“So Apple got yet another patent granted today, and now there’s yet another media firestorm over whether it means Cupertino will be able to sue every other phone manufacturer out of business, or at least out of the business of making multitouch devices. And, as usual, most of the hysteria is based on a fundamental misinterpretation of what the patent claims actually say, and what behaviors they actually cover in iOS. I don’t know why we keep repeating this sad cycle, but I do know that it’s always, always better for us to read the claims and try to figure them out for ourselves – and in this case,they’re actually pretty narrow.”
They are narrow depending on the person looking at them. Because the patent is either insanely narrow, that not even iOS infringes on it. Or it’s so broad that all scrolling of any kind of document with subsections is patented.
You just have to read it carefully.
And there is obviously a comment from an actual patent attorney – http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2011/06/apple-wins-pate…
Nilay was a copyright lawyer.
Do the rest of the world have to care about these insane US patens?
In general, yes.
As I understand it, if a corporation does business in the US, then they’ll end up paying royalties on all allegedly infringing products regardless of the destination country. So, for example, Android phone manufacturers pay $5 per phone to Microsoft even for phones sold in Asia.
“Nice phone you got there, be a real shame if something happened to it. Real shame.”
Yes. But, not quite for the reason stated. A US patent only covers activities in the US. So, if a product is made, sold, offered for sale, exported from, or imported into the US, the product is subject to the US patent. For example, a product manufactured in Asia and sold in Europe even by a US company generally is not covered by a US patent barring odd circumstances (e.g., shipped through the US).
The reason it matters for the rest of the world is that the US is a sizable market. It’s not uncommon for a company to simply forgo making a product if it’s not able to sell such product in the US due to patent restrictions.
A careful reading of a patent is about as useful as a careful reading of the US Constitution. The validity and interpretation of a patent (and the Constitution for that matter) depends entirely upon controlling court legal decisions and has little to do with the ordinary meanings of the terms used.
I don’t know, the US constitution is generally less wordy than a patent and is pretty straightforward.
Granted it does need to be translated considering it uses language over 200 years old, but as long as you are familiar with Blackstone’s work and the federalist papers the consitution is very straightforward. Sadly law schools in the US cover neither the constitution, nor blackstone nor the federalist papers, they just go straight into case law and precedence and ignore the reasoning behind the constitution itself.
Well, if experts disagree on the interpretation of the constitution and launch multiple lawsuits over different aspects of it. Then, despite your personal opinion of the straightforwardness of the document, then a careful reading of the constitution is exactly as useful as a careful reading of a patent.