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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 photograp
by 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 agoI 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 agoI'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.
- jlgreco 14y agoWould you say that you suspect Google/Samsung employees read Apple patents to figure out what Apple is planning on doing, or if they read Apple patents to figure out how Apple has done things?
- vagrant 14y agoI am an engineer at Google. No, we don't read through patents to figure out how to do something. We are not idiots. If I wanted to implement a pinch/zoom system, I would just do it. It's not rocket science. In fact, I believe I did do it, before I worked at Google. I was writing code for an iPhone app on a version of IOS that did not have the gesture recognizers available in the public API. It's not that hard to recognize two points moving away from each other.
- anamax 14y ago> 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. I like to get paid for my technical work. Patents have some effect in that area.
- mnutt 14y agoIn all of the industries I'm familiar with, I just don't see it happening that someone says "Hey, I wonder how they did that. I'll go check out their patent filing!" Certainly not in software. And the concept of willful infringement gives even less incentive to do so.
- creamyhorror 14y agoI 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. It need not be one or the other. In the specific patents under discussion, I hardly think competitors could not figure out how to implement multi-finger touching, or pinch-to-zoom. An idea that is easy to re-implement (or has a means of implementation obvious to industry workers) once made public simply shouldn't be protected by patent. By and large, companies can work around patented implementations, but not when they are so broad as to essentially encompass the whole idea (e.g. unified search, or multi-touch sensing). In the first place, patents are granted for specific implementations, not ideas. It's clear to me that the standards and enforcement of the obviousness principle need to be raised.
- moe 14y agoif this system were abolished then companies like Apple would be obscuring their methods to prevent copying, and their platforms would be more locked down. Excuse me? How could Apple possibly lock their platform down even more?
- nigori 14y agoI'm having trouble with this concept because Apple already seems locked down to me. Would you provide some plausible and probable examples of how you think Apple would be more locked down in a world without patents?
- monjaro 14y agoDo you honestly believe that people couldn't figure out how to implement bounce-back without reading a patent?