Apple Loses Bid For Emergency Ban On HTC Phone Imports 305
New submitter tukang writes "The US International Trade Commission has rejected an emergency request by Apple to detain some HTC phones (including the One X and EVO 4G) at the border while the agency investigates Apple's claims of patent infringement. In May, HTC's phone shipment was held up at the border and was only allowed to pass after U.S. Customs and Border Protection received assurances that HTC worked around Apple patents, a claim which Apple disputes."
Only a little evil (Score:5, Funny)
Apple isn't behaving well but they still have a long way to go to reach Microsoft levels of evil.
I mean, MS included a BROWSER in their OS. ...and they didn't even give you a way to uninstall it! Now THAT is pure evil.
Re:Only a little evil (Score:4, Insightful)
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You'd have to be in a coma to be that dumb, shillboy.
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Re:Only a little evil (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Only a little evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Fully prepared to be accused of being an "Apple hater" for not buying the Apple agenda, and being modded down by some people who probably are making use of not-so-above-board mod points. But hey, karma to burn.
Re:Only a little evil (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Only a little evil (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, well, Microsoft lets you do things with your computer that are UNSAFE, like install software NOT APPROVED by them.
I've got mod points, but I'll rather point out that on my mac I often compile and install software that has never been approved by anyone. Mac OS X is unix, so ./configure; make works rather often. I'm not a "fanboi" but I'm not too impressed by claims not supported by facts, either.
Re:Only a little evil (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, but if you buy one of Apple's pocket-sized computers you need to constantly fight with the manufacturer to install any Unapproved Software on it.
Re:Only a little evil (Score:4, Informative)
Which is irrelevant if apple just goes and forcibly blocks all its competitors from even importing their own products.
Re:Only a little evil (Score:4, Insightful)
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Like so many of their patents, it's about keeping the device recognizable.
You'd have a point if slide to unlock is a design patent, but it's not. It's a regular patent, which is supposed to be given for innovative things.
And frankly, I don't see the problem - if you can't come up with something equally functional that isn't the slider with the shining text, you're trying to copy their design.
Google has already changed slide to unlock they used in Android 2.x to the new model in ICS, where you need to drag a thingy out of the circle (in any direction); no shiny text involved. That's what Galaxy Nexus uses. Apparently, that's still not good enough for Apple.
Slide to unlock is the first thing you encounter. It's one of the identifying features of the product
By your logic, since the first thing you encounter in a car is a steering wheel, whoever put it
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Good. So that only leaves two more idiotic patents Apple uses to ban competing devices, such as auto-highlighting the phone numbers on web pages such that they invoke the dialer app when tapped (what they used to go after HTC), or the super-innovative idea of voice search being applicable to several sources of items across the system (the primary patent in Nexus case).
By the way, slide-to-unlock is apparently still used [redmondpie.com] by Apple in the case of Samsung Galaxy S3 (which they are also seeking to ban). Given th
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Re:Only a little evil (Score:5, Interesting)
Your moronic analogy is well...moronic.
The correct analogy is Ford and Chevy blocking you from using aftermarket compatible parts that were not purchased at the dealer. They don't do that. Apple on the other hand.......
Another analogy would be ford and chevy forcing you to only purchase gas from the dealer.
No one is trying to install incompatible android apps on apple platform as your analogy suggests. What they are trying to do is install aftermarket compatible apps on the apple platform that does not come from the Apple dealer. get it?
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IOW, car analogies rarely work, and yours is no exception.
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Locking the owner of a device out of their own device is evil. It is evil whether it is Samsung, HTC, Motorolla, or, yes, Apple. Today, I can buy a Android de
Re:Only a little evil (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Only a little evil (Score:4, Interesting)
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Care to point out what the "Apple agenda" is, which you are not buying. And care to point out which freedoms you don't jaÂve on a Mac?
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Porsche vehicles have all kinds of features to prevent unsafe driving (ABS, traction control, stability control, etc.) yet we don't hate Porsche like we hate Apple. What's the deal??
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"Apple's products don't weight over a ton, and aren't capable of speeds up to 200mph...."
I have had several apple products up to 200 mph and far higher than that. They are certainly capable of speeds of over 200mph.
Now doing that under their own power? that's another story.
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Re:Only a little evil (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not an auto fanatic, so inform me if I have missed something: Has Porsche been using software and look-and-feel patents of questionable validity and worth to take their competitors' products off the market?
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The real evil is of course evolution itself, because it came up with the idea of "copy-and-improve" in the first place.
Actually, it makes sense now, the biblical Apple going against evolution.
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Yeah, well, Microsoft lets you do things with your computer that are UNSAFE, like install software NOT APPROVED by them. Can you believe how evil Microsoft is? And Google actually helps these "open source" pirates to steal our great ideas! Obviously, Apple is the good guy here. They're not anti-competitive - just innovative, trendy, and easy to use! None of that "freedom" nonsense. You'll use Apple and you'll like it. Trust us!
It seems, lately, that the greatest innovation to come from Apple is how to creatively use the broken patent system to thwart competition.
Re:Only a little evil (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Only a little evil (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think that pushing a piece of software that doesn't follow some arbitrary standard is evil, you have a perspective warped beyond imagining.
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Also, by pushing IE into every new computer or Windows Installation, Microsoft drove Netscape out of business, this is something for which they were criminally convicted.
They're not just evil, Apple can be considered evil and Microsoft are th
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Why are Microsoft apologists so clueless?
http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm [justice.gov]
Re:Only a little evil (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, MS included a BROWSER in their OS. ...and they didn't even give you a way to uninstall it! Now THAT is pure evil.
Absolutely! Good thing I can uninstall Safari from my Mac, easy as -- wait, what's this?
”Safari.app” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by Mac OS X. [osxdaily.com]
The article does mention that you can rm -rf it from the command line, but cautions that this "could result in abnormal system behavior or improper functionality".
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OS X is a consumer/desktop OS. Safari updates include updates to components (e.g. WebKit) used by other apps. It's easier and simpler for a user to reboot the machine than to be told to log off every user and log back in.
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That's a load of bollocks. If the computer can automatically reboot itself, it can automatically log everyone out and restart background services as needed.
Re:Only a little evil (Score:5, Funny)
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Weird, Windows includes an IE library other apps can use, but updating IE doesn't require you to reboot anything. And if Microsoft can manage that simple task, so can Apple.
Hell, I've seen an update for iTunes that made me restart. That is six different types of retarded right there.
Re:Only a little evil (Score:5, Insightful)
It wasn't the way they 'included a browser', it was they way they attempted (and succeeded) to entirely destroy a competitive market by using the thermo-nuclear option of abusing their Windows monopoly.
And it wasn't the way they did it with the web browser, it was the way they did it time and time again (Dr-Dos, OS/2, DiskStacker, WordPerfect, Netware, Netscape, DirectX) and certainly more than that. They even tried to create a proprietary internet (and thankfully failed).
They don't seem so evil these days, but I'm sure they would if they could. Or maybe Ballmer's just a big softy compared to Gates? I don't know, I suspect that the competition in mobile and from Google has really dented their ability to be really evil.
the govt didn't sue them for any of that stuff (Score:3)
the US government had dozens and dozens of things they could have sued Microsoft for doing, which you mentioned, but what did they actually choose as charges?
"Browser bundling". Not only can you not explain this to the ordinary person on the street ( or on a jury ) , it is actually kind of offensive to people with some experience in the technology industry. Honestly, why in the @#$ should they be banned from putting a browser on their machine - does that mean Ubuntu cant, or Apple cant?
it was a royal foul u
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They don't seem so evil these days, but I'm sure they would if they could. Or maybe Ballmer's just a big softy compared to Gates? I don't know, I suspect that the competition in mobile and from Google has really dented their ability to be really evil.
I don't know... by their personalities, one would expect Ballmer to be the crazy man... but then it's always the quiet ones, isn't it?
I suspect that your later guess is the more likely culprit. I like to think that Apple put a big dent in things as well.
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I'm sorry but I have to call you out there. The browser war involving IE vs Netscape was partially won by IE being bundled with Windows making the downloading of Netscape redundant. I'd wager another big reason for Netscape losing the war simply was because it was SHIT compared to IE 4. I distinctly remember switcing from Netscape to IE 4 and then IE 5 because IE was, believe it or not, fast and snappy whereas Netscape had degraded into a bloated, crappy shell of its former self. Making the effort t
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Surely this was meant as humor, no?
I hate IE and I understand that people hate(d) Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop and the browser just made it worse, but really people, do we really think that's such an evil thing? Why don't we get so upset about Notepad, Regedit, Paint, etc? They're equally crap. Why was IE singled out from all the other non OS features included with Windows? IE is just a feature shipped with the OS. Don't Apple ship Safari with OSX?
If anything, shipping IE for free with the OS was (in
Re:Only a little evil (Score:4, Informative)
Good grief, it hasn't been that long. The antitrust case didn't start over IE, it started because Microsoft threatened to withhold OEM pricing from any manufacturer who chose to install Netscape on new computers. This was after they had already been nailed for doing the same damned thing over Dr. DOS a few years before.
The abuse of monopoly was over OEM pricing. Because OEM copies of Windows are so significantly discounted, it was a clear case of a use of monopoly.
sudden outbreak of common sense (Score:5, Insightful)
There should be some punishment for misusing patent law and the ITC/courts like this. Perhaps the court should ban the plaintiffs competing product for 6-12 months when an allegation is found to be false...
But if that happened, Apple would just find another legal loophole to exploit I suppose.
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It's an emergency as these phones make the 4S look quite out of date. The features these phones 'infringe' on are also on most other Android phones, but I don't see them blocking the cheap ones.
Re:sudden outbreak of common sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Even when the cheap ones are functionally identical to the high end ones [gsmarena.com].
Seriously... that phone right there, and the fact that Apple has never sued over it, makes it quite obvious that this has nothing to do with them trying to protect their intellectual property. It is functionally identical to the Galaxy SII that they threw a shitfit over and it came out a month before the SII... the front face and UI have the same basic design: the only real differences are that it's slightly thicker, it has a slightly slower processor, and the screen is a lower resolution and slightly smaller. The software at launch time was nearly identical (and *was* identical on the points Apple sued over).
If this was *really* about their software patents, they would have sued over that one, too, but since you can get an Ace for $100 new without a contract ($225 at launch time), they didn't sue.
btw -- if you don't do any gaming on your phone, that phone is quite adequate. The UI is zippy enough, has the same hardware-accelerated bling from a higher end phone, and you can buy it without a contract and not break the bank. I have one, and I am happy with it. There's no ICS update for it, but Gingerbread supports all the features I want out of a phone. :)
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"It's an emergency as these phones make the 4S look quite out of date."
The apple fanbois wouldn't care - they'd buy a week old turd if it had an apple logo stamped on it.
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Don't worry , cupertino are just about waking up by now and once the hipsters have had their frothy decaf skinny latte mocha, found a comfortable organic peace beanbag to zone out on and synergized with their iPads I'm sure I'll get modded down.
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"It's an emergency as these phones make the 4S look quite out of date."
The apple fanbois wouldn't care - they'd buy a week old turd if it had an apple logo stamped on it.
(Score:5, Informative)
Now that's just sad.
No kidding. What half-witted mods don't realize that everybody already knows this. Hardly informative ;)
Re:sudden outbreak of common sense (Score:5, Insightful)
> Perhaps the court should ban the plaintiffs competing product for 6-12
> months when an allegation is found to be false...
I take these kinds of shenanigans as an admission that they don't have a product that they think can compete.
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Apple's new slogan is borrowed from Google, but with an additional line:
Do no evil.
Let the courts do it for you.
When will it end? (Score:5, Informative)
"The patent covers a system to detect telephone numbers in e-mails so, when the number on the screen is tapped, they can be stored in directories or called without dialing."
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Re:When will it end? (Score:4, Informative)
http://cdn.techpp.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/apple-slide-to-unlock.jpg [techpp.com]
Slide to unlock was their idea, they have a right to patent it.
No they do not "have a right to patent it."
They have the power to patent it under our current legal system, but patents were not meant for such trivial functionality. This whole "we have a right to patent intuitive design" crap needs to stop. It is not helping spur innovation when you give large companies the right to patent common sense design.
If you want to patent a design on an advanced engine, fine. You want to patent an advanced chemical compound that cures something fine go ahead. But patents should be as limited in duration as they can be and the should only be allowed for complicated subject.
Simple user interface ideas, curved corners, touch screens, and the like should not be patentable. And even if they are patented (because of stupid politics), it should be for a couple years tops.
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Ignoring the obviousness of this... Nokia phones have done that before 'iPhone' was a word. ughh.
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And this is why Apple sucks... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And this is why Apple sucks... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can understand legitimate complaints about patent infringement. I can even almost understand some of the complaints Apple puts forth against Android devices. While I don't necessarily feel they should be winning the cases, I feel that they're at least operating within the system. My issue is with situations like this, where they're pressing for bans when the situation isn't even decided yet. They're just pressing to hurt the competitors as much as possible without actually having to prove foul play.
Pressing for bans is what everybody else does as well. Like Samsung, HTC, Motorola.
I steal your car. Should I be allowed to drive it until I am convicted in a court? That would obviously be unfair towards you. But for example in the Apple vs. Samsung case, Apple got an injunction but if they lost the case in the end, they would have to pay damages. And they had to pay a bond so that it is guaranteed that the money for paying damages is there if needed.
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I say you stole my car. should you be allowed to drive the car I say is mine and you stole it until I prove myself right?
That's closer to what this is about.
Re:And this is why Apple sucks... (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually been in a situation where a guitar of mine was stolen in a burglary. I spotted my guitar in a second hand shop and was able to prove it was mine.
But then hit a snag, the owner of the shop was able to say he bought the guitar in good faith, thus to get my guitar back i could compensate him by paying him for my own guitar or go to court and eventually get a judge to order him to return it to me. He wasn't allowed to sell it in the mean time so my stubbornness refusing to pay for my own guitar meant we both were out of pocket for a while.
In the end the same people who sold him the guitar tried to sell him something else at which time he called the police and they were arrested some stolen property was recovered and the shop keeper gave me my guitar back with the hope of getting some compensation from the court for catching the thieves.
I have to wonder if things would have played the way they did if I had caved and paid to get my guitar back.
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My car : I can prove I own it, and you don't, so no you can't drive it ... Wether it was you who stole it is a matter for the courts ...
But this is a physical object, this is a patent, and with all Patents and Copyright cases it is open to interpretation if anyone has even committed a crime or not, this is effectively Apple saying that Samsung have stolen from them, and Samsung saying no we haven't .... and there is little or no proof on either side
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New Business Opportunity for Mexican Drung Gangs (Score:5, Funny)
Smuggling phones!
It will be like Prohibition, revisited. Rich folks will have the best phones at parties, like they used to have the best booze during Prohibition.
Will Elliot Ness triumph over Al Capone this time . . . ?
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Well, with Jimmy Darmody gone, maybe Nucky Thompson will make it!
Antitrust Anyone (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Antitrust Anyone (Score:5, Interesting)
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Well my dollars sure won't be bouncing around on Apple. Not only don't I buy anything from them, but even if in the future they were the only company selling computer devices left on the world, I'd actually just give up on computers.
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I bought a Nokia Lumia 900 today and what a phone! Apple should be scared and I'd love to see them try it on with Nokia because Lumia is so slick and so different than anything Apple. It's easy and it does everything the iPhone did, yes I've had iPhone 3, 3GS and 4S and I own an iPad and iPod nano. As for this retina crap it's just that, after getting used to the new Lumia I believe that any reviewer / tech mag that says otherwise is bogus and has Apple in their pocket because the screen on the Lumia IS BET
Re:Antitrust Anyone (Score:4, Insightful)
On last thing there is no "sent from my iPhone/HTC/Samsung" defaulted in my email sigs like a pompous fuck.
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Well my dollars sure won't be bouncing around on Apple. Not only don't I buy anything from them, but even if in the future they were the only company selling computer devices left on the world, I'd actually just give up on computers.
You win todays 'I shout I hate apple loudest' competition, if only you hadn't posted anonymously we'd know what a wonderful clear thinking troll you are
No I hate Apple so much that if they were the only company selling computers and I had a time machine I would go back in time and warn the Beetles not to agree to share the name.
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Some real facts would've been nice, rather than a baseless implication.
Google spent over $5 million in lobbying in Q1 2012 alone. Microsoft spent $1.72M, Facebook $0.65M [theverge.com].
Where is Apple? They spent a mere $0.5M, one-tenth what Google did. Dell, Intel, Amazon, Oracle, IBM, HP all outspent Apple. And unlike Facebook, Google and Microsoft, Apple has no political action committee.
It's true that Google lobbied for some worthwhile things [blogspot.ca] like campaigning against SOPA, but if the amount of lobbying dollars are the
Re:Antitrust Anyone (Score:5, Interesting)
..but ms+apple have covered their bases this time, can't accuse them of antitrust. MS,Apple and Nokia have thrown their dealings together, but the arrangements on licensing - and who sues who - are closed from the public(even if they're all publicly owned corporations, funny that).
you see, this way MS doesn't sue their licensees for their other phones(that would be bordering on a no-no).
this way Apple doesn't sue MS licensed products.
this way Nokia+MS don't sue Apple. so effectively they're acting as one party, "by purely consequence".
It's not a trust, it's just "licensing arrangements"(and backroom deals and handshakes, which again are not made public).
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forgot to add that while they're not suing each other they're also suing everyone else, but avoiding suing companies they can't sue directly due to politics.
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Am I the only one that wonders why no one is screaming antitrust?
I would imagine you're not alone but you're mistaken. Antitrust would be largely inappropriate. Apple is neither a cartel nor a member of a cartel nor are they in a (near) monopoly position and thus are not in danger of an antitrust investigation.
Apple is simply enforcing their right to defend their patents. Now, you may hate them for doing that; you may hate them for how they're doing it (going "thermonuclear"); you may hate that the patent system allows this; you may hate that they earned patents on thing
Fuck them all (Score:2)
I'll only spend money on a smartphone made by a company that does not litigate frivolously.
(Not holding my breath on this one.)
Dear manufacturers: (Score:5, Interesting)
Domestic fireworks: Okay. Foreign candies with toys inside: Banned.
Domestic hardcore humiliation porn: Okay. Foreign Playboys: Banned.
Domestic overpriced mislabeled antidepressants marketed at kids: Okay. Foreign 100% legit heart meds for 1/10th the price: Banned.
I don't consider myself a bit "HuAH, Made in America" fan, but hey, nice to have someone employed capable of buying your crappy phones, eh?
Note that neither HTC nor Samsung (Score:3)
now claim that Apple's patents are invalid or that they do not infringe them.
In Samsung's appeal against Apple's injunction against the Galaxy tablet: "Apple failed to provide sufficient evidence that the Galaxy Nexus caused "irreparable harm" in the form of market share lost to Samsung. The filing also suggests that such market share losses "must be substantial" and directly caused by the infringing feature, rather than the product as a whole."
So Samsung does not argue that the patents are invalid or that it violated them but rather that it doesn't hurt Apple too much.
"HTC believes that Apple's claims exceed the bounds of the original complaint. The statement by the ITC is seemingly not a denial of Apple for lack of propriety, but more a lack of information."
So HTC believes that Apple is overreaching when it says that HTC has not re-engineered it's products enough to avoid Apple's patent. It does not deny the fact that it violated Apple's patent.
It appears that Apple has a winning case when it comes to patents when they are no longer being challenged.
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In legal matters it is quite common to separate a complex issue into parts, and argue them separately. E.g. "my client didn't break your window, but even if he did such a window costs only $X to repair, not the $Y you filed for". That is all that is going on here.
Re:Note that neither HTC nor Samsung (Score:4, Informative)
Because whether or not the patents are valid and being infringed by Samsung is already before the court, and not yet decided. The injunction against importation of Samsung's devices was ruled on that basis, so arguing one way or the other on that topic will not make any difference to the judge's decision.
Sometimes I feel that this whole thing is wrong (Score:2)
I just can't wait... (Score:2)
...until Apple tries to sue Google over its upcoming tablets / smartphones. Google will hand Apple it's own ass on a plate, and blast them back to 1995.
The day Google begins to aggressively 'defend' Android will be a very glorious day...
I can't wait!
1984 (Score:5, Funny)
When Apple famously claimed that "1984 won't be like '1984'", everyone assumed it was because they didn't want an Orwellian situation in the computer industry.
As it turns out, Apple is totally into the idea. They just hadn't perfected the technology back then.
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Re:These are *software* patents? (Score:5, Interesting)
But they know this: all of this serves quite nicely to keep new players out of the market. If you can get an injunction against a certain product because it has rounded corners, then there's nothing you can't block... unless the competition similarly threatens to block your own products from the market.
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So then why do you get bash if you open up a terminal on OSX?
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What does BASH have to do with the kernel?
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Because you have your terminal configured to start the bash? You can also configer a different shell, like tcsh or csh or ksh ... so what is your point?
On a Sun (Oracle) Solaris box the default shell is also bash or ksh, that has nothing to do with linux ort what ever.
Re:This is (Score:5, Interesting)
No, they were meant to prevent any form of competition until the patent expired. Somehow that is supposed to help us as a society by encouraging people to do... exactly what they had been doing since the Enlightenment started. Not sure whoever came up with that thought it through fully, but boy, have they been trying to justify it since!
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Somehow that is supposed to help us as a society by encouraging people to do... exactly what they had been doing since the Enlightenment started.
To be fair, it's also designed to encourage people to reveal how they accomplished what they've been doing since the Enlightenment started, so that the rest of society can benefit from their research. Of course, given how much research it takes to "invent" rounded corners, slide to unlock, and phone number regexes, I think Apple's patents have probably collectively saved civilization maybe an hour.
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Given the recent "1 million Android devices activated daily" statistic, I assume they're using the bathroom-related definition of "emergency"; that is to say, "we're crapping ourselves".
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Who cares about prior art on crap like "slide to unlock"? It shouldn't be patentable in the first place, prior art or not.