As much as I dislike Android and all the other iPhone knockoffs. It seems that Apple is becoming the big patent troll these days.
I would love to see all the android devices fall off the face of the earth, but not like this.
I would have to agree with you. From this article, it sounds like a fairly obvious invention and not patent worthy. But, it's all about the method of how the job is actually done that's patentable. Not enough information here.
If you had actually used AWK or read the patent, you would understand this. While the 647 patent might even use AWK as a front end, what AWK is and does is not the scope of the patent.
Please explain what part of claim 15 an awk script doesn't infringe.
The difference is that decades before the invention of this particular 'wheel' there was an invention of a wheel building tool, actually there were several.
For example an AWK script (1977 Aho, Weinberger, Kernighan) consists of a list of regular expressions to be matched and associated pieces of code to be executed. That's ALL that awk does. It seems at first blush impossible to write an AWK script that doesn't infringe this patent, so what were people using this tool for during those decades? Was it just distributed on every single unix platform for kicks?
It would easy to write an AWK script that does not infringe on this patent. For example: If you are not looking for a phone number, address, web link... and you are not taking the action to reformat the display of the plain text to form smart links to other applications. This is pretty targeted and I can go back to my 15 year old systems and the "obvious" functionality simply does not exist. I would guess the vast majority (>99.99%) of AWK scripts never came close to infringing on this patent.
Please explain what part of claim 15 an awk script doesn't infringe.
linking at least one action to the detected structure;
enabling selection of the structure and a linked action; and
executing the selected action linked to the selected structure.
Are you saying every AWK script ever created has a part that creates links from phone numbers, addresses, zip codes, web... and creates a display allowing selection of those?
It's sort of obvious that Apple had stuff taken, but I wonder if it would be such as big deal if it was another company? The question that remains is will Apple allow a reasonable settlement or is the Federal government going to have to step in because they force their competitors out of business. Hopefully, not the latter. If a company steals another's patent, they should have to pay, but in the same way, a company who holds all the patents for the ideal device, shouldn't be able to keep patents away their competition and hence have no competition. Apple is already huge and we really don't want them being the only major mobile device maker and operating system.
A patent gives the owner the exclusive right to the underlying technology. Apple has every right to keep its innovations to itself. Put yourself in Apple's shoes. See how you would like it if the government forced you share what you spend million of dollars on.
Are you saying every AWK script ever created has a part that creates links from phone numbers, addresses, zip codes, web... and creates a display allowing selection of those?
Are you seeing any part of claim 15 that specifies phone numbers, addresses, zip codes or web urls? No, it just talks about 'detected structures'. A later derived claim specifies strings. None of the claims ever stipulates anything as specific as a phone number.
The only place you'll find it stipulating phone numbers etc. is when they discuss prior art, and when they discuss the suggested embodiment - and they don't limit the scope of the patent.
Quote:
Are you for real or are you just angry?
I'm reading what claim-15 actually says, what are you doing? Oh that's right, you're telling me that I never used awk, that I'm not for real or maybe angry. So far I've resisted the urge to ad-hominem right back at you, but give me some time and you'll get me there.
It's sort of obvious that Apple had stuff taken, but I wonder if it would be such as big deal if it was another company? The question that remains is will Apple allow a reasonable settlement or is the Federal government going to have to step in because they force their competitors out of business. Hopefully, not the latter. If a company steals another's patent, they should have to pay, but in the same way, a company who holds all the patents for the ideal device, shouldn't be able to keep patents away their competition and hence have no competition. Apple is already huge and we really don't want them being the only major mobile device maker and operating system.
If a company has a patent on something, nobody should be able to use that technology unless they work out an agreement that satisfies the owner of the patent. Otherwise they need to develop their own technology. When Apple steps on others toes, they have had to pay up to correct the issue, that same rule should apply to those who step on Apple's toes.
The public interest test is there though, and conceivably would apply if Apple tried to have the majority of smartphones excluded from the US market. My point was simply that it's not open and shut, possession of a patent doesn't necessarily allow you to refuse to license, other considerations exist especially if there's a big existing market being served.
What prevented those competing smartphones from innovating around Apple's patents? The point you are making may apply to patents that a company simply bought up. For example, it may apply to Nortel's patents. The government did not want some company just buying them up and suing others with it.
If Apple developed those patents internally, then your point should not apply at all. As I see it, Apple put in countless hours on coming up with that patented technology. Apple has every right to refuse to license that technology. Like I said, there is nothing preventing competitors from innovating around Apple's patents.
What prevented those competing smartphones from innovating around Apple's patents? The point you are making may apply to patents that a company simply bought up. For example, it may apply to Nortel's patents. The government did not want some company just buying them up and suing others with it.
Did you read the patents? The '647 patent prevents (amongst other things) a competing platform from recognising phone numbers in a text message, or URLs. That's a pretty basic piece of functionality, there's no way to 'innovate around it' - android would have to simply not provide the feature. The patent doesn't specify a particular method of doing this, essentially any method that does it will fall foul of the patent.
Read the actual patents, read the actual claims and see how broadly they're phrased, then you will understand why it's frequently impossible to just 'innovate around' a software patent - and why professional software developers both fear and loathe them.
I'm reading what claim-15 actually says, what are you doing? Oh that's right, you're telling me that I never used awk, that I'm not for real or maybe angry. So far I've resisted the urge to ad-hominem right back at you, but give me some time and you'll get me there.
Don't forget claims 16-21 being fully tied to 15.
So are you just angry? Your AWK comparison has been easily defeated and is simply a red herring but you keep on it like a rabid pit bull. AWK may very well be part of the tool set used to implement the other methods but AWK, in no way shape or form, implements by itself the claims.
Given you are very unlikely to be willing to learn and educate your self, this is all I will be saying on the matter:
When ADD came out back in 1997 or so, they were really revolutionary (http://www.miramontes.com/writing/add-cacm/) and I remember being somewhat envious of them since the Amiga, NeXT and Windows systems I used at the time did not have them or anything like them. So yes, looking back, it seems obvious computers should have been doing these things since the '70's but they were not? Why? Because, just perhaps, it was not obvious?
That is patentable? But this is trivial and obvious code. In most modern high level programming languages it is a single line of code. This is as bad as the Amazon one click patent. I'm actually surprised there isn't plenty of examples of prior art.
All this makes me think is the entire patent system is a joke and should be scrapped.
This patent dates to 1995 IIRC, at a point where it was pretty novel.
So are you just angry? Your AWK comparison has been easily defeated and is simply a red herring but you keep on it like a rabid pit bull.
You still haven't defeated it, you said you had by saying that awk scripts didn't all recognise phone numbers, but that was never even mentioned in the claim. By the way, if you used any of the more advanced development environments back in the 90s you'd have seen they they also did things such as recognise function names as you typed them, then permit you to jump to definition from them. That would also infringe.
Are you being intentionally dense?
Quote:
AWK may very well be part of the tool set used to implement the other methods but AWK, in no way shape or form, implements by itself the claims.
You keep saying that but you haven't actually pointed to the part of the claim that it doesn't infringe - repeatedly saying something doesn't make it true.
Quote:
Given you are very unlikely to be willing to learn and educate your self, this is all I will be saying on the matter:
All I'm asking you to do is to show how something which you insist doesn't infringe, actually doesn't infringe. It should be easy - without you having to pull stuff into the claim that it doesn't actually say. Clearly you are unable to do that, and prefer to attack me personally rather than admit it - I find that rather sad - though certainly very common amongst forum warriors.
Oh, and of claims 16-21 only one is relevant to this case. Claim 19, which does nothing more than restrict claim 15 to the case where the data structures recognised are strings. Does awk not do strings? That's a shocker.
Microsoft was right. Android's legal woes will cost far more than licensing fees.
Attack of the irony!
where were/are the courts when MS gives away software and squashes out others?. you sad sacks that support apple and MS (they are in bed together and have divided the world between themselves) are sheep: tDtL
you aren't supporting the 'misfits', you aren't part of a 'revolution', and you certainly aren't 'thinking different'. You are part of a greedy, ego driven corporation that peddles a 'religion'. Same mentality that fills up that religious stadium in Houston every Sunday with suckers.
apple can sue all it wants, and keep building a bad name up for itself like MS did. the backlash will come.
Are you seeing any part of claim 15 that specifies phone numbers, addresses, zip codes or web urls? No, it just talks about 'detected structures'. A later derived claim specifies strings. None of the claims ever stipulates anything as specific as a phone number.
The only place you'll find it stipulating phone numbers etc. is when they discuss prior art, and when they discuss the suggested embodiment - and they don't limit the scope of the patent.
I'm reading what claim-15 actually says, what are you doing? Oh that's right, you're telling me that I never used awk, that I'm not for real or maybe angry. So far I've resisted the urge to ad-hominem right back at you, but give me some time and you'll get me there.
if you are angry, calm yourself. this patent is going nowhere. this is just a brush fire that will be put out. Linux can't be touched, and even if it could it will never die. the code is all out there and will remain so. the USA can't control the World (thank the gods).
if you are angry, calm yourself. this patent is going nowhere. this is just a brush fire that will be put out. Linux can't be touched, and even if it could it will never die. the code is all out there and will remain so. the USA can't control the World (thank the gods).
What absolute hyperbole and nonsense. Linux can indeed "be touched."
A lot has been done to ensure that Linux is not patent encumbered, but it's just a copy of Unix after all, not an original OS, and no one has seriously looked through the whole lot of it to see if it doesn't infringe. Desktop Linux was never popular enough to justify anyone spending the time to do that.
Also, the code is "out there" but to the degree that Linux enjoys *any* success at all, it's used in some serious business applications. If there is code that's found to be infringing, it will certainly be removed and replaced with different non-infringing code almost immediately. Sure, the old code will survive in some repositories somewhere and will "never die" to that extent, but no one will use it once the new code is approved. Why would they?
You might just as well have said ... "Yay Linux!" for all the content your statement has.
where were/are the courts when MS gives away software and squashes out others?. you sad sacks that support apple and MS (they are in bed together and have divided the world between themselves) are sheep: tDtL
you aren't supporting the 'misfits', you aren't part of a 'revolution', and you certainly aren't 'thinking different'. You are part of a greedy, ego driven corporation that peddles a 'religion'. Same mentality that fills up that religious stadium in Houston every Sunday with suckers.
apple can sue all it wants, and keep building a bad name up for itself like MS did. the backlash will come.
there is no need to start slandering peoples' religious habits here. That is unnecessary.
you may want to actually put your butt in the middle of a revolution (without joining one side or the other) and try physically or financially or emotionally protecting the 95% who aren't involved and then tell me which side has the interest of the 95%. pretty much nobody.
What absolute hyperbole and nonsense. Linux can indeed "be touched."
A lot has been done to ensure that Linux is not patent encumbered, but it's just a copy of Unix after all, not an original OS, and no one has seriously looked through the whole lot of it to see if it doesn't infringe. Desktop Linux was never popular enough to justify anyone spending the time to do that.
Also, the code is "out there" but to the degree that Linux enjoys *any* success at all, it's used in some serious business applications. If there is code that's found to be infringing, it will certainly be removed and replaced with different non-infringing code almost immediately. Sure, the old code will survive in some repositories somewhere and will "never die" to that extent, but no one will use it once the new code is approved. Why would they?
You might just as well have said ... "Yay Linux!" for all the content your statement has.
*insult attempt removed* why don't you just say "Yay Apple!" "Boo Everything else!"
there is no need to start slandering peoples' religious habits here. That is unnecessary.
you may want to actually put your butt in the middle of a revolution (without joining one side or the other) and try physically or financially or emotionally protecting the 95% who aren't involved and then tell me which side has the interest of the 95%. pretty much nobody.
its just an example of people doling out money for a 'mentality'. not because there is any real substance to it. that was the point.
if you are angry, calm yourself. this patent is going nowhere. this is just a brush fire that will be put out. Linux can't be touched, and even if it could it will never die. the code is all out there and will remain so. the USA can't control the World (thank the gods).
so linux can never die...neither can DOS...FORTRAN...IBM OS2...Turbo Pascal...big deal.
I would be willing to bet that somewhere in this great big world there is a person who still has a punch card computer still running, or better yet a Gutenberg printing press.
Hopefully, none of us will be using linux, OSX, windows, etc in thirty years, even though their code will still survive. I hope we have fundamentally evolved computing (and our thinking) well beyond binary by then.
Comments
As much as I dislike Android and all the other iPhone knockoffs. It seems that Apple is becoming the big patent troll these days.
I would love to see all the android devices fall off the face of the earth, but not like this.
I would have to agree with you. From this article, it sounds like a fairly obvious invention and not patent worthy. But, it's all about the method of how the job is actually done that's patentable. Not enough information here.
If you had actually used AWK or read the patent, you would understand this. While the 647 patent might even use AWK as a front end, what AWK is and does is not the scope of the patent.
Please explain what part of claim 15 an awk script doesn't infringe.
The difference is that decades before the invention of this particular 'wheel' there was an invention of a wheel building tool, actually there were several.
For example an AWK script (1977 Aho, Weinberger, Kernighan) consists of a list of regular expressions to be matched and associated pieces of code to be executed. That's ALL that awk does. It seems at first blush impossible to write an AWK script that doesn't infringe this patent, so what were people using this tool for during those decades? Was it just distributed on every single unix platform for kicks?
It would easy to write an AWK script that does not infringe on this patent. For example: If you are not looking for a phone number, address, web link... and you are not taking the action to reformat the display of the plain text to form smart links to other applications. This is pretty targeted and I can go back to my 15 year old systems and the "obvious" functionality simply does not exist. I would guess the vast majority (>99.99%) of AWK scripts never came close to infringing on this patent.
Are you sure you quoted the post that you intended? Your comments make no sense in relation to it.
Frasier
He understands it just fine. You need to brush up on Apple History 201.
Please explain what part of claim 15 an awk script doesn't infringe.
linking at least one action to the detected structure;
enabling selection of the structure and a linked action; and
executing the selected action linked to the selected structure.
Are you saying every AWK script ever created has a part that creates links from phone numbers, addresses, zip codes, web... and creates a display allowing selection of those?
Are you for real or are you just angry?
It's sort of obvious that Apple had stuff taken, but I wonder if it would be such as big deal if it was another company? The question that remains is will Apple allow a reasonable settlement or is the Federal government going to have to step in because they force their competitors out of business. Hopefully, not the latter. If a company steals another's patent, they should have to pay, but in the same way, a company who holds all the patents for the ideal device, shouldn't be able to keep patents away their competition and hence have no competition. Apple is already huge and we really don't want them being the only major mobile device maker and operating system.
A patent gives the owner the exclusive right to the underlying technology. Apple has every right to keep its innovations to itself. Put yourself in Apple's shoes. See how you would like it if the government forced you share what you spend million of dollars on.
Are you saying every AWK script ever created has a part that creates links from phone numbers, addresses, zip codes, web... and creates a display allowing selection of those?
Are you seeing any part of claim 15 that specifies phone numbers, addresses, zip codes or web urls? No, it just talks about 'detected structures'. A later derived claim specifies strings. None of the claims ever stipulates anything as specific as a phone number.
The only place you'll find it stipulating phone numbers etc. is when they discuss prior art, and when they discuss the suggested embodiment - and they don't limit the scope of the patent.
Are you for real or are you just angry?
I'm reading what claim-15 actually says, what are you doing? Oh that's right, you're telling me that I never used awk, that I'm not for real or maybe angry. So far I've resisted the urge to ad-hominem right back at you, but give me some time and you'll get me there.
It's sort of obvious that Apple had stuff taken, but I wonder if it would be such as big deal if it was another company? The question that remains is will Apple allow a reasonable settlement or is the Federal government going to have to step in because they force their competitors out of business. Hopefully, not the latter. If a company steals another's patent, they should have to pay, but in the same way, a company who holds all the patents for the ideal device, shouldn't be able to keep patents away their competition and hence have no competition. Apple is already huge and we really don't want them being the only major mobile device maker and operating system.
If a company has a patent on something, nobody should be able to use that technology unless they work out an agreement that satisfies the owner of the patent. Otherwise they need to develop their own technology. When Apple steps on others toes, they have had to pay up to correct the issue, that same rule should apply to those who step on Apple's toes.
The public interest test is there though, and conceivably would apply if Apple tried to have the majority of smartphones excluded from the US market. My point was simply that it's not open and shut, possession of a patent doesn't necessarily allow you to refuse to license, other considerations exist especially if there's a big existing market being served.
What prevented those competing smartphones from innovating around Apple's patents? The point you are making may apply to patents that a company simply bought up. For example, it may apply to Nortel's patents. The government did not want some company just buying them up and suing others with it.
If Apple developed those patents internally, then your point should not apply at all. As I see it, Apple put in countless hours on coming up with that patented technology. Apple has every right to refuse to license that technology. Like I said, there is nothing preventing competitors from innovating around Apple's patents.
What prevented those competing smartphones from innovating around Apple's patents? The point you are making may apply to patents that a company simply bought up. For example, it may apply to Nortel's patents. The government did not want some company just buying them up and suing others with it.
Did you read the patents? The '647 patent prevents (amongst other things) a competing platform from recognising phone numbers in a text message, or URLs. That's a pretty basic piece of functionality, there's no way to 'innovate around it' - android would have to simply not provide the feature. The patent doesn't specify a particular method of doing this, essentially any method that does it will fall foul of the patent.
Read the actual patents, read the actual claims and see how broadly they're phrased, then you will understand why it's frequently impossible to just 'innovate around' a software patent - and why professional software developers both fear and loathe them.
I'm reading what claim-15 actually says, what are you doing? Oh that's right, you're telling me that I never used awk, that I'm not for real or maybe angry. So far I've resisted the urge to ad-hominem right back at you, but give me some time and you'll get me there.
Don't forget claims 16-21 being fully tied to 15.
So are you just angry? Your AWK comparison has been easily defeated and is simply a red herring but you keep on it like a rabid pit bull. AWK may very well be part of the tool set used to implement the other methods but AWK, in no way shape or form, implements by itself the claims.
Given you are very unlikely to be willing to learn and educate your self, this is all I will be saying on the matter:
When ADD came out back in 1997 or so, they were really revolutionary (http://www.miramontes.com/writing/add-cacm/) and I remember being somewhat envious of them since the Amiga, NeXT and Windows systems I used at the time did not have them or anything like them. So yes, looking back, it seems obvious computers should have been doing these things since the '70's but they were not? Why? Because, just perhaps, it was not obvious?
That is patentable? But this is trivial and obvious code. In most modern high level programming languages it is a single line of code. This is as bad as the Amazon one click patent. I'm actually surprised there isn't plenty of examples of prior art.
All this makes me think is the entire patent system is a joke and should be scrapped.
This patent dates to 1995 IIRC, at a point where it was pretty novel.
Don't forget claims 16-21 being fully tied to 15.
So are you just angry? Your AWK comparison has been easily defeated and is simply a red herring but you keep on it like a rabid pit bull.
You still haven't defeated it, you said you had by saying that awk scripts didn't all recognise phone numbers, but that was never even mentioned in the claim. By the way, if you used any of the more advanced development environments back in the 90s you'd have seen they they also did things such as recognise function names as you typed them, then permit you to jump to definition from them. That would also infringe.
Are you being intentionally dense?
AWK may very well be part of the tool set used to implement the other methods but AWK, in no way shape or form, implements by itself the claims.
You keep saying that but you haven't actually pointed to the part of the claim that it doesn't infringe - repeatedly saying something doesn't make it true.
Given you are very unlikely to be willing to learn and educate your self, this is all I will be saying on the matter:
All I'm asking you to do is to show how something which you insist doesn't infringe, actually doesn't infringe. It should be easy - without you having to pull stuff into the claim that it doesn't actually say. Clearly you are unable to do that, and prefer to attack me personally rather than admit it - I find that rather sad - though certainly very common amongst forum warriors.
Oh, and of claims 16-21 only one is relevant to this case. Claim 19, which does nothing more than restrict claim 15 to the case where the data structures recognised are strings. Does awk not do strings? That's a shocker.
Microsoft was right. Android's legal woes will cost far more than licensing fees.
Attack of the irony!
where were/are the courts when MS gives away software and squashes out others?. you sad sacks that support apple and MS (they are in bed together and have divided the world between themselves) are sheep: tDtL
you aren't supporting the 'misfits', you aren't part of a 'revolution', and you certainly aren't 'thinking different'. You are part of a greedy, ego driven corporation that peddles a 'religion'. Same mentality that fills up that religious stadium in Houston every Sunday with suckers.
apple can sue all it wants, and keep building a bad name up for itself like MS did. the backlash will come.
Are you seeing any part of claim 15 that specifies phone numbers, addresses, zip codes or web urls? No, it just talks about 'detected structures'. A later derived claim specifies strings. None of the claims ever stipulates anything as specific as a phone number.
The only place you'll find it stipulating phone numbers etc. is when they discuss prior art, and when they discuss the suggested embodiment - and they don't limit the scope of the patent.
I'm reading what claim-15 actually says, what are you doing? Oh that's right, you're telling me that I never used awk, that I'm not for real or maybe angry. So far I've resisted the urge to ad-hominem right back at you, but give me some time and you'll get me there.
if you are angry, calm yourself. this patent is going nowhere. this is just a brush fire that will be put out. Linux can't be touched, and even if it could it will never die. the code is all out there and will remain so. the USA can't control the World (thank the gods).
if you are angry, calm yourself. this patent is going nowhere. this is just a brush fire that will be put out. Linux can't be touched, and even if it could it will never die. the code is all out there and will remain so. the USA can't control the World (thank the gods).
What absolute hyperbole and nonsense. Linux can indeed "be touched."
A lot has been done to ensure that Linux is not patent encumbered, but it's just a copy of Unix after all, not an original OS, and no one has seriously looked through the whole lot of it to see if it doesn't infringe. Desktop Linux was never popular enough to justify anyone spending the time to do that.
Also, the code is "out there" but to the degree that Linux enjoys *any* success at all, it's used in some serious business applications. If there is code that's found to be infringing, it will certainly be removed and replaced with different non-infringing code almost immediately. Sure, the old code will survive in some repositories somewhere and will "never die" to that extent, but no one will use it once the new code is approved. Why would they?
You might just as well have said ... "Yay Linux!" for all the content your statement has.
where were/are the courts when MS gives away software and squashes out others?. you sad sacks that support apple and MS (they are in bed together and have divided the world between themselves) are sheep: tDtL
you aren't supporting the 'misfits', you aren't part of a 'revolution', and you certainly aren't 'thinking different'. You are part of a greedy, ego driven corporation that peddles a 'religion'. Same mentality that fills up that religious stadium in Houston every Sunday with suckers.
apple can sue all it wants, and keep building a bad name up for itself like MS did. the backlash will come.
there is no need to start slandering peoples' religious habits here. That is unnecessary.
you may want to actually put your butt in the middle of a revolution (without joining one side or the other) and try physically or financially or emotionally protecting the 95% who aren't involved and then tell me which side has the interest of the 95%. pretty much nobody.
What absolute hyperbole and nonsense. Linux can indeed "be touched."
A lot has been done to ensure that Linux is not patent encumbered, but it's just a copy of Unix after all, not an original OS, and no one has seriously looked through the whole lot of it to see if it doesn't infringe. Desktop Linux was never popular enough to justify anyone spending the time to do that.
Also, the code is "out there" but to the degree that Linux enjoys *any* success at all, it's used in some serious business applications. If there is code that's found to be infringing, it will certainly be removed and replaced with different non-infringing code almost immediately. Sure, the old code will survive in some repositories somewhere and will "never die" to that extent, but no one will use it once the new code is approved. Why would they?
You might just as well have said ... "Yay Linux!" for all the content your statement has.
*insult attempt removed* why don't you just say "Yay Apple!" "Boo Everything else!"
there is no need to start slandering peoples' religious habits here. That is unnecessary.
you may want to actually put your butt in the middle of a revolution (without joining one side or the other) and try physically or financially or emotionally protecting the 95% who aren't involved and then tell me which side has the interest of the 95%. pretty much nobody.
its just an example of people doling out money for a 'mentality'. not because there is any real substance to it. that was the point.
if you are angry, calm yourself. this patent is going nowhere. this is just a brush fire that will be put out. Linux can't be touched, and even if it could it will never die. the code is all out there and will remain so. the USA can't control the World (thank the gods).
so linux can never die...neither can DOS...FORTRAN...IBM OS2...Turbo Pascal...big deal.
I would be willing to bet that somewhere in this great big world there is a person who still has a punch card computer still running, or better yet a Gutenberg printing press.
Hopefully, none of us will be using linux, OSX, windows, etc in thirty years, even though their code will still survive. I hope we have fundamentally evolved computing (and our thinking) well beyond binary by then.