<story><title>Another Spanking for Apple from Judge Posner</title><url>http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120704142749867</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>oemera</author><text>Sure 100 engineers would come up with the idea &quot;slide to unlock&quot;. After you see and use something it&apos;s always easier to find &lt;i&gt;this said solution&lt;/i&gt;. BUT before Apple it seems that none of the 100 engineers you mentioned came up with the idea and it was never build and that means it was never obvious before Apple created it.&lt;p&gt;Saying things are obvious after someone already &lt;i&gt;invented&lt;/i&gt; a dead simple and good solution for a problem we had for years is always easy.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Grammer.</text></item><item><author>reitzensteinm</author><text>You don&apos;t even have to look that far back - pre iPhone, it was used on the Neonode N1m:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/7ru2GjBTHRY?t=3m56s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://youtu.be/7ru2GjBTHRY?t=3m56s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even if the iPhone were the first to use it, the patent is still ridiculous. If you tasked 100 engineers to come up with an unlocking solution for touch screens before the iPhone existed, I&apos;d bet good money at least 50 of them would consider it an option. That&apos;s not non-obvious.&lt;p&gt;Patents in software are no longer about inventions, they&apos;re about being the first do obvious technique x in context y.&lt;p&gt;And sometimes, that&apos;s not even necessary - I&apos;ve had a technique I used for displaying cross domain ads in Flash that I considered obvious at the time patented out from under me later on. The &quot;in Flash&quot; bit being the novel part, I assume - I try not to spend too much time dissecting insanity.&lt;p&gt;At least we&apos;re starting to see notable investors rally against them, like pg and Fred Wilson - the very people who should be benefiting the most from a non broken patent system.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Clarified line about the 50/100 engineers.</text></item><item><author>chj</author><text>Somehow Apple forgot that he was borrowing (let&apos;s not use stealing) many ideas from other companies.  The &quot;Slide to unlock&quot; probably was inspired by Sony walkman&apos;s &quot;slide to open&quot;. Surely, they must have got a lot of experience in suing other people over ideas they borrowed back from the windows GUI case in 80s.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>CamperBob2</author><text>The relevant question is, are the teachings of the patent likely to be necessary in order for a person of average skill in the art to implement the claimed technique(s)?&lt;p&gt;If the answer is not only &quot;No,&quot; but &quot;Are you joking?&quot;, then the patent should never have been issued.</text></comment>
<story><title>Another Spanking for Apple from Judge Posner</title><url>http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120704142749867</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>oemera</author><text>Sure 100 engineers would come up with the idea &quot;slide to unlock&quot;. After you see and use something it&apos;s always easier to find &lt;i&gt;this said solution&lt;/i&gt;. BUT before Apple it seems that none of the 100 engineers you mentioned came up with the idea and it was never build and that means it was never obvious before Apple created it.&lt;p&gt;Saying things are obvious after someone already &lt;i&gt;invented&lt;/i&gt; a dead simple and good solution for a problem we had for years is always easy.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Grammer.</text></item><item><author>reitzensteinm</author><text>You don&apos;t even have to look that far back - pre iPhone, it was used on the Neonode N1m:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://youtu.be/7ru2GjBTHRY?t=3m56s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://youtu.be/7ru2GjBTHRY?t=3m56s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Even if the iPhone were the first to use it, the patent is still ridiculous. If you tasked 100 engineers to come up with an unlocking solution for touch screens before the iPhone existed, I&apos;d bet good money at least 50 of them would consider it an option. That&apos;s not non-obvious.&lt;p&gt;Patents in software are no longer about inventions, they&apos;re about being the first do obvious technique x in context y.&lt;p&gt;And sometimes, that&apos;s not even necessary - I&apos;ve had a technique I used for displaying cross domain ads in Flash that I considered obvious at the time patented out from under me later on. The &quot;in Flash&quot; bit being the novel part, I assume - I try not to spend too much time dissecting insanity.&lt;p&gt;At least we&apos;re starting to see notable investors rally against them, like pg and Fred Wilson - the very people who should be benefiting the most from a non broken patent system.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Clarified line about the 50/100 engineers.</text></item><item><author>chj</author><text>Somehow Apple forgot that he was borrowing (let&apos;s not use stealing) many ideas from other companies.  The &quot;Slide to unlock&quot; probably was inspired by Sony walkman&apos;s &quot;slide to open&quot;. Surely, they must have got a lot of experience in suing other people over ideas they borrowed back from the windows GUI case in 80s.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>reitzensteinm</author><text>Come on, I clearly meant &lt;i&gt;before&lt;/i&gt; Apple first used it. Today, 100 out of 100 engineers would consider it.&lt;p&gt;You are right that obviousness changes over time, and it&apos;s important to consider it from the perspective of the time of the invention.&lt;p&gt;But some things genuinely &lt;i&gt;were&lt;/i&gt; obvious at the time of their &apos;invention&apos;.</text></comment>