Woz warns that patent palaver will stifle startups Apple cofounder and number-one fanboi Steve Wozniak has warned that the current land rush for patents is going to stifle innovation and could cripple the next generation of startups. "I care so much about the young person that has some technical knowledge and wants to start their own business," Wozniak told the Australian …
Woz was my favorite hero, too. That is until they locked down the Apple ][ Plus by removing the original reset-to-mini-assembler reset button. And, Apple didn't create the Apple ][, Woz did, with almost no help from Jobs. And The Woz published all of the source code to the mini-assmebler, Integer and Floating Point (AppleSoft) Basic. Then he included all the logic to the board. This was way before Stallman claimed to be the GodFather of Open Source. Had Jobs not been such an aspiring Capitalst Jerk, Just maybe they would have OpenSourced the world, instead of Linus 15 years later. Then we would have had mass transit with colorful trolley cars serving neighborhoods, free Bubble-Up and Rainbow stew ....for FREE!!! We COULD be wearing dazzling white togas, with winged golden sandals and olive wreaths on our heads. But oh no! We got Jobs instead.
In a world of relativism and taken over the lifetime of Apple he is correct. Apple haven't been as nastily entangling and preventative as most of the others. And there's more than a little truth to the claim that to the extent Apple do it today, they do it because others did it to them first and now they are just a little bit better at it.
And I say these things as someone who has never owned an Apple computer, although I have bought a refurbished iPod that still mostly gathers dust in my house.
Speaking specifically of the US, I think all of our IP laws need a serious overhaul because they are now inhibiting the very things they are supposed to encourage. Problem is, I trust the people who would be the ones to reform it even less than the people who are abusing it.
But at least Apple are open about which (ludicrous?) patents are supposedly being infringed by Android. Whereas Microsoft will make you an offer you can't refuse or talk about, so no one knows what, if anything, is infringing their (equally ludicrous?) patents.
In many ways that's the difficult bit. As exemplified by how far the personal computer industry (small capitals,as a whole) still has to go in achieving devices that are friendly and reliable for anyone to use. It depresses me how poor the products of the industry I work in still are...
"It is hard to judge yet because Apple products still look like they did under Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs has stamped his mark on products that are three years in the queue,"
I believe Jonathan Ive stamped his mark on the products and Jobs promoted them. The design is likely to stay pretty similar as the designer was, from what I have read, given free reign to design under Jobs' rule and that is likely to continue.
When there are patents on "comparing online data and presenting a decision based on the data" or "collecting money for an online service" it's pretty difficult to use our new idea
Anyway - I have a patent on claiming that patents stifle innovation so Woz will have to pay up as soon as I can get to East texas
Most patent exemptions now are based on "prior art" from 20 years ago... so since EVERYTHING is being patented today, what will become of the "prior art" we will need 20 years from now to continue innovating?
Painting ourselves into a corner, and all that. I've been ranting about this very thing for YEARS.
geeee .. I seem to recall a time when Apple was close to going under and had Microsoft in court over the Graphic User Interface hoping to collect some 100s of million$ .. Jobs was gone but Billg had not forgotten about Xerox and walked them in .. opps .. MS pays a cheap $150 million to settle all patent and licensing problems and IIRC, called Steve and had at least some hand in Steve's return to Apple
kinda sad Steve didn't get to see Apple hit $600 billion cap .. finally becoming more valuable than the only company that had got to $600 billion before .. Microsoft
Now, I'm a long way from becoming a member of the Apple fanboisie, but I do take issue with this. Before Apple came along, we mostly had Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile. I would describe neither of them as 'just fine', and their passing will not be mourned.
Here's an idea: All the companies should donate their existing patents to a holding company. All the donors then get to use those patents in their own devices for a very small fee per patent per device. All profits of the holding company go to charity or medical research etc.
When a company comes up with something new, they can use it exclusively for 12 months before it gets put into the pool. If a company infringes on the new idea before it is in the pool, the price they have to pay for any patent goes up permanently.
Small start-ups will be able to afford the low patent fees to get into the markets and will have a 12 month head start on new ideas they introduce.
Companies will be forced to innovate so that their products can be differentiated from all the similar ones created as a result of all others sharing the existing patents.
I have an idea. What about some government office to manage and examine patents, staffed by experts in the field to judge whether the invention is obvious or has been done before and reject it. The application could also describe the implementation in such a way that somebody 'skilled in the art' could reproduce.
The same office, with technically proficient judges, could then asses any violations of the patent.
Alternatively you could leave it all upto who has the most lawyers and what a jury of 12 East Texans with nothing better to do that day, think
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