Mythical Mac Tablet – Debunking the Hype
I gotta do a little debunking here on the latest craze sweeping our nation (or at least the geeky blog-o-sphere): a Mac Tablet computer.
What has caused the stir? Well none other than the …
A HORRIBLE EVIL DESIGN PATENT THAT APPLE SHOULD HAVE NEVER GOTTEN IN THE FIRST PLACE IF IT WASN’T FOR ALL THOSE IGNORAMUSES IN THE PATENT OFFICE WHO DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING AND, OH, BY THE WAY – WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO ISSUE MY PATENT?
… people. (Whew, thought I was going to pass out for a minute or two there).
Well, as usual, it isn’t what the headlines are making it out to be (see e.g. “Imaginary Tablet Could be Apple’s Next Big Hit”) – it’s just a design patent on a proposed design that Apple filed a design patent
on a couple years ago.
Here is what I wrote on this issue over at the Tablet PC Buzz forums:
OK folks – time to get a grip on the patent issues. Apple received a design patent that has very narrow focus and scope. It truly is only to the design shown in the drawings and doesn’t have much scope beyond the literal line by line drawings shown.
Patents, in general, end with claims. It is this claim that controls the scope of the patent protection. I could say in the background (written part of the patent) that I was planning on patenting “the world” but the claim only covered “a grain of sand that was found by a guy named Moe on the third Tuesday of February, 2002 while he was wearing a green hat backwards” – the claim would be very narrow and that is what I would be limited to keep others from doing. In other words, it doesn’t matter what I say in the written part, the claims control. For those of you who own property – the claims are just like the metes and bounds on your land title – if it doesn’t fall within those metes and bounds, you don’t own it.
With respect to design patents – they claim the “ornamental design shown in Figs X” – if it isn’t the design shown in Fig. X, it doesn’t infringe. In certain cases you could simply change one little line or design element and it wouldn’t infringe. Since design patents provide so little additional coverage (i.e. they only cover what is literally shown in the drawings), they are not as valuable and tend not to be sought that frequently. If you want to keep someone from exactly copying your design, you file a design patent. If you want to keep someone from copying your functional implementation of an idea, you file a regular US utility application.
So, don’t believe the hype… it is, afterall, only a design patent.
You may be interested in reading the following related posts:
- Microsoft Patents Apple – Don’t Believe the Hype
- webster’s be damned, read the patent
- universities as patent trolls?
- APPLE LOSES CHINESE TRADEMARK FIGHT:
- phosita ::: quick links for 2005-07-12
Posted by Douglas Sorocco, May 12, 2005 at 3:09 pm
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