Motorola Loses ITC Case Against Apple for Proximity Sensor Patents 121
New submitter Rideak writes with this excerpt from CNet about an ITC ruling against Motorola in their case against Apple for violating a few of their proximity sensor patents: "The U.S. International Trade Commission today ended Motorola's case against Apple, which accused the iPhone and Mac maker of patent infringement. In a ruling (PDF), the ITC said that Apple was not violating Motorola's U.S. patent covering proximity sensors, which the commission called 'obvious.' It was the last of six patents Motorola aimed at Apple as part of an October 2010 complaint."
Tech can be obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
but round corners can't?
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Bullshit, rounded corners are not "distinctive". Apple never, ever should get any protection whatsoever from using them.
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This recursion thing is hard!
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What part of what part of part of do you not understand?
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Way to knee-jerk react without actually reading what he said.
He never said that rounded corners were distinctive. He said that they were a part of a distinctive design, which gets at a fundamental principle of design patents that you seem to not understand. Design patents work by specifying a number of claims for a particular design, which are taken as a whole when determining if infringement occurred. There is no design patent just for rounded corners. Don't believe me? Prove me wrong. What you'll find is
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Did you actually look at the patent you're referencing [wired.com]? Because I did before I made my last post. And what you'll see is that they made a claim for the ornamental design depicted in the series of diagrams they made. I.e. Something that looks just like those diagrams. So, while rounded corners are indeed an aspect of the claim, the design patent also includes the flat back and front, the curved surface that ties the front to the back, and the fact that the corners are all uniform in shape and circular rather
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In design parlance, it's called a "fillet", arguably the most common design element after a straight line. Because it's easy to calculate.
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"the design patent also includes the flat back and front, the curved surface that ties the front to the back, and the fact that the corners are all uniform in shape and circular rather than oval shaped"
When you get right down to it, the iphone design is butt ugly when you put something like a Nexus 4 or Galaxy S4 next to it.
Re:Tech can be obvious (Score:4, Interesting)
He never said that rounded corners were distinctive. He said that they were a part of a distinctive design, which gets at a fundamental principle of design patents that you seem to not understand.
I think he understands perfectly: Here's the 5 page filing [sbnation.com] for the patent. The only thing that separates it in terms of appearance is that it has rounded corners. But I mean, seriously, if what you've done is glued a computer to a touchscreen panel, how many design options are there? Round corners. Square corners. It's still a fucking rectangle, because that's how every touchscreen in mass-production today is shaped. There's only a select few form-factors that make sense when the primary (indeed, only) human interface is a touch-screen display.
So no, he's not knee-jerking: It was widely panned by popular media as being a patent for rounded edges. That was the substantive issue in the German lawsuit with Samsung v. Apple, where their Galaxy looked "too similar" to the Apple device. What you're defending, sir, is not an innovation in techology, but a company with the largest market capitalization on the planet attempting to remove all the other players from the market by patenting the only practical form-factor for this type of device. There is no innovation. It's totally business. As to the reason you're defending it, I suspect religious beliefs, caused in large part by marketing and having no actual basis in reality.
To put it a bit differently, Coca-Cola has a design patent covering their iconic bottle shape, yet no one is suggesting that Coca-Cola has a patent on all curved bottles just because their design patent includes curves as one of its claims.
Umm, you're kidding, right? You've just cited the quintessential example of design patents [wikipedia.org]. I mean, of all the ones you could have chosen, you've chosen the single most cited-example found in graphics design. You couldn't have derped your argument in a more epic fashion if you'd done it while screaming naked in the street.
To infringe, you'd have to include not just curves in your bottle design, but curves that matched the other claims and diagrams presented in their design patent before you'd be infringing on their patent.
See above. The curves in the bottle design was the sole thing patented.
Similarly, Apple's infamous iPhone patent that included rounded corners as one of its claims also included a number of other claims as well ...
Except it didn't, see above.
For infringement to take place, ALL of those claims would be considered together, rather than just the uniform rounded corners claim.
ALL [emphasis yours] actually equals ONE [emphasis mine] in this case. No really. It is totally just that. I'm sorry if you weren't paying attention, but I mean, who can when you're so busy fanboying that you fail at your argument so spectacularly we should build a monument to your derp.
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Perhaps you wouldn't get negative moderation if you refrained from personal attacks?
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In the beginning, there was nothing. Then it exploded.
"He" pushed the button.
Not a troll, seconded (Score:1)
He lays out a clear argument as to why the Apple claim *is* essentially about rounded corners, why GGP was completely wrong about coke's design patent and it's not an ad-hominen attack as a commenter below tries to mislead you into believing.
I think Apple Fanbois want to suppress his comment, and some have mod points.
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Since you appear to have understood his argument, could you explain why I "was completely wrong about [C]oke's design patent"? Because as far as I can tell, he didn't actually point out anything specific at all. He just accused me of not realizing I was citing something famous (he was wrong; I chose it because it's famous) and then said I derped, without citing anything to contradict me at all.
I'm genuinely interested in being corrected, particularly on that point.
And his post is ad hominem (he accuses me o
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I merely chose to use the same pronoun that the previous commenter used, so as to avoid confusion.
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It is a troll. They are incorrect statements. You don't seem to understand that design patents are valid.
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I do agree you should not have been modded down. Contrary to what some might think (you included, apparently) since I defended Apple here, I actually prefer it when people correct errors that I make in my statements, or offer some well-considered dissension.
That said, I do disagree with you. You seem to be under the incorrect belief that the design patent you've cited is the relevant one when it comes to the rounded corners meme. It isn't. That one's for the iPad mini and was issued late last year. The iPho
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That was my point, since the same is true with Apple's design patents (though I'll readily agree that some of them are rather vague/broad, including the one you've cited).
I won't disagree with any of the other statements you've made, because frankly, it's a defensible position. It's not the best one, in my opinion, but a reasonable person can lay claim to it. But this statement you've made right here goes to the very heart of the matter: If it's vague and overly broad, then the patent shouldn't have been granted. And the patent Apple was granted was vague, and it was overly broad, and as a result it's been dragged through our court system (and that of many other countries),
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I'll definitely agree with you in regards to the iPad mini design patent not being distinctive enough (and distinctiveness is the important measure to consider) and Apple not being entirely in the clear. That said, it's worth pointing out that design patents aren't subject to the "is it obvious" tests and the like that typical patents are subject to, which is somewhat unfortunate. I do believe, however, that the original iPhone design patents were rather distinctive in nature at the time they were filed.
As
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"If the patent had been more narrowly-defined and was about a unique and easily-recognizable design, none of this would have happened"
But that is precisely what is happening. I don't see Apple suing Nokia over the Lumia 520, yet that phone has all of the same features being discussed - rounded corners, smoothed back, etc.
No one could claim with a straight face that anyone would ever confuse a Lumia for an iPhone. Could you make the same claim for the original Galaxy S?
It seems to me that everyone that's act
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then the patent shouldn't have been granted...
the patent Apple was granted was vague...
If the patent had been more narrowly-defined...
We're talking about the so-called "rounded edges" patent/design....
At the time Coca-Cola applied for the patent, bottles just didn't look like that
Time and time again, you confuse "patents" with "design patents". Pretty much as all the people do that talk about Apple patenting rectangles. A "design patent" is not at all the same thing as a patent.
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It's an English affectation rather than belonging to our American cousins over the pond.
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Umm, you're kidding, right? You've just cited the quintessential example of design patents [wikipedia.org]. I mean, of all the ones you could have chosen, you've chosen the single most cited-example found in graphics design. You couldn't have derped your argument in a more epic fashion if you'd done it while screaming naked in the street.
Do what? You're criticising someone for quoting the classic case of design patents? Are you stupid?
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a good post, but a point that seems to be missed here: the design patents are intended to allow broad coverage of appearance in a bid to create a revenue stream from the filings.
In a distinctly related topic is the established companies use of patents (supposedly FRAND, but refused to Apple) to try and prevent APple from ever releasing the iPhone. Apple figured they had the law on their side and proceded and the lawsuit proceded and... we end up with stupid, obvious patents being used on both sides. I say "
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Rounded corners have been around damn near forever. My desk has rounded corners so if someone accidentally walks into it, you don't slice your leg open. Likewise, I have radios and communication equipment, where there are (physical) buttons, set in a physical keypad, where both the buttons and the keypad have rounded corners. If you yelp about 'distinctive design', I will yelp about prior art! I also have GUI software from 1985 that has rounded corners (more prior art). I have also seen Motorola teleph
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Well of course round corners aren't patentable. That's why Apple didn't try to patent them. You apparently need some education (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent).
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but round corners can't?
Look, if Apple used pointy corners on their stuff then we'd hurt our hands when we held it wrong.
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apple should sue the person who invented the wheel
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trees are obviously in violation... who will represent them in court?
...obvious (Score:1)
WAIT a minute...
This is a Large Corporation with a Patent. ...it's a Large Corporation ... Patent ...the Patent was called ... 'obvious' ?
OMG ! The Patent was called 'obvious' ?!?!
In What MAD UNIVERSE do I find myself?
Such un-natural Eldrich Horror! Cthulhu save-us-all... AHHRGH....
strange.. my AC CAPCHA is "witches"
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They sued another very large corporation. Apple has lots of bad ass lawyers too unlike the little people these assholes usually beat up on.
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but round corners can't?
Bevelling is pretty advanced stuff for the Patent Office. Didn't really exist until, you know, about 2000 BC. Proximity sensors, on the other hand, has been around since we grew eyeballs. So I guess the takeaway here is, the Patent Office is in the stone age.
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Design patents operate under different principles from regular patents, and something that a lot of folks here seem to be ignoring is that the claims made in design patents are considered in whole, rather than one at a time in a vacuum. Put differently, while Apple does have a few design patents that mention rounded corners in them, they're mentioned as one claim among many in those design patents. A competing product would be measured up against all of the claims, rather than just the rounded corner one, i
Re:Tech can be obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
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You are arguing against the nature of design patents While that may be a valid argument, all Apple can do is follow the laws that exist today. Not the laws as you wish them to be.
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You make a good point, but that's simply not how design patents work. They don't work on the principle of uniqueness, but rather on that of distinctiveness. If some combination of elements is distinctive enough, a design patent can be issued. And when you go back and look at, say, the original iPhone design patents, that design was extremely distinctive at the time it was filed, even though very few, if any, of its traits were truly unique. In contrast, the more recent iPad mini design patent that was issue
It is just rounded corners (Score:3)
By asserting that the 'rounded corners' critique is invalidated simply by pointing to multiple claims in a design patent, you might be the one repeating an ignorant meme here
Except its not even remotely true these are the design patents https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=www.google.com/patents/USD627777.pdf [google.com] and https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pdfs/USD670286.pdf [google.com] for your information the dotted lines are just there to add context so ignore them.
Link to an article for those who don't have firefox http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/08/apple_rectangle_rounded_corners/ [theregister.co.uk]
Show me where it discusses the other generic things you randomly add. In fac
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Yea, I actually gave Apple too much credit by implying that these attributes were rolled into a single design patent. They were all distinct but asserted simultaneously against Samsung during the trial as a combination of design and utility patents.
Let me ask though, do you think that strengthens or weakens the validity of design patents? I mean, did you even look at the ornamental tablet design patent you're linking to above? Completely devoid of any specific or unique characteristics whatsoever ....
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Re:Agatinst against ?? (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly that's a typo in the first senteance. It should read Clearly that's a typo in the first sentence.
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senteance, n.
1) Grammatical structure composed by cognizant individual.
2) Punishment wherein the punished is confined to a dim candle-lit room inhabited by disembodied souls.
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Ignoring your funny blunder, you also apparently don't understand any of the facts in the story.
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Getting sued for patent infringement makes you an antagonist. Thanks, Slashdot logic!
Typo In Headline (Score:1)
Motorola Loses ITC Case Against Against Apple for Proximity Sensor Patents
Can you find it? I can.
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Oops my bad. Been on slashdot for more than 13 years you'd think i'd be more careful with my first submission haha.
Re:Typo In Headline (Score:4, Funny)
You'd also think that the site had editors.
Re:Typo In Headline (Score:5, Funny)
Not if you've been here for 13 years...
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Actually I'm pretty sure I copy/pasted the headline from the article, which means it was probably the editor who inserted the typo in the first place haha.
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I'm pretty sure it was added as a public service, so we could have a nice refreshing bash of the useless editing, instead of arguing with ignorant chumps who think Apple has patented round corners.
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So now that Dice owns Slashdot, when are they going to outsource all the editing jobs to India?
At least then we could have some editors who speak English...
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Not if you've been here for 13 years...
Yeah. The editors used to be a pair of 7 line perl scripts, but now that Slashdot is under new management, they've had to cut back... now it's just one 7 line perl script.
Re:Typo In Headline (Score:5, Funny)
I cannot find find it :/
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Try against ?
Strategy (Score:4, Interesting)
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A better strategy is to keep your patents tight, instead of loose.
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Damn. That says it all.
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Worth noting that the practise of putting a proximity sensor in a touch screen phone to turn the screen off when you make a call was so obvious, not a single Windows Mobile phone launched by HTC, Samsung or Motorola in Europe prior to June 2007 had one.
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Well, that's definitely a unique strategy - buy a washed up radio and phone manufacturer that most consumers won't buy a product from again, as practically everyone has been burned by a slip-shod Motorola product in the past, for a shload of money in order to gain a patent portfolio that can be used to strike back at your chief rival; and then proceed lose on every single count and have those patents invalidated as obvious after paying for 2.5 years of lawyer lawyer retainers and court costs.
They'll never s
Good (Score:1)
Maybe things are changing.
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No. Not really. It's just that Apple is a little too big to be picking on with this stupid shit. Motorola should have used Microsoft's strategy of suing smaller companies first to build up to suing bigger ones. They jumped straight at Apple and got slapped down. You notice that Microsoft didn't jump straight at Google over Android but instead is attacking their manufacturing partners who are happy to pay protection money to get them to go away. If they had sued Google then Google would have whistled u
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So who was Google/Motorola going to sue? Other Android manufacturers?
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I haven't noticed lack of creating a product stopping anyone from patenting something. Lots of companies patent things and never create anything at all.
Nokia not looking too pretty (Score:2)
Nokia phones are only lacking on the software side, hardware is still the best on market.
Unfortunately Nokia sold all its factories, and moved production to China. In an attempt to copy Apples business model. In that move the quality of hardware has took a dive. Nokia is not a well company, and unfortunately it looks terminal.
Error! (Score:4, Funny)
Motorola Loses ITC Case Against Against Apple for Proximity Sensor Patents
Error: Cyclic Redundancy Check failed while parsing headline.
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Huh? Makes perfect sense to me. Maybe the reading comprehension test failed.
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I bet instead of money they gave them their own exclusive iPhone 6's. That would do it.
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Not yet, I'm at work.
Administrative ruling (Score:2)
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While I am always happy to see obvious patent ruled as invalid, I wonder if it is the job of an administrative commission to do that job.
It's only invalid in the sense that the ITC won't do anything about it.
But the real issue is that an administrative commission is proving to be completely gutless when it comes to two American companies fighting each other. They have gone in circles for around 3 years now trying to figure out how to not do anything at all (while the lawyers on both sides have collected many millions of dollars in fees). The sole remedy available when you file an ITC case is a ban on importation and the ITC is simply unwil
Patents (Score:1)
I can understand the thought behind the ruling, but I have to say I'm really against against against against against against.
The Show Must Must Must Go On! (Score:2)
This is Max Headroom, live on Net-Net-Net-Network 23, because what I want to know is, who's gonna stop this kind of wholesale artic--killing-ing-ing-ing. Killing. It's time that Slashdot took a stand - a stand - a *stand* on this kind of headline murder. Murder. Murder. Preferably against it.
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