Apple wins patent on key smartphone feature

[ImaNihilist]

With Google acquiring Motorola, Apple is in for a world of hurt.

http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/...anned-2011129/

Typically, the only time a product will be "banned" is for gross infringement that would cause a consumer to mistakenly purchase one product over another. This is doubly true in the EU, where patent law is not quite as draconian as it is in the US. Patents, particularly software patents, just provide a legal ground work for big companies (it's very different when big companies sue small companies) to essentially sue other ones for infringements against "likeness". Or at least that's what it almost always comes down to at the end of the day.

It is very difficult to make the case the Apple intentionally copies features that would result in a consumer being "tricked" into accidentally buying an Apple product when they intended to buy something else.

The only company out there right now who is brutally guilty of patent infringement is Samsung. Samsung is the one really fueling that patent war, and everyone is worried that all the other players will become Samsung. They are copying Apple products down to specific dimensions, and even resizing their ads so that their products are the same size as Apple's. Apple started showing their phones like this and then Samsung basically said, "In all our marketing materials, we now show our phones with the same colors and same dimensions just like this."

If HTC and Samsung decided to say, "**** Apple. We aren't going to use any of the colors Apple uses in our palette," it would all go away. If they used a different aspect ratio it would all go away. If they didn't show their phones in every marketing shot with 4 dock icons at the bottom, it would all go away.

Look at Nokia. They don't give two shits about Apple. All their phone look unique. They come in colors and the new Windows Phone 7 UI isn't a direct copy of the iOS. They don't copy the slab design. Everyone laughs at Nokia, but they aren't spending retarded amounts of money on lawsuits compared to everyone else. Elop gets a lot of flak, but at least he has some dignity.