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A comment on The Crunchpad is proof of obviousness in iPad design. Parent comment

Re:The Crunchpad is proof of obviousness in iPad design by Duff on Friday December 09, 2011 @10:24AM (#3333978)
It is innovative by definition, because nobody did it before.

If it's so simple, why didn't Samsung do it?

Paperclips seem like a obvious design that involves no innovation. Yet paperclips similar to what we use now weren't around until 1867, and the "modern" paperclip was patented in 1899 -- 30 years later.

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Re:The Crunchpad is proof of obviousness in iPad design by dpark on Friday December 09, 2011 @10:37AM (#3334043)
It doesn't matter if Samsung did it. It just matters if someone did it. The article clearly shows prior art for Apple's design patent.
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Re:The Crunchpad is proof of obviousness in iPad design by bphogan on Friday December 09, 2011 @01:52PM (#3334982)
I would argue the prior art for that is the iPod Touch which was out a year earlier, and probably conceived earlier than that. When I heard "iPad" rumors in 2009 the first thing I thought was "a big ipod touch." So what's to say these guys didn't see the pod touch and say "Yeah. That. But big"
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Re:The Crunchpad is proof of obviousness in iPad design by dpark on Friday December 09, 2011 @04:11PM (#3335632)
That's fine any dandy, but I believe Apple is claiming a design patent specifically on the iPad. If we take the iPod touch as prior art, it still invalidates the iPad patent.
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Re:The Crunchpad is proof of obviousness in iPad design by wmf on Friday December 09, 2011 @04:44PM (#3335766)
Not if the iPad patent was filed in 2004.
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Re:The Crunchpad is proof of obviousness in iPad design by dpark on Friday December 09, 2011 @07:41PM (#3336391)
Fair enough. The patent actually shows a tablet that looks less like an iPad than it does a generic Tablet PC that one might have bought from Dell in 2004, though.
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Re:The Crunchpad is proof of obviousness in iPad design by jrockway on Friday December 09, 2011 @10:28AM (#3333998)
If it's so simple, why didn't Samsung do it?

Because nobody wanted a tablet until Apple told them they did. When there's no market for a device, you don't make and sell one simply because you can. Unless you're Steve Jobs, that is.

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Re:The Crunchpad is proof of obviousness in iPad design by jeswin on Friday December 09, 2011 @10:35AM (#3334035)
There were tablet PCs earlier. Were they usable? No. The point is, minor usability improvements aren't worthy of a patent. Just look at how bad the patent situation is, and how much of that is due to ridiculously silly patents.
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