[Claymore32]

In case you haven't heard, today Apple sued HTC for patent infringement on a good number of its patents.

For those curious about all the super wonderful details, you can read up about it at any of the following locations:

• Gizmodo
  
• Engadget
  
• Ars Technica
  
• The Inquirer.net

I haven't looked too closely yet into the various patents Apple claims are being infringed upon, but it looks like this lawsuit will be pretty critical to the future of other players in the smart phone arena (namely touch-screen smart phones). A lot of people seem to be indicating that Apple's being the bad guy and trying to completely own the market. Not sure if I totally agree with that, but Apple did bring a TON of innovation to the smart phone arena (think what the market looked like before the iPhone arrived). Granted, not all their ideas were genuine, but they were the first to patent them.

Very curious to see how this plays out, and what it will mean for HTC and, ultimately, Google.

[di3s3l_666]

As one of the people who responded to the Gizmodo article said; Apple should play evil empire somewhere else.

[Claymore32]

di3s3l_666, on 04 March 2010 - 10:18 PM, said:

As one of the people who responded to the Gizmodo article said; Apple should play evil empire somewhere else.

Yeah, I have a feeling this legal battle is going to be incredibly damaging to Apple's public image. And here they're the ones that came out with that genius ad back in 1984 of the girl throwing the hammer into the Orwellian 'big brother' screen. Personally, that ad could be applied to today with a giant apple on the screen instead.

I'm all for companies defending their patents - it's how they get their due rewards for the ideas they come up with. But when it gets to the point of locking competitors out of an entirely different ecosystem (in this case, the touch-screen phone market), then I think that's when things need to be reviewed.

[Claymore32]

Here's an interesting article that takes on the question of "what if HTC had to remove all or some of the functionality Apple's patents cover?"

http://www.wired.com...ple-htc-google/

[di3s3l_666]

Claymore32, on 05 March 2010 - 06:30 AM, said:

di3s3l_666, on 04 March 2010 - 10:18 PM, said:

As one of the people who responded to the Gizmodo article said; Apple should play evil empire somewhere else.

Yeah, I have a feeling this legal battle is going to be incredibly damaging to Apple's public image...

As if their public image isn't degrading already. They just don't want to compete, so they'll try to muscle their way around competition by swallowing them, thus retarding the whole core which innovation is found upon; Find what makes your competitor's product sell so well, and improve upon it. Automotive makers do it all the time. When Ford was developing the Ford GT, they bought a Ferrari 430, disassembled it, and studied it. They then made a car that they would hope could compete against it, one which you could buy for less money. The only problem here, is that Apple is against technological advancements that won't make them any money.

So let's think for a second, Suppose we replace the finger-swipe method of unlocking a touch screen phone with...for argument's sake...a double-tap. Well that's one court item thrown out the window. There are other things that HTC could say "You know what Apple, we're inventing and patenting our own crap then", and fully maintain the phone's usability.

I dunno Apple, It's great that people who develop these technologies are to gain benefit from their creation, but to sacrifice competition and innovation for the sake of money, doesn't seem like a fair trade to me. But apparently to businessmen, it is.

[Ghost23]

It is just like a sport for Apple - to sue its competitors.. HTC, Samsung...
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Mobile application development

[jonathan888]

necro topic - but, yes, Apple is IP aggressive