Yet another Apple vs. Samsung patent reflection…
Nobody wins this.
People can argue that Apple has won, but nobody wins a war. Just to level the playing field, let’s open with two things:
- A patent must be (among other things) new, useful, and non-obvious process.
Let’s remember these three words, especially non-obvious, because they often become lost in the fire fight. - The patents in contention are clearly summarised in this article.
These two points are important, because point 2 has to conform to point 1 to be valid.
Thus, the most ridiculous part of this entire debacle remains:
How was any company allowed to patent the following:
- Distinguishing between single-touch and multi-touch gestures.
- A white rectangle phone.
- Another black rectangle phone.
- Rounded square icons.
We often get carried away with phones as there seems to be a lot of loyalty lying around. Let’s bring it back to something similar, a TV for instance. Imagine if a company was able to successfully sue on the basis that their black rectangular TV looks like another black rectangular TV.
Walk into you closest electrical store. ALL black rectangular TV’s look like every other black rectangular TV. Well, maybe not exactly, but as similar as the Apple iPhone looks like the Galaxy S.
Lastly, back to ‘non-obvious’.
How were these patents ever non-obvious?
They weren’t. The fact that Apple won shows the patents were too obvious.
Now that Apple has won, it’s going to be a race for two things:
- Patent absolutely everything and anything.
- Sue everyone for the patents that make it through.
Technology won’t win. Where does all this legal money come from? Research & development? Maybe, maybe not, but it has to come from somewhere.
