
Apple's Secrets Revealed During Trial - grellas
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443687504577567421840745452.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories
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jasonkester
_Mr. Forstall said he invented a patent for double-tapping on Web pages
because as he had been using a prototype of the iPhone to surf the web, he
realized he was spending a lot of time pinching and zooming the page to fit
text perfectly on the screen.

"I realized I have this incredibly powerful device, why can't it figure out
the right size for me?" he said. So, he challenged his team to make the
software automatically size the text into the center of the screen when he
double-tapped around a webpage."_

This is why we're in such a sad state with regard to software patents. This
guy genuinely believes that he " _invented_ " something. And that it should be
patentable.

Of course, anybody who has actually built anything knows that what he actually
did was "decide how something should work". You do this dozens of times when
putting out a new product, and it's not in any way a big deal. Certainly not
something you should call "inventing", and absolutely not something that you
should consider patenting.

It's just one of thousands of design decisions you make. It's just sad to
watch people who don't understand that making things worse for everybody.

~~~
jsz0
I think double-tap-to-zoom is a perfect example of something that should be
patentable. It's a huge improvement over existing systems that often used a
zoom box you would position with cursor keys. To work properly it has to take
into account the major design elements on a web page and make intelligent
choices based on the user's tap target. Web browsing before double-tap-to-zoom
and multi-touch zoom was a nightmare. These two features reinvented web
browsing on small displays. This was clearly one of the killer features of the
original iPhone.

~~~
pwg
> To work properly it has to take into account the major design elements on a
> web page and make intelligent choices based on the user's tap target.

And that is what should be patentable, if anything at all should be
patentable. The algorithm to account for design elements and make intelligent
choices.

Not "tap twice to zoom".

~~~
btilly
In theory, patents exist to cover ideas which are hard to think up, but
obvious once you've seen them. Double-tap fits this description perfectly.

I am against patents in general. But this is perfectly in line with past
hardware patents. For example compare to 1950s radios where the volume control
was also the on/off switch. Pull it out, and the radio was on, push it in, it
was off, and it remembered the volume that you wanted. That button design was
patented.

I don't see a difference in kind on that patent and the double-click patent.

~~~
angersock
I'd wager anybody with a little work, when told "Don't add another interaction
point to this radio" or "Try to find some way of cutting down on distinct
inputs" would stumble upon the radio knob solution given a little time.

This isn't art--even a cursory exploration of the solution space with vague
constraints should get you there.

~~~
natrius
I've been trying to think up a practical way to use that very test as the
barometer for patentability. Announce the problem that has been solved, and
let the public submit solutions. If any of them are close to what is in the
prospective patent, the patent shouldn't be granted.

~~~
monochromatic
It's tough though, because often the inventive thing is framing the problem
correctly, or even identifying that there is a problem to be solved here. By
assuming that, you're in danger of a hindsight bias.

~~~
natrius
Patents were never intended to grant monopolies over a given problem. If
you're solving a problem that no one else has solved before, people will try
to solve it once they use your product. I don't think granting monopolies over
a problem space helps society. Quite the contrary.

~~~
monochromatic
> Patents were never intended to grant monopolies over a given problem.

Well I didn't say that they were... but I'm not sure I agree with your
statement anyway. Do you have any evidence that that isn't what they were
intended for?

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natrius
I don't have any evidence. It just doesn't make sense to grant monopolies on a
problem. It would harm innovation rather than help it. We'd have one medicine
to treat each ailment, for instance.

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tosseraccount
[ In cross-examination, Mr. Forstall said Eddy Cue, now head of Apple's
Internet services efforts, had used a 7-inch Samsung tablet for a time, and
sent an email to Chief Executive Tim Cook that he believed "there will be a
7-inch market and we should do one." ]

Sounds like everybody came up with similar, unprotectable stuff, with great
inspiration from each other. Not guilty. Next case!

~~~
mtgx
Exactly. That's how competition is born. Sure you shouldn't be able to copy a
product to a point where it's very easy to confuse the 2, but anything besides
that should be allowed. "Similar" products are how markets are built.
Competition by default means that one company's product is more similar than
different to another company's product, in a given market for a certain type
of product. And the differences are just "competitive advantages".

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vacri
_Mr. Forstall also told the court that his team consisted of 1,000 people who
directly reported to him._

This smells like utter bullshit. This isn't a shipyard, but designers and
engineers - and they're all _direct_ reports?

~~~
silvestrov
Does team imply that they must be direct reports and not have a single layer
of managers? With a single layer, each manager (including Forstall) would have
just 34 people to manage directly. That's somewhat the same as a teacher
handling a big high school class.

~~~
jmduke
Team might not imply that, but:

 _1,000 people who directly reported to him_

certainly does.

~~~
mikecane
I bet they did. I bet there were times where he went directly to staff and
said, "I want you to concentrate on this" or "Now refine this" -- "and then
come show it to me."

~~~
jmduke
I understand what you mean, but that's certainly not the conventional
definition of 'reporting to someone.'

~~~
mikecane
I suppose.

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Dn_Ab
Is there anyone approaching the patent problem from another angle? Say by
trying to _productize_ research on prior art discovery? Or anything that would
help patent officers become more productive (as in any of: do more without
loss in quality in equal time or the same with increased quality in equal time
or do more better in less time)?

Sure a human will vastly outperform the state of the art algorithm on any one
patent but when talking about thousands of applications week in week out and
increasing, some kind of automation to filter the cruft would be useful.
Surely as bad as things are now, the worst that could happen is no effect?
Would certainly be a better application of machine learning than classifying
the mood of movie ratings or calculating social media "klout".

~~~
fpgeek
There are companies that do prior art searches (usually, but not always
associated with existing legal practices, I believe).

As for the patent office being more productive... At least on the subject of
prior art, they don't want to be. After all, they're paid by the patent.

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rootisdead
Double tap to Zoom patent? Lol, that sounds completely pathetic. I thought
about that by myself in a couple of days after starting to browse the web with
a mobile that wasn't from apple. Now i understand why it's so easy to create
virtual monopolies. You don't have to be particularly smart, just the first
average joe to come up with a simple idea, then just stifle natural progress
with dumb laws to make some guys rich. In not a too distant future, people
will look back at this society and be genuinely mesmerized at how retarded
people were.

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chmars
Isn't a trial supposed to be public anyway?

Sure, most trials are only de facto public since most of the public cannot
access trials and only court decisions get published. If Apple really wanted
to avoid to disclose these 'secrets', it could have filed a respective motion
AFAIK.

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brokenparser
My Chromebook can't cope with this site, does anyone have a link to the
printable version (or a pastebin)?

~~~
vibrunazo
Interesting, what exactly happens in your chromebook?

Anyway, pastebinned:

<http://pastebin.com/Ff2vQWRh>

~~~
brokenparser
>what exactly happens in your chromebook?

Parallel processors running perpendicular today.

>Anyway, pastebinned:

Thanks!

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dataminer
Does anyone know why the judge didn't allow "inspired by Sony" evidence?

~~~
bpatrianakos
Probably because it's hard to prove, it can become a big and arguably
irrelevant distraction, and it opens up the possibility for an endless line of
"this was inspired by that" from both sides. It's not too difficult to argue
that everything was inspired by everything else all the way back to the stone
age. The crux of this case is the question of whether Samsung has been copying
Apple. Whether Apple copied someone else is arguably irrelevant. Sony can sue
Apple themselves if they really think that's true.

I do understand that Apple may very well have lifted ideas from Sony and
others and I have to admit that it is a valid argument. I'm only speculating
as to why the judge decided not to admit the "inspired by Sony" evidence. In
my eyes I can see my reasoning as being realistic though I'm not sure if it's
right or wrong.

As an aside, and really, beyond the scope of the law, if you look at this from
a human perspective and ignore the black and white aspects of the law, I think
it's pretty obvious that Samsung has been imitating Apple's designs. Forget
who worked on touch screens first and forget who first created a brick style
phone with the same kind of interface because I really think that's
irrelevant. Lots of phones look and function like the iPhone and the iPhone
looks and functions like lots of other phones but what's really important here
are the details of the design and not the generalities. If you look at
Samsung's phones that came out after the iPhone you see what seems to be an
attempt to piggyback off the iPhones success and maybe even confuse consumers
into buying the wrong phone or making them think, as they often do, "it's
basically the same thing". The minor details of Samsung's phones and tablets
like the middle "home" button, the radius of the corners, the thickness, and
even their packaging are so similar that if you took the logos off the phones
and/or boxes its easy for even an informed consumer to mistake the two from
ten feet away. I've seen tons of touchscreen phones both close up ans far away
and most of the time it's not difficult at all to tell an iPhone apart from
the others despite the similarities they all share (that's even without my
glasses on). But if you take the Samsung phones and tablets in question and
compare only those then it's quite easy to not be able to tell the difference
until you're actually close enough to hold it up to your face. Legally, that's
probably not important but practically that's the real issue. Even if Samsung
had come out with touchscreen phones in a style like the iPhone ten years
before Apple it shouldn't matter because Samsung began making what really look
like clones of the iPhone only after Apple put the iPhone out.

I know if I argued this in court I'd be on shaky ground but I'm not arguing
the legalities. I'm looking at this through the eyes of a real person. Touch
screens, sing button or multi-button, rounded corners, etc. don't matter. When
you see a copy of something else, you know it. I think whether Apple wins or
loses the case it doesn't matter nor will it settle the argument. People who
have seen the phones and tablets in question all know and see what happened
and with so many touchscreen devices out there that are obviously very easy to
differentiate from the iDevices, it can't be a coincidence that two companies
were working on designs so similar right down to the tiniest details at around
the same time. I think Occam's Razor applies here. The simplest explanation is
that lots of companies were working on similar designs around the same time
but when Apple's took off Samsung purposely started designing their devices to
look like Apple's to piggy-back off their success. The result? Moms who always
buy the wrong thing bought a Samsung phone or tablet as Christmas gifts
because "they're basically the same thing, right?" and Apple sued Samsung.

~~~
fpgeek
And looking at this from the eyes of another real person:

At various times over the past several years, Apple has sued Nokia, HTC,
Motorola and Samsung, plus several smaller companies over a wide variety of
smartphones and tablets using many of the same design and user interface
patents. This isn't about Apple being offended by copying. This is about Apple
using the legal system to attack their competition. Note that many of the
patents involved (like "data detection" and "universal search") date back to
Macintosh user interface features from years (sometimes more than a decade)
before the iPhone.

Sadly, I expect the judge wouldn't allow it, but I'd love to see the Samsung
lawyer show the jury the whole gallery of devices (from all vendors) that
Apple has sued over using these patents. That would make what is going on much
clearer.

~~~
bpatrianakos
Well, no, it seems like you're looking at it legally. You're totally right on
a lot of points (maybe all of them, I haven't looked into verifying them all).
Apple is very much using the legal system to squash competitors and that's
shady. I'm not denying that. What I'm arguing is really outside the scope of
this trial and the law. I'm saying that the allegations that Samsung has
purposely copying Apple designs in _some_ of its phones and tablets is
obvious. Samsung makes a lot of touch screen phones. Most of those phones,
like most touch screen phones made by anyone look very similar to each other.
They're all pretty much the same basic design. But then there's a subset of
Samsung's phones that so closely resemble the iPhone that even the most casual
of observers has to wonder if it wasn't on purpose rather than coincidence. I
think it's pretty safe to rule out coincidence in this case.

Apple's patent abuse and legal shenanigans aside, there's a handful of Samsung
phones and tablets that just couldn't have come out looking like almost
perfect clones of the iPhone and iPad by accident. Apple is being an asshole.
But they're right that Samsung copied.

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mikecane
I want to know who came up with the Anchor Points idea for Copy/Paste. I had
an idea like that back when I was using PalmOS. Whenever I needed to copy
stuff that flowed past a single screen, it was hell trying to do that. I'd
invariably under or over-shoot. Had I been able to set a start point and move
to an end point and have it all selected, that would have been marvelous. I
wish I had done a post about it way back when. I would have been Prior Art.

~~~
nitrogen
That's how X terminal emulators work. You click with the left mouse at the
start point, click with the right mouse at the end point. Not so different.

~~~
mikecane
Never used X or emacs (I know, shocking, right?), so did not know they also
did that.

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coliveira
They are most probably not giving away any important secrets that were
previously unknown. This is a calculated move, and Apple at some level
believes that most of what is being released is either (1) known by the
competitors or (2) irrelevant for the future generations of their products.

