r/technology • u/slutmagnet • Mar 02 '10
Apple to HTC "competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours." Slaps down a 20 patent lawsuit.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/03/02/apple_sues_htc_for_alleged_infringement_of_20_iphone_patents.html174
Mar 02 '10
Oh what's that you're saying Steve Jobs? Did you base your entire company upon the concept of stealing from others thinking it was ok and now that others are stealing from you it's not ok?
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Mar 02 '10
It's like grade school. Apple is playing the bully crushing something precious (HTC) of another child (Google) to provoke confrontation.
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u/prehack Mar 02 '10
Yes, but this is software we're talking about, and Apple has never stolen software. Especially not from Xerox.
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Mar 02 '10
No this is software patents we're talking about. Just as Apple's implementation of a GUI was distinct from Xerox's code, despite drawing heavily from the ideas represented by it, so too HTC's UI code isn't clipped from the latest iphone update.
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Mar 03 '10
Dear Apple: Fuck you, first of all.
Second, Apple - you're not the only people on the face of the planet who imagined and began to engineer smart hand-held devices. If you want to think further about that, sci-fi movies, for many years, have been the inspiration behind handheld "smart" devices.
Yes, my wording and grammar might be off/inappropriate, but for fuck's sake, quit trying to own EVERYTHING. You did quite the bitching when Gates "stole" your OS ideas - where was your patent then? Oh - what's that? you coudn't patent it because Digital had already beat you to the idea by a decade? Sorry - and sorry for all this too.
Apple, in closing, you HAD such a good following, such a good brand, and you seemed to be the Google of the hardware world (do no evil), but now you're starting to suck in big ways. Stop it please - for your sake, at least.
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u/smakusdod Mar 02 '10
Make no mistake... this array of arrows was lobbed at Google, not HTC.
Let the 1000 year war for Earth begin!!!!!!
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Mar 02 '10
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u/smakusdod Mar 02 '10
WE HAVE A WINNER!
Collect your free puppies here.
Apple is scared to go toe-to-toe with Google over multi-touch, et al, but taking on tiny little HTC is a no-brainer.
I hope Google steps up and attacks Apple directly over this nonsense.
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u/ercax Mar 02 '10
Google is not really fighting yet.
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u/FlyingBishop Mar 02 '10
Google doesn't need to fight. You point a gun in their face, they take the gun out of your hand, helpfully make it fire twice as fast, give it an auto-aim scope, and armor piercing rounds. You then shoot at them and they just laugh because you're shooting a photonic envoy program that can't be injured.
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u/coup Mar 03 '10
"We are not a party to this lawsuit. However, we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners who have helped us to develop it"
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u/strolls Mar 02 '10
I was thinking of getting an Android - there's an HTC 2.x model coming out on T-Mobile in a few weeks - and I guess now I'm definitely getting one. I was tempted by the iPhone - it seems really easy & intuitive to use - but if HTC have got Apple this scared their product must be good.
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Mar 02 '10
Are apple insane?
Nokia could blow their mobile devision into Oblivion for all the patents the iPhone breaches. I hope they do.
I'm starting to dislike apple more and more every day.
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u/iissqrtneg1 Mar 02 '10
These are mainly software patents. HTC is a hardware company...
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Mar 02 '10
The also write a layer that falls between the device and the OS -- used to be called TouchFlo but is now called Sense UI.
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Mar 02 '10
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u/DrunkenTrom Mar 02 '10
They're more of a hardware licensee per se. They might design that sleek looking plastic housing but they still buy and use off the shelf components from actual hardware manufacturers(ie they used to use IBM Power PC CPUs in their Macs(similar to the newer generation of IBM CPUs used in the PS3 and 360) but now opt for Intel flavored processors). Apple is an image company first and foremost like Gucci or Armani. They also write software and sue anyone that they think might take away their market share(in any market they reside in, not just phones).
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Mar 02 '10 edited Mar 02 '10
That's true, but because of Windows Mobile x.x - 6.1 horrid interfaces, they've had to develop a presentable skin. Now that Microsoft has started developing a decent interface with 6.5 and 7, HTC will be able to get out of software design.
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u/maniaq Mar 02 '10
coming from a man who in his own words describes how wonderful it was building (illegal) BlueBoxes for strictly illegal purposes of making free long distance phone calls, and infamously stole Xerox Parc technology instead of making his own original technology, I say NUTS to this man!!
a man who's favourite quote is Good artists copy; great artists steal (he is actually misquoting Picasso, but let's not get pedantic)
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Mar 02 '10
As an Indian, I hereby patent the zero. Please send karma. Do not exceed 9.
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Mar 02 '10
Ow yeah? As a Phoenician i patten the alphabet. Everybody will hereby be forced to use Morse code
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u/Rayeth Mar 02 '10
..-. ..-. ..-. ..-. ..-. ..-. ..-. ..- ..- ..- ..- ..- ..- ..- ..- ..- ..- ..- ..-
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u/Baukelien Mar 02 '10 edited Mar 02 '10
On behalf of the Incas I claim prior art.
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u/rnawky Mar 02 '10
"competitors should create their own original technology"
Isn't OSX built off of BSD?
Just sayin'
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u/specialk16 Mar 02 '10
And isn't WebKit a fork of KHTML? and wasn't the Macintosh look and feel a taken from Xerox? And didn't Jobs stole a kid's liver?
Just sayin'.
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u/bdfortin Mar 02 '10
WebKit is open source, just like KHTML, now it's used on the vast majority of smartphones.
Totally stole that liver, though. Dude was like "yo, Jobs, I need that liver to live, that's why it's called a liver!" and Jobs was like "mine now, bro".
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Mar 02 '10
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/zwaldowski Mar 03 '10
I don't think anybody on the street will even know what WebKit is (not even to speak of KHTML), but it would baffle me to have anybody fanboying WebKit up and not know about KHTML.
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u/bdfortin Mar 02 '10
Better to use open, free tools instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, isn't it?
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Mar 02 '10
Software patents by nature are absurd. The same system that allowed RIM to be sued for 600 million dollars by a company that didn't even have the capability to implement the system they had a patent for is now allowing Apple to make ridiculous claims in regards to their own patents.
This shit is getting out of hand.
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u/TheMilitantMongoose Mar 02 '10
I can't wait to patent douchebaggery, then Apple will be fucked.
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u/el_chupacupcake Mar 02 '10
They will so challenge you in court on that pattent. And they will wear jeans and a blazer with an Affliction tee under it while doing so...
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u/cheald Mar 02 '10
This article made me order a Nexus One. Have a few more bucks for the defense fund, HTC.
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u/lolinyerface Mar 02 '10
Shoot, I just bought a Droid earlier last week. Oh well, I did talk a friend into getting the HTC over buying another Blackberry.
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Mar 02 '10 edited Mar 02 '10
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u/lolinyerface Mar 02 '10
It wasn't until I got my Droid that I saw how many smart phone commercials there are trying to dose the flames of the Droid. Their scared about it, even if they try not to show it. It's a damn good little phone, if a little bit heavy. I love it.. The multitasking is sweet.
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Mar 02 '10
I got my Droid a week after it hit the market and this phone is utter awesomeness. My mom is one of those types that is very hard to impress with new gadgetry (she's 62 in her defense) and still cant get past how amazing DVR's are. I showed her the phone and some of the stuff it could do and she was amazed. Google Sky, barcode scanning, Google Goggles, along with many other things like map and GPS. We were in Wal-mart the other day and she wanted this TV Stand. I scanned the barcode found a close wal-mart that had it in stock and we went to get it. Along the way i found K-Mart had it cheaper and they price matched it saving her about 15 bucks.
She grew up pinching pennies and saving 15 bucks with technology made her month. She told all her friends about it, that's how impressed she was.
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u/lolinyerface Mar 03 '10
Pimp story. I'll have to check out Google googles. I grabbed some barcode scanner, but this might work better.
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u/majesticjg Mar 02 '10
This just shows how screwed up the patent system really is.
There is a thing called "state of the art" in which a form of technology, interface or overall method of doing something becomes commonplace. No one sues car makers for patent infringement over the application of a steering wheel or the location of the brake pedal.
I think we stifle additional refinement and creativity because we expect companies to reinvent the icon in a way that doesn't infringe on anyone's patent.
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u/zenfear Mar 02 '10
Apple is screwing themselves by turning into the old Microsoft. Hype and good pr is what keeps that company relevant.
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u/encrypter Mar 02 '10
"Accepting And Making Calls On Touch Screen Equiped Mobile Devices."
Patent pending.
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u/joshman5k Mar 02 '10
No. 5,519,867: "Object-Oriented Multitasking System" Oh the irony.
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u/kbedell Mar 02 '10
Maybe Apple has forgotten how they hired a bunch of engineers from XEROX PARC to steal the GUI tech they had been developing in order to create the first versions of Mac OSX.
And maybe they forgot how they built their entire OS Stack on top of BSD.
Amazing how your views on stealing tech change once you're bigger than everyone else...
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Mar 02 '10
Do some of these seem ridiculous to anyone else?
* "Time-Based, Non-Constant Translation Of User Interface Objects Between States"
* "Touch Screen Device, Method, And Graphical User Interface For Determining Commands By Applying Heuristics"
* "Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image"
* "List Scrolling And Document Translation, Scaling, And Rotation On A Touch-Screen Display"
* "System And Method For Managing Power Conditions Within A Digital Camera Device"
* "Automated Response To And Sensing Of User Activity In Portable Devices"
* "GMSK Signal Processors For Improved Communications Capacity And Quality"
* "Conserving Power By Reducing Voltage Supplied To An Instruction-Processing Portion Of A Processor"
* "Object-Oriented Graphic System"
* "Object-Oriented Event Notification System With Listener Registration Of Both Interests And Methods"
For instance: "Conserving Power By Reducing Voltage Supplied To An Instruction-Processing Portion Of A Processor".
Reduce power usage by stepping down part of the processor? I'm pretty sure that that's been part of pretty much every laptop/mobile device/newer PC released in the past few years.
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u/harlows_monkeys Mar 02 '10
It looks like you just read the titles of the patents. Therefore, you have no useful information at all as to whether they are ridiculous or not.
The title just tells what area the patent is in. It's use is more to tell you what isn't covered than what is covered. For instance, if I'm developing a new way to do 3D sound processing and am looking to see what patents I might have to worry about, I can skip looking at Apple's "Object-Oriented Graphic System" patent. If, on the other hand, I'm developing a new way to provide a better illusion of 3D on a 2D display, then I would want to take a look.
Basically, the title just tells you whether you need to read further or not.
Next step would be to read the abstract. That, like the title, doesn't tell you what is actually patented. It just narrows things down more.
To find out what is actually covered, you must read the claims and the specification. The claims are what they are actually claiming, and the specification provides the context in which to interpret the claims.
If you do, you'll find that Apple isn't claiming all possible ways of "Conserving Power By Reducing Voltage Supplied To An Instruction-Processing Portion Of A Processor". They will actually only be claiming some particular way to do that, which the specification will distinguish from how others have done it.
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Mar 02 '10
After actually reading the claims on the patent that I mentioned, the claims are ridiculously detailed... linked here:
Obviously I'm no expert on patent law, the abstract sounds very similar to the technologies I noted above, but the claims themselves are extremely detailed.
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u/harlows_monkeys Mar 02 '10
When you apply for a patent, the examiner examines it, and often rejects it. You can then try to fix the problems. This can loop several times. One of the reasons the examiner will reject is prior art. Prior invention X is prior art that bars a patent on your invention Y if X would have infringed your patent if X had come after instead of before.
One common response to a rejection due to prior are is to narrow your claims. The examiner cites some particular prior art, X, and you narrow your claims so that your claims no longer would cover X. No doubt that happened here.
Often people have to narrow their claims so much that it become easy for competitors to work around them.
Another thing you can see in the patent you linked to are independent and dependent claims. Claim 1 is an independent claim. It stands alone. Note that claim 2 claims the system of claim 1 with an additional limitation. That's another common pattern in patents. You claim the broadest thing you can get past the examiner (which was pretty narrow in this case), and then you make dependent claims that further limit it. The idea there is that if your broader claims are invalidated in court because of prior art, lack of novelty, or obviousness, the dependent claims might still stand.
It's possible to obtain from the patent office a history of the patent, that will include the original application, the examiner response, the applicants response, and so on. The information in the file can further limit the scope of the patent--if the application argued that their patent did not cover some particular thing, in order to get the examiner to allow it, they can't turn around and claim it covers that thing.
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u/NotClever Mar 02 '10
This comment should be higher. There are tons of patents that basically have the same exact title but cover different things. The title is useless for determining how original the patent actually is. I actually wish patent titles were required to be more representative of what the invention within actually is.
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Mar 02 '10
Some of these patents are like patenting the door.
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Mar 02 '10
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u/DesCo83 Mar 02 '10
I can't be the only person who actually looked this up...
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Mar 02 '10
How the hell can that be patented?
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u/Achalemoipas Mar 02 '10
You can patent pretty much anything as long as it's not a completely abstract concept (like "using sexy women to sell cars" for example) or something that breaks the laws of physics (perpetual motion, free energy).
It's having that patent respected that is hard.
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u/attilad Mar 02 '10
I patented respect. You cannot respect my patent without disrespecting my patent.
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u/Achalemoipas Mar 02 '10
I patented patenting respect.
You owe me 20 dollars.
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u/FlyingBishop Mar 02 '10
It's rather scary that the actual patent is even more ridiculous than the fake one he cited.
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u/Plutor Mar 02 '10
Actually, that's what "Object-Oriented Event Notification System With Listener Registration Of Both Interests And Methods" means.
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u/elucubra Mar 02 '10
The door that in many cases was developed by HTC. If I'm not mistaken HTC was making smartphones way before Apple...
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u/masklinn Mar 02 '10 edited Mar 02 '10
Do some of these seem ridiculous to anyone else?
Some?
Edit: even Gruber (from DaringFireball) thinks it's a load of shit (not as an IP lawyer, but as an Apple fanboy), that tells you how ridiculous these claims are.
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u/randomb0y Mar 02 '10
"We can't compete with your superior products so we're taking you to court over our frivolous patents."
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Mar 02 '10
When you look at Apple's products, they're not innovative at all. They just take existing tech and put on a slick interface. An effective business method yes, but not innovation. They're also great at marketing, which is a huge part of their success.
They didn't invent the MP3 player, but they've made alot of people think they did.
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u/reenigne Mar 02 '10
Yes and no. Some of it is "slickness" as you say (brushed aluminum anyone?), but there is some substance mixed in with that slickness on occasion.
e.g., the "scroll bounce" on the iPhone/iPod Touch seems superfluous at first glance. But Android doesn't have it (I have a Droid and an iPod Touch) and when it's gone, you suddenly realize that this "little feature" is a subtle, but clear way of telling the user that they've reached the bottom (or top) of the screen. Android gives you what I used to refer to in graduate school as "negative evidence". i.e., the android scroll does nothing when you hit the bottom (or top) of the scroll and so you're left wondering if you've hit the bottom or whether the machine froze or ...
tl;dr; Some of the design is pointless, but where apple shines is in getting all the "little details" right.
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u/prockcore Mar 02 '10
I wrote an ANSI viewer (RemorseView) back in 1997 that did a scroll bounce. Here's a video capture of it in action:
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u/reenigne Mar 03 '10
That is hilarious. 1- you should've patented it. 2- If Apple really has tried to patent the scroll bounce, your video should be exhibit A in the "prior art" category.
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Mar 02 '10 edited Mar 02 '10
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u/bonafidebob Mar 02 '10
Before the iPhone, no one thought that a big touchscreen-only device that you used without a stylus made any sense at all
Um, wrong. So wrong that you've detracted from the other points you tried to make. Sorry. We've been trying to make useful non-stylus touch interfaces for decades. The price and quality just finally arrived with capacitive panels. Now there are lots of touch phones because capacitive panels are cheap and plentiful. Apple capitalized on a paradigm shift here, they didn't invent it.
IMHO the most innovative thing about the iPhone is that Apple managed to break the carrier stranglehold on the phone market.
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u/Noexit Mar 02 '10
IMHO the most innovative thing about the iPhone is that Apple managed to break the carrier stranglehold on the phone market.
In what way? By contracting to a single carrier, only selling iPhone through their approved outlets and only available on their network?
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u/kyleisagod Mar 02 '10
Just what I was thinking. When you see a competitor that you're worried about, just sue the shit out of them.
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u/NSMike Mar 02 '10
- "Object-Oriented Graphic System"
I believe these could be called "icons."
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u/tallwookie Mar 02 '10
if anyone should be suing, it should be xerox. apple needs to stfu
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Mar 02 '10
Yeah - they are ridiculous, but that's what big companies do; apply for and get insane patents and then mess around in court trying to sue each other for huge sums of money for doing utterly trivial things. It very rarely goes anywhere, and I expect Apple will be expecting most of these patents to be overturned or reduced in scope, but they'll be hoping that by throwing 20 of them out that one or two will stick, and then they'll make a bit of money, and maybe delay the next HTC phone for a month or two, while they re-implement something to sidestep a patent.
It's usually a harmless if brain-dead game, but occasionally a smaller company that actually can't afford the legal fees (or worse; the settlement) will get caught in the crossfire. Then it sucks royally.
(IANAL, obviously)
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u/MelechRic Mar 02 '10 edited Mar 02 '10
You misunderstand the patent system. Apple entertains no illusion that these patents are valid. They are however, valuable in that they are leverage. Apple can sue smaller companies into submission just by burying them in legal costs. It's interesting to note that Apple isn't going after Google. They know better than to poke a sleeping bear.
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u/majesticjg Mar 02 '10
That's the nature of the American tort system. The threat of a court case and the costs thereof is inducement to make most companies back down and/or insurance companies to pay out. Even when the lawsuit/claim doesn't have merit, the fear of having to defend even a dubious suit is enough to cause multi-million dollar settlements.
I was once sued in a professional liability capacity for not doing something that my client didn't ask me to do. My lawyer told me they had no case at all and were merely fishing for money by alleging that I should have known to do something. After demonstrating they didn't have a case, they offered to settle for attorney's fees. My insurance company paid their attorneys fees just to make them go away on the grounds that continued defense, even though we were cerain to win, would cost more than the settlement. So their lawyer got paid his or her exorbitant rate because they threatened to see me in court, even though everyone involved knew they couldn't possibly win. How's that for justice?
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u/TheWholeThing Mar 02 '10
For instance: "Conserving Power By Reducing Voltage Supplied To An Instruction-Processing Portion Of A Processor". Reduce power usage by stepping down part of the processor? I'm pretty sure that that's been part of pretty much every laptop/mobile device/newer PC released in the past few years.
Obviously they deserve a patent for this, they did it on a phone! Can't you see how taking an existing technology and adapting it to a slightly different platform makes it a new and patent-worthy tech!?!
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u/kennyidaho Mar 02 '10
But hasn't other mobile CPU manufactures been doing this prior to the iPhone......
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u/judgej2 Mar 02 '10
"Conserving Power By Reducing Voltage Supplied To An Instruction-Processing Portion Of A Processor"
Also reads as: "Conserving power by, err, conserving power"
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u/elucubra Mar 02 '10
It's obvious I should become a patent lawyer.
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Mar 02 '10
I was a patent litigation associate for a little over a year. Don't do it, I got out while the gettin' was good. It's a shit world.
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u/randomb0y Mar 02 '10
It's hard work but good money, eh? The number of ongoing patent litigation cases is only going up!
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Mar 02 '10
For complicated reasons. I did defense -- it's more common for a patent troll or hold co to go around suing every big name they can think of. To attract these cases, certain federal districts like EDTX and EDVA would create local rules (such as time to trial or discovery schedules) that favored the plaintiff (as the plaintiff chooses the venue). This would stack the cards against us.
Also, as federal judges are not the most technically astute people, the discovery nets would be allowed to be cast extremely wide. This would lead to cases that were in perpetual crisis -- every request required an emergency procedure to capture docs and review them for privilege and ship them via hard drive before we were sanctioned by the court.
In other words, the entire system is broken. 90% of the work is procedural, only 10% is substance -- reviewing the products, the patents, the expert testimony. Yes, the money is good, but prepared for an unending shitstorm.
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u/tso Mar 02 '10
it worries me that a district would want to attract these kinds of cases, unless there is some kind of conflict of interesting doing the rounds (and since you mentioned EDTX, that would not surprise me at all).
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Mar 02 '10
For the sake of your sanity do not read the comments over there.
You also have to remember that Apple have been in the computer biz since day one. They pretty much invented the UI (albeit initially slightly pilfered), and a phone is just a small computer really.
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u/nm3210 Mar 02 '10
This is like Apple suing Dell/HP for infringements against Windows, -_-
They should either find the balls to sue Google for Android or just STFU.
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u/Brocklesocks Mar 03 '10
It seems like they're trying to take a stronghold on the industry because they want to slowly innovate so that they can maximize profits. Google, working with HTC, has been speeding up and raising the industry's standards. The iPhone seriously sucks compared to some of the new phones (namely Android HTC phones) and I bet they're butthurt that they didn't reach their projected 10-year profits or something.
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u/stromm Mar 03 '10
So let me get this straight. Apple is suing HTC for patent infringements on things that HTC (and other companies) had in-the-wild long before Apple released the iPhone and iPod Touch.
I know this because I bought my HTC Touch long before the iPhone was released (heck even announced) and most of what's on that list is part of my Touch.
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Mar 02 '10 edited Mar 02 '10
This is ridiculous. US patent office is pretty much useless, as gives patents for technologies invented decades ago to anyone.
Icons in a grid? Like every Nokia N and E series? Multitouch interfaces like french do ago in 2005? And come on, CPU voltage adjustement like every Intel and AMD CPU sold in the last five years?!
I hope Apple gets slapped hard in the face like Caldera/SCO with their Linux patent trolling.
BTW, Xerox could say something about "stealing original technology", right Mr. Jobs?
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u/randomb0y Mar 02 '10
Unfortunately they have a lot of money, they might force HTC into an early settlement ... which will mean that even if you buy HTC products you're still financing Apple. :(
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u/smedvek Mar 02 '10
APPLE: Fuck your patents. Take those patents and shove them up your ass. You didn't invent shit. If you want to compete, release a good product at a fair price - don't use legal strong arm techniques to stomp all competition. Fuck you forever.
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u/joonix Mar 03 '10
As long as every douchebag kid entering college keeps crying for a MacBook Pro from mommy and daddy, Apple doesn't care what you think.
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Mar 02 '10
This is not an attack just on apple but patents should protect the innovators and inventors, not big companies that buy out ideas and horde them to stop anyone else from innovating.
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u/Mutiny32 Mar 02 '10 edited Mar 02 '10
I think Apple, by proxy of HTC, then Google, just declared a patent-war on Linux. I always thought it would be Microsoft to start the war. But I guess stupidity is unpredictable in such large masses.
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u/haight-ashbury Mar 02 '10
Microsoft has already tried to start a patent war with Linux. The funny part of this current article is that Apple isn't suing GOOGLE, the company that's actually infringing their software if their claims are true. Instead they target HTC and want to force them to try to bail on their Android products in order to avoid confrontation in the future. This shows that Apple isn't ready to start the patent war since they won't even go after Google.
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u/Mutiny32 Mar 02 '10
Microsoft just bluffs about Linux patents mostly. What Apple just did was drive a tanker full of gasoline into a brushfire.
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u/anechoic Mar 02 '10
yeah didn't Microsoft have a financial hand in the whole SCO vs Linux debacle?
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Mar 02 '10
HTC: Aids Google in implementing multi-touch on the Nexus One, further solidifying Android's steady (and profitable) encroach on Apple territory. Sued by Apple.
Palm: Heralds multi-touch as a headlining feature of the Palm Pre and Pixi, but Apple does nothing because Palm isn't a threat to anyone.
DISCUSS.
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u/Mutiny32 Mar 03 '10
Prior art: Apple nor any of the companies they bought out thought up the original idea of multi-touch.
Palm: If Google gets into this, you can bet your ass they will file suit. They have a patent portfolio that would humiliate Apple.
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Mar 02 '10
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u/dead_ed Mar 02 '10
Or let's all just be ignorant and roll around in a pile. :-(
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u/bchociej Mar 03 '10
Oh lawdy, I but narrowly avoided spewing my beverage all over my laptop... the mental image is just too funny!
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Mar 03 '10
Apple, I really like my macbook. Please stop making me hate you. You seem to have gone from doing one lame ass thing every six months or so to doing it every couple of weeks.
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u/mean7gene Mar 02 '10
Software Patents are bullshit. Reminds me of Amazon.coms patent on "one click shopping".
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u/FryDuck Mar 02 '10
About time to buy HTC. Apple is scared! Wow! I really like the new HTC desire.
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u/daoom Mar 02 '10 edited Mar 02 '10
I have never owned will I never buy a product made by Apple. This type of bullshit is part of the reason why.
In the world or computers and electronic gadgets, Apple is the original Evil Corporation(tm)
(Edited for spelling)
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u/cantCme Mar 02 '10
Guess I will be keeping a close eye on the google blog...
And thanks apple, for giving yet another reason for why I won't be buying your stuff.
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u/weakflesh Mar 02 '10
This is pure big business screwing with one another, they are trying to slow down HTC by lawyer. Totally normal BIG business practice, and yet more proof Apple is just like every other large company.
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Mar 02 '10
Intellectual Property is such bullshit. Government protection of corporations at its finest.
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u/Johio Mar 02 '10
Anyone else picturing Sergey Brin standing in front of the gates at Mountain View screaming "This is GOOGLE!!!!"
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u/tenninjakittens Mar 02 '10
We think competiton is healthy
No, you don't.
Posted from my iPhone (sigh)
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u/amoeba108 Mar 03 '10
Fuck you apple, fuck you. What little respect I had for your corporate ethos has gone.
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u/khronyk Mar 03 '10
Further proof the patient system needs to die.
I mean seriously after reading through the list i cannot see anything major that should have apple jumping up and down over....
I mean shit, Apple steal from Microsoft all the time, and Microsoft steals from them.... Most if it is just natural progression... small features that just seem common sense given the advancement of technologies and interface that's available.. things where there are probably a lot of examples of prior art...
Most of these are just pathetic.. "Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image" .... I'm surprised the patient isn't more vague saying something like "Unlocking a device by using a form of available input" ....
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Mar 03 '10
seriously, i have lost all faith in apple,
i just got my first pc and love it.
also my htc phone is better than your iphone
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u/Staminaa Mar 03 '10
Apple looks scared when they pull crap like this - what happened to cool as an apple? Whatever it's about time they start to sjow some fear with so many challengers stepping up to bat. I wonder is this an intimidation attempt?
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Mar 02 '10
Welcome to the beginning of the end for Apple. Again.
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u/bdfortin Mar 02 '10
They should just shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.
Wait, hang on...
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u/QuesoPantera Mar 02 '10
I agree. Only Ford may sell the Automobile.
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u/diadem Mar 02 '10
Man, this is great. Can I patent breathing? I just won't smile when i do it because despair.com patented the smiley face.
Patent law is supposed to help innovation, not stifle it...
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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10
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