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I never really understood why protecting Massimo in this situation was more important than allowing customers to access a feature in their watch. I get patent l
by kylehotchkiss 1y ago
I never really understood why protecting Massimo in this situation was more important than allowing customers to access a feature in their watch. I get patent law is important, but they seemed more interested in rent-seeking from Apple than actually providing a desirable product that people could benefit from.
- appease7727 1y agoThat's precisely what patents are for in the modern era
- bigyabai 1y agoBecause Apple consciously violated the patent? When you think about it, Apple is lucky the judge didn't demand a hardware recall. They got off pretty easy, and if Apple wanted to be petty, then they could enable the hardware as an API only, and let users do the rest. Here in America this is part of our culture: your health gimmeck features are precisely meaningless to the court if the prosecution can prove wreckless harm on Apple's behalf.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago"Rent seeking" is original intent of patents, correct? The theory being that this incentivizes invention.
- crazygringo 1y agoPatents are literally for rent-seeking. They are explicitly not to maximize the number of people who can benefit from a product in the short term, but precisely to limit it so the inventor can make more money. The idea being that in the long run the inventions it incentivizes outweigh the people who are limited from benefiting in the short term. Judges aren't in the position to weigh societal benefits in each individual patent case. Your framing implies that cost-benefit tradeoff. But that's not how it works. The only question is whether a product infringes or not.
- thfuran 1y agoThey are explicitly to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. In practice, I think the terms are now much too long and the lack of requirement to actually use or cheaply license a patent makes the system better at generating profits than fostering innovation.
- adrr 1y agoWasn't patent law since decision wasn't decide in court. ITC banned it from imports. I don't understand how a government entity can wield so much power to block sales of product without using the court system. This should have been litigated.
- kmeisthax 1y ago[dead]
- vkou 1y ago> I never really understood why protecting Massimo in this situation was more important than allowing customers to access a feature in their watch. By that same logic, my landlord's interests and ownership of his property are categorically less important than allowing his tenants access to their apartments. Which is, like, a way to structure a society, but is not the way that American society is structured.
- carstenhag 1y agoWeird argument, as you could apply it to every patent issue in the world. Just as an example: Better video encoding is good for the world, so h264/hevc patents must be void.
- jeroenhd 1y agoThe point of patents is to let larger companies produce products with your idea for a modest fee. You provide the world with an in-depth description of the thing you've come up with, so everyone can benefit, and in return you get to profit off your idea through license fees rather than just giving your idea away. Apple pays tons of patent fees in all sorts of areas so tons of companies. They just thought this company was small enough that they could bully them into not having to pay. When that failed, they tried to crush them and force their hand. While I'm against software patents on principle, Apple acting like some kind of stereotypical 80s movie evil corporation infuriates me just as much.