Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/07/1920243

It seems that some more interesting parties have already blown some pretty big holes in Apples multi-touch patent. :D Ah well, it just goes to further prove how boned our patent system is.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

Its mentioned here http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...538#post253538

[edit]Rumor: "Apple asked Google not to use multi-touch in Android, and Google complied"

http://venturebeat.com/2009/02/09/ap...ogle-complied/[/edit]

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/08/e...-patent-infri/

hurhurhur. It looks like Apple will be getting a dose of their own medicine now. I think Palm will be laughing their way to the bank on this one. :D

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

Hopefully this will put the end to multitouch patents and open it up for everyone. So anyone can use multitouch without having to pay anything or worry about being sued.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

Quite possibly. The same thing that happened to RIM where wireless push email has become widely available over the last 5 years could happen to Apple and multitouch.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

i am going to patent a method for patenting multiple multitouch patent applications.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

lol. Honestly, the whole patent system right now is so boned beyond mention that they need to scrap it and start from the bottom up. Of course, given how fast technology is moving these days, what's the point? By the time you get the patent, the technology is already obsolete. Plus things are FAR too restrictive and innovation would explode if technology patents were either severely restricted or eliminated.

Some say things would get ugly. I don't really think they would. Sure, there would be the whole goldrush mentality for a few years, after which you'd see things settle down into a more manageable development curve. The only reason there'd be a goldrush of sorts is that the freeing up of tech patents would allow the innovation curve to flow out from behind it's dam of patents and settle into a more natural flow again instead of the damed up trickle we get now.

The part that will keep this from happening is all the companies who want to do everything imaginable to kill all competition and become a monopoly. With no tech patents, or no patents at all, period, it'd be every man for himself and you'd either have to be an innovator and a leader in quality and would be forced to truly compete or die.

That's great for us, and it's even better for the companies who can pull it off. For one, it'd weed out the weak and bad companies and boost the strong and good companies.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

I personally feel that patents and copyrghts are outdated now. Kinda like unions, they had their initial purposes (and it was a great purpose and reasoning) but now they've outgrown their purpose or have been so distorted that they are no longer needed like they were use to. I think they're still needed to a certain extent. But the opposite needs to be occuring. Instead of increasing duration, decrease the duration. And if your not doing anything with the patent (attempting to make some progress like finding funding or whatever) then it goes into public domain in X amount of years. It's been shown time and time again that patents and copyrights are doing the opposite of what they're intended to do (protect the inventors from being bullied by big companies).

I guess another method would be to set it up so that the lawyer you hire to sue others for patent/copyright infringement can only be paid as much as much as the defense can pay :P (haha that would be funny and probably a bad idea).

It's like that in China right now, and alot of technology is coming out of there (lots of PMPs that we may never see).

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

Laughing Man: Speaking of lawyer pay, since lawyers are only in it for the big bucks. (lawyers that actually want to help people out of the kindness of their heart don't exist!) If you limited lawyers to only earning a small wage, a large majority of lawsuits would vanish as lawyers jumped ship to another career. Of course, given that lawyers run this country, that'll never happen. It's one of the same reasons the patent system has been allowed to become the mess it is.

Another huge reason there hasn't been any change in the patent and copyright system, and likely never will be is because the government makes a FORTUNE on the patent and trademark (and copyright) system. Hence why they haven't bothered to try and fix the system. Seriously. Why shut down a system, broken or otherwise, that's making you a mint?

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

Has anyone actually patented patent itself yet? :)

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

I've heard of some corporation patenting human genes, so actually somebody may have patented YOU

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

Next thing you know they'll patent breathing and charge everyone royalties.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

Microsoft became one of the worst monopolists in the tech world and they didn't use a single patent to do it. ;) In fact, patents (and OSS) are a bona fide threat to MS.

Small tech companies are in a rough business. Innovation (without patents) and quality sound nice theoretically, but don't work in the real world. Try going for funding with an innovative and quality product, but without the ability to keep anyone from copying it. See how far you get... The patent system may be in need of reform, but it's far better than no patents.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

thanks to getting a nice agreement with IBM that didnt forbid them selling MS-DOS to others, and compaq reverse engineering the PC bios chip, and getting away with it.

suddenly you have 1001 IBM PC compatibles out there, and microsoft can supply them the os thats needed, without being slapped silly by IBM.

they basically became the de-facto os standard, and have done just about anything to keep that status to this day.

its btw the same events that drove intel from a me-to in cpus to the top. their 8086 was not sexy, but it was cheap and available, and thats what IBM needed to head apple of at the desktop computing pass.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

A little enlightenment on patents: http://tabulacrypticum.wordpress.com...-for-my-ideas/

Bottom line: concept = good and necessary. Current implementation and regulation = whacked.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

If the patent is valid, they have every right to exercise it.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

What is the incentive of spending millions of dollars to develop a new invention when a competitor can simply copy it and sell it for production cost without having to recoup the R&D investment? This is a prescription to end most high-dollar R&D.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

Kind of like the United States Constitution (which provides the basis for patents and copyrights). *rolls eyes*

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

Nonsense. Human beings are not patentable in the United States.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

35 usc 102

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

But our gene sequences are, which IMO is... whacked.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

Well, so long as I don't have to pay royalties on myself, I'm fine. ;)

On a side note, I fail to see how the patent and trade office justifies allowing patents on genes, but says that molecules are not patentable, which is exactly what a gene is, more or less.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

These are refined gene sequences in the lab, not portions of human bodies, which, as I said, are NOT patentable in the United States.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

I don't know that this is true. Do you have a source for this info?

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

Never quite understood that one. I'm pretty certain there is prior art ranging back a few thousand years. Also, it sure does put having children in a funny perspective.

EDIT:
As you cannot guarantee that a sequence does not already exist, or that it not will appear by spontaneous mutation, it's a slippery slope anyway.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

If a competitor already has it in the lab, then they can file for reexamination or sue to invalidate the patent or have a defense if sued for infringement. There is such as thing as "standard of proof", and saying that some competitor might (or might not) have refined this gene sequence is no proof at all. If they have, let them prove it.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

In some ways it is dated. Which is why it has to be updated once in a while. For example, to add the ability for women and minorities to vote. It's also ironic that you mention the Constitution. Considering the ideas present in that and the Bill of Rights were actually pre-existing ideas.

As for incentive, the same reason why scientists continue to do work. Name recognition. Not to mention your ignoring the fact that before patents even existed that inventions were always being created. Hell half the stuff that made it possible for you and I to type on the Internet today came from China (Compass, Gunpowder, etc..etc..). None of those inventions were ever patented. If they were then the world would be a drastically different place. So I'm afraid the *roll eyes* :rolleyes: goes back to you. Not to mention the history of the United States (the owner of the very document you cite) benefited from not co-operating with patent and copyrights for many years.

Another problem with the patent system beside it's long duration and the inefficiency of the patent office is that each country can issue its own patents. In a era of Globalization it leads to problems like this. So who really created the idea first? It goes back to the idea of paper. It's commonly theorized that paper was discovered by several civilizations independently. You can't prove independent invention in this day and age easily since the people likely holding the patents are the ones with the money to sue you out of existence. Often it's just easier to settle than pay the court and lawyer costs.

Do I think patents and copyrights are needed? Yes. In this day and age it's also easier to screw people over (in the older days if you did that your reputation would be tarnished). Nowdays it's easy to create a new identity. But like unions, capitalism, democracy, communism, religion, and any other idea, humans have taken them far past their original purpose.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

Which is one of the geniuses of the Constitution, that it provides for updating. Feel free to lobby for an amendment eliminating patents and copyrights if you want.

But they get paid for their work. Try offering them a contract saying they have to pay for all their research on their own without salary and others can use it without paying them anything for it.


You think the rate of technological advance was the same then as it is now? Besides, there was not modern economy back then. And don't forget what the promise of a monetary reward played in solving the longitude problem.



That's only a problem in the United States. All other countries have patent rights to first inventor to file, not first inventor to invent.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

Guess again Mullf. US drug companies HAVE patented unique genes discovered in patients. In my opinion that should not be allowed.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

They are for the refined genes in the lab, NOT for the genes in the patient's body. In other words, the patients and/or their current and/or potential future children (or anyone else with the gene) are NOT infringing the patent.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

Nope. You are still wrong. I will try to find the article that describes the situation.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

You seriously think that a company has sued a person for having a gene that the company has patented??? Seriously??? Seriously?????? In the United States, human beings are not patentable.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

Not at all. The general idea is that without patents, every company would provide R&D to produce incremental improvements to gain an edge in the market. Improvements would soon flow back into the commons, for others to improve upon.

Kind of like how open source works.

And without all the money being spent on lawyers, there's more to be spent on R&D.

Regards,
Roger

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

That's not what I said Mullf. Calm down and read more carefully please.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

That occurs today. It is the big, multi-million dollar inventions (e.g. life-saving drugs) that are dis-incentivized by lack of patent protection.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

I have and continue doing so. Though lobbying politicans doesn't end well if you don't have deep pockets. :mad:

Yes, they do get paid for their work. And most of the time other people can use their research without paying them for it. They just have to cite the idea and what not was originally theirs.


Ah, but the same technological advance has lead to things like the Internet which offers now infinite way to replicate ideas and digital products. So if the argument is that times are different, then one could also just argue that times are now different again and in this day and era patents and copyrights are not needed in the form they are now. Our as my research methods professor would put it, the model has become outdated and needs to be updated or replaced.

And yes there were some monetary rewards (in the case of Gunpowder I think it was because they were seeking a formula for immortality). Changing patents and copyrights won't influence that. In fact it may increase the rate of progress since people would actually have to continue making advances and discoveries instead of sitting on the one egg they found. Again, not saying they aren't needed (see previous post, last paragraph). It just needs to be reformed.


I'm not familar with other countries' patent system. Only the US (I have a family member that works in the patent office but on the reviewing level). Frequently there are problems with patents being claimed when they've already been issued (the patent office is bogged down so they rarely do prior existence checks well enough).

It's nice to actually have a discussion :). This rarely happens on Digg.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

Incremental improvements can be copied as easy, if not easier, than significant advances. The theoretical edge in the market disappears as soon as the non-innovating knockoff or larger company with bigger advertising budget copies it.

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

the problem is the times, not the concepts. technology have made things easier for humans to invent and produce, yet the protection times have either stayed still or increased...

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

FYI, it is not uncommon for patents to be filed based on a scientist's or engineer's work that is about to be published/presented at a conference. Universities make big money on licensing agreements.

I don't know if "rarely" is a fair characterization. What percentage of patents actually get invalidated?


Debating is good clean fun. ;)

Re: The end of multitouch for...everyone?
 

I'm not sure that it true. There is more out there, so there are more directions to go in, and along with a continually increasing population, that leads to more patents per year than in the past, but that doesn't imply that it is "easier" to invent. I wonder what there is a graph showing the number of patents issued per year vs. the population for those years, to see if there are really more inventions per capita than in the past.