What are you going on about? The ONLY statement of facts Apple made is that Rubin worked for them in the early 90's... fact, and his supervisors were working on the "Real-time API patent"... fact.. Exceptionally easy to prove both things.
FWIW if you didn't notice the Apple comments were made in connection with an ITC hearing and not a "full patent infringement trial" and no where did Apple indicate Rubin "stole" anything. It was a simple "hey he worked here about the same time so maybe there's dots to connect" in an attempt to make an HTC statement sound disingenuous . Apparently you didn't read Apple's statement in context. Would you like me to point you to the correct document? I was looking at it a little earlier at EDIS.
I read them all. As I'm sure you did, but as usual for a troll you carefully chose which parts to talk about and which parts to omit.
Apple specifically brought up Rubin in the ITC hearing. As Foss points out: "But Apple now asserts -- in a filing with the ITC, which means Apple has a legal obligation to make truthful representations of fact".
While it's true Apple didn't specifically list what they know about Rubin, they're still putting their neck on the line. Apple isn't like Samsung, Google or you - they don't play games with little sound bites that are half-truths in order to sway public opinion or confuse juries/courts. Make no mistake - had things with HTC continued on in the court cases filed in different jurisdictions this would come back to haunt them. And if Apple has plans to bring the 263 patent up in future cases (which is a strong possibility) then they would have also shot themselves in the foot by bringing Rubin into the mix if there wasn't anything more than "hey he worked for us".
You can bet Apple knows exactly what he worked on, but has no plans to make this information public (such as in a court filing) until such time as the stakes are high enough (like a case against Google or Samsung).
Apple has more to think about than a single ITC ruling, something you can't seem to grasp.
Linkify is not some "analyzer server" that detects context; it's merely a library of search-and-replace functions that have to be called explicitly by the developer on a body of text, and it's the developer's job to specify what patterns to search for. Thus it's not essentially different from any other search and replace utility out there; any programmer could reproduce its functionality independently in a couple lines of Java or by piping the contents of a textview through some text processing utility like awk or sed. The addLinks() function is in fact implemented directly using Java's regex matching facilities (http://grepcode.com/file/repository.grepcode.com/java/ext/com.google.android/android/2.0_r1/android/text/util/Linkify.java).
Given that a patent covers a specific and novel method for achieving a result, and not the result itself, is it at all obvious that such a general and well-known technique (search and replace) infringes?
Quote:
Originally Posted by auxio
And ^this is exactly where most software engineers can't see the forest from the trees.
If you reduce any product down to it's smallest parts, it becomes very fuzzy what is actually protectable by a manufacturer. However, there certainly are things which make a product "unique" in the minds of the people who use them. They are small details, but they are important.
Most of the time it's in the design details -- the way a particular car body is shaped, for example. So that's why Apple patents design details like slide-to-lock and bounce scrolling instead of the algorithms on which they are built. It's a straw-man argument to reduce these design details down to the algorithms and then state that they can't be patented because the algorithms were invented and published before. No one notices the algorithms, but they do notice how they are realized into tangible, unique features. It's not a trivial thing to turn a simple image processing algorithm into a unique design feature which sets your product apart from others.
Great point auxio!
Few would argue that Ford should be free to copy Ferrari's engine, or that Subaru should be able to use Audi's Quattro AWD in their cars. But, if you broke these systems down to their components you get nuts, bolts, gears and pistons - none of which are patentable.
This is similar to the idiotic argument that Apple did not invent anything because all their products are based on fundamental inventions made by others. But according to this logic, nobody can claim to have invented anything because everything they did was based on prior work. If these brainiacs really believe their own argument, they should lobby Samsung to donate all its profits to the poor graduate students and professors who did the fundamental work that made Samsung's business possible.
Few would argue that Ford should be free to copy Ferrari's engine, or that Subaru should be able to use Audi's Quattro AWD in their cars. But, if you broke these systems down to their components you get nuts, bolts, gears and pistons - no<span style="line-height:1.4em;">ne of which are patentable. </span>
This is similar to the idiotic argument that Apple did not invent anything because all their products are based on fundamental inventions made by others. <span style="line-height:1.4em;">But according to this logic, nobody can claim to have invented anything because everything they did was </span>
<span style="line-height:1.4em;">based on prior work. If these brainiacs really believe their own argument, they should lobby</span>
<span style="line-height:1.4em;">Samsung to donate all its profits to the poor graduate students and professors who did the fundamental work that made Samsung's business possible.</span>
All the GSM, 3G and 4G standards essential patents have prior art in Morse code, they are just faster ways of pressing a button (0 or 1, long or short) transmitting a message over radio waves and decoding it at the other end, all done in software.
Unix was most certainly not free when it first appeared. It was a proprietary AT&T system and was what sold mainframes back then. The only reason Unix spread so far beyond its original platforms is that other parties did with Unix precisely what Google did with Java. They provided free and faithful reimplementations of the entire Unix API and let other hardware platforms enjoy all of the functionality provided by Unix.
I'll give you that but I'm still not sure where you're going. Linux has been challenged several times in the past and any time a possible infringement was found the code was rewritten. Never did they say "that shouldn't be patentable" they reworked their code to avoid stepping on others protected work. That's what should happen in my opinion, if you build a product with patented technology (inadvertently or not) you either license, or remove/rework the offending code.
Isn't that what this whole lawsuit is about? Before the lawsuit Apple asked Samsung to remove features they owned patents on. Samsung declined and are now being sued for it. How else can a company protect itself from theft?
Google is the worst for this and I believe they started the mess we're in today. Until Google created Android companies weren't so quick to copy and steal from one another. Google has repeatedly tried to shield itself by giving away it's clones for free in an attempt to devalue everyone else. When they tried to cross license patents what did they offer? Stock Android, something Apple doesn't need. Would they cross license search? No. Maps? No. Anything of value in return for patents they want from Apple? No. Somehow they've convinced a lot of developers to "do no evil" when they are the ones threatening the entire ecosystem. The only patents they feel are valuable are their own, everyone else's are "obvious" and should be "free".
What are you going on about? The ONLY statement of facts Apple made is that Rubin worked for them in the early 90's... fact, and his supervisors were working on the "Real-time API patent"... fact.. Exceptionally easy to prove both things.
FWIW if you didn't notice the Apple comments were made in connection with an ITC hearing and not a "full patent infringement trial" and no where did Apple indicate Rubin "stole" anything. It was a simple "hey he worked here about the same time so maybe there's dots to connect" in an attempt to make an HTC statement sound disingenuous . Apparently you didn't read Apple's statement in context. Would you like me to point you to the correct document? I was looking at it a little earlier at EDIS.
Trust me I work with Lawyers all the time, and they made this statement about Rubin for obvious reasons, it was an implied statement, (not fact) but was said to imply he could had access to apple technologies and took technologies from each of the places he worked. Apple wants Rubin to look like he not really an inventor of technologies only a borrower of technologies. I said this a long time ago about him. he played the game of jumping company to company and won big. I seen others do this, they learn a few things at one company then take it to the next company to parlay it into a better job, and before people realize they have no clue they move on to the next higher position.
Google realized too late what they actually got and he became a liability to them, they now stuck him in a room with robots where he can not harm anyone. He being set up to be bounced out, if he can not pull a rabbit out of the hat with the robots he is done. My current prediction for him is he will be a foot note on the history of Android and we will never hear from him again. You do not make a $12B screw up of Motorola purchase and come out smelling good that is for sure.
I worked at Apple in the section where the pixies manufactured the magic dust from unicorn horns, I never saw Rubin there although he may have transferred there later.
Gotta love the Internet.
Your right I could have made it all up, how about if I post a picture of my 5 yr Anniversary plaque, my business cards, my apple name plate, or may pictures of all the Apple prototypes I worked on which sit in my basement collecting dust. Actually if you look back many many yrs ago when I first joined this board I did post some picture of the prototypes I have.
I realize we all can say what we want, but I did specifically say what he knew or did not know, but from my experience a Manufacturing engineers do not have knowledge or access to advance technologies a company is working on, and I have working as now 6 high tech companies both on the R&D, Product Development (which is different than R&D) and the Operations side and know what is available to the design engineers as well as the everyday person.
Trust me I work with Lawyers all the time, and they made this statement about Rubin for obvious reasons, it was an implied statement, (not fact) but was said to imply he could had access to apple technologies and took technologies from each of the places he worked. Apple wants Rubin to look like he not really an inventor of technologies only a borrower of technologies. I said this a long time ago about him. he played the game of jumping company to company and won big. I seen others do this, they learn a few things at one company then take it to the next company to parlay it into a better job, and before people realize they have no clue they move on to the next higher position.
Google realized too late what they actually got and he became a liability to them, they now stuck him in a room with robots where he can not harm anyone. He being set up to be bounced out, if he can not pull a rabbit out of the hat with the robots he is done. My current prediction for him is he will be a foot note on the history of Android and we will never hear from him again. You do not make a $12B screw up of Motorola purchase and come out smelling good that is for sure.
I actually agree with you. Apple did have reasons for attempting to imply it was possible Rubin learned something at Apple that was later used in Android development.. . and that's really all it was intended for, introducing a question and not an assertion. (Some here would call that FUD in a different setting)
I would hope every engineer (or other worker for that matter) becomes a better and more knowledgeable employee with each new work experience. Do you think Tim Cook might have learned any inside tips about managing inventory and production in the computer business during his stints at IBM and Compaq to the benefit of of his current employer Apple? It doesn't mean either Cook or Rubin stole company secrets from previous employers to benefit the one who pays their current salary does it? As I said earlier if Apple knew Rubin stole anything from them it would have been submitted as evidence if not at the ITC at least in the companion civil suit Apple filed in Posner's court. But that wasn't what they were trying to do as you properly noted.
I actually agree with you. Apple did have reasons for attempting to imply it was possible Rubin learned something at Apple that was later used in Android development.. . and that's really all it was intended for, introducing a question and not an assertion. (Some here would call that FUD in a different setting)
I would hope every engineer (or other worker for that matter) becomes a better and more knowledgeable employee with each new work experience. Do you think Tim Cook might have learned any inside tips about managing inventory and production in the computer business during his stints at IBM and Compaq to the benefit of of his current employer Apple? It doesn't mean either Cook or Rubin stole company secrets from previous employers to benefit the one who pays their current salary does it? As I said earlier if Apple knew Rubin stole anything from them it would have been submitted as evidence if not at the ITC at least in the companion civil suit Apple filed in Posner's court. But that wasn't what they were trying to do as you properly noted.
Yep he did, and this is something most company fail to protect, it is called "know how," I have read that most companies loose their competitive advantage because of indirect transfer of "know how." Companies think the know how is less important then the actually IP thus they let is walk out the door of they show it off to others. Apple is guilty of this, especially back in the 80's there use to be tour buses of Japanese who use to show up at Apple Fremont factory for a tour of the facility, after the tour they would show up in Cupertino and the Apple employee store to buy their apple souvenirs and then home to Japan. Apple's Factory at the time was the state of the art and Apple Taught more companies how manufacturing should be done. Obviously Steve saw not IP or Know How value in how they manufacturer, it was cool thing to show off.
I can also tell you Dell copy much of what Apple did in the way of developing and testing Laptop computers back in the 90's they hired a number for the original Powerbook team and replicated the entire process Apple had in place even down to the test labs and equipment. This stuff us hard to prove since it not always documented or protected and plus you can not patent a method or process so it walks out the door.
Comments
What are you going on about? The ONLY statement of facts Apple made is that Rubin worked for them in the early 90's... fact, and his supervisors were working on the "Real-time API patent"... fact.. Exceptionally easy to prove both things.
FWIW if you didn't notice the Apple comments were made in connection with an ITC hearing and not a "full patent infringement trial" and no where did Apple indicate Rubin "stole" anything. It was a simple "hey he worked here about the same time so maybe there's dots to connect" in an attempt to make an HTC statement sound disingenuous . Apparently you didn't read Apple's statement in context. Would you like me to point you to the correct document? I was looking at it a little earlier at EDIS.
I read them all. As I'm sure you did, but as usual for a troll you carefully chose which parts to talk about and which parts to omit.
Apple specifically brought up Rubin in the ITC hearing. As Foss points out: "But Apple now asserts -- in a filing with the ITC, which means Apple has a legal obligation to make truthful representations of fact".
While it's true Apple didn't specifically list what they know about Rubin, they're still putting their neck on the line. Apple isn't like Samsung, Google or you - they don't play games with little sound bites that are half-truths in order to sway public opinion or confuse juries/courts. Make no mistake - had things with HTC continued on in the court cases filed in different jurisdictions this would come back to haunt them. And if Apple has plans to bring the 263 patent up in future cases (which is a strong possibility) then they would have also shot themselves in the foot by bringing Rubin into the mix if there wasn't anything more than "hey he worked for us".
You can bet Apple knows exactly what he worked on, but has no plans to make this information public (such as in a court filing) until such time as the stakes are high enough (like a case against Google or Samsung).
Apple has more to think about than a single ITC ruling, something you can't seem to grasp.
Linkify is not some "analyzer server" that detects context; it's merely a library of search-and-replace functions that have to be called explicitly by the developer on a body of text, and it's the developer's job to specify what patterns to search for. Thus it's not essentially different from any other search and replace utility out there; any programmer could reproduce its functionality independently in a couple lines of Java or by piping the contents of a textview through some text processing utility like awk or sed. The addLinks() function is in fact implemented directly using Java's regex matching facilities (http://grepcode.com/file/repository.grepcode.com/java/ext/com.google.android/android/2.0_r1/android/text/util/Linkify.java).
Given that a patent covers a specific and novel method for achieving a result, and not the result itself, is it at all obvious that such a general and well-known technique (search and replace) infringes?
And ^this is exactly where most software engineers can't see the forest from the trees.
If you reduce any product down to it's smallest parts, it becomes very fuzzy what is actually protectable by a manufacturer. However, there certainly are things which make a product "unique" in the minds of the people who use them. They are small details, but they are important.
Most of the time it's in the design details -- the way a particular car body is shaped, for example. So that's why Apple patents design details like slide-to-lock and bounce scrolling instead of the algorithms on which they are built. It's a straw-man argument to reduce these design details down to the algorithms and then state that they can't be patented because the algorithms were invented and published before. No one notices the algorithms, but they do notice how they are realized into tangible, unique features. It's not a trivial thing to turn a simple image processing algorithm into a unique design feature which sets your product apart from others.
Great point auxio!
Few would argue that Ford should be free to copy Ferrari's engine, or that Subaru should be able to use Audi's Quattro AWD in their cars. But, if you broke these systems down to their components you get nuts, bolts, gears and pistons - none of which are patentable.
This is similar to the idiotic argument that Apple did not invent anything because all their products are based on fundamental inventions made by others. But according to this logic, nobody can claim to have invented anything because everything they did was based on prior work. If these brainiacs really believe their own argument, they should lobby Samsung to donate all its profits to the poor graduate students and professors who did the fundamental work that made Samsung's business possible.
All the GSM, 3G and 4G standards essential patents have prior art in Morse code, they are just faster ways of pressing a button (0 or 1, long or short) transmitting a message over radio waves and decoding it at the other end, all done in software.
Unix was most certainly not free when it first appeared. It was a proprietary AT&T system and was what sold mainframes back then. The only reason Unix spread so far beyond its original platforms is that other parties did with Unix precisely what Google did with Java. They provided free and faithful reimplementations of the entire Unix API and let other hardware platforms enjoy all of the functionality provided by Unix.
I'll give you that but I'm still not sure where you're going. Linux has been challenged several times in the past and any time a possible infringement was found the code was rewritten. Never did they say "that shouldn't be patentable" they reworked their code to avoid stepping on others protected work. That's what should happen in my opinion, if you build a product with patented technology (inadvertently or not) you either license, or remove/rework the offending code.
Isn't that what this whole lawsuit is about? Before the lawsuit Apple asked Samsung to remove features they owned patents on. Samsung declined and are now being sued for it. How else can a company protect itself from theft?
Google is the worst for this and I believe they started the mess we're in today. Until Google created Android companies weren't so quick to copy and steal from one another. Google has repeatedly tried to shield itself by giving away it's clones for free in an attempt to devalue everyone else. When they tried to cross license patents what did they offer? Stock Android, something Apple doesn't need. Would they cross license search? No. Maps? No. Anything of value in return for patents they want from Apple? No. Somehow they've convinced a lot of developers to "do no evil" when they are the ones threatening the entire ecosystem. The only patents they feel are valuable are their own, everyone else's are "obvious" and should be "free".
What are you going on about? The ONLY statement of facts Apple made is that Rubin worked for them in the early 90's... fact, and his supervisors were working on the "Real-time API patent"... fact.. Exceptionally easy to prove both things.
FWIW if you didn't notice the Apple comments were made in connection with an ITC hearing and not a "full patent infringement trial" and no where did Apple indicate Rubin "stole" anything. It was a simple "hey he worked here about the same time so maybe there's dots to connect" in an attempt to make an HTC statement sound disingenuous . Apparently you didn't read Apple's statement in context. Would you like me to point you to the correct document? I was looking at it a little earlier at EDIS.
Trust me I work with Lawyers all the time, and they made this statement about Rubin for obvious reasons, it was an implied statement, (not fact) but was said to imply he could had access to apple technologies and took technologies from each of the places he worked. Apple wants Rubin to look like he not really an inventor of technologies only a borrower of technologies. I said this a long time ago about him. he played the game of jumping company to company and won big. I seen others do this, they learn a few things at one company then take it to the next company to parlay it into a better job, and before people realize they have no clue they move on to the next higher position.
Google realized too late what they actually got and he became a liability to them, they now stuck him in a room with robots where he can not harm anyone. He being set up to be bounced out, if he can not pull a rabbit out of the hat with the robots he is done. My current prediction for him is he will be a foot note on the history of Android and we will never hear from him again. You do not make a $12B screw up of Motorola purchase and come out smelling good that is for sure.
I worked at Apple in the section where the pixies manufactured the magic dust from unicorn horns, I never saw Rubin there although he may have transferred there later.
Gotta love the Internet.
Your right I could have made it all up, how about if I post a picture of my 5 yr Anniversary plaque, my business cards, my apple name plate, or may pictures of all the Apple prototypes I worked on which sit in my basement collecting dust. Actually if you look back many many yrs ago when I first joined this board I did post some picture of the prototypes I have.
I realize we all can say what we want, but I did specifically say what he knew or did not know, but from my experience a Manufacturing engineers do not have knowledge or access to advance technologies a company is working on, and I have working as now 6 high tech companies both on the R&D, Product Development (which is different than R&D) and the Operations side and know what is available to the design engineers as well as the everyday person.
I actually agree with you. Apple did have reasons for attempting to imply it was possible Rubin learned something at Apple that was later used in Android development.. . and that's really all it was intended for, introducing a question and not an assertion. (Some here would call that FUD in a different setting)
I would hope every engineer (or other worker for that matter) becomes a better and more knowledgeable employee with each new work experience. Do you think Tim Cook might have learned any inside tips about managing inventory and production in the computer business during his stints at IBM and Compaq to the benefit of of his current employer Apple? It doesn't mean either Cook or Rubin stole company secrets from previous employers to benefit the one who pays their current salary does it? As I said earlier if Apple knew Rubin stole anything from them it would have been submitted as evidence if not at the ITC at least in the companion civil suit Apple filed in Posner's court. But that wasn't what they were trying to do as you properly noted.
I actually agree with you. Apple did have reasons for attempting to imply it was possible Rubin learned something at Apple that was later used in Android development.. . and that's really all it was intended for, introducing a question and not an assertion. (Some here would call that FUD in a different setting)
I would hope every engineer (or other worker for that matter) becomes a better and more knowledgeable employee with each new work experience. Do you think Tim Cook might have learned any inside tips about managing inventory and production in the computer business during his stints at IBM and Compaq to the benefit of of his current employer Apple? It doesn't mean either Cook or Rubin stole company secrets from previous employers to benefit the one who pays their current salary does it? As I said earlier if Apple knew Rubin stole anything from them it would have been submitted as evidence if not at the ITC at least in the companion civil suit Apple filed in Posner's court. But that wasn't what they were trying to do as you properly noted.
Yep he did, and this is something most company fail to protect, it is called "know how," I have read that most companies loose their competitive advantage because of indirect transfer of "know how." Companies think the know how is less important then the actually IP thus they let is walk out the door of they show it off to others. Apple is guilty of this, especially back in the 80's there use to be tour buses of Japanese who use to show up at Apple Fremont factory for a tour of the facility, after the tour they would show up in Cupertino and the Apple employee store to buy their apple souvenirs and then home to Japan. Apple's Factory at the time was the state of the art and Apple Taught more companies how manufacturing should be done. Obviously Steve saw not IP or Know How value in how they manufacturer, it was cool thing to show off.
I can also tell you Dell copy much of what Apple did in the way of developing and testing Laptop computers back in the 90's they hired a number for the original Powerbook team and replicated the entire process Apple had in place even down to the test labs and equipment. This stuff us hard to prove since it not always documented or protected and plus you can not patent a method or process so it walks out the door.