
The 313 Apple patents that list Steven P. Jobs among the group of inventors - keyle
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/24/technology/steve-jobs-patents.html
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shasta
Steve Jobs was certainly loved by the HN crowd if _this_ gets a positive
reaction.

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shashashasha
I might be wrong about this but I think the people of HN (and people in
general?) have better opinions of hardware patents than software patents.

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yonran
Besides, almost all of these patents seem to protect the ornamental design
rather than the utility. Most people here don't object to patenting the design
of cases and the like.

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sukuriant
Though I'm now beginning to wonder. Could someone copyright the design of
cases and sue for copyright infringement/plagiarism? Or would that open up an
even worse can of worms?

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pygy_
That's exactly what's happening between Apple and Samsung in Europe and
elsewhere, right now. Apple complains that the Galaxy tablet is physically too
similar to the iPad.

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texa3
They are all mostly ornamental design patents?

The first one I randomly looked at was Apple TV. It lists 14 people for an
ornamental design for a square media player.

Another is how to package an iPod in a box? Seems unnecessary to patent all
these things.

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rahoulb
I don't know enough about patents, but Jobs was definitely obsessed with the
"out of the box" experience and wanted Apple products to be unlike anyone
else's products in that regard.

I remember having a 12" Powerbook delivered to my Windows-using office -
everyone gathered round to look at the packaging - and then were amazed when
the computer was up and running, and connected to the internet, within two
minutes.

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vacri
Why is packaging covered by patents instead of trademark or copyright? It's
not like a slight alteration to the inserts in a box is unique innovation. I
honestly don't understand how patents are the right thing to apply to
packaging. What am I missing?

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btn
A trademark protects a mark that would cause confusion about the source of a
product if it was used by another person/company. That is, it would protect
any branding on the package, rather than the design of the package itself.

There is a certain degree of overlap with copyright, but: (1) for copyright to
be infringed, the infringing item has to be a copy of the original; and (2)
the subject of a design patent must have a certain degree of functionality and
not be purely aesthetic (as copyright can be). A design patent can be
infringed by a substantially similar design, rather than an exact copy.

Design patents are very different to utility patents. In the examples here,
it's purely the ornamental design applied to packaging that's being protected,
not the functional aspects of the packaging itself.

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vacri
Right, thank you. It sounds like it waters down the lay concept of patents,
which is "I came up with something truly new and original", and should more
like copyright in that it's more about preventing plagiarism.

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veyron
FTA: there are 317 patents

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Tichy
The patent issues are the one thing that tarnish his image, in my mind. Let's
just forget about that.

