Apparently, this is a major victory of the patent system. This, this right here, this is what the patent system has come to. This is the destructive effect it’s having on this once beautiful industry. Thanks to trolls like Apple and Microsoft, basic, elemental functionality is being removed from devices people already own.
Let me just reiterate this for a second to make sure it really sinks in. Over the past several months, many people have bought a Galaxy Nexus. It’s a very compelling device, and certainly worthy of the Nexus flagship moniker. It was the first device to ship with Ice Cream Sandwich, a major improvement over Gingerbread, and came packed with functionality.
Then Apple’s lawyers get their hands on the device. They examine every little bit of software on the device. What can we use in our patent trolling campaign against Google? Is there anything in there we can sue over? We have a gazillion patents – sure, all on trivial bullshit, but heck, the judges have to assume they’re valid because the USPTO has granted the patent, so triviality is of no concern. Look at this, this search widget searches multiple sources. Completely obvious and logical, but you know what, we have a patent on that. Bingo!
The judge has to assume Apple’s patent is valid – the USPTO is a respectable, thorough, and careful organisation, right? Right…? – and so, grants a preliminary injunction. The Galaxy Nexus has to be taken off the shelves entirely because this one tiny bit of functionality infringes on some obscure nonsensical software patent. I mean, we also execute thieves for stealing a loaf of bread, right? Eye for an eye is so 6000 BC.
Google and Samsung have to respond to ensure minimal interruption to device sales. So, they do the only thing they can do: they prepare a software patch that removes the ability to search multiple sources from the search widget. In other words, the widget now only searches the web, and not on the devices itself. They then proceed to send this patch out to all Galaxy Nexus devices in the United States, regardless of carrier.
The device you bought will see its functionality reduced, post-sale.
It’s basically Tim Cook shoving his hand through the internet, slapping you on the wrist, taking away functionality from a device you own, and then flipping you off, all because some mindless 9-to-5 office drone at the United States Patent and Trademark Office with 2.3 kids, dog, cat, and a wife who works at WalMart, granted a stupid mindless software patent on an utterly trivial nugget of functionality.
This is the reality we live in today. This once so exciting, mysterious and groundbreaking industry has gone mainstream, and with that, the lawyers and trolls have taken over. It is now entirely impossible for any developer to write any line of code without infringing on someone else’s patents. The incumbents own most of them, so if you dare to compete, you’re boned.
Happy independence day, American Galaxy Nexus “owners”.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18709232
and, of course, this:
http://www.managingip.com/Article/3054988/Managing-Copyright-Archiv…
Edited 2012-07-04 23:24 UTC
They are just biased towards the patents held in their countries.
No they are not. They are bound by the dumb rules(a lot of it in case law). That is why I dislike case law, it was originally meant to be geographically limited(so that the judges in remote regions, could judge based on the local customs).
banned a Samsung patent for violating Apple’s “design patent” wrt the SHAPE of an iPad.
It was also a German judge that banned Xbox 360, until he was overruled by a Seattle judge.
The Europeans on this site should stop pretending that Europe is somehow more enlightened. you are not. you have your screwed up laws just like everyone else does.
Aye, I agree. Some places are worse than others, though, like e.g. here in Finland consumers still have some rights, or the Netherlands where downloading copyright-infringing material isn’t illegal, only uploading it is.
Unfortunately I believe that EU will be pushed to adopting ever more IP-protection laws in the future and one day we will have no rights at all worth mentioning.
You know what would really help WRT screwed up laws? If the US wouldn’t push such throughout the world (go through diplomatics cables leak if you have any doubt about that; one example: http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-haiti-minimum-wage-the-nat… )
Protest European patent reform, that will make EPO registered patents (including many SW patents) enforceable throughout whole EU.
SCE did already this with the Playstation 3 and OtherOS bootloader functionality. Except that they where not forced to it and they had promised not to remove the said functionality from already sold devices.
Despite of that they did remove it. But at least they gave a choice to install the update or keep as it is dropping support for the device entirely and cutting you out from the content you might have paid for.
It caused big uproar and I think that this will cause similar uproar. At least I hope so that somebody gives people power to complain about it and get refunded in a way or another.
I think we should sue these companies for false advertising when they say that we are “buying” these products. We are merely renting them, as the corporations now retain ownership of the devices.
This could be the reason Google unified it’s privacy policies and controlling installed apps online. By keeping a list of your apps online along with settings and all of the knowledge Google already maintains about you the only resource Google Now needs is a single source… Google!
In regards to the post, the entire patent system is a joke. We keep hearing about the big boys fighting each other, but sometimes we forget how scared people are in the US of even trying to start an idea for fear of litigation.
Sounds like time for that other ridiculous American specialty. The class action lawsuit
haha, against Google and Samsung or against Apple and the USPTO!? (I’m sure you can’t actually have a class action against such an almighty stalwart in reality, ..but hey. it’d be nice)
edit: added capitals.
Edited 2012-07-05 12:18 UTC
Against Apple because they reduced the functionality of my Android device post-sale because of their lawsuit. Let’s get this started.
I own Galaxy Nexus, and I object to this. It’s not Tim Cook. The patent system is broken. Blame the gov’t, blame the USPTO, but don’t blame Apple for using the broken system. You know people try it to them, why wouldn’t they do this, as a responsible corporation?
The system is totally effed up, no doubt. But it’s not Apple’s fault.
You make it sound like Apple is as much a victim as everyone else..
Oh please, they are one of _the worst_ patent abusing companies on the planet.
They _know_ the patent system is so broken it’s ridiculous, and they plan on taking advantage of that in any way they possibly can, and they do. Hence why they apply for patent after patent after patent for anything they can possibly think of, and then litigate like crazy.
That’s pretty much the definition of abusing a system.
If there is a fault in a system that gives you too much power, and you take advantage of that to the fullest. That’s what abusing a system means and that’s what, for example, Apple is doing.
That’s all true, but I think the fault lies with the broken system and those who don’t change the broken thing.
If the system forced you to aggressively defend your IP as it does in the case of trademarks then I would agree.
Since it doesn’t, I’d say blame both the system and the abuser.
But not the infrginger… who has a massive legal team of their own?
Because… let me guess… that’s the side you’re on, right?
You are very wrong, you miss key facts:
1) With software patents, everyone is an infringer.
2) The infringer isn’t going around suing everyone and their moms.
3) The one who is suing the infringer is doing it to stifle competition, not because it was irreversibly harmed.
So, grandparent is right. Google isn’t to blame for this, Apple is a moron because it uses a system that is broken instead of competing fairly.
Edited 2012-07-05 00:37 UTC
That is positively insane.
If this were a company you favored, I’d wager you’d call it defense.
No, It’s not a relative point of view, let’s see. If I wanted to say Apple is defending themselves because I’m an apple fanboy, my reasons would be something like:
1) Google Copied apple to profit and to become the #1 phone OS, and the system is broken because nothing protects Apple from others copying their product (copyright is too loose).
2) Because the system is broken, Apple is in their right to use another broken system (patents) against Google.
3) Suing Google would be too complex of a battle, so instead suing phone manufacturers is better because it’s their own fault for using Android anyway.
So, here Apple would be the victim and Google would be a total moron because it copied Apple and then convinced manufacturers to make phones with Android, without telling them it’s a legal minefield.
Does this make as much sense to you as my previous post defending Google?
Android is not a copy of any Apple software.
There is not one line of code in Android that is taken from iOS.
Copyright does indeed protect Apple’s software from being copied, but Android is not a copy.
Android is at best a work-alike product to iOS. Work-alike products are everywhere … GM vehicles are work-alike products compared to Ford vehicles, they are not copies. Airbus aircraft are work-alike products to Beoing aircraft, they are not copies.
Having multiple work-alike products available from multiple vendors is the very basis of a capitalist free market economy. It is an essential element. Supply and demand. Free market competition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_%28economics%29
Are you saying that you do not believe in a capitalist free market economy?
No, I’m saying you should read the whole thread before posting..
The infringer is already blamed on the courts if the case holds merit (and sometimes even if it doesn’t).
Anyway, when it comes to software patents you are right: I sympathize with the infringer, and not because I condone the infringement per se but because I completely disagree with the concept of patents on software.
This comment has four -1 votes, all “troll.” Someone explain how it’s a troll, because the explanations give? Fucking insane.
The system is broken, but the first place to point the finger is as the people using the system as it’s designed? That’s just ridiculous, a bunch of idealists masturbating each other. If it matters that much, instead of voting a comment down, DO SOMETHING about it. Vote for people who change it. Meanwhile, I think using the patent system as it is is a responsibility, not an option, for any company. You have to be defensive and offensive about patents, you’re either predator or prey in this silly arrangement that exists today.
As it’s designed, Google (likely knowingly) violated a patent. I don’t care if that’s right or wrong – that’s the law today. And yet the readers here are climbing all over Apple.
It tells me that what matters and where people are coming from: a place of emotion.
You are wrong, it’s completely the opposite. We point the finger at the people using the system in ways it was not designed for. Apple is, Google isn’t.
Edited 2012-07-05 15:02 UTC
Adam_S,
“The system is broken, but the first place to point the finger is as the people using the system as it’s designed?”
It’s a matter of principals. Just because the law is broken doesn’t mean we should automatically dismiss corporate wrongdoing. Neither corporations nor the law are above criticism.
“Meanwhile, I think using the patent system as it is is a responsibility, not an option, for any company.”
I find this justification of profit at any expense extremely disappointing. But I think you are right that this kind of apathetic view is representative of the majority of shareholders who are indifferent to the social harms caused by their companies.
Edited 2012-07-05 15:32 UTC
See the article from a few days ago. This is not possible. We cannot change it. If you think we can, give us a realistic method of doing so.
Just because something is the law does not mean somebody has to act upon it. Will you just shrug it off if it affected the company you’re working at? What if Apple attacked your company into oblivion? Will you shrug it off as well?
Just because something is legal does not mean you have to do it. Google, HTC, and Samsung have never filed a single offensive patent lawsuit, even though they probably had ample opportunity to do so when Apple entered upon their turf (esp. HTC and Samsung). Apple is the one being a dick – and yes, you can be a dick legally, and just because it’s legal doesn’t mean we should just shrug our shoulders and move on.
Really? I have read of several news articles of samsung suing Apple over patents. Do those not count? Unless you don’t consider those to be “offensive”, which is oh so subjective.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/12/16/samsung_sues_apple_ov…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/07/samsung-apple-south-korea_…
Or is it ok because Apple sued first?
There is nothing subjective about this in any way, shape, or form. Apple punches first, Samsung punches back. Apple is the aggressor, Samsung the defendant. The only people who find this subjective are those with an agenda.
If you punch me in the face, you WILL get a punch back. That’s called defending oneself.
Thats not what I meant. Offensive is a subjective word. What one person finds offensive someone else may not.
No that is not defending oneself that is revenge. There is a difference.
Emotion… Or just using your brain? You know, instead of stopping at “it is the law”, as if the law was always right?
You get to optionally obey the law. You get to challenge it in court. And frankly, that’s just what should be happening.
No. There is no “option to obey the law”, you have the option to use the rights provided by the law.
You get to what?!?!?! Sorry, I’ll be having whatever you are smoking there.
Because as far as I remember courts are there to enforce and interpret the law, not to change it.
Ahem…
“No matter what one does, there are always a few people who want to moan and groan about moderation.”
– http://www.osnews.com/permalink?c1026
BallmerKnowsBest,
Well, to be fair, alot of users have criticised the voting system – I don’t like it much either. But in the end we have to accept that it’s not ours to change.
Hi,
My name is Christoffer and I am most likely an infringer on a large amount of ridiculous software patents in thud U.S. where my software Stoffi is available for download.
I don’t have a legal team. I don’t have a single lawyer. I create my stuff for free, on my own.
This bullshit will kill my project and everything I have done if the madness spreads. If Apple could shut me down and it benefited them, they would.
They are the bad guys, as is the USPO, the politicians, the non-practicing entities, the lobbyist, etc.
The ONLY non-bad guy here is the one who can’t change the system (directly or indirectly).
And Apple is one of those that want to keep it as is.
Once I commented that Apple is an anachronic dictatorship and that is exactly what they are. They are dirty and ruthless. From the beginning Apple stoled technology from other companies. Xerox is an example just to name one. Yes, they develop high quality products. Products that I will not use or recommend to anyone because of their dirty business practices. ]
Well. Apple isn’t really. Microsoft takes that crown, due to the fact they they are extending their US patents globally via licensing conditions. Apple is an innocent lamb globally.
They are known to be a very litigious company, much more than others.
Well, I did say _one of_ the worst, didn’t I?
I know very well Microsoft is worse in this regard, but Apple sure isn’t far behind..
They are both absolutely evil bully companies.
I’ve always thought this line of reasoning to be incredibly naive. Why is USPTO granting all these pathetic patents out of hand, because they are so incredibly incompetent or because they are told to do so?
Given that USA’s last bastion of export is ‘intellectual property’ it seems rather obvious to me that given the massive pull corporations have with the american government, the frivolous conduct with which patents are granted is a direct result of their lobbying on the matter.
To me it’s furthermore equally obvious that after granting all these patents to american based companies, the US will do everything in their power to have these patents recognized outside of US borders.
And yes, I blame Apple for being one of, if not the worst in using these rotten to the core patents to stifle competition, ‘slide gesture to unlock’?? ‘multilingual keyboard depictions’?? seriously how the hell can anyone think these ‘patents’ can be granted unless the clerks at the USPTO have been instructed to grant everything which isn’t already registered as a patent??
This is also why it’s obvious there will be no patent-reform in the US, these companies have paid huge sums of money to buy and file tons of patents in order to prevent others from competing in their markets, they will make sure no laws are passed which will stop them from doing this.
If the system is broken, a responsible company should do whatever is legal in order to best succeed. And if they don’t, shareholders should fire the board.
To suggest I’m naive tells me what sort of idealistic viewpoint you’re coming from. No further debate necessary.
Except your suggested course of action IS naive.
The system is broken because these “responsible” companies have a broken culture. THEY are the system.
You’re surely not naive. Cynical seems more adequate.
Too bad, most human History big steps were due to idealistic utopists, because only fool can believe they could change the world, right – Thus, only fools actually tries.
According to pubpat.org they are paid to grant patents, not refuse them.
It’s easier to grant a patent, than to refuse it. People are slaves of metrics and PTO examiners’ metrics are how many valid patents they grant.(This effect is known and studied by economists)
Under Bush the USPTO was given a requirement to be financially self-sustainable. In effect, it was forced to become a for-profit business instead of a government service. The USPTO really had no choice but to start granting every nuance of patent under the sun.
Some of the patent’s they have granted since then are mind numbing. I came across one for using `*` charcter for pattern matching… granted in 2009!
Bush wasn’t president in 2009.
Your bio places you in Texas, so you should already know this by now, but:
Policies set in place by recent past presidents often remain in place under new presidents. This is especially the case with policies that the majority of the public doesn’t know or doesn’t care about, such as the patent office. If Obama saw an opportunity to gain something by reforming the patent office, he might have done something about it. Given that he seems to be in the pocket of several corporations who stand to gain from an unchanged patent office attitude, I’d say he has zero incentive to make changes.
I would love to see Obama step up and push for patent reform, he could even spin it as a hand up to the small business entrepreneur who wants to move forward with a great idea without the fear of being crushed by a patent suit. But it’s an election year, and any policy change right now would be ripped apart by the other side no matter the intention or outcome.
President Obama had a filibuster-proof majority in the senate and house for 2 years. “But it’s an election year” is a remarkably weak excuse for any policies he didn’t change when he had the chance.
I’m not a Republican or a fan of Mr. Bush either, by the way. I don’t like *either* of the dominant political parties in America, since both seem to believe they can and should run my life for me. I’m debt free, while they’ve run our country deeply into debt, the idiots – they never met a piece of pork they didn’t embrace – and now they claim the right to impose punitive taxes if I don’t deal with the corporations that pay for their sponsorship.
Mr. Jefferson’s vision of limited government looks better every day.
He never had a filibuster proof majority. He had at best 57 Democrats and 2 anemic wanna be Democrats. Besides, those interests don’t always directly line up.
The democratic party in the US is a lot less aligned on policy than say, republicans.
You must have overlooked Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who switched to the Democratic party on April 28, 2009 and gave Mr. Obama his “60th vote”. The two “independents” you note were simple Democrats who lost their primary battles to strong anti-war activists, then went on to win the general election as moderate “independents” – but they still caucused with the D’s and usually voted with Mr. Obama.
As far as the Republicans being “aligned on policy”, you must have also overlooked the Tea Party wing running their own candidates against the conventional Republican candidates since 2008. In Texas, those are actually more interesting than the general election, since the D’s win an election here about as often as the Cubs win the pennant. 😉
Specter was a usually solid vote. Ben Nelson, Claire McCaskill, Jim Webb, and others not so much. It was enough to be problematic.
At our peak, on paper we only ever had 59, and this was after Sen. Franken was finally sworn in. Then there was Sen. Byrd and Sen. Kennedy who we know what happened to them. Replaced by who? Joe Manchin, the guy might as well be a Republican and Scott Brown a Republican.
On top of that, there are various factions within the Democratic party. There are the union guys, the anti-abortion guys, the progressives, etc.
Bringing all those votes together is a herculean feat.
As much as Obama probably wanted a rubber stamp, he hardly had one for two years. Health care had to be procedurally rammed through the Senate.
Ha, I think the divide between Republicans and Tea Partiers is smaller than the divide between most Democrats. Either that, or Republicans can capitulate better because they seem to have no problem besides a little discomfort in ramming their policies through.
Edited 2012-07-05 20:19 UTC
That is where you are factually wrong.
I believe the OP meant patent 5525982, which was granted on Dec 15, 2009.
And while Mr. Bush was technically president for 5.6125941% of 2009 (sorry, just an approximation – I realize that’s I’m “factually wrong” again ;-), no historian will credit a decision on that date to Mr. Bush’s administration.
I take it you, like so many of his fans, believe Mr. Obama’s failings should all be attributed to the dastardly Mr. Bush?
Nope, I’m a child of the internet, where there is always someone to correct you.
From my personal standpoint, US hasn’t changed at all for the last 30 years. Neither Obama nor Bush changed anything in any significant way – on the front I care – in international politics.
(I’m not an American)
Gotta agree with you there – Mr. Obama, despite his many campaign promises, basically continued Mr. Bush’s foreign policies, which were inherited from his own long line of predecessors.
This is ridiculous, a private company having right to set legally enforceable acts.
What’s next, commercial courts?
They should start fining companies that file bogus patents, that would be a very good revenue stream for them…
Why wouldn’t a “responsible” company do this??
I see you too are part of the brainwashed capitalist masses who believe that “responsible” corporations _must_ *only* do the absolutely most optimal financial thing possible without consideration for ethics, fairness, spirit of the law.
WTF kind of idiotic notion is that???
That is WRONG. Many corporations do behave ethically. Please abandon this lie you have adopted from your teachers, friends and family.
It is one of the most destructive cop-outs of an excuse for bad corporate behavior around.
IT IS APPLE’S FAULT. It is also the fault of US patent laws because the laws are stupid and the USPTO is ill equipped to deal with things. But it is still Apple who did this.
Jeez.
My first reaction would be to disagree.
But, in fact, I agree, except for one point (see below).
Apple is actually doing *exactly* what’s needed to 1) shows everyone the current patent system is broken and 2) pushing it over it limits in order to fire the post-broken-patent-system era.
While we could debate if Apple is doing it voluntary or not (my bet on the latter, though), the point that matter is what will be post-broken-patent-system era, not when or who did fire it.
Considering current trends, I’m inclined to bet on people going to take a finger-up-patent-trolls road, by sharing more and more openly how to crack the walled-garden devices they legitimately think they *own*, not rent.
And this move will push internet freedom to a new limit, that in turn will put every pro-knowledge-censorship under larger spotlight.
Wonderful.
Back to the disagreement point: a responsible corporation, in particular one who trademark image was/is built on producing only top quality, will never resort to (ab)use a broken legal system to stay #1. Instead, per his corporate DNA, it will try to unbreak the legal system.
As we, the people, are trying to do – with our far more limited individual resources, but as we’re legions, there is still no doubt on the ending.
Now US citizen’s can’t even escape the influence of Apple by not buying their wares.
I wish more people understood these issues but a shiny aluminium finish is probably patented too…
Thom, if I remember correctly, you own an iPad (or maybe it was an iPhone, I can’t remember). Perhaps it is time for you and others to simply not buy anything from Apple, or Microsoft. For that matter, try to avoid buying anything made in the USA. This crap isn’t going to change as long as consumers so eagerly give their money to the American corporate overlords who are ruining the whole world’s legal system.
I agree. I don’t buy or support any products where people use the patent system to stifle innovation… that basically means Microsoft, Oracle, Apple etc…
Totally agreed and it’s one reason I don’t support Apple and have never brought any of their products.
It always amazes me that people use products that they moan about so much, words mean nothing if you don’t act on them and plenty of shallow people for Apple and Microsoft to hoover up.
I sold my iPad 2 a earlier this year, and pre-ordered a Nexus 7 a few days ago. I do still have an iPhone 3GS, but I loaned it to my best friend months ago, and she still uses it – without a SIM, so basically it’s an iPod Touch to her. I don’t want or need it back, she can keep it.
For the record, I’ve used Linux on my desktops and laptops since 2000, and on my mobile devices since I left PalmOS in 2006. I’ve never paid Apple a penny.
My reasoning is exactly yours – both Apple and Microsoft want to own me rather than profit by serving me well, and I’m simply not interested.
I still use Windows and iOS part-time on company-owned machines, but I’m much more productive on Linux. My company noticed, too – my team starts production roll-out of hundreds of Linux machines next Monday.
Vive la liberté!
Already done. I vote with my dollars based on my morals and preferences, and no one is going to convince me to do otherwise. Everyone should do the same.*
*I realize not everyone holds the same convictions, and I still encourage this, even if the convictions are polar opposites of my convictions.
“The device you bought will see its functionality reduced, post-sale.”
It wouldn’t surprise me if Apple had a patent for this as well.
Then Google would have to pay either for using it or for not using it…
Stop buying this crap and take your freedom back!
Malcolm X
As a reader of this site, I would guess you’ve got the brains needed to install and fall in love with a linux distro and stop being a useless consumer of this bullshit.
Do bling and aluminum finish turn you guys on, or what?
FFS, freedom, functionality and security is what matters.
Is this functionality specific to the Galaxy Nexus?… I thought Nexus branded devices were pure AOSP. Wouldn’t any other Ice Cream Sandwich phones have this also if they’re based on it?
Well, here is the good thing about Android phones not being updated
This is basically one of the biggest halmark features of Android. Many devices have a dedicated hw key for that!
Short story from a while ago. Buy an apple mbp. Get the completely all-singing-dancing edition. 5800$. It has the T7800 Extreme Ed CPU at 2.66Ghz, it has the 8600GTS GPU. It has 4gb ram. it has 7200rpm disk. It has the glossy screen. This model was later dubbed the “Chernobyl” edition. So much heat. Does apple go “Oh! we made a defective product and we should replace it?” No. They push out a firmware patch that limits:
a) GPU Max speed. Framerate in games now halves till the system still gets too hot, then slows further when it gets hotter.
b) hdd is perpetually going to sleep after 3 mins.
c) CPU now never goes over 2ghz. Ever. Even when loaded with an program I wrote that smashes both cores doing intensive transaction processing.
So.. why did I spend all that money for a fast laptop that is now beaten by the bottom entry of the same series? Because I paid for the privilege.
Get used to companies nerfing your product via updates for any reason they want. Legal or otherwise.
Seriously… WTF? All I can say is, f–k you Apple, and more importantly, F–K YOU GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF F–KING AMERICA. Happy “Independence Day” is right. The founding fathers of this country would blow their own brains out if they were alive today to see what has become of their country–the country they fought so hard for to win their freedom, and ensure freedom to all citizens under their government. The more time goes by, the more I wish I was a citizen of some other country instead.
Apple, or should I say Assholes, I think it’s now a guarantee that I won’t buy any of your garbage in the future. I’ll be sure to recommend everyone else that I know to stay far away as well. Never would’ve bought an iPhone anyway, but right here’s further incentive to stay far, far away. I would like to see Apple go the way of Steve Jobs… to hell.
Edited 2012-07-05 03:49 UTC
You know, I really don’t like being the guy who tells people to sit down and shut up. Actually I’m usually the one who objects to such statements.
But.
As I type this, people in my country are dying due to lack of food, lack of shelter, and lack of medical care. I have friends who can’t afford to get sick. I see homeless people every damn time I go into Boston.
Yes, people who bought the Galaxy Nexus are getting ripped off. Trust me, that is the least of their or anyone else’s problems.
See, owning a smart phone – or leasing it, or whatever – that is a privilege here. So is owning a computer. So is having the time to learn how to use a computer, and all the associated geek shit. Education is a privilege, health is a privilege, sanity is a privilege. Honesty and lawfulness are privileges. Life is a privilege. Everything in this goddamn stupid capitalista country is a goddamn fucking privilege.
We only have “freedom” here by comparison to the third world. We send men and women out to fight for our vaunted freedom, and if they come back, guess what? They’re free to live on the streets, and free to fuck off and die when winter comes around.
So, not to be too condescending, but next time you post shit about freedom and how life in the US sucks, please retain a sense of proportion; and remember that your smart phone getting functionality removed << people dying.
Kthxbye.
I hate to be the guy who makes fun of sententious lecturers, but:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOtszkF6_tQ
Edited 2012-07-05 07:03 UTC
Haha… that was pretty funny.
“Life is a privilege.”
Given laws against suicide and even abortion, life is a legally-enforced requirement (even for fetuses) more than a privilege. People will be locked behind bars for simple drug offenses, fucking their mental status and life up, but forced to live–in jail/prison–unless the government decides for whatever reason that the death penalty should be given (unless you also killed, raped, etc., you’re probably just stuck in the slammer). And I firmly believe that the government’s incriminating actions on a person is usually far worse than the drug itself.
People who are old, terminally ill, their entire bodies failing–they’re usually forced to be kept alive in a hospital by machines until the very last minute in a vegetative state drugged up to hell and back in an attempt to disguise the pain and just not there at all, and forced into continued “life” beyond what any sane person would want. I sure as hell don’t want to know what it’s like to have your death extended for hours or even days, in a fucked up highly drugged dream-like state, probably even able to hear (though too screwed up to actually understand) what the other people in the room with you are saying… I’d rather just croak outside of a hospital. [Hey, when I’m that bad off, pull the fucking plug already… fuck life at that point, seriously.]
The only thing I “get” from your post (which I fully agree with, if it was your actual point–though I seriously doubt you meant it in the way I’m comprehending it) is that the government doesn’t give two shits about you, me, or any other citizen–it only cares about its own power. Just look at the people the U.S. Government poisoned on purpose–its own–just to get people to stop drinking alcohol during the prohibition. See what that got them: failure and repeal of the prohibition of alcohol. Alcohol is now legal for the most part, and people are able to legally (and safely) drink it if they want if they’re of age. And good thing, because I’d surely have to get out of this country if I couldn’t drink craft beer. So the government starts all over again, just with different drugs, setting themselves up for more failure, continuing to sustain the black market through criminalization and destroying lives.
What is the point in this post? Well, hell if I know why you brought death, war and shit like that up, but whatever. I don’t even know why I typed this post up, and I’m not going to bother replying to this topic again. My point still stands: Apple and the judge who upheld this ridiculous patent can go shove an iPhone up their ass.
I really do hate it when people say “yeah, your injustice is annoying, but kids are starving in Africa“. Yes, your example is worse, but that doesn’t make the former point right either.
There’s always going to be examples of people worse off and I really do feel for them, but we should use them as an excuse to be complacent about our own lives (or worse yet, allow our lives to completely fuck up too).
So really, your comment isn’t any better than the muppets who fulfil Godwin’s law two posts into a serious discussion.
What got to me was the ireful talk of lack of freedom. I agree that this situation is injust; I just think that there are much more egregious examples of people here not really being free.
Yes, but that’s completely irrelevant to this article.
I really do hate it when people compare negatives like this and state that one is worse than the other when all negative behaviour is bad, and thus -regardless of severity- shouldn’t happen.
Just because there’s worse crimes happening, it doesn’t mean that the petty ones are acceptable. And just because there are people with greater freedoms lost, it doesn’t mean that it’s acceptable for other freedoms to be eroded.
But then that’s the opposite of the mentality that governments want us to have. That’d prefer to blind us with extreme examples to justify using marginally less extreme legislation (ie ACTA won’t erode your privacy, it will save your life from terrorists. Please somebody think of the children!).
It appears that your primary complaint about the entire issue is Apple and their army of lawyers, but you lumped in the US Government by way of USPTO. I guess you got whipped up into a frenzy by Thom with the same complaints about the USPTO itself, and left rational thought behind.
I like other comments made here about boycotting companies who entirely or partially moonlight as patent trolls, in this case Apple. Should the rest of the machinery (US Govt, Samsung, Google, etc…) be faulted here?
Note that I don’t disagree that someone at the USPTO gave a patent to a common idea, and that shouldn’t be possible.
This does prompt me to write my congressmen though regarding the patent process. I urge you to do the same.
Instead of whining about it on the internet, let your voice be heard by your representatives. Remember, they work for you.
So the United States Patent and Trademark Office is not a part of the United States Government? News to me! Just who does control it then? Aliens? The ghost of Osama Bin Laden? [cue spooky music]
Correct me if I am wrong, but *someone* at the USPTO gave the green light to a ridiculous patent, and some judge in some US courtroom decided to side with Apple and uphold this patent. The fact that Apple and their lawyers are being assholes as usual only connects the two branches of government, and here we have the result: crippling of a braindead obvious feature due to obscene patents that Apple “owns” exclusive rights to.
Edited 2012-07-06 02:11 UTC
Lobbying, of course?
Overall – govs are, ultimately, largely a reflection of their population. Yes, almost everybody whines about them, but almost everybody would also gladly accept a slice of the cake, dreams about “making it” …and so thee whole charade can continue, as long as most people delude themselves that they will be among the few able to take advantage of the situation.
Unless you were… a slave?
Overall, don’t kid yourself, it was always largely a story for good children, myths even – we have a decent idea about early history of the US, already fraught with corruption and profiteering (like pretty much everywhere else of course).
Founding fathers were primarily large owners, getting rid of one ~tax burden for them.
Not so… http://www.kyon.pl/img/20525,Steve_Jobs,reincarnation,strip,heaven,…
If I read it correctly, the patent applies when you search on the device and network from the same field. Should not be very hard for Google to modify the search to go through the content they already have on their servers (email, calendar, chrome bookmarks and tabs etc), i.e. do all the search server-side. So if you already have all/most of your searchable data synced via Google (I do), you won’t lose much. Sure, there are pros and cons compared to searching on the device, but seems like most of the functionality can be brought back.
Not that I don’t find the patent in question absolutely ridiculous.
I am a Galaxy Nexus owner… my bootloader is unlocked, and my rom is custom. My phone will never see this patch, so f**k ’em
It also makes me wonder if it’ll take Verizon 6-8 months to roll out this patch to all of its customers, as it does most other updates.
Simply because someone already has technology in their hands does not justify keeping it out there if it is found to violate someone’s patent. Apple has had a long history of companies outright stealing from them. It needs to stop. Thieving thugs like google and HTC only understand one thing, legal force. They need to innovate. Instead of looking at Apple’s features and ask “How can we copy this?” , they need to ask “How can we out-innovate Apple,and blow their features out of the water?” If they can’t out-innovate Apple, they need to shut the company down and give Google’s money back to the shareholders.
Please list all of the things invented by Apple that have been “stolen” or “copied” by others.
For convenience, please number each item.
Thanks!
Yes, Please list every innovative thing that Apple has brought to the world and do number them for us.
Apple never had an original idea, they just take what others created and file a patent if the original inventor forgot to.
Iphone is 5 years old Android is older, so who stole from who?
If Apple truly innovated as much as you claim, they wouldn’t have to compete in the courtroom, they could actually compete in an open market.
This is entirely about damage control– Apple sees their numbers dropping, while Android is climbing, and their response is to sue everyone about everything, without any concern for the consumer.
Using Godwin’s law as an analogy, Apple situation right now is similar to Hitler defending his bunker at the end of WW2 when everywhere else was lost. The US is the only place where Apple and Microsoft are trying to stop the inevitable.
Android completely dominates the rest of the world, it competes and wins fairly in Europe, Austraila and Japan. In markets such as Asia or Latin America (which are huge) there isn’t even any trace of the competition.
Working in China I see the decline of Apple, a year ago it was Apple banners and signs everywhere along the electronics streets, now it is Samsung and HTC with a fair number of Sony you see.
The people on the Metro were almost all carrying iPhones, now it is one of the newer Samsung models and a few Nokia.
Believe it or not, in South Africa Blackberry has over 60% of the smartphone market. Android is not winning everywhere.
Yes. 1mil activations per day are as true as the cake.
Web usage stats don’t paint the whole picture, but…
http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-sa-monthly-200812-201207
(plus, not many BBs in South African countries in http://www.opera.com/smw/archive/ reports)
This patent insanity has gone mainstream
http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2012-06-29/
Download and flash an image from a country outside the US, since the image will be official, you can use Odin and not have to worry about warranty.
Inconvenient for sure, but a small price to pay to shove it up Apple’s a$$
Software engineers are very, very highly paid employees. As are other IT professions. Do these clowns really think it’s in our country’s best interest to force our domestic companies to spend huge amounts of money on RnD so that some Korean company can just copy cat our designs and equally profit?
I don’t doubt the need for sensibility in patent law enforcement, but Android is extremely similar to iOS in many respects and mobile Samsung products are total rip offs.
I love Android, but Microsoft and Apple are huge economic motivators that need protection from companies that would try to mooch off of their technology…
BTW I’m typing this from my Galaxy Tab 8.9.
Just a few things:
1. Never mind that your ******** American companies trying to do this everywhere, not just in the US but in Europe and Asia as well?
2. Are you aware of the fact that Google is also a US company? And that they have spent “huge amounts of money on RnD” to create and improve Android?
3. Are you aware that Samsung has spent *four times as much* on R&D than Apple last year? (http://www.phonearena.com/news/Samsung-R-D-spending-reached-record-…)
Your arguments are honestly terrible. Number one is an incoherent mess and I’ll skip that. Number two states that Google also spends tons on RnD.
Both iOS and Android are similar products that stem from designs first introduced by earlier products (mainly from Palm.) Today, Apple and Google both innovate and take from each other.
— Nowhere in my argument did I favor iOS over Android, moron. I said foreign companies (HTC, Samsung, etc.)
Number 3: You have no clue what the hell you read really says. Samsung is a huge CONGLOMERATE of INDEPENDENT businesses under the same brand name. They make everything from refrigerators to semiconductors, laptops, even clothing. An idiotic argument. (Samsung Electronics is the company in question.)
BusinessWeek ranked companies based on how they’ve actually innovated. Apple was 1st. Samsung Electronics didn’t make the top 10. (They didn’t even make Forbes list of 100 companies.)
http://www.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/innovative_companie…
http://www.forbes.com/special-features/innovative-companies.html
Use your brain next time your reply, idiot.
No it is not. If you want that similar decisions follow in the future as a protectionalist measure, you have to keep in mind that Europe and Asia may also follow suit, and judging by the population (313M vs 739M and 1,339M from China alone), you might not like the result of that. Not that I expect something like this would actually happen anytime soon.
Why wouldn’t it be relevant? First, the Galaxy Nexus is produced by Samsung AND Google. Especially in this case, the “fault” (which it is not, of course) lies with Google. Second, all the stuff that makes up an Apple device (be it a laptop, cell phone or iPod) is produced in Asia, mostly by foreign companies from foreign R&D. So if you want to be consistent, you should frown upon Apple products, too. Or if you are only worried about the label, well, it’s *Google* Nexus, not Samsung Nexus.
I guess you are right in that. However, do you think that most of that R&D stuff goes into refrigerators and clothing? I do not doubt for a second that most of it goes into electronics — for example, into AMOLED (which is not Samsung Electronics, but definitely something we have on our phones). Also, you might want to muse for a few minutes on why Samsung became the initial supplier for retina displays instead of LG or Sharp, if not for their investments in the area?
Except the first list is about 2010; but aside from that, there is not a single column in either table labelled “money spent on innovation”. They try to get that information out of stock market statistics and expectations, in other words, out of their ass.
Nice language, BTW.
Edited 2012-07-05 11:53 UTC
Apologies, it was late. I shouldn’t have flamed out on you.
Regardless, it’s true that Samsung and Google are both partially responsible. I find that on the software side, at least Google makes enough unique strides in their technology that it’s almost neck and neck with Apple. (Apple may not agree, at least publicly.)
I don’t dislike Samsung or HTC. They are great companies, but I don’t feel that it’s fair to anyone who takes huge gambles on new innovation to be simply replicated and not fairly compensated.
Take the creator of Siri. Not Apple, but Dag Kittlaus of Norway. He literally worked every day on the project (with his team) for four years, before Steve Jobs called him himself and asked what his thoughts were about Apple buying his company and moving him to Cupertino.
The huge amount of investments put into those early projects only happen because the reward is worth it in the end… If you were right.
When these other companies take zero risk, and want to reap the rewards, it almost a bad joke to me.
Enter Samsung’s S Voice.
http://9to5mac.com/2011/11/10/meet-dag-kittlaus-the-guy-who-made-si…
Yet the concept behind Siri isn’t particularly new, or revolutionary. It also inherits from the boatloads of previous research that has been done in this area.
What IS good about Siri is the execution of the concept. If it took so long to work on Siri then in all likelihood it is the better implementation. It should therefore compete and win against S-voice on the merits of the product.
Edited 2012-07-05 21:28 UTC
It does. I’ve tried S Voice on my Galaxy Nexus and it’s pretty terrible. But it’s implemented EXACTLY like Siri is.
It’s so unfinished, it’s as if Samsung beat the eggs and poured the goop on my plate. Completely skipped the skillet.
It LOOKS like Siri, the implementation is probably different…
Edited 2012-07-05 22:51 UTC
Yeah, right. We all knows that software engineers are rich, sure. Reality check, anytime?
1) Design is not a software
2) *your* definition of copy cat will make every car a copy of the Ford T. The law quite disagree on that consequence.
No. The ideas are similar (as most are), the implementation is totally different.
And the idea can’t be *own*, except if you keep it secret. As soon as you express it, make it public, show your implementation, others will get it too.
That the beauty of Knowledge – yes, with a big K like in Key concept – and sorry, but Knowledge has made *far* more for humankind than competition and trade.
Oh, BTW, iOS is also become more and more similar to Android on many aspects since a couple of years. Still copy cat, or just another implementation of same idea, like multitasking, system-wide clipboard, central notification?
Patent system was not invented to transform knowledge into a property, but to allow people to have some time to benefit for an idea *first* implementation.
These days it becomes a way to *own* and idea and therefore to forbid any other implementation, sometimes to forbid its implementation even.
And, no, it’s not being responsible to (ab)use a system you know is broken but that benefit you more that way. It’s called abusing, not using, period.
Last but not least, in a world where corporations are considering like a citizen, often with more rights than an individual, being responsible corporation means to *also* fight for a better world, not just for better profit for itself alone. Otherwise it’s just a corporation, but any attempt to called itself responsible is not enough. It’s like green-washing. You needs to do what you say, not only say what you think consumer wants you to do.
Anyway, people has power. You wants Apple to change behavior? Stop buying there stuffs and make sure they know why you stop it.
Money system is not yet broken. Let’s use it fully.
Bah humbug. They’re both just reimplementations of PalmOS.
Noway, Apple don’t steal or improve other’s ideas.
They *invent* them, from pure void.
That’s what the ‘i’ in iDevice stands for, no?
Or it’s just some big ego. Dunno.
The patent system is old, but so is the U.S. Constitution. It gets reinterpreted all the time.
I do understand where you’re coming from, but it simply isn’t the capitalistic way of doing things. Over time, companies who devote the time, money, effort, and put the consumer first make the most money. (Save for a few sectors… Oil, for instance.) It isn’t perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than socialism or communism. By point:
1.) Software Engineers (in the United States) are highly sought-after and make six figures with a few years of experience. Not many jobs with a BS have that privilege.
2.) You’re wrong about the Model T. Henry Ford’s patents have expired. There were over 150. Those designs lawfully belong to the world. Thanks for making my argument for me.
3.) Apple’s behavior doesn’t need changing. They are among the best companies in the world, by anyone’s measure. They won’t stand for other companies sleeping on the job, then making the best copy cat to profit from. Wan’t a great product? Put in the effort.
Did Apple made a great effort when they copied Xerox’s ideas?
Xerox should have sued them into oblivion.
Xerox allowed Apple to use their technology. Xerox engineers were working at Apple to make this work.
Go read the actual history of what happened there. Apple BOUGHT those ideas from Xerox. Paid for them with Apple shares. Xerox though it was a good idea because Apple was about to go public.
That’s exactly my point, Apple paid for it. Even when it had no money, it found a way to compensate Xerox for it.
And Xerox “stole” the idea for the mouse anyways, people. It was created by Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute years before Xerox PARC.
Anyways, thanks for making my point.
“We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas” – search who said that.
And I don’t think Apple paid for, say, the new iOS notification system, lifted from Android…
[q]The patent system is old, but so is the U.S. Constitution. It gets reinterpreted all the time.
Patents go back to the 14th century… slightly older than the US constitution
Yet they’ve only seen rampant abuse in the last 150 years :<
The point is not if it’s better than something worth (!), but that the patent system alone it’s less better that it used to be.
The fact that it could be way more broken is not an argument for not fixing it now. In fact, it’s event an argument for fixing it as soon as possible.
It’s clearly not the case worldwide.
*Before* they expired, every car according to your argument would have been a copy cat of a Ford T, which will have made Ford the sole legitimate car maker until his patents expiration. That would have leaded to several decades during which car innovation would have been quite frozen due to lack of incentive for Ford, thanks for competitors blocked by patents.
By best, you mean richest, right?
Because you will find that several people don’t share your *measure* about Apple.
I clearly don’t.
But my measure is not always money, maybe this explain that.
So Apple devices’s copy cats can’t be great product, right?
Why fear them, then!? At worst, they make people who can’t afford the great but expensive ones to have a fake Apple device, which could make others who can afford the original cost to buy it.
That’s the fallacy about lost-sales. People buying an apparently less great product do it for a reason: either they agree about which one is greater but can’t afford it (no sale lost here, as it’ entirely due to your product price, nothing else) or they disagree about which one is the greatest and find what you call a copy cat product, well, actually greater.
Which will invalidate your assertion that a) only effort can bring a great product or b) copy an already great product is not that effortless (often called improving, but hey, what’s in a name).
If Apple fear about Android devices, it’s not because they think they’re bad products made without much effort copying Apple ones. It’s because they think these devices are great too if not greater than theirs own, which hurt its market (= expensive great products).
They could reduce the price to substain sales. Which they did for the iPad families. They also could improve their own device to stay ahead of competition. Which they don’t.
Want steady sales of a once great product? Put in the effort to make the greatest product.
Works both way.
Edited 2012-07-05 15:32 UTC
phoudoin,
“It’s clearly not the case worldwide.”
Six figure SE salaries aren’t easy to come by in the US either. I think software engineering salaries are more highly skewed than other professions. Some are doing extremely well, but others not so much. According to glassdoor.com, the US median is $62k. The New York City median is listed at $87k. That’s still pretty good, but I think we’re entering an economy where established employees are maintaining their high wages at the expense of new entrants who struggle to land a good job. We’ve been hit by some severe layoffs, hiring freezes and consolidations, all the while universities are pumping out a hundred thousand new grads each year – there just aren’t enough jobs to keep up.
Sorry about the OT rant, I’ve just been frustrated with my job search is all. If anyone has connections to a 6 figure SE job, I’d love to be given the chance to prove my worth.
That’s like saying keep changing your product until there are no pros and cons, just pros. Realistically, there’s no such thing as perfect. You get better and make decisions based on whether it brings more to the table than it takes away.
Wrong, Chevy licensed some of those patents, and incorporated their own designs and technology and OVERTOOK Ford after 10 years! Why is this point not coming across to anyone!!
http://hughwilliamson.hubpages.com/hub/Ford-vs-Chevrolet-A-Century-…
Wrong. People buy Apple products for a reason. They work and look amazing. Profits are a product of that. Apple is the most valuable brand in the world, ranked by Forbes. Innovates the most, ranked by BusinessWeek. And last but not least:
“The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) released its latest report on Tuesday, revealing customer satisfaction ratings for cellphone manufacturers and wireless carriers. The survey says cellphone users are most satisfied with Apple’s line of iPhones.”
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/05/its-official-cell-phone-user…
No, that’s like saying keep changing your product to *improve* it, period. Like a point on horizon, perfection can’t be the goal as it’s not reachable, BUT it still remains a very good aim. And the current patent system is not improving.
Saying it could be worse is not an argument to not changing it. It’s just the usual conservative argument, often used when the current situation benefits the one making it or people he tends to line with.
Maybe due to prior Selden patent case lesson, without which Ford T sales will have been made illegal…
How ironic that even at this time, patent holders tried to threat competitors to block their business if they don’t license their so-called generic patent, until a judge get his common sense back later and rule that this patent isn’t that generic…
The same will happened eventually regarding the swipe gesture, the rectangular touch display surface, and even the search multiple search sources at once. And even Apple lawyers knows that. They just choose to make as much profit as possible until that time comes, well knowing that money made now worth more that money they may have to pay in compensation in the future.
People buying Apple’s competitors products for a reason *too*. Go figure!
And I’m not sure everybody will agree that they work and look amazing. Somes could find that they work fine but a bit outdated (smaller screen area anyone?) now and look more hyped than anything.
We’re back to money here, right? Right.
That’s nice. Too bad, 1) World is a bit larger than just USA, 2) I’m living in that larger part myself and 3) so my opinion is not represented in that ranking.
But, hey, don’t worry, we are so used to this little omission…
You don’t even have direction in what you’re saying anymore; you only repeat back what I say to you. And “it could be worse” doesn’t mean anyone has stopped trying. So save the half-wit philosophical rhetoric.
Right. See this thing about capitalism… People buy things they like, and don’t buy things they don’t. And it works well because the people that make those things, get to do so without other people stealing their idea.
Repeat that in your head until you get it.
I’m done talking to you if you refuse to understand that basic principal, or otherwise state that your actual problem is with capitalism itself. Then we can have a meaningful debate.
Oh yeah, I’m the one here who goes offtopic from broken patent system to “it’s a hell lot better than socialism, I know where you come from (huh? Since when do we know each other that much?!) bla bla bla”. Talk about losing direction…
Square one: patent system, broken or not.
Where did you say or agreed that the current patent system is broken and needs asap a strong change!?
Because I failed to see it in your comments, until this last one. I’m glad it comes out, at last.
Thanks, but it still wont make money the unique unit against which people measure how they value something.
And to paraphase yourself, until you acknoledge it or state that money is the only value unit that matter, there no point to continue, indeed.
Maybe I’m not the only one who needs to repeat something to get it.
Oh, sorry, I didn’t saw the sign saying “it’s my way or the highway”.
I disagree with your argument that money/profit is the unique value unit people use to measure a product worth, a trademark, etc. It seems that it was too much for you to argument why you think I’m wrong.
Next time you want to debate about something, check that everybody agree with you *first*.
I very glad to agree with you that we disagree on quite everything.
Edited 2012-07-06 13:57 UTC
Really? You don’t think people pay more for a better product or service, or less for something worse?
It’s not that I don’t mind conversing with you. It’s just I want to know what you believe rather than where you disagree with me.
For instance, you feel the United States patent system doesn’t work, but you don’t say exactly what the problems are, or how to fix it.
I don’t always agree with the patent decisions handed down, but I understand the effect the system has on the economy. It evens the playing field by making sure small companies don’t get their ideas stolen by larger companies they could never compete with.
And it makes sure that large companies truly invest in innovation rather than using whatever innovations another company invested in without just compensation.
Our laws (FRAND) also makes sure that companies don’t block out other companies by not allowing them to license their technology under fair and reasonable terms.
I feel the system works well, but we’re watching a battle for extremely thin profit margins, with companies in do or die situations.
Apple and Samsung are doing great, but Motorola, HTC, Nokia, etc. are all fighting for a small pie. Likewise these companies have all taken turns being the big dogs once.
The effect: What sector of the economy is growing anywhere near the pace of mobile technology?
lilsim89,
“For instance, you feel the United States patent system doesn’t work, but you don’t say exactly what the problems are, or how to fix it.”
I understand the theory behind patents, and why they could be good, however the primary benefits of patents as an incentive are only had when society is stuck in a rut of non-innovation. That does not describe this period with software. The monopolising forces of patents have held us back rather than pushed us forward. Software developers like myself have to write infringing code every week because it’s unavoidable. When there are a million developers world-wide solving many of the same problems, we will statistically come up with many “infringing” ideas. That’s not “theft”, there are only so many “good” solutions to a problem. We’re incredibly lucky that patents are so poorly enforced because otherwise the whole software industry would come to a grinding halt.
Secondly, patents are not supposed to exist to be profitable. Capitalism sorts that out itself. Patents exist as an incentive to make proprietary information public, this was their core selling point – the widespread dissemination of practical knowledge. There are two factors today that make patents much less meaningful in serving it’s intended purpose: 1) they’re unintelligible, and deliberately so. 2) the internet has brought an information revolution – one can find detailed & useful information on everything without the need to look up patents. Both of these facts mean that if the collective knowledge documented in patents dropped off the face of the earth, I doubt a single software developer would bat an eye, that’s how useless they are for us.
People talk about “fixing” software patents, like making them last a shorter period and imposing licensing schemes, which is good in so far as it renders them less effective. But to me it sounds like an implicit acknowledgement of the negative cost/benefit ratio for the software field. A natural question to ask is why we should have them at all. Maybe patents are more useful in the field of drug research, for example, but they’re a bad idea for software.
Edited 2012-07-07 14:35 UTC
Patents on software haven’t held the industry back, which is extremely obvious given the enormous amount of new technology from both large and small tech. companies coming out every day.
Also, I can hardly think of any patents on software that most developers have to deal with, of which I’m also a Java developer. Because enforcing a patent on nearly any scale except for larger companies is greatly unpractical.
If software patents didn’t exist, we would be undeniably looking at a large stagnation of innovation.
For instance, some extremely useful software apparatuses are codecs. We both know how patent encombered they are, but they’re so vital to growth in computing today that the investments required to make them better absolutely dictates the need for patents.
Should we expect the great number of mathematicians and developers who create these products work for free, since they would essentially make zero dollars in your software patent-free world?
“Patents on software haven’t held the industry back, which is extremely obvious given the enormous amount of new technology from both large and small tech. companies coming out every day.”
And why should you assume that companies wouldn’t produce new technology as a matter of competing with one another in a free market to attract the attention of customers? Even today the vast majority of small software companies don’t bother with patents, because they’re a source of overhead we cannot afford. Yet they continue to exist. Larger companies are pretty much forced to get involved to acquire ammunition in court.
To play the patent game seriously an employer needs very expensive lawyers, he needs to divert engineering resources to execute dragnets over thousands upon thousands of patent filing claims to compare whether an idea that his engineers already came up with has already been filed by someone else. Then they have to permutate ideas and try come up with one that’s marginally different from issued patents (ignoring all pending patents). This process will probably take more time and money than coming up with the idea itself. And after all that we have to get into the business of threatening and suing other companies over patent royalties, effectively adopting the business model of a leach… of course we could outsource some of this dirty work, but it’s no wonder the majority of software developers view this is a horrible waste of human effort. We’re rightfully peeved that software patents prevent us from implementing our own ideas on a computer just because someone else had the same idea, even if they didn’t have a working implementation and we do!
“…enforcing a patent on nearly any scale except for larger companies is greatly unpractical.”
Justifying a system on the basis that it’s unenforceable…it’s not so great for companies to have to exist in a perpetual state of infringement limbo. But you’ve raised up another failure for the patent system; it doesn’t scale. Consider that each new patent in a domain needs to be compared to all the pre-existing patents in the same domain (not to mention research papers, articles, books, and other public works). This is n-factorial growth, combined with the fact that developers and patent applications themselves are growing exponentially, we’re faced with the mathematical reality that it takes exponentially more resources to maintain a set quality in our patent system.
And what about the benefits? The more developers there are in the same field (don’t forget globalization), the more likely many parties are to come up with the same ideas, the less good is done by granting a patent monopoly in return for publishing it’s “secrets”. And lets be honest, overwhelmingly these software “secrets” are hardly worth the paper they’re written on.
The patent system is clearly a case of diminishing returns over time, the only question is *when* will it stop being beneficial? For software developers, we’re well past that point. Nobody can deny that software patents have dragged the entire industry down a litigious path which serves nether the developers interested in competing in the open market, nor the consumers.
Edited 2012-07-09 00:59 UTC
Consumer satisfaction with products? You have no idea how human satisfaction works…
http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2008/pr-wine-011608.html
(and generally, positional goods)
Quote
1.) Software Engineers (in the United States) are highly sought-after and make six figures with a few years of experience. Not many jobs with a BS have that privilege.
Yeah right up to the time their job is shipped overseas. The beancounters see these well paid techies and boom, your job is gone.
Google purchased the initial developer of the software, Android Inc., in 2005.[7] The unveiling of the Android distribution in 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 86 hardware, software, and telecommunication companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices.
iPhone and IOS having now just reached their five year anniversary clearly follows Android, doesn’t take a math genius to calculate that simple equation.
Cannot in this case Google and Samsung just sue UPSTO and/or the clerk who accepted the patent because obviously it should have been rejected, being too obvious? Or a class action, not against Google or Samsung, but against them? After all, they damaged Google & Samsung’s sales, caused inconvenience to customers who already have the device, all by breaking the law? rules? of patent acceptance. Something definitely has to be done.
Apple is reduced to patent trolling. It files frivolous/obvious patents under a very permissible patent regime. It can hardly be called a manufacturer, at least, not in the same sense as Samsung. It outsources all of its manufacturing to third party manufacturers. Though some of its employees are engaged in software and design work, majority of them are engaged in marketing and retailing. Therefore, it is predominantly a marketing and retailing company whose overpriced products sell only because of the mythical snob value attached to them (created by decades of relentless hyperbolic chants by its in-numerous irrational fans).
When a company starts to sue others to retain market share it is a sure sign that the company has gone past its peak. Apple is a big company with a large fan base, so it would take longer than others to go downhill, but its current behaviour is an indicator of its future.
1. Obtaining Patents cost a lot of money. They cost even more paying the lawyers to write the application than they cost to actually apply (and perhaps more than creating the invention itself.)
2. It is ridiculous to provide a twenty year protection in an industry where rate of obsolescence is few months (especially at a time when the industry is gradually moving to cloud based service model and where innovations can come up overnight.) Patents are a hindrance to this natural growth of the industry and may result in unreasonably prolonging the life of a product.
3. Software is different from other engineering and mechanical inventions. The latter are generally the kind that can revolutionize a given mechanical process. Software is generally evolutionary in nature. Its utility does not depend as much on the newness of a specific technique as it does on the unique combination of known algorithms and methods. Such methods of innovation should not be protected.
4. The claim that software is a process (therefore patentable) may not be accurate because software is fundamentally a series of machine understandable code which is processed by the processing power that comes with the hardware of the computer. The hardware is patentable, therefore what is the need for patenting software (which is but a series of binary code and is well covered by Copyright laws.)
Your arguments are interesting, and I completely agree with number two.
I must disagree, though, if you believe software shouldn’t be patent protectable. CPUs are general purpose and do not provide usable functionality for the product user. That’s like saying our hands truly provide functionality for humans. Therefore anything we create with are hands (or its associated process) needs no patent\copyright protection.
Secondly, software provides much greater revolutionary changes than hardware. Take for instance the invention of e-mail, word processing, video gaming, audio\picture\video editing, databases, financial accounting software, mobile computing, GRID computing, etc. These things are all completely different products created to run on the same simple computer. No?
On the other hand, there are relatively few hardware advancements that aren’t a combination of existing hardware utilizing new and unique software.
Combine US Patent laws and the FRAND nonsense and you have a situation where a frivolous UI patent like a human gesture of a swipe across the screen associated with an outcome (which may not be novel enough to be granted a patent in the first place) will be rendered more powerful to the extent of imposing a ban on innovative products of companies whose more technologically complex patents like methods for communication will be rendered impotent (in the name of being essential standard) so that large, well entrenched corporate interests like Microsoft and Apple can have a freehold of the market when all others get banned out of it.
Look, I’m no fan of the patent system, but it’s not going away. Google ignored the fact that implementing software without regard to other companies’ IP — without indemnifying carriers — basically hangs the carriers out to dry. That’s wrong. Google should own its responsibility for implementing the software the way that it did, and license the offending patents. Lets not kid ourselves. Apple is using the system in precisely the same way that Google would use it — if Google owned the IP. Complaining about how Apple is behaving won’t help. Google could solve this problem now, if it really wanted to. But it would cost a lot of money. Google clearly doesn’t want that expense, but that’s the price of operating in this litigious market.
You are a horrible, cynical, (a)pathetic, brainwashed person.
Apple’s IP is trivial and is not original. The only reason why they have it is the lazyness and incompetency of the patent office.
The only reason they can use it is the ridiculous cost of several-years-long litigation processes, with the risk of having clueless judges getting spinned in the holder’s PoV. Re-read the Oracle-Google case on Groklaw, and see how Oracle’s ridiculous arguments got ripped in half by a judge which, this one time, was a coder himself.
This is bad, this is stupid, and you should feel ashamed of yourself for trying to defend it.
As for Google’s politic, they have not sued offensively anybody using patents. They have only countersued. Your “everybody is bad anyway” point is moot: only Apple and Microsoft are abusing the loopholes of patent law, and anywhere else than the US they fall on their face. And they are really immoral in doing so, for they both have ripped off Xerox for most of their major, non-trivial advances.
Also, pretending Google could solve the problem by themselves is delusional. You are kidding yourself when you say “Lets not kid ourselves”.
Edited 2012-07-05 13:19 UTC
And you, sir, are an obnoxious douche. Feel better?
Says you. I’m guessing you’ve never registered a patent with the USPTO. I have. Numerous patents, in fact. Asserting that a patent is trivial doesn’t make it so. There are administrative processes and legal avenues to fight patents. Google isn’t using either means.
It’s a battle well with fighting.
Google won that case. Thank you for demolishing your own argument.
And the alternative to licensing or fighting is … what? Complaining about it anonymously? Being a douche and criticizing others? Pretending that politicians care?
Nope, I call BULLSHIT. Google is suing others for infringement through its proxy Motorola. Nice try.
See above. Google can fight, license, or ignore. They’ve chosen to ignore the issues and let their carriers deal with it. Which is pathetic and will ultimately weaken the Android ecosystem — and rightly so, Android is not as free as the carriers once thought, after IP litigation is factored in. Google is basically telling them to start diversifying to Windows Phone.
Suing based off of FRAND Standard Essential patents is akin to “defending” yourself against a bully who just punched you in the face….by nuking the city he lives in.
It is a dangerous precedent setting extreme, and it doesn’t even make fucking sense because its landed Google in some hot water in the EU. They just can’t keep doing what they’re doing.
It also speaks volumes to the monumental waste of money the Motorola aquisition was. Seriously, all of Moto’s patents are either licensed or Standard Essential which means they must be licensed fairly.
Yeah, poor litle google, needs to defent him self from a bully, I almost feel sorry for those billionares privacy invasors.
Edited 2012-07-05 19:52 UTC
FYI: Just being standard essential is not a reason for them to be forcefully licensed under FRAND conditions. Pledging them as FRAND is the only reason.
And they have been. Hence the antitrust investigation.
I agree that this sucks. But remember, many companies have been playing this game for a long time. Companies like MS license a ton of technology and have probably paid in the tens of billions doing this. Google does not and their partners have been paying the price. I understand it is against Google’s belief.
So now how do you fix it and make it whole for everyone??
Easy. You own a patent? Congratulations. You have two years to bring it to market or it expires and becomes common property. You, personally, must bring it to market, not some third party that you license it to. Only after you have brought out product in a meaningful sense are you allowed to license it to others.
No more shell companies that are nothing more than an empty suit and a patent portfolio. No more companies sitting on patents preventing worthwhile inventions from being brought into reality. No more patenting things just to stop others from doing so. End of problem.
And who do you think is going to pay the politicians enough to change the patent system versus the Old Guard companies who dominate the IP industry? You? Answer: Nobody. Unless people put their money where their mouths are, nothing will change.
You have to assume this crap will continue to happen so why keep going back to the source of the problem expecting it to fix it self. The opensource community has better developers anyways that are not just hung up on profit but in most cases are out to make something as good as it can be. The solution if you don’t feel like rooting your own firmware and putting the things back in which Google takes out is to flash it with cyanogenmod’s firmware located at: http://www.cyanogenmod.com/. If they don’t already have rooted firmware for Galaxy Nexus they soon will especially after the latest court case results. They do nightly builds and can almost guarantee that any complaint on the current firmware load of Galaxy Nexus that’s been brought up the Cyanogenmod team will fix, including things such as short battery life which I have heard from several people to be a problem.
How novel is it, really, to use a single search box for finding things from multiple sources? That’s considered a patentable innovation? Really?!? It seems like common sense to me. No wonder the U.S. economy is in the toilet. My problem with software patents is that they’re not unlike patenting mathematical equations or other physical constants. Let’s face it, a smart phone is really just a computer; it contains a CPU, memory and an instruction set. To posit that running commands on a computer can be novel or unique is simply absurd. It’s like saying that 1+1+2+2 is a unique way of calculating 3+3 or that CERN is entitled to patent the Higgs-Boson when they find it. The patent system in the United States is, and has been for a very long time, hopelessly broken. Large corporations have for years amassed huge patent portfolios for “inventions” that they then use to manipulate or suppress competitors. Instead of recognizing that everyone benefits from competition (as it makes companies truly innovate to stay ahead of the pack,) litigation and mediocrity have won the day. To my mind, a true innovation stands on its own and makes consumers want those innovations. It shouldn’t require litigation to stop consumers from buying one product in favor of another – the innovation should be the compelling factor. That Apple has resorted to patent trolling to stymie Samsung and other smart phone manufactures only proves that its own offerings aren’t innovating or unique enough to compel users to purchase them to the exclusion of competitor products. Patent trolling and forced downgrades are simply two more reasons I’ll add to my list of many, many reasons, never to purchase Apple products. Obviously I’m not missing anything.
Edited 2012-07-05 14:46 UTC
Not sure why Thom drags Microsoft into this, as if Microsoft demanding license fees for patents equates to Apple’s demand that competing products be banned altogether. Thom, can you point to ANY device that has been “downgraded” due to Microsoft’s patent policy? IF not, then your article hurts its own credibility by being too reckless in its accusations.
Well, is a mafioso who tries to extort you some “protection money” (protection from him, of course) better than a mafioso who sends a few gorillas with baseball bats?
They should push out a notification with this update, stating exactly why this is being done. In fact, every time they are forced to do something like this, they should push out a notification. It can be stated in such a way as to be 100% fact, and thus they wouldn’t be able to be sued for defamation or slander. Something like:
Due to a ruling handed down in (insert court case number here), the court has found that Apple has valid patents on (insert feature here), and we must remove this to comply. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Obviously, I don’t advocate limiting this to Apple alone. Any time they are forced to remove a feature over stupid software patent bullshit, they should use such a notification informing the user what the feature is, and who is responsible.
Face it, the only way we’ll ever see a change is to make non-techies aware of exactly what’s going on. Most people will get this downgrade and not have any idea why. They’ll be pissed off and, in all likelyhood, go after the wrong parties. They need to know that it is Apple causing the trouble, else Google and/or Samsung might be facing a class action in the future undeservedly.
Let me get this right, when Google exploits a bug in Safary to take advantage is Apple’s fault to not patch it, but when Apple exploits a bug in the patent system to take advantage is also Apple’s fault?
Uh, who are you addressing this to? Because I wrote this about that case:
Next time, try not to be so passive-aggressive, and just flat-out address the people you’re trying to address.
Next time, try not to be so passive-aggressive, and just flat-out address the people you’re trying to address.
Next time don’t assume is directed to you, it wasn’t.
Edited 2012-07-05 18:56 UTC
Hence my request to not to be passive-aggressive and just come out and say who you’re addressing.
It is obvious, to all the people that apologized google when it exploited the safary bug and now are saying it is apple’s fault for exploting another bug.
Edited 2012-07-05 19:07 UTC
Hiev,
Actually Thom is right on this one, it’s a strange the write a comment the way you did without intending to address someone. And given that top level comments are frequently used to address the author by default, it does seem as though you may have been responding to him.
Don’t be so tough on his reasonable request for a clarification!
“It is obvious, to all the people that apologized google when it exploited the safary bug and now are saying it is apple’s fault for exploting another bug.”
Who exactly?
Edited 2012-07-05 19:18 UTC
Dude, I just clarified, I admit I wasn’t clear anought.
And you know what, Samsung nor Google won’t downgrade shit, they will just update the applications w/o the patent violations apple claim.
But I see a lot of chicken littles here.
Edited 2012-07-05 19:23 UTC
Looks like it is to much to ask you to read the comments.
Edited 2012-07-05 19:20 UTC
Hiev,
“Looks like it is to much to ask you to read the comments.”
What are you going on about?? Seriously if you can’t or won’t indicate who you were addressing then why should I or anybody else have to do detective work to find out who it might be? I’m guessing that your original statement was just a blanket generalisation without anyone in mind. And you know that’s fine, really…but you should just say so instead of getting defensive.
There’s no need to tussle over such trivial things.
ok, let me try it one more time:
To all the people that Commented in this topic that apologized google when it exploited the safary bug and now are saying it is apple’s fault for exploting another bug.
Now, get off my balls.
Hiev,
“To all the people that Commented in this topic that apologized google when it exploited the safary bug and now are saying it is apple’s fault for exploting another bug.”
As far as I can tell *your* post is the very first to bring up the safari bug, and *nobody* apologised for google’s exploitation of it. So I *still* have no idea who your referring to, but water under the bridge man…not a big deal, I’ll stop interrogating you.
*nobody* apologised for google’s exploitation
I beg to differ, you need to re-read that topic and all the comments again.
This is what they do, they’ll play semantics for like 10 comments and dodge the spirit of your initial comment
Nelson,
“This is what they do, they’ll play semantics for like 10 comments and dodge the spirit of your initial comment”
Please don’t accuse me of dodging anything when you know it’s not true. You are ultimately right that this thread got derailed many posts ago, but not because Thom was intentionally derailing it, a concise answer would have gone a long way. But it seems like all of us agree it was a crappy thing for google to do, so why don’t we just end on that note so that hopefully everyone can be happy.
Couldn’t agree more about the nonsensical use of software patents, be it in the USA or elswhere. But was it really necessary to despise the people working at Walmart with a despicable comment on the so-called 9-to-5 working drone?
Dubbing him an average Joe would have been enough and right to the point : the system is sick, not the people working (yes, working) at Patent Office.
It’s not negative to point out that the people there lack the in-depth knowledge, hence the references to Walmart and 9-2-5. The system is making a lot of these people “9-to-5 working drones”. And the sickness of the system is infecting the people working there, to the point that there are no “healthy” individuals left.
I guess you’re right. I may have missed the intended meaning and I like your explanation better : I don’t what ‘in depth knowledge’ could be when it comes to software patents (European Parliament tried to put some meaning in it by stating that such software should lead to a physical action ; they were thinking of the ABS brakes). So if there is no such thing as ‘in depth knowledge’ we might as well consider anybody would end up granting a patent to an obvious idea… or never grant anything at all (which effectively means this job would be useless).
Dear Thom Holwerda, you are preaching to the choir by explaining to OSnews members the harm of software patents.
If you want to argue with someone, go to tmrepository.com/stream and find a guy called “DrLoser”.
kthnxbye
Edited 2012-07-05 21:11 UTC
Where were all of the critics when Apple was being sued? Were all of the Apple bashers complaining when Typhoon Touch Technologies sued Apple alleging patent infringement in portable touch screen technology? Where were you when Nokia Corporation sued Apple for infringement of Nokia’s patents relating to wireless technology? Didn’t hear much out of you when Kodak alleged Apple’s phones infringed on patented Kodak digital imaging technology. You all seemed rather quiet when Samsung sued Apple for infringing on a 3G patent.
Apple’s end-user satisfaction is not due to some over-arching “big thing.” It’s due to the polished hardware and software, much of which is protected by patents. Yeah, any given thing may be small, but the overall market advantage Apple holds is due to combining these elements in a way that pleases customers.
Don’t know about the others but the patents Nokia sued over were non-trivial hardware patents, not slide-to-unlock style software patents.
I’d have no problem if Apple developed this kind of tech and others infringed upon it, but the stuff Apple is suing over is utter BS in most cases.
“Slide to unlock” is not trivial. It’s a look-and-feel user interface feature that that is as unique to Apple (or was until Samsung infringed Apple’s patent) as the thumbs-up “You like this.” button is to Facebook.
You want to see Apple emasculated — for other manufacturers to be free to implement all of the “trivial” patented software features that, taken together, result in a superior user experience, until Apple no longer holds a competitive advantage.
Android’s infringing “Quick Search Box” feature was touted by Google as a “core user feature on Android.” How can something be both “trivial” and a “core user feature”? If it’s so “trivial,” why is its removal considered a “downgrade” of the entire device?
The highly valued unified search feature of Siri contributes greatly to consumer demand for Apple’s iPhone 4S. So now you want Samsung, a foreign competitor, to be able to incorporate that patented, sales-driving feature, into it’s competing product. Why? What’s your legal rationale as to why Samsung should be able to take sales away from Apple by infringing on Apple’s own patents?
No free lunch for copycats.
When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007 Jobs clearly stated that they had patented the hell out of it (go back and see).
What Apple basically said is, if you “copy” our ideas, we’ll see you in court.
Now, Samsung has copied ideas from Apple, then it’s Samsung that is at fault. They gave their customers something they had no right to give them. Now they are taken away, most people here point at Apple as the bad guys, but no, Samsung is at fault.
Samsung should do the right thing in the first place and come up with their own ideas, or pay for the right to use them.
You’ll notice Apple never look for money, just removal of infringing material.
If it is shown in the future that Samsung hasn’t infringed, then Apple should pay for ALL damages.
Simple.
BTW: This is clearly not a “if you can’t compete” scenario (I mention this as Thom loves to bring this up from time to time).
On a side note, I disagree with the patent system we (actually I’m an Aussie, but I’m sure our system is similar and we are certainly affected by the US law at any rate) currently have, but right now, it’s law 🙁
Secondly, I’ve pre-ordered a Nexus 7, so I’m not totally blinded to non Apple things.
Apple IPhone is nothing new, LG Prada proved Apple actually copied other ideas and had the audacity to patent the obvious showing they cannot compete on merit. I have seen plenty devices that have features found on iPhone before its appereance outside the US from Japan and Korea.
Apple is very good at refinement but zero in ideas.
Thom Holwerda wrote:
> elemental functionality is being removed from
> devices people already own.
Palm was forced to hobble their Graffiti handwriting recognition software in response to patent litigation. A patent that was later ruled invalid, as a matter of fact.
Slide to unlock is not even violated – the lock screne now has a circle that you need to drag to a certain point. No predefined path, as stated in Apple’s patent, is needed to unlock.
Unified search? I guess that has been done done many times over last few decades (or even before the computing era) It’s just a matter of time when this one will be invalidated.
For example: Microsoft’s driver search which looks locally, as well as online for apppropriate driver, introduced (at least) in Windows XP.
Not only these lawsuits are done when “infringing” product is already EOL, the judges are also starting to realize that there is too much of obviousness in the asserted patents (and most software patents in fact). Unfortunately too many of them aren’t competent to lead these cases (e.g. the one in the Apple-Samsung trial).
Yes, but what if Google wins, wins and wins over others?
I think, it is simply the question of the balance, and American system wins over Google here, not Apple.
Google should not be a pure monopoly and sometimes should fail, even if just in decency.
p.s.: BTW, I really hate this search widget, because I cannot simply get rid of it in ICS. ICS forces me to have it on every home screen. That’s why I use third-party launcher on my Galaxy Nexus, without Google Search widget, and this fix will not touch me in any way.
Patents on software haven’t held the industry back, which is extremely obvious given the enormous amount of new technology from both large and small tech. companies coming out every day.
Also, I can hardly think of any patents on software that most developers have to deal with, which I am. Enforcing a patent on nearly any scale except for larger companies is greatly unpractical.
If software patents didn’t exist, we would be undeniably looking at a large stagnation of innovation.
For instance, some extremely useful software apparatuses are codecs. We both know how patent encombered they are, but they’re so vital to growth in computing today that the investments required to make them better absolutely dictates the need for patents.
Should we expect the great number of mathematicians and developers who create these products work for free, since they would essentially make zero dollars in your software patent-free world?
And yet there are many not encumbered by patents royalty-free codecs, comparable or better than “closed” ones. Also released by largish entities (like SILK, forming part of basis for Opus codec), which somehow don’t starve, make more than “zero dollars”.
It’s just that the codecs on which patent-holders chose to standardise are patent encumbered (duh, who would’ve thought they’ll choose their own codecs, to exploit the system which they distort).
Sure, most software devs don’t have to deal with patents – but that’s not the point of concern. The issue is that patents are a quite effective stick when cartels decide to subdue some small player, from time to time.
Anyway, your opening premise doesn’t follow any logic – you cannot know if the present state of the industry is most optimal (judging from history, or overall knowledge about human societies – it almost certainly isn’t)
Oh, an bolding stuff makes it more believable only to yourself.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.duckduckgo.mobile….
Not for searching the phone…
but the web with much less tracking…
ps. oh, and the patent system sucks.. ds.