Apple deals massive patent blow to HTC, Android in serious trouble
zdnet.com
zdnet.com
Right now, the US is very fortunate that the rest of the world is kind of going along with its patent frenzy, mostly because of its prominent position on the world stage. As American influence wanes, they might not be so willing to continue.
"You should be thankful for what you have, child. Right now, there are poor children in America who don't even have Android(1) phones. All they get is one expensive, government-chosen monopoly device."
(1) Choose Chinese equivalent.
But can those patents really be worked around? Standing in front of the Great Wall of China, you can also vow to walk around it. That doesn’t mean it’s a viable option."
The fact that you can't go around those patents, emphasizes how broken the current patent system is. How are competitors going to be "innovative", which is what the patent system was supposed to encourage, if they can't actually take another path in building their product, and basically their only real options are to either infringe on the patents or pay the licensing fees.
It's too late now, but if I could edit my statement, I would like to point out that the patent could be valid assuming it was very SPECIFIC in its claims, and not just a broad patent which would mean that the single unique invention was so brilliant that it was the one and true path to the end product.
The very first clause you quoted states that HTC says they can. You're citing the author's rhetoric as fact.
The resulting litigation and threats of litigation disrupted and damaged the advancement of flying technology in the US, causing the US to lose its early lead.
The resulting litigation and threats of litigation disrupted and damaged the advancement of flying technology in the US, causing the US to lose its lead indeed.
You can still admire the admirable things about the Wright brothers while disagreeing with their use of patents.
However, what they did was effectively create something and then sit on it. "The Wrights' preoccupation with the legal issue hindered their development of new aircraft designs, and by 1911 Wright aircraft were inferior to those made by other firms in Europe.[9] Indeed, aviation development in the US was suppressed to such an extent that when the U.S. entered World War I no acceptable American-designed aircraft were available, and the U.S. forces were compelled to use French machines."
They are still notable in my book for being the first aviation flight being achieved just as USA was notable in my book for being the first to land on the moon.
Guess who's harbouring the space technology these days?
Of course, that's the concept. Whether or not it lived up to those ideals is another thing.
It's actually a transfer of wealth from the coffers of Apple, RIM and MS to mostly developing-nation consumers who can now afford the same advanced phones as people in developed countries. The trio is doing everything in their power to kill Android, but I do hope it survives.
It's not Tom's shoes. In fact I find it hard to believe that even Tom's shoes are Tom's shoes.
And this has no effect on treeface's reasoning
> the implication that this is somehow shifting money to poorer people is kind of ridiculous.
Again, there is no implication money is shifting hands.
What treeface said is that a massive amount of value is being generated by lowering the cost of building smartphones, thus reducing prices and allowing more people to use them and (he/she didn't say that) by offering a convenient standard software writers can write against, creating a market larger and less fragmented than any other player had managed to create.
"It's actually a transfer of wealth from the coffers of Apple, RIM and MS to mostly developing-nation consumers..." --http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2777354
These companies are much more ethically inert than you think. It's just a new sort of marketing that uses the lifestyles of the CEO's or the employees as a selling point. The change in economics, or straight out charitable donations as a selling point.
Android is shifting things for certain, but it's not one laptop per child.
The fact that the devices cost lesser(even before the phone company subsidizes it) and yet have GPS and an accelerometer enables me to at least attempt certain kinds of applications that target the mass market here in India.
Also, the ability to read the source code allows me to learn about a smartphone operating system in the same way I got know about a PC operating system by reading Linux's source code.
I would never want Android to be like OLPC. Android is more like a free market. OLPC was charity.
Apple has every right to protect its intellectual property. I think it is equally important for Americans to debate about, and review, the American patent system (where required).
Overall, if HTC can pay royalties to MS, then I guess they can do the same with Apple.
Henry Ford brought the price of a car down to a price that people can afford. The design to do so was to sell more cars. That's what creating a market for commoditized and mass marketed products does.
But the quote implies that there is some kind of huge shift of either money or power from a large company to the consumer (really poor consumers too!). It's not, it's a shift of a market from one paradigm (and a few companies) towards Google's paradigm where they make money off the back end.
If people don't want help, why force it upon them?
Disclaimer: I love Android and 100% of my slates are running it. I love that it's free. Check my profile, it's all I do all day.
I'm just calling out your "Joe the Plumber" reference.
First, you have to define "bad". It's not bad for the planet, or bad for society as a whole. It's bad for the person who has that belief, because it leads him to act against his self-interest (as a poor person) and making him act for the interest of richer people.
Shouting "Why should the rich pay higher taxes so the poor can get better healthcare?" when you're yourself poor isn't "good" for you, is it?
It depends on how important your principles are to you. One expression of altruism that the left in the US doesn't seem to respect at all is the idea that someone who's poor or unemployed might still believe that it's not healthy for society to grant him all sorts of entitlements.
Put another way, apparently "voting for your own self interest" is a good thing only when the lower and middle classes do it. I find this hypocritical in the extreme.
Shouting "Why should the rich pay higher taxes so the poor can get better healthcare?" when you're yourself poor isn't "good" for you, is it?
I'd like to think that my bank balance doesn't determine my political thinking, with regard to what I believe is the best way to run a society for the long term benefit of all of its members.
I wholeheartedly reject the notion of 'class' when applied to productive adults in the United States. So the rhetoric of rich versus poor means nothing to me, beyond referring to an unreasonable concern that some people seem to have with numbers stored in a bank's database under keys associated with other account holders.
So if you're poor and left-wing nobody should take you seriously? What if you're rich and left-wing?
And I don't think a lot of people have a problem with the rich voting in their self-interest. It's when they control the airwaves and purchase the government that people get upset.
(Needless to say, I'm not referring to people in the 250k-500k band here, but rather that 1% that controls half the wealth of the nation.)
You lost me. Can you rephrase that point (or maybe I should)?
Trivializing money by referring to it as "just numbers in a bank" is surreal. Those numbers in a bank are the #1 determinant of whether you will do things like: eat, have a roof over your head, or pass on your genes.
It's pretty much impossible to overemphasize the importance of those numbers.
You're pretending that class doesn't exist while you pretend that money doesn't matter. Class is real. And class is important specifically because money does matter. A lot.
As for Joe the Plumber syndrome, there's a relevant quote from Vladimir Nesov. Something along the lines of "revealed preference is not a very charitable way to interpret people's actions."
If the Joe the Plumber wants to support tax cuts for the rich and he's fully aware of his situation, then there is no issue having that opinion. But if his self-image is distorted (as was implied by the media reports), then it is bad to posses that as it means you will be making wrong decisions based on incorrect understandings.
The issue isn't his desire to aspire to greater wealth, it's his unrealistic understanding of what his actual financial status is.
For example: I don't make 250k/year, but I'm opposed to increasing the taxes of that income bracket. Perhaps a true value driven person sees taxes not as a way to get more of what they didn't earn, but as something that isn't morally right.
Here's how I see Joe: he gets upset that Obama is going to raise taxes on the rich to give benefits to the poor, because he thinks he's rich. But as it turns out, he's poor: he makes $40,000 a year and would greatly benefit from Obama's tax cuts. This confuses me not because of the politics, but because he is acting against his own self-interest because he thinks his self-interest is something that it's not. If he did own his plumbing company, he'd see a little less profit due to Obama's tax increase. But he doesn't own the company and probably will never will; he wasn't even a licensed plumber and he left his job there.
To apply this to phones, people imagine themselves in the position of being a phone software company, when they are really phone developers or users. In this case, Android is good, because it means more users will be using their phone, and that means more apps or more users buying your apps.
EDIT: to bring this closer to topic: is it really "transfer of wealth" if the wealth was never really there? Most new cool gadgets get commoditized. If anything, Android is probably one of the better-designed systems under the hood (at least as far as the app API goes). Either way, the first smartphones were themselves incremental improvements and iterations over prior things like PDAs, etc.
The same link as above: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_the_Plumber#Personal_contro...
The comparison to Obama's tax plan was not off topic, because "Joe the Plumber" was in fact characterized and quoted by the media as someone who was going to have his life changed for the worse due to Obama's tax plan, when in reality, nothing in his life would have changed, but he still argued against the tax plan.
""I'm getting ready to buy a company that makes 250 to 280 thousand dollars a year. Your new tax plan's going to tax me more, isn't it?""
The answer to his question is A.) No, you're not buying that company. And B.) Yes, each dollar you made above 250K would be taxed at a 3% higher rate than normal, if you did. So $3,000 per $100,000.
Misunderstandings abound about economics. It does not mean all opinions flow from misunderstandings, but many are colored by them. Most people (regardless of their opinion on taxes and spending) do not realize that federal revenues as a percent of GDP are at 20 year lows. Which is not surprising, as taxes have been cut systematically over the years.
Yet people generally "feel" like the federal gov't is taking in more than ever as a percentage.
My criticism is towards the parent's specific argument. I saw a strawman, and felt that it was doing a disservice to the topic.
Explain to me again, slowly. Apple is spending $1B in R&D to design the iPhone. Google is spending the same amount to design Android. Where is this money coming from and is it a sustainable investment from Google?
I don't think it's just about search. I think sometimes Google does things Because They Can and then try to figure out how to make money later. Android's most realistic reason for existence, IMHO, is to ensure that Google users can take their data with them. If there was no Google phone, then the world would stick with Exchange, and GMail is not Exchange.
In terms of business advantage, Android seems to me to be fairly unique. Google created a lower barrier to entry into the 'smartphone' market than either Apple, Microsoft, or RIM. Folks who took advantage of that were people early on were people who had the most to gain (low end carriers like T-mobile, Chinese ODMs who wanted to move up the value chain like HTC). They captured a large (if somewhat chaotic) developer market by making much of the source code for the system available for download, and they did create the ability for an individual to create a nearly complete phone 'stack' for certain types of hardware.
The established players greatly underestimated the impact of capturing the 'hobbiest' phone market. (Much like the established data processing players missed completely the impact of the hobbiest computer market).
Google generates anywhere from two to three billion dollars a quarter in free cash flow, which accounts for any and all R&D investment in Android, so its a classic example of being able to take huge profits from your cash-cow market (Search advertising) and disrupt a different market (smartphones) which is the fastest growing channel for advertising (Mobile ads).
Not to mention that Google probably has a better network than any phone carrier today, and they have a voice calling product (Google Voice), its entirely possible at some point for them to create a 'phone' system based entirely on WiFi (like, maybe something with this new whitespace bandwidth that is available or a bunch of hotspots) which gives you a device which can replace AT&T or Vodaphone or whomever.
Ultimately Google understands that nobody bought a smart phone because they 'wanted to be a customer of AT&T', rather they bought it because as a tool it made them more productive. If Google can back into owning that whole stack then their company becomes just that much more valuable.
Worth throwing a bit of pocket change at is it not?
What it does destroy (or more likely, just moves around) is money. There's a great big whopping difference between the two. What was certainly destroyed is power, ripped from the hands of a few and dissipated among many. This makes some people very angry.
From the perspective of most people discussing this wealth and money are interchangeable and it's not helpful to start substituting in new definitions (even if those definitions are justified).
http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
Drop down to "Money is not wealth". Paul did a much better job of explaining it (and why the distinction is important).
When you say "it destroys [...] money" that's what they mean, you're just picking on their choice of words.
As it goes I agree with you about it creating wealth (see my post elsewhere in this thread), I just don't think the right way to express it.
There are things Android does for free (or very cheaply) which ask serious questions of competing products but what about the efficiencies that are created because more people have access to functionality which enhances their lives and businesses and the new markets it creates?
Free turn by turn navigation software may destroy wealth for, say, Tom Tom and Garmin, but what about all the people who now have it but didn't before and who are now wasting less time as a result? Some (not necessarily all, but some) of that time will translate into additional wealth for them and those they deal with. Similar cases can be made for getting better information on the go (via e-mail and the web) and so on.
Not to mention the app developers who can now make money where no market previously existed, the handset manufacturers who are selling more expensive handsets, the networks who are selling data plans, the smartphone accessory manufacturers.
It would be hard to quantify what has been created against what has been destroyed, but I'd wager that it's far more accurate to describe what has happened as a disruption or a move than destruction.
Claims Accused HTC Android Products 1. A computer-based system for detecting structures in data and performing actions based on detected structures, comprising:
an input device for receiving data; (a mouse)
an output device for presenting the data; (a screen)
memory storing information including program routines including (computer memory)
an analyzer server for detecting structures in the data and for linking actions to the detected structures; (a browser which detects anchor tags (structures) in html and links actions to them (clicking on a link opens a web page.))
a user interface enabling the selection of a detected structure and a linked action; and (The web browser allows the user to select anchor tags with the mouse.)
an action processor for performing the selected action linked to the selected structure; and (The web browser is also the "action processor" which performs the "selected action" (opening a web page) linked to the "selected structure" (anchor tag).)
a processing unit coupled to the input device, the output device, and the memory for controlling the execution of the program routines. (All computers have a processing unit, CPU, linked to their input and output devices and memory which "control the execution of the program routines.")
Here you can download a copy of the patent: http://www.google.com/patents/about/5946647_System_and_metho...
Note the figure on the front page: a computer system with a floppy drive and printer attached. The computer system Apple is referring to in the patent is any personal computer.
In fact, depending on how liberally you can interpret things like "input device" and "output device" I could make an argument that elements of Google search infringe (e.g. the bits that parse a site's menu structure into a virtual ToC for faster access).
Claims using regexes to match patterns in a piece of text is infringing.
By way of example, the functionality within the Nexus
One includes Android's "Linkify" functionality, which
"take[s] a piece of text and a regular expression and
turns all of the regex matches in the text into
clickable links.Some patent applications really make sense to me. I read 'em and I say, "Wow, that was pretty clever. I never would have thought of that." Whether or not we should allow patents is a different question, but if we do, I get why the patent is valid.
These, though, I don't get. I know patents claims are a special language, so maybe I'm missing something, but I'm pretty sure a NeXT OS box circa 1991 running common apps covers all this.
The patent we're talking about is here:
Edit: True, I realize he can't get in trouble for "almost" infringing. I was just trying to point out that the core part of the patent is not a input/output/cpu but the processing and converting of text into links. This is trivial and it's embarrassing that our system allows such time and money to be wasted.
A patent conveys the exclusive rights to make, use, offer for sale, sell, and import the patented invention inside the US. To be deemed to "make" the patented invention, it is not necessary that you separately make each of the elements of a claim; it is sufficient to buy them each from a supplier and combine them yourself.
But, in any case, HTC is not being accused of making the patented invention inside the US. They are being accused of importing it (and presumably selling it and offering it for sale).
This is very basic patent law. It is difficult for me to imagine that your ignorance of patent law is so deep that you posted your incorrect assertion out of incompetence, which leaves me with the alternative of malice.
Thomas, why are you attempting to derail discussions of the dangers of software patents by maliciously posting false information?
And while I appreciate your transparency, we are discussing an actual software patent; we are not here to provide a soapbox to rail about software patents from.
Misspelled references to 17th-century fencers, while amusing, are merely a distraction.
So, I ask again, why are you trying to derail the discussion with falsehoods and amusing distractions? What's your motivation for making rational discussion of patents more difficult? If the continuing discussion annoys you, I for one would appreciate it if you simply didn't post instead of trying to disrupt it with misinformation.
Discussing actual software patent cases is a much more reliable way of understanding the effect of software patentability on the world than attempting to reason from abstract principles and hypothetical situations, and the issues at stake here are much bigger than this particular patent. Mere railing is of course unproductive, but rational debate is essential.
My point is that the invention we're talking about must include all these elements. Dell computers do not infringe the patent simply because you could use them to create something that potentially infringe the patent. Obviously, Apple doesn't even build all the parts of their "invention". Why would you think I would be making that argument?
Moreover, to restate a point that you are militantly evading: you don't even know which claim(s) in this patent were found binding. It is more than possible, in fact likely, that it isn't simply the independent claim at the start of the patent but rather a combination of dependent and independent claims that were found to be meaningful.
Finally, I'm just going to keep saying this: I am not defending the patent we're talking about. I'm reacting to the guy who creates an "internal app" for his company and believes he is now infringing this patent because it regexes phone numbers.
I see; that makes more sense.
> My point is that the invention we're talking about must include all these elements. Dell computers do not infringe the patent simply because you could use them to create something that potentially infringe the patent.
Yes, of course; that's the "staple article of commerce" doctrine. But we're not discussing whether Dell computers themselves infringe the patent, but whether an infringing system built with purpose-built processors would still be infringing if you used off-the-shelf computers from Dell instead of purpose-built processors.
The answer is that it would. Buying some of the elements of the claim off the shelf is not a defense against infringement, and even if it were, it would be irrelevant when you're being charged with importing or selling rather than making an infringing article.
(It's possible that under the machine-or-transformation doctrine, a process might be unpatentable, and patents on it might be invalid, if it could be implemented by software on a general-purpose computer, because a general-purpose computer is not a "particular machine". Unfortunately In re Bilski and Bilski v. Kappos have not resolved this question, but only left it muddier than before.)
> Obviously, Apple doesn't even build all the parts of their "invention". Why would you think I would be making that argument?
Because you said:
> did you also build "a processing unit coupled to the input device, the output device, and the memory for controlling the execution of the program routines."? No? Then you aren't even nominally infringing the broadest independent claim of the patent.
The key word here is "build". The person you were responding to had said:
> I just recently implemented this exact same functionality for one of my company's internal apps.
It's patently obvious that he was combining his program routines ("internal apps") with a processing unit coupled to the input device, the output device, and the memory for controlling the execution of the program routines. You brought up the fact that he probably didn't build the processing unit, claiming that he couldn't be infringing if he didn't build it. But the presumed fact that he didn't build it is irrelevant.
In another thread, you wrote:
> I'm strongly inclined to believe that no, your infringing product needs to embody a purpose-built device.
These assertions of yours are false and have no foundation in patent law. However, I retract my earlier claim that you already knew that.
> Moreover, to restate a point that you are militantly evading: you don't even know which claim(s) in this patent were found binding.
I wasn't evading it; you just hadn't stated it. Now that you've stated it, it's trivial to demonstrate that it is false. The comment at the root of this thread links to Florian Müller's blog post at http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/07/these-tables-show-ho..., which shows exactly which claims Apple is asserting against HTC, and which ones the ITC judge found that HTC is infringing: claims 1, 8, 15, and 19 of the '647 patent, and claims 1, 2, 24, and 29 of the '263 patent.
> I am not defending the patent we're talking about. I'm reacting to the guy who creates an "internal app" for his company and believes he is now infringing this patent because it regexes phone numbers.
Rather than just reacting to him by posting the smokescreen of nonsense and bullshit that you did, it would be more useful to collaborate with him by honestly and accurately explaining the actual patent law and accurately analyzing what would be necessary for his "internal app" to infringe it. Whether or not he is manufacturing his own processors is irrelevant to that.
However, yes, I believe otherwise, if you're selling the software to US customers. (The "internal app" guy isn't selling the patented invention, but he is making and using it.)
It is an infringement of this patent to sell software that regexes phone numbers (in a "server") and makes them into clickable links to take some action, if you're selling it to US customers.
Installing the software on a computer and running it necessarily produces an infringing system, according to Apple's assertion, which the ITC judge has upheld. The staple article of commerce doctrine does not protect the sale of articles "which are only adapted to be used in a patented combination".
Microsoft v. AT&T would seem to protect you if you're exporting the software rather than selling it to consumers within the US; "The master disk or electronic transmission Microsoft sends from the United States is never installed on any of the foreign-made computers in question. Instead, copies made abroad are used for installation." However, it would be very surprising indeed if courts construed that to protect sellers of software for use inside the US, in particular because Microsoft was still paying AT&T revenues for US copies of Windows in that case.
Second, you've misread the patent. The "server" needs to be in the same machine as the input and output device. The patent description defines the terms used in the claims language (you will easily find a basis for that assertion in patent law if you look); here, the server is a subroutine coupled to the system via an application programming interface.
Further, I believe if you take the time to poke around, you'll find software extracting patterns from text in the prior art references. Claims cannot be interpreted to substantially duplicate the descriptions (not simply the claims) of cited prior art.
Finally, your logic doesn't work. In your worldview, if I sell frobnitz flanges, and Apple invents a phone that uses frobnitz flanges to legibly display the otherwise invisible color blurple, and then files a blurple-display patent referencing frobnitz flanges, I can no longer sell frobnitz flanges. Any elementary description of "how to read patent claims" will show this logic to be false. The infringer must violate all the elements of the claim.
(Late edit: I mean to say, the direct infringer).
I'll take your word on the definition of "server". I'm not sure why you think I misread the patent, though. If I thought the "server" had to be on a different machine, I'd be claiming Android didn't infringe.
You are correct about claim construal, but no narrower construal suggests itself to me for this claim. So perhaps you are mistaken and there is no such cited prior art, or perhaps the examiner should have stricken this claim, or perhaps there is a narrower construal that isn't obvious to me.
You are mistaken about my worldview. My worldview comes from patent law. In your example, if people have been buying frobnitz flanges before Apple's new invention, they are clearly adapted to some other use than displaying blurple. So, in my worldview, they are a "staple article of commerce", a term I have used several times in this discussion and which you would do well to look up, so their sale is non-infringing. However, a piece of software whose installation and use on a computer necessarily infringes the patent is not suitable for substantial noninfringing use (unless perhaps you can argue that its use to paper your wall or as an illustration in a discussion about software patents is substantial), so selling it separately is clearly just an attempt to infringe the patent in a sneaky way. (Presuming, of course, that the patent is valid at all.)
This is not some hare-brained theory I just thought up on the spur of the moment. You'll find it explained in any patent law textbook, in quite a number of online introductions to patent law, and in §271 (c) of the Patent Code. You are welcome to attempt to explain to Congress and the Supreme Court that their logic doesn't work because it forbids the sale of frobnitz flanges or whatever, but don't blame it on my worldview.
That sounds like you have just described pretty much any user facing computer ever built. Can you explain how this narrows the claims of the patent in any significant way?
Is this trivial to build with COTS parts? Of course it is. Does it describe a web app? No. Web apps do not comprise input, output, memory used to store program routines, a processor coupling them, a server running on that very processor for that uses patterns to recognize structures such as phone numbers, and an action processor that executes specific code stored in that memory based on the structure the analyzer server found. In a web app, half that stuff happens on a server on a different computer, and half happens in the web browser.
If they wanted their patent to describe web apps, they would have said the server was communicatively coupled to the input/output processor, resided on a computer that may be different from the computer with the input/output processor, and that the subroutines run in response to user selections might run either on one computer or the other, &c.
This is not an awesome patent. That's not the point I'm making.
"...identifies structures in computer data, associates candidate actions with each detected structure, enables the selection of an action, and automatically performs the selected action on the identified structure... the system may operate on recognizable patterns for text, pictures, tables, graphs, voice, etc. So long as a pattern is recognizable, the system will operate on it. ... The present invention provides a computer system with a central processing unit (CPU), input/output (I/O) means, and a memory that includes a program to identify structures in a document and perform selected computer-based actions on the identified structures. The program includes program subroutines that include an analyzer server, an application program interface, a user interface and an action processor. The analyzer server receives data from a document having recognizable structures, and uses patterns to detect the structures. Upon detection of a structure, the analyzer server links actions to the detected structure."
So they "invented" a device that has embedded pattern feature-extraction, communicates with a server to perform recognition on the extracted data, and return the results, with which the device can do anything it wants with.
Yeah, I don't buy that this is an invention in the 21st century, with no prior art.*
This is a patent for integration of prior inventions, and not really an invention itself (hence, not a real patent). Pattern recognition is an invention; putting it on a device is not. Even if we say "yeah, let's grant patents on integration," there is still prior art for this particular one since it is so broad.
*EDIT: it has been pointed out that this patent was filed in 1996.
Maybe not in the 21st century, but it might be in the 20th century which is when the patent was filed (1996).
The simple answer is, as we all know, that there isn't, and that they've wrapped some fancy language for a general purpose computer around regular expressions (which very substantially predate the patent) and managed to get the patent granted. This is ludicrous.
In this case, Florian Mueller is using examples of Android functionality to illustrate individual elements of the body of a single independent claim. You've excerpted his example without context, leading a reader here to believe that Apple is patenting random Perl features.
Patent: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...
* an input device
* an output device
* an associated memory
* a server
* a UI
* an "action processor", and
* a processing unit coupled to the input device, the output device, and the memory.
Did you build that? No? Then what are you talking about?
And please, please, please: before we open up Pandora's shipping crate full of geeky arguments about how an end table, a sofa cushion, and an abacus could also be construed as this particular claims construct, can we also acknowledge that we don't know exactly which claim in the document was found binding on HTC? The ITC ruling isn't, as far as I can tell, published on the web. The reason patents have broad independent claims followed by strings of specific dependent claims is that the dependent claims are the ones usually found to be enforceable.
† thanks for the correction
So in other words... a computer?
A huge amount of modern software patent language is simply generic, copy-paste babble to say, in long and drawn-out terms, "on a computer". This doesn't make the patent any less stupid.
We don't know which of the claims of this patent bound on HTC.
The initial independent claims of patents are deliberately written to be as broad as possible, to insulate the patent from technological changes. The IP lawyers who draft Apple's patents go way out of their way to make sure that first anchoring independent claim is as general as possible.
A reasonable expectation is that it's not simply the initial independent claim --- which, by design, is the claim mostly likely to be challenged as over-broad --- but a combination of independent and dependent claims that actually bound HTC.
Given that, I'm super not interested in discussing whether a court is likely to find that any computer ever built running Linux violates this patent. I'm strongly inclined to believe that no, your infringing product needs to embody a purpose-built device.
I think your logic about "huge amounts of modern software patent language" pertains to the patent description, not the claims.
Does the answer to the above question affect how you feel about the patent (and/or patents in general)?
A patent protects the invention, not the text of the patent. The more realistic question is whether HTC's implementation was worked out by looking at how the feature works on iOS.
So far as I understand, iOS doesn't have the same sort of Intent architecture, so it seems unlikely that that Google's implementation drew any inspiration from iOS (especially as the same sort of thing has been done in web browsers for years to the point where a browser might be prior art).
Generally, I think software patents are as bad as we tend to say they are.
However, caricaturing their badness with statements like "Apple patented regular expressions on URLs" or whatever sucks power away from the argument that they should be abolished, by allowing the "grown-ups" to point and say that opponents of patents think that e.g. this one says you can't regex URLs.
But regardless of that, having read the 21 claims of the '647 patent (I don't fully understand the other one, but this is the one that covers what this thread is discussing), there's nothing about it being tied to purpose built hardware.
The example implementation described in the patent itself uses a Power Macintosh, the only part that refers to purpose built computers is "For example, program 165 in FIG. 1 can be stored in ROM, disk, or in dedicated hardware. In fact, it may be realized as a separate electronic circuit."
The term "a processing unit coupled to the input device, the output device" is only being used as a generic way of describing a computing device (hence the Macintosh being used in the example and the reference to dedicated hardware is only made as an alternative method of implementation)
If this patent is valid, it's likely covers a wide range of computer application including those found on desktop computers (for example Skype's phone number highlighting plugin).
Also it talks about detecting structures in a grammar. That has been done before. So putting that on a server and accessing it with input and output devices makes it new and original? Surely an old-style unix terminal running awk on a PL/1 could fit in this broad terminology.
Too many times discussions on here have been shortcircuited by claims that the complainant just doesn't understand patents. The discussion fizzles and the absurdist situation with software patents continues.
I've read this patent in detail, as gruelling a task as that is, and it does seem to be as trivial as others are suggesting (as is the case for most trivial patents that get criticized on here). The claims that detail, essentially, a computer are boilerplate in 99% of software patents. They are not particularly relevant and add little specificity.
EDIT: Another submitter has posted a listing of Apple's specific complaints, and it is exactly as others are suggesting -- Regex'ing input and identifying types of text.
Thankfully Apple itself has provided such an interpretation, and their interpretation, worded to best be in their favor, is exactly as trivial as many have suspected.
This is a critically important discussion for this industry.
Getting geeks to dislike patents is easy. We have a lot of geeks who hate patents and are passionate about it. Yet the patent system hasn't been changing as a result. Why not?
Isn't that kind of strange? Aren't we the ones who most benefit from patents?
"Do you really think that the opinion of people on HN has a measurable impact on our patent system?"
Yes I absolutely do. In fact I think the next 24 months will see a lot of debate and eventually significant change to software patents in the US. All I care about are defusing those who attempt to make everyone feel too ignorant to have an opinion about patents (such attempts appear in every discussion about patents. Lots of hand waving about how we all just don't get it, leave it for the big boys, etc)
No. The two groups that benefit most directly from patents are established companies which wish to block competitors, and patent trolls which wish to sue lots of people.
For the kind of startups that HN people are interested in, patents are an exercise of interest mostly because of their potential value to investors and purchasers. But in the meantime they cost money, don't affect sales one bit, and you likely won't get them until years after it is obvious whether you've succeeded or failed as a business.
Until the big boys decide that the cost of patent trolls exceeds the benefit of their patent moats, nothing will change about patent law. In particular I see no sign that the next 24 months is critical. In fact I'm willing to bet you money on that. The next 24 months is mostly going to be spent with a Republican Congress (who see patents as "business friendly" and have bigger political fish to fry) fighting with Obama. After that we'll have a new administration, which is going to focus on top political stuff for their first 100 days.
My personal suspicion is that the economy is going to go south again, credit problems are coming back in a big way, and financial/economic issues are going to keep software patents off of the list of priorities for a long time.
Getting geeks to dislike patents is easy. We have a lot of geeks who hate patents and are passionate about it. Yet the patent system hasn't been changing as a result. Why not?
If you can't get geeks, who should all have at least some distaste for software patents, to agree on a solid argument against them, then how can you expect to convince congress? One could view these geeks-only debates as individual geeks refining their arguments and accumulating additional information, in preparation for attacking the problem at its legislative source.
The situation, in other words, looks like a ticking time bomb for the other phones looking to copy the iphone - android or whatever.
Is there anyone who's analyzed apple potential patent portfolio in the mobile space?
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/07/these-tables-show-ho...
The patent: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...
We should spend energy abolishing them rather than debating how they work.
just my 2c
This is a continuing source of confusion for me, how a group of people who generally can't rest until they understand something can be so willfully ignorant about patents.
You insult this community while offering absolutely nothing to counter any complaints about this patent except for, as others have tried, vagaries. Patents are public, so if you've actually got something, let's see it. Otherwise it's just noise.
Simply responding to every patent comment with vagaries and innuendo is not enlightened or helpful. It's unhelpful noise meant to short-circuit discussions about the very, very broken patent system.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2777338
That _IS_ essentially what the patent claims. Ptacek tried to add specificity by pointing out that Apple essentially added the disclaimer "on a computer", which is of marginal usefulness.
His original response was wrong, and was the classic alluding to some deeper (but never stated) meaning to the patent. There is no deeper meaning. That is it.
What the patent claims is a device that has every element of a claim. Not just one element, or some elements. If it doesn't have every element, it's not an infringement.
More handwaving, however. This is why we can't have nice things.
You are wrong. Ptacek is wrong. AND APPLE AGREES. How is this nonsensical side discussion still occurring? The specific example is one that Apple used, so...what is going on here?
By my understanding, the patent claims the (obvious, with mountains of prior art) behavior of auto-generating hyperlinks from text using regular expressions, so that (for example) when you receive a text message with a phone number in it, that phone number can be detected with regex and displayed as a hyperlink. When you click it, it can then say "Call, Save To Contacts" etc.
That's just one of the supposed infringements. Your comments here make it sound like this is a legitimate patent, and that HN geeks are simply too stupid to understand the issues. Well, we may not understand the obscure details of every patent claim, written as they are in fearsome legalese, but we understand very well when a company like Apple is trying to make an end-run around the Patent Office. We grok it. Don't pretend we don't, or that our understanding is somehow skewed.
If someone wants to discount an opinion about a patent, they have the patent at the ready for their arsenal. Copy pasting the long-form version of "on a computer" is not a response.
If you don't understand the patent claims, you do not understand what the dispute is. End of story.
This sounds exactly like the iPhone feature that allows you to tap a phone number in text and call it. What else could it possibly describe?
The patent was written in 1996. The description above is correct. The question is, was it obvious or not. Was there prior art (some people mentioned some agenda software from 1992, that's worth looking into).
In my book, it's quite simple: either people were doing it before the patent was written, in which case it's obvious and deserves to die, or it was never done before, in which case it doesn't matter how obvious it seems in retrospect.
This isn't necessarily true.
There is also a general concept that if something is obvious to a general practictioner, then it should not be patentable. Does anyone believe that minus the iPhone or that 1996 patent submission that someone else in the computer field wouldn't have "invented" the concept of linking distinct types of text? Now I know that there is plenty of prior art, and this patent will be invalidated, however just discussing the concept that it really was the very first implementation.
Remember the idea of a patent is that you are granted a government monopoly in return for revealing, essentially, your secrets. Who thinks this is a secret? Or the vast majority of patents, for that sake. The current situation is not one where people are actively stealing techniques, but instead it's one where many independent teams of developers inevitably end up at exactly the same end result. That is clear evidence of the farcical, not-as-intended patent system.
Stop and brainstorm for a couple of days about every nuance and variation of wearable or implanted computer. File patents in the hundreds. In a few years you will be a trillionaire.
But very feasible for IBM, Microsoft, Apple, etc. - companies with many laywers and engineers, and lots of money.
"If something is blindingly obvious at the time, it probably won't get a patent. The USPTO and other such agencies are not perfect but they are not total imbeciles."
The USPTO has shown, time and time again, to be willing imebeciles. They have habitually approved virtually all patents, opening them for review only when contested. I have zero expectation that they are doing any serious review of these patents, and they most certainly are not consulting any industry experts to gauge the true novelty of a patent.
As for your statements about the USPTO that is just a rant. It doesn't contribute anything to a real discussion.
Many a perl script has been written pre 1996 to create linked things from plain english text. Automatically turning email addresses in plain text into html links is very common. So have many text adventure games been made which parse english text to present links. Wikis came out pre 1996, and those presented links based on the patterns of english text.
Not to mention text adventure games.
http://www.podgoretsky.com/ftp/docs/Internet/Web%20Publishin...
Why do you comment on a comment you haven't bothered to read properly? Your attitude stinks.
For one, I said 'if' - I simply don't have time to give a patent the full reading it deserves to make an firm assertion, unlike most people in every patent-related post who read the abstract and make BS claims about it.
In addition, I mentioned a previous examples which makes you wonder (1) why this should be an issue now and not a decade ago e.g. with HTC's previous phones (2) how patentable such a thing should be.
I would not be surprised if this kind of thing appeared in the Psion PDAs, either - but it has been a very long time since I used one.
"Deep down in the ITC archives I've dug up the so-called infringement claim charts Apple presented to the ITC in its dispute with HTC. Infringement claim charts, or often just called "claim charts", typically show the language of a patent claim on the left side and a description of the infringing activity on the right side. Any given patent claim is only infringed if all of the characterizations on the left side are matched by (accurate) information on the right side."
If that's truly Apple's own claim-matching chart, it looks pretty deserving of geek scorn. No?
If Apple invented that stuff it might have invented the computer, the internet, and the 21st century too.
Does the linking patent apply only to phones? If not, I've been in violation of this one several times in the past.
That's why the system is so ridiculous and broken.
My understanding was that a patent (unlike copyright, but like musical performances) was something you could not refuse to license, you could only extract a licensing fee. That being sort of the point of the inherent tradeoff of a patent—by making the blueprints public so anyone can use them, the gov't gives you a time-limited right to make money from anyone that uses that.
But the above quote would seem to contradict that. Can anyone explain?
I'm not sure exactly how that translates into a dollar figure for license fees. But the patent holder certainly has an interest in at least appearing to work with potential licensees.
Applying a basic sniff test, if all patents had to be licensed for reasonable fees to competitors, there would be almost no sense in having patents in the first place. Additionally terms like "blocking patents" in terms of intellectual property barriers to entry in a marketplace would also likely not need to exist.
IANAL, but I do believe from my own experience that Apple can effectively decide to not make their patents available to HTC if they so choose in this case.
Some patent pools (e.g. MPEG LA) are set up so anyone can license the patents covered under either FRAND or RAND requirements, e.g. fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory, but participation in patent pools is entirely voluntary. In the case of H264 everyone agreed to these terms to boost adoption and the ultimate value of their patents.
1. Can Netscape (1994) be quoted as prior art? 2. Can an anti-trust case be made against Apple/MSFT etc if Apple does not bring these claims against MSFT? Because, one can claim that there is no other reason except to punish Android if no claims are brought against any of the other violators.
Looks like I'll be closing my doors, too. Software and I: we had a good run...
Here's Apple description of what the patent in question is:
"The '647 patent generally relates to a computer-based system and method for detecting structures and performing computer-based actions on the detected structures. In particular, this invention recognizes that computer data may contain structures, for example, phone numbers, post-office addresses, and dates, and performs related actions with that data. The '647 patent accomplishes this by identifying the structure, associating candidate actions to the structures, enabling selections of an action, and automatically performing the selected action on the structure. For instance, the system may receive data that includes a phone number, highlight it for a user, and then, in response to a user's interaction with the highlighted text, offer the user the choice of making a phone call to the number."
Anyone who's read the patent in detail care to comment if they think MUD clients would be sufficient prior-art to invalidate it ?
This indicates otherwise. This is a shady, shady act by Apple.
What is the future of Android? Should I keep developing apps for Android? Should I be telling my family to buy Android phones?
I know that the summary of these patents is one thing, but the guts are in the claims of the patents.
To what degree is something actually "infringing" on a patent? Does it have to meet EVERY claim? Does it have to just come close? What REALLY constitutes infringement of a software patent like this?
EDIT:
1 more question if anyone has a deeper understanding of this. Why is HTC being sued for something the Android OS is doing? Is HTC infringing, or is Android?
If you were to apply the "oh $CORP got sued and lost a patent lawsuit - I might want to dump $CORP product" uniformly - you will be left with no products to buy in the mobile space at least!
Why is HTC being sued and not Android - Because HTC is an corporate entity that makes money off Android - Android isn't a corporate entity on its own - who would they sue if they wanted to sue Android?
Google develops Android and markets it, and I would assume that they could be sued for developing an infringing product. Google most certainly makes money, and a lot of it, from Android.
But Google makes no phones on its own, unlike HTC and Samsung, so Apple goes after those companies to keep the devices from being imported into the US. And Apple can fight Android in a legal proxy war rather than directly suing Google.
Could you explain how you are most certain of this? I don't believe they make any money from Android. If you mean they make a lot of money on ads from customers accessing their services via a mobile device -- then fair enough but that's not "from Android" any more than they make tons of money "from the iPhone".
Would love a source on this... AFAIK Google never publicly said Android Trademark and Google Apps were not free (apart from the obligation to pass the CTS test suite)
They may not be suing Samsung over this particular patent, but that could easily change.
No, worst case is that Apple doesn't see a reason to grant a license and effectively blocks the sale of HTC Android devices until they remove whatever it is that they're "violating" here (and what that is I have no idea).
Why is HTC being sued for something the Android OS
is doing? Is HTC infringing, or is Android?
Yes, patents are fucked-up like that.
> 1 more question if anyone has a deeper understanding of
> this. Why is HTC being sued for something the Android OS
> is doing? Is HTC infringing, or is Android?
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Smart_tag_(Mi...
This is why software patenting is really bad for all.
"If I get a phone call, and it's from somebody important, bring it to my attention, and I will choose from a number of possible appropriate re-actions, which decision I will then inform you of, and you take appropriate re-re-action, if there is one."
Is it possible that in 1996, when this patent was issued, that the patent office clerks rubber stamping these things had no ideas as to what was meant by the pseudo-technical jargon?
Input device? Output device? Action processor?!
This is some incredibly short-sighted zero sum game consideration. I hope we wake up and fix this before the state of innovation has been set back too many years.
This is nothing new - companies are constantly going back and forth over patent infringements.
I tend to not believe this when an author ends their point with it.
Unless you, of course, agree to license their patents. Then they win by proxy.
Ref: http://ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/archives/WWW-TALK/www-talk-1994q...
these patents are both so obtuse and vague, could they not cover every single computer program in existence?
Some software patents are in fact valid inventions. The fact that today, 15 years later, it seems obvious, doesn't mean it was at the time.
Of course, I'm not sure the idea is patentable, only the implementation.
For me the greatest adverse affect is on open-sourcing software. Open sourcing software is not free, there is a very real cost to the people who share even without lawsuits. If the project is interesting enough, sure people will fork it and contribute but you also get half-brained support requests for people who can't get your project to compile or what not.
With the possibility of lawsuits it becomes even more tempting to just keep your code locked away. For a small or medium-sized company it pays to keep any innovative code locked away internally to avoid patent trolls.
If these claims go through and Android falls on the mercy of Apple to license the technology at whatever price they name if they are gracious enough to, then we have to ask ourselves long and hard, will it be worth the wait until these patents expire? Is there any meaning to having Android perennially over-priced compared to Apple for the next several decades so that Apple wins big with any smartphone sale?
I can understand Apple's desire to protect its IP. But software doesn't need protection for more than a few years. 17 years is way too much for software patents. This lunacy must end.
It's not related as the objects being printed (and could be clicked on) knew their identity beforehand, and established rather, rather than being "grepped" and then using heuristic establish connection to them?
But then what about say simple dictionary that finds words in webpage, and connect to the local or global terminology web-site (couple of tech-related sites have that). Or news site, where certain words are automatically linkified
Interesting read though, maybe I should start stocking up on Androids ready for the black market!
You've got complex systems on top of complex systems that really only benefit a small number of people who understand them and consistently make money off of them.
Let's say I have both Apple and Google stock (ignore for the moment that it's only HTC being sued, because this obviously has an impact on Google's ability to compete with Apple in this market). Should I take the blame that a company I invest in is taking advantage of a complex system to increase the value of my shares? Probably, but unfortunately I have no idea where to start.
In a system where everyone has patents and are suing each other, I think the obvious beneficiaries are the middlemen making money off the process (lawyers being among them). So ultimately I would agree with the parent that lawyers are at least partially to blame for these shenanigans.
Would cellphone carriers be required to prevent access on their network to patent infringing phones?
Patent number 5,946,647 describes recognizing text within strings and doing something with it. That's the basics. OK, well, that has been done since the very first computers were put to use.
Let's see, yup, my HP41 calculator can do that. It was introduced in 1979.
Let me remember...yup, computers before that date did that sort of thing too. What do interpreted language processors do? Scan strings for tokens and take actions based on what they find.
Just check out the History of AI page on WikiPedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_artificial_intellige...
...my guess is that most anything that this patent covers was probably already being done in the 1950's in some form. Modernizing the form to take advantage of, say, touch or the concept of links and new interfaces isn't invention, it is something that any skilled engineer would simply implement as part of applying the solution to new hardware.
When are we going to stop granting patents for implementation rather than invention?
Don't get me wrong. I love Apple. This isn't a jab at them. You have to use the system as it exists or someone else will plant a useless patent bomb in your face and stop you cold. They are using the system as they should, defensively and offensively. No problem with them or any other company, really.
My problem is with the patent system and how it is granting patents for implementation rather than invention. Implementation simply requires stating a problem to someone skilled in the art. That person, in turn, is able to find a solution promptly. And so could thousands of others equally skilled in the art. Invention should have a much higher standard of proof or performance.
More importantly, large companies have the financial horse-power to accumulate thousands and thousands of these "been there done that" patents. What this means is that those engaged in true innovation have to walk around in fear of running into this mine-field for the simple act of doing something that anyone skilled in the art would do as a matter of solving every-day problems.
One of the best examples of how far the idiocy goes are a series of patents granted for the use of pulse width modulation for the control of the intensity of an LED light. This is something that is beyond obvious to any student of electronics.
Yet another example of government incompetence at work? Perhaps the USPTO process should be privatized. Think about it. You could then file a lawsuit against the examining firm for approving a questionable application. That would stop the granting of patents for what amounts to prior art cold on its tracks.
'nuff said.
Despite bias in the media, HTC claims that the ITC lawyer argued that HTC did not infringe. Which means that HTC has a good shot at the appeal...
Also, one of the Apple patents has prior art..its called BeOS...it had some of the features/claims and was out in the market commercially in 1995.
iPhone = 50% of Apple sales
Apple shares = making a top?