Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 9th Apr 2006 18:29 UTC
I'm from the Netherlands. That may sound like a weird statement to start a column with-- don't worry, at the end of this week's Sunday Eve Column you'll understand why I put my nationality so bluntly up front.
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Member since:2005-08-22
>That's what happened to Apple.
You're kind of all over the place with IP laws. Not your fault though. Most proprietary companies like to keep it that way, so they can spread more FUD. In any case, I think they were more worried about having their thunder stolen because of the leak. I don't think this has anything to do with patents either.
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Member since:
2006-04-05
Wow. That's impressive. You managed to confuse copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws all in one sentence! And information about upcoming products isn't a "trade secret".
In a way you're right because I threw copyright law in when I actually wanted to refer to patents. So if you allow me, let me expand my comment a little further:
Company X wants to release a product. Company Y gets insider info about such product, clones it, applies for a patent (implementation of a hardware device, mind you: vary patenteable), and releases it to market. Company X is hurt and must go to the troubles of proving it had been working on such product before, and that company Y obtained such information illegaly, to dispute the patent.
That's what happened to Apple. They had to protect their invention and had to do it before the public eye, because now they can at least use the prior art argument.
The patent office won't take the "I had this same idea a couple years ago" argument unless you can prove it.