Judge sighs at 'whack-a-mole' lawsuits as Apple deals blow to Samsung Apple has won an early judgment in a California court squabble over alleged patent infringement by rival Samsung. Judge Lucy Koh has issued [PDF] a trio of summary judgments that uphold one Apple claim, deny a second, and strike down a motion by Samsung ahead of the companies' formal trial over handheld gadget technology this …
I haven't read the patent so I don't know exactly what they're claiming, but predictive text works totally differently on a touchscreen device than it does on a device with a physical keyboard (even a phone with a tiny physical keyboard like a Blackberry)
When you're typing on a keyboard, predictive text might take care of misspellings, but it won't handle "I aimed at the d but I hit the f" type errors because people on a keyboard don't do that, whether they're touch typers or hunt and peckers. But that is 95% of the errors on touchscreen keyboards, so the proximity of the letters you're aiming at is more important than having a dictionary of common misspellings like how predictive text worked on a PC.
I'm still amazed sometimes how when I'm trying to type in some nasty 12 letter word and miss all 12 letters, and get autocorrected to what I wanted - the biggest adjustment to learning to type on touchscreen devices was to just aim in the general direction of the letters you want and let the autocorrect happen. If you're patient (or lazy) sometimes you can type three words, two of which are autocorrected to the wrong thing, and then with the third word it figures out what you wanted and fixes the previous two. Never seen that on a PC, that's for sure.
I'm not saying Apple invented this technology on a touchscreen device (or even bought a company that invented it) but I don't even know if that's what they're claiming here. However, the usual braindead reflex of "evil Apple, they patented something that's been around for decades" is most certainly 100% incorrect in this case (not that this fact will stop me from getting downvotes from Apple haters) You might be able to point to a touchscreen device that did exactly what iOS does that came out years before (in fact I'd be surprised if someone doesn't come up with some examples in these comments tomorrow) but not decades before.
"I aimed at the d but I hit the f" type errors because people on a keyboard don't do that"
So you say, but I'll be contrary here and suggest that if a fingertip is about 1cm across and a Blackberry (for example) key is about 4mm wide - and has no significant gap between it and its neighbour - than people will strike other keys than they intended.
This is no different than the auto-correcting of Go Corporation's PenPoint system that I worked on over 20 years ago. If anybody has a legal right to a patent on this, Go Corporation should have it. The same thing held for the mouse with Xerox's Palo Alto research unit creating it and Apple contending they owned a patent on it.
If there is any way to turn off LibreOffice's auto-correct feature I am all ears. But no matter you slice the actual technology of how to do this has been around a long time. Given that I can type 100+ WPM I really don't need any help with a keyboard.
I am getting to the point I really hate Apple above and beyond all other companies. They just want to stick it to everybody. That includes their customers that they spy on like mad.
Interestly most patents issued since the mass market launch of touchscreen devices that try to pull the trick:
tried and tested function + on a portable device with a touchscreen using gestures = New patentable method
should be dismissed as being obvious, as no one can claim that taking a function that previously was performed through a keyboard and/or mouse and converting it to touchscreen is an original concept or thought.
It really is time we invented a legal process where the opposite sides each pick a lawyer that has to be tortured until they can come up with a mutually acceptable agreement the adversaries are willing to agree to. I am sure arbitration would become compulsive television viewing.
Even the fanbois would get organised for that.
I wonder how famous team players could become before they died of industrial illnesses?
We could go back to the times you hired a champion to fight for you in trial-by-combat. But the lawyers have a DUTY to do everything they possibly can for the people who are paying them. LTIC, lawyers have to outline what they are doing for you before they go into court and do it, so you, their clients, can decide whether to stump up the money or not. Lawyers get a lot of stick in these forums, but if you are hauled into court by, say, a looney neighbour threatening mayhem because your tree shed a leaf on their lawn or whatever, you'd want your lawyer to be 100% focused on the best outcome for YOU. More seriously, if you are being patent trolled or on trial for a crime, etc, you want your lawyer to do everything humanly possible to protect you. And remember, you are paying -- you are in control.
Do people get blagged by smart lawyers? Yes, sometimes. But every lawyer I've met in big business has been conscious of his or her duty to the court -- which is to do their full duty by their client. Full disclosure, I am married to one, and her honour is stainless. She will refuse work, at the cost of her own income, if it is not consistent with the client's best interests, i.e. if she thinks they will blow a wad of dosh on a sure failure and NOT get what they want. Or she will warn them and keep warning them that the actions they are paying her to take are not in their best interests and work hard to get them to modify their stance. Or she will resign from the case. And she is not untypical of the breed.
I own neither, so I'm impartial. Apple's claim is laughable on its face and the PTO officer who approved it should be taken out back and shot immediately.*
I'm actually a quite miserable speller. One of the things I frequently go to Google for is to find out how to spell some word I'm completely mangling. They have always come up with the correct work. Adding characters for hitting the wrong key on a touchscreen is an OBVIOUS improvement and indeed was my immediate reaction on using my very first BB keyboard.
*No, he doesn't deserve the benefit of a trial. The only bribe I'm willing to accept is that he pays all the lawyers fees for both sides up front, plus all the court costs, and then trebles that and pays it as a fine. Cash on the barrel head only. If he does that, suspend the sentence and parole him for 3 years.
Predictive text existed in dictionaries, databases, and other devices even prior to the 90s.
Increasingly, the USPTO seems to deserve the most uncouth of uncouth assault and battery upon itself. If they were paid too arrive at the decision to issue the patent, then keelhaul that party, too.
Better yet, somebody spray lube and sand on the floor so these two combatants can gore each other in the slips and jerks, and hopefully limp away in a mutual truce. This IS wearing thin on the courts and the consumer, too.
In case you weren't paying attention, Samsung's patents that were invalidated by the judge were killed because Apple proved prior art. If Samsung had been able to prove that the method of prediction had been used previously then Apple's patent would have likewise been invalidated. As usual patents are about "a method" of doing something, not all methods. If you can find a different method of doing the same thing you are in the clear.
With billions at stake, each side is going to argue about the definition of every word until the next big meteor strike. The lawyers involved are going to advise their clients not to settle while there is a drop of blood left for them to suck. If judge Koh invalidates all the patents at issue, the problem goes away (to whoever hears the inevitable appeals), and she can do something more constructive with her time.
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