I couldn’t agree more with Terry, but at the same time, without that protection, would companies devote the resources necessary to achieve that innovation? What I’m saying is that the huge profits that these patents generate is exactly what motivates and funds a lot of the innovation we see. So as cliche as this phrase is, it’s a catch 22

The multi-touch patents are a proxy to protect the iPhone from competitors. You can’t successfully patent the look-and-feel (and clearly some of these phones, including the HTC are stepping on that), but you can patent the software and any inventions related to the implementation. And, Copyright/trademark doesn’t cover influence/inspiration (how many good commercials are outright thefts of works of art, movies, books, etc?)

I hate software patent law, but the law defines the land (terrain). And the terrain says you use this thing as a weapon.

As for Apple being evil? Shit, have those guys forgotten what it was like buying Apple branded stuff in the early 90’s? I ask, when was Apple ever good? Any corporation telling you they’re not evil is surely doing it because they know what they do is fundamentally evil. Apple is a corporation; Jobs is kind of an asshole. It’s not fair a corporation can use a relatively minor software patent to take their innovation to the bank; It’s not fair that Jobs is such a rockstar you have to live with his assholitude. To quote Gruber right back at himself, “Life isn’t fair.”

Turns out that company was Apple.

Apple has been spending the last five years building up this wall—fully two years before the introduction of the iPhone. While I agree that software patents need to be rethought, from a legal standpoint, I don’t think HTC has much of a leg to stand on here. If there is one place where a software patent can be won, I think it’s here. Multitouch and gestures have been around for years, patents related to it nearly as long, nobody thought of patenting its use input devices (keyboards) before Fingerworks, and Apple made a strategic buy of the company that invented the technology, their team, and patent portfolio, and then extended the patents into PDAs and cell phones before anyone could consider it. There isn’t any prior art here before Apple’s iPhone, and that’s why it’s going to be ugly for Apple’s competitors.

I do think that holders of software patents should be forced to do some sort of licensing because of the chilling effect they’re having on innovation. I think that should be true with hardware patents that are software-related, like this one.

The law, however, isn’t written that way. On one hand, Apple totally lost out on lawsuits related to the Macintosh (and before you start bringing up PARC on me, realize that Apple bribed Xerox PARC with a options, and concepts like the Desktop didn’t exist in PARC’s Alto. It really came down to really bad licensing and timing (copyright vs. patent wasn’t understood) on Apple’s part that left them vulnerable), and the Apple Records copyright thing, now they get to wield the multi-touch patent like a weapon—and it’s going to be ugly.

This is why we have courts. I’m still hopeful for a sane outcome.

Or switch to using products from companies that aren’t actively evil.