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.

Comments

I should have been a lawyer

[Anonymous Coward]

Then I could rope emotionally distraught people into my lucrative lawsuits, and give them nothing in return.

This is fucking awesome

[mutantSushi]

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.

Re:This is fucking awesome

[ahabswhale]

Yes, it's awesome a company is being sued because some idiot was video chatting while driving.

Re:This is fucking awesome

[mark-t]

Also, its not it's

How deliciously ironic.

Re:This is fucking awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re: This is fucking awesome

[mark-t]

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.

Re:This is fucking awesome

[mark-t]

Since the idiotic driver that caused the accident was using Apple's own Facetime video chat at the time, how does Apple blocking others from implementing this technology come into play here?

Re:This is fucking awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple isn't accountable for his driving, they are accountable for not enabling a feature they patented for whatever reason (will be interesting to know) that would have prevented idiots like that driver. They also at the same time denied others the right to use this safety feature and similar features to prevent accidents.

I.e. Volvo patented the safety belt, they implemented it and let all use it royalty free for the betterment of humans, as safety first. Apple patents a safety feature, refuses to implement it and refuses to let anyone else implement said feature so that small girls can be killed by idiot drivers.

Re:This is fucking awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Who says others were blocked from implementing it ?
Ever heard of licensing ?

And as for "primarily to blame", the driver is TOTALLY to blame in this crash. Nobody forced the driver to use a mobile phone while driving, he/she made that concious decision to do it despite the well publicised dangers and laws against doing so.

But hey, it's good to try and pass the buck and sue someone with more money.

Re:This is fucking awesome

[epyT-R]

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.

Re:This is fucking awesome

[CaptainDork]

No.

The end game is to get a piece of 618 billion dollars in cash.

Re:This is fucking awesome

[Pseudonym]

You say that like the job of the vast majority of safety mechanisms isn't to avoid or mitigate human error.

Re: This is fucking awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple have been known to sue about particular features regardless of the implementation. The chilling effects from their willingness to sue and their deep pockets are real, and a patent they hold will prevent others from implementing similar functionality.

Re:This is fucking awesome

[Theaetetus]

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.

Except, no, a patent does not give you the right to manufacture something. It's a right to exclude others from manufacturing your invention (or selling, or using, or importing it). For example, say I get a patent on a chair - seat, 4 legs, and a back. I can sue you if you make a chair. But can I make one? What if some AC has a patent on a stool - seat, 4 legs? I can't build chairs without infringing his patent. So my patent doesn't give me a right to make anything.

Apple's patent doesn't give it a right to make a lockout system, just prevent others from doing so - not that they've done such. So, no, the family has no claim whatsoever. This is just a money grab by some lawyer who thinks he can make headlines to extort a big settlement.

Re: This is fucking awesome

[LeftCoastThinker]

Don't know what you are talking about. It is extremely simple and I think even built in to the GPS be able to detect the speed of the phone within a few MPH (dx/dt). Detecting if the driver is using face time as opposed to a passenger is almost impossible for GPS alone, but yeah, it is felony stupid to text/facetime/play with your phone while driving. There should be a federal law that locks all features on a phone except hands free calls for drivers 16-24 years of age, considering it is consistently that "invincible" demographic that is killing people while driving and messing with the phone.

Re: This is fucking awesome

[Wycliffe]

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.

Re: This is fucking awesome

[skids]

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.

Re:This is fucking awesome

[skids]

Have you ever read a patent? They tend to try to be written to cover almost every practical implementation.

Re: This is fucking awesome

[Sassinak]

You would have to prove malicious intent.

Having a patent on an idea is not the same as implementing it.

At its simplest, it would be based on the accelerometer.. which means anyone traveling in ANYTHING would be barred..
On that Bus trip to see the family with the kids but want to facetime grandma (who's not along).. sorry.. We don't know its YOU driving, or YOU are just a passenger.
Want to facetime a co-worker/family member because you are scared in a bad area of town.. Sorry.. you are going to fast.. slow down to sub 5 miles per hour and then try your potentially life saving call with VIDEO evidence.

Basically having an idea and implementing it in a way that prevents the invention from turning a phone into a brick when going over 5 miles per hour is not the same. If you want to start from the premise that any patent not implemented is an attempt from banning others, then technically ALL R&D is warfare.. when in fact, most are capturing ideas for potential but are so costly and risky to implement, you would rather sell the concept to others (For them to implement, and take the heat)

Re:This is fucking awesome

[AmiMoJo]

TFA is misleading. The lawsuit points out that Apple knew that there was a potential danger here. It knew that people would use the service irresponsibly, and went to the trouble of developing a safety mechanism to counter the problem. I imagine they didn't implement it because it would be hard to differentiate between someone driving and using Facetime and someone in the passenger seat or on a train or a bus.

Anyway, the fact that Apple knew about it and went to the effort of developing a way to mitigate the danger creates the potential for some liability. There is actually a history of this kind of lawsuit. Years back a guy tried to sue the manufacturer of a table saw for not including technology to stop the blade when it contacted human skin. Car manufacturers have been sued for not including safety equipment or mitigating things that confused drivers like the carpet getting stuck between the accelerator and the brake.

Personally I don't think it has merit, but the fact that it keeps coming up suggests that there is at least a need for some clarification.

Re:This is fucking awesome

[wvmarle]

I.e. Volvo patented the safety belt, they implemented it and let all use it royalty free for the betterment of humans, as safety first.

You can not patent "the seat belt". You can, however, patent a certain way of making seat belts, e.g. the locking mechanism that stops the belt when it's pulled quickly. Other manufacturers are free to implement a different version of the seat belt, such as the one used on airplanes for example.

Your example is more to how horrible software patents are, as it seems Apple patented an idea ("stop certain function driving") rather then a technology (which would be more like "a specific method of recognising someone is driving and using that to block certain functions on the phone"). There may be several ways to detect whether someone is driving (GPS speed, shaking of the vehicle, acceleration, a bluetooth link to the car, whatever) so the patent of Apple shouldn't be able to prevent someone to implement a similar feature, they would only be prevented from using a specific, non-obvious way of detecting whether the phone's owner is driving.

Re:This is fucking awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not awesome. There are a number of reasons why the patented idea might not have been implemented, some of which are completely out of Apple's control. It's a shame that your post has been modded up, because it's not particularly insightful or interesting.

I've actually read the patent, and although the idea sounds simple in principle, it's probably difficult to reliably implement. There are also some privacy concerns involved. Unlike you, I've actually read the patent, instead of quickly trying to get first post. There are two approaches described in the patent, depending on whether there are modifications to the vehicle to implement a zone where some features of mobile devices are locked out. It defines a zone, where the driver would sit, where many functions are locked out; however, there is also a "safe zone" where a passenger can operate the phone with all functions enabled.

If modifications are required to a vehicle, that requires action on the part of the vehicle's owner or manufacturer. Apple couldn't be legally responsible for someone else choosing not to implement their own technology. Basically, this involves a transmitter that has a very short range, only covering areas of the vehicle where the driver would sit, and thus would be unsafe for a phone to be used. I don't think Apple could be responsible at all for this not being implemented, unless the reason for it not being implemented was Apple unreasonably refusing to license the technology. I see no indication that this has occurred.

The other approach requires no modification to the vehicle, but requires two inputs from the phone's sensors. One is a "motion analyzer" that, in reality, is simply using GPS, cell phone signals, or a light sensor to determine if a phone is in motion. Using GPS would require that a phone have GPS enabled at all times, which is problematic for the privacy of users and adversely affects battery life. Using the signal strength of cell phone signals and determining if a phone is switching from one tower to another seems to be much less accurate at determining if a phone is in motion. The idea that changing brightness would indicate if a phone is in motion seems quite inaccurate to me. Although not mentioned in the patent, I suppose you could also use wifi signals and the signal strength of different base stations to estimate the position and determine motion. However, this also seems prone to error, and requires that the phone receive wifi signals. It's prone to error.

Just as problematic is the "scenery analyzer" that would require the user of the phone to pan its camera around to see if the phone is where the driver sits, or if it's in the "safe zone" of the car. It seems like this is prone to error and would require software that can reliably determine, based on images or video from the camera, where in a car the phone is located. The idea is that it would look for things like a steering wheel to determine if the driver is using the phone. The patent also suggests that the "scenery analyzer" could identify faces and determine how many occupants are present in the vehicle, presumably locking out features if there's only one occupant. Again, this seems prone to errors, and would be something that would be highly annoying to users. What happens, for example, if the car is operating at night? It's not safe to turn on lights inside the car at night while the vehicle is in motion, though I suppose this could be solved with an infrared light and camera on the phone. However, I'm not sure this could easily prevent a passenger from unlocking a phone for a driver, then handing it to the driver. It would also be a significant annoyance to people using phones will on mass transit vehicles, especially if they frequently start and stop moving. Would a user who boards a train and starts using their phone while it's stopped be interrupted and have to pan the phone's camera around every time the vehicle starts moving? It seems like this would be extremely annoying to users who safely operating their phones whil

Re:This is fucking awesome

[F.Ultra]

What they invented, the 3-point safety belt, was indeed something that they could have patented but choose not to due to increased safety for all: https://jalopnik.com/volvo-gav...

Creative solution to patent trolls

[chiasmus1]

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.

Re:Creative solution to patent trolls

[king neckbeard]

No, the whole point of patents is to be a subsidy via monopoly for inventors. If you could reliably keep a valuable secret while in operation for 20 years or more, you'd have to be an idiot to get a patent. However, if anybody can figure it out after you've sold one, than a patent could be useful.

Re:Creative solution to patent trolls

[pem]

As soon as you create something that is copyrightable, you have a copyright on it.

You don't have to do anything; it just is.

Requiring people to share everything they create is not workable in any world I want to live in.

Re:Creative solution to patent trolls

[Demena]

I do not disagree. I was thinking of the way copyright is used to prevent circulation of materials such as movies, books, programs etc.

If I want a copy of The Game of Thrones and they will not sell it to me then 'piracy' is not (in my opinion) an unethical option. I was talking commercial copyright not personal copyright. Once someone has decided to commercially share they should not be permitted to 'select' an audience or even a specific distribution channel.

Take the iTunes stores as an example; I wish to purchase some products that are available in the US store but not in the Australian one. Another example; You Tube videos that 'have not been made available in your country'. Of course this is seldom a problem to people in the US.

Re:Creative solution to patent trolls

[djinn6]

Requiring people to share everything they create is not workable in any world I want to live in.

I think it is reasonable to require them to share it with the government if they want to copyright it. Otherwise, they can either not share it with anyone, share it only with people they trust, or release it into the public domain.

The original intent of copyright is to promote the availability of creative works by allowing the creators to sell copies of the work for profit for a limited amount of time. The practically eternal copyright term notwithstanding, the public is expected, for the cost of enforcing copyright, be given the work once the term expires, to consume directly or to produce derivative works from. However, if copyright holders can withdraw the work before the term expires, for example, by using encryption, region lock and other technical means to remove the work from circulation, then it will never end up in public domain. This breaks the contract between creators and the public and promotes the existence of a rent-seeking class that doesn't produce new content, but profits from it nonetheless.

So by requiring them to share it with the government, we can guarantee that copyrighted works will eventually land in the public domain, and not simply disappear forever.

Primary factor

[JBMcB]

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.

Re:Primary factor

[geekmux]

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.

Re:Primary factor

[CaptainDork]

This motion-inhibiting implementation is very similar to the litigation trajectory that gave us fire codes, fire exits, occupancy limits, fire extinguishers, smoke alarms, sprinklers, and no-parking red fire zones.

That shit came to pass after the cost of litigation exceeded the cost of compliance.

Re:Heartwarming

[nitehawk214]

Oh so all those perpetual motion machines that have been patented are all ready to go? Cool.

Good. Its a freaking epidemic.

[JustNiz]

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.

Customers, not the patent, caused it to not be don

[raymorris]

> 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".

Re:MSJ

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Because the cause was someone being irresponsible. Apple is not at fault there.

Re:The person in question would have disabled it

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

And so I hope that Apple fucking buries the avaricious family for being assholes.

Re: Applying tort to patents

[bombastinator]

You won't need it. This is a classic nuisance suit. I watched a lawsuit much like this in court once. A driver of a bobcat wasnt wearing his seatbelt when he lifted a load too high digging out a house foundation, and it fell into the foundation and he was crushed. He got absolutely nowhere.
If using the phone in such a way while driving was not illegal, they might have a case, but the driver broke the law and is solely liable. This sort of case is a 95% loser. Barring incopetence of the defense it has no chance. There is thhat 5% though. Also it will cost apple a good bit of money to win the court case which they will not get back. This case was likely taken on 33% contingency. The sleazeballs pushing it are looking for a portion of what it would cost apple to defwnd the case in a settlement. They might even get it if this was a one time affair. The problem is it isn't. Apple would have to keep on payong for every accident. There are two likely outcomes:

A. Apple offera tiny tiny settlement which is eaten almost entirely by the lawyers, screwing over the family, or

B. Apple pulls the trigger and demands a court case. It will cost them a couple hundred grand at least to puto bed, the plaintid's lawyers eat it partially because they will be desperately trying to avoid a situation where they will not only lose but also have pay apple's court costs.

So its give the family a pittance and reward the troll attourneys, or punish the attounrneys. I would really rather take B myself but it almost certainly won't happen. In the case of the bobcat thing it went to court because the plaintiff was so offended by the fact that the lawyers that talked him into it so badly screwed him that he screwed them back by excercizing his right to go to trial, forcing them to prosecite the ridiculous dog of a case and get hammered for it by the court.

Awesome

[Vadim Makarov]

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.

Re: Applying tort to patents

[keltor]

They will file to dismiss and it will likely be dismissed. It will cost Apple 1 hour of time for one of their lawyers and maybe 1 hour of time for one of their paralegals that screens all the cases. They'll also have to hire someone to file the dismissal, but there's some services you can hire that you just pay on a monthly basis that removes the actual expense of the filing and all that jazz from Apple's direct checkbook. Given that both the their lawyer and their paralegal will be under salary for Apple, they will likely pay nothing to handle the case. If they get a shitty judge then it might be less fun for them $$$-wise, but seeing past Apple actions, they will not offer any settlement at all.

Re:Fortune hunters

[Sabriel]

From the article summary, "a lock-out mechanism to prevent operation of one or more functions of handheld computing devices by drivers when operating vehicles," Apple apparently disagrees?

Yes, you and I both know the reality. And I'd be ecstatic if the entire patent system disappeared up its own hypocritical butthole and never returned. But if Apple wants to make such claims then they can have their day(s) in court to explain how their patent claim isn't actually claiming what it says it claims while still being legally allowed to make that claim.

Re: Applying tort to patents

[AndrewMontana]

Yes, they should already know, but that's *common sense*. You cannot expect a person to have common sense in a court of law, which is rather barbaric.

Re:MSJ

[ZenShadow]

It's bad law because, in the end, Apple had nothing to do with the accident. He could have just as easily been eating a Subway sandwich. Should Subway have been liable because the guy was a douche and their Sandwich bag lacked a mechanism to prevent him from eating it while driving?

To put it a more relevant way: car manufacturers have the technology to prevent rear-end crashes. Some production vehicles actually implement this (Infiniti has that system if memory serves). Automatic braking. This guy's car obviously didn't have it; the kid would still be alive if it did. Should they be able to sue the car manufacturer for leaving out a safety feature that the law doesn't mandate?

The law does not currently mandate that cell phone manufacturers prevent the use of cell phones while driving.

Now, if there was a legal mandate and Apple left it out, then that's a different thing, but that's not the situation. Apple broke no laws. Apple wasn't aware of the situation. It's well known by now that you shouldn't use a phone while driving, and they're not responsible for educating drivers on that fact. Nor are they responsible for dictating what their customers may or may not due with their technology.

Drivers are held solely accountable for the responsible operation of their vehicles. Apple was not operating the vehicle in any way, shape, or form. Sandwich or iPhone running facetime, the guy was being an idiot and should have known better. There is no excuse.

If this case succeeds, it paves the way for manufacturers to be sued for just about anything that goes wrong. This is not a sane thing. You may think it's okay because "Apple had the technology and should have implemented it," but you're not thinking about the precedent this would set.

We're talking about a body of resulting case law that would end up requiring manufacturers of ALL products to predict every possible misuse of their products, and actively prevent them, or end up the victims of every ambulance-chasing lawyer in the country (more than they already are). The patent is a red herring; well known technology exists to do lots of things, and the fact that it's patented is irrelevant. The manufacturers know about these technologies.

Forcing them to be responsible for their customer's sanity in such a situation is an unrealistic goal unless you want to destroy every hardware business in the United States.

Apple was not at fault. The driver was. The driver should be nailed to the wall for it, and passing blame won't help with that.

Re:Apply Same Logic As Firearms

[ZenShadow]

I don't know if there's actually a law on that (I suspect there is), but it's not really relevant. A firearm is deliberately designed to harm and/or destroy things. A phone is not. These two products should have different standards applied.

Only in America

[Lisandro]

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.

Re:Only in America

[RPI Geek]

Not quite.

A guy crashes because he's videochatting while driving, and the family who he crashed into sues Apple for not developing a patent which may have prevented him from being an imbecile.

Agreed on the meteorite though.

This is just stupid, no matter the "real" motive

[thesandbender]

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.

Re: Applying tort to patents

[Hognoxious]

In most places getting a driver's license requires a theory test, and part of that is laws related to driving.

Even if it didn't, ignorantia juris non excusat.

Re: Applying tort to patents

[Bob Gelumph]

There is the distinction that by patenting the invention, Apple has stopped anyone (including others) from implementing the safety feature, unlike the seatbelt example. It's almost certainly a losing case, but it could get interesting.

Re:Applying tort to patents

[Big Hairy Ian]

I'll get the popcorn.

No matter the outcome the only winner will be the Lawyers

Re: Applying tort to patents

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

You won't need it. This is a classic nuisance suit. I watched a lawsuit much like this in court once. A driver of a bobcat wasnt wearing his seatbelt when he lifted a load too high digging out a house foundation, and it fell into the foundation and he was crushed. He got absolutely nowhere.

This is probably true. But there is some chance you'll be wrong, even if a small one. I'm not a lawyer, but my best friend is and over the years he's taught me a lot about how the US legal system really works. Literally anything can happen in court. I agree that probably this case will go nowhere, but it depends on the judge and their personal biases and how stupid the jury is that gets the case. Believe me, the people suing are going to want a jury to hear this one. For example, a judge may think this is stupid but also feel that a jury, not him, needs to make that determination. Or you could have a crackpot judge who completely buys the argument that Apple is at fault here and it also goes to a jury. If you've ever served on a jury, you'll know that juries are not made up of the best and brightest of us. I've served twice and the last time I served, one day while we were waiting in the jury room for court to start, 3 guys on the jury got into an argument where they tried to top each other by each one of them offering proof that he was far stupider in dealing with new technology than the other 2 were. These are exactly the kind of people who serve on juries. And people who try to "win" an argument that they are stupider than everybody else are the kind of people who might be swayed by the arguments of the people suing.

By the way, you mentioned (but I didn't quote it) fear of the litigants having to pay Apple's court costs. That's almost impossible. Judges and lawyers both think that the US legal system is perfect as it is and doesn't need fixing and as a result judges are extremely hesitant to award legal costs even for frivolous lawsuits. Judges and lawyers believe that awarding such costs will lessen the number of lawsuits, which they universally feel is very bad indeed for them. Fewer lawsuits means fewer lawyers, which means fewer judges. Legal costs are awarded only in very egregious cases to send a message and most likely this case won't be one of them.

Re: Applying tort to patents

[MachineShedFred]

It doesn't matter - Apple is not using external counsel. They have a whole stable of lawyers that they can pick from in order to make this go away.

Do you really think that a company of Apple's size doesn't get sued constantly by anyone who can dream up any cause of action that might have a slight chance at getting them money? Between shareholders getting pissed because they bought stock at the wrong time to bullshit like TFA, they probably have their own private entrance at the courthouse for dealing with this garbage.

Re: Applying tort to patents

[kelemvor4]

Really? Courts around here require you to be a more or less sane person if you want to drive a car. If you try to use the defense that you can't be expected to have common sense, the least you can expect is for the judge to invalidate your driver's license because by your own confession you're unfit to handle a vehicle.

If you complain enough and piss off the judge he just might incapacitate you. And try to get out of THAT again.

You better accept that you're expected to have common sense when going to court around here. That's why the whole "I'm too stupid to conduct my own life and hence I sue the company not telling me to not do $stupid_thing" isn't flying here.

Except the driver is dead, so who cares if the court wants to revoke their license.

Re:Who's rights are paramount?

[fuzznutz]

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.

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.

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.

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.