this does have android written, somewhat, all over the place

Game on Guys :)

[...] Grazie a TechCrunch, abbiamo un aggiornamento importante: come si pensava, l’accusa non è diretta ai prodotti di HTC, ma al sistema operativo Android [...]

Apple is going to have to go after Palm and Samsung as well. Although I understand that they need to protect their IP, if they win, this means either a dramatic decrease in competing products or competing products are priced higher than Apple, which, by virtue of the fact that there is less choice is BAD for consumers. Not sure how I’m feeling about Apple today.

nice to see you can read engadget erick, but can you write your own article?

i can’t wait until the patent owners for “transmitting voice over a cellular network”, and, “displaying a gui in place of lines of code” come out and smack down apple.

Their smug is nausiating.

Most software patents are obvious steps when evolving a product, not magic, like side scrolling in games or the “Time-Based, Non-Constant Translation Of User Interface Objects Between States” effects above.

This is pathetic. Apple didn’t care about Android until this year when Android started getting big and taking a decent amount of market share from them. These are things Android has had since the beginning and Apple only cares now. .

I hate patent wars.

The worlds cell phone makers, alienated and threatened by Apple, adopt Android and countersue the core out of apple.

Hopefully this does nothing more than drive more people to adopt Android.

Seriously, Apple can go fuck themselves. Every single “patent” is a work of utter obviousness.

“Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image” Wow! Thank god for the patent system, or genius inventors would never have had the motivation to think up something so god damned original!

Amazing what you can patent – “Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image”. This would be an obvious feature of any lockable device with a touch screen.

Maybe I should patent some stuff.

Someone actually let Apple patent a freaking minimization effect?!?

This is good. If the complaint was against some HTC hardware solution, HTC would not have had the sort of support it’d get right now. Because this is against Android, all OHA players and the Google Goliath. I expect this to drag as long as it can to scare off OHA players from Android. This is similar to the whole Microsoft and SUN Linux war about 5-6 years ago. We all know how well it went.

I don’t understand, there are some of these things that are unavoidable in creating a device that is intuitive. Can Apple really patent something like Touch Screen Device and List Scrolling? I’m not a lawyer but if feels as though there should be some prevention of making patents on such things.

Non-issue.

HTC will just counter with a few patents of their own that Apple are infringing and they’ll settle out of court with a cross-licensing agreement.

some of these patents are ridiculous:

“Automated Response To And Sensing Of User Activity In Portable Devices” – don’t most portable devices respond automatically to user activity i.e. button pushing?

“Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image” – so when google launched the g1 and showed this cool unlocking technique, apple didn’t think to apply for infringement then?

really Apple?

How does HTC Android phone infringe on your “patents” and not HTC winmo phones?

Fear is in the air….

Interesting, looks like Apple is worrying that the competition could become stronger than they obviousely expected. Kinda sad, but apparently that’s the way business in done today. If you can’t beat them, sue them.

yea un-f-ingbelievable. The patent system is just F*#$ed up

This is ridiculous and apple should be ashamed.

I never thought I’d say this but Go Google! Apple makes great products but some of their patents are ludicrous. I’ll bet one of them is “Using plastic or metal in the backside of the phone casing”. Or maybe I just gave them a new one to file for….oops.

Steve Jobs and Apple just don’t have the guts to go after Google.

I think they have accepted defeat to Android already – that too in a sour way.

I am actually surprised at some of patents the patent office has given to Apple – LOL

I think it has started again for Autocratic Apple – this time 15 years later…

re: “Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image”
Is it possible (even with an app) to make an iphone unlock with gestures that are not pressing numerals?

re: “Conserving Power By Reducing Voltage Supplied To An Instruction-Processing Portion Of A Processor”
Maybe Apple could sue laptop vendors for infringing also? Or would the need to sue the OS makers?

This doesn’t bode well for Apple’s future. Suing competitors over patents is something big companies tend to do when their competitors are outmaneuvering them.

It’s hard to run a business, but it is easy to sue.

I wonder what long term implications such a decision is going to have. Some of the “patent violations” are, in my mind, a stretch. How they were patentable to begin with is something I’d like to know. Maybe the description is just too general, but some seem downright simple.

All I know is that I’m looking forward to filing a patent on flicking people off and retiring on the licensing fees.

It’s not “all about Android” as TechCrunch asserts.

If you read the documentation they indicate the following phones: Nexus One, Touch Pro, Touch Diamond, Touch Pro2, Tilt II, Pure, Imagio, Dream / G1, myTouch 3G, Hero, HD2, and Droid Eris.

Yes there are a lot of Android devices in there, but there are also some Windows Mobile ones running TouchFLO.

On the surface this case screams for a thorough inspection and restructuring of the patent applications and the patent office.

I believe there is prior art for that :)

Telling point of this story, APPLE WAS GRANTED RIDICULOUS PATENTS.

“Retaining market share by filing numerous pedestrian ideas as patents then suing competitors for infringement”

Just filed it. :)

[...] I recommend you go read, from front to back, right away. TechCrunch says that the suit is actually an attack on Google and Android, which is true. It’s war, [...]

Obviously you’ve never worked hard to create anything worthwhile. You’re also totally ignorant of the patent laws of the United States.

These are all legitimate patents that Apple worked long and hard on and spent millions to develop.

They need to stop HTC, Google, and anyone else who is using their technology.

If you had those patents, you’d be freaking out too.

This IS the obvious feature since iPhone. Have you seen that before?

This is yet another example of why software patents are a huge detriment to technical innovation. Why are such frivolous things patentable? We might as well just patent intelligent thought and put an embargo on all innovation.

And apple had the audacity to complain about Nokia’s patent infringement complaints on Apple, only months ago. Hypocrites!

Last two patents are even funny:

1) Object-Oriented Graphic System
2) Object-Oriented Event Notification System With Listener Registration Of Both Interests And Methods

Pretty soon Apple will sue anyone for saying they use Object Oriented Languages.

im guessing that these patents are slightly more detailed, than just

“Touch Screen Device, Method, And Graphical User Interface For Determining Commands By Applying Heuristics”

surely US patent law demands more?

What ever next, the makers of etch-a-sketch suing apple, because they are using a screen as a graphical feedback system.

Don’t apple have the balls to take on Google?

So Palm, Nokia and Blackberry have been making smartphones years before apple. Surely they would have patented some of these basic things?

Somewhat interesting they filed in Delaware and not one of the “rocket dockets” (northern VA and elsewhere). They will likely rely on the ITC proceeding for speed, and Delaware for a thorough analysis. Delaware handles a lot of big money patent cases.

To the extent any of the asserted patents are invalid or unenforceable, I’m sure HTC’s lawyers will use to try to knock the patents out. Moreover, HTC (and partners) might have some patents up their sleeve.

The iphone was a highly innovative product (what was the closest smartphone before its launch – Palm? Blackberry?). Not sure they deserve all those patents, but not surprised they got a few.

Historically, the big guys fight a bit and then agree to cross-licenses, deals, “you play in your sandbox, I’ll play in mine”, etc.

It’s the little companies that get squeezed out. See this blog to see one way the big guys push aside any pesky startups:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/jim/2008/07/05/copyfight-google-hp-and-others-form-league-of-extraordinary-patent-holders/

Like it or not, some strong patents OR a huge pile of good luck (sorry, hard work and skills aren’t usually enough) are likely the only things to help you avoid getting squashed by the big companies.

crazy. I guess all these firms can sue each other and spread the billions among each other.

Just as long as they keep advancing the technology. no injunctions please!

You guys have to fix your patent laws:
- opening a door by turning a rotating handle
- looking through a clear, glass window
- putting ice into a soda

“Automated Response To And Sensing Of User Activity In Portable Devices”
That could be “turning on the interior lights of a car when a driver opens the door”. Form sometimes creates function, the function must go with the form. When you’re using ridiculous patents to protect your business, patents which are so obvious that they’ll eventually have to be overturned, you’re not bringing anything constructive to the process. Actively spending money, time and resources is a waste – should be spent on creativity and staying ahead of the competition.

A patent on a GUI element is like a patent on the universal utterance “dada” or “mama”. GUIs are friggin’ languages, okay? The idea that someone could patent a sign language I think is obviously excessive…

What ever happened with that ridiculous “pop-under” patent application a few years back? Christ, you might as well patent the concept of one piece of paper overlapping another.

NEWSFLASH: If you have a messy desktop, you owe someone royalties!!

In other news, AT&T stock went up in early morning trading after it was announced that the phone giant has been granted Patent No. 6,666,666 for it’s “illusion of service” technology — a clever technology that allows infinite synchronous connections to tunnel over a single 28.8 baud modem connection…

Oh sweet jesus…

I can’t even phathom the amount of PURE HATRED that I have for apple right now. Really, its grown ridiculous. I hate this company 10x as much as it is reasonable to.

Oh man. So angry right now. This is just silly.

I’m so glad I don’t buy apple products. Never have. Never will. Go Android!!!! Go HTC!!!! And Go Google!!!!

[...] The Complaint: Apple's Patent Lawsuit Against HTC Is All About Android [...]

But I thought Microsoft started the Multi-Touch technology with Surface?

the amount of things that become “obvious” after Apple designs them are plentiful.

[...] Published March 2, 2010 Uncategorized Leave a Comment In the war between the iPhone and Android, Apple exercised the “nuclear option” today by suing [...]

Whooooeeee 10 attorneys to process 10 specious patents. What a way to compete in the market ?

I wonder if these attorneys give group rates. And it looks like they shopped for a jurisdiction – the argument that Delaware is appropriate is really stretching something. I would think the Santa Clara County Superior Court, or the Federal Court of the District of California would be more appropriate and probably more hostile to the Plaintiff.

I am not going to buy the iPad as I planned. Apple is evil and they can kiss my $$$ goodbye! US patent system needs to be banned *right now*.

Gridlock by Palm 2003: http://gridlock.en.softonic.com/palm

Thanks God . apple dont have patent for displaying anything on a phone screen.

[...] sues HTC over Android The Complaint: Apple’s Patent Lawsuit Against HTC Is All About Android Earlier today, Apple issued a press release stating that it is filing suit against cell phone [...]

So funny how you actually take this personally…wake up people, it’s just business. Also, i thought that you guys(US) invented the sue-you thing…

Anyway, this is just blog(s) traffic news.

Umm… is LG going to sue apple for doing the same thing, since the LG Prada came out with a lot of this stuff before the iPhone ever did?

[...] wat lezen van de documenten kwamen engadget en techcrunch er achter dat het Apple vooral om de Android telefoons gaat. Het besturingssysteem voor telefoons [...]

Apple, proving once and for all that they can only stay on top of a market if they eliminate all competition.

Obviously you didn’t get he was joking. Get a sense of humor and stop trolling (said the troll).

I hope Apple gets crushed. I’m sick of them stifling competition and innovation.

I can’t say I like Apple much (have a nexus one), but whining about them filing patents on their inventions and then protecting them seems a bit silly. Have you actually looked at the patents? Most of them are very specific and without pre-existing products.

Take Patent No. 7,657,849: “Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image” mentioned before in the comments. Apple had the first smartphone using fingers to navigate the interface and they had the first phone using finger gestures to unlock the phone. That’s not something in general use. That is something you had to spend a lot of time figuring out, engineer and implement. I don’t think it gets more clear than that and Apple has all the right in the world to go after the competition for stealing that from them.

Btw… Gizmodo has all the patents pictured (they make more sense then):

http://gizmodo.com/5483689/the-apple-patents-cockpunching-all-smart-phones-an-illustrated-guide/

Two issues surrounding who to sue include product and software features, as well as standard FUD. If HTC implements a feature at the exclusion of another, that is HTC’s choice. It is quite possible to use a physical button to unlock the device.

Secondly, manufacturers are already aware of Windows Phone and future market scenarios. Creating an air of uncertainty around Android helps to promote a fragmented field. Apple doesn’t want or need the entire market.

I lol’ed at those too.

They might as well sue me and 90% of websites. The second of those can’t actually have been granted, right?!

Jobs/Apple have totally lost the war even though many of the remaining battles have yet to be fought. This is lame. Should we then assume that Apple has invented every bit of tech that is used in their devices, and that said inventions were possible without the previous inventions of others?

The problem with this is simple. Its good to try to be the first at something. Its good to try to be the best at something. When you try desperately to be “the only one”, it just doesn’t make sense anymore.

Its hypocritical, and asinine.

Apple proving once again why they are who they are. Ever wonder why they don’t go after Palm? Maybe its because they did the same thing to Palm that they are accusing HTC of doing to them.

Nokia has already lobbed their volley at Apple. There is going to be a lot of suing going on!

Actually unlocking a regular door is a gesture as well. You insert the key into the lock and your gesture is a twist.

These patents are stupid. What If IBM patented the typewriter interface? When Apple came out with the Apple // IBM could have sued them out of existance for having a device with 101 keys in a qwerty configuration.

So buying someone else’s tech is called working long and hard to develop? Please.

Just because something becomes a patent does not mean it cant be contested. If a patent is too generic for instance, it can be contested and removed as a patent. You can make a case that gesturing on a image to unlock something is too generic.

Besides, as I have stated before, Apple did not invent this stuff. They licensed the technology from an independent source, and wrote obnoxious patents around it. They may have improved on some things, but they did not invent it.

And actually, it is as easy as matt states, just as long as you can clearly define your goals, the summary is the easy part, and so is naming. The hard part is reviewing all patents in its genre… but that’s all lawyer stuff you wouldn’t understand.

As a patent holder myself, coming up with the idea is easy. The verification of a viable patent is the hard part.

Viva Apple El Diablo! Its great when a large corporation steps up to the limelight and serves as a shinning example of Evil Business Greed! I have boycotted their products for a number of years and it so satisfying to be continually acknowledged for making a wise decision.

BAM!

Biggest gripe about the iphone – ifanboys who think they created all this tech

Apple and Steve something now fear and realize that their iToy is doomed ! Android army is strong and unbeatable.

HTC,Android and Nokia will prevail eventually and Apple , thanks to Steve something, will once again become 2nd iNeXT !!

That’s what I thought again and again when reading some patents…

Definitely not “just business”. Its become an open conflict between Google and Apple, and all the comments coming out of the execs on both sides only help to prove that.

There have been multi-touch concepts for years before Surface…

Geez I didn’t know you could just patent and idea? I thought you had to have a working model, actually have to had created a ‘thing’ I must admit I am not up on Patent law.
Funny most of Apples products were “stolen” or purchased from other companies, they really have not created much original stuff. Guess they are really worried about the Google Phone.

This is getting really ridiculous and annoying. I’ve used Apple products for years and have an iPhone, but what Apples been doing over the last year with all the gatekeeping and now this patent thing just brings up a mental picture of a stingy kid trying to grab all of the candy they can while pushing all the other kids away – whether they even want to eat it or not. I agree with several commenters above regarding that it’s hard to believe some of the things that they have patents for are valid. I also plan to curb my Apple buying habits. Waiting for the Nexus One to come to Verizon for my next phone (replacing my current iPhone).

For all of you developers developing specifically for the iPhone. Hope you read your Apple contract carefully on the Apps you’ve developed for them. If they’re going after HTC, then the single person and/or single shop developer won’t stand a chance if you have something they want.

May want to consider developing your mobile apps for the web instead… Keep the rights to the creations you make.

Well. They were innovators not a bunch of greedy jerks with world domination in mind. Apple’s main motivation is greed and profit. Blackberry Palm and Nokia had vision and wanted to further develop the mobile market. When Palm started putting qwerty keyboards on their devices did Blackberry freak out and sue them? Nope. They welcomed the competition and were able to improve their own products to compete.

Blackberries and Palm phones were able to do everything the Iphone was able to the day they launched. The only thing Apple had that they did not was hype, marketing and some cool image.

i HOPE you’re trolling, because if you aren’t you need to see a doctor about your MENTAL RETARDATION. You fucking dumb POS how can you possibly think that using “gesture” to unlock a screen could cost millions to devlop? apple only got these patents to be a patent troll.

troll.

OO graphic system?? are you kidding? How can you patent that, they need to sue the entire video game industry and every school in the nation teaching OO.

Reduce power on proc not on full load, prepare to be sued intel.

This is just stupid how do these patents even get verified to begin with.

“Object-Oriented Graphic System” or Patent No. 5,455,599 is my favorite so far. The pictures are fantastic. I believe that they have tried using this patent in other cases against anyone having a graphical OS. It is in this case just thrown in there for the heck of it, as it would be literally unenforceable. Way to be Apple and the patent office, way to be. The only people coming out of this with money will be the lawyers.

There are over 200 patents pertaining to door locking mechanisms dating back to 1836. What usually happens is that if I want to create a door lock company, I’d either invent a NEW totally different way to secure a door to a frame, which drives innovation, or I’d license an existing method from a current patent holder. It’s the way the world works. Apple doesn’t own a patent simply on the idea of unlocking hardware with a gesture, they own a patent on the technology under the hood that makes that possible. HTC could have licensed it, instead of blatantly ignoring that big ass Keynote slide that said “Patented”. My question here is, why is Apple going after HTC? The Nexus One? Puleeeze… Based on sales, The Droid is a much bigger competitor to the iPhone. Why not go after Motorola? Because Moto holds patents that Apple probably infringes on? Like Palm? And HTC is too young to have jack squat?

That’s funny..accepted defeat by the half baked iPhone copy that is Android? Hardly. But it is a pretty blatant yet very poorly executed copy of the iPhone OS. Yes it’;s laggy with a carp UI and cannot run more than a few hundred MB worth of apps at once, which is truly pathetic btw, but is is a really obvious copy. The iPhone 3GS is a year or two ahead of any Android phone and the next model, coming in a few months will be even further ahead. Googles only hope is that the iPhone is not on other vendors, especially Verizon, anytime soon.

Fanboy Alert!

BAM my ass. Gridlock is a series of “blocks” you “tap” to unlock your phone.

I believe Apple’s patent was on the swipe gesture. If that is so obvious please bring up an example of an app using that.

In hindsight.. its obvious as day. But a lot of great inventions are obvious once you actually SEE it implemented.

There was definitely multitouch before the iPhone. Maybe HTC copied the same implementation, but I remember multitouch being demo’d first in 2006 at:

http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_han_demos_his_breakthrough_touchscreen.html

and I’m sure others had been working on it and perhaps patented before hand.

Apple & Steve Jobs would like everyone to think that they’ve invented everything. And because of their record of innovation, people believe them. But Apple did not come up with the Graphical User Interface – Xerox PARC did.

Not all of these are legitimate patents. These just illustrate how bad the patent system has become, allowing things like “Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image”. The touch screen has been around a lot longer than iphone. This is pathetic. Soon enough they’ll be patenting any gesture you make.

Herein lies the difference between the big boys and the kids who ride the short yellow bus. The now defunct PDA Business (publisher of Gridlock) didn’t spring for the $6-$8000 patent. Had they done that, they could be sitting on a Philippine beach being served fresh mango by topless waitresses, getting fat of licensing money.

The QWERTY keyboard WAS patented in 1878.

By the time Apple came around, the patents had expired. That’s the key of patents is that it gives the inventor an exclusive right to use their invention for a set number of years – now 17.

Please do some research before spouting your mouth off, boy.

Fanboy Alert!

It’s easy to bash on patents, but don’t forget that it’s these patents that encourage R&D. Without them, barely any company would invest in new technology/software.

Then again, pushing it too far isn’t healthy either (as seems to be the case here). Can’t blame Apple for trying to make as much money as possible though, that’s what companies do.

On the surface your comment screams for a thorough inspection of your head.

Question: were the door frames in your house built a half a foot low, causing you to repeatedly bump your headband when entering and exiting a room? Accepted Defeat? Do you have a Firefox extension installed that blocks market share and sales figures?

I hope you felt the same way when Apple got sued by Nokia for similar patent infringements. Or are you simply saving your hatred for Apple exclusively?

Its just business. Grow up.

If you’re hinting that Apple’s patents were “pedestrian”, you’ve basically admitted that Apple’s patents was prior art – hence you’d be rejected for your patent application.

APPLE IS THE NEXT GENERATION OF MICROSOFT PRICKS..why are they suing HTC and not google? google designed the “gesture to unlock a device’ HTC did not create the software so apple should kick themselves in the a$$…

Actually, it’s something fat bald men do from corporations set up in Arizona, every day. Only we call them Patent Trolls. HTC is retarded for building a company and not doing it’s due diligence in researching what they can and can’t do…

I see the term “prior art” come up when a company starts flinging around lawsuits over patents, but has it ever actually gotten a patent overturned? I’m having trouble finding one single instance of a tech patent being invalidated because someone produced prior art.

Good story,but here for those newbies,and claim to be defenders of those funny patents.
Toshiba have been using those touch screen devices before APPLE,and I never here TOSHIBA suing #APPLE for copycat that technology?.Here a reference TOSHIBA GENIO e.
And beware,because I have PATENT this comment.

PS/Touch screen technology are TOUCH not APPLE

And Google doesn’t do the same thing? Rather than sue, Google just eliminates competition by buying them out. That method actually offends me more.

this is scary, i am trying to read the last one, it looks like they are just patenting design patterns!

[...] Grazie a TechCrunch, abbiamo un aggiornamento importante: come si pensava, l’accusa non è diretta ai prodotti di HTC, ma al sistema operativo Android [...]

[...] There was another complaint which was filed with the ITC, and there must lie the other 10 patents, since there are only ten listed here. We will most certainly keep you up to date on what new information develops in this breaking news, only at AndroidTrek.com. [TechCrunch] [...]

Umm No. This is whats is called “Prior Art”

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_art

[...] seems fairly clear this is mostly about competition from Android, but get this: “We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can [...]

[...] going to rehash the newspoints that you can find covered better elsewhere, but just some quick comments of my [...]

It won’t, this is just business. Why are people still surprised when companies do this?

I wonder what will happened to Android is HTC loses this lawsuit?

android might just die too. because Apple will go after motorola, LG and Samsung as well.

On the face of it, this is business and patents are a routine method of protecting development and innovation. If I had to look at this in a vacuum, it would be easier to give Apple the benefit of the doubt. Taken in context with some of Apple’s recent moves against developers, it’s not hard to see that Apple’s popularity is really on the wane.

Given Google’s receipt of the GPS advertising patent, Apple is looking over its shoulders I’m sure. Didn’t they just purchase a geo-advertising business. This smells like cross licensing to me and I would hazard over the long run the GPS advertising is probably worth more to Apple than that patent. Funny how things can change.

Interesting choice to go after HTC. Apple could sue other companies for allegedly infringing on the patents and they could have sued sooner if they really wanted to protect their IP. This makes me think that this not so much about HTC Sense UI and more about Android.

I doubt this will derail Android. If anything this might backfire at Apple big time.

HTC should buy Jeff Han’s company then sue Apple for stealing another innovation and calling it their own just because they stole it first.

In regards to Apple’s thieving history…

Apple stole its name and logo from the Beatles.

Apple stole the original Mac GUI from Xerox…not to mention the mouse.

Apple stole/borrowed most of the new Mac OS X from the original work on UNIX by AT&T/Bell Labs…not to mention several innovations by others.

In regards to touch screen technology…Apple has to be joking.

From about.com…

Touch Screen By Mary Bellis

A special thanks goes to Jason Ford of Elo TouchSystems, the company whose founder invented touch screen technology, for providing the following historical information.

In 1971, the first “touch sensor” was developed by Doctor Sam Hurst (founder of Elographics) while he was an instructor at the University of Kentucky. This sensor called the “Elograph” was patented by The University of Kentucky Research Foundation. The “Elograph” was not transparent like modern touch screens, however, it was a significant milestone in touch screen technology.

In 1974, the first true touch screen incorporating a transparent surface came on the scene developed by Sam Hurst and Elographics. In 1977, Elographics developed and patented five-wire resistive technology, the most popular touch screen technology in use today. On February 24, 1994, the company officially changed its name from Elographics to Elo TouchSystems.

Patents
US3662105: Electrical Sensor Of Plane Coordinates
Inventor(s)
Hurst; George S. , Lexington, KY
Parks; James E. , Lexington, KY
Issued/Filed Dates:May 9, 1972 / May 21, 1970

US3798370: Electrographic Sensor For Determining Planar Coordinates
Inventor(s)
Hurst; George S. , Oak Ridge, TN
Issued/Filed Dates:March 19, 1974 / April 17, 1972

Boy, you are ancient. Most of us weren’t around in the 1870′s.

had they done it they would have also had to have the duckets to defend the patent. this isn’t an arena for the minions to play in.

Don’t be surprised if HTC has an indemnification from Google for Nexus One related issues….

Why the hatred?

This is corny of Apple. This is the equivalent of McDonalds suing Burger King over the dollar menu. Utter corny stuff.

There is plenty of prior art http://gridlock.en.softonic.com/palm

Really? Have you ever filed patents?

Did anyone ever think of the unlock screen before the iPhone? Calm down, man.

What hate?

It’s not hate to call out Apple for its blatant hypocrisy.

Wow.

IF it is so simple, why don’t you tell me how it is done?

Yes, it does costs a lot of money, time and hard work to develop the whole stack that makes that simple gesture and other flicks, drags, pinches possible. There’s a reason why no one had done that before. Apple acquired Fingerworks to specifically develop this touch technology into a world class product.

Android isn’t the threat. It’s Google’s monopoly on advertising. Have you noticed the blitz of Nexus ads occurring at every site you visit?

Google is the ultimate big brother only they’re more ominous because they’re not blunt about it. They’re cooking you and you don’t even feel the heat going up.

You don’t need a prior patent to invalidate Apple’s patent. Just Prior Art. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_art

“Suing People? There’s an app for that”

Seriously though, i do believe that Apple is going to regret this someway or another in the future.

Not sure how, but it will happen.

Read the patents in detail. It isn’t so ‘general’.

Clearly you have never developed anything worthwhile.

I just don’t get these posts by people. I’ve filed patents. I know what it takes to create something that seems ‘obvious’. So obvious that no one has done it before you have.

There’s always noise in the patent world but some patents are real. Sure Apple has been sued by Nokia, this is the game that everyone plays. Only the naive think that infringement is a binary thing.

read them, find out.

Three years ago, when Apple announced the iPhone, Jobs said the device was covered by over 200 patents.

I think Apple learned its lesson from its experience with Microsoft. This time they’re not going to let anyone fuck with their hard earned success.

Well done Apple!

I think I will Patent the FU Gesture> I WILL BE RICH!!!

U.S. PATENT NO. 7,633,076
Automated response to and sensing of user activity in portable devices
The various methods and devices described herein relate to devices which, in at least certain embodiments, may include one or more sensors for providing data relating to user activity and at least one processor for causing the device to respond based on the user activity which was determined, at least in part, through the sensors. The response by the device may include a change of state of the device, and the response may be automatically performed after the user activity is determined.

Brilliant! My new favorite … well may second favorite after OO OS.

Yes Apple is very original. *cough* *cough* I mean the first gesture unlock. wow you know I believe I did that on a DS in a video game a few years before the iPhone was out. also if I remember gridlock correctly you could in essence run your finger over the blocks if you made them sequential. Apple is annoying has been for years they are patent trolls. They sign an agreement with Apple Records to not distribute music then create iTunes and since the US government wants to protect them they get away with it. It is a load of crap and this is another lame attempt by Jobs to stifle competition. Those of us who will never by anything with a fruit on it know this. Besides, isn’t the Apple the forbidden fruit that was not supposed to be touched? Coincidence, I think not.

Yes, I have filed and obtained patents.

Have you?

If so, you already know that the patent process, governing IP laws and the USPTO are in serious need of a major revisions just to catch up with the last 30 years. These shortcomings have produced an insanely litigious environment.

The idea of unlocking a device with a software interface has been around for quite some time, including doing so on a touch screen device.

Apple’s choice to do so with a sliding finger gesture may be unique; a more thorough search of applicable patents would be required to establish this assertion as fact. However, even if this fact is true, they are attempting to expand their patent’s application beyond its narrower scope in order to stifle competition and innovation in the marketplace.

BTW, I am calm, dude. How about you?

those who cannot innovate, sue. Sad, Apple used to innovate.

Are you serious, man? Apple has been stealing their way to the top for many years. Maybe you mean that as hard work? Their first big hit on hand held devices, iPod, was a rip off from Creative, who wan the trial and made Apple pay $100 million. Really ridiculous money, considering what it meant for Apple. Sure, Apple is a brilliant company, but this is just making me even more certain of getting an Android, HTC Desire.

[...] can check out scanned images of the 41 page document at Engadget and TechCrunch also found 10 of the 20 patents Apple claims HTC infringed [...]

i think they will sue any Android App that has similar App in the iphone app store.
or more

i think they will also throw a sue against Linus Torvalds for inventing linux kernel which is a Android core module.

After looking the patents over they seem to be either generic and/or some prior art can be easily turned up by searching. This looks like a FUD campaign more and more. Apple is the one who is going to get hurt.

I think stealing is not correct. Apple has used ideas which already existed, but never stolen them. Xerox’s ideas were licensed…

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=On_Xerox,_Apple_and_Progress.txt

People get upset because Apple is the first to produce something which becomes wildly successful and which in hindsight seems obvious. But the fact remains, neither Google nor Nokia nor Microsoft nor anyone else came out first with an iPhone. Why is that? Don’t tell me there were iPhone-like phones already out there. Why didn’t they become widely popular like the iPhone? Because Apple has vision, thinks long term and strategically, that’s why.

Now the uninnovative companies, got caught with their pants down, and have to do anything to catch up to the iPhone.

Why does Google, who’s raison-d’etre is search, have to produce a smart phone? Why does Microsoft have to produce hardware? It seems it’s because Apple has hit on a successful model and these companies that are feeling threatened.

Apple is right in defending it’s hard earned success.

To be patentable (in theory, in practice the system is clearly broken) something must be: non-obvious, novel, and useful.

How in the world is using “gesture” to unlock a screen not blinding obvious on a touch device?

@edwk RT @jeremychone: Steve Jobs saying “I have been shameless about stealing great ideas”

umm…no shit?

I had my Palm V in 2000 set to lock when I swiped from bottom to top. What’s non-derivative about unlocking with a swipe?

Ok, incase anyone wonders why the EU and the rest of the world is kicking our ass in technology only needs to look as far as this BS going on. The patent system is completely broken. Until it is fixed and all this nonsense stops the US is just going to not only be laughed at but fall farther and farther behind.

We are seeing the death of a once great innovating country. The rest of the world has left us behind. It is embaressing to be an american citizen.

Xerox Sues Apple Computer Over Macintosh Copyright
By LAWRENCE M. FISHER, Special to The New York Times
Published: December 15, 1989

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/15/business/company-news-xerox-sues-apple-computer-over-macintosh-copyright.html?scp=3&sq=apple+xerox&st=nyt

Are you BLIND?

In case you don’t know, this whole smartphone revolution was started by the iPhone.

Of course the Apple haters wil be hesitant to admit that, saying Palm and BlackBerry made smart phones and touch screen phones… but if you look at this space… it was not until the iPhone came out that smart phones became sexy for the masses.

Patent No. 6,424,354 – It seems like the Subscriber-Publisher Model used in Messaging and JMS specification includes this type of communication. In essence, Apple can sue any Java Application Server or any Java application that provides or uses the publisher- subscriber model for Messaging.

bunch of inevitable evolution? patent vultures leaving no meat on the bone.

To repeat a response that has been posted.

If it was BLINDING-ly obvious, why didn’t Palm or Microsoft implement an unlock feature using a gesture on their smartphones… they’ve been making PDAs and touchscreen phones for years, yet they failed to implement such an “obvious” feature.

Wow. The folks at Palm and Microsoft must be blind monkeys.

From The Seattle Times archive…

Wednesday, June 2, 1993 – Page updated at 12:00 AM
Apple-Microsoft Lawsuit Fizzles To A Close — `Nothing Left’ To Fight About
By Paul Andrews

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930602&slug=1704430

Here’s my take on Apple going after HTC – specifically stating the Nexus One – instead of Google or Android itself.

1) You can hurt Google directly since the N1 is “their phone” but is manufactured by HTC. I’d bet that more profit from the phone goes to Google than HTC. A cease and desist order that could follow if the lawsuit is not settled would hurt Google a lot more than HTC.

2) You use HTC to scare other manufactures that produce Android based phones and it makes them re-think creating new hardware. I would bet that other manufactures are scrambling to get their lawyers involved now in regards to this lawsuit beyond HTC.

Apple is very much threatened by Android now that there is an OPEN Mobile OS that is easy to use and has a lot less restrictions than the IPhone has.

I personally hope this backfires on Apple and more folks see the light of Android.

Apple Corps v Apple Computer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer

But the fact remains, neither Google nor Nokia nor Microsoft nor anyone else came out first with an iPhone. Why is that? Don’t tell me there were iPhone-like phones already out there. Why didn’t they become widely popular like the iPhone?

you ask why Jose.

Because they had not figured out how to dumb it down for the average person so here comes apple with their Icon top of a ui.

Apple is only doing this due to Nokia suing them over the Iphone for the same bloody thing.

From Ars Technica…

Apple hit with yet another iPhone patent lawsuit
By Justin Berka | Last updated January 24, 2008 12:07 PM

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/01/apple-hit-with-yet-another-iphone-patent-lawsuit.ars

Exactly, prior art hasn’t stopped Apple from getting the pedestrian patents. So their prior methodology shouldn’t limit my ability to patent it.

From BusinessWeek…

Kodak Gets Review in Bid to Block Apple, RIM Imports (Update2)
February 17, 2010, 4:33 PM EST
By William McQuillen

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-17/kodak-gets-review-in-bid-to-block-apple-rim-imports-update1-.html

does European patent system let such shit be patented?

i guess this is where Europe can win. the patent wars can kill the US software innovation atmosphere. i make a product and decide to unlock it with a gesture in the air before a camera. i saw smth like that in a movie with tom cruise. and then somebody will sue me because he was smart to patent this obvious thing

I have long wondered if Apple’s patent portfolio strategy around iPhone was designed to be a defensive move (block others from suing them) or an offensive one (block competitors), which I wrote about when they began amassing the portfolio:

Upward Mobility, Land Grabs and the iPhone Universe:
http://bit.ly/lGw8

In my opinion, the market is better served when there are fewer “toll roads” and economic landmines blocking innovation and competition, although it’s worth noting that both Google and Facebook were awarded seemingly obvious business process patents in the past week. so Apple is hardly alone in playing this hand.

Mark

Have you? “obviousness” is a critical component of the conversation. Not just whether they did it first.

Given a capacitive touchscreen and a multithreading software, once the screen is touched, the OS starts a thread which registers the position of touches every 50th milisecond or so. Once it doesn’t register any touch, it checks the registered points. If the first one falls in the “unlock slider start +20px” area, the end falls in the “unlock slider end +20px” area, and the maximal distance between touches in the drag area is not more than ~10px, the screen unlocks.
Of course, if the slider moves alongside the finger, the software updates the position of the slider to match the closest touch registered to its latest position.
Happy?

Apple faces to many barriers to compete in the ad space against Google, I doubt that they care about that. What they really fear is growing mobile platforms that compete with their new prize — the iTunes/App store.

Failing requires trying, and trying requires wanting.
As they didn’t want to minimize the number of physical buttons on the devices, they didn’t feel the need of implementing an on-screen unlocker, they could just add a button / switch for that. This is that simple.

A touchscreen relays X / Y coordinates. If contact is made within a strikezone of x1-y1, x10-y10, and the contact area begins moving within certain parameters of the x axis while staying within the boundaries of the y axis, unlock the device.

Not a big deal.

There’s still wood, minerals, bone and textiles… oops.

I believe this is just about getting on verizon’s network. The Nexus One should be coming out for Verizon in the next 2months, ahead of the Iphone4 which is rumored to be going to the same network, and Apple doesnt want to lose access to those sweet millions of customers on big red.

also, if apple wins, then almost all other makers of smartphones have to shutdown, giving apple free rein in the market, thereby creating a monopoly, which causes apple to get broken up into small pieces by the government.

not sure which way i want this to go now.

this is excellent for google, if they win (most probably they will win ) it will excellent free advertisement for them.

[...] can check out scanned images of the 41 page document at Engadget and TechCrunch also found 10 of the 20 patents Apple claims HTC infringed [...]

I don’t see this going forward. It will be rejected by the court. Most of the so called “patents” are just a big pile of crap. Most of these implemented before apple and just patented by the patent troll apple. Just with touch screen related patents, they have to sue so many companies, which a court will not accept. And this is only going to hurt the people in U.S. These do not mean anything in Europe or Asia. And the other issue is, HTC is not even the real defendant here, Google is (since almost all of these are software related).

Who gives a shit who brought it to the masses? Patents should be awarded to the inventor, not the copycat. Smartphones with touchscreen were made AGES before the iPhone hit the stores. There is no invention made by Apple here (or in many thousand other patents that should hever have been granted in the first place because there is no height of innovation)

That is why the entire lawsuit ir hilarious and shameful. Face it, Apple has become the new Microsoft, pulling marketing and legal stunts that once were the sole domain of the Redmond crowd.

Google bought Android in 2005 – before the iPhone was released, so clearly they were working on a mobile operating system before the iPhone hit it big. Its funny when Steve Jobs talks about competition and innovation, when a lot of his successful products weren’t “innovations” but merely existing products that were hyped up and made pretty. (Before I get attacked by apple fanboys – lets face it, Apple’s products are beautiful – but by no means innovative – want proof? they’re still using the WIMP model).

Patents are basically just cleverly worded procedures, and i’m sure Google’s lawyers will successfully navigate this.

Its too bad that 99.999% of Iphone users do not use any SMART phone functions of the Iphone. Having a sexy smartphone that couldnt natively copy / paste for 2 years is not innovation. Ipod that makes phone calls and has 5000 fart applications is nothing special.

Wow, you’re dumber than a pile of bricks. Fanboi much?

ALL of apples mobile technology is copied and based on previous work by others. The Nokia 9000 was release in 1996, ELEVEN YEARS BEFORE THE IPHONE.

No. Those who cannot innovate, copy. Apple’s still one of the most innovative companies on the planet. They’re just protecting their turf.

I was hoping for truly innovative Android phones in response to the game-changing iPhone. So far they’re just disappointing iPhone knock offs.

@billy Somehow I doubt Apple is going to sue themselves over the invention of the modern GUI. Remember a little product call Macintosh that was introduced 26 years ago? If John Sculley hadn’t foolishly licensed Apple patents to Microsoft, everyone would be using Macs today. And we’d all be better off for it…

The irony here is that these things could have been patented by someone…

When you can’t buy the latest and greatest HTC, the blame for that should lie firmly at the USPO’s front door for dealing out IPR for things they did not understand, without understanding the implications of their decisions for technological advancement and for not cracking down on time-wasting ‘inventions’ that were nothing more than dubious catch-alls and future gotchas if one of your competitors starts beating you.

Attn: Steve Jobs

I have patented a finger gesture that I’d like to license to you. Please see below…

@ matt earle, Maybe you should patent some stuff, but you didn’t.

True genius seems obvious once the inventor tells you how he did it, but you would never have thought of it on your own. That’s exactly why the patent system was created.

Please tell me you thought of using a touchscreen gesture to unlock a phone before Apple showed it to the world. I’d love a good laugh…

Thank you Alana, well said.

[...] can check out scanned images of the 41 page document at Engadget and TechCrunch also found 10 of the 20 patents Apple claims HTC infringed [...]

Why do people on this site feel that they type of phone or computer they own defines them to their very soul?

Are your lives really so empty and without purpose?

One word – Palm. Waaaay before iPhone. Nice try though.

Kind of silly logic there. Why did Apple, a computer manufacturer, decide to make phones?

I will remind you, Microsoft has been making hardware since the 80′s.

You are correct – nobody else came out with an iphone. They came out with something better – something not tied to a closed system.

Smartphone were a tech geek/business thing until the blackberry pearl came out. But I have to agree that the iphone is what inspired all these new mainstream touchscreen phones.

Shame on Apple. Can’t believe they are doing this.

Maybe I’m wrong, but at some point I developed the understanding that patents can be revoked after review, especially if they fail (upon review) the tests designed to prevent or grant patents in the first place. And surely, for at least some of these patents there is more than a bit of prior art?

[...] The Complaint: Apple’s Patent Lawsuit Against HTC Is All About Android (tags: mobile htc patent android apple innovation) [...]

Its my guess that iPhone 4G is just ‘meh’ and Apple is getting nervous. Venturebeat came out with statistics yesterday showing that RIM and Android are eating into Apple’s share of the web. The fact is that Apple is too weak to go after Google, so the next best thing is to play bully and feed on the small fish.

Once Palm and WebOS start eating into Apple’s market share, likely the threat will turn in that direction – only, what did Apple ‘invent’ that was in reality stolen from Palm? :)

View the young Steve Jobs video posted above, its telling. “Good artists copy, great artists steal”. Straight from the jackass’ mouth.

Touche.

Then I guess you are the ‘pile of bricks’!

HECK no, none of that is true, android OS is better in EVERY way, way more customization and features than the iphone, the only thing I’m betting you’re going off is apps and android is catching up way quicker than anyone else

Well said.

Protecting their turf? They file a damn lawsuit because some other phone too, makes it possible to unlock your phone by touching the screen. Doesn’t that mean that any phone using any gesture will in fact infringe patents? This is far beyond just “protecting turf.” This is prevention of innovation. How could the android platform ever innovate, if they aren’t even allowed to catch up?

You know, it is funny. In any of the million times I’ve seen articles about Microsoft threatening to sue Linux distributors for the 200-something patents they feel Linux infringes, I have yet to see a single comment where someone says that Microsoft has no choice but to defend their IP. In fact, the pretty much unanimous consensus always seems to be that Microsoft claiming they have patented basic OS operations is proof that the entire patent system needs to be overhauled.

But hey, Apple trying to sue a mobile version of Linux out of existence over OS-level patents, well that is completely understandable, because a company has to protect their IP, right?

And how is the new iPhone game changing at all its almost exactly the same, barely any hardware upgrades that android phones were already getting, nothing else besides that

Your concern is valid. But, don’t you think it’s Apple’s responsibility to protect their innovations? Also, if this lawsuit succeeds, then yes, there will be a lot less competitors. But, again, is it Apple’s responsibility to make sure that its competitors stay in business? If the competition cannot keep it, it’s not Apple’s fault!

Can you write your own article(s) on TechCrunch ihooih?

Android had multitouch since the beginning? Send me the address of the cave you live in. I might send you some Android popsicles ;)

The reply was meant for Celeste. I got lost packing the Android popsicles for him/her! :P

So you’re saying that it was Apple, not Justin Timberlake that brought sexy back? I smell a counter lawsuit.

YAWP..You should go help Android in this lawsuit!

Matt Earle..May be you should patent your ability to be ignorant and uninformed! :P

Looks like a Windows Mobile 7 phone will be my next phone. I’m not going to give either Apple or Google any more of my money. I’m sure the WM7 phones will be good, but I wonder how much better if Apple hadn’t over-extended their patent bull. Apple didn’t innovate the iPhone, they just took already exsisting great ideas and put them together better than anyone else did. THEN patented some of them so they could bully the market.

No one said anything about multitouch dude, we’re talking about everything else, didnt you notice one of the patents said miltitasking, iphone never had that and still doesnt but android has since the beginning thats retarded

Mine and the heads of a couple thousand other experts in patent law, software development, and tech writers. The system for patenting software is a mess and everyone knows it. The procedures are dated and based on the earliest concept of software, hardly applicable to the modern technology environment. If this eventually becomes a major case or does hinder innovation and development of new products, I think you’ll see a call from bigger names than the comments section of Tech Crunch for a reevaluation of how things are done…assuming your head isn’t still firmly planted in your backside.

Nice try, but in the ’80s software wasn’t patentable in the US. Apple took Microsoft to court over Windows, in a copyright case, not a patent case, and lost. Microsoft licensed their GUI technology from XEROX, just like Apple did.

Try learning some history, before you try to spout it.

To those who defend hypocritical App Store rejections by saying “if you don’t like it, get another phone”, Apple is making it clear that it think its the only touch screen phone allowed.

Yes, android has had multitouch since the beginning. They hadn’t had pinch-to-zoom until recently.

one word Newton!!

Newton was a bunch of years before palm.

Now go crawl into your mother’s basement. Stupid Google (spyware company) fanboys.

Can you explain how android is technically better? Just a few points? I didn’t think so.

You dumb Google lovers don’t even know your privacy and data are being harvested by big brother Google.

And what the hell? Apple patented scrolling on a touchscreen? SCROLLING.

Ok, a few things.

1: A company called Cisco (maybe you’ve heard of them), dis come out with an iPhone, and even trademarked the name, which Apple willfully ignored, and only came to a settlement on stealing the name AFTER they had released the product, knowing full well they were infringing on Cisco’s trademark.

2: The iPhone has NOT be the runaway breakout success you make it out to be. It is still only selling as many units as Windows Mobile did at its apex, and still isn’t even close to beating RIM or Nokia. Just because you didn’t have a smartphone before Apple told you to get one, doesn’t mean that there weren’t hundreds of millions of them sold before Apple even entered the market. Before the iPhone was the “it” phone, it was the BlackBerry, and before that it was the Treo, and before that is was the Nokia Communicator. Unless you are going to argue that “geeks” are actually the majority, with “normal people” being some small minority of folks who only buy Apple products, then you are just wrong.

3: The iPhone wouldn’t even be possible without all the base-level GSM patents that Apple is currently willfully infringing. Nokia tried for two years to work out a cross-licensing agreement, and Apple responded by saying that Nokia’s patents on base level radio functionality were obvious, and should be struck down.

4: You will notice that Apple is going after HTC, who doesn’t even make the OS, not Microsoft, Palm, RIM, Nokia, Google, or the members of the OHA as a whole. They are doing that, because they have a weak mobile patent portfolio, and they know that any of those other companies would destroy them. HTC, as a hardware manufacturer for licensed OSs, has a very weak portfolio of their own, since they are essentially just a system integrator, and rely on other people’s licensed technology, so Apple thinks they have an easy win here.

But hey, if you want to go on believing that Apple invented the smartphone, then be my guest.

I keep waiting for Google to buy Palm for it’s IP portfolio – if nothing else as a defensive measure. Much of the touchscreen interface was developed and created by Palm (likely building on others).

By the way – did anyone else find it ironic that these “Apple” patent links appeared in “Google patents”…

@Rohit – Looks like Steve Jobs is fucking you up the ass to keep you a loyal fanboy/girl. Keep trying to protect the bully and the bully will eventually turn on you., then you will really be fucked !

Apple throws these lawsuits all the time.
here’s a kinda a top ten list blast from the past included Apple both in claiming seat and claimed by seat.
http://bit.ly/ajjqI1

I do remember it, it was given to them by Xerox because they saw no commercial use for it. And Xerox had a working Model in 1981. 29 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Star

Really, it’s that hard? I did a swipe on a moving graphic element to unlock a screen on a sales kiosk I did back in 1997, and it took me about an hour to code in Director. All you have to do is set a watched target area, and constrain the movement of the sprite to a path, then trigger a behavior when the sprite enters the target area. I must be some kind of fucking genius if it took Apple millions of dollars to replicate that. It never occurred to me to spend $10,000 to patent it, because it seemed pretty obvious. Besides, as an interface designer, if I filed a patent every time I thought I came up with a novel interface element, I would soon be spending more on patent filing fees than I make in a year.

No we know what Jobs has planned for his cash horde – legal fees.

There were several PalmOS and Windows Mobile “lock screens” that did exactly this. Just one of them is sited just a couple posts down.

My God, those are the most general descriptions I’ve ever seen.

Patent No. 7,383,453: “Conserving Power By Reducing Voltage Supplied To An Instruction-Processing Portion Of A Processor”

How is it that Apple got this patent but Qualcomm did not?

Either Fair Use will prevail, or this case could raise real demands for Copyright Law Reform.

Fangirl ALERT!

TechCrunch, PLEASE do a an overview of the Google/Apple breakup. This is the recent history that is most interesting:

Summer 2009:
– Apple rejects Google Latitude and Google Voice from the App Store.
Fall 2009:
– Google signs a deal to have music in its search results with, among other companies, Lala. Apple promptly purchases Lala.
– Google purchases Admob, the most popular mobile advertiser.
– Eric Schmidt steps down from Apple’s board.
Winter 2009/2010:
– Google Chrome passes Safari as the 3rd most popular browser.
– Google starts to release innovate apps as Android only (Navigation, Goggles).
– Apple purchases mobile advertiser Quattro
– Steve Jobs calls the “don’t be evil” motto crap.
– Android gets pinch-to-zoom.
– Apple starts a proxy war with HTC.

Pretty sure I missed a million things.

how sad is it that steve jobs needs to sue over something that has been out before him. Tried to sue microsoft cause Bill Gates made more money than him and now he thought he was untouchable when he came out with the i phone and now android is out and taking some of his money. If you want to stay out on top you should be trying to upgrade your product and be ahead of the pact. Seems like the i phone has reached its potential. Next he is gonna sue archos for the internet tablet cause nobody is buying the i pad.

Its on like Donkey Kong! Let the war between Apple and Google begin.

Uh, actually yes, RIM freaked out and tried to sue anyone using a thumb keyboard (Palm actually licensed the thumboard from RIM rather than go to court), and then tried to sue anyone doing wireless email. It was only after RIM got hit with their own case over the NTP patent dispute, that they had second thoughts about trying to sue all their competition out of business.

There is a reason some tech sites used to refer to RIM as Lawsuits in Motion.

ok…the last 2 sentences in your comment are just stupid

[...] #Patent system is holding us down http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/02/the-complaint-apples-patent-lawsuit-against-htc-is-all-about-androi... [...]

Android has customization does it. That’s so 1990s and nerdy and not what the masses care about.

Why do you think the iPhone is so popular? Because it’s for normal people!

[...] The Complaint: Apple’s Patent Lawsuit Against HTC Is All About Android Earlier today, Apple issued a press release stating that it has filed suit against cell phone manufacturer HTC for [...] [...]

[...] can check out scanned images of the 41 page document at Engadget and TechCrunch also found 10 of the 20 patents Apple claims HTC infringed [...]

You must be Mother Theresa then. You have such a flawless character that you can criticize others.

@yawp with the links.

Lawsuits don’t conclude stealing.

[...] cell phone manufacturer HTC for patent infringement. From the list of patent infringments (from TechCrunch) Apple has maybe 2~3 strong case to sue HTC, but I won’t be surprise if HTC counter sues [...]

Ah Apple.

The greatest thief of all and clearly knows how easy it is for things to get stolen, taken or simply re-produced (after all, they have years and years of experiencing in the art of thievery and manipulation).

The amount of detail in some of those patents is bewildering. Clearly the inventions they have stolen/re-produced (or as gullible fans would call “re-invented”) are well protected from the same kind of attacks.

Bravo Apple. Bravo.

[...] información | TechCrunch, [...]

[...] had common board members, including Schmidt himself. Today we found out another reason: Apple has filed suit against mobile handset maker HTC (JC Penny?), who just happens to make many of the Android-based [...]

[...] can check out scanned images of the 41 page document at Engadget and TechCrunch also found 10 of the 20 patents Apple claims HTC infringed [...]

First they sued Nokia, Then MS, and now HTC.. For sure, Google’s Android will be sued next… I wonder when will Apple call their secret weapon though?

[...] I really didn’t expect this, but it looks like Apple is rolling up its sleeves for a little tussle. I for one didn’t see this coming, so I’m especially interested in what prompted [...]

I think the patent on “Object-oriented graphic system” is way too general. I certainly believe prior art could be shown fitting the title.

so your saying that all the phones that HTC put out that had windows mobile on them are not considered smart phones and are hence dumb phones. Clearly your not saying such a thing.

And when in the hell did STEVE JOBS invent multi-touch when clearly it was around from the 80′s.

“Yes it’;s laggy with a carp UI and cannot run more than a few hundred MB worth of apps at once, which is truly pathetic btw, but is is a really obvious copy.”

But it can run 2 tiny itty bitty applications at the same time. Like pandora and the browser.

[...] they’re not technically involved in. But, as we’re all well aware, this suit is much more about Google’s Android operating system than HTC. And it seems that Google is well aware of that [...]

If this comes ““transmitting voice over a cellular network”, and, “displaying a gui in place of lines of code” comes every company gets sued not just Apple.

No wonder US is so f***ked up as morons like you still live here.

Ultimately who ever owns patents are the winners whether its Nokia, BlackBerry, Apple or Google

Not a Apple Fan Boy but definitely, would love to see Android and Google get f***ked all the way.

[...] Techcrunch hat eine Liste mit 10 Patenten die Apple geltend macht: [...]

Looks like Apple may lose the PR war for once.

One word (Apple’s) Newton…way before Palm & Nokia

Reality:
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=On_Xerox,_Apple_and_Progress.txt
Xerox didn’t give Apple anything…But yet we keep hearing this story from the misinformed & the MS waterboys.

“No one said anything about multitouch dude, we’re talking about everything else, didnt you notice one of the patents said miltitasking, iphone never had that and still doesnt but android has since the beginning thats retarded”

The iPhone has had multitasking since the first one hit the streets. How do you think that you can listen to music & surf the web at the same time. It’s just not opened to third parties because as Google is finding out roogue processes can run in the background & lock up the phone in best case scenarios & help malware spread in worse case scenarios. Again another falsehood spread by the Dumd ass tech pundits.

Nice rant…Try basing it on fact. Apple didn’t steal it’s GUI from Xerox. BSD is not a GUI concept neither is UNIX. Apple is probably not suing over touch screen technology & other technologies that you mention but they are probably suing over their unique contribution to those technologies. All the Android phones are iPhone knock offs. What exactly has Google or HTC contributed that is actually noteworthy? No other phone worked or looked like the iPhone until Apple put the iPhone on the market. Apple’s newton that predated PALM, MS Anything, Google, HTC, had a stylus based interface. There were other stylus based interfaces at the time. Each probably having their own unique patents & contributions. Apple has been in the hardware/software business for over 30 years. They have a huge patent portfolio. They have worked on plenty of things that never saw the light of day.

http://www.theapplecollection.com/design/macproto/index.html

Time for the angry children to start acting like adults. If HTC is infringing on Apple’s patents then they will lose & deservedly so. Unlike HTC, Dell & every other knock off company in the world Apple designs hardware, chips & components.

Those phones are all on the List. They are made by HTC. I think Google only does the underlying code not the GUI.

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/24219/

And apple had the audacity to complain about Nokia’s patent infringement complaints on Apple, only months ago. Hypocrites!

Nokia wanted more money from Apple than others for licensing patents that they put in a patent pool. Other companies also contribute to these pools so that most phones can have some kind of interoperability. These licenses state that the same fee for those patents should be charged to all that license them. Nokia is trying to pull a fast one by saying Apple should pay more than other companies. These are not patents that Nokia kept to themselves. Nokia will lose. I think Nokia thought that it could cut some kind of deal with Apple on licensing Apple’s tech. hoping Apple would settle out of court.

Google has lots of patents in online advertisement space including the latest granted patent about geo-location advertising. Is Apple setting up a table for bargaining with Google about its online Advertisement patents by trying to influence HTC?

Apple is for hipsters and followers…everything they make is crap…its for beginners who know nothing about computers or phones…they get you with looks not performance. They over price everything that they make. If it wasn’t for the ipod the company would’ve been extinct a long time ago.

[...] can check out scanned images of the 41 page document at Engadget and TechCrunch also found 10 of the 20 patents Apple claims HTC infringed [...]

And maybe HTC (former QTEK) counter-sue Apple since QTEK S100 was one of the first keyboard-less smart-phone released back in 2003.

I wonder how many patents are invalid since HTC / QTEK is making touch smart-phones way much longer ago than apple.

[...] old days are most certainly gone. What’s most notable here is that HTC is apparently being used as an example to scare manufacturers away from working with Android. Crazy. This is going to be very [...]

There is also no way Steve Jobs had anything to do with multi-touch techonology other than having bought out FingerWorks some years ago in order to swallow that technology and prevent anyone else from having it. I’m still bitter and annoyed about that.
Apple used to be such a benign company, and one that i used to support and defend. No more. Apple sucks.

this is just simply bullshit, how can you use your camera on your phone without using power? and all of the other patents too, how can you even make any phones because of apple, theyre just being completely imature about this, fuck apple

actually the newton was a PDA not a phone. Palm was the first to bring the PDA and Phone together. Although the first to master it was the UIQ interface on the P800. Many of Palms patents are actually being abused by apple. Same with many of the Sony Ericsson patents.. All the vendors should get together and nail apple’s arse to the wall.

Excuse me, I have multiple patents on character attacks.

You’ll be hearing from my lawyers.

Excellent point. This could set up the stage for a cross patent licensing.

All this stuff about multi-touch is a side show. The real patent violations HTC/Android/Google need to be worried about date back to NeXT and have nothing to do with the iPhone.

This is great! Apple spends all its time and money on lawsuits, goes belly up and Google rules the world. Go on Stevie, file some more suits (when you’re not busy denying apps a slot in the App Store). Only problem though is everyone knows Apple can’t multitask. Can they handle more than one lawsuit at a time?

I don’t know. Maybe there was prior art, but when the iPhone first came out I thought the swipe to unlock was a pretty nifty trick.

I remember thinking how it was cool ’cause it made it easy to unlock your phone, but was also something you’d be unlikely to do by accident in your pocket. Again, I could be wrong – maybe there was prior art. But it sure seems like pretty darn good example of an inovation that seems obvious today, but was new and different at the time.

Besides, on the face of it, it seems pretty slimey of Google to have a guy on Apples board and then to go off and copy the iPhone.

All those gestures were patented by Tom Cruise, haven’t you seen the Minority Report? Seriously though, the technology and ideas from that movie came from a lab in MIT where gesture-based computing was a research subject for many, many years before the iPhone was released.

@Jose: Who cares what “the masses” care about? I care about a phone that works for me.

Dear HTC Lawyers,

Some of the patents on the list don’t even qualify for a patent.
Like:
“Conserving Power By Reducing Voltage Supplied To An Instruction-Processing Portion Of A Processor”
It’s beeing done on Notebooks forever.
And
“Object-Oriented Graphic System”
Is already public domain knowledge.

Many other patents are already in the realm of “trivial inventions” that any engineer today would think of.

I don’t think Apple is trying to “sue a mobile version of Linux out of existence”; that’s almost *never* what this kind of suit results in. It’s about getting money from people because you beat them to the patent office.

Look, the idea of software patents in general is by and large bullshit. Sure, there are cases that arguably qualify as innovative and inventive, but for every one of those there’s a dozen ones like “blinking a inverted block cursor by XORing the bits of the character it’s on” and “storing the contents of a region of a screen when another region visually appears to be in front of it, and restoring it when the ‘upper’ region moves.” (These are both real patents, and yes, until the first expired you had to license the ability to BLINK YOUR TEXT CURSOR or RISK GETTING SUED. And the second is why some early windowing systems had to redraw windows when windows in front of them moved. Really.)

But having said that, blaming Microsoft or Apple or IBM or Xerox or anyone else for using the patent system to make money is living in fairyland. The patent system is designed to let people make money off their inventions, and a legal invention is what the patent office says it is. Companies that exist only to hold patents and to make all their money suing people for inadvertently tripping over them–yeah, they suck. But filing a patent suit isn’t in and of itself a sign that a company is “no longer capable of innovation,” and anyone who claims it is, well, that may be in and of itself a sign that they’re a blowhard.

Android phones will stay on the market, iPhones will stay on the market, Nokia phones will stay on the market, and eventually everyone will be paying everyone else for mostly stupid crap, no consumers will really notice, and life will go on pretty much as is. And in a way that’s somewhat unfortunate, because the day Apple or HTC or Google or Nokia is actually forced to stop selling products in the US is the day before patent law suddenly gets overhauled in a hurry.

Apple to Google re: Adding Multi-touch to their OS upgrade recently

“Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.”
Sun Tzu

Apple to Google re:
Flooding the market with low end Taiwanese partner phones with anemic R&D budgets

“Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy.”
Sun Tzu

Apple to HTC re: Believing the Google/Andriod hype without first checking for patent violations

“He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious.”
Sun Tzu

Apple to Google and HTC re: Thinking we were going to go after Palm (Tsk, Tsk you fell for that one)

“A military operation involves deception. Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective.”
Sun Tzu

Apple to HTC re: You never saw this coming did you?

“The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim.”
Sun Tzu

Apple to the Rest of the OHA re: Future Andriod product releases…(Be Careful)

“It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both”
Niccolo Machiavelli

Apple to Google/Android Fanboys re: Apple going after HTC shows Apple does not have the balls to attack Google straight up…

“Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected”

I could go on and on but it looks like Apple set the trap for the big G and now is proceeding to kill them off piece by piece.

Step One –
1) Kill the low hanging fruit that is HTC (with no real money to stop you) that was the earliest and most visible adopter of Andriod

2) Make an example of HTC so the bigger money players like Motorola, Sony, LG and Samsung think twice about Android OS.

3) Put the brakes on Android Momentum Without EVER going after Google (Huge Money) directly

4) Fragment Android OS further – each OHA member has to now research for possible patent violations

5) Force Major players to innovate their own OS – Samsung Bada – further weakening Android.

6) DO NOT NAME Google in the suit – forcing a 20 to 1 spending advantage for Apple vs. HTC

7) Kill Android

Apple Wins this fight hands down

Apple got those patents because they thought they were potentially patentable, not to be a “patent troll.”

The next logical step is for HTC to countersue Apple with a bunch of patents that they have — because they almost certainly do have them, and they will be very similar to Apple’s patents in terms of (theoretical) obviousness. I do trust that everyone here will be just as quick to condemn them if that happens.

Incidentally, the “unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image” patent is not just for having a touch screen, it’s for having the image of a lock on the touch screen which you virtually manipulate like a real lock. Is this innovative enough to be patentable? I don’t know. But I do know that I’ve been working with computers since about the time Apple started as a company (although I wasn’t working with Apples back then!), and I’ve never seen that particular interface gesture on a touch screen before. I’m dubious about whether “interface gesture” should be a patentable concept in the first place — but the mere existence of touch screens for decades before the iPhone is not de facto proof of prior art here.

The problem is, Android hasn’t just caught up, they’ve SURPASSED. Which is why Jobs is pissing himself. If you don’t have any idea how Androids became so threatening to Apple, read the numerous iPhone vs Nexus One articles on the web.

Why are Apple fanboys so whiny ?

Guys, this is the way business workes nowdays. Palm and nokia where indeed the first companies to create a PDA.
Apple made a revolution by bringing the best of all worlds together into the Iphone. Other manufacturers noticed the success and did the same. logical, but Apple has the right to claim it.

Imagine that Apple started a search engine, a bit like Google with almost the same algorithms… Do you think Google won’t make a problem of it?

So if a designer / painter would use lets say Picasso’s style to paint, any future work of that artist, would infringe Picasso’s “patent” of using a certain paiting method? Then all artists and art schools would be illegal. This is the EXACT principal behind Steve Jobs’ behavior of good artists copy and great artists steal, and he has said that on record http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU

So, please do not insult our intelligence with more corporate crap. Any Judge on the planet should force corporations to let people innovate instead of keeping the ideas for a tiny group. This is counter productive and suppressive to planetary evolution and this is EXACTLY what they want. CONTROL. The same guy who smoked weed and studied Budhism, is now an agent of NWO

F off Steve. My iPhone will soon run Linux

It really is better, sorry. iPhone is popular because iPods are and because Macs are a status symbol. Not to mention Apple’s learned to sell, finally.

Points, hmm:

I can tether for free. Without jailbreaking.
Native widget support.
Wide array of devices running the OS.
Highest percentage of free apps of any app store.
Free built in turn-by-turn navigation.
Choice of carrier.
Expandable internal storage.
Ability of apps to do damn near anything. Without jailbreaking.

Wins for iPhone:

Tight integration with OS X and iTunes.
Some really nifty apps out of those 150k.
Wide range of accessories.
Mobile Safari.
Predictability…it will always look good, always cost the same, gain a few features anually, and will basically not fail you when you need it.
No iPhone has ever been left out of a firmware upgrade.

They’re both great products but for what I want my phone to do, my Eris is really where it’s at, because I want it to do anything I ever want, if that makes sense. When I was driving down the Interstate and needed to use my computer online for an assignment and decided, with no prior preparation, to see if I could tether my phone to my Mac and had it working -via the Android Market- in under 10 minutes, I was sold for life. my Eris never makes me think “I wish…” and it’s only on Android 1.5 for now, three major releases behind (which sucks, I fully concede). Android is an OS for a machine. iPhone OS is an OS for, well, a machine living under an authoritarian dictator.

As far as Google “stealing my information” or whatever – if that’s really a concern for you, you shouldn’t be online. We all gave up on privacy years ago because the best policy is to assume that it isn’t there, because it isn’t. Google stepped in to make money off of that fact, so what? At least they give me tools in return that seriously improve my life, as does Apple – who make me pay a premium for it.

I love patent wars. And I hope to see some Google blood with this one.

I guess that Apple is like the Vatican.
They want to keep the world knowledge in underground vaults for themselves and act as evolution inhibitors.

REVOLT, PEOPLE !!!

The real problem is that patent office ever accepted such patent claims. “gesture based unlocking”, “object-oriented GUI” – common Apple, I’d be embarrassed if I ever tried to patent this. Patents should be only granted for real inventions, not for bad-ass companies trying to get the legal ammunition against competition.

that was very well written, and a very non-biased op on the case at hand. well done sir. I too agree that, however unsavory it may seem, any company would do the same in Apple’s shoes. Can’t play the game? gtfo. it’s business baby

popcorn?

[...] PC magazine lists the phones and patents, while All Things D has the actual court filings, and TechCrunch has both. CNET summarizes HTC’s oral [...]

You took the thought out of my mind. He might be onto the fact that his house of cards is about to come crumbling down.

Nothing like a insufferable desi iFanboi. I bet he color coordinated his shiny shoes with his iPod and iPhone cover and grins all day thinking how unique and ‘in’ he is with things.

[...] HD2, and Droid Eris. Since this filing may have a ripple with Android phones, Google addressed TechCrunch with the following:  “We are not a party to this lawsuit. However, we stand behind our [...]

Fan BOY ALERT

at least apple isn’t dumb, the way Yahoo was with PPC/CPC (after they bought Overture, whom had the motherload of PPC/CPC patents), and not do anything for years while Google moved into dominating position and only to settle out of court for peanuts.

Ok, here are a few problems though as regards the current argument.

1: Apple has thus far refused to license or cross-license any of the patents they claim on the iPhone. That was all Nokia wanted, and Apple is going to court rather than agreeing to cross-license. The same can be said of RIM. The language and behavior of the company, as well as Steve Jobs’ history, strongly suggest that they have no interest in licensing these patents, but rather seek to stifle competition.

2: This “any company would do it” argument is a red herring. Microsoft, RIM, Motorola, Nokia and Palm all have voluminous patent portfolios as regards mobile devices, and they all absolutely have patents on which the iPhone is infringing. They have all chosen to reach cross-licensing deals, and only use their patents defensively in cases such as this (though admittedly this is a recent change of position for RIM). All of these companies answered the iPhone by trying to come up with better products, not by dragging Apple into court (at least at first).

3: You are just proving the point I made with this response. As I said, I find it notable that in the many discussions I have seen about Linux infringing on Microsoft patents, I have yet to see a single “level headed” assessment that of course Microsoft has no choice but to take Linux distributors to court, because they have to defend their IP. 100% of the analysis I have seen of Microsoft trying to do exactly what Apple is doing right now, has been that if they did it, it would be a desperate move by a company who couldn’t compete, and would probably end with most of their patents being invalidated.

Apple is for communists. Apple is going to get face rolled by the big guys and it’s going to hurt. Apple is obviously having seriously financial issues if they are so desperate to sue people because they invented “Touch Screen” and “Object Oriented” crap. The iPhone can’t even play Flash….fail.

You are an idiot

I didn’t suggest Apple “had” to do this, any more than Microsoft or anyone else “has” to do this. In theory one can collect a whole bunch of patents and do nothing with them; in practice a lot of companies do that… mostly. But there are very few companies that do that all the time.

As for Nokia vs. Apple: well, yes, we have Nokia’s assertion that they tried to reach licensing deals with Apple before they sued first. We have no reason to doubt them, but it’s worth noting that we have no reason to grant them more or less benefit of the doubt than we do any other company, including Microsoft and Apple.

Ultimately, the point that I think gets lost in virtually any discussion when Apple is involved is simple: Apple is a big company, and behaves like a big company. The biggest mistake that Apple fans make is believing that Apple is unusually good in terms of their business practices. The biggest mistake that Apple detractors make is believing that Apple is unusually bad in terms of their business practices.

“It is possible (even with an app) to make an iPhone unlock with gestures that are not pressing numerals?”

You’re one of those people who thinks that because the iPhone “can’t multitask” that you can’t listen to your music and browse the web at the same time, too, aren’t you? :)

I really want to write a patent in a sufficiently artful fashion that the Patent Office doesn’t notice it’s a patent on the process of getting inappropriate patent filings through the Patent Office, and lets it through.

[...] under the sun knows that Apple has sued HTC and apparently it has got less to do with HTC and a lot to do with Google & Android. After all HTC is the manufacturer of Nexus One and uses Android in a lot of its [...]

[...] | Phandroid, Engadget, TechCrunch, [...]

at now will it be to ban the produce

I dunno if someone has already posted this, but it looks like someone else actually invented and patented touch screen technology before Mr. Jobs “invented” touch screen technology:

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bltouch.htm

On Nokia v. Apple, I think there is ample reason to believe Nokia over Apple for multiple reasons.

1: Nokia has a long track record of cross-licensing deals. Every phone on the market (with the exception of the iPhone) is licensing from either Nokia or Motorola.

2: Apple has no such history. In fact Apple has several instances of refusing to cross-license, until forced to do so in court. Even then, Apple usually prefers to pay a licensing fee, rather than agree to a cross-license.

3: Apple has in no way denied that Nokia tried to cross-license. In fact, Apple confirms that there were negotiations with Nokia, but say that Nokia did not offer them any value worth cross-licensing.

@riley

Psion was way before Newton

Patents kill innovation.

[...] The Complaint: Apple’s Patent Lawsuit Against HTC Is All About Android (tags: android apple htc mobile innovation patent copyright google) [...]

chipotle you are dead wrong. armchair lawyer. “It’s about getting money from people because you beat them to the patent office.”

us patent law revolves around first to invent, not first to register as in other countries

[...] Yep, looks like multitouch is in there. TechCrunch has torn through the documents and found a number of patents listed, including multitouch and a bunch of [...]

[...] Kilde Filed under: Android Leave a comment Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) ( subscribe to comments on this post ) [...]

FOR THE MOTHERLAND!!

[...] HTC Lawsuit There are some interesting pieces on TechCrunch about the suit. http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/02/the…about-android/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/02/goo…apple-lawsuit/ [...]

[...] Los detalles de las patentes cuestionadas se los Puede encontar en una nota publicada hoy por el sitio especializado TechCrunch. [...]

[...] “Apple / HTC ITC filing” © EnGadget 2010 “The Complaint: Apple’s Patent Lawsuit Against HTC Is All About Android” © TechCrunch [...]

Wow, speaking of people who sound like angry children.

These are the facts.

Android phones are NOT iPhone knockoffs. In fact, they are designed to appeal to people who aren’t satisfied with Apple’s solution to the Smartphone experience.

Apple has patents, other companies have patents too. Apple has infringed upon other companies patents, and they have infringed upon Apple’s patents. But here’s how patent wars work; someone infringes upon your patent, you have 2 options: take them to court, or use the opportunity to infringe upon one of their patents.

Notice that Apple sued HTC, not Google. Why? Probably because HTC has infringements upon Apple’s patents, but Apple doesn’t have infringements upon HTC’s patents. Therefore Apple is free to fire away all it wants without being called a hypocrite and counter-sued.

Google and Apple probably won’t sue eachother since they are each infringing upon eachother’s patents. Not a good business move. But Apple is picking a fight it know it can win. This would be akin to someone suing Foxconn or AT&T in order to strike at Apple, without having to risk being counter-sued.

Do you understand now? Apple nor Google nor HTC or any of them out there are playing by the rules. Patent infringements aren’t accidential, they’re carefully calculated moves. There’s so much profit to make, and the risk of losing the patent or having to pay settlement fees are assessed and accounted for. If someone steals your patents, you can steal one of theirs, and you can be pretty sure they won’t sue.

Apple is no more in the right here than the rest, it’s just picking a fight it knows it can win. Apple gets to look like a good guy in the process to the public too, but the facts are it has it’s own dirty little secrets…

[...] in causa, sono quasi tutti relativi a software (materia del contendere anche quello relativo al multitouch), e questa eventualità ha fatto pensare ad alcuni osservatori che il vero bersaglio di Apple [...]

Do not forget SOnyEricsson PDA’s . They have been here since year 2001 and are very much feature packed. Too sad they never came out in US

[...] Apple out only to curb the ambitions of HTC? TechCrunch speculates that the real target might be Android, which mimics many of the characteristic features of the iPhone OS. In which case, TechCrunch [...]

Sure Alana, patents are really important to protect the innovator – but there is always the problem of trash patents:
http://www.sternhillpartners.com/patentWars.html
Some bad companies actually file patents for something totally normal that everyone uses. And then start sueing everyone. As no one is interested in a million dollar lawsuit they agree on paying some 100 000 for something ridiulous. And thats how these bad companies make money…I don’t like that!

Game has just begun. I wonder what the result of this fight will be.

Apples Iphone began to introduce the whole smartphone hype. So there will be alot of more lawsuits filled in the future.

Remember Creative’s patent lawsuit against Apple in 2006 over Zen due to media player interface? And they claimed $100 million from Apple. It’s a trade secret how did they settle but at the end of the day, Creative begun manufacturing ipod accs.
Sounds funny but patents are what they are for.

Agreed. Maybe I should put a patent out on covering up the image for 2.2 seconds to unlock the device….or maybe triple tapping the image….or maybe the phone can just detect me staring at it for more than 10 seconds and just unlock.

can any 1 of here please provide me the apple company profile with detail?
just bought a apple 3GS iphone and wanted to know the apple co. well

“EU and the rest of the world is kicking our ass”, ha, you poor foreign fool. Have you forgot about M$, Google, and Apple – to name a few?

[...] Apple…. sigh http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/02/the-complaint-apples-patent-lawsuit-against-htc-is-all-about-androi... [...]

[...] more on TechCrunch Tagged as: About, against, Android, Apple’S, Complaint, Lawsuit, [...]

Half of those patents aren’t legitimate in the first place. The US patent office needs to stop issuing Apple BS patents for any obscure idea they can come up with that includes a child’s drawing demonstrating the idea.

Now I’m an Apple fan but this is far more symptomatic of Apple’s patent lawyers wanting a new hybrid Porsche than of any legitimate patent infringement claim.

All the details scrutinized: http://bit.ly/apple-htc-lawsuit-examined

Apple is a very sad company; they have a delusional look on what is real infringement and what is just aggressive protection of their major share of the smartphone market. I remember when they went after Microsoft for “stealing” the idea of the GUI when in fact it was Apple who stole it from Xerox. Yes it was both Apple and Microsoft who capitalized on their visits to the Palo Alto Lab of Xerox. Or how about when Apple first came out with the iPhone name, which Cisco had trademarked 2 years prior to that, Cisco ended up telling asshole oops I mean Apple they could have it?
Apples ignorance and arrogance of security has lulled people into a false sense of security, which makes the Internet a worse place. But I will give them their due; they are masters of marketing and get the mass market to believe all sorts of bull sh*t. I mean really they should sell consultation services of their marketing abilities to other companies; because they have a very unique of selling snake oil!!

Apple have every right to protect their patents. If the patent system is flawed then that is what should be attacked.
At the same time I don’t like Apple’s stance on this, considering it owes a lot to the open source community for the rightly deserved success of OS-X, at times something it tends to forget.
It has been responsible for a considerable amount of innovation in the market place, yes other products existed which provided similar functionality but without the rounded off corners.

[...] in the iPad theme this TechCrunch article on Apple’s HTC patent Lawsuit indicates that the real focus of Apple’s ire is (spoiler alert) Google’s Android OS [...]

[...] wonder Apple is suing HTC for patent infringement over its Android phones. In the three months between October and January, [...]

I agree that those who can’t innovate will sometimes cry foul and sue. What would Steve Jobs Do? (WWSJD) — he borrows some of his best ideas. Remember Napster? He grabbed it and made it iTunes.

[...] to pipe in with some contrarian analysis. I agree with other pundits suggesting that the lawsuit is competition by litigation, where Apple hopes to scare off mobile manufacturers from licensing Android. Surely some handset [...]

PC Tablet computers have been using a touch-interface to log in for about 15 years now. Tablet computers have long been able to perform many of the feats that Steve’s phone has. Steve just “shrunk” it and stuck a phone inside it.

Then once Steve convinced the world that he’d invented all this stuff, he released the iPad, which is 100% a tablet PC running a semi-new OS.

You know: Tablet computers … that thing that Apple just ‘invented’ as the iPad, even though tablet PCs have been around for about 20 years.

Disclaimer: I own an iPhone (3GS 32GB), and I’m compeletely happy with it. It is great, because Apple lags behind in technology by a few years, and steals the best ideas that it sees emerging. Then Apple polishes up the ideas and makes them reliable and pretty.

That’s why I love my iPhone. But it is still theft on the part of Apple. I have no delusions about that.

[...] is starting to change though. Apple is increasingly hostile toward competitors as witnessed by the suit against HTC, which is really an attack on Google. Nokia also came out swinging in a patent battle of it’s own against Apple last year as [...]

[...] outstanding, that’s exactly the point: As Apple goes on the offensive against Android, it risks alienating more and more developers. Today, another prominent developer chose the [...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89sz8ExZndc
video was posted before the multi-touch scaling patent was applied for.

Still doesn’t change the fact that these patents shouldn’t have been allowed in the first place.

Just look at how generic they are! “Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image” that’s not an invention that’s an design choice.

It wouldn’t be so bad if they were just a little bit more open with their platform. As a company Apple are closed and anti-competitive, and by that I mean to a higher degree than (for the sake of the argument) 70% other large companies definitely on par with Microsoft.

[...] to the Android platform and how Android is used on various HTC phones. However, according to the techcrunch research, “No mention of Android or Google was in the press release”. You may then [...]

Smartphones were invented WAY before iphone. We don’t need sexy phones.

Epic…..just pure gold

Okay, I use a macbook, and have a microsoft computer, and have had a Tmobile g1, a Tmobile mytouch, a Nexus One and very recently just got the HTC HD2 and bought a iPad (AS IN IM NOT A SOLE USER OF ANY OF THESE THINGS i use them all), but I want to take it back to steve jobs and throw it at him, this is stupid… steve jobs is an idiot and up til now ive been a fan but this really disappoints me

[...] Tech Chrunch. March 2, 2010. http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/02/the-complaint-apples-patent-lawsuit-against-htc-is-all-about-androi…. April 13, [...]

[...] in response to a suit Apple filed against HTC in March that listed over 20 patents HTC is allegedly violating with its Android [...]

[...] in response to a suit Apple filed against HTC in March that listed over 20 patents HTC is allegedly violating with its Android [...]

what about the double-flick? That was my idea….. (oops sorry Microsoft, not sure I am allowed to say that)

i think apple tottally overreacts here, they should be happy that thex got those ridicoulus patents…