[mschuster91]

> Savant Systems, a Massachusetts-based home automation company, worked with Apple to create a mechanism for remotely controlling the motion of a vehicle using a wireless mobile device. They filed the patent application in 2014, which was granted in 2016. They submitted an updated patent in 2016, which was granted in 2019. Steve Jobs’s name was among the inventors in both these patents.

How the fuck is this patent worthy? The patent describes nothing more than using a smartphone to remotely control a ship's various control methods backed by a data link that's monitored for link quality.

[geon]

The US patent system is a joke. Patents are basically granted for anything, and are expected to be resolved in courts.

[ekianjo]

Which favors the ones with deep pockets and IP departments.

[bastard_op]

The patent offices are likely just used to seeing a steady stream of crap from Apple that is so wacky they just accept it as part of their charm whether from a dead man or not. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple has partners (or their own) planted in the same building to coincidentally wine and dine the patent office execs regularly like lobbyists. There is obviously a well paid set of folks that just file random crap patents from Apple constantly in a hope something, anything hits, and since it's Apple they simply cannot and will not be ignored.

I really can't say I blame them either, look at the lines of patent trolls lined up in West Texas every year to sue them. State of the nation...

I do have to wonder if someone went back to criticize the fact a dead man is the most inventive corpse since 2Pac and Biggie if the patents could be invalidated as superfluous. Yeah right, it's Apple.

[mschuster91]

The patent system has to be reformed completely in any case. If you're an innovative company, no matter the size, you have to file as many claims as possible so that you have counter patents to throw at your opponent, which makes the problem with patents worse for everyone because of the low-quality noise. If you're a small company, you have to be really diligent in your patent search because the risk of getting sued by legitimate patent holders or patent trolls is very high, made worse by the fact that the US system allows trivial software patents. If you're any kind of inventor, you have to either file a patent and risk that China will just outright steal your invention, or you do not file a patent in the hope it will take the competition long enough to reverse engineer and bring to market.

[pfannkuchen]

> file a patent and risk that China will just outright steal your invention

As in they notice that the patent was filed and copy it before you launch? Isn’t the system noisy enough that this would be really hard for them to do well?

[mschuster91]

> Isn’t the system noisy enough that this would be really hard for them to do well?

China has more than enough people to throw at a problem that's very easy to parallelize, and a culture that doesn't give a fuck about Western ideas of intellectual property ("gongkai" [1]).

And yet, our politicians seem to be happy to deliver our IP, our jobs, everything to a nation that's at least hostile towards us, on a silver platter.

(Note that I actually prefer the way of gongkai, but unfortunately it'd destroy our economic models so I see no way of reform in that direction ever happening -.-)

[1] https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297

[amelius]

Is the EU patent system any better?

[mschuster91]

Yes, we have much higher thresholds on software patents [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_Eur...

[FinnKuhn]

Maybe. It is however much more restrictive for what kind of software you can get a patent

[shrubble]

Wasn't this idea used by Pierce Brosnan in one of the James Bond films? He was using a cell phone sized device to drive the Q-customized BMW, I think.

[saturn8601]

Yup! BMW 750iL In Tomorrow Never Dies(1997)

[1]:https://youtu.be/gBcOBWq8J6w?t=36

On another note, I find that LCD screen and color pallet they used in the phone cooler looking than the dull flat design muck I am used to seeing everywhere. They basically took those old Green monochrome LCDs and acted as if those screens were naturally going to evolve into some sort of el type display as the next generation. They didn't see the rise of CPU power enabling full color full motion displays like we have now.

[avar]

The phone in Tomorrow Never Dies does have full color HD streaming video from the car as it's remote controlled, look at your own link (and the one pointed out by a sibling comment). The monochrome green UI is just what you see on start-up.

Secondly, the Bond movies are set in the modern day (or close enough). So unlike say 2001 A Space Oddesey the gadgets Q comes up with aren't an attempt to foresee technology development in the distant future.

So the fact that it uses a UI in common use in the mid-90s is to be expected.

Generally speaking (there's some exceptions) no technology in the Bond universe is too outlandish to pass as potential modern day advancements in some top-secret MI-6 laboratory.

[saturn8601]

Yes you raise a good point. I need to stop commenting when I am running on fumes after a long 16 hr day. If I had just played 5 more second of video I'd have been reminded of the video camera feature of the phone. Still, I am nostalgic for old school displays like that.

[mschuster91]

The more iconic usage of remote control is in the same movie, later on in the car chase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN63LoWs1XU

[eternityforest]

I love how he plays Q in that scene!

Marvel's Time Variance Authority is still my favorite retro futuristic tech. I wonder if anyone is using that kind of display in real life outside of games? Doesn't seem like many apps use it, even though there's lots of cyberdecks that would look cool with it.

[froh]

yes! Q can go and sue them!

[guappa]

In the blues brothers 2000 (1998) elwood drove the bluesmobile with a remote. I think that's prior art.

[michaelmcdonald]

In "Tomorrow Never Dies" (1997) James Bond drives his BMW remotely via a cell phone. Now there are multiple instances of prior art.

EDIT: corrected which movie

[sumtechguy]

'watch this watch this' - back to the future.

[justsomehnguy]

https://youtu.be/WXgx7Uzislo?t=33