3 ms·

These patent stories get more and more ridiculous by the day. We need a major software patent amnesty event to just wipe the slate clean. Patents were origina

by flocial 15y ago

These patent stories get more and more ridiculous by the day. We need a major software patent amnesty event to just wipe the slate clean. Patents were originally for protecting tinkerers and original thinkers from getting their ideas ripped off by some corporation. I love myself too much to read through the meat of the patents but it sure sounds so vague and general to software in general. Any idiot who took CS101 could dream up a parser that auto-recognizes a phone number and make it clickable. I mean scrolling, like really? Do I need written permission from Steve Jobs to implement it on a touch device? So now we wait until year 2050 before we see it on anything other than a iPhone? I wonder who will be winning then, oh right probably Apple because now they cornered all the hologram related patents with their trademark "no touch" interface in iOS 21 and OSX Sea Lion while the rest of the companies were busy getting sued. We need to rethink software patents. Anything that hampers the next wave of innovation is pure evil. Software, especially UI innovation with all the metaphors drawn from the physical world is nothing like inventing the cotton gin. Sure we need to reward the the innovators but Apple engineers, brilliant though they may be, are intellectual slaves who don't own their own thoughts. Whoever actually came up with these things for Apple isn't retiring early that's for sure. All this is great but smart companies are going to flock to countries where saner laws prevail or even the wild wild east like China where nothing is safe but at least they can focus on innovation and not second guess the ideas coming from their own engineers brains.

Terretta 15y ago
> Anything that hampers the next wave of innovation is pure evil. You were on a roll, saying people shouldn't have to innovate, then suddenly you worry about hampering innovation. Which is it? You want to be able to copy freely instead of innovating, or you want innovation to be protected? Many comments in these threads seem to think Apple woke up one day in 2007 with the completely obvious idea of an iPhone. That's not how it happened. Apple had been researching hand held computing since the 80's, bringing the most advanced handheld anyone had ever seen to the market, and iterating the ideas of how the software should work and the usability of that software, in directions quite different from those pursued by others such as Palm or PocketPC focused on limited capabilities more in line with what that era's hardware could actually pull off. The market wasn't ready for Newton then, but its ideas seeped into engineering consciousness, making its innovations seem "obvious" later. Eventually, physical technology caught up with Apple's ideas, enabling the iPhone and iPod touch. The Johnny-come-lately copycats are close enough already without their copies having to be "slavish". Whining about this or that feature they can't copy isn't becoming. If inventing's so easy, invent something better that everyone else will complain, after they see it, is obvious. Or, have the foresight or folly to go spend nearly two decades pouring money and hard work into a product the market isn't ready for, build a huge portfolio of research-driven ideas supporting making the product, finally bring a product to market that for the first time just "feels" to everyman it works exactly the way such a product should work, and then see how you feel about that twenty years of investment being protected. Arguably, making something feel obvious is an art. What's not obvious is that obviousness can take so much work.
- cageface 15y ago
  And Apple was in a position to make those investments in the first place because they profited handsomely from copying wholesale the fundamental ideas of the Mac UI. Now that the tables are turned they want to change the rules of the game. Android brings more than enough innovation to the table to justify its existence. If anything Apple is borrowing more from Google now than vice-versa.
  - rbarooah 15y ago
    This argument is based on repeating an easily debunked falsehood. Apple did not 'copy wholesale the fundamental ideas of the Mac UI'. They paid Xerox for a license to commercialize the technology via a stock deal, and then they spent significant effort refining it to make a consumer product. So Apple really just wants other people to play by the same rules they do.
    - sorbus 15y ago
      > They paid Xerox for a license to commercialize the technology via a stock deal, and then they spent significant effort refining it to make a consumer product. You are the first person I've ever heard make that claim. The only support I've found for that statement is a throw-away sentence in Wikipedia's article about a lawsuit between Apple and Microsoft, which does not appear to be supported by the document cited. So, do you have a citation for that?
      - protomyth 15y ago
        The New Yorker[1] has one of many references on the internet, but the price was 100,000 shares of pre-IPO Apple stock at $10 per share. The visit happened (over the protests of some at PARC). There are some side comments about the visit in "Triumph of the Nerds“. 1) http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/16/110516fa_fact_gladwell http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/16/110516fa_fact_...
        sorbus 15y ago
lucian1900 15y ago
I've read part of both patents. Yes, they are very, very silly and obvious.

by flocial 15y ago

Terretta 15y ago

> Anything that hampers the next wave of innovation is pure evil. You were on a roll, saying people shouldn't have to innovate, then suddenly you worry about hampering innovation. Which is it? You want to be able to copy freely instead of innovating, or you want innovation to be protected? Many comments in these threads seem to think Apple woke up one day in 2007 with the completely obvious idea of an iPhone. That's not how it happened. Apple had been researching hand held computing since the 80's, bringing the most advanced handheld anyone had ever seen to the market, and iterating the ideas of how the software should work and the usability of that software, in directions quite different from those pursued by others such as Palm or PocketPC focused on limited capabilities more in line with what that era's hardware could actually pull off. The market wasn't ready for Newton then, but its ideas seeped into engineering consciousness, making its innovations seem "obvious" later. Eventually, physical technology caught up with Apple's ideas, enabling the iPhone and iPod touch. The Johnny-come-lately copycats are close enough already without their copies having to be "slavish". Whining about this or that feature they can't copy isn't becoming. If inventing's so easy, invent something better that everyone else will complain, after they see it, is obvious. Or, have the foresight or folly to go spend nearly two decades pouring money and hard work into a product the market isn't ready for, build a huge portfolio of research-driven ideas supporting making the product, finally bring a product to market that for the first time just "feels" to everyman it works exactly the way such a product should work, and then see how you feel about that twenty years of investment being protected. Arguably, making something feel obvious is an art. What's not obvious is that obviousness can take so much work.

cageface 15y ago
And Apple was in a position to make those investments in the first place because they profited handsomely from copying wholesale the fundamental ideas of the Mac UI. Now that the tables are turned they want to change the rules of the game. Android brings more than enough innovation to the table to justify its existence. If anything Apple is borrowing more from Google now than vice-versa.
- rbarooah 15y ago
  This argument is based on repeating an easily debunked falsehood. Apple did not 'copy wholesale the fundamental ideas of the Mac UI'. They paid Xerox for a license to commercialize the technology via a stock deal, and then they spent significant effort refining it to make a consumer product. So Apple really just wants other people to play by the same rules they do.
  - sorbus 15y ago
    > They paid Xerox for a license to commercialize the technology via a stock deal, and then they spent significant effort refining it to make a consumer product. You are the first person I've ever heard make that claim. The only support I've found for that statement is a throw-away sentence in Wikipedia's article about a lawsuit between Apple and Microsoft, which does not appear to be supported by the document cited. So, do you have a citation for that?
    - protomyth 15y ago
      The New Yorker[1] has one of many references on the internet, but the price was 100,000 shares of pre-IPO Apple stock at $10 per share. The visit happened (over the protests of some at PARC). There are some side comments about the visit in "Triumph of the Nerds“. 1) http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/16/110516fa_fact_gladwell http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/16/110516fa_fact_...
      - sorbus 15y ago

lucian1900 15y ago

I've read part of both patents. Yes, they are very, very silly and obvious.