Samsung Cites 2001: A Space Odyssey In Apple Patent Case 432
suraj.sun and several other readers sent word that Samsung is using a clip from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey as an example of prior art in its defense against Apple's patent infringement claims. "In a clip from that film lasting about one minute, two astronauts are eating and at the same time using personal tablet computers. ... As with the design claimed by the D'889 Patent, the tablet disclosed in the clip has an overall rectangular shape with a dominant display screen, narrow borders, a predominately flat front surface, a flat back surface (which is evident because the tablets are lying flat on the table's surface), and a thin form factor." Samsung also supplied a clip from 1970s British TV series The Tomorrow People.
The patent in question; D504,889 (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.google.com/patents?id=6BsWAAAAEBAJ&zoom=4&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q&f=false [google.com]
Let's see, Apple's patent contains no more substance than the movie; it is just a bunch of pictures of a hypothetical device (it doesn't even look much like the current iPad). It is so generic that there is no way the courts will let it stand if they have any sanity left.
What about Star Trek? (Score:5, Interesting)
So what 2001 is telling us ... (Score:2, Interesting)
... that the ideal technological device for the display of a rectangular image is something roughly the shape and size of a modern tablet. And they figured this out when displays virtually always involved some sort of projection and focussing (either through the electron gun of a CRT or the light of a projector) which would have made such devices impossible.
And we need judges, lawyers, and marketplace chaos to figure that out today. Maybe society is getting dumber.
Re:What about Star Trek? (Score:5, Interesting)
Clueless haters... (Score:3, Interesting)
From what I've read in the actual patents involved, the idea of a portable touchscreen isn't what's being contested. Not that the average slash otter is interested in that fact - it appears most posters are oblivious to the fact that Apple isn't suing over the idea of a touchscreen tablet.
Is it apparently lost on Samsung and the frothing-at-the-mouth haters that the patents in question are not about making a touchscreen tablet, but is about using the following graphic design elements:
* A sunflower for the 'photos' app
* A white cartoon bubble with a green background for SMS
* A calendar icon with a red bar on top, and black text showing the current day
* An envelope icon against a cloudy sky
* A notebook with a brown binding on top
Any of those can easily be represented just as clearly with a different icon, but Samsung flatly refuses to change the icon.
I don't see how pointing out that tablets are a staple of scifi will change the design patents. This isn't about 'invention', it's about graphic design - and an entirely different part of the law.
Re:This is why! (Score:4, Interesting)
Sshshhhh! Don't burst this guys bubble. I have heard variations of this story since the oil embargo of the late 1970's when gas shot to 4 dollars a gallon.
He changes a few things around, it was his uncle, and not secrete nazi documents recovered from World War II detailing how Hitler got 100 MPG using a special carb for their armored personnel carriers and ford stashed them in a warehouse to be destroyed. Or (insert whatever name you want) university professor who discovered how to get 50-80 miles a gallon with a (insert meaningless name here) ventrical modification that could be applied to any carb on any motor that Standard oil purchased for millions to bury which is why no one who ever looked for this professor could even find a record of him. He's in the Bahamas drinking daiquiris or something. Then there is my favorite version, the one where some uneducated back yard mechanic figured out something that no one else at the time could, filed a patent, then disappeared off the face of the earth along with the patent application and all his test motors.
That last one is my favorite because growing up, we had a neighbor who moved away in the middle of the night and my brother told me it was because he create a 100 MPG carb and GM came and took him away. Turned out that he had lost his job, borrowed some money from the wrong people, and was afraid of them finding him. OR so his kid said when I ran into him in another town about 15 years later.