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Thread ID: 136722	2014-04-06 13:53:00	More Patent Farce	Geek4414 (12000)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1372088	2014-04-06 13:53:00	A little surprised on his view on the latest patent war episode ... 'Teaching away' is why Apple's rubber-banding patent has far more merit than slide-to-unlock www.fosspatents.com A bit of an insight on how the USA Patent court system works ... --------------------------------------------------------- The way the process works in the U.S. is, however, separate from the question of whether a patent is valid and infringed under U.S. law. Once a case goes to an appeals court, there won't be any jury. To the extent that trial judges overrule juries, they also have to focus strictly on the actual merits. Don't be confused by what you see at, or hear about, a trial. Large parts of what juries and reporters get to see at a trial like Apple v. Samsung are absolutely irrelevant to the questions of validity and infringement. The primary purpose is to tell a certain story to the jury. The legal justification for this is not that certain types of evidence, testimony and lawyer argument have any bearing on validity and infringement. Instead, the justification -- or basically, the excuse -- is that a jury also has to determine willfulness and damages .... Apple's counsel also asked Greg Christie, named as an inventor on slide-to-unlock, whether he was still married to the same woman. He answered yes. The transparent purpose was to portray him as a reliable, faithful, trusthworthy kind of person and to make female jurors like him. The marital status of an inventor is no less related to the issues of validity and infringement of a patent than documents that merely prove legitimate benchmarking. All of this is meant to influence the jury, hoping that it will base its verdict on likes and dislikes instead of the actually relevant parts. --------------------------------------------------------- ... The idea of interpreting a sliding gesture on a touchscreen as an "unlock" command by the user was very obvious. The Neonode N1m offered this before the iPhone: 4.bp.blogspot.com In Europe, ten (of ten) judges deemed Apple's patent invalid because it was obvious over the Neonode. The eligibility of a Swedish phone as prior art in the U.S. under applicable rules (it apparently wouldn't be a problem with respect to the most recently-filed patents) is in dispute. But regardless of the purely legal question of eligibility, this shows that it was, unlike rubber-banding, not a stroke of genius to implement on a touchscreen something similar to a physical slider. Apple's '721 patent covers certain ways of unlocking a device by moving an unlock image across the screen. It's a slide-to-unlock image, not general slide-to-unlock, patent. That, of course, limits its scope and its commercial value. But it didn't help Apple defend the validity of this patent wherever it came to judgment because it's just too simple an idea to move an image on a touchscreen. There's another piece of prior art worth showing here, and it was also discussed in Europe but the Neonode made the invalidity findings here so easy that Plaisant didn't have to be reached. This is a 1991 video and paper on "Touchscreen Toggle design" by (then Microsoft-employed) researchers Catherine Plaisant and Daniel Wallace. The video is available on YouTube, and starting at around 3:00 (thanks to Twitter user Greg Forrest, @gg4rest) you can see touchscreen-based on/off switches: www.youtube.com -------------------------------------------------	Geek4414 (12000)
1372089	2014-04-06 21:59:00	Even if Apple does win this in court, they still have to extract payment from Samsung... who are still arguing over the last court directed infringement that they owe Apple. Ideally, Apple will eventually get all of their chip manufacturing moved away from Samsung. This will hurt Samsung more than any court case ever could.	Webdevguy (17166)
1372090	2014-04-06 23:45:00	I suspect that Samsung won't win this in a court a couple of miles from Apple HQ and made up of jurors from the Santa Clara area who will be sympathetic to Apple. Some of their families may even work for Apple..	paulw (1826)
1372091	2014-04-07 01:19:00	. . . The idea of interpreting a sliding gesture on a touchscreen as an "unlock" command by the user was very obvious . The Neonode N1m offered this before the iPhone: . bp . blogspot . com/-sIqCZBtqQKg/TlVMkAuYafI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/KEc-jywnBkc/s400/Neonode%2BN1m%2Bslide%2Bto%2Bunlock . png" target="_blank">4 . bp . blogspot . com In Europe, ten (of ten) judges deemed Apple's patent invalid because it was obvious over the Neonode . So why arnt these older companies now suing Apple, there wont be just this example . ?? Teach them a hard lesson . Could be a good payday for whoever buys the rights to Neonode , thats what I would do if I ran Samsung .	1101 (13337)
1372092	2014-04-07 07:47:00	So why arnt these older companies now suing Apple, there wont be just this example. ?? Teach them a hard lesson. Could be a good payday for whoever buys the rights to Neonode , thats what I would do if I ran Samsung. Probably don't have the financial clout anymore	gary67 (56)
1372093	2014-04-07 09:35:00	I suspect that Samsung won't win this in a court a couple of miles from Apple HQ and made up of jurors from the Santa Clara area who will be sympathetic to Apple. Some of their families may even work for Apple.. This is true although I'm not liking the views of the judge who is a Korean.	Webdevguy (17166)
1372094	2014-04-07 21:34:00	This is true although I'm not liking the views of the judge who is a Korean. She's as Korean and Obama is Indonesian. She was born in the USA..	paulw (1826)
1372095	2014-04-08 02:19:00	iGlasses tend to distort the view a bit - mostly due to the solitary lens - - - ;)	R2x1 (4628)
1372096	2014-04-08 02:29:00	She's as Korean and Obama is Indonesian. She was born in the USA.. Very true. I also refer to my original comment. If Apple wants to beat Samsung they have a better chance of doing it by moving all their manufacturing to another supplier than by spending hundreds of millions of dollars in court for very little benefit. Copy right and patent laws are great in theory, but in reality, they are prohibitively expensive (www.computerworld.co.nz aries) to protect and at the rate that the judicial system actually works, they are pretty much irrelevant by the time the court has decided who is guilty of ripping who off.	Webdevguy (17166)
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