Rant: I Hope Apple Wins The Patent Wars

Those brilliant Apple idiots just got a new patent victory. And you know what? Good for them! Good for you too, Android users included. I hope they win all of their wars, because that would be good for all of us.

This article is an Op-Ed rant from Gizmodo US, not Giz AU. Agree? disagree? Let us know in the comments.

What’s the ban

A Dutch court has banned all trading of Samsung Galaxy S, Galaxy S II and Ace across most countries in Europe. Samsung’s primary European distribution hub is in the Netherlands. Effectively, this will shut down most of their European distribution unless the company modifies its logistics.

The judge thinks that Samsung has violated the method for swiping through a photo gallery. Samsung has already said that the photo-browsing conflict can easily be solved with a modification, a statement that basically validates Apple. Why didn’t Samsung implement this modification in their browsing photos system if they knew it was a copy of Apple’s method from the beginning?

Because they are a cheap bag of lazy, unimaginative bastards, that’s why. And that makes us mad.

True invention vs lazy mothers

When he introduced the iPhone, Steve Jobs said they had patented the hell out of it, and rightly so. I’m sure that, of those patents, there are a lot that could be challenged in court. But there are many others, like the ones above, that can’t be challenged because Apple actually invented them from scratch. Something like unlocking the screen by dragging an unlock image may seem trivial to you, but someone had to come up with the idea in the first place. And, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of little things like that that Apple put into the first iPhone that nobody thought about first.

And those little things, that whole set of ideas and methods, is one of the reasons why the iPhone was a raging success. Love them or hate them, by inventing all these codes Apple implemented a new language that has quickly become embedded into our minds and lives. It’s so good, so intuitive and natural, that we all have adopted it without even thinking about it. That includes Apple’s rivals.

Those rivals, like Google, Samsung, or HTC, just said “oh f**k this, let’s all do the same” and came up with devices that are mostly copies of what Apple put out in their first iPhone. Sure, they added some stuff of their own and sure, Apple’s user interface has some aspects that are not original. But mostly the iPhone’s competitors are clones that show no imagination, no better ways to do things.

We need new, better things

Because yes, there are better ways to do things. Or at least different ways. You only have to come up with them. Look no further than Microsoft Windows Phone 7. The vilified Redmond company actually had the imagination and the balls to make something different. And, in that process, they actually came up with better ideas than Apple’s.

That’s good for everyone. It introduces diversity, new methods, evolution. That, as someone who loves brilliant technology, excites me. You should be excited too. And you should hope that Apple wins all these patent wars against the lame and lazy. Because that would mean they’ll all have to do something new to beat Apple at their own game.

So yes, go Apple lawyers team go! — in a f**k-you kind of way. [Foss Patents and de Rechtspraak]