Apple Wins Mobile Patent On Displaying Lists, Documents 306
walterbyrd writes "Apple yesterday was granted Patent no. 8,223,134 for 'Portable electronic device, method, and graphical user interface for displaying electronic lists and documents.' According to the patent's description, the technology relies upon a touch-screen display and includes both the function for displaying lists and documents, and how they look on a mobile product."
I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:who owns the uspo? (Score:5, Insightful)
We (U.S. citizens) do, and we should be telling our congresscritters that this has to stop.
Re:I don't get it (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
How about the business model of filing an idiotically general patent, suing a new entrant to your market before they have millions of dollars to defend themselves in court, sucking their coffers dry and driving them out of the market, thus ensuring your market position?
New Method (Score:5, Insightful)
________ with a touch interface! Patent awarded!
Re:who owns the uspo? (Score:5, Insightful)
You've wasted time in your life that you'll never get back... "Hopefully soon to be" is not "is"... try speaking to the current congressperson...
You mean continue talking to the guys that routinely ignore their constituents, lie to us in the face of obvious factual contradictions, and only listen to those throwing hookers, bags of cash, and coke at them?
That's worked so well so far, hasn't it?
The definition of insanity comes to mind.
Toss all incumbents out. Demand term limits. Eliminate career politicians.
Strat
Re:don't hate the player hate the game (Score:5, Insightful)
And what is wrong with hating the hateful player that plays the hateful game? Apple has gone out of its way to make itself perfectly hateful so I for one must comply.
What did she agree to do? (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, so your soon-to-be congress-woman candidate gets elected and becomes a real congress-woman
What she agrees to do now?
I mean, what can you expect _anyone_ in the Congress to do, while the USPO is protected by corporations, patent trolls, and the lawyer union?
Re:who owns the uspo? (Score:5, Insightful)
Toss all incumbents out. Demand term limits. Eliminate career politicians.
Be careful what you wish for -- there's no reason to expect that the replacement politicians would be any less corrupt than the current ones, and every reason to expect that none of them would know what the hell they were doing for the first year of their first term in office. The result would be a completely dysfunctional government after every election.
The goal shouldn't simply be to have new representatives, the goal should be to have good representatives. And the way to get good representatives is to change the electoral system so that the path to getting elected isn't "raise the most money", but rather "best represent the views of the largest number of constituents". Only then will have you have politicians who are motivated to listen to people rather than to money.
Re:who owns the uspo? (Score:5, Insightful)
Toss all incumbents out. Demand term limits. Eliminate career politicians.
Because of course anyone who replaces them will spring from the forehead of Athena, walk on water then turn it into wine, poop vanilla ice cream, and give us all sweet fuzzy kittens to make us happy when we're sad.
Why not try to create a better informed electorate? One which understands that software patents deter competition and stifle innovation.
Re:Patent Experts (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it (Score:2, Insightful)
And I'm sorry, they're suing *Microsoft* for anti-competitive business practices? How is this not the definition of an antitrust situation?
Re:who owns the uspo? (Score:5, Insightful)
Many of us do... the problem is the other "legal personhoods" speak louder and more frequently and with more money.
Re:Patent Experts (Score:5, Insightful)
You shoud not be able to patent a god damn UI concept.
Indeed. Imagine somebody patenting the steering wheel of a car, or the order of the pedals, or the order of the gears. That would be ridiculous. You'd never be able to switch brands of car.
Now besides USER-interfaces, I think actually that one should not be able to patent interfaces in general. Because any patent in this area will block interoperability and, as a result, innovation.
Re:who owns the uspo? (Score:5, Insightful)
The result would be a completely dysfunctional government after every election.
If only we should be so lucky.
Re:The "A Better Informed Electorate" oxymoron (Score:4, Insightful)
Then they deserve the government they get.
But what about the rest of us?