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We're handing out ownership stakes in pure ideas within a system intended to protect realized, specific implementations I’d say the iPhone contain specific, re

We're handing out ownership stakes in pure ideas within a system intended to protect realized, specific implementations I’d say the iPhone contain specific, realized ideas. Thus, I challenge this statement. To me, if you can’t accept Apple patenting the specific, tangible things they do to make the specific, shipping products they sell, you might as well join me over here in saying that all patents are broken. They’ve solved an awful lot of problems at one infinite loop. I’m sure they have filed plenty of overly broad patents, and plenty where you can toss out half or more of the claims, but like Microsoft, they have pumped billions into R&D that has resulted in actual products with discernible differences from what came before them. Apple is neither a patent troll nor is it a copycat shop like most of the PC manufacturers. If Apple doesn’t deserve patent protection, nobody does. And yes, I’m perfectly fine with the idea that nobody does.

statictype 15y ago
A lot of software patents are bogus but honestly, a lot of what Apple has done with multitouch is genuinely innovative and I can understand why Jobs would be offended that others are copying their ideas. Hell, we might actually have seen more innovation in the mobile space if competitors weren't so quick to copy what Apple has done. Having said that, it's also hypocritical to an extent for Steve Jobs to complain about stealing good ideas. I'm sure everyone here has read the folklore.org bit about Bill Gates telling Jobs that they both stole from their neighbor...
- felipemnoa 15y ago
  Except that Jobs paid his neighbor to use his ideas (in stocks) and Gates then stole from Jobs.
  - billmcneale 15y ago
    How much do you think Apple paid Android for the shade-style notifications that appeared in iOS 5? Or push notifications?
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  Link: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=A_Rich_Neighbor_Named_Xerox.txt http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=A_Rich_Neighbor_N...
- wnight 15y ago
  We should ask Wozniak how much of the Apple2 he copied from other devices (or built based on what he learned from other devices). And thus how much of Apple's current value is based on copying ideas from other companies. (Xerox!) If Jobs wasn't fantastically rich his attitude would plainly be hypocritical and antisocial.
OpenAmazing 15y ago
Actually, Apple spends significantly less on R&D than both Google and Microsoft. They spend, but not billions like their competitors. http://www.asymco.com/2010/05/25/apples-rd-efficiency/ http://www.asymco.com/2010/05/25/apples-rd-efficiency/
- nitrogen 15y ago
  What does R&D mean in this context, and do the apparent R&D budgets differ solely due to different tax advantages based on the companies' structures?
- grkhetan 15y ago
  Thats a percentage of revenues, and Apple's revenues are very high. Also -- I agree Microsoft spends a lot of money on research in their "Microsoft Research" division, but the fact is, most of their research does not end up in products. I don't know about Google - I don't think they spend a lot on Research...the link you pointed to does not talk about Google. :-)
- rphlx 15y ago
  When you're mostly creating a better case, better UX, and better marketing.. and your partners do most of the really hard low-level technical stuff [1].. why bother with R&D? Your whole image is based on non-engineer-driven products. [1] Excluding the A5 CPU
  - grkhetan 15y ago
    Really? Do you think making an OS (Mac OS X and iOS) and all the hardware designs of their dozens of products (remember airport express, iPods, macbook air, etc) are all "easy" to develop? Mac OS X and iOS are based on BSD, but they have been hugely modified. In fact, the kernel is far from BSD now, and they release it as open source Darwin -- it has influence from other OS'es as well.
    - rphlx 15y ago
      Almost all of the difficult underlying technologies in Apple products were created 10-50 years earlier by other companies and government agencies such as Intel, Xerox, NASA, Qualcomm, the US DoD, etc. They are basically the world's most famous system integrator. If you still disagree - let me reflect the question: list the fundamental, widely accepted contributions that Apple made to cutting-edge EE/CS research between 1990-2010. And compare that versus NASA, Microsoft, Intel, etc. Apple is like that apocryphal hot girl in high school who got the nerds to do her homework. Due to her popularity - it's almost impossible to question her intelligence without bringing a world of hurt down upon yourself, yet despite her good grades and high social status, she isn't generating very many fundamentally new ideas on her own.
tensor 15y ago
If you look into the history of Apple's multi-touch and touch based gestures you'll see that they were not the first to come up with the idea. In fact, they bought much of the technology when they bought a company called FingerWorks. But even before that, in 1991 Pierre Wellner at Xerox published and demonstrated multi-touch gestures including the pinch. Despite all this, Apple still managed to get a patent on multitouch gestures and continually claim it as their innovation. They filed the patent in 2007. In my opinion, the patent system is really broken. [source] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch
- Steko 15y ago
  "Despite all this, Apple still managed to get a patent on multitouch gestures and continually claim it as their innovation. They filed the patent in 2007. In my opinion, the patent system is really broken." Apple doesn't have a total multitouch idea patent. This is the sort of widely repeated ignorance that makes everyone think the patent system is totally broken when it's just mostly broken.
  - tensor 15y ago
    I realize that their patent is somewhat narrow and I'm not aware of the full details. But considering the enormous research history of multi-touch gestures, I'm left wondering why we as a society feel it important to give protections to what amounts to a minor tweak to the idea. Here is a better history of multi-touch by one of the researchers in the field: http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html
wicknicks 15y ago
In this case, the article describes Steve Jobs to be angry with a specific 2010 HTC model. I'm not sure which features he is talking about. The article doesn't clarify this. Also, the behavior of the market always has been to try and "borrow" successful features from other phones. Coders borrow good code. Researchers cite other papers. This is a very common thing. I'm not sure why someone as mature as Jobs would explode on this matter. And what's up with the photo? Is the article trying to say that they talked about such a serious matter at Starbucks? "C'mon Eric, lets get some coffee and let me tell you how I'm going to sue your company and drop a nuke on it."
- fpgeek 15y ago
  The 2010 HTC model in question is the Nexus One (a key point of contention in the Apple vs HTC lawsuits).
  - homosaur 15y ago
    Yeah, I've heard this. What is it about the Nexus One that Jobs was so pissy over? The multitouch? All the phones have that now, and they even had it before, they just had it turned off to avoid lawsuits. I think the Droid came mutitouchless initially.
mcantelon 15y ago
Apple's iPhone owes a lot to Palm's devices. It's funny... Apple is competent enough that you'd think they'd have confidence in their capability of out-executing competitors. Jobs comes off as insecure.
- sjwright 15y ago
  > Apple's iPhone owes a lot to Palm's devices. Palm owes a lot to Newton.
fpgeek 15y ago
One of the patents Apple is using in their lawsuits is "infringed" right here: http://www.google.com http://www.google.com The claimed infringement is Android's "Linkify" functionality. What does "Linkify" do? It scans free-form text for recognizable items (e.g. URLs, email addresses, phone numbers, etc. Apple originally did something similar with the Mac help system and patented it in 1996 and is now suing HTC, etc. over the functionality. To me, this is an open-and-shut example of Apple attempting to claim ownership of an unrealized idea. What do you think? Oh, by the way, I almost forgot the best bit. Even if you do think this is patentable, there is an open-and-shut example of prior art. Netscape Navigator 2.0b1, released in 1995, included "Live URL" support within its mail and newsgroup client, which does exactly what you think it does. Apple claims it has a patent that can prevent Android from doing the same thing today. To me, this is an obvious abuse of the patent system (and I feel similarly about slide-to-unlock, photo gallery scrolling, ...). I'm not saying Apple has no quality technical patents (the design stuff is a whole different discussion), but I'm very skeptical of the ones they're asserting against Android manufacturers. By and large, they seem to revolve around functionality that, once you've seen it being used, you need no other technical information to reconstruct it. To me, that sounds like the look-and-feel lawsuit all over again, dressed up in patent clothing. In my opinion, if the change of outfit means the suit ends up going the other way, we will all be poorer for it. And while I don't think a "no patent" system is the best answer, it does sound a lot better than the the current system of flimsy, overbroad patents leading to rampant patent abuse from all players. I'll add that I, personally, don't distinguish much between practicing and non-practicing entities, I care far more about the quality of what you're asserting than about who you are. I'd even argue that there are cases where a practicing entity abusing overbroad, flimsy patents to stifle competition in an area can be worse (for society) than a non-practicing entity merely trying to "tax" the same area.

statictype 15y ago

A lot of software patents are bogus but honestly, a lot of what Apple has done with multitouch is genuinely innovative and I can understand why Jobs would be offended that others are copying their ideas. Hell, we might actually have seen more innovation in the mobile space if competitors weren't so quick to copy what Apple has done. Having said that, it's also hypocritical to an extent for Steve Jobs to complain about stealing good ideas. I'm sure everyone here has read the folklore.org bit about Bill Gates telling Jobs that they both stole from their neighbor...

felipemnoa 15y ago
Except that Jobs paid his neighbor to use his ideas (in stocks) and Gates then stole from Jobs.
- billmcneale 15y ago
  How much do you think Apple paid Android for the shade-style notifications that appeared in iOS 5? Or push notifications?
redthrowaway 15y ago
Link: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=A_Rich_Neighbor_Named_Xerox.txt http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=A_Rich_Neighbor_N...
wnight 15y ago
We should ask Wozniak how much of the Apple2 he copied from other devices (or built based on what he learned from other devices). And thus how much of Apple's current value is based on copying ideas from other companies. (Xerox!) If Jobs wasn't fantastically rich his attitude would plainly be hypocritical and antisocial.

OpenAmazing 15y ago

Actually, Apple spends significantly less on R&D than both Google and Microsoft. They spend, but not billions like their competitors. http://www.asymco.com/2010/05/25/apples-rd-efficiency/ http://www.asymco.com/2010/05/25/apples-rd-efficiency/

nitrogen 15y ago
What does R&D mean in this context, and do the apparent R&D budgets differ solely due to different tax advantages based on the companies' structures?
grkhetan 15y ago
Thats a percentage of revenues, and Apple's revenues are very high. Also -- I agree Microsoft spends a lot of money on research in their "Microsoft Research" division, but the fact is, most of their research does not end up in products. I don't know about Google - I don't think they spend a lot on Research...the link you pointed to does not talk about Google. :-)
rphlx 15y ago
When you're mostly creating a better case, better UX, and better marketing.. and your partners do most of the really hard low-level technical stuff [1].. why bother with R&D? Your whole image is based on non-engineer-driven products. [1] Excluding the A5 CPU
- grkhetan 15y ago
  Really? Do you think making an OS (Mac OS X and iOS) and all the hardware designs of their dozens of products (remember airport express, iPods, macbook air, etc) are all "easy" to develop? Mac OS X and iOS are based on BSD, but they have been hugely modified. In fact, the kernel is far from BSD now, and they release it as open source Darwin -- it has influence from other OS'es as well.
  - rphlx 15y ago
    Almost all of the difficult underlying technologies in Apple products were created 10-50 years earlier by other companies and government agencies such as Intel, Xerox, NASA, Qualcomm, the US DoD, etc. They are basically the world's most famous system integrator. If you still disagree - let me reflect the question: list the fundamental, widely accepted contributions that Apple made to cutting-edge EE/CS research between 1990-2010. And compare that versus NASA, Microsoft, Intel, etc. Apple is like that apocryphal hot girl in high school who got the nerds to do her homework. Due to her popularity - it's almost impossible to question her intelligence without bringing a world of hurt down upon yourself, yet despite her good grades and high social status, she isn't generating very many fundamentally new ideas on her own.

tensor 15y ago

If you look into the history of Apple's multi-touch and touch based gestures you'll see that they were not the first to come up with the idea. In fact, they bought much of the technology when they bought a company called FingerWorks. But even before that, in 1991 Pierre Wellner at Xerox published and demonstrated multi-touch gestures including the pinch. Despite all this, Apple still managed to get a patent on multitouch gestures and continually claim it as their innovation. They filed the patent in 2007. In my opinion, the patent system is really broken. [source] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch

Steko 15y ago
"Despite all this, Apple still managed to get a patent on multitouch gestures and continually claim it as their innovation. They filed the patent in 2007. In my opinion, the patent system is really broken." Apple doesn't have a total multitouch idea patent. This is the sort of widely repeated ignorance that makes everyone think the patent system is totally broken when it's just mostly broken.
- tensor 15y ago
  I realize that their patent is somewhat narrow and I'm not aware of the full details. But considering the enormous research history of multi-touch gestures, I'm left wondering why we as a society feel it important to give protections to what amounts to a minor tweak to the idea. Here is a better history of multi-touch by one of the researchers in the field: http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html

wicknicks 15y ago

In this case, the article describes Steve Jobs to be angry with a specific 2010 HTC model. I'm not sure which features he is talking about. The article doesn't clarify this. Also, the behavior of the market always has been to try and "borrow" successful features from other phones. Coders borrow good code. Researchers cite other papers. This is a very common thing. I'm not sure why someone as mature as Jobs would explode on this matter. And what's up with the photo? Is the article trying to say that they talked about such a serious matter at Starbucks? "C'mon Eric, lets get some coffee and let me tell you how I'm going to sue your company and drop a nuke on it."

fpgeek 15y ago
The 2010 HTC model in question is the Nexus One (a key point of contention in the Apple vs HTC lawsuits).
- homosaur 15y ago
  Yeah, I've heard this. What is it about the Nexus One that Jobs was so pissy over? The multitouch? All the phones have that now, and they even had it before, they just had it turned off to avoid lawsuits. I think the Droid came mutitouchless initially.

mcantelon 15y ago

Apple's iPhone owes a lot to Palm's devices. It's funny... Apple is competent enough that you'd think they'd have confidence in their capability of out-executing competitors. Jobs comes off as insecure.

sjwright 15y ago
> Apple's iPhone owes a lot to Palm's devices. Palm owes a lot to Newton.

fpgeek 15y ago

One of the patents Apple is using in their lawsuits is "infringed" right here: http://www.google.com http://www.google.com The claimed infringement is Android's "Linkify" functionality. What does "Linkify" do? It scans free-form text for recognizable items (e.g. URLs, email addresses, phone numbers, etc. Apple originally did something similar with the Mac help system and patented it in 1996 and is now suing HTC, etc. over the functionality. To me, this is an open-and-shut example of Apple attempting to claim ownership of an unrealized idea. What do you think? Oh, by the way, I almost forgot the best bit. Even if you do think this is patentable, there is an open-and-shut example of prior art. Netscape Navigator 2.0b1, released in 1995, included "Live URL" support within its mail and newsgroup client, which does exactly what you think it does. Apple claims it has a patent that can prevent Android from doing the same thing today. To me, this is an obvious abuse of the patent system (and I feel similarly about slide-to-unlock, photo gallery scrolling, ...). I'm not saying Apple has no quality technical patents (the design stuff is a whole different discussion), but I'm very skeptical of the ones they're asserting against Android manufacturers. By and large, they seem to revolve around functionality that, once you've seen it being used, you need no other technical information to reconstruct it. To me, that sounds like the look-and-feel lawsuit all over again, dressed up in patent clothing. In my opinion, if the change of outfit means the suit ends up going the other way, we will all be poorer for it. And while I don't think a "no patent" system is the best answer, it does sound a lot better than the the current system of flimsy, overbroad patents leading to rampant patent abuse from all players. I'll add that I, personally, don't distinguish much between practicing and non-practicing entities, I care far more about the quality of what you're asserting than about who you are. I'd even argue that there are cases where a practicing entity abusing overbroad, flimsy patents to stifle competition in an area can be worse (for society) than a non-practicing entity merely trying to "tax" the same area.