from Hacker News

Apple granted broad mobile patent

by ianox on 7/19/12, 2:17 PM with 99 comments

• by Sidnicious on 7/19/12, 3:14 PM

  > We can’t take all of our energy and all of our care and finish the painting, then have someone else put their name on it.

  What a load of shit. What happened to “great artists steal”? Great art must be stolen to inspire new, greater art.

  The iPhone is awesome. May a thousand devices like it bloom.

• by bcrescimanno on 7/19/12, 3:12 PM

  I'm not entirely sure why this is surprising news to anybody; in the original iPhone announcement, I believe Steve Jobs said, "...and boy have we patented it."

  Let's be frank: Apple is not the only major technology company with a massive collection of questionable patents that they could use to stifle their competition. The system, as it is today, basically forces companies into these patents because if they don't patent it someone else will. To put it colloquially: "Don't hate the player, hate the game."

• by nicholassmith on 7/19/12, 2:51 PM

  If Apple decides to use them it'll take years for it to litigate, and they'll probably be proved invalid in the process.

  Don't fear poor Android phones, you're safe for now.

• by VanL on 7/19/12, 3:18 PM

  The hyperventilating in this article is ridiculous. First, patents always issue on a Thursday - and any large company usually has a number in the pipe. There is nothing unusual about a company the size of Apple getting 25 patents issued in one release.

  Now, I haven't read all of the 25 patents issued to Apple, but this article makes the classic mistake of confounding the specification (which describes lots of stuff) and the claims (which describe what is protected). Here is what this patent is actually about:

  1. A method, comprising: at a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display: displaying a portion of an electronic document on the touch screen display, wherein the displayed portion of the electronic document has a vertical position in the electronic document; displaying a vertical bar on top of the displayed portion of the electronic document, the vertical bar displayed proximate to a vertical edge of the displayed portion of the electronic document, wherein: the vertical bar has a vertical position on top of the displayed portion of the electronic document that corresponds to the vertical position in the electronic document of the displayed portion of the electronic document; and the vertical bar is not a scroll bar; detecting a movement of an object in a direction on the displayed portion of the electronic document; in response to detecting the movement: scrolling the electronic document displayed on the touch screen display in the direction of movement of the object so that a new portion of the electronic document is displayed, moving the vertical bar to a new vertical position such that the new vertical position corresponds to the vertical position in the electronic document of the displayed new portion of the electronic document, and maintaining the vertical bar proximate to the vertical edge of the displayed portion of the electronic document; and in response to a predetermined condition being met, ceasing to display the vertical bar while continuing to display the displayed portion of the electronic document, wherein the displayed portion of the electronic document has a vertical extent that is less than a vertical extent of the electronic document.

  Translated from patent-speak, this just means that the little position indicator along the side of the display indicates where you are in a document. Further claims indicate that the position indicator disappears when you don't do anything for a minute. Anyone who has seen iOS (or Mac OS X Lion) has seen it.

  If I were Google, though, I wouldn't care about this patent. Why not? Because of the words "and the vertical bar is not a scroll bar." These words were added to get around prior art. All Google would need to do is allow its position indicator to also function as a scroll bar and this patent doesn't apply.

  I am annoyed by patents as much as the next guy - more, even, because I deal with them every day - but this kind of breathlessness helps absolutely no one.

• by watmough on 7/19/12, 2:52 PM

  Apple fanboi that I am, freely admitted, my Nexus 7 is wonderful, and I think the granting of this entire patent is insane.

• by smackfu on 7/19/12, 2:51 PM

  I don't really trust anyone to properly interpret patents.

• by mattmaroon on 7/19/12, 3:19 PM

  Anyone who thinks this is a death-knell for Android (especially any time soon) doesn't understand how patent law works in practice.

• by StavrosK on 7/19/12, 2:52 PM

  Don't be silly, that would mean that something would change in the patent system.

• by jack-r-abbit on 7/19/12, 3:23 PM

  Android won't be killed off. There will always be an Android.

  "If you outlaw Android, only outlaws will have Android." - Anon.

• by freehunter on 7/19/12, 2:48 PM

  >"Steve Jobs, former Apple CEO, may finally get his wish and see Android devices ... completely taken off the market."

  Was the author not reading the news last October?

• by Rhymenocerus on 7/19/12, 5:28 PM

  Hoorah for us all, even less viable products for us to choose from! I don't understand why people look up to Jobs, but still hate Bill Gates for his business practices during the 90's.

  "Picasso had a saying - 'Good artists copy, great artists steal.' And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." - Steve Jobs

• by seclorum on 7/19/12, 6:27 PM

  Well, that seals it. My next Tablet will be based on 100% open sources. I will now proceed to build an Ubuntu-based tablet to replace the iPad form-factor.. boots up laser cutter and 3d printer .. </dream>

• by richworks on 7/19/12, 3:46 PM

  "It could kill off Android completely in the US and not anywhere else."

  Granted, the US is a major market for Android but these patent disputes will get laughed at in the UK courts and others as we have seen so far.

• by wwwtyro on 7/19/12, 3:02 PM

  So, my question is: given all the controversy in the (tech) media over patents lately, how is the patent office able to rationalize granting (what appears to me to be) a very bad patent?

• by majorapps on 7/19/12, 3:27 PM

  I honestly believe that this is the beginning of the end for the patent system. If this was granted and enforced we would see something along the lines of the advertising mantra: "good advertising the the fastest way to kill a bad product"

• by arrowgunz on 7/19/12, 5:34 PM

  Competition is what drives companies to create better products. Without that there would be very little progress in innovation. I am an Apple fanboy and still hope nothing happens to Android.

• by evilmushroom on 7/19/12, 3:09 PM

  Hmm.. brb patenting the process of applying for a patent.

• by spc476 on 7/19/12, 8:32 PM

  It sounds like a reprise of the Apple vs. Microsoft "Look-and-feel" lawsuits of the mid 80s, only with patents, not copyright.

• by huggyface on 7/19/12, 3:00 PM

  Ridiculous headline (the submission simply mirroring the original article) that is the sort of hysterical end-of-times interpretation of patents that has yielded so many nonsensical, time-wasting discussions before.