[JoelSutherland]

The book written establishes a copyright, not a patent.

Bringing this back to technology with an example: Palm synthesized the smart phone and color LCD screen in ~2004. I'm pretty glad all smartphones have color screens today.

[0x44]

I did say I was making an analogy, not establishing a direct link between patents and copyright. Patents protect a specific method of implementing an idea, so Palm synthesizing a smart phone with a color LCD (controlled by a stylus) does not prevent Apple from protecting the synthesis of smart phone with a color LCD (controlled by fingertips). If there was no innovation in bringing multi-touch to smart phones, why wasn't everyone doing it in 2007 when the iPhone was first released?

[pyre]

  > If there was no innovation in bringing multi-touch to
  > smart phones, why wasn't everyone doing it in 2007 when
  > the iPhone was first released?

For starters, because Apple bought the company that invented multi-touch, therefore controlled the rights to the technology.

[pyre]

Further, Apple purchased them in April 2005, a little less than two years before they announced the iPhone (Jan 2007).