The Unexpected Patents of Steve Jobs 198
Harry writes "It's no surprise that Steve Jobs' name is among those credited in Apple's patents for MacBooks, iPods, and other iconic gadgets galore. But the man holds patents for packaging, a staircase, iPod cases, and several intriguing products that Apple hasn't built to date. They all add up to an interesting portrait of the world's most famous tech CEO."
Don't Forget the Lanyard (Score:4, Informative)
You can find a complete list of Steve's patents here [uspto.gov]. For what it's worth, I find Jobs listed on 100 patents or patent applications and Bill Gates listed on two [uspto.gov] as the inventor.
Probably a fair indication of what kind of leader you have on your hands
Re:Don't Forget the Lanyard (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait, what? Did I miss the irony?
You think Jobs contributed in any technical way to any Apple product? Heritic! May the Woz have mercy on your soul.
And a patent that references 47 other patents is far less impressive than vice-versa.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
if you read the article, you would know that the answer is yes, he does hold the patent on the hockeypuck mouse
Re:Don't Forget the Lanyard (Score:5, Interesting)
"You think Jobs contributed in any technical way to any Apple product?"
Actually, yes.
Jobs is nowhere near technically competent as Woz, but can hold his own. Probably better than most coders here. Woz would probably agree if asked.
I know in the project that ended up being OS X, he was one of five engineers developing the product and while his role was more along the lines of project manager, he would get his hands dirty occasionally and contribute code or fix others foul ups.
I know this goes against the heavily manicured image he likes to maintain...he wants to be seen as the inspiration and not the source, but he still has a lot of geek pride. Those that work closely with him know that he is as willing to tear a piece of hardware apart as look at it...or ask to see the source. Occasionally his 'revisions' are more zenlike reductions of the code (which goes along with the infamous ordering of the engineers to align resistors on the back of the iMac circuit board to be more aesthetic). Those not within his inner circle only get to see the superficial side of all of this.
Left anonymous for obvious reasons.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Jobs is nowhere near technically competent as Woz, but can hold his own. Probably better than most coders here. Woz would probably agree if asked.
But the more important question is "is Jobs the ballroom dancer that Woz is?"
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Jobs isn't as technical minded as the Woz, he is smart.
However If I had the money and a team of lawyers I'd easily ahve 100 patents by now.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You think Jobs contributed in any technical way to any Apple product?
He probably did. He did work as a technician at Atari before starting Apple. Clearly, Woz did most of the work, but Jobs has at least some basic knowledge of these things and probably has contributed something. The bigger picture is that he's very much involved in product development at Apple. The patents in question aren't very technical, they're more along the lines of user interaction design.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Don't Forget the Lanyard (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much all Microsoft's products come from buying up small companies that have the technologies he wants.
Marketing certainly plays a part, but finding the right companies to buy up in the first place is also a very important skill.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, in the business world that is referred to as "strategy", not "business".
Re:Don't Forget the Lanyard (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably a fair indication of what kind of leader you have on your hands ... definitely marketing/business for Gates.
I don't understand how you can come to a conclusion like that. All that shows is that Steve Jobs thinks that it's important to get his name on patents, and Bill Gates doesn't. I can't find definite numbers, but Apple has at least 2000 patents, and Microsoft had at least 5000 three years ago. Frankly, I think the fact that Steve Jobs is more interested in getting his name on patents means that he is the more business and marketing-oriented of the two, not Gates. Gates could have his name on several thousand patents, but apparently he didn't think that was important.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly, I think the fact that Steve Jobs is more interested in getting his name on patents means that he is the more business and marketing-oriented of the two, not Gates. Gates could have his name on several thousand patents, but apparently he didn't think that was important.
Personally I think it's more of a ego thing.
Steve Jobs is a excellent businessman, no doubt, but he's also a showman with a huge ego.. Apple == Steve Jobs == Apple. If there is a apple product, he wants his name attached to it somehow. Therefore all the patents apple claims should be in his name.
On the contrary to Bill Gates who doesnt care about his ego that much. (and why should he after all....) Bill Gates wanted the name Microsoft attached to everything, not his personal name. Everything he does
Absolute Bullshit (Score:3, Funny)
Ok, I looked at the patent on this before posting this because I initially thought, was "BULLSHIT, you can't patent a fucking staircase. There has to be something being left out."
But, I was wrong wrong wrong.
About the only descriptive text in the patent.
"We claim the ornamental design for a staircase, substantially as shown and described."
I know he has made some cool tech contributions, but this is absurd!!!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Don't Forget the Lanyard (Score:5, Funny)
The vast majority of Steve Jobs's patents are design patents. Bill Gates's patents are both utility patents. So, it's pretty much a tie.
Re:Don't Forget the Lanyard (Score:5, Interesting)
BTW speaking as someone whose work has received more than one patent I can tell you that someone's name being on a patent doesn't necessarily mean they contributed in any intellectual way. They may simply have provided money. I'm not dismissing the importance of money to a design coming into existence but I'm not so sure that anyone should be listed as an inventor if they didn't make an intellectual contribution to the design.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Not sure about that, but your comment is a 100% accurate indication of what kind of fanboi you are. FFS, just because Steve Wonderful Jobs' name is on all those patent does not mean he actually deserves it/invented it - its more like my boss few years back who was first in the queue to get awards and last whenever shit hit the fan.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Reminds me of a boss I once had that would openly take credit for anything and everything he gave advice on. We could spend weeks on a project, he would swoop in at the last second and say something like 'it should be blue' and then next week he would tell every one that he designed and built the whole thing from scratch with every one sitting cross legged on the floor in
Re: (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong, Jobs is a brilliant engender and programmer
He thinks Objective-C is the perfect language [slashdot.org]. All he engenders is mockery.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Okaaayyy.... all those who were founding partners of a computer company that has captured 10% usage share [hitslink.com], please raise their hands. Those people are allowed to make snarky comments about how little Steve Jobs knows. Everyone else, STFU. Unless you have worked with the man personally or have a reasonable assurance that he acts this way, what you've asserted is completely
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Don't Forget the Lanyard (Score:5, Interesting)
If you look at those patents in TFA, they're mostly related to design. It is not stretch of the imagination that Jobs actually designed the cases for those patents while working at Apple the second time.
Jobs might charm smart people, etc., but there is substantial evidence that Jobs does more than that. Yes, it actually looks like he works for a living sometimes.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
As to balmer I present the following evidence towards open mockery:
Monkey Dance:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc4MzqBFxZE [youtube.com]
Windows 1.0 sales pitch:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGvHNNOLnCk [youtube.com]
Developers:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_AP3SGMxxM [youtube.com]
on google:
"At some point in the conversation, Mr. Ballmer said: 'Just tell me it's not Google,'' Lucovosky said in his statement. Lucovosky replied that he was joining Google. 'At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office,' Lucovosky recounted, adding that Ballmer then launched into a tirade about Google CEO Eric Schmidt. 'I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google.' Schmidt previously worked for Sun Microsystems and was the CEO of Novell."
I rest my case...
Re:Don't Forget the Lanyard (Score:5, Informative)
He is that good. Every design, even in it;s most basic form, comes before him (or starts with him). He has very critical input, changes the direction of the deisgn, adds aesthetic charm to it, and has it redesigned at his orders to meet those specifications.
One of his programmers wrote a personal application for streamlining video editing. After seeing it, jobs gave him dozens of ideas how to make the app flow better, designed a more aesthetic interface, and commissioned a team to further the application based on his specs and ideas using the programmers initial work as a starting point. Although the idea was not his, the final product was very much shaped by him, and he was credited in the design of the current iMovie app.
jobs is not a coder, he's not a system engineer, but he's a design genious, and one of the singular most powerful infuencers of overall system design at Apple. Ideas like the lamp iMac, the apple remote design, how the apple store is staffed, software interface look and feel, and more all come from his mind.
Re: (Score:2)
Ideas like the lamp iMac, the apple remote design, how the apple store is staffed, software interface look and feel, and more all come from his mind.
The lamp iMac? Wasn't that a widely-mocked flop? At least the flat iMacs (and the original ones, actually) had a reason to exist.
Re: (Score:2)
Bill Gates isn't taking credit anymore. He's done his part, and now he leads. When he actually worked, he worked, he didn't steal shit.
Ok Bill, we know it's you. You aren't fooling anybody by posting AC. Debatable on that stealing business though.
Re: (Score:2)
"Bill Gates isn't taking credit anymore. He's done his part, and now he leads. When he actually worked, he worked, he didn't steal shit."
O.K., so when Bill was not working, only then did he steal shit?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Don't Forget the Lanyard (Score:5, Informative)
You are almost certainly wrong, as the patent attorneys who drew up the patents would not have put Jobs on them unless he in fact made a significant inventive contribution. Patent law requires that a patent list all of the actual inventors, and only the actual inventors. List someone who wasn't a real inventor, or leave a real inventor out, and your patent is invalid.
If Apple ever has to sue someone over one of those patents, the defendant will get to depose Jobs, and will ask him under oath exactly what his contribution was, and if all he can say was "I was CEO", that suit will go nowhere.
He may not be the main inventory, or contributed to all the things claimed on the patents, but you can be sure there will be something in that patent that really was contributed by him.
Re:Don't Forget the Lanyard (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure about that. I don't know a lot about Gates' role, but Jobs had absolutely nothing to do with almost all of those patents other than being CEO at the time they were submitted, and in most cases having the opportunity to torpedo the invention but choosing not to do so.
So why isn't his name on all Apple patents since he became CEO?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
He doesn't. He's just trolling (otherwise, he would show us the proof, or at least back up his statements some sort of evidence). Unfortunately these days on slashdot it's fashionable to make totally unfounded deragatory assertions about Apple, but if you say one word about Vista or the Office ribbons really aren't all that great, you get modded flamebait or troll.
Re: (Score:2)
He doesn't. He's just trolling (otherwise, he would show us the proof, or at least back up his statements some sort of evidence). Unfortunately these days on slashdot it's fashionable to make totally unfounded deragatory assertions about Apple, but if you say one word about Vista or the Office ribbons really aren't all that great, you get modded flamebait or troll.
I know Jobs, and to a much larger extent I know a lot of the people who have been a step or two down the ladder from Jobs over the last 20ish years. I know people on some of those patents, and in the cases I know, Jobs wasn't involved. He sets up the corporate vision under which the patents are produced. That's a valid reason for him to stamp his name onto them. The point of my post was to state that the difference between Gates and Jobs in this case is likely one of personal preferences. Jobs likes to
Really? The *infamous*? (Score:5, Insightful)
Steve Jobs is not the world's most famous tech CEO.
Bill Gates has better name recognition than Jobs, if only because his philanthropy reaches so many more people than Jobs' work does.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And yet Bill Gates is no longer a tech CEO, so he is removed from consideration.
Jobs' status is currently "in limbo" AFAIK, but he is technically still CEO of Apple per their regulatory filings.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
1) 'e's just restin'.
2) Of course he's dead! Didn't you see the "The Watchmen" movie? I'm glad the Americans voted out Nixon to make way for Obama though.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Didn't he get killed in the Watchmen movie?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Really? The *infamous*? (Score:5, Insightful)
See "A History of Anticompetitive Behavior and Consumer Harm"
http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepaper.pdf [www.ecis.eu]
Whilst I congratulate the man for subsidising research and giving to worthy causes I have to wonder if he would do so much if he was not one of the worlds richest man.
Re:Really? The *infamous*? (Score:4, Interesting)
His philanthropic accomplishments are certainly praiseworthy, but it's worth remembering that his vast wealth was mainly accumulated with some really unpleasent business tactics.
See "A History of Anticompetitive Behavior and Consumer Harm"
http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepaper.pdf [www.ecis.eu]
Jobs has led his company through fewer, but still not close to zero, unpleasant business tactics. On a personal note, he goes out of his way to make his employees unhappy. He's also fabulously wealthy, and he doesn't give significant money to charity, where Gates has so far given half of his wealth away. Gates seems like the rather bad for some other businesses and good for the people he's affected, where Jobs is moderately bad for other businesses (or perhaps much worse, considering the inability of other companies to produce make clones) and terrible for the people he directly affects.
Re:Really? The *infamous*? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
That's because it costs a shitload more to support MS infrastructure. Thus there are a lot of consulting/support businesses, and they do make money because of MS. Money that could be spent on growing the company's business.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So what?
They (and most jobs) would probably be replaced by:
Apple Enterprise
Apple Education
Apple Consumer
What's your point?
And you still miss the point that people are paying these companies & MS too much for the infrastructure, instead of directly back into their business.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Then you're talking out your ass, and have never deal with paying for CALs.
Here's a test for you.
Price out hardware & software MS solution for an email server to host 500 accounts.
Do the same for an Apple solution.
Then add on AD, and SUS.
The licensing for MS software alone will cost more than EVERYTHING from Apple. times 3 when you add the AD & SUS.
Re: (Score:2)
What is this based on? It sounds to me like it's not based on reality as OS X server was a farce until about a year ago and it's still lacking significant enterprise features that have been present in Windows for 10 years and present in Netware for 15 years.
Sorry, that's complete BS, I'll consider OS X friendly when it doesn't litter file shares with hidden files and starts closing file locks that it open which isn't a problem on the Linux platform. Combined with speed issues of file-sharing and I'd say th
Re: (Score:2)
You're seriously bitching about hidden files & different configurations for different OSes?
And why don't you have copies of your important config files? And when have you ever had an update reset your config? I run a bunch of OSX servers and have never had that happen, on any service I run.
Re: (Score:2)
I was suggesting there are a multitude of issues and was not suggesting that updates reset server configurations although I have had OS X server accept a write to a share even though it was out of disk space resulting in someone losing all of their work for the previous two weeks.
I will grant that it was one of the first versions of OS X that was released but it still sorely lacks a lot of enterprise class features to this day especially in the field of centralized deployment, change, and event management.
Re: (Score:2)
You're still bitching about small(10k) hidden files. And since you didn't bother to look it up, they're .DS_Store files. They keep a record of the view of the folder when looking at it from a client. Your users might want to keep the directory in list column for those thousands of files. This is not a server issue, it's a client issue.
Also, you can turn off the ability of the client to create them, but I'll leave that an exercise for you.
As for centralized deployment, etc, there are lots of tools - NetR
Re: (Score:2)
You again make a lot of assumptions and still don't refute the OS X server lacks these features as you have to go third party. Both Microsoft and Novell have offered complete solutions for years and only recently has OS X become anything short of a farce as I said to begin with.
Of course you also don't seem to understand the complete absurdity involved in storing client views on the server which conflict with one another as one Mac user will have one preference while another will have a different preferenc
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Wait, you're deleting thumbnails & metadata?
If you were my server admin, I'd punch you in the face for deleting those.
Ever think they might be useful and/or necessary for your users? If nothing else, so they don't have to recreate them every time they access the data.
And again you show ignorance of the tools - these tools are used at shops that have tens of thousands of client machines -large newspapers, Disney & Pixar studios, large ad firms. They don't worry about compliance or policies any more
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Whilst I congratulate the man for subsidising research and giving to worthy causes I have to wonder if he would do so much if he was not one of the worlds richest man [sic].
This is some twisted logic.. Of course he wouldn't do so much if he weren't so rich! He would be incapable of doing so. While Microsoft's business practices are deserving of scrutiny, I fear most of the vitriol aimed at Microsoft and Gates is motivated by envy, or "tall poppy syndrome," or some variant. In the final analysis, the man is a successful business person who's earned his money, and can do with it as he pleases.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, it turns out that he violated several laws, both in the US, EU, Korea and other places. He earned his money by breaking the law. Can he still do with it as he pleases?
Re: (Score:2)
His philanthropic accomplishments are certainly praiseworthy
O RLY? [latimes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Bill Gates has better name recognition than Jobs, if only because his philanthropy reaches so many more people than Jobs' work does.
Of what tech company is Bill Gates a CEO of? I'm pretty sure he stopped being the CEO of Microsoft back in 2000 when Steve Ballmer took over.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Who's the most famous baseball player?
Define the time context we are talking about. If you are talking about both past and present players one would ask, and in most such polls that cover topics like this it is asked this way, "Who is the most famous baseball player of all time?" or "Who is the most famous baseball player ever?". But hey, you can win this stupid little nitpick game when as anyone who wasn't trying to be overly pedantic knows that the article was clearly only talking about current CEOs.
Re: (Score:2)
At the end of the day, it does not matter what some yahoo writing an article thinks/says or the others that reply in the thread about it. It'
Re:Really? The *infamous*? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Really? The *infamous*? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure Bill Gates has excellent credit already.
I read that as... (Score:5, Funny)
"unexpected parents".
I thought TFA was surprised to find that he wasn't a product of the immaculate conception.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
*cough* (Score:2, Redundant)
They all add up to an interesting portrait of the world's most famous tech CEO."
*cough* Bill Gates*cough*
Re:*cough* (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Does a baseball player stop being refered to as a baseball player after they retire?
Yes, they are usually referred to as being a "former baseball player".
Re: (Score:2)
Clarity for you (Score:4, Funny)
*cough* Bill Gates*cough*
He said famous, not infamous.
Apple Staircase (Score:3, Funny)
Hmm ..
A shiny staircase with Carrara marble steps and sides covered with quartz glass, but one needs special apple iShoes to use it.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
iStairs! (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Steve Jobs has been patented?? (Score:2)
So they must be able to clone him now? That's good news for apple. I wonder if he hatches from a pod.
Gosh, I almost misread that... (Score:5, Funny)
"The Unexpected Pants of Steve Jobs"
Like he inadvertently wore Hawaiian-print Bermuda shorts with his mock turtleneck.
The weird thing is that we'd probably never notice, with the RDF making us see what we expect.
Pardon me, but... (Score:5, Funny)
How do you "almost misread" something?
P..P-a... (OMG! PANTS!)...P-a-t... (OMG! SOMEONE MISSPELLED PANTS!)...P-a-t-e... P-a-t-e-n... (OMG! SOMEONE HAS NO CLUE HOW TO SPELL PANTS!)... P-a-t-e-n-t... (OH! Not really pants... OMG! I ALMOST MISREAD IT AS PANTS!)... P-a-t-e-n-t-S... Patents...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
It's 5:45 in the afternoon and you have no appointments.
I almost misread that as a-pants-ments.
So, the question is... (Score:2)
... how many of these did he steal from Woz?
What about Dave? (Score:3, Interesting)
And that Bill Gates guy might be a tad more famous, though I worry about mentioning this since it seems like flamebait. Also, he's not a CEO anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, what? It's the "most famous tech CEO" (emphasis mine).
Or you must know something about Wendy's products that the rest of us don't... can Frosties and Wendy's baked potatoes be used as wi-fi receivers or something?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sou you think to people who are not CEOs are the most recognized CEO's? wha?
Re: (Score:2)
Why would Joe Sixpack scratch Steve Jobs's crotch and head ?
Not unexpected (Score:2)
Steve Jobs sure is pants but it's about as unexpected as this pun on slashdot.
So ... (Score:2, Interesting)
All of a sudden patents are all cool and nice and nicer!
Just because Steve has few!?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think anybody around here ever said patents were bad. And if they did, they certainly don't represent the majority opinion. Most of feel that software patents are bad, and that the patent system, particularly in the U.S., is just really screwed up because the USPTO awards patents for ideas that are clearly either non-novel (prior art exists) or are obvious to those in the field(s) of study in question. Many of us also feel that patents are granted for too long a period of time, especially in the
Re: (Score:2)
Almost everyone here doesn't understand what novel means regarding patents.
They generally think it's the idea, it is not. It's how it works; which is why business method and software patents make no sense.
I dont' think anyone who actually understands the industry thinks patents are too long.
Re: (Score:2)
I dont' think anyone who actually understands the industry thinks patents are too long.
I don't think that you can really build a good argument for the statement that pharmaceutical patents should run as long as they do, especially given that the alleged research before most drugs go on the market is a bunch of bullshit. It's easier to get a new version of an old drug on the market in the USA than it is to get a new version of an old turbo kit on the market in California.
The World's most famous tech CEO (Score:2)
Suprise (Score:3, Funny)
The most surprising patent is the one for the Woz.
Re: (Score:2)
Hahahaha, nice one! I hope somebody with modpoints finds you.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
That made no sense (Score:3, Informative)
So, if im entitled to my own computer, why can't I edit my iTunes source code? I chose Linux.
Neverwinter Nights runs on Linux and I can't edit that source either... you probably should not have chosen an application for your example.
Re: (Score:2)
He thinks if you work for him, your stuff is his.
More or less true. Jobs' name is on Apple, your stuff belongs to Apple, it stands to reason that his name should be on it. Or at least that you haven't actually lost anything if it is. Don't like it? Work for yourself or a co-op.
Re: (Score:2)
"Given that Jobs is CEO, there's probably a "coolness" factor for anybody at Apple to have him
on as a co-inventor. It certainly doesn't say anything about how involved (or not) he was in
coming up with the idea."
It should be easy enough to search for all recent Apple Computer patents. If he's not on all of them, his name probably only appears on things he was involved in.
His name isn't on the patent for the design of the NeXT pizzabox computer case. That's credited to the guy from frogdesign who created it.