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JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

1 edit

JohnInSJ to Kearnstd

Premium Member

to Kearnstd

Re: Samsung - Why This Case Matter

said by Kearnstd:

I would see most independent devs as accidental. They simply lack the resources to constantly watch the patent office.

Which is actually a big issue around the current habits of overly broad patents, a garage innovator could infringe and never know it Even if they used the Google patent search they may have searched for their specific idea/device and not considered searching for the shape of box they put it in or the color of the LEDs to indicate functions.

hint: don't accidentally make your new mousetrap look exactly the same as the Apple iTrap you see advertised 24/7, and reported as THE mousetrap of the century... perhaps even referred to as the Jesus mousetrap.
Kearnstd
Space Elf
Premium Member
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ

Kearnstd

Premium Member

said by JohnInSJ:

said by Kearnstd:

I would see most independent devs as accidental. They simply lack the resources to constantly watch the patent office.

Which is actually a big issue around the current habits of overly broad patents, a garage innovator could infringe and never know it Even if they used the Google patent search they may have searched for their specific idea/device and not considered searching for the shape of box they put it in or the color of the LEDs to indicate functions.

hint: don't accidentally make your new mousetrap look exactly the same as the Apple iTrap you see advertised 24/7, and reported as THE mousetrap of the century... perhaps even referred to as the Jesus mousetrap.

The problem is keeping this in flow with how it seems patents work on the software side of things...

Apple's iTrap design is not where the patent is but instead they patented "device for the capture of rodents"

Which is why for open source software it can be easy to infringe without even knowing it. At least for the small time coders who simply cannot find out if sliding a finger in certain direction on a touch screen has a patent filed.
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave

Premium Member

I once heard an opinion that, at the small end of things, it's better not to look. "Accidental infringement" is viewed in a better light than intentional infringement.

(I, of course, am not a lawyer, nor even competent to judge lawyers, except to observe that they're even more anal-retentive than good programmers).

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ to Kearnstd

Premium Member

to Kearnstd
said by Kearnstd:

said by JohnInSJ:

said by Kearnstd:

I would see most independent devs as accidental. They simply lack the resources to constantly watch the patent office.

Which is actually a big issue around the current habits of overly broad patents, a garage innovator could infringe and never know it Even if they used the Google patent search they may have searched for their specific idea/device and not considered searching for the shape of box they put it in or the color of the LEDs to indicate functions.

hint: don't accidentally make your new mousetrap look exactly the same as the Apple iTrap you see advertised 24/7, and reported as THE mousetrap of the century... perhaps even referred to as the Jesus mousetrap.

The problem is keeping this in flow with how it seems patents work on the software side of things...

Apple's iTrap design is not where the patent is but instead they patented "device for the capture of rodents"

Which is why for open source software it can be easy to infringe without even knowing it. At least for the small time coders who simply cannot find out if sliding a finger in certain direction on a touch screen has a patent filed.

You'd have to live under a rock to not know that slide to unlock is patented. It was posted on just about every mobile device forum within a day of being granted. A "small time developer" in the mobile space who didn't actually frequent any web sites or read any news about mobile would be, IMHO, a terrible small time developer. Sure, you may not know that apple has a patent for Antenna Selection for MIMO Decoding. But you could find out in about 10 seconds by doing a patent search on the web.