Apple granted broad mobile patent

http://www.macworld.co.uk/apple-business/news/?newsid=3370881

by ianox • 14 years ago

85 99 14 years ago

macworld.co.uk

freehunter3• 14 years ago

>"Steve Jobs, former Apple CEO, may finally get his wish and see Android devices ... completely taken off the market."

Was the author not reading the news last October?

salmanapk• 14 years ago

What are you referring to?

personlurking• 14 years ago

that SJ passed away and the author is using the wrong grammatical tense.

smackfu• 14 years ago

I don't really trust anyone to properly interpret patents.

moron• 14 years ago

No kidding.

nicholassmith• 14 years ago

If Apple decides to use them it'll take years for it to litigate, and they'll probably be proved invalid in the process.

Don't fear poor Android phones, you're safe for now.

backprojection• 14 years ago

I'm curious what happens if you're wrong though. Suppose they successfully push on this and android devices are taken off the market, or priced so high to cover licensing fees that people won't buy them.

What recourse does Google have? Presumably they can't sue the patent office for granting ridiculous patents that ultimately drive them out of business.

huggyface3• 14 years ago

Apple isn't immune to the patent game either. What if any of the countless assaults on Apple succeed?

There are a lot of what ifs. There are millions of patents in play.

keithpeter• 14 years ago

And safe in countries outside the US as (some/all) of the patents won't be valid there.

Have members of this forum thought about the consequences of an unencumbered India and China with a large developer community?

fusiongyro2• 14 years ago

You know, I actually think it would be better if the patent was upheld. Imagine the fiasco it would create. It would put the spotlight on the absurdity and abuses of the patent system when applied to technology. Might even get non-technical folks interested.

Ultimately I think the solution is going to be one of the ones Judge Posner outlined in his editorial, but it might take a big shakeup like this to turn patents into the issue-of-the-moment for the populace and get something done (you know, in the usual rushed, nobody-read-this-legislation way).

reitzensteinm• 14 years ago

Especially if the patent were found to be invalid elsewhere, and Android gets banned only in the US. That would cause people outside our industry to stop and think.

Unfortunately I'm pretty sure Apple wouldn't get that far - they could demand a $20 or $30 royalty instead, so consumers won't be directly confronted with the insanity; Android phones would just start being closer in price to iPhones.

incongruity• 14 years ago

I find myself hoping for an acceleration of the patent insanity. At some point, the absurdity of software patents will come to light and we'll all be able to move on with things.

Until then, it's a painful, expensive process.

So, yes indeed, bring on the reductio ad absurdum.

mattmaroon2• 14 years ago

Most of the patents they've granted look to my highly un-patent-lawyer-like eyes like things I had on phones 5 years before Apple jumped into the fray. I'm not really sweating it too much.

Multi-touch is big though and I at least have no recollection of prior art.

grecy4• 14 years ago

> Multi-touch is big though and I at least have no recollection of prior art.

For anyone that doubts this, checkout the iPhone announcement keynote one more time. It's really worth watching again.

The first time Steve slides to unlock, and the first time he "flicks" to scroll with rubber-banding the crowd is floored.

It's worth watching for the "stylus" gag alone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uW-E496FXg

eropple• 14 years ago

The Lemur was multi-touch in 2004 or 2005, IIRC.

vacri• 14 years ago

Except that designers then tread in fear of violating patents and produce much cut down versions, harming the consumer.

I once worked in a place that designed a CPAP pump, which is essentially an air pump with a humidifier. It has a removable water tank with a heating plate for humidifying the air. We had to use a removable plate to expose the tank instead of a door - because our main competitor had patented a hinged flap to access the water tank!

Regardless of how obvious prior art is, it's cheaper to make minor design changes than to spend years in litigation. Even though it's worse for the consumer, you have to avoid anything patented unless you have the ready cash that Apple has lying around.

StavrosK• 14 years ago

Don't be silly, that would mean that something would change in the patent system.

watmough• 14 years ago

Apple fanboi that I am, freely admitted, my Nexus 7 is wonderful, and I think the granting of this entire patent is insane.

huggyface3• 14 years ago

Ridiculous headline (the submission simply mirroring the original article) that is the sort of hysterical end-of-times interpretation of patents that has yielded so many nonsensical, time-wasting discussions before.

lmm• 14 years ago

It's entirely possible the submission was originally made with a better headline, and then mod-edited to match the article.

wwwtyro• 14 years ago

So, my question is: given all the controversy in the (tech) media over patents lately, how is the patent office able to rationalize granting (what appears to me to be) a very bad patent?

notatoad• 14 years ago

the patent office doesn't give a fuck. as long as you pay the filing fee and fill out all the right checkboxes in the right color ink, the mindless drone in the cubicle will rubber-stamp it.

noonespecial• 14 years ago

There is no rational thinking at all going on at the patent office. They reject your initial application a few times to make sure you're good and rich and then grant it figuring the courts will work it out.

kbutler2• 14 years ago

That's what they do.

USPTO: "The mission of the patent business area is to help our customers get patents; its performance goal is to grant patents to inventors for their discoveries. "

http://www.uspto.gov/about/stratplan/ar/1998/a98r-2.jsp

I think it is significant that the mission is not "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by [whatever]" It is simply to "help our customers get patents."

To be fair, the 2011 annual report says the mission is: "Fostering innovation, competitiveness and economic growth, domestically and abroad to deliver high quality and timely examination of patent and trademark applications, guiding domestic and international intellectual property policy, and delivering intellectual property information and education worldwide, with a highly skilled, diverse workforce." http://www.uspto.gov/about/stratplan/ar/2011/mda_01.html

evilmushroom2• 14 years ago

Hmm.. brb patenting the process of applying for a patent.

mindcrime• 14 years ago

I think IBM actually have a patent on "patent trolling."[1]

[1] http://slashdot.org/story/11/01/02/1534223/ibm-files-the-pat...

evilmushroom2• 14 years ago

doh! foiled again.

fpp• 14 years ago

and the recently patented wheel or the wooden stick (to throw your dog)

bcrescimanno4• 14 years ago

I'm not entirely sure why this is surprising news to anybody; in the original iPhone announcement, I believe Steve Jobs said, "...and boy have we patented it."

Let's be frank: Apple is not the only major technology company with a massive collection of questionable patents that they could use to stifle their competition. The system, as it is today, basically forces companies into these patents because if they don't patent it someone else will. To put it colloquially: "Don't hate the player, hate the game."

ajross2• 14 years ago

That "could" is doing way too much work in that sentence. Yes, all the other patent holders "could" file ridiculous suits and bring the tech economy down, in the same way that the US "could" launch a nuclear first strike against china.

The thing is, for the most part they aren't, and haven't, over several decades of detente. Apple did. I think that distinction matters, no?

bcrescimanno4• 14 years ago

I think it'd be interesting to put that assertion to the test: has Apple really been more litigious with their patent portfolio than Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, and Google (as totally random examples pulled from thin air)? I'm honestly not sure of the answer; but, I'm skeptical that Apple is "worse" than other major tech companies in this regard.

stewbrew• 14 years ago

"because if they don't patent it someone else will"

AFAIK it won't be worth the stamps if there is some prior art. I.e. once release nobody can patent it. The above statement is false. They patented it to hinder competition.

Note: I'm not against patents (for significant inventions) per se.

bcrescimanno4• 14 years ago

The fact that they did it to hinder competition does not invalidate the assertion that someone else likely would have patented it anyway.

I'd like to think that prior art would invalidate a lot of bad patents; but, prior art is not so clear cut as it seems on the surface.

DanBC3• 14 years ago

> "Don't hate the player, hate the game."

I do hate the game. The game needs to be reformed.

But some players appear too keen to play the game. Not pointing fingers at Apple here; most of them are as bad as each other.

I actually support the idea of software patents and hardware patents and "look and feel" patents; just not how they're implemented now. Something like a 2 year protection would give companies significant advantage, yet still allow smaller players to use the stuff in time.

See the lack of single-handed (software and hardware) keyboards; many of these were attacked by a patent troll. This has harmed accessibility, and has benefited no-one. A two year patent would have given a good faith actor an advantage when producing and marketing their device, and yet allowed other people to compete in time.

nickolai• 14 years ago

> Something like a 2 year protection would give companies significant advantage, yet still allow smaller players to use the stuff in time.

Don't they take something like 2-3 years to only review the application and grant the patent at the moment ?

samdk2• 14 years ago

    "Don't hate the player, hate the game"

If you find your arguments relying on catchy phrases like this, you should reexamine them, because they're probably lacking.

I especially dislike this one in particular because it's used as an excuse to avoid having to justify harmful actions. "Everyone else was doing it too" is not a valid excuse for doing something wrong, especially when you are--as Apple is--a large enough "player" that your actions help shape how the "game" is played.

In any case, your presentation of Apple's actions is a lot more benign than reality. It's one thing to acquire questionable technology patents to help you defend yourself against litigation. That's unfortunate, but doesn't really actively harm anyone. It's also not what Apple is doing: Apple is using its patent portfolio offensively to try to shut out competing products.

mifay• 14 years ago

Chaque goutte d'eau est un raz de marée en dénie.

bcrescimanno4• 14 years ago

Attempting to inject a little humor does not invalidate an argument. I'm not really attempting to defend Apple; I'm simply saying, "this is the state of affairs and Apple is not the only offender."

We can dislike that excuse all we want; but, why are we faulting for-profit companies for working within the legalities of the system to do what they're supposed to: grow their business and maximize their profits? It's a flawed system, to be sure; but, it's the system we have at the moment.

Sidnicious2• 14 years ago

> We can’t take all of our energy and all of our care and finish the painting, then have someone else put their name on it.

What a load of shit. What happened to “great artists steal”? Great art must be stolen to inspire new, greater art.

The iPhone is awesome. May a thousand devices like it bloom.

adventureful• 14 years ago

It became an inconvenient statement once Apple conquered the known universe. As is so typical with power and success.

grecy4• 14 years ago

> What a load of shit. What happened to “great artists steal”? Great art must be stolen to inspire new, greater art.

You'd be totally cool with me stealing the side project you've poured heart and soul into for 5 years, to sell it to an overseas company that floods the market for 1/10 the price?

option_greek• 14 years ago

Assuming they did it from scratch and not shipping the assemblies outright, I don't see what the issue is.

jbigelow76• 14 years ago

By referencing "great artists steal" I think the OP was referring more to the hypocrisy of Apple as opposed to indignation.

Here is the youtube video of Jobs saying that Apple shamelessly steals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU

Given that Jobs credits Picasso with the "great artists steal" quote and Tim Cook making an analogy about "finishing the painting" the whole thing is quite ironic.

Samuel_Michon3• 14 years ago

“What happened to “great artists steal”?”

That's because the inverse isn't valid. Not every thief is a great artist. Steve Jobs and Tim Cook apparently didn't consider Android to be great art.

The original quote, to put in context what Jobs was referring to:

“One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.” —Philip Massinger

http://nancyprager.wordpress.com/2007/05/08/good-poets-borro...

NB: Jobs mistakenly attributed it to Picasso, who never said such a thing. Jobs probably read Richardson’s biography of Picasso, in which the text is misquoted and attributed to T.S. Eliot.

Sidnicious2• 14 years ago

I agree, but I think that makes it worse.

You shouldn’t have to get permission to take someone’s work and improve it, certainly not based on how good they think you are.

Thanks for the source. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in context :).

inept• 14 years ago

"NB: Jobs mistakenly attributed it to Picasso, who never said such a thing. Jobs probably read Richardson’s biography of Picasso, in which the text is misquoted and attributed to T.S. Eliot."

The quote you have above is in fact T. S. Eliot's words, in reference to Massinger, from his selection "The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism", 1921.

If you re-read the citation, you will see her intention that _neither_ T. S. Eliot nor Picasso specifically said "Good artists borrow, great artists steal" but a "bastardization" of Eliot's original writing.

Eliot's intention, "A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest." would discredit every technology company or figure that has been defended by the cliche.

http://www.bartleby.com/200/sw11.html

VanL2• 14 years ago

The hyperventilating in this article is ridiculous. First, patents always issue on a Thursday - and any large company usually has a number in the pipe. There is nothing unusual about a company the size of Apple getting 25 patents issued in one release.

Now, I haven't read all of the 25 patents issued to Apple, but this article makes the classic mistake of confounding the specification (which describes lots of stuff) and the claims (which describe what is protected). Here is what this patent is actually about:

1. A method, comprising: at a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display: displaying a portion of an electronic document on the touch screen display, wherein the displayed portion of the electronic document has a vertical position in the electronic document; displaying a vertical bar on top of the displayed portion of the electronic document, the vertical bar displayed proximate to a vertical edge of the displayed portion of the electronic document, wherein: the vertical bar has a vertical position on top of the displayed portion of the electronic document that corresponds to the vertical position in the electronic document of the displayed portion of the electronic document; and the vertical bar is not a scroll bar; detecting a movement of an object in a direction on the displayed portion of the electronic document; in response to detecting the movement: scrolling the electronic document displayed on the touch screen display in the direction of movement of the object so that a new portion of the electronic document is displayed, moving the vertical bar to a new vertical position such that the new vertical position corresponds to the vertical position in the electronic document of the displayed new portion of the electronic document, and maintaining the vertical bar proximate to the vertical edge of the displayed portion of the electronic document; and in response to a predetermined condition being met, ceasing to display the vertical bar while continuing to display the displayed portion of the electronic document, wherein the displayed portion of the electronic document has a vertical extent that is less than a vertical extent of the electronic document.

Translated from patent-speak, this just means that the little position indicator along the side of the display indicates where you are in a document. Further claims indicate that the position indicator disappears when you don't do anything for a minute. Anyone who has seen iOS (or Mac OS X Lion) has seen it.

If I were Google, though, I wouldn't care about this patent. Why not? Because of the words "and the vertical bar is not a scroll bar." These words were added to get around prior art. All Google would need to do is allow its position indicator to also function as a scroll bar and this patent doesn't apply.

I am annoyed by patents as much as the next guy - more, even, because I deal with them every day - but this kind of breathlessness helps absolutely no one.

diminish2• 14 years ago

Today a lot of mainstream media published articles along the same line on how Apple's new patents will kill competition; which makes me think, they do it to push the aapl share price higher in the lack of any major apple product announcements in the current quarter.

huggyface3• 14 years ago

They do it because hyperventilating articles get clicks. Just look at this submission -- how many of us clicked it just to see what astonishing, competition-destroying patent Apple was granted?

Oh, a scrollbar that disappears. Okay...

Of course they piss away credibility doing that, but credibility seems to hold little value these days.

Samuel_Michon3• 14 years ago

“the lack of any major apple product announcements in the current quarter.”

Apple fourth fiscal quarter of 2012 started in the last week of June and will conclude in the last week of September.

WWDC usually falls in FQ3, one month a go Apple released new notebooks during the event. That was good timing, it means Apple will be able to keep up with demand when the Back to School crowd starts shopping.

Mountain Lion will be released within the next two weeks, which will also boost Mac sales.

The next hardware announcement will be no earlier than September (new iPhone), but that will probably still be in FQ4.

greyboy• 14 years ago

> Translated from patent-speak, this just means that the little position indicator along the side of the display indicates where you are in a document. Further claims indicate that the position indicator disappears when you don't do anything for a minute. Anyone who has seen iOS (or Mac OS X Lion) has seen it.

Or, anyone who has used the default Nokia S60 browser (such as on the E7x series devices).

VanL2• 14 years ago

Probably. I approach patents with the default position that any given patent is either invalid or irrelevant. 99.5% of the time I am right.

kstenerud2• 14 years ago

It will probably be invalidated anyway since there is prior art. I had a document reader on my old Zaurus that did exactly this.

alphang• 14 years ago

But didn't the US government just change patent law to first-to-file?

kbutler2• 14 years ago

> "and the vertical bar is not a scroll bar." These words were added to get around prior art. All Google would need to do is allow its position indicator to also function as a scroll bar and this patent doesn't apply.

Interesting to note that on OS/X Lion, the indicator DOES function as a scrollbar. And when it doesn't on IOS, it bugs me (try flicking through a very long document with the non-grabable indicator on iOS). Sounds like Apple has been granted a patent for a less-usable variant of an existing technology.

i_cannot_hack• 14 years ago

How can you possible be granted a patent for the removal of a function from an existing idea?

Can I take away the headlights from a car and patent it as something new?

nuclear_eclipse2• 14 years ago

Also of note is that most disappearing scroll indicators in Android are scroll bars; if you can drag on the indicator before it disappears, you can use it to quickly scroll large distances in a big document or list.

dlikhten2• 14 years ago

FFS I was hoping VanL's comment was here. The article starts of with a "the world is fucking burning, motherfucker, build your nuklear shelter in the woods! NOW!"

Honestly, is this patent any different than shit we've seen over the last 5 years from many different companies?

Oh boy, more litigation, more fees, etc, etc. I just want google to get pissed enough to start suing for map-reduce.

Now having said all that "and the vertical bar does not act as a scroll bar" -- that is a obvious improvement, you cannot claim that it took years of research to figure this shit out. This will not hold up in court. It will, however, cost lots of $$$$.

mattmaroon2• 14 years ago

Anyone who thinks this is a death-knell for Android (especially any time soon) doesn't understand how patent law works in practice.

jack-r-abbit2• 14 years ago

Android won't be killed off. There will always be an Android.

"If you outlaw Android, only outlaws will have Android." - Anon.

majorapps• 14 years ago

I honestly believe that this is the beginning of the end for the patent system. If this was granted and enforced we would see something along the lines of the advertising mantra: "good advertising the the fastest way to kill a bad product"

richworks• 14 years ago

"It could kill off Android completely in the US and not anywhere else."

Granted, the US is a major market for Android but these patent disputes will get laughed at in the UK courts and others as we have seen so far.

Rhymenocerus• 14 years ago

Hoorah for us all, even less viable products for us to choose from! I don't understand why people look up to Jobs, but still hate Bill Gates for his business practices during the 90's.

"Picasso had a saying - 'Good artists copy, great artists steal.' And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." - Steve Jobs

arrowgunz• 14 years ago

Competition is what drives companies to create better products. Without that there would be very little progress in innovation. I am an Apple fanboy and still hope nothing happens to Android.

greyfade2• 14 years ago

Trouble is, broad patents effectively outlaw competition.

seclorum• 14 years ago

Well, that seals it. My next Tablet will be based on 100% open sources. I will now proceed to build an Ubuntu-based tablet to replace the iPad form-factor.. boots up laser cutter and 3d printer .. </dream>

spc476• 14 years ago

It sounds like a reprise of the Apple vs. Microsoft "Look-and-feel" lawsuits of the mid 80s, only with patents, not copyright.

Apple granted broad mobile patent

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