
Apple Must Prove iPad Patent Is Valid In Samsung Suit - techiediy
http://www.techieinsider.com/news/11529
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zrgiu_
This is just one more proof of how messed up the patent system is. The problem
now becomes: why was that patent awarded in the first place ?

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av500
it's a design patent. I don't think the patent examiners are supposed to watch
all of Youtube to maybe find a similar device dated 16 years back.

But since it's known now, Apple can just stop, pay everybody's legal bills and
be done with it...

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markokocic
Seems like Samsung would be better of paying a couple of geeks to go to work
and watch Star Trek and similar SciFi movies instead of paying a bunch of
money to patent lawyers ;)

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slowpoke
Actually, that would be a cool crowd sourcing project, and not just
encompassing Star Trek. If you spot a possible prior art for a patent in a
work of fiction, you could put it on some sort of wiki. It would be a great
source of information to fight patents (especially the ridiculous), and show
the absurdness of the system.

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fpgeek
I think this is a more readable version of the story:
[http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/14/us-apple-
samsung-l...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/14/us-apple-samsung-
lawsuit-idUSTRE79C79C20111014)

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Steko
The new story is saying the original reporting missed the parsing of what the
judge said. I'm not sure that really follows but he's the expert.

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threepointone
Does this mean I can patent ideas I pick up from sci-fi, wait till someone
implementes it, then pick up a fat cheque from them? Honestly asking, since it
sounds like a half-decent retirement plan.

For example, jetpacks which work on, um, quantum levitation. Bionic ear
implants that also act as phones which react to voice input. Occular implants
that interface with a system of networked devices across an environments.

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Steko
This is a design patent. So if you make a real spaceship that looks like the
enterprise and try to get a design patent it may well be that the Trek prior
art, even though it wasn't real, invalidates that design.

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jsz0
It seems very strange to me that a fictional device has any relevance. It's
science-fiction. Something a person could invent someday but impossible at the
time and lacking any practical details of how you might invent it. We could
defeat all IP laws by sitting around and engaging in a thousand-monkey style
DoS attack of futuristic speculation? I feel like lots of people owe lots of
money to Michael Okuda.

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markokocic
Well, the patent claims design of the device, not functionality. Although this
device is "fictional" and does nothing, its design (look) matches pretty much
what Apple is trying to patent, so it looks like Samsung has a valid case of
prior art.

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jsz0
Doesn't prior art take commercial availability into consideration? (no clue if
it applies to US law)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_art>

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lwhi
11:03 in that video; it seems like Night Ridder might have invented Siri as
well.

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hop
My first reaction to seeing the Samsung tablet was that they flagrantly copied
Apple. The connecting cable is nearly identical (what's the probability of
that) and the single button in the glass looks stolen from the id of the
iPhone/IPad. I'm not a fan of patents, especially software, but there's no
reason to violate a design patent because you could make it so many different
ways. Samsung is lazily riding Apple's cost tails on this one.

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philjackson
"connecting cable is nearly identical (what's the probability of that)"

Are you talking technically? As in the connectors and functionality are the
same? If so doesn't that seem like a reasonable move considering third-party
companies are building peripherals for that connector? If you mean it's the
same shape, then yes, it's a small rectangle.

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rimantas
<http://www.reddit.com/tb/kr14a>

You are right. These are all obvious choices.

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BitMastro
The only thing that supports your claim in my opinion is the case, and yet,
there is a big "Samsung GALAXY Tab" on top of it. Nevertheless, I cannot but
see the similarity. The other examples are weak

