Should Other Companies Pay Apple?
It is quite amazing when you think about it. People lining up for a mobile device at stores. Sitting there, waiting for hours and hours until they can spend hundreds of dollars on a device.
Sound familiar?
It should. I waited over 15 hours for the original iPhone with my good friend Gregory Ng. And it was worth every minute.
It is with this point of view that I kind of chuckle at the news yesterday that there were line-ups for the latest iPhone rip-off, the Blackberry Storm.
Don't get me wrong, I have a ton of respect for the BlackBerry. But I can't help but find it hilarious that all these companies are now coming out with touch-phones copying the iPhone in every way. The hardware (accelerometer!). The software (you can touch it with your finger!). Even the advertising is a rip off of the iPhone.
This all feels very very familiar to those of us who have been following Apple for a long time. Remember when people who had never seen a Mac first used Windows! I do. They were amazed that you could click with a mouse, drag windows around and do all those things Mac users have been doing for years.
And here we are, over 20 years later seeing people do the same things with their new Samsungs, LGs, Blackberry's etc. that Apple is responsible for innovating.
Which brings me to my question. I am no lawyer by any means. But shouldn't Apple be paid for all this? Isn't this the purpose of patents or, if someone is a lawyer out there, can you explain to me why the touch-screen interface of the iPhone isn't patentable?
On the one hand one can't help but feel very good for Apple's position with the iPhone. It is the market leader for touch-screen, highly interactive mobile devices. But we were in the same situation for a short period of time with the Macintosh. The Mac was the market leader in the WYSIWYG computing space for a period of time. Granted the market dynamics were very different then but a part of me can't help but think that we are witnessing a honeymoon phase for the iPhone wherein everyone loves the innovation, and then a couple of years later all the copycats get market-share.
Don't get me wrong, I think competition is a wonderful thing. But in this case all that it has allowed is for companies like BlackBerry to literally copy the innovation out of Cupertino and smugly release a product themselves that has the bi-line on billboards, "The First TouchScreen BlackBerry."
At the end of the day as long as Apple continues to grow market-share and grow revenues this shouldn't matter. But, like a great piece of artwork that is protected by copyright I just wish Apple was afforded the same protection as a painter.
Now there are many who would argue that Apple didn't invent the WYSIWYG interface. Or perhaps it didn't invent the notion of a touch-screen mobile device (I'm not sure). Regardless, in both cases what it did do was go through the painful work of bringing these innovations to the market. If it wasn't for the iPhone the Storm and all the other copycats would not exist.
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Comments
Yeh but how many of the copycats have Multitouch?
I think you’ll find Apple will have their day in court if someone clones that.
I don’t know who invented the touch screen, but it certainly has been around for a while. Back in 1991 I was using a Sony MagicLink device which was touchscreen, and after that a Newton, and after that a Palm. ( and of course there were the Microsoft CE devices )( 2 of those interfaces were designed by either Apple, or an Apple spin off ( General Magic ). ) This is just the latest and greatest iteration of the touch screen, though as stated by nuffsaid, the Multitouch is an Apple innovation through and through..
I’d be all for this if Apple turned around and paid for everything it has ripped off over the years. Either no companies would have any money left, or more probably we’d be right back where we are right now.
Unfortunately, Apple lost a landmark case to Microsoft over the look and feel of Windows 95. The court ruled that the look and feel of software is not protected under copy write law. I am not an attorney, but I think that the ruling established that if the underlying code is different then there is no infringement of the copy write. The idea of an icon on the desktop is not protected.
One could also argue that Apple copied the idea of the mobile phone, of 3G, of built-in GPS, of a camera in the device, etc, etc, etc. All depends on your perspective.
“One could also argue that Apple copied the idea of the mobile phone, of 3G, of built-in GPS, of a camera in the device, etc, etc, etc. All depends on your perspective.”
Not to mention the web browser, the word processor, the spreadsheet, the video editor, the portable music player, etc, etc, etc. For instance, Final Cut Pro was so similar to Premiere interface that I moved from Premiere to FCP without so much as cracking a manual. For another instance, virtually nothing about Safari is new. Tabs? Address bar? Imagine if MS had come out with a browser so late in the game, there’d be an article about like this one on every Apple nutjob site in the world.
But the “perspective” here as elsewhere is that Apple invented EVERYTHING and the world should get down on its knees and kiss Apple’s butt for the wonderful Apple-world we live in.