Apple’s Patent Win Is Bad For Us All
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
> I've learned that the adage about innovation is true — that at first, people say your idea is absurd, then they say it was obvious all along, and then they say it was their idea to begin with.
That's exactly what I've seen with Apple since Steve Jobs returned. Remember all the "giant iPod" comments when the iPad was released? Or the "this will fail without a keyboard" when the iPhone came out? Those people shut up now. With each product Apple released, people dismissed it immediately.
Now people are saying they're "obvious" ideas. The argument that Apple shouldn't be allowed to defend their designs all center around how "obvious" they are. Of course, they weren't obvious when Apple released them. They're only "obvious" now that other companies have copied those ideas. I won't get in to design with most of you because you aren't designers but the simplest solutions are usually the hardest to come up with. It's easy to make something complicated. It's very, very hard to make it simple or intuitive.
You can't rewrite history. When the iPhone was being developed, Android looked like Blackberry. Those are the facts. What should be obvious is that Eric Schmidt sat on Apples board and suddenly pivoted Android before being removed for "conflicts on interest." And you wonder why Steve Jobs was pissed? That's a serious breach of ethics.
Most of the anti-Apple comments are absurd. Like the Xerox thing: Apple didn't steal anything. They paid for something Xerox didn't believe in and weren't going to develop further.
If you have an issue with patents write your congressperson. Donate to not-for-profit organizations trying to fix the patent system. Contact the companies that abuse the patent system (especially if you're a shareholder or large customer) and tell them what you think. But don't use patents as an excuse to attack companies you irrationally hate.
It's not like the iPhone was the first phone with a software keyboard, I remember people using the XDA years before that. In many ways the iPad essentially is a "giant iPod" , just turns out there was a market for a giant iPod.
Edit:
Actually now I think about it I remember a conversation I had with a friend who is a big Apple fan at around the time that the iPhone/iPod touch came out. Something like this:
"Hey, this iPod touch is cool. Now you can watch movies on the go!"
"Yea, but the screen is kinda small, I don't want to watch a movie on a 4" screen. If they brought out a bigger version of this that I could stuff in my briefcase I might be interested."
"Don't be ridiculous, nobody would want to buy that!"
I also remember him trying to explain to me how GPRS/Edge was superior to 3G..
Also no offense but you might want to cut down on the hyperbole. Society is not going to be harmed by companies like Samsung having to find other ways to style their phone or design their UIs.
Rustynails backed his comment with evidence and reasoning, while your reasoning is backed by.. hyperbole.
You seem like the type who would defend patents over for-loops because - Hey, it wasn't obvious to you. How about you come up with an objective test to determine if something is "obvious", and maybe the rest of us will take you seriously. Until then, please, lay more hyperbole on us.
Who has Apple sued that aren't blatantly copying the iOS UI? Are they suing Microsoft over Windows Phone? Are they suing HP over webOS? Are they suing Nokia over Symbian? Are they suing BlackBerry?
I don't see how permitting blatant copying of a company's UI is supposed to encourage innovation. If we want to encourage innovation, then we must encourage companies to innovate -- not copy.
The don't need to, they got Microsoft to buy a license.
It's interesting that Microsoft chose to purchase a license outright rather than work out a cross-licensing deal. It seems like MS did this to lay the groundwork for Apple to purse their competition in the Android space, since Apple could then go to court and say, "Look, even Microsoft paid for a license!"
I'd be willing to bet good money the the reason that Apple licensed iOS UI patents to Microsoft was to make Microsoft sign something saying that they wouldn't copy the iOS UI too closely, rather than for Apple to make a killing on licensing fees. Making a killing on licensing fees is Microsoft's approach, which they have used successfully against Android.
Apple took this same approach they're taking now back with Windows 1: They licensed Mac OS UI elements to Microsoft, but then ultimately sued Microsoft when Apple felt that Microsoft violated the terms of that license and made a UI that was too similar in look-and-feel to Mac OS.
If anything, this is evidence that Apple is not trying to squelch competition or innovation. They don't seem to mind competition at all, and will even license their technologies, as long as other companies aren't slavishly copying Apple's design.
As a customer, I surely don't like the idea only Apple could produce tablets in this shape and size. OK, 5 years, at most.
Why is Apple so nervous about the "look and feel" copycats? Their success roots deep in their core technologies.
Lightbulbs look different than when I was a kid. Oxo re-invented the look and feel of measuring spoons. Objects as mundane as doorknobs have so changed their design over the years that vintage models can be sold for a premium.
It's practically a truism that after the next device comes out -- no matter how simple the device -- there will be people claiming that it's design is "obviously" the only way to do it. I've stopped listening to those people, because they're almost never correct.
What was their idea exactly? Be the first to adopt working capacitive touch technology for a phone, and implement absolutely obvious and natural user interface for it? Really? Idea?
To me their success lies in timely choice of technologies to use and good implementation. Not in unobvious ideas.
Why exactly does the biggest company in the industry need to be "protected"?
Making fashionable-looking hardware and putting together some obvious and old ideas (eg., pinch to zoom) is not the same as "investing in innovation".
Apple is the perfect example of how what matters is execution, they are successful because they execute better than their competition, and executing better than your competition is already its own reward.
I read comments like this, and all my brain sees is: "WAAAH!"
Companies don't give up their rights to legal protection once they get to a size that the internet thinks is "too big". And that's a great thing -- it's how small companies become large companies without being killed by nasty parasites who do nothing but copy good products to eat away at profit margins.
As for the argument that Apple didn't do anything innovative: take a walk, please. Unless you're too young to remember the world of cellphones in 2007, you can't make a reasonable claim that there was no innovation in what they did with the iPhone. Lots of people want to post hoc rationalize the fact that the market has been flooded with iPhone-esque devices by calling it "innovation" (as if lower prices were somehow innovative). But I was there, and I remember the phone I had before I had an iPhone: It flipped open. It had a keyboard. It barely fit in my pocket, and had a tiny, low-resolution screen. I had to buy an expensive, custom headphone to listen to music.
Rationalize whatever you like, but Apple revolutionized the cellphone market, and they deserve the spoils of their risk-taking. If this is how they do that within the confines of the current legal system, so be it. They deserve to win.
2. Apple may be innovative, but it should try and be more innovative. The patent system is to encourage people to innovate more, by protecting their innovation. The protection is the means, not the ends. If Apple cannot innovate any more, why protect it? It's not like Apple will die tomorrow if not protected.
As I understand it, the patent system was designed to protect individual inventors and researchers from companies like Apple, who excel at mass-production and marketing. Please correct me if I'm wrong though.
Since when is the concept of trade dress and patent infringement which has been used by countless companies over the years a legal loophole.
1. What is patentable 2. What is the level of protection that a patent holder gets 3. What are the terms and obligations regarding patent licencing.
In the absense of a suitable patent system, innovator's incentive will come down. Will it hurt the consumers by limiting disruptive innovation? If it does then it makes sense to see how the existing system needs to be made better. If not, let us not differentiate between software, pharma, hardware or whatever - because innovation in any form requires tremendous leaps of faith and pioneering efforts from inventors and should be protected by similar terms and instruments.
Bottomline is, there are.still means to inventive innovation without granting monopolies. If intellectual property magically ceased to exist, men would still invent awesome stuff. You can have my word on that.
Their license strategy is pretty different from Apple though. They go to OEMs and shake them down for a small licensing deal clouded in other deals and agreements, and also promises to make or keep making Windows Phones etc. Their goal is never court cases except in cases like BN (which they quickly settled later). The strategy is to build up precedents and take small amounts instead of full blown lawsuits requesting $30/device. Looks like the deals are okay with the OEMs, that's why there haven't been high profile lawsuits except with B&N.
But sorry, it's objectively not as hurtful, nor wrong, as what Apple is doing right now with their shotgun suits, refusal to license at reasonable cost, and demands for import bans.
The fact that Apple is at the top of a very long list of evil doers doesn't excuse them.
FTFY.
Because Google/Motorola was refusing to license at reasonable cost H.264 patents to Microsoft despite them being required under FRAND obligations to do so.
Do you seriously think Apple will go away with the one billion payment? Aren't they trying for injunctions on imports etc. along with ongoing licesing fees?
Just today they added Galaxy S3 and Note etc. to a lawsuit. And that's just with Samsung. There are pending lawsuits against Motorola and HTC.
The patent wars around the mobile market are just a symptom of how rotten the whole patent system is.
No they do not. They can still use the same gestures and implement it differently.
> The patent process has effectively made it impossible to create a mobile phone without breaking patents.
You have put the blame of the patent process on Apple which is very unfair was all my point.
"It may make Samsung differentiate further but at the same time they have to create unintuitive gestures to avoid Apple patents." Or in simpler terms, it forces companies to innovate.
"Can you imagine being a "little guy" trying to get into mobile development?" Sounds an awful lot like "Won't you please think of the children!" to me. Let's not forget that IBM, HP, Apple and Microsoft all started out at some point as the little guys, as did Google.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/30/3279628/apple-pinch-to-zoo...
To allow two fingers to zoom and one "tap" to set ... next, you'll be telling me that two fingers to zoom and one finger to slide left is patented too. When will this madness end?
> Do we see similar search lawsuits started by Google
> against Bing?