mod'ed up for it, too.
Never mind. I'm gonna go to Fark now and see what's going to be on Slashdot's front page on Tuesday.
Apple still copying other people's work and then calling it 'innovation'? Or copying blatant, and obvious functions from other devices in life/history, then trying to patent their function because they jammed it onto their OS? All for the sole purpose of stifling any actual competition.
Now they can't even manage a clock face without ripping it off, way to be creative guys! (This from the one company with the longest standing history of running Photoshop and Illustrator by the way, sad really)
Seems pretty cut and dry, and ever so typically American. Please, waste some more cash on litigation instead of being creative like you used to be, I'm sure this model will last forever.
And folks seem surprised on top of this. Staggering.
The system wasn't nearly as bad as it was until the first rulings that "on a computer" was novel. "one click" had been done for thousands of years before it was patented "on a computer". It was previously called "running a tab". Most "on a computer" patents are similarly idiotic. Look and feel patents are a violation of the idea of innovation. Arrangement of a home/start page isn't a technical innovation, and should be denied in all patent applications as a copyright issue (if anything, not saying the copyright claims should be successful, but that it shouldn't be a patent issue at all).
Incremental improvements have been shown to be simultaneous often through history, with multiple places claiming the first airplane, helicopter, recording device or transmitting device of various kinds. If two people can invent the same thing at the same time with no collaboration, what does that say about the uniqueness of the invention/discovery? The current theories on invention are that such things are inevitable, given the demands and present tech. The problems are that the available tech isn't sufficient, or that there is no need to be filled.
Things like the computer and printing press were invented by need and tech. Babbage would have been the undisputed inventor of computers with a 1960's style punch card system, if only the machine-works were sufficient for the tolerances he required, or the electrical tech was sufficiently advanced for him to attempt that route. Since neither was sufficient, he is a theoretical inventor of an adding machine (that would have worked, but didn't at the time). So the "discovery" of computers was left for a later date. And was solved in multiple ways by multiple different people over overlapping periods (mostly over WWII, with the US pioneering electrical-based systems, Germans getting mechanical systems done well, and the English doing whatever they could, based on their allies and captured enemy tech.
Learn to love Alaska
its different, its on a "mobile" device... You know those small hand held computers that automagically belong in their own world which can't be translated into the non handheld computer world.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
not that it is especially wrong for this: everyone steal from everyone, and then improves on it. this is how creation works
There is an Academic concept of plagiarism. This is very interesting because it has nothing to do with copying; academics are supposed to copy. Someone who fails to report what their predecessors said is treated with more contempt. Plagiarism, however, is worse. It is taking other people's words and ideas without crediting them. That gives you some idea what is wrong here.
which tells us how useless and ignorant intellectual property, as a concept, is
For "Intellectual property" as a phrase and a grouping you are probably right, but we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are specific kinds of intellectual property, trademarks are one of them, which have real value. Without clear ownership of names it's very difficult for companies to build a reputation. Without reputation there is no difference between a cheap forced labour made rip off job like an iPhone and a serious communication device like an EADS Tetra terminal. If you ended up in with your communication device packing up just because you put it sprayed it with water to stop it melting you would be rightly upset when you found out someone had given you an inferior product by accident.
With the swiss railways, there is serious value here. When you buy a watch endorsed by them it means something. This is not some random quartz knock off job. Proper precision engineering. Think of the famous joke:
In this particular case there are series of design elements which are completely different from a normal clock; Lack of numbers; a bright red circle on the second hand. A very plain white disk. These are things which are original from Swiss railways and that nobody used before them. If you exactly copy these then you are basically trying to make off the reputation of the Swiss railway. This is something which can reasonably be protected; merely by changing from a bright red to a blue triangle you can copy the concept (a clock which emphasises the change of every second) without copying the design.
Now you might ask; "why does the rtfa-troll support Swiss Railways here and not Apple there". Well firstly; I'm not supporting them for a "beeelion dollars" like Apple wants. I'm supporting them for a couple of hundred quid and an apology. Secondly; pick a random Samsung Galaxy S vs iPhone comparison. Have a look at the way that key design elements (the bare metal surround on the side of the phone) are different. Anything which clearly distinguishes one product from another should be enough. The key standard is "designed so as to be easily confused with" not "designed to pay homage to".
It would be a shame if the IP cowboys forced us to throw away all of the things that are valuable in trademarks or secrets just because they abuse patents and copyright.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Muhammad he met Omar,
At the Mardi Gras
He took him back to his place
And fucked him up the Arse
The design is already trademarked by the SBB. Did you not read the article? Oh yeah, this is Slashdot.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Apple will counter-sue, claiming that Apple is equivalent to God, and owns all ideas regardless of who here on Earth may have also thought of them, and the court will find in Apple's favor, and ask the Railway Service how they could possibly have been so dumb.
Is there anybody but me who thinks that Apple should have made the "clock" look like a watch instead of a clock?
Watches are what people are using the iPhone clock for anyway...
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
So it's okay for Apple to label Samsung a copycat for creating icons that look similar to iPhone icons, but when you rip off someone else's design VERBATIM you're not? This company has become so brazen that they'll now plagiarize without any attribution or compensation.
Now that Apple's misconduct has been revealed will Apple do what they wanted done to Samsung and withdraw their products voluntarily from Europe? If they don't they Apple are hypocrites, and that's not cool.
Yes, since their fucking inception.
In fact, that's all they ever do.
This is a clear-cut case of blatant copying of a design, Apple should just admit it, pay up and move on.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Swiss Patent Office workers used to make such better use of their time.
The comment was intended as a humorous stab at Apple.... here have this clue, I have a few of extras.
Like Microsoft before it, Apple's corporate DNA is built around a culture of cheating.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I recognized the clock face instantly after installing iOS 6 becuase I have one of the official wall clocks and one of the wtaches from MOMA. Yeah, I sort of like the design. I figured Apple licensed it. Oops.
I like my Apple stuff, but some of the larger shareholders need to call for a shareholder meeting to find out WTF is going on here with this and the maps. FFS when you are one of the most watched corporations in the world, by both your fanbots and haterbots, do you even get close to doing things like this if you aren't nuts? Walled garden, schmalled garden, people can walk away any time, or at least at the next device upgrade.
and tell them to cry a fucking river.
mod parent up
cream of the crop in quality of thinking and knowledge of this subject
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
its the whole thing that is the problem not bits and pieces.
make a show where the main character travels about in a Box might slide
the Box is Blue
maybe maybe not
it has a white Light on the top
getting dodgy there
The character is English (or some version of Anglo-Saxon)
lets think about it
Breath the two Words TIME TRAVEL
Excuse me I have somebody from BBC legal on line 4 for you
this AS A WHOLE is a deliberate rip-off of the Swiss Train Clock (i would bet it pauses on the 00 second for a fraction of a Tick also)
same thing with using a Red Cross on anything remotely medical/safety (i think J&J more or less licenses the RC bit from the ARC).
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Trademarks don't require any of that stuff you mentioned. It simply requires you be the first to use it in your industry. That's it. Sum total of a trademark. I can trademark the word "I Am A Trademark" in times new roman for the "Internet Forum Posting" industry, and as long as nobody else has done it, it's mine. No need to examine prior art, prove novelty, etc. It's a stamp, a logo, a signature -- all it has to be is not used anywhere else prior to registration.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Well, the second hand goes around continuously without ticking... and then it has about 1.5 seconds pause at the full minute.
That was because it was simpler to construct back then and the power was only 50hz or something... so at every full minute, a new impulse is given and all the second handles on every train station starts the minute round anew. so they're all in sync despite being analog watches.
you can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvIvKiDWDks
The clock's visual appearance is almost, if not entirely, uncopyrightable in the US.
The US DOJ takes down knock-off and counterfeit sites all the time, because design is, indeed, protected.
http://torrentfreak.com/feds-seize-130-domain-names-in-mass-crackdown-111125/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20023918-93.html
Now if justice really was blind, and there was true equality in front of the law, we should see one of these on the apple web site too, not just companies that sell handbags and jerseys.
Apple did win some of the design claims, including the front face and bezel etc.
http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/08/24/a-verdict-reached-jury-apple-v-samsung-case/
For the infringement of the D’677 patent, covering the front face of the iPhone, Samsung was found to infringe on all devices aside from the Ace. On the D’087 patent, relating to the back of the iPhone, all Samsung devices aside from the S 4G and Vibrant only were found to infringe.
On the D’305 patent, all Samsung devices were found to infringe. That’s the design of Apple’s iOS icons. The jury also felt that Samsung should have known that the icons were being copied
..
Trade Dress
Samsung could not prove that the ’893 trade dress on the iPhone 3G was not protectable. The iPhone 3G trade dress was found to be diluted by many of Samsung’s products, despite not being registered. Only the Captivate, Charge, Epic 4G, Galaxy S 2, Skyrocket, Infuse and Epic 4G touch were found not to dilute the 3G’s trade dress.
The Galaxy S 4G, one of Samsung’s flagship devices, was found to dilute the trade dress of the iPhone 3G, cranking up the damages numbers quite a bit.
This space for rent.
It's from 1944 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_railway_clock
Actually you don't even have to be the first to use the mark for a particular class of goods and services. Abandoned marks can be claimed by rivals (CAPTAIN MARVEL for comic books is a fun example), and different parties can use the same marks in the same classes simultaneously under certain circumstances. Nor do you need to register marks (although it's a very good idea).
But you can't infringe on a mark unless there is a likelihood of confusion as to the origin of the marked goods or services among the relevant group of consumers. And if there's no infringement, you can do what you like. (There's also dilution, but that's even less likely in this case in the US, IMO)
So do you think that people in the US who use iOS devices with this clock will think that the clock app was written by the Swiss rail company? Or that Apple owns a bunch of trains in central Europe?
No; Most Americans don't ride Swiss trains in Switzerland, and aren't familiar enough with the clocks in use there to be confused. (And US courts have previously upheld the blatant copying by US firms of foreign marks not in use in the US) Those clocks likely serve no trademark function here. And are still subject to the trademark utility doctrine stripping away functional elements of the clock from what could potentially be protected. Now it very well might be a different story in Switzerland, but as I said before, I couldn't comment on how things work over there. Trademarks are a use-it-or-lose-it sort of thing, and AFAIK the mark on the clock hasn't been used here.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
> which differs only in minor details
Yes, that's why Dutch railways don't get sued by Swiss railways. Similarity ends at unmarked dial and a red second hand with circle at the end (it's also a circle, not a disk and it's not at the end of the hand)
No, designs aren't protected except to the extent that they are copyrighted, patented, or trademarked. For example, clothes usually can't be copyrighted, might not be patented, and other than the trademarks sewn on to them (this is why the damn logos are so prominent these days) tend not to be trademarked. Which opens the door to knockoffs that are perfectly legal.
You were looking at counterfeiting, which is basically something that goes beyond mere trademark infringement, in which the counterfeiter deliberately uses others' marks on goods which will inherently (or so it is claimed) cause confusion. I seriously doubt that Apple is counterfeiting as that is defined in the statute (which is what counts here). If it helps, I poked around the PTO's trademark database and the only mark I could find that SBB had registered with them was their corporate logo, which is a sort of SBB CFF FFS thing and certainly not a clock, FFS. Maybe I missed it if it's there, though.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
If Apple does something, it, by definition, is original. They cannot be copying. If you accuse them of it, you obviously do not know what the word means.
If you are a competitor, you are copying their stuff. If you say you are not because you were using the idea 10 years before Apple did, you still do not correctly understand the word.
Copying means doing anything that may affect their profits - nothing else. You could make a sperical phone with 32 hexagonal buttons, a crescent shaped screen, had a UI based on Lcars and Apple would still sue you if it was faster, cheaper and easier to use and outsold them.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
You can certainly make a copyrightable whole out of a creative selection of uncopyrightable elements. But it won't necessarily happen. And I think it's questionable as to whether it happened here. And you haven't addressed the utility argument, which IMO is pretty strong.
Also I think you'll find that the Doctor is neither English, nor Anglo-Saxon, nor for that matter, human.
Oh, and the red cross, like the Olympics, is special and isn't handled unde the normal trademark rules.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Finds it ridiculous that you can patent a red dot?
They did not patent a red dot. Go look up images of it, they have their own clock face, Apple closely copied it. I don't mean Apple made a red dot, I mean if you take a close look you could come up with a pretty sizable list of what's similar, but not a long list of what's different between the two designs.
I say throw out ALL patents.
I say educate yourself a bit before you go to such an extreme.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
the design patent will show the picture of the clock
the "unique" aspect will be that it's on a mobile device
It's a trademark, not a patent.
It will just round all the rectangular hour marks, presto, patent complying version.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Apple should pay $1,000,000,000 for damages.
Back in the US railroad days there was a tycoon named Collis Huntington. He was known to be ruthless and greedy - kind of the same OCD type as Steve Jobs. Huntington is quoted as saying (more or less):
All I want is what's mine. Whatever is not nailed down is mine. If I can pry it loose, it was not nailed down.
When you are dancing with wolves, never limp
Trademarked where? This is a trivial issue as I see it. License or redesign.
Still, Apple can simply change the design elements to avoid "a copy". This is done all the time and there have to be hundreds of clock face variants of simple numberless designs.
https://www.swissreg.ch/srclient/faces/jsp/trademark/sr300.jsp?language=de§ion=tm&id=512830
It's a three dimensional trademark, only for clocks/watches so the two dimensional picture in a phone should be in the clear. And they forgot to put a color photograph in their application, so I guess the color of the second hand may not be protected. And copyright? On a clock? Good luck with that.
Everybody knows that Apple invented the concept of time.
So until Apple does redesign the clock, a world wide ban on shipments is in order, right?
WWAD?
(What Would Apple Do?)
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Apple is clearly in the wrong. The should
The question is, how much is the design worth to Apple? Before you say "1 bazillion simoleans" bear in mind we're talking about the clock design for the iPad's Clock app. For, oh I don't know, somewhere between $100,000 and $1,000,000 they can push a whole new app with a non-infringing design. So that puts an upper bound on what Apple is likely to agree to.
You're the lawyer that has to advise Tim Cook how much to pay. What do you recommend?
The article seems to imply that the unique feature is an operational, not a visual, one:
In 1953 Hilfiker added a red second hand, which pauses briefly at the top of each minute "to enable trains to depart punctually", as he put it.
For copyright, it's a very slippery slope - and not a slam dunk: A clock with no numbers, as shown (but without the ball), is clearly in the public domain, having existed prior to [name your favorite PD date]. The aspect ratio of the marks and the relative size of the red circle is different. One could claim that the design is based on the original, and with so few options for modification only an exact replica is infringing. For example: if I were to arrange "Silent Night" for SATB, it's entirely possible that I may have the exact same arrangement as another, existing composer, save only the font (or even the same one if we both used something simple or default - like a clock with black bars instead of numbers and a red second hand). My work is not infringing.
Now if it's trademark, it may be different. Is a moving clock the trademark, or is it a fixed image - and in what position in the hand. One might also have to prove that an iPhone would be mistaken for a train station. I'm not as familiar with trademark (obviously) but I suspect there is some wiggle room. UPS has trademarked the color brown, but if I were to use the color for anything other than shipping services, I'm okay to use it at will.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Considering the slavishness of the copy, I'd say atomic destruction is in order. SBB has to destroy iOS, because it is a stolen product. They should really go thermonuclear on Apple.
Entire businessworld runs on this Orwellian redefintion of language.
>> (mostly over WWII, with the US pioneering electrical-based systems, Germans getting mechanical systems done well, and the English doing whatever they could, based on their allies and captured enemy tech
I suggest that you read up a bit more on this chaps role in computer development:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Keen
Toodle Pip.
"...the English doing whatever they could, based on their allies and captured enemy tech."
I guess you never heard of Bletchley Park with Alan Turing, Harold Keen, et al.? Or the Manchester Baby?
Here's a hint for you: They invented the computer.
Great artists steal. Really bad artists steal while simultaneously suing other artists for stealing.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
They did to break the German computer - Enigma, that pre-dated their efforts to break it. And they loved their computer guys so much they pressured them into suicide (or however you like to tell that story).
Learn to love Alaska
Maybe they did think it was public domain due to its age.
One can say the same about a rectangle with rounded corners, and many other so-called "Apple designs", that Apple has stolen from others, including Braun.
Read the following link:
http://themanufacturingrevolution.com/braun-vs-apple-is-copying-designs-theft-or-innovation
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Not stolen, but 'inspired by' according to Apple. Apple design has been heavily 'inspired' by classic Bruan products.
http://badbadapple.blogspot.com/2012/09/braun-vs-apple.html
Many icons that Apple claims ownership over are rip-offs, either from public domain symbols, or from other applications. Let's hope that now that they have set a precedent, others will start asserting their rights against Apple.
The US DOJ takes down knock-off and counterfeit sites all the time, because design is, indeed, protected.
Counterfeits use the logo so thay can be passed off as the original product. Different thing entirely.
I think the Baby here is the Swiss Railways logo, the Bathwater is the styling of the clocks they use.
At the end of the day its a clock, and its composed of all manner of elements that are not new, and even the assemblage of those elements is not new. Hence this is bathwater.
For marketing purposes it may be good for the watch maker to claim association with swiss railways, but the watch itself doesn't scream swiss railways to me.
What goes around comes around..
I have an old IBM electric wall clock with the same numberless dial, but it doesn't have the red lolly-pop second hand, who copies (Apple did) who was 'inspired' (IBM was?)
BTW, how do I make this clock appear in iOS?
There was an unknown error in the submission.
And they've failed to pursue a suit against the AJ All Clocks screen saver:
hhttp://beeks.eu/Screensaver.htm
So I'm going to guess they have lost their trademark status on a technicality already, only no one's called them on it, and now they are going after the company with the deep pockets in hopes of a payday.
If I were Apple, I'd claim to have copied the screen saver. And if that doesn't work, claim to have copied the Dutch railway clock rather than the Swiss, and let the Swiss go after the Netherlands first before they can go after Apple, and see how far they get trying to go down that road, when it would mean ripping out all the clocks in the Netherlands. Alternately, they could agree to FRAND license the clock design to Apple after they get a settlement with the Netherlands.
Either way, it's a pretty spectacularly stupid way to try and make money, rather than, for example, efficiently operating the railroads for which the clock was built.
Um, yes. I copied the wrong date from this article.
I checked my iPhone 4S now and really can't see the resemblance of these watches... The iOS 6 watch does actually not look like the Swiss Railroad watch at all. It even has numbers on the face in contrast to the Swiss one, and no "blob" at the end of the seconds arm.
Due to the use of a more efficient CPU, the clock hands in the iPad application rotate faster than the original ones.
He who lives by the silly lawsuit, dies by the silly lawsuit.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
In the clock case Apple clearly has to do the right thing. The Braun deal is normal artistic inspiration. That why IP rights should not exceed a generation, because every generation's artists and designers are inspired and influenced by what they knew as a child. How could it be any other way?
It can still be dilluted in the sense that people will associate the design not with a high precision clock but with a generic clock.
Great artists steal. Really bad artists steal while simultaneously suing other artists for stealing.
It's called "performance art" and you have to admit it's a rather impressive feat of hypocracy.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Please learn more about this - you're clearly a smart guy, but you're way off on your technical history here: The Lorenz machine (that's what you're calling the "German computer - Enigma") was an automatic code implementer - capable of performing relatively basic operations repeatedly and quickly. The colossus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer) was a programmable electronic computer capable of performing much more complicated operations in order to reverse a code. It's a bit like prime factorization - going one way (p*q->pq) is easy, and can be done with an abacus if necessary. Going the other (pq->p*q) is much more difficult, and that's what the colossus did.
The Lorenz machine wasn't a computer by any standard of the definition - it was a calculator with a special function built in. You could get the idea of the algorithm it was performing (the equivalent to knowing that your code is just multiplication of numbers for input p and q above) but that's not going to tell you how to crack it. Nor was the technology of the Lorenz machine anywhere close to what would be necessary to crack the cypher, any more so than an abacus being good at factorizing prime numbers. You could brute force it, but that's about it.
Of course the treatment of Turing (the rest were fine BTW, he was persecuted for his homosexuality) was horrific. He was under-appreciated until recently, but he certainly was 1) British and 2) the father of computing as we know it.
Q: You are standing in Bern railway station; you see a train coming in; you look at your watch and see that the train is late; What are the two possible explanations?
A1) it's not a Swiss watch.
A2) it's not a Swiss train.
Apple added A3) "Your phone say you're in Bern, but you actually aren't."
So are we saying that Apple has been caught "red handed"?
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
And a copyright by the original artist.
While I agree with the principle of your post almost in its entirity I have to take issue with this part:
And was solved in multiple ways by multiple different people over overlapping periods (mostly over WWII, with the US pioneering electrical-based systems, Germans getting mechanical systems done well, and the English doing whatever they could, based on their allies and captured enemy tech.
The Colossus machine was based on Turings theories http://www.turing.org.uk/bio/part6.html and designed by Post Office engineer Tommy Flowers, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer.
The captured tech part I assume you to be referring to are the German Enigma machines that Colossus and it's successors were designed to decode. The enigma machines enable operators to program the algorithms that broke the code,and did not form the basis of the machine design itself. Colossus was way in advance of any machine at the time and any confusion about it's history was caused by British government secrecy around the machines long after the war ended.
Glad to see you are a raving apple hater. Come on back when you have a clue.
Because I see a copy of the original Doomsday clock that predates it, except they put a red dot on the second hand. Lumpy is pretty much spot on, they are trying to copyright/trademark a flicking red dot.
But hey, it's trendy to hate apple, especially among the poor that cant afford it. Please continue your hate fest.
Excuse me but I must protest.
" And was solved in multiple ways by multiple different people over overlapping periods (mostly over WWII, with the US pioneering electrical-based systems, Germans getting mechanical systems done well, and the English doing whatever they could, based on their allies and captured enemy tech."
I completely agree that Innovation is performed by a number of people over a number of generations but there's a little fault in your history there.
Unless of course by "the English doing whatever they could" you mean "the English building the worlds first fully programable digital computer."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer
It would be this computer that we gave to the Americans at the end of the war; who then go on to further the story of the computer to the modern day ("pioneering electrical-based systems" as you put it) whilst we pretended the whole thing never happened due to national security rules.
Once again, I find a story on the front page of Slashdot that I saw on other news feeds three days ago.
I propose a new slogan if you guys are going to keep this up: "Non-news for nerds. Stuff that mattered."
Dilution requires that the mark is famous among the general public in the US. I don't think that's true of a swiss railway clock.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
"Also I think you'll find that the Doctor is neither English, nor Anglo-Saxon, nor for that matter, human.
Oh, and the red cross, like the Olympics, is special and isn't handled unde the normal trademark rules."
As to The Doctor he has be Portrayed As being "English" in the way he acts and such (but note you knew exactly Who i was talking about even without saying the word TARDIS).
and yes the Red Cross/Cresent/Crystal trademarks are a bit abnormal but the rules are a SuperSet of normal Trademark rules. J&J and the IRC have agreements for use between them.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Why do the Swiss care either way? I thought they were supposed to be neutral.
The author seems to have ignored how much of the iPhone is copied from other sources. Sony devices, older windows mobile devices, you name it. There's nothing surprising about the fact that Apple shamelessly does its own copying.
I think the subject says it all, but if I missed something, feel free to comment?
Without reputation there is no difference between a cheap forced labour made rip off job like an iPhone and a serious communication device like an EADS Tetra terminal. If you ended up in with your communication device packing up just because you put it sprayed it with water to stop it melting you would be rightly upset when you found out someone had given you an inferior product by accident.
Yay, TETRA terminals for everyone! Wait, where's the web browser on this thing? Why does my T-Mobile SIM not work?
With the swiss railways, there is serious value here. When you buy a watch endorsed by them it means something. This is not some random quartz knock off job. Proper precision engineering.
Err, no. It's overpriced chinese garbage, which tends to fail quite often - as one can read in the Amazon reviews. No swiss engineering involved. Maybe you should read the stuff you're referring to.
So we should assume that they do not sell the iPhone in Switzerland at all?
The enigma machines enable operators to program the algorithms that broke the code,and did not form the basis of the machine design itself. Colossus was way in advance of any machine at the time and any confusion about it's history was caused by British government secrecy around the machines long after the war ended.
So you are asserting that Colossus was created before the first enigma machine, under the assumption that the Germans would deploy encryption for which they would need a general purpose computer to decode?
Learn to love Alaska
Your argument requires dismissing mechanical computers from the definition of "computer", as well as limiting the definition of "computer" to "general purpose computer." I do not share those definitions. As such, we are both right (or both wrong). A "calculator with a special function built in" is a computer.
I'm aware of what happened there, and I was being a little more funny than I probably should. There are so many Brits on this site who continually whine about this US-based US-centric site being not sufficiently international, it's only fair play. Maybe someday someone will mention Edison's patent on radio without being beat with a Marconi stick.
Learn to love Alaska
>>a bright red circle on the second hand
Not just some red circle, it resembles train signal.
As I said at the beginning, I don't know Swiss law and I'm not commenting on it. I've only ever been talking about the legal aspects of this issue in the US.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
By your definition an abacus is a computer. Or a slide rule is a computer. This is clearly ridiculous. A computer must be capable of not just performing calculations but following algorithms. Either way the UK led - Babbage if you want to stick to your silly definitions, Turing/Flowers if you want to use a decent one.
I don't see how it's "Fair play" to reply to absolutely obvious US-centric claims (yes, yes, slashdot is based in the US, that's why it's slashdot.us not slashdot.org right? Or are you claiming all .com/.org = USA?) with dismissing the progress of an entire nation which founded then led the field.
PS: Radio -> Tesla. You really should learn some geek history.
Tesla was a loser. Edison won in every way, except where Westinghouse (not Tesla) won the AC/DC war.
.org/.com operates? I keep hearing talk of getting it out of the US because the US seizes .com domains occasionally.
And could you remind me where the organization that handles
Learn to love Alaska
So Apple may be parodying an IP troll? That would explain a lot, actually.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
I was the AC posting from work yesterday, and no I did not assert that. I see where you're coming from, Enigma code was the *reason* that Colossus was created, but not the 'basis of the machine design' in any way. No more than traffic lights are designed to stop traffic when necessary but they are not 'based on the design of a car'.
In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...
I see, so by your logic, the UNHCR is also a US institution because its organizing committee meets in the USA?
Not going to rise to the Tesla bait - that's just bad.
Okey, however Apple might not have an office in Switzerland so perhaps that is why they bring the lawsuit to the US (if that is what they did).
I was making the point that they were all inter-related. And because of war and such, there was sharing between the US and UK such that neither was developed in a vacuum, even if Turing could have done it all by himself, the facts are such that he didn't, nobody did.
Part of it is taunting anyone who stresses over who's "first" for such things. Like Calculus, or computers. The idea of a country or race being better because of what one person did (or groups of one persons) is silly. They all built off the works of others. Computers were built in multiple places at the same time. Germans went with mechanical calculators because for a war machine on a war machine, reliability and security were more important than speed or generalizability. But whoever built the Enigma, could (likely) have built a general-purpose computer, had the need and resources been there. If Arthur Scherbius were born 10 years later and Germany was trying to crack UK codes, I assert that germany would have invented the computer first. But they didn't. They just invented the jet engine and such. As, as so much civilian tech is ex-military.
Learn to love Alaska
You rose to one but not the other. Still makes you a fish and me a troller posting flamebait. But, for whatever reason, when I post actual trolls of flamebait, I never get modded as such. But when I make a political comment, it's all -1 for me.
Learn to love Alaska
Yes, nothing is invented in a 'vacuum', and I did say in my original AC post that I agreed with your main point. My point was quite simply the way you glossed over a major part of computing history with something like 'The Brits muddled along with the help of thier allies and a bit a captured tech', which clearly misrepresents the facts. I made my point quite clearly (as did a few others), and neither did I suggest that Turing invented the machine by himself, I even gave a prominent mention to Tommy Flowers, a man whom many haven't heard of even if they know the gist of the story.
No taunting involved either, although from your replies arguing with points I *didn't* make I'm guessing you feel a little 'taunted'. If I was going to taunt I would ask something like, 'Which other programmable electronic computers were being built in 1943?'
In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...