Patent?
How the **** is this patentable? It is not a new concept - infact I had a mobile about 10yrs ago with 2 screens on it.
Microsoft has considered mobiles with multiple screens. A recently granted patent shows plans for an additional low-power display on the rear of our devices. The concept sees an E Ink-like display integrated across the entire backside of future mobile hardware. This is said to give vendors an opportunity to free space on the …
Of course it's patentable. Yours was probably two LCD screens. This is e-Ink. Totally different.
And low power. Totally and utterly different.
It's even curved at the to. Totally, utterly and unbelievably different.
How dare you suggest the the professionals at the USPTO give out patents for nothing. Just how very dare you! Why, that if attacking a vital organ of the capitalist system. Are you some kind of commie terrorist?
I agree about the absurdity of the patent application. However, I don't think I've seen the monolith phone done with a rear screen before which suggests that it is an innovation, however minor.
Patentable? No. Not really. However, if used only as a self-defence patent - face it, some companies want to patent rectangles - then just about tolerable.
This is imagined as being low-power due to not refreshing very often - except that if it's used to display an accurate-to-the-minute clock then every minute the display will need to refresh. D'oh.
Not to mention that when they tried this on laptops (with Vista's Sideshow tech) the market response was characterised by a tumbleweed, bouncing gently along. I'm not convinced that the same pointless idea applied to phones will be any more successful.
I looked for a Sideshow screen to add to an HTPC since now having to switch the telly on to play music would have been useful. There were none to be found. I guess it way more about OEM apathy than unworkability.
However, on a laptop it was not a sensible idea - adding a scratchable surface to a laptop isn't practical.
Sideshow = some perfectly good scrap code some tech threw together in his spare time for a bit of fun...but then the marketing department thought they could monitize it.
Perhaps if they went back to the developer and actually asked him what it was designed to do, they might be able to sell it afterall...
Would someone from a proper patentese legal background please explain to me how so many obviously non-innovative and previously seen ideas manage to get a patent in the US?
I am utterly at a loss as how these things ever get past the patent clerks!
Surely innovation and not prior art should be the driving factor here? How would a UK court be likely to decide on a patent like this? What countries around the world take a more pragmatic view and disallow such obviously floored decisions (ignoring China and the Middle East)?
I'm a wee bit baffled THB.
The patent should NOT grant protection for the placement of dual screens on the phone. IIRC, I saw at least TWO dual-screen models of phones in Tokyo in 2004/2005. Can't recall whether they are Panasonic or Sanyo or Sharp. (Still scouring the net, unable to find them. Pissing me off because I keep in tin-foil-manner suspecting all such queries are suppressed. But, I must be mistaken.)
Any patent should ONLY cover the e-ink thingy, and ONLY for the exact shape and size of display, and SHOULD NEVER, EVER preclude the manufacture of e-ink displays sized and adapted to phones, PDAs, wrist gadgets, etc. ONLY a design patent for the specific item in circulation in the free market should be protected. Otherwise, someone could go back and retroactively patent the existence of eyeglasses, automobile windscreens, pocket protectors, file organizers and even mailing envelopes. Imagine if planes, trains, bicycles, and the simple surfboard were patented and licensed by single individuals or companies...