I'm surprised that it took this long for that video to show up as evidence. The only thing it does not demonstrate is the use of gestures which is integral to the usefulness of this generation's tablets.<p>I've always felt that the basic form factor patents Apple has would not ultimately hold up, and it would be insane for them to try and enforce them. But it still does not excuse the fact that Samsung tries to confuse the public that their product is pretty much an iPad/iPhone. They do this through marketing, packaging, peripherals, software and UI design.<p>I don't like the patent system the way it exists, and I think most of Apple's 'key' mobile patents are ridiculous, but I equally can't stand a company like Samsung that comes in and says we're just going to commoditize a great product by cloning it and selling it for cheap. I think this is where Apple's emotion comes in and the 'sue everyone' mentality takes over.
I'm having some serious Déjà vu on HN recently. This came up a while back I'm sure.<p><a href="http://mashable.com/2009/08/22/knight-ridder-tablet/" rel="nofollow">http://mashable.com/2009/08/22/knight-ridder-tablet/</a><p><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1381528/Knight-Ridder-tablet-looks-just-like-iPad-17-YEARS-OLD.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1381528/Knigh...</a><p>I can't find an article, but I'm sure this had already been in court. Or maybe I'm going senile at 32.<p>Also, I have a niggling feeling that Apple had a part in this video. But I could just be making that up.
Nothing radical here, even for 1994. Not long ago I was watching an old episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (around the same year) in which the commander's son is doing homework on a slightly smaller tablet with a color display. IIRC, he was using a stylus.
It's unfortunate that Apple, while being so innovative and prominent of a tech company, never the less so feverishly attempts to hold on to the outdated, dying principles of old, "traditional" business models. Of course I realize the good intentions that patents claim to stem from, but looking at the real world, the principles of this loosely defined and ambigious copyright model are much easier to exploit than use for good. What social value is there? Anyway, the point of course is that seeing a company cling to patenting general ideas and then inforcing those patents is a cowardly and unintegrous. It's an cheap way out made available by a loophole-clad system and should impact negatively on Apple's, or any company's image more so than it does now. However, I think fortunatelly, although slowly, these old school "business" mentalities are being bred out as new, more superior organizational structures, ideologies and principles, are ushered in by much more creative and insightful intelects than those currently in power. Those who bring about change are resisted because they threaten to overtake those in power. Instead of welcoming and aiding that forward movement, the mentality is to oppose it with great force and incredible tunnel vision. Someday the world will make sense but until then companies like Apple will continue to restrict change. It's at times like these that I find not being able to wish things into being most inconvenient lol.
I think the point Apple is trying to make is a little different than how this article described it.<p>I don't think anybody would disagree that the tablet form shown in the 1994 video is the <i>natural</i> form a functional tablet would take on: thin, large screen, rectangular, etc. Including Apple.<p>However, Apple is not happy because, to Apple, it is the <i>first</i> to figure out how to deliver this "natural" form factor in a tablet, and Samsung (and subsequent Android manufacturers), ripped Apple off in the delivery process. I imagine Apple's logic is that no other companies were able to engineer the "optimal" tablet until the iPad came out and they disassembled it and, through imitation, engineered their own. The Android tablets exist because of the iPad.<p>Which is not unreasonable, honestly. If the thin, rectangular, and large screen form factor is the final product of natural evolution of tablets, how come nothing even came close to it until the iPad came out? How would one explain the the sudden shift in tablet design if the iPad never existed?<p>If I came up with a way of actually making a hover car (envisioned through countless medias) that works and everyone copied the way I did it, I'd be pretty pissed too.<p>I'm not good with words as English is not my first language. I hope I got my point across.<p>EDIT: spelling.
The writer positions the video as a sort of smoking gun, but then hedges with "as today’s legal system is more complicated than some of us can understand, the legal heads at Apple really had a shot at proving they had invented the whole ... concept".<p>I feel a bit pandered to. How about some more legal substance, even for us dumb tech readers?
Also see this edited version of the Starfire video from Sun in 1993, which shows touch interactions.<p>I've only seen the full-length version, so I'm not sure if it's in this truncated clip, but there's an amusing bit where she leaves her sandwich on the 'desk' part of the monitor and the computer scans it. When she picks the sandwich up and notices there's an image of it on the screen, she 'sweeps away' the image with her hand - another gesture.
Wow Knight Ridder was on the ball in the 1990s, it's a shame they didn't own the space. I wonder what happened.<p>These days they are still an excellent "hard news"
Some very interesting perspectives in the video -- particularly the references to touch interaction. If you watch at 11:58, he also makes references to how the newspaper industry can avoid obsolescence by leveraging these new mobile technologies.
This might not be as big a blow as folks might assume, because design patents are very specific. For instance the tablet in this video has a raised, seemingly plastic bezel framing the screen, while the iPad design patent specifies that the screen is covered with an edge-to-edge glass surface.<p>It is that edge-to-edge glass that is a big part of Apple's suit. I won't claim I've done an exhaustive review, but I've glanced back at some older tablet concepts like the Apple "navigator" video, the Star Trek TNG PADD, and even the Newton and Palm and Windows Tablet designs, and every single one I've seen had a raised bezel framing the screen.<p>The Samsung Galaxy tab has an edge-to-edge glass surface, not a raised bezel. Stupidly pedantic? Yes. That's pretty a good description of design "patents" in general IMO.