Here We Go Again: Apple's Pinch-To-Zoom Patent Rejected On Re-Exam
from the of-course-it-was dept
We've talked in the past how the US Patent Office is really bad at getting it right with patents. This is supported by the fact that the vast majority of patents that are presented for a post-grant re-exam have some or all of their claims changed or rejected. That spells major trouble for anyone who believes that patents accurately tell the market what is allowed and what is not -- when the USPTO doesn't even seem to know itself. Even more troubling is when courts make rulings over patents while they're still being re-examined, as the ruling itself may depend on the validity of that patent. This has gone on for years. For example, in one of the most famous patent trolling cases, RIM paid out $612.5 million to NTP, even as the USPTO was in the process of rejecting those patents.The latest news is that, upon re-exam, the Patent Office has now rejected all 21 claims in Apple's infamous "pinch to zoom" 7,844,915 patent. Apple and patent enthusiasts will rightly point out that this is just the first step in the process -- Apple still can and will appeal, and it's very likely that the Patent Office will eventually allow some (perhaps modified) form of the patent to live on. However, since that is one of the patents involved in the Apple/Samsung patent fight, at best this creates even more confusion, since no one knows what that patent will eventually look like. This makes the problem of defining the "boundaries" of what a patent covers even more ridiculous. We already know that so many patents are written broadly, and in a somewhat indecipherable manner, such that they can be applied broadly. But when the boundaries are also subject to the whim of whoever's desk it lands on, it suggests a real problem with the system. We shouldn't be handing out massive monopolies, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, based on the arbitrary judgment of some random patent examiner, when it appears that there is no objective standard at all, but rather a series of (historically bad) guesses. That's no way to build an innovative economy.
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Filed Under: patents, pinch to zoom, reexam, rejection
Companies: apple, samsung
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How does any of this raise the bar on product quality in any way?
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iTunes carried the drivers for the iPhone and iPod so you didn't need to worry about loosing a CD-ROM to access or install the firmware of your device like you did with PalmOS devices.
PalmOS is a pain in the arse to synch up to your PC with external storage (micro and standard SD cards if i recall) mainly because in order for a Palm app to show up on the OS, you have to place it in the correct folder which is encrypted by using gibberish for file names (*cites the Wii Virtual console and save data backup system as an example*) that only the specific proprietary software for your device (which was tied to your computer as DRM) to show it on the screen. Even if you did get it right, the icons are very small and the settings to change the size of text for accessibility are squirreled away in drop down menus.
Here we have iTunes...all it takes is one click when your device is hooked up to your computer to backup your data and load Apps you have downloaded from iTunes to and from your computer and/or device.
The supposed walled garden prevents developers from exploiting the users of iTunes.
The iPhone, keyboard shows up when you surf the web today as it had then, and the lack of a physical keyboard in general allowed for it to be a bit thinner and allowed more capacity for better hardware. This also eliminated the need for the rather hefty controller chip used for keyboards. Again that means more space for better hardware at a reduced manufacturing cost.
The battery is charged via the USB doch connector....which carries USB on one end, and the doch connector on the other. You could use the USB port of your computer to charge your iPhone...you still can. The only reason for the doch connector being there is that iPod owners would be able to use their connectors on the iPhone.
Is there anything else you wish to use to show how misinformed you are about the iPhone and my statement?
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I'm not sure where PalmOS comes into the picture here, so I'm a bit confused by your discussion of it.
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The OS for iPhone is indeed slightly slicker than rivals, though from memory the first version sucked by comparison with the phone I had at the time. That's nothing to do with technology or expertise though, that's what happens when you have a walled garden and dictate as strictly as Apple do. Allowing for compatibility slows things down. Me, I choose a minor speed loss and wide compatibilty over being tied in every time, though that's personal choice.
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Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone
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They did not invent the processor.
The core was widely available so actually we had a lot more choices. Its just that iOS sucked so hard it required a faster processor.
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They did not invent the processor.
The core was widely available so actually we had a lot more choices. Its just that iOS sucked so hard it required a faster processor."
ARM is an architecture platform, not a core. Companies design their own core chips and systems based around the ARM architecture and design there own systems with ARM instruction sets and data calls. Apple designed their ARM based CPU around the ARM architecture and had an outside company manufacture their design of the ARM core they use.
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Wikipedia--which BTW is written by people like us--calls the smartphone "a mobile phone built on a mobile operating system, with more advanced computing capability and connectivity than a feature phone." As such, any maladroit phone that bears all those traits and came out before the iPhone can be regarded as a smartphone by that definition. However, show any typical Samsung user a "smartphone" that came out before the iPhone did, and they'd likely have a good laugh.
So let's have a look.
This is Blackberry in 1999.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1638782_1638778_1638769,00.html
Is it a smartphone? Yes. Is it anything like a Samsung Galaxy anything? No.
Here are a few Symbian phones. First we have a Nokia 3650 rocking a Symbian OS that looks like this:
http://assets.hardwarezone.com/2009/img/data/articles/2003/712/screen_menu.jpg
As for the phone itself:
http://assets.hardwarezone.com/2009/img/data/articles/2003/712/120x160.jpg
And this is Nokia N70 running a slightly updated Symbian:
http://st3.gsmarena.com/p2/vv/pics/nokia/nokia-n70-00.jpg
Samsung doesn't take their design cues from Nokia. Why?
Android OS may have been conceived in 2003, but the actual product didn't ship until 2008.
http://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/news/2011/04/android_timeline_2003_2011/
As for Handspring, same story as Nokia. If they'd worked harder at the developement... No, forget it. Just forget it.
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We ENTIRELY agree here, but WHAT is your actual fix?
No one reasonable would keep ranting for a decade without developing SOME idea of specific fix. Now, from time to time you re-write some other academic's notions, adding your characteristic vague questions and musings, but I can't recall you ever actually stating What I'd Do As Benevolent Dictator. -- I'd suggest feature pieces with that title.
Now, WIDABD, is steeply progressive income tax rates (even higher than 100% on "unearned income"!) to tax the hell out of The Rich and thereby reduce the value of those monopolies down to a mere million or so; yes, it's a brute force solution, but has many advantages for society at large. I'd next find some cynical geezers to hire at the Patent Office, require working physical models (ruling out software), prohibit corporate ownership of patents or their transfer, and prevent The Already Rich from patenting anything.
There. Three or four specifics off top of my head that'd definitely work, with the added advantage of fairness to offset the enormous advantages The Rich are born into.
And so where are Mike's fixes? All he does is complain.
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Re: We ENTIRELY agree here, but WHAT is your actual fix?
you wouldnt know constructive if it built you a house.
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Re: We ENTIRELY agree here, but WHAT is your actual fix?
Your complaint, on the other hand, in addition to being semi-literate, is just flat out ignorant of the long history that Floor64 has had in their stance to patent reform. You are good at CAPS however. So there is that.
On another note, I hope to meet you in court one day. If your motions are as intellectually rigorous as your above post, I'll make a national mockery of you. And it shall be quite, quite sweet.
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http://www.tomshardware.com/news/iPhone-Android-Apple-IGB-Eletronica,19881.html
Sorry, Apple - China's just not that into your iPhone 5
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/17/iphone_5_sales_china/
Android surpass Nokia as a global leader in smartphones.
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/139458-android-now-powers-75-of-all-smartphones-s old-are-we-heading-towards-a-google-monopoly
Just maybe Apple is feeling a bit unwelcome.
Android is to smartphones what Windows is to the desktop, it is sad to see it happen all over again with Apple doing the exact same mistakes it did with the personal computer in the 80's now doing all over again in the smartphone arena.
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China...the sales figure in China for the iPhone 5 is roughly 2.2 million last time I checked...within a 48 hour time period.
Apple beat out Nokia way back when the first iPhone came on.
The Macintosh brought the PC as we know it home. The biggest mistake they made was firing Steve Jobs, not for making the Macintosh II.
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Sales of Apple products in China has dropped significantly and the iPhone 5 was ONLY released in China a few weeks ago. The problem is that Apple don't make any cheap (sub $100) products like Huawei or the other manufacturers that have beat Apple. That's a problem Apple have to address in the rest of the worlds lower cash flow markets if it wants to get a bigger slice. But that's a standard marketing problem for any Multinational corporation - What price is the lowest I can afford to serve my major markets.
well the Symbian operating system (Nokia) was basically crap compared to iOS and is Nokia really a going concern anymore? Samsung, HTC, and Huawei are the major concerns now for Apple. Even I as my personal phone have a Huawei. It's cheap (was $70 *HA!*) uses Android 2.3 does all I really need on a personal phone. Even Rings ;) and I think that is the problem a lot of places marketers will start dealing with. With the price of tablets falling and Ultrabooks appearing etc the expensive smartphone with all the bells and whistles and the iPhone as a single device (I include Samsung and HTC smartphones in this too) is unnecessary and overkill compared to a cheaper phone that does the minimum (calls, maybe camera, mp3 player, calculator, etc) when you have a tablet/ultrabook that does the rest anyway.
Oh and IMHO Steve Jobs sacking was a mistake for Apple Inc way back when, but the real mistake and why PC's became the defacto standard was the ability for anyone to manufacture and sell compatibles. Disallowing the Apple IIe to be cloned, whilst serving there ideals at the time was strategic suicide and the market proved that until Apple came up with a better mouse trap (the iPod).
Problem is that mousetrap is now irrelevant, old, ubiquitous via numerous other brands and devices and they need to come up with a newer mouse and mousetrap now.
Have a great Christmas Wally to you and yours, don't let the wife control the egg-nog ;) and stay safe! Oh and a Happy New Mayan Calendar.. ;)
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Apple's failure on the first part (after firing Steve Hobs) was poor godawful management, and there inability to at least allow better compatibility for third party upgrades and custom configurations. Gassé and Schiler had a terrible mindset to expand heavily on product and only upgrade on a tiered level of upgrades. The biggest mistake in that model was allowing clones to be produced that were not only better than the first party machines were manufactured by Apple, but were a lot cheaper at the higher end. Most notable clone company was PowerComputing Corporation. They were the first that allowed for mail order of custom, hand written specs on the machines they sold. This saved the consumer a lot of money and PowerComputing had more revenue than Apple by the end of its run.
Some of the IIe clones (most notably the Brazilian Unitron computer) were deemed illegal because the actual Apple IIe ROM chips were put on the board.
The only reason why Steve Jobs streamlined and cut the cloning program was to keep the company afloat.
Merry Christmas to you and yours as well G. Thompson. May God bless you and help you have a merry New Year as well :-)
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Google may exert some leverage on OEMs through their exclusive apps (Maps, GMail, Calendar, Contacts, Drive, etc), but that does not constitute a monopoly, just an incentive to work with a particular company.
The beauty of Android, like Linux and much other open source is that nobody is totally in absolute control.
Apple could have chosen to license the iOS, but that would have meant OEMs would have made phones that offend Apple's sense of style. But that offense is what makes Android great. If you look at the cars on the road, they are not all clones of the One True Car anymore than looking at the cellphones of everyone in the room are clones of the One True Phone (excepting for iPhone users). Having phones, like cars, come in every conceivable size, shape, color style, feature combination and price is a good thing. Don't let Apple *cough* fragmentation *cough* tell you otherwise. Diversity with compatibility is good. Look at desktop computers. Look at biological species. Look at toasters and coffee makers.
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Apple, as many seem to forget, is a Software/Hardware business where the proverbial mousetrap that fragmentation is a tad more twitchy when you license out your software designed for your computer systems to a third party to sell. Anyone who knows the upgrade process for the Apple Mac Performa platform will tell you that it got confusing as to which products had what upgrade capabilities and how far you could upgrade them. In some cases, the processor upgrade required replacing the entire motherboard.
Short Version:
Google doesn't manufacture for HTC, Samsung, or any other companies. It sells their OS to them like Microsoft does for PC's.
Apple designs their own hardware and software and needs to keep our third party hardware platforms (clones) in order to stay afloat and to maximize profit for the business model they have chosen.
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/08/canalys_q3_china_apple_sixth_place/
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"Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony."
I see what you did there... :)
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Damages
Samsung has dropped its litigations against Apple concerning FRAND in the EU recently as well due to antitrust issues in the EU brought to Samsung.
Honestly this whole mess is getting old. I don't care who you are, or whose side you're on. I'm tired of these two companies litigating against each other.
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Re: Damages
Wait, what?! No rabid defense of Apple or their now invalidated patent?! THE END IS NIGH!!! THE END IS NIGH!!!
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The patent may be invalid but it should be noted this isn't the first time Apple has implemented the so called "Every day human element" in their products. The trash can icon for storing files needing to be deleted upon reboot or at the user's command was first seen in the Macintosh in 1984. They basically had to look at the desk they were working on to get the basics of the Mac OS GUI down.
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You mean like the patent I just filed: "a thing or things that may or may not do something."
Now everyone owes me for anything they have ever done.
Back off man, I'm "innovating" here!
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It seems like a site that could attract a lot of lobbying money -- perhaps more on the big pharma "marketing to doctors" model than flat out bribery. Don't patent examiners need industry-sponsored professional education seminars in Fiji?
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Towards a Patent Re-Examination Nuclear War.
Anyone who wants to can file a re-examination request (there is no "standing" requirement), and lawyers can be used as anonymous cut-outs. So if unidentified people start filing large numbers of requests against Apple's patents, Apple will not be able to know if the requests are coming from IBM, or Microsoft, or Samsung, or Google, or Facebook, or Amazon, or... All they will be able to determine is that there is someone out there who doesn't like them. Apple management will become progressively paranoid. Hopefully, Apple will lash out, in its turn, against the patents of all the other corporations. Once the process gets going, everyone will start filing re-examination requests against patents belonging to the major trolls: Intellectual Venture, Interval Licensing, etc. Once a "Patent Re-Examination Nuclear War" starts, it will tend to take out everyone who might be a threat. A million or so Requests for Re-Examination ought to clear off most of the bad patents.
To Out of the Blue, #3:
Source code is often a working model (for purely logical processes, at least, as distinct from thermodynamic processes), and it can be published as part of a patent. I would add that certain types of CAD/CAM files are also source code. A binary file can be incorporated into a printed patent by being expressed in barcodes, QR codes, or other "glyphs." The basic test of whether source code is a model is whether it compiles (and link-edits) or not. If it compiles, it's a model (though not necessarily a working one). If it doesn't compile, it's merely an (ambiguous) verbal description. Now, of course, it has been argued (theory of computation) that software is math, and, as such, un-patentable. The real issue with working models is that deliberately vague descriptions do not compile. They keep giving "unresolved reference" messages, or the equivalent.
To Wally, #9:
I would argue, rather whimsically, that the Navy's Aegis electronics system, fitted in California and Virginia class cruisers in the 1970's, probably constitutes a smart-phone, among other things. Granted, the whole affair required a couple of nuclear reactors developing 100,000 hp to push a 10,000 ton ship around at "30+ knots", but that doesn't differ in principle from something you put in your pocket. Some people have bigger pockets than others.
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Re: Towards a Patent Re-Examination Nuclear War.
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Re: Re: Towards a Patent Re-Examination Nuclear War.
TSMS's chief rivals are Intel, Global Foundries (late AMD), ON Semiconductor (Motorola), Samsung, National Semiconductor, United Microelectronics Corporation (Taiwanese government spin-off), NXP Semiconductors (ex Phillips), Texas Instruments, etc., etc.
Really, what is notable is the persistence, sometimes under new names after spin-offs, of companies which were major electronics component producers in 1965. Some companies dropped out, because they couldn't raise the capital for the next generation of fab, but the survivors become more and more similar. Each company did the obvious things, like getting its wafer size up, and its feature size down, and its defect rate down, and evolving towards being like a jobbing printer, willing to print any chip design for whoever wants it. The goalposts were obvious, and they didn't make the kind of marketing mistakes which a consumer goods maker could make.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Semiconductor_Fabri cation_Plants
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Re: Re: Re: Towards a Patent Re-Examination Nuclear War.
They used Motorola 68k processors in their computers, but the board layout was their own in accordance to the Architecture in use. This line competed directly with the Intel 286, 386, and 486 lines.
The AIM (Apple IBM Motorola) alliance was created to compete with the Pentium chips of that time. Apple designed a few extra instruction sets and added them in on top of IBM's own PowerPC architecture. Motorola was responsible for manufacturing.
Apple does a lot more work than you think. They just outsource the manufacturing to other comoanies in order to save manufacturing cost.
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Moore's Law worked out in practice to people devising ways to get purer silicon, or to build a more precise camera to apply patterns to a photo-sensitive layer on a wafer, and things like that. That's the kind of stuff which Apple was simply not involved in.
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Apple may not have been involved in creating the first processor on a silicon chip, but it still designs their own ARM chips for iDevices.
I'm not saying that Apple was absolute first, I'm simply pointing out the raised the bar in the cell phone industry.
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About twenty years ago, I heard the arguments for RISC, as against CISC, and didn't really find them very compelling. At that time, software was mostly closed-source, and RISC seemed like a formula for buying all-new software to replace what one already had.
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more dissembling by Masnick
It's not about the patents that are granted that hurts the economy. It's the ones that aren't.
As to the quality of patents; based on court rulings of the last several years, roughly half of all litigated patents are upheld in court. That's pretty balanced and suggests there is no problem with patent quality. Further, seldom do cases ever make it to trial as the parties settle out of court. The facts do not support the contention that there is a patent quality issue. Still, with almost half a million patent applications filed each year a few are bound to be issued that shouldn't. However, rarely are they ever an issue because you can't enforce them without money and you wont get the money unless you have a good patent. Keep in mind it costs the patent holder about as much in a patent suit as it does the accused infringer. Investors are not stupid. If they don't have confidence in your patent, they will not invest. It's that simple. Bad patents do not get funded.
Masnick and his monkeys have an unreported conflict of interest-
https://www.insightcommunity.com/cases.php?n=10&pg=1
They sell blog filler and "insights" to major corporations including MS, HP, IBM etc. who just happen to be some of the world’s most frequent patent suit defendants. Obviously, he has failed to report his conflicts as any reputable reporter would. But then Masnick and his monkeys are not reporters. They are hacks representing themselves as legitimate journalists receiving funding from huge corporate infringers. They cannot be trusted and have no credibility. All they know about patents is they don’t have any.
http://truereform.piausa.org/default.html#pt.
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Re: more dissembling by Masnick
This comment needs further elaboration. It's not obvious why this would be true.
Wait, wait wait...
Half of all patents tested in court are found invalid? In what sense is that a good record that indicates there's no problem with patent quality?
To my mind, that's a truly dismal record and a scathing indictment of patent quality.
This is absolutely irrelevant to the question of patent quality.
But the only confidence that investors care about is the ability to collect royalties on a patent. That ability is only tangentially related to the validity of the patent. Investor interest is, therefore, not much of an indication of patent quality.
Ignoring the unsupported insults here, please point to me anywhere where a TD writer has represented himself as a journalist, legitimate or otherwise.
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Example of NTP Patent Trolling
For example, in one of the most famous patent trolling cases, RIM paid out $612.5 million to NTP...
What planet are you on? NTP had (intellectual) property e.g. a patent and RIM decided to homestead a business on that property without first checking to see if it were owned by anyone. How is that trolling? Then once the rightful owner informed RIM that it was trespassing they refused to vacate. NTP presented them with a reasonable offer to remain on the property and RIM's Pirates e.g. lawyers thought they could steal something they didn't own. They did this because they were stronger financially and thought they could out last NTP. When the sheriff rode into town, e.g. the law, to settle the issue RIM was then caught CHEATING, e.g. faking evidence in court. Boy was the Judge mad. Go back and read the facts. If NTP had settled in the beginning it would have cost them next to nothing. Pure arrogance on the part RIM. By the way, remember they are a Canadian company. The bottom line for CEOs to remember is that patents are property, so don't go homesteading without first checking title. If someone else owns that property then move on to another that hasn't been claimed. Patent trolling isn't the problem it is corporate stealing without giving it a second thought. I personally think If those CEOs and corporate boards that make the decision to take what is not theirs even after notified were given prison time the perceived problem would go away quickly.
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Re: Example of NTP Patent Trolling
That is legally the fault of the contractor who built the building, not RIM. Something similar happened to my family with a lakefront property where a house was built on it by another property owner. The contractor goofed but due to eminent domain issues the owner of the building got the property. He gave us his old property, but was not legally obligated to do so.
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How funnier can it get for the spectators.
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