Now, I haven't read all of the 25 patents issued to Apple, but this article makes the classic mistake of confounding the specification (which describes lots of stuff) and the claims (which describe what is protected). Here is what this patent is actually about:
1. A method, comprising: at a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display: displaying a portion of an electronic document on the touch screen display, wherein the displayed portion of the electronic document has a vertical position in the electronic document; displaying a vertical bar on top of the displayed portion of the electronic document, the vertical bar displayed proximate to a vertical edge of the displayed portion of the electronic document, wherein: the vertical bar has a vertical position on top of the displayed portion of the electronic document that corresponds to the vertical position in the electronic document of the displayed portion of the electronic document; and the vertical bar is not a scroll bar; detecting a movement of an object in a direction on the displayed portion of the electronic document; in response to detecting the movement: scrolling the electronic document displayed on the touch screen display in the direction of movement of the object so that a new portion of the electronic document is displayed, moving the vertical bar to a new vertical position such that the new vertical position corresponds to the vertical position in the electronic document of the displayed new portion of the electronic document, and maintaining the vertical bar proximate to the vertical edge of the displayed portion of the electronic document; and in response to a predetermined condition being met, ceasing to display the vertical bar while continuing to display the displayed portion of the electronic document, wherein the displayed portion of the electronic document has a vertical extent that is less than a vertical extent of the electronic document.
Translated from patent-speak, this just means that the little position indicator along the side of the display indicates where you are in a document. Further claims indicate that the position indicator disappears when you don't do anything for a minute. Anyone who has seen iOS (or Mac OS X Lion) has seen it.
If I were Google, though, I wouldn't care about this patent. Why not? Because of the words "and the vertical bar is not a scroll bar." These words were added to get around prior art. All Google would need to do is allow its position indicator to also function as a scroll bar and this patent doesn't apply.
I am annoyed by patents as much as the next guy - more, even, because I deal with them every day - but this kind of breathlessness helps absolutely no one.
Or, anyone who has used the default Nokia S60 browser (such as on the E7x series devices).
Apple fourth fiscal quarter of 2012 started in the last week of June and will conclude in the last week of September.
WWDC usually falls in FQ3, one month a go Apple released new notebooks during the event. That was good timing, it means Apple will be able to keep up with demand when the Back to School crowd starts shopping.
Mountain Lion will be released within the next two weeks, which will also boost Mac sales.
The next hardware announcement will be no earlier than September (new iPhone), but that will probably still be in FQ4.
Oh, a scrollbar that disappears. Okay...
Of course they piss away credibility doing that, but credibility seems to hold little value these days.
Interesting to note that on OS/X Lion, the indicator DOES function as a scrollbar. And when it doesn't on IOS, it bugs me (try flicking through a very long document with the non-grabable indicator on iOS). Sounds like Apple has been granted a patent for a less-usable variant of an existing technology.
Can I take away the headlights from a car and patent it as something new?
Honestly, is this patent any different than shit we've seen over the last 5 years from many different companies?
Oh boy, more litigation, more fees, etc, etc. I just want google to get pissed enough to start suing for map-reduce.
Now having said all that "and the vertical bar does not act as a scroll bar" -- that is a obvious improvement, you cannot claim that it took years of research to figure this shit out. This will not hold up in court. It will, however, cost lots of $$$$.
Don't fear poor Android phones, you're safe for now.
Ultimately I think the solution is going to be one of the ones Judge Posner outlined in his editorial, but it might take a big shakeup like this to turn patents into the issue-of-the-moment for the populace and get something done (you know, in the usual rushed, nobody-read-this-legislation way).
Unfortunately I'm pretty sure Apple wouldn't get that far - they could demand a $20 or $30 royalty instead, so consumers won't be directly confronted with the insanity; Android phones would just start being closer in price to iPhones.
Until then, it's a painful, expensive process.
So, yes indeed, bring on the reductio ad absurdum.
Have members of this forum thought about the consequences of an unencumbered India and China with a large developer community?
I once worked in a place that designed a CPAP pump, which is essentially an air pump with a humidifier. It has a removable water tank with a heating plate for humidifying the air. We had to use a removable plate to expose the tank instead of a door - because our main competitor had patented a hinged flap to access the water tank!
Regardless of how obvious prior art is, it's cheaper to make minor design changes than to spend years in litigation. Even though it's worse for the consumer, you have to avoid anything patented unless you have the ready cash that Apple has lying around.
What recourse does Google have? Presumably they can't sue the patent office for granting ridiculous patents that ultimately drive them out of business.
There are a lot of what ifs. There are millions of patents in play.
Multi-touch is big though and I at least have no recollection of prior art.
For anyone that doubts this, checkout the iPhone announcement keynote one more time. It's really worth watching again.
The first time Steve slides to unlock, and the first time he "flicks" to scroll with rubber-banding the crowd is floored.
It's worth watching for the "stylus" gag alone.
Let's be frank: Apple is not the only major technology company with a massive collection of questionable patents that they could use to stifle their competition. The system, as it is today, basically forces companies into these patents because if they don't patent it someone else will. To put it colloquially: "Don't hate the player, hate the game."
"Don't hate the player, hate the game"
I especially dislike this one in particular because it's used as an excuse to avoid having to justify harmful actions. "Everyone else was doing it too" is not a valid excuse for doing something wrong, especially when you are--as Apple is--a large enough "player" that your actions help shape how the "game" is played.
In any case, your presentation of Apple's actions is a lot more benign than reality. It's one thing to acquire questionable technology patents to help you defend yourself against litigation. That's unfortunate, but doesn't really actively harm anyone. It's also not what Apple is doing: Apple is using its patent portfolio offensively to try to shut out competing products.
We can dislike that excuse all we want; but, why are we faulting for-profit companies for working within the legalities of the system to do what they're supposed to: grow their business and maximize their profits? It's a flawed system, to be sure; but, it's the system we have at the moment.
I do hate the game. The game needs to be reformed.
But some players appear too keen to play the game. Not pointing fingers at Apple here; most of them are as bad as each other.
I actually support the idea of software patents and hardware patents and "look and feel" patents; just not how they're implemented now. Something like a 2 year protection would give companies significant advantage, yet still allow smaller players to use the stuff in time.
See the lack of single-handed (software and hardware) keyboards; many of these were attacked by a patent troll. This has harmed accessibility, and has benefited no-one. A two year patent would have given a good faith actor an advantage when producing and marketing their device, and yet allowed other people to compete in time.
Don't they take something like 2-3 years to only review the application and grant the patent at the moment ?
The thing is, for the most part they aren't, and haven't, over several decades of detente. Apple did. I think that distinction matters, no?
AFAIK it won't be worth the stamps if there is some prior art. I.e. once release nobody can patent it. The above statement is false. They patented it to hinder competition.
Note: I'm not against patents (for significant inventions) per se.
I'd like to think that prior art would invalidate a lot of bad patents; but, prior art is not so clear cut as it seems on the surface.
What a load of shit. What happened to “great artists steal”? Great art must be stolen to inspire new, greater art.
The iPhone is awesome. May a thousand devices like it bloom.
That's because the inverse isn't valid. Not every thief is a great artist. Steve Jobs and Tim Cook apparently didn't consider Android to be great art.
The original quote, to put in context what Jobs was referring to:
“One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.” —Philip Massinger
http://nancyprager.wordpress.com/2007/05/08/good-poets-borro...
NB: Jobs mistakenly attributed it to Picasso, who never said such a thing. Jobs probably read Richardson’s biography of Picasso, in which the text is misquoted and attributed to T.S. Eliot.
The quote you have above is in fact T. S. Eliot's words, in reference to Massinger, from his selection "The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism", 1921.
If you re-read the citation, you will see her intention that _neither_ T. S. Eliot nor Picasso specifically said "Good artists borrow, great artists steal" but a "bastardization" of Eliot's original writing.
Eliot's intention, "A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest." would discredit every technology company or figure that has been defended by the cliche.
You shouldn’t have to get permission to take someone’s work and improve it, certainly not based on how good they think you are.
Thanks for the source. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in context :).
You'd be totally cool with me stealing the side project you've poured heart and soul into for 5 years, to sell it to an overseas company that floods the market for 1/10 the price?
Here is the youtube video of Jobs saying that Apple shamelessly steals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU
Given that Jobs credits Picasso with the "great artists steal" quote and Tim Cook making an analogy about "finishing the painting" the whole thing is quite ironic.
USPTO: "The mission of the patent business area is to help our customers get patents; its performance goal is to grant patents to inventors for their discoveries. "
http://www.uspto.gov/about/stratplan/ar/1998/a98r-2.jsp
I think it is significant that the mission is not "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by [whatever]" It is simply to "help our customers get patents."
To be fair, the 2011 annual report says the mission is: "Fostering innovation, competitiveness and economic growth, domestically and abroad to deliver high quality and timely examination of patent and trademark applications, guiding domestic and international intellectual property policy, and delivering intellectual property information and education worldwide, with a highly skilled, diverse workforce." http://www.uspto.gov/about/stratplan/ar/2011/mda_01.html
[1]: http://slashdot.org/story/11/01/02/1534223/ibm-files-the-pat...
Was the author not reading the news last October?
"If you outlaw Android, only outlaws will have Android." - Anon.
"Picasso had a saying - 'Good artists copy, great artists steal.' And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." - Steve Jobs
Granted, the US is a major market for Android but these patent disputes will get laughed at in the UK courts and others as we have seen so far.