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Apple Sued Over iPhones Making Calls, Sending Email (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune: A company that seemingly does nothing but license patents or, if necessary, sue other companies to get royalties, has taken aim at Apple. But here's the kicker: the lawsuit alleges that Apple's last several iPhones and iPads violate a slew of patents related to seemingly standard features, including the ability to place calls as well as sending and receiving emails. A total of six patent infringement claims were brought against Apple by Corydoras Technologies on May 20, according to Apple-tracking site Patently Apple, which obtained a copy of the lawsuit. According to Patently Apple, the counts against Apple cover every iPhone dating back to the iPhone 4 and every iPad dating back to the iPad 2. In addition to taking issue with Apple's devices placing calls, the lawsuits also allege that the tech giant violates patents Corydoras holds related to video calling, which is similar to Apple's FaceTime, as well as displaying a person's geographic location through a feature like Find My iPhone and the ability to block unwanted calls. Last year, Apple was ordered to pay $533 million to Smartflash LLC for allegedly violating three patents related to copy protection.
an iphone can make calls? no fucking way! i don't think i've ever seen my sister or her kid make a call on theirs.
They should be abolished. Patent trolls aren't the problem, if patent trolls get banned they will buy fake businesses and sell ten manually made phones for 6k$ each.
Patented the idea of patenting the invention of "patent trolling" yet?
The more stupid patent lawsuits we have, the more likely we will see patent reform.
Right now, none of the big guys want patent reform, because it helps them keep down competitors, and some of them make a good chunk of money from it. If we want to see patent reform, then they're going to have to start hurting. Bring on the patent trolls, I say!
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
This is getting ridiculous, what else would a phone do but make actual phone calls. The methodology Apple uses in the iPhone to make a phone call can't be THAT much different than every other phone manufacturer that they should be singled out for violating some insanely broad patent. Apple should use some of that cash it has stockpiled and stomp the trolls into the ground.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
But we need a law that prevents this bullshit with very stiff penalties for these extortion trolls.
Can any slashdoters propose how such legislation would work? Something that prevents this bullshit from getting anywhere near a court of law? Perhaps some sort pre-lawsuit bullshit court that prevents it from getting anywhere at all?
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
patent trolls?
I see no patents on e-mail or calls here.
All the patents (ok I only checked the first four) are about the front camera aka "Selfie mode", and more specifically about mirroring the image from the front camera so it looks like how you're used to seeing yourself. Also the ability to turn mirroring on/off based on a user option or when switching between front and back camera.
These things might have been novel and patentable back in 2001, the priority date for most of these patents.
Then the patents claim all kinds of combinations of that feature with other usual smartphone things, but only as combinations with that feature.
So it isn't one of those "How did the patent examiner miss the massive amounts of prior art?" cases.
I say outright get rid of software patents: the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. Most new software ideas are created in the act of making a specific product, not mass general research labs of the kind Edison used. This means that the ideas would be created anyhow even without the royalty incentives.
And most don't bother to mine existing patents for new ideas because most are vague, obvious, or trivial junk, often filed for defensive or legal ammunition reasons.
Thus, the two main reasons for patents: incentives and publicizing ideas, are mostly moot these days. For every good software patent, I bet there are at least 10 junk patents.
Patents can join H-1B visas in the high abuse-to-legitimacy ratio: a game played by and for big biz to stay big at the expense of everybody else.
Table-ized A.I.
In 1967 one of the ways Canada celebrated its centenary was to hold an exposition called Expo 67. I can remember being there as a kid and being entranced by something that looked like it was from the future. It had a keyboard, a telephone handset and a ~10" black and white screen. You could talk to and see the person on the other side of the hall who was sitting at a similar device. According to Bell Canada it was coming "real soon now".
the ideas and implementation of others for its own use, and saying it is brand new "apple sauce".
The same company has the same lawsuit aginst the good and righteous company Samsung.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Patent trolling is the motherfucker of invention.
And give it back to Mexico as a peace offering. Our legal system would then be free of a huge burden.
Wait....they're suing because a phone has the ability to make calls?
Ummm, I don't wanna get all technical and shit, but that's basically what a phone does.
What's next, suing Samsung and Toshiba because their televisions "show moving images"?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
And Lucky Goldstar.
Anyone else notice the company is NAMED for a species of bottom-feeding catfish?
For a few months I sort of lived two blocks from Intellectual Ventures' office, building a ROV in the front yard. And I never got around to also building a trebuchet.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
Hate The Game.
The lawyers make money regardless of who wins, unless they're working on contingency which patent lawyers never do. Same as with stockbrokers - somebody's buying for every sale, and the broker (even if it's a computer) always takes a cut. Same as Bankers with their fees. Same as casinos. Same as politicians.
Old one for the tagline database: Lawyer: the larval form of the politician.
Jurors in Texas are stupid. There, I said it. Many patent trolls are located in Texas and they all prefer to file in Texas courts, since idiot juries reliably award them millions. "Your website uses usernames and passwords to log in? Why didn't you get a license from this here local Texas firm that invented that idea? Pay up now, the law is the law!" Remember that John Oliver story on patents? Samsung actually built a public outdoor ice skating rink in Marshall, TX because they're so terrified of the juries there. Apple was ordered by a Texas jury to pay a half billion dollars to a troll who held a patent on the concept of copy protection. I hate Samsung and Apple, I hate copy protection, but Texas is worse than both of them put together.
A court ordered Apple to pay half a billion dollars for "allegedly" doing something? Did they "literally" order that?
These half-billion dollar judgments by stupid judges and even stupider juries add up.
Is it me, or do these patents just sound like "take these previously invented things and put them together". Combinations of things that already have been invented should not be patent-able. On top of that, I'd live to put a very short statute of limitations on filing claims like these. You have 6 months from the time the item was publicly released on the market. That's it. No waiting about for years so you can claim larger infringement.
Unless they are addressing a particular technique used in the calls, they have a lot of prior art to overcome.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Angleyne: You can't bend that girder - it's unbendable! Bender: Well I don't know anything about lifting, so that ju
If the emails have square corners then seems legit
look up Marconi, Popov, Fessenden, deForest, et al. you can add Edison to the list. some guys named Bell and Morse also. fella named Armstrong talked upon the earth...
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Corydoras == cory cat catfish == scum sucking bottom dweller patent troll.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corydoras
Specifically, here's claim 1 of one of the patents:
1. A communication device comprising:
a microphone;
a speaker;
an input device;
a display;
a first camera;
a second camera;
an antenna; and
a multiple function implementer;
wherein said multiple function implementer implements a voice communication function, a digital mirror function, a non-digital mirror function, and an email function;
a voice communication is processed to be performed when said voice communication function is implemented;
a first visual data is processed to be retrieved via said first camera, said first visual data is processed to be inverted, and said first visual data which is inverted is processed to be displayed on said display when said digital mirror function is implemented;
a second visual data is processed to be retrieved via said second camera and said second visual data is processed to be displayed on said display when said non-digital mirror function is implemented,
wherein said second visual data is the visual data which is not inverted; an email is processed to be authored in accordance with the user input and said email is processed to be transferred to another device in a wireless fashion when said email function is implemented.
Now, I'm certainly not saying that claim is valid or that there aren't ways I would attack these patents, but it would be just as silly to say "Apple sued over iPhones having antennas." Sure, "antenna" is in the claim, but the patent's not about antennas and just having an antenna is not nearly enough to infringe the claim.
The fines would be much less impressive if stated as a percentage of Apple's cash on hand.
I thought Apple invented telephones and that's why they're suing everybody else? Or is it just the rectangular ones?