
Another Spanking for Apple from Judge Posner - grellas
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120704142749867
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ChuckMcM
The great thing about patent-a-geddon is that its really bringing the problem
out front and center, both to the judiciary who are learning how the patent
office failed us around the turn of the century and Congress where companies
are crying out for relief and promising campaign money if they get it. I
predict it will do a lot to make this stuff saner.

~~~
glesica
Agreed, although it's always a risky bet hoping Congress will turn corruption
(promises of campaign money, cozy ties with lobbyists) into good legislation.
I'm sure it happens on occasion, but we could just as easily wind up with laws
that gave relief only to a few very large companies in certain (ill-defined)
industries.

But here's hoping!

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chj
Somehow Apple forgot that he was borrowing (let's not use stealing) many ideas
from other companies. The "Slide to unlock" probably was inspired by Sony
walkman's "slide to open". Surely, they must have got a lot of experience in
suing other people over ideas they borrowed back from the windows GUI case in
80s.

~~~
reitzensteinm
You don't even have to look that far back - pre iPhone, it was used on the
Neonode N1m:

<http://youtu.be/7ru2GjBTHRY?t=3m56s>

Even if the iPhone were the first to use it, the patent is still ridiculous.
If you tasked 100 engineers to come up with an unlocking solution for touch
screens before the iPhone existed, I'd bet good money at least 50 of them
would consider it an option. That's not non-obvious.

Patents in software are no longer about inventions, they're about being the
first do obvious technique x in context y.

And sometimes, that's not even necessary - I've had a technique I used for
displaying cross domain ads in Flash that I considered obvious at the time
patented out from under me later on. The "in Flash" bit being the novel part,
I assume - I try not to spend too much time dissecting insanity.

At least we're starting to see notable investors rally against them, like pg
and Fred Wilson - the very people who should be benefiting the most from a non
broken patent system.

Edit: Clarified line about the 50/100 engineers.

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oemera
Sure 100 engineers would come up with the idea "slide to unlock". After you
see and use something it's always easier to find _this said solution_. BUT
before Apple it seems that none of the 100 engineers you mentioned came up
with the idea and it was never build and that means it was never obvious
before Apple created it.

Saying things are obvious after someone already _invented_ a dead simple and
good solution for a problem we had for years is always easy.

EDIT: Grammer.

~~~
reitzensteinm
Come on, I clearly meant _before_ Apple first used it. Today, 100 out of 100
engineers would consider it.

You are right that obviousness changes over time, and it's important to
consider it from the perspective of the time of the invention.

But some things genuinely _were_ obvious at the time of their 'invention'.

~~~
taligent
The obvious question is why didn't it appear on ANY of the major OEM's phones
before the iPhone ?

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tjoff
Because the previous touchscreens was resistive and used with a pen/nail. And
their UIs wasn't at all about dragging stuff but rather clicking on them.

Once you define your UI around a capacitive touchscreen "slide to unlock"
becomes trivial.

~~~
huggyface
Which is really the key aspect to all of this.

Technology moves forward enabling new behaviors that were never possible
before, and much of the "innovation" that people declare is nothing more than
a land-rush (see the "on a computer" that was the invention of countless
patents). The iPhone stood on the backs of the GPS industry, for instance,
that pushed much of the innovations in mobile chips, GPUs (OpenGL ES and
mobile GPUs were made for the in-car GPS industry), screen and touchscreen
technology. Suddenly the technology was there to do things that couldn't be
done before and the land grab was afoot. Is a land grab innovation?

I don't discount that Apple invented and refined a lot, or that some companies
seem to be addicted to simply cloning (Samsung is particularly guilty of
this), but a lot of what Apple is credited with isn't much more evolved than
"on a computer". And now that we have all sorts of innovations in battery
technology, chipsets, etc, things like Google's glasses are possible, but only
a fool would imagine that they created them out of the ether, instead of
simply moved to where technology had brought them.

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vibrunazo
Why isn't there a bill circulating in the house or congress for patent reform
yet? It's reasonably common in my country for companies to sponsor bills.
Company having problems with legislation -> pays lawyers to write a bill ->
lobby a few congressman to put bill to vote -> bill gets voted -> if no one
opposes it, company gets its new law approved.

Is it too different in the US? Why hasn't Google done this yet? They're sure
under a lot of pressure, have a lot of interest in patent reform and have
enough lawyers to write a great bill. Just getting something like this to get
voted, so it would show up on media, that would be huge. The MAFIAA is doing
it to defend their interests. Why isn't Google doing the same to defend
theirs?

~~~
benmccann
There are many powerful interests on the other side of the issue. For example,
pharmaceutical companies have very different desires for the patent system
than Google would.

~~~
vibrunazo
I can think of a bazillion of more problems like that. I can also think of a
bazillion solutions (ex: reform only for software). An initial draft doesn't
need to be perfect. But it would be great to get the conversation started. I'm
not optimistic that a patent reform bill would be approved anytime soon, nor
in it's first few attempts. But we have to start somewhere, right?

~~~
thomasjoulin
A proposed bill to ban software patent would be great, but maybe Google, Apple
and co. actually "like" the status quo ? It's a kind a dissuasion weapon that
only huge companies can get, so even if they don't like to fight with each
other, at least they prevent new competition to arise

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BadassFractal
Patent lawyers everywhere are laughing all the way to the bank. This is a
phenomenal time for them to cash in on the dozens of giant lawsuits that are
happening every single day. The customers are enormous and willing to pay
however much it takes to make sure that their billion dollar investments are
not removed from the market. What's a few hundred million dollars compared to
the kind of money that Apple is reaping from their devices? Fortunes are being
made as we speak.

These folks have a lot to gain from the patent system not changing. I'm going
to guess that their spin will be "defending America's ingenuity" and "letting
creators benefit from the fruits of their labor".

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aptwebapps
There was a Castlevania game for the DS where you had to swipe patterns to
unlock some doors (among other things), does that count? I forget which one,
but definitely pre-iPhone.

~~~
jcurbo
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania:_Dawn_of_Sorrow>

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Polarity
I dont know why people dont getting the reality of the whole patent thing. If
apple not patenting things, someone other does and come back to kick apple in
the nuts. Its just one of the many legal capitalism games. Stop the patent
laws and nobody does it. Just simple as that. If Samsung or Google would lead
the mobile Race, they would act the same (and they do already).

~~~
TheEskimo
>If apple not patenting things, someone other does...

No, not at all. Patents are only granted if there's no prior art and as such
if apple uses anything (such as slide to unlock) in one of their devices
without patenting it that also removes the possibility for anyone else to
patent it.

>If Samsung or Google would lead the mobile Race...

There are already more android devices than iOS devices. Google also leads in
various other internet spaces and isn't nearly as aggressive patent-wise as
Apple.

You're right that patent reform is the real solution, but I don't think it's
us who "dont [sic] get the reality of the whole patent thing" but you.

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gecko
Could someone explain to me why NeXT Software/NeXT Computer is listed as a co-
plaintiff, on a lawsuit that was only recently filed? Did Apple and NeXT not
fully merge in some capacity? As-is, this would be like reading Attachmate,
Inc., Novell, Inc., and WordPerfect Corporation had just sued Microsoft.

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verroq
Is a point not a zero length line?

edit: it's going to have to be line segment isn't it. Since nobody drags
infinite lines across a screen.

~~~
tsunamifury
This has irked me because those who don't know anything about touch screen
technology don't seem to understand that 'taps' are actually small swipes. The
sensors have a far higher resolution than your fingers ability to stay still,
so the system rounds down small 'swipes' based on x time over y legnth into
what the user meant as taps. It senses the touch down (start point) and the
touch up (end point) which may or may not be a zero length swipe or even a
small distance swipe.

At a a hardware level and strictly speaking, taps are swipes, Apple just
abstracted tiny swipes away into a tap function.

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steve19
It irks me that some people who don't know anything about the physics of touch
screen technology and don't seem to understand that 'taps' are actually small
changes of capacitance of an array of capacitors. [0]

At a a physics level, and strictly speaking, taps and swipes don't exist.

Patents are pragmatic and full of abstractions. You are not required to
specify a patent at every level of abstraction all the way down to its
mathematical or quantum properties.

(I have to read a number of mechanical patents each week as part of my job).

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitive_sensing>

~~~
tsunamifury
This is very interesting, thanks for the perspective.

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eragnew
> 'Another Spanking'

What does that mean, exactly?

