This could be good news...
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| caitlyn Jun 01, 2013 2:19 PM EDT |
This could be very good news if other courts in other jurisdictions come to the same conclusions. Prior art would invalidate a large percentage of patent trolling suits. |
| Ridcully Jun 01, 2013 6:38 PM EDT |
Hi Caitlyn......In my humble opinion, Apple's claims that it has the sole design rights to a rectangular tablet with rounded corners is so breathtakingly false and (I believe) so fraudulent that I am amazed the Cupertino Company had the crassness to allow its legal team to actually pursue the claim in court - although I am pleased they did because there is now a legal decision to disallow this disgusting patent design attempt. For the record, during the period 1951 to 1955, I was using a rectangular tablet with rounded corners on a daily basis at my primary schools in southeastern Queensland. They worked very well too and they included a stylus.......very robust, long lasting and allowed user input with modifications to the input, plus total erasure capabilities. Hand gestures were normally employed to add or erase data. Their dimensions were more or less the same as pads of today. In our daily work we called them slates and slate pencils, and they had already been around for at least 100 - 200 years when I first used them. Even the Romans used rectangular wooden frames with a wax pad enclosed and metal styli - oh and rounded corners too. Personally, I'd love to see a scheme in place for penalising companies that make fraudulent patent claims such as this one.....totally impractical of course, or perhaps not, if the courts were to exercise their powers. At the very least, I think Apple should be made to pay for all court costs including those of Samsung, and a penalty to Samsung for causing "commercial distress". |
| jdixon Jun 01, 2013 7:38 PM EDT |
> Personally, I'd love to see a scheme in place for penalising companies that make fraudulent patent claims such as this one There is one. Patent applications are considered given under oath, and true to the best knowledge of the applier. A claim as blatantly obvious as this almost demands that the company be charged with perjury and that the lawyers who approved and argued the case be sanctioned. |
| Ridcully Jun 01, 2013 9:11 PM EDT |
@jdixon.....I hear you loud and clear and support 100%. Great !! Now all we need is someone angry enough to do just that - and with sufficient money. Google could do it and given that all these devices are running Android, and that Android is the ultimate target, Google should have a very good reason for the action. The point I make is that it would make case history and assuming there was a win to Google, it would mean an "about turn for" and "possible end to" these totally vexatious law suits. I think the courts are becoming very irritated at the huge amounts of time they are now devoting to what are literally "commercial competition law suits" which try to remove product competition into the courts instead of the customer playing field. |
| BernardSwiss Jun 01, 2013 9:23 PM EDT |
Just to play the pedant, once again... What Apple had was not a regular patent, but rather, a "design patent" -- in some jurisdictions known by the much less confusing term "design registration" -- which made the whole dispute much more like a trademark or a "trade dress" issue than it is like what we usually mean by the term "patent infringement". That said, even claiming some sort of exclusivity on those terms, over a basic, uncluttered rectangular form, with rounded corners and perhaps a bevel, is still quite offensively ludicrous... |
| Ridcully Jun 02, 2013 6:47 AM EDT |
@BernardSwiss.......many thanks for the clarification, and with info like that, you can play the pedant any time you like as far as I am concerned. Some may call it "splitting hairs", but it is very, very nice to be precise. And either way, I find what Apple has done (and is trying to do) utterly offensive. |
| gus3 Jun 02, 2013 8:21 AM EDT |
The Cupertino Cabal would have it so that all Android tablets must be pentagonal. Expressing my opinion on that would surely get a deserved whack from the LXer censors. |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!