Apple Wins Patent For Curved Touch-Screens

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Apple has been awarded another patent for something that is already on the market, even though it doesn't employ the technology in its own devices. The countdown to Apple suing Samsung and HTC begins now. :(
 
;) Curved touch screens? Like the ones that have been in POS CRT monitors for 30 + years?
 
It's funny cause I'm sure Apple had nothing to do with this screen technology. Probably LG,Samsung, or whomever made it, and Apple lawyers went and patented it. Now they're looking at Samsung to manufacturer it, you know after they were done suing the pants off them.
 
typical patent b.s. stifling innovation the very opposite of what it was designed to do.. like the rest of the government.
 
It's not who you know, it's who you blow. Clearly, Apple has been blowing the right people over in the Patent Office.
 
the patent is for a Method of forming a curved touch sensor, NOT a patent for all curved touch sensors.
as long as LG/Samsung use a different manufacturing method they're safe.
 
Can we just scrap the entire patent system, require that any patent come with a proof of concept working model of your patent, and then require that it come to market in a year's time?
 
bloodypulp said:
the patent is for a Method of forming a curved touch sensor, NOT a patent for all curved touch sensors.
as long as LG/Samsung use a different manufacturing method they're safe.
Click to expand...
Who are you to actually read past the title and bring truth into this thread!?
 
how can you actually patent a way of creating something and not the actual item created? what a joke. So does Samsung have to allow apple inspectors to come in and verify their manufacturing doesn't infringe on any of apple's patents?
 
Actually it looks like several methods. And I'm positive this won't hold up in court so many others have curved screens I would be surprised if this patent sites not violate one or more of them.
 
I hope Godzilla uses atomic breath on the Apple campus.
 
Apple = BIGGEST patent troll of the century... Surpassing even such offenders as Rambus ten fold....:eek:
 
algierswhodat said:
how can you actually patent a way of creating something and not the actual item created? what a joke. So does Samsung have to allow apple inspectors to come in and verify their manufacturing doesn't infringe on any of apple's patents?
Click to expand...

It used to be a joke, however ever since the patent rules got changed from "first to invent" to "first to patent" it basically destroyed the last bastion of the patent system which is to help people who don't have resources in protecting their inventions.
 
Considering it was filed in 2010, and published in 2012, Samsung had plenty of time to make sure their version is non-infringing.
 
While i don't like apple, their products, or their predatory practices, this patent does not appear to be any of those.

Processes of making things are patentable, and need to be. There is nothing to see here, unless the process by which people already making touch panels are using this exact process, and then it'd be bullshit. But i haven't seen any proof that this is how existing curved touch panels are made.
 
Why wasn't the mouse patented? Was it a missed opportunity to capitalize? With the patents Apple gets, this should have been patented too.
 
algierswhodat said:
how can you actually patent a way of creating something and not the actual item created? what a joke. So does Samsung have to allow apple inspectors to come in and verify their manufacturing doesn't infringe on any of apple's patents?
Click to expand...

There are millions of items and products out there - with multiple manufacturing methods (at differing costs and efficacies) that benefit from patent.
 
So Apple patents a manufacturing process... hmmm... brb while I go file a patent for an assembly line in china so I can sue everyone..
 
This isn't a patent for curved screens. This is a patent for one way to manufacture curved screens.

A lawsuit on this kind of thing is extremely difficult. When I worked for Seagate when they still had a disc manufacturing plant in the US, we'd patent anything we could think of, including stuff that was pretty far out there. As an example, I'm on a patent that talks of manufacturing glass substrate discs by doing the whole process on huge sheets of glass, then laser cutting the disc shape after the fact rather than the traditional method of starting with individual shaped substrates. Never really anything we even got to the experimental phase with, but these days it's in the company's interest to patent anything it can.

That kind of patent, however, rarely precludes anyone from doing something. Usually there's a part of the process that can be done a different way with equivalent or very nearly equivalent results. Also, it's incredibly difficult to prove someone is making something in the same way that your patent outlines. It's not like your competitors are calling you up and offering you manufacturing line tours.
 
The Seagate example is understandable since that patent pertains to their business unlike Apple which does nothing in the way of display design or manufacturing. Apple is clearly patent trolling Samsung and LG. Apple is nothing more than a Dell buying technology and components from others and assembling into a final product.
 
They just need to change the way patents are done. In order to approve a patent, lets say you have to have a working model before approval can be made, not a drawing with a theory of how it works. Problem solved.

Never owned an Apple product, never will. It isn't the products, it is how they carry themselves. They do very well with sheep, they know this, it is a questionable model of business but works very well for them, I see through their spin and buy what works best for ME.
 
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