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Jörgen Andersson wrote: I'm of the opinion that the patenting system is completely bollocks at the moment.
Like 90% of the people with common sense and not involved directly with it.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
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Hopefully all those judges and high courts with decades of experience with copyright laws and the extensive details of the actual case come here to find the answer to their legal quandary from some guy on the internet. Who knows why the case has turned out to be so complex given how simple the issue apparently is.
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F-ES Sitecore wrote: Hopefully all those judges and high courts with decades of experience with copyright laws and the extensive details of the actual case come here to find the answer to their legal quandary from some guy on the internet.
Probably they should, because they do lack the technical knowledge about the possible implications that their veredict might have worldwide.
F-ES Sitecore wrote: Who knows why the case has turned out to be so complex given how simple the issue apparently is.
Are we not speaking about trials, companies with a lot of lawyers and a possible big $$$ involved at the end? I would say it was not to expect anything else.
M.D.V.
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Nelek wrote: Probably they should, because they do lack the technical knowledge about the possible implications that their veredict might have worldwide.
That's quite patronising TBH, don't you think the complexity and depth of the laws involved are 1,000,000 times more difficult to grasp than understanding what an API is?
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Patronising or not, the "possible implications that their verdict might have" are completely irrelevant to deciding a matter of law.
Besides which, education and background in law does not teach you what an API is. That's not to say that a lawyer or judge is incapable of understanding the concept, or indeed of doing so quickly. However they need to gain that knowledge from somewhere, and somewhere that is well informed and authoritative. This is one thing "expert witnesses" do - provide a (hopefully unbiased) explanation of how to interpret domain-specific terminology and concepts. In the UK, if you consider yourself to be an authority on a particular subject, you can submit your details to one of several expert witness directories and you can earn good money by sharing your expertise in court. Generally speaking, though, you do need to be very, very, very good.
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What has happened is a tech-savvy judge got it sorted out and made their ruling. Oracle didn't like it and appealed to the next higher court. They didn't get and reversed. Google didn't like that and appealed, and ... I might have the ordered messed up but it has been a sequence of hearings somewhat like that.
The key to this case will be making an argument that the non-tech savvy supremes can almost understand so that they'll even hear it in the first place.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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They would first have to agree on the difference between an "argument" and a "parameter." 
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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You have not seen the patents that are our there... haven't you?
i.e.
Unlock a device by sliding your finger on the screen: Patented (as idea)
and there was a trial too (AFAIK its veredict was against all common sense)
So... I would not bet on this one.
M.D.V.
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The "swipe" is a particular technique, involving the device and the user, electronically, digitally, timings, offset, displacements, speed, pressure, etc. A lot more complex a scenario than a digital "promise".
An "API" can be 1 method / call; or thousands; or a subset; or a hyper-set; ...
We could start by eliminating "text speak" which has been piggy backing on a known language. Or make them pay a royalty.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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Gerry Schmitz wrote: The "swipe" is
Thanks for correcting me and giving me the correct word in such a nice way
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
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Amazon patented a concept they call, "one-click ordering." The patent situation in the USA is out of control.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Can I patent a 'one-flick' insult? Two, if you want to use both hands! Instant moneybags! 
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I am going to patent the human walk and all it's variants.
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I thought Monty Python's already been there.
Or was that only the silly ones?
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
Never stop dreaming - Freddie Kruger
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I think that's more "branding" than some real process.
If you think about, it's probably filling in a bunch of boxes and then using "one click" to send it off.
Like "one-stop shopping". (Forget about the traffic lights)
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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That should fall under a trademark, not a patent.
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Definitely, and that's why I think it's so absurd.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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There is also a patent on saving what's displayed on a screen before overlaying it, so that it can be easily restored without redrawing what was there before.
This kind of thing is why I think all software patents should be cancelled and replaced by copyrights.
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Thankfully having a patent and upholding it aren't the same thing. There certainly are lots of patents granted in the past that certainly wouldn't be granted today, and some patents have also been reversed as upholding them would stifle entire industries.
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Specially the last paragraph   
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Experience tells me building an API is often more work than building the guts. And it often involves more creativity.
Now, do I want to preclude someone being able to assert a copyright over something that is unique and imbued with creativity and a lot of work? Gotta say "no".
One good thing might come out of this: Licenses should cover implementation and API as separate items.
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sorry if this dates me too much, but I kind of miss the pre-internet days working as a dev.
Technology didn't move that fast, a new compiler would be available every great once in awhile. You could keep most libraries in your head because they rarely ever changed. Most of the time you were only limited by imagination and memory (ram).
So you would subscribe to any tech magazine to get the latest info. there would be code samples of something clever, articles on the pitfalls of a language feature, or work progress of getting a new complier up and running.
My shelves were packed with any books I could get ahold of and every magazine that had something interesting.
The internet is the first tool I have to reach for now. there is just soo much to know and it's almost impossible to keep it all in your head. For me to remain a dev until retirement is going to be a stretch, so I'm thinking of going into education to tech software development.
I've notice that many of the younger devs out there can slap something together that works, but don't any have the fundamentals on how any of it works underneath: they can put gas in the car, but have no idea what's under the hood that makes it go, and that bothers me.
any other gray beards out there seeing the same thing?
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I definitely see this going on, but I think a lot of new devs know they are missing out on things too.
I have here Jeff Prosise's great book, Programming Windows with MFC and it weighs in at over 1200 pages.
I also have the Petzold Programming Windows 95 and it is around that length also.
But, the Internet has ruined strong focus. Read the book, The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains[^].
Petzold went into specifc details and you had to learn how things were really built up.
But a lot of people didn't like that. It is somewhat of the Engineering Mindset.
Some people just want to get a thing working and forget about it. They want the end result.
Others (with Engineering Mindset) want to know exactly how things work.
I find that when I want a PRODUCT I want to get the thing working.
But most of the time I want to know exactly how the thing works. It's two different mindsets really.
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thanks for the book recommendation, I just put that in my cart.
raddevus wrote: But most of the time I want to know exactly how the thing works. It's two different mindsets really.
I think you summed that up perfectly.
I worked for someone once that was the quickest person I've ever seen to refactor code, 1000's of lines of code in a day. It was garbage of course, he didn't know how to debug so everything was in a try/catch/fail -> send to log file. this code went in to production without ever testing locally, and he would wait for logs to appear, then change something upload to customer and watch the logs again. and again, and again.
Another had no idea what bit wise operations were and was confused on exactly what an integer was, let alone the size of integer and how much it could hold. But he was still putting Apps together.
[head shake]
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