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Family Sues Apple For Not Making Thing It Patented (nymag.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A lawsuit filed against Apple last week argues that, by not actually making a product that it patented, the company is partly responsible for an automobile accident. According to Jalopnik, James and Bethany Modisette are suing the tech company after a car crash two years ago that killed one of their daughters and injured the rest of the family. The driver of the car who hit them had been using Apple's FaceTime video chat at the time. The patent in question was first applied for in 2008, and describes "a lock-out mechanism to prevent operation of one or more functions of handheld computing devices by drivers when operating vehicles," such as texting or video chatting. The complaint cites Apple's "failure to design, manufacture, and sell the Apple iPhone 6 Plus with the patented, safer, alternative design technology" -- in other words, lack of the program's inclusion -- as a "substantial factor" in the crash.
I'll get the popcorn.
Then I could rope emotionally distraught people into my lucrative lawsuits, and give them nothing in return.
This is fucking awesome... using patent system against it's own masters. Yes, patent is proof of substantial invention, so it was conscious choice not to use it as described.
It seems to me that if more people sued when patents were not implemented, we might have less patents out there making every developers life worse. Patent trolls might think twice before setting up shop.
I would say that someone choosing to video chat on their phone while driving a car is 99% the main factor in that automotive crash.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
It would snowball into phones being deactivated while moving...not just the driver, but all the passengers as well. Boy, I'm sure that would go over well!
Happily, this family didn't let grief over losing their daughter dull their innate avarice.
#DeleteChrome
Just churning out ideas without implementation seems like something IBM would do... I don't understand this as well as I don't understand parenting something and then releasing an ugly pile of shit as the implementation.
Obviously you would need to be able to disable the feature if you were just a passenger. The person in question would have disabled the feature even though they were driver.
Can apple counter sue her parents for failing to properly educate the young woman?
...the distracted-driving f--kwit doesn't have sufficiently deep pockets, so they're looking for someone who does. Ah, the American way.
Was this suit filed by Green and Fazio per chance? https://www.nbc.com/saturday-n...
Putting aside obvious fact such patents should never have been issued in the first place if this family cared about public safety why would they seek patent protection?
Patent encumbering technology does not promote adoption it always considerably retards it even if you make public promises not to enforce. Surely they knew or should have known this going into it. They could have released their "systems and methods" into the public domain. Now they expect sympathy for actively working against public safety?
In an alternate reality where they are able to get away with this other people should be able to sue this family for their own injuries and deaths related to smartphone distraction for their part in assuring this technology would NOT be adopted.
Most companies claim that an accident was unforeseeable, and therefore should not be held liable. For instance, if I make an electric plug without any insulation and the person gets electrocuted, I am liable. It was foreseeable. There is no plausible deniability.
In this case Apple cannot claim plausible deniability, therefore they may be liable. They went ahead and applied for and were issued a patent, years before the actual event occurred. They knew that this was not only possible but likely, but did nothing. Sounds like they are in someways liable.
Plausible deniability is a powerful tool - they blew it (due to greed)!
Good luck to them. On my 15 mile commute to/from work literally every day I see multiple retards driving and texting at the same time, often not keeping in their lane, or even looking where they're going, even on the freeway.
I also see at least one accident every day where someone has driven into the back of someone else. Obviously self-regulation isn't working. It apparently accounts for so many accidents that it boggles my mind how using a cellphone while driving isn't already illegal here in AZ.
Apple has probably already fired their motion for summary judgement. Since this has the potential for creating some really bad law, Apple will fight it fang and claw.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Stupid greedy family. Or maybe not, maybe they found a way to profit from their stupid daughter's mistake.
...or does their discretion not enter into this at all? Either people are responsible for their actions or they're not. Apple isn't in the babysitting business. That said, it really sucks that this happened.
Twinstiq, game news
> Let's understand the REAL issue here; the PATENT prevented everyone else from implementing a safety.
Clearly Apple's patent didn't cause Apple to not implement it, so what do you think caused that? I would think that customers want to use their phones while riding in cars, buses, etc. Customers won't buy buy a phone that locks itself when moving.
Suppose Apple tries to get really clever and try to guess whether the person using the phone is the driver or a passenger, and they advertise this "safety feature". Obviously it's not going to guess correctly all the time - sometimes it'll annoy passengers who it thinks are driving, but worse sometimes it would guess "passenger" when the person is in fact driving. An advertised safety feature that often fails is obviously a huge liability. The parents of the teenager who crashes while using her iPhone will sue Apple, saying "web bought our daughter an iPhone because you said it has this safety feature. Your safety feature didn't work, you owe us $20 million." There would be plenty of other paths to liability, of course. Suppose Apple blocks video chat but not phone calls. Teenager talking on iPhone crashes. Parents sue "you could have prevented phone calls while driving, your feature that blocks Facetime proves you can and know you should. You failed to block phone calls, you us $20 million too".
I hope Apple countersues for expenses on this frivolous lawsuit where one of the family crashed because of being an irresponsible fuck. I hope the family loses everything they have as a result.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
> Apple better have a really good explanation for why they did enable this moron to do so while being able to disable him.
Here are a couple of really good explanations:
Yes, Apple could make the phone completely lock itself any time it's moving. Customers, who like to like to use their phones while riding in cars and buses, would then not buy their product, they'd sell no phones, and nobody would be protected. A few parents might want this safety feature on their kids' phones, so maybe they'd still sell a few iphones to parents based on advertising the safety features, but mostly it would put Apple out of the phone business.
The phone could try to guess whether the person is a passenger or if they're driving. Sometimes it would guess wrong, of course. When it wrongly guess that a passenger was the driver, the passenger's phone would lock up and annoy the hell out of customers. Back to explanation #1. Worse, sometimes it would guess "passenger" when in fact the person was driving. The parents who bought the phones based on the advertised safety feature which would actually fail often would then sue Apple every time a crash occurs.
ok, so how would it know the person is the driver and not say, a passenger?
this is what makes 'murika great!
The family is hoping Apple will avoid the bad publicity and settle. If this goes to trial there is no chance that Apple is found guilty for using the patent system the way it was intended.
Instead of building the limiting technology into the telephone, build it into the car? A gradual power-down to halt (like a bait car) might cause some problems, but not as much as a full-speed MVA, and (to my mind) the technology ought to be no more difficult to develop - and we can limit it to the vehicle operator.
This means that Apple has been well aware of the issue.
Hope this gets thrown out in the court. It is driver's responsibility not to use distractions while driving. He used the gadget / app at his own discretion. I would not want gadgets to start being overly smart over what humans can decide.
17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.
There is one reason and one reason only for including Apple in this lawsuit, they have deep pockets. The family is after cash, period.
They are either hoping Apple will settle or, because of the way the US legal system works, if it goes to court and Apple is deemed even slightly at fault they will be responsible for all of the award the other responsible party(ies) can't cover.
see: Joint and several liability
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
> example; You Tube videos that 'have not been made available in your country'.
That's quite frustrating, I'm sure.
> Once someone has decided to commercially share they should not be permitted to 'select' an audience or even a specific distribution channel.
So if I write some software for United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, designed to help aid workers avoid danger, I have to sell the system to ISIS as well? While it's certainly frustrating to have trouble watching your favorite Bieber video in the format you most prefer, I may create software systems that actually impact the world, that affect your safety and security. I think I would be very irresponsible for many creators to be indifferent to how their creations are used, and by whom.
Personally, I would go so far as to say that if an artist doesn't want their best-known work to become known as the theme song of the Donald Trump (or worse, the KKK) they should be able to decline that license.
I'd gladly write stuff for Unicef at alow price and I think I'm within my rights to then decline to sell it at the same price to Martin Shkreli or Ahmadinejad.
Again I do understand your frustration, yet dictating things through law is always ham-fisted. One must be careful about the unintended consequences because every law has unintended consequences - often MOST of the instances to which a law applies aren't the types of cases it was intended for.
There's an app for that. Have you installed it?
If a firearm was manufactured without a safety, what would be the result in court?
There is no available mobile technology that can distinguish between a passenger operating a phone and the driver. So this lawyer is just looking for an easy settlement.
While most of my work is in security, and a long explanation would be necessary to understand an example, here are two simple examples I can share.
I wrote some software that would be very useful to spammers, and I've owned a couple of hosting companies. In both I "selected my audience", I declined to sell the software or hosting services to spamming scumbags. I think it's good that I can, and most people do, decline to provide software and services to spammers. I even put the following in my license file to make it easier to use my copyright against spammers:
License cost to use this software for legitimate opt-in mailing: $150
License cost to use this software for sending spam: $250,000
That would give my lawyer a (weak) basis to sue spammers for the cost of the license they failed to purchase, $250,000.
Another, less ethically clear but real example is from back in the 1990s when Microsoft's motto was "always be evil". At the time Microsoft was in legal trouble all around the world because they were constantly fucking everyone over. I wrote some which I gave away free. Sun distributed some of my software with their OS. I didn't want Microsoft using my work for evil, so my license was that everyone could use my work, for free, except Microsoft. If Microsoft wanted to use my work as part of Windows, they'd need a license from me that didn't allow it to be easily used for evil.
Since Apple patented it no one else can make it, so they didn't and the patent stopped someone else for making it. Apple is responsible!!
You are really good at debate. But to me 'debate' is not the point. The point of a debate is to win regardless or veracity, accuracy or anything really. Debate is a game and pointless except for the fact that it currently drives almost everyones opinion.
Both of us know that ISIS (Daesh please, it is more insulting) would not give a damn about copyright or even paying you and would just take it anyway. So your point was moot before you even started typing. A good debating technique but of zero societal value. Why did it make it to paper? The reason is clear from the rest of the paragraph. There you attempt character assassination, to what point? Your entire paragraph is semantically null i.e. worthless. In fact so is the rest of the post.
If you had nothing but self adulation and denigrating of others to say why did you even post? I mean it is not as if you have shown anything to be self adulating about.
Not such a subtle troll really
The only thing of value is the last paragraph but even then you continue with unnecessary aggression and false statements about your perceived 'oponent'. Saying 'law should' is not proposing a law. It is proposing that some principles should be considered in formulation law. Or have you decided that law is unnecessary? (Sorry, I should not imitate your style).
Can't wait for our phones to have location services on all the time.
It won't last beyond morning so we will have the 50% reduction of accidents due to using phones.
At the same time phone explosion deaths will sky rocket as manufacturers push to have batteries that can last a day again.
Looks like Captain Queer Timmy Cook has his tighty-Whiteys wrapped around his ankles again.
Lets get Timmy on the stand under oath to say, "Well ... your Judgeship ... yes we did get the patent ... yes we did sell it and made several million dollars ... no ... it in fact does not work ... yes we screwed the Patent System so your Judgeship can suck the skin off my penis your Honor."
Ha ha
Maybe Timmy should patent his sperm as a device to create a similar genetic copy of himself under the right conditions and not use his sperm because he is a Queer. Then Planned Parenthood sues he for negligence and misrepresentation.
Haahdhdhhdhahahahhdhdhehahhshhtheheheheh
Seems like a straight forward products liability claim which is strict liability (no mens rea, no intent, no knowledge, just actus reus and causation).
Elements of product liability
1) Product was defective in manufacture, DESIGN, or failure to warn
2) defect existed when the product left the defendant's control
3) defect caused the plaintiff's injury when the product was used in a foreseeable way
4) Specific to design defect (which this certainly falls into) you can prove that either by the consumer-expectation test or risk-utility test.
In the risk-utility test you have to show the product is defective due to the risks outweighing the benefits, or more often, show there is a reasonable alternative design.
1) Apple did nothing to prevent Facetime to be used while driving.
Note: some will say, "but he violated the law it's all his fault!" Maybe, Apple will likely say his violation of the law is a superseding cause thereby breaking the causal chain. That's unlikely to work, however, continue to see why.
2) Apple controls Facetime and the phone OS (unless jailbroken or some other alteration which would be a superseding cause) which means it is in their control.
3) Is a car accident foreseeable if someone is Facetiming while driving? Yes, certainly. But this is where we see the violation of a law become worthless. The law exists because this very harm is foreseeable. Apple can't say it was unreasonable for them to foresee this harm if there is a law stating it's foreseeable. Violating a law doesn't relieve liability, in fact, it's called negligence per se.
Elements of negligence per se:
A) Statute or regulation imposes a specific standard of care
B) Defendant is liable if the person injured is in the class of persons protected by the statute
C) the harm is the type of harm the statute was meant to protect
D) the violation of the statute was the proximate cause of the harm.
I'm not saying that negligence per se applies to Apple only that the argument that he violated the law fits negligence per se in this case. An incident that falls under a negligence per se standard cannot be unforeseeable.
4) It appears (the linked article is way light on details) that the plaintiff is going after the risk-utility test. They mention the patent most likely as a "reasonable alternative." Apple can't claim they had no reasonable alternative since they own the patent for the reasonable alternative. Apple could claim, like some here, it's not reasonable, because how do you tell a driver from passenger, etc? Well, it's reasonable for Apple to implement the patent to disallow Facetime when the GPS reads certain speeds (or however the patent works). For passengers? Make the person enter in a specific code to unlock Facetime. I have to enter a password every time I want to buy something, so it's hardly unreasonable to put in a code at this time as a safety feature to prevent a highly dangerous and highly foreseeable harm.
But the guy would have just put in the code and did it anyway. Maybe, I can't say since it didn't happen. But that would likely be a superseding act. Apple put up a barrier, and the guy broke it down. Right now Apple has no barrier's but they do have a patent on a software function to put up such a barrier. It seems reasonable to implement a safety feature that might have prevented the foreseeable harm.
Now, I can tell you're frothing at the mouth, but let me say that I'm not saying they will win. I don't know anything about the case specifically, but I do know about strict liability and the attending law (unlike most of you here). It's likely not frivolous which means that no reasonable person could believe the plaintiff could prevail. Something like Gillespie v. Goodyear. It absolutely does not mean that a case is likely to lose.
Here, it appears (without knowing all the facts) that the plaintiff could convince a reasonable jury of the elements for a defective product. The only issue would likely be whether the driver's actions were
Well, to be fair, this is Slashdot. Debating is what we do here.
Curly brace style. Vim vs Emacs. C vs C++. Perl vs Python. Spaces vs Tabs. It can get pretty ugly. And that's before politics was thrown into the mix.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Surprisingly, I agree with this family. If you patent something and don't either manufacture it or drop the patent or allow others to manufacture it, then you are responsible for impeding the progress, and therefore may be responsible for consequences. At least when you prohibit others to do what you decided not to, and I think it's safe to assume that Apple would sue anyone who would attempt to implement something that's described in their patent.
I would say that someone choosing to video chat on their phone while driving a car is 99% the main factor in that automotive crash.
If a manufacturer patented the concept of a safety preventing a fatal accident, then failed to implement it resulting in the exact fatal flaw it was designed to protect, I could easily see fault lying with the patent holder.
Let's understand the REAL issue here; the PATENT prevented everyone else from implementing a safety.
The only thing I use a cellphone for while driving is clipping the thing into a dashboard cradle for turn-by-turn navigation. As far as I'm concerned they can block everything else if the device is moving above a certain speed except perhaps making calls over a hand's free Bluetooth link and play music or audio books but I'd be pretty pissed off if I could no longer at least navigate using my smartphone. Then there is the issue of passengers. It's not surprising that the original patent :http://www.google.com/patents/US8706143 proposed to use a motion analyser to determine if you are in a driving car and a 'scenery analyser' to determine whether you are the driver. That sounds to me as if they are proposing to use the GPS chip to determine if you are driving and turn on the camera and use some kind of mini AI to determine whether you are sitting in the driver's seat driver or not and then base decisions on blocking on that. Even if that is possible given the current state of object recognition technology I think this would be a buggy feature which is probably why Apple did not bother with it. You could also add transponders to the driver's seat area and sensors to the phone (as the patent suggests) to determine if the user is the driver but it would take years and changes to automotive regulations to bring that into general use. Even if Apple had put such sensors into the iPhone 6 would have had little effect since no car these days has such transponders installed. The third method the patent mentions is a signal that is only receivable in the driver's seat area to disable the pone. That sounds like a good idea until you start pondering how long it would take texting drivers to figure out that holding the phone over the passenger seat still enables them to text while driving which is arguably worse than texting while pinning the phone to the steering wheel. Finally I'd be surprised if there was not prior art on at least two of these features. In the end it is the the idiot who texted or video chatted while driving is who bears 100% of the responsibility here just like it's the guy who brained you over the head with a baseball bat that bears the responsibility for that act and not Ye Olde New Jersy Baseball Bat Company (Inc) for failing to equip their bats with a people detector and exploding air bags.
...waze gets dued for distracting drivers with that notice!
I hate Apple, but I do hope the family looses as it's just ridiculous to sue Apple for something they didn't do and are not responsible for, the only person responsible for this is the driver that used the app.. This really sounds like a moneygrabbing sceme. Or better yet, sue the carcompanies for making cars that buckle during a crash, hell sue carcompanies for making cars that can crash.. LOL..
Because, quite frankly, this is just patenting shit to lock out other people, and a cancer that needs to be stopped.
Clearly Apple's patent didn't cause Apple to not implement it, so what do you think caused that? I would think that customers want to use their phones while riding in cars, buses, etc. Customers won't buy buy a phone that locks itself when moving.
That is your assumption.
On the other hand we have the patent from Apple where they have put in writing that they could have prevented the accident.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So, a guy crashes because he's videochatting while driving, and sues Apple for not developing a patent which would've prevented him from being an imbecile?
We're overdue for a meteorite and a start over.
were his balls cut off and was he put on the stick for his utter stupidity? Or was this one of the untouchables?
Imaging, not being able to use your phone for help because some asshat shoved you in the boot and is now driving down the freeway
> Let's understand the REAL issue here; the PATENT prevented everyone else from implementing a safety.
Clearly Apple's patent didn't cause Apple to not implement it, so what do you think caused that?
What causes a lot of brilliant ideas to not make it to the real world? Pick a reason. There are likely several to choose from. Funding probably can't be used as an excuse for one of the wealthiest companies on the planet.
I would think that customers want to use their phones while riding in cars, buses, etc. Customers won't buy buy a phone that locks itself when moving.
Then perhaps customers should stop breaking the fucking law resulting in deaths on the roads from distracted driving.
Suppose Apple tries to get really clever and try to guess whether the person using the phone is the driver or a passenger, and they advertise this "safety feature". Obviously it's not going to guess correctly all the time - sometimes it'll annoy passengers who it thinks are driving, but worse sometimes it would guess "passenger" when the person is in fact driving. An advertised safety feature that often fails is obviously a huge liability. The parents of the teenager who crashes while using her iPhone will sue Apple, saying "web bought our daughter an iPhone because you said it has this safety feature. Your safety feature didn't work, you owe us $20 million." There would be plenty of other paths to liability, of course. Suppose Apple blocks video chat but not phone calls. Teenager talking on iPhone crashes. Parents sue "you could have prevented phone calls while driving, your feature that blocks Facetime proves you can and know you should. You failed to block phone calls, you us $20 million too".
Quite frankly, I'd rather see the all-or-nothing approach. Users are idiots who don't give a shit about enacted laws to prevent distracted driving fatalities, and innocent people keep dying as a result.
Of course, we'll put autonomous solutions on the roads that are unproven and likely insecure before we take cellular capability away from the Snowflake generation. Pick your poison.
I'm scared now.
I'd better retract my patent application for "device to prevent retards from using their phones at completely inappropriate times".
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Sue sue sue...
They never implemented it because it's fucking impossible to tell the difference between a driver and a passenger. Other than, like Pokémon, forcing people to click "I am a passenger" which isn't going to stop the fucking idiots who click that even though they're driving.
This feature is never going to happen. What does need to happen is for people caught doing this and/or causing accidents to be charged with attempted murder.
Oh, and the people who think drivers should be prosecuted for having a quick check of their mail while stationary at traffic lights or whatever need to go fuck themselves.
Even more worrying than the IQ of the planet plummeting is the level of common sense plummeting even faster.
I've seen so many comments on here and other blogs about how Apple is to blame because they're "blocking" other's from using the technology. Or it's Apple's fault for not implementing it in their phones.
First, the idea sounds simple in concept until you actually look at the implementation. Can my wife not FaceTime/Skype while I'm driving? Can I not use it on the bus, taxi or train for work (which I do frequently... well, I try to avoid the bus)? How do you handle rare occasions where you can't get a consistent fix on the phone's location? If Apple could think of a good, reliable way of implementing this without regularly interfering with legitimate operations I'm pretty sure they'd be all over it because they have a PR department on steroids.
Second, this is against the law in California... so why isn't the California Highway Patrol being sued for not enforcing the law? Why isn't the car manufacturer being sued for not having a safety device that requires both hands on the wheel (there are practical problems with as well, I'm just using it as an argument)? Why aren't they required to have safety radars on all their cars (the recent Tesla video shows it might have prevented this accident)? Why isn't the cellular provider being sued for providing data service to a customer that they can tell is traveling over a certain speed? (same practical problems apply here).
Finally, almost anything can be deadly or can lead to deadly consequences. If you drop M&M's in your car and bend down to pick them up while speeding down the freeway and kill someone it is NOT M&M's fault for having a poorly designed bag. It is your fault for making a stupid, reckless decision. Period, end of story.
I want to believe this is a case of grieving parents being maneuvered by an asshat lawyer but who knows.
the PATENT prevented everyone else from implementing a safety.
No, no, and NO. Looking at the comments here so far, I strongly suspect nobody has bothered to look at the actual patent.
The patent prevents other from implementing a VERY SPECIFIC safety mechanism, most notably including a "scenery analyzer" that [magically] determines where in the car the device is based on camera inputs (this part is why you're not going to see anyone implementing this for a good long while). Claim 1 of the patent:
1. A handheld computing device comprising: a motion analyzer configured to detect whether the handheld computing device is in motion beyond a predetermined threshold level; a scenery analyzer configured to determine whether the handheld computing device is located within a safe operating area of a vehicle based on at least one of picture data and video data; and a lock-out mechanism configured to automatically and selectively disable one or more functions of the handheld computing device based on outputs from the motion analyzer and the scenery analyzer.
Can't believe there are more than two comments seriously considering whether this lawsuit has a chance of success. Some suggest Apple might settle. You can not be serious. So many on Slashdot lose any ability of critical thinking they may possess as soon as they see the word Apple. This lawsuit will be dismissed quickly. There is no law that requires a company who is awarded a patent to bring said patent to market within X time period. There is no X, there is no time period. There are a dozen other things, but it is not necessary to continue. The judge might. This lawsuit will be dismissed immediately.
Seems absolutely clear. Of course no company whats to limit use (which might even trigger on a false alarm making the device unusable when it could be used safely), because this would make offers of the competition look like a the better alternative. So clearly, such a feature would never be implemented voluntarily.
However, in case regulation is created that requires it to be implemented, this patent becomes extremely valuable. Being required to implement implies being required to pay.
So the patent is simply a gamble on a potential future legal requirements. No more, no less. (cheap fee, potentially high gain.)
Apple is not responsible for your social welfare on the public highway transportation system. Who are you going to sue next? Stereo console, climate control and screaming kids? Are you going to sue [insert party here] for not patenting an auto shut-off mechanism for screaming kids when being present in a moving vehicle?
This is actually a federal and state policy issue and a law enforcement issue as well for providing general safety. Using facetime in a vehicle is very similar to driving drunk. You are incapacitated owing to the lack of cognitive focus on driving. You should be penalized accordingly including license suspension and revocation.
Liberals, you need to stop acting spastic and grow a brain. You can't even direct your concerns to the right venue and in directing them to the wrong venue, you will damage our free enterprise system that you also rely on, thus doing twice as much harm!
We'll make great pets
...for the amount they lose.
Because the girl's parents raised a moron, they are responsible for her causing the wreck.
Should family members of victims of gun violence also be able to sue firearm manufacturers? We've seen that electronic safety measures exist, so if we can sue Apple for not implementing a safety feature on a cell phone, surely we can sue manufacturers of far more dangerous devices for failing to implement every safety feature they can, right?
OR IS THIS WHOLE THING RIDICULOUS?
Well, to be fair, this is Slashdot. Debating is what we do here.
Curly brace style. Vim vs Emacs. C vs C++. Perl vs Python. Spaces vs Tabs. It can get pretty ugly. And that's before politics was thrown into the mix.
1. Only straight ASCII quotes
2. Write your own damn editor
3. Fortran
4. Python
5. 1 tab = 4 spaces
6. Libertarian communist
This is a clear cut case of irresponsibility on the part of the driver who was driving distracted.
Completely correct. However unfortunately that doesn't bring people who are killed back to life. For better or worse we have to look for ways to solve problems like drunk or distracted driving that will prevent the accident from happening. Just punishing the offenders after the fact demonstrably doesn't fix the problem. Despite decades of strong drunk driving laws we still have thousands of fatalities every year from people driving drunk. People are still dying even in the face of laws prohibiting using phones while driving.
The end-game is a society completely risk adverse to rocking the boat or trying anything new from fear of completely manufactured legal attacks.
So we're supposed to just be ok with people dying because some asshat couldn't be bothered to get off the road before using Facetime? Look, I think this lawsuit sounds highly sketchy too but it is a real problem in need of a real solution. Maybe we should disable all calls and texts to/from a phone which is determined to be within a moving vehicle. (yes even the passengers - suck it up, You and your passengers can wait a few minutes for their call.) If it's important to speak to someone, pull off to the side of the road and put the car in park. We've clearly proven that we cannot be trusted to handle phones responsibly in a car. Don't like that solution? Fine, come up with a better one. I'm all ears, believe me. But the status quo isn't acceptable. Douchbag lawsuits obviously aren't the solution so what is?
I hope they win, yes the driver was responsible for his action but this whole patent thing is just stupid. Giving a monopoly to someone or a company for something that is probably not even working is dumb.
Does Apple's patent enable the distinction b/w a driver and passenger?
I'm not convinced it should matter. The question is whether passenger's "rights" to use their phone are more important than the safety of other drivers on the road. I would argue that safety is paramount in that context if we can actually prevent distracted driving. Until we can come up with a more fine grained solution, disable them all if that is the only safe option. Nobody's civil rights are being violated here and we've proven VERY clearly that we as a group cannot be trusted to leave the phone alone while driving. If someone can figure out a reliable way to disable only the driver's phone then we should do that but since we (so far) cannot we need to do the next best thing. I don't see any credible argument that your right to use your phone should supersede my right to use a motorway in reasonable safety. As the saying goes, your right to swing your arm ends at my nose.
Passengers use mobile devices. Are we going to lock everyone out of being able to use their gear simply because they're in a moving car? Are we going to prevent people from being productive in every instance where a reckless idiot might abuse the privilege?
Personal responsibility and accountability are all we can enforce. Crippling everyone in the name of safety is ultimately suicide.
Car manufacturers are not free to implement the version of the seatbelt used on airplanes.
For many years now laws have required cars to have three-point seatbelts (i.e. what Volvo patented) which forced manufacturers to stop using the type of seatbelt used on airplanes. Folks of a certain age remember when car seatbelt buckles were exactly like the airplane ones.
Curiously there is still much debate about whether school buses should be forced to step up to the three point belts...
Just because somebody patents something doesn't mean it is technically practical to create said device.
It may rely on technology that may not be practical (giant flying seeing-eye to monitor driver) or even exist. Unless they can show that it was possible/practical to implement, I don't see this suit going anywhere. Even then - this is a thin claim.
And --- Personal Responsibility !!! Text and Driving is known to be dangerous.
> There you attempt character assassination, to what point? Your entire paragraph is semantically null i.e. worthless. In fact so is the rest of the post.
> If you had nothing but self adulation and denigrating of others to say why did you even post?
Can you point me to what sentence you're talking about, because I re-read my post and I don't see anywhere that I said anything about you. I mentioned the KKK and Daesh as examples of people I don't want to work for; is that the "character assasination" you're talking about?
> Saying 'law should' is not proposing a law. ...
> Or have you decided that law is unnecessary?
As mentioned in my post, I've decided that new laws are generally ham-fisted, a blunt instrument. Additionally, 99.9% of the stuff that matters is already covered by existing law. Therefore, when one's first thought is "there ought to be a law" that's normally a mistake. My default position, my starting point until there is evidence otherwise, is that new laws are likely to cause more / worse problems than they solve, therefore we should be careful when we start down the road of "there ought to be a law".
I also believe generally that if you make a table, that's your table for you to use as you see fit. You can invite me to sit at your table or not. If you make a coat, it's your coat. You can keep it for yourself, you can offer to sell it to me, you can give it to me as a gift, or you can trade it to me. It's yours because you made it. If you make a computer program or tou make a song, it's your program, your song. You made it, you can do what you want with it, as a general rule. Not an absolute rule, but generally. I respect that even if I'm slightly annoyed because I'd like to sit at your table or burn a copy of your song to jam out to.
Tell us, raymorris about your fuckups in security https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5351503&cid=47379233/ & https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5351503&cid=47374033/ you admitted script kiddie https://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8895203&cid=51726265/ & tell us how ONLY 'newer script kiddie tools' have stringlength built in (when PASCAL had it for ages - my fav tool) https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8472509&cid=51114383/ YOU BLUNDERING WANNABE DOLT!
APK
P.S.=> Lots of talk no proof of these wares but proof after proof of many of your failed 'businesses'! You like to talk behind others' backs like the bitch you are raymorris https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9880997&cid=53312265/ well, here I am letting YOU TALK in those links, showing your FAILS wannabe ... apk
> Both of us know that ISIS (Daesh please, it is more insulting) would not give a damn about copyright or even paying you and would just take it anyway.
That's why the medium matters. You suggested a creator shouldn't be allowed to decide which medium is used for distribution. If I'm required by law to post all of the code code on the internet, the goat-fuckers will of course take it. If the code, at least the sensitive parts, is supplied to the aid workers embedded in a piece of hardware, it's a lot harder for Daesh to get, and especially harder for them to get many of them.
Therefore, while probably more than half the code I've written in my career in publicly available on Github or similar places, some is intentionally available only to approved customers. For fifteen years some groups of bad guys have been trying to figure out exactly how certain elements of my security code work, and for fifteen years I've been able to mislead them with decoys because I don't have to put the code on Github for them to see.
this is exactly the same degree of stupidity that Apple uses to sue other companies.
How about if I patent personal responsibility and sue the parents for not implementing it in their kids?
2 raymorris security fuckups https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5351503&cid=47379233/ & https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5351503&cid=47374033/ admitting you = script kiddie https://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8895203&cid=51726265/
&
Tell us how ONLY 'newer script kiddie tools' have stringlength built in (when PASCAL had it for ages - my fav tool) https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8472509&cid=51114383/ YOU BLUNDERING WANNABE!
APK
P.S.=> Lots of talk no proof of these wares but proof after proof of many of your failed 'businesses'! You like to talk behind others' backs like the bitch you are raymorris https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9880997&cid=53312265/ well, here I am letting YOU TALK in those links, showing your FAILS wannabe ... apk
I like the idea of suing people who sit on their patents without bringing them to market, but yeah, this was solely the driver's fault, not Apple's.
I would imagine it's been tested in court, but since Patents are intended to protect the ability of the inventor to sell their invention, why aren't patents that the inventor fails to bring to market within a reasonable time inherently invalidated? What's the rationale behind allowing companies to sit on patents that they aren't actively marketing?
2 raymorris security fuckups https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5351503&cid=47379233/ & https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5351503&cid=47374033/ admitting you = script kiddie https://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8895203&cid=51726265/
&
Tell us how ONLY 'newer script kiddie tools' have stringlength built in (when PASCAL had it for ages - my fav tool) https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8472509&cid=51114383/ YOU BLUNDERING WANNABE!
APK
P.S.=> Lots of talk no proof of these wares that NOBODY USES but proof after proof of many of your failed 'businesses'! You like to talk behind others' backs like the bitch you are raymorris https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9880997&cid=53312265/ well, here I am letting YOU TALK in those links, showing your FAILS wannabe ... apk
2 raymorris security fuckups https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5351503&cid=47379233/ & https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5351503&cid=47374033/ admitting you = script kiddie https://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8895203&cid=51726265/
&
Tell us how ONLY 'newer script kiddie tools' have stringlength built in (when PASCAL had it for ages - my fav tool) https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8472509&cid=51114383/ YOU BLUNDERING WANNABE!
APK
P.S.=> Lots of talk no proof of these wares that NOBODY USES but proof after proof of many of your failed 'businesses'! You like to talk behind others' backs like the bitch you are raymorris https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9880997&cid=53312265/ well, here I am letting YOU TALK in those links, showing your FAILS wannabe ... apk
Blame anyone but themselves. On the other hand, I love their self-incrimination act. I hope cops will laugh in their face and send them where they belong — a federal prison. Apropo, are they asking Apple to shut down ALL OF THEIR PHONES while moving faster than 20MPH? Cretins and imbeciles, those are my first thoughts when I read this article. Ice cold prison cell will clear up their crocked minds.
Because patenting something and then not using said patent simply reeks of patent troll.
If you patent something, you should be required to produce it immediately in order to keep your patent protections.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Hey, I'm sorry one of their children died in a needless car crash, but we all know, had this been a RICH Hollywood/sports/entertainer, they would go after them, and not apple. The DRIVER was 100% responsible, not Apple.
From a Wikipedia article :
"In 1917, the two major aircraft patent holders, the Wright Company and the Curtiss Company, had effectively blocked the building of new airplanes, which were desperately needed as the United States was entering World War I. The U.S. government, as a result of a recommendation of a committee formed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, pressured the industry to form a cross-licensing organization (in other terms a Patent pool), the Manufacturer's Aircraft Association."
I can just imagine a judge hearing: "Let me explain this peculiar reason why Apple has to give me free money. Bonus! There's a lot of nuance."
This is a family who've suffered a loss at the hands of a young man who lacks any assets. He probably has minimal (or no) auto insurance. Using the legal "deep pockets" theory (relatively recent in US History) the family lawyers are going after whomever they can find with even a tenuous tie to the incident but with huge assets. They're not even really hoping to win. In cases like this the plaintiffs and their lawyers are generally hoping that the party with the "deep pockets" will find it quicker, easier, cheaper, and less of a PR problem to settle out of court. It's nothing less than lawyer-assisted blackmail. They might have overreached on this one, however, because Apple is unlikely to want to settle - that would open them up to nearly unlimited global liability going forward.
This is the sort of lawyer overreach that drives-up costs for everything for everybody and even prevents new tech from ever reaching the market. Every company with good lawyers will ask lots of questions about any new product or service - not just "is this dangerous?" but rather "does this create a new vector for a legal attack?".
This is fundamentally corrosive to a society: Instead of encouraging accountability for individuals, it encourages finger-pointing and blame-shifting. Rather than blaming a bad driver for a crash, we sue the company that made his car or the company that made his smartphone. Instead of blaming a murderer, we go after the gun maker. Instead of blaming the guy who goes on a high-speed chase, we blame the car maker... Lawyers may love this as they rack-up the huge legal fees and count their billable hours, but the society as a whole loses.
It's sad that this family lost their child to a young man acting irresponsibly (something hardly rare in human history), but the blame needs to sit squarely on the shoulders of that young man.
Have gnu, will travel.
The true end-game of this - and almost all legal scenarios - is to make sure that lawyers are still necessary. If you step back, you will see that they have created a legal system that they tend like a garden to solely ensure that they are necessary. It doesn't matter what kind of lawyer. I have not checked, but would be willing to bet that a lawyer initiated this lawsuit (playing on the emotions of a grieving family). Step back and consider who all the real winners are in this scenario... it's the lawyers.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
While it would be nice, it wouldn't happen.
What would happen is that companies would either sell their unused patents to another company, who could hold onto it for a while, then do the same. Or they would just create a subsidiary, and sell it to them. Or some other shenanigans that I don't have the mentality to think up. However, what it would ensure is that patent attorneys would still be need (more than ever!) which in my book is a bad idea.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
From my point of view the evil doer must be punished more than those who have lesser involvements in the crime. Apple should make it impossible to use these products in a running car. However the driver who chose to use the product while driving is the major culprit. So let's say we put him in prison for 20 years. How much income will he lose? In fact, if he is well invested he might have substantial earning while in prison. How much must the world bend to compensate for the idiots among us?
I wonder if they are also suing the car manufacturer for not blocking the driver from driving while using FaceTime. Because, nothing is ever a millennial's fault.
People who post to Slashdot without thinking about the consequences of their idiotic proposals should lose their Internet access for 10 years or be forced to prove their IQ is above room temperature because they're clearly not qualified..
Note for those room temperature IQ types: This is sarcasm.
and shoot on sight all the copyright/patent trolls.
... Murica!!!!
You understand what a straw man is, don't you? I will give you a clue. When you use such a straw man every one knows its a worthless post. A worthless argument.
Maybe you need to do some reading and learning.
I'm sorry for the family, but Apple didn't make anyone use FaceTime. Why not take it another step and sue Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot for inventing the self propelled vehicle? He would be the one person responsible for all vehicle deaths right?
Some people actually need their meds, and some people don't. You start talking crazy when you're off your meds.
!!BEGIN ideal world
So why did you not include this patent in your software?
It would not have been useful since it could not tell if the user was the driver or a passenger.
So what is the patent good for?
Ur, Um, grumble. grumble.
Dear patent office, Apple has a patent for a device which has no use.
Ok, no problem it's I guess we shouldn't have issued it.
!!END ideal world
We're in an age where it's not politically correct to say that an individual is at fault for something. Sure the driver caused the accident but he's not at fault because Apple didn't implement a feature on it's phone. Because the driver couldn't possibly have the self control to not use the phone. It always has to be the fault of a corporation or the government.
This makes sense, possibly. If Apple is preventing this safety feature by the use of the patent then yes. This could save many lives and Apple should be held accountable, but if no one has asked to license the patent, then Apple will most likely win this by a simple dismissal. Just owning a patent fires not prohibit others from licensing and creating, and then everybody is guilty since no one did so.
Everybody copes with grief in their own way. Lashing out at anybody you can is one of those ways. It isn't Apple's fault that some dipshit was too fucking stupid to not be facetiming when he was driving any more than it's the government's fault for building the road and issuing a driver's license.
If you're a distracted driver, and that distracted driving leads to an accident, it's your fault and nobody else's.
Where do lawyers come up with this crap? The person driving is at fault, full stop. I hope this dies in a fire to prevent other idiots who think this is a valid direction from using it.
For a) Not challenging the patent b) Not licensing it from Apple Yes, it was not an Android phone BUT had they attempted to implement the technology, that would have put market pressure on Apple to follow suit.
Well, here come the mobile phone mandatory warning labels:
COMMON SENSE WARNING: Driving while using a mobile phone may cause serious injury or death to you or others!
Even if the patent was implemented, the guy would probably have been using a different video-chat app due to Facetime's usability being limited by the safety feature.
I know! We could sue Tesla for not personally giving this guy a self-driving car that could have mitigated the accident.
We could blame the police for not having officers posted every 100 ft of road to enforce the distracted driving laws.
Or we could blame the fucking user
"I don't shoot my mouth off without knowing what I'm talking about" - by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Thursday December 31, 2015 @09:29AM (#51215379)
BS (I catch you shooting your mouth off fucking up constantly): 2 raymorris security fuckups https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5351503&cid=47379233/ & https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5351503&cid=47374033/ admitting you = script kiddie https://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8895203&cid=51726265/
&
Tell us how ONLY 'newer script kiddie tools' have stringlength built in (when PASCAL had it for ages - my fav tool) https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8472509&cid=51114383/ YOU BLUNDERING WANNABE!
APK
P.S.=> You like to talk behind others' backs like the gossiping bitch TROLL you are raymorris https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9880997&cid=53312265/ well, here I am letting YOU TALK in those links, showing your FAILS wannabe ... apk