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Comment Re:Thank the gods. (Score 1) 156

Most patents are incremental improvements to existing inventions[1][2][3]. But the patent-holder has to license the original patent for you to build your idea on top of it. [1] http://inventors.about.com/od/inventing101patents/f/can_be_patented.htm [2] http://www.fr.com/Patent-Math--Making-Sure-Your-Strategies-Add-Up-05-31-2010/ [3] http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2012/09/do-patent-and-copyright-law-restrict-competition-and-creativity-excessively-posner.html

Comment Re:Thank the gods. (Score 1) 156

If nobody can develop their improvements to your invention because you're just hoarding your patents, that's a stagnated market. Mobile devices have lots and lots of different technologies in them. HTC had to remove the features in their web browser because of a patent on touching a phone number opening a dialer. So in 14 years (utility patent) can restore that feature. At the rate of current development in other areas like real time natural language speech processing, feature-rich touch input processing will be taken for granted like a scrolling with a mouse. So the longevity of that one patent is going to stagnate touch-screen browser development on mobile devices.

Comment Re:Thank the gods. (Score 1) 156

What a laughably stupid statement. The purpose of patents is most certainly NOT to allow others to create products, it is to encourage invention and the release of information.

The purpose is to ensure that inventions and works of art are shared, to improve all of society.

The exact phrase is: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Seems to me 'exclusive rights' are exactly what the patent law is there to provide.

See how that starts? "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." That's the purpose, promoting progress. The second half, the half that you're focusing on, is how patents accomplish that purpose. By offering a limited time exclusive right. The problem is the limited time is currently 14 years for utility patents and 20 years for design patents. That's several generations of obsolescence in mobile tech. That doesn't promote progress. It promotes a stagnated market with no consumer choice whatsoever. We have an alternative form of intellectual property protection that lets the holder hoard it in private forever. It's called Trade Secret. It would be more in line with the stated purpose of patents to simply require all patent holders to license their patents under FRAND rules.

Comment Re:sigh... (Score 1) 198

That's a bad analogy though. Apps in the market give a detailed list of all permissions the developer has requested, just the same as a detailed list of ingredients. And in both cases you must accept all or nothing. I can't buy my favorite brownie mix without the corn syrup. I can either buy that brand or not buy that brand. I can either accept all the requested permissions and install the app or not accept the permissions and not install the app.

Comment In-house OS for docks, not phones (Score 1) 207

I think I saw it on reddit, but someone suggested that an in-house Web OS would be more likely targeted at the webtop docks introduced with the Atrix. Motorola did say they want that functionality added to all their smartphones. That seems to make a lot more sense than Motorola ditching Android on their phones. I think it would have been an obvious development effort for Google to have had this kind of docking functionality be a core feature of ChromeOS from the beginning.

Comment Re:Not really news (Score 1) 110

You can make phone calls, to peoples' mobile phone, or home landline, using a data-only connection on your mobile phone running Google Voice. And they can call your Google Voice number from their home landline and it rings on your mobile phone thru the data connection. (Mobile phone without a minute plan).

Comment Re:Marketability? (Score 1) 132

The G2 uses the Scorpion core, which is capable of 1.2 GHz but clocked down to 800 MHz (probably for battery life). It's superior, even at 800 MHz, to the 1 GHz snapdragon. The GPU performance is much on par with the Galaxy S, so they don't need the CPU running at a high clock speed like on the pre-GPU phones you compare it to (except the Galaxy S, which this performs comparably too).

Comment Re:HSPA+ Is NOT 4G (Score 3, Informative) 132

Sprint's WiMAX isn't 4G either. Sprint is using 802.16e whereas the 4G proposal (because it hasn't actually be accepted and made an official ITU-R standard yet) is 802.16m. The 802.16e spec is capable of about 1/10th of what the IMT-Advanced (the real name of 4G) requirements specify. Now I know you didn't actually say anything that is contradicted by what I'm saying, but some people will read your post and think Sprint's Evo 4G == way better data than T-Mobile G2, which is not true. T-Mobile's HSPA+ network is proving to be faster than Sprint's WiMax network. They're both pre-4G, T-Mobile's is just better.

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