Fresh off $533M victory, Smartflash files another patent suit against Apple

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 81
    ronboronbo Posts: 669member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post



    The lunacy for this company is that Apple will ultimately win and burn their existence out of the landscape. They've opened themselves up to all their patents being reviewed in Appeals.



    I remember when Apple had to pay that MP3 player over $300m because they had a patent for "lists on a small screen." So it would be nice for Apple to triumph, but the system is as it is because sometimes the trolls win. (Edit: even if the judgement is cut to 1/10... the trolls get far more than I'll earn in a lifetime for less work than I'll do in a month)

  • Reply 22 of 81
    Ironically, it's entirely arguable that Amendment 1, U.S. Constitution, invalidates the articles in the Constitution that are the basis for all U.S. Intellectual Property Law. Since the details of patent law are enacted by Congress and Amendment 1 bars Congress from enacting any law abridging freedom of speech, it's certainly arguable that U.S. IP law is invalid on its face since ratification of Amendment 1.
  • Reply 23 of 81
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member

    This all reminds me of the Lamprey fish...

     

  • Reply 24 of 81
    cnocbuicnocbui Posts: 3,613member

    Software and DNA are things that should not be patentable.

  • Reply 25 of 81
    Only in Texas! The home of Ted Cruz, Rick Perry and numerous similar lower forms of cellular activity and as corrupt as Chicago was in the Capone days.
  • Reply 26 of 81
    No different than Somali pirates.

    What a gig.

    This douchebag is probably currently getting bottle service at Marquee in Vegas, snorting coke and bagging hot chicks, as he rams our patent system from behind with extreme vengeance.
  • Reply 27 of 81
    Originally Posted by cnocbui View Post

    Software and DNA are things that should not be patentable.



    How does that make any sense? Software you create. Specific, unnatural orders of DNA can also be created. Why shouldn’t either be protectable?

     

    There’re no herds of software to be found in the wild, but simply sequencing a fish’s DNA shouldn’t be patentable.

     

    The problem is one of misuse of the concept of a patent. A patent protects an implementation of an idea, not the idea itself. Amazon can’t patent the concept of “one click purchasing”, for example, but they can patent a software implementation thereof.

  • Reply 29 of 81
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by rob53 View Post



    Show me a product. Show me where his patented ideas were actually used. How generalized are his patents? Apple should go after the USPTO directly and challenge them to justify giving this guy patents just for ideas that he never tried translating into a product.



    The product is the IP. It doesn't matter if it's ever been used, although supposedly it improves the value of the patent in review if something actually has been created using it.

  • Reply 30 of 81
    I'll go against the trend here and say, it seems like this guy deserves to win. If this guy got these patents, then the USA say he deserves them. If these patents are infringed by Apple, then Apple must not win only because, like Microsoft a few years back, it has the finances to shut people up (and be a gangster? or was that a Korean company?).

    Apple = gangster? LOL. Let me guess: Google = saint.
  • Reply 31 of 81
    pdq2pdq2 Posts: 270member

    Like the mosquito that thinks "that was tasty! I think I'll go back for another sip"...

     

    It'll be just that more satisfying when Apple squashes this parasite.

  • Reply 32 of 81
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    tommikele wrote: »
    Only in Texas! The home of Ted Cruz, Rick Perry and numerous similar lower forms of cellular activity and as corrupt as Chicago was in the Capone days.

    Now we got politics involved. Chicago is still corrupt. Also run by former Obama chief of staff.

    Back to the issue: if you don't use it (in a certain timeframe), you should lose it.
  • Reply 33 of 81
    jungmark wrote: »
    if you don't use it (in a certain timeframe), you should lose it.

    What if you "use" it for licensing? Would that be enough?

    Not everyone who comes up with an idea has the desire, or the ability, to make a shipping product. They might just want to licence it to others.

    (I'm not talking about this case in particular... just in general.)
  • Reply 34 of 81
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post





    Apple = gangster? LOL. Let me guess: Google = saint.



    That's a gross shortcutting of my point, man. Google's using the same tactics. Everyone is, because the rules are broken.

     

    Well, Amazon doesn't. They don't need to, they're innovative enough! /s

     

    I should make clear that I disagree with software patents, or DNA patents, not with patents per se, and with big companies, like Google or Apple, being able to just use whatever technique they want, whether or not someone holds a patent for that technique. I also believe that the patent office grants a lot of patents it should not grant, because these patents actually break a few fundamental principles of patents, like "obvious to anyone with appropriate technical skills" or "way too general".  

    Patents have been designed to protect things like Apple's hard work on iPhone, for example the processes they use to chamfer edges of the iPhone, or the iPhone 6+ auto-stabilizer, not to patent "systems to transfer data". If you want to see ridiculous patents that have been granted, the game world contains much worse, like the patent granted for an arrow indicating the direction of your car in a race game, or "playing a minigame while waiting for a bigger game to finish loading", because that's NOT AT ALL an obvious response to "how can I keep the player not bored while he waits for 3 minutes that the game level loads".

  • Reply 35 of 81
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,384member

    Speaking of Lawsuits, anyone else see the leaked Galaxy S6 pics? I mean, holy fucking shit. And here I was naive enough to think that Samsung might have had higher aspirations this time, after those enticing teasers.

     

     

     

    CREATOR: gd-jpeg v1.0 (using IJG JPEG v80), quality = 90

     

    CREATOR: gd-jpeg v1.0 (using IJG JPEG v80), quality = 90

     

    Every aspect that doesn't look like ass (front and back) is a shameless iP6 knockoff. EVen the glass is said to be curved at the end, like the 6. 

  • Reply 36 of 81
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,251member

    The product is the IP. It doesn't matter if it's ever been used, although supposedly it improves the value of the patent in review if something actually has been created using it.

    So two people can't have the same intellectual idea at different times and the only one who actually gets it patented even if they never license it or demonstrate the idea wins? Doesn't make sense. From what others have said the patents are very general in wording. Apple has a very specific design. How does the general one even relate? It's like patenting a piece of metal and saying it applies to everything made of metal, even though the patent owner never made anything out of metal.
  • Reply 37 of 81
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jungmark View Post





    Now we got politics involved. Chicago is still corrupt. Also run by former Obama chief of staff.



    Back to the issue: if you don't use it (in a certain timeframe), you should lose it.

     

    If I was a big company, I'd set up an agreement with other big companies (in a perfectly legal fashion) to "invest in the future" so that young startups with great ideas, but, sadly, no infrastructure, might not suffer the fate of losing their patents.

    Which can also be seen as "I'd strong arm smaller companies into surrendering their ability to innovate". Good job, you destroyed the US economy by making invention non viable as a business. Not to mention you destroyed all patents relative to non-directly usable technology, whether it's due to the fact the patent is too technical, or because the usability of the patent depends on another invention. 

     

    If in need of an example: the steam machine was actually invented by Heron of Alexandria, 3BC. Not James Watt, like you'd learn in school. However, James Watt's is "usable", which none of its predecessor's (pain's, Savery's, Newcomen's...) was. One of the major inventions needed to make use of the steam machine is a joint that doesn't waste most of the energy, for the record.

    If patents were a simple case, we'd have found a solution after the centuries of search for a better system. The fathers of the US revolution were heavily divided on the system, and they went for the current system based on the conclusion giving exclusivity to the inventor who filed also meant that the technique became free to use for all after only a few decades. Do we really want to destroy this efficient system just to get a few less years of wait?

     

    It's a complicated problem.

  • Reply 38 of 81
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by rob53 View Post





    So two people can't have the same intellectual idea at different times and the only one who actually gets it patented even if they never license it or demonstrate the idea wins? Doesn't make sense. From what others have said the patents are very general in wording. Apple has a very specific design. How does the general one even relate? It's like patenting a piece of metal and saying it applies to everything made of metal, even though the patent owner never made anything out of metal.



    The patent, if too general, should be thrown out. Wonder why Apple did not attack the patent itself, then?

  • Reply 39 of 81
    cnocbuicnocbui Posts: 3,613member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Slurpy View Post

     

    Speaking of Lawsuits, anyone else see the leaked Galaxy S6 pics? I mean, holy fucking shit. And here I was naive enough to think that Samsung might have had higher aspirations this time, after those enticing teasers

     

     

     

    Every aspect that doesn't look like ass (front and back) is a shameless iP6 knockoff. EVen the glass is said to be curved at the end, like the 6. 




    The edge version isn't similar though:

     

     

    Glass that tapers into the edge profile is not something Apple came up with.  Nokia did it earlier.

     

    Those speaker grille holes look rank.  Samsung really should get an Italian design house to do their flagship designs.

  • Reply 40 of 81
    100m for the Jury. $-$
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