This is definitively a relief for our whole industry.
Thanks to Judge Alsup for taking an impartial stand on the whole matter and for the commitment to enable himself to an understanding of the matter and an informed decision going as far as to even learn himself how to program in Java.
I hope this does not remain one of the few cases when knowledge, ethics and the law is applied in its true sense while billions are brought to the battlefield.
Maybe all those that think that "rounded corners", sending email messages/calendar entries from mobile devices or different shades of gray are true inventions will one day soon rethink their monopoly strategies and start again with what they were once great at - actually create and invent things that people want to use.
We've seen invention companies turn into patent trolls. The latest example - a shell company built around the Nortel patents - is a classic case. A telecom company, where it should be easy to sell inventions to upper management, went bankrupt by refusing to innovate. (I know there are other reasons Nortel is dead, I apologize for the simplification.)
I don't believe anyone has ever seen a patent troll "turn from the dark side." It's not just cynicism: a company whose business plan is "aggressively pursue patent licenses" has a fiduciary responsibility to stakeholders to stay the course. It's easier to drive a company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy than convince a majority of stakeholders to unite, pivot, and abandon their cash cow.
The easiest way to defeat patent trolls is to succeed as a startup.
While I agree with the gist of what you're saying, the "rounded corners" claim was that the specific corner shape was an ornamental as opposed to useful part of the iPad's design. Design patents and utility patents aren't even close to the same thing.
The key element of both (all) types of patents is that, rather than "protecting" your property, they actually allow you to prevent others from independently inventing or designing the same thing by giving you a legal monopoly. In that regard using the law to prevent someone having rounded corners on a handheld device isn't too different from preventing them having a touchscreen device that you unlock by swiping.
Sure. I'd even go on to say that the latter isn't much different, in principle, than granting Eli Lilly a monopoly on pills that, by a certain chemical action, boost serotonin levels in the brain.
Which is not to say that there might not be sensible reasons for society to favor protection of one over the other. In the words[1] of Oliver Wendell Holmes, "the life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience."
Fortunately for the industry, today's ruling was clearly written by a judge well-versed in both.
And you are of course right, but - I believe - what is important here is that for keeping our legal systems functional it is necessary to actively limit the opportunities to abuse it
Thanks to Judge Alsup for taking an impartial stand on the whole matter and for the commitment to enable himself to an understanding of the matter and an informed decision going as far as to even learn himself how to program in Java.
I hope this does not remain one of the few cases when knowledge, ethics and the law is applied in its true sense while billions are brought to the battlefield.
Maybe all those that think that "rounded corners", sending email messages/calendar entries from mobile devices or different shades of gray are true inventions will one day soon rethink their monopoly strategies and start again with what they were once great at - actually create and invent things that people want to use.