Phones Apple patent something that is already patented

[cHodAX]

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/news/a430298/apple-patents-fingerprint-sensor.html

It's a fucking joke, they are patenting something that is covered by numerous other patents held by other companies, whoever is working at the patent office is clearly being bunged money to push this shit through. There is nothing novel here, it is all based on prior art and not patent worthy.

 

[Lamp]

What next? Tesco getting sued by apple for selling apples...

Steve Jobs must be turning in his grave (oh, wait. He can't. Apple have patented death)

 

[Vae]

What next? Tesco getting sued by apple for selling apples...

Steve Jobs must be turning in his grave (oh, wait. He can't. Apple have patented death)

Apple's new business plan

http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Grave Electricity

 

[caLLous]

In Apple's defence (and trust me, that's not something you will hear me say often); it doesn't initially look like a bog-standard biometric device that they're looking to put in.

 

[Kryten]

Of course not. It's an iBiometric device. Same as every other biometric device but with a higher pricetag and has a built in fuckwit-magnet.

 

[cHodAX]

In Apple's defence (and trust me, that's not something you will hear me say often); it doesn't initially look like a bog-standard biometric device that they're looking to put in.

It's prior art, there are other optical and pressure related bio-metric patents issued over the last decade that this new patent builds off. The test of a patent is if the idea is novel and this isn't, they build a device that works slightly differently than existing devices but could not have been built without the R&D of others laying the groundwork in related patents. It is prior art and the patent office issued anyway.

 

[soze]

It says the company the bought already has several of these patents. Could this not just be the continuation of that company patenting new tech. It does not have to be evil because it is apple.

 

[cHodAX]

It says the company the bought already has several of these patents. Could this not just be the continuation of that company patenting new tech. It does not have to be evil because it is apple.

It's not Apple, it's the fucking stupid patent office and the patent system in general. They built in prior art as a foundation of that system and then they totally ignore it. By doing so they are utterly crushing innovation and starting patent wars where lawyers get rich and the consumer goods prices go up to pay for the legal bills. It's a morally bankrupt system that is exploited to the max by the big players, they are being granted patents for shit other people invented and all because they word the concepts differently or even worse the patent office bypass all the major checks which I strongly suspect is happening.

 

[GReaper]

The US patent system is slowly screwing businesses in the long term and needs addressing.

Sadly whilst the large companies which benefit from abusing the patent system keep on saying that it "protects innovation", and politicians repeat the same words, we're unlikely to see any changes.

 

[Zenith.UK]

And the case in point...

Motorola Atrix came out early LAST YEAR with an integrated fingerprint sensor.

I remember some old Windows PDAs that had fingerprint readers. Even IBM Thinkpad laptops have had fingerprint sensors for years.
Others have already touched on prior art and while I'm not a patent clerk, Apple's patent application clearly derives heavily from previously patented technologies.
The difference with Apple's claim seems to be to combine the flash and reader in the same window on the back of the phone. Not exactly a big increment and kind of obvious given that there isn't much real estate on a mobile phone's surface.

 

[soze]

I am not sure it is a simple finger print reader. The key bit is the window that becomes "transparent or opaque" as in the front of the phone is white. Then when you need to scan your finger the reader becomes transparent, afterwards the window is opaque. It is a new idea as far as I know?

If that is a new idea should they not be allowed to patent it?

 

[ECA]

Because 99% of patents are fucking stupid. Corporations shouldn't be allowed to patent anything.

 

[soze]

Out of interest in the following scenario are patents not fair?

I spend £1b developing a new battery, because I spent so much I have to charge £5 a go to get my money back. Duracell spend £500k reverse engineering it then release their own version for £1.99 as they have no R&D costs. Yes the customer gets a better price but me the inventor has just been screwed. Me and my company are not going to keep spending billions improving technology for no reward? Are patents that stop other companies stealing your work not a good idea?

 

[ECA]

Yes, in that situation patents are fine.
The patent and copyright systems are designed to protect individuals against corporations. They are not designed to protect corporations against the individual.

 

[GReaper]

I spend £1b developing a new battery, because I spent so much I have to charge £5 a go to get my money back. Duracell spend £500k reverse engineering it then release their own version for £1.99 as they have no R&D costs... Are patents that stop other companies stealing your work not a good idea?

If you've spent £1b on something which is genuinely new and not obvious to anyone else - then great, you probably deserve patents! However this is certainly not the case at the moment with the current abuse of the patent system.

There should be plenty of articles criticising the patent system given the recent cases surrounding Apple and other companies. Take a look at The Patent, Used as a Sword - it probably explains some of the problems being faced at the moment.