200 Patents???
Apple received over 200 patents for the iPhone and plans to defend them, according to Steve.
Without discussing Apple's possible lack of reverence for other companies' rights, let's discuss these patents.
What patents do we know of?
Also, discuss how by having these patents Apple could actually possible hinder (ha ha ha!) competition in various markets.
I'll start off with the easy one:
multitouch screen
Without discussing Apple's possible lack of reverence for other companies' rights, let's discuss these patents.
What patents do we know of?
Also, discuss how by having these patents Apple could actually possible hinder (ha ha ha!) competition in various markets.
I'll start off with the easy one:
multitouch screen
Comments
i also think they put a patent on the accelerometer, the ambient sensor and the proximity sensor...i dont think any companies will be able to place those on their phone
im not sure of other patents but steve will most likely defend them if he sees anything close to his phone design, and i dont think the lawsuit wil be for money, i beleive it will be to get rid of the new mock up phone from other companies
this is my opinion but i will stand by it because this is some serious technology, definitly new and revolutionary, no other companies will make a phone like it in the next coming years guarantee that one
If someone else wants to make one they cannot reverse engineer what Apple has done and use the same technology. They have to figure out something different.
Apple cannot patent the concept of a touch screen phone. They can only patent the way it accomplishes what it does.
People can try to patent anything, and the patent office continually astounds with how much of this crap they'll grant patents for. You aren't supposed to be able to patent mere "ideas", but the broadness of some of these patents, often even granted when there isn't even a working prototype, amounts to patenting ideas to me.
That Amazon has a patent on "one-click shopping" still amazes, astounds, and disgusts me.
How well some of these patents would stand up in court is hard to say, but the patent office seems to be giving a lot of people a very broad benefit of the doubt these days for the worthiness of their patents, leaving the burden of expensive, risky, and time-consuming court battles in the laps of anyone who would dare challenge this bullshit.
(Just waiting now for the inevitable defense of even the extremes of this insanity from Melgross.
There is a Patent on Multi Touch
There is probably a patent on how fast it goes depending on how fast you flick it
There is probably a patent on the Accelerometer
There is definately a Patent on the (forgot the name of it) sensor where you put it close to your ear and it turns off 2 other sensors.
There is probably a Patent on the Screen Turning off when you put it close to your ear (seperate from the above mentioned patent of the sensor itself)
There is likely a patent on the way it is unlocked
I dunno if Coverflow is patented itself, but if it is, then that's one more
Then there is a Patent on the "Pinch"
Every possible Patent I can think of, but 200?
Sebastian
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ya and no one is going to challenge apple on these patents BELEIVE ME..or they might as well just go throw themselves off a building with lawyer expenses and a bad name after losing in court
We the Shock Troops of the Apple Empire shall see to that
Sebastian
I'll start off with the easy one:
multitouch screen
Why don't we make this a comprehensive list of links to all related patents? Use Google's Patent Search...
Why don't we make this a comprehensive list of links to all related patents? Use Google's Patent Search...
Wow, I forgot about this one. It's pretty much useless though.
Sebastian
Strike that, I usually avoid Advanced Searches but...
http://www.google.com/patents?as_q=U...s_maxy_ap=2007
Patent is only on paper unless it stands up to a challenge in court.
The fact that a patent has been issued, however, means that regardless of how ridiculous a patent might be you either have to challenge it in court, or ignore it and hope that you aren't sued for patent infringement. The patent office has to become much choosier about what it issues patents for, so that any patent issued represents something reasonably likely to stand up in court.
As it stands now, the patent office is more like a jobs program for patent attorneys. I personally would like to see a lot more patent attorney unemployment.
From Slashdot: IBM Breaks Patent Record, Wants Reform:
'The prevalence of patent applications that are of low quality or poorly written have led to backlogs of historic proportions, and the granting of patents protecting ideas that are not new, are overly broad, or obvious.' And the company has been committing itself to a new patent policy: 'Key tenets of the policy are that patent quality is the responsibility of the applicant; that patent applications should be open to public examination and that patent ownership should be transparent; and that business methods without technical content should not be patentable.'
I'm not sure how well IBM is following its own new patent policy, or if it's still tempted to apply for "defensive patents", trying to grab stupid patents before someone else does, lowering their risk of having to defend themselves against frivolous infringement suits.