(Real estate) developer sues Apple over Jesus Phone browser

Apple is facing yet another Jesus Phone patent infringement suit. This time, an opportunistic patent holder wants some cash for "the way the iPhone navigates the Internet." After suits over the iPhone's touch screen, virtual keyboard, visual voicemail, and caller ID feature, Jobs and cult have now been hit with a browser- …

[Richard Freeman]

Breathing?

I wonder - has anyone patented breathing yet?

I can feel a lawsuit coming on

[Anonymous Coward]

Just break an XML rule

then it is not XML.

Problem solved.

[Chris iverson]

burn em at the stake

other than that move along, nothing to see etc

[Anonymous Coward]

Real Estate

Right down there with car salesmen, lawyers, the RIAA, MPAA and other pond life.

[Adam Starkey]

Am I misunderstanding this?

Unless I'm reading this wrong (I haven't read the patent) it would seem that they're describing a page slicing approach, whereby an intermediary process breaks a full page into manageable chunks for a small display browser. AFAIK, that's not how Mobile Safari works though. I think Safari is pretty close to a standard HTML renderer. In other words, is this troll going after the wrong company?

[David Wilkinson]

Great ..

Apple has enough money to fight this all the way. Maybe it will set a precedent that will let people automatically dismiss patent clams like this. Maybe the courts will rule that the law supports the patent troll.

If that's the case it wouldn't be to hard to convince people those kinds of patents are hurting innovation and maybe get some patent law reform.

The only bad outcome is a secret out of court settlement. Doesn't help define the rules, no one even knows the exact deal that was struck... keeps the FUD going.

I hope apple pushes this as far as they can, if they drop the suit, apple needs to countersue.

[Corrine]

@adam

It is standard patent trolling to sue over a similar but not actually applicable patent. And in east Texas, its unlikely that the judge will care, or understand.

[Thomas]

@Adam Starkey

Mobile Safari does use an internal tile-based caching mechanism for the rendered result of the page, maybe the plaintiff is trying to claim that involves some sort of XML slicing - even though it clearly doesn't?

To the article author: I think most of the Apple cult are consumers, not actual employees. So they're not actually being sued.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not what you know

It's who you know. As I recall the firm that usually represents the Trolls has, in the firm, the son of the judge who usually hears them.

[Anonymous Coward]

A rose by another other name is still covered in fertiliser

"Elliot Gottfurcht" - Has he lived with that name all his life? Give him a break!!

(In case anyone didn't realise, it sounds like "Elliot got fscked")

[Ross Fleming]

Eh??

1) Pretty sure the Safari on the iPhone doesn't need a proxy to convert html to xml

2) Opera Mini does do this and has for some years

3) I did this in 2001 for a degree thesis. Damn shame I didn't patent it

The world has gone mad, but then we knew that.

Obviously the house market crisis is biting hard..

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about time big, rich companies acted like big rich companies do in the movies.

After three or four assassinations, the level of these frivolous law suits would fall dramatically.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Ross Fleming

If you did this in a 2001 degree thesis, dig it out and sell it to Jobs - prior art and all that...

[Simon]

Oh nose....

Not another dogshit RAMBUS wannabee.

[Colin Millar]

Maybe he needs to sue w3c

For daring to publish the xml DTD

[Tom Richardson]

Opera have been doing this longer

With Opera Mini. Oh wait, they don't have as much money as Apple do they?

[Anonymous Coward]

LucasArts

LucasArts were sued in a Texas court by someone who claimed a patent on the MATRICES used by computer games to transform objects.

They came up with prior art going back to the 17th century and were told by the judge "I do not want to hear any technical arguments in my court".

They lost.

They had to pay an amount equivalent to the best five year profit the entire Lucas organization had ever made.

Apple can't necessarily fight this just because they're a big company.

[popperty]

Opera Mini vs. XML

"Opera Mini does do this and has for some years"

Opera Mini doesn't reformat to or read XML. It uses some kind of binary language.

[Tony]

Idea...

Let's get ourselves down to the US patent office and patent the 'apparatus and method of granting stupid and vague patents with no real substance, which serve no purpose other than to stifle creativity by leaving genuine innovators open to vacuous lawsuits'.

That way in future we can sue the US patent office for creating these stupid situations.