I thought you were a conservative. Isn't FreeRepublic a Conservative site? Doesn't FR uphold the Constitution of the United States of America? Yes, it does. Why not trying reading it, VanDeKoik. Specifically, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8:
"Congress shall have power . . . 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.". . . Exclusive right" IS a monopoly! VanDeKoik, and Patent law requires the patent holder to defend his patent or lose it. I guess you DON'T follow the constitution, and prefer to support a foreign company. Gotcha.
Oh please.
You might just be the only person that doesn’t know that Apple engaged in this petty protection of frivolousness in hopes of setting a precedent so they could litigate all of their competitors out of business.
Jobs said it himself.
And as far as I’m concerned, since Apple is funneling money into the pockets of Democrats and gay marriage advocates, I couldn’t care less about protecting their “right” to slide to unlock and rounded corners. Wooooo, what a innovation worthy of over a billion dollars!
But hey I’ve said many time if you want to see what conservatives sound like when they act like leftists, then just find an Apple topic. They will go to the mat to religiously defend a company that finances the same people that are trying to destroy them. Gotcha.
As if Apple is some American as apple pie company. Unless Foxcomm is located in Indiana and I just kept misreading it as China.
Sorry Swordmaker.
All of Free Republic does not agree with your personal assertion that a trademark system so out of control that it awards ownership of rectangles with rounded corners to iPple equates to conservatism.
Your problem here is that too many Freepers actually followed this and read the damned suit.
Maybe if iPple wanted a monopoly they should have tried making a better product at a better price than their competitors. Instead of patent trolling.
The CONCEPT of a patent is quite conservative: You divulge your technology to the world, and in return, you get the privilege of exclusive use of it for 20 years. The APPLICATION of patent law is quite liberal: You give politically connected lawyers lots of money to protect your rights. The issue to me is how lawyers and law makers have mucked up a perfectly good concept.
Actually, swordmaker, patent law doesn't require a defense to maintain a patent. I think you're thinking of trademark law, which is similar in many respects. A holder of a trademark (which never expires, unlike patents, and at least in theory with copyright - though the jury is out whether any copyright will ever expire in this country again), must enforce any known infringement of the mark or they can lose their exclusive use of it. Many patent trolls have made millions by letting a patent just sit there for years, so that people unaware of it will use it, (which to me begs why the patent is issued, since anything that is used that widely is likely fairly obvious), so they can swoop in with the lawsuits en mass and make big bucks through government sponsored extortion.
It does require a defense of the patent if you want to stop someone from using it.