News Apple sued for iPhone keyboard patent infringement

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/08...infringement/1

Apple is under fire as the iPhone's keyboard apparently infringes on a patent filed in August 2000.

[steveo_mcg]

Seven years and no product, i don't see how there can be any legal backing for these kind of suits

[mmorgue]

Sheer rubbish! Exactly as steveo_mcg said -- 7 years and they have nothing to show? Seems to be the American thing now -- get a patent for something blatently obvious or common sense and then wait to see who implements a money generating product near or around that patent and then sue.

[Spacecowboy92]

Has anyone patented the wheel yet?

[Pie_uk]

^ lmao

[Tim S]

Originally Posted by Spacecowboy92

Has anyone patented the wheel yet?

[Pricester]

Better yet... patent "A device for moving matter instantaneously or near-instantaneously through space"... then sue when someone finally creates a Star-Trek like transporter...

[bilbothebaggins]

“method of providing a user interface for receiving information from a user using a user immutable graphical keyboard linked to an input area.”

If it's possible to file such patents then surely someone has already patented "a means for overcoming friction by attaching rotateable discs of equal diameter" ... or whatever a wheel would be in Patent-Sprech ...

[DXR_13KE]

this is one of the reasons i hate the current patent system....

[Bluephoenix]

another troll; move along, nothing to see here......

[mikeuk2004]

MS, Apple, Sony and pretty much every big name cant escape these patent infringments. Isnt it crazy these days that when you design a new product you have to seach through millions of patents to check that some you thought of has not already been thought of and protected.

Just think of all the cool gadgets we dont get to see because someone has the patent. Scrap patents and just design and build and move forward, stop putting brakes on

[Amon]

I'd like to patent the patenting system. That way, I'd have the final word on any beef involving patents and lay teh smackizzle down on them.

[DLoney]

Originally Posted by steveo_mcg

Seven years and no product, i don't see how there can be any legal backing for these kind of suits

the whole point that the patent system was setup in america was so advancement could be made with or without means to produce the product, thereby giving power the common person who could not otherwise compeate against large corperations in the free market.

"sitting" on a patent is fine. you have to take the good with the bad.

[cyrilthefish]

Anyone else seen this yet?

http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=41531

Peter Boesen is a surgeon who runs an outfit called SP Technologies. It has been suing lots of companies for nicking his patents including LG Electronics and Canon.

Now Apple's touch screen has attracted his attention. He claims the iPhone's touch-based keyboard violates a patent the company received in 2004. The patent, filed under US patent number 6,784,873 B1, describes a "method and medium for a computer readable keyboard display incapable of user termination" and lists Boesen as the inventor.

But Boesen is currently on bail while his lawyers work out an appeal to his prison sentence for healthcare fraud.

He was sentenced to prison in May following a conviction on defrauding Iowa's Medicare and Medicaid programs by filing false claims. He was also ordered to repay the state and private insurers more than $900,000.

[DLoney]

Originally Posted by mikeuk2004

Just think of all the cool gadgets we dont get to see because someone has the patent. Scrap patents and just design and build and move forward, stop putting brakes on

that would have the adverse effect. Think of it this way- why bother with expensive R&D when you can just wait for someone else to do it and then mimic it for a 1/3 of the cost. All companys doing this would lead to no advancement.

[steveo_mcg]

Originally Posted by DLoney

the whole point that the patent system was setup in america was so advancement could be made with or without means to produce the product, thereby giving power the common person who could not otherwise compeate against large corperations in the free market.

"sitting" on a patent is fine. you have to take the good with the bad.

Perhaps but if you've actually got an idea and not just a patent lawyer then i'm sure you could manage to raise the capital in the venerable free market else whats the point in filing the patent except to catch folk unawares when they do have a good product or an excellent idea. Just because no one wants to make your product doesn't mean you sit on your hands look in to the history of the dyson vacuum cleaner.

[Asphix]

Originally Posted by steveo_mcg

Perhaps but if you've actually got an idea and not just a patent lawyer then i'm sure you could manage to raise the capital in the venerable free market else whats the point in filing the patent except to catch folk unawares when they do have a good product or an excellent idea. Just because no one wants to make your product doesn't mean you sit on your hands look in to the history of the dyson vacuum cleaner.

Because usually, if a company sees a patent that would work in tech they want to develop, they can (i assume) purchase the patent the same way someone would purshase a domain name. Of course, you dont tell the person your buying from what you intend to do with it and let them guage it's value.

If I have a great idea, but no means to implement it.. I can patent that idea. If someone else wants to take the ball and run with it, they can pay me the rights to grab it from me, or wait until 7 years pass (the new time frame I think, i tused to be something like 20+!!!!) and then go about doing it. If I ever get around to marketing a device based on the patent, I can then have grounds to re-new it after the expiration date.

Course, I admit my knowledge on this stuff is very, very thin and I could be completely off the mark here. Its how I always justified this stuff... I hate patent trolls and in no way think whats going on here is "right" and thinking about things that way makes me sleep better at night

[Breach]

It seems like these patents are so impossibly vauge, they only describe the idea of a generic technology without actually having to produce a real world demonstration or device of it. Sheer BS in my opinion.

Why these troll companies are allowed to exist is beyond me...

[completemadness]

jeez these patents get more and more ridiculous every day, i mean, how on each can you patent a touch screen keyboard
There's practically one built into windows anyway

Why not just patent any device that bears human weight, zomg i can sue all Ferrari, MFI, and who knows who else

[steveo_mcg]

Originally Posted by Asphix

Because usually, if a company sees a patent that would work in tech they want to develop, they can (i assume) purchase the patent the same way someone would purshase a domain name. Of course, you dont tell the person your buying from what you intend to do with it and let them guage it's value.

If I have a great idea, but no means to implement it.. I can patent that idea. If someone else wants to take the ball and run with it, they can pay me the rights to grab it from me, or wait until 7 years pass (the new time frame I think, i tused to be something like 20+!!!!) and then go about doing it. If I ever get around to marketing a device based on the patent, I can then have grounds to re-new it after the expiration date.

Course, I admit my knowledge on this stuff is very, very thin and I could be completely off the mark here. Its how I always justified this stuff... I hate patent trolls and in no way think whats going on here is "right" and thinking about things that way makes me sleep better at night

If actually worked like that it would be great and i'd be all for it, but things like this and the creative V apple fiasco really make me dispair. Vauge patents with no intention of developing them are unfair this time it was apple who can afford to purchase the company and move what if next time its some dude with a solution to free energy but a vauge patent is owned by BP and just burries the guy under litigation (I know its a stupid example buts its early and the coffee hasn't started working yet.)