Apple Wins Injunction Banning Import of HTC Devices 314
Newly accepted submitter squish18 writes "All Things D reports that Apple has won an injunction banning the import of some HTC phones starting in April 2012. The ruling by the ITC stems from two claims of the '647 patent concerning software used to enter personal data in mobile devices. It is interesting to note that the ITC has also reversed previous rulings regarding regarding infringement of two other '647 claims, as well as patent '263 claims."
It looks like Apple's victory is relatively minor. They lost claims on all patents except for one, and HTC/Google can work on implementing similar functionality in a non-infringing way.
Evil Monopoly (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple is becoming an evil empire!
Screwed up Patent System (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous (Score:2, Insightful)
>
So the non-frivolous claim on which Apple actually prevailed was essentially a regex to find things that look like phone numbers in unstructured text documents, which then link to a dialer app?
And even worse, there was a phone Zimlet available prior to the release of the iPhone that did exactly the same thing, minus the touchscreen equivalent of a click. This is a poor decision at best.
Re:Minor victory? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't competition what drives innovation? Where's the innovation if everyone just does what everyone else is doing?
Who's going to be able to innovate if they're being forced to waste their time looking for ways to work around stupid patents instead?
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
have to
Nope. It's a choice. Apple is choosing to strangle the competition while they have the strong hand. Microsoft chooses to set up a protection racket with companies that infringe on their vaguely-defined Linux patents. In contrast, IBM and Google (generally?) don't pursue patent suits unless they're attacked first. (At least, that's the impression that's been put forth by tech journalism.)
Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous (Score:4, Insightful)
Skype did that before apple every launched an iPhone (obviously, not on a phone, but using phone numbers).
Whoever allowed them to get a patent like that is an idiot. It's not just the system that is wrong, is the ones controlling it and that should be evaluating patents for things like prior art and actual invention that are failing.
Re:I'm getting sick of these news stories... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
Essentially apple patented a method where an 'analyzer program' checks text for patterns (such as phone numbers and email addresses) and makes them actionable with a click.
The patent goes on to discuss that arbitrary patterns can be searched for using a plugin and that the analyzer software allows for users to select the program that handles the type of link. It seems that Android does indeed violate this patent in every way possible. I wonder if automatic hyperlinking of email addresses count as prior art; although this does not include the user interface element asking which program to use.
Either way; I think this is a sucky patent to have to contend with. It reminds me why I don't like software patents to begin with.
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, companies are choosing to act the way they are, but the current patent system is incentivizing this behavior. The question should be whether there is a system with better incentives, not whether companies should stop doing what they are doing, because some companies will behave responsibly, but others invariably won't and you have to expect that behavior.
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
No matter what they do to try to force me to own a (Score:1, Insightful)
No matter what they do to try to force me to own an Apple product I never will. I was actually cheering Jobs on in the book until they got to the iPod and then I was cheering him to the grave.
Patentable inventions must be novel and unobvoius (Score:3, Insightful)
I would hardly say that turning phone numbers into hyperlinks qualifies as novel and unobvoius.
A real problem is that fiendishly expensive lawsuits are required to overturn patents. we would be much better off if just anyone could point out prior art that would get the patent office to overturn patents that aren't really novelmor unobvious.
the patent examiner who decides the unobvious part really should be an expert in the given technology. had some examiner ever studied the most elementary graphics, they never would have granted a patent for the XOR cursor.
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
i believe word processing software does this with spell checkers.
the first example of a realtime spell checker i encountered in 1997 with MS Word.
autofill has been in all browsers since about that time as well.
google does the same as you type into the search box.
Apple are full of the worst kind of shit in this case.
Re:Screwed up Patent System (Score:5, Insightful)
i think you, like the USPTO, have confused "invented" with "implemented".
it's the implementation of a blindingly obvious idea. it's not (or should not be) patentable in any way.
Patents need infringment time limits (Score:5, Insightful)
I recall my pocket pc doing something like this. I bought it in 2002.
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
Once again, Apple is using a law supposedly about innovation to ruin everybody else's chances in the marketplace. Their time on top is over, and legal protection for bogus patents is the only thing they have left.
Further, this was a horribly expensive "win" for Apple. They lost claims on 4 or 5 patents (these can never be re-asserted) and they won a tiny UI feature, that can easily be programmed around. Apple won't be able to enforce those patent claims against any other phone makers either.
The permanent loss of the patents far outweighs a UI quirk that can be avoided with a minor programming change which will be in place before the ruling takes affect. Its like going to war with 4 entire divisions, getting totally out trounced, but coming home with a mess-hall cook as a POW.
A few more wins like this and Apple will need a whole new patent portfolio.
Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous (Score:2, Insightful)
But some things are also obvious before their invention...like the thing Apple is suing over.
"New" should not mean the same thing as "Invention" as far as patent law is concerned.
It quite obviously doesn't promote innovation, and is tying up our legal system with stupid lawsuits that do nothing but harm the consumer.
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:1, Insightful)
Do you seriously believe that if it wasn't Apple, it wouldn't be someone else? That's the epitome of naive.
The fact that they happen to currently be the biggest and baddest on the block means this shouldn't surprise you. Microsoft had its own form of evil, usually just stealing an idea from someone else and getting it to market first. That Apple uses a legal (if marginally unethical) method to do the same thing shouldn't even raise an eyebrow.
Apple is a company. They're in it for the money. Stop treating them like a person and this is all perfectly logical. HTC is a direct competitor. Why would Apple not do everything in its power to hinder or stop them from being a competitor?
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose the only thing left to lament is all the money HTC had to waste to bring this common sense to light. Money that could have been spent on, well, something useful.
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I'm just a weird case study but a year ago I could not of said that, and I don't think it bodes well for Apple when nerds are running from their platform. Just read the
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea is to encourage entities just like Apple to spend billions of dollars researching some new technology, in full confidence they will be able to recover those billions of dollars in future by having a high profit margin on their product.
But then every other person in the country who has a similar idea, cannot recover their research investment simply because they didn't win the race to the patent office. The problem with patents today is the absolute guarantee of unlimited exclusive use of said idea for so many years it might as well be a lifetime. And especially software patents. They don't cover just one implementation. They end up covering every potential implementation of an idea.
Re:has it always been like this? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it wasn't. Apple's terrified of Android--not necessarily what it is, but what it may become, which is another Windows against their MacOS. That's history they don't want to see repeated on the smartphone and tablet. Except, they're a little too late, so they're scrambling around desparately throwing out whatever they can against Android hardware manufacturers in hopes it'll be enough to cripple Android and Android's ecosystem for the near future.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is just stalling while they try to get their house in order and put out a decent smartphone and tablet OS. This is why they're compelling other companies to pay royalty instead of outright taking them to court over the supposed infringed patents. They want these same companies to make Windows Mobile phones, not to go out of business.
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:4, Insightful)
Say what you want about Apple, they *do* spend billions researching new technology. And they should be allowed to recover that money.
You're ignoring the fact that they already have. Apple is about as far from losing money on the iPhone as you can possibly get, and the patent lawsuits have had nothing to do with that.
They were told by their lawyers not to create Dalvik without a licensing agreement with Sun, but they ignored the advice.
You are referring to this email [wsj.com] by Tim Lindholm, who is not a lawyer. Moreover, the context of the email is not 'if we use Dalvik we will need a license to Java,' it is 'I think we should just use Java.'
And now their getting their ass handed to them in court
Any evidence of that?
Re:even if it's minor, pretty ridiculous (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand this fixation many Slashdot readers have on prior art, especially when examples brought in are much more generic than patent in question (and hence can only do what the patent describes if explicitly set up / programmed that way). I guess it's an attempt to game the existing system, but I very much doubt a non-lawyer's prior art claims would be of much use here.
Instead, we should be focusing on the real problem, which is how ridiculously broad and over-reaching these patents are. I mean, seriously? a patent on highlighting phone numbers in the text? even if no-one implemented that by 1996, most certainly a lot of people have done it independently since then, when devices where this feature is actually useful have appeared - and that's because the idea is extremely obvious.
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be three good rules to start with.
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it bodes well for Apple when nerds are running from their platform. Just read the /. comments.
Nerds have never been part of Apple's target demographic since the days of the IIe which shipped with circuit schematics. The vast majority of people are looking for a computer/phone that works like an appliance, and are never going to tinker with or tweak them in any way.
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has to sue them and protect their IP.
What IP? "rectangular with rounded corners" is no IP, it's something that was around for thousands of years. (clay tablets, anyone?)
Putting the screen more or less in the center was there before (just about any TV).
Apple did NOT invent the MP3 plaer.
Apple dit NOT invent the smartphone.
Apple did NOT invent the touch screen device.
Apple itself is only copying.
Mouse? GUI? Design of iAnything?
Apple is not willing to pay for past use of somebody elses IP (current Motorola case in Germany), but everybody is supposed to respect Apples IP.
Apple is evil.
I'm not saying that the other players aren't, too.
But Apple is EVIL, and the worst of the bunch, in my book.
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
This claim concerned a design patent [uspto.gov], specifically granted for the "ornamental nonfunctional design" of an object. The prototypical example is the Coke bottle: there's no functional reason it has to be shaped like that.
Alas, there are rather good functional reasons for a tablet to be flat and rectangular with an aluminum body, rounded corners, and a black bezel.
On the other hand, it seemed to many observers inside and outside the courtroom that the Galaxy Tab was not only flat, rectangular, ..., but in fact designed to look like an iPad.
In my eyes, it's just a silly game, really, and most likely intentional on Samsung's part, a calculated risk that, at worst, might lead to iPad-related publicity for the Galaxy Tab, not so much because they're "shameless cloners," but simply because they're trying to sell stuff and the press likes to talk about the iPad.
Apple may be similarly silly, but this hardly arises to the level of "evil," if only because, in the grand scheme of life and death, we're talking about somewhat trivial aspects of somewhat trivial products, and marketing stunts that are mildly entertaining rather than either "soul-sucking" or invasive. Evil is the assholes who want to enjoin medical diagnoses derived from "protected knowledge."
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, companies are choosing to act the way they are, but the current patent system is incentivizing this behavior.
If you own a shop and someone sets up a similar one across town and takes away some of your business you are incentivized to throw a petrol bomb through their window, but that doesn't make it right. In both cases the incentive is profit, and profit can never justify being evil.
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:4, Insightful)
More like Apple takes half-baked and poorly executed ideas and executes them excellently.
And call it "lifestyle accessories" if you want, but I can't think of what else you could call a music player or a computer. They accessorize my lifestyle very nicely. It would hard to be a computer geek without a computer, for starters.
Re:Evil Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
$2,398,000,000 (2.2% of est $109,000,000,000) 2011
$1,760,400,000 (2.7% of $65,200,000,000) 2010
$1,329,900,000 (3.1% of $42,900,000,000) 2009
$1,105,000,000 (3.4% of $32,500,000,000) 2008
$792,000,000 (3.3% of $24,000,000,000) 2007
$714,100,000 (3.7% of $19,300,000,000) 2006
$556,000,000 (4% of $13,900,000,000) 2005
$331,200,000 (4% of $8,280,000,000) 2004
$496,000,000 (8% of $6,200,000,000) 2003
$437,600,000 (8% of $5,470,000,000) 2002
$428,800,000 (8% of $5,360,000,000) 2001
$399,000,000 (5% of $7,980,000,000) 2000
(same link) [zdnet.com]