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Comment by taligent | Hacker News Reader

A smartphone doesn't infringe on thousands of patents because we have standards in place for 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, H.264 etc which you can license affordably under FRAND terms. This process was what made software patents manageable.

This process needs to be encouraged and expanded in order to dull the impact of software patents. So really there needs to be just as much criticism of Google and Samsung (FRAND abusers) as the patent trolls.

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Unfortunately we don't have standards in place for "click to upgrade" or "slide to unlock" and potentially thousands of other tiny patents that cover the minutia of operating systems and software. Why does it matter that you can use Bluetooth if you can't do anything with it?

There is only ONE way to implement Bluetooth and meet the standard.

There are LOTS of ways to unlock a phone. Including the way every phone was doing before the iPhone i.e. holding down a button. Likewise for click to upgrade and most of the other design and UI related patents.

So you see now why Google and Samsung are just as much of a problem as patent trolls ?

I see you forgot to include Apple in this.

That's about as reasonable as saying there are LOTS of ways to show multiple applications on a screen, Microsoft (and HP) shouldn't have used overlapping windows (and so on).

As a matter of pure legal hackery, I suppose it is impressive that Apple's lawyers have found a way around the previous "look and feel" lawsuit, but the rest of us should realize that an old dog is up to the same old tricks.

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