> First the law expressly forbids a patent on ideas. But in practice, is entirely about broad ownership of ideas. An intermittent wiper is a neat idea, but not

> First the law expressly forbids a patent on ideas. But in practice, is entirely about broad ownership of ideas. An intermittent wiper is a neat idea, but not at all hard to design. Yes, in this story the inventor found a 3rd-party (Mercedes) part using almost his exact design but that simply proves how obvious the solutions are. Similarly, slide-to-unlock (etc) are absolutely, worthlessly, trivial technical ideas. It's good UI perhaps, but it's harder to decide which direction users should have to swipe than it is to actually implement. > Moreover, this patent actually fostered innovation for a competing product No, it forced worthless UI changes. Like making one car company use a joystick instead of a wheel. > simply violate someone's better invention without paying for it. And this is the crux. You think that it's an invention, as opposed to a UI standard. What technical details most impress you about it? What, other than the UI element, do you think is novel?