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Apple Patent Could Have "Broad Ramifications" For VR Headsets
An anonymous reader writes Filed in 2008, published in 2013, and legally granted to Apple this week, the company's patent for a 'Head-mounted display apparatus for retaining a portable electronic device with display' could have "broad ramifications" for mobile VR headsets like Samsung's Gear VR and Google Cardboard, says patent attorney Eric Greenbaum. "This Apple HMD patent is significant. I would say it introduces potential litigation risks for companies that have or are planning to release a mobile device HMD," he said. "There is no duty for Apple to make or sell an HMD. They can sit on this patent and use it strategically either by enforcing it against potential infringers, licensing it, or using it as leverage in forming strategic partnerships."
Me thinks Chinese copies will resolve this issue completely.
This really shows how much these corporations really want their customers to be happy. and get all the best they possible could offer. .....
As long as Apple in this case makes money or bangs it's competitor's in behind wearing the classes.
It has no problems if it's customers (we, the people on earth, etc) never ever get to wear these devices.
Are they going to claim ownership of holding my phone to my ear a certain way also? I run a school districts technology support and have already started directing the school away from apple products. I may only cost them a couple hundred thousand, but I will sure feel good about it. Maybe others can too. I know I am tiny compared to the overall picture, but can currently take credit for a bit over 1/2 million in lost sales to apple in the 3 school districts I have ran where I made the final choice. Apple products are very good in my eyes, but the way the company has dumped on others over the years just makes it too difficult to want to continue to do business with them when I have other options.
Head mounted displays have been around, albeit not as great successes, for decades -- before Apple was anything more than a consumer electronics joke. What the hell gives them the right to patent either the technology or the design?
"says patent attorney Eric Greenbaum."
What a fucking surprise. God forbid you earn from something approximating 'work'.
for HMD's, VR goggles, displays, etc, HOW THE FUCK did crApple manage to get a patent on this?!?
Like anything Apple patents, it's someone else's work and vision.
Simply put, VR headsets (displays mounted in such a way as to be placed in front of a person's eyes) have been visualized and built for decades.
Lawnmower Man anyone?
Google doesn't sell Google Cardbaord. Google involvement is just apps. Instead you buy a kit made of cardboard from some vendor for a few dollars. The kit probably doesn't violate the patent anyway because it doesn't physically connect to the phone.
"It holds a smart phone in front of your eyes" isn't enough to enforce a patent. Frankly, I'm sick of seeing patent applications where the thing being claimed isn't a design at all, but a vague description of a whole class of products that share some basic characteristics.
head?
This is really a poor-man's solution. Needing a latest greatest cell-phone to show-off (of course, not simply being able to pay for it, but monthly through the carrier), and wanting some VR. Not minding the big disadvantage of having the complete weight of the cell-phone strapped to their head, and display quality diminished by the touch input layer.
Displays aren't exactly the cheapest part of a cell-phone, however, a purpose-built device will definitely be more user-friendly - and cheaper than the cell-phone with the same display.
A patent on something that serves 3rd world needs is somewhere between useless (can't earn much from them), or outright cruel (preventing them from accessing cheap technology).
That they are granted a patient to use a "mobile" device with a typically non-mobile VR headset.
My last rough count of ruined kickstarter projects is 4. Few things are sadder than a multibillion dollar international company serving cease and desist letters to fledgling startups who operated in good faith with due diligence. Ahh apple, will you use your 6+ to capture the exact moment you broke that 22yr old business owners heart?
To infringe, an infringer would have to produce a product that had every element of the claim listed below. Leave one thing off and you are clear of infringement. 1. A head-mounted device that is worn on a user's head and configured to integrate with a removable portable electronic device, comprising: a frame comprising a cavity that is configured to physically receive and carry the removable portable electronic device, wherein the frame places a display screen of the portable electronic device in front of the user's eyes, and wherein the display screen of the portable electronic device acts as the primary display screen of the head-mounted device such that the display screen of the portable electronic device is primarily used to view image based content when the head-mounted display device is worn on the user's head; a detection mechanism configured to alter the portable electronic device based on whether the removable portable electronic device is mounted on the frame; and an optical subassembly operative to: receive at least one image frame from the display screen of the portable electronic device, wherein the at least one image frame comprises the image based content; and adjust the image based content based at least in part on relative sizes of the display and the display screen of the portable electronic device.
Eloquent words can mask much mischief. Judge Mayer
You mean this story?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
If I understand patents correctly the supporting claims don't matter it's the parent claims. Break one part of the parent and the rest falls apart.
Part of claim 1 the only parent claim...
"a detection mechanism configured to alter the portable electronic device based on whether the removable portable electronic device is mounted on the frame"
That's easy... Mount the display in the headset. Push a on screen button launching VR mode. Device changes to VR mode. Take off the headset, touch the screen - since you won't be touching it while watching it, and device comes out of VR mode. It's not like you need to be that lazy to have it automatically start when put in.
If I'm right Samsung / Google I just saved you both some trouble. If I'm wrong then please tell me where so I'll learn something.
I have seen gag pictures on the web of portable TVs strapped to people's heads for years now. same thing, just sleeker. I don't think you can patent "sleeker."
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
"hard drive" isn't even mentioned in the summary. You idiots got misdirected.
The focus should be on the fact that all hard drives from major brands can be fucked with by the NSA and there are no solutions, the focus shouldn't be on some fucking hacking group:
HUGE SPY PROGRAM EXPOSED: NSA has hidden software in hard drives around the world
Is the NSA Hiding in Your Hard Drive?
NSA Has Ability To Hide Spying Software Deep Within Hard Drives: Cyber Researchers
Is Your Hard Drive Hiding NSA Spyware?
The NSA hides surveillance software in hard drives
'Breakthrough' NSA spyware shows deep grasp of makers' hard drives
NSA planted surveillance software on hard drives, report says
NSA secret spying software discovered by Russian researchers
NSA Hackers Infected Hard Drives With Impossible-To-Remove Spyware
NSA Has Planted Surveillance Software Deep Within Hard Drives Since 2001: Kaspersky
NSA program is embedding secret spying software in hard drives in Russia, China, Middle East, allowing agency to eavesdrop on most of worldâ(TM)s computers: report
Destroying your hard drive is the only way to stop this super-advanced malware
Hard drives beware, the NSA is coming for you
Kaspersky fingers NSA-style Equation Group for hard drive backdoor epidemic
There's no way of knowing if the NSA's spyware is on your hard drive
The NSA's Undetectable Hard Drive Hack Was First Demonstrated a Year Ago
Considering Apple didn't create this first and only patented it, if any judge rule in the favor, it goes to show how broken this system is.
Every claim is based on the first one, which specifically states its a holder for a portable device, like an iPod Touch or iPhone.
As long as the VR goggles have their own built in screen, there is no way it is infringing.
It was filed in 2008, but there were already others publicly using smartphones the 'google cardboard' way, so there is prior art, and therefore I already find it very weird Apple was awarded the patent.. Seems like they (again) give the patent officer one hell of a bribe....
This explains why Google came out with cardboard. To make it clear, just how stupid this patent is.
How in the world did Apple get to this first? No one before 2008 thought to do this? Seriously?
Sure, strapping a Palm 3 to my head would probably just cause a headache, but no one at Palm or Microsoft or Sony or Samsung or Motorola thought enough of this to file a throwaway patent?
"You're wearing it wrong"
You mean Nintendo didn't patent this with Virtual Boy?
Make a collar that rests on your shoulders instead of attaching to the head. Would work just as well and your shoulders are better equipped to handle bearing extra weight for an extended period of time than your neck is. Add a mechanism so that it rotates with your head and you are good.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Bogus troll.
If you want to talk about patents, realize patents are supposed to be something very specific. This is for a head mounted apparatus that a separate display inserts into.
fail
Meh.
I'm worried that every SIM on the planet may be backdoored.
https://firstlook.org/theinter...
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Apple is going to go patent trolling Samsung
It seems to me that the only real bit of inventiveness is to have a way for the phone to automatically detect that it has been inserted into the holder (and presumably switch to a different operating mode).
I don't think Google Cardboard does this, but it's an obvious incremental step.
Who wouldn't want to strap a cellphone to their face? I already carry around a high resolution display in my pocket, along with a reasonably capable processor.
Why the fuck would I want to build an identical, purpose built system just for VR that contains the same components, but has the added disadvantage of not being modular?
It seems to me that several devices from the Garage VR days would predate this patent.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
Time to man the hip waiders. VR headsets have been around for a number of years, both commercial and throughout research labs. Before I started at one position, circa 2006, their labs had VR headsets that, although communicating not using blutooth, essentially did the same things. It takes only one of those folks to step up and kick Mother Apple off its levitational balance.
We've known about it for years. Old news. Maybe you should stop making jokes about /.'ers and tinfoil hats.
The World's armed forces had better raid their piggybanks to parry this 'threat'.
HUD's been around for decades...
if I point my viewmaster at an electric light is that a problem? guess I stick to my kerosene lamp then.
here is one for 2001 i could find with 30s of google:
http://www.davi.ws/avionics/TheAvionicsHandbook_Cap_5.pdf
there should be a mechanism for suing USPTO for inventions with such obvious 'prior art'! IMO that's the only way this patent clusterf**k will resolve!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomytronic_3D, from this it would be a logical jump to the Virtual Boy, and predates the Virtual Boy by 12 years
Your mistake is that your forgetting that most people already OWN the cellphone for other uses.
So it's only the surrounding container that needs to be bought.
That can be made a LOT cheaper than one with the display. Of course it's likely to offer slightly less value/features but it is probably good enough for a lot of people who can't afford yet another device but would be happy to use one they already paid for in another way that covers most of the functionality they need.
In the same way - no photographer would dream of using a cellphone camera to do a photoshoot. You can't swap lenses, the shutter is tiny, you can't shoot in raw. It's a terrible camera. Yet for millions of users, it's replaced buying any other kind since it's already there, in your pocket, and for taking a few holiday snaps it's "good enough".
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
It won't have any impact as there is so much prior art making the patent ridiculous
http://www.redbull.com/uk/en/games/stories/1331628307841/rip-the-fallen-heroes-of-virtual-reality
From that link:
The Mobile Handset Exploitation Team (MHET), whose existence has never before been disclosed
Nope, can't think what their target could possible be. Probably they DNA test people's dogs...
OK, I swear the text in that quote changed while I was copying and pasting it from "target" to "existence"... and the original...
Either I'm going senile, or the NSA want me to think I'm going senile...
Reading the patent, I kept thinking about a character from Larry Niven's Ringworld series, Louis Wu, and his addiction to the wirehead device (The Ringworld Engineers, 1980).
The two things aren't exactly the same -- direct stimulation of pleasure centers necessarily the same thing as a device to create an image of a virtual world -- but it's hard to imagine we've really achieved anything substantial by protecting the differences.
If we were going to build a device like Niven describes, in our current digital world, it seems like most of the items in the patent would be logical consequences or obvious capabilities. Who is to say, after all, that stimulation of the pleasure centers might not involve images?
Every patent effectively increases the complexity of the legal system, since the patents will be enforced by people with guns (the government) and briefcases (the lawyers). There are several obvious ethics problems here.