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by jmillikin 5045 days ago
It's a patent on behavior, rather than on implementation. Patenting a particular steering mechanism is reasonable; patenting the concept of steering is not.

The original purpose of patents was to serve as an alternative to trade secrets for the benefit of society, not merely to reward whoever can think of the most "non-obvious" concepts. Behavior patents such as elastic-overscroll or one-click-purchase do not serve this purpose.
2 comments
snogglethorpe 5045 days ago
Exactly.

There are tons of great, non-intuitive, ideas which aren't patentable (and this is very intentional).

[Apple has a lot of these, which is why their constant complaints about copying, while understandable, are not particularly meaningful. Copying ideas is OK (and indeed, good for society)...]

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nirvana 5045 days ago
None of Apple's patents are on ideas.

It is the people who want to excuse violating the patents who claim the patents are on ideas or behaviors.

Of course, if you'd actually read the patents in question you'd know this.

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nirvana 5045 days ago
You haven't read the patent and what you said here is quite wrong.

You can't patent and idea, or even a behavior.

So the question is, why are you guys lying about the patent system to get google off the hook for violating patents?

Notice there was no cry to "reform" patents before google decided to copy the iPhone.

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