This tragically recurrent idea that you can make up your own idea about what a patent covers without reading it is absolute fucking horseshit and should be abho

This tragically recurrent idea that you can make up your own idea about what a patent covers without reading it is absolute fucking horseshit and should be abhorrent to anybody that values truth over ideology. No, Apple did not patent potrait-landscape flipping. It took me about two minutes to verify this by reading the actual description on the actual patent. http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,978,176.PN.&OS=PN/7,978,176&RS=PN/7,978,176 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec... You don't even have to understand exactly what is claimed to see that orientation-flipping itself isn't being claimed. Just look at the background section: Some portable devices use one or more accelerometers to automatically adjust the orientation of the information on the screen. In these devices, information is displayed on the display in a portrait view or a landscape view based on an analysis of data received from the one or more accelerometers. Again, this is background information leading up to the actual summary of the claims. This is what Apple patented a specific enhancement to. They did not patent mousetraps. They patented what they think is a better mousetrap.