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"""Surely you recognize that to a lot of people this is exactly the problem, right? """ Yeah, but tough luck. Why didn't those complaining Opera/Mozilla devs

"""Surely you recognize that to a lot of people this is exactly the problem, right? """ Yeah, but tough luck. Why didn't those complaining Opera/Mozilla devs come up with the same interaction methods before Apple/fingerworks to give them to the public domain? """when they start acting directly counter to the interests of the public""" Well, selling computers instead of giving them with zero profit margin is against the interest of the public too. Where do you draw the line? Why should the public benefit from something Apple invented by bypassing Apple and getting it from other vendors? If you invoke the defense of the questionable patent, since "pinch-to-zoom" is "too obvious", then why didn't anyone else come up with it before and patented it? It can't be both obvious AND non patented before. What it can be, though, and I think it is, is "obvious in retrospect". Which is not the same as obvious at all. That said, I'm all for a short period (5-10 years?) where a patent can be valid. But I don't buy the "questionable" or "obvious" argument. If it's obvious, patent it and grant it to the world, or at least establish some major prior-art.

ajross 15y ago
"It can't be both obvious AND non patented before." This is so wrong it makes my brain hurt to read it. Even beyond plainly bad logic (you patent every "obvious" idea you have?!) it's contradicted by a continuous stream of "bad patent with prior art" stories on this site and a hundred others. Hell, I see some links to that sort of thing in this very thread. "Why should the public benefit from something Apple invented by bypassing Apple and getting it from other vendors?" Because that's is the whole point of patent law, according to the US constitution at least. And in any case that's not what's happening here. Apple isn't trying to make sure we get pinch-zoom from them, they're trying to make sure that web applications cannot get pinch-zoom at all.
- dextorious 15y ago
  """Even beyond plainly bad logic (you patent every "obvious" idea you have?!)""" If it's a multi-million making idea, why wouldn't I? (In my case, though, a little Googling reveals that someone else has thought of it first.) You know of many people coming up with ideas like pinch-to-zoom and just throwing them away? ""it's contradicted by a continuous stream of "bad patent with prior art" stories on this site and a hundred others.""" How does this contradicts it? It cuts both ways, you know. If anything, it makes it even easier for someone else, like Opera, to patent something, if they can still patent it while prior art exists. """Because that's is the whole point of patent law, according to the US constitution at least.""" The whole point of the patent law is that ...the public should benefit by something X invented by bypassing X and getting it from their competitors?!!!! You're reading it totally backwards. The whole point of the patent system is to PROTECT X invention. """Apple isn't trying to make sure we get pinch-zoom from them, they're trying to make sure that web applications cannot get pinch-zoom at all.""" Wrong again. Web applications get it in mobile Safari and Safari OS X. So, yes, they're trying to make sure we get it "from them".
  - tensor 15y ago
    You know of many people coming up with ideas like pinch-to-zoom and just throwing them away? As a matter of fact, I do. Let me present to you a very popular example, pinch to zoom: http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html I'm sure you are confused, because Apple has a patent on this because they invented it, right? Not quite. Apple has a very narrow patent on it for using it in conjunction with a particular technology. To most people, applying pinch to zoom on a capacitive screen verses some other type of screen is pretty obvious, it works in any situation where you have multiple touch points. None of this stopped Apple from patenting it. It didn't stop the patent system from granting the patent. And perhaps worst of all, it doesn't stop Apple from using this patent to claim that they did all sorts of work and pioneered multitouch with gestures like pinch to zoom. The problem many of have with Apple stems from exactly this type of situation. While this is one of the most talked about, I have no doubt that you can find many other examples of Apple enforcing trivial patents granted in a narrow band, or in some caes like the Apple vs Samsung, not so narrow. You don't typically see people complaining about patents on Latent Semantic Indexing, Page Rank, or other complex algorithms that are truly non-obvious. If our society truly believes that minor tweaks on existing ideas are grand innovations worthy of patent protection, that's a very sad statement on the human condition.
    - echaozh 15y ago
      I don't know if it counts as invention, but surely we've seen such technologies in science fiction movies like the Minority Report. The idea must have existed before.
  - ajross 15y ago
    'You're reading it totally backwards. The whole point of the patent system is to PROTECT X invention.' Don't know where you live, but the constitution of my nation is pretty damn clear that the whole point of the patent system is to "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". I don't see anything in there about "protection". (edit with a little less snark: you're misreading what I said. Patents provide protection as a means to an end. What I was saying is that the goal of the patent system is very much to get inventions into the hands of the public, and into the hands of other inventors who can improve them. Apple's attempts to kill off web standards here is very much in violation of that principle.)
mbrubeck 15y ago
"It can't be both obvious AND non patented before." As long as an obvious idea can be turned into a patent (and they definitely are! remember the swing patent [1]?) then one attempt to patent it has to be the first. Your statement can't be true unless all obvious ideas have somehow been patented since the dawn of time. [1]: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2178-boy-takes-swing-at-us-patents.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2178-boy-takes-swing-a...
- dextorious 15y ago
  """Your statement can't be true unless all obvious ideas have somehow been patented since the dawn of time""" Yeah, but I'm not talking "fire" here. The context is ideas that can generate lots of money and companies want to use like crazy. Like pinch-to-zoom. If they claim it's obvious why didn't they implement it in their products first? Why wasn't it part of the web standards from before the iPhone? And why nobody patented it? That's the gist of my argument.
  - georgemcbay 15y ago
    pinch-to-zoom is obvious once you have a display capable of multitouch input. The whole reason it works so well is that it is mimicking a real world interaction that is fully intuitive (read: obvious!). Should specific implementations of multitouch input technology be patent-able? Yes. Should pinch-to-zoom and other obvious gestures be patent-able on top of that? Obviously not. What drives patent applications for things like pinch-to-zoom isn't novelty, but companies with vast legal teams who throw patents against the wall to see what sticks. My name appears on some patent applications. Not because those patents describe things that are novel (because they don't) but because the company I was working for at the time went into a "patent everything" phase. I regret allowing them to even use my name on those applications. All of this is ultimately the USPTO's fault for basically rubber stamping whatever comes through the door and letting the courts figure it out. Filing clearly stupid patents should come with a penalty akin to frivolous lawsuits, but at this point I doubt the system will ever change, at least until the USA completes its long but accelerating slide into economic irrelevance.

ajross 15y ago

"It can't be both obvious AND non patented before." This is so wrong it makes my brain hurt to read it. Even beyond plainly bad logic (you patent every "obvious" idea you have?!) it's contradicted by a continuous stream of "bad patent with prior art" stories on this site and a hundred others. Hell, I see some links to that sort of thing in this very thread. "Why should the public benefit from something Apple invented by bypassing Apple and getting it from other vendors?" Because that's is the whole point of patent law, according to the US constitution at least. And in any case that's not what's happening here. Apple isn't trying to make sure we get pinch-zoom from them, they're trying to make sure that web applications cannot get pinch-zoom at all.

dextorious 15y ago
"""Even beyond plainly bad logic (you patent every "obvious" idea you have?!)""" If it's a multi-million making idea, why wouldn't I? (In my case, though, a little Googling reveals that someone else has thought of it first.) You know of many people coming up with ideas like pinch-to-zoom and just throwing them away? ""it's contradicted by a continuous stream of "bad patent with prior art" stories on this site and a hundred others.""" How does this contradicts it? It cuts both ways, you know. If anything, it makes it even easier for someone else, like Opera, to patent something, if they can still patent it while prior art exists. """Because that's is the whole point of patent law, according to the US constitution at least.""" The whole point of the patent law is that ...the public should benefit by something X invented by bypassing X and getting it from their competitors?!!!! You're reading it totally backwards. The whole point of the patent system is to PROTECT X invention. """Apple isn't trying to make sure we get pinch-zoom from them, they're trying to make sure that web applications cannot get pinch-zoom at all.""" Wrong again. Web applications get it in mobile Safari and Safari OS X. So, yes, they're trying to make sure we get it "from them".
- tensor 15y ago
  You know of many people coming up with ideas like pinch-to-zoom and just throwing them away? As a matter of fact, I do. Let me present to you a very popular example, pinch to zoom: http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html I'm sure you are confused, because Apple has a patent on this because they invented it, right? Not quite. Apple has a very narrow patent on it for using it in conjunction with a particular technology. To most people, applying pinch to zoom on a capacitive screen verses some other type of screen is pretty obvious, it works in any situation where you have multiple touch points. None of this stopped Apple from patenting it. It didn't stop the patent system from granting the patent. And perhaps worst of all, it doesn't stop Apple from using this patent to claim that they did all sorts of work and pioneered multitouch with gestures like pinch to zoom. The problem many of have with Apple stems from exactly this type of situation. While this is one of the most talked about, I have no doubt that you can find many other examples of Apple enforcing trivial patents granted in a narrow band, or in some caes like the Apple vs Samsung, not so narrow. You don't typically see people complaining about patents on Latent Semantic Indexing, Page Rank, or other complex algorithms that are truly non-obvious. If our society truly believes that minor tweaks on existing ideas are grand innovations worthy of patent protection, that's a very sad statement on the human condition.
  - echaozh 15y ago
    I don't know if it counts as invention, but surely we've seen such technologies in science fiction movies like the Minority Report. The idea must have existed before.
- ajross 15y ago
  'You're reading it totally backwards. The whole point of the patent system is to PROTECT X invention.' Don't know where you live, but the constitution of my nation is pretty damn clear that the whole point of the patent system is to "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". I don't see anything in there about "protection". (edit with a little less snark: you're misreading what I said. Patents provide protection as a means to an end. What I was saying is that the goal of the patent system is very much to get inventions into the hands of the public, and into the hands of other inventors who can improve them. Apple's attempts to kill off web standards here is very much in violation of that principle.)

mbrubeck 15y ago

"It can't be both obvious AND non patented before." As long as an obvious idea can be turned into a patent (and they definitely are! remember the swing patent [1]?) then one attempt to patent it has to be the first. Your statement can't be true unless all obvious ideas have somehow been patented since the dawn of time. [1]: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2178-boy-takes-swing-at-us-patents.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2178-boy-takes-swing-a...

dextorious 15y ago
"""Your statement can't be true unless all obvious ideas have somehow been patented since the dawn of time""" Yeah, but I'm not talking "fire" here. The context is ideas that can generate lots of money and companies want to use like crazy. Like pinch-to-zoom. If they claim it's obvious why didn't they implement it in their products first? Why wasn't it part of the web standards from before the iPhone? And why nobody patented it? That's the gist of my argument.
- georgemcbay 15y ago
  pinch-to-zoom is obvious once you have a display capable of multitouch input. The whole reason it works so well is that it is mimicking a real world interaction that is fully intuitive (read: obvious!). Should specific implementations of multitouch input technology be patent-able? Yes. Should pinch-to-zoom and other obvious gestures be patent-able on top of that? Obviously not. What drives patent applications for things like pinch-to-zoom isn't novelty, but companies with vast legal teams who throw patents against the wall to see what sticks. My name appears on some patent applications. Not because those patents describe things that are novel (because they don't) but because the company I was working for at the time went into a "patent everything" phase. I regret allowing them to even use my name on those applications. All of this is ultimately the USPTO's fault for basically rubber stamping whatever comes through the door and letting the courts figure it out. Filing clearly stupid patents should come with a penalty akin to frivolous lawsuits, but at this point I doubt the system will ever change, at least until the USA completes its long but accelerating slide into economic irrelevance.