

Apple wins ban of HTC devices at US International Trade Commission - hasanove
http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/19/2647362/apple-wins-ban-of-htc-devices-itc

======
ddlatham
Here's the patent in question, #5,946,647, filed Feb. 1, 1996:
<http://www.google.com/patents/US5946647>

_"A system and method causes a computer to detect and perform actions on
structures identified in computer data... uses a pattern analysis unit ... to
detect structures in the data, and links relevant actions to the detected
structures. .... Thus, the user interface can present and enable selection of
the detected structures, and upon selection of a detected structure, present
the linked candidate actions."_

And here's an older article with more description
[http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/16/apple-vs-google-
insid...](http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/16/apple-vs-google-inside-an-
android-patent-violation/)

 _"When an iPhone receives a message that contains a phone number or an
address -- e-mail, Web or street -- those bits of data are automatically
highlighted, underlined and turned into clickable links.

Click on the phone number, and the iPhone asks if you want to dial it. Click
on the Web address, and it opens in Safari. Click on the street address, and
Maps will display it."_

~~~
jacobolus
The best example of prior art that I know is Simson Garfinkel’s SBook,
originally developed in 1991. Any steps required to get from Simson’s idea to
Apple’s version seem (conceptually) trivial and obvious.

<http://simson.net/ref/sbook5/>

It’s remarkable to me how much better SBook is at dealing with info like
address book entries than anything mainstream today, 20 years later.

~~~
jamesgeck0
WikiWikiWeb may also be an example of prior art. It went online in 1994, with
CamelCase words automatically being made into hyperlinks. URLs were also
automatically transformed into hyperlinks as early as 1996. Unfortunately
archive.org doesn't go any farther back than that, so I don't know if the
feature was there from the very beginning.

------
ChuckMcM
Sigh, emotionally this sort of crap from Apple just really irritates me. Sure
software patents are stupid, but does it strike anyone else that this Android
Jihad by Apple is doing more damage to their corporate brand than help?

I should have realized during the 'look and feel' wars that its part of their
DNA.

~~~
tjogin
I hate software patents, I really do. But what alternatives does Apple have?
They're the big fish in their industries, they have to file and use patents or
they'll be on the other end of the lawsuits.

At least the patents Apple use in lawsuits are ones they've filed _themselves_
, rather than having bought them.

Or as they say, don't hate the player, hate the game.

~~~
laumars
Clearly you don't hate software patents because you then went on to justify
them.

In fact, I think your whole attitude is backwards for the following reasons:
While I agree with you that you cannot blame Apple (nor any other company)
from filing software patents given the current culture within IT. You can 100%
blame Apple for aggressively using flimsy patents to suppress obvious designs
amongst competitors - forcing their competitors to deliberately cripple their
products or risk having them forcefully removed from market entirely. That is
not competition nor is that using patents defensively. What they are doing is
exploiting a legal loophole to suppress legitimate competition.

Also, the "don't hate the player, hate the game" saying really winds me up.
It's basically just endorsing moronic behaviour so long as the culprit doesn't
get caught. It's just a retarded view of life in my opinion.

------
SODaniel
Seriously, this is the company that made the '1984' commercial and touted
themselves as being 'anti monopoly' just a few years ago?

~~~
jamesbritt
Oh, absolutely.

[http://www.amazon.com/Commodify-Your-Dissent-Salvos-
Baffler/...](http://www.amazon.com/Commodify-Your-Dissent-Salvos-
Baffler/dp/0393316734)

Very good book, BTW.

------
untog
_And it goes back, and forth, and back, and forth, and_

In other news, "Samsung adds four more complaints to its German patent
offensive against Apple":

[http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/19/2646835/samsung-apple-
ger...](http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/19/2646835/samsung-apple-germany-
patent-lawsuit-four-claims)

I would love for someone at one of these companies to explain how on earth
this benefits the consumer.

~~~
Steko
The pro-IP argument from Apple's point of view goes something like this:

In a world where everyone just copies everyone else freely (e.g. the desktop
PC world) there is/would be much less innovation.

The investments that go into many breakthrough products (iphone, ipad) are
made with the understanding that IP protections are in place to prevent
copycats from waltzing in and taking all the benefits later on.

Take away those protections and the initial investments aren't made in many
cases and the customer sees far fewer breakthrough products.

~~~
tsotha
>The investments that go into many breakthrough products (iphone, ipad) are
made with the understanding that IP protections are in place to prevent
copycats from waltzing in and taking all the benefits later on.

But what was the breakthrough? The iPhone and iPad are successful because of
design, attention to detail, and Apple's marketing muscle. There isn't
anything technically earth shattering about either product - they're just
minor improvements on other companies' products brought to a high polish.

~~~
yock
_The iPhone and iPad are successful because of design, attention to detail,
and Apple's marketing muscle._

True; however, I would argue that the marketing portion of their success comes
as a result of painting each new product as a picture of revolutionary
innovation. It's part of the image. Take that rouse away and you might be left
with a less successful product.

Simply put, Apple relies on the lie.

~~~
tsotha
Well, ok, sure. But I don't see any reason the maintenance of that lie should
be helped along by the patent office.

------
caf
The Commission found that the HTC devices infringed these two claims of the
'647 patent:

    
    
      1. A computer-based system for detecting structures in data
      and performing actions on detected structures, comprising:
        an input device for receiving data;
        an output device for presenting data;
        a memory storing information including program routines
          including:
          an analyzer server for detecting structures in the
            data, and for linking actions to the detected
            structures;
          a user interface enabling the selection of a detected
            structure and a linked action; and
          an action processor for performing the selected action
            linked to the selected structure; and
        a processing unit coupled to the input device, the
          output device, and the memory for controlling the
          execution of the program routines.
      
      8. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the user
      interface highlights detected structures.

------
LVB
Hey, Apple et al., here's an innovative idea: let's all agree to start the
next thing from the most effective version of the last thing. We might all
benefit.

(I wonder how Wikipedia would be doing if we weren't allowed to modify others'
entries?)

~~~
wmf
Apple's probably fine with that as long as the maker of the next thing pays
the maker of the last thing.

~~~
fpgeek
I'm not sure how you get that from this case. Apple isn't offering to license
the patents to HTC (even though HTC has made it clear they'd love to do that).
Instead, Apple is trying to get HTC's products banned from the US market.

------
algoshift
"Greetings, Professor Falken."

"Hello, Joshua."

"Strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

~~~
bryanlarsen
Note to downmoderators: this is a quote from WarGames. If you haven't seen it,
you're missing out on a foundational piece of geek cinema.

~~~
socksy
I think that the fact that it's a cultural reference and, on its own, not an
interesting contribution might be why it's getting downmodded, rather than
people not getting the reference.

~~~
bryanlarsen
But I found it an interesting contribution -- it really captured the essence;
it seemed a perfect 'tldr'.

------
thewileyone
Apple == US company

HTC == Taiwan company

Any surprise why the US International Trade Commission bans HTC?

~~~
TechNewb
Check Apple patents, check HTC patents. Apple is responsible for bringing the
PC to mass market, and the touch interface. HTC has gone from clone PC maker
to premium Android phone maker, and many companies think Android is a clone,
as the name implies.

Any notion of national preference is silly, HTC simply is the newest company,
and thus has the fewest patents, making it the easiest android OEM to sue.

Please support your wild implied claims before making a statement. Apple is
just excercising their right, and it would be silly of them not to. Although
patent reform should happen one way or another.

~~~
thewileyone
Check HTC history. They've been the OEM makers for many smartphones before
Apple came out with the iPhone. They made Windows CE and Windows Mobile phones
for years. Only when Android was available commercially, they switched to
Android.

Touch interface? Apple deployed capacitive touch commercially, but resistive
touch has been out for a very long time.

------
JoshTriplett
And this gives you an example of what we can expect from the ITC, which the
OPEN act (the proposed "compromise" in place of SOPA) claims we can trust to
censor websites. Quality work here, really engendering trust.

------
jrockway
This feature is largely useless, anyway. An example is, I receive text
messages from Amazon when an order ships and is delivered. The "system and
method to cause a computer to detect and perform actions" then highlights the
tracking number and order number as though they are phone numbers, which it
immediately dials when your finger comes nearby. This is very annoying because
they are not phone numbers, they are tracking numbers. Lacking this feature
will make me like my phone _more_.

~~~
lambda
Tracking numbers have a lot more digits than phone numbers; do they actually
get detected as such? I've never seen it happen.

I have, however, found it useful to tap on an address to bring it up in Google
Maps or a phone number to open it in the dialer.

~~~
Gigablah
Skype's browser extension does this to phone numbers on webpages; does this
mean they're violating the Apple patent as well?

~~~
lambda
Possibly, but pure software patents tend to be harder to go after than
software coupled with hardware (like mobile devices).

------
Mordor
Apple may win the battle, but they lost the war... a long time ago.

------
thezilch
Any device that has a browser that can detect [regex] structures and infer
actions (ex. Chrome's omnibox)... or any device that detects header structures
and infers actions of the following markup (ex. text/html links)... TIL Apple
invented regex interfaces.

