

Apple v. Samsung Verdict: Could Bill Gates Have Patented The iPhone in 1995? - MaxwellKennerly
http://www.litigationandtrial.com/2012/08/articles/attorney/patent-infringement/apple-v-samsung/

======
martythemaniak
The verdict was a monumentally stupid decision and I hope it won't prove to be
too harmful in the long run.

One way to look at innovation and progress is that all inventions must
eventually become a commodity. Something which is novel, hard, expensive and
rare today must become a cheap and ubiquitous commodity tomorrow. It is this
process that allows you to "stand on the shoulders of giants" and easily
leverage past technologies to produce newer, better ones.

Here we see Apple (and to a lesser extent, MS, RIM and other parties) actively
fighting this process. None of these parties want touchscreen smartphones to
become cheap commodities available to everybody - there's a lot less money to
be made this way. Android is Google's attempt to commoditize the smartphone
and is probably responsible for erasing tens of billions from the market caps
of other companies, the flipside of which is that today tens of millions of
people all over the world have access to technology that would otherwise not
have.

This is why I think Android is ultimately a force for good and I hope it's
simply too late to put the genie back in the bottle and that this verdict
won't have a lasting impact.

~~~
MaxwellKennerly
The patent system is supposed to encourage the commoditization of inventions
by using a trade-off: if you invent something novel and useful, you can get a
patent that gives you a complete monopoly for a limited amount of time, but in
return you have to completely disclose how your invention was made, so that,
first, others can see if the intention would be useful for them right now (and
thus negotiate a license with you) and, second, once you're patent expires
society can easily reach for and utilize your invention.

Unfortunately, that process has been turned on its head, so that patents are
routinely granted for designs, devices, and methods that are already
effectively commoditized or simply don't work patent protection. The iPhone's
design is undeniably visually appealing and user-friendly, but it is by no
means an "invention." It is a form of user interface, something that has
already been held to not be patentable, and it is a form of branding,
something that is protected, but through trademark law, not patent law.

I find this situation disturbing for the same reason I find it disturbing that
pharmaceutical companies spend more on advertising than they do on research
and the belt. Consumer electronics companies should not be investing the bulk
of their resources playing legal games with one another over non-disruptive
"inventions" like the idea to use asynchronous processing to make sure video
and audio lines up. They should be using their resources making phones that
are better and more alluring than one another.

~~~
nirvana
>so that patents are routinely granted for designs, devices, and methods that
are already effectively commoditized

You are confusing utility patents and design patents. They are very different
things, and design patents are intended for "designs" and the designs of
devices. This is not a perversion, this is just you not understanding what
patents _are_!

Secondly you guys constantly claim that these things are not novel, yet you
are never able to provide good prior art. Yes, here, 11 years later, this
stuff is commoditized. Mostly because android ripped off the work Apple demoed
in January 2007 and brought it to market.

That doesn't mean in January 2007 it wasn't novel. I have constantly seen you
guys claim that other people did this before, but I've never seen a single
instance of genuine prior art. You guys cite movies (not understanding what
prior art is, or what patents are) and you cite demos of completely different
technologies (like microsoft's surface which uses cameras.)

So, you're projecting a completely false characterization of the situation and
then saying its "bad" or has been perverted.

This feels like political propaganda to me. I notice that the anti-Patent
movement started with google's lawyers letter and in defense of android which
is a blatent ripoff of Apple technology.

So, lets see google donate Pagerank to the public domain, eh? They only have 6
years or so left on it anyway.... why haven't they?

~~~
cromwellian
There's been ample citation of prior art, everything from prior working and
publicly shown prototypes to actually shipping devices. Apple was not the
first company to show a capacitive multitouch screen (LG Prada was), they were
not the first to show pinch-to-zoom (numerous examples, Jeff Han, Diamond
Touch, 20 years of research prototypes), they were not the first with double-
tap to zoom (there's 2 decades of ZUIs, zoomable-user-interface work that
predates this), they were not the first with software to detect phone numbers
in text and make them clickable, they were not the first with an uncluttered
rounded corner flat, face-plate design (see disallowed Samsung F700 face),
they were not the first with universal search (PalmOS had it first on the
original palm pilot) and on and on.

And don't give me that crap about "it's not about the idea, it's about the
implementation". Apple's pinch to zoom patent, for example, covers
implementations on ANY kind of touch surface. It claims are vague like "That
gesture adjusts an image in some way", covering not just zoom, scale, and
rotation, but any transform of the image.

When someone makes such an absolute claim, that they've never seen any genuine
prior art, even though tens of thousands of engineers in forums are pointing
to research and devices that are at least _arguably_ prior art and cast
Apple's patents in a grey area, to have such an absolutist assertion indicates
to me that that person is not interested in fairness, or truth, but on banging
the drums of tribalism.

There are for sure, people in the Android camp that are rooting for Android in
this case because they like Android devices. I'm not one of them. For me, the
issue is about software programming freedom.

Whether it is SOPA/PIPA, or patents being used against open source, attacks on
computing freedom in general are more important than Samsung, Android, or
Apple. We should not assign away the future of software or networking by
granting monopoly power to the largest corporations in the world.

Not when the whole edifice was started by Homebrew hackers to begin with.

~~~
Steko
I love how people think Apple woke up the day before the iphone demo and threw
it all together at the last second anything before that day is ironclad prior
art.

The light bulb was invented over 120 years ago and they still hand out patents
for light bulbs, imagine that.

~~~
cromwellian
But people aren't patenting lightbulb interactions, they are patenting
specific manufactured implementations.

Look at it this way, there were definitely people doing pinch-to-zoom that
looks absolutely identical to the way Apple is doing it from the user's point
of view. Jeff Han's demo is a perfect example of it. For years, many people
have been doing demos like this, but they've been doing it on big bulky setups
like projected-desks, or in Han's example, using total internal reflection.

Apple just made a different implementation, using the same interaction
gestures, on a capacitive screen. From a software point of view, the
implementations are rather trivial and don't differ much except via how you
obtain the input (e.g. capacitive, FTIR, cameras, etc) The main difference is
shrinking down the whole thing so it fits on a phone.

The reason why this was possible in 2007 had nothing to do with Apple's
software and everything to do with the ability to manufacture a capacitive
screen that has the right sensitivity, accuracy, cost, weight, and power to
fit into a phone.

Apple deserves engineering props for this. But they do not get credit for
inventing pinch-to-zoom nor the capacitive screen. Both of these inventions
came prior.

If Apple invents an entirely new kind of touch screen and an entirely new way
of manufacturing it, you could argue they deserve a patent.

But taking what existed before, pinch-to-zoom on projection displays, and
implementing it on a different screen does not deserve patent protection,
anymore than taking an existing business method (e.g. 'selling flower bouquets
by phone', adding the text 'via web site' or 'via mobile app') and slightly
tweaking the medium in which the business is done to obtain another monopoly.

Should 'internet shopping cart' be allowed a patent when real world shopping
carts already existed? It's crazy absurd.

If Apple's patent had even been more specific like "pinch to zoom, but on this
particular kind of screen" I'd even have more sympathy for the argument,
because at least other people could do the same thing Apple did: _copy_ an
existing idea and apply it to a new circumstance. Samsung and others could
innovate by creating new types of displays, maybe using microscopic cameras to
track your hands like minority report or something.

But granting a patent to Apple for pinch to zoom on any kind of screen? Sorry,
it goes too far.

------
Cushman
These articles are getting a bit tiring.

> On December 14, 2007, Apple laid claim to the supposed novel invention of
> “list scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-
> screen display,” the formal title of United States Patent 7,469,381 B2

For those of you who just joined us, you do not get patents for _ideas_ , you
get patents for inventions. The named patent is not for "List scrolling and
document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display", which
is an obvious idea. It is for a specific claimed method of enabling that task,
involving the display of an area outside of and distinct from the document or
list, which then disappears when the scrolling input ends.

Now, one could well argue that that specific method also is too obvious, non-
novel, or trivial to deserve patent protection, but one had better be bringing
some evidence to the table for that argument. This whole "your invention is so
obvious that you shouldn't be incentivized for inventing it, but not so
obvious that it ever occurred to anyone else" feels like shaky moral ground to
me.

~~~
MaxwellKennerly
But it had occurred to other people, and lots of them. You can even watch Tom
Cruise pinch-to-zoom, and scroll by waiving his hands.

Look at the prior art in the patent itself, e.g.:

US5844547 May 9, 1995 Dec 1, 1998 Fujitsu Limited Apparatus for manipulating
an object displayed on a display device by using a touch screen

US6567102 Nov 25, 2001 May 20, 2003 Compal Electronics Inc. Touch screen using
pressure to control the zoom ratio

US20050168488 Jan 31, 2005 Combination tool that zooms in, zooms out, pans,
rotates, draws, or manipulates during a drag

All Apple did was jumble these same longstanding into some arguably-new form,
and, viola, they had a patent for something everybody was doing.

I doubt you really contend that, in late 2007, Apple invented scrolling and
zooming with your fingers, or that you contend that Apple's implementation was
substantially different (and both novel and useful) from those prior forms. If
you don't contend either of those, then why, exactly, should Apple have a
patent over their implementation, which was at best modestly different from
prior implementations?

~~~
otterley
Are you honestly contending that if anything depicted in a sci-fi movie cannot
qualify as patentable subject matter when actually implemented? E.g., if
someone invents a matter transporter as depicted in Star Trek, the inventor
cannot patent it?

~~~
MaxwellKennerly
Of course not, and it bears repeating that this patent doesn't cover _any_ of
the underlying technology that makes the iPhone actually work as a phone, it
merely covers part of the appearance of the UI, an appearance that any
competent programmer can replicate on a whim.

I am contending that you can't patent a user interface you see in a sci-fi
movie, which is what Apple did here. What they patented is no different from
patenting the way the command module looks on the Enterprise. Do you think
that Apple should be able to patent, say, the use of oval icons?

~~~
veemjeem
You can patent icons and fonts, why would a user interface be different here?
We could revoke the ability to patent icons & fonts, but then there would be
no financial motivation for companies to design fonts to sell.

------
dougmccune
Can someone explain to me (like I'm 5) exactly what, besides the general
concept of list scrolling with bounce-back to indicate end of list reached, it
was that Samsung copied from the 7,469,381 patent? The Apple fans here get
pissed when someone argues that Apple is trying to patent an obvious "idea"
and they claim that the general idea of bounce-back scrolling isn't patented,
but instead it's a very specific implementation. And yet I've never heard an
explanation of what the technical details are that specifically are patented.
I've tried reading the patent, but my head exploded.

So please, for the love of god, can someone explain the non obvious
implementation details that were copied?

If I were to see someone use bounce-back scrolling, or if I saw it in a movie,
or even if I heard someone explain the idea, I'd go off and code something up.
My amateur implementation would use the general principles of inertia and
physics. Is there a way to do that without violating this patent? Because I'm
tired of people yelling about how the idea of intertial bounce-back scrolling
isn't being patented, only a specific implementation is, and yet I have no
idea how that's possible. If that's true I should be able to implement the
same general idea without violating the patent, right? How?

~~~
lines
When reading patents, only the claims matter. In this case, anything that
matches claim 19, which is anything that does bounce-back scrolling the way
iOS does it, is infringing.

~~~
dougmccune
I get that the claims of patents are supposedly very specific, and what I'm
asking is if someone can actually explain why and how this particular patent
has anything non-obvious in its claims (without all the ridiculous patent
jargon).

I've just read claim 19 about 5 times. I also studied Figure 5, which seems to
lay out the process in a way that's a little easier to understand.

I have absolutely no idea how what is described in claim 19 is not the "idea"
of inertial/bounce-back scrolling.

As far as I can understand, the layperson's explanation of claim 19 goes
something like this: drag some content on a touchscreen at the speed that the
dragging finger is moving, once you hit the end of the scrollable range, start
slowing down the speed at which the item moves, and show a different
background to make it clear you've reached the end of the list, once the
finger releases move the list back into place.

I'm trying sentence by sentence to translate the words in the patent claim to
english that I can understand. And it sounds to me like this is the general
idea of this method of scrolling. There are no specifics, no specific easing
algorithms, no specific method of tracking the finger's movement, no method of
actually implementing this at all.

~~~
glhaynes
The first time I ever saw bounce-back scrolling, I was … taken aback. It
seemed ugly for an instant [at least], I think because it so often showed the
non-content zone so visibly. And maybe also because it was so very odd and
unintuitive in relation to how computers tended to "feel" before then. (It
seems obviously a great invention now.)

------
twoodfin
_...with a patent application granted after a year-long review by the patent
office that apparently didn’t include watching this scene from 2002’s Minority
Report, where Tom Cruise does all of those things and more with a spiffy 3D
interface._

This is silly, as is the Gates analogy. I assure you, if anyone manages to
develop a practical holodeck, they will be able to patent the hell out of it.
_Star Trek_ is not prior art.

 _Practical_ is the key word. Lots of ideas sound great but are difficult or
impossible to implement. Patents protect the implementation, not the idea.

~~~
danielweber
The depiction of a holodeck would not stop someone from getting a _utility
patent_ for a holodeck.

But the appearance of an identical work in fiction should stop a _design
patent_. So if you wanted to get a design patent on a duplicate of a PADD,
Star Trek would count as prior art.

~~~
philwelch
In fact, Paramount has been awarded design patents for Star Trek phasers,
uniforms, and starships: <http://en.memory-
alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek_design_patents>

------
ender7
The sad fact is that UI patents are even more bullshit than software patents.
Does Apple have the legal high ground here? Yes, they have a patent on
rubberbanding scrolling (among others). Arguments about 'prior art' and blah
blah are pointless because they have been granted a patent on a UI design --
an _idea_ , not an implementation, and not an invention. Yes, that's not what
a patent is supposed to be, but that's what they've been given.

Was it a good idea? Yes. Should it be protected by a patent? No. I'm sorry,
but _no_ (and I say this as a UX designer).

Patents exist to incentivize effort. I would really like to hear someone argue
that, without UI patent protection, Apple would have never bothered to
implement rubberbanding scrolling. Even typing it sounds ridiculous.

~~~
veemjeem
I guess you need to google "design patents". I feel like 95% of the people on
HN don't know the difference between the two. FWIW, philip morris patented
rounded corners on their cigarette boxes. If you think that's crazy, you
should see the ones filed by Gucci. Maybe design patents should be renamed
since everyone confuses them with utility patents.

------
codeka
This may be slightly off-topic, I'm not sure, but I was just reading Apple's
patent on pinch-to-zoom[1], and in claim 8 (which is the one the jury were
instructed to rule on) it says:

 _"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"_

Now, I don't know how patents works, but on my Galaxy Nexus, you can scroll
with two fingers, so this part about determining whether its a scroll or
"gesture" by the number of touch points seems to work differently to what is
described in the patent.

Does that mean the implementation in the Galaxy Nexus is non-infringing? I
mean, if patents are supposed to protect the _implementation_ of an idea, and
the implementation is actually different then surely its not infringing?

Now admittedly I only tested a Galaxy Nexus, which is stock Android, so maybe
Samsung made their version in TouchWiz different. Or maybe the implementation
changed in later versions of Android, I'm not sure...

[1]: <http://www.google.com/patents/US7844915>

------
jussij
> smartphones in which the objects on the screen roll around and bounce back
> like you’re spinning the Wheel of Fortune.

What I don't understand about this 'bounce back' feature is that here in
Australia we have software based poker machines (Vegas style slot machines to
the yanks out there) and they have had this bounce feature for decades.

Edit: To help people visualise, what I mean is the reels of the poker machine
spin in one direction and when they finally stop spinning they do a very short
bounce back in the other direction.

------
rbanffy
Either Gates foresaw the iPhone or... knew about the Simon:

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

Oddly enough, I find the folders reminiscent of Xerox's Star.

------
nirvana
Special effects are not prior art. Demonstrating a feature does not give you
prior art neither.

Patents cover implementations. Two people can invent two different methods to
do the same thing. It is not the case that the first patent gives them a
monopoly on the features.

Just because the internal combustion engine (eg: with pistons) exists, doesn't
mean that you can't patent a rotary engine (like Mazda did). Both are internal
combustion engines, but the rotary engine uses a novel method.

So long as your position requires pretending that patents are something other
than they aren't your arguments are going to be logical fallacies.

This article is thus nonsense.

~~~
learc83
>Special effects are not prior art.

Special effects can be prior art, if they are sufficiently descriptive. Just
like drawings, sketches, and textual descriptions can be prior art.

