RIM patents a QWERTY slider, HTC lawyers perk up their ears
[Via BlackBerry Cool]
[Via BlackBerry Cool]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mog @ Feb 29th 2008 7:59PM
Actually, the trackball makes all the difference, considering it's in the title of the application. They're not patenting the slide-out QWERTY, they're patenting the slide-out QWERTY with a trackball - which, unless HTC or someone else has made before, is a valid patent, however "painfully familiar" it seems. Your beef seems to lie with our patent system, not with RIM. But IANAL.
ACEY RIOT @ Mar 6th 2008 2:46AM
actually the trackball makes no difference because if you remember when xerox palo alto research facility got raided for their mouse, the trackball(mouse)APPLICATION was taken with license...therefore the device would run its os under the trackball so the functionality and motion of the track ball would not change under the pretense of a portrait/landscape hybrid application which htc has been making since 2004....so ppppppppppppppppppbbbbbb!(***thats a raspberry***!...it the newest rimphone too....the raspberry....pbbbpbpbpbpbpbbbbbb)
Louis @ Feb 29th 2008 9:10PM
The SideKick Slide is a sliding QWERTY with a trackball. And HTC has used a trackball on such handsets as the HTC Artemis. This is merely a combination of current features, not a novel idea. RIM, who are we kidding?
Big Country @ Mar 1st 2008 12:48AM
correct me if im wrong but isnt there a side kick as well that has a track ball.....and well all of them have hideaway qwerty
youngcalihottie @ Mar 1st 2008 3:52AM
sidekicks are not "Portrait-Landscape" though. lol.
Miguel @ Mar 1st 2008 3:13PM
this is so retarded. Why can't they all just make functional shit instead of living in Patent Lawsuit Land?
Badonkadonk @ Mar 4th 2008 8:25PM
RIM does not really patent a concept, they patent an industrial design. It may be that this is the wrong type of intellectual property tool to use (given that "Industrial Design" is IP that can be defended - just ask Coke), but it's what they've chosen to do. This has very little to do with preventing competitors from making similar featured devices, and has everything to do with preventing competitors from knocking off their IDs. Even the "thumb-keyboard" was specific enough that they only sued Handspring (now Palm) for the first Treo, that was essentially a carbon copy of their 957 keyboard design. Issuing a patent like his in the US is useful 1) because other companies around the globe will accept that a US patent might actually be something that is novel (oddly enough) though they may be more strict in their review of it and (more importantly) 2), it prevents people like Meizu from selling their knock-offs in the US, or anywhere else where the patent is enforced. This is important because for a high percentage of things, a device that is patented in the US is *not* patented (or otherwise protected) in China, where it can easily be reverse-engineered and replicated. Those knock-offs are not technically speaking illegal while sold within China, but would be if exported due to patent infringement.
Long-term, the "Patent Lawsuit Land" is really just a big poker table, where the size of your stack is what you use for leverage to win deals with your competition. Just ask IBM.
Workin Man @ Mar 3rd 2008 12:27AM
Between this and the patent for the voicemail I think I might be in the wrong line of work....making random patents might be the way to go!
rashaan @ Mar 9th 2008 10:01AM
i think this might be for sprintnextel since dan announced a new industrial design iden wifi blackberry.