Apple's Billion Dollar Patent & Other Stories From Patentland 130
DECS writes "It has been widely reported that Apple secured a patent worth a "billion dollars." According to a patent attorney involved in the issue, Apple will be "after every phone company, film maker, computer maker and video producer to pay royalties." The good news is that all the news reports were based on misleading hyperbole. " Don't let the title fool you; the essay is a good background on patents, the horror stories of some of them but also why companies feel compelled to seek patents as a business "safety" precaution.
So they did it? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So they did it? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Press Releases (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Press Releases (Score:4, Insightful)
I would correct Starkweather's last statement to be "That's why patent writing is a dark art, and requires the surrender of all ethical bounds checking".
Re: (Score:1)
You see, even the patent author thought downloading movies was an obvious variation to something that's already pretty obvious, so, how did this stupid patent get approved?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Secret Underground Patent Lair (Score:2)
The only things this sentence misses are the stage directions, which should have him sitting in a high-backed leather chair, petting a cat, and subsequent maniacal laughter...
In my opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple has shown some very litigious behavior for many years, I think it's a valid point if a bit overblown (and not really relevant if you RTFA, but heck this _is_ slashdot).
If you think it's not a valid point, why not refute it?
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
Disagreeing with a statement and modding it troll = ModTard
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft would sue if anybody made a Windows XP theme for MacOS. Luckily for them, NOBODY wants it.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple's legal "hounds" would be negligent if they didn't go after people attempting to dilute their trademark/tradedress rights. As a quick rule of thumb, you can assume than any litigation that could possibly be associated with trademarks or trade dress is a business necessity for the company bringing suit. Lawyers are expensive and such li
The Simpsons already did it. (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Not getting it (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd give it an A for research, but a C- for usefulness.
Also, what is up with the "we're being censored by Digg" bit at the end? Following his Digg links, it seems like everything is working fine. The only thing I found on the subject was this accusation [googlepages.com] claiming that Roughly Drafted is trying to game digg. The only thing I can figure is that some of the new algorithms (which favor users who have gotten stories to the front page) killed the stories from getting to the front page. Whether someone is gaming the system or not, he needs more established users in order to get his stories to the front page.
Re:Not getting it (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's probably his stories are very biased pro-Apple. It took me one look at the Roughly Drafted Magazine [roughlydrafted.com] page a few weeks ago when his site hosted the Leopard vs. Vista article (linked to here on /.) to realize that. I didn't even have to read the aforementioned comparison, because I could already tell what it was going to say. The sad part is, I navigated to the RDM page to find Page 1 of the Leopard vs. Vista review thinking that maybe someone
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Not getting it (Score:5, Interesting)
The www.roughlydrafteded.com site is censored by Digg, not because stories are ranked poorly, but because the system automatically bars URL submissions from sites that have had a given number of submitted articles buried.
The anonymous poster of your link (ba01162.googlepages) is "Lackawack," a Digg user who announced he would set up a "vigalante army" of fake accounts on Digg and take down any articles that had been submitted from RoughlyDrafted. That was in response to unflattering reviews and general taunting of the Zune.
That resulted in Lackawack getting his user banned on Digg, but he immediately resurfaced as lackawack2 and started buring old articles that had been on the front page. He also attacked everyone digging any RDM articles. He started keeping a McCarthy list of "suspicious Digg users" who digg RDM articles, which is the page you advertise in your post.
Of course, if any of those users were fake, lackawack2 could have just submitted them to Digg and the site would ban them. Since he couldn't do that, he just raised a FUD screen of "sounds suspicious!!!" and kept working to bury old stories until enough articles on Digg had been sequentially banned so that Digg blocked further submissions.
That mechanism is designed to prevent domains from dumping a bunch of junk into Digg, but it is entirely worthless, as plenty of spam anonyblog domains caputure Digg's front page. All the "top 10 lists of stuff you already know" that link to anonymous googlepages full of Adsense, or domains all run by the same group of pay for say astroturfers (some of which have been outted on RDM) happily consume much of Digg's bandwidth.
The thing is, if you need to repress someone else's speech with your own noise, you're probably lying. I try to contribute original, worthwhile writing on subjects to balance the sensationalist and often poorly thought out press release regurgiations that are much easier and profitable to do. If you don't like my stuff, you can ignore it, but presenting a liar's troll campaign as a credable attack is just lame.
The vast majority of comments on RDM articles on Digg were very positive. It is only the miniority of anonymous trolls there who want to censor opinions that fail to hail everythign from Microsoft with effusive kowtowing. Digg just has systems in place that allows that type of abuse. That's making it increasingly less interesting to use Digg.
NewsFactor [roughlydrafted.com] looks interesting.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
Rather than use the critiques to become a better writer he instead lashed out and cried censorship envisioning some massive conspiracy to squelch his glorified blog.
This is the kind of garbage he was submitting over and over again:
http://digg.com/apple/Windows_5x_More_Expensive_th an_Mac_OS_X [digg.com]
And here we see that Daniel agrees with his own articl
Re: (Score:1)
Windows 5x More Expensive than Mac OS X [roughlydrafted.com] presents an accurate and fair history of the deliverables of Apple and Microsoft from 2001-2006. The only thing you didn't like about it was that it refuted the wild claim by Paul Thurrott that Mac OS X "costs users something like $750." I presented that not only does Microsoft charge more for retail copies and upgrades of Windows, but that Apple has released five times as many major updates and over fifteen ti
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
It would be like me designing an industrial control system, then on the last page of the manual going "We shouldn't be i
Re: (Score:2)
it's interesting that they say apple isn't... (Score:4, Interesting)
Guess the author never heard of the "FreeType" library, I believe Apple threatened to sue them for the parts of their text rendering engine, that allowed them to effectively do things like antialiasing. Apple also, as mentioned in the article, tried to sue Microsoft for various violations.
He also never mentioned what the actual patent was about did he?
The article seems to have very little to do with the title, and the evidence is lackluster for the case, at best.
Re:it's interesting that they say apple isn't... (Score:5, Interesting)
The patents Apple has in TrueType also have to do with grid-fitting of curves, and not antialiasing - basically a way to provide hints to adjust control points for curves on limited resolution contexts, effectively so that you don't have to do any antialiasing (which on a B&W device is impossible).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
From the summary: "Don't let the title fool you; the essay is a good background on patents."
Seeabove, and from TOA: "the clear intent of the press release...was really all about the patent attorney,"
But, for the sake of reference, one more click gives you:
"Patent that covers the downloading of music and video with the ability to play music and video on a device."
Re: (Score:2)
Not really. This is how things are done nowadays...especially in the BioTech sector. Its called "Mutually Assured Patent Destruction". Since it isn't really feasible to do anything without infringing on some company's patent, the best defense against lawsuits is a counter lawsuit. In the BioTech area, you will not get any kind of venture capital funding without a portfolio of pat
Re: (Score:2)
Apple
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously Apple has to protect its trademarks and copyright, and uses patents to protect its inventions, just like every other company, but when I tried to find recent examples of Apple killing viable products with nonsense patents (which was the premise of the press release issued about the Billion Dollar Patent [roughlydrafted.com]), I couldn't find any.
Clearly, Apple could have used iPod patents to attack Creative firs
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft growth has stalled, and all of its new efforts to expand outside of servers/windows/office have been commercial failures. All. Now its 3 monopoly positions are under attack from Linux and open source: Linux in the Enterprise, OpenOffice and Ajax web apps like Google's, and Linux and alternatives on the desktop. That makes Microsoft a have-not.
Apple is much smaller, but the company is gro
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Kindof like we have computers now. Doesn't mean we have always had them.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
$2,000,000,000 vs $150,000,000.
Apple didn't need Microsoft's money, which it exchanged for stock worth more than Microsoft paid, but rather a vote of confidence in the market, and a public committment that Microsoft wouldn't continually use the threat of dropping Office for Mac [yahoo.com] as a constant weapon against Apple. That threat no longer exists [roughlydrafted.com].
Microsoft sold its Apple stock at a profit, but no
apple patent (Score:5, Funny)
OR worse
This is a novel method of representing nothing. In the past, nothing was always something. We propose a special character that represents nothing (the lack of something) to be used in communication purposes. We shall call this character the "zero."
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
This is a novel method of securing revenues from non-production by means of establishing a system for documenting on a first claim basis, cataloguing and categorising basic ideas to be later exploited for securing the mentioned revenues without having to explicitly produce any concrete manifestations. The resulting device is to be called 'vague patent'.
ObOnion (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Woz: It's about nothing.
Jobs: Right.
Woz: Everybody's doing something, we'll do nothing.
Jobs: So, we go into the patent office, we tell them we've got an idea for a patent about nothing.
Woz: Exactly.
Jobs: They say, "What's your patent about?" I say, "Nothing."
Woz: There you go.
(A moment passes)
Jobs: (Nodding) I think you may have something there
Submited by Daniel Eran, the spammer (Score:2, Informative)
Check out how he was caught:
http://ba01162.googlepages.com/RoughlyDraftedBUST
Re: (Score:2)
I am laughing hysterically... (Score:2)
and me too (Score:2)
Re:Submited by Daniel Eran (Score:2)
You should have pointed to your Digg posting, similarly burried, which ranted about my "GAMING DIGG!!!! PROOF!!!" or the handful of snotty comments you post on digg because I criticized Microsoft's business strategies and marketing of the Zune.
Perhaps you need to find something more useful to do with your life than anonymously hang on my coattails, Lackawack2. You're not that fun to hang out with and you have nothing interesting to s
Thay Did It! (sic) (Score:3, Funny)
It also doesnt exist in "Prior Art".
My god, they have found 3) ????:
3) Patent the letter "E"
4) Profit!
Som3how w3'll g3t around it (Score:1, Funny)
Chapt3r 1
1:1 In th3 b3ginning God cr3at3d th3 h3av3n and th3 3arth.
1:2 And th3 3arth was without form, and void; and darkn3ss was upon th3 fac3 of th3 d33p. And th3 Spirit of God mov3d upon th3 fac3 of th3 wat3rs.
1:3 And God said, L3t th3r3 b3 light: and th3r3 was light.
Content of the Patent (Score:1)
To clarify the patent (a bit) (Score:2)
"A recent out-of-court settlement between Apple Computer and the owner of the patent that covers the downloading of music and video with the ability to play music and video on a device (technology essential to the iPod and other music and video technology)"
That's pretty major.
Here's the link:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/061130/lath054.html?.v =80 [yahoo.com]
Re: (Score:1)
Really, really dumb.
Strangely I feel as if I should go grab my gun, now. Is it time yet, guys?
Incentive Misconception (Score:3, Insightful)
My favorite is the line in the article about how without patents there would be no incentive for pharmas to, say, develop a new treatment.
Innovation will always be driven by necessity, not by profit. That, and laziness: if I can invent a cotton gin so I don't have to spend hours and hours picking seeds out of cotton by hand, what do I care if I don't have a patent on it? My life is still simpler. What about drugs? If enough people are getting sick, then people will pool together their resources and develop a treatment. Sure, it might not happen in the same way we know things today, but I think that patents are a form of competition, and I'm beginning to think that cooperation is a more powerful force in economics than competition, despite the prevalent thinking.
Eli Whitney cared (Score:5, Insightful)
Eli Whitney, and the U.S Congress certainly cared. Although Whitney was able to patent his cotton gin, the U.S. patent laws at the time (under the first Patent Act of 1790) were so weak he was unable to enforce his patent and nearly went bankrupt. Whitney himself sold few cotton gins as large manufacturers could undercut his prices due to their established distribution chains. The next two patent acts (1810 and 1836) were drafted with Whitney's story in mind and provided greater protection for inventors (Abraham Lincoln's famous "patents are the fuel for the fire of innovation" quote was referring to the 1836 act).
So, out of all the examples you could pick as to why patents don't matter, Whitney's cotton gin isn't one of them (it is probably the worst possible example).
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, so maybe Eli Whitney's case isn't the best to use to support my case; however, my example is that particular device - or something similar - would be invented anyway even without patents. Indeed, your example proves my point there; the cotton gin was invented without the benefit of a good patent system!
I think as long as people have enough resources and free time, innovation will occur just because some people like to innovate.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, so maybe Eli Whitney's case isn't the best to use to support my case; however, my example is that particular device - or something similar - would be invented anyway even without patents. Indeed, your example proves my point there; the cotton gin was invented without the benefit of a good patent system!
I think as long as people have enough resources and free time, innovation will occur just because some people like to innovate.
Or things get stuck at a low level, because an improvement doesn't mean any more money for those who could develop something new. Or the new development is kept a secret, using violence to keep it that way.
Re: (Score:2)
Not that this article [wikipedia.org] is authoritative, but I have heard similar claims in the past and wouldn't doubt them a bit. Apparently there are several possible inventors of the cotton gin around the time Eli Whitney got his patent. Most likely several people influenced the design, but Eli Whitney just happened to be the first to submit a patent application
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
I hope well for your immediate family despite their evident plight.
Developing Drugs Costs Big $$$ (Score:1, Insightful)
Here's why it's not going to happen, and here's also the argument for why pharma companies need strong patent protection:
Pharma research costs big money, because 1) paying your PHDs to do the research, an
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Exactly, and there's no reason patents are needed. Other industries still make products there is demand for, without ever registering a single patent.
Pharma research costs big money, because 1) paying your PHDs to do the research, and maintaining research facilities, costs quite a lot, and 2) the FDA approval process is costly and takes years.
They spend more on advertising than they do on research. The FDA thing is another government created
no reason for patents (Score:1, Insightful)
The argument is POINTLESS and INNANE due to the fact that people have spent great effort (multitudes greater than what is on face here) researching hard data in attempts to determine the effects of patent policy on innovation. The conclusions that the overwhelming majority reach fall somewhere in between 'patents are worthless' and 'patents are perfect'. Without even attepting to build on this
Re: (Score:2)
Where does academia get its money? Outside
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If it costs you more to develop, than the inital direct benefit to you, then you just won't do it.
If, however, you know you can sell thousands of them, because your patent prevents other from copying the design you spent so much time/money on, you might just have an incentive.
This is definately the case with "pharmas to, say, develop a new treatment." Afte
Re: (Score:1)
Unfortunately, I agree that "powerful" != "practical". What I mean is that consider MS vs Linux vs Apple; if, instead of all the people competing on three different fronts for the "best" OS, what would happen if all those people were working on the same "best" OS? Granted, this is all kind of a "what-if" kind of proposition, but it does bear consideration.
Article doesn't identify the patent. Here it is. (Score:5, Informative)
So we have an press release about a supposed Apple patent. The article doesn't identify the patent or give the patent number. Then we have a blog entry about the press release about the supposed patent. That doesn't identify the patent. Then we have the Slashdot article about the blog entry about the press release. Which doesn't identify the patent either. The end result is a clueless Slashdot article.
The actual patent is US# 5,864,868 (Contois, January 26, 1999), "Computer control system and user interface for media playing devices". The main claim is:
1. A computer user interface menu selection process for allowing the user to select music to be played on a music device controlled by a computer, comprising the steps of:
a) simultaneously displaying on a display device, at least two individual data fields selected from music categories, composers, artists, and songs;
b) selecting at least one item from at least one of the data fields;
c) in response to step b), redisplaying all data fields not having an item selected therefrom with data related only to the at least one item selected in step b), and simultaneously maintaining all items originally displayed in the data fields with at lest one item selected therefrom;
d) selecting an item in the songs data field in response to step c), and
e) playing the selected song item from step d) on the computer responsive music device.
So it's an interface for a specific format of playlist interaction. Some players might have to change their interfaces a bit. Big deal.
Re:Article doesn't identify the patent. Here it is (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Article doesn't identify the patent. Here it is (Score:1)
If this patent were so valuable, why haven't they started enforcing it?
Re:Article doesn't identify the patent. Here it is (Score:2)
Well, that and the cost of damages for prior infringement over the last ten years, attorney fees, and any additional punitive damages for willful infringement or inequitable conduct before the US PTO. Of course, changing the interfaces to get around this patent may render a portable audio player uncompetitive. Other than that, not a big deal.
Cheaper To Fight It (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
If you were one of the corporations that Apple tried to extort, you'd be a sociopath, willing to fund a shadow war of assassination and terror to dominate your market. Sue you for patent inf
How is it possible (Score:2)
Are the patent office asleep?
More to the point, why can apple think they stand a chance in court?
Surely everyone apple attempts to sue can easily get out of it by proving they had prior art?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
May be the spark... (Score:2)
Since we're on a patent rant today... (Score:3, Informative)
Defensive litigation (Score:1)
Companies are attempting to overcome their lack of creativity/ingenuity by litigating a profit.
Thanks to the patent office's less-than-picky gratning process, there are a LOT of seemingly obvious and redundant patents floating out there.
I think that more situations will come up as companies attempt to assault Apple's #1 iPod/Music Store slot and incresingly their other software and hardware ventures.
What I'm talking a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I for one... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Apple got a patent on not playing games (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Have you looked at Mac prices since the Intel transition? All across the lines, the machines are extremely price-competitive. The iMac and Macbook are within 10% of a comparable PC, and the PowerMac severely undercuts a comparable PC (even if you build it yourself!). Just about the only machine that still carries a premium is the Macbook Pro.
Not only that, you cannot get anything remotely close to the form factor and build quality of an iMac for any money. I would consider an iMac a bargain in comparison to an equivalently priced PC!
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
So you're picking out a Dell loss leader, particularly in an area of highly visible, extreme price sensationalism, in exchange for comparing real PC prices.
In reality, Dell PC systems are very similar to Apple's pricing, becau
Re: (Score:2)
I doubt they are identical. Apple displays use a different screen technology to most of the displays on the market, which gives a wider viewing angle. Furthermore, does the Dell come with Firewire ports on the display?
Re: (Score:2)
Even online, those are $700 processors. A dual-channel Woodcrest motherboard will run you close to $450 (there are $350 ones, but those are only dual-channel). A pair of 512MB DDR2-667 FB-DIMMs will run you about $180. Throw in another $50 each for the 7300GT, the HDD, and th
Re:Apple got a patent on not playing games (Score:4, Interesting)
It's also been that way for all of a year now?
Then again, software these days rarely, if ever, interact directly with the hardware. APIs are what matters now, and unfortunately APIs are something Microsoft has in spades.
Microsoft pushes for developers on Windows to use DirectX so that the game they create aren't portable. If they were to use OpenGL, or even worse for Microsoft, SDL [libsdl.org], they could build portable games. Do you really think Microsoft wants that?