Apple patents desktop search
Varchars has apparently become obsessed with searching out some of the more asinine 'method' patents going through the system, or that have made it through the system lately:
- Apple receives patent for desktop search
- IBM receives patent for using regular expressions to pull out info from a document
- Google receives patent for highlighting search results
This stuff isn't anything new, and I know I've personally harbored a small bit of resentment ever since Apple paid Amazon $1 million USD to license their one-click purchase patent. Evil stuff, that.
Now, most of these types of patents are inherently bogus. I'd find it really hard to believe someone couldn't go hogwild on Apple's current patent in court and eventually cause enough of a stink that it gets 'reexamined'. However, this assumes the person or company Apple, or the others mentioned, goes after with it even has the means to really do it.
Burst went after Microsoft for infringing on their streaming media patents, and while many think they'll win, in the meantime their company has been boiled down to basically a holding company consisting of a few guys while the lawsuit slowly goes forward. Expensive stuff, this, and it goes back to something I linked to awhile ago which said "litigation is just another means of discussion between two companies".
While the patent itself may be bogus, it's a hedged bet. If a company, or god forbid an individual, does go after Apple legally for something they're doing, they can just just go through their patent pool and find anything that might be remotely related to what the other company does and politely inform the other company that, while they might have a lot of merit to their claim, Apple would then be forced to go after them with all of their patents. Cocking the guns, so to speak.
Everyone knows the patent system, as it currently stands, has been eroded to such a degree that it's now just a gamed system, and it's just accepted that's that is how it is and will be. The only ones with the real lobbying power to get stuff changed are the ones who benefit the most from the system as it currently is. While Microsoft might get its ass handed to it by Burst in this one case, Microsoft benefits in so many others that it doesn't want to see the system changed. So, in effect, does Apple. And everyone else at that level.
About the only way to really start to see change is if another large association would be talking into the ears of the lawmakers, and making press. From what I can tell, those interests don't really exist in that form. What are the odds of all the shareware, freeware and OSS app creators getting together and forming their own association and paying in dues to lobby back? Probably close to nil.
Posted by drunkenbatmanJanuary 30, 2005, at 05:47 PM
Comments (2)
Posted by: stone at October 20, 2005 06:28 PM
In this post, what is the source for the $1 million paid to Amazon by Apple?
Varchars is being a bit disingenuous.
Yes, it looks pretty bogus if you look only at the first claim.
But there are 40-something claims. That, together, describe what is being patented.
So it's not a general patent on desktop search.
This is a bit like saying "GE patented the light bulb!", when in fact they've patented a light bulb with a unique filament, shape, and thin-film coating on the interior of the bulb. The first claim in such a patent might be describing the basic lightbulb, but that isn't what they're patenting.
You can't rely on just the Abstract of a patent to determine what's being patented. Those are intentionally brief and leave out most of the specifics.