thrang

How unique/large/coveted is the Roomba user base or brand?

$1.7BN?

Clearly you should be able to develop an equal or superior product for a small fraction of that.

I suppose Amazon does not have the engineering or product design skill sets to do so.

Putting aside for the moment how the current laws are written, I think the natural feeling most people have is that societally, we move forward and we improve things through innovation. So entities that file their own patents - or buy patents in the areas of their practice producing good or services - are, from a macro perspective, viewed much more favorably than a person or business that acquires patents with no ability to produce goods or services that are the basis for innovation.

Ultimately there should be a way to distinguish between individuals/companies that are awarded patents for through the organic development of ideas vs "NPE's that transactionally acquire patents purely for the mechanism of legal leverage. And while I have less issue if a practicing entity buys a patent that they don't use right away (the development of products or service is dependent upon lots of factors, the synthesis and timing of which can be long and complicated), perhaps there should also be a stale date for patents that are not leveraged after a certain number of years (5, 7 10... )

Quite complicated, but the point is the current process needs to better protect the actual or real potential of patent use vs the legal umbrella NPE's do hide under.

Not specific to this topic, but while we're on new features...

PLEASE have the charge audio tone follow the focus mode, so that if in Sleep mode, it is silent and doesn't twern at high volume when I place the phone on the charger on my nightstand and disturb my wife. Yes, if I remember, I can manually physcially switch to silent mode, but that's not the answer (and then I have to remember to switch it out of mute in the morning) Follow the focus!

It must be The American Dream mail across from Giant Stadium - it is enormous... https://www.americandream.com/#

I've gone twice, just to the "luxury" wing there (mostly stores are empty and boarded ), so haven't seen much else of it. I assume Apple will be there.

But ingress, egress, and (paid) parking is a nightmare at the place. I won't go there again unless during a midweek day only if I really need to. A large part of the parking is in the old Continental Arena parking deck, which was designed for all in/all out traffic, not constant back and forth of in and out shoppers....

The place had a contorted birth - over a decade I think... https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/22/timeline-of-new-jerseys-american-dream-megamall-and-how-it-got-built.html (and it looks nothing like the colorful rendering)

I think its designed not only for locals, but for NY tourism shoppers who often takes busses out of NY to visit various suburban malls...

JohnDinEU said:

EU should go to what?

What happened to respectfully disagree? Calling names and swearing doesn’t get us anywhere. I’m Dutch live overseas and love the US. And Apple. And Five Guys and and…

Apple and a bunch of other big techs are the victim of their own success. Yes, I’m old school and remember the days where Steve was shouting from the barricades about Microsoft’s dominance. Today it’s the other way around and there’s nobody able to protect us. It’s either Apple or Google for our OS. If these two would have been ethical they would have opened up and prevent this situation but shareholders were not going to appreciate that so they went there own ways. On top of that in the US and to a lesser extent the EU, there’s lobbyists who basically pay and get what they want on behalf of their clients. Roosevelt warned the US but nobody listened. After Pegasus we should have learned that IOS isn’t safe so the reasoning that Apple can’t open up the Apple store are nonsense. I’m sure there are various Pegasus versions out there collecting everything we don’t want them to collect. 

Do we and especially the non technical folks out there, need protection from these two behemoths? We sure do and to be honest, it’s their own fault. 

Whaaaa?

So the billions of people who desire and purchase into the Apple ecosystem because of what it provides, now need “protection” from the company they voluntarily chose (and essentially love given their success)?

Asinine comes to mind

If governments keep on this path, tell me what happens to innovation, investment, to risk and reward? This is socialism wearing the stolen robe from Lady Liberty…