No, I am not confused. It is true, Apple might get sued for infringement on numerous Palm patents that are implemented in the iPhone, as reported in a very lengthy and interesting article on Engadget. To sum things up, it is true that certain technologies we saw in our brief introduction to the Pre seem to be patented by Apple, and therefore if acted upon, might cause a delay in the release of the Pre. One of these so called technologies is the way the iPhone UI “springs” when reaching the top of a Web page (I seriously cannot believe they patented that). You can see it demoed in the video below.
However, it seems that for every one patent owned by Apple and possibly “stolen” by Palm, there are two of exactly the opposite. Seems like Palm has a patent on the way the iPhone adjusts the screen’s brightness, the method in which the iPhone toggles between different dialing options (speed dial, dialer, contacts, and call history to be exact), searching for a contact by typing initials only, and the way you implement conference calling in the iPhone. So, it is safe to say that if Apple does decide to sue Palm over certain patents implemented in the Pre, Palm will not go down without fighting. We might all be surprised to see Apple actually lose a legal battle at the end of the day.
Of course, chances are none of this will ever happen, kinda like the Cold War and how neither side ever launched out of fear of the other side’s retaliation. If Apple loses this battle, they will owe Palm royalty fees for every iPhone ever sold, that would be a whopping 16 million devices. I also do not see Palm taking the first shot in this war, I don’t think anyone doubts the amount Palm has to lose. If they lose this battle, say goodbye to the Pre, and therefore we can pretty much uncover the grave we dug for them right before they surprised us with the Pre.
As Nilay Patel of Engadget so elegantly puts it, “All we want is for both Apple and Palm to come to the table, hammer out a cross-licensing agreement like other companies in the wireless industry do all the time, and get back to work on innovative, exciting technologies and devices. The lawyers get paid that way too, you know”. Could not have said it better.
Watch the video below to see an iPhone technology for which Apple could sue Palm. I did not even know the iPhone did this, did you?
-Hillel
Palm… Apple… If it’s not Scotish, it’s crap! 🙂
I’ve actually been waiting out for the Meizu M8 miniOne phone for years, That looked like such a kick ass device.
http://www.meizu-minione.info/m8_iphone_comparison.php
Na, those things are bad knockoffs. Anyway, cmon, it runs on Windows. Anyway, why don’t you post my blog posts on HYPic?
I wonder who could afford to keep the other in court longer…
I think the Pre is hype allied to Palm saying “Come buy me”. They have only survived by having two fairly large investments by Innovation Partners (?). I think they want Apple to buy them – but if Microsoft got their hands on them… Lets see what happens shall we?
CT, I think it is safe to assume Apple has a lot more money in the piggy bank than Palm does. For now anyway. RattyUK, not sure I followed, but a colleague of mine also thinks Microsoft should buy Palm.
I don’t think that Microsoft should buy Palm but I think that they might. What I was trying to say was that the Pre appears to be more an advert for a company for sale rather than a genuine product. Palm were hemorrhaging money until Innovation Partners invested two pretty large chunks of investment in them.
This makes Palm work a bit like a startup company rather than the large company it is. Ironically Palm also seemed to be staffed these days with ex-Apple employees. Don’t quite know what to make of that other than I think that it was initially started with ex-Apple staff too.
That Engadget article is a bit single-sided. Apple started development of the Newton in 1989 three years before Palm was even founded. And if you don’t think they also have patents pertaining to touch screens, gestures, PDA’s, handheld devices, user interface designs, then you’re just being ignorant.
Also most of the Palm patents mentioned apply to just about every smartphone on the market today not just the iPhone.
And Palm was started by ex-employees from Apple, specifically by some members of the Newton team which was cancelled when Steve Jobs came back. Apple however never sold the technology developed for the Newton and I am wondering who is actually copying from whom.