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Re:Apple Never Invented Anything by vacri on Sunday September 02, 2012 @08:22PM (#4468640)
You don't have to contest the patent for it to be suppressing others' design. I once worked for a company that made a humidifying air pump. We had to have the water tank held in with a removable flap rather than a door because our main competitor had patented 'holding the tank in with a hinged flap/door'. Sure, you could fight it in court, down the track, after hardware design (which is much more expensive than people realise). Or you could move onto the next problem and have a slightly inferior product. Patents on trivial things stifle innovation.
Re:Apple Never Invented Anything by ghshephard on Sunday September 02, 2012 @10:50PM (#4468941)
The points I was trying to make (and clearly failed) is that Apple does not have a patent on pinch to zoom, so they couldn't contest the patent on it, because it doesn't belong to them.
Re:Apple Never Invented Anything by vacri on Sunday September 02, 2012 @11:34PM (#4469003)
Something funny is going on - I don't recall doing my reply against this particular comment, I think it was meant to be against a different comment about patents being trivial to work around or somesuch. Probably human error on my part, my apologies.