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Steve Jobs Patent On iPhone Declared Invalid
An anonymous reader writes "Apple's most famous multitouch software patents are increasingly coming under invalidation pressure. First the rubber-banding patent and now a patent that Apple's own lawyers planned to introduce to a Chicago jury as 'the Jobs patent.' U.S. Patent No. 7,479,949 covers a method for distinguishing vertical and horizontal gestures from diagonal movements based on an initial angle of movement. For example, everything up to a slant of 27 degrees would be considered vertical or horizontal, and everything else diagonal. The patent office now seems to think that Apple didn't invent the concept of 'heuristics' after all."
Good riddance to this patent. It's yet another example of how the patent office will let just about anything slip by right now.
If putting ONE widget/idea/whatever on a machine is patentable, then putting multiple "things" on a machine is obvious. "Multitouch" is the same a "touch."
Another one: If putting wifi on a computer is patentable, then putting wifi on any computer-like device (tablets, phones, anything using a processor) is obvious.
The trolls are maybe less than half the problem. Letting these companies patent the kitchen sink just because there is a trivial change is a huge part. And they won't pay of examiners that actually know what they are doing because it means a pointy headed administrator will have to be paid less to do it.
you mean iGony
Table-ized A.I.
Err.. Apple wanted to call it the Jobs patent, but were denied. How is it Slashdot's fault for actually referring to it as the Jobs patent?
Why those assholes take years to determine 'full' invalidity is beyond me.
Also, this patent show up Steve Jobs for the sociopath asshole that he was. Patenting a 'complete solution' is okay; patenting a small process or a way of operating a device is a fundamentally flawed approach to granting patents in the first place.
Meanwhile, millions have been lost fighting this useless patent, and HTC were idiots to settle, etc etc
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Re: "...Apple didn't invent the concept of 'heuristics' after all".
Wrong. Apple not only invented heuristics, they also invented the US Patent Office. Then patented them both!
He maybe passed on to Nirvana and taken his rightful place next Allah, Buddha and Jesus and he may of done great things while is was a mortal, pre and post resurrection (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1998/11/09/250834/index.htm) and of course we'd all like to this that he was superhuman and invincible.
The truth is he was none of the above and was simply a mortal human being who's also done a lot of fucked up stupid ass things, this is one of them amongst many.
I'd say its better to look at him as a real individual though did great things but also did many wrong things in the process. Otherwise get out the stones and carving rocks and etch out some prophecies to be discovered in a 1000 years by archaeologist's of that time deducing the reign of Steve Jobs on society.
Here's a sample:
_____________
Rubbish. Here’s our own government handing the keys to our future economic prosperity over to Korea wholesale.
The sound of the jobs being flushed down the toilet may be your own.
Jubei
Friday, December 7, 2012 - 5:53 pm Reply
_____________
Agreed. All this hard work from Apple invalidated giving the green light to slavishly copy them. The US is heading down irrelevancy by its own government.
khryshimself
Read more at Link
Yeah, i bet he's really upset, too.
Oh wait, he's dead, shut up.
god is just pretend.
As a (up till now) satisfied owner of Apple products, all I can say is: Good.
Maybe if they lose enough of these stupid patents, they'll start thinking less about suing the world into oblivion and go back to doing what made them the company they are now: Making products that delight their customers.
From recent events, it's clear that Apple forgot that part somewhere along the line.
the last mac I bought was not even a year old when saint jesus jobs deemed my very expensive computer unworthy of OSX... 8 years later someone figured out if you swap two bytes in ram you could run upto os 10.2 on the fucker.
So making a decision to fuck over customers cause he wanted basically the same machine in a dumb shit blue case is just one of a billion reasons that arrogant con-artist deserves a boot up his used car salesman ass, both in life and in death.
Course now that he is dead, he cant dazzle you morons with a new toy
8 years later someone figured out if you swap two bytes in ram you could run upto os 10.2 on the fucker.
That's probably what killed him.
(Too soon?)
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
IFF there is a god, I am pretty sure he/she/it is against hoarding cash like crazy.
Tomorrow is another day...
Great!!! USPTO must stop accepting patent crap.
FTFY
Tomorrow is another day...
Apparently Steve never learned the actual lesson and message behind the movie "War Games." There are no winners in thermonuclear war. The only way to win is not to play.
I believe Jobs would have halted this as it got more ugly and apparent that Apple would lose. But since he died, there was no halting it and I suspect anyone at Apple who would want to "go against god's... err Jobs's will" would be branded a heretic or a traitor or something like that.
Apple is already losing the war over the touch screen smart phone. They are losing their intellectual property as well. They are causing harm to everyone in the industry and that includes the consumers whether they use Apple or Android or even something else.
The sooner this is concluded the better. Samsung needs a new trial. Apple's IP needs to be resolved as to what is valid and what isn't. It needs to be settled.
That's probably what killed him.
(Too soon?)
Not soon enough! Jobs was a class 'A' douche-bag. He openly flaunted patents, stole IP (every "original" design he ever produced or commissioned was a direct copy of an existing item from another company, Baun suffered greatly from this http://www.idigitaltimes.com/data/images/full/2012/09/04/1223-braun-or-apple.jpg) and bullied countless REAL innovators out of business. The only "multi-touch" he ever created was what he did to customers' wallets, or it would be if screwing idiots over was anything remotely original. Jobs also abandoned and denied paternity of his first child and summarily ended all philanthropic programs (that's charity if anyone is wondering) sponsored by Apple when he took control. The only thing he ever achieved personally was to make sure anyone wearing a turtle neck (skivvy in local parlance) look like even more of a douche. What did Jobs ever do to us? He screwed us. All of us. Even those who have never and will never buy any iShit suffer because of what he's done to the industry as a whole.
Patents like this are incredibly stupid. It ostensibly doesn't matter who filed them, except that the higher profile the owner is, the more damage it does. The downfall of the patent should be celebrated.
More Multi-Touch Prior art
I call BS Osgeld. A G4 or G5? I don't believe you bought a Mac and OS X.0 came out less than a year later. What Mac model would that be and when did you buy it?
For a while Steve Jobs made his living peddling "blue boxes" that got free long distance calls by hacking the telco switching equipment. He even stole money from his friend Steve Wozniak. And made a habit of parking in the handicap space. And smelled bad, which is some kind of crime against those in the immediate vicinity.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Apple would have filed a patent on distinguishing right from wrong, except they never got that one to work.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
This is just a preliminary invalidation, not the end of the road for this patent. Many patents that are in this state survive (partially or wholly). This simply is the start of a process within the USPTO.
(Relevant Post taken from Mac Rumors discussion on this, this is not my post, but relevant for this discussion): http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=16445804&postcount=39
Folks -- a preliminary invalidation is a non-event. Every patent you apply for is almost always initially rejected. It is the way the patent examiner pushes the burden back on the inventor. They reject, you appeal, they reject, you appeal, patent issues.
Typically the findings for an initial patent application are really weak and easy to overcome.
The re-examination process is the same way. The patent examiner places himself in the position of the person trying to shoot the patent down. That is because the other party to communicate with is the original inventor and obviously they are going to push for maintaining the application. So in order to do proper due diligence, the examiner needs to find reasons to refute the patent, and then there is an appeal, and then possibly another invalidation, and another appeal and then the patent likely holds in some form.
In short... nothing to see here... move along.
I don't know the actual percentage, but I'd bet 99.9% of all patents for which a reexamination was requested receive a preliminary invalidation. And I don't think the patent office can refuse to do a reexamination on a patent.
Full Discussion here: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1503872&page=1
Information is not Knowledge.
They'll just re-apply using a 26.5 degree angle.
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
I've said it before; The man was such a douche-bag that his coffin probably still smell smells springtime-fresh. We're going to be a very long time before the industry recovers from what he started with the latest run at the closed eco-system. Unfortunately, we're still on the downhill slope, as now Microsoft has a closed system for their wonderful new interface as well.
Or little-endian.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
the last mac I bought was not even a year old when saint jesus jobs deemed my very expensive computer unworthy of OSX... 8 years later someone figured out if you swap two bytes in ram you could run upto os 10.2 on the fucker.
So making a decision to fuck over customers cause he wanted basically the same machine in a dumb shit blue case is just one of a billion reasons that arrogant con-artist deserves a boot up his used car salesman ass, both in life and in death.
Course now that he is dead, he cant dazzle you morons with a new toy
What Mac? Give us the actual product code too.
A year old and unable to run OS X? So it was a PPC G3 or something? No, it must be older, since G3's could run OS X. PPC 603?
Blue boxes were created to explore phone networks.
"Explore" as in getting free long distance phone calls. Say, you would be an Apple employee, wouldn't you? Your attitude matches perfectly.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I'd bet it's actually an arctan(1/2) angle, which would lead to an efficient implementation: if abs(rise)/abs(run) is within the range [0.5 ... 2.0], it's diagonal.
I can't think of anything great that Jobs did. He didn't invent or build anything, high level direction doesn't count for squat in my book. He was the best marketing droid/pitchman of recent history, but that just a shitty thing to be around for the rest of humanity.
More like 'Exploit'. The phone systems then used specific tones to control it. Those 'blue boxes' just repeated the tone used to activate an authorization for a no charge long distance call. Those boxes weren't even doing anything new, as the specific tone was well know to the phreak community and hackers in general. One gained the handle of "Captain Crunch" because he found out that the whistles that came in Captain Crunch cereal at that time produced that specific tone and could be used to activate free calls. Steve Jobs merely tread upon a road well worn by those that came before, and he charged as much money as he could to those who weren't in the know.
The stench of hypocrisy is overwhelming. Apple has made most of it's billions by utilizing slave labor in third world countries. Suddenly, they are worried about American jobs? The few jobs they are moving to America are nothing more than a publicity gambit, IMHO.
If I had a few tens of thousands of people employed directly or indirectly, and I decided to move several hundreds of those jobs to the United States, the total impact on anyone's economy would be negligible. And, the cost to me would have little impact. I would still have almost all my work performed by slave labor in third world countries.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Steve Jobs merely tread upon a road well worn by those that came before, and he charged as much money as he could to those who weren't in the know.
Wow, that works both specifically and generally. I'm impressed with what you did there.
Put identity in the browser.
From wikipeida: Steve Jobs "was assigned to create a circuit board for the arcade video game Breakout. According to Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari offered $100 for each chip that was eliminated in the machine. Jobs had little specialized knowledge of circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the fee evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari engineers, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line.[further explanation needed] According to Wozniak, Jobs told him that Atari gave them only $700 (instead of the offered $5,000), and that Wozniak's share was thus $350.[53] Wozniak did not learn about the actual bonus until ten years later, but said that if Jobs had told him about it and had said he needed the money, Wozniak would have given it to him."
atan2 is a transcendental function, which on some architectures may take more time to compute than a slope comparison that boils down to two absolute values, a division, and two subtracts.
Dang, Jobs who died richer than belief, and started a crusade against Google for "stealing" something Jobs never owned, gets seated next to Allah, Buddha and Jesus. But Einstein, Tesla, Maxwell, Newton, and countless others who actually contributed something useful to the world never get mentioned...
Of course, that's because it was denied when he applied for it in the first place.
Yes, he was the Edison of his day - "inventing" things by employing inventors or more frequently getting it from elsewhere and tweaking it, then tying up the market behind him. He's likely to be remembered the same way as Edison while people once again ignore the flaws.
That story really puts things in perspective, doesn't it?
Woz: A brilliant engineer and a genuinely good person.
Jobs: A liar who will happily screw over even his closest friends to make a buck.
Which one does the media celebrate?
Required reading for internet skeptics
Jan Pieterszoon Coen?
IFF there is a god, I am pretty sure he/she/it is against hoarding cash like crazy.
So to find out whether there is a god, we just have to find out whether you are pretty sure he/she/it is against hoarding cash like crazy. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
The highest market valued one, but certainly not the most valuable one.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Actually the international standard notation is YYYY-MM-DD.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
The Beige G3 officially supported up to Mac OS X 10.2.8. It was a third party extension that allowed installation of 10.4.11, and if you upgraded to a G4 processor you could install Mac OS X 10.5.8. Also, Mac OS X 10.0 came out on March 24, 2001, while the Beige G3 was discontinued on January of 1999. The beige G3 was introduced in November of 1997 officially supported up to Mac OS X 10.2.8, which was replaced in October 24, 2003. The beige G3 was officially supported by Apple for 6 years, and with unofficial extensions and a processor upgrade you could have run OS X 10.4.11 until October 26, 2007 when 10.5 came out (not that you had to stop using the machine). That is a total of 10 years from introduction to obsolescence.
The one that most closely resembles all the other media personalities (make believe personalties). Now I wonder why?
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
If there is A god, he's hoarding his universe.
On the contrary. He got bored and abandoned the experiment, like so many back of the fridge self contained ecosystems.
Don't worry, you can keep slave jobs here in the U.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Prison_Industries
That story really puts things in perspective, doesn't it?
Woz: A brilliant engineer and a genuinely good person.
Jobs: A liar who will happily screw over even his closest friends to make a buck.
Which one does the media celebrate?
Jobs did this to a lot of people, often to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. For awhile his trick was insisting that a written contract was unnecessary and would get in the way of friendly future business relationships, but that he'd guarantee if person X delivered Y, Jobs would compensate him with Z. Then when Y was delivered Jobs would say that there was no way he would have made such an arrangement and that X was up shit creek without a contract.
Yet its Xbox 360 beat Wii U this past Black Friday. So at least someone is profiting from a system even more closed than iOS. How has Sony Computer Entertainment been doing?
Man on Titanic merrily waves to man in leaking tub....
Look at MS's financials, it doesn't matter if they outsell the Wii U. Sony has been reaping its due rewards. A long time ago I pondered which company was worse - Sony or MS, and decided that Sony was by far worse. Apparently I'm not alone in thinking Sony doesn't deserve my money. I'm only hopeful that MS follows their lead.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
IFF there is a god, I am pretty sure he/she/it is against hoarding cash like crazy.
I think the reason Steve often gets a pass on the cash hoarding is because he seemed like the kind of dreamer that just might need that money someday. I don't mind that James Cameron or Richard Branson are filthy rich because I admire the way they spend much of their fortunes.