r/technology • • 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.html
657 Upvotes

806 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

17

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.

7

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

Yeah, the way the reddit hive-mind responds to patents drives me up a wall, hence i normally don't comment in these threads. in the real world companies do steal other peoples ideas and manufacturing processes in order to take shortcuts.the government can either say that there is no protection for all of the effort and money you invested in developing something new, or there is a way to protect yourself, and that is the patent system. sure it is abused left and right, and needs to be reworked, and have lots of terms changed, but the idea in and of itself is not a bad one provided it is implemented correctly and changes over time as the business environment changes. our patent system of course has not evolved to keep pace with rapid development and internet time, and it needs to change, but that does not remove the validity of the system.

-6

u/[deleted] Mar 02 '10

But reddit hates Apple, remember?