Apple sues HTC over 4 patents in new lawsuit

http://news.priorsmart.com/apple-v-high-tech-computer-lR8/

by kljensen • 16 years ago

27 23 16 years ago

news.priorsmart.com

Every time software patents come up we have the same conversation here. Someone will look at the title, e.g. in this case "Unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image" and say what!?, how can that be patentable.

Then someone will come along and say, that bit of text is totally meaningless, it's the actual claims that count.

But fundamentally, how could anything under that heading no matter how tenuously connected or complex actually be worth a patent.

edit: link to patent http://www.google.com/patents?id=dUnKAAAAEBAJ

Can someone give valid argument as to why that isn't total BS, cause I'm not seeing anything but standard phone unlock, now with a touchscreen.

kiba2• 16 years ago

Well, it's nothing new, really.

Patent shenanigans has been happening since before James Watt got into patent wars with various steam engine inventors.

You see, all those who think patent problems are a recent phenomena of our time are clearly mistaken. It's a disaster that stretches centuries.

Nobody wants to think about abolishing it of course. It's unthinkable and so obviously wrong. We should reform it. We should fix it! We should do anything but abolish it!

But you know what? If those crazy libertarians believe in those clearly outrageous ideas, maybe they do have some merits. It would seem to be so opposite to the idea of property right and ownership, but yet those crazy ideologue believe IP to be incompatible with property rights.

I mean, we even got Eric Raymond being afraid of IP abolitionists being right.

But clearly, I will be dismissed as someone with no entrepreneurial experience or just some kid who only want free musics. A nut-case who only considers short-term interest.

I guess I'll have to crush you all in the business arena and show you how wrong you clearly are.

jacksoncarter• 16 years ago

Perhaps we should abolish all property rights? What exactly are property rights anyway? The government can use eminent domain to take them. The white people can take them from the aboriginals.

Property rights really only apply if you are powerful enough to ignore them or defend them yourself. Those home owners in Connecticut weren't powerful enough to stop the corporations from using their property to build an apartment. The same is true of patents. You can get the patent and own it legitimately, but if a more powerful corporation has better lawyers, they'll take it. It's like laws don't really exist. Laws are written to those in power as we go along. As the power shifts, the laws shift toward the powerful.

I read this morning that states are reducing pensions for people who have paid into them for years. Isn't that pension, essentially their property as well? That's been taken away.

Do property rights really exist?

I was also thinking about it from another perspective. Say you create a park and want to charge people to enter it. You only want to let 5 people enter the park, but 10 people who didn't pay to enter, enter anyway. They don't take anything from other people. The park is still there just as the movie is still there if it is pirated. Nothing is lost except revenue for tickets to enter.

10ren• 16 years ago

BTW: I'm not in the slightest bit interested in complaining about or arguing for patents - it's the opposite of intellectually interesting to me: it's boring and emotional.

Thanks for the link. My reading: Claim one is that dragging an icon to a drop location unlocks the device. It's like dragging to the recycle bin, except that: 1. the drop location is a "region", not an icon (a bit more general); 2. the action isn't to move a file, but to unlock the device (ie. trigger this specific global event)

This doesn't seem sensational to me, but it does sound like a good idea: simulating a slider for unlocking. "Pocket unlocking" would be less likely to happen, and it would look cool. Although drag-n-drop is well known, it's never been used to trigger a global event (TMK).

The subsequent claims refine this: the icon must be dragged along a displayed route; or within channels; or the direction of dragging is given by arrows or text (presumably randomized). These aren't purely "gestures" because they involve interaction with elements on the screen. The last one - text directions - is probably the one most likely to be upheld by the court.

(for completeness, the other claims are just alternate language for the same thing - to circumvent seemingly irrelevant syntactic distinctions between eg. "system" and "method")

Just because someone claims something doesn't mean it's true. Like any other claim - in a thesis, in an advertisement, by a politician - it may be true or false. You need to check out the evidence and the criteria used to evaluate it.

What is interesting will be to hear the court's opinion. That's what counts, as far as "patent law" is concerned, not what the inventor claims. [nb: I've used "claims" with two distinct meanings here: the claims are claimed]

locopati• 16 years ago

Counting down to when Palm (now HP) steps in and says, actually you both owe us licensing fees.

protomyth• 16 years ago

I would imagine HP / Palm will just do a cross-licensing and be done with it. HTC has a much more problematic position then HP/Palm, Nokia, Apple, Microsoft, and RIM. The suits between the big players are more extended negotiations.

av500• 16 years ago

CE companies business is not to sue others that might use their patents by default. Most companies still try to sell products. Companies build up patent portfolios as a defensive weapon mostly.

The best position to sue for patents is when you actually dont't sell products, that way nobody can sue you back for anything.

Patent fights between CE manufacturers will most likely get very ugly and apart from the bad publicity I fail to see what Apple has to gain here...

eli3• 16 years ago

I should be proactive on this and patent unlocking a device using voice print or facial recognition

eli3• 16 years ago

You would think HTC would have someone on staff just read through all of Apple's patents to try to avoid them.

The patent only covers the "slide to unlock" kind of deal and there's no reason HTC had to set it up that way,

apgwoz• 16 years ago

That'd be a horrible idea. Actively looking for patents to try to avoid makes you more guilty since you can't prove you didn't read the patent you infringed on.

IANAL, but I've heard/read that as an engineer it's best to avoid looking at and reading patents at all so that when you ultimately get sued you can claim, "I didn't know about it."

abstractbill• 16 years ago

Reading patents is a very bad idea. If you can be shown to have most likely known about the patent you have infringed, the penalties are substantially higher than if you didn't know.

eli3• 16 years ago

what a country

loup-vaillant• 16 years ago

Three times higher, if I recall correctly. For US patents only. I don't know about other countries.

rbanffy5• 16 years ago

Apple must prevent Android from becoming widespread as soon as they can. Once more phone makers adopt Android and start sharing enhancements, Apple will be unable to out-innovate and will be relegated to a niche.

Apple can, possibly, spend more money in R&D than HTC, but it can't outcompete the whole industry.

HTC's move could be to convince telcos Apple's move hurts the whole industry (for AT&T, an HTC is no different from an iPhone and they really don't care which one you use as long as you are a profitable client). You can try to picture Apple trying to sell unlocked iPhones with no subsidies and trying to compete with every HTC and Motorola and Dell and Samsung subsidized by every telco.

ergo98• 16 years ago

Almost everyone besides Microsoft and Nokia are onboard with Android now. Apple is too late to stop that train.

No doubt the first patent volley was a bit of FUD, primarily to add a sense of risk to Android among second-tier telcos. They failed at that as well.

The elephant in the room is Motorola. No one ever goes after Motorola because they have a portfolio a mile deep. Which is humorous, because ultimately Motorola presents far more of a risk to the iPhone than HTC.

rbanffy5• 16 years ago

> Apple is too late to stop that train.

All the more reason for them to get violent.

In the end, it would be much better if they just competed by making better phones.

foobarbazetc• 16 years ago

"Apple will be unable to out-innovate"

Erm, what? Android may be able to out-sell by volume, maybe, but will it ever out-innovate Apple? Probably not.

rbanffy5• 16 years ago

Apple is one company. On the Android camp we can count Google, Motorola, HTC, Samsung, LG, Acer, all enjoying the shared results of the investment in Java technology, Eclipse IDEs, and the Linux kernel (on which Nokia also depends).

No. Apple can devote the whole company to the iOS platform and it will still be less than the companies I mentioned will combine in developing both Android and the technologies on which it depends.

Apple can out-innovate Microsoft. It cannot out-innovate the whole world.

Apple sues HTC over 4 patents in new lawsuit

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