313 Patents... from staircases to computers to handheld devices

[rockymtnhigh]

Steve Jobs?s Patents - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com

An interesting NYTImes interactive on the 313 patents that have Steve Jobs' name on as an inventor.

Love him or hate him, he has been incredibly successful.

 

[jayn_j]

Won't doubt his success, but most of the ones NYT lists are patents on visual design and form factor, and not technology. You can patent a particular color scheme and product design these days. Even the ones that are technology driven, Jobs' role was more likely "what if?" instead of doing the actual legwork. If you want to see what made it happen, look at the second name on the patent.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Won't doubt his success, but most of the ones NYT lists are patents on visual design and form factor, and not technology. You can patent a particular color scheme and product design these days. Even the ones that are technology driven, Jobs' role was more likely "what if?" instead of doing the actual legwork. If you want to see what made it happen, look at the second name on the patent.

visual design and form factor are important in Apple's world.

Back to Don's statement:

IMO the Apple grand plan has been to make technology work like humans think and want it to work, not the way technogeeks think we should work.

 

[jayn_j]

visual design and form factor are important in Apple's world.

Not disputing it, but to me, this is something that should be copyrighted/trademarked, not patented.
I feel even stronger after sitting through all those yammerer discussions on the TIVO software patents. Those WERE significant design milestones, but I don't see the industry changing over whether the base of a display is square, round, or pear shaped.

 

[mdram]

doesnt matter what it looks like
slap an apple logo on it and the i-zombies will buy it

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Oh, I understand. Some of it is plain silly. He patented the glass staircases for the Apple Store. Really?

 

[harshness]

Back to Don's statement:

Maybe the humans are just being stupid. There must be some reason (perhaps as simple a ridiculous pricing) that the Mac hasn't achieved better market penetration. Crowing about <6% in competition with something as utterly uninspired as Windows is no victory.

Any market that supports something as fantastic as a roll-up keyboard is surely missing something.

 

[mike123abc]

Oh, I understand. Some of it is plain silly. He patented the glass staircases for the Apple Store. Really?

There have always been design patents. They are a separate category from invention patents. They have been there to protect artists. You invent a cool look for a clock, you patent it to keep a billion Asian knockoffs from appearing at Walmart. All the big designers of the world use these patents.