The Crunchpad is proof of obviousness in iPad design | Hacker News Reader

The Crunchpad is proof of obviousness in iPad design

nikcub.appspot.com

246 pointsnikcub133 comments

Apple is grasping for straws here. The argument that out of the space of all possible designs for a tablet, they own the subset defined by the conjunction of "rounded corners AND flat front surface AND uncluttered design AND thin profile etc." is absurdly overbroad. It's like a car manufacturer arguing they own all car designs that have "good gas mileage AND automatic windows AND bluetooth radio AND leather interior" etc. In the weakest argument the features Apple claims as their own are simply universally desirable features that would be obvious to any designer of such a device. In a stronger argument many of features claimed are necessary for the function of any tablet. Not really comfortable with these IP shenanigans harming the market.

The iPad is clearly derivative of just about every touchscreen UI shown in Star Trek Next Generation. The enterprise is plastered with them. Samsung should just show any episode of the show and count the number of devices that that are shown that look like an iPad.

You know those weren't real devices right?

You can copy the design of a fake device just as easily as you can copy the design of a real device.

In a discussion about design it doesn't matter, does it? We aren't talking about utility patents where the actual functionality and method to achieve it has to be described.

Why is this relevant? They portray a probable usecase, which 20 years or so later seem to become reality. They also show us that the idea of a user inferface like that is not necessarily something "new", but that, maybe, the technology wasn't there at that time. Now it is.

Apple's patent in 2005 was for a device that didn't exist.

Issac Asimov described, in detail, humanoid and mechanical robots in books published 60 years ago.

So when somebody invents a similar robot, should they be unable to patent that invention?

The physical design of a humanoid robot? No; Asimov's designs would constitute prior art (not to mention the existing real-world humanoid robots, or even humans themselves if you want to get existental). Any novel mechanical workings that make a humanoid robot possible would certainly be patentable, however.

Yes, they certainly shouldn't! They can patent the inner working of the robot that they came up with, but they can't patent all possible humanoid robots, regardless of how they're implemented on the inside.

  should they be unable to patent that invention

Of course not, they didn't invent anything.

Yeah, not so much. In fact, the opposite is true. Check the PADD links in one of the other comments on this thread (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/PADD) -- the PADD is chunky and exciting-looking for TV: non-symmetrical, off-center, with visually interesting buttons and do-dads. Looks more like an early Sony Reader or the 2005 Nokia tablet. Not at all minimalist, because that would look lame.

I was referring to more than their tablets.

The helm consoles are large flat touchscreens with black bezels and natural user interaction:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_XNPD380IpBQ/S8jnaB-iM1I/AAAAAAAAJx...

The iPad is absolutely a small version of that device.

iPad have a single physical home button which those don't have and that's something that several manufactures coped. They could use 2 buttons on the same side or mirror the bottom button on the top or offset it from the center or add some lights or even simply change the edge color or add decorative divots in the outside corners etc. http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:PADD_2150s.jpg

But instead of picking one of the trillions of other designs they used the iPad design because it sold well.e

Which manufacturer copied the home button?

Samsung. They changed white square into a white rectangle and that's about it. Design patents are a low hurtle but they they could have at least used a circle/house/drooped the icon or something other than a box for home. I mean outside of the iOS reference what does a box / rectangle even mean?

http://www.phonearena.com/news/U.S.-version-of-Samsung-Galax...

And again, if they had two buttons and use a square for one of them then that's also fine. Or if it's an arrow that stands for play that's cool. But a white rectangle?

The new Samsung phones have no buttons at all on the front. How's that for simplicity? Box means box. It's a rectangle. Apple can't patent the rectangle.

Squares are rectangles. However, you will note that they changed the button format which suggests that they are they where treading a little close to Apple's design / long standing trend of having a single button. I still hate the fact that they use a single physical button to simulate more than one button based on how long you hold it down so IMO it's not really a benefit just an aesthetic choice.

Apple does the same sort of thing, but even more so. Tapping, holding, double tapping, triple tapping, tap and hold, etc. The home button is ridiculously overused, a consequence of less hardware holding more and more uses.

Yes! Excellent point. We all have to admit that there's only so much you can do to differentiate a tablet but when the thing looks identical to the naked eye then you've got a case. The only problem is having to sell that in a court. There are tons of tablets out there that are very obviously not the iPad but this one from Samsung looks exactly the same on first glance especially to the average person.

The Galaxy Tab has two buttons on the side and no buttons on the front, just a tiny camera lens. One button is power, the other is a volume button (it's a single button that you can push on two different sides).

Maybe you're talking about a different product, but the Samsung tablet does not copy the iPad in that respect. I have one right in front of me right now.

>iPad have a single physical home button which those don't have and that's something that several manufactures coped. They could use 2 buttons on the same side or mirror the bottom button

sounds like why 1-click is patentable scheme of thinking.

Few of those panels actually displayed non-static images. Those that did were created using Macromedia Director running on large-screen Macs.

From http://www.trektoday.com/interviews/okuda_qa.shtml

The Okudas: The TNG panel graphics are intended to suggest something well-organized when a viewer sees them in the background of a scene. My advantage, of course, is that they are seldom seen closely, so I rarely have to take the time to figure out a panel in exact detail. As long as it looks credible on camera, I'm okay. This is extremely valuable, because it could easily require ten or fifty times as much time (and therefore labor and money) if I had to have all of the panels done in that kind of detail. The problem with actual software implementations of the style is that it requires far more than simply mimicking the colors and patterns. In order to work well, one has to analyze the tasks and the users' needs in great detail. This is something that the software industry in general does poorly, in my opinion. One also sees the same kinds of issues in things that should be well-understood, like VCR controls and TV remotes. They are all elegantly designed, but the users' needs are seldom adequately anticipated. On the show, I have the advantage that the viewer can assume that I've anticipated the crew's needs, simply because you can see how easy it is for the actors to use the controls.

The users needs are seldom adequately anticipated -- that does, in fact, sound like prior art for the Galaxy Tab.

I concede the point.

If we're talking about the UI instead of the hardware, I don't remember any PADD interactions that involved pinching or dragging. They were always "tapping on buttons" from what I remember (but voice was a major UI element). But I don't know that any of that's really relevant to Apple's design patents.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181689/

We are getting into a fairly geeky tangent here but I think some of the most memorable interactions involve dragging: the engineer at the transporter room controller and the ensign at flight control on the bridge. Both involve dragging some energy level upwards.

You had to swipe upwards to transport someone. I think they used two fingers to move that energy bar or whatever it was up to the top.

Check out the DS9 versions.

http://img.trekmovie.com/images/links/ipadd-ds9.jpg

That has a red case, the screen is physically depressed from the bezel, and there are extraneous white rectangular design elements on the bezel. That would actually not violate Apple's claims were it a real product.

The red case is a smart cover.

No, it really isn't. The UI itself is totally different, with the TNG consoles using a fairly static button-based UI. Most of the PADD's had extraneous hardware buttons, and most of the touchscreens on the ship were not mounted on brushed aluminum roundrects, but rather spread across walls or mounted on consoles that certainly did not resemble the iPad. There weren't any obvious bezels, and the UI was completely different.

Mr. Worf's tactical consoles were mounted on a curved, wooden surface: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_XNPD380IpBQ/S8aEN8erVEI/AAAAAAAAJo...

The conn and ops consoles were a solid piece of glass, and while the glass surface was a roundrect and there was a margin around the displayed interface, there wasn't any physical bezel, and the housing was triangular rather than iPad shaped: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_XNPD380IpBQ/S8aD98o3EII/AAAAAAAAJn... http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_XNPD380IpBQ/S8aD9MMAf3I/AAAAAAAAJn...

And the consoles in the back of the bridge were also dissimilar: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_XNPD380IpBQ/S8aDvkLoPSI/AAAAAAAAJm...

The transporter consoles had triangular housings similar to the conn and ops consoles: http://starsmedia.ign.com/stars/image/article/850/850252/chi...

The only real similarity is that the TNG consoles were touchscreens. Everything else, software and hardware, is different.

Well, the PADD designers there had little concern for function and a lot more interest in making the tech distinctive. I mean, you want Cardassian tech to look Cardassian. So minimalism wasn't what they were aiming for most of the time.

Even so, a few of the PADDs shown were more practical. In particular, take a look at these two PADDs:

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Sarah_Sisko_reconstruct...

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:PADD_stylus_interface.j...

Between the two of them, they give you almost every design element except being black, depending on whether you think those things are buttons or that LCARS is clluttered or whatever.

On both of those, the screen is physically depressed from the bezel like an etch-a-sketch, not flush like an iPad. They also have other extraneous design elements.

The red one is clearly inset, but I don't agree with you about the silver one. That one appears flush to me.

Maybe you can find another image of it or something and prove me wrong, but I can't seen an inset there.

It looks maybe a millimeter inset if you look around the edges. Nonetheless, the plastic casing around the edges is pretty clearly extraneous.

so we have an Apple supporter argueing that millimeter is enough of a difference to maintain originality, while several comments below another Apple supporter

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3334437

suggests that the home button was copied even though " They changed white square into a white rectangle and that's about it." So change of shape isn't enough to maintain originality.

In Russian we have a saying for such cases - "one's desire to climb up the pine without getting the one's ass poked/scratched by the needles".

I don't know about Russians, but I don't function in a hive mind with others, even if we both like Apple products. So don't ask me to answer for another individual's arguments.

The difference between flush and inset is qualitative, and even conceding that point there are significant design differences.

I can't see any inset at all, though a better picture might be able to resolve that. I'm not sure what you mean by the casing being "extraneous" either. It seems to be quite plain, actually, at least on the one. That red one, though, is pretty ugly. Frankly, the stylus is the most obvious difference.

I guess, ultimately, I don't know what to say about all of this. Minimalism has been a trend for quite a while now, given how many products (including many of Apple's) that display it. Is Apple one of the trendsetters? Do they make beautiful products? Absolutely.

But all this patent silliness about getting each others' products banned has just got to stop. Every penny spent on it keeps them from hiring engineers to make something even better than what we have now. I don't like seeing Apple's products banned for using a Motorola standard any more than I like seeing the Galaxy Tab banned for being too minimalist. If they had any sense, they'd call off the lawyers and settle with each other before they waste any more money.

ST: Enterprise had a lot of iPad/iPhone-like devices.

I can't find any videos or pictures (the show predates easy sharing of video and images), but I remember some specific examples.

Thre first is the episode where the captain offends some very picky aliens who produce an essential component, so he has to perform a detailed ritual and uses an iPhone-like device for a reference.

The other was the episode where the crew became increasingly obsessed with minor activities due to some weird radiation, and the captain's obsession was a speech he was drafting on what looks like an iPad.

Generic Rectangle Device was also the standard thing for reports given to senior officers.

They're not grasping at straws, they're taking the opportunity the courts have (foolishly) provided them with and doing everything they can with it. It's absurd, but that's the (broken) system we have in place.

I never defend Apple, but they aren't grasping at straws.

They own design patents on those things, and that gives them protection against things that could be reasonably mistaken for them. Arguments about obviousness are irrelevant under design patent law.

See http://www.theverge.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analys...

>protection against things that could be reasonably mistaken for them //

I'm going to guess you're misdescribing the law here as elsewise they could simply point out that the origin of the goods and hence their distinctiveness is clearly born out by the articles bearing the trademarks of the respective companies.

I know practically nothing of US (presumably this is the jurisdiction in question) Design Patents ... do you have a pointer to a primer (or just the USC), thanks.

  > protection against things that could be reasonably
  > mistaken for them

That sounds more like trademark law.

That said, Apple has to incur a bit of penalty here for being first-to-market. Since the iPad was the first-to-market and the most widely recognized brand, it would not be uncommon for someone to see any tablet (regardless of design similarities) and say, "Is that an iPad?"

It's like Henry Ford claiming that no one else can make cars at the genesis of the Model-T because cars in general are associated with the Ford Motor Company. It would be ridiculous to say that anything with 4 wheels and a combustion engine might be mistaken for a Ford, therefore Ford is the only one that can make cars.

Ironically, Ford fought tooth and nail against an overly generic patent for automobile (similar to a design patent because the guy who owns it is a lawyer and never built an actual model before getting the patent) and won.

http://www.bpmlegal.com/wselden.html

That's not what "design patent" means in US law.

> "That sounds more like trademark law."

Design patents are far more like trademark law than utility patents. And, frankly, the wiggle room for arguing infringement is far less than for Trademarks.

Samsung is not in court for having the same rough shape, or bezel, or frame, or dock connector, or packaging as an iPad. It's there because it has all of these things.

They can literally only lose if the court determines they were making a KIRF.

I'm not a fanboy at all I use Windows, Linux, Apple, Android I'm not employed by 'company X' so unless they pay me I can criticize all I want.

From what I understand Apple refuses to pay Motorola royalties on the basic patent of a "hand-held mobile telephone radio" (or whatever phrase is used). If Apple refuses to pay for such a basic fundamental mobile phone patent how do they expect anyone to take them seriously for simple esthetics/design of a device?

It's not that simple. They don't need to pay Motorola to sue others. If we're speaking legally here then your argument has no legs. If we're talking realistically then you have a point but the courts will think that's irrelevant and make a decision based on the merits of this case regardless of any hypocrisy by Apple either real or perceived.

Now, speaking from a real world perspective and not about law, I'd say that the Motorola case is a lot like the Ford case. I'm the case of Ford you really can't stop others from making 4-wheeled, passenger carrying, combustion engine cars. There was just no other way at the time. Same for "hand-held mobile telephone radios". If Apple gets sued for such a generic technology then every cell phone and walki-talkie maker not paying Motorola royalties should too. In the case of Apple v Samsung, they aren't arguing that others can't make a tablet. You can easily make tablets that are similar (because even I will admit that nowadays there really isn't much more you can do with tablet design) and people have without infringing. But the Samsung tablet is so close to the iPad that its almost indistinguishable unless you inspect it further. It's like if someone made a project management web app and called it "OperatingBase" and it had all the features of Basecamp, a website with the same colors, similar logo, and all the rest. Well 37Signals couldn't sue the other project management app developers (let's pretend they have design patents in this case) but they sure can try to stop the asshole who is very obviously trying to rip off their product and ride its coat tails by hoping consumers who don't know better will think its the same exact thing.

"Arguments about obviousness are irrelevant under design patent law."

Where did you get that idea? Design patents are subject to the obviousness rules just like any other patent.

IANAL, but "obviousness" isn't the same under design patents as under normal patents.

The design for a Coca Cola bottle is "obvious", but it is still protected.

Unfortunately, this misses the point.

Apple's argument is based on the design patents (and "Trade Dress") they have. Design patents aren't like normal patents, nor like trademarks.

They are more typically used to protect something like a car or dress design, and the test for infringement is "would this other product be mistaken for the subject by a normal person"

It's things like the radius of the rounded corners, the location of the button, and the width of the bevel that will be argued here, not how obvious the design is.

http://www.theverge.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analys... explains this pretty well.

(IANAL, and I think design patents are stupid, but this is the law as I understand it. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent#Comparison_to_uti... for more).

  > the location of the button

Do you really think that a 'normal person' would say, 'oh, the location of the button is different. this is obviously not an Apple product!'. I find that doubtful. Being first-to-market and the best-selling tablet to date, most 'normal people' will see any tablet within the same size range wonder, "Is that an iPad?"

Indeed. I've lost track of the number of times my ASUS Transformer has been mistaken for an iPad, sometimes even when docked!

We will be filing suit tonight.

If the radius is formulaic based on the overall dimensions, should it be patentable?

In my opinion, a lot of these claims for the design patent are obvious. The width of the bezel isn't so different than the width of the margins of of the wide ruled spiral bound notebook sitting next to me on my desk. The lab style notebook next to me, which also is almost the same dimensions of the iPad, has almost the exact radius of the corners of the iPad, which feels "right". Not because it's novel, but because humans like rounded corners and the radius is large enough to not be sharp but small enough to maintain a relatively constant distance from the corner of the screen, thus maintaining a feeling of continuity.

So, I'd argue that this form factor is obvious because it mimics the design of objects (notebooks) which humans use in a similar way. Seriously, they even took half the name of a notepad and put it in the name of the device!

A home button in the center is obvious too. If someone told me to draft a device that looked like a notepad and had exactly one button, I can't imagine a design much different than the iPad, or the touchpad, or the samsung. If they told me to put two buttons, they'd probably both be equidistant from the center.

From the Wikipedia article you cited: "...Design patents can be invalidated if the design has practical utility..."

Besides that this is a "natural evolution of design" and using key design formulas some known since more than 2000 years (e.g. golden ratio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio), this (practical utility) IMHO is a similar and one of the strongest arguments against these Apple patents here.

The radius of the corners is given from the size of the screen and the width of the bevel, the width of the bevel by the size of an average person's thumb size, the location of the button generally how you hold the tablet and so that you can easily reach it (upright & sideways).

"There was a lot of prior art when we began the Crunchpad project, and having a tablet that was touch controlled rather than with a stylus wasn't really a revolutionary idea since there were a number of component manufacturers at the time who were scaling up their touch controllers to larger dimensions (9", 11", 12" etc.) in preparation for this market."

Having a tablet that was touch controlled rather than with a stylus wasn't really a revolutionary idea since Star Trek: The Next Generation was aired in 1987, with it's touch-controlled screens [0] and PADDs [1] [2].

BTW. I'm surprised by Star Trek not being mentioned at all since the dawn of consumer touch-screen technology. I expected people to be doing lots of LCARS rip-offs on MS Surface, tablets and phones, and there's almost nothing.

[0] - http://techspecs.startrek.acalltoduty.com/images/galaxy/ed-m...

[1] - http://www.teleread.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/padd.gif

[2] - http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/PADD

> Having a tablet that was touch controlled rather than with a stylus wasn't really a revolutionary idea since Star Trek: The Next Generation was aired in 1987, with it's touch-controlled screens [0] and PADDs [1] [2].

Star Trek: The Next Generation also has FTL drive and matter transporters that don't kill you. The idea may have come from TNG, but I think it's more that using a finger was the next logical step after the stylus than actual "inspiration" on the part of TNG.

> I expected people to be doing lots of LCARS rip-offs on MS Surface, tablets and phones, and there's almost nothing.

LCARS really isn't that practical of a user interface (narrow font, odd color scheme, lack of consistent layouts...) Michael Okuda designed it more to look futuristic and "cool" than to really be something usable.

You're comparing rounded corners and touch-interface (which has existed for decades) to "FTL drive and matter transporters that don't kill you"?

> Star Trek: The Next Generation also has FTL drive and matter transporters that don't kill you. The idea may have come from TNG, but I think it's more that using a finger was the next logical step after the stylus than actual "inspiration" on the part of TNG.

Those are different kind of ideas. FTL drive and matter transporter might not be treated as real idea, but whatever procedures, safety precautions and logistic considerations were conceived around them may prove to be valuable ideas if we ever get to FTL/transporter technology or something similar. On the other hand, touchscreens in TNG were an useful, realistic concept.

> LCARS really isn't that practical of a user interface (narrow font, odd color scheme, lack of consistent layouts...) Michael Okuda designed it more to look futuristic and "cool" than to really be something usable.

Sure it's not really usable (compared to our current interfaces), but I personally assumed that ST is so ingrained in minds of most hackers that such projects would start appearing immediately, as an 'obvious thing to do'.

I think there's fear of legal retribution from CBS. Sure, you can hack something together for your own personal use, but don't even think about making any real money by selling an app that looks all LCARSy.

Yeah, they recently killed a free LCARS app for Android:

http://code.google.com/p/moonblink/wiki/Tricorder

:(.

The notion that a company can patent rounded corners and sue others claiming innovation makes me sick.

Maybe they do actually believe what they do is innovation rather than slight revision (and product/market fit)... I mean, that's what people keep telling them they do ... eventually it must stick.

It's the overall design aesthetic. It's not just one design feature that is being used from the iPad. The crunch pad had a 16x9 screen and was thicker than the iPad.

> was thicker than the iPad

I'm sure they would have made it as slim as the battery and circuitry technology allowed them to do so at that time.

If you think they made it bulky by choice, and then Apple came in and "innovated" by making their own pad thinner, I don't know what to tell you.

If you don't think Apple innovates on 'thin' designs, I don't know what to tell you. And if a tablet came out that looked like the iPad before the iPad, I don't think we would see the iPad as it is today, and everyone would be copying what ever design Apple did do.

Thin is not a patentable idea. If Apple's thinness innovations are truly patentable, then they should get a patent for the specific technologies they've invented and not a design patent for the idea of making something thin. People have wanted thinner computers forever.

Also, the article shows a tablet that came out before the iPad looking at lesst as much like the iPad as the Galaxy Tab.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/1500_150...

http://www.uspto.gov/patents/resources/types/designapp.jsp#d...

http://www.theverge.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analys...

http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=7...

And I don't think the Crunch Pad looks like the iPad. For the reasons stated above, and the rumors of the iPad began before the Crunch Pad was conceived.

It's a bit hard to copy rumors isn't it?

Thanks, I know what a design patent is. (Not sure why you think patent discussion about icon design is relevant to thinness, though.) Thinness is not still not patentable. That's an integral element. Saying that "thin" is patentable is like saying "has a screen" is patentable. Apple's case hinges on the idea that they can own the very idea of a tablet that doesn't suck.

And seriously, this doesn't look like the iPad, at least to the same extent that the Galaxy Tab does? Come on.

https://img.skitch.com/20111209-miewsiy6mswhbbnid2ddfmmqbd.j...

They are welcome to get a regular patent covering their new approaches to implementing thin hardware (e.g. new battery technology or whatever).

Getting on a monopoly on (or due to) the design trait "thin", however, is not acceptable, even if it were the case that Apple came up with the idea of thin devices, which is obviously not so.

I already said it was the overall design aesthetic, not one simple element, but that it's obvious that Apple is a leading innovator in the space of thin industrial design. iPhone, iPod, iMac, the Air, are all some of the thinest in class. Plus you can see how even the CrunchPad/JooJoo changed it's design aesthetic to match that of the iPad after the iPad was publicly announced.

And where/when did monopoly come up in this conversation? To my knowledge patents do not enable a company to a monopoly.

>And where/when did monopoly come up in this conversation? To my knowledge patents do not enable a company to a monopoly.

That's exactly what a patent IS. A temporary monopoly, granted by the government.

> The notion that a company can patent rounded corners and sue others claiming innovation makes me sick.

Apple didn't patent "rounded corners". Apple v Samsung is more than that repeating mantra about rounded corners.

Why would Apple sue Samsung after GalaxyTab 10.1 and not when the original Galaxy Tab arrived?

* original galaxytab http://www.ebooksytablets.com/68-224-thickbox/protector-pant...

* second galaxytab http://messenger.com.es/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/galaxy-ta...

I suggest you to read early Nilay Patel analysis for more understanding about trade dressing and the reasons behind Apple's requirements.

http://www.theverge.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analys...

In my opinion, the second looks like an obvious progression of the first.

After reading the article, I was all I was doing was wondering how could these trivial things possibly get patents that supposedly claims to be new innovation.

Just today morning, I was talking to someone who is getting a patent. He was telling me that you outline the idea, and then the patent lawyers come in to phrase it. I don't know how far this is true, but if true just shows how broken the system is.

You will wonder less if you learn the difference between a patent and a design registration.

The original galaxy tablet looks about as much like an iPad as the second one, with the exception of the case color. The other major physical difference is that the buttons moved on-screen, which doesn't make it more iPad-like.

And yet none of the photos of their devices show a screen that's flush with the front of the tablet - in all of them the surface of the screen is slightly indented from the face of the tablet, like laptop screens and TV screens often are.

Being oblivious to that rather crucial point rather invalidates the entire argument being made since you've clearly designed something which doesn't have an identical design to an iPad, thus the design and form of an iPad is not the only possible design for a tablet.

It's fairly important to remember that in order to infringe a design patent you need to have a design that is 'substantially similar' to the described design rather than simply having design features in common with the described design. Rounded corners is fine, as long as its not rounded corner AND a whole bunch of other design decisions that makes it look identical to an iPad.

And yet that would have made CrunchPad Prototype B an iPad infringer before the iPad came out. In later versions, they seem to have abandoned the mono-surface design, but they clearly considered having it in their initial phase.

I think the larger point here is that inventions and innovation don't happen in a vacuum, and most of the stuff around us is anything but novel. Yet our legal systems act otherwise.

the crunchpad went on to be released as the joojoo, which did have the screen flush. IIRC there was only a single prototype we built out of the later 4-5 where that wasn't the case.

see the pic of the joojoo here:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/tag/joojoo/

edit: just included that in the post

and you can play the 'but its just a..' game all the way back to vacuum tubes with anything. that's what innovation is.

what I am arguing against is the Apple expert claim about the design being a complete leap and unique and not something that would be reproduced without knowing the ipad. I can argue against that because we did just that (as did others).

Did you feel the least bit ridiculous writing that? I know I felt a little ridiculous just reading that. Perhaps I just have a really hard time understanding how any kind of rounded corners or edges could possibly qualify for a patent unless it had some sort of unique function. Form should never be patentable. Function maybe sometimes.

elemeno clearly stated that rounded corners alone is not enough, it's part of many other things. You may disagree that design patents should exist at all, but they do not just cover a single thing.

Also, the "ridiculous" stuff is unnecessary.

The Crunchpad was merely an extension of the ideas from the iPhone/iPod Touch, I think a lot of people could see there was a market for a big iPod Touch. Mostly the competition didn't have an OS ready and Apple was late to the market due to focusing on the iPhone.

And the iPhone/iPod was just an improvement over Windows/Palm phones. I guess the article is echoing the sentiment that these "innovations" aren't worthy of a patent.

I'm really torn by this debate.

On the one hand, for an idea so obvious, Apple was first for both phones and tablets -- and they were "first" very late in the game. Microsoft OEMs made tablets for a decade, but NONE of them (even the slate tablets) really compared to the iPad.

On the other, I don't see how this is a patent. It feels more like a trademark, although the design of the iPad is probably too general to trademark.

My question is: How did the auto industry resolve this? Early cars looked like horse carriages and steered like boats or trolleys. How did the development of the timeless car design patterns (sedan, coupe, wagon, van, pickup, etc) get to the present state?

You imply that Apple's design itself is innovative. That is exactly what the article disputes with a picture from July 2008. A simple tablet with just one button.

Anyone except Microsoft would have come up with just that.

It is innovative by definition, because nobody did it before.

If it's so simple, why didn't Samsung do it?

Paperclips seem like a obvious design that involves no innovation. Yet paperclips similar to what we use now weren't around until 1867, and the "modern" paperclip was patented in 1899 -- 30 years later.

If it's so simple, why didn't Samsung do it?

Because nobody wanted a tablet until Apple told them they did. When there's no market for a device, you don't make and sell one simply because you can. Unless you're Steve Jobs, that is.

There were tablet PCs earlier. Were they usable? No. The point is, minor usability improvements aren't worthy of a patent. Just look at how bad the patent situation is, and how much of that is due to ridiculously silly patents.

It doesn't matter if Samsung did it. It just matters if someone did it. The article clearly shows prior art for Apple's design patent.

I would argue the prior art for that is the iPod Touch which was out a year earlier, and probably conceived earlier than that. When I heard "iPad" rumors in 2009 the first thing I thought was "a big ipod touch." So what's to say these guys didn't see the pod touch and say "Yeah. That. But big"

That's fine any dandy, but I believe Apple is claiming a design patent specifically on the iPad. If we take the iPod touch as prior art, it still invalidates the iPad patent.

Not if the iPad patent was filed in 2004.

Fair enough. The patent actually shows a tablet that looks less like an iPad than it does a generic Tablet PC that one might have bought from Dell in 2004, though.

"How did the auto industry resolve this?"

Perhaps the auto industry's period of innovation and establishment happened during a more rational patent regime.

Not really.

Google "George Selden patent"

Interesting. Then according to this result, http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aacarsseldona.htm , one rational response to patent trolls (established and loved, or merely trollish) is to not pay, to fight.

The early automobile and airplane industries were full of all out patent wars. The airplane patents problem were only settled quickly by World War I and an act of Congress.

Early 20th century patents only lasted, I believe, 17 years, so all those particular basic fights are long in the past. We're just living through the opening rounds of this battle.

I'm glad you brought up Microsoft tablets! It's an excellent point because in all this talk about how the design of a tablet is obvious no one seems to get that it could have and has been done differently in the past. I think a lot of why it's obvious now is because the iPad is the point of reference. If the iPad didn't exist we may have a different view of what's obvious. Even if you take industrial design practices into account that doesn't mean manufacturers would have followed them like many imply.

I feel like there's too much talk about patents. I want to avoid talk of patents, trademarks, and the whole debate surrounding them. Instead, if you first focus on what's really going on here you see things differently. You'll see a tablet that came out first then another competing tablet that looks almost identical. Patents and trademarks aside its pretty hard to miss the similarity and if you consider that MS tablets and other previous attempts weren't designed that way then the whole "obvious" argument goes out the window.

It's normal for competing products to have the same features and many other similarities but there's a point where the competition stops making a competitive product and comes out with something that's a rip off. Patents and trademarks are things we should discuss and are important topics but in this case they're just a tool Apple is using to stop getting ripped off. I know they're abused but I think it's justified in this case. Look at the Samsing tablet next to an iPad. If you don't see the outright plagiarism then youre trying not to see it. I think this is a pretty clearcut case that's getting convoluted by people who are trying to tip toe around the plagiarism by making this about the merits of the patent/trademark system and laws.

Plagiarism? ROFL. Astroturf much? Small, thin, black, touch-screen devices with centered buttons. There's not a lot of room to vary, and no reason to disappoint consumers and make it thicker than need be, etc. Next you'll be telling us Star Trek infringes on Master and Commander because a ship full of people explore and fight.

As for the merits of patents, they exist solely as a tax-funded subsidy for lawyers and lobbyists. They're useless verging on incredibly damaging for industry and thus consumers.

the auto industry never got into this mess because car companies weren't quite so evil, and patent judges at the time weren't quite so stupid. yes, apple is at fault here for pursuing their patents, but the real problem is that the patent courts are actually granting design patents for rectangles. if you want an analogy to the car industry, it equivalent to patenting the a round wheel, and saying that other cars should try different shapes for their wheels if they don't want to infringe. this was never an issue, because the system wasn't so broken back then.

The iPad is basically a big iPhone, so pointing out that there were people making a big iPhone between when the iPhone was announced and when the iPad was announced just shows that they were copying the iPhone instead of the iPad.

Simple, minimalist, elegant designs look obvious in retrospect.

The fact that Samsung, HTC, and others are aping Apple's designs in the iPhone and iPad is clear. Denying it only makes you look ridiculous. The question is, are they aping it too much or are they bringing enough new to the table for it to be considered an original design? That's something that almost has to be addressed on a device by device basis.

Innovation innovates. Revision revises.

Rounded-corners / while you can call it simple, minimalist, elegant design ... is not innovation, it is revision.

Spot on ebbv! Apple designed the iPad long before the iPhone and chose to release the phone first because of technical limitations. While the CrunchPad designs were revealed long before the iPad can they say that the iPhone had no influence on their designs?

AFAIK,the point of a design patent is to protect stylistic (non-functional) elements of a design. The question being asked is whether the common elements between these products are non-functional or actual have important functional reasons for existing. Why are all car tires round, with rubber on the outside, and with cool tread patterns on the outside?

its extremely hard to patent designs and extremely hard to defend such patents..

Want the list of lost patent cases on designs in previous years by Apple?

Does nobody remember that there were big corporations trying to get a tablet out for the last decade and have terribly failed to do so?

The iPad is not at all obvious. It is intuitive. That's why everyone thinks it's obvious _after_ having seen and used it.

http://gdeluxe.com/tablets-before-ipad-part-ii/

Turns out that there are actually quite a few tablets before the iPad that sport design features that supposedly only arrived in 2010.

Perfect link. Thanks!

All of them have either a stylus, are cluttered with buttons all over the place or have a stock WinXP which is totally useless for touch.

For these reasons, all of them failed terribly and nobody bought them. I haven't seen one of these IRL.

I see my point proven, so thanks again for the link.

No. Many of those tablets have features (eg, rectangular shape with rounded corners) that are supposed to be not obvious.

It's more evidence that a lot of iPad is evolutionary not revolutionary. See also PDAs which contain a bunch of features which are covered by patents. (a big menu button at the bottom centre of the screen).

The iPad is just a larger IPhone. The real innovation in design here was the iPhone which release pre-dates even the first announcement of the JooJoo. I think it is naive to think the sleek iPhone design didn't significantly influence all current tablet designs.

To illustrate how not-obvious the design is, compare the original kindle (released prior to the iphone) to the iPad. And now compare the Kindle Fire (released after the iPhone/iPad) to the iPad.

Apparently that doesn't matter, though. The court case is now about the two witnesses arguing about if the iPad is a unique design separate from all other web tablets, or if it is just a natural progression which anybody would have come up with.

I think what this post is arguing is that it was a natural progression, since others were on the same path at the same time.

I tend to side with Apple, but reading that testimony their witness/expert seems to be grasping at straws in some parts.

Two of my previous phones, the Sony Ericsson p800 and p900 both pre-date the iPhone. The former was launched in 2002.

They were truly innovative imo (although probably something similar pre-dates them that I just don't know about), but as a smartphone with a single front screen, and nothing else (the keypad was detachable), they were a first for me.

The evolution from a p800/p900 form factor, to the iphone, is a natural progression as engineering techniques improve. Couple that progression, with Apple's iOS, and you have the iPhone.

My point is, where has it been shown that the iPhone design was the first in any case?

Personally, I think Apple's argument is weak. Either way, Apple will continue to dominate the market regardless of competitors - I just hope they fail so we can see some fair competition.

I had a P800 and I think the difference between the P800 and iPhone is much greater than the difference between the iPhone and the Galaxy. Replacing a raised plastic bezel with a single flat piece of glass is innovative IMO. The feel of using a modern phone is also completely different from the P800.

To illustrate how not-obvious the design is, compare the original kindle (released prior to the iphone) to the iPad. And now compare the Kindle Fire (released after the iPhone/iPad) to the iPad.

First of all, that's simply not true. iPhone first revealed in January of 2007 and Kindle in November. Those are very different devices with very different intentions. Apple building a high end phone; Amazon building a very affordable reading device.

Sure, the Fire will now compete with the iPad but it's a more general use tablet, not just a Kindle e-reader.

Pernicious falsehoods about Apple's iPad design patents (take a drink every time you see one of these in an iPad design thread):

(1) Apple has a patent on rounded corners.

(2) Apple has a patent on rectangular slabs.

(3) One example of vaguely relevant prior art invalidates Apple's protections.

(4) Prior art means anything that came out before the iPad shipped.

(5) There's no other way to design a tablet.

And remember kids: slavishly copying your competitors' designs and style should be encouraged and rewarded!

The thing that I can't seem to get past is that Samsung (and all the other Japanese electronics makers) has been making televisions that closely resemble the iPad for years now. "Black, rectangular, curved corners, thin bezel" has pretty much been the default design aesthetic of flatscreen displays since their popularization. I have a Philips LCD TV that I bought in late 2007 that could be an iPad if you took it off its stand, blacked out the logo, and put a button on one end of it.

http://www.argos.co.uk/wcsstore/argos/images/70-5297124MMA75...

Just because Apple shrunk the black curved rectangle with uniform bezel down into tablet form doesn't mean they actually invented anything new design-wise. They certainly improved upon existing designs, but it's just arrogant for them to try to claim ownership of that particular design aesthetic.

IANAL and I hate to sound like a fanboy, but can't Apple claim that the 2007 iPod touch is prior art, since it's basically a small black tablet with rounded corners and a single button at the bottom? It looks much more similar to an iPad than the 2008 crunchpad.

I posted this video 7 days ago that shows a tablet prototype in 1994 that looks/works a lot like current tablets:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3304198

Both of these posts are completely opposite to what the system of production should be. OBVIOUSLY we would see the apple design as intelligent, and obviously thats how we think intelligent tablets should look now that they have been established as functional and successful, but that is completely the result of apple engineers hard work, not some universal tablet design that just makes sense. I can understand why apple would be so pissed. They created a novel (and initially, quite criticized for several aspects of it's simplicity) piece of technology, and because everyone likes it, they're claiming that it was barely designed at all. Apple made tough and meticulous decisions that allowed them to nail this design, and now, seeing that they are successful, other companies are claiming that those decisions were obvious and effectively unmade. And even if the designs were in fact "obvious," and impossible to do any other way, then why hadn't tablets taken this form before now? And even further, why do we patent things at all, if whenever someone releases a design seen as intelligent and novel, it can be declared as the industry standard and infinitely copyable? We patent so that apple has an incentive to make such a well thought out product, not so they can "shut out other designs that are simply following the same completely objective universal blueprints for the tablet computer."

> then why hadn't tablets taken this form before now?

They have. Many times. Not one aspect of the iPad design is original. That's the whole problem. They're able to claim other people's inventions as their own. It's tantamount to theft.

That's what makes this whole scenario so galling. They're committing the crime they're accusing others of.

I'm surprised nobody made this case before. I remember I started believing in the idea of tablets way before we even heard rumors about an Apple tablet. I started believing in this idea when I first saw the initial Crunchpad mock-ups.

So, the Crunchpad is "proof" that -- having seen the iPhone and iPod Touch -- the iPad's design is obvious. The article doesn't mention the prior release of the iPhone and iPod Touch (remember Jobs starting out by saying Apple was releasing three things, one of which was a tablet computer). I agree that having seen an iPhone the iPad design is obvious. Next.

What about the star trek padd? http://www.inventinginteractive.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/...

* Red case

* Screen physically depressed from bezel

* Extraneous white rectangular design elements on the bezel

DS9's dark cinematography, combined with a device that doesn't really look like an iPad, makes for a device that at first glance looks like a black iPad. Well, at least if you've seen a black iPad before. If it was better illuminated it would look more like a metallic etch-a-sketch.

One thing I like about the iPad innovation debade is that it really stresses the importance of execution (because I think it is weak on innovation). People have had the idea of a touch pad for decades and even tried to execute on it dozens of times with real products. The execution of the idea in the form of the iPad made it a success.

This post, like almost every other on the subject, misrepresents the content of the testimony being cited, and thus the arguments being made. Please read it yourself if you care about having discussion any more sophisticated than "Apple is the Great Satan!"/"NO U!"

(Edit:"Reading primary sources is heresy! Downvote! Downvote!")

There's a good case for Applemif they can get the right point across. Looking back its easy to say that the design of a tablet is obvious but it really isn't.

Since the iPad came out we all have a preconceived notion of what a tablet should look like but had the iPad been designed differently as it very well could have been and it remained as successful then we'd live in an alternate universe where everything is the same including the court cases and me-too tablets except they'd all be copying a different design. Consider this:

Apple could have chosen to use a built in keyboard. They could have used more than one physical button much like Android phones instead of just the home button. They could have used a flat back instead of an convex curve. Consider the similarity in the radius of the corners too - very similar if not the same (I haven't measured though). The black frame is not obvious as a choice. It could have easily had little to no frame. The metal border just outside the frame, also not obvious.

All of this "obvious" talk seems to me like people trying to fit a square peg (the answer) into a round hole (the answer). You may be able to jam them together but it's still not e right fit. "Obvious" is always obvious after the fact. This stuff may make sense from an industrial design perspective but it doesn't mean that tablet makers were ready to actually follow those design patterns. Companies ignore convention all the time when designing products.

And I'm closing I'll leave you all with something a little less compelling. The Samsung tablet really does look an iPad clone. All tablets look somewhat similar but in the case of Samsung it's just so obvious that it looks almost exactly the same and would it be unreasonable to wonder if maybe the similarity was not for usability reasons but just to maybe confuse consumers into thinking "hey, they look exactly alike, I'll just buy the cheaper one since its basically the same thing"?

"Since the iPad came out we all have a preconceived notion of what a tablet should look like but had the iPad been designed differently...we'd live in an alternate universe where everything is the same including the court cases and me-too tablets except they'd all be copying a different design."

Right. All of them.

Except of course for the mid-2009 prototype of the JooJoo mentioned in the article, which was what went to market by the end of 2009, months before Jobs showcased the iPad at the end of Jan 2010.

"'Obvious' is always obvious after the fact."

The person writing the article you're responding to is writing it from the perspective of someone who designed a similar-looking product before the fact.

Okay, you make some pretty good points and I'm not one to hold on to a belief that's wrong for egotistical reasons but I still have a couple of problems with your argument.

First, when you said "Right. All of them". To be clear, I know that all tablets are in a similar vein as the iPad these days. So why doesn't Apple sue all of them? Well I'm no dummy and I know this has a lot to do with trying to stamp out the competition but at the same time the rest of the tablets except the Samsung tablet in question are just different enough to give them some wiggle room. The Samsung tablet, when viewed next to an iPad is so similar that a layperson could easily mistake them as the same and not know the difference until they inspect it further.

I didn't know the author designed a similar tablet previously. But his case could have been a coincidence. We all know that just because design decisions are obvious not every company will follow the rules of design. It's hard to say that the iPad design is obvious unless you actually have working products on the market. Concepts change before being massed produced and a differently designed tablet that was as successful as the iPad could have become the standard and we'd be arguing about whether Apple copied LG's design or Sony's had they come out with such a tablet first.

Approaching this subject from a legal perspective is the wrong way to go. There's this obvious (I hate to have to use that word I'm this context) gray area between "how else do you design such a product" and "that design is just a rip off". Look at the tablets side by side. I can't imagine any regular consumer being able to immediately spot the difference. They look almost exactly alike in a way no other tablet does. There's an aspect of this that can't be proven in court but is plain as day to anyone else and that's where I'm approaching this from. It's like Samsung intentionally ripped off the iPad because they knew they couldn't compete so instead tried to piggyback off people who think the closer it looks to an iPad the better it is as a less expensive alternative. But despite how much anyone knows in these gray areas you can't prove it in court so they're forced to use patents as a tool to stop the rip offs.

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