WatchWhile discussing Windows 8, I posted a few replies stating that Apple has never actually invented anything.
I hate Windows 8, but then, I hate Microsoft for systematically murdering every innovator on the PC for the last 30 years (Netscape, Visicalc, Wordstar, Borland ...) except for Apple.
I thought you said innovator. Apple, like Microsoft, stole everything from innovators. It's amazing that fan boys still think that Apple invented the graphical user interface, the digital music player, the circular slider, and so many other things that it stole from other companies.
That's right, Apple stole quite a bit, see Xerox/Parc for example. I still think they released decent products, but they certainly didn't invent them all by themselves and Samsung should have prevailed in the recent lawsuit.
Microsoft and Apple aren't that different. They steal an idea from someone else, make a far worse implementation of it as quickly as they can, release it market, use unethical business practices to dominate the market, and keep hammering at the product until it's finally good, and then keep adding crap to sell later versions until the product is no longer usable. It's the Microsoft/Apple software lifecycle.
Actually, I've mentioned that on quite a few threads...
Apple did not invent rectangles with curved corners. Why the hell were they granted a patent on it. Come to think of it, Apple has never invented anything.
Patent law needs to be reformed. There is substantial financial motivation to develop technology without patents, and patents today are simply abused and used as weapons to prevent innovation and competition. Patents have been perverted to the point of being evil.
Turns out that I'm not the only one who realizes this. Below is a great video that shows many of the things attributed to Apple that in fact Apple did not invent, but claimed credit for. The video only discusses hardware, but I submit Apple's false claims of innovation are even more rampant in software. From the graphical user interface to the circular slider to Internet apps, Apple has always stolen all their ideas from other companies. And that wouldn't be a bad thing if Apple allowed others to refine ideas as well instead of suing them over things Apple stole from others like the GUI, rounded rectangles, etc.
I compared Apple to Microsoft since both companies get their ideas from others, but really Apply is more like Disney, taking public domain ideas and patent/trademark/copyrighting them as original works.
It's ok to refine ideas that already are in the public domain. That's how all of progress is made, on the edges of the known. But it's not ok to claim you invented sex.
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More than a decade before the first iPhone, before Steve Jobs' return to Apple, the TC1000 had a graphical user interface including a touch screen with square "buttons" that had rounded corners:
http://www.remotecentral.com/ureview/13-3.htm
http://www.remotecentral.com/take/index.html
BTW, it was made by Harmon Kardon and JBL in cooperation with MICROSOFT.
A problem for Samsung in the recent Apple v Samsung trial though, was that Samsung had deliberately tried to copy the iPhone. When Google reps told Samsung their phone was too similar to the iPhone and should be made more different, Samsung executives told their engineers the opposite. Instead of being allowed to innovate, Samsung engineers were ordered to copy the iPhone.
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I saw a news interest story the other day, a segment here in SoFla called "Help me Howard" where a guy patented a perpetual electric contraption.
An electric generator that fed into a an electric motor. His patent expired, but the late notice was sent to Microsoft in Redmond Washington of all places, had nothing to do with the gentleman.
The patent expired but he can still save it by paying a 3800 fee plus some 1200 late fee, the numbers might be off, as I'm going from memory but that was gist of the story. It was well over $4000 grand he had to come up with.
Now my gripe wasn't the legality of everything wrong with that story, like why was the renewal reminder sent to Microsoft, and not him. As it turns out, he is responsible for knowing when to pay the fee to keep the patent current.
I'm saying what in the hell is wrong with the system, that the fees are so oppressive to muscle inventors out of their creation, most tinkerers live hand to mouth, and can't afford to keep up on the fees. Lest not the lofty fee to keep the patent active, let alone the late fee.
This can only be the work of the Lobbyists like the lawyers at Apple that end up taking peoples inventions with legal brute force.
I don't ever feel any love for these companies that complain about copyright and patent infringement. Chances are they stole it from someone else anyway.
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http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/12/technology/apple-iphone-5-event/index.html?iid=Lead
But it's OK if they copy other companies. Apple is so full of the smug "Do as I say not as I do" crap that ruining this country.
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CaptainShuddup says
Never trust a commercial "news interest story" without checking the facts. A basic patent filing fee is under $400, and if you are a "small entity" and file electronically it's under $100:
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee092611.htm
If you want additional services, e.g. if you hire professional representation or if you want to appeal PTO's determination for further review, the costs can escalate. A larger issue is, small businesses often lack the resources to pursue infringers in court, so they worry they're giving away their IP in exchange for IP "rights" that they won't be able to enforce. This is especially likely when Republicans "help small business" with "tort reform," i.e. making it even harder for the little guys to enforce their rights in court.
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CaptainShuddup says
This "perpetual electric contraption" sounds like a perpetual motion energy from nothing machine?
If so I hope Howard advised the guy to go ahead, save the money, and let the patent expire.
Patenting an impossible -- or near impossible -- device does not mean that the device actually works. There are quite a few patents on things like time machines, perpetual motion, mind control devices, etc.
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leo707 says
Penis enlargement devices. None of them work, or so I've heard...
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the internet is a mind-control device. don't think it's been patented though.
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suspiria_2 says
Bhaa! Who needs mind-control, when brain-control is better: