Prior art irrelevant after the patent reform
This is a common misconception. The "first-to-file" rule under the America Invents Act (Patent Act) is only relevant to prior-art within a one year timeframe before the filing of a patent.
once again...you had to mark it
This is a direct quote from US patent 5,946,647
"The application program interface communicates with the application running concurrently, and transmits relevant information to the user interface. Thus, the user interface can present and enable selection of the detected structures, and upon selection of a detected structure, present the linked candidate actions. Upon selection of an action, the action processor performs the action on the detected structure."
Clearly prior-art covers the selection of structures, linking to candidate actions (pop-up menu) and the selection of an action from a pop-up menu. The presentation of pre-detected structures may be considered novel; yet given such a preponderance of prior-art, this alone may not satisfy non-obviousness. We shall see what the courts decide.
There are no FEATURES claimed in the patent. its an interface/process patents. Unless the Simon did everything just like the iPhone it sort of pointless.
I suggest you read up on the definition of prior art. Information made available to the public in any form that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality is prior art. Under the duty of disclosure for all US patents, Apple is required to cite prior-art in their patent application. Since Apple did not cite the IBM Simon to my knowledge in any relevant patent, present and future defendants (HTC, Microsoft/Nokia, Google/Motorola, Sony... etc etc) may have sufficient grounds to prove inequitable conduct, which would render any or all such patents unenforceable.
In my opinion it is both legally and morally reprehensible for Apple to claim an innovative and novel invention and on such a basis to prosecute supposed infringement, when their claims were neither innovative nor novel; but simply a modernized facade to someone else's invention. I sincerely hope that the courts take an appropriately dim view of such inequitable conduct.
no Apple's patent covers the phone number being detected in the text and the number being turned into and active menu with the possibility to dial the number. That is not the same as selecting it and hitting dial.
If you refer to the user guide page 20 you will see "When you've marked the number you want... a pop-up menu appears. To dial, select Dial from the menu."
And this comes from a patent filed in 1997.
I believe 1992 is prior to 1997.
No where on that page does it say you can take a phone call, and switch to one of the other apps will still on the call.
From page 34 of the user guide for instance: "You can get to the Mobile Office screen from any screen by touching [icon]" There is no restriction prohibiting this function from the In-Call screen.
User guide (PDF) http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/bibuxton/buxtoncollection/a/pdf/Simon%20User%20Manuals.pdf
Interestingly the user guide page 20 states: "The ln-Call screen will appear as the Phone feature places the call. For example, this can be useful if someone sends you a phone number in an electronic mail message. Just mark it and dial." Which is also clearly prior art in relation to the Apple lawsuit against HTC.
Corporations are considered people in the US.
If that were the case, I would tend to support capital punishment.
Math is the study of patterns. Physics is the study of reality. We use math to describe physics.
Insight 1: Reality is mathematical Insight 2: We describe reality using mathematical patterns
Our current quantum math tells us what will happen. Our best quantum math is currently probabilistic. All our finest measurements can only give us a guess as to what will happen.
Insight 3: We have found mathematical patterns that are consistent with our measurements Insight 4: We have found mathematical patterns that approximate our measurements
If the wave function is a result of a real, physical thing, we can potential learn more about the real, physical thing, and perhaps measure that, and get take that into account in our math, thus removing all the probabilities. All the quantum fuzziness could go away.
Insight 5: As our measurement ability improves, our description of reality becomes less approximate Conclusion: 800 years ago the best assumption of the shape of the Earth was based on a simple theory that was predictive of all known phenomena at the time: The Earth was flat. By today's standards that theory remains as equivalently predictive as Newtonian mechanics or evolution. The only small hitch is that experimental evidence disproved the the flat-Earth just as with Newtonian mechanics, however there are compelling reasons to keep both alive (maps are more convenient to carry than spheres just as Newtonian mechanics is more convenient to calculate than general relativity. So long as our ability to measure improves, no school of thought will remain immune to disproof.
gates is the most overrated idiot going.
Now that Jobs is dead, Gates has definitely moved up the list.
The Tao is like a stack: the data changes but not the structure. the more you use it, the deeper it becomes; the more you talk of it, the less you understand.
