Apple Worked A Broken Patent System

http://www.informationweek.com/mobility/smart-phones/apple-worked-a-broken-patent-system/240006568

by snupples • 14 years ago

82 52 14 years ago

informationweek.com

001sky4• 14 years ago

Too many patents granted without enough understanding of the state of the art

How far would $1B go to better understanding the State-of-the art?

dgreensp3• 14 years ago

Are you offering? :)

001sky4• 14 years ago

Proposal For Kickstarter:

Kickstart The US Patent System

dgreensp3• 14 years ago

I don't know enough to truly defend Apple's actions, but given that they started working on the iPad 10 years ago, and even when it was announced no one could figure out why it was a good idea until they used one... Apple has likely poured years and buckets of money into R&D full of trial and error, like a pharma company trying to hit on a chemical formula, and a good amount of that work can be copied for free by competitors in the absence of patent protection. In that way, what Apple is seeking is exactly what patents are supposed to provide.

For example, I still remember how incredibly novel it was to use a web browser on an iPhone and be able to zoom in to click on links, double-tap, etc. This isn't a superficial feature either, as it required a beefy graphics chip. Putting a powerful GPU in a phone and using it to zoom in on web pages and PDFs may have been as innovative as putting a hard drive, and wheel, and a graphical LCD together to make the iPod.

On the other hand, maybe "inventing" a form factor or a user interface paradigm and getting exclusive rights to it is as preposterous as it sounds, and the ghost of Steve Jobs should be content that Apple used its prescience to buy up all the high-res LCD panels. They have capitalized on their innovation quite well.

I do see Android as basically a piece-by-piece copy of the iPhone. I'd trust Google to build a JVM and throw together an API, and not much further.

Joeri• 14 years ago

You're right, what apple patented is exactly what software patents are meant for. These apple patents are the cream of the crop of software patents.

Which is why i think that if this is the best software patents as a category have to offer, the whole category should not exist.

ajross4• 14 years ago

This is mostly a straw man. The patent system isn't intended to reward "effort". Apple's work can't be copied "for free" by anyone, nor was it. Apple wasn't the first to put "a powerful GPU in a phone", nor was their browser the first to allow zooming (their innovation was the "pinch" gesture, and even that isn't as clear as it seems if you read the patent).

And if you don't see innovation in Android too, you're simply not looking (let me guess: you've never so much as installed the Android SDK, right?).

I am so tired of all the advocacy, yet terribly frightened of the implications. Isn't it enough that Apple made a great, ground breaking product that enriched us all? Isn't it enough that they're printing money with this device and the biggest tech company in the world? Must they really be a monopoly too? Didn't people learn anything from the 90's?

luriel3• 14 years ago

> Isn't it enough that they're printing money with this device and the biggest tech company in the world?

They are last I checked the biggest company in history.

But apparently that is not enough reward for their efforts, they need the government to grant them a monopoly on some of the most ridiculously obvious ideas of the last 20 years.

spinchange• 14 years ago

I share the sentiment of your last remarks so much, I find them quoteworthy.

Apple had sold hundreds of millions of devices before filing a suit or setting foot in a courtroom. They're not only the most valuable public corporation in the world, but at present, the most valuable in history.

The notion that they need protection and compensation and at that, for look and feel elements that aren't even advertised major selling points of the device, is "patently" ridiculous in my view.

slantyyz• 14 years ago

>> Isn't it enough that Apple made a great, ground breaking product that enriched us all? Isn't it enough that they're printing money with this device and the biggest tech company in the world?

This is why I didn't like the lawsuit, despite believing that Samsung made some phones that were intentional look-alikes of the iPhone. Just because they could sue and win, doesn't mean Apple should have.

On the other hand, I'd add "Don't hate the playa, hate the game" with respect to all the anti-Apple outrage going on. The system's broken, and it was taken advantage of. People and businesses will always squeeze the most out of any system (the tax system comes to mind), and practically speaking, we're better off trying to fix the system than hope that people and businesses will rise above using a system to their advantage.

We live in an interesting time where we have tools like social media that can actually influence politicians, and I think we need to direct some of our outrage to show that politicians are at risk of losing their jobs if they don't address our concerns related to creating more reasonable IP laws.

lttlrck3• 14 years ago

The core browser innovation wasn't pinch, it was page structure analysis.

thezilch• 14 years ago

> I do see Android as basically a piece-by-piece copy of the iPhone.

You realize you are comparing an OS to a device? As well, assuming you are comparing Android to iOS, you realize that there are numerous accounts -- too many to iterate -- where features were born on iOS only after Android had success (ex. Android's notifications bar).

learc832• 14 years ago

The purpose of patents aren't reward hard work, but to promote innovation.

You have to ask, if the patent system were dramatically changed (shortened, the scope of not obvious widened etc...)--would Apple still have innovated?

The answer is a resounding yes.

According to the verdict Samsung copied apple. Yet Apple still made hundreds of billions of dollars, of course they would have still created the iPhone, even if they had no patent protection whatsoever.

smokeyj• 14 years ago

I wish we could validate (or invalidate) the benefits of IP and copyright protection, given people speak about the benefits as if it's fact. Too often I hear garbage along the lines of: Without patents there would be no innovation! Without copyrights there would be no art!

lttlrck3• 14 years ago

"The purpose of patents aren't reward hard work, but to promote innovation."

Ok, that's right. But you follow it by asking the wrong question. It's not "would Apple still have innovated?" it's "would Apple have innovated more" and I think that is harder to answer, because it's not just about innovating it's about leveraging innovation for profit.

The chances are they would have innovated the about the same but held back on releasing features and been far more strategic (more than they already are) because they would have been very well aware of the enhanced threat of copying!!!

Is this obvious? Is that a net gain or a net loss?

dgreensp3• 14 years ago

You're drawing a valid but subtle distinction, and I think it's the same one I dug into by asking whether we feel Apple should have some expectation of patent protection for this sort of innovation, of all kinds. Superficially, promoting innovation means making the activity of innovation advantageous (i.e. rewarding R&D).

daemon13• 14 years ago

A pharma company receives patent for the specific molecule to be used for treating defined conditions. The cost of R&D usually is several billion dollars. The absense of prior art is crystal clear. The efficacy is confirmed by clinical trials, required by FDA.

I am not convinced that using pharmaceuticals industry example is valid to illustrate your point, especially taking into account the subjective nature of prior art examination process.

luriel3• 14 years ago

Also, most of the cost of developing a new drug is not the R&D, but the clinical trials and the huge bureaucracy to get a drug approved.

The pharma industry is also notoriously anti-competitive and suffers from chronic regulatory capture.

Tichy• 14 years ago

All mobile browsers had a zoom function - I am actually too lazy to check, but I can't imagine they wouldn't have had zoom, because then they would have been unusable.

Lot's of companies worked on tablets and even published them.

I think the mistake you and others are making is saying "for ten years nobody managed to publish a successful tablet, so Apple must have solved a very hard problem". What you forget is that in those ten years there was a lot of technological progress that made modern tablets possible: better screens, faster, more energy efficient CPUs and GPUs and so on. Apple simply was a bit better in their timing for coming to market. You may applaud them for their good sense of waiting, or you may applaud others for being more daring and coming out with tablets before the tech was ready.

Also, a big part of the success was simply marketing. Which certainly has some merit, but it shouldn't affect the patent issues.

sauravc• 14 years ago

I always thought coders had the ability to sniff out a BS software patent a mile away. But with all the pro-Apple patent comments, it seems software ignoramuses and revisionists have taken over HN. How can anyone "skilled in the art" stand by Apple's patents as non-obvious?

http://www.erwanmace.com/2010/03/apple-did-not-invent-apps-a...

If such innovations weren't obvious to someone in the mobile industry given all the prior art out there, they've got to be a complete idiot.

throwawaay• 14 years ago

> [...] and a good amount of that work can be copied for free by competitors in the absence of patent protection [...]

Really? I would guess a good amount of that work was writing millions of lines of code, electrical and circuit design, designing for manufacture, and all that stuff you actually can't copy. Patents account for much less of that real _work_.

To circle back to the beginning:

> I don't know enough to truly defend Apple's actions

You're right.

> I do see Android as basically a piece-by-piece copy of the iPhone.

Straight-up batshit absurd.

People don't give Android enough credit for its Danger heritage -- Andy Rubin's previous company -- they developed a whole line of phones with hardware keyboards, web browsers, and downloadable applications. It was also built on top of a JVM. This sounds like the first incarnation of Android (the G1), doesn't it?

The popular notion that Android was a copy of the iPhone or Blackberry is stupid and wrong. If Android was inspired by anything, it was from Andy Rubin's own past.

MisterMerkin• 14 years ago

That sounds like conjecture to me. I mean it sounds good but ultimately it's just a story you came up with retroactively.

aretiste• 14 years ago

When consumers realise they are paying too much (i.e. people in Asia will be paying less for the "same" phones), then things will get more interesting.

Apple's patent suits will enable it to charge inflated prices. And that's what they will do.

The comparisons commenters make to pharmaceuticals are amusing.

Apple is not like a drug company that charges high prices for it developed drugs. Those companies are reimbursed for their R&D through government programs and health insurance. Apple is reimbursed directly from people's paychecks or company budgets if the devices are purchased for employees.

These devices are cheap electronics. Few people can develop a generic version of a drug in their garage. But with 3D printing, the possibility of making protoypes that rival what Apple is selling is a real possibility.

Patents on biological materials came well before patents on software. The seriousness of the problems with the patent system (that would prompt people like Posner to speak out) is due to the behaviour of IT companies, not pharmaceutical companies.

pdonis• 14 years ago

I'm not sure I understand the article's point. In the very first sentence, the author says:

> Samsung too closely copied some elements of the Apple iPhone, and for that it should be hung up in the public square.

But the rest of the article gives good arguments for why none of the Apple patents should have been granted in the first place, much less upheld in court. So why exactly should Samsung have been punished at all, then?

kaonashi• 14 years ago

The general sense I get from people who support the decision is that Samsung 'copied' various iOS motifs, therefore it is fair game for Apple to use whatever means to punish them.

yojimbo311• 14 years ago

I get the impression that a lot of the anti-Apple camp get the same sense about people who "support" the decision, and I use that term loosely. I'd like to offer the following:

Apple has been consistent in actively defending any design element, hardware or software, they feel is uniquely identifiable as Apple. This has always been about brand identity, but something so amorphous and difficult to regulate have few tools to protect them so instead the fights focus on technicalities. A patent here, a copyright there, a trademark, whatever. It's always fun to point and laugh at the specifics, but it's the bigger overall picture at play that's defining the actions, not the actions themselves. Long debates exist over whether the ends justify the means ect. so no need to get into it here.

Samsung is just the latest in this trend and sort of the current poster child of businesses who's modus operandi is mimicking the successful designs of market leader products (whether it's software, hardware, appliances, whatever) and offering them at lower costs to cannibalize (couldn't think of a better word) the market as much as possible. There's nothing explicitly illegal about it since they aren't 100% knockoffs, but they skirt a very fine line, and I, like many others, seem to find it a morally detestable practice which can have a negative long term impact on the market and can debatably hurt consumers in ways they aren't always aware of. (apologies, still looking for a source on this).

I think you'll find that most people who support the decision also agree that the need to weaponize a patent on an arguably questionable "innovative UI" in order to convince a bad actor to stop copying other people's work is absurd and has a serious chilling effect that can hurt more than it can help. IANAL, but my feeling is that if the market is significantly large enough scale the tools available that would be more appropriate to use don't carry enough weight behind them to create an equally compelling incentive to "play fair". Many companies seem to be resorting to using patents, copyright, and trademark instead to create an incentive compelling enough to negotiate some sort of mutual agreement (forced or otherwise). I think we can all agree that this activity is an abuse of those "protections" and a very compelling argument to have a good long look at them and determine what positive and negative motivational forces they create. However, while two wrongs don't make a right, it doesn't negate the fact that there is a genuine grievance in this case where the systems, as they currently exist, have not been able to resolve without heavy dependance on technicalities that taken individually may not mean much to the original issue. This is at least how I've personally been able to rationalize the disparity I have of the two positions and I get the feeling from other "supporters" that something similar is going on.

MichaelGG• 14 years ago

Samsung should be mocked publicly and shamed for taking such a loser's approach in ripping things off. If I wrote a story about a boy wizard called "Henry Porter", and had similar books like "Magicians Rock" and "Captive of Azitan", I'd be widely panned as just ripping off JK Rowling. But, it wouldn't be illegal.

So, a lot of folks feel like Samsung should be humiliated, that they shouldn't just ripoff designs, etc. But we also acknowledge that it should not be illegal, that if they want to make me-too products, that's fine. It's not like they were actually tricking people into thinking "yes, this is an Apple iPhone, and not a Samsung phone".

A part of me wants Samsung to get fines, just because I'm so personally pissed off with how bad they made Android look (e.g. the keyboard, the crappy backgrounds on icons), but overall, for society, we're worse off if we allow them to be punished for having poor taste.

sbuk2• 14 years ago

Interesting point, but this is where people seem to disagree. At college plagiarism is expressly forbidden. It's seen as cheating to attempt to pass off someone else's work, or a close copy, as your own. It can lead to expulsion. And so it should. Samsung have done this, and appear to be continuing to do so. What makes it worse to me isn't the fact that they are attempting to mimick Apple's aesthetic to confuse, it's the liberal use of their design language with minor tweaks and the blatant denial from all and sundry that copying has taken place. It's the emporers new clothes!

Should it be illegal? That depends. The level that Samsung take things to should be. That said, their is nothing inherently wrong with being informed by other aesthetics when designing the look and feel of a product and that is where the line blurs.

greedo• 14 years ago

Actually, you'd probably end up being sued by JK Rowling. She's death on anyone coming close to her IP.

But you're also conflating copyright with patents, and specifically trade dress.

y1426i• 14 years ago

It would have been interesting to see if MS had patented AJAX, DOM and other browser goodies, singing its laurels on what an awesome IE6 browser was, where would the internet be today!

Apple Worked A Broken Patent System

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