| You've been sold the idea that they patented "bounce back". I suggest if you go and read the actual patent itself, you'll see that it is something quite different. Further, consider the case where there was no patent system. Apple invents a new type of touch hardware, but keeps it completely secret. If this were the case, there would be no Android, and no Windows Phone 8 System either. Google would be spending years trying to reverse engineer how it all works (even with the advantage of patents they're still trying to make android work smoothly like the iPhone does) and Microsoft would be just stuck. Because of the patent system, people can read Apple's patents and then extend them. And in the case of Microsoft a cross licensing agreement allows Microsoft to "infringe" on Apple's inventions without worry. It even benefits Samsung-- as Apple offered them a license to these patents in 2010. Samsung could have used them and worried about other areas where they could extend the state of the art. What's broken is that these companies think they can get away with violating the rights created in law-- they want the patents so they have access to the technology, but they don't want to pay for it. What's broken is that you have this opinion about a system you don't seem to have any understanding of, because of an ideological position you've been told to have by a company who is profiting by stealing other people's work in order to try and dominate the phone industry the way microsoft dominated desktop operating systems. What's broken is that HN is overrun with people who can't be bothered to learn about patents beyond the idea that "patents give you the right to an idea!!" and yet I suspect the vast majority of them get to vote in national elections! |
> If this were the case, there would be no Android, and no Windows Phone 8 System either. Google would be spending years trying to reverse engineer how it all works (even with the advantage of patents they're still trying to make android work smoothly like the iPhone does) and Microsoft would be just stuck.
I don't know where you get the idea that other people's software patents are somehow a major component of the development process for these kinds of systems. It's a laughable idea.
1. The information you get from a good software patent would save you maybe 1% of the implementation effort. And most software patents are not good.
2. It's theoretical anyway, since nobody working on the iPhone or WP8 or Android on a technical level is ever going to be reading patents by the competition. Even if they were useful, having read the patent would potentially aggravate any infringement.
3. If you desperately wanted to clone something, you still would not work from the patents. You'd have somebody just use the system you're trying to copy and write down notes. It'd be much more efficient than trying to somehow translate a patent into a useful design doc.
I am absolutely, 100% sure that your claim that without Apple patents "Google [would need] to spend years reverse engineering how it works" is wrong. Most likely the only reason these patents are for the exact opposite reason - you need to know exactly what's patented so that you can work around the patent.
The suggestion that these patents would somehow be a key to smoothness highlights exactly why. There is not going to be a magical smoothness patent that would somehow be applicable to other systems with completely different design decisions done all over the system.