I agree but Apple has been known to pay for solid patent licenses. I.e. Amazon's 'one click to pay' patent. If f.lux lands the patent, I think Apple could work out a solid deal with f.lux. Or they will find a distasteful legal loophole. One of the two.
Has Apple been known to pay to license patents from small startups? The fact that they've licensed from Amazon isn't quite analogous, since Amazon clearly has the ability to enforce their patents in court. A small startup may not have the resources to do this.
Being "patent pending" is meaningless without further context, i.e., the application proper. "Patent pending" spans a range of meaningless crud and novel inventions that share the common trait of having not yet received a final rejection office action.
I'm sure that one of the world's richest corporations will find a solution to this problem.
Ahhhhh... interesting. I read so many stories and comments on HN about how it's bad to be too rich. But apparently well like companies can have an exception.
Some problems cannot be easily solved with money. Paying patent lawyers and patent royalties is an example of a problem that can be very easily solved with money.
Surprisingly to many people used to the hiveminds on other forums, HN is not homogeneous in the opinions of the denizens. Many of us are fine with the idea of making money, and don't see it as an all-encompassing evil to be slandered at every turn as if it were an argument unto itself.
Downvoting would lead to hiveminds where unpopular opinions are not tolerated. I would prefer just an upvote.
I'm trying to dig up info on this. Do you have a link?