166
British inventor seeks to take $18bn bite out of Apple in bitter patent war
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
166 points (94.6% liked)
Technology
59756 readers
2968 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Maybe someone can EL5 this to me, but having looked at their patents from the other side of the pond, I just don’t get it.
It looks like the patent is a bunch of legal jargon that basically just says something to the tune of “save a key on in memory on a device, then use that key to validate purchases.” And is was granted in the late 2000’s.
How is this not a patent troll? Isn’t this stuff that existed before the patent was granted and an obvious solution that many engineers would easily come to?
What am I missing?
The patent in question, if it's valid, would have expired several years ago. The fact that it's everyday technology today is pretty normal considering how fast technology advances. Ordinary toilet rolls were also a patented invention and there's nothing in the law that says a patent has to a complicated solution to a problem.
iTunes was the first shipping product that ever actually did what's described in the patent... and the person who ran the iTunes department that "invented" this feature was previously a subcontractor working for the guy who holds the patent - he was literally paid to implement what the patent described and then Apple poached him and he continued the work at his new job without any patent license.
I don't support patents and never will, but if there was ever a case for clear infringement then this is it. It's already been to court and apple was found guilty of patent infringement... only to have an appeals court overturn the decision in pretty questionable circumstances.
Wait... what was toilet paper before it was a roll? It's one of those things you just think always was...
The Sears Roebuck catalog was popular