Apple targets latest Android in fresh Samsung case

Oh for ****'s Sake...

...give it a rest, Apple. Do you think that you invented voice recognition now?

By jontym123 on 13 Feb 2012

Apple are becoming a joke

.
God, apple are pathetic.

I have a feeling their comeuppance will be arriving shortly.

By qpw3141 on 13 Feb 2012

If it's cool, it must be Apple..

@jontym1213 - well of course they didn't, but then you won't find many technologies they did 'invent'.

What Apple does is add 'coolness'.

What Apple has been historically strong at is patenting the WAY technologies (mostly invented by others) are USED!

By wittgenfrog on 13 Feb 2012

@qpw3141

We live in hope, but this is a very unjust world we live in.....

By wittgenfrog on 13 Feb 2012

@wittgenfrog

The problem is, those patents are so vague, that it describes what we were doing back in the 80s to a tee.

By big_D on 13 Feb 2012

Apple said the Galaxy Nexus infringed patents underlying features customers expect from Apple products

"Expect"? Really?! I EXPECT Apple to act like a bunch of twats so does that prevent anyone else from acting that way?

By 959ARN on 13 Feb 2012

What has happened to "prior art"

It used to be that you could get a patent struck down if you could demonstrate "prior art" - that the "invention" was in use prior to the filing of the patent.

I cannot understand why this cannot be done to defeat these trivial patents. Google had voice recognition search long before Siri and anyone at home with Dragon Dictate or similar software could hook it to any search engine themselves to do this. Also there must be someone somewhere who used a "sliding image" to turn something on before iOS?

By JohnAHind on 13 Feb 2012

@JohnAHind

.
Not only prior art but (according to patent law) a patent should not be 'obvious'.

And yet many patents seem to be granted for developments of a type for which you could say: "If you hadn't done it today, someone else would have done it tomorrow".

XORing a cursor, one click ordering and sliding controls are all examples of things that are obvious and yet for which people have been granted patents.

By qpw3141 on 13 Feb 2012

Cynicism Filter - ON

A thought that keps bubbling under my fevered brain is that USA Inc now has virtually nothing left EXCEPT Intellectual Property (IP).

Yes they do have a substantial manufacturing sector but it doesn't make consumer technologies like PCs, media players or 'phones.

They have an [insert number] trillion dollar national debt and a gargantuan trade deficit.

Under these circumstances, if you are (say) Apple you have already squeezed every conceivable dollar of cost out of the production process.
To maintain your profits in the face of indigenous Far Eastern manufacturers you have to stop, or at best delay their bringing similar cheaper and\or better products to market; by any means possible. That'll be your patents then guv.

'Western Domocracies' are all feeling this pinch (Chinese burn) and seem supportive of even the most ludicrous 'patent trolling' by western companies. The German courts seem particualrly cooperative.

Apple had a great role in promoting 'offshore' production and exporting advanced technology and jobs in search of humungous profits.
But they don't seem to have adjusted to the New World Order that they were so influential in establishing.

They will probably have minor sucesses against the likes of Samsung in Interbnational markets, but Chinese companies selling domesticaslly and into other BRICS countries will simply ignore them and their 'patents'.

MS seems to have a much more viable approach.
By licencing technology at affordable levels they stand a chance of getting some income, which Apple's approach will fail, in the mid-long term to do.

By wittgenfrog on 13 Feb 2012

Licensing

Sums it up perfectly:
If you have invested in new tech you deserve recompense - licensing at reasonable rates is the solution, not paying legal teams to prevent what might be the basis of the next big thing from being used by anyone else.

However, I have no doubt regulators would screw that up as badly as the patent system is.

By dubiou on 13 Feb 2012

"I am absolutely certain that, for the preliminary injunction motion, the Galaxy Nexus was singled out because it's so new, and important."

Surely not!

By Lacrobat on 13 Feb 2012

Not again!

As an iPhone owner, it's really quite tedious to Apple behaving like this still - jumping up and down like petulant children when someone brings out a device (read toy) that's shinier than theirs. FFS!!!

I can't actually think of anything they've actually *invented*. Steve Jobs was NOT an inventor, he was an innovator. Granted they take existing ideas and refine them into something better/cool/nice, but that's *it*.

Even the Apple stores are nothing more than an upmarket PC World, with properly-educated staff and better customer service. That's *IT*.

Now can they please shut the **** up and get back to doing what they do well and not acting like a bunch of complete idiots!

*rant over*

By mrmmm on 13 Feb 2012

Alternatively...

... let's take it back right to the start when Apple nicked Xerox's idea of a Windowing interface.

How many $bn would Xerox be able to get out of Apple then? OK granted Microsoft would have to cough up too - but at least they admit it!

Personally I like the fact that Google & Apple are trying to out-do each other on functionality and features - the consumer benefits from that. It's when they start bitch-slapping each other about pathetic technicalities that stop the technology moving forward.

Can they all grow the **** up please?

By mrmmm on 14 Feb 2012

Samsung just need to...

...employ some Google Foo and search for

"neonode n1m slide to unlock"

Predates Apple's 2005 patent regarding slide to unlock.

When it comes to Apple patent trolling ...don't get angry ....just buy something else.

By fingerbob69 on 14 Feb 2012

Oh dear...

This sort of nauseating tripe is rubbing the sheen off Apple rather rapidly. If it were Microsoft behaving in this manner, the world would be hopping up and down with rage. Apple need a taste of that medicine.

By SirRoderickSpode on 14 Feb 2012