I think that's very true of academia, but I don't think it's a good use for the patent system. If an academic poses a problem in a very clear way that is definitely original research and worthy of citation - but it doesn't give them a head-lock on further research.
Although academic research is often about creating and posing new problems, posing it alone is rarely considered publishable, unless you are identifying a problem that has practical concerns. You need to formulate the problem, characterize it and solve it. Often, academic research is not about a problem at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cloudgazer
The patent is a 500 year old concept that is simply not suitable for rewarding innovation in the software world. In an ideal world Apple would be rewarded for that innovation in a way that didn't entail them having to claim ownership of such a basic concept as a parser coupled to a UI.
The patent system is much older, isn't it? Ergo, the concept is even older?
As you say, it's a method for using structured data in an unstructured stream to provide interactive choices. Not at all what awk offers, and even your emacs folding example is a very specific application that really only offers one interactive choice: fold, or don't.
Again, the patent only says at least one possible action, it doesn't even have a separate claim stipulating two or more. The only requirement is that the user control when and if the action linked to the detected structure takes place - folding mode would seem to cover that.
Quote:
Nevertheless, I have to grant that the patent system treating this kind of thing in the same way as it would specific algorithms and whatnot seems poorly matched. I would rather that there be, to use something like your suggestion, a sort of derived implementation patent that lasts much less than 20 years*. That would have protected Apple's embodiment for a few years but let the rest of the field implement it within a product cycle or two. Thus, companies would still have plenty of incentives to innovate in obvious-after-the-fact ways, but not so that they can lock things down forever.
Even with that there's a problem, where would we be if LG had gotten an exclusive on the embodiement of a pure touch screen smartphone with no keypad? We'd only still be on the iPhone-1!
I think it's worth asking, what would the world look like without software patents of any kind? Would there be more or less software innovation? If there would be more, and if the combination of copyright, trademark and design patents would be sufficient for 90% of developers then it's time to consign software patents to the recycle bin.
Quote:
In Apple's shoes, I would totally use the patent, but I have to agree that it would be insane to apply this patent to two decades of smartphone implementations starting in 2007. I feel like there has to be something that recognizes the work that Apple, Palm, and Microsoft did to approach user-interface problems in a novel way, without putting any clear best choices rigidly off-limits to competitors for what is an eternity in software.
There's an old saying that hard cases lead to bad law.. In this example the hard case is how to protect Apple, MS, RIM etc for their amazing innovations which clearly cannot be protected by copyright alone - as famously demonstrated by Apple vs Microsoft. Patents seem to be the bad law, which protects Apple et al. at the cost of inflicting Lodsys on the rest of us. I really don't care that Apple has a horribly broad patent like this one, since I know that they will never sue any but a handful of other huge firms, but if they can do it then so can anybody else.
Increasingly I'm for saying, screw the hard cases. Lets just throw out software patents for all but well defined sub-domains like encryption, and go back to copyright.
Those posters here who are patent lawyers please raise your hands. Otherwise you are pontificating about something you know nothing about and your statements about things like patent law, prior art, licensing, lawsuits, et al, are nothing more than missives of the clueless. This is all part of the legal system now and we just have to sit back and watch what happens. Our personal biases can assign motives to Apple or its competitors but that's meaningless too, sort of like arguing about whether Casey Anthony is guilty or not.
Statements about patent law are missives? Huh? Personally, I'd have thought something like the following would be closer to a missive? But, what do I know?
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkrupp
You know nothing about the telecom industry, absolutely nothing.
It's the bad luck scenario, much like the process where Microsoft was able to develop Windows using exactly the same Xerox PARC technologies and ideas that Apple 'stole'.
Cheers
Pure BS. Xerox had no idea what to do with their technology, and didn't believe it was good for anything. Apple asked if they could use the tehnology and develop it further, and Xerox gave permission. Apple greatly improved the Xerox ideas, applying them in ways Xerox never thought of.
MS did not use Xerox's technology - they used the innovations that Apple had developed. They got the code because Apple had sent tit to them so MS could develop Word for Macintosh. MS flat out stole it.
Even with that there's a problem, where would we be if LG had gotten an exclusive on the embodiement of a pure touch screen smartphone with no keypad? We'd only still be on the iPhone-1!
I think it's worth asking, what would the world look like without software patents of any kind? Would there be more or less software innovation? If there would be more, and if the combination of copyright, trademark and design patents would be sufficient for 90% of developers then it's time to consign software patents to the recycle bin.
Actually, my proposal (if you can call something so nebulous a 'proposal') would imply that Apple would at worst be stuck licensing the approach from LG for 3-5 years.
As for what the world would look like without any patents, I'm not sure what to say about that. If there's no protections at all, then there would be just enough software to sell hardware, and companies would have a lot of incentive to keep everything really balkanized so that software is difficult to adapt. In all, I think we'd be in a much more primitive place.
Software copyright, however, offers another path. I'm just not sure that's an improvement, since copyright on creative works is actually much longer and has stiffer penalties. Applied somewhat narrowly, it wouldn't be very restrictive at all, but the lack of an alternative might persuade courts to apply it more broadly. It might be better than what we have, and it might be worse. It's hard to judge a counterfactual that suffers from so many contingencies.
Another item that might be stretched to help a bit is trade dress. Currently it's barred from any functional role, but perhaps they would expand it if the functions were patentable as they are now.
First of all these are not HTC features... these are core Android features and by core i mean even third party apps use them through the Android API.
Regarding obvious... please... if you display text that contains a phone number how it is not obvious that selecting that phone number should enable a call.
Software should be excluded from the patent system altogether.
If it's so obvious, why didn't Windows, Symbian, Blackberry or Palm include that feature before Apple did? This is not about selecting phone numbers, or translating hyperlinks, as others have said. It's about the OS automatically recognizing phone numbers and other strings in plain text, and automatically turning them into contacts, links, etc. Apparently Apple figured out how to do it, and Android stole Apple's method.
Although academic research is often about creating and posing new problems, posing it alone is rarely considered publishable, unless you are identifying a problem that has practical concerns. You need to formulate the problem, characterize it and solve it. Often, academic research is not about a problem at all.
A really good question is still valuable though. Something like Hilbert's problems or the Goldbach conjecture. The P versus NP problem. Arguably the EPR paradox is really a question. A lot of theoretical physics consists of formulating questions that the experimentalists can investigate, Bell's inequality could be argued to fall into that category. Anyway it's really a discussion that calls out for booze
Quote:
The patent system is much older, isn't it? Ergo, the concept is even older?
Wiki reckons that the modern patent system began in 1474 in Venice, but yes the concept was older.
As for what the world would look like without any patents, I'm not sure what to say about that. If there's no protections at all, then there would be just enough software to sell hardware, and companies would have a lot of incentive to keep everything really balkanized so that software is difficult to adapt. In all, I think we'd be in a much more primitive place.
We effectively lived in that world until the early 90s, it really wasn't so bad. If you haven't already I strongly recommend you read this article by the inventor of the spreadsheet. http://www.bricklin.com/patenting.htm
Quote:
Software copyright, however, offers another path. I'm just not sure that's an improvement, since copyright on creative works is actually much longer and has stiffer penalties. Applied somewhat narrowly, it wouldn't be very restrictive at all, but the lack of an alternative might persuade courts to apply it more broadly. It might be better than what we have, and it might be worse. It's hard to judge a counterfactual that suffers from so many contingencies.
Again, that wasn't the result. This isn't as counterfactual as you think - it's history.
Quote:
Another item that might be stretched to help a bit is trade dress. Currently it's barred from any functional role, but perhaps they would expand it if the functions were patentable as they are now.
Hmm, the problem with trade dress is it never expires at all.
Pure BS. Xerox had no idea what to do with their technology, and didn't believe it was good for anything. Apple asked if they could use the tehnology and develop it further, and Xerox gave permission. Apple greatly improved the Xerox ideas, applying them in ways Xerox never thought of.
MS did not use Xerox's technology - they used the innovations that Apple had developed. They got the code because Apple had sent tit to them so MS could develop Word for Macintosh. MS flat out stole it.
Speaking of BS, it is not true Xerox had no idea what to do with their technology or didn't believe it was good for anything. They simply aimed for a different model of commercialization which did not pan out. Xerox first developed the Alto, which featured not only the GUI we have come to know and love, but also Ethernet connectivity. They never sold this system, but used it internally and also shared some units with academia. The actual commercial product was the Xerox Star. But they were thinking high end all the way, possibly because it fit with their sales model for photocopiers. Instead of marketing each Star as a standalone workstation, you had to buy a network of them along with a server and a laser printer.
As a kid, I worked at a Xerox research lab during one summer, and played with one of the original Altos. It was the highlight of my summer, and inspired me to buy my first of the many Macs.
All to say, Xerox had a strong, comprehensive vision for a rather impressive trove of technology (GUI-driven workstation, laser printer, Ethernet, etc.), but perhaps tried to sell too much to a market that didn't get it; either that or their timing or execution was off.
Also, in return for exposure to this technology, Xerox received options for a good chunk of pre-IPO Apple stock, which would be worth a hell of a lot today.
We effectively lived in that world until the early 90s, it really wasn't so bad. If you haven't already I strongly recommend you read this article by the inventor of the spreadsheet. http://www.bricklin.com/patenting.htm
Again, that wasn't the result. This isn't as counterfactual as you think - it's history.
Hmm, the problem with trade dress is it never expires at all.
The problem is that up until the early 90s was also the period when software tended not to be interoperable and software companies were tiny compared to hardware companies. I was just a tadpole hacking around on a C64 in the mid-80s, but I do remember having to check software for specific hardware for which it was built, loading a bunch of buggy, stolen TRS-80 games from a cassette tape, and other adventures with early GUI-based computers. I won't go so far as to say that software back then sucked because of a lack of patent protection, but I definitely think software was taken much, much less seriously then. It's also worth noting how much Dan Bricklin's objections in 1995 revolved around changing the rules late in the game: "With the law interpreted one way for so long, and an entire industry structuring itself around that interpretation, allowing the patenting and enforcement of patents of pure software this late in the life of the art is an unusual hardship for a thriving industry that is crucial to the world's economy. While it may theoretically have been appropriate to have pure software patents, the opportunity has passed."
As for trade dress, I was just thinking that if one made the look and feel distinctive to another covered under trade dress, then you'd be fine. Basically, one could implement the same features, as long as they were implemented distinctively. Or something like that. Jurisprudence invariably establishes much of the meaning of IP law and IANAL.
Comments
I think that's very true of academia, but I don't think it's a good use for the patent system. If an academic poses a problem in a very clear way that is definitely original research and worthy of citation - but it doesn't give them a head-lock on further research.
Although academic research is often about creating and posing new problems, posing it alone is rarely considered publishable, unless you are identifying a problem that has practical concerns. You need to formulate the problem, characterize it and solve it. Often, academic research is not about a problem at all.
The patent is a 500 year old concept that is simply not suitable for rewarding innovation in the software world. In an ideal world Apple would be rewarded for that innovation in a way that didn't entail them having to claim ownership of such a basic concept as a parser coupled to a UI.
The patent system is much older, isn't it? Ergo, the concept is even older?
As you say, it's a method for using structured data in an unstructured stream to provide interactive choices. Not at all what awk offers, and even your emacs folding example is a very specific application that really only offers one interactive choice: fold, or don't.
Again, the patent only says at least one possible action, it doesn't even have a separate claim stipulating two or more. The only requirement is that the user control when and if the action linked to the detected structure takes place - folding mode would seem to cover that.
Nevertheless, I have to grant that the patent system treating this kind of thing in the same way as it would specific algorithms and whatnot seems poorly matched. I would rather that there be, to use something like your suggestion, a sort of derived implementation patent that lasts much less than 20 years*. That would have protected Apple's embodiment for a few years but let the rest of the field implement it within a product cycle or two. Thus, companies would still have plenty of incentives to innovate in obvious-after-the-fact ways, but not so that they can lock things down forever.
Even with that there's a problem, where would we be if LG had gotten an exclusive on the embodiement of a pure touch screen smartphone with no keypad? We'd only still be on the iPhone-1!
I think it's worth asking, what would the world look like without software patents of any kind? Would there be more or less software innovation? If there would be more, and if the combination of copyright, trademark and design patents would be sufficient for 90% of developers then it's time to consign software patents to the recycle bin.
In Apple's shoes, I would totally use the patent, but I have to agree that it would be insane to apply this patent to two decades of smartphone implementations starting in 2007. I feel like there has to be something that recognizes the work that Apple, Palm, and Microsoft did to approach user-interface problems in a novel way, without putting any clear best choices rigidly off-limits to competitors for what is an eternity in software.
There's an old saying that hard cases lead to bad law.. In this example the hard case is how to protect Apple, MS, RIM etc for their amazing innovations which clearly cannot be protected by copyright alone - as famously demonstrated by Apple vs Microsoft. Patents seem to be the bad law, which protects Apple et al. at the cost of inflicting Lodsys on the rest of us. I really don't care that Apple has a horribly broad patent like this one, since I know that they will never sue any but a handful of other huge firms, but if they can do it then so can anybody else.
Increasingly I'm for saying, screw the hard cases. Lets just throw out software patents for all but well defined sub-domains like encryption, and go back to copyright.
Those posters here who are patent lawyers please raise your hands. Otherwise you are pontificating about something you know nothing about and your statements about things like patent law, prior art, licensing, lawsuits, et al, are nothing more than missives of the clueless. This is all part of the legal system now and we just have to sit back and watch what happens. Our personal biases can assign motives to Apple or its competitors but that's meaningless too, sort of like arguing about whether Casey Anthony is guilty or not.
Statements about patent law are missives? Huh? Personally, I'd have thought something like the following would be closer to a missive? But, what do I know?
You know nothing about the telecom industry, absolutely nothing.
odd
has anyone noticed the stock price listed on ai is a little high?
Odd
sell! Sell! Sell!
It's the bad luck scenario, much like the process where Microsoft was able to develop Windows using exactly the same Xerox PARC technologies and ideas that Apple 'stole'.
Cheers
Pure BS. Xerox had no idea what to do with their technology, and didn't believe it was good for anything. Apple asked if they could use the tehnology and develop it further, and Xerox gave permission. Apple greatly improved the Xerox ideas, applying them in ways Xerox never thought of.
MS did not use Xerox's technology - they used the innovations that Apple had developed. They got the code because Apple had sent tit to them so MS could develop Word for Macintosh. MS flat out stole it.
Even with that there's a problem, where would we be if LG had gotten an exclusive on the embodiement of a pure touch screen smartphone with no keypad? We'd only still be on the iPhone-1!
I think it's worth asking, what would the world look like without software patents of any kind? Would there be more or less software innovation? If there would be more, and if the combination of copyright, trademark and design patents would be sufficient for 90% of developers then it's time to consign software patents to the recycle bin.
Actually, my proposal (if you can call something so nebulous a 'proposal') would imply that Apple would at worst be stuck licensing the approach from LG for 3-5 years.
As for what the world would look like without any patents, I'm not sure what to say about that. If there's no protections at all, then there would be just enough software to sell hardware, and companies would have a lot of incentive to keep everything really balkanized so that software is difficult to adapt. In all, I think we'd be in a much more primitive place.
Software copyright, however, offers another path. I'm just not sure that's an improvement, since copyright on creative works is actually much longer and has stiffer penalties. Applied somewhat narrowly, it wouldn't be very restrictive at all, but the lack of an alternative might persuade courts to apply it more broadly. It might be better than what we have, and it might be worse. It's hard to judge a counterfactual that suffers from so many contingencies.
Another item that might be stretched to help a bit is trade dress. Currently it's barred from any functional role, but perhaps they would expand it if the functions were patentable as they are now.
First of all these are not HTC features... these are core Android features and by core i mean even third party apps use them through the Android API.
Regarding obvious... please... if you display text that contains a phone number how it is not obvious that selecting that phone number should enable a call.
Software should be excluded from the patent system altogether.
If it's so obvious, why didn't Windows, Symbian, Blackberry or Palm include that feature before Apple did? This is not about selecting phone numbers, or translating hyperlinks, as others have said. It's about the OS automatically recognizing phone numbers and other strings in plain text, and automatically turning them into contacts, links, etc. Apparently Apple figured out how to do it, and Android stole Apple's method.
Although academic research is often about creating and posing new problems, posing it alone is rarely considered publishable, unless you are identifying a problem that has practical concerns. You need to formulate the problem, characterize it and solve it. Often, academic research is not about a problem at all.
A really good question is still valuable though. Something like Hilbert's problems or the Goldbach conjecture. The P versus NP problem. Arguably the EPR paradox is really a question. A lot of theoretical physics consists of formulating questions that the experimentalists can investigate, Bell's inequality could be argued to fall into that category. Anyway it's really a discussion that calls out for booze
The patent system is much older, isn't it? Ergo, the concept is even older?
Wiki reckons that the modern patent system began in 1474 in Venice, but yes the concept was older.
If it's so obvious, why didn't Windows, Symbian, Blackberry or Palm include that feature before Apple did?
<badjoke>Because they knew Apple had patented it! </badjoke>
As for what the world would look like without any patents, I'm not sure what to say about that. If there's no protections at all, then there would be just enough software to sell hardware, and companies would have a lot of incentive to keep everything really balkanized so that software is difficult to adapt. In all, I think we'd be in a much more primitive place.
We effectively lived in that world until the early 90s, it really wasn't so bad. If you haven't already I strongly recommend you read this article by the inventor of the spreadsheet. http://www.bricklin.com/patenting.htm
Software copyright, however, offers another path. I'm just not sure that's an improvement, since copyright on creative works is actually much longer and has stiffer penalties. Applied somewhat narrowly, it wouldn't be very restrictive at all, but the lack of an alternative might persuade courts to apply it more broadly. It might be better than what we have, and it might be worse. It's hard to judge a counterfactual that suffers from so many contingencies.
Again, that wasn't the result. This isn't as counterfactual as you think - it's history.
Another item that might be stretched to help a bit is trade dress. Currently it's barred from any functional role, but perhaps they would expand it if the functions were patentable as they are now.
Hmm, the problem with trade dress is it never expires at all.
<badjoke>Because they knew Apple had patented it! </badjoke>
Hey - I invented that kind of humour tagging back in 1993! Cease and desist!
This patent was granted 17 years ago.
Most patents's life is around 20 years.
Therefore, this will only be applicable for 3 more years.
There is new, fresh multitouch patent. Don't worry.
Pure BS. Xerox had no idea what to do with their technology, and didn't believe it was good for anything. Apple asked if they could use the tehnology and develop it further, and Xerox gave permission. Apple greatly improved the Xerox ideas, applying them in ways Xerox never thought of.
MS did not use Xerox's technology - they used the innovations that Apple had developed. They got the code because Apple had sent tit to them so MS could develop Word for Macintosh. MS flat out stole it.
Speaking of BS, it is not true Xerox had no idea what to do with their technology or didn't believe it was good for anything. They simply aimed for a different model of commercialization which did not pan out. Xerox first developed the Alto, which featured not only the GUI we have come to know and love, but also Ethernet connectivity. They never sold this system, but used it internally and also shared some units with academia. The actual commercial product was the Xerox Star. But they were thinking high end all the way, possibly because it fit with their sales model for photocopiers. Instead of marketing each Star as a standalone workstation, you had to buy a network of them along with a server and a laser printer.
As a kid, I worked at a Xerox research lab during one summer, and played with one of the original Altos. It was the highlight of my summer, and inspired me to buy my first of the many Macs.
All to say, Xerox had a strong, comprehensive vision for a rather impressive trove of technology (GUI-driven workstation, laser printer, Ethernet, etc.), but perhaps tried to sell too much to a market that didn't get it; either that or their timing or execution was off.
Also, in return for exposure to this technology, Xerox received options for a good chunk of pre-IPO Apple stock, which would be worth a hell of a lot today.
Speaking of BS, it is not true Xerox had no idea what to do with their technology or didn't believe it was good for anything.
Did you catch 'Everything is a remix part 3'? http://www.vimeo.com/25380454?
A whole section on the Alto and Mac - nice little indie documentary.
Did you catch 'Everything is a remix part 3'? http://www.vimeo.com/25380454?
A whole section on the Alto and Mac - nice little indie documentary.
Good link. Thank you!
We effectively lived in that world until the early 90s, it really wasn't so bad. If you haven't already I strongly recommend you read this article by the inventor of the spreadsheet. http://www.bricklin.com/patenting.htm
Again, that wasn't the result. This isn't as counterfactual as you think - it's history.
Hmm, the problem with trade dress is it never expires at all.
The problem is that up until the early 90s was also the period when software tended not to be interoperable and software companies were tiny compared to hardware companies. I was just a tadpole hacking around on a C64 in the mid-80s, but I do remember having to check software for specific hardware for which it was built, loading a bunch of buggy, stolen TRS-80 games from a cassette tape, and other adventures with early GUI-based computers. I won't go so far as to say that software back then sucked because of a lack of patent protection, but I definitely think software was taken much, much less seriously then. It's also worth noting how much Dan Bricklin's objections in 1995 revolved around changing the rules late in the game: "With the law interpreted one way for so long, and an entire industry structuring itself around that interpretation, allowing the patenting and enforcement of patents of pure software this late in the life of the art is an unusual hardship for a thriving industry that is crucial to the world's economy. While it may theoretically have been appropriate to have pure software patents, the opportunity has passed."
As for trade dress, I was just thinking that if one made the look and feel distinctive to another covered under trade dress, then you'd be fine. Basically, one could implement the same features, as long as they were implemented distinctively. Or something like that. Jurisprudence invariably establishes much of the meaning of IP law and IANAL.
Hey - I invented that kind of humour tagging back in 1993! Cease and desist!
Shouldn't .sig files count as prior art?
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 originally thought this way, but the fact is, Android copies the iPhone in SO MANY ways, I'm fine with them getting tagged based on a technicality.