Tell ‘m like it is, HTC. “HTC is disappointed at Apple’s constant attempts at litigations instead of competing fairly in the market,” said HTC general counsel Grace Lei in a statement, “HTC strongly denies all infringement claims raised by Apple in the past and present and reiterates our determination and commitment to protect our intellectual property rights.”
The title implies that Apple is choosing to litigate rather than compete fairly. Apple is competing fairly… the issue at hand is whether HTC is competing fairly…. hence the lawsuit.
Personally, I think there is justification for it, as HTC among others created a product very similar to Apple’s. If HTC isn’t concerned because they feel they didn’t copy then why not let it just play out in court?
The comment does nothing more than play into the idea perpetuated by sites like this one that suggests patents ought not be protected.
Wonder why this got voted down.
Possibly because you suggested that HTC is not competing fairly. Which screams of bullshit.
And then you said patents should be protected. Thus pissing off all the users that think software and novel hardware patents should not exist.
If they copied hardware or software then how is that BS?
Oh I see, you belong to the group that believes everybody should be able to copy others innovations.
He’s talking about a very specific set of patents, namely software patents and some hardware patents. Yes, most of us (I assume osnews attracts like-minded people) are against software patents, the reasons have been explained over and over. I just give you one reason (there are dozens) – software is a very very fast moving market. You can’t sell software that is 2 or more years old. Most software companies expect AND get their ROI in the first year. Granting them monopolies over technology that becomes outdated so fast seriously hinders innovation. We like innovation (and the resulting consumer choice). If you don’t you’re probably mental. I believe people thought the same when moderating your comment.
It is BS because they didn’t copy anything. So tell me what did they copy?
HTC has been in the phone (and touch screen slab phone) business far longer than apple…
Edited 2011-07-12 23:40 UTC
I’m not privy to the legal documents
What’s your point?
You know that patents are not for innovations they are for inventions. Unfortunately, Apple has thrown so many patents in that were absolutely obvious at the moment of application that it’s not funny. Just try reading them.
An innovated product can qualify as an invention.
If they were obvious than why do no copy implement solutions the way Apple did to much success. It’s only obvious to you AFTER somebody does it despite the fact that nobody did beforehand.
There has to be an inventive step to qualify as an invention. PERIOD. (See EPO PDF on 1Click patent, to keep things recent or USPTO’s decisions on Oracle’s patents)
That is not true. Obviousness is defined by the characteristics that a skilled professional can come to the same solution or that the same technique/technology was used or intended to be used in a similar fashion. Object Oriented UI and Object Oriented OS fall under obviousness really well…
Oh I see, you belong to the group that believes everybody should be able to copy others innovations. [/q]
Oh, I see, you belong in the group that thinks ideas shouldn’t be shared with others.
The entire history & development of this planet has come about from civilisations discovering things and passing the knowledge on. Wtf are we to decide that that is against the grain and enclose ideas in this ownership squabble. It’d be bloody hilarious if the estate of Archimedes’ still had a patent on the screw*
*rumoured to not be his discovery, but like Edison, as long as you get the patent and all that…
Could you name 5 innovations of iPhone that you couldn’t develop in 1 week.
Innovation doesn’t need to be difficult to develop. For example, in my opinion the biggest innovation on the iPhone was the phone application. On every phone up until the iPhone there was a talk and end button. Even the smartest smartphone up until that point was a phone that could run applications. And, really that’s the way companies like Ericsson and Nokia thought about smart phones internally, they were high margin, fancy phones.
Then Apple came along and totally changed the paradigm. The iPhone isn’t a phone that can run apps, it’s a palm sized computer that has a phone application. That very small change has completely turned the cell phone industry upside down. Some companies that believed the phone is more important than the apps are now getting killed (see Nokia, RIM). Others had to throw away everything they’d been working on and release something completely different (Android, Microsoft).
But the end result was in early 2007 every phone, smart or otherwise had a send and end button and was thought of as a phone that maybe could run an application or two. Today smart phones are thought of as mobile computers, the phone functionality is a secondary concern. And those who haven’t made the switch (look at RIM’s current Blackberrys) are getting hammered in the market for it.
That is an example of something very small that required next to no actual development that changed the way people think about a category of products. If redefining a product category isn’t an innovation then I’m not sure what is.
And that is were you and anti software patent people strongly disagree. Turning a device from a phone with a computer to a computer with a phone is a good idea but should it be protected? And why should it be protected?
The reason for patents is that you put a lot of effort in developing something new. Before you share this invention with the world you want your return on investment and the government gives you this in the form of a limited patent.
When did I say what Apple did was patentable? I simply said not everything innovative needs to be difficult or take a long time to develop. Do you dispute that? And last time I looked “lot of effort” is not one of the requirements for patentability, it simply needs to be novel. Finally, do you dispute that there are inventions that were incredibly difficult to think of but the actual implementation is quite straightforward? And doesn’t it follow that those would be the inventions that require the most protection since once the idea is on the market it’s trivially easy for competitors to copy it?
There might be but I can’t think of any. I think we should just keep in mind why patents were introduced and make sure that they can’t be abused to fight competitors.
What if Apple introduces an incredibly difficult to think of feature in their phones. Apples competitors see the result of the feature and copy it(because it is easy to duplicate). You think Apple should be able to get a patent on the feature?
I’d say since HTC was in the PDA arena for longer, it’s Apple that created a product very similar to HTC’s.
Apple’s complaint basically targets Android, so no wonder… I can see why they started fighting Samsung, but HTC!?!?!?
[q]I’d say since HTC was in the PDA arena for longer, it’s Apple that created a product very similar to HTC’s./q]
That doesn’t make sense. Just because Apple enters a market doesn’t mean they are copying.
So when Apple moves inot an area to compete it is “entering a market.” When others then move to compete with Apple, it is stealing.
Thank you for clearing that up.
They copied the idea of a phone.
They borrowed the notion of an aerial for communication.
Now do you notice how silly your argument looks?
No need to “suggest” or dance around it – I’ll come out and say it:
Software patents ought not to be enforced.
There. Should save some time.
As I complained about in the previous apple article here is a comment which does nothing more than disagree with the osnews apple bad, android good, patents bad viewpoint and it gets moderated down. People say apple users are sheep or cultists, this site is starting to reek of groupthink and censoring of differing views.
Cry me a river. Fact is, most geeks are against software patents, for very good reasons. I don’t recall having to debate whether software patents are good or bad for a long time. Then recently, we have all these bunch of people who suddenly start arguing that software patents are OK. Curiously enough, these useless debates almost always happen when Apple is involved. I guess “cultists” is right on target.
There are several cases where group think is ok. Most people agree that hitting your head with a brick is not cool. Would you complain that it’s group think? And most of us agree that competition and innovation is good… There isn’t a single shred of evidence that software development would not happen without software patents. There is a ton of evidence to the contrary (Linux, the BSDs, basically the entire Internet infrastructure is based on F/LOSS bits and pieces). And now we have evidence how it would actually hinder consumer choice.
Let’s say APPLE/Microsoft wins. Then right there, you won’t be able to chose HTC handsets, Samsung handsets, Motorola handsets, Barns & Noble readers, etc. Is that good for the general public? Is that good for the consumers? Because that’s what you argue for when defending lawsuits based on software patents. And then you wonder why people mod you -10 stupid and complain about group think.
Here’s the problem. Most “geeks” don’t know anything about the patent system. Many “geeks” (including Thom) who claim to be against patents say that software patents are bad but hardware patents are ok because one is math and the other is a thing. The “geeks” who makes claims like that simply prove that they know nothing about software or hardware. Patent trolls exist in every industry, you simply don’t hear about it because you aren’t reading the trade magazines for those industries. There are bad and over broad patents in every industry. Yet, for the most part the most anti-patent people around are fanboys of various software companies who have never written a program in their lives.
What you seem to have now are some people who simply aren’t willing to reflexively say every patent is bad and the entire system needs to go. Those views are more or less immediately modded to oblivion. Your response is to go to the another canard, Apple is bad, and write anyone who disagrees with you off as a cultist. So thank you for proving the point.
I’m pretty sure that invoking violence to claim group think is ok is pretty weak. The rest of your comment is just historical ignorance or simply bad examples. The Internet infrastructure was funded designed and developed by the United States military. There is no evidence that work would have been done in such an open manner without a budget provided by the government. The BSDs are another good example of government funding and most FOSS is reimplementation of commercial software or specifications. The fact is, there has never been a point in time where software or hardware was designed without patents in place so there is no way to provide evidence that software or hardware would have been made without it.
Unfortunately that is not what it means if Apple or Microsoft wins, it’s simply emotional hyperbole designed to inflame people. Guess what, the handsets HTC sells and Samsung sells and Motorola sells are covered by hundreds of patents. Yet, look, you can still buy them. They simply need to pay for the use of those patents, and they do. And they have been since the very first product any of those companies shipped.
But thank you for making it clear that no only is modding down opinions you don’t agree with ok, you believe it’s a good thing and should keep happening.
rhavyn,
“Here’s the problem. Most ‘geeks’ don’t know anything about the patent system. Many “geeks” (including Thom) who claim to be against patents say that software patents are bad but hardware patents are ok because one is math and the other is a thing. The ‘geeks’ who makes claims like that simply prove that they know nothing about software or hardware.”
I don’t think that’s the case at all.
Software patents are right in our backyard, obviously patents in other domains are beyond most of our expertise, but so what? It doesn’t mean we loose the right to criticize software patents specifically.
We are (at least I am) a computer scientist with plenty of experience writing original code. My problem with software patents is that my original code (with regards to copyright) will inadvertently infringe software patents because some of the problems I’m solving overlap with those other programmers are solving. When a company comes around and claims to have a patent monopoly, it dismisses all of my hard work.
“The fact is, there has never been a point in time where software or hardware was designed without patents in place so there is no way to provide evidence that software or hardware would have been made without it.”
Plenty of companies don’t bother with patents and it’s a good thing since patents are fundamentally unscalable.
A strongly enforced patent system means that on top of getting stuff to work, developers have a new responsibility of avoiding existing patents or shelling out more money to license code which we’ve already written ourselves.
If all developers had to check each procedure written against a patent database, we’d have to waste nearly all our time querying a database to find out if our code infringes someone else’s patent.
In such a state of affairs, companies who otherwise don’t give a rats ass about software patents would become desperate to apply for them in order to buy them leverage against other patents.
The net effect is more patents, and less innovation.
I wasn’t talking about criticizing software patents in particular, I was talking about those “who claim to be against patents [and] say that software patents are bad but hardware patents are ok.”
Do you think the same doesn’t happen in every other industry? And if you do, why do you think the software industry is special and should work differently? I’m really not trying to be a troll with those questions, they are really important to think about if you want to have a consistent view of patents that could ever result in reforms.
Which is completely tangential to what I was saying. I was replying to an idealistic view that at some point there were no software patents. But that time never existed (well it did, but that was the time before software existed).
Again, do you think it’s different in other industries? Do you think that electrical, mechanical and civil engineers just get to design whatever they want without any thoughts towards intellectual property issues? And, again, why should software be different?
rhavyn,
“Do you think the same doesn’t happen in every other industry?”
I haven’t a clue since I’ve never worked in other industries.
“And if you do, why do you think the software industry is special and should work differently?”
It seems to surprise you that most people here have a software background. It makes perfect sense for you to get a software bias on these forums since other groups are way under-represented.
“Again, do you think it’s different in other industries? Do you think that electrical, mechanical and civil engineers just get to design whatever they want without any thoughts towards intellectual property issues?”
I have no idea, I can only speak to the effects of patents in those discipline as an ignorant outsider.
Just as much as I would hate having someone with no CS background dictate how patents should apply with software, I would expect elec/mech/civil engineers to feel the same way about my view on patents in their field.
If you feel the need to criticize patents more generally, then go right ahead.
“they are really important to think about if you want to have a consistent view of patents that could ever result in reforms.”
You could be right, and in my opinion this is where you should be focusing your argument instead of stereotyping osnews posters and calling us fanboys. Personally, I object to that, and I don’t think it helps get your message across.
Rhavyn,
I think I understand your point. I think a big problem with software patents is that it seems the overwhelming majority of existing software patents are for things that are soooo obvious, or that have been assigned even though there is lots of previous art. On top of that, I do think that since the evolution in the software world happens so fast, that the validity of software patents should be much more limited in time: say 1-2 years.
Maybe not all software patents are bad. I think for example about patents for encryption algorithms, or for audio and video encoding algorithms. This kind of algorithms are not obvious. A patent for a button in an application that allows you to buy the full version of a trial application, *is* something obvious. If you can assure that software patents are not given for “obvious” things, and are only given for a limited time, then the whole situation would be completely different.
One cannot deny that in this very moment, software patents are not used in the way they were meant to be used. At this moment, they are used aggressively to compete with other companies when one cannot compete on the quality of their own product. On the other hand, other companies use software patents defensively to protect themselves when they are attacked with software patents. Sometimes they are used by companies that only buy patents, so that they can ‘extort’ money from other companies at a time that they know that a lot of companies infringe on those patents.
That is why a lot of people say: get rid of software patents. It just seems impossible to “fix” the system the way it has become what it is now.
Aside from that, I think that patents have always been on the side of big companies. Don’t forget that applying for a patent (software or not) also costs a lot of money, that smaller companies may not be willing (or able) to invest. And if you’ve got bad luck, a bigger company comes along, invents the same thing on its own, and gets a patent for it. For a small company, it would just cost too much to prove in court that you had prior art.
snowbender,
One of the issues I have with the “obvious” tests, as currently applied, is when things which were non-obvious in the past become obvious in the present.
For example, in an era which predates modern ecommerce, a one click design might very well have been non-obvious in the sense that the whole of ecommerce was in it’s infancy and noone thought about it.
Once the infrastructure (online CC processing/consumer dialup/secure web browsers/etc) is in place and online vendors start to crop up, then the one click design really becomes obvious. And not because amazon’s patent did such a good job educating everyone, but because it was a natural step in the development of e-commerce.
In the same vein, it’s absurd to claim things are novel by combining them in an invention*context matrix. An algorithm/UI element/security feature should not be patentable each time a new type of product is on the market. The product may be novel, but NOT combining it with pre-existing algorithms, that’s obvious.
A patent system should not protect obvious solutions to novel problems, even if the solution is inherently novel too.
I still haven’t heard anyone give a compelling reason why software should be patentable in the first place.
Edited 2011-07-15 20:08 UTC
I personally don’t mod down opinions much. Well, you pose as an expert on patents across all industries
On the other hand, you also claim that most people against software patents are fanboys who never wrote software in their lives. Well, tell that to Linus. Or KDE developers. Or generally, any free software developer 
And yet again, you try to divert the argument by bringing in funding, which was not my point. My point was and still is that almost all key technologies that made the Internet possible are free and open source, and most definitely not burdened by patents. TCP/IP, the DNS system (BIND), Sendmail, etc… those are the ones I’m talking about. So before you pull more nonsense out of your ass, show us some evidence that anyone ever payed any royalties for those “patented” technologies.
Where exactly did I claim to be an expert in all industries?
Also listing a small (and dubious, I’m not sure who made you the spokesperson for all KDE developers and all free software developers) does not disprove my statement since I didn’t say all developers. There are some very intelligent developers who understand the issues and are still against software patents. Not everyone needs to agree (which, after all, is what I’m saying, not everyone agrees).
The fact that you ignore funding of development kind of is your problem and it is the point. You are making a pretty big claim: huge companies and universities would have developed the internet with their own money and not attempted to patent any of the resulting technology. Furthermore, they would release the source for all this technology for free. Or, do you think it’s more likely that it got done this way because the DoD payed for all the development? Unless you can provide some tiny shred of evidence that any development the scale of the internet got done by private enterprise and it wasn’t patented and licensed from top to bottom then you might want to think very hard before you reply again about the relationship between funding research and development and with what restrictions it’s brought to market down the road.
Finally you’re going to need to use a little more detail or provide a quote since my ass never produced non-sense regarding paying for patents around internet protocols.
You pose as one, claiming everyone who disagrees with you knows nothing about how patents work.
small and dubious… I can’t really comment on pure nonsense. No, I’m not KDEs or anyone’s spokesperson, but you can be fairly certain that not some (as you claim) but the vast majority of free software developers are not exactly thrilled by software patents. I’m not even sure closed software devs are supportive…
Nice try. I never made that claim. I said, that funding is a separate issue – and we are debating patents, aren’t we? Besides, I don’t need to claim that companies/universities would have developed the internet w/o relying on patents for revenue. This is history. It happened. In fact, your argument is kinda hilarious for TCP/IP became dominant because it was not encumbered by patents
None of the key technologies were.
And again, there’s Linux for you, which you completely ignore, and it’s actually HUGE. No Linux developer patented any parts of the kernel, while your whole argument is that software development would not happen without patents. Or take APPLE for example. They raked in billions because their product was successful in the market. They already reaped the rewards of their investment, without relying on patent revenues.
You completely failed to prove that software development would not happen without patents. It does, and it did, osnews itself is a prime example (ask Thom if he patented any of the design or parts of the engine running his site). Your constant attempt to divert the discussion, your failure to address any of my points made me tired of this. I’m done with this thread.
First, I never claimed everyone who disagrees with me knows nothing about the patent system. I did say that, based on comments, the vast majority of people who comment on OSNews know nothing about the patent system. Second, claiming knowledge of the patent system (which I have) does not imply claiming knowledge of other industries. It’s terribly painful when people use tortured logic the way you are.
I said this “Many “geeks” (including Thom) who claim to be against patents say that software patents are bad but hardware patents are ok because one is math and the other is a thing. The “geeks” who makes claims like that simply prove that they know nothing about software or hardware.” That is a direct quote. You somehow twisted that into something about “most people against software patents are fanboys who never wrote software in their lives.” At this point if you are unable to differentiate between my statement and your characterization of it then nothing will help you.
I’m not even sure how to respond to you. Basically you take what I said, ignore it and then respond with some non-sequitor. I’m beginning to think you completely don’t understand what I’m saying since your response only makes sense if you ignore the entire substance of my statement. So I’m just going to paste what I said in my previous comment again:
You are making a pretty big claim: huge companies and universities would have developed the internet with their own money and not attempted to patent any of the resulting technology. Furthermore, they would release the source for all this technology for free. Or, do you think it’s more likely that it got done this way because the DoD payed for all the development? Unless you can provide some tiny shred of evidence that any development the scale of the internet got done by private enterprise and it wasn’t patented and licensed from top to bottom then you might want to think very hard before you reply again about the relationship between funding research and development and with what restrictions it’s brought to market down the road.
RedHat holds patents on aspects of the Linux kernel so you’re factually incorrect there. The Linux kernel is insignificant in scope and novelty compared to the internet and the technologies developed under funding of ARPA. Apple has applied for patents and aggressively defended their intellectual property for most of their existence so that seems like a pretty poor example
Since I never claimed software development wouldn’t happen without patents I’m not sure why I would have to prove that. I have claimed that no large software development project, hell no large R&D project in any industry, out there that wasn’t government funded isn’t encumbered. And you simply want to ignore the funding aspect of R&D as though it’s not important.
My point is, that software patents are a terrible idea. Finally, you seem to have grasped why. I am relieved. If you go back and read that single part, that sums it up nicely. But if you have difficulties comprehending the implications of what you wrote, I’m going to spell it out for you.
The software patent system has existed for a while. One segment of the software industry made full use of this system (Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, etc.) In fact they used it “so well” that now there is no software that is not encumbered. Software that they did not write. You can bet that KDE is encumbered by patents owned by MS & co. Microsoft itself tells us that Linux is encumbered. All software of some complexity is encumbered – just as you say. Interestingly, you felt compelled to argue when I made the same point earlier
Fact is, a fairly large segment of software development was done by people or organizations that opted out of the patent system, partly because software patents are a US only thing (and Japan perhaps?). KDE iteself is larger than the Office division at Microsoft. All software produced by any single company will be much smaller than the GPL covered software out there. Which brings me to Red Hat – yes, Red Hat has patents, but they are largely irrelevant to their contribution to software development. The GPL explicitly prohibits any additional restrictions, so they can’t use their patents offensively (ie they can’t go after users of their GPL licensed software).
So you see, there is simply no reason software patents should exist in the first place. It does not help innovation, it does not help develop new concepts or technologies. It does, however, pose a significant threat to those who don’t have the financial clout to gamble the patent system. Loosely organized free software projects, for example. Non-profits, like KDE, or corporate sponsored development (Linux comes to mind, which is partly corporate sponsored). Even individual closed source developers have suffered from this threat (the patent troll, Lodsys’s harassment of iOS app developers).
Thanks for finally coming around and agreeing to my point. I consider the issue closed, but boy, did it take while!
Well, I’m glad that we can finally agree that what I’m saying is reasonable.
I don’t believe that I argued that point since it’s a pretty basic point. Are you confusing me for someone else?
I don’t disagree that patents are misused. However, I do disagree that there is any evidence that the software industry, or any other industry for that matter, would exist as it does today without patents. First, as I said previously, much free/open source software is a reimplementation of some closed source system (it was specifically started to re-implement closed source software, that was it’s mission). Most of the open source software software that isn’t a reimplementation of a closed source thing (the internet, world wide web, email, etc) was built either directly by a government or through direct government funding. Where do you find large scale new development of anything, software or otherwise, by a private organization that isn’t being protected by as much intellectual property as possible?
I’ll call my site opsnews.com. I’ll make it look a bit different then OSnews but not too different to make the transition easier for people.
Also, while I am at it, I’ll copy your articles too (though I will change some words of course) because I am too lazy to come up with my own stuff and everything you write about is pretty obvious, right?
Finally, to make sure we compete fairly ‘in the market’ I’ll make sure to tell all your advertisers (our mutual customers) that my site is just like OSnews but advertising on my site is cheaper.
Your going to be totally cool with all that I am sure, right?
]{
Edited 2011-07-12 21:56 UTC
Thom’s not a hypocrite so I know he’d be cool with it.
Go ahead. The internet will recognise your scam pretty quickly. Not only will you always be behind with your “news”, people will see you for the scammer that you are and ignore your site anyway. Remember, most people read OSNews not because of my nonsense, but because of the comments – which you won’t have because people know you’re a scammer.
I know you think you are clever and have me backed into a corner, but sorry kiddo, you haven’t. People have actually regularly tried to do what you are proposing, and what a surprise, they don’t ever succeed.
Oh, and before I go – I guess this means you are okay with HTC, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Google suing the crap out of Apple since Apple copied the Android notification system verbatim, right? I guess you are also okay with the countless pre-iOS mobile application stores suing the crap out of Apple right? And is Palm free to sue the crap out of Apple for stealing countless things from PalmOS (as a heavy PalmOS user, iOS almost feels like a 1:1 copy).
You want me to go on, or do you want me to save you the embarrassment?
Edited 2011-07-12 22:09 UTC
Just to make sure I understand you Thom… it’s a scam when someone copies from osnews… but not a scam when people copy Apple?
For the record copying an idea to get things done is not the same as copying the product itself. Notifications is a idea to get things done. The execution on how its done if copied can be litigated if its a genuine copy.
If Apple copied Google’s notification then yes Apple should be sued…. though not by HTC, Samsung, LG, Motorola or Sony Ericsson (what case do you believe any of these companies have against Apple?) but by Google. I’m not familiar enough with Google’s implementation nor Apple’s to say if copying did occur and because Apple’s implementation isn’t yet released… neither do you.
The application store is similar in that its an idea to get things done. Apple didn’t copy any other mobile application store so I’m going to assume that you’re confused about what’s able to be protected under patent and what’s not.
The other items you elude to that Apple supposedly copied from Palm require more explanation before a response can be given. But yes, if Apple copied the implementation then absolutely, Apple should be sued. That nobody has sued Apple thus far over these apparent issues says that they in fact did not copy them rather than Palm having a generous philosophy as it sounds like you believe.
I stuck up for you… I said you weren’t a hypocrite. I’d hate to be wrong about that.
Edited 2011-07-12 22:25 UTC
Except… Nobody copied Apple. Show me the code that has been copied. If no code has been copied, then your accusation falls flat. They may have violated software patents, but nobody in the sane tech world (i.e., outside of the US) gives a shit about those, since we chuckle at the idea of patenting math.
You clearly don’t know how software development works these days. It is virtually impossible to write any piece of code without violating a sofware patent in the US. You seem to think this is healthy and good for competition – luckily for us, only people with pro-MS/Apple agenda seem to think so.
Why do you limit copying to just code?
They might have also violated Apple’s trade dress or any one of a number of other patents or copyrights. With that said, Apple is a US based company and these other companies compete in the US where software patents are protected under U.S. law. They are within their legal right no matter what your opinion of the law is. And no, it’s naive to believe that its “patenting math.” That understanding is like saying you can’t file for copyright protection for a novel as its patenting the alphabet.
That’s blatantly false.
Sigh… this has nothing to do with platform preferences and all to do with upholding the legal system. You may disagree with the legal system. That’s fine, but to chastise a company (any company) for following these laws and leveraging them where applicable is naive.
Edited 2011-07-12 23:10 UTC
And you were wondering previously why people modded you down. Funny. All evidence points to the opposite – anything more complex than Hello World is covered by software/ideas patents, just look at the proliferation of patent trolls, or just check some of the patents that Apple loves to wave in their court-crusade.
No. that’s wrong. Yes, you don’t like your software creation to potentially be impeded so you’re against software patents. I get that. That doesn’t support your argument though
There are patent trolls because there’s money to be made in it. Where there is money to be made people will always find the lowest amount of work to make the maximum amount of money. This is true for any business. That its only happening in greater numbers now doesn’t support your point.
You’re going to have to be more specific. Just because you regard a patent to be invalid does not make it so.
There is money to be made in it, because software patents are ridiculous. Its very difficult to determine during design, implementation, testing or release of a product’s life cycle how many hundreds of patents a piece of software may violate. So these trolls can hide under their bridges and wait for their patent to be violated and jump out and demand money. Trolls are not a good thing. If you have a system that can be exploited by trolls, it is ipso facto a bad system.
You’re assuming that HTC didn’t set out with the explicit goal of making something that competed directly with the iPhone based on its strengths and rather than trying to come up with something new they implemented something too similar. You’re too quick to assume that they got sidelined.
HTC’s only disappointment is that Apple waited until HTC had made a sizable investment in producing iPhone knock-offs, before getting serious about “litigation.†Now it hurts, and they know they can’t win.
You’re assuming I was talking bout HTC/Apple. I wasn’t. If there are trolls in any industry, that industry needs reform. Trolls are bad.
Jennimc,
“There are patent trolls because there’s money to be made in it. Where there is money to be made people will always find the lowest amount of work to make the maximum amount of money. This is true for any business.”
At least this is true.
The problem with software patents is that software developers, in doing their daily jobs, will infringe numerous software patents inadvertently.
What is gained by having a patent system which prohibits competing implementations of similar/same algorithms? All developers put in the hard work required to implement the code, why is only one developer entitled to the benefits?
Edited 2011-07-13 04:08 UTC
Yes, there is money to be made with software patents. But simply saying “there is money to be made in it” doesn’t validate an activity. For example, people are selling heroin because there is (easy) money to be made in it. Oh, and there is money to be made in human trafficking – yet I’m firmly opposed to it.
Looks like mrhasbean is back! Flamethrower anyone?
Edited 2011-07-13 08:07 UTC
Is it any wonder then that the companies who supply the mainstream and most widely used commercial software packages in the world are all based either in the US or other countries who do give a shit about them? What software company that’s wildly successful on the international corporate or commercial stage has sprung up out of The Netherlands? Do you think that’s coincidence?
Would you or any of the “nobodies in the sane tech world” about whom you speak ever put your tens or possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars at risk to start up a business, then work 100 plus hours a week developing it, possibly even go through the pain and expense of employing people, develop marketing strategies and distribution channels, advertise and promote your product, if you knew that if your concept was a good one a major market player could simply replicate what you’ve done and with much bigger marketing budgets and distribution channels already in place, destroy you, and as long as they haven’t copied your math there’d be absolutely nothing you could do about it? Is that not anti competition?
I’m as much for patent reform and abolishing trivial patents of any sort as the next person, for starters patents should all have a much shorter lifespan IMHO, but your assertion that only people with pro-MS/Apple agenda are for software patents is not only wrong but misguided and misguiding.
Funny you should ask.
You never hear about it, since it isn’t sexy and your hero Steve Jobs can’t present it on a stage, but ever heard of ASML? This Dutch company is the largest manufacturer of photolithography systems for the semiconductor industry (80% market share). This means that most of the chips you use – Intel, AMD, Samung, etc. – are built using machinery developed at ASML in The Neterlands. This is the kind of machinery that requires software that makes anything we here talk about look like amateur hour.
There is more to life than consumer-oriented fancy phones, mrhasbean.
Edited 2011-07-13 03:10 UTC
I have no intention of getting into your bigger fight, but I use both PalmOS & iOS regularly, and I don’t think they’re very similar at all.
Speaking of PalmOS and patents, though: I’m curious whether anyone knows that the successful Xerox lawsuit against Graffiti was based on a software patent or a hardware patent? Or is that a difficult gray area?
You see your already getting defensive by even the prospect of a copy of OSNews and here you are spouting off about how it’s awful that other companies are defensive about the copies of their ideas/inventions. Like you these companies are defensive and their reacting to it.
You might argue something is obvious but I might disagree. This is what this is about really, two groups of individuals disagreeing about what is unique and what is obvious. (Just with proverbial nuclear weapons.)
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PS. You should know that copying OSNews by automatically polling your servers and scraping your content would not actually be that hard and some basic grayhat SEO would likely make that content more authoritative then your original content (in effect making your original content look like the scamming copy) thereby depriving you of organic traffic.
What keeps people from doing that (other than a profit motive and a general respect for OSnews and you as an editor) is the awareness that you have copyright law on your side and you could make life difficult for the copier through legal avenues.
Or are you really saying that you would never use a lawyer (and hence copyright laws) to defend your intellectual rights.
Actually, his exact words were “Go ahead.” He then goes on to state basically that it wouldn’t work out well for you, not that he would stop it.
It’s OK to disagree with someone, but can we at least agree to disagree with what they actually said? Is that asking too much of an internet forum?
kristoph,
“I’ll call my site opsnews.com. I’ll make it look a bit different then OSnews but not too different to make the transition easier for people.”
Go right ahead, everyone should be *entitled* to make their own website on their own dime and they should be *entitled* to say whatever they want, IMHO.
Please note that this is completely different from copyright infringement and deception however, those are bad…
A site that IS confusing (I myself ended up there by accident) is http://www.osnews.co, though I doubt there was malicious intent.
Creating a site with the goal of building off of another companies hard work or brand is what’s at issue here. According to Thom, a person would be in the wrong if they copied OS News however, a company is in the right if they copy Apple… or any company but however he seems to make a point that Apple’s hardware and software patents ought not be protected.
Ok. Problem here is that with patents no matter if you actually copied someone you still infringe.
You may have come up with the same idea under the same circumstances(See how 1Click patent was treated in US and by EPO, the comments on the rejection are very damn enlightening)
Yet you’ll still be either told to “Get out of my sandbox” or “You’ll be giving your lunch away from now on”
Yeah, if you make a clone of this site, but leave out all these stupid f**king patent articles, I’ll go to your site instead of this one.
Your example seems to be copyright infringement with the purpose of mislead the user. Which is bad.
If you want to compare patents to copyright infringements, one example could be: OSNews writes an article reviewing a specific OS and then complaining later when another site writes a completely different review about the same OS. There is no copy at all, the article just have the same topic and might arrive to the same conclusion. Would it be fair for readers and/or writers disallowing writing articles about the same OS? I don’t think so.
Edit: tried to explain a little better (sorry for my english)
Edited 2011-07-13 00:33 UTC
The case between Apple and Samsung is basically all about what is and what is not protected by copyright and if it misleads the user so I do think it’s fair.
I do appreciate that the HTC/Apple case is about patents the value of which is debatable.
I am attempting to demonstrate that reasonable people can disagree on the merit of any particular piece of intellectual property.
The idea of having a news site about OS’s and other related stuff is free to use. The look and feel would be lame to steal but you are free to.
But copying articles is against copyright. And anti software patent people find copyrights to be good. They are even in favor of having your code copyrighted.
Thom is right about one thing. In other parts of the world… the far east is the best example of this, the concept of copyright isn’t really taken seriously. If HTC solely made products for use in their home country, that would be one thing, but making copies of Apple products to sell in Apple’s principle markets is an entirely different matter and will inevitably force Apple to defend it’s intellectual property.
If Apple didn’t defend it’s copyright, it would lose the protection that it offers. HTC’s lawyers are acting out of desperation, because they know they will lose.
This is a big part of the problem with people who call for the demise of the patent system. Notice you don’t get innovations coming from China, South Korea, etc. You get copies. So few companies invent anything unique in these regions simply because it is easier and cheaper and faster to copy what someone else invents.
That’s precisely WHY we in the U.S. have a patent/trademark/copyright system, flawed as it is companies like Apple, Nortel, IBM, Microsoft, Motorola, etc. can invest millions in R&D and know that, if they produce something unique, they get to keep control of it and profit from the effort.
That’s just not the case in most other parts of the world (especially Asian countries where copying is especially prevalent), and it’s why so few original products come from that region.
Edited 2011-07-13 00:07 UTC
That’s a bold and fairly rascist, xenophobic assertion. Care to back it up or do you just want to leave it hanging out there?
Sadly the mode of operation in China at least is to look at US patents as a source of what to blatantly copy, not what to respect.
bnoisen,
“Sadly the mode of operation in China at least is to look at US patents as a source of what to blatantly copy, not what to respect.”
Well, looking at it historically, wasn’t this the original point of patents?
In exchange for granting a temporary private monopoly, the public would benefit by receiving the technical knowledge required to implement it?
Unfortunately today’s software patents are useless to software developers. I’d go so far as to say the deliberate obfuscation by lawyers makes them completely worthless in terms of technical value.
Exactly. Patents were originally designed to reduce trade secrets and monopolies not encourage them.
Try and learn some history before making such stupid and racist comments.
The Western industrial world was created by copying or rediscovering many Chinese/Korean/Japanese inventions including:
– paper
– silk
– porcelain
– banknotes
– moveable type printing
– gunpowder
– cannons
– rockets
– kites
– percussion drilling
– lacquering
– multi-compartment “unsinkable” ships
In fact one of the very few things the Chinese didn’t invent before the West was glass.
China is very quickly reverting to it’s natural place as the most technologically advanced society on Earth. It held this role for 2500 years until the early 1800s.
The President of Yale has said that Chinese universities will probably match or surpass the best western universities within 25 years.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7140330/Oxbridge…
I would rather consider your argument as stupid and racist too.
The fact that a civilization managed to come with a particular idea of some device slightly faster than the other one is pretty much irrelevant and serves for historic purposes only. Also, we should give credit to the inventor, not the nation, as it was the human mind and creativity that made it happen and we all equally possess one.
Well as you might know medieval times were pretty harsh for inventors in Europe. Inquisition and all that stuff. Definitely did not help to speed things up. But that’s history, just like the demise of China later.
It is naive to try to claim a nation to be the greatest just like playing some kind of Civ computer game, where one can be #1 by the number of technologies researched but yet fail miserably and lose on the global scale.
So far the history of modern China rapid technological development to a pretty big extent consists of blatant copying, so I can’t see how you can ‘revert’ to being the greatest by cloning as much as possible. Moving Western companies production to China leads to even more reverse-engineered replicas appearing, and so on.
And yes, letting students from developing countries plug into the very research process as early and deep as possible, definitely does not help Western universities to compete. As in case with China and any other – it only helps Chinese ones, by giving them a jump start by copying what kind of research Western ones are doing. But in the end, when there will be nothing to copy any more, it will all end up on par and we’ll see how it goes. In fact, the real competition will only start then.
But competition itself is good as far as it is helping innovation. National superiority is bullshit (though I know this is a part of Chinese national agenda), at least it is clear that developed countries are living by that, hoping that developing ones won’t bite the hand that was/and is still feeding them in some sense.
Embrace Windows Phone 7, and let Microsoft defend you.
Engadget had an article about this:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/02/apple-vs-htc-a-patent-breakdown/
I think that this is the patents that Apple is trying to defend.
Inventions like swipe a graphical object to unlock the device clearly took billions in research to invent and HTC is trying to get a free ride.
Edited 2011-07-13 05:24 UTC
According to all software patent lover and apple fanboys, Ford or some other ancient car maker should sue all other car makers and leave us all with one single model.
Maybe Toyota should sue Honda and Nissan for producing ‘green’ cars, hybrid or not.
You may not be aware, but you’re just pulling us all towards Communist Russia. Single brand, single model, no choice whatsoever. Let’s all drive Ladas (Fiat 131), talk in bricks (Motorolla Flipper), use 80386 cpus (because that’s where I remember I saw AMD starting to compete with Intel and as you know, nobody would advance nowhere without competition) etc. etc. etc.
Just because you invented something doesn’t mean nobody else should be allowed to improve on your basic idea. Just another reason of many others to prefer OpenSource. Remember you all, if there was no competition (Android), apple wouldn’t be working so hard to make the iPhone any better than their first design.
The Wright Brothers actually tried to ban other aircraft makers using patent law. The US government stepped in and forced all US aircraft manufacturers to pool all their patents. A small fee per aircraft was then charged to use any of these patents.
of sharing ideas better than anyone by now, having borrowed the Mach kernel and the BSD layer for their own OS?