Tuesday 20 December 2011

Patent Wars

I've been reading the ridiculous patent wars that are currently being fought in courts of law around the world about how Android phones are infringing patents..... but if you look at these patents

PCT/GB98/03016   <--- for instance

They relate to the vaguest description of an idea, and in some cases like the one above, they talk about devices that have long since gone to landfill.... the one above was filed in 1998 and U.S. Patent No. 6,956,564 on "portable computers" (not previously asserted; Apple acquired this one from British Telecom in 2008) are suing HTC over some vague use of a touch screen as described in the patent and touch screens didn't even exist in 1998 not for hand portable computers as it's called in the patent anyway !!!

No make no mistake about this, this is about the inexorable march of  Linux/Android into places where previously only bespoke software sat, such as the Apple iPhone and only now is Apple beginning to wake up  that their market share is soon going to disappear especially in their stronghold America..... the iPhone is selling stronger in the States than anywhere else but Android is catching up, just like it's overtaken Apple in Europe it will do the same in the States.

So this is why Apple are buying up stale 1998 patents off British Telecom, probably because their legal eagles can see some mileage in them, after all stalling sales of Android phones anywhere in the world means lost profits for the patent losers and increased profits for Apple.... But personally I see no honour in wheeling out a stale old patent which was originally filed for the likes of  Psion Series 5, and the HP320LX



 As you can see neither of these dinosaurs have anything in common with a modern Android phone,  and I fail to see how they can apply a patent for a device manufactured in 1998 by a COMPLETELY different company which has been simply purchased by another company on the off chance that it might be useful in fighting off a product which is better purely because of design and how that can be enforced in a court of law is beyond me...... The problem is though Linux/Android has SO many developers to push out a change takes only a few days and in some cases just a few hours, so they are behaving a bit like King Canute commanding the tide to halt

(although that isn't a very good example because King Canute didn't try to stop the tide to show how powerful he was as a king "Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws." In other words that other human construct...... God.....or as I like to call it "the fall back when nothing else fits" )


 Anyway I digress, it's all delaying tactics the design cycle of Android is accelerating, Apple on the other hand doesn't have the resources to develop as quickly as Android.... hence the litigiousness we are seeing now..... or in plain speak "blind panic" .... Steve Jobs has gone !!!! what are we going to do now ???? Sue them !!! every last one of them !!!! damn it !!!!

Laughable......Muah ha ha ha ha ha ha 

Friday 16 December 2011

It's been a while

I simply haven't had time to update my blog of late what with this and that happening....We've moved AGAIN !!! We are still in Laugharne, but we had the chance of a nice house with a huge garden and we jumped on it from a great height..... I've already hacked the garden to death to get some light into it because it had a lot of overhanging trees and we also have an Apple tree.... but gardening has ceased now because of winter but come spring I'll be back in there hacking away again..... we even have a small stream that runs right through the bottom of the garden.... it even has brown trout in it !!! :) 

Anyway.... Hasn't the world been busy ???? Gaddafi brown bread and quite a few of his family.... well lets face it....it really wasn't going to end well, was it ? and now the UK and the US are turning their attention to Iran and their nuclear ambitions or is that their oil ? I always get those two commodities mixed up.... Then of course we have all the nut jobs who think the world is going to end as predicted in the Mayan calendar.....if it wasn't bad enough that Christians are under the delusion that there will be a second coming and a destruction of earth.....blah .....blah .....blah, and then of course we have the extremist Muslims who are blowing themselves up for their share of virgins ..... they must surely be running out of them by now ? .... I am sooooooooo glad I'm an atheist, I suppose I used to be as bad because I used to believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.... but I grew up and saw sense..... 

Then of course we have more sensible things going on like the sigma 2 discovery of the Higgs Boson particle at CERN or the GOD particle as it's been dubbed or basically the reason why everything has mass in the universe.... people don't seem to realise the significance of this discovery... but all will become clear.... Like I said I'm sooooooooo glad I'm an atheist....


Anyway after that quick catch up with world events... onto more serious things like Freya's progress at school.... The school have started something called Read/Write/Ink (I think that's how it's said) basically it's a new way of teaching kids to read & write and it's results are astounding.... In Freya at least, from what I can tell they use phonetics as SSSSS snake and IIIIII insect ... but it's working she has only just turned 4 years old and she is reading her first words like PIN, CAT, SIT, SAD etc it's almost like a light has been switched on in her head and it's amazing to witness :)

Andrea and I went to her nativity play yesterday at her school... historically I wasn't going to pick holes in the story and decided I was just going to take it on face value.... because I simply don't do religion in any shape or form, I find the whole subject quite distasteful in this day and age... but I have to admit Freya as an angel (human construct though it is) was pretty damn cute... 

I'm going to let Freya decide for herself regards religion, just because I find it so ridiculous doesn't mean she will... although I'm aware that my views on it may well form her views on it, but I can't do anything about that....I'm not going to sugar coat any difficult questions she might ask....... in much the same way a "Christian" family can't stop their beliefs rubbing off on their children.... live and let live just don't force your views on me and I won't figuratively rip your head off with logic....

Anyway here we are nearly at WinterSolsticemas .... because that's what it really is.......

I will probably catch you the other side of the festivities