W3C moves to snuff Apple web patents The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has launched a bid to overturn two Apple patent filings that may apply to the HTML5 standard. The web standards group – which is responsible for the HTML5 spec – has asked the world to submit prior art on US patent applications 11/432,295 and 7,743,336. The patents cover ways to secure …
If that's a software description, can't the world just agree to drop the brain-dead US system and let the rest of us implement HTML5 because software patents don't apply (yet) elsewhere? That's the best way to make the point, let the US stew in its own juices until the citizens demand decent patent reform because the existing system adversely affects them. Corporations might be able to deliver campaign dollars to DC, but it's the people who deliver the votes.
I was genuinely impressed as a semi-interested bystander that Apple were pushing an open standard versus a corporate proprietary alternative, it did seem like an unusual move at the time and I thought a potentially welcome one (eventually once every one had moved over).
But sometimes you just have to wait long enough, now the real reason appears to have reared it's ugly head and it seems Apple didn't want any single company to have too much of a share of the internets favourite media format, unless it them!
Yes I know these companies are obliged to make money and the nicey nice PR is there just to hide the fins popping out of the water, but every now and again you let your guard down for a second or two, open your life to hope and the betterment of humankind and BAMM a knife between the shoulder blades, I only caught a glimpse of my attacker, but I could swear he was wearing a dark polo neck.......
How arrogant and selfish a paranoid megalomaniac do you need to be to even come up with that plan? I think this rotten Apple needs to lose this Steve more than M$ theirs. I couldn't stand him, though it was me, now enough reason to never ever buy (or recommend) anything made by that moron.
It's a stupid patent, there seems to be plenty of prior art, but the USPO will probably grant it anyway because they seem intent on fucking up the US economy. Given this reality, I can't blame Apple or anyone else, for attempting to grab as much stuff as they can since what they don't grab they'll be defending themselves against in the EDC of Texas.
Additionally, it shouldn't be in the HTML spec, which is supposed to be about defining HTML elements, their behaviour and rendering. A mechanism for monitoring and reporting on browser activity is clearly well outside of the box model.
So plenty of stupid to go round, all thanks to the Patent Office.
It's not the fault of the USPTO - no-one has to provide them with any work
Any similar organisation could do one of two things
- publish so it becomes prior art
- patent and give an irrevocable licence to anyone that doesn't take the piss
Some organisations indulge in the second best and sign up to OIN
I know Apple has a rather large bucket but is it really worth the effort of depleting it to pay the lawyers? Unless most of Apple's shareholders are lawyers working these suits then it makes perfect sense. Drive the stock price high by holding a load of cash, sell said stock off getting premium price then collect all the cash behind it in lawsuit fees while the stock price plummets and buy in low and wait for the next cash pile to grow... rinse, repeat.
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Crapple are such a toxic force in innovation these days.
I hope the W3C come up with some method of meaning HTML5 compliance is somehow implicity licensed until explicitly revoked then Jobs' company can be kicked back to the internet stoneage overnight at will if they want a pissing match.
It's one thing actively trying to block innovation in competitor companies by sueing instead of couter-innovating but potentially fucking up shit for everyone is real News International popularity territory.
"toxic force in innovation" is a very good way of saying it. For starters, the iPad would never have come out if the CrunchPad hadn't been so talked about... The iPhone was a copy of the dozens of other smart phones already out at the time (albeit with more built in storage).
And lets not forget how long Apple took to innovate things like MMS and copy and paste into the iPhone... I think they're now just starting to approach the levels of other smart phones that were available when they first released...
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