Again: That's one element of many. The design patent is not infringed on by having one element similar/the same.

Ugh. I'm so tired of this ignorance.

The "rounded corners" were not a utility patent -- it was a design patent, and only one element of it. Those are completely different things. Obviousness has nothing to do with design patents. Design patents are not solely based on a single trait, but a number of traits that are not essential to the function of a thing which, taken together, represent a particular design.

Obviousness is one of the reasons you reject a utility patent, as utility patents are about functionality. Design patents are NOT -- they cover only those parts of the design that are not functional, and only when taken as a whole with all the particular elements (not just rounded corners, but certain ratios, with certain colors, placement of logo, number of buttons, packaging, and so on and so forth) and are meant to protect knock-offs that confuse consumers (as opposed to utility patents which are meant to give temporary monopolies in return for releasing technology to the public).

That said, patents get rejected for obviousness all the time. They just don't make slashdot. This one is so obvious anyone who has ever taken Econ 101 should have considered it obvious so it takes very little in the way of domain knowledge to figure out its obvious -- some other obvious things are maybe obvious to us techies but harder for patent examiners to figure out, especially in the murky world of business method patents (which are all crazy).

No, I mean the customers who are party to the suit -- Apple's customers. Yes, there was other channels they could have gotten music, but the catalogs were not exhaustive and were just as locked down as anything Apple ever did.

ITMS wasn't the first to try to do legal online music, I'm not arguing that. They did get all the paranoid labels on board and made it easy, and at the time that was a big deal. I remember I *could* buy music online at the time, but it was mostly a pain in the butt from most sources -- it was no real competition to the illegal napster route. Then ITMS made things easy and had everything I wanted, so I started using it to buy my music online.

Had they not made the DRM deals, ITMS would never had much of a selection and that would have harmed me as a consumer.

That's awfully weird considering Apple dropped DRM from its music store before Amazon opened their music store.

Your memory and reality are having a somewhat awkward dissonance.

Your analogy is dumb.

The customers would never have had access to the music catalogs of the major music labels were it not for deals to implement DRM and patch holes when that DRM is exploited.

Real exploited a hole to create fakely-DRM'd content, and Apple had to close it or they'd be in breach of contract and suddenly the ITMS has no content.

(At least, in theory. In reality Apple got big enough by this point that they were able to muscle the labels into letting them un-DRM the entire catalog, which seems quite the opposite of illegally screwing customers.)

DRM is so terrible that.... Apple did away with it on the music store years ago.

Its the content industry that is keeping it on the movie and tv stores. I am against DRM too but remember who requires it in their contracts to distribute.

You can use non-apple devices with iTunes and the iTunes music store just fine. You have always been able to do so. I don't know why you'd want to because as far as mp3 managers go it kinda sucks, but you could plug a random mp3 player in and provided its not going out of its way to be weird, iTunes will detect it and list it on devices and it'll happily copy any non-DRM'd content to it.

All you could not do was use non-Apple devices with DRM'd music-- but no music is DRM'd anymore, so that's not relevant.

You also couldn't use DRM'd music from other services on Apple's devices, and you still can't, but that's not relevant either because there's no obligation for Apple to support anyone elses DRM.

The case is not about supposed non-existent DRM between iTunes and iThings, its about Real hacking Apple's DRM on files and trying to copy such hacked DRM'd content -- instead of plain straight up mp3s that iTunes always supported fine -- into an iThing. Apple closed the hole in their DRM and such hacked content was no longer valid.

But, that's not relevant anymore because Apple doesn't use that DRM on any music anymore. (They _do_ use it on non-music stores still, though)

The claim is very weird, yes, but the premise isn't -- the case has absolutely no bearing on the industry. Not because MP3s and iPods have been replaced by streaming and iPhones or whatever other device people use instead of a dedicated iPod, but because the DRM has long since been dropped in the music space.

Worst case scenario, Apple pays the lawyers involved some number of millions of dollars and a pittance to consumers (as in all class action cases), and changes nothing because its all entirely moot at this point.

Yes, damn all those disabled people who might benefit and have a more meaningful life as a result of this system, because you lost out on a few dollars that one time on one component of it.

The morning after pill is not an abortifacient, point of fact.

It prevents pregnancy, it does not abort nor induce a miscarriage. Fertilization and implantation (ie, a pregnancy) does not always or even usually happen immediately after sex, it can take hours or days to happen which is why it "may" work -- the morning after pill prevents pregnancy from happening, it doesn't abort a pregnancy already established.

Did you miss the point?

I think you did.

Its not about what its OK to be offended about: its that THREATS of EXTREME VIOLENCE are not okay.

It is quite possible to define a set of rules that do not include committing violence, particularly here, sexual violence, against someone. If you can't get behind that, you're part of the problem.

This isn't about made up offense and political correctness and differing cultural norms. We're talking about threats of rape and extreme violence here. Its not okay to threaten to rape someone. Its not okay to threaten to murder someone. The topic is not a joke. You're the problem if you think otherwise.

If your debit card is a Visa/Mastercard, you get the same protection as a CC unless you use it 'as' a debit and enter the PIN and someone steals your PIN, I suppose. Then again I don't ever use it as a debit card, always over visa/mc.

I've had my debit card 'stolen' online twice. Once I got a call from Visa and had it reversed by them once before I noticed, and the second time when I noticed and called my bank, they reversed it all with no problem at all.

No need for 'proof', except that the bank mailed me an affidavit I had to sign -- but they reversed the charges immediately including all bank fees caused by these transactions (granted, provisionally; if I didn't sign the affidavit and get it back to them I'd probably expect to see the charges re-appear).

I think you're overly paranoid about debit cards.

That said it's a cold day in hell where I let anyone have direct access to my bank account.

For one thing, you're only counting the middle steps.

First, you have to get your wallet, get your card from wallet, swipe it, wait, then either sign or enter a PIN, put card away, put wallet away. You're ignoring the setup and teardown steps.

With Apple, its pull out phone, hold it near device, tap, put away phone.
I am not familiar with the Google Wallet version of NFC-compatible phones but I assume it is quite similar (since Apple Pay is mostly a NFC device except how its setup and the arrangement with the banks to secure the transactions)

More importantly though, the regular credit card use leaves that number everywhere you use it, just begging to be stolen which has happened repeatedly of late.

With Apple Pay, the credit card is not stored on the device, instead its a per-device number arranged with your bank when you set it up -- and when it transmits it also transmits a dynamic authentication code and that pair can only be used once. (I don't know what it uses to generate that code but I suspect its something like a software time based token).

They don't get your name, your credit card number is not vulnerable, they don't get any of your personal details. They just get paid.

Eh? How is it not renewable? Every day it starts anew. You don't ever run out, it never stops producing. Sometimes its production is lower and sometimes its higher, but it never runs out.

Granted, coal is sorta technically "renewable" but only on a geological scale that renders the term pointless. We'll mine it all and run out of it all long before any more comes.

All of them. Apple always reports actual end-user sales, not channel movement.