4 ms·

Apple patented a rectangle, and I haven't seen much rise in awareness.

enraged_camel 14y ago
I swear, every time I read nonsense like this, I want to slap the person who wrote it. Apple did not patent the rounded rectangle. Rather, the rounded rectangle was a small part of what's called their "trade dress", which they successfully demonstrated Samsung copied. This wouldn't be difficult to understand if you weren't so busy with trolling. edit: Yes, go ahead and downvote me for pointing out how stupid you are.
- lotharbot 14y ago
  Just a heads up: it's encouraged to point out when people are wrong, but you've trounced all over the guidelines [0] to do it. Please reread and follow the guidelines in the future. Of particular note: - Be civil. - When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." - Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. [0] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - enraged_camel 14y ago
    It's funny you mention the guidelines, because they also list this one: Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.
    - xenophanes 14y ago
      You're right but you also allowed them excuses to complain about you (which is very hard to avoid) and I don't see what you hope to accomplish. Someone is wrong on the internet ... so you corrected them and expressed how annoyed you get when someone is wrong on the internet about this? It's not your problem if they are wrong. I think you rightly recognize anti-Apple non-argued insults as being as uncivil as your own comments. So it's quite unfair you get complained at for being uncivil while people don't acknowledge the stupid, insulting-to-Apple comment as already departing from civilized and productive discussion. But still, you aren't fixing any of this. If your goal was merely to educated other people who read the comments, I don't think your comment was well written to accomplish that. It'd be more effective for educating third parties if it was 100% impersonal and only talked about the issue in a serious way. I think you were trying to persuade the guy you replied to, not third parties, but I think you already knew that wasn't going to work when writing your comment. So there's a bit of a contradiction there.
    - Natsu 14y ago
      If you've read those, you should know enough to delete the "edit: Yes, go ahead and downvote me for pointing out how stupid you are." part of your comment. Things like that detract from your message, especially if you are correct. And you were at least half right in that those are only part of the design patents asserted. The problem is that Apple really did argue that rounded rectangles were a protected design element. While you can argue over how big a part of the design patents that was, it was something Apple's own lawyers argued over at trial. So the facts are that they claimed to own that idea in court and that some people think that was absurd. Everything else is a matter of opinion, especially the matter of how important those claims are to the design patents. So you're free to disagree how important that feature of the design patents was. But other people are also free to say that when they argue it in court, it's fair game for criticism. That's all a matter of opinion, and we're each entitled to our own.
- drcube 14y ago
  You just basically said "I want to slap people who say Apple patented the rectangle. See, what they really did was patent the rectangle. Only a stupid troll wouldn't see the difference." I'm not seeing it. Either way Samsung had to pay a billion dollars because they made a rectangular phone with rounded corners. How would it be different if Apple actually did patent the rectangle? What's the actual, relevant difference here? How exactly is the parent wrong?
  - xenophanes 14y ago
    There are other rectangular phones which Apple is not suing. Why is that? By investigating this question, you may shed light on whether rectangles alone is the issue or not.
    - drcube 14y ago
      Because they don't sue everybody? It's widely understood that Apple is avoiding bringing Google to court, for example, for strategic reasons. And some "infringers" are just too small to sue. It's a cost benefit calculation, not an admission that Samsung is the only offender. And Apple certainly has sued plenty of other companies for similarly frivolous reasons.
    - bduerst 14y ago
      You can sue whomever you want. The Samsung and the S3 just happened to be their target.
- Natsu 14y ago
  You can find a good summary of the patents & verdict here: http://www.zdnet.com/the-verdict-is-in-samsung-vs-apple-7000003163/ http://www.zdnet.com/the-verdict-is-in-samsung-vs-apple-7000... You are correct that it concerns trade dress, but the rounded rectangles were more significant than you give them credit for being. The ZDNet summary helpfully lists the design features at issue for each patent. I'm listing only those that contain rounded rectangles; there were seven patents in all: Design patents infringed? For design patent D'677 (rounded rectangle, edge-to-edge glass, thin bezel, horizontal speaker for phone): Yes for all but Galaxy Ace. For design patent D'889 (rounded rectangle, edge-to-edge glass, thin bezel for tablet): No for all. HN eats the links to these patents from the original summary, so I put them below: http://www.google.com/patents/USD618677 http://www.google.com/patents/USD618677 http://www.google.com/patents/USD504889 http://www.google.com/patents/USD504889
  - danielweber 14y ago
    Given that Apple failed on D'889 (and D'087, which was also about rounded corners) it's pretty clear that Apple does not own "rounded rectangles." "Rounded corners," by itself, is out-and-out not protectable by a design patent, since they are functional. But as part of a larger body of work they can be. The classic design patent is Coca-Cola on the Coke bottle. It didn't stop other people from using any individual feature of the Coke bottle, but the sum of the features (or close enough) triggers the design patent. Also, I don't believe there is an official list of just what is covered by a design patent. ZDNet is applying their own editorial judgment there; that's not wrong, but it's also not binding.
    - Natsu 14y ago
      > Given that Apple failed on D'889 (and D'087, which was also about rounded corners) it's pretty clear that Apple does not own "rounded rectangles." A couple things. First, you left out D'677 (which everything but the Galaxy Ace infringed). I was being generous in leaving out D'087, though I probably should have listed it for completeness. Second, I believe that list is the design features were argued over at trial. The problem isn't just whether or not they own them, but whether they believed that they do. When they claimed to own them in court, that made it fair game for criticism.
bonch 14y ago
No, they didn't, actually.

I swear, every time I read nonsense like this, I want to slap the person who wrote it. Apple did not patent the rounded rectangle. Rather, the rounded rectangle was a small part of what's called their "trade dress", which they successfully demonstrated Samsung copied. This wouldn't be difficult to understand if you weren't so busy with trolling. edit: Yes, go ahead and downvote me for pointing out how stupid you are.

lotharbot 14y ago
Just a heads up: it's encouraged to point out when people are wrong, but you've trounced all over the guidelines [0] to do it. Please reread and follow the guidelines in the future. Of particular note: - Be civil. - When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." - Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. [0] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  It's funny you mention the guidelines, because they also list this one: Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.
  - xenophanes 14y ago
    You're right but you also allowed them excuses to complain about you (which is very hard to avoid) and I don't see what you hope to accomplish. Someone is wrong on the internet ... so you corrected them and expressed how annoyed you get when someone is wrong on the internet about this? It's not your problem if they are wrong. I think you rightly recognize anti-Apple non-argued insults as being as uncivil as your own comments. So it's quite unfair you get complained at for being uncivil while people don't acknowledge the stupid, insulting-to-Apple comment as already departing from civilized and productive discussion. But still, you aren't fixing any of this. If your goal was merely to educated other people who read the comments, I don't think your comment was well written to accomplish that. It'd be more effective for educating third parties if it was 100% impersonal and only talked about the issue in a serious way. I think you were trying to persuade the guy you replied to, not third parties, but I think you already knew that wasn't going to work when writing your comment. So there's a bit of a contradiction there.
  - Natsu 14y ago
    If you've read those, you should know enough to delete the "edit: Yes, go ahead and downvote me for pointing out how stupid you are." part of your comment. Things like that detract from your message, especially if you are correct. And you were at least half right in that those are only part of the design patents asserted. The problem is that Apple really did argue that rounded rectangles were a protected design element. While you can argue over how big a part of the design patents that was, it was something Apple's own lawyers argued over at trial. So the facts are that they claimed to own that idea in court and that some people think that was absurd. Everything else is a matter of opinion, especially the matter of how important those claims are to the design patents. So you're free to disagree how important that feature of the design patents was. But other people are also free to say that when they argue it in court, it's fair game for criticism. That's all a matter of opinion, and we're each entitled to our own.
drcube 14y ago
You just basically said "I want to slap people who say Apple patented the rectangle. See, what they really did was patent the rectangle. Only a stupid troll wouldn't see the difference." I'm not seeing it. Either way Samsung had to pay a billion dollars because they made a rectangular phone with rounded corners. How would it be different if Apple actually did patent the rectangle? What's the actual, relevant difference here? How exactly is the parent wrong?
- xenophanes 14y ago
  There are other rectangular phones which Apple is not suing. Why is that? By investigating this question, you may shed light on whether rectangles alone is the issue or not.
  - drcube 14y ago
    Because they don't sue everybody? It's widely understood that Apple is avoiding bringing Google to court, for example, for strategic reasons. And some "infringers" are just too small to sue. It's a cost benefit calculation, not an admission that Samsung is the only offender. And Apple certainly has sued plenty of other companies for similarly frivolous reasons.
  - bduerst 14y ago
    You can sue whomever you want. The Samsung and the S3 just happened to be their target.
Natsu 14y ago
You can find a good summary of the patents & verdict here: http://www.zdnet.com/the-verdict-is-in-samsung-vs-apple-7000003163/ http://www.zdnet.com/the-verdict-is-in-samsung-vs-apple-7000... You are correct that it concerns trade dress, but the rounded rectangles were more significant than you give them credit for being. The ZDNet summary helpfully lists the design features at issue for each patent. I'm listing only those that contain rounded rectangles; there were seven patents in all: Design patents infringed? For design patent D'677 (rounded rectangle, edge-to-edge glass, thin bezel, horizontal speaker for phone): Yes for all but Galaxy Ace. For design patent D'889 (rounded rectangle, edge-to-edge glass, thin bezel for tablet): No for all. HN eats the links to these patents from the original summary, so I put them below: http://www.google.com/patents/USD618677 http://www.google.com/patents/USD618677 http://www.google.com/patents/USD504889 http://www.google.com/patents/USD504889
- danielweber 14y ago
  Given that Apple failed on D'889 (and D'087, which was also about rounded corners) it's pretty clear that Apple does not own "rounded rectangles." "Rounded corners," by itself, is out-and-out not protectable by a design patent, since they are functional. But as part of a larger body of work they can be. The classic design patent is Coca-Cola on the Coke bottle. It didn't stop other people from using any individual feature of the Coke bottle, but the sum of the features (or close enough) triggers the design patent. Also, I don't believe there is an official list of just what is covered by a design patent. ZDNet is applying their own editorial judgment there; that's not wrong, but it's also not binding.
  - Natsu 14y ago
    > Given that Apple failed on D'889 (and D'087, which was also about rounded corners) it's pretty clear that Apple does not own "rounded rectangles." A couple things. First, you left out D'677 (which everything but the Galaxy Ace infringed). I was being generous in leaving out D'087, though I probably should have listed it for completeness. Second, I believe that list is the design features were argued over at trial. The problem isn't just whether or not they own them, but whether they believed that they do. When they claimed to own them in court, that made it fair game for criticism.

bonch 14y ago

No, they didn't, actually.