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It's apparently OK to rip off the best ideas while learning from the mistakes of more then 15 years of work done pioneering by Palm, Microsoft and Apple and sla
by dep_b 11y ago
It's apparently OK to rip off the best ideas while learning from the mistakes of more then 15 years of work done pioneering by Palm, Microsoft and Apple and slapping them on top of a free OS and just paying nothing.
It's hard to see the difference between the first iPhones and Galaxy phones, in terms of home screen and hardware. You can't tell them apart at first glance. A clear rip-off. The patents Apple used to sue them were often trivial but the fact it was nothing but an iClone was obvious.
Apparently that's the only thing you can do to a competitor that copies without innovating. I can imagine that now Google had a few firsts in Android (interactive notifications for example) these patents will be swapped more and more and Microsoft gets less leverage. That's why Motorola didn't have to pay, they were extremely important advancing mobile technology and have their own chest of patents as a result.
- ruffrey 11y agoiOS is on top of Palm?
- dep_b 11y agoWell they had the Newton as well, don't think they got too much inspiration from Palm for that.
- RaleyField 11y ago> rip off the best ideas The obviousness bar should be raised much higher so that if a lone undergraduate could arrive at a solution it is not a patentable solution. If we are going to entertain software patents then they should be used to cover major investments, like it works in pharmaceutical industry. Most patents are not of this kind, and most things in iPhone are just straightforward progression of prior art.
- noir_lord 11y agoWhich undergraduate though, I was an undergraduate once, so was Dijkstra, I suspect his idea of obvious would have been divergent from mine.
- RaleyField 11y agoAnd average one, obviously. This isn't an objective measure, but there are similar concepts in jurisprudence.[1] Patent system was created in a different time, but at least to me in the present it only makes sense to use it to protect ideas that necessitated hundreds of man-years of investment by competent teams and not to be used for land grabs for trivial ideas that anyone can arrive at just by virtue of being a pioneer one's field. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_man_on_the_Clapham_omnibus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_man_on_the_Clapham_omnibus
- bitmapbrother 11y agoYou should really have a look at the MCAM report cited in the article. All of these are old prior art ridden patents that would easily be defeated if someone took them to court. Barnes and Noble was one company that told Microsoft to Fuck Off. When the trial date approached they suddenly reached a business arrangement where the two companies formed a joint company.
- wstrange 11y agoWhat is interesting is that corporations have implanted this notion that copying an idea is "stealing" and is somehow immoral. Copying is how we advance civilization. Every great idea was built on the work of others, or "Standing on the shoulders of Giants" as Newton would say. The current framework for IP protection isn't working. There is no evidence that it is accelerating the pace of innovation. We need to shift our viewpoint and realize that copying is a good thing.