Slashdot Mirror
Apple Patents Wireless Charging
GabriellaKat writes "Via El Reg: 'Apple is trying to patent wireless charging, claiming its magnetic resonance tech is new and that it can do it better than anyone else. This would be cool if its assertions were true. Apple's application, numbered 20120303980, makes much of its ability to charge a device over the air at a distance of up to a meter, rather than requiring close proximity. The Alliance For Wireless Power, which also touts long-range juicing, will no doubt be comparing Apple's designs to its own blueprints.'"
Haven't they seen that there are already wireless charging standards???
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Apple owns 20120303977 of them.
Wow. In the first claim, they actually claimed a patent on a Crystal Radio. OK - they added the bit about detuning the receiver to identify it to the transmitter, but that technique has been used in just about every RFID product in existence.
Does the USPTO actually employ anyone with an IQ above 50?
Is any of Apple's current product capable of wireless charging? Did they develop any of the technology, as in doing the research?
Let me fire up my somewhat used Tesla coil.
My money is on:
Apple 'Reality Distortion Field'.
Please explain exactly how Tesla's invention is covered by the claims in this patent. That would be enlightening.
http://blog.ted.com/2009/08/25/wireless_electr/
>2009
--
BMO
Aggressive bitches. What about Nokia 920?
You know, just pop them in the microwave @1000 Watts for five minutes, and they are then fully charged. You have to remember to turn off the device first.
We already have microwavable popcorn, and microwave ovens can also be used to warm small pets, and almost every household has one already. US military specs probably already require microwave proof equipment, so those components could be used. All you need to do is to make a battery that can be charged by microwaves. Well, it sure will get hot in the oven, so maybe the heat will help somehow. Batteries always get hot when charging, so it's the heat that charges.
Maybe.
But please don't tell Apple! They will patent the idea! And then we will all have to buy iWaveOvens to charge our devices!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Tesla's main secret with most of his work was harmonic resonance. The Tesla coil is a resonant coil, and his studies were clear that resonance would increase the distance that wireless transmissions could occur. One of his experiments used this very concept, and caused some damage to a power plant in Colorado Springs...resonating and amplifying the electricity collected from the earth moving through it's own atmosphere and discharging it into the ground in such quantities that it burned out a dynamo at the local power plant... http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_colspr.html
There are three kinds of people in the world. Those that can count, and those that can't.
Please explain exactly how Tesla's invention is covered by the claims in this patent.
No. Really, every so often a patent comes up in my area of expertise where I think "hmm that sounds interesting or realy basic", and I take the effort to plough through. An example being google's ridiculous unlocking using face recognition patent. After ploughing through some very obfuscated and incredibly turgid language (I posted a point by point rebuttal on /. about that one) I find that my suspicions are confirmed and the patent is stupid, obvious and not even remotely new using even the most generous interpretation possible.
I know a fair bit about electrical and electronic engineering, but not enough to make ploughing though the patent anything other than exceptionally time consuming.
Given the general ridiculousness of patents, the propensity of large companies like Apple (by no means the only offender, but the one in question in this case) to submit patent applications on trivial things, and the VERY long history of wireless energy transfer at this point, I feel that the default position is that the patent should have never been awarded or even applied for and the onus is on anyone else claiming otherwise.
That would be enlightening.
Possibly, but if you've ever read a patent, they are usually anything but :)
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I know for sure that there have been body-implantable MEMS devices described in scientific articles dating back to the early '90s. I cannot believe Apple can get a patent on something so old and, at this pint, so obvious.
I am starting to suspect that the USPTO is biased pro-Apple
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
This would require a fairly large 'transmit' antenna.
The problems with near field charging are well known.
The field cannot be focussed effectively, due to the nature of the magnetic field.
the field production efficiency is limited by the size and weight of the transmitter.
Every metal object in the field (which may extend behind/underneath the charger) will 'short out' the field, and take some energy.
Resonance is not magic in any way at all.
For every arrangement of coils, and random debris (keys, ...) in the way, there will be an optimum frequency that results in smallest loss.
As an analogy - you're trying to power a device by jumping up and down on a trampoline, and having a reciever of that motion somewhere on the trampoline.
Other large masses will disrupt the bouncing, and reduce the fraction of power going into your device.
Without thoroughly reading their patent application it's impossible to know if there's an actual innovation involved. Although he wasn't charging batteries Tesla was using this process to power devices and over a greater distance than Apple. There's no proof his power transmission tower was ever operational but he was powering a type of florescent light in his workshop using a wireless power source very close to what they just patented. My concern is the process was well known for over a hundred years. I know there were plans to build a length of roadway with embedded coils in LA to power electric cars a couple of decades ago. Multiple car companies have discussed charging cars in garages using this process. Doesn't common knowledge fall under prior art? The equipment may be patentable but the process itself should not be given how established the concept has been for a very long time. It's a little like patenting a process for extracting electricity using photons to split off electrons when photovoltaic cells date back to the 1800s. Long established concepts and processes should not be patentable.
I am going to patent 'obnoxious patenting' and sue Apple for all its worth. Gonna buy me a shiny new jury foreman too. Oh the world is not enough!
"Music, movies, TV, and podcast subscriptions. All tied up in Apple's little ecosystem. A very pretty noose to keep people chained to its hardware.
Imagine, just for a moment, that your Sony DVD player would only play Sony Movies' films. When you decided to buy a new DVD player from Samsung, none of those media files would work on your new kit without some serious fiddling.
That's the walled garden that so many companies are now trying to drag us into. And I think it stinks.
On a mobile phone network in the UK, you can use any phone you want. Hardware and services are totally divorced. It promotes competition because customers know that if they have a poor experience with HTC, they can move to Nokia and everything will carry on working just as it did before.
But, if all of your contacts, entertainment services, and backups are chained into HTC - well, then you're just shit out of luck if you want to move.
I want to see a complete separation of church and state here. Hardware should be separate from software. Software should be separate from services.
I want to watch Nokia movies on my Samsung hardware running Google's Android, and then back them up to DropBox.
That's how it works - more or less - in the PC space. I don't understand why it doesn't in the tablet and smartphone space? Why would I buy a tablet that only worked with content from one provider? Whether that's Amazon, Microsoft or Apple - it's setting up a nasty little monopoly which will drive up prices and drive down quality.
I know, I know. The mantra of "It Just Works". I'm mildly sick of having to configure my tablet to talk to my NAS, and then get the TV to talk to both of them. That situation isn't just due to my equipment all coming from different manufacturers - it's mostly due to those manufacturers not implementing open standards.
http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2012/11/i-dont-want-to-be-part-of-your-fucking-ecosystem/
All posts will have the words "patent" and "Apple".
-
The reality distortion field became so powerful, it can charge your mobile devices at close range.
I think Tesla has prior art based on wireless transmission of electricity.
Have slashdotters lost any sense of objectivity here? Apple is fighting a patent battle with a company that makes devices we use, and therefor *ALL* of their patents are suspect and should be challenged?
There is more than one way to skin a cat. That's basically the central tenant of patents. Apple thinks they have a unique way. Maybe someone else patented it first. Does this mean that Apple is somehow bad? Do you doubt that they too were genuinely performing this research?
Don't let your frustrations about your personal opinions cloud your judgment.
To decode this somewhat.
"One independent claim requires that "the device [to be charged] tunes the resonance circuit to at least one of the resonance frequencies of the NFMR power supply and subsequently de-tunes the resonance circuit to provide a device identification to the NFMR power supply using a change in a resonance circuit load factor".
Sounds at least basically clever to me."
This is how essentially 90% of existing RFID tags work.
"3. A battery charging circuit, comprising: a first node arranged to receive wirelessly provided power;..." - they connect the antenna through a rectifier to a capacitor, and thence to a battery.
This is the most trivially obvious way to do it. I built one of these in around 1986, and every wireless toothbrush in the world does this.
"5. A method of wirelessly transmitting power," and this is a wireless wireless charger.
This is rather more novel, and relies on the fact that the wireless wireless charger can be larger than the final device to be charged, so have a greater range from the original power source than the charger.
Can we please stop giving apple patents to things that have long since existed?
Whoever is working the patent offices that keeps giving Apple the OK needs to be fired. Now.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Given the general ridiculousness of patents, the propensity of large companies like Apple (by no means the only offender, but the one in question in this case) to submit patent applications on trivial things, and the VERY long history of wireless energy transfer at this point, I feel that the default position is that the patent should have never been awarded or even applied for and the onus is on anyone else claiming otherwise.
And given how criminals tend to be, well, criminal, the default position is that they're guilty and the onus is on them to prove their innocence. I mean, who cares about due process?
It seems to me that the actual claims and subsequent description are on (1) a method to wirelessly charge devices, with one device serving as secondary power source source for another device if needed, and with devices up to a meter away from the primary and secondary power sources; (2) a method that improves the efficiency of charging high capacity batteries as a bonus from the circuit needed to do (1); and (3) using (1) and (2) to charge a mouse and keyboard (explicit in the claims). Evidently, (1) and (2) could also be used to charge phones and tablets in an office environment too.
At any rate, I merely scanned the patent, but contrary to what TFS and TFA suggest, Apple didn't patent wireless charging, or even long range wireless charging. What Apple patented is cooperative and efficient wireless charging of a network of devices; in particular of peripherals located on a desk. I presume that plenty of researchers are working on the same kind of stuff, but assuming it hadn't been done yet, nobody can argue with a straight face that this patent is without merits.
As the article says, this will get the lawyers plenty of business. That is likely the point, as I believe that giant corporations have lost control of their attorneys. IP ligation has become a separate business for these guys, only minimally tied to the company's best interests.
-- Perhaps I see less than some, but more than many.
Nothing is stopping you from loading up any video file you want on your iPad, assuming the video file you want can be played by it. It isn't the device locking you in but the seller of the media.
Saw Nokia's standard and added a meter, and are calling it new! Classic Apple! I'm sure the fanbiOS will fall for this one-meter revolution!
I didn't have time to read the full patent since I'm at work, but in the Background section of the patent, Apple cites a scientific publication from 2008 that describes the technique for this wireless charging system. The rest of the patent appears to describe using this technology "in a computing environment". So basically, Apple is describing the process of slapping someone else's technology into a computer and preventing anyone else, including the original discoverers of this technology, from doing this.
I realize this patent has not been approved yet and if there is any shred of decency in the patent office, it will be decisively rejected. As other people have pointed out, this patent is obvious to other people in this field. Furthermore, if patents are supposed to encourage innovation, then patents that wrap existing technology, such as this, need to be struck down. After all, what is the purpose of putting a ton of money and effort into discovering new technologies if other companies can come along and patent obvious uses of your technology and, in a sense, lock you out of uses for your own technology?
"It just works" is a lie, a sham. What they provide is less functionality, and thus "magically" it just works (provided you ONLY need the features provided).
When you try to do something a little bit different, or their service shuts down, you're just holding on to a super-expensive paperweight.
Apple and every walled garden is basically a fraud, a sham, on people's naivity. They've been shielded because of nerds defining internet and open standards, but you can't stop people shooting themselves in the foot. Only they can stop themselves. Those who can't have only themselves to blame.
It's been more than 10 years that some of us have tried very hard to give the /.-community a basic education in patent law. And yet, for the umpteenth time, confusion reigns above good sense.
1. It is an application [only / yet]
2. What matters legally are only the claims.
"A battery charging circuit, comprising: a first node arranged to receive wirelessly provided power; a short term charge storage device having a first charge capacity; and a long term storage device having a second charge capacity, wherein the second charge capacity is substantially greater than the first charge capacity, wherein the long term storage device is charged by, (A) storing charge corresponding to the power wirelessly received at the first node into the short term charge storage device, (B) when the stored charge is equal to about the first charge capacity, then passing the stored charge from the short term storage device to the long term storage device, and (C) repeating (A) and (B) until the charge stored in the long term storage device is about equal to the second charge capacity."
Now, is that on wireless charging, or on the concept of having two storage devices, a short-term and a long-term one, where the energy travels subsequently form the short-term recipient to the long-term recipient of a much larger capacitance??
No, it is not inventive. Surely, someone had the idea before to charge a capacitor wirelessly, and then transfer the energy to a battery.
3. USPTO is not manned with brain-damaged people; but with people under a number of stress-factors. One being a so-called production pressure. You are terminated when you work too intense on an application. Second, case law. A patent examiner is not supposed to contravene relevant court decisions. Actually, in about all legal systems the idea is on a basic legal text, that is interpreted over time by the courts. And good legal practice is considering the written law in the light of the court decisions ('case law'). The whole mess at USPTO started not with legal frameworks, but with Diamond vs Diehr and the Supreme Court taking a horrible wrong decision. A decision that effectively took out the inventive step as criterion and left novelty as single gauge.
Its easier to steal from dead people, they don't fight back.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
Given the general ridiculousness of patents, the propensity of large companies like Apple (by no means the only offender, but the one in question in this case) to submit patent applications on trivial things, and the VERY long history of wireless energy transfer at this point, I feel that the default position is that the patent should have never been awarded or even applied for and the onus is on anyone else claiming otherwise.
And given how criminals tend to be, well, criminal, the default position is that they're guilty and the onus is on them to prove their innocence. I mean, who cares about due process?
One is the state making accusations of wrongdoing against an entity, with monetary or restrictive consequences.
The other is an entity petitioning the state to recognize and grant them a temporary monopoly, with monetary rewards potentially enforced by the state against other entities.
Naturally, the two are somehow equivalent and should be handled in the same way.
Fucking apologist. Don't you get it? I wouldn't touch an iPad with a fucking barge pole. I don't want to be part of your fucking ecosystem.
By the same token, you are also an apologist. However, unlike the poster you berate, who came off as pragmatic, you sound like a petulant child.
I made a very similar analogy at least ten years ago, except I was saying, "what if you could only play a record on one authorized turntable?" The beauty of the digital world is that there is always a way around whatever restrictions they try to force you into. Anything I pay for is mine, and I do as I like with it. If I can't figure it out, there's always someone smarter than me who will.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
My Nexus 4 already wirelessly charges with a magnetic coupling trick.
How far away from the charger?
Most of the current wireless standards have you place a device basically on a charging plate.
Apple's idea is that instead, it has a fairly broad field that exists into which you can place a device anywhere to charge - so you don't need to have wires running out to a charging plate, and you can also power a range of computer peripherals (like keyboard and mice) via remote power as well.
I don't know if that is patentable but I do know it's a much better idea than any wireless charging system I have seen.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Given the general ridiculousness of patents, the propensity of large companies like Apple (by no means the only offender, but the one in question in this case) to submit patent applications on trivial things, and the VERY long history of wireless energy transfer at this point, I feel that the default position is that the patent should have never been awarded or even applied for and the onus is on anyone else claiming otherwise.
And given how criminals tend to be, well, criminal, the default position is that they're guilty and the onus is on them to prove their innocence. I mean, who cares about due process?
One is the state making accusations of wrongdoing against an entity, with monetary or restrictive consequences.
The other is an entity petitioning the state to recognize and grant them a temporary monopoly, with monetary rewards potentially enforced by the state against other entities.
Actually, the latter is also the state making a quasi-judicial decision to deny property rights to an inventor. The due process requirement absolutely applies.
So now they are essentially trying to patent radio. If they get this patent, you can expect them to wake up and realize that sometime in the future and then watch the ridiculous lawsuits fly. What a joke. When will the patent madness end?
E Proelio Veritas.
Apple once again, re-invents someone elses ideas, sells it to hipsters, makes fortune, then uses than money on PR to write themselves in the history books as this great creating force.
History repeats itself?
Let's say you wanted to use Bluetooth to talk to an iPod or an iPad. You'd think you could just buy a Bluetooth module from, say, Roving Networks - say, the RN-42, and then connect it to your PIC/Arduino and start sending Hello World, right?
WRONG!
Apple has not only extended Bluetooth to require a special iAP authentication chip, but they have a special licensing program called MFi.
Okay, you say, so maybe this is like USB, you pay a few grand and get a VID and then go about your business.
WRONG!
The requirements surrounding MFi are ridiculous. For example, Apple will run a credit check on your company. If you are not a high-volume manufacturing company, then you're stuck with only the development license, and you will have to outsource your manufacturing. A development license is required even if you want to design an in-house app. Hobbyists need not apply - you cannot even get the development license if you want to design something for personal use. Oh, and you need to sign an NDA before they will tell you the royalty rates.
:(){
That's how it works - more or less - in the PC space
Exactly. If I want to run Microsoft Office on FreeBSD on the new MacBookPro, it's hassle free. Everything just works.
Sony? didn't they make http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Audio_Tape. I don't remember it being "open" (or successful) but don't kid yourself into believing sony wouldn't desire or try to lock users into a exclusive (or licensed) ecosystem.
When the seller of the device and seller of the media happen to be one and the same, that's more than enough stopping me.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
On the bright side, Ultraviolet is the new standard in digital copies, and it's fairly open to multiple studios. Not that I want my media in a DRM'ed file, but it's better than what Sony would do by itself.
Has it occurred to you that perhaps Apple's method is different from Tesla's? You do not patent "ideas". For a given idea there can be dozens of patents, each expressing the idea differently.
And given how criminals tend to be, well, criminal,
Your analogy is flawed.
Taking the freedom away from an individual is bad so we have the presumption of innocence and a judicial system. If the judicial system is in complete disrepute (for example in Saudi Arabia) then we would not consider it just to lock that person up despite being a criminal.
The patent system is in complete disrepute so although the patent system takes away the freedom of so many individuals, I, and many others here don't consider it just. In fact it's so far in disrepute that I would not consider an idea to be original purely based on it being patented. Just like I would not consider someone to be evil purely based on the fact they they were imprisoned by the Saudi authorities.
Or, to put it another way: restricting the freedoms of an individual should only be done with great care and proper consideration. Patents are such a restriction and they yet they are not awarded with great care and proper consideration.
So, I still feel that the default position is that the patent should have never been awarded or even applied for and the onus is on anyone else claiming otherwise.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Because it actively prevents "the little guy" from having any legal protection whatsoever. Because it tells the little guy, "Don't bother to try innovating, if you want to do R&D, you better do it in the lab of a giant multinational." Because there are plenty of counterexamples where a "little guy" has invented something and been able to extract licensing fees from "the big guys" as a result of patents that the "little guy" owns. But it seems that now that Apple is suing Samsung, we have to immediately stop all patents, right now, no matter how stupid or misguided the replacement system we've designed is.
I know that it's cool to hate on the patent system here on Slashdot, but this proposal is *actively worse* than the current system. It does NOTHING to prevent "bad" patents from getting in - the big guys have the pockets and legal team to continue pushing the applications through, and they'll end up fighting each other in court anyway. All it does is tell the "little guys," "just go home, don't try to invent something new."
Yeah, because no inventions have ever come based on someone else's. An "idea" can have dozens of patents that implement it, but there are people out there - like you most likely - who are convinced that patents apply to ideas. And so the quarrel continues.
It's a horrible idea. The amount of power wasted just emitting it out into the air, especially at distance.
The idea is great. Who does NOT want a keyboard and mouse that you don't need to attach with wires or replace batteries in?
You seem to be concerned with power wasted, but you are missing the broader point of thinking up good ideas and then figuring out how to make them practical. One possibly is that it's issuing a very low amount of power, not nearly enough to charge a phone - but enough to let a keyboard/mouse transmit.
You need to learn to separate how truly good an idea is from the technology of the moment that could make it happen but may have flaws.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The innovative part of the claim is actually to have the computer send power to a one device then have that device in turn send some of that power to one or more other devices.
The main benefit is that you can support multiple wireless devices and only one of them needs to be within range of the main charger.
The "novel" idea here is that you have a main charger and a bunch of wireless devices. At least some of those devices can *retransmit* some fraction of the received power to other devices.
The main benefit is that you only need to have one of the wireless devices in range of the main power transmitter, and it will re-radiate the power to the other wireless devices.
Unless they are zombies, the bastards. Gotta carry a .22, just in case.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
Maybe a few that Microsoft patented?
Why do judges allow it?
for Fuck's Sake,
sensational title: " Apple patents wireless charging" !=
sensational summary: "Apple is trying to patent wireless charging" !=
the fact that Apple is trying to patent a specific method for wireless charging
@&%$!
how about some basic accuracy?
No. The latter is the State taking away property rights from everyone else; in this case due process must be applied in the reverse direction to make the analogy work. Without the granted patent, no one loses access to the 'property' in question.
I know what Harmonics are I know what Resonance is, but I don't understand the term "Harmonic Resonance".
I'll bet that you don't either.
Likewise the term "resonating and amplifying". Resonance doesn't Amplify. Only Amplifiers Amplify.
You come across as just another Tesla fan boy. Scientifically Illiterate.
Yep. You're correct that someone will always crack the DRM. Restrictions like these mar the beauty of digital information though. Just because someone makes a way to break DRM, doesn't make DRM less evil. A lot of people use that to justify not caring about it - since it won't affect them. You shouldn't have to de-DRM things you buy. Not having DRM would count as beautiful.
No. The latter is the State taking away property rights from everyone else; in this case due process must be applied in the reverse direction to make the analogy work. Without the granted patent, no one loses access to the 'property' in question.
Patents are property, and just like any other property, there's a right to exclude others - by saying that your house is yours, the state is taking away property rights from everyone else who wants to go in your house without your permission... Are you saying that due process requires we take away everyone's homes unless they can prove validity of their deed?
The relevant statute is 35 USC 102, which states that a person is entitled to a patent unless certain conditions are met. That means that the government is obligated to grant the patent, unless they can prove the existence of those conditions. If you don't like the law, then lobby to change it, but the law and due process currently require the presumption of validity.
Apple started talking about "real" wireless charging solutions way back when the original iPhone came out, well before Android and WP8 existed and long before they had Qi based "wireless" charging phones. Remember this is not "contact" charging, but over the air charging. All the claims Apple ripped this one off from Qi is based on ignorance, not fact.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
That's the walled garden that so many companies are now trying to drag us into. And I think it stinks.
So don't buy in. Some of us like the business model. A lot of us, evidently. But really, it's as easy as you picking a different brand if you don't like it.
First, Apple doesn't' shut pioneers out unless the pioneers were too stupid to file proper patents. If Qi only filed patents for contact based "wireless" charging, then they themselves are only to blame for losing out in the over the air wireless charging market.
While I too am annoyed greatly with Apple the big question is why isn't any other company filing these kinds of patents? I mean you can complain all you want about Apple innovating marginally on other peoples inventions, but in the end its stupid companies like Samsung, Google and Microsoft being left in the dust for not focusing on protecting their bottom line through patent hoarding.
For instance Microsoft came out with a touch type based keyboard smart cover for Surface. Cool, they one-upped Apple. Apple comes along and then files a patent for all potential novel uses for "smart" tablet covers, such as second screens, solar charging and many, many other features, pretty much EVERYTHING Microsoft's touch keyboard cover doesn't do. It was VERY stupid for Microsoft to not protect their original idea by creating a patent to cover every conceivable use for a smart cover. Microsoft allowed Apple the opportunity to walk in and patent the Swiss Army Knife of smart covers. Now Apple can ensure that no other competitor will create a "smarter" tablet cover because even if Apple doesn't create a new smart cover, they can prevent other companies from creating smarter tablet covers.
Apple is a greedy patent whore, but the rest of the industry seems oblivious to protect themselves by filing just as many stupid patents themselves. If I was Microsoft or Google or Samsung I would not release a "new" idea until I have 100 patents filed that cover every conceivable potential use based on that one new idea.
Yeah, the way patents are used today sucks, but if you don't join the patent whoremongerers such as Apple, then you are going to fail, period.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Again, no. It's like someone claiming/annexing the public park land next door to their house without any due process that they are actually entitled to it.
Property is not assumed just because someone claims it as their own. Due process must be considered. And the safe 'default' for any property, especially 'intellectual property' is that it belongs to the public trust until appropriate measures have been taken to reassign it. (Which is what the patent office is supposed to do.)
The way the patent system is run at present is more like a frenzied land grab. Where someone will claim park land that actually belongs to the community centre next door, and then proceed to abuse that status to prosecute for trespass anyone within a 1 kilometre radius of that land - including you, because you parked your car in the pre-existing community centre parking lot.
Physical property is easy to define, generally simple to 'prove' title or trespass, and has very specific boundaries with no overlap. Whereas, a patent is hard to define, requires a large effort to 'prove' or defend against infringement claims, and has highly generalised boundaries with large areas of overlap to other public or private art. In fact, the word "property" has almost no bearing to the rights granted to a patent holder.
Is rolling in his grave about now.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Sure, but sellers of media are the same companies that manufacture the devices, and they all want the media they sell to only work on devices they make. Outside of music, it's pretty hard to find a service that will sell you content that will readily work on any device - e-books, videos etc are all walled gardens these days.
"First, Apple doesn't' shut pioneers out unless the pioneers were too stupid to file proper patents."
thats a good sign the patent system is broken as shit, and favors large corps.
Except for the requirement to use iTunes (I assume it still works that way?). That could be stopping someone from doing it.
And you already mentioned media compatibility. Is it possible to download a third-party media player on iOS?
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
That's how it works - more or less - in the PC space
Exactly. If I want to run Microsoft Office on FreeBSD on the new MacBookPro, it's hassle free. Everything just works.
Actually, I believe you're trolling. The bit you quoted from was not claiming that it was "hassle free" nor that "everything just works". It was merely claiming that it is possible to do it. And given your example, I'd say it is possible to do just that:
"On FreeBSD/i386 8.0 and later Wine should work for most user applications including Microsoft Office 2007" http://wiki.freebsd.org/Wine
So let's compare the PC space to the phone/tablet space again...
Can Microsoft make Office for Mac and sell it on their own website? sure, no doubt they already do.
Can Microsoft make Office for iOS and sell it on their own website? well, they could, but no one would be able to install it.
Can Microsoft make Office for Android and sell it on their own website? sure, no problem, so long as the customer's Android build supports side-loading (which it will unless the software provider specifically disabled it).
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
There are many 3rd-party media players available.
Above please find a list of people who commented without reading the original source material. Which is the patent itself, not the completely factually incorrect news article. It is not a patent on wireless charging. It's a patent for a specific way of relaying power through a keyboard to a mouse. In other words, a wireless keyboard and mouse where you don't need to change the batteries. Which is them just shooting their own ridiculously expensive rechargable AA battery business in the foot.