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Samsung: Apple Stole the iPad's Design From Univ of Missouri Professor 362
TheBoat writes with a bit from BGR on the Apple vs Samsung case: "We're starting to see a theme develop here. Now that it's Samsung's turn to present its case in the San Jose, California patent trial that regularly has the tech media abuzz, the company is taking an interesting approach. Rather than start out by arguing that its various Android smartphones and tablets do not copy Apple's designs or infringe on its patents, Samsung is arguing that Apple's IP is invalid to begin with. On Monday, Samsung argued that Apple's pinch-to-zoom patent was stolen from Mitsubishi's old Diamond Touch and on Tuesday evening, Samsung made a similar argument regarding the design of Apple's iPad. Samsung on Tuesday presented the jury with videotaped testimony from Roger Fidler, head of the digital publishing program at the University of Missouri. In his testimony, Fidler stated that he began work on a tablet design in 1981. 'Apple personnel were exposed to my tablet ideas and prototypes,' he testified, adding that Apple staff saw his designs in the mid-1990s."
And watch the fanbois swoop... (Score:5, Funny)
...with tales of how Apple had released the F700 way before Samsung started making phones. How Apple had invented the Diamond Touch decades ago. Apple built Roger Fidler from the ground up in 1979.
Honestly, the barrage of bizarre crap that goes on these threads takes astroturfing to a new level.
Re:And watch the fanbois swoop... (Score:4, Funny)
apple losing the trial would be worth it just to see what macdailynews.com would have to say about it
Re:And watch the fanbois swoop... (Score:5, Funny)
It's all in the way you present it. For example:
Re:And watch the fanbois swoop... (Score:5, Informative)
Snopes rates this 'FALSE' [snopes.com].
Not surprising (Score:5, Funny)
Many professors draw white rectangles on their blackboards.
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, but are they _rounded_ white rectangles?
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They are if the original design was done in MacPaint....
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Informative)
Just ignore the working prototype.....
http://www.kitguru.net/apple/jules/shots-that-challenge-apples-ability-to-beat-samsung/ [kitguru.net]
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Translation (Score:4, Informative)
Always makes me think of a part of the Hitchhiker's Guide series, where the Sirius Corporation steals an excerpt off a cereal box and uses it in the guide. In the future, they get a time machine, got back in time, give themselves the quote, then back in the future sue the cereal company out of existence.
That seems roughly like what Apple is doing here.
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I didnt know that Disney was on trial here.
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Re:Translation (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Translation (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the article misinterprets the situation. Samsung showing evidence like this could be taken that they are trying to say that they copied the ideas (perhaps even with permission) from the professor, and NOT from Apple. IANAL, but that would have a firmer legal position than challenging Apple's patent with prior art. If the court is willing to view the case in such terms they would, de facto, accept that Samsung's position (that they are not infringing) is valid.
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Yes, but invalidating the patents is more to their benefit.
Re:Translation (Score:5, Informative)
Invalidating the patents is to all our benefits.
Walter Isaacson (Score:5, Funny)
For the Nth time, Apple licensed Xerox tech (Score:4, Informative)
See here [reddit.com] for details. Or read any real history of the time - ignore self-serving crap from Gates.
Xerox was probably stupid to give Apple a license, and the actual researchers at PARC were livid, but they weren't the owners. Apple legally used Xerox IP. Note that Xerox did not take Apple to court over any of this,
Microsoft, on the other hand, was concerned about legal action from Apple on this subject, even as late as Jobs' return. One of the things exchanged between Microsoft and Apple at that time was Apple dropping the windows-copying lawsuits, which were still in the courts at the time, and would have been a world of hurt for Microsoft if any of them had succeeded.
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Xerox did file suit.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/15/business/company-news-xerox-sues-apple-computer-over-macintosh-copyright.html [nytimes.com]
They didn't win the suit but they did actually file it.
what permission? Xerox sued Apple for idea theft (Score:5, Informative)
I think itâ(TM)s more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.
Apple had permission from Xerox to use the ideas they had as a base.
When Xerox filed suit against Apple in 1989 they swore to the courts that Apple did *not* have permission. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/24/business/most-of-xerox-s-suit-against-apple-barred.html [nytimes.com] "Apple also replied that while it might have borrowed ideas from Xerox, ideas were not protected by copyrights, only the way the ideas were expressed."
Re:what permission? Xerox sued Apple for idea thef (Score:4, Interesting)
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Probably right (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple itself has a prior art problem. Look at the Apple Newton, designed in 1987, alongside an iPhone. [wikipedia.org] That was more than 20 years ago, so any patents have expired.
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The only similarity I see is that both devices have black faces with a screen in the middle.
I'm not defending Apple here, but there was no pinch-to-zoom on Newton - in fact it required a stylus. As far as design elements, the Newton splayed outward to sharp corners - pretty much the opposite of rounded corners.
Steve jobs, thief AND hypocrite (Score:4, Insightful)
The only similarity I see is that both devices have black faces with a screen in the middle.
I'm not defending Apple here, but there was no pinch-to-zoom on Newton - in fact it required a stylus. As far as design elements, the Newton splayed outward to sharp corners - pretty much the opposite of rounded corners.
Apple stealing these design elements from someone else doesn't bother me. What bothers me is stupid shit like making claims that gesture based UI elements are 'Advances in the Arts and Sciences' worthy if patenting.
Of course, with Jobs attitudes towards IP, this news is hardly shocking. He seemed willing to change his views 180 degrees when he was on the other side of the fence.
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wait a minute
what year are we living right now???
1987+17 = 2004. He meant 17, not 20.
Patents prior to 1994 were 17 years, not including the submarine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_of_patent_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
Re:Probably right (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Probably right (Score:5, Funny)
Patents prior to 1994 were 17 years, not including the submarine.
Damn those submarine lobby groups, getting their industry special privileges. /s
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rounding corners is an aid to manufacturing and safety sharp edges cause cuts.
In AutoCad and CAM pretty much every design will have radiused (rounded corners).
If your moulding the materials need to flow and a sharp edge isn't going to work very well. Internal Corners also are bad essentially they are a notch and stresses are concentrated into the corner, this promotes cracking.
Rounded Corners are an essential and fundamental part of engineering.
Re:Probably right (Score:4, Informative)
The size of the corner and edge radius is dependent upon several design considerations. "A few milimeters" does not suffice in all cases.
Radii up to a half inch are commonplace. The factors involved are the thickness/stiffness of the injected material, the strength of the mold used, and what the intended use scenario for the finished product is. In many circumstances, an angle less than 90 degrees and a larger radius distributes stresses more efficiently than.a true 90 degree wall intersection with a small radius. As pointed out by the GP, the radius is added to assist in demolding the part. Likewise, a 5deg draft angle is also frequently incorporated as a standard practice.
I have dealt with enough diecast and molded plastic parts to know way more about them than a typical armchair pundit on slashdot; I work with the shit professionally.
GP is correct.
patent office = fail (Score:5, Insightful)
If Samsung can find all these examples of prior art, how is it that Apple was granted patents in the first place? These are hardly the only examples of Apple being given patents on things that were obviously done by others well before they "innovated" them.
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Re:patent office = fail (Score:5, Informative)
The patent office only checks for prior art in existing patents.
As a patent examiner, I can tell you this is false. Prior art includes anything published by another within a year of the filing date of the application, as well as anything published by the patent applicant more than a year prior to the filing of the application. This includes articles on the web, prior patent publications, pamphlets, technical papers, and so on. There are exceptions, such as papers given in closed conferences and protected, internal documents. But "prior art" is much, much more than patent publications.
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Re:patent office = fail (Score:4, Informative)
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bullshit.
show me a pro *anything* who insists on using old tools, other than to make some kind of point.
if the goal is high performance, the tools *absolutely* enter into it.
don't be an ass by repeating that old yarn. its BS. tools do matter. sometimes even more than the artist or workman, in fact.
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So the old tool of life experience does not enter into the patent process:
I cannot patent the actions of the corner bookstore clerk who knows my tastes in literature and will make recommendations for me.
I can patent the actions of a computer program that has a record of my tastes in literature and will make recommendations for me. (Amazon)
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You wrongly assume that you can filter the entire history of all mankind through a tiny window of time and limited staff allotted to the evaluation of patents. Your artificial scarcity system is bogus. It needs to die. Quit your job. The Fashion industry doesn't need you, neither does Automotive industry need your design patents. The software industry doesn't need you either. What industry does? NONE. Face the facts: You grant bogus patents and let the ill-equipped court system ACTUALLY do your job.
Re:patent office = fail (Score:4, Insightful)
And that's the challenge with examining patents for prior art. It appears that many of these ideas are not just available in the previous year but instead were put forth decade(s) before the patent was filed - in a time before the need to patent everything was SOP.
What this captures is a competitive patent condition where technology may be developing in close parallel and is co-opted by another, but ignores the patenting of older ideas which were considered either too trivial, economically unfeasible, or simply not worth of patent protection (whether too obvious or not commercially viable) at the time.
Re:patent office = fail (Score:5, Interesting)
If Samsung can find all these examples of prior art, how is it that Apple was granted patents in the first place? These are hardly the only examples of Apple being given patents on things that were obviously done by others well before they "innovated" them.
As my father-in-law was a patent clerk he said they stopped checking into prior art when he left in the 90s and they seemed to rubber stamp multiple things. He tended to take pride in searching for prior art as he didn't want a company to get patents on existing things. This was lost as they brought in managers who went with quotas rather then actually vetting everything thoroughly.
Re:patent office = fail (Score:4, Interesting)
If Samsung can find all these examples of prior art, how is it that Apple was granted patents in the first place? These are hardly the only examples of Apple being given patents on things that were obviously done by others well before they "innovated" them.
As my father-in-law was a patent clerk he said they stopped checking into prior art when he left in the 90s and they seemed to rubber stamp multiple things. He tended to take pride in searching for prior art as he didn't want a company to get patents on existing things. This was lost as they brought in managers who went with quotas rather then actually vetting everything thoroughly.
Around 90% of applications are rejected in the first office action, so if the USPTO is rubber stamping them, it's not with an "ALLOWED" stamp.
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Nothing you said contradicts the GP who indicated that the USPTO used to vette the patents thoroughly (your 'reject, reject, reject') but stopped around the time his father-in-law left (your 'until recently')
Re:patent office = fail (Score:5, Insightful)
It is ludicrous to say that the PTO has "stopped checking into prior art."
to be fair, looking at all the patents that are granted recently, I can easily believe the USPTO has gone from a 'patent checking and recording' organisation to a printing business that sells patent certificates.
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If Samsung can find all these examples of prior art, how is it that Apple was granted patents in the first place? These are hardly the only examples of Apple being given patents on things that were obviously done by others well before they "innovated" them.
"Prior art" is, by definition, anything that existed before someone applied for a patent. Prior art in itself doesn't invalidate anything, it has to be _published_ prior art. Something that was hidden away does _not_ invalidate a patent.
That out of the way, prior art must also make the patented invention obvious. That is not at all clear. Samsung can of course find prior art, but they have to prove that this prior art actually makes anything that followed later obvious. And the answer to that question is
Re:patent office = fail (Score:5, Informative)
"Prior art" is, by definition, anything that existed before someone applied for a patent. Prior art in itself doesn't invalidate anything, it has to be _published_ prior art. Something that was hidden away does _not_ invalidate a patent.
Incorrect. 35 U.S.C. 102(a): "(a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent". The "known or used by others... before the invention" part does not require publication. It does have to be before the date of invention, though, which is not the same as the date that the patent application was filed.
You may be thinking of 35 U.S.C 102(b), which covers public knowledge more than one year before the date of application, regardless of the date of invention.
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Design patents are not utility patents.
Design patents can even cite prior art as part of the application itself - for example, Apple's design patent for the Macbook Air references earlier "ultrabook" designs by Sony.
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It is all a matter of degree. Basically this means capitalism is now a judged sport, where government decides who deserves how much credit for what advances. This is annoying, but I don't know how avoidable it is. Certainly I don't see high-tech companies clamoring to abolis
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That's not entirely true. The patent examiner is supposed to weed out patents that fail novelty or obviousness tests. Provisional applications are not examined, but real patents are.
Re:patent office = fail (Score:4, Informative)
That's not the case. In addition to the internal stuff the examiners do, the USPTO also has the peer to patent [peertopatent.org] project to crowdsource prior art on participating patents.
Re:patent office = fail (Score:4, Informative)
peer to patent is very new and would not apply to any of the patents in question for this case - the pilot for it was only completed in 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-Patent [wikipedia.org]
While it's a good thing to get going, it still doesn't address the issue that the USPTO basically wants the person requesting the monopoly to be completely honest.
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Basically, the way out system (d
you sound like you know what you're talking about (Score:2)
Why do so many patents fail the test of obviousness to people knowledgeable in the relevant field?
Shades of Bill vs Steve? (Score:2)
"No Steve Jobs Ghost - It's like be both snuck into Roger Fidler's place one night to steal his TV, and we both found Dave from 2001 A Space Odyssey had gotten there first."
Subway Commercial (Score:5, Insightful)
Good for Samsung! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to see some sanity return to patents, since nothing exists in a vacuum. Everything new has been influenced in some way by past experiences and influences. From a rock rolling down a hill to rocks turned into wheels to wooden wheels to modern rubber tires, it has all been an improvement on the previous improvement. I hope Samsung prevails with this line of defense to the utter ruination of Apple's patent-ly bullshit attempt to stop their competition.
Frankly, the way things are moving, it might not be too long before software patents are gone and "look and feel" and other such patents actually have very limited lifespans or are disproven because the "look and feel" are based on a previous incarnation. I'd love to see THIS improvement made to patents and then improved upon again with copyrights included. You know, that whole "secure for a limited time" thing...
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"Look and feel" was a copyright concept that has been pretty much universally struck down in court. It had nothing to do with utility patents.
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Apple ultimately stole the idea from God (Score:5, Insightful)
Moses did come down from the mountain caring some curiously rounded corner rectangular tablets after chatting with God. Moses was the first one to steal this idea.
Steve's Legacy (Score:2, Interesting)
Steve Jobs was a fantastic marketing person and Apple's success was due in no small part to his marketing skills.
But in terms of technology and innovation, his standard mode of operation was to observe a piece of technology being developed someplace else and then figure out how to productize and market the technology. Personally, I am happy to see people starting to tear down these bogus Apple patents by pointing out where the technology actually came from. Hopefully the trend will spread to tear down so
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More like he observed product categories being marketed, determined why they sucked, figured out how to make them not suck, and then sold the de-suckified version. There is a huge amount of design and engineering in the "make it not suck" part of that.
Paramount should sue Apple (Score:5, Funny)
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Yes, and that in and of itself should have been sufficient to dismiss this case with prejudice.
But hey, Congress is a bunch of lawyers passing laws to the benefit of lawyers
Re:Paramount should sue Apple (Score:4, Informative)
They don't have a row of permanent icons along the bottom and a four by four grid of icons above that though. Nor do they meet any of the several other claims. Nor are they easily confused with the iPhone or iPad, which is what the trade dress part of the suit requires.
The Idea came about in 1968 (Score:2)
If Apple loses because of Fidler (Score:3, Funny)
U. of Missouri grads and employees can forget about getting job interviews at Apple, and Apple employees can forget about being allowed to collaborate with researchers at U. of Missouri.
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Stop the madness! (Score:2)
The only people prospering from all this are the lawyers and the journalists. STOP THE MADNESS!
Apple stole iPhone idea from 2005 slashdot comment (Score:5, Insightful)
In 2005 I predicted on slashdot that large touchscreen phones would be a success (as did others) .. nearly 2 years before the release of the iPhone. http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=163341&cid=13644457 [slashdot.org]
Samsung oughta have me testify.
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Okay okay, you deserve it:
You were right.
Congratulations! (Too bad I can't mod it any more.)
Difficult position to argue (Score:5, Interesting)
Dr. David Huber gets booted from Ciena corporation, and founds a competing entity - Corvis. Corvis builds a product that does exactly what Ciena's products do - they multiplex several optical signals onto a single fiber. Ciena has patents for synthesizing a higher-rate signal by bundling several lower-rate signals together. The process is called "inverse multiplexing," and has been around since the analog telephony days. You can inverse mux several analog telephone modems together, and some companies did. Ciena got patents by basically putting "on fiber optic cables" after the well known technique. Since Huber used to work at Ciena, he knew the technique had a long history, and consequently moved forward with the expectation that any patent infringement could be easily dismissed by claiming Ciena's patents were invalid by prior art.
So how did that work out? As you might expect, not so well for Corvis. [ciena.com]
If Apple were a car company (Score:4, Interesting)
We wouldn't have all these other fucking car brands here in 'Merica, but cars would cost $100K each, wouldn't have hoods and the fuel tank would slowly fill with sludge forcing you to buy a new one every few years.
I remember in the 90's when all the apple fanboi's were OS8-9 is the greatest and my power-pc mac is so much better than your pentinum running Linux.
I laugh everytime I see someone using any apple product, knowing that they paid too much.
Re:I thought it was Sony (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure you're actually getting the point of the article.
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Wendy's burgers don't even have round corners! Apple should clearly sue McDonalds.
Re:And yet (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it was his fault the technology wouldn't be ready for another 25 years...
Re:And yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And yet (Score:5, Informative)
Because the apple biased judge threw out those claims.
Re:And yet (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why shouldn't a sci-fi show be able to qualify as prior art for design or UI patents?
It can. However, in this case Apple's design patents do not cover the similarities between the PADD and an iPad. In fact Apple presented several tablets and phones in the trial which Apple said they do not feel infringes on their work which IMHO are closer to the Star Trek PADD.
Re:And yet (Score:5, Funny)
USPO: GRANTED!
APPLE:
Star Trek PADD as a concept would be prior art... (Score:5, Insightful)
...from a design POV it would be a argument worth making in court. It wouldn't even matter that they were non-functioning props. A US patent is just a drawing, it doesn't need to represent a working prototype.
How many fanboys install a Star Trek GUI app after unboxing their new iPads or Galaxy Tabs?
The more I think of it the less silly it sounds. (Score:5, Informative)
The PADD devices seen on The Next Generation, DS9, and Voyager all did things that are major selling points for the iPad and iPhones.
* Touchscreen device
* Played video and sound
* dynamic user interface could be customized to serve the application
* Video conferencing
* Loaded and saved information to the remote storage (In this case the a ship or Starfleet computers would be "the cloud")
* Data could be synced between devices
* Device could be re-configured to remotely control a workstation (remote desktop)
* They even have rounded corners
* Devices could be encrypted
All of those functions are demonstrated or spoken of in episodes or described in Mike Okuda's ST:TNG Technical Manual (Okuda was the lead designer on most of the newer television Star Treks)
All of this predated any patent filings by Apple.
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Re:The more I think of it the less silly it sounds (Score:5, Insightful)
These are things that are more valuable than most "geeks" will ever admit to the willingness of people to buy, use, and feel good about certain products, and are therefore incredibly valuable when they're done right and worth spending a lot of money to develop a great solution.
No. Those things are gimmicks that ONLY "geeks" notice, the general populous caring much more about what the device can ACTUALLY do whether than precisely how it does it. If you can stumble upon a patent, then it's fucking obvious. To say otherwise is to sit in your conceptually constructed tower and pontificate profusely over minutia that wrongfully drains BILLIONS of dollars from the world's economies below, only for the benefit of your own sick disconnected ilk.
Take note: The Intangible Machine Invasion is upon us. The above poster is "one of them", and should be put down. Re-watch the Terminator series and the 1st (and only) Matrix movie -- The legal frameworks are the machines that rule mankind.
If your bullshit design nuances are so damn important and valuable then how do you explain the success of Fashion Industry or Automotive Industry? --Neither of which have said design patent protections, and yet remain valuable and lucrative. How much do the intellectual property taxes cost us all? I put it to you that such patents necessarily cost us MUCH more than were they eradicated; They necessarily create jobs for intangible instruction code processing units -- Lawyers -- that also otherwise would not need to exist.
You think you're a human?! NO. YOU'RE PART OF THE MACHINE!
Re:And yet (Score:5, Insightful)
For trade dress, yes they should be prior art. If an idea is that obvious, then it should not be patentable. For function (eg, Warp Drive) it should not be patentable without a working prototype. This should help illustrate the difference between meaningful technology patents (eg, cellular radios) and trade dress (eg, round rectangles, green icons with a phone handset, etc).
MCCCXXXVII intellectualis proprietas pupillam est magnum sacculum canis stercus
Re:And yet (Score:4, Informative)
Next thing you know Star Trek episodes will be prior art.
Uh, regarding the rounded-corner rectangle design patent thing, how are they not prior art? Design patents are specifically for an appearance/shape, irrespective of function or purpose.
Re:Slam dunk for Apple against Prof. Fidler (Score:5, Informative)
Nice try, Apple fanboy, but the Prof isn't actually suing Apple (And others) for theft. He's merely there to state that prior art exists and Apple's Patents be declared invalid.
Re:Slam dunk for Apple against Prof. Fidler (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing Apple is "guilty" of is being the first company to make tablets that did not suck big green ones and that people actually wanted to buy and use. Nobody was able to make the technology popular before them.
Being the first one to do something well, doesn't mean you're the first one to have the idea, and it certainly doesn't give you iron clad rights to prevent anyone else from trying to make a better one.
Re:Slam dunk for Apple against Prof. Fidler (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Slam dunk for Apple against Prof. Fidler (Score:5, Informative)
That's not really the point. If Fidler made it first, and Apple copied him, and Fidler didn't care to do anything about it, then Apple is free to continue copying it. But so is everyone else. That includes, for example, oh, I don't know, how about Samsung?
Re:Slam dunk for Apple against Prof. Fidler (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Doesn't matter. All he's there for is to show prior art. The goal is not to punish Apple for theft, it is to show that their ideas are not original and thus their patents are invalid.
2) Thank you for reinforcing the invalidity of Apple's patents
3) Because people previously did not obtain patents for which his work was prior art and start suing other companies using them
4) Doesn't matter as long as prior art can be shown
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They will obviously ask what he is being paid; tha
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How does that handle this part of the case though? Samsung is arguing that Apple has no claim against them because Apple did not invent anything novel, and in fact they have a witness who discussed his similar design with Apple designers so long ago as to be out of patent by now if one had been applied for. This means that Apple can either claim that his information is too old, therefore invalidating their own patent, or that his design is different from the iPad, but the Samsung design isn't -- at which
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Re:Slam dunk for Apple against Prof. Fidler (Score:4, Informative)
The Witness isn't claiming rights to a patent, he's giving testimony that the technology Apple is claiming a patent over was already out there and known to the public. Patent law isn't just about "I was the first one to claim the exclusive right to a technology" its about invention. If someone else can show that you didn't invent it, that there is "prior art" your patent can be extinguished.
Many of apple's patents are questionable, but this and slide-to-unlock are particularly ripe for invalidation.
Re:Slam dunk for Apple against Prof. Fidler (Score:4, Interesting)
I, a non-lawyer, could competently handle this part of the case for Apple
It's a good job that you aren't, since your points are invalid:
1) Apple isn't suing for "stealing" - it is suing for "patent infringement". In contrast, Fidler is not claiming that Apple infringed his patents, he is merely pointing out that his tablet designs predate the iPad and yet contain the same "original patented" design features (flat touchscreen, rounded corners etc.)
2. Irrelevant, but yes, of course he does - however, Federer's designs date back 20 years (Microsoft's "Tablet PC" was 1999) - check out this video of Fidler's working tablet in 1994 - 2m45s in - that looks remarkably like an iPad. [youtube.com] Also see History of tablet computers [wikipedia.org]
3. Irrelevant since he isn't claiming patent infringement - he is claiming prior art.
4. Good question - generally experts are paid for their time in producing a report, not for testimony as such - but only a week ago Apple was caught paying $75,000 to a professional "expert witness" [techcrunch.com] (seriously, this is how this man describes his profession on his own web site).
Nobody was able to make the technology popular before them.
Capacitive touch screens large enough for a tablet and at a consumer-friendly price point did not exist before. Now, they do. Technological advances drive new products. Suppose a car manufacturer comes out with the first mass market popular electric car - does this mean that this car manufacturer should have a 20 year monopoly on electric cars, free market be damned?
Why does it matter who was paying him?? (Score:2)
Your comment is pretty nonsensical .. others have stated why so I won't repeat that. But I want to ask you why you even thought #4 was a valid point. Why does it matter who was paying him? The fact as to whether his work was stolen has nothing to do with whether he is being paid to state what he did. I could understand a question like "are you lying?" or "Are you being paid to lie?" ... however nobody is disputing the authenticity of his claims, since they are well documented. So knowing whether Samsung pai
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There were plenty of tablets out before the iPad - I don't think anyone is contesting this fact. Apple is suing Samsung for creating products that are so similar to those made by Apple that a large percentage of customers can not tell them apart.
In regards to the Touch Book, it differs from an iPad in many ways. From looking at the photos, it appears to be designed for use with a landscape orientation. It lacks a home button centred on the bottom border. The screen is inset from the border where the