Apple files ten patents relating to editing today

[David Lawrence]

[Bill Davis] “You can quibble with an item here or there as “unworthy” of the patent issuance, but Apple has spent heavily on R&D for a long time. They’ve been awarded lots and lots of patents based on their efforts – each reviewed by the same body that grants all American patents using precisely the same process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1s_PybOuY0

Software patents are bogus. If Xerox PARC had patented the graphic computer interface they invented, the Macintosh simply would not exist. Software patents are bogus.

_______________________
David Lawrence
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[Michael Gissing]

I really didn’t expect you to understand Bill. If nothing else, listen or read the transcript of the episode of This American Life that Shane Ross mentioned earlier in this thread. Also study the history of Apple and you might understand my comment about hardly inventing anything.

There is a world of difference between invention and adaptation. I acknowledge Apple has been very good at the later and I stand by my assertion that they are not really inventors. Patents were designed to protect inventors and make those that adapt and develop pay royalties. It is counter productive to grant patents on the grounds of these ten patent applications when they are basically describing modes of editing and color correction which they surely didn’t invent.

[Michael Gissing]

Thanks David. That TED talk pretty much nails it.

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Bill Davis] “it’s hard for me to look at the exhibits posted at AppleInsider and elsewhere – and not notice that before the iPhone, NOTHING else looked like an iPhone.”

If you listen to Apple (Insider), yeah, it would be hard. Have you looked at actual evidence about iPhone prior art?

That’s not even mentioning the absurdity of patenting the iPhone shape, where it’s clear to anyone with a modicum of common sense that smartphones in general, with the progress in voice recognition, touch and display technologies, will all march towards one general shape type, much like TVs: a large screen with a brain and battery packed tightly behind it. Some will even have rounded corners: not much of a choice here, is it?

There is little question that Apple grossly abuses the patent system, making frivolous litigation a part of their business model.

Wikipedia now has a page, “Apple Inc. litigation“. What an honor. Excerpt:

“Between January 2008 and May 2010, Apple Inc. filed more than 350 cases with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office (USPTO) alone, most in opposition to or taking exception to others’ use of the terms ‘apple’, ‘pod’, and ‘safari’; those cases include sellers of apples (the fruit), as well as many others’ less unassuming use of the term ‘apple’.” (highlighting mine)

Next thing on Apple’s agenda? A patent on the on-off button. Then we’re really screwed, all of us.

[Jeremy Garchow]

Some of these patents seem as ludicrous as an automobile manufacturer patenting the 4 wheel vehicle or a round steering wheel.

Sorry for the car analogy, but it’s true.

[Joseph Owens]

I’m reading the abstract for “masking” for the purpose of color correction. Now I know that Silicon Color had to name their process a “vignette”, because “PowerWindow” was taken, among others. Its a daVinci trademark and patent, now owned by Black Magic Design.

Hmmm.

Wouldn’t it be entertaining if what develops is a hostile, predatory litigation (by a cash-rich company) to simply out-sue in the hopes of an attrition battle that a smaller company cannot hope to win. Its just SunTzu strategy. Corporations are legally obliged by their shareholders to cheat, lie, steal, murder, anything, in the name of profit.

https://attempter.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/corporations-are-sociopaths/

Also, see: https://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Wright_Bros/Patent_Battles/WR12.htm
which includes Henry Ford, Glenn Curtiss, Orville Wright and World War One.

It also talks about patent definitions pertaining to “improvements” and “innovations”.

And yes, Apple sends lawyers to fight pointless actions — do some research around the NVidia card fiasco on the 17″ MacBook Pro motherboards. Look for the Seattle litigation. Just one tiny example with which I am not personally unfamiliar, having experienced the failure, and also the song-and-dance runaround.

Eventually the revolutionaries all become Big Brother, and then we need more revolutionaries.

jPo

“I always pass on free advice — its never of any use to me” Oscar Wilde.

[Bill Davis]

Okay I’m in…, you know I love the analogy game. 😉

Apples patents are to computers as Mercedes Benz much touted 80,000 auto patents are to cars.

Funny how all those Auto patents over a far longer innovative timeline -for an even less complex device – did hardly anything to “stifle” the car industry.

But the software patents as used in the modern era are somehow the devils spawn.

Someone want to explain why the computer industry is so special?

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Timothy Auld]

An automobile compared to software? A mechanical device with hard, easily demonstrable and definable differences compared to something that exists only as numbers on recordable media? That analogy I don’t get.

Tim

[Michael Gissing]

Bill, just watch the TED talk that David Lawrence linked and also the ep of of This American Life that Shane mentioned. You will get the history or how the patent office had to be taken to court to recognise software patents because evn they thought software patents were bogus.

Yes the software industry is a special case and both those bits of background explain it.

[Craig Seeman]

Google: Time to ditch our current software patent system?
https://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57496747-38/google-time-to-ditch-our-current-software-patent-system/