[Stu Littlefair]

P.s had they lost this suit I think they'd have quietly dropped the jihad against android. Not sure now.

I do wish they'd buy Swype.

[Bubba]

God I don't, then Android would lose Swype which would be a disaster!

Weren't Apple's early innovations all robbed from Xerox anyway?

[slackline]

The whole software industry would be better off if companies didn't have to buy each other, patent stuff etc.

Just look at how well the Linux kernel on which Android is built has done without the need for such wastes of time.  One could say its ubiquitous being in so many phones, running virtually everyones wireless routers and NASs, the most prevalent servers on the net etc. etc.

If companies took a step back they'd see that the would actually all benefit from co-operating, but I guess that doesn't fit in with a consumer/captilist society.   

[Stu Littlefair]

Bubba, you could still use Swype, although you'd obviously have to pay to license the experience :-)

Slackers, all very admirable but I need some convincing it would actually work. Yes we'd still have Linux but how would companies make money if their IP wasn't protected for some period of time? I think it would lead to companies massively cutting down on R&D, and hoping someone else do it for them...

To refer to the original post for a sec, Pete, as long as you bring the guide out in paper form I don't care! I hate mobile climbing guides because they become harder to use in sunny weather, or if your battery is low

[slackline]

Slackers, all very admirable but I need some convincing it would actually work. Yes we'd still have Linux but how would companies make money if their IP wasn't protected for some period of time? I think it would lead to companies massively cutting down on R&D, and hoping someone else do it for them...

Companies that contribute to supporting Linux kernel development.

Some big names such as  Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel, NEC, Novell, Oracle Samsung, Texas Instruments, Twitter Yahoo! etc.  They fund development, use the product (software) and make money selling hardware that uses the software. 


No Apple though, they just ripped off the Mach and BSD kernels and added a UI (and a lot of the bells and whistles in OSX's UI were around for GNU/Linux systems before they appeared on apple's machines).

[Bubba]

(In addition to the link aLICErOBERTSfANkLUB posted earlier)

Jurors admit they ignored prior art.

And rather depressingly, it looks like Google (Via Motorola Mobility) have entered the fray.

[mr__j5]

As far as I understand on some of these things, Android and I think Linux contain plenty of unlicensed patented tech.

http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7325/

However, most owners of these patents don't persue thier use in open source projects. It's not until they are used comercially that the owners chase for license fees. So this is why the andriod hardware vendors are chased for the patent license costs, rather than google.

[finbarrr]

really interesting podcast on patent-warfare:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack/

[Bubba]

This American Life podcast is one the best things around.

[petejh]

Jesus researching this stuff makes for depressing yet interesting reading. Apple to my eyes have quite blatantly become a bunch of cunts - extremely intelligent, creative and successful cunts but cunts nonetheless, obsessed with trying to dominate a market for its own good to the detriment of everyone else - it could be a market in anything, it wouldn't matter.

Think I'll stick with Android for the app and try to persuade the app designer to hold the apple version in mothballs. Maybe get it patented then if someone brings out anything similar we can hit them up with a lawsuit   

[slackline]

Jesus researching this stuff makes for depressing yet interesting reading. Apple to my eyes have quite blatantly become a bunch of cunts - extremely intelligent, creative and successful cunts but cunts nonetheless, obsessed with trying to dominate a market for its own good to the detriment of everyone else - it could be a market in anything, it wouldn't matter.

 

Think I'll stick with Android for the app and try to persuade the app designer to hold the apple version in mothballs. Maybe get it patented then if someone brings out anything similar we can hit them up with a lawsuit   

 

[slackline]

As far as I understand on some of these things, Android and I think Linux contain plenty of unlicensed patented tech.

http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7325/

However, most owners of these patents don't persue thier use in open source projects. It's not until they are used comercially that the owners chase for license fees. So this is why the andriod hardware vendors are chased for the patent license costs, rather than google.

And as is highlighted in that article, once the patents are actually known about a work around/alternative method that doesn't violate it can then be resolved.

Fucking dirty business patenting software. 

[slackline]

(In addition to the link aLICErOBERTSfANkLUB posted earlier)

Jurors admit they ignored prior art.

  That makes for some shocking reading, one hot-head who was head juror leading the others, who all ignored the instructions they'd been given!!!

 Can't see this not going through another round, where hopefully the sense shown by Judge Posner will prevail.

[Stu Littlefair]

The thing is, you're all just slagging off apple for stuff other companies do all the time.

SCO sued IBM for violating licensing and patents. Oracle bought java from Sun then immediately sued Google for patent infringement. Samsung sued Osram over LED patents. Intel settled a patent dispute with AMD for around a billion dollars. In a patent war no-one wins but the lawyers, and I don't like afar apple did, but what makes them worse than all these companies?

[slackline]

The thing is, you're all just slagging off apple for stuff other companies do all the time.

not here, FOSS & Copy left all the way!

I dislike M$ as much as Apple, and was disappointed when Oracle went after Google over supposed Java infringement on Android after purchasing Java.

The AMD vs Intel and Osram vs Samsung & LG cases you mention are slightly different as thats hardware, not software.  The former also covers anti-trust issues as well as patents.

Only cunts narrow minded monopolists indulge in software patents and trying to sue for infringement.  As I wrote above its completely retarded, but once you're being sued by someone I don't really blame any company for counter suing.

[Stu Littlefair]

We'll have to agree to disagree on that then, as I see the problem slightly differently. I don't see any fundamental reason why something truly innovative in software shouldn't be patentable. To my mind the issue is that the bar for patents is so low that ridiculous things obtain patents, in HW and SW.

Just as you don't blame companies for counter-suing, I don't blame companies for using patent law to gain a commercial advantage. It's what companies are legally obliged to do; maximise profit. The current farce is a problem with patent law, not the morals of any one company.

Pete - as a parting shot, make sure you don't use Xerox to print the guide, since they're at it too...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704188104575083882041877088.html

[slackline]

Why don't I think software should be patented?

Because its essentially akin to trying patent a mathematical algorithm.

It'd be pretty retarded/annoying if you had to pay to use the formulae you utilise in astronomy calculations wouldn't it?

[Stu Littlefair]

I have to give academic credit, via citations. In the academic world, that's basically payment. Sometimes I have to buy a licence too. I don't see whats wrong with that.

Why shouldn't a very clever algorithm be patentable. What makes the act of creating a good algorithm different from (say) a good piston for a steam engine? Why shouldn't the inventor of both be given some protection to exploit their creativity, free from fear of copying.

For example, in my line of work we use Maximum Entropy image reconstruction a LOT. It was initially used to reduce noise in images from radio telescopes and it was cambridge astronomers who created algorithms which allowed this technique to work in practice. The algorithms are now used in applications from medical imaging to locating mobile phones. The cambridge astronomers patented their algorithms and make a nice living off their efforts.

What did they do wrong? Why should they not be allowed to patent their software, but someone who thought up stickers to put on keyboards (hardware) should?

[slackline]

I fully understand citations and use the system myself.  In open source software development those who submit changes are credited too.

The thing is someone else could sit down and converge on the same algorithm independently. To take a really old example...Leibinz, Newton & calculus!

Better still they might be able to improve on an existing one if it is shared, thus benefiting both (/all) parties. And as I write above, tech companies can still turn healthy profits from selling hardware that runs open source software that they have helped fund development of.

Its a no-brainer to me, win-win all round. Faster software development, more eyes looking at code, quicker bug fixes, benefits everyone and no need to piss around in courts making lawyers richer.

[SA Chris]

Faster software development, more eyes looking at code, quicker bug fixes, benefits everyone and no need to piss around in courts making lawyers richer.

Meanwhile, in the real world, the empirical formula Corporation Lawyers = cunts applies.

I would patent that formula, but I think it's been done before is is freely available via open source.

[slackline]

And I guess for me the difference between software and hardware is the sheer speed of development.

Times change and applying old rules to new technology doesn't work. Rather than staunchly sticking with the old patent rules (which as highlighted in one of the above links were only invoked when the use of copyright to protect software failed) rethinking the way in which the work is "protected" is I think a better approach and an alternative has been demonstrated to work very well.

And on a societal note I think it would be a nicer world if people shared more freely rather than selfishly protecting their own interests.

(can't find a hippy smiley)

P.M. - there are some pretty dumb hardware patents too as you have linked to.

[Stu Littlefair]

Nah, nothing that you've written convinces me that hardware is any different to software in respect of patents.

Convergence on the same solution can happen with hardware just as easily - Christian Reithmann and Alphonse Beau de Rochas are thought to have independently developed the 4-cycle combustion engine, for example.

And the pace of hardware development has been very rapid in recent years. I guess I don't need to explain Moore's law to you 

Also, there's a reason this forum doesn't have a hippy smiley. The hippies lost.

[slackline]

Nah, nothing that you've written convinces me that hardware is any different to software in respect of patents.

Fair-do's. I guess I'm more saying that there are alternatives to the existing system(s) which I think have huge disadvantages (a tangent would be the patenting of drugs that if cheaply produced could help save millions more lives, but I guess share holders profits do need protecting and are of greater value than a few lives).

As a consumer I'd rather not have the price of something I'm pursuing inflated by a patent royalty either.

Convergence on the same solution can happen with hardware just as easily - Christian Reithmann and Alphonse Beau de Rochas are thought to have independently developed the 4-cycle combustion engine, for example.

Didn't know that, did they have a pretty fight over it?

And the pace of hardware development has been very rapid in recent years. I guess I don't need to explain Moore's law to you 

And that rate might be even faster if people/companies co-operated, but I guys we'll never know?

I know Moore proposed it theoretically, I just think the more people working on a problem together the faster it can be solved/progress....providing its well co-ordinated. See all the big science successes in recent years, human genome project where private company Celera gave up and joined in the international public effort; CERN and the particle accelerators; international space station etc. yes these are BIG science projects, but I don't see why their model of cooperation which had resulted in success can't be applied to other areas.

Being open and cooperating has worked phenomenally well for open source software, so much so that the older companies like M$ and apple are worried, hence their clamouring to get whatever they can.

Also, there's a reason this forum doesn't have a hippy smiley. The hippies lost.

:D

[chummer]

Have I missed something? Probably, I hear you say but really since when did Microsoft occupy the moral high ground over Apple? Am I missing something? Aren't they both cunts except Microsoft have always been cunts trying to monopolise the world market and attack open source software blah blah blah? Now I am not suggesting that Apple are lovely people who just want us to have nice user friendly technology but really, are Microsoft any better?
 
A summarised account of this is on Wikipedia makes interesting reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft

And here's Apple's:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Apple_Inc.

Yes, they're both bastards basically, which is worse you decide but if you are deciding not to release an app on certain software due to morals and ethics then basically you wouldn't release the app at all Pete!

[chummer]

software/hardware... doh! You know what I mean!