i.gizmodo.com— The iPhone’s multitouch patents are the equivalent of a cold war nuclear arsenal—dormant for now, but Palm’s Pre is looking for a fight. Here’s why we think Apple’s multitouch monopoly won’t last.
Jan 30, 2009View in Crawl 4
Except software patents are given out way too trivially. The vertical/horizontal scrolling lock thing, is that a genuine invention or just a little UI polish? I would say the latter, and many programmers would come up with that idea without thinking too hard. Same with the spring back mechanism mentioned in the Engadget article. That's a little less obvious, but hardly groundbreaking. Things like these are only granted because the U.S. Patent Office apparently has no idea on how to judge their "obviousness." That's actually part of the process of judging whether a patent should be awarded, whether it's considered obvious or not.This goes far beyond Apple. There have been articles on how broken this system is years ago, and all it does is retard progress. Think of Microsoft's new "drag a window to the side of the screen to make it take up half" feature in Windows 7. Should they patent it? I'd say it's clever but not patent-worthy. Linux and Mac OS X should be able to copy that and everybody wins because computer interfaces have moved forward as a whole because of it.Also think of the little companies that don't have the resources to defend themselves against spurious patents. Also think of the patent trolls that have no intention of ever doing anything with them other than suing other companies.If someone did something truly unique or that required a real investment to come up with, say a brand new encryption or compression algorithm, fine, go ahead. If there's a truly unique hardware implementation that's allowing multitouch to happen, fine, go ahead. Little UI flourishes should not be patentable.
Apple doesn't claim they invented multi-touch, nor did they patent it.Yet, this thread is full of comments like "But multi-touch has been done before!" or "They can't patent using more than one finger on a screen!!".
Also, most people who are looking for a Zune are actively looking for something that is not an iPod. Wouldn't most Zune owners say that, otherwise they would own an iPod?
I took your point into account when I made my original example.So in my fictional "example world", if Sega wanted to make Sonic the Hedgehog perform a running jump, their controllers wouldn't be allowed to interpret that button gesture in the same way. Sega would have to come up with a completely different, unique button combination to make Sonic perform a running jump.Could you imagine how s**tty gaming would be if this kind of thing were allowed? Every single platformer made by a different company would have to have a different button combination to perform similar tasks. Retarded.By the way, I like the name :)Edit: I just realized you don't need to hold a button down to make Sonic run, but, you get my point.
I wanted to like the Zune (I bought one, back when it first came out, BROWN even! but sold it), but it was too locked down to Windows. At least with an iPod, you can use it with Windows, Mac OR Linux (the Linux people still haven't figured out how to sync Zune with it yet). I don't use Windows primarily (or Mac), so I currently use an iPod.Also, Zune has a weird bug where if you have two different artists with an album with the same name (eg. Aerosmith "Greatest Hits" and White Snake "Greatest Hits") they're mixed together upon playback. Also, it doesn't understand albums with multiple discs (all of the Track1's are put together, Track2's, etc).
g001Feb 1, 2009
Except software patents are given out way too trivially. The vertical/horizontal scrolling lock thing, is that a genuine invention or just a little UI polish? I would say the latter, and many programmers would come up with that idea without thinking too hard. Same with the spring back mechanism mentioned in the Engadget article. That's a little less obvious, but hardly groundbreaking. Things like these are only granted because the U.S. Patent Office apparently has no idea on how to judge their "obviousness." That's actually part of the process of judging whether a patent should be awarded, whether it's considered obvious or not.This goes far beyond Apple. There have been articles on how broken this system is years ago, and all it does is retard progress. Think of Microsoft's new "drag a window to the side of the screen to make it take up half" feature in Windows 7. Should they patent it? I'd say it's clever but not patent-worthy. Linux and Mac OS X should be able to copy that and everybody wins because computer interfaces have moved forward as a whole because of it.Also think of the little companies that don't have the resources to defend themselves against spurious patents. Also think of the patent trolls that have no intention of ever doing anything with them other than suing other companies.If someone did something truly unique or that required a real investment to come up with, say a brand new encryption or compression algorithm, fine, go ahead. If there's a truly unique hardware implementation that's allowing multitouch to happen, fine, go ahead. Little UI flourishes should not be patentable.
childeroland420Feb 1, 2009
Most people who get a Zune do.
delmonteFeb 1, 2009
Apple doesn't claim they invented multi-touch, nor did they patent it.Yet, this thread is full of comments like "But multi-touch has been done before!" or "They can't patent using more than one finger on a screen!!".
Closed AccountFeb 1, 2009
Also, most people who are looking for a Zune are actively looking for something that is not an iPod. Wouldn't most Zune owners say that, otherwise they would own an iPod?
life036Feb 2, 2009
I took your point into account when I made my original example.So in my fictional "example world", if Sega wanted to make Sonic the Hedgehog perform a running jump, their controllers wouldn't be allowed to interpret that button gesture in the same way. Sega would have to come up with a completely different, unique button combination to make Sonic perform a running jump.Could you imagine how s**tty gaming would be if this kind of thing were allowed? Every single platformer made by a different company would have to have a different button combination to perform similar tasks. Retarded.By the way, I like the name :)Edit: I just realized you don't need to hold a button down to make Sonic run, but, you get my point.
elranzerFeb 2, 2009
I wanted to like the Zune (I bought one, back when it first came out, BROWN even! but sold it), but it was too locked down to Windows. At least with an iPod, you can use it with Windows, Mac OR Linux (the Linux people still haven't figured out how to sync Zune with it yet). I don't use Windows primarily (or Mac), so I currently use an iPod.Also, Zune has a weird bug where if you have two different artists with an album with the same name (eg. Aerosmith "Greatest Hits" and White Snake "Greatest Hits") they're mixed together upon playback. Also, it doesn't understand albums with multiple discs (all of the Track1's are put together, Track2's, etc).
tourgolfJun 6, 2009
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