Samsung Cites 2001: A Space Odyssey As Prior Art For Tablet Design
from the dave,-i've-seen-that-before,-dave dept
In the ongoing silly patent battle between Apple and Samsung over the design of competing tablet computers, Samsung is pointing to some interesting prior art. It's claiming that the form factor was recognized well before Apple came up with the iPad design, by pointing to a clip from Stanley Kubrik's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.Attached hereto as Exhibit D is a true and correct copy of a still image taken from Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” In a clip from that film lasting about one minute, two astronauts are eating and at the same time using personal tablet computers... As with the design claimed by the D’889 Patent, the tablet disclosed in the clip has an overall rectangular shape with a dominant display screen, narrow borders, a predominately flat front surface, a flat back surface (which is evident because the tablets are lying flat on the table’s surface), and a thin form factor.Yeah, but without those "rounded corners..."
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Filed Under: ipad, patents, prior art, stanley kubrick, tablets
Companies: apple, samsung
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iPad
Kindle DX
Xoom
I kept aspect ratios the same (unlike Apple) and I tried to match the top-to-bottom sizes as best I could (I'm not a graphics guy).
Now size comparisons:
Xoom - 249.1 x 168.9 x 12.9
Kindle DX - 264.2 x 182.9 x 9.7
iPad - 241.2 x 185.7 x 8.8
The iPad is both the shortest and the widest of the three. The Xoom and the Kindle almost exactly match.
From this comparison, I think Amazon has prior art on Apple. Thus I conclude that if any are infringing, the Xoom and the iPad are both infringing on the Kindle. If the Xoom is similar enough to infringe on the iPad, then the iPad is similar enough to infringe on the Kindle DX. If Samsung loses, Amazon could go after both of them using the same arguments Apple used. In either case, Amazon definitely has prior art.
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Re: Poor Benighted Samsung's defenseless defense
Prior art in this case was a feature in a film by Kubrick – a film to which I contributed when I invented the Front Projection Background System
For Sherman Fairchild and J.Arthur. Rank Films --- the producer of the Oddyssy.
To call this prior are would be the same as calling CUNIAFORM TABLETS PRECURSORS TO THE IPAD. Same shape, after all. And you could write On it as well.
Also – I have often used the Dick Tracy Wristwatch communicator as another example of a CONCEPT – but NOT PRIOR ART.
In fact – Science Fiction – by the terms of Samsung – actually a good company with seemingly doltish lawyers – have thousands of Prescient concepts – but these too ARE NOT PRIOR ART – unless, of course they disclose – in full, followable detail HOW to construct
The FTL (Faster than light) systems they talk about. And I would LOVE AN TI GRAVITY BELT. I guess talking about it and even describing It would make it Prior Art. But until you show me how you made it so I – Someone skilled in the art – could make it -- It won’t be prior art.
So Quit this nonsense – Samsung. You’re too good a company to espouse this foolish defense.
But if you DARE create and Electronic Cuneiform tablet --- I might be in the market for one for use with the Hittite poem I’m writing for Hamurabi.
Which, of course, I would deliver with my TIME MACHINE!
George Margolin
PATENTOR@GMAIL.COM.
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There is nothing unique about Apple's iPhone and iPad design that should warrant blocking others from using it.
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Don't you think that Apple should be owed $BILLIONS of dollars for those valuable design insights? If not, then you must be a freetard.
Without design patents on such basic concepts as rectangles and rounded corners, others such as Samsung will be able to come along and charge lower prices. How is Apple supposed to maintain their profit margins if they can't protect their valuable IP?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8_Kfjo3VjU
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Maybe I should have referred to the class of patents including software, design, and business methods, instead of just software. But I think the rest of my point still stands: Samsung and Google are both doing this to point out the silliness of such patents.
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Clearly, either Google and Samsung are trying to make a parody of a software patent lawsuit to point out how silly the whole system has become, or the system has become so silly that this sort of thing actually makes sense in context. Honestly, I'm not sure which would trouble me more.
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Re: Design patient
SMH at the fact that Apple is lazy about innovations then steals others ideas and tries to claim as their own. Tisk-tisk Apple.
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Re: Design patient
SMH at the fact that Apple is lazy about innovations then steals others ideas and tries to claim as their own. Tisk-tisk Apple.
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Yes, but…
With so many different science fictional precedents for an iPad-like device (including those in 2001, Star Trek, Babylon 5, Stargate, etc., etc.), how is it that Samsung's versions just so happened to almost exactly copy the look and feel of Apple's specific variations on the tablet computer motif?
You'd think with so many varied antecedents to work from, they'd have been able to come up with something a bit more unique.
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Re: Yes, but…
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So even in the real world, there was a lot more variation and creativity of form factor, before everyone started thinking they had to slavishly copy the iPad. I mean, look at the variations on rounded corners alone! ;)
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http://youtu.be/JBEtPQDQNcI
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Re: Yes, but…
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Re: Re: Yes, but…
By your logic, then, Microsoft should already have been enjoying runaway iPad-like success in the market. After all, Microsoft made tablets pre-iPad, as shown in that image.
So if just being a tablet is what it takes to be successful, why didn't it work for Microsoft? Clearly, because the variations they were producing on the tablet form factor *didn't* have the correct look and feel, and Apple's did. And now that Apple's figured it out, everyone wants to copy Apple's variation on the tablet.
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The progression you show would have happened anyway - Apple or no Apple.
(and btw the main difference your picture shows seems to be landscape->portrait !)
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Re: Re: Re: Yes, but…
I believe Apple's success is due to the software design of the iPhone and later iPad. They featured a specialized UI with big buttons and control elements that could be pushed or dragged with a finger, unlike the tiny control elements that had appeared in phones and tablets before that were adapted for mice. That's the real genius of their innovation, that other companies had failed to implement. (Of course, the standard sci-fi tablet does have big, square buttons.)
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If so Microsoft took that crown years ago
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They did not even seem to be interested in eliminating the stylus: Wikipedia states that the term "pen-based" was used to define tablet PCs by Microsoft and others.
If I'm wrong, please enlighten me.
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Re: Yes, but…
> to almost exactly copy the look and feel of Apple's
> specific variations on the tablet computer motif?
First off, Samsung didn't. Apple has altered the pictures to make it look more like Samsung did. We're talking about rectangular tablets with rounded corners, and icons arranged in a grid.
But I would also ask you this. How is it that automobile manufacturers also copy each other? They all have four wheels, a hood, a trunk and a steering wheel? There are variations like 2 or 4 doors, but even those variations are copied. How can this abuse be allowed!?!
Televisions all seem to have a front that is predominantly covered by the screen. They all are generally rectangular. This stealing of design ideas is even worse with today's flat screen TV's compared to the variations in the old CRT televisions. Almost all modern flat screen TVs are virtually indistinguishable from one another unless you get up close.
And don't get me started on the horrific IP design abuse in pocket calculators. Or oven mits -- OMG, they all have five, yes five! fingers!
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Good point. I should probably alter the analogy to be gloves instead.
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Re: Re: Yes, but…
http://thisismynext.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analysis/
Trad emarks and trade dress are all about protecting consumers from being deceived in the marketplace — the idea is to clearly indicate the source of a product or service. […]
Trade dress law is well-established, and Apple itself has a history of successfully pursuing trade dress claims in the Northern District of California. In 2000 the company sued both eMachines and a company called Future Power for knocking off the iMac’s trade dress, winning injunctions in both cases and eventually getting extremely restrictive settlements that effectively removed the infringing products from the marketplace. […]
[…] there’s no question in my mind that Samsung designed TouchWiz to look and feel as much like iOS as possible, and then marketed it as such. (More than one of my friends has come back from a Verizon store with a Fascinate having been told that it’s “basically the same as an iPhone.”)
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thats how you sell new technology to people who don't understand what they are talking about. A smartphone is like an iphone or a tablet is like an ipad.
I had a person ask me for a google iphone back when I worked for best buy. I didn't work in the phone department and when I told the guys about it they said it happens everyday. People who don't understand the terminology think that iphone=smartphone or ipad=tablet and don't see the difference. Apple is to technology as band-aid is to adhesive strips.
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More specifically, Apple's trademarks may become too successful. Think Kleenex, Band-Aid, Kool-Aid, Xerox, Nylon, Aspirin, and many others. These lost their trademark protection because they became generic terms.
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OK...I've indulged my OCD, I'm not proud about it, but it's done. I'll be going now.
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Or Star Wars...
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Copyright troll
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Movies
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Re: Movies
No... but it does mean it'll be hard for them to sue someone for also making a device that looks just like the teleporter from Star Trek.
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Re: Movies
In the ownership society we live in, that the inventors/artists lobbied to change the laws to ever-more-increasing restrictions, the answer is yes.
They made this bed, they get to lie in it. Too late to whine about it now, you had your chance to NOT push for things to be this bad, this restricted. The arrow points both ways here, so whats good for the goose is good for the gander.
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Re: Movies
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Prior Art in Art
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Re: Prior Art in Art
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Re: Prior Art in Art
If it is so darn obvious that a fiction writer thinks of it as an element of a story, then it is pretty darn obvious.
Complaining about rectangular tablet designs is like complaining that your oven mits infringe on the design of my oven mits, because yours also have five fingers.
If the design is that obvious, and basically functional, then it should not be patentable. To qualify for a design patent, it needs to bring something really unique and innovative. You can't just claim that because you picked the obvious functional design (like most sink faucets) that nobody else can build one. Now you could design a highly unique sink faucet whose design goes way beyond basic function. But that's not what Apple did.
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http://www.eshoppa.com/products/Heat-Resistance-5-Fingers-Glove-Oven-Mitt-Pink-Sili cone.html
http://www.amazon.com/Glove-Surface-Handler-Handy-Mans/dp/B001HIGAMQ
Now you have :)
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So, wait - you're saying science fiction writers shouldn't be given credit for their level of ingenuity in imagining how things might look in the future? I have rather a lot of friends who would disagree with you quite strongly about that.
If the design is that obvious, and basically functional, then it should not be patentable. […] You can't just claim that because you picked the obvious functional design (like most sink faucets) that nobody else can build one.
"Obvious" - you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means: http://twitpic.com/67ykpa
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Re: Re: Re: Prior Art in Art
image search for tablet pc results from - 1990-2009:
http://www.google.com/search?q=tablet+pc&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=Oez&r ls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=ivnsur&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=803&bih=458& ;um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi
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Re: Re: Re: Prior Art in Art
> shouldn't be given credit for their level of
> ingenuity in imagining how things might look
> in the future?
No. I am not saying that.
I am saying that those authors should not be able to get a design patent on fiction, and then eventually, perhaps in their lifetime, be able to prevent others from inventing the realization of their idea.
> "Obvious" - you keep using that word. I do not think
> it means what you think it means:
I do know what it means. In the functional sense, obvious would be a glove having five fingers. That's not ingenuity, that's purely functional. Any chair is going to have certain characteristics in order to perform its basic function. (There are some highly unusual almost counter examples -- but those would obviously qualify for a design patent.) Someone might design a highly unusual chair, but their design patent should not preclude others from making chairs.
Your twitpic shows examples of Windows tablets. Microsoft tried unsuccessfully to sell tablets with Windows for a decade and failed. Why? Because Windows isn't a tablet OS. iOS is. Android is. WebOS is (although its not selling). What is the common, basic feature of a tablet: it doesn't need a bunch of hardware buttons. The handle isn't a half bad idea in some cases, and I would argue that as the market enlarges we might see some designs like that.
Have you seen the tablets used in a number of Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes? They are all a rectangle with slightly rounded corners dominated by a front screen and no buttons. Thinner bezel. Gray plastic instead of black. I would argue that the basic design is purely functional.
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Re: Re: Re: Prior Art in Art
So clearly, you're picture is quite selective in its choice of "before" iPad designs.
Two of the other images posted by others in this thread should clearly establish that the design Apple is claiming is functional rather than artistic.
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Re: Prior Art in Art
What Samsung is trying to say, is that this form factor was obvious to people 30 years ago!
Tablet computers were seen as being a rectangle predominantly covered by a screen, with narrow borders, and a thin profile. That this was the vision in art for over 30 years goes far to show just how obvious and unpatentable the form really is.
These basic attributes should be in no way patentable, or locked to 1 company. Forcing licensing or prohibiting the use of such basic shaps as a thin rectangle would do irreperable harm to the market.
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http://www.hometoys.com/ezine/08.04/russo/060321_PalmPilot_vmed.widec.jpg
i mean look at those edges, so 1990 thank god Apple invented the half circle
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http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/8625/41tfbqxpcdlsl500aa280mt3.jpg
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Re: Re: Re: Prior Art in Art
And then later on my C64. And the C128. And what do you know, on the Amiga 500 too.
Then again on the 386.
Also what others said; that picture is about as honest as the MAFIAAs calculated loss to piracy.
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Re: Re: Prior Art in Art
Where's my licensing fee of $1,000,000 per tablet. This was a tough design to come up with 35 years ago, but I arranged some square and rounded wooden blocks in this rough arrangement and called it a 'con-pewter' (credit for the name to Piers Anthony), then proceeded to push the 'gridlike' arrangement of blocks/icons and act like I was doing something productive (at 4 years old, what do you expect?)
I'm sure the old home movie of this design would qualify as 'prior art' and ....
ALL YOUR TABLETS ARE BELONG TO US.....
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Re: Prior Art in Art
You mean like what has already happened with Clarke and Heinlein?
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Re: Prior Art in Art
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is it just me???
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Re: is it just me???
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Re: Re: is it just me???
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Something to keep my eyes from rolling out of my head whenever patent lawsuits start using phrases like "look and feel".
Design patents just feel redundant to me. Isn't it enough that they can just slap a trademarked element to brand the product? Dickering over the curvature of edges and knob/button/icon shapes is the height of stupidity.
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Forget the tablets...
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This pic says it all
This pic says it all.
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Re: This pic says it all
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'Nuff said!
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Before iPad there was ModBook
Axiotron did it in 2007
http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=home
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Apple And Rounded Corners Go Way Back
Steve Jobs objected to this. He took Atkinson out into the Apple parking lot, and pointed to lots of objects with rounded-corner-rectangle shapes to them, to show how useful such a drawing primitive could be. So Atkinson relented, and kept those shapes in QuickDraw.
Sudden thought: I wonder what objects Jobs pointed to, and whether any of them could be used as prior art...
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Re: Apple And Rounded Corners Go Way Back
Umm... The old Mac Os's had square corners.....
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He also invented Facetime!
It's amazing how close Arthur C. Clarke called it.
The computer is a cloud made from blade servers, too.
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Re: He also invented Facetime!
I'd love to see prior art ideas from Science Fiction invalidate a ton of patents. Since you don't have to actually invent a working product to get a patent, just "propose a method", lock it up and sue anyone who dares to think of the same obvious thing.
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Steve
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Re: Steve
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Way, Way Back.
http://www.terramedia.co.uk/Chronomedia/years/Edison_Telephonoscope.htm
http://en.wiki pedia.org/wiki/Albert_Robida
http://crookedtimber.org/2009/05/13/futures-past-change-you-can-beli eve-in/
http://www.questiontechnology.org/blog/2009/03/the-end-of-books-by-uzanne-and-robida.html
http://telephonoscope.com/2009/07/10/looking-back-looking-ahead/
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Yeah, but without those "rounded corners..."
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"OH My Gawd... it's full of Assholes"
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No Angels...
Let me repeat that, "Apple stole the entire mouse driven interface from XEROX."
So, what right do they have to bitch?
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Re: No Angels...
But stole it?
Xerox quite foolishly, and against the advice of their own engineers, literally gave it to Apple on a silver platter.
Dumb? Yes.
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Re: No Angels...
So, "stole" is completely incorrect. Apple paid for what they got.
It astonishes me that there are so many ill-informed people out there who aren't aware of this very well-documented aspect of computer history.
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Re: Re: No Angels...
They definitely stole that shit :)
http://obamapacman.com/2010/03/myth-copyright-theft-apple-stole-gui-from-xerox-parc-alto/
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IP abuser Apple's Secret IP Policy
He states clearly to any competitor
I Pee on your design!
And he means it!
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I was thinking the same thing the other day about Star Trek TNG
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Read: "hey judge, we just want to point out, that we don't need to photoshop evidence to get our point across".
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A PICTURE OF THE TIRE IS NOT THE INVENTION OFATIRE.
That is where the thing patented is the type of rectangle, its thickness and other stylistic elements these can be design patented but not when there is a clear design with the same or similar intended function in the public domain.
The model for the Edsel is another clear example. that Edsel body shape, windows and puckered nose does not have to run down the road to be a design. Does not have to move at all or even be more then the drawings necessary to define the design.
So is the issue Apple is pursuing function, design and function or just design?
On Aug 25, 2011, at 10:16 PM, George Margolin wrote:
GUYS THIS COMMENT AND THE PICTURE ARE ABSOLUTE IDIOCY!
Prior art in this case was a feature in a film by Kubrick – a film to which I contributed when I invented the Front Projection Background System
For Sherman Fairchild and J.Arthur. Rank Films --- the producer of the Oddessy.
To call this prior are would be the same as calling CUNIAFORM TABLETS PRECURSORS TO THE IPAD. Same shape, after all. And you could write
On it as well.
Also – I have often used the Dick Tracy Wristwatch communicator as another example of a CONCEPT – but NOT PRIOR ART.
In fact – Science Fiction – by the terms of Samsung – actually a good company with seemingly doltish lawyers – have thousands of
Prescient concepts – but these too ARE NOT PRIOR ART – unless, of course they disclose – in full, followable detail HOW to construct
The FTL (Faster than light) systems they talk about. And I would AN LOVE ANTI GRAVITY BELT. I guess talking about it and even describing
It would make it Prior Art. But until you show me how you made it so I – Someone skilled in the art – could make it --
It won’t be prior art.
So Quit this nonsense – Samsung. You’re too good a company to espouse this foolish defense.
But if you DARE create and Electronic Cuneiform tablet --- I might be in the market for one for use with the Hittite poem I’m writing for Hamurabi.
Which, of course, I would deliver with my TIME MACHINE!
George Margolin
PATENTOR@GMAIL.COM.
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Still going...
Courts around the world have either thrown both Samsung and Apple's cases out, or apportioned blame equally.
Except the US, which decided that Samsung was entirely to blame.
Mockery of patent laws. It's not as if Apple haven't done this before with absurd patents. Apple have US patents on plenty of stuff that has been in common use around the world for years before Apple even existed.
See this....
http://youtu.be/wFeC25BM9E0
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