Ahhhh...
Now that's what I call a *very* enjoyable article. And I am looking forward to reading *many* more like it. In the near future.
A Munich court has determined that Motorola infringed Apple’s “overscroll bounce” technology and has ordered a recall of all tablets and smartphones containing the technology. The Chocolate Moto won’t have to move immediately, since it’s now up to Apple to post various bonds to cover enforcement. For a mere 25 million Euros, …
Glad you can get your jollies from the successes of a multi-billion dollar corporate entity whose fortunes presumably (going by the fact you're here posting comments) have zero effect on your own. Mind you I suppose it must save you money on rent boys. Now off you pop and get yourself a pair of clean underpants, there's a good fanboy.
"Glad you can get your jollies from the successes of a multi-billion dollar corporate entity whose fortunes presumably (going by the fact you're here posting comments) have zero effect on your own. Mind you I suppose it must save you money on rent boys. Now off you pop and get yourself a pair of clean underpants, there's a good fanboy."
Oh, I see that I've touched a nerve there! I suppose you prefer to touch it yourself.
And thanks for the homophobia!
: )
Duckie, if you had any idea of the quantity of sausage I've choked down in my time you wouldn't be saying that.
No, for comic effect I deliberately inferred from your original comment a certain soupson of sexual repression. That you took it to be homophobic says more about you than it does me.
Paris; I hear she is also a fan of the sausage.
München = Bavaria = the butt of *many* jokes in Germany.
Germany has the same problem as the US: you can pick a court in a state that ....does things differently... Not quite outside the rules, but...differently.
And a basic part of Apple litigation strategy is Picking the Right Court for its' shenanigans.
This verdict, if enacted may well bite Apple in the backside, harshly.
"And how are the German courts proposing to force users to give their Motorola devices back, so that the infringing technology can be removed/destroyed?"
Sigh. I'm fairly sure that the devices which are to be removed/destroyed are those still in the channel, and that the reason why Moto is being forced to hand over sales data is so that they can be slapped for devices sold. Users will be able to keep their devices, it's not their fault that Moto sold them items which, according to the court, violated Apple's patents.
with modern patent cases is the presumption of validity of the patent. This was reasonable in the days when patent offices were a branch of government, staffed by skilled civil servants, whose role was to examined patent applications on behalf of the public. Once these organisations became effectively private agencies, needing to process greater numbers of applications to ensure their revenue, the only thing that they can be regarded as authoritative for is the date of filing. Patent Offices must now be regarded alongside patent agents, and lawyers as part of the patent industry, with a vested interest in granting more, and obscure patents, rather than as a source of authoritative, non-partisan expertise.
As the courts have become the arbiters of patent validity (a role abrogated by the patent offices), they should approach each case without any presumptions, and with regard to the statutory law and regulations at the time of filing the patent. Case precedent may have a bearing on subsequent damages, etc but should not be part of the examination for patent validity. Skilled patent examiners should be employed as expert witnesses to the court. If this seems expensive, it is the price we should pay in return for the "savings" gained by the privatisation of the patent offices.
The EPO has been particularly aggressive in abusing its position to grant dubious patent; particularly software patents, even thought they have been specifically rejected by the European Parliament. None of their patents should be regarded as valid per se. Manufacturers who have been harmed by wrongly granted patents should be able to claim damages from the negligent patent office. If a patent applicant misrepresents their case to the patent office, that should be treated in the same way as other fraudulent claims to e.g. government tax and benefit offices.
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Is two finger zoom next? Or some other insignificant piece of UI frill?
I forsee an underground OS emerging that gives all the features a user wants, doesn't track users, has no fed backdoors and, maybe I'm just dreaming, just fucking works.
Sorry, rant over, it's been an allnighter.
You should not be able to patent anything unless you can touch it or its a method for producing something solid.
Everything else should be under copyright laws, it would then be a simple process on all these, if what you have in the UI is something never done before seen before or your code has been coppied etc then you can seek compensation and the removal of the infringment, ie this bounce thing, if it was copyrighted and has never been seem before then Apple could seek damages for infringment and demand its removed from products via a software update.
It should not be possible to get kit banned from sale etc just over something as stupid as this.
I don't get the whole, "have you infringed it" before "is it valid" deal. One way they could cut a lot of the crap is, prior to an initial patent bout, the validity of the patent is is determined. This would make some companies think twice before going to court over those patents. As I've said before, right now patent cases are schrodingers cat.
People are being taken to court, and fined large sums of money over something which both exists and doesn't exist at the same time. Lets look at a fake case as an example. Pear releases the MiPhone and patent the ability for it to operate as a universal remote. A company releases a Cyborg phone with the same functionality. Pear then sues.
Several months, possibly a year or so later after deliberation, it is deemed that the cyborg phone did infringe on the patent and they owe a few million. Now that all those months of deliberation are over they now decide if the patent is valid. A week later they come back and declare that it isn't. Around a year of court time wasted thanks to a decision made in a week.
anything that gets rid of ridiculous 'end of scroll' bounce is fine with me. It's just a shame it needs these courtroom shenanigans to do it, rather than customer complaint.
Does anyone actually think 'I wonder how much longer the battery would last *without* all the eye candy animations'?
Did anyone in the world actually buy a motorola device because it had a scroll bounce? Did motorola market it? How did that affect apple sales at all?
Seriously, whatever about copying exterior design or claiming to copy a UIs design, the scroll bounce is such an insignificant feature that nobody except Apple cares about it.
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So, the teeny fact that this is part of the UI baked in with Android, and can be enabled/disabled by flashing an upgrade zip onto the ROM, means nothing to the court? (similar in fact, to, let's say, common sense?)
Let them try taking on Google directly, who provided the functionality as stock.....
Such a simple and obvious indicator and I'm sure I've seen it on mouse based scrolling long before Apple, and I've also seen it in a lot of individual apps that do it outside of the OS support. Do Apple go after each and every one of them? No.
In response though, German courts now need to ban the iPhone 5 for LTE patent violation. I doubt they will.
"Florian Mueller at Foss Patents says “Android has far bigger patent infringement problems than any piece of computer software has ever had in the history of the industry”."
"Florian Mueller has far bigger reputation problems than any so-called patent industry expert has ever had in the history of the industry"
Didn't you actually mean:
"Florian Mueller at Foss Patents says “My paymasters have told me to say 'Android has far bigger patent infringement problems than any piece of computer software has ever had in the history of the industry', and they pay me a lot so why should I disappoint?' And I l know The Register will reprint anything I say...."
While I don't agree that such a ridiculous thing can be patented I still don't see why they don't do it the overscroll glow effect like my samsung phone does which I much prefer to the bounce back anyway. Its bat shit crazy that a court can order devices destroyed for such a teeny tiny trivial piece of nonsense.
...the more you pay, the more severe the penalties? Why stop at forcing Motorola to destroy the offending tablets when, for a few million more you can request the senior executives to chop off their little fingers at the knuckle? I heard that, for another 50 million we can insisit on the CEO committing hara-kiri while for just 100 million Apple employees can eat the Motorola Management Board's first-born children in front of them with a nice crisp salad.
i see this as a war against programmers, how many people in the 1980`s saw an idea and copied the effect by writing their own version of that code because they liked it.,
i wrote code that would parralax scroll myself. but now computing is out of the hobbyist`s hands the large companies are seeking to take over the technology from the people who actually were the innovators of the original ideas.
unfortunately for apple i will never buy a macintosh or a fondleslab both use stolen ideas made by the users.
be nice please i am trying to make a valid point not troll or be stupid :)
From an interview with Bloomberg (here)
“I hate it,” Wozniak said when asked about the patent fights between Apple and Samsung. “I don’t think the decision of California will hold. And I don’t agree with it -- very small things I don’t really call that innovative.
“I wish everybody would just agree to exchange all the patents and everybody can build the best forms they want to use everybody’s technologies.”