Another part of the iPod tech patented by another company.
Somebody in the legal department needs to get fired really fast from Apple. This is the second type of instance in as many months, the former being Microsoft.
Here they sit on top of the biggest trend since the Hoola Hoop, and they don't even make basic, basic moves to protect it.
"It holds that the creators of inventions deserve to reap the fruit of their labour. Fair enough, but unfortunately that’s not what patent laws achieve. Rather, they ensure that one person (in some countries the first inventor, in others the first person to submit his claim to the patent office) gets to reap the fruit of his labour, while his competitors—people who may have worked just as hard and arrived at virtually identical results only days later, or in some cases even earlier—are denied the fruits of theirs. There’s no inherent justice in permitting only the first guy to reap rewards and throwing everyone else’s efforts into the trash can. So cumulatively, the monopoly granted by a government to a patent-holder may do more to deny people’s rights to their hard work than it does to protect them."
Last edited by Foo on Thu Sep 01, 2005 1:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Maybe you have some bird ideas. Maybe that’s the best you can do."
― Terry A. Davis
Cool Blue wrote:http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/31/technology/creative_ipod.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes
Another part of the iPod tech patented by another company.
Somebody in the legal department needs to get fired really fast from Apple. This is the second type of instance in as many months, the former being Microsoft.
Here they sit on top of the biggest trend since the Hoola Hoop, and they don't even make basic, basic moves to protect it.
"It holds that the creators of inventions deserve to reap the fruit of their labour. Fair enough, but unfortunately that’s not what patent laws achieve. Rather, they ensure that one person (in some countries the first inventor, in others the first person to submit his claim to the patent office) gets to reap the fruit of his labour, while his competitors—people who may have worked just as hard and arrived at virtually identical results only days later, or in some cases even earlier—are denied the fruits of theirs. There’s no inherent justice in permitting only the first guy to reap rewards and throwing everyone else’s efforts into the trash can. So cumulatively, the monopoly granted by a government to a patent-holder may do more to deny people’s rights to their hard work than it does to protect them."
I agree that patents are a bad thing. And things go even further than that article. These days patents are registered to actually blackmail other companies, as what happened with id Software and Creative and now with Apple and Microsoft and again, Creative.
Patents aren't used anymore to make sure people don't steal ideas, but simply to make money out of the ideas of others. While the original intent of patents was to make sure innovation from person A is protected from abuse by person B, they're now used for the exact opposite. It allows person B to abuse person A's innovation.
I think there should at least be a rule that you can only patent an innovation if you active reap rewards from it. If you have a patent that's just sitting there and which you don't implement it or license it to a 3rd party within a certain set amount of time (say, a year, and who actively use the patent) then you aren't worthy of having that patent.
I'd have to find some cases, but I thought that those that hold patents but didn't produce anything didn't really have much of a leg to stand on. So, if a company is producing something that someone patented simply to camp the idea, the courts tended to rule in favor of the manufacturer.
I could be wrong, but that was the impression that I had.
Nightshade wrote:I'd have to find some cases, but I thought that those that hold patents but didn't produce anything didn't really have much of a leg to stand on. So, if a company is producing something that someone patented simply to camp the idea, the courts tended to rule in favor of the manufacturer.
I could be wrong, but that was the impression that I had.
Heh, "patent-campers".
Sounds reasonable, but it doesn't seem to work that way entirely. Ofcourse I could be wrong. But in the case of John Carmack's shadowing technique used in Doom 3, Creative stepped in and said they had patented the idea (which, if I remember correctly, they did after Carmack spoke about it on some convention long before Doom 3 was first revealed). Creative never actually used the patent. id Software resolved the issue by implementing support for some sort of sound technology from Creative (EAX2 or something) and putting a big Creative logo on the box of Doom 3.
large companies can draw out patent suits for years. In some cases ten to twenty years. Usually one patent end up infringing on an earlier patent. Counter suing, witch drags out the process even more. Most likely they'll settle out of court for some undisclosed amount.
For instance if the ipod interface counts as windows. Then that means apple os x interface also uses the same 'windows' but apple already has a patent for those windows.
simple wrote:large companies can draw out patent suits for years. In some cases ten to twenty years. Usually one patent end up infringing on an earlier patent. Counter suing, witch drags out the process even more. Most likely they'll settle out of court for some undisclosed amount.
For instance if the ipod interface counts as windows. Then that means apple os x interface also uses the same 'windows' but apple already has a patent for those windows.
simple wrote:large companies can draw out patent suits for years. In some cases ten to twenty years. Usually one patent end up infringing on an earlier patent. Counter suing, witch drags out the process even more. Most likely they'll settle out of court for some undisclosed amount.
For instance if the ipod interface counts as windows. Then that means apple os x interface also uses the same 'windows' but apple already has a patent for those windows.
Dont patents expire after 20 years anyway?
Yeah. 20 for utility and 14 for design.
"Maybe you have some bird ideas. Maybe that’s the best you can do."
― Terry A. Davis
simple wrote:large companies can draw out patent suits for years. In some cases ten to twenty years. Usually one patent end up infringing on an earlier patent. Counter suing, witch drags out the process even more. Most likely they'll settle out of court for some undisclosed amount.
For instance if the ipod interface counts as windows. Then that means apple os x interface also uses the same 'windows' but apple already has a patent for those windows.
Dont patents expire after 20 years anyway?
Yeah. 20 for utility and 14 for design.
That's quite long in an industry that upgrades every year :icon28:
!!!
