Florida Man Sues Apple For $10+ Billion, Says He Invented iPhone Before Apple (macrumors.com) 159
An anonymous reader writes from a report via MacRumors: A Florida resident that goes by the name of Thomas S. Ross has filed a lawsuit against Apple this week, claiming that the iPhone, iPad, and iPod infringe upon his 1992 invention of a hand-drawn "Electronic Reading Device" (ERD). The court filing claims the plaintiff was "first to file a device so designed and aggregated," nearly 15 years before the first iPhone. MacRumors reports: "Between May 23, 1992 and September 10, 1992, Ross designed three hand-drawn technical drawings of the device, primarily consisting of flat rectangular panels with rounded corners that "embodied a fusion of design and function in a way that never existed prior to 1992." Ross applied for a utility patent to protect his invention in November 1992, but the application was declared abandoned in April 1995 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office after he failed to pay the required application fees. He also filed to copyright his technical drawings with the U.S. Copyright Office in 2014. While the plaintiff claims that he continues to experience "great and irreparable injury that cannot fully be compensated or measured in money," he has demanded a jury trial and is seeking restitution no less than $10 billion and a royalty of up to 1.5% on Apple's worldwide sales of infringing devices." MacRumors commenter Sunday Ironfoot suggests this story may be "The mother of all 'Florida Man' stories." Apple has been awarded a patent today that prohibits smartphone users from taking photos and videos at concerts, movies theaters and other events where people tend to ignore such restrictions.
Florida Man files a lawsuit (Score:2, Funny)
Wakes up in a courtroom with no idea how he got there, claims "it was all just a huge misunderstanding" and he'll be needing his drugs back.
Texas Man Florida Man (Score:2)
I've noticed that Texas Man has been making a strong move to overtake Florida Man, as this story of courage and determination demonstrates:
http://www.unilad.co.uk/video/... [unilad.co.uk]
The man in question, Tommie Woodward was known in Texas for his taste in clothes.
http://cdn.unilad.co.uk/wp-con... [unilad.co.uk]
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And anyone that have watched Star Trek (TOS) just leans back and watches the spectacle with amusement.
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Well to be fair TNG did a much better job with the PADs with the design than TOS Electronic Clipboard.
However if Apple couldn't kill all the Android phones with its patents, what do you expect from this guy. .
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I've noticed that Texas Man has been making a strong move to overtake Florida Man, as this story of courage and determination demonstrates:
http://www.unilad.co.uk/video/... [unilad.co.uk]
The man in question, Tommie Woodward was known in Texas for his taste in clothes.
http://cdn.unilad.co.uk/wp-con... [unilad.co.uk]
Optimistic, and self confident...you gotta give him that.
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I've noticed that Texas Man has been making a strong move to overtake Florida Man, as this story of courage and determination demonstrates:
http://www.unilad.co.uk/video/... [unilad.co.uk]
The man in question, Tommie Woodward was known in Texas for his taste in clothes.
http://cdn.unilad.co.uk/wp-con... [unilad.co.uk]
Optimistic, and self confident...you gotta give him that.
The perfect VP for Trump.
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Lol, the first story contains the line, "...before jumping in and meeting a grizzly end."
I think they meant "grisly", unless it was one of those bear-alligators.
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Maybe they meant to write "gristly end", and they were writing from the alligator's point of view.
Good luck! (Score:3)
Good luck there buddy. I'm sure you'll do awesome against the Apple lawyers.
Re:Good luck! (Score:4, Funny)
My plan is to let him win, then sue him for 9.999 billions after that since I invented fhe iPhone in 1991. He has less lawyers than Apple so he will be easier to sue.
Re:Good luck! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good luck! (Score:4, Funny)
I have a feeling if he won 10 billion he'd be able to afford a lawyer or two.
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Not after he spent it all on scratchers and Boone's.
Re:Good luck! (Score:5, Informative)
Even though I detest Apple, they have prior art by about 8 years.
The Apple Newton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
1968, Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey (Score:3)
Even though I detest Apple, they have prior art by about 8 years.
The Apple Newton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
And lets not forget the tablets used in 2001: A Space Odyssey, a Stanley Kubrick film from 1968.
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Did that movie save Samsung in court?
Nope.
All he needs is the same idiot judge who thought that Apple had a case against Samsung and he's home free.
Can we have good things like that? (Score:3)
See the second photo? Here you can see, except the first item :
- a stylus, because the computer is for the user's content first and foremost
- a desktop class keyboard with a small clever layout, and wired, because we can handle it and not waste battery in both devices! and other bluetooth wastes like latency, pairing and leaking IDs. USB-C solves the cable, since it's small and all ends are the same.
- black and white display (for certain definitions of black and of white). When I write, or I draw, or I type
EAT UP MARTHA (Score:2)
Bah!
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Dude, the Newton, it had square corners so it doesn't count and that would be according to Apple's own patents ;).
Let's ignore the whole tired "rounded corners" argument - he applied for a utility patent. How the drawings in an utility patent look like matters jack shit about what violates it - that's what design patents are for. IOW we don't even have to look at the drawings whether they "look exactly like" or not at all.like something.
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Citation in case anyone tries to ask for it:
http://www.businessinsider.com... [businessinsider.com]
Oh, and they even had rounded corners too.
Re:Good luck! (Score:4, Funny)
You should patent this idea.
Re:Good luck! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, he's just following the American way. Come up with some half-baked idea, and when someone comes along with an actual successful creation which is even remotely similar, sue their asses off.
We see it in product design, programming, music... remember, only schmucks get rich by accomplishing something. Everybody else does it by inheriting or stealing it. Preferably both.
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"Picasso had a saying -- 'good artists copy; great artists steal' -- and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." [youtube.com]
- Steve Jobs, 1996
"Do you have a fucking point?" - Apolph Hitler, 1984
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Good luck there buddy. I'm sure you'll do awesome against the Apple lawyers.
And because:
he continues to experience "great and irreparable injury that cannot fully be compensated or measured in money,"
the jury won't insult him by offering him money to soothe his feelings.
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Blackjack and hookers?
Re: Good luck! (Score:1)
Apple's lawyers are almost certainly going to introduce the plaintiff to the doctrine of laches.
If you know about an infringement, allowing the infringement to go unanswered is a great way to get your claim dismissed.
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he continues to experience "great and irreparable injury that cannot fully be compensated or measured in money,"
the jury won't insult him by offering him money to soothe his feelings.
His injury is nothing compared with mine. I didn't invent anything like an iphone so just think how I feel. I don't even have a chance of suing Apple. I'm gutted.
'Typewriter' keyboard... (Score:4, Funny)
Good luck there buddy. I'm sure you'll do awesome against the Apple lawyers.
Heh, yeah, I'm sure Apple's legal department ordered dozens of new coffee machines to power the all-nighters this air-tight case is going to bring.
5 years too late (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:5 years too late (Score:5, Insightful)
That this is going to court at all is still a sign of multiple fuckups with patents. I also had the idea of something like a smartphone back then but I'd picked it up from fiction like masses of others that thought about it - it's a trivial passing thought unless you do something serious about it to make the idea reality. Patents are supposed to be about implementations of ideas and not just a vague description of something that would be nice to have.
Re:5 years too late (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a certain karmic justice in Apple having to formally address an idiot who thinks a slab with rounded corners is worthy of intellectual property, given that apple has asserted the same.
While his application might have been abandoned, that doesn't negate it as prior art.
Re:5 years too late (Score:5, Funny)
While his application might have been abandoned, that doesn't negate it as prior art.
When I was in grade school, I made a crayon drawing of a square with a smiley face in. You're on notice Apple: Facetime is mine.
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While his application might have been abandoned, that doesn't negate it as prior art.
Perhaps, but isn't his claim weakened by the fact that he waited so long to file suit?
IANAL. Could someone who is tell us what the legal principle is in this case? Specifically, if you wait too long to claim harm, then your claim of harm is invalidated?
And besides, what does prior art do for him? Wouldn't prior art just invalidate (some of) Apple's patents, and allow any other manufacturer to make a device that would otherwise infringe on those patents?
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The prior art doesn't do anything for him, but it SHOULD kill Apple's ability to further abuse the patent that should never have been.
It doesn't say much for USPTO that they ignored prior art in their own files when they granted Apple one of the world's stupidest patents.
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While his application might have been abandoned, that doesn't negate it as prior art.
Perhaps, but isn't his claim weakened by the fact that he waited so long to file suit?
IANAL. Could someone who is tell us what the legal principle is in this case? Specifically, if you wait too long to claim harm, then your claim of harm is invalidated?
And besides, what does prior art do for him? Wouldn't prior art just invalidate (some of) Apple's patents, and allow any other manufacturer to make a device that would otherwise infringe on those patents?
Statute of Limitations [wikipedia.org] and Laches [wikipedia.org] are the two legal doctrines in play here. (Laches is a "Doctrine" that rests in the Roman "Equity" (fairness) form of Jurisprudence, "Statute of Limitations" is generally written into Statutes (Laws).
Both will get your case thrown out, regardless of the merits.
Re:5 years too late (Score:4, Informative)
Except, Apple's rounded corners patent was a DESIGN patent. As in it was looks. You had to have a device with rounded corners, AND a grid of icons AND a row of icons that's static. See the "AND"s? Android by default had none of those. The default Android look had rounded corners, a row of icons that was static, but NOT a grid of icons (ever wonder about the clock widget? Natch).
Design patents also only last 5 years. You can actually manufacture a phone that looks exactly like the iPhone 4 or 4S right now and Apple cannot do anything - the design patent has expired.
In fact, Apple's rounded corner patent has also long expired.
This guy's patent is actually a UTILITY patent. If it's actually valid, it would cover ALL smartphones on the market - there isn't an exception that would exclude any phone on the market.
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I didn't say I believe the patent to be valid, I said there's karmic justice to apple having to deal with it.
Apple did assert the outrageous idea that the rounded slab was somehow brand new.
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Apple has to deal with patent trolls all the time. Sometimes they even deal with patent trolls on behalf of their developers.
We all know the system is busted; Apple is an old hand at fending off these garbage suits. What's ACTUALLY novel about this one is you know exactly who's suing them--it's not some faceless registered patent holding umbrella corp. with empty offices somewhere in Texas.
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The 'rounded-corners' bit was part of a long list of cosmetic, as opposed to utilitarian, details that Samsung copied very closely.
Fuck off, the corners can either be rounded or square and no, they're not going the be square. They practically all had rounded corners and a button in the middle on the bottom. Apparently a rectangle is the same as a circle, or at least very close.
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Fuck off, the corners can either be rounded or square and no, they're not going the be square.
I'm going to take the same design and patent Elliptical corners and Trapezoidal corners.......
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Pro Tip: Go to finance.yahoo.com... Type in Apple's stock symbol AAPL in the Enter Symbol box.
Click the Key Statistics menu option
Find the line that says "Enterprise Value:"
B is for billion
To decide how much the lawsuit should be for, take that number and add a few zeros before the decimal.
Re: 5 years too late (Score:4, Informative)
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You and the moron with the mod-point should actually take some time to read up on it. The 'rounded-corners' bit was part of a long list of cosmetic, as opposed to utilitarian, details that Samsung copied very closely.
"Copied very closely"? LOL!
People have been rounding off corners for thousands of years. If you think that Samsung had to sit down and carefully study Apples ingenious new design for corners then you're one of the smallest thinkers on the planet.
Yes. Copied very closely [cnn.com] indeed!
So, look at those two pictures and tell me seriously that the only thing similar between the first gen. iPhone and that Samsung POS is Rounded Corners. I dare you.
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They look similar for the same reason screwdrivers look similar. The grid of icons is a rip from a typical Windows 95 desktop and/or any touchscreen ever.. The edges are rounded because everyone eases edges, going back centuries. The mic is at one end and the speaker at the others because it has to match with human anatomy.
My old mid 90s feature phone also laid out the apps on a grid. It also resembles the old win phones.
"Florida man's" design also looks similar for the same reason.
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Apple copied everything from the iPaq, right down to the name.
http://img.tomshardware.com/cn... [tomshardware.com]
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Apple copied everything from the iPaq, right down to the name.
http://img.tomshardware.com/cn... [tomshardware.com]
You HONESTLY think THAT looks like a iPhone?!? Seriously?
Look at the Samsung phone and then look at the iPaq. Which one do YOU think looks like an iPhone, and which one looks like a Palm Pilot?
FFS, if you think THAT's the case, then my WALLET looks like an iPhone (and it doesn't).
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People have been rounding off corners for thousands of years. If you think that Samsung had to sit down and carefully study Apples ingenious new design for corners then you're one of the smallest thinkers on the planet.
Another idiot who doesn't know how design patents work. Samsung didn't copy rounded corners, Samsung copied the whole list of design items in Apple's design patent for the iPhone 3. They made phones that were indistinguishable from an iPhone 3. They also made tablets that Samsung's own lawyers couldn't distinguish from an iPad. At the same time, Samsung _also_ has design patents for Samsung phones with rounded corners. Which look amazingly different from iPhones.
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Apple busted samsung for making something that bore some similarity to their phone. If you cant see the irony in them getting sued by this whackado then you're the moe-ron.
Samsung's phone was a direct-as-possible copy of the iPhone, and there are [cnn.com] internal Samsung memos [bgr.com] to prove it.
Anyone participating in the "Serves Apple Right" or "Rounded Corners FTW"-type memes are either Shills, or complete and total idiots (or both).
Which are you?
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So, out of curiosity, how much does it pay to work in Apple's marketing department as a shill?
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So, out of curiosity, how much does it pay to work in Apple's marketing department as a shill?
Wish they did; but sadly, I doubt they even know I exist.
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That this is going to court at all is still a sign of multiple fuckups with patents.
Seems to me that it's more of a reflection on the poor state of the court system in America and the lawsuit culture surrounding it than of the patent system and its many faults. After all, this guy could just as easily be suing Apple because a guy who he thought looked like Tim Cook let their dog take a dump on his front lawn. That doesn't mean the housing system is broken, nor would it mean his case had any merit. The fact that a suit has no merit doesn't stop the crazies from filing them anyway.
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Anyone can FILE a patent, but it's a different story to get it issued.
"flat rectangular panels with rounded corners" is not a utility patent, anyway, it's a design patent. Good luck to him if he doesn't even know the difference.
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Patents are supposed to be about implementations of ideas and not just a vague description of something that would be nice to have.
Yeahh... And if they weren't, then there should be a suit from paramount pictures who invented the PADD [wikia.com]
Hell.... StarTrek even had Touch Screen tablets, before the Palm Pilot or the 1st gen Blackberry was a thing.
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That this is going to court at all is still a sign of multiple fuckups with patents.
Patents are not the problem, because the guy doesn't have a patent. He applied for a patent, then didn't pay his fees, so the patent application was abandoned.
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Actually, the law, at the time, was a 'first to invent' system where you don't have to have a filed patent for protection, just proof that you created it first. Since then, patent law has been changed to a 'first to file' system where the first one to the patent office normally gets the protection. There are exceptions but, that's another story. Since the law of the time was under the 'first to invent' system, that is what would apply in this case. If he could prove that he invented it first, he would h
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But you still have to file, even under first-to-invent.
It just means that evidence that you were working on it at a certain date is taken into account and that might trump the guy who got to the office first.
Re:5 years too late (Score:5, Informative)
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Well, sure his prototype Dynabook was a portable, rechargeable, personal computer with GUI, multimedia, and wireless communications, and it's undeniably true that his 1972 design was highly influential on Xerox's later UI work (and thus Apple's), and he may indeed be one of the true fathers of modern computing - but his invention didn't have "flat rectangular panels with rounded corners", did it? So no dice.
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What about Star Trek The Next Generation? Didn't they had PADDs before 1992? Surely the iPad is just a rip-off of TNG, even the name is similar! They even had rounded corners and a full touch interface with no buttons, wireless comms and were intuitive to use!
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yep I was at the Newton release event so his 1992 claim of being first is completely absurd.
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Seriously. If those sketches and doodles of a vaguely iPhone-ish/iPad-ish device are cause for action, then the producers of Star Trek: The Next Generation have a massive case of prior art and out to totally destroy this guy. Hell, Star Trek didn't stop at drawings either, they built full-size mockups and put them on television.
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I remember reading science fiction stories with electronic pads of various sorts. One book had it be the central detail of the whole story. This was back in the 1980s.
I don't think anyone is really claiming that the 'tablet computer' was invented by Apple, or that any computer company didn't know they existed in fiction stories long before anyone actually made one.
Why only ten billions? (Score:2, Funny)
He should have went for eleventy.
Sorry, Charlie! (Score:5, Interesting)
Patented in 1992, 24 years ago. Patent would have expired even if it had not been abandoned in 1995 due to non payment of maintenance fee.
The only one who will win anything on this is Mr Florida's lawyer for his fees. Hopefully he is not so stupid as to take this on contingency.
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Not patented at all, as apparently he never paid the filing fee.
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The article says, Ross *applied* for the patent in 1992. It also says the application was abandoned due to non payment of the *filing* fee, so this wasn't even a granted patented. The application didn't get anywhere in the filing process. There's no patent to even infringe on in the first place.
Ah Florida Man... (Score:5, Funny)
Never change, buddy. Never change.
money (Score:1)
I want to patent my bio mechanic appendage for manipulation of objects at will. The appendage will connect to a human body seamlessly, and allow people to perform a variety of tasks such as eating, scatching you arse and applying for parents. This invention will be called an "arm" and I anticipate that future individuals, companies and organisations will derive great value and utility from being able to use their arms on a daily basis.
Get in line buddy (Score:2)
I invented it too in 2005, where's my money: http://slashdot.org/comments.p... [slashdot.org]
I am suing Apple and then I filed a larger copy of the lawsuit with Samsung.
Took 9 years to find a lawyer (Score:2)
1992 you say? And it folds? (Score:2)
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I'm sure he never saw the 1987 Knowledge Navigator video either...
Yeah, that "Concept" video [youtube.com] just about takes care of EVERY computing advancement up through the middle of the 21st Century...
Wait a minute (Score:2)
A guy applies for a patent in November 1992, 6 months after the demo of the Apple MessagePad in May 1992, never paid the filing fee and now, 24 years later, he wants to sue Apple because he stole Apple's idea and failed to patent it?
Jury trial (Score:3)
"he has demanded a jury trial "
Can I be on it? Can I? Can I? Yeah, I'm surprised this one wasn't filed in the East district of Texas.
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Yeah, I'm surprised this one wasn't filed in the East district of Texas.
That requires at least the intelligence level of a slimy blood sucking leech. He's not that smart.
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He should have gone for trial by combat... might have had a chance then...
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He should have gone for trial by combat..
Should he have gone with The Mountain or The Viper as his champion?
Did his device... (Score:3)
Apple should sue for copyright infringement (Score:2)
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"flat rectangular panels with rounded corners" (Score:2)
Welp, he's got them by the short & curlies there.
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Would you like a box of crackers?
That's like the eighth time you've parroted that line so far.
Suit filed in Floride District Court (Score:2)
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In the US District Court is the lowest level of the Federal system. The districts are state-based. Some states only have one district (Colorado, for example), but Florida has three. This is in the Southern District, so everything interesting is going to happen in Miami.
It's possible some state calls some level of Courts "District Court," but I don't know of any and it would be quite confusing if there were. But "confusing" didn't stop New York State from declaring the basic level of the Court system the Sup [wikipedia.org]
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Star Trek (Score:1)
Peter Theil? (Score:2)
Now this guy just needs to sue Gawker and Peter Theil will bankroll his lawsuit like he's bankrolling the guy who "invented" email!
Chester Gould's Estate Should Sue (Score:1)
Dick Tracy had the iWatch even before Apple was a glint in the Milkman's Eye.
AT&T EO (Score:2)
I used the EO in 1993. It was a real device, not just some scribbles in a madman's notebook.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Also used the Newton in 1993, which Apple started developing in 1987
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
patents are legal things, not functional devices (Score:2)
"Apple has been awarded a patent today that prohibits smartphone users fro"
The patent is a piece of paper with a description it in no way does anything to smart phones.
The patent describes a process where hardware at a location interacts with software on the smartphone to .....
Jupiter Moon (Score:2)
Woah now, I was watching Jupiter Moon, a BBC Space Soap Opera from 1990, and those guys had an iPhone lookalike on that show. A lot of these Sci-Fi shows had similar items.
ah, the patent system (Score:2)
Because all the value is in having the idea and making a few sketches, yes?
Whatever came of the requirement to submit a working prototype to get a patent? That would fix half of the patent systems problems.
When will people stop? (Score:2)
Great idear! (Score:2)
To be honest, we did too (Score:2)
In a class i had, where i was an undergrad in a grad class, we did some UI design. We had a kitchen tool. We discussed it, and a guy rendered it on the fly. It basically was a small iMac, that mounted underneath a counter, and a slide out iPod/iPhone. THis was in 1995.
Should we sue? nahh. Should we have pantented it? Nahh. It's a normal design. A touch screen of roundrects. The secret sauce of the iphone isn't just one thing, isn't the industrial design. There were many smartphones before it. It'
Florida Man sues everybody (Score:2)
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A very detailed article about the Dynabook was published in 1972:
http://www.vpri.org/pdf/hc_per... [vpri.org]
The PDF makes it sound like an internal Xerox PARC report but it was actually article 1 in ACM '72 Proceedings of the ACM annual conference - Volume 1.
While previous patents are the first thing the US Patent Office looks for in prior art that might invalidate a patent under consideration, an article such as the above counts just as much. A public demonstration of a product would count too. In fact, even if the
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