Patent Wars Hotting Up

[bigboss]

Apple has lost a case against Motorola in Germany.

 

[Paul.]

BT's application is here. I will admit I havent read it all as my 'slavish devotion' has its limits but the first few pages seem to be strongly pointed at Android to me...

http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/75995499

 

[AnotherJoe]

Apple now have also lost their appeal to have the modified Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1N banned in germany.

 

[landzw]

All these court battles for patents designs used to get people interested but frankly i'm getting fedup of it all and i'm less likely to purchasing products from these stupid company's in the future.

God were would we be if someone put a patent design on tv's and cars in the early days and other tech we take for granted, all its doing is slowing progress

 

[professorhat]

Patents don't slow progress - it's basic function is to ensure someone who's spent a lot of time and effort developing something gets rewarded for it as others can't copy that invention without your permission (and usually payment). I think you'll find most if not all components of TVs and cars were patented at the time of their invention. If you didn't have this, then people wouldn't put in the time and effort to develop these ideas since anyone would then be free to copy that design in the future for nothing - that would really slow progress.

The issue at the moment seems to be some countries are granting patents for crazy things which are worded so badly, that it allows the manufacturer granted it to sue everyone else (should they choose to). Generally, every manufacturer has some of these and they're ignored since they all infringe on each other's patents in some way. What seems to have happened is the genie has been let out of the bottle and they're now all suing and countersuing each other - the only winner really is the lawyers (as usual).

However, I'd just ignore it all - it doesn't affect you or your ability to use your device (whichever brand it is) so it's not worth worrying about.

 

[The_Lhc]

However, I'd just ignore it all - it doesn't affect you or your ability to use your device (whichever brand it is) so it's not worth worrying about.

Well, it does if the device you want to buy is removed from sale because someone decided that touching a screen in a certain way should be worthy of a patent (it isn't btw, patent a touchscreen yes, patent actually touching the screen, no).

 

[professorhat]

However, I'd just ignore it all - it doesn't affect you or your ability to use your device (whichever brand it is) so it's not worth worrying about.

Well, it does if the device you want to buy is removed from sale because someone decided that touching a screen in a certain way should be worthy of a patent (it isn't btw, patent a touchscreen yes, patent actually touching the screen, no).

My point is, if the iPhone 4S was removed from sale tomorrow, mine would still work quite happily. If I was buying one tomorrow, then yes, I suppose it would affect me, but I don't think it would be the end of the world - plenty of other phones to choose from.

And I agree with you that there are crazy patents being applied for (and sometimes granted). However, I was trying to point out that, whilst the world still revolves around money, the patent system is necessary and we do need one. Otherwise no would bother investing in researching and developing new technologies.

 

[Paul.]

The difficulty with patents in design is that as a designer you are trained to boil a product down as much as possible, remove as much as possible and simplify. The problem comes when you come up with the (near) perfect design it's so simple that everyone slaps their collective heads and say why didn't we do this before? But the truth is, no body did do it before because the inituative response is trained by years of doing things the same way (often the wrong way). Many obvious user interface designs need to be learned because they are actually counter to what we have learned to do over time.

(case in point, sliding fingers up on a track pad to scroll up? Made perfect sence when it was a wheel on a mouse but absolutely no sence for a track pad since you are directly manipulating a document by grabbing it. But I can't get used to a reverse trackpad so switched it off!)

Patents are put in place to protect innovation but if the job of a designer is to simplify, should this not also be protected? You could argue that dysons vacume was 'obvious'. He walked in to a powder coating factory where his ball barrow frames were being coated and they were using a cyclonic vacuume to collect the unused powder. Was this head slappingly obvious to any one who had seen the technology NOW? Yes it is. Had any done it? NO. Applying existing ideas Uin a novel way is grounds for a patent.

I see the value of these small user interface features, I think that's why I have rubbed some up the wrong way as I apreciate many don't. Since we interact with UI elements directly, i see them as just as inportant as componants, not 'just' software. No one had developed the iPhones multitouch elements in to a commercial product before 2007, just like no one had developed the cyclonic vacuume to a commercial product before dyson, and that should be enough.

(this post is not specifically defending slide to unlock patents. Although I think it was important as a small percentage of hundreds of elements that make the iPhone what it is, I have been baffled by the clout that patent has been given).