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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 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.
Yes, it's awesome a company is being sued because some idiot was video chatting while driving.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
Sueing Apple for using the patent system to block others from implementing this particular technology and deciding to not implement it themselves seems to be at the heart of this. Yes the idiot driving while video chatting is primarily to blame but when you block other companies from implementing a safety type device, are you not somewhat liable for situations happening because the technology is not allowed to be used?
Not that I think Apple should be held accountable here, but since Apple was the one who patented it, its patent status would not have been an impediment for them to include it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
No. This is a clear cut case of irresponsibility on the part of the driver who was driving distracted. The problem with blame-chain games like this is that they are too easily weaponized to target specific links that happen to be political/corporate competition. The end-game is a society completely risk adverse to rocking the boat or trying anything new from fear of completely manufactured legal attacks.
No.
The end game is to get a piece of 618 billion dollars in cash.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
You say that like the job of the vast majority of safety mechanisms isn't to avoid or mitigate human error.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Which by the way, every safety patent that was not implemented could be fertile new work for patent trolls
Actually if they started doing this it might help eliminate patent tr-olls. Patent trolls have traditionally been the ones holding the patents. Getting competing tr-olls on the other side trying to find unused patents would make it harder to stockpile thousands of unused patents. This might make patents more of a use it or lose it situation which would probably be a good thing overall for innovation. If you had to actually implement and sell your patented idea in order to hold on to the patent this would make patent stockpiling by patent trolls much harder. Right now what we have is companies patenting every crazy idea that they come up with even when they have no plans to implement it just so they can collect royalties or flaunt their patent war chest. This makes it hard for small people without war chests to do anything without infringing on something. This is the exact opposite of what the patent system was designed to do.
** "Filter error: Lameness filter encountered" -- Apparently I'm not suppose to talk about tr-olls on slashdot even when the article is about them.
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.
Yeah, the suit would make more sense if the guy that caused the accident was using e.g. youtube on a samsung phone, and one of those vendors had at some point been litigated against by Apple to prevent them from implementing the feature.
Someone had to do it.
That's your bar? You right to "feel" safe is priority over others rights as long as it doesn't violate their Civil Rights? Distracted driving isn't going to disappear just because people wouldn't be able to use mobile devices.
You don't want to restrict the rights of the person swinging their arm. You want to restrict everyone's rights. You're telling my kids that they can't play their games or text their friends during our 90 minute drive to grandma's house. Your safety is unaffected by them. What you want to call "reasonable safety" I would argue is quite unreasonable.