Comments on: Apple Sues Nokia in UK, Looks to Invalidate a Patent

By: Damian

Damian — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:56:47 +0000

It seems “patent” has become a rude word. And, just like everything else in business, if you have enough money it doesn’t affect you anyway.
So many of the larger companies seem to take things that are already in use by others, throw their money at the patent office and call it theirs – then cry foul when someone else has anything vaguely similar and drag them to court.

When the patent office starts taking money to “protect” “inventions” on how people use their fingers, they lose whatever debatable credibility they had.

By: Evan Selleck

Evan Selleck — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 23:51:01 +0000

I think a lot of people would agree with you. Especially when it turns into a cat-and-mouse game, like it has between Apple and Nokia. While most of these suits usually get settled out of court relatively quickly, it seems that Nokia and Apple are destined to stay tangled in this mess for the foreseeable future.

By: Wuss

Wuss — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 23:47:16 +0000

All these patent filings and disputes over interface elements really needs to stop. The entire definition of what is patentable has to change to keep up with a new age of technology.

You simply should NOT be allowed to patent a goddamn MOVEMENT. Things like pinch to zoom, etc., regardless of how specialized or who implemented first, are not inventions. You should not be able to patent a context for using technology. EX. Sony can patent the Walkman, but according to the ridiculous patent practices today, REAALLLY should have patented any “pocketable device that produces music”.

Apple is by far the worst offender of patent abuse. If the object of a patent cannot be physically held or touched by the human hand, then it should not be patentable, plain and simple. Yes, this applies to virtual inventions as well, such as algorithms and software. Could you imagine where we’d be if MS patented “a virtual interface layer to control computer hardware”.? We’d be sitting here still running Windows 3.1 with no other options.

Patent’s are here to protect intellectual property on new inventions, not to squash competition in an open marketplace.