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"""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 contex
by 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 agopinch-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.