
A device with a touchscreen and few buttons was obvious - thomholwerda
http://www.osnews.com/story/26309/A_device_with_a_touchscreen_and_few_buttons_i_was_i_obvious
======
arn
_Why are PDAs suddenly that weird uncle you never talk about and only see at
birthdays?_

Because they ultimately failed in the market. There was a reason that the
Blackberry and Treo type devices became popular. They worked better than the
early touchscreen devices.

Those early deficiencies left manufacturers gunshy about creating more
touchscreen devices. It was combination of hardware issues (resistive, single
touch) and also software (graffiti, interface).

It was not obvious in 2007 that such a device (full touchscreen, no physical
keyboard) would succeed. The early iPhone reviews specifically addressed the
keyboard issue, since this was a Blackberry world. Practically all Blackberry
fans at the time were saying that the device would fail because you _need_ a
physical keyboard.

(2007) [http://allthingsd.com/20070626/the-iphone-is-breakthrough-
ha...](http://allthingsd.com/20070626/the-iphone-is-breakthrough-handheld-
computer/)

 _The iPhone’s most controversial feature, the omission of a physical keyboard
in favor of a virtual keyboard on the screen, turned out in our tests to be a
nonissue, despite our deep initial skepticism. After five days of use, Walt —
who did most of the testing for this review — was able to type on it as
quickly and accurately as he could on the Palm Treo he has used for years.
This was partly because of smart software that corrects typing errors on the
fly._

~~~
slantyyz
>> It was not obvious in 2007 that such a device (full touchscreen, no
physical keyboard) would succeed.

Yes. All my Blackberry toting friends were pooh-poohing the notion of a
virtual keyboard, and now, the loudest critics among my peers have totally
jumped ship, singing a different tune.

Regarding PDAs being that "weird uncle"...

I've had just about every PDA form-factor going back to the clamshell Sharp
Wizards (which had these weird touch panels) in the late 80s to the Newton
Messagepad to Windows CE, Palm and eventually Windows Mobile. The iPhone is
the first "PDA" that I actually consistently use. The way you used the core
features of the phone (contacts and calendar) were vastly better than anything
I used prior.

Of course, I would have no problem using any "post-iOS" phone OS, which would
include Windows Phone, Android and Web OS, but there really is something about
the first iPhone UI that made it special. Is it as special today? Not really,
but in 2007, yeah, it was pretty revolutionary.

------
timmyd
This has been spoken about over and over (refer to the heated discussion
yesterday which wasn't my intention -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4431382>). The core of the article again
- looks at the concept of obviousness.

Refer here - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non-
obviousn...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non-obviousness)
\- "One of the main requirements of patentability is that the invention being
patented is not obvious, meaning that a "person having ordinary skill in the
art" would not know how to solve the problem at which the invention is
directed by using exactly the same mechanism."

Predominately - _"that obviousness should be determined by looking at the
scope and content of the prior art; the level of ordinary skill in the art;
the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art; and objective
evidence of nonobviousness. In addition, the court outlined examples of
factors that show "objective evidence of nonobviousness". They are: commercial
success; long-felt but unsolved needs; and failure of others."_

See also -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_35_of_the_United_States_C...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_35_of_the_United_States_Code).

Again - this article is attempting to state "oh because PDA existed, that
means that everything related to _a device with a touchscreen and few buttons_
was obvious". but again, thats untrue.

I still believe - in additional the complex legal arguments - the comment
below was one of greatest aspects that changed the lay-persons juror mind. Per
the Apple lawyer Harold McElhinny

 _"In those three months, Samsung was able to copy Apple's 4-year investment
in the iPhone, without taking any of the risks—because they were copying the
world's most successful product ... No one is trying to stop them from selling
smartphones, all we're saying is: make your own. Make your own designs, make
your own phones, and compete on your own innovations."_

~~~
drats
This is silly, touch screen technology, faster ARM cpus and the rest make
these things possible and came from elsewhere. My first computer with a GUI
was 100mhz. As soon as smartphones got 600mhz+ and as soon as people get touch
screens (foreshadowed endlessly in sci-fi) are you seriously suggesting that
if you took a room of fresh graduates from a design school (which is a bar
lower than "ordinary skill in the art" as most UI designers have years of
experience) and brainstormed for an afternoon that you couldn't come up with
all this? There is clear prior art on almost every aspect, it was just a new
blend. And that which didn't have prior art was logical evolution (as I said
in an earlier comment about phones unlocking + physical slide latch locks +
touchscreen... slide to unlock, wow I don't think any designer could have
thought of that /s).

I'm pretty sure there were mouse-gesture plugins for a couple of browsers
before the iphone, forgetting the sci-fi prior art. So you are suggesting
someone with a degree in UI design with knowledge of mouse gestures and
presented with the problem of making a touch interface with a mobile would not
find this obvious?

~~~
Nicole060
If it was so obvious then why did it take a company that had NO history in
making cell phones to make a good one with a usable touchscreen and gestures ?

Nokia couldn't do it. RIM couldn't do it. Samsung couldn't do it. LG couldn't
do it. (LG did make a touchscreen, and I owned one before I bought an iPhone,
and it sucked hardcore)

And they were on that market way before Apple.

Cry me a river if it hurts your feelings that Apple goes to defend their
innovation.

~~~
bornhuetter
The market was waiting for capacitive touchscreens to become viable. You can't
use multitouch properly on resistive screens (or non-touchscreen devices).
Apple pounced as soon as capacitive screens became viable - albeit extremely
expensive at the time. The first iPhone was "ahead of its time" in the sense
that the market wasn't really ready for it. The first iPhone was an expensive
PoS - it wasn't until the app store came along and the price came down that it
turned into a good phone.

No-one really thought to patent the obvious design decisions that would come
with the viability of a large capacitive touchscreen - rectangular, large
screen, few physical buttons, multitouch gestures such as pinch to zoom (that
already existed elsewhere).

Apple are absolute masters at combining existing technology into an attractive
package. They also have excellent timing at bringing products to market (
_just_ before the market is ready for them - see original iPod, iPhone, iPad,
Macbook Air).

But to say that these "innovations" wouldn't have happened anyway is
disingenuous - no competent observer seriously believes that the market would
not have moved on to large capacitive touchscreen devices over the last 5
years.

Apple deserve plenty of credit for their OS animations, smoothness of UI and
(either praise or damnation depending on your point of view) the curated app
store. They don't deserve credit for "inventing the capacitive touchscreen
phone".

~~~
gnaffle
If the market was just waiting for capacitive touchscreens to become
available, why did it take all the others years to come up with anything
competitive after the iPhone launched?

Why didn't they all have capacitive iPhone look-alikes ready in the lab then?

Isn't it more reasonable to assume that the mobile market would have stayed
roughly as it had the previous 10 years, with incremental improvements in
screens, displays etc?

Apple isn't credited with the first capacitive touchscreen phone, but I think
they should be credited with making the first usable, mass market touchscreen
smartphone.

~~~
bornhuetter
> Why didn't they all have capacitive iPhone look-alikes ready in the lab
> then?

The Samsung evidence showed that they did. Not as good as the iPhone,
certainly, but they were obviously all thinking about it.

> Apple ... should be credited with making the first usable, mass market
> touchscreen smartphone.

I completely agree with this. But they don't deserve a monopoly on it.

> Isn't it more reasonable to assume that the mobile market would have stayed
> roughly as it had the previous 10 years, with incremental improvements in
> screens, displays etc?

No. Not at all. The technology had been rapidly improving, and we would have
seen phones with large capacitive touch screens, and features such as "pinch
to zoom on a phone" anyway. Sure the implementation may have been different,
but the idea that the market would not have moved on in 10 years is absurd.

~~~
gnaffle
What evidence was presented that Samsung had a similar phone in the works in
2007? One with a capacitive touchscreen and a user interface optimized for
finger touch?

For all I know they might have been "thinking" about it, but why didn't they
do more than think about it if it was that obvious at the time that capacitive
touchscreen phones would dominate the future?

I didn't say the market wouldn't move. Of course it would, but probably with
incremental improvements. Why? Because mobile user interfaces changed very
little before the iPhone arrived.

All the biggest competitors in the mobile space had their own operating
systems that were optimized for navigation buttons/softkeys moving a cursor
around, and optionally a stylus. Even new contenders like Maemo and Android
were initially designed this way. Something like the iPhone would probably
have evolved eventually, but I think it's odd to think that the transition to
all-display touchscreen phones would have happened at the exact same pace if
the iPhone had not been introduced, and that Apple only was "lucky" to have a
shipping product available at exactly the right time.

~~~
bornhuetter
> Why didn't they do more than think about it if it was that obvious at the
> time that capacitive touchscreen phones would dominate the future?

Because, as I said, the market wasn't ready for large capacitive touch
screens.

> All the biggest competitors in the mobile space had their own operating
> systems that were optimized for navigation buttons/softkeys moving a cursor
> around, and optionally a stylus.

Because, as I said, the market wasn't ready for large capacitive touch
screens.

> Something like the iPhone would probably have evolved eventually

So we basically agree.

When I first saw the iPhone I thought it was the way of the future. But I
thought the current form was awful. When the G1 came out it was even worse
than the iPhone. The market simply wasn't ready yet; but Apple got in there
with something barely usable for a price that a few early movers could afford.

Over time, both Apple and Google refined their systems into amazing, world
changing devices.

There were two obvious ways of building these phones - 1. with menus 2. with
icons. That is the way all feature phones that I know of worked. Google added
widgets to this, and eventually Microsoft came up with the completely new idea
of tiles.

> I think it's odd to think that ... Apple only was "lucky" to have a shipping
> product available at exactly the right time.

I never said anything remotely like that. It was entirely intentional that
they put together the iPhone and brought it to market at the exact point in
time that it became viable. That's why they are the most valuable company in
the world. They deserve the huge success they have had, but, again, they don't
deserve a monopoly.

~~~
gnaffle
So Apple brought it to market at the exact point in time that it became
viable. The other companies were "waiting" as you say, so why did they wait so
long? Didn't they see that the technology was about to become viable?

I don't buy that theory. By the sales of the first iPhone, the market was
obviously ready. Had it been "barely usable" it would have flopped completely.

Capacitive touch screens use the same technology as touchpads, and I haven't
seen any proof that those screens were too expensive before 2006 and that
technological advancements broght the price down after that.

What I do think is that Apple was willing to bet on touchscreens and place
bulk orders that made the price come down, whereas other companies happy with
the status quo and unwilling to redesign their mobile operating systems to fit
a new technology.

~~~
bornhuetter
> why did they wait so long? Didn't they see that the technology was about to
> become viable?

As I've said ad nausium, the market _wasn't ready_ for large capacitive touch
screens. The technology was too expensive.

The market currently isn't ready for "wearable technology", like Project
Glass. Every competent observer knows that some form of augmented
reality/wearable technology is going to become important in the next few
years, but it's currently shit.

If Google or some other company gets granted patents to the obvious design
decisions that come with it, it will be a disaster for the consumer in the
same way as granting "pinch to zoom on a mobile device" is a disaster for
current consumers.

> What I do think is that Apple was willing to bet on touchscreens and place
> bulk orders that made the price come down, whereas other companies happy
> with the status quo and unwilling to redesign their mobile operating systems
> to fit a new technology.

They made a good bet, and they literally made billions of dollars from it.
What they don't deserve is a monopoly on basic design ideas, like "pinch to
zoom" and "rounded rectangles".

~~~
gnaffle
You've said ad nausium that the market wasn't ready, yet obviously the market
was ready when the first iPhone launched since it became a big success.

By saying the market wasn't ready for capacitive touchscreens due to price,
you're implying that this was the main thing keeping an iPhone-like device
from reaching the market. Looking at the response from the competition after
the iPhone launched, I don't think that's realistic at all.

I haven't seen any evidence that large capacitive touch screens were too
expensive before 2007 and suddenly became cheap enough after that.

I also have seen zero evidence that any of the competitors were working on
pure finger-touch based user interfaces before 2007. Which would be the case
if the market was just waiting for capacitive touchscreen prices to come down.

I do agree that Apple shouldn't have a monopoly on touchscreen phones, and
they don't, not even after this verdict. I don't like software patents either,
but Samsung could have licensed the patents if they wanted to.

------
equalarrow
"Just to drive the point home: a device with a touchscreen and few buttons was
obvious.."

I still don't buy it. This still misses the mark - it wasn't about a 'few'
buttons, the iPhone was about none. All those pda's in the picture don't
really mean anything to me. Sure, some of them had cell networking and a lot
(most? all?) had wifi. But I would never consider the old pda's a mobile
device. 'Mobile' to me comes from the term 'mobile phone', not 'mobile pda'.

To me, this article is typical of OSNews - if it's not Linux or open source,
it bad/wrong/etc.

Anyway, Dan Frakes tweet wasn't talking about 'a few buttons being obvious' he
said 'having no buttons/keys'. And like he said, if this was so obvious, then
why wasn't everyone doing it in 2006? Howcome pda's didn't do this in the
early 2000's? Because it took a visionary team of designers and execs (or just
Jobs) that appreciates minimalism. No one at Compaq, HP, Microsoft's many pda
OEMs would, no, could have done something like this. And don't forget the
require stylus..

~~~
nirvana
> if it's not Linux or open source, it bad/wrong/etc.

It's ideological.

There is a trend in these objections in articles like this and across hacker
news. They simply ignore what was unique about the iPhone and trivialize it
completely and then pretend like it was obvious all along. Notice the repeated
comparisons to stylus based devices as prior art for multi-touch. They don't
care about the differences, as long as it takes some sort of touch imput, they
can rationalize that Apple never invented anything.

I see this as an admission that they know the iPhone was revolutionary but
they are making arguments from an ideological, rather than rational
perspective.

If the iPhone wasn't revolutionary, how did Apple go from selling no phones to
the selling the most popular phone in just a few years?

They say it was "marketing" and a "slick package" and the "Advantage" of
charging "twice the price" --- as if charging more ever was the path to easy
sales volume!

~~~
hazov
> If the iPhone wasn't revolutionary, how did Apple go from selling no phones
> to the selling the most popular phone in just a few years?

People were just enamored with the iPod, it was a good device and people paid
to see if Apple would make a good phone as well, which it did.

~~~
taligent
This makes NO sense what so ever. Apple has had plenty of failures in the past
e.g. Cube G4 so it is not the case that people will just blindly "buy and try"
Apple products.

And the idea that ANYONE is going to spend nearly a thousand dollars and lock
themselves into a year long contract just to "see if Apple would make a good
phone" is plain and utter lunacy.

~~~
hazov
Don't you know how to argue without doing this type of argumentation that you
so commonly uses in Apple versus Android threads? I am not a Apple or Android
fan to argue how the US patent system sucks, or how Android sucks, or how
Apple is evil, or how Apple is the only company that innovates, all opinions
that I read here on Hacker News from people who generally know nothing about
life, people just like me. I am really not into these type of discussion that
you appear to be so eager to enter in HN.

It's easy to come and say that I am a lunatic, so what's your opinion? Why the
iPhone succeeded among the early adopters? Were they all geeks that loved
Apple? What about other places that are not the United States in which there's
not a Apple store in every major city, do your analysis still stands?

------
Nicole060
As someone who has owned a pre-iPhone phone with a touchscreen, and seen
another one in the hand of a friend, no, what made the iPhone the iPhone is
NOT obvious.

For the love of god, my LG Prada was so shitty I had to hit a 2px scrollbar
with my thumb to scroll in the contact list. I can't contain the nervous laugh
whenever some ignorant who never touched the device link to wikipedia proud of
their attempt at mocking Apple. Web browsing on a touchscreen is a real PITA
without something like the double tap making a paragraph fit the whole screen
automatically too.

Like it or not but the iPhone, as a whole package, without just singling out a
feature here and there, was a real innovation, a breath of fresh air that
opened a new market and has been copied to death by some companies like
Samsung. I hated my LG Prada but instantly loved my iPhone the day I bought
one and I wasn't anything like an Apple fanboy.

~~~
mattmcknight
You are basically saying the iPhone was of higher quality- things worked
better. This is true, but you can't patent quality.

~~~
Nicole060
Are you saying there is nothing to patent about the implementation of gestures
on your touchscreen, as opposed to hitting widgets like scrollbars ? You
couldn't be more wrong.

And people who cite things like the people who did multitouch with an array of
cameras obviously don't understand patents. Patents are not about an idea but
an implementation. The earlier multitouch stuff had nothing to do with the
multitouch on a capacitive screen.

~~~
voyou
"Are you saying there is nothing to patent about the implementation of
gestures on your touchscreen, as opposed to hitting widgets like scrollbar?"

Aren't touchscreen gestures just mouse gestures where a touchscreen replaces
the mouse? That seems like an obvious amalgamation of two pieces of prior art.

EDIT: That doesn't mean that particular aspects of the _implementation_ of
touch gestures on iOS aren't patentable, but AFAIK that hasn't been what Apple
has been suing on the basis of.

------
pinaceae
Ever notice how Jony Ive looks nothing like a Googler?

This whole trainwreck of a discussion is fed IMHO by the big rift between
common, male IT-oriented folks and the rest of the population around visuals,
aestethics and yes, concepts like fashion.

Sit in the cantina of any company and you can tell who is development/IT.
Neckbeards? Socks in sandals? Leather cowboy hats? Attachments on their belts?
Unshapely bodies?

Aestethics do exist in that other group. Good code, clever algorithms, etc.
Fashion too, in forms of buzzwords and technologies du jour.
DjangoRailsHadoop... But visual aestethics? Nope, nada, utter incomprehension.

The utter genious of Jobs was to bring the aestethics of the outer world into
software and computer hardware. Design already existed in other industries,
see Braun, Sony, etc but no one applied it to software. Because "nerds" didn't
even understand it. See it. Grok it.

These Samsung vs Apple debates show this faultline. No comprehension at all
why a particular implementation of multi touch should matter, be worth
something. It is all obvious, just UI, the thing you slap on top of your
awesome program. Why should it matter how it LOOKS?! How can that be so
important? Didn't the LG Prada looks exactly the same? Ok, it used scrollbars,
but why is that different to how iOS does it?

Whenever someone claims that Apple's success is just about marketing, nothing
relevant in their products themselves. Whenever it's just off the shelf
components they took and re-arranged, super simple and OBVIOUS, I can't help
to think about blind people arguing about the uselessness of colors.

~~~
hammersend
"Ever notice how Jony Ive looks nothing like a Googler?"

What the f is this shit? This
guy:[https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UxbxdEwXL7Y/AAAAAAAAAAI/A...](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UxbxdEwXL7Y/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAHIo/BNZ0hDLhBbQ/s250-c-k/photo.jpg)

is the counterpart to Jony Ive. And that goes for the rest of your head-in-
your-ass bigotry.

~~~
veemjeem
Hey, be civil -- no name calling if you disagree.

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

------
drats
Few buttons, PDA.

Tablet with news, Knight Ridder tablet.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBEtPQDQNcI>

Icons finger sized in a grid. Well given we already had desktops, and given
it's a handheld device, then it's insanely obvious to have fewer icons in a
grid at finger size. Low resolution screen compared to our desktops, hey maybe
we should have fullscreen as the default.

Pinch to zoom, multiple sci-fi movies.

Slide to unlock. Phones already had something called "unlock', and physical
bolt locks already slide... So we make a visualisation of what amounts to a
sliding latch when when have the touch screen, pure genius, nobody besides
Apple could have thought of that, right?

"Trade Dress" to stop competitors should also be entirely illegal unless there
is no branding or logo on the phone, or the name is too similar or in some
insanely small font. If it has "Samsung" written on it it's insane to argue
that anyone would confuse these things. What if these rules applied to TVs,
cars or bottles of perfume? Perhaps technically they do, but people have had
such things for so long they don't think about them in that way. It's farcical
that anything clearly identified as a different product on the box can be
subject to such rules.

Apple products are like a good classy restaurant or hotel chain. They take
ingredients everyone has and put a lot of work into fit and finish, they make
the customer feel special for a slightly higher price. And they have a dress
code that permits only a certain crowd in there (app store approvals vs. more
free entrance policy of other application stores, and by the way apt-get and
various frontends to it pre-date the app store). All due respect to them for
doing a good job, but Steve Jobs' entitlement complex knew no bounds and there
is no moral or logical merit to their claims only a slice of legal merit on
the back of stupid laws.

~~~
mcantelon
>Icons finger sized in a grid. Well given we already had desktops, and given
it's a handheld device, then it's insanely obvious to have fewer icons in a
grid at finger size. Low resolution screen compared to our desktops, hey maybe
we should have fullscreen as the default.

PalmOS had icons in a grid looking pretty much the same too.

------
BenoitEssiambre
Also see openmoko (2006):

[http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Cheap-hackable-
Linux...](http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Cheap-hackable-Linux-
smartphone-due-soon/)

"The Neo1973 is based on a Samsung S3C2410 SoC (system-on-chip) application
processor, powered by an ARM9 core. It will have 128MB of RAM, and 64MB of
flash, along with an upgradable 64MB MicroSD card.

Typical of Chinese phone designs, the Neo1973 sports a touchscreen, rather
than a keypad -- in this case, an ultra-high resolution 2.8-inch VGA (640 x
480) touchscreen. "Maps look stunning on this screen," Moss-Pultz said.

The phone features an A-GPS (assisted GPS) receiver module connected to the
application processor via a pair of UARTs. The commercial module has a closed
design, but the API is apparently open.

Similarly, the phone's quad-band GSM/GPRS module, built by FIC, runs the
proprietary Nucleus OS on a Texas Instruments baseband powered by an ARM7
core. It communicates with Linux over a serial port, using standard "AT" modem
commands.

The Neo1973 will charge when connected to a PC via USB. It will also support
USB network emulation, and will be capable of routing a connected PC to the
Internet, via its GPRS data connection. [...]

Moss-Pultz adds, "Applications are the ringtones of the future." [...]

As for additional software components, Moss-Pultz admits, "Quite a lot is
there, and quite a lot is not there. We're hoping to change this." In addition
to a dialer, phonebook, media player, and application manager, the stack will
likely include the Minimo browser [...]

He adds, "Mobile phones are the PCs of the 21st century, in terms of
processing power and broadband network access. "

Looks familiar?

I personally have always thought the iPhone was Apple taking the openmoko idea
and running with it.

EDIT: added details

~~~
vvhn
>I personally have always thought the iPhone was Apple taking the openmoko
idea and running with it.

From the linked article,

" Cheap, hackable Linux smartphone due soon By Linux Devices 2006-11-07 "

Presumably that means this was 7th November 2006.

So, in exactly 2 months ( on January 9th 2007) , Apple was able to design a
prototype based on this concept, write all the software and demo it onstage ?

~~~
pserwylo
True, but at the very least, this shows that at the time the iPhone was
released (or just before), many of the concepts were "obvious".

~~~
catch23
If they were so "obvious", why hadn't someone created something similar to
iPhone's interface? I owned the Nokia 770 -- a great internet tablet for it's
time. I even hack soldered a wifi extension dongle to it so I could get better
signal, but the browser on that thing was just horrible.

What other obvious ideas are out there right now that some company will make
billions off of? There's a few right under your nose that you'll probably say
is "obvious" 10 years from now. I guess that's why they say hindsight is
20/20.

~~~
pserwylo
I think the obviousness argument is getting a little confused in most comments
about this case.

I am arguing that the technology itself was obvious. This is also what the OP
is arguing. Several examples of prior art for patented technologies such as
pinch to zoom, rounded corner rectangles, etc. have been presented in other
articles here and elsewhere.

What is _not_ obvious was the sum of each tiny part that Apple put into the
design of the iPhone was commercially viable in such a spectacular way.

My understanding (though admittedly, I have not been following this case as
much as some others) is that Apple is asserting several individual patents in
the one lawsuit against Samsung. I argue that for the most part, each of these
patents are "obvious". Sure, when putting all of them together into a single
product, Apple made a successful device. However, weren't they just asserting
several individual patents? I'm not sure they have a patent on "all of their
working patents together in one device".

In addition, it is often the case that several groundbreaking inventions/ideas
in science are not just spontaneously invented. Rather, they are the
cumulative (and perhaps inevitable) result of small steps in other areas. For
example, the invention of Calculus by both Newton and Leibniz, or the theory
of evolution by Darwin and Wallace.

Yes, there are ideas which are truly revolutionary, but I'd argue that the
iPhone was more the inevitable (I use the term very loosely) outcome of
several small steps in related areas of technology.

EDIT: This is why I am so against the patenting of human genes. Sure, some
companies have put billions of dollars into researching specific genes. But
why should they get a monopoly on that gene, whereas every scientist who put
work into sequencing DNA, cracking the genetic code, understanding hereditary,
evolution, scientific thinking in general, and anybody before, gets nothing
from it?

It feels a little like they are doing an economic version of a Steven
Bradbury[0], because they raced to patent the "inevitable/obvious" solution
first.

Apple refuses to admit that they got where they are (i.e. iPhone/iPad/iPod by
"standing on the shoulders of giants" [1]

[0]
[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=steven%20brad...](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=steven%20bradbury)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_g...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants)

~~~
veemjeem
I'd argue there are certain aspects of the iPhone that are truly
revolutionary, even if the ideas may have existed in other contexts before.
For example, the scrolling mechanism on the iPhone was not done by anyone else
prior Apple's product, and now everyone implements scrolling with a
flick/inertia. I think had Apple used the old style scrolling methods, we
might still be using those today. LG had a 10 year head start on Apple for
manufacturing phones when Apple's first phone came out, yet their LG Prada
phone still had a painfully small scrollbar that you were forced to use.

I think Apple did create a product that warrants a design patent though. These
are defensive mechanisms that prevent copycats from producing identical
products in fashion where appearances and "feel" matter more than the
practical purpose of the invention. Gucci applies for design patents all the
time so that copycats won't produce an identical bag and sell it on the
market.

Apple is worried about the same thing here -- they've produced a product that
has a certain appearance and style they feel Samsung is making a direct copy
of. Design patents can cover product packaging, and if you look at how Samsung
packaged their tablets, you can see how identical the boxes are compared to
Apple's.

So in summary, I have 2 main points: Apple can and should defend their design
patents. The technology that Apple implemented for scrolling was non-obvious
otherwise competitors would have implemented these long before Apple.

~~~
pserwylo
I agree that Samsung has gone overboard with regards to the packaging. However
I feel that a design patent on a tablet form factor is not the best idea.
Perhaps it works for fashion designers, and I am not denying that there is
creativity in designing hardware devices.

However, as I look at all the various LCD monitors that are around the office
right now, I can't help but think about what would happen if there was
originally a design patent on the form factor of a monitor. They all seem to
have relatively similar:

\- border widths \- button placements \- rounding of corners \- status lights
and their positions

The same could be said for keyboards, computer towers, even many laptops.
There is probably a finite number of practical design available when building
a touch screen tablet. If all of them were to be patented, then nobody could
build a reasonable tablet.

In response to your second point about the scrolling: It may well be true that
the scrolling implementation was non-obvious. Based on your comments, I would
agree that this particular aspect is perhaps non-obvious.

I'm just worried about the number of patents being asserted, and that it is
highly unlikely that all of them are non-obvious, especially based on the
coverage I have read. It seems more likely that Apple hit the big one with the
iPhone by building incrementally on existing technologies and techniques, then
adding some nice, non-obvious features, rather than building a device so chock
full of non-obvious ideas that nobody else would have developed _something_
which was _somewhat similar_ to what we now think of as a smart phone using
similar technology.

I don't think the few non-obvious ideas, nor the fact that they brought
together existing technologies should be the basis for court fights and
attempts to block importation of competitors products. I understand that this
was a relatively narrow case, against Samsung and not Android in general, but
it seems pretty clear to me that this it is a business decision by Apple to
attempt to reduce competition through the courts.

~~~
veemjeem
I agree with your statement on LCD monitors, but where does one draw the line
between design that can be patented, and one that cannot? While googling
around, I found that philip morris has a patent on rounded corners for their
cigarette boxes: <http://www.google.com/patents/US5341925>

There's probably only so many ways one can manufacture a box to store 10
sticks of nicotine, but they own a patent for the rounded corners box. Same
may apply to handbags as well. Although you may perceive women handbags to be
very different from each other, there are categories of handbags where it's
harder to create extremely different designs due to constraints, for example
many evening clutches are similar because they are all required to be small.
Should cloning be allowed if constraints prevent designs to be significantly
different from each other?

It would be an uphill battle to try and prevent all those fashion companies
from filing design patents for products limited by constraints. So if one were
to revamp the patent system, one would also need to be mindful of all those
other companies who are not in the tech sector and may have a bigger voice.

------
rjsamson
One of the big differences as far as PDAs go is that they required a stylus,
and the touch was pressure sensitive. It couldn't be used just with your
fingers.

The iPhone's touchscreen implementation _was_ innovative. I remember quite a
lot of debate in the period between the iPhone's announcement and release
about weather or not a capacitive touchscreen on a phone would provide a
terrible experience. There were a lot of very smart people out there who
thought it just wouldn't work (greasy fingerprints came up a lot). At the
time, for Apple, putting this kind of UX out there was a huge risk, and a
major innovation in the industry. They really nailed it, and in hindsight it,
like many other great innovations, seems obvious, but at the time it was far
from it.

EDIT - here's a quote from a CNET article at the time: "11. Just how useful is
the touch screen? The iPhone user interface looks elegant, innovative, and
easy-to-use, but is it the best interface for a device like this? Whenever you
do anything, the iPhone will command your full visual attention. "No buttons"
may be sexy, but it also means you can't do anything without looking at the
phone. The iPhone's iPod usability may suffer even worse from the touch
screen. Have you ever tried to operate an iPod while it's in your pocket? You
can do it, but it's hard. The iPhone will make blind iPod-surfing downright
impossible. That said, it looks like the iPhone will eliminate accidental
pocket-dialing once and for all."

<http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9677208-1.html>

------
w1ntermute
This entire trial was a farce. The jury foreman admitted that they "skipped"
prior art because "It was bogging us down."[0]

> "Once you determine that Samsung violated the patents," Ilagan said, "it's
> easy to just go down those different [Samsung] products because it was all
> the same. Like the trade dress, once you determine Samsung violated the
> trade dress, the flatscreen with the Bezel...then you go down the products
> to see if it had a bezel.

Seriously?

> "We wanted to make sure the message we sent was not just a slap on the
> wrist," Hogan said. "We wanted to make sure it was sufficiently high to be
> painful, but not unreasonable."

Except the purpose of damages is to compensate the patent holder, not to
punish the infringer.

And let's not forget that they responded to 700 questions in 2 days. If they
worked for 16 hours/day, that's 32×60/700 = 2.7 minutes/question. I find it
difficult to believe that a group of highly educated patent lawyers, let alone
a group of laymen, most of whom didn't even know what a patent was a month
ago, could have come to an equitable decision on all the questions so quickly.

The way I see it, Samsung clearly copied many aspects of their phones from the
iPhone. That was obviously unethical, but whether it was _illegal_ is much
more difficult to determine, particularly when Apple itself copied many
aspects of the iPhone from past innovations.

I don't like to think of Apple as a pure innovator - I think of them more as
an assembler. When they see a market in which all the hardware pieces are
available and waiting to be put together, they do that in such a way that the
final product appeals to the end-user, particularly through the design of
appropriate software. For example, they entered the PMP market when hard
drives and batteries were cheap/portable enough to make the iPod a reality.
They entered the phone market when capacitive touchscreens were cheap/large
enough - their real innovation was on the software side. I don't agree with
software patents, but unfortunately that's the current state of things in the
US.

At the same time, there's little doubt that there was bias towards the "home
team" as well, especially when the jurors live so close to Silicon Valley.

I was honestly shocked that Samsung didn't overwhelmingly beat Apple in South
Korea[1], although the WSJ suggests there was definitely a bias[2]. Samsung's
chairman, Lee Kun-hee, has been found guilty in the past of tax evasion,
bribing politicians, prosecutors, and judges, and then pardoned for it by the
South Korean government. Not surprising when you consider that Samsung
generates 20% of South Korea's GDP.

0:
[http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012082510525390...](http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012082510525390&repost=1)

1: [http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/23/3264434/apple-samsung-
kore...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/23/3264434/apple-samsung-korea-
lawsuit-verdict-announcement)

2:
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044423050457761...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444230504577613120353094642.html?mod=googlenews_wsj)

~~~
flatline3
The groklaw quotes were taken out of context. As far as I can tell, there's no
evidence from those quotes that they skipped prior art, so much as skipped the
task to move forward on others before circling back around to it.

> _I don't like to think of Apple as a pure innovator - I think of them more
> as an assembler. When they see a market in which all the hardware pieces are
> available and waiting to be put together, they do that in such a way that
> the final product appeals to the end-user, particularly through the design
> of appropriate software._

 _Really_? All Apple does is pick up the legos and put them together?

Sigh. I'm sick and tired of people twisting reality to fit an Apple anti-hero
narrative.

~~~
corin_
> _All Apple does it pick up the legos and put them together?_

That's how I think of them, and it's what I have great respect to them for. It
can be worded to sound like a putdown, but in my opinion it should be
considered a compliment.

~~~
greedo
I think of Apple like a great chef. Sure other cooks can use the same
ingredients, but it all matters on the ratios, the temperature, the process
etc. to come up with a stunning dish. And then Apple finds new ingredients
that they integrate into their cuisine.

------
dreamdu5t
"Intellectual property" is an oxymoron and the laws are a farce. Information
is not property. Property has no objective foundation if you decouple it from
tangible or economic scarcity.

Samsung stole no property from Apple. Samsung was providing value to the
market by responding to the market's demands that were exposed by Apple. The
existence of patents distorts economic incentives to divert activity towards
patentable inventions.

~~~
sjwright
It sounds like your problem is with the law, not Apple.

~~~
gergles
This is farcical reasoning. Apple _chose_ to sue Samsung. They could have not
sued them. Therefore, the problem is with Apple, who _chose_ to be the
aggressor in a bullshit rounded rectangle lawsuit.

~~~
taligent
Actually Apple has an obligation to defend their patents.

And this idea that Apple patented rectangles is just a figment of your
imagination. And a sign of your ignorance.

~~~
learc83
>Actually Apple has an obligation to defend their patents.

You're confusing trademarks and patents. You have an obligation to defend
trademarks because if you don't you risk dilution. This isn't the case with
patents.

~~~
veemjeem
> This isn't the case with patents

You're confusing "utility" patents with "design" patents. You have obligation
to defend the design patents because you'll need this to apply for trade dress
protection.

~~~
learc83
I never said you didn't have a duty to defend trade dress. It can be diluted
just like trademarks.

There may be some overlap, and as far as what's covered by the design patent
is covered by trade dress you'd have to defend it (or risk dilution), but it
has nothing to do with the patent.

You can register for trade dress protection without design patents. Design
patents expire, trade dress does not, it's definitely possible to be covered
by one and not the other.

~~~
veemjeem
Yes, because design patents expire, there's even greater reason to need to
defend them while they exist. Design patents and trade dress protection often
go hand in hand. In order to show trade dress infringement, one needs to show
consumer confusion between the two products, and IIRC one needs around 4 years
of solid registration before protection is enabled. So when you don't have
trade dress protection yet, you would have to use your enforce your design
patents to ensure that consumers won't be confused for 4 years or so.

Design patents can be implemented before the release of a product, but trade
dress protection is decided by the market after being available to consumers
for a certain length of time.

A handbag designer like Gucci would enforce their designer handbags with
design patents when they release new ones, then enforce them with trade dress
later on.

~~~
learc83
It's still not correct to say there is an obligation to defend design patents.
That term implies a certain thing--that what you are obligated to defend will
be diluted if you don't do so.

The patent itself will not become diluted, thus using the term "obligation to
defend" is incorrect. It may be a good idea to use it to help establish trade
dress protection, but your design patent will last just as long and still be
enforceable even if you choose not to defend it.

------
confluence
My dad: Apple just won right?

Me: No - they just lost big time - Apple is done.

Dad: Wait - What? They just won the court case and got a billion dollars to
boot.

Me: That doesn't matter - Samsung won.

Dad: Explain.

Me: As soon as you have to sue your competition to remain competitive - you're
done. Apple did the same thing with Microsoft in the nineties. Furthermore,
Samsung builds not only many of Apple products - it's also leading the charge
with the explosive growth of Android - open systems always win in the long
run.

Dad: So Apple is done?

Me: Yeah - I sold my Apple stock after this very short case finished up. Funny
thing is - the new CEO will be blamed for the fall set up by Steve Jobs - a
damn shame if you ask me.

~~~
wklauss
So what if you are wrong? How long do we have to wait to see if you gave your
father an inaccurate reading of the situation?

I mean, I remember a lot of the "Apple is at 90$ a share now, it will go down
soon" crowd in the '06 in the Yahoo Finance forum posts and I'd love to see
them now and sincerely ask them what were they thinking or why did they reach
that conclusion back then.

I'm completely serious. This kind of "its the beginning of the end" prophecies
are easy to make because you can always say "wait a little bit longer, it will
happen" but other than anecdotal evidence, i don't know what prompt you to say
"s soon as you have to sue your competition to remain competitive - you're
done". Is this a real thing? No company has remained afloat and well after
suing a rival?

Is there no way that Apple might be both suing and at the same time innovating
in some other way or on any other markets? Does it have to be one or the
other?

~~~
confluence
Seeing as I bought Apple in 08 I understand your reasoning :D

A few factors lead to my understanding of this situation changing.

1: Mobile saturation - only thing left is more of the same and
virtual/augmented reality.

2: Absolute domination of Android and the continual manufacturing dominance of
Samsung

3: The move towards commoditizing most consumer electronics thanks to work
done by Google and other hardware manufacturers. The iPad was insanely cool
when it came out - not so cool when everyone else looks the exact same as you
do.

4: Domination of the living room by both Sony and Microsoft - leaving Apple
little room for entry.

5: CPU underutilisation - people don't really need to upgrade their computers
anymore.

~~~
SCdF
re #2, dominance is an interesting word, and it can mean a few different
things.

In terms of percentages of devices in pockets, I believe Android (including
all versions) as an OS is doing better than iOS as an OS.

In terms of physical smart phones, I think Apple's phones are in more pockets
than any other specific manufacture with their name on the box.

In terms of raw profit in the smartphone industry, Apple dominates.

In terms of people using smartphones like smartphones (downloading apps and
using them, actually browsing the internet) instead of like dumbphones (phone
calls / txting etc), I believe iOS still dominates (more people use Mobile
Safari than they use Android Browser et al).

Manufacturing dominance is an interesting one. Lots of parts for iPhones are
made by Samsung, but does that mean Samsung controls iPhone sales? Could
Samaung halt iPhone production if they wanted too, or could Apple just go to
someone else (with a ramp-up delay presumably).

(I own a Samsung android phone and am happy with it, in case this post comes
off pro apple and people wonder about my "allegiances" [because apparently
everyone must have one])

~~~
cageface
_In terms of raw profit in the smartphone industry, Apple dominates._

Yes, but luxury brands almost never drive any particular market. A lot of the
app business these days is about getting an app in front of users as part of
some larger business plan and in that world it's the number of eyeballs that
count. Once Apple loses that battle then their developer mindshare is going to
slide.

------
jimg2
Such device concepts have existed for decades in sci-fi. In the 90s, if you
were thinking to the future of wireless PDAs, they always end in all glass
touch screen devices.

Apple wins in execution, although one I believe is based on a flawed
philosophical understanding. They won the mass market, like McDonalds did for
fast food but they didn't invent anything nor does it make it good for you,
developers or society. A lot of different things happened, coming together at
the right time for Apple to exploit this market.

If any corporation put as much critical thought into product design as Steve
Jobs and Apple did, I think they'd have the same result. To me, it's not about
some innate genius or technology prophet, it's about _thinking_ , being
critical of everything and getting people to work their hardest at one single
goal.

------
kristianc
It's interesting that all of the devices that are pictured are turned off.

I remember using PDAs back in the day, and they tended to be fiddly affairs
with styluses. Sure, you could use touch inputs, but touch input tended to be
quite impractical, as the OS on the phone invariably tended to be a modified
version of a desktop OS. [1]

Ever since the mobile phone was invented, there has been experimentation with
form factors. Not all PDAs looked like iPaq's or XDA's. Nokia's Communicator
[2] had an iPhone esque interface, but Nokia didn't consider making it
touchscreen until well after the release of the iPhone.

Surely Apple's innovation - and the one which Samsung has copied - is
combining the grid-based icon system (making tap targets much larger), with
the few-button-large screen form factor. Because I don't remember PDAs being
anywhere near as useful or usable as an iPhone.

[1] [http://www.uspree.com/reviews/images/stories/hp-
ipaq-214-ent...](http://www.uspree.com/reviews/images/stories/hp-
ipaq-214-enterprise-handheld-pda.jpg) [2]
[http://cdn101.iofferphoto.com/img3/item/116/916/389/nokia-e9...](http://cdn101.iofferphoto.com/img3/item/116/916/389/nokia-e90-communicator-
unlocked-pda-quadband-gsm-auth-23627.jpg)

~~~
sjwright
The grid based icon system isn't an innvoation, nor is it even a significant
part of the iPhone product -- but it's a key part of the trade dress, which
explains why Samsung were so keen to appropriate it. It allowed them to market
their phone as seemingly substantially similar to the iPhone. It allowed
Samsung to imply "this product is basically the same as that iPhone that
everyone's raving about". Customers didn't need to think they were buying an
Apple product to be misled.

------
001sky
Apple's execution skills enabled them to succeed using an 'obvious
strategy'that others couldn't pull off. That does not mean they "invented" the
idea/strategy or that it was overly "original" (e.g. the buttons).

The true innovation of the iPhone was the global re-thinking of the software
of iOs, and its relation to a phone. Recall, it was only 2.5G when it came
out, one of the reason for "apps", was bandwidth efficiency, in addition to
custon form factor. The misery of surfing flash-enabled desktop websites on
2.5G was not appealing. From there, there was the obvious need to maximize
screen real-estate. hence, the elimination of the (physical) buttons. Soft
keys, Icons, touch etc. were not per-se innovative in 2007.

The adoption of gesture based touch is obvious to anyone who saw Jeff Han in
2006 TED (well before the launch of iPhone). That's not to say apple was not
innovative independently. The form factors and underlying tech vary widely.

Just some context worth considering.

------
jsz0
_Just to drive the point home: a device with a touchscreen and few buttons was
obvious - at least to the millions and millions of happy PDA users._

Yet somehow they look so different you could never confuse them for an iPhone
while Samsung also agrees it's obvious but many of their devices look very
much like an iPhone. I think the author is unintentionally proving Apple's
point.

------
reddelicious
Apple does not copy. It's against their "values".

Apple steals. Starting with Xerox PARC and continuing to this day.

What do they steal? User interface design and code.

Why do they steal? Because Apple is a _hardware_ company who aims to compete
with (and now aims to control) software developers. It started with trying to
compete with Microsoft and it continues to this day.

To discover where Apple's interfaces come from one needs only to do the
requisite research.

But it seems people have an aversion to doing such research - it's work, after
all - while they have little aversion to passively being the targets of
Apple's high-priced marketing and advertising. It's easier just to sit back
and let Apple control the show. Show us the "future", Apple.

The ideas that are not new, but which others have been developing for years,
that you have now stolen and claimed as your own. Interface designs that
simply "did not exist" until you adopted them and slapped on the familar Apple
logo.

I love Apple hardware. It looks great. I'd even pay higher prices for it. In
fact, I have. Many years ago.

But that's as far as it goes. Apple's software and interfaces have little
value to me. And when Apple tries to restrict what code I can run on their
hardware, it lowers the value of the product. I lose interest, no matter how
slick the hardware design. It's inflexible. And that defeats all the fun of
using a computer. Apple has reached the point of diminishing returns for me.
It's not worth it to buy their new stuff anymore.

According to Apple fanboys, the number of other users who think this way is so
small that Apple can disregard any user preferences for flexibility. This is
even worse than Microsoft.

~~~
damian2000
Disclaimer: I don't have any iOS devices. But AFAIK as a developer you can
load anything you want onto your personal device including C/C++ and Ruby
code. Check out the Marmalade game engine for example - pure C/C++ for iOS.

Getting it published it on the app store is another matter however.

------
silentscope
I don't want to stir up bad blood, I'm just making a point so don't kill me
=).

Almost every one of those devices has at least 5 buttons (up, down, left,
right center). That's not simple at all. One button is simple. The touch
screen on the iphone takes those away so only one is needed. It's the reason
the iphone got so dominant--it worked.

It's the reason Jobs realized his foray into tableting in the 90s (with
development starting in 1987, the first being released in 1993!), the Newton,
sucked. He killed it when he realized it wasn't working. The tech wasn't
there, when it was, he moved.

I know people hate apple, but they need to look at this objectively. this
wasn't apples first rodeo--they helped write the book on the PDA market.
They're also not suing palm or Visor or HP. Those companies didn't reiterate.
Apple did.

If you wanna hate, hate being judged by a jury of your peers (you probably
shouldn't do that), or our current patent system. And drink some tea or
something.

~~~
gpcz
Jobs was running NeXT during the development of the Newton. Steve Jobs
resigned from Apple in late 1985 and became interim CEO in September 1997. He
discontinued the Newton project in March 1998 to refocus the company toward
profitability again.

~~~
silentscope
Well color me schooled. Still, I've always had the impression from interviews
(just an impression mind you), that it was a dream of his to have a working
tablet, but the tech wasn't there. He was thinking about it is the sense I
got, but I could be off.

------
noonespecial
The first time I saw an iPhone, I thought to myself "oh, finally an Jornada
that actually works". The number of buttons, layout of those buttons and
placement of audio and charge jacks on the iPhone and the HP Jornada are
nearly identical. The home button is in the same place. The volume buttons are
on the top left side. It was a perfect match. That apple had a stack of
jornadas stashed in the back that they were "improving" seemed so damn
obvious, I thought that was the point of the whole iPhone schtick.

~~~
justincormack
Apple's products derive a lot from the look and feel of other products eg
[http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the-
secr...](http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the-secrets-to-
apples-future)

------
epo
Ultimately this is a religious issue. The frothing anti-Apple hordes will
never admit that Apple innovated and will always see Apple as in the wrong
because, well, Apple is evil. These people then jump through logical hoops to
justify their contortions. The simple truth is that Samsung copied from Apple
wholesale. I for one hope the damages get tripled, not because Apple needs the
money but because Samsung contributes precisely nothing of value to the
market. They are like the idiot kid in class who tries to get ahead by copying
the smart kid's work verbatim. Samsung are plagiarists and thieves.

------
DanBC
Grids of icons are pretty obvious too - even on portable devices. Palm Pilot
had 3x4, in 1996.

It's interesting to see the row of buttons at the bottom of the screen.
Samsung clearly is influenced by that styling, rather than the single button
on the iPhone.

------
bpatrianakos
No one is trying to rewrite history. We all know about the PDA style designs
of the early 2000's. Thing is, Apple's designs were still nothing like
anything people had seen. The picture in the post is actually proving my own
point, not the OP's. That photo also illustrates how the same design concept
can be made without blatant copying. All those phones and PDAs have the big-
screen-couple-button design style but still look like entirely different
models of devices. Even post-iPhone devices all look different while still
retaining their heritage with the exception of the Samsung devices in
question. It doesn't take an expert in technology, patents, phones, or any
expert at all to see that after the iPhone debuted, a lot of Samsung phones
started to look a lot more iPhone-like. Everything from the materials, to the
colors, to the shape, and even custom changes to the Android UI all closely
mimicked the iPhone. The idea was to get regular folks confused into either
thinking they were buying the iPhone or make them think they were buying the
equivalent of one. Now, regular folks often do think all smartphones look
alike but when you walk into a phone store those same people can tell that
those phones are made by different companies. They can at least differentiate
between the lookalike phones to the point where they understand they're not
all the exact same phone. What Samsung tried to do is blur the lines even
further to the point where those normal folks who were looking for an iPhone
could potentially get confused into thinking they were buying one because of
the way they pretty much cloned the iPhone.

The patent system may be fucked but what Samsung was doing was wrong and
patents were the best tool Apple could use to send a meaningful message and
get them to stop. This case isn't all that good to argue the shortcomings of
the patent system. There's too much biased information about it out there and
everyone tends to just defend their camp. It turns into a Apple v. Android
argument in the end. If you want to argue patents then argue patents. The fact
is, Apple held patents, Samsung infringed, and justice was done. You can argue
whether the patents should have been granted or not but you can't say Apple
_shouldnt_ have won because the patents _should have_ never been granted. Too
late. They already were.

------
pooriaazimi
Turn those phones/PDAs on and we'll see how "similar" to iPhone they were.

I just can't believe how some OpenSource-loving people could go soooo much
astray and become total jerks who twist the facts just to prove their point.

------
jaimzob
Oh god, an OSNews article from Thom Holwerda about how "obvious" the iPhone
was is now top of Hacker News? How long do I need to switch the internet off
for to restore sanity?

------
zoop
Palm devices used a stylus and had text input via a special language at the
bottom of the screen. How is this remotely related to the Samsung/Apple patent
issues at hand?

------
jarjoura
Yeah, it's obvious now, because it's so beautiful and simple. That's the magic
of the iPhone, how obvious it all seems now that it's staring you in the face.

I have no doubt that Samsung, Microsoft, Palm, Google, et. al, were all headed
down a similar path, but no one was willing to break from the past.

People wanted/begged for a physical keyboard, people wanted/begged for the
fastest 3G connection, etc.

Apple wasn't bound to that past and yes they had hindsight to make something
compelling. Plus they had to come up with something that would immediately
separate themselves from the other devices. In fact, this desire to be unique
amongst all other smartphones led to these defendable iPhone traits.

What Apple was defending wasn't minimalist capacitive touch devices, no, they
are protecting the unique attributes that define what an iPhone experience
should be.

Take away the physical hardware for a minute and compare only the software of
the phones. You still should tell which one is an iPhone versus something
else. It's those features that Apple needs to protect. Bouncing scroll that
stays glued to your fingers, etc.

------
stevewilhelm
One thing people fail to realize, any information not submitted as evidence
during the trial, may not be considered by the jury in their deliberations.
This includes prior knowledge or experiences of any given juror.

So if these PDA's were not submitted as evidence by Samsung, they could not be
taken into account when the jury decided their verdict.

------
Steko
Maybe all the people with slam-dunk morning after arguments should have sent
them to Samsung's large, professional, highly paid and presumably competent
legal staff.

Or maybe these arguments are all bullshit. Would the jury really have found
these to infringe the iphone design (assume they were released later)? I'm
going to say, clearly, no. Right off the bat none of them have black faces
with equally rounded corners. That sort of gives away the game right there.
But let's imagine any one of those devices in this exhibit:

[http://www-bgr-com.vimg.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/087-e...](http://www-
bgr-com.vimg.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/087-e1345854689999.png)

[http://www-bgr-com.vimg.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/677-e...](http://www-
bgr-com.vimg.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/677-e1345854925482.png)

------
mikecane
The iPhone also used the same 320x480 screen resolution of some PDAs.
[http://palmaddict.typepad.com/palmaddicts/2007/06/iphone-
vs-...](http://palmaddict.typepad.com/palmaddicts/2007/06/iphone-vs-
lifed.html)

------
alexwolfe
Considering how much money was spent on both sides, I'm certain any aspect
that would have helped Samsung was researched and considered. After many
months of deliberation and arguments from both sides, the verdict is very
clear, they are guilty. We would all like to think that this case was simple
and the jury was out to lunch. The facts however don't seem to support that.
It was a long case, with mountains of evidence, covering a variety of
copyright issues. It's also clear from the decision and statements made by
Samsung Executives that they don't feel that their appeal to this case will be
successful.

------
varelse
And the Atari Jaguar was both the first 64-bit videogame console and the first
videogame console with a GPU. But history is written by the victors...

And never mind the Atari STylus demoed in 1991... Never happened...

~~~
protomyth
Uhm, no. The Atari Jaguar was a 32-bit with a 64-bit bus to memory not 64-bit
addressing or registers. It would not be counted as a 64-bit processor
particularly since it used a 68000 and its GPU was 32-bit.

The Amiga CD32 beat it to market by a month. I would argue the whole Atari
game line based on the 400/800 should count, but others peg the Amiga as the
first with a GPU.

GO Corporation was formed in 1987 and can be read about in the book "Startup:
A Silicon Valley Adventure". Atari was a little late to the game.

~~~
varelse
Incorrect but don't take my word for it: let's go look at the Tom and Jerry
instruction manual at
<http://www.hillsoftware.com/files/atari/jaguar/jag_v8.pdf>

On page 50 describing the GPU instruction set, you should note right at the
top the instruction LOADP which I quote is a:

"64-bit memory read. The source register contains a 32-bit byte address, which
must be phrase aligned. The destination register will have the low long-word
loaded into it, the high long-word is available in the high-half register.
This applies to external memory only."

Not surprisingly, the companion instruction STOREP is described on page 56.

Now let's move on to the the Blitter on page 64: "The tour de force of the
Blitter is its ability to generate Gouraud shaded polygons, using Z-buffering,
in sixteen bit pixel mode. A lot of the logic in the Blitter is devoted to its
ability to create these pixels four at a time, and to write them at a rate
limited only by the bus bandwidth"

which is also a 64-bit operation.

Finally, while conceptually one could argue that the Atari 800 had a GPU (if
you consider 4 players and a missile to be such) did the CD32 have direct
hardware-assisted support for gouraud shading, texture-mapping (and if you
were remotely clever, 64-bit texture mapping), and Z-buffering as the Atari
Jaguar did? I don't think so but I'm open to being corrected here. I do think
that having such support supports the claim that said Atari Jaguar was the
first console with a true GPU.

~~~
jonhendry
"64-bit memory read. The source register contains a 32-bit byte address, which
must be phrase aligned. The destination register will have the low long-word
loaded into it, the high long-word is available in the high-half register.
This applies to external memory only."

Which is 32-bit addressing, not 64-bit. Exactly what was claimed in the
comment you're responding to.

~~~
varelse
Sure, 32-bit addressing with 64-bit memory operations, but that said, I wasn't
aware of any existing videogame console even today with 4GB or more of memory
so it seems a bit pedantic to disqualify on that basis or are you saying there
has yet to actually be such a console?

Or are you saying if the chip squanders transistors so that it's _capable_ of
64-bit addressing, but they're useless because there's less than a GB of
memory on-board, the addressing alone constitutes magic blue crystals of
64-bit legitimacy?

The horrendous handling of the Jaguar by Atari aside, and despite its
unfortunate resemblance to a bedpan, it was a surprisingly powerful machine
for the time, no harder to program than the ragingly successful PS2 (IMO of
course), and the best way to show it off was to make full use of its 66 MHz
worth of instruction issue (2 x 26.6 MHz RISC process plus a 13.3 MHz 68000
and its 64-bit memory operations. For example, the Jaguar version of Doom was
the best of all ports at the time: <http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Atari_Jaguar>

All that said, I find reminiscing on video game consoles of the past to be a
more positive experience than what this lawsuit has demonstrated about the
state of patent law. Sure, Samsung copied Apple's look and feel. Why is this
and why should this be illegal unless they literally slapped the word IPhone
or IPad on their gadgets? Might as well have banned the Chevy Camaro for
copying the Ford Mustang IMO.

~~~
protomyth
It is a 32-bit architecture based on how people measure 32-bit architectures.
It is not capable of addressing 64-bit either logically or physically. Having
a wide bus to memory is not a qualifier for calling something 64-bit.

> "plus a 13.3 MHz 68000 and its 64-bit memory operations"

The 68000 does not have 64-bit memory operations. It has 32-bit addressing
logically, but only had 24-bit physically which cause some problems with folks
who did "clever" things on the Mac.

I'll go with the traditional definition of a GPU which means goes back to the
Amiga for personal computers.

> Sure, Samsung copied Apple's look and feel. Why is this and why should this
> be illegal unless they literally slapped the word IPhone or IPad on their
> gadgets? Might as well have banned the Chevy Camaro for copying the Ford
> Mustang IMO.

Trade-dress has a long history of protection in the US. It was part of
consumer fraud protection. [http://corporate.findlaw.com/intellectual-
property/trade-dre...](http://corporate.findlaw.com/intellectual-
property/trade-dress-the-forgotten-trademark-right.html)

------
podperson
All those devices had a STYLUS and if the writer were being honest he might
have mentioned that the original such devices were the grid and newton and
that john Sculley coined the term PDA.

------
pippy
Samsung ripped off Apples design, there's no excusing this:

<http://i.imgur.com/qN6n9.jpg>

<http://i.imgur.com/FJkZE.png>

They're clearly in the wrong here. It's not about the fundamental form factor
of the devices, it's about blatant plagiarism. Apple's designs are aren't
perfect, and instead of perfecting or improving the devices (which would be
better for consumers), they simply didn't think about it. Shame on you
Samsung.

~~~
electromagnetic
I don't think you have any understanding on the meaning of patent
infringement, or unethical behaviour because you're misunderstanding the
former for the latter.

Resemblance is not illegal as long as it is not used to mislead someone into
buying the product. No one is going to be misled into buying a Samsung instead
of an iPhone, by the charger/headphones or even the phone itself. So
resemblance is meaningless in this case.

The rounded corners complaint is so ludicrous it baffles cognitive function.
Early blackberries and other full-keyboard phones resembled the same form
factor as current smart phones including the iPhone. Notably rectangular with
rounded edges.

The large screen with minimal buttons was so evident it was going to happen
that it was in star trek decades before the normal person realized it would
even be possible. Yet, I used an LCD graphics tablet as a touch screen tablet
years before the iPhone or iPod touch were released. Funnily enough that
graphic tab had a large screen and one button on the front.

Claim infringement and samsungs wrong doing all you want, but the precursors
to the iPhone were laying around everywhere. Apple was just the first to put
them together.

Apple has faired far better than most other technology companies introducing
new devices by having a loyal user base of early adopters and advocates. I
don't know a single apple fanboy who doesn't want to be first to get a brand
new product, and want to talk my ear off about it.

Being biggest does not make you the first to design something, nor does it
make you right.

I don't even know what my iPhone looks like because it's been in an otterbox
since I got it due to my working outside. Given the iPhones ridiculous sales
figures for cases and the purposeful design of the phones to support snap-on
cases, the design is a completely moot point. Over half of people I see with
an iPhone have a case on it, in fact probably more than half.

------
danbmil99
The obvious question is, why didn't /couldn't Samsung point to this obvious
prior art and get the point across to the jury?

Damn I wish I had been on that jury, I would have loved infuriating everyone
by hanging for a full acquittal.

------
alttab
When I was 13 and encountered my first PDA (which is essentially a computer,
even back then). I said "they should just attach a phone to this and be done
with it."

I WAS 13! It was most certainly obvious.

------
ck2
Jury foreman owns a patent he can now sue Apple for, seriously.

This whole trial was a complete mockery, regardless which side you believed
was right.

------
thewileyone
Basically, Apple got the jury that they wanted, ignorant and unwilling to
understand the consequences of their decision.

------
tzm
PDAs were not cellular devices. Cell phones were not PDAs. The iPhone was the
first to converge them.

~~~
johndrinkwater
You’re not even wrong, there were quite a few PDA+mobile phones many years
before the iPhone. Sony Ericsson’s p800 & p900 series was even referred to as
PDA Phones.

~~~
tzm
Ah, yes I remember (and forgot about) these devices. Had one myself. I also
remember nearly everyone else had no idea what it was and really didn't care.
They were cost prohibitive for the mass market.

------
batista
> _This is a very common trend in this entire debate that saddens me to no
> end: the iPhone is being compared to simple feature phones, while in fact,
> it should be compared to its true predecessor: the PDA. PDAs have always
> done with few buttons._

So,

1) having "few" buttons + stylus 2) in a different product category 3) in
devices that very few people bought or cared about, means, in Thom's
reasoning, that the iPhone _was_ obvious.

Meanwhile, let's see the OSNEWS first review of the device, back in the day:
(...) _And it's innovative too. Everything seems to work via multi-touch, a
touchscreen-based input method_ (...)

Searching for the review, I found this gem:

> _This may seem like a bold statement. Apple's just released iPhone is not
> only very attractive as we would expect from an Apple product, but includes
> some impressive features and specifications. It's probably unrealistic to
> claim that anything currently available on the market competes with this
> offering. However, is it really a revolution in mobile communication
> devices? Maybe not if there still is something that can overshadow it, and
> do it very soon._

The thing that would overshadow the iPhone "very soon" was OpenMoko.

~~~
Nicole060
Not only the reviews of the people who had tried the device were glowing, even
of those who turned into Apple haters lately (either because of the trial or
because of app store policies), but the opinion of those who had NOT tried the
device is even more interesting, as 99% of those who had never tried a device
that had an actually working touchscreen, with the right software inside,
thought that the iPhone could only fail ! Everyone was predicting the failure
of the iPhone because they couldn't imagine a device without a keyboard nor a
stylus could work.

This is the kind of drivel that was shared around the internet at the time of
the iPhone's release :
<http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone> One of the first
lines : _"First of all, the E70 has a full keyboard, not some shitty stripped
down, tap-and-pray smudgy piece of shit."_

I wonder what the author and the people who spread that link all over the
internet at the time think of most Android handsets, Windows Phone, since they
hated so much the idea of a phone without a keyboard.

When you look at the criticism from those who had not tried the device you
really have to stop and ask : was the iPhone obvious ? The answer itself is
obvious, and it's no, it wasn't. They couldn't imagine a phone that could be
usable without a keyboard until they tried it with their own hands. "Tap and
pray" ? hahaha.

~~~
mattmcknight
Many of us still use a slider phone with a keyboard. Yet those have been found
infringing of Apple's illegitimate patents.

~~~
bdcravens
"illegitimate patents": perhaps, but like others have pointed out, it sounds
like your beef shouldn't be with Apple, but with patent system. If Apple has
illegitimate patents, I suspect some of the 24,000 patents Google acquired
from Motorola Mobility are as well.

~~~
mattmcknight
I don't begrudge Apple the necessity of obtaining patents for things that
shouldn't be patentable in our broken system- otherwise they would be the ones
getting sued. However, the use of them to attack competitors that
independently developed technology is what bothers me, whether it's Google,
Apple, Microsoft, or a do-nothing patent troll that is doing the suing.

------
ThePherocity
Well, no. You can look at an LCD monitor and say "look, prior art for a
tablet" but that doesn't meet the legal meaning and requirements, and nor does
this for the purposes of this case. Stop making the argument about Apple vs
Google. This is about patents and commercialism. So many fan comments we can't
see the forest through the trees.

------
dakimov
The fact that Samsung copies Apple is as obvious as the fact that the sky is
blue. I am not sure whether it is a real problem, because Samsung is not able
to even do a clone properly. The problem is that the US patent system is more
than absurd, it is retarded. Will somebody in the United States ever do
something with it?

