[kenjackson]

That assumes that infringement and innovation happens in a vacuum for Google. I think we both know it doesn't.

For example, a mouse and a GUI dekstop with file folders seems extremely obvious to me. But it's because I've been exposed to it. A phone with a capacitive screen, appstore, multitouch, and an actual web browser seems like an obvious way to design a mobile phone now. Using a mobile OS on a tablet seems obvious now. Calculus, the periodic table, and DNA all seem obvious to me now too.

Google has already been exposed to innovation. If Google came out of a rain forest in South America and just happened to have produced an iPhone with no human exposure in 2008 -- then sure I'd say maybe it was obvious. But given they fundamentaly changed their design to largely copy it, after seeing the success of the iPhone, leads me to believe it wasn't independent invention. But it was likely blind infringement (meaning they take no care to know if the IP is protected or not -- they copy everything with no sense of due diligence and just wait for the lawsuits).

[SwellJoe]

"Look and feel" has been tested in court and found not to be something you can protect via IP, a couple of decades ago, and on a few occasions since. Just as a steering wheel is not something car makers could lay exclusive claim to, a touchscreen UI or a windows and mouse UI are not ideas that can be protected via patents; though, currently specific implementations could be (but, I'm opposed to that).

All of your arguments in this comment are about look and feel, and not about patentable technology.

So, you believe current patent law is not broad enough and should cover even more? I don't see how you could defend such a position, if you're a software developer...if you write any non-trivial software, you're already violating dozens, if not hundreds, of patents. How could you possibly believe adding more scope to software patents could be a positive force for good in the world?

[nitrogen]

That assumes that infringement and innovation happens in a vacuum for Google.

If Google came out of a rain forest in South America and just happened to have produced an iPhone with no human exposure in 2008 -- then sure I'd say maybe it was obvious.

Innovation doesn't happen in a vacuum for anybody. Apple didn't come out of a rain forest in South America and make an iPhone. They were exposed to previous innovation by MITS Altair, Xerox Star, Bell Labs Unix, Microsoft, Acorn, Commodore Amiga, Palm, Motorola, Nokia, and even some of their own previous work (NeXT, Newton). Innovations are judged as obvious or not in the context of the innovations that came before, not in the context of a primitive tribe. Besides that, functional patents don't cover

Patent discussions frequently get out of hand because a lot of issues get conflated. Some of the issues that should really be considered separately:

1. Overly-broad patents that effectively cover general ideas rather than specific inventions.

2. Non-novel patents that cover topics essential to computer science, covered by expired patents, and/or previously documented by academic papers whose authors are not associated with the patent.

3. Obvious patents that cover simple techniques used by everyone but nobody else patented because actual practitioners considered them public knowledge and/or too trivial to patent.

4. Patent terms that are ridiculously out of sync with the pace of technology.

The arguments I've read that led me to my current position on software patents are far too lengthy to summarize in a single post, but if you want to understand where I'm coming from, read What Technology Wants[0] by Kevin Kelly, along with the collected works of Pamela Jones, et. al. on Groklaw.

[0] Kelly makes some untenable logical leaps in nonessential arguments in the first few chapters, but the core ideas (that innovation does not occur in a vacuum, that most inventions are independently invented in parallel, and that innovation practically has a life of its own) are well-presented and defended.