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The Patent Thing
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Mitch, regardless of the block of wood mouse that you might have seen, history tells us that the mouse was taken by Jobs after seeing it at PARC. Xerox did market a computer two years before Apple with a GUI and mouse. I was only wrong that it was a two button mouse they sold. But don’t trust either of our memories and check WIKI as the mouse was independently developed a few times decades before PARC anyway.
as to your other point, I sense you didn’t understand my point to Bill that if PARC had used patents to block Apple, then it is likely that Apple would not have gotten of the ground. I didn’t conveniently fail to mention anything because my point was about how lucky Apple was to get such free R&D when they were kick starting.
Finally at no stage have I said there is no need for patents. If you read all posts I have made in both threads my point is that the way software patents are being used these days is stifling development. That is not saying patents are all useless so argue with someone who thinks that. I stand by my comment that Apple was lucky not to be stifled by a software patent on the PARC GUI or a hardware patent on the mouse.
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[David Lawrence] “Well, for starters, here’s a report you can read from the EFF that estimates that over 11 billion dollars a year is wasted in software patent lawsuits. Guess who pays that bill? Maybe you can explain how this waste is good for innovation and consumers.
“THIS is the problem? When someone quotes me a number about a part of something – I find it useful to examine the entire thing to see if the problem is large or small in real terms. A cursory search of the world wide software market says this: According to market researcher DataMonitor, the size of the worldwide software industry in 2008 was US$303.8 billion, an increase of 6.5% compared to 2007.
Ignoring the fact that the industry has likely grown a LOT in the past 4 years, it’s still puts the problem we’re addressing at somewhere around 3% of the market.
[David Lawrence] “The fact is if you’re a small company starting out in the garage, your innovative product can be crushed before it even hits the market if another company wants to go after it. All they have to do is hold a patent. They don’t even need to make a competing product. This happens all the time. Here’s just one example.”
I agree with you in a sense, but I think it makes my point better than yours. The referenced software (caller ID lookup) isn’t very “innovative” at all. It’s a garage guy trying to simply be there first to suck some bucks out of the market with a pretty trivial tool. He got run over by more sophisticated competitors and became collateral damage. That’s a simple fact of business life. At the “garage” level, the point is to take the lump, learn from it, and move on. My kid went out to peddle comic books at a street fair. He got tagged by the fair organizers and charged $25 bucks for a selling permit. (half the regular fee, cuz he was just a kid) So he ended up with a loss rather than a profit. Fair? I’d argue perfectly fair. He didn’t make money, but he learned to be better prepared to compete next time.
Same with your garage app developer. If they best they can do is a zip code database lookup app with little value beyond that – they can’t compete in the real world of business. If the patent thing hadn’t hit them – something else would. Because the basic idea couldn’t generate enough business results to sustain a business team who thought the original idea strong enough to bring resources on-line in order to fight the patent suite or any other roadblocks along the way. Same as it’s ever been. Business is trough. It’s not played on ONE level, it’s played on many. You don’t get to level two until you master level one. Period.
[David Lawrence] “The problem is that the US system grants overly broad patents to foundational computing processes and uses. This creates software monopolies. Monopolies are bad for choice and for innovation.”
That’s an opinion. Which is fine. But it’s not a fact. A fact would be to look out and see an actual software monopoly out there. Can you point one out to me?
“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
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[Michael Gissing] “history tells us that the mouse was taken by Jobs after seeing it at PARC. Xerox did market a computer two years before Apple with a GUI and mouse. I was only wrong that it was a two button mouse they sold. But don’t trust either of our memories and check WIKI as the mouse was independently developed a few times decades before PARC anyway.”
That’s correct. The mouse was actually developed at Stanford Research Institute and first demonstrated to the public on December 9, 1968 by Douglas C. Engelbart:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfIgzSoTMOs
Engelbart and his SRI colleagues demoed not just the mouse, but the graphical user interface, dynamically linked files, hypertext, and live on-screen collaboration. This demo is now dubbed “The Mother of All Demos” because in 1968, Engelbart and his team showed the world the future of computing.
Try imagining what that future would look like today if everything SRI demonstrated in 1968 had been patented out of the reach of others to build upon and refine. This is the point of Kirby Ferguson’s brilliant Everything Is A Remix series.
Software patents are bogus.
BTW, when I was at LFL in 1987, Apple had Engelbart visit and consult with us on our work. One of my most cherished memories is of giving him a private demo of our early NLE and just getting to talk with him about the history and future of the mouse and computer interface. He is a gentleman, a true genius, and a giant in the history of computing.
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David Lawrence
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Interesting for me as I have a first hand experience of how the Apple Samsung dispute seems to be panning out.
I used to Own an iPhone and had it 18 months. Nice device but I became frustrated by how locked in Apple made it and the lack of openness it allowed. Coupled with the crippling iTunes for PC you have to use. So I switched to the Galaxy S2 and realised just how useful a smartphone can be. A greater choice of apps to suit the way I need to work. The design was familiar enough to make the operational change comfortable. Would I consider it a “rip off”? No it was so different in so many way no way could I consider it an iPhone copy.
My son has just purchased a Galaxy S3 and I was showing him some of the operation stuff and a whole bunch of stuff has been changed and not for the better. But clearly to ensure it’s in no way a “copy” of an iPhone. Does that make it a better phone? No it doesn’t.
And it a shame Apple refuse to allow others to build (at a chargeable cost) on their good ideas and instead insist on restricting products and development. The Galaxy S2 is a great Phone and exceeds the iPhone in many ways and Apple are now intent on effectively killing it off.
Will that make better iPhones or even better non Apple phones? Most likley no it won’t it just restricts choice.Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
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Sigh.
Let me make this simple for you.
Apple did not invent multi-touch or pinch-to-zoom. This is a fact. Please see the Jeff Han video above.
Apple absolutely deserves its success for bringing multi-touch and pinch-to-zoom to the market. But it absolutely does not deserve the power to force competitors to pay a high tax on or cease using technologies it did not invent.
That’s we’re talking about.
The US patent system is broken. Especially for software. It creates as much incentive for patent trolls as it does for true innovators.
The current 20-year lockdown on foundational computing methods is insane. EFF has some outstanding ideas on how to make things better.
[Bill Davis] “That’s an opinion. Which is fine. “
and you know what they say about opinions…
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David Lawrence
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Where will it all end?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAtje5weAU0&feature=player_embedded#!
Steve Connor
‘It’s just my opinion, with an occasional fact thrown in for good measure”Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Google Youtube” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.
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THAT was marvelous!
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[David Lawrence] “The fact is if you’re a small company starting out in the garage, your innovative product can be crushed before it even hits the market if another company wants to go after it. All they have to do is hold a patent. They don’t even need to make a competing product. “
Amen brother David.
One of our clients that we did a rebranding for a couple of years ago is one of the most innovative LED companies in the world. They’re a small company, with very big ideas and a breakthrough product that won both Popular science and the lighting industry’s product of the year award recently.
Problem is they’re so broke from fighting an ongoing patent battle with a big lighting company that a product that might literally revolutionize industrial and corporate lighting wallows as cheap chinese competition continues unfettered.
This went on for years and we couldn’t market the product because all of their resources were depleted and tied up in an absurd patent suit with a company that neither made nor could make the product themselves, but they had a patent so sweeping that it literally killed the actual innovation.
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[Chris Harlan] “THAT was marvelous!”
LOL, YES!
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David Lawrence
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[Jim Giberti] “Problem is they’re so broke from fighting an ongoing patent battle with a big lighting company that a product that might literally revolutionize industrial and corporate lighting wallows as cheap chinese competition continues unfettered.”
But Jim,
[Bill Davis] “He got run over by more sophisticated competitors and became collateral damage. That’s a simple fact of business life.”
Besides, the lighting industry is bigger than ever! Profit!
Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t resist. I’ll shut up now. 😉
_______________________
David Lawrence
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