6 ms·

I think this is actually bad news. Since the guy has a patent to his name, that means he understood what patents are. (EG: protection for unique inventions, no

by nirvana 14y ago

I think this is actually bad news. Since the guy has a patent to his name, that means he understood what patents are. (EG: protection for unique inventions, not monopolies on features or ideas.) If the jury had been completely non-technical, and subjected to the nonsense propaganda you see so much these days (that patents are "trivial" and that they cover ideas) and still found in Apple's favor, then this would bolster the trust one can have in the court system. Further, it is kinda funny that the foreman of the jury has more technical knowledge than many of the posters on "Hacker News", who seem to have no patents and little understanding of what patents are.

nohat 14y ago
Are you saying that the apple patents are unique inventions? I ask for clarity because that is not a common position on hackernews.
- nirvana 14y ago
  It is common for android fans on hacker news to assert that the patents are invalid because the same features exist in android phones, but this is not only a temporal error, but implied a lack of understanding of what patents even are. I've not seen any arguments on hacker news that the patents are invalid. Period. Full Stop. I've seen this assertion many times and the claim that it is "obvious" but it is clear to me that the people making the assertion have never read the patent and don't know the first thing about patents.
  - nohat 14y ago
    I find it difficult to believe that you've never seen an argument that the patents are invalid. You may not agree, but the argument has been made many times. The usual argument is that the patents are obvious. Bouncy scrolling, double tap to zoom, pinch to zoom and one fingered scrolling. Do you find these non-trivial and non-obvious? You mentioned that ideas are not patentable, but in practice that is exactly what is protected - the fact that a machine implementing them is technically what is patented makes little practical difference.
gdubs 14y ago
Jurors don't have to be ignorant of a subject to be objective. Further, it's up to the lawyers on both sides to dismiss a juror during selection if they think they'll be biased. They didn't, probably because both sides -- believing they were in the right -- thought that someone with knowledge of patents would ultimately see things their way.
cromwellian 14y ago
The guy's patent is for a device that simply saves streaming media to a hard-drive and plays it back. Basically a PVR/set-top or video iPod. Is this non-obvious? If anything, this indicates to me someone who's mentality is pro aggressive IP ownership and enforcement. Like having someone who works for the RIAA/MPAA as a juror in a BitTorrent downloading case. I wonder how the case would have went if it the jury had been assembled from 9 people who have been working on touch interfaces for the last 20 years.
- nirvana 14y ago
  You seem to imply you've read the patent. Could you find the specific claims and then show us some prior art for them? Many things become "obvious" after they have entered commercial production, but are not obvious at the time they are invented. The car is obvious now, for instance. Your comment about the jury assumes there were touch interfaces 20 years ago (of a type relevant to this case.) Apple started in the 1990s, but even Jeff Han is using a completely different method. This seems to imply that you're confusing patents for a "right to sell a feature". On this site I've seen many claims that Apple's patents are covered by "prior art" but the "art" cited is generally nonsensical (eg: 2001: a space odessy having square tablets) and indicate that people think patents cover ideas or features, rather than inventions used to bring them to life. Just because the TiVo exists, does not mean that I can't, today, invent a novel method of solving similar problems to the TiVo that is legitimately patentable. TiVo's existence doesn't make patentable inventions in the same space impossible. The rotary engine was patentable even though other internal combustion engines were already on the market.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
    http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=7,352,953&OS=7,352,953&RS=7,352,953 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sec...
    - ojiikun 14y ago
      Perused the patent. As far as I can tell, this guy is a patent troll, plain and simple. The patent basically describes every DVR that geeks were building 10 years before it was filed. True, it's fancied up in exactly the sort of language that would make it sound novel to a clerk, but I can't find any particular provisions that aren't normal software/hardware operation. I have renewed hope that this could force an end result where the whole software patent system is torn apart.
woodchuck64 14y ago
I like Groklaw's comment (http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012082510525390 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012082510525390) " If it would take a lawyer three days to make sure he understood the terms in the form, how did the jury not need the time to do the same? There were 700 questions, remember, and one thing is plain, that the jury didn't take the time to avoid inconsistencies, one of which resulted in the jury casually throwing numbers around, like $2 million dollars for a nonfringement. Come on. This is farce. "
- nirvana 14y ago
  The jury had 14 days of hearing evidence. It is quite possible that the case was so compelling that it didn't take them very long to decide the points. I've yet to see any argument that the verdict is wrong, based on an understanding of the patents in question.
  - syjer 14y ago
    They found that the nexus s infringed the bounce back patent. But this is impossible as it use vanilla android which has never implemented this behaviour. So it looks like kinda rushed for _some_ decisions.
    - pvidler 14y ago
      There is what looks like bounce back at around 0:36 onwards in this video review: http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/samsung-nexus-s-at/4505-6452_7-34431171.html http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/samsung-nexus-s-at/4505-... It's some sort of app list screen though and happens between what looks like screens of icons, so I'm not sure if it counts. For lists it looks like an orange glow effect, possibly with some small bounce, but that may be an optical illusion. This might be enough to confuse a jury? I haven't checked the patent to see if it actually infringes or not.
jlgreco 14y ago
Can you explain how patents don't grant a type of legal monopoly? This seems non-obvious to me, and poking around on Wikipedia has only served to reinforce my suspicion that they are.
- nirvana 14y ago
  They do grant a type of legal monopoly... but on an invention, not on a feature. So, in my example, Jeff Han demonstrated pinch to zoom using cameras photographing your hans, while Apple has a patent on an invention that lets a screen figure out where your fingers are. They both could be patented and have a legal monopoly on their inventions even though they are the "same thing". If your objection is to there being a monopoly at all, I can understand that. But please then consider several things- for instance, if this system were abolished then companies like Apple would be obscuring their methods to prevent copying, and their platforms would be more locked down. I think if we lived in a world without patents, many of the anti-IP people would be advocating for a requirement that companies like Apple publish the nature of their inventions.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    I don't have a categorical opposition to patents, so the monopoly aspect of them does not particularly concern me. To what extent do these patents actually benefit the technical community though? As you seem to know, a technically inclined person that actually reads other peoples patents seems to be a rare animal.
    - nirvana 14y ago
      I'm sure they are rare among startup founders, but not rare in the wider realm. But it is not the fault of the patent system that people don't read them. I already mentioned one benefit that doesn't require reading the patents, and that is there is less incentive to obfuscate designs or lock down products. Secondly, for situations where there is a major break thru, patents give companies caught flat footed a chance to come up to speed by reading the details of the invention so that they can then extend it. I don't, for a second, doubt that many engineers in Google and Samsung have read these Apple patents, for instance. Of course the official policy is that they don't, and they will never admit it in court (they'll never let the people who did read them testify) but the level of industrial espionage that these companies engage in is such that it seems exceedingly unlikely they wouldn't read freely available publications designed to reveal these inventions. But that is also the purpose of the patent system. Where things are broken here is that Google feels they can get away with infringing because in the past court cases have been long time coming and relatively weak in their impact. So, google made the calculated decisions to simply violate the patents.
JoelSutherland 14y ago
Hi, I'm a poster on Hacker News and I can read. Here is the core claim from the '915 patent: A machine implemented method for scrolling on a touch-sensitive display of a device comprising: 1. receiving a user input, the user input is one or more input points applied to the touch-sensitive display that is integrated with the device; 2. creating an event object in response to the user input; 3. determining whether the event object invokes a scroll or gesture operation by distinguishing between a single input point applied to the touch-sensitive display that is interpreted as the scroll operation and two or more input points applied to the touch-sensitive display that are interpreted as the gesture operation; 4. issuing at least one scroll or gesture call based on invoking the scroll or gesture operation; 5. responding to at least one scroll call, if issued, by scrolling a window having a view associated with the event object based on an amount of a scroll with the scroll stopped at a predetermined position in relation to the user input; and 6. responding to at least one gesture call, if issued, by scaling the view associated with the event object based on receiving the two or more input points in the form of the user input. Here is text from the paper (http://www.sonycsl.co.jp/person/rekimoto/papers/chi02.pdf http://www.sonycsl.co.jp/person/rekimoto/papers/chi02.pdf) that accompanied this 2002 video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waSXkJBKT1s#t=2m20s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waSXkJBKT1s#t=2m20s) of this exact same behavior: Figure 12 shows a map browsing system. The user scrolls the map by sliding a ﬁnger along the sensor surface. If the user touches the surface with two or more ﬁngers, by changing the distance from the ﬁngers to the surface, he/she can control the map scale. Simultaneous control of scrolling and zooming is intuitive, because the user feels as if his or her ﬁngers are ﬁxed to the map’s surface. It is true that I don't understand patents very well. But, those are the same thing. Since you seem to understand the patent system well enough to drop generalizations about the HN population, would you please explain how this can be and also why it should be.
- skue 14y ago
  IANAL either, but I would certainly not presume that your example describes the same thing from an IP standpoint. For example, you could start with the first sentence in Apple's claim: it applies to a "touch-sensitive display." What you cited incorporates a touch-sensitive sensor without a display that responds similarly. It's not unreasonable to say that a projector screen is not the same as a display.

by nirvana 14y ago

nohat 14y ago

Are you saying that the apple patents are unique inventions? I ask for clarity because that is not a common position on hackernews.

nirvana 14y ago
It is common for android fans on hacker news to assert that the patents are invalid because the same features exist in android phones, but this is not only a temporal error, but implied a lack of understanding of what patents even are. I've not seen any arguments on hacker news that the patents are invalid. Period. Full Stop. I've seen this assertion many times and the claim that it is "obvious" but it is clear to me that the people making the assertion have never read the patent and don't know the first thing about patents.
- nohat 14y ago
  I find it difficult to believe that you've never seen an argument that the patents are invalid. You may not agree, but the argument has been made many times. The usual argument is that the patents are obvious. Bouncy scrolling, double tap to zoom, pinch to zoom and one fingered scrolling. Do you find these non-trivial and non-obvious? You mentioned that ideas are not patentable, but in practice that is exactly what is protected - the fact that a machine implementing them is technically what is patented makes little practical difference.

gdubs 14y ago

Jurors don't have to be ignorant of a subject to be objective. Further, it's up to the lawyers on both sides to dismiss a juror during selection if they think they'll be biased. They didn't, probably because both sides -- believing they were in the right -- thought that someone with knowledge of patents would ultimately see things their way.

cromwellian 14y ago

The guy's patent is for a device that simply saves streaming media to a hard-drive and plays it back. Basically a PVR/set-top or video iPod. Is this non-obvious? If anything, this indicates to me someone who's mentality is pro aggressive IP ownership and enforcement. Like having someone who works for the RIAA/MPAA as a juror in a BitTorrent downloading case. I wonder how the case would have went if it the jury had been assembled from 9 people who have been working on touch interfaces for the last 20 years.

nirvana 14y ago
You seem to imply you've read the patent. Could you find the specific claims and then show us some prior art for them? Many things become "obvious" after they have entered commercial production, but are not obvious at the time they are invented. The car is obvious now, for instance. Your comment about the jury assumes there were touch interfaces 20 years ago (of a type relevant to this case.) Apple started in the 1990s, but even Jeff Han is using a completely different method. This seems to imply that you're confusing patents for a "right to sell a feature". On this site I've seen many claims that Apple's patents are covered by "prior art" but the "art" cited is generally nonsensical (eg: 2001: a space odessy having square tablets) and indicate that people think patents cover ideas or features, rather than inventions used to bring them to life. Just because the TiVo exists, does not mean that I can't, today, invent a novel method of solving similar problems to the TiVo that is legitimately patentable. TiVo's existence doesn't make patentable inventions in the same space impossible. The rotary engine was patentable even though other internal combustion engines were already on the market.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=7,352,953&OS=7,352,953&RS=7,352,953 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sec...
  - ojiikun 14y ago
    Perused the patent. As far as I can tell, this guy is a patent troll, plain and simple. The patent basically describes every DVR that geeks were building 10 years before it was filed. True, it's fancied up in exactly the sort of language that would make it sound novel to a clerk, but I can't find any particular provisions that aren't normal software/hardware operation. I have renewed hope that this could force an end result where the whole software patent system is torn apart.

woodchuck64 14y ago

I like Groklaw's comment (http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012082510525390 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012082510525390) " If it would take a lawyer three days to make sure he understood the terms in the form, how did the jury not need the time to do the same? There were 700 questions, remember, and one thing is plain, that the jury didn't take the time to avoid inconsistencies, one of which resulted in the jury casually throwing numbers around, like $2 million dollars for a nonfringement. Come on. This is farce. "

nirvana 14y ago
The jury had 14 days of hearing evidence. It is quite possible that the case was so compelling that it didn't take them very long to decide the points. I've yet to see any argument that the verdict is wrong, based on an understanding of the patents in question.
- syjer 14y ago
  They found that the nexus s infringed the bounce back patent. But this is impossible as it use vanilla android which has never implemented this behaviour. So it looks like kinda rushed for _some_ decisions.
  - pvidler 14y ago
    There is what looks like bounce back at around 0:36 onwards in this video review: http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/samsung-nexus-s-at/4505-6452_7-34431171.html http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/samsung-nexus-s-at/4505-... It's some sort of app list screen though and happens between what looks like screens of icons, so I'm not sure if it counts. For lists it looks like an orange glow effect, possibly with some small bounce, but that may be an optical illusion. This might be enough to confuse a jury? I haven't checked the patent to see if it actually infringes or not.

jlgreco 14y ago

Can you explain how patents don't grant a type of legal monopoly? This seems non-obvious to me, and poking around on Wikipedia has only served to reinforce my suspicion that they are.

nirvana 14y ago
They do grant a type of legal monopoly... but on an invention, not on a feature. So, in my example, Jeff Han demonstrated pinch to zoom using cameras photographing your hans, while Apple has a patent on an invention that lets a screen figure out where your fingers are. They both could be patented and have a legal monopoly on their inventions even though they are the "same thing". If your objection is to there being a monopoly at all, I can understand that. But please then consider several things- for instance, if this system were abolished then companies like Apple would be obscuring their methods to prevent copying, and their platforms would be more locked down. I think if we lived in a world without patents, many of the anti-IP people would be advocating for a requirement that companies like Apple publish the nature of their inventions.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  I don't have a categorical opposition to patents, so the monopoly aspect of them does not particularly concern me. To what extent do these patents actually benefit the technical community though? As you seem to know, a technically inclined person that actually reads other peoples patents seems to be a rare animal.
  - nirvana 14y ago
    I'm sure they are rare among startup founders, but not rare in the wider realm. But it is not the fault of the patent system that people don't read them. I already mentioned one benefit that doesn't require reading the patents, and that is there is less incentive to obfuscate designs or lock down products. Secondly, for situations where there is a major break thru, patents give companies caught flat footed a chance to come up to speed by reading the details of the invention so that they can then extend it. I don't, for a second, doubt that many engineers in Google and Samsung have read these Apple patents, for instance. Of course the official policy is that they don't, and they will never admit it in court (they'll never let the people who did read them testify) but the level of industrial espionage that these companies engage in is such that it seems exceedingly unlikely they wouldn't read freely available publications designed to reveal these inventions. But that is also the purpose of the patent system. Where things are broken here is that Google feels they can get away with infringing because in the past court cases have been long time coming and relatively weak in their impact. So, google made the calculated decisions to simply violate the patents.

JoelSutherland 14y ago

Hi, I'm a poster on Hacker News and I can read. Here is the core claim from the '915 patent: A machine implemented method for scrolling on a touch-sensitive display of a device comprising: 1. receiving a user input, the user input is one or more input points applied to the touch-sensitive display that is integrated with the device; 2. creating an event object in response to the user input; 3. determining whether the event object invokes a scroll or gesture operation by distinguishing between a single input point applied to the touch-sensitive display that is interpreted as the scroll operation and two or more input points applied to the touch-sensitive display that are interpreted as the gesture operation; 4. issuing at least one scroll or gesture call based on invoking the scroll or gesture operation; 5. responding to at least one scroll call, if issued, by scrolling a window having a view associated with the event object based on an amount of a scroll with the scroll stopped at a predetermined position in relation to the user input; and 6. responding to at least one gesture call, if issued, by scaling the view associated with the event object based on receiving the two or more input points in the form of the user input. Here is text from the paper (http://www.sonycsl.co.jp/person/rekimoto/papers/chi02.pdf http://www.sonycsl.co.jp/person/rekimoto/papers/chi02.pdf) that accompanied this 2002 video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waSXkJBKT1s#t=2m20s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waSXkJBKT1s#t=2m20s) of this exact same behavior: Figure 12 shows a map browsing system. The user scrolls the map by sliding a ﬁnger along the sensor surface. If the user touches the surface with two or more ﬁngers, by changing the distance from the ﬁngers to the surface, he/she can control the map scale. Simultaneous control of scrolling and zooming is intuitive, because the user feels as if his or her ﬁngers are ﬁxed to the map’s surface. It is true that I don't understand patents very well. But, those are the same thing. Since you seem to understand the patent system well enough to drop generalizations about the HN population, would you please explain how this can be and also why it should be.

skue 14y ago
IANAL either, but I would certainly not presume that your example describes the same thing from an IP standpoint. For example, you could start with the first sentence in Apple's claim: it applies to a "touch-sensitive display." What you cited incorporates a touch-sensitive sensor without a display that responds similarly. It's not unreasonable to say that a projector screen is not the same as a display.