In UK, HTC Defeats Apple's "Obvious" Slide Unlock Patent 165
An anonymous reader writes "In a move that is likely to have wide-ranging implications for patent rulings around the world, a High Court Judge in the UK has ruled that HTC did not infringe on a number if Apple's patents. 'He said Apple's slide-to-unlock feature was an "obvious" development in the light of a similar function on an earlier Swedish handset.' Two other patents that Apple had claimed were infringed were ruled invalid, while a third was found not to apply to HTC. A statement from the Taiwanese firm said: 'HTC is pleased with the ruling, which provides further confirmation that Apple's claims against HTC are without merit. We remain disappointed that Apple continues to favour competition in the courtroom over competition in the marketplace.' Apple declined to comment on the specifics of the case. Instead it re-issued an earlier statement, saying: 'We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.'" This after a similar victory for HTC in a different venue, when Apple's request for an injunction on some HTC devices was rejected in the U.S.
Dupe -- less than 24 hours ago (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Dupe -- less than 24 hours ago (Score:4, Insightful)
But this is a new day, and a whole new chance to bitch about lawyers and patents! If the masses don't get their Two Minutes Hate, they might actually start thinking, and we can't have that!
Follow the hivemind! Corporations are bad!
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Re:Dupe -- less than 24 hours ago (Score:5, Insightful)
As I've said before [slashdot.org], it's not that lawyers do so many stupid things. By and large, they don't. Rather, Slashdot (and other news outlets) reports on the few stupid things to get reactions from people, because a rousing discussion is more profitable than objective journalism.
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No, lawyers don't do stupid things by and large, they do evil things. There's a difference. Their actions clearly make sense for them, because they make them lots of money. However, they harm other people and society with those actions, making them evil. It's just like someone stealing lots of money from people in a way that they don't get caught (perhaps robbing banks in a particularly clever way); it's not stupid, because it clearly takes skill to pull it off, but it only benefits them, and harms ever
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It's their job. (Score:2)
When lawyers do stupid things, it's largely because they are paid to do them. They represent the interests of their clients in regard to legal issues. Client says "we own slide to unlock," the lawyers they pay find ways to make that stick.
This doesn't make me any more fond of the tactics they use in representing those interests, but it's important to realize that they aren't usually the driving force behind it.
People like that nozzle Carreon notwithstanding....
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So, in other words, instead of being the bank robber, they're the getaway driver. Being an accomplice doesn't make one less guilty.
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So your excuse for these scumbags is "Befehl ist Befehl"?
Some lawyers tried that defense before for their clients and it did not work, why would it work for the lawyers themselves?
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Not an excuse, but a reminder that the lawyers aren't the only ones involved. Barking about only the lawyers won't be enough to fix these problems.
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So your excuse for these scumbags is "Befehl ist Befehl"?
Some lawyers tried that defense before for their clients and it did not work, why would it work for the lawyers themselves?
It was generally the senior Nazis who ended up being executed for war crimes though, not the prison camp guards.
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That's very true, to an extent. There are also ethical standards which a lawyer can be disbarred for breaking, and as I recall (though IANAL) if a lawyer thinks something is illegal, they are obligated to tell their client. An allegation being questionable, though, is not a reason to dismiss it... it's a reason to argue for clarification.
Client says "this sliding thing is new", patent lawyer says "there's these older things, but they're all noticeably differently from ours", patent examiner says "okay, they
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The problem lies in the huge weight that is given to property affairs compared with everything else.
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By and large, they don't. Rather, Slashdot (and other news outlets) reports on the few stupid things to get reactions from people, because a rousing discussion is more profitable than objective journalism.
/. isn't about reporting news, it's about discussing it. The more rousing the discussion, the better.
Your criticism of news outlets is warranted, but
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That lawyer has only his clients' best interests in mind...said nobody ever.
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Follow the hivemind! Corporations are bad!
Please stop saying that. Nobody else is, so why do you persist? No, we're not. Really. What we are saying is that corporations are, by their very nature, incompatible with the well being of the citizens of the state that allows such entities to exist. Corporations have one mission, to create profit for their shareholders. Any action not in keeping with that mission is, arguably, a breach of the duties entrusted to those who run the show. We (the citizens), then, should not expect a corporation to do what we
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Follow the hivemind! Corporations are bad!
Please stop saying that. Nobody else is, so why do you persist? No, we're not. Really. What we are saying is that corporations are, by their very nature, incompatible with the well being of the citizens of the state that allows such entities to exist. Corporations have one mission, to create profit for their shareholders. Any action not in keeping with that mission is, arguably, a breach of the duties entrusted to those who run the show. We (the citizens), then, should not expect a corporation to do what we regard as "the right thing". We should, then, rigorously monitor and regulate said corporation's behavior so that it will so the right thing WRT to the citizens who granted it's existence, and most definitely not the other way around.
Short version: corporations are bad.
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I'll be able to release my so-called infringing iPhone app - it'll make a million for me overnight.
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Yes but it only got 136 comments yesterday, they're hoping today will attract more.
They should have mentioned that some gun-loving Christian-fundamentalist Microsoft-using AGW supporters were involved in the case.
Can we please.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just end all software or method patents?
This is the problem and until it is fixed more of this sillyness will happen.
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That or the patent office should stop giving them out so haphazardly. It really would not shameful to tell Apple that no, they can't have a patent for "a box with buttons", but are more than welcome to pat themselves on the back.
And for the record, slide to unlock has been around longer than even computers. They're called crossbar latches [wikipedia.org].
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But...it's implemented *on a computer*! Bang, that's a new patent! And don't forget another separate one for *on a mobile computer*...that's different enough, too! Someone better get in there and grab one for *on a wearable mobile computer* before someone takes it!
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Patent the device, not what you do with it. There is absolutely no reason for software patents. Even less for where you put your control widgets in an interface, whether it be mechanical or digital. There is no temporary monopoly required while you gather the resources to build your software prototype, since those resources are virtual. Patents should be used to help inventors to get things prototyped. Software does not require that physical investment.
Samsung vs. HTC (Score:3)
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It involves money, not engineering most likely.
Keep sending the checks... we'd hate to see that nice code get broken...
Apple stole ideas from Android (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple is not nearly as innovative as the fanboyz think. Apple just protecting it's IP? Apple is stealing the IP from Android.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-ios-5-copied-android-2012-5#notifications-appear-at-a-bar-at-the-top-1
Re:Apple stole ideas from Android (Score:4, Insightful)
And a good thing it is that they did it. Can you imagine if someone had patented the layout of the pedals in a car? You'd have to relearn driving every time you got into a different brand car. "Slide to unlock" is a user interface convention, not an invention. Other manufacturers don't do it because it's such an ingenious way of unlocking a phone. They do it to avoid confusing their users. And the same is true for putting notifications where users expect them.
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After seeing Amazon patent "one click" I believe anything is fair game.
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While I don't think any patent on a slide-to-unlock widget should prevail, regardless of who claims it, I don't understand how it could be described as "obvious" or "conventional" when people had been making touchscreen handheld devices for a decade prior and had never used it. "Obvious in retrospect" isn't the same as "obvious".
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An even better example: What if Internet RFCs were instead patents? Imagine where we would(nt) be today with that mess.
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Re:Apple stole ideas from Android (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless the Android notification bar is patented, Apple has very legal right to copy it.
It's probably legal(and, in a great many of these cases, it is hard to feel warm and fuzzy about the quality of the patents that are being held as making certain duplication illegal...); but it's hard to argue that it is innovative. The two are largely orthogonal issues.
I wouldn't be inclined to say that cross-platform adoption of good UI elements is a bad thing for users; but I would say that there is only so much copying one can do while still having a right to a mystique of innovation...
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Unless the Android notification bar is patented, Apple has very legal right to copy it.
It's probably legal(and, in a great many of these cases, it is hard to feel warm and fuzzy about the quality of the patents that are being held as making certain duplication illegal...); but it's hard to argue that it is innovative. The two are largely orthogonal issues.
I wouldn't be inclined to say that cross-platform adoption of good UI elements is a bad thing for users; but I would say that there is only so much copying one can do while still having a right to a mystique of innovation...
you know whats the really sad thing? we can't know even if it's patented for a few years. it probably isn't with a patent that would hold up though.
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iPod is a fucking radio we had them before apple
Heh heh, nice diss.
The relatives of Marconi should sue Apple.
Other slide-to-unlock devices. (Score:5, Funny)
Good ruling. Here are some other slide-to-unlock devices [robinsonsantiques.com] which have been around for a while.
Ooo (Score:3)
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Irrectangular dysfunction maybe?
Dupe of another front-page article (Score:4, Informative)
Not only is this a dupe of another article on the front page [slashdot.org], the summary quotes the same BBC article. Doesn't Slashdot have a system for at least checking the URLs of submitted stories?
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+1 Dupe
Re:Someone might want to tell HTC (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Someone might want to tell HTC (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple doesn't understand the meaning of "copycat" at least not in the sense of when they do/did it.
Younger Steve Jobs understood the importance of copycats in the market place... too bad older and now dead Steve no longer understand it. No matter. It will all result in something good for the market eventually and Apple will exhaust the patience of the judiciary of all nations and eventually win some legislation and perhaps some patent reforms around the world to prevent "everyone" from doing what Apple is doing.
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Apple doesn't understand the meaning of "copycat" at least not in the sense of when they do/did it.
Younger Steve Jobs understood the importance of copycats in his business model.
There, fixed that for you. Much like young Bill Gates, young Steve Jobs liked to copy other peoples work but didn't like other people to copy the same work. Xerox Parc, CP/M, it does not matter what arrangements were figured out after the fact, both so called "visionaries" copied from real researchers.
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The thing that will erode Apple's margin is when users realize they get the same sweatshop hardware for 10x the price from them.
Re:Someone might want to tell HTC (Score:5, Insightful)
What exactly in the iPhone is new or novel? Everything done in it has been done in other phones before it, all they did was package up everyone else's innovations make it pretty and slap a logo on it and claim they invented the phone market. Slide to unlock was as obvious as it gets when your dealing with a touch screen. How would you propose you unlock a smart phone?
I guess they need to listen to their same line of not stealing others tech, because that's precisely what they did when they made the iPhone.
Re:Someone might want to tell HTC (Score:4, Insightful)
They made everything better. AND they sold the Sizzle, not the steak.
This is what the haters will never understand. All they see is 6oz bacon wrapped Filet, and say "I could do that cheaper" after looking at the $60 price tag. But what they mean is they can do a 12 oz Flank Steak on a BBQ for $6. It isn't the same.
Re:Someone might want to tell HTC (Score:5, Insightful)
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OK. I've never owned an iPhone (I tend to like WiMo7 or Android a lot better), but iPhones tend to have upper end hardware - not the best out, but typically the phone with better hardware are rarely more than a couple months older than the iPhones - for when they are released, the iPhones do then to have upper end, though not quite bleeding-edge hardware.
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Buy an iPhone. Try to use it for a month. I assure you that you will reverse your opinion of the hardware.
Don't worry, we'll wait. Go ahead.
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Buy an iPhone. Try to use it for a month. I assure you that you will reverse your opinion of the hardware.
Don't worry, we'll wait. Go ahead.
Try using one for a year. In fact, you won't be able to because it will break, unless you enclose it in an armoured case and never let it leave your house.
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The small details matter.
Yes, they do to consumers of expensive electrical gadgets, you're quite right. It's like you used to find when people still bought big hi fi systems for their home. A funky flashing LED display got more sales than having a good amplifier or speakers.
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Re:Someone might want to tell HTC (Score:5, Insightful)
a car analogy to counter.
nobody but ferrari can make a ferrari..
but pininfarina still made the nicest designs and some of the nicest were done for alfa romeo and all italians have the same shit electronics bought from the same shit suppliers.
apple has sold others parts as their own inventions ever since 6502, only sprinkled with "magic" and claiming that anyone who buys the same parts from the same outside inventors/manufacturers is a stealer.
your steak analogy isn't that good either because it would have to be a 120$ steak served on a silver platter while the restaurant next door had filet mignon with bacon for 60$- only done properly(not wrapped) and with sauce of your choosing and fries instead of pickled dicks.
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Shit electronics? I don't know about cars but I know for motorcycles Magneti Marelli makes world class ECUs. Bosch and other manufacturers can't compete in racing series.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneti_Marelli [wikipedia.org]
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Shit electronics? I don't know about cars but I know for motorcycles Magneti Marelli makes world class ECUs. Bosch and other manufacturers can't compete in racing series.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneti_Marelli [wikipedia.org]
it's a stereotype, jokes are funnier that way. afaik there used to be a time when it wasn't that unusual that they'd refuse to start on a damp day and so forth. and car manufacturers quite often don't manufacture the electronics parts, kind how it's extremely rare for a consumer electronics company nowadays to manufacture any of the parts that make up the device.
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a car analogy to counter.
nobody but ferrari can make a ferrari..
But if I could design and build a more or less identical car with a different badge for half the cost I should be allowed to sell it and let buyers decide whether the Ferrari was worth the extra money.
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And you can take a Fillet Steak, marinate it and cook it for around $8 and have it taste far better than the restaurant mass cooked crap that usually has no flavor. Your not really helping the argument with that.
The sizzle as you put it is flair, its glitter, its not innovation. Suing over that is like suing because someone else went to your Halloween party dressed as your favorite character from a shitty book or movie. As for better, what did they do better? I know on my iPad (yes, I have one, doesn't mean
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I cooked in a high end restaurant for 3 years, you would be shocked at the shitty quality of the crap they serve people and slap a massive price tag on. We had profit margins in the range of 300% on our least profitable item and consistently got 5 star ratings.
Marinating beef adds in a flavor that your aged steaks can't obtain, you just need to know what and how to marinate it.
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Selling the sizzle usually indicates that the product isn't really significantly better - you just generate hype about it. So, I'd agree with that part of your statement.
As far as comparing types of steak - it's more like a 6oz bacon wrapped fillet from Apple for $60, while the high end competition offers 5-7 ounce fillets for $40-$50, just usually with marginally less bacon. If you really like bacon, then the Apple might be fore you - but otherwise, it's probably not worth the hype (sizzle).
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Your steak analogy is bad. You can easily make steaks just as good as some overpriced $60 restaurant steak, and even better, if you know how to cook steak (it's not that hard), and buy a quality steak, and you can do it for a fraction of the price. The key is, that $60 isn't just buying you a steak, it's buying 1) the labor to cook it (plus a guarantee that it's to your liking, if you screw up your own steak you're outta luck, but the restaurant will take back a bad one and redo or replace it), and 2) the
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Which is exactly the same reason that people will buy a laptop, tablet or phone with the Apple logo on and happily pay 50% more for it than it's worth. (Or pay two hundred quid for a pair of jeans with some designer's name on).
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That's all well and good, but you can't patent a bacon-wrapped fillet if the bacon and fillet have already been made by someone else. That is the point here.
Honestly, I'm surprised they didn't win the slide-lock case. As far as i can tell, they were the first company to have a broad distribution of phones that had that feature.
That being said, I'm glad they lost due to their recent success with other, more bullshit patent trolling, such as "Oh no, we patented a rounded rectangle with a single button, you ca
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Alas, "broad distribution of phones" isn't one of the qualifiers to get a patent...
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They made everything better. AND they sold the Sizzle, not the steak.
This is exactly what we understand. Apple sold cheap flank steak from Mexico under the guise of it being USDA Prime wagu bred in Japan. They lied about the quality and the origins, to fit in with the analogy.
This is what the haters will never understand. All they see is 6oz bacon wrapped Filet, and say "I could do that cheaper" after looking at the $60 price tag. But what they mean is they can do a 12 oz Flank Steak on a BBQ for $6. It isn't the same.
See my sig about using the word "hater". All I see is a
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"All they see is 6oz bacon wrapped Filet"
If that is your pinnacle for steaks, I suggest you don't comment further on any subject related to beef.
Yeah, if it ain't at least 32 oz it's a fucking bar snack, not a steak.
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Yep, that's why RIM, Nokia/Symbian, Windows Mobile, PalmOS are doing SO well these days. After all, the iPhone couldn't even compete against t
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This is obviously an issue near and dear to your heart so I cordially took the time to read your entire rant waiting for the part where you would explain what Apple had actually invented rather than a list of simple iterations on the hard work put forth by others previous to them.
Thanks for nothing, man.
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No one who used smartphones prior to iPhone can possibly take you seriously. By comparison all of the sucked unequivocally.
And Apple took all of that precedent learned from it and cleaned it up, and now therefore can tell everyone else they aren't allowed to take the iphone, learn from it, and and release a new product themselves? Say what now?
Its not like apple invented long battery life or good call quality. Lots of SmartPhones existed with that, they might otherwise have been crap, but the battery and o
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Its not like apple invented long battery life
You say that as though iPhones have great battery life compared to other phones. They don't.
You shouldn't let Apple fanboys get away with assertions like "Apple invented the first smartphone with good battery life" because they certainly fucking haven't yet. As with Android phones, you have to recharge them once a day.
And the reason is that Apple uses the same technology as everyone else, they don't have some magic new battery technology they've invented.
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No one who used smartphones prior to iPhone
and then you say
And yes, they did invent the consumer smartphone market.
Something doesn't make sense there.
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even at the supposed "premium" price
It's not a supposed premium, iPhones are fucking expensive. The fact that Samsung and HTC appear to want to match their prices just means that they're going for the fucking expensive market too.
Five hundred quid for a toy is just taking the piss. And yes, I know that people on slashdot use their iPhones to control vast supercomputer clusters and co-ordinate interplanetary rocket laucnhes.
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The only reason the iPhone truly took off was because it integrated with iTunes which had major success
To be fair to Apple (which doesn't come easily) their app store idea helped a lot too. It had never been so easy for non-technically minded people to download and install programs.
Prior to the iPhone, people tended to stick to the one or two crappy games pre-installed on their phone, for instance, and you never got anything like the Angry Birds phenomenon.
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The answer to each of those is "No" btw, and I'm actually trying to recall when phones got cameras, I'm pretty sure that was prior to the iPhone, but front facing and video calling were iPhone firsts, I think. Also, IIRC, BES came into being quit a bit before the iPhone was released, and was one of the reasons BB was at the top of the smart phone heap.
A quick check on google indicates that cameras were being added to phones in the 90s and according to the Apple site the iPhone 3GS didn't have a front facing camera; which means my Nokia N70 (released in 2005) clearly beat Apple to video calling and I know that it wasn't the first.
Re:Someone might want to tell HTC (Score:4, Insightful)
And now the Apple shills...
It's a bullshit patent. In a proper patent system, the patent would never have been granted.
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Don't give them that much credit; these aren't shills. Apple doesn't need to pay people for this pathetic white-knighting. These are honest-to-goodness deluded fanbois who can't stand that a critical thing is ever said about their sacred cow.
--Jeremy
The worst lies are the ones you believe are true.
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There was really no downside for Apple to sue with a legitimately granted patent.
Legitimately granted?
Nowadays patents are not really examined properly at the time they are filed for, the patent office just says yes then starts taking your money. The downside only comes when you try and sue (which costs you a small fortune) and the patent is chucked in the bin for being obvious.
This also now has the other downside for Apple that HTC are now in the clear over these patents in the UK whereas before they are in a grey area where they could be infringing so it was a risk for them to bring a
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Heck with competing with apple, they cant compete with samsung.
After the past 2 years with an android phone, if it's not a unlocked nexus from google, it's a crap android phone. But samsung's latest quad core godliness may change my mind.
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Well considering apple has been in courts saying they couldn't compete with Samsung if the courts didn't grant the injunction against the galaxy tab back in 2011...
Samsung is the big dog on the block, and apple is afraid.
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They can't. Samsung is both manufacturer and software developer. Apple is just software, all of their manufacturing is outsourced.
Samsung is a -VERY- known quantity and has been playing in the electronics industry in far more areas than apple for a very long time in the high-end stuff. Even their low-end items however are very high quality, I have yet to own a samsung product that I can complain about beyond "I wish it had feature x" which is usually available on the model up Samsung product.
Every LCD or LE
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Samsung does make some high end Washers and dryers. But they are typically only found in homes that have walk in SubZero refrigerators.
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Samsung does make some high end Washers and dryers. But they are typically only found in homes that have walk in SubZero refrigerators.
The idea of a walk in refrigerator is about as appealing as an indoor shark-infested swimming pool with a retractable bridge crossing it.
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Would you like to have 1% of a billion dollars?
You should work out that math.
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I'm a patent geek. Patent attorney, undergrad in Comp Sci, and working in-house at a software company. Of course my view somewhat differs from the vitriolic responses of most commenters on here.
Nevertheless, I enjoy the patent stories.
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I'm sure they differ, as you are about to become part of the problem.
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The big difference is he has probably read the patents, but that isn't a prerequisite for discussion around here. You can tell by the way everybody here thinks Apple has a patent on rounded rectangles. If he spoke up, he'd be chased out of here by a bunch of torches and pitchforks, plus a guy shouting 'lightning bolt!'
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I actually did read that patent and I am not sure how "patent on rounded rectangles" is not a decent summary. I even looked at the diagrams.
Please elaborate on what you think a simple summary of the pantent should include.
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I actually did read that patent and I am not sure how "patent on rounded rectangles" is not a decent summary. I even looked at the diagrams.
Please elaborate on what you think a simple summary of the pantent should include.
Seeing as how Apple doesn't actually have a patent on rounded rectangles I'm going to venture a guess that you ran across a story with a headline that says something like "Apple claims rounded rectangles!" and skimmed whatever they linked to, nodded your head, and went 'yup yup yup!' If I'm right, what you saw was a design patent that included a number of details about the particular non-functional shape of the device. Apple didn't sue Samsung because the Tab has rounded corners. They sued because Sams
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No, I read the design patent. Its biggest design feature seems to be the rounded corners. I am not sure how they even qualify as non-functional. Sharp corners would be uncomfortable to hold.
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No, I read the design patent. Its biggest design feature seems to be the rounded corners. I am not sure how they even qualify as non-functional. Sharp corners would be uncomfortable to hold.
Only if you normally hold electronic devices by the corners, which no one does.
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I'm sure they differ, as you are about to become part of the problem.
Yes, and criminal defence lawyers in a homicide trial are part of the problem of murder.
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I would imagine they would differ, it is hard to convince someone to act against their own pocketbook.
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What Slashdot has, is a decent-size contingent of people who routinely solve problems. Think of us all, even the newbiest programmers, as full-time inventors and architects. No, I'm not saying we're in Tesla's league. If we had to be, then there wouldn't be much of a problem! But the low barrier to software creation, means that now many millions of people have to deal with the s
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Slashdot has a decent-sized contingent of law geeks.
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On the contrary, patent and copyright law concerns almost all nerds. It's not the legalities themselves that interest us, it's how they affect our work and hobbies.
Being a nerd isn't buying tech, it's designing and building and repurposing and progremming tech. As such, patent law affects us greatly.
as it happens (Score:2)
back when groklaw was in the process of nailing down that smoking crater you would find a lot of stories that jumped the Slashdot/Groklaw line. I think there is a decent sized number of Law geeks in these parts. (plus its a good think to be able to play "Another One Bites the Dust" in the software patent area.
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Unless Slashdot has a decent-sized contingent of law geeks, these constant stories about patents are really inappropriate here. Are there "patent geeks" other than timothy...?
What you have on Slashdot is a load of software geeks full to bursting with their own cleverness and sense of entitlement, who don't like nasty real world stuff like the law interfering with their sacred calling, namely to become software billionaires, and hence get a girlfriend. Who's better looking than that lucky bastard Mark Zuckerberg's one.
Posted AC for obvious...oh fuck it.
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1. It's spelt 'Kenya'
2. You can't play the global market without paying attention to global standards of obviousness.
You argument about Europeans and Americans is baseless. It is clear to everyone that Apple is simply litigating to prevent competition.
Speaking of Kenya, don't be an ostrich.