Innovator wins...

...but I suspect innovation loses

The US patent system really is stupidly broken.

just been reading this as well Hopefully it won`t stifle innovation but I can see Apple fighting everyone in court which in the long run WILL stifle competiton. Money is power!!

Says it all

Whats really dumb about this is that all of Apples Patents are obvious concepts, not actual innovation or technology. There is no hardware technology in those patents, no CPU construction, manufacture, memory, screen or even materials research, its all about how to touch a screen or shape an icon. These patents should never have been granted. Apple is a design company not a technology company.

Amazed they have not sued all the TV manufacturers for using rectangle shaped TVs The iPAD and iPhone are shaped that way

Edited by deleted (Sat 25-Aug-12 08:42:37)

all of Apples Patents are obvious concepts, not actual innovation or technology

That is someone not understanding patents - patents are about method not ideas. The idea of refreshing is obvious and has plenty of prior art - the rubber band idea is clearly not obviously since it had not been done before.

But it should be protected under copyright law, not patent law. Even copyright law can be tough - it killed VfW when MS was caught copy and pasting Quicktime code.

Apple really had no choice but to sue because that's who the system works - it's iPhone division generates more revenue than the whole of Microsoft. They have to protect the brand and this was a tool.

All cars are more-or-less the same shape now because physics is telling the same story in everyone's wind tunnel. But there is no "physics" to human interface design, and probably never will be.

In the end it is the system that is broken (Also the key word in the verdicts was wilful. Samsung knew perfectly well what it was doing).

In reply to a post by ian_c:

...but I suspect innovation loses

The US patent system really is stupidly broken.

I think innovation will improve, Samsung et al will have to innovate and produce better equipment not just follow Apple, they are already doing that with their new models. I'm not a fan of the win 7 phones but MS showed that it can be done.
The judgement is more important for Apple in that anything new they have made and patented will be less likely to be copied. I think innovation has won, Apple has it's R&D spend protected.

in the words off Jessie J "its not about the money, money, money" right ?

In the long run it's business and of course it's about the money.
In the medium term it's protecting their R&D spend. If Apple or any company knows that if they produce a new gadget, whatever it is, and 1 month later there are going to be a flood of cheap clones well why are they going to bother?