12 ms·

The Crunchpad is proof of obviousness in iPad design

246 points by nikcub 15y ago

deleted 15y ago
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elemeno 15y ago
And yet none of the photos of their devices show a screen that's flush with the front of the tablet - in all of them the surface of the screen is slightly indented from the face of the tablet, like laptop screens and TV screens often are. Being oblivious to that rather crucial point rather invalidates the entire argument being made since you've clearly designed something which doesn't have an identical design to an iPad, thus the design and form of an iPad is not the only possible design for a tablet. It's fairly important to remember that in order to infringe a design patent you need to have a design that is 'substantially similar' to the described design rather than simply having design features in common with the described design. Rounded corners is fine, as long as its not rounded corner AND a whole bunch of other design decisions that makes it look identical to an iPad.
- Udo 15y ago
  And yet that would have made CrunchPad Prototype B an iPad infringer before the iPad came out. In later versions, they seem to have abandoned the mono-surface design, but they clearly considered having it in their initial phase. I think the larger point here is that inventions and innovation don't happen in a vacuum, and most of the stuff around us is anything but novel. Yet our legal systems act otherwise.
- nikcub 15y ago
  the crunchpad went on to be released as the joojoo, which did have the screen flush. IIRC there was only a single prototype we built out of the later 4-5 where that wasn't the case. see the pic of the joojoo here: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/tag/joojoo/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/tag/joojoo/ edit: just included that in the post and you can play the 'but its just a..' game all the way back to vacuum tubes with anything. that's what innovation is. what I am arguing against is the Apple expert claim about the design being a complete leap and unique and not something that would be reproduced without knowing the ipad. I can argue against that because we did just that (as did others).
- jmcqk6 15y ago
  Did you feel the least bit ridiculous writing that? I know I felt a little ridiculous just reading that. Perhaps I just have a really hard time understanding how any kind of rounded corners or edges could possibly qualify for a patent unless it had some sort of unique function. Form should never be patentable. Function maybe sometimes.
  - scott_s 15y ago
    elemeno clearly stated that rounded corners alone is not enough, it's part of many other things. You may disagree that design patents should exist at all, but they do not just cover a single thing. Also, the "ridiculous" stuff is unnecessary.
TeMPOraL 15y ago
"There was a lot of prior art when we began the Crunchpad project, and having a tablet that was touch controlled rather than with a stylus wasn't really a revolutionary idea since there were a number of component manufacturers at the time who were scaling up their touch controllers to larger dimensions (9", 11", 12" etc.) in preparation for this market." Having a tablet that was touch controlled rather than with a stylus wasn't really a revolutionary idea since Star Trek: The Next Generation was aired in 1987, with it's touch-controlled screens [0] and PADDs [1] [2]. BTW. I'm surprised by Star Trek not being mentioned at all since the dawn of consumer touch-screen technology. I expected people to be doing lots of LCARS rip-offs on MS Surface, tablets and phones, and there's almost nothing. [0] - http://techspecs.startrek.acalltoduty.com/images/galaxy/ed-msd.jpg http://techspecs.startrek.acalltoduty.com/images/galaxy/ed-m... [1] - http://www.teleread.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/padd.gif http://www.teleread.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/padd.gif [2] - http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/PADD http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/PADD
- LeafStorm 15y ago
  > Having a tablet that was touch controlled rather than with a stylus wasn't really a revolutionary idea since Star Trek: The Next Generation was aired in 1987, with it's touch-controlled screens [0] and PADDs [1] [2]. Star Trek: The Next Generation also has FTL drive and matter transporters that don't kill you. The idea may have come from TNG, but I think it's more that using a finger was the next logical step after the stylus than actual "inspiration" on the part of TNG. > I expected people to be doing lots of LCARS rip-offs on MS Surface, tablets and phones, and there's almost nothing. LCARS really isn't that practical of a user interface (narrow font, odd color scheme, lack of consistent layouts...) Michael Okuda designed it more to look futuristic and "cool" than to really be something usable.
  - powertower 15y ago
    You're comparing rounded corners and touch-interface (which has existed for decades) to "FTL drive and matter transporters that don't kill you"?
  - TeMPOraL 15y ago
ebbv 15y ago
The iPad is basically a big iPhone, so pointing out that there were people making a big iPhone between when the iPhone was announced and when the iPad was announced just shows that they were copying the iPhone instead of the iPad. Simple, minimalist, elegant designs look obvious in retrospect. The fact that Samsung, HTC, and others are aping Apple's designs in the iPhone and iPad is clear. Denying it only makes you look ridiculous. The question is, are they aping it too much or are they bringing enough new to the table for it to be considered an original design? That's something that almost has to be addressed on a device by device basis.
- powertower 15y ago
  Innovation innovates. Revision revises. Rounded-corners / while you can call it simple, minimalist, elegant design ... is not innovation, it is revision.
- mmcconnell1618 15y ago
  Spot on ebbv! Apple designed the iPad long before the iPhone and chose to release the phone first because of technical limitations. While the CrunchPad designs were revealed long before the iPad can they say that the iPhone had no influence on their designs?
- shasta 15y ago
  AFAIK,the point of a design patent is to protect stylistic (non-functional) elements of a design. The question being asked is whether the common elements between these products are non-functional or actual have important functional reasons for existing. Why are all car tires round, with rubber on the outside, and with cool tread patterns on the outside?
- shareme 15y ago
  its extremely hard to patent designs and extremely hard to defend such patents.. Want the list of lost patent cases on designs in previous years by Apple?
powertower 15y ago
The notion that a company can patent rounded corners and sue others claiming innovation makes me sick. Maybe they do actually believe what they do is innovation rather than slight revision (and product/market fit)... I mean, that's what people keep telling them they do ... eventually it must stick.
- TechNewb 15y ago
  It's the overall design aesthetic. It's not just one design feature that is being used from the iPad. The crunch pad had a 16x9 screen and was thicker than the iPad.
  - powertower 15y ago
    > was thicker than the iPad I'm sure they would have made it as slim as the battery and circuitry technology allowed them to do so at that time. If you think they made it bulky by choice, and then Apple came in and "innovated" by making their own pad thinner, I don't know what to tell you.
    - TechNewb 15y ago
      If you don't think Apple innovates on 'thin' designs, I don't know what to tell you. And if a tablet came out that looked like the iPad before the iPad, I don't think we would see the iPad as it is today, and everyone would be copying what ever design Apple did do.
      - dpark 15y ago
        Thin is not a patentable idea. If Apple's thinness innovations are truly patentable, then they should get a patent for the specific technologies they've invented and not a design patent for the idea of making something thin. People have wanted thinner computers forever. Also, the article shows a tablet that came out before the iPad looking at lesst as much like the iPad as the Galaxy Tab.
        15y ago
rythie 15y ago
The Crunchpad was merely an extension of the ideas from the iPhone/iPod Touch, I think a lot of people could see there was a market for a big iPod Touch. Mostly the competition didn't have an OS ready and Apple was late to the market due to focusing on the iPhone.
- jeswin 15y ago
  And the iPhone/iPod was just an improvement over Windows/Palm phones. I guess the article is echoing the sentiment that these "innovations" aren't worthy of a patent.
nextparadigms 15y ago
I'm surprised nobody made this case before. I remember I started believing in the idea of tablets way before we even heard rumors about an Apple tablet. I started believing in this idea when I first saw the initial Crunchpad mock-ups.
reader5000 15y ago
Apple is grasping for straws here. The argument that out of the space of all possible designs for a tablet, they own the subset defined by the conjunction of "rounded corners AND flat front surface AND uncluttered design AND thin profile etc." is absurdly overbroad. It's like a car manufacturer arguing they own all car designs that have "good gas mileage AND automatic windows AND bluetooth radio AND leather interior" etc. In the weakest argument the features Apple claims as their own are simply universally desirable features that would be obvious to any designer of such a device. In a stronger argument many of features claimed are necessary for the function of any tablet. Not really comfortable with these IP shenanigans harming the market.
- wavephorm 15y ago
  The iPad is clearly derivative of just about every touchscreen UI shown in Star Trek Next Generation. The enterprise is plastered with them. Samsung should just show any episode of the show and count the number of devices that that are shown that look like an iPad.
  - jbrennan 15y ago
    You know those weren't real devices right?
    - jrockway 15y ago
      You can copy the design of a fake device just as easily as you can copy the design of a real device.
    - grannyg00se 15y ago
      In a discussion about design it doesn't matter, does it? We aren't talking about utility patents where the actual functionality and method to achieve it has to be described.
    - vegardx 15y ago
      Why is this relevant? They portray a probable usecase, which 20 years or so later seem to become reality. They also show us that the idea of a user inferface like that is not necessarily something "new", but that, maybe, the technology wasn't there at that time. Now it is.
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GHFigs 15y ago
This post, like almost every other on the subject, misrepresents the content of the testimony being cited, and thus the arguments being made. Please read it yourself if you care about having discussion any more sophisticated than "Apple is the Great Satan!"/"NO U!" (Edit:"Reading primary sources is heresy! Downvote! Downvote!")
bitsweet 15y ago
The iPad is just a larger IPhone. The real innovation in design here was the iPhone which release pre-dates even the first announcement of the JooJoo. I think it is naive to think the sleek iPhone design didn't significantly influence all current tablet designs. To illustrate how not-obvious the design is, compare the original kindle (released prior to the iphone) to the iPad. And now compare the Kindle Fire (released after the iPhone/iPad) to the iPad.
- b0k 15y ago
  Apparently that doesn't matter, though. The court case is now about the two witnesses arguing about if the iPad is a unique design separate from all other web tablets, or if it is just a natural progression which anybody would have come up with. I think what this post is arguing is that it was a natural progression, since others were on the same path at the same time. I tend to side with Apple, but reading that testimony their witness/expert seems to be grasping at straws in some parts.
- dazbradbury 15y ago
  Two of my previous phones, the Sony Ericsson p800 and p900 both pre-date the iPhone. The former was launched in 2002. They were truly innovative imo (although probably something similar pre-dates them that I just don't know about), but as a smartphone with a single front screen, and nothing else (the keypad was detachable), they were a first for me. The evolution from a p800/p900 form factor, to the iphone, is a natural progression as engineering techniques improve. Couple that progression, with Apple's iOS, and you have the iPhone. My point is, where has it been shown that the iPhone design was the first in any case? Personally, I think Apple's argument is weak. Either way, Apple will continue to dominate the market regardless of competitors - I just hope they fail so we can see some fair competition.
  - wmf 15y ago
    I had a P800 and I think the difference between the P800 and iPhone is much greater than the difference between the iPhone and the Galaxy. Replacing a raised plastic bezel with a single flat piece of glass is innovative IMO. The feel of using a modern phone is also completely different from the P800.
podperson 15y ago
So, the Crunchpad is "proof" that -- having seen the iPhone and iPod Touch -- the iPad's design is obvious. The article doesn't mention the prior release of the iPhone and iPod Touch (remember Jobs starting out by saying Apple was releasing three things, one of which was a tablet computer). I agree that having seen an iPhone the iPad design is obvious. Next.
- fossuser 15y ago
  What about the star trek padd? http://www.inventinginteractive.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Sarah_Sisko_reconstruction.jpg http://www.inventinginteractive.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/...
  - philwelch 15y ago
    * Red case * Screen physically depressed from bezel * Extraneous white rectangular design elements on the bezel DS9's dark cinematography, combined with a device that doesn't really look like an iPad, makes for a device that at first glance looks like a black iPad. Well, at least if you've seen a black iPad before. If it was better illuminated it would look more like a metallic etch-a-sketch.
Duff 15y ago
I'm really torn by this debate. On the one hand, for an idea so obvious, Apple was first for both phones and tablets -- and they were "first" very late in the game. Microsoft OEMs made tablets for a decade, but NONE of them (even the slate tablets) really compared to the iPad. On the other, I don't see how this is a patent. It feels more like a trademark, although the design of the iPad is probably too general to trademark. My question is: How did the auto industry resolve this? Early cars looked like horse carriages and steered like boats or trolleys. How did the development of the timeless car design patterns (sedan, coupe, wagon, van, pickup, etc) get to the present state?
- jeswin 15y ago
  You imply that Apple's design itself is innovative. That is exactly what the article disputes with a picture from July 2008. A simple tablet with just one button. Anyone except Microsoft would have come up with just that.
  - Duff 15y ago
    It is innovative by definition, because nobody did it before. If it's so simple, why didn't Samsung do it? Paperclips seem like a obvious design that involves no innovation. Yet paperclips similar to what we use now weren't around until 1867, and the "modern" paperclip was patented in 1899 -- 30 years later.
    - jrockway 15y ago
      If it's so simple, why didn't Samsung do it? Because nobody wanted a tablet until Apple told them they did. When there's no market for a device, you don't make and sell one simply because you can. Unless you're Steve Jobs, that is.
    - jeswin 15y ago
      There were tablet PCs earlier. Were they usable? No. The point is, minor usability improvements aren't worthy of a patent. Just look at how bad the patent situation is, and how much of that is due to ridiculously silly patents.
grannyg00se 15y ago
One thing I like about the iPad innovation debade is that it really stresses the importance of execution (because I think it is weak on innovation). People have had the idea of a touch pad for decades and even tried to execute on it dozens of times with real products. The execution of the idea in the form of the iPad made it a success.
nl 15y ago
Unfortunately, this misses the point. Apple's argument is based on the design patents (and "Trade Dress") they have. Design patents aren't like normal patents, nor like trademarks. They are more typically used to protect something like a car or dress design, and the test for infringement is "would this other product be mistaken for the subject by a normal person" It's things like the radius of the rounded corners, the location of the button, and the width of the bevel that will be argued here, not how obvious the design is. http://www.theverge.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analysis/ http://www.theverge.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analys... explains this pretty well. (IANAL, and I think design patents are stupid, but this is the law as I understand it. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent#Comparison_to_utility_patents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent#Comparison_to_uti... for more).
- pyre 15y ago
  > the location of the button Do you really think that a 'normal person' would say, 'oh, the location of the button is different. this is obviously not an Apple product!'. I find that doubtful. Being first-to-market and the best-selling tablet to date, most 'normal people' will see any tablet within the same size range wonder, "Is that an iPad?"
  - fpgeek 15y ago
    Indeed. I've lost track of the number of times my ASUS Transformer has been mistaken for an iPad, sometimes even when docked!
    - buu700 15y ago
      We will be filing suit tonight.
- juiceandjuice 15y ago
  If the radius is formulaic based on the overall dimensions, should it be patentable? In my opinion, a lot of these claims for the design patent are obvious. The width of the bezel isn't so different than the width of the margins of of the wide ruled spiral bound notebook sitting next to me on my desk. The lab style notebook next to me, which also is almost the same dimensions of the iPad, has almost the exact radius of the corners of the iPad, which feels "right". Not because it's novel, but because humans like rounded corners and the radius is large enough to not be sharp but small enough to maintain a relatively constant distance from the corner of the screen, thus maintaining a feeling of continuity. So, I'd argue that this form factor is obvious because it mimics the design of objects (notebooks) which humans use in a similar way. Seriously, they even took half the name of a notepad and put it in the name of the device! A home button in the center is obvious too. If someone told me to draft a device that looked like a notepad and had exactly one button, I can't imagine a design much different than the iPad, or the touchpad, or the samsung. If they told me to put two buttons, they'd probably both be equidistant from the center.
donnyg107 15y ago
Both of these posts are completely opposite to what the system of production should be. OBVIOUSLY we would see the apple design as intelligent, and obviously thats how we think intelligent tablets should look now that they have been established as functional and successful, but that is completely the result of apple engineers hard work, not some universal tablet design that just makes sense. I can understand why apple would be so pissed. They created a novel (and initially, quite criticized for several aspects of it's simplicity) piece of technology, and because everyone likes it, they're claiming that it was barely designed at all. Apple made tough and meticulous decisions that allowed them to nail this design, and now, seeing that they are successful, other companies are claiming that those decisions were obvious and effectively unmade. And even if the designs were in fact "obvious," and impossible to do any other way, then why hadn't tablets taken this form before now? And even further, why do we patent things at all, if whenever someone releases a design seen as intelligent and novel, it can be declared as the industry standard and infinitely copyable? We patent so that apple has an incentive to make such a well thought out product, not so they can "shut out other designs that are simply following the same completely objective universal blueprints for the tablet computer."
- jsmcgd 15y ago
  > then why hadn't tablets taken this form before now? They have. Many times. Not one aspect of the iPad design is original. That's the whole problem. They're able to claim other people's inventions as their own. It's tantamount to theft. That's what makes this whole scenario so galling. They're committing the crime they're accusing others of.
preek 15y ago
Does nobody remember that there were big corporations trying to get a tablet out for the last decade and have terribly failed to do so? The iPad is not at all obvious. It is intuitive. That's why everyone thinks it's obvious _after_ having seen and used it.
- vacri 15y ago
  http://gdeluxe.com/tablets-before-ipad-part-ii/ http://gdeluxe.com/tablets-before-ipad-part-ii/ Turns out that there are actually quite a few tablets before the iPad that sport design features that supposedly only arrived in 2010.
  - preek 15y ago
    Perfect link. Thanks! All of them have either a stylus, are cluttered with buttons all over the place or have a stock WinXP which is totally useless for touch. For these reasons, all of them failed terribly and nobody bought them. I haven't seen one of these IRL. I see my point proven, so thanks again for the link.
    - DanBC 15y ago
      No. Many of those tablets have features (eg, rectangular shape with rounded corners) that are supposed to be not obvious. It's more evidence that a lot of iPad is evolutionary not revolutionary. See also PDAs which contain a bunch of features which are covered by patents. (a big menu button at the bottom centre of the screen).
abk 15y ago
IANAL and I hate to sound like a fanboy, but can't Apple claim that the 2007 iPod touch is prior art, since it's basically a small black tablet with rounded corners and a single button at the bottom? It looks much more similar to an iPad than the 2008 crunchpad.
billpatrianakos 15y ago
There's a good case for Applemif they can get the right point across. Looking back its easy to say that the design of a tablet is obvious but it really isn't. Since the iPad came out we all have a preconceived notion of what a tablet should look like but had the iPad been designed differently as it very well could have been and it remained as successful then we'd live in an alternate universe where everything is the same including the court cases and me-too tablets except they'd all be copying a different design. Consider this: Apple could have chosen to use a built in keyboard. They could have used more than one physical button much like Android phones instead of just the home button. They could have used a flat back instead of an convex curve. Consider the similarity in the radius of the corners too - very similar if not the same (I haven't measured though). The black frame is not obvious as a choice. It could have easily had little to no frame. The metal border just outside the frame, also not obvious. All of this "obvious" talk seems to me like people trying to fit a square peg (the answer) into a round hole (the answer). You may be able to jam them together but it's still not e right fit. "Obvious" is always obvious after the fact. This stuff may make sense from an industrial design perspective but it doesn't mean that tablet makers were ready to actually follow those design patterns. Companies ignore convention all the time when designing products. And I'm closing I'll leave you all with something a little less compelling. The Samsung tablet really does look an iPad clone. All tablets look somewhat similar but in the case of Samsung it's just so obvious that it looks almost exactly the same and would it be unreasonable to wonder if maybe the similarity was not for usability reasons but just to maybe confuse consumers into thinking "hey, they look exactly alike, I'll just buy the cheaper one since its basically the same thing"?
- wwweston 15y ago
  "Since the iPad came out we all have a preconceived notion of what a tablet should look like but had the iPad been designed differently...we'd live in an alternate universe where everything is the same including the court cases and me-too tablets except they'd all be copying a different design." Right. All of them. Except of course for the mid-2009 prototype of the JooJoo mentioned in the article, which was what went to market by the end of 2009, months before Jobs showcased the iPad at the end of Jan 2010. "'Obvious' is always obvious after the fact." The person writing the article you're responding to is writing it from the perspective of someone who designed a similar-looking product before the fact.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- wwweston 15y ago
  It's good proof of all those things. Whether or not it was successful in the market or made Michael Arrington a lot of money, though, it also seems to be proof not only of the idea that the general appearance of the iPad was likely to be arrived at by other people working on the same problem, but that it was in fact arrived at before the iPad was released.
zdean 15y ago
I posted this video 7 days ago that shows a tablet prototype in 1994 that looks/works a lot like current tablets: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3304198 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3304198
Steko 15y ago
Pernicious falsehoods about Apple's iPad design patents (take a drink every time you see one of these in an iPad design thread): (1) Apple has a patent on rounded corners. (2) Apple has a patent on rectangular slabs. (3) One example of vaguely relevant prior art invalidates Apple's protections. (4) Prior art means anything that came out before the iPad shipped. (5) There's no other way to design a tablet. And remember kids: slavishly copying your competitors' designs and style should be encouraged and rewarded!
cheald 15y ago
The thing that I can't seem to get past is that Samsung (and all the other Japanese electronics makers) has been making televisions that closely resemble the iPad for years now. "Black, rectangular, curved corners, thin bezel" has pretty much been the default design aesthetic of flatscreen displays since their popularization. I have a Philips LCD TV that I bought in late 2007 that could be an iPad if you took it off its stand, blacked out the logo, and put a button on one end of it. http://www.argos.co.uk/wcsstore/argos/images/70-5297124MMA75UC943128M.jpg http://www.argos.co.uk/wcsstore/argos/images/70-5297124MMA75... Just because Apple shrunk the black curved rectangle with uniform bezel down into tablet form doesn't mean they actually invented anything new design-wise. They certainly improved upon existing designs, but it's just arrogant for them to try to claim ownership of that particular design aesthetic.

246 points by nikcub 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

And yet none of the photos of their devices show a screen that's flush with the front of the tablet - in all of them the surface of the screen is slightly indented from the face of the tablet, like laptop screens and TV screens often are. Being oblivious to that rather crucial point rather invalidates the entire argument being made since you've clearly designed something which doesn't have an identical design to an iPad, thus the design and form of an iPad is not the only possible design for a tablet. It's fairly important to remember that in order to infringe a design patent you need to have a design that is 'substantially similar' to the described design rather than simply having design features in common with the described design. Rounded corners is fine, as long as its not rounded corner AND a whole bunch of other design decisions that makes it look identical to an iPad.

Udo 15y ago
And yet that would have made CrunchPad Prototype B an iPad infringer before the iPad came out. In later versions, they seem to have abandoned the mono-surface design, but they clearly considered having it in their initial phase. I think the larger point here is that inventions and innovation don't happen in a vacuum, and most of the stuff around us is anything but novel. Yet our legal systems act otherwise.
nikcub 15y ago
the crunchpad went on to be released as the joojoo, which did have the screen flush. IIRC there was only a single prototype we built out of the later 4-5 where that wasn't the case. see the pic of the joojoo here: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/tag/joojoo/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/tag/joojoo/ edit: just included that in the post and you can play the 'but its just a..' game all the way back to vacuum tubes with anything. that's what innovation is. what I am arguing against is the Apple expert claim about the design being a complete leap and unique and not something that would be reproduced without knowing the ipad. I can argue against that because we did just that (as did others).
jmcqk6 15y ago
Did you feel the least bit ridiculous writing that? I know I felt a little ridiculous just reading that. Perhaps I just have a really hard time understanding how any kind of rounded corners or edges could possibly qualify for a patent unless it had some sort of unique function. Form should never be patentable. Function maybe sometimes.
- scott_s 15y ago
  elemeno clearly stated that rounded corners alone is not enough, it's part of many other things. You may disagree that design patents should exist at all, but they do not just cover a single thing. Also, the "ridiculous" stuff is unnecessary.

TeMPOraL 15y ago

"There was a lot of prior art when we began the Crunchpad project, and having a tablet that was touch controlled rather than with a stylus wasn't really a revolutionary idea since there were a number of component manufacturers at the time who were scaling up their touch controllers to larger dimensions (9", 11", 12" etc.) in preparation for this market." Having a tablet that was touch controlled rather than with a stylus wasn't really a revolutionary idea since Star Trek: The Next Generation was aired in 1987, with it's touch-controlled screens [0] and PADDs [1] [2]. BTW. I'm surprised by Star Trek not being mentioned at all since the dawn of consumer touch-screen technology. I expected people to be doing lots of LCARS rip-offs on MS Surface, tablets and phones, and there's almost nothing. [0] - http://techspecs.startrek.acalltoduty.com/images/galaxy/ed-msd.jpg http://techspecs.startrek.acalltoduty.com/images/galaxy/ed-m... [1] - http://www.teleread.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/padd.gif http://www.teleread.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/padd.gif [2] - http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/PADD http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/PADD

LeafStorm 15y ago
> Having a tablet that was touch controlled rather than with a stylus wasn't really a revolutionary idea since Star Trek: The Next Generation was aired in 1987, with it's touch-controlled screens [0] and PADDs [1] [2]. Star Trek: The Next Generation also has FTL drive and matter transporters that don't kill you. The idea may have come from TNG, but I think it's more that using a finger was the next logical step after the stylus than actual "inspiration" on the part of TNG. > I expected people to be doing lots of LCARS rip-offs on MS Surface, tablets and phones, and there's almost nothing. LCARS really isn't that practical of a user interface (narrow font, odd color scheme, lack of consistent layouts...) Michael Okuda designed it more to look futuristic and "cool" than to really be something usable.
- powertower 15y ago
  You're comparing rounded corners and touch-interface (which has existed for decades) to "FTL drive and matter transporters that don't kill you"?
- TeMPOraL 15y ago

ebbv 15y ago

The iPad is basically a big iPhone, so pointing out that there were people making a big iPhone between when the iPhone was announced and when the iPad was announced just shows that they were copying the iPhone instead of the iPad. Simple, minimalist, elegant designs look obvious in retrospect. The fact that Samsung, HTC, and others are aping Apple's designs in the iPhone and iPad is clear. Denying it only makes you look ridiculous. The question is, are they aping it too much or are they bringing enough new to the table for it to be considered an original design? That's something that almost has to be addressed on a device by device basis.

powertower 15y ago
Innovation innovates. Revision revises. Rounded-corners / while you can call it simple, minimalist, elegant design ... is not innovation, it is revision.
mmcconnell1618 15y ago
Spot on ebbv! Apple designed the iPad long before the iPhone and chose to release the phone first because of technical limitations. While the CrunchPad designs were revealed long before the iPad can they say that the iPhone had no influence on their designs?
shasta 15y ago
AFAIK,the point of a design patent is to protect stylistic (non-functional) elements of a design. The question being asked is whether the common elements between these products are non-functional or actual have important functional reasons for existing. Why are all car tires round, with rubber on the outside, and with cool tread patterns on the outside?
shareme 15y ago
its extremely hard to patent designs and extremely hard to defend such patents.. Want the list of lost patent cases on designs in previous years by Apple?

powertower 15y ago

The notion that a company can patent rounded corners and sue others claiming innovation makes me sick. Maybe they do actually believe what they do is innovation rather than slight revision (and product/market fit)... I mean, that's what people keep telling them they do ... eventually it must stick.

TechNewb 15y ago
It's the overall design aesthetic. It's not just one design feature that is being used from the iPad. The crunch pad had a 16x9 screen and was thicker than the iPad.
- powertower 15y ago
  > was thicker than the iPad I'm sure they would have made it as slim as the battery and circuitry technology allowed them to do so at that time. If you think they made it bulky by choice, and then Apple came in and "innovated" by making their own pad thinner, I don't know what to tell you.
  - TechNewb 15y ago
    If you don't think Apple innovates on 'thin' designs, I don't know what to tell you. And if a tablet came out that looked like the iPad before the iPad, I don't think we would see the iPad as it is today, and everyone would be copying what ever design Apple did do.
    - dpark 15y ago
      Thin is not a patentable idea. If Apple's thinness innovations are truly patentable, then they should get a patent for the specific technologies they've invented and not a design patent for the idea of making something thin. People have wanted thinner computers forever. Also, the article shows a tablet that came out before the iPad looking at lesst as much like the iPad as the Galaxy Tab.
      - 15y ago

rythie 15y ago

The Crunchpad was merely an extension of the ideas from the iPhone/iPod Touch, I think a lot of people could see there was a market for a big iPod Touch. Mostly the competition didn't have an OS ready and Apple was late to the market due to focusing on the iPhone.

jeswin 15y ago
And the iPhone/iPod was just an improvement over Windows/Palm phones. I guess the article is echoing the sentiment that these "innovations" aren't worthy of a patent.

nextparadigms 15y ago

I'm surprised nobody made this case before. I remember I started believing in the idea of tablets way before we even heard rumors about an Apple tablet. I started believing in this idea when I first saw the initial Crunchpad mock-ups.

reader5000 15y ago

Apple is grasping for straws here. The argument that out of the space of all possible designs for a tablet, they own the subset defined by the conjunction of "rounded corners AND flat front surface AND uncluttered design AND thin profile etc." is absurdly overbroad. It's like a car manufacturer arguing they own all car designs that have "good gas mileage AND automatic windows AND bluetooth radio AND leather interior" etc. In the weakest argument the features Apple claims as their own are simply universally desirable features that would be obvious to any designer of such a device. In a stronger argument many of features claimed are necessary for the function of any tablet. Not really comfortable with these IP shenanigans harming the market.

wavephorm 15y ago
The iPad is clearly derivative of just about every touchscreen UI shown in Star Trek Next Generation. The enterprise is plastered with them. Samsung should just show any episode of the show and count the number of devices that that are shown that look like an iPad.
- jbrennan 15y ago
  You know those weren't real devices right?
  - jrockway 15y ago
    You can copy the design of a fake device just as easily as you can copy the design of a real device.
  - grannyg00se 15y ago
    In a discussion about design it doesn't matter, does it? We aren't talking about utility patents where the actual functionality and method to achieve it has to be described.
  - vegardx 15y ago
    Why is this relevant? They portray a probable usecase, which 20 years or so later seem to become reality. They also show us that the idea of a user inferface like that is not necessarily something "new", but that, maybe, the technology wasn't there at that time. Now it is.

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GHFigs 15y ago

This post, like almost every other on the subject, misrepresents the content of the testimony being cited, and thus the arguments being made. Please read it yourself if you care about having discussion any more sophisticated than "Apple is the Great Satan!"/"NO U!" (Edit:"Reading primary sources is heresy! Downvote! Downvote!")

bitsweet 15y ago

The iPad is just a larger IPhone. The real innovation in design here was the iPhone which release pre-dates even the first announcement of the JooJoo. I think it is naive to think the sleek iPhone design didn't significantly influence all current tablet designs. To illustrate how not-obvious the design is, compare the original kindle (released prior to the iphone) to the iPad. And now compare the Kindle Fire (released after the iPhone/iPad) to the iPad.

b0k 15y ago
Apparently that doesn't matter, though. The court case is now about the two witnesses arguing about if the iPad is a unique design separate from all other web tablets, or if it is just a natural progression which anybody would have come up with. I think what this post is arguing is that it was a natural progression, since others were on the same path at the same time. I tend to side with Apple, but reading that testimony their witness/expert seems to be grasping at straws in some parts.
dazbradbury 15y ago
Two of my previous phones, the Sony Ericsson p800 and p900 both pre-date the iPhone. The former was launched in 2002. They were truly innovative imo (although probably something similar pre-dates them that I just don't know about), but as a smartphone with a single front screen, and nothing else (the keypad was detachable), they were a first for me. The evolution from a p800/p900 form factor, to the iphone, is a natural progression as engineering techniques improve. Couple that progression, with Apple's iOS, and you have the iPhone. My point is, where has it been shown that the iPhone design was the first in any case? Personally, I think Apple's argument is weak. Either way, Apple will continue to dominate the market regardless of competitors - I just hope they fail so we can see some fair competition.
- wmf 15y ago
  I had a P800 and I think the difference between the P800 and iPhone is much greater than the difference between the iPhone and the Galaxy. Replacing a raised plastic bezel with a single flat piece of glass is innovative IMO. The feel of using a modern phone is also completely different from the P800.

podperson 15y ago

So, the Crunchpad is "proof" that -- having seen the iPhone and iPod Touch -- the iPad's design is obvious. The article doesn't mention the prior release of the iPhone and iPod Touch (remember Jobs starting out by saying Apple was releasing three things, one of which was a tablet computer). I agree that having seen an iPhone the iPad design is obvious. Next.

fossuser 15y ago
What about the star trek padd? http://www.inventinginteractive.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Sarah_Sisko_reconstruction.jpg http://www.inventinginteractive.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/...
- philwelch 15y ago
  * Red case * Screen physically depressed from bezel * Extraneous white rectangular design elements on the bezel DS9's dark cinematography, combined with a device that doesn't really look like an iPad, makes for a device that at first glance looks like a black iPad. Well, at least if you've seen a black iPad before. If it was better illuminated it would look more like a metallic etch-a-sketch.

Duff 15y ago

I'm really torn by this debate. On the one hand, for an idea so obvious, Apple was first for both phones and tablets -- and they were "first" very late in the game. Microsoft OEMs made tablets for a decade, but NONE of them (even the slate tablets) really compared to the iPad. On the other, I don't see how this is a patent. It feels more like a trademark, although the design of the iPad is probably too general to trademark. My question is: How did the auto industry resolve this? Early cars looked like horse carriages and steered like boats or trolleys. How did the development of the timeless car design patterns (sedan, coupe, wagon, van, pickup, etc) get to the present state?

jeswin 15y ago
You imply that Apple's design itself is innovative. That is exactly what the article disputes with a picture from July 2008. A simple tablet with just one button. Anyone except Microsoft would have come up with just that.
- Duff 15y ago
  It is innovative by definition, because nobody did it before. If it's so simple, why didn't Samsung do it? Paperclips seem like a obvious design that involves no innovation. Yet paperclips similar to what we use now weren't around until 1867, and the "modern" paperclip was patented in 1899 -- 30 years later.
  - jrockway 15y ago
    If it's so simple, why didn't Samsung do it? Because nobody wanted a tablet until Apple told them they did. When there's no market for a device, you don't make and sell one simply because you can. Unless you're Steve Jobs, that is.
  - jeswin 15y ago
    There were tablet PCs earlier. Were they usable? No. The point is, minor usability improvements aren't worthy of a patent. Just look at how bad the patent situation is, and how much of that is due to ridiculously silly patents.

grannyg00se 15y ago

One thing I like about the iPad innovation debade is that it really stresses the importance of execution (because I think it is weak on innovation). People have had the idea of a touch pad for decades and even tried to execute on it dozens of times with real products. The execution of the idea in the form of the iPad made it a success.

nl 15y ago

Unfortunately, this misses the point. Apple's argument is based on the design patents (and "Trade Dress") they have. Design patents aren't like normal patents, nor like trademarks. They are more typically used to protect something like a car or dress design, and the test for infringement is "would this other product be mistaken for the subject by a normal person" It's things like the radius of the rounded corners, the location of the button, and the width of the bevel that will be argued here, not how obvious the design is. http://www.theverge.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analysis/ http://www.theverge.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analys... explains this pretty well. (IANAL, and I think design patents are stupid, but this is the law as I understand it. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent#Comparison_to_utility_patents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent#Comparison_to_uti... for more).

pyre 15y ago
> the location of the button Do you really think that a 'normal person' would say, 'oh, the location of the button is different. this is obviously not an Apple product!'. I find that doubtful. Being first-to-market and the best-selling tablet to date, most 'normal people' will see any tablet within the same size range wonder, "Is that an iPad?"
- fpgeek 15y ago
  Indeed. I've lost track of the number of times my ASUS Transformer has been mistaken for an iPad, sometimes even when docked!
  - buu700 15y ago
    We will be filing suit tonight.
juiceandjuice 15y ago
If the radius is formulaic based on the overall dimensions, should it be patentable? In my opinion, a lot of these claims for the design patent are obvious. The width of the bezel isn't so different than the width of the margins of of the wide ruled spiral bound notebook sitting next to me on my desk. The lab style notebook next to me, which also is almost the same dimensions of the iPad, has almost the exact radius of the corners of the iPad, which feels "right". Not because it's novel, but because humans like rounded corners and the radius is large enough to not be sharp but small enough to maintain a relatively constant distance from the corner of the screen, thus maintaining a feeling of continuity. So, I'd argue that this form factor is obvious because it mimics the design of objects (notebooks) which humans use in a similar way. Seriously, they even took half the name of a notepad and put it in the name of the device! A home button in the center is obvious too. If someone told me to draft a device that looked like a notepad and had exactly one button, I can't imagine a design much different than the iPad, or the touchpad, or the samsung. If they told me to put two buttons, they'd probably both be equidistant from the center.

donnyg107 15y ago

Both of these posts are completely opposite to what the system of production should be. OBVIOUSLY we would see the apple design as intelligent, and obviously thats how we think intelligent tablets should look now that they have been established as functional and successful, but that is completely the result of apple engineers hard work, not some universal tablet design that just makes sense. I can understand why apple would be so pissed. They created a novel (and initially, quite criticized for several aspects of it's simplicity) piece of technology, and because everyone likes it, they're claiming that it was barely designed at all. Apple made tough and meticulous decisions that allowed them to nail this design, and now, seeing that they are successful, other companies are claiming that those decisions were obvious and effectively unmade. And even if the designs were in fact "obvious," and impossible to do any other way, then why hadn't tablets taken this form before now? And even further, why do we patent things at all, if whenever someone releases a design seen as intelligent and novel, it can be declared as the industry standard and infinitely copyable? We patent so that apple has an incentive to make such a well thought out product, not so they can "shut out other designs that are simply following the same completely objective universal blueprints for the tablet computer."

jsmcgd 15y ago
> then why hadn't tablets taken this form before now? They have. Many times. Not one aspect of the iPad design is original. That's the whole problem. They're able to claim other people's inventions as their own. It's tantamount to theft. That's what makes this whole scenario so galling. They're committing the crime they're accusing others of.

preek 15y ago

Does nobody remember that there were big corporations trying to get a tablet out for the last decade and have terribly failed to do so? The iPad is not at all obvious. It is intuitive. That's why everyone thinks it's obvious _after_ having seen and used it.

vacri 15y ago
http://gdeluxe.com/tablets-before-ipad-part-ii/ http://gdeluxe.com/tablets-before-ipad-part-ii/ Turns out that there are actually quite a few tablets before the iPad that sport design features that supposedly only arrived in 2010.
- preek 15y ago
  Perfect link. Thanks! All of them have either a stylus, are cluttered with buttons all over the place or have a stock WinXP which is totally useless for touch. For these reasons, all of them failed terribly and nobody bought them. I haven't seen one of these IRL. I see my point proven, so thanks again for the link.
  - DanBC 15y ago
    No. Many of those tablets have features (eg, rectangular shape with rounded corners) that are supposed to be not obvious. It's more evidence that a lot of iPad is evolutionary not revolutionary. See also PDAs which contain a bunch of features which are covered by patents. (a big menu button at the bottom centre of the screen).

abk 15y ago

IANAL and I hate to sound like a fanboy, but can't Apple claim that the 2007 iPod touch is prior art, since it's basically a small black tablet with rounded corners and a single button at the bottom? It looks much more similar to an iPad than the 2008 crunchpad.

billpatrianakos 15y ago

There's a good case for Applemif they can get the right point across. Looking back its easy to say that the design of a tablet is obvious but it really isn't. Since the iPad came out we all have a preconceived notion of what a tablet should look like but had the iPad been designed differently as it very well could have been and it remained as successful then we'd live in an alternate universe where everything is the same including the court cases and me-too tablets except they'd all be copying a different design. Consider this: Apple could have chosen to use a built in keyboard. They could have used more than one physical button much like Android phones instead of just the home button. They could have used a flat back instead of an convex curve. Consider the similarity in the radius of the corners too - very similar if not the same (I haven't measured though). The black frame is not obvious as a choice. It could have easily had little to no frame. The metal border just outside the frame, also not obvious. All of this "obvious" talk seems to me like people trying to fit a square peg (the answer) into a round hole (the answer). You may be able to jam them together but it's still not e right fit. "Obvious" is always obvious after the fact. This stuff may make sense from an industrial design perspective but it doesn't mean that tablet makers were ready to actually follow those design patterns. Companies ignore convention all the time when designing products. And I'm closing I'll leave you all with something a little less compelling. The Samsung tablet really does look an iPad clone. All tablets look somewhat similar but in the case of Samsung it's just so obvious that it looks almost exactly the same and would it be unreasonable to wonder if maybe the similarity was not for usability reasons but just to maybe confuse consumers into thinking "hey, they look exactly alike, I'll just buy the cheaper one since its basically the same thing"?

wwweston 15y ago
"Since the iPad came out we all have a preconceived notion of what a tablet should look like but had the iPad been designed differently...we'd live in an alternate universe where everything is the same including the court cases and me-too tablets except they'd all be copying a different design." Right. All of them. Except of course for the mid-2009 prototype of the JooJoo mentioned in the article, which was what went to market by the end of 2009, months before Jobs showcased the iPad at the end of Jan 2010. "'Obvious' is always obvious after the fact." The person writing the article you're responding to is writing it from the perspective of someone who designed a similar-looking product before the fact.

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wwweston 15y ago
It's good proof of all those things. Whether or not it was successful in the market or made Michael Arrington a lot of money, though, it also seems to be proof not only of the idea that the general appearance of the iPad was likely to be arrived at by other people working on the same problem, but that it was in fact arrived at before the iPad was released.

zdean 15y ago

I posted this video 7 days ago that shows a tablet prototype in 1994 that looks/works a lot like current tablets: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3304198 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3304198

Steko 15y ago

Pernicious falsehoods about Apple's iPad design patents (take a drink every time you see one of these in an iPad design thread): (1) Apple has a patent on rounded corners. (2) Apple has a patent on rectangular slabs. (3) One example of vaguely relevant prior art invalidates Apple's protections. (4) Prior art means anything that came out before the iPad shipped. (5) There's no other way to design a tablet. And remember kids: slavishly copying your competitors' designs and style should be encouraged and rewarded!

cheald 15y ago

The thing that I can't seem to get past is that Samsung (and all the other Japanese electronics makers) has been making televisions that closely resemble the iPad for years now. "Black, rectangular, curved corners, thin bezel" has pretty much been the default design aesthetic of flatscreen displays since their popularization. I have a Philips LCD TV that I bought in late 2007 that could be an iPad if you took it off its stand, blacked out the logo, and put a button on one end of it. http://www.argos.co.uk/wcsstore/argos/images/70-5297124MMA75UC943128M.jpg http://www.argos.co.uk/wcsstore/argos/images/70-5297124MMA75... Just because Apple shrunk the black curved rectangle with uniform bezel down into tablet form doesn't mean they actually invented anything new design-wise. They certainly improved upon existing designs, but it's just arrogant for them to try to claim ownership of that particular design aesthetic.