Innovation

Okay, I'll admit, the majority of the posts that have accumulated in this-here blog could be easily categorized as "rants," and if you have a problem with that, I would advise that you immediately avert your attention towards something that would be undoubtedly more profitable for you on a intellectual, emotion, physical, and metaphysical level. I bet you're just quaking in your boots, itching to learn what I'm going to rant about today. Well, I am pleased to to announce that you have to wait no longer.....than a short moment while I tell you a COMPLETELY UNRELATED story.

So I was at Subway today grabbing a cheap lunch, and I saw some guy who just looked trashy (judge me all you want, but I look at appearances .) He clearly had his girlfriend with him, and the thought that came to my mind (judge me) was "How would a self-respecting girl really want to be involved with someone who doesn't respect himself." (note: I could only see her from the back.) So she turned around as I was explaining this to my coworker, and I stopped mid-sentence: "Oh, well, that explains that." to everyone: take care of yourself.

So...rant: patents. That's what I'm going to talk about. Patents. Not Patients. Patents. Completely different. If you don't know the difference between patents and patients, I recommend hooked on phonics. I was even nice enough to give you the link right there. Get hooked. Studies have shown that phonics are more  addictive than meth and crack COMBINED. And by studies, I mean "studies," as in, the ones I just made up right now. Actually, it'll probably talk more about litigation of patents, but I guess that works too, right?

The motivation behind this rant is thusly: when I'm at work, and I just can't seem to focus on figuring out code for any longer, I'll peruse some tech blogs. The past couple weeks, these blogs have been riddled with various accounts of companies suing other companies over things claimed as infringement of "intellectual property." Now, I'm extremely far from being a lawyer, but if I understand it properly, intellectual property is essentially an idea that has come to fruition in a tangible form. For example, if you remember from one of my first posts, I brought up an idea for a product that my friend had thought of called the "Spatchet" which is a spatula and hatchet combined to be the ultimate cooking utensil. If I were to build this, I could file for a copyright, or trademark, or a patent. So this is the general idea behind the litigation.

There is a certain company, which I will call A****...hmm, too obvious, I'll call it *pple. So this company developed a tablet device, which some of you may know as the "iPad," which millions and millions of people bought, if for no other reason than they are incapable of using rational thought. (I'm kidding. I'm sure it's a lovely device. It should model.) So this company is in the process of suing Samsung because their tablet device "breaches intellectual property." It was found today, also, that in that litigation is also contained a suit against Motorola for their tablet. Oh, and they're also suing HTC because their devices contain code which also "breaches intellectual property." There are plenty of other instances in which App...I mean, this company is attempting to remove competition. I'm not going to discuss so much the operating system suits as I am those pertaining to the tablet devices. For your information, however, Apple was granted a preliminary injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany, preventing sales of that product in any of the European Union nations.

Like I said, I'm far from a legal analyst, so there are probably many little nuances in the law that I just don't understand. I mean, there are reasons why I chose to become an Electrical Engineer....which we won't get into. Apple enthusiasts would claim that Apple is fully justified in their suit because the Samsung tablets resemble the Apple tablets to the point where if you had been drinking, and squinted JUST right, you may get them confused. I mean, their operating systems are virtually identical, right. I should note, that the patent claimed to be infringed are entirely "look and feel" patents, and not relating to the operating system (in these instances.)

The fact that the patents are being "infringed" means that the patents were granted. Here's how I picture it going down. Guy at the patent office gets the application, looks at it, studies it, thinks about it, and thinks to himself, "Yeah, okay, whatever. This will never catch on," and he approves it. I bet he's kicking himself now (the fact that I made conjecture means that it actually happened...in my mind).

But, to be honest, this could all be solved if companies like Samsung would just pull the stick out (I don't know of what), and just alter their design. I mean, what's so bad about sharp corners on a tablet any way? Or, even better, what if instead of having a back-lit LCD screen they used a projector. they could just drape a cloth over the opening and have the images project on to that. Then they could implement a Kinect-like technology and have the whole thing be worked solely through hand motions. Hmmmm....looks like I'll be making a trip to the patent office, if I do say so myself.

What I'm getting at is that this whole thing is ridiculous. I don't like Apple, but I don't hate them (2 years ago I did). Now I've come to the point where I think that anything that spurs on invention and innovation is something that should be encouraged, and it's more important that people find a device that they actually like, rather than one that other people tell them that they should like. In the official Google blog, this is what they said,

         "Instead of competing by building new features or devices, they are fighting through litigation."

That's where my problem with it all lies. So what do you think?