Re:Judge wipes out patent troll’s $625M verdict against Apple
by EdHominem on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @02:19PM
(#12220195)
> First the law expressly forbids a patent on ideas.
But in practice, is entirely about broad ownership of ideas. An intermittent wiper is a neat idea, but not at all hard to design.
Yes, in this story the inventor found a 3rd-party (Mercedes) part using almost his exact design but that simply proves how obvious the solutions are.
Similarly, slide-to-unlock (etc) are absolutely, worthlessly, trivial technical ideas. It's good UI perhaps, but it's harder to decide which direction users should have to swipe than it is to actually implement.
> Moreover, this patent actually fostered innovation for a competing product
No, it forced worthless UI changes. Like making one car company use a joystick instead of a wheel.
> simply violate someone's better invention without paying for it.
And this is the crux. You think that it's an invention, as opposed to a UI standard. What technical details most impress you about it? What, other than the UI element, do you think is novel?
But in practice, is entirely about broad ownership of ideas. An intermittent wiper is a neat idea, but not at all hard to design.
Yes, in this story the inventor found a 3rd-party (Mercedes) part using almost his exact design but that simply proves how obvious the solutions are.
Similarly, slide-to-unlock (etc) are absolutely, worthlessly, trivial technical ideas. It's good UI perhaps, but it's harder to decide which direction users should have to swipe than it is to actually implement.
> Moreover, this patent actually fostered innovation for a competing product
No, it forced worthless UI changes. Like making one car company use a joystick instead of a wheel.
> simply violate someone's better invention without paying for it.
And this is the crux. You think that it's an invention, as opposed to a UI standard. What technical details most impress you about it? What, other than the UI element, do you think is novel?