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Apple resolves turmoil over 3rd-party apps in patent filings

updated 06:15 pm EDT, Wed August 11, 2010

Screenshots not directly related to functionality


Apple has responded to a frustrated developer that was concerned when its iPhone app screenshot surfaced in one Apple's patent application. The handset maker had used FutureTap's Where To? app in a diagram for a patent involving technology for travelers.

FutureTap consulted with a patent lawyer to make sure Apple wasn't attempting to patent the app's functionality or steal the UI design. The attorney confirmed that the actual patent claims are only indirectly related to Where To?'s functionality, however. The claims are focused on a system for detecting the arrival of a traveler based on an itinerary and sequence of power cycles as the user boards an airplane.

"As discussed, Apple is contemplating steps to attribute the screenshot in the patent application to FutureTap," said Apple's senior patent counsel Anand Sethuraman. "The patent application in question does not claim as inventive the pictured user interface nor the general concept of an integrated travel services application."

Apple early this year was accused of stealing the UI design for its iBooks app. The interface bears a resemblance to Delicious Monster's Delicious Library utility for Mac OS X, although the design is not related to any patents held by either company.



by MacNN Staff

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 patents, developer, Apple, FutureTap

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  1. Jeronimo2000

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    +7
    08/11, 06:56pm | report spam | Reply |

    As stupid as ever

    The comparison between iBooks and Delicious Library, that is.

    Of course "the design is not related to any patents held by either company", because if you could patent the look of books on wooden shelves, you'd have to sue every bookstore in every town on earth.

  1. tsmelker

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Feb 2006

    0
    08/11, 07:45pm | report spam | Reply |

    This is pretty much...

    ... what I said on the earlier version of this article. No surprise here.

  1. Fast iBook

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Mar 2003

    -2
    08/12, 12:46am | report spam | Reply |

    Bookshelf........

    How does one patent the image of a bookshelf?

    - A

  1. chas_m

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    +6
    08/12, 03:52am | report spam | Reply |

    Amateur Hour

    It was dumb of the lazy illustrator to put an exact replica of WhereTo's UI on their patent app, and I'm sure he's been taken out to the woodshed over it.

    I'm glad to hear that the "story" turns out to be nothing, and hopefully Apple (or someone at Apple) has learned a lesson from this.

  1. testudo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    +1
    08/12, 10:12am | report spam | Reply |

    Re: As stupid as ever

    The comparison between iBooks and Delicious Library, that is.

    How is it ridiculous? Oh, right, you can't 'patent' it, so it's fair game. Or you can use the 'How else would you do it?" argument. The point is just a point. "Hey, look, they basically copied the look/feel of Delicious Library!" No one said there was 'theft', but it's like if you bring anything up that's negative apple, Apple must be defended.

    It's like when Apple released the Dashboard, which looks so much like Konfabulator it was hillarious. But rather than admit they basically stole the idea, or the look, or whatever, the defenders had to come out and claim that it really is just 'desk accessories' all over again, so Apple stole from themselves. Or that 'daring fireball' writeup explaining how it was completely different because Apple uses javascript vs. compiled code. Neither actually addressed the point that the entire UI and concept was basically Konfabulator.

    And I'm sure if Delicious Library was released after iBooks, no one would be making comparisons or mocking the company for basically copying Apple's UI.

  1. Inkling

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2006

    +1
    08/12, 01:01pm | report spam | Reply |

    Limiting what is patentable

    In the past, the patent office refused to issue patents for business methods, arguing (I imagine) that the discoverer gained enough benefit by being the first on the market with the idea, while the public lost too much if something that's often obvious was controlled by one entity. Amazon's infamous one-click patent is an illustration of a patent that wouldn't have passed muster in the past.

    But as the Patent Office fell more into the hands of experts (meaning patent attorneys), those restrictions have weakened. Make more things patentable, allow vaguer patents, do little checking for prior art, and there'll be more patent applications as well as more patent disputes, meaning more money for patent attorneys. Nothing on this earth motivates a lawyer like the possibility of acquiring more billable hours. That problem isn't helped by an increasing inattentive, lobbyist-driven Congress where 1000+-page laws are being passed by politicians who don't even pretend to understand what the legislation they have passed means.

    Business methods, user interfaces, genetic factors, and software that does some particular thing shouldn't be legitimate subjects of patents. For the first two, the public interest trumps rewarding the discoverer with anything more than the right of first use. (For instance, the public benefits enormously if smart phone UIs are similar. It means less frustration and more market competition.) For genetic factors in our body, we shouldn't be patenting the naturally occurring genetic codes of living people, turning them into violators of patents for simply continuing to breathe.

    As for software, we all know that software isn't like a physical machine. It isn't subject to as many limitations as something mechanical. Given a little time, you can do almost anything with software. That makes it wrong to patent the results, which can be achieve a hundred different ways, rather than a specific path to those results. Intellectual protection for software shouldn't extend beyond copyrigting the specific code to achieve a result. The first person to create a word processor or mail server should be able to keep anyone else from doing the same as long as they use different code.

    I suspect that is true of this "patent involving technology for travelers" which Apple intents to get. There's so little that's innovative in what they're doing, they felt free to swipe, without modification, the exact UI from someone's iPhone app.



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