

Apple scores limited victory in smartphone patent war - erinwatson
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/20/us-htc-apple-patent-idUSTRE7BI24620111220
Apple Inc scored a narrow victory against Taiwan's HTC Corp in a patent lawsuit over smartphone technology that will set the stage for further battles between rival makers in the fiercely competitive market.
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rheeseyb
I love this quote - "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should
create their own original technology, not steal ours."

Reminds me of that time when Apple invented the mouse-driven GUI.

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talmand
You could say that about much of their products.

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talmand
"Limited victory" is right, starts with 10 patents and gets reduced to one
patent covering automatically linking phone numbers to bring up the dialer on
click? Seems to me the result is that Apple lost rather badly in this case.
This is the second time I've seen a misleading headline suggesting a Apple
victory in a patent case but turns out to be a loss once you've read the
details. What's the deal with that?

But really? They have a patent for making telephone numbers in a document
click-able to call that number? That seems so obvious a thing to do on a phone
why grant the patent? Plus, if HTC can come up with a workaround so easily and
quickly doesn't that also support the thought it's an overly obvious (i.e.,
useless) patent? Did I understand that part correctly?

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Karunamon
I'm pretty sure I saw that functionality in devices that existed long before
the iPhone.. fucking patents.

But to be fair, an import blockade is a pretty solid victory. Unfortunately
for Apple, HTC can release a software update to disable the "infringing"
functionality and quite possibly reinvent it in a way that isn't infringing
anything.

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vidarh
A blockade now would have been a solid victory. A blockade months into the
future for a trivially disabled feature is pretty much a joke.

I worked on a touch pad in '99 that had this functionality, and I'm pretty
sure we didn't come up with the idea.

Unfortunately we never got it into mass production, and I doubt sufficient
details were released to use it as prior art. Nokia's Screen Phone might have
had similar functionality.

(Search for FreePad if interested - still a few articles available)

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slowpoke
Any victory for anybody in the patent mess is a loss for everybody, period.

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jgw
Except patent lawyers :(

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saturdaysaint
Pretty small potatoes. I wonder what the Apple executives, canny competitors
by most accounts, really expect to accomplish from the legal campaign. Do they
mostly intend to raise the stakes for their lower margin competition? Delay
major Android phones at a crucial juncture in the race? This gets negative PR
in tech circles, but you wonder if it plays well to the broader public - the
more respected brand is making serious claims that lesser brands are
copying/stealing from them.

It's easy to cast this as a Heart-of-Darkness style deathmarch, but
unfortunately, I think Apple is finding value in the whole enterprise, even if
there isn't a resounding victory.

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ddlatham
Earlier discussion here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3371392>

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st3fan
Honestly, any win for any company in that area is a loss for the whole
industry.

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allenap
These victories all look rather like failures.

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knobbysideup
It'd be cool if HP would smack apple up a bit with the Palm patents.

