Apple Patent Claim Threatens To Block Or Delay W3C 332
Kelson writes "The W3C Widget specification is running into a problem: Apple claims a patent on automatic updates and is unwilling to license it royalty-free in the event that it impacts the spec. The W3C is investigating to determine whether the spec includes anything covered by the patent, and decide what to do."
Re:Oh, Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
it's a software patent.
start hating.
See! (Score:1, Insightful)
It's all about money, Apple fans. Seriously. I have tried to tell you this before, but they do not care about you at all.
Re:Oh, Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't stand these kinds of patents, especially when they block progress and innovation.
I posted to the wrong story. (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article [nytimes.com] "It probably helped that in those days we avoided patents and other restrictions; without any financial incentive to control the protocols, it was much easier to reach agreement." Exactly why patents don't work in their current form.
Now it seems more appropriate for this story.
Re:and in a manner that is completely transparent (Score:1, Insightful)
Wouldn't "transparent" mean, that the user can see what is actually going on (ie the opposite of a black box)? Though I don't know how far you would have to go in order to fulfil this with a computer.
What you are describing sounds more like "invisible".
Re:I'm confused (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm confused (Score:2, Insightful)
"We are think for ourselves," eh?
My point, since you missed it, was that we often don't, based on the story posted. Nobody will remember this when the next iPhone comes out.
without interruption of its primary function... (Score:5, Insightful)
... and in a manner that is completely transparent to the user of the computer.
In my book that means: no need for a restart. Completely different from what i.E. FireFox / Thunderbird and the like do - needing to ask the user to stop with his / her work in order to perform the update.
Not trivial.
Re:and in a manner that is completely transparent (Score:3, Insightful)
My work machine does this, much to my anguish.
Re:See! (Score:3, Insightful)
If it were all about money, Apple products would suck. Exhibit A: Microsoft Windows--makes a lot of money AND they don't care about users. Exhibit B: Mac OSX--makes a lot of money but has to care about users, otherwise they render themselves obsolete.
You don't have to outrun the wolf, just the slowest member of your party.
Re:See! (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple "cares" about its users the same way a gold-digging wife "cares" about her husband, or a manufactured pop music group "cares" about its fans.
Apple cares about keeping its users blinded with shiny distractions, sure. It does not care about providing quality products or services, or about the long-term well-being of its customers.
Apple has been a bunch of lawsuit trolls since the infamous "look and feel" lawsuits of the late 1980s. There are every bit as evil as Microsoft, just smaller and wrapper in a prettier box.
Re:without interruption of its primary function... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not trivial to implement. Is the concept itself worth a patent?
Re:Use of this patent against web browsers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that web pages are not programs.
The line's blurring. Ever use Google Documents?
Re:They have to. (Score:2, Insightful)
There's nothing wrong with stockpiling patents. The alleged problem is that Apple refuses to grant them royalty free to the W3C, undermining the open standards that Apple professes to protect.
Re:without interruption of its primary function... (Score:3, Insightful)
Patents don't cover concepts. They only cover implementations. So the question is moot.
I call shenanigans! (Score:5, Insightful)
this patent is total BS!
the patent description makes it sound like we're talking about a system for automatically updating any program while its running without any interruption (which would be quite a feat if accomplished, but still not worthy of a process patent because its an obvious goal).
However the operation the patent actually describes is as follows:
1) I click on an icon to launch an application,
2) a process starts that checks to see if I have the latest version of the application
2a) if I have the latest, it launches the application
2b) if I don't have the latest, it replaces my copy with the latest and the launches the application
this stuff about "transparently running" and "no need for restart" is a red herring. of course there's no need for restart, the program isn't running yet!
Re:and in a manner that is completely transparent (Score:4, Insightful)
Software patents are rubbish (Score:4, Insightful)
I know. I have not seen a valid software patent. This one is almost impossible to implement. Apart from Web-2 applications. And this is probably why it popped up.
Re:without interruption of its primary function... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait, what? Reading the patent excerpt suggests that this is no different than doing <script src="http://some.external.site/latest.js"</script>. Or just visiting ANY web app, for that matter - except when dealing with Flash Player, I'm automatically using the latest version of the site without any need to update things at my end.
Did you read the claims? Cause that's all that matters. The abstract and spec do not define the invention (with a couple minor exceptions). (Disclaimer: I haven't read the patent)
Re:See! (Score:3, Insightful)
Shiny and Quality are not mutually exclusive.
Re:I'm confused (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why he always wears black: there's not enough contrast to see it;-) Apple certainly has a far better marketing department, and they've gone to great lengths to not only play up their image, but to tie their products to that image; but once you're beyond that they are every bit as deceptive and secretive as Microsoft. They've essentially convinced an entire class of consumers to think that they are "different" from everyone else when they really just aren't. The inferiority comes from reacting vehemently over any thing that is said along those lines, which is why, like my initial post, this will be modded down to -1 TROLL in no time.
Re:You missed the transparent part. (Score:3, Insightful)
That is not one of the claims of the patent. That is part of the abstract, which has no direct bearing on what the patent actually applies to.
If you read the claims, it amounts to "checking for an update at runtime, and updating without asking the users, then restarting the program".
W3C got what was coming to it⦠(Score:1, Insightful)
Some months ago the W3C was pressured by Apple and Nokia to remove the inclusion of unencumbered audio and video codecs from video tag support in the HTML5 draft [slashdot.org]. The W3C recognized that only with the existence of a widely supported baseline could we escape the closing of the web which is currently happening through patented media formats.
Of course, give them an inch and they'll take a mile. Now that Apple has seen that the W3C is subject to their manipulation on licensing related matters we can hardly blame them for continuing to use their new found power over this standards group.
Re:Software patents are rubbish (Score:3, Insightful)
I know. I have not seen a valid software patent.
RSA seems worthy. That's the only one I've ever come across.
RSA may be worthy, but of a copyright not a patent. No software should be patented.
Falcon
software shouldn't be patentable. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the nature of the problem.
You don't have inventions in software. You have ideas, and implementations. There is no in-between.
The idea of patenting a software algorithm is equivalent to patenting a mathematical expression.
Re:without interruption of its primary function... (Score:4, Insightful)
What you write in software is the expression of one idea in a certain language.
You don't "invent" software, software has been invented many eons ago when living beings got brains.
What software patents cover is the concept. If they covered a specific implementation, they would provide a worse legal environment than the copyright, in the point of view of the authors, for it would last many, many years less.
And as anyone who wrote software can tell you, ideas are a dime a dozen, the devil is in the details. It's the expression that counts in software, and not the concept.