I'd argue there are certain aspects of the iPhone that are truly revolutionary, even if the ideas may have existed in other contexts before. For example, the scrolling mechanism on the iPhone was not done by anyone else prior Apple's product, and now everyone implements scrolling with a flick/inertia. I think had Apple used the old style scrolling methods, we might still be using those today. LG had a 10 year head start on Apple for manufacturing phones when Apple's first phone came out, yet their LG Prada phone still had a painfully small scrollbar that you were forced to use.
I think Apple did create a product that warrants a design patent though. These are defensive mechanisms that prevent copycats from producing identical products in fashion where appearances and "feel" matter more than the practical purpose of the invention. Gucci applies for design patents all the time so that copycats won't produce an identical bag and sell it on the market.
Apple is worried about the same thing here -- they've produced a product that has a certain appearance and style they feel Samsung is making a direct copy of. Design patents can cover product packaging, and if you look at how Samsung packaged their tablets, you can see how identical the boxes are compared to Apple's.
So in summary, I have 2 main points: Apple can and should defend their design patents. The technology that Apple implemented for scrolling was non-obvious otherwise competitors would have implemented these long before Apple.
I agree that Samsung has gone overboard with regards to the packaging. However I feel that a design patent on a tablet form factor is not the best idea. Perhaps it works for fashion designers, and I am not denying that there is creativity in designing hardware devices.
However, as I look at all the various LCD monitors that are around the office right now, I can't help but think about what would happen if there was originally a design patent on the form factor of a monitor. They all seem to have relatively similar:
- border widths
- button placements
- rounding of corners
- status lights and their positions
The same could be said for keyboards, computer towers, even many laptops. There is probably a finite number of practical design available when building a touch screen tablet. If all of them were to be patented, then nobody could build a reasonable tablet.
In response to your second point about the scrolling: It may well be true that the scrolling implementation was non-obvious. Based on your comments, I would agree that this particular aspect is perhaps non-obvious.
I'm just worried about the number of patents being asserted, and that it is highly unlikely that all of them are non-obvious, especially based on the coverage I have read. It seems more likely that Apple hit the big one with the iPhone by building incrementally on existing technologies and techniques, then adding some nice, non-obvious features, rather than building a device so chock full of non-obvious ideas that nobody else would have developed something which was somewhat similar to what we now think of as a smart phone using similar technology.
I don't think the few non-obvious ideas, nor the fact that they brought together existing technologies should be the basis for court fights and attempts to block importation of competitors products. I understand that this was a relatively narrow case, against Samsung and not Android in general, but it seems pretty clear to me that this it is a business decision by Apple to attempt to reduce competition through the courts.
I agree with your statement on LCD monitors, but where does one draw the line between design that can be patented, and one that cannot? While googling around, I found that philip morris has a patent on rounded corners for their cigarette boxes: http://www.google.com/patents/US5341925
There's probably only so many ways one can manufacture a box to store 10 sticks of nicotine, but they own a patent for the rounded corners box. Same may apply to handbags as well. Although you may perceive women handbags to be very different from each other, there are categories of handbags where it's harder to create extremely different designs due to constraints, for example many evening clutches are similar because they are all required to be small. Should cloning be allowed if constraints prevent designs to be significantly different from each other?
It would be an uphill battle to try and prevent all those fashion companies from filing design patents for products limited by constraints. So if one were to revamp the patent system, one would also need to be mindful of all those other companies who are not in the tech sector and may have a bigger voice.
I think Apple did create a product that warrants a design patent though. These are defensive mechanisms that prevent copycats from producing identical products in fashion where appearances and "feel" matter more than the practical purpose of the invention. Gucci applies for design patents all the time so that copycats won't produce an identical bag and sell it on the market.
Apple is worried about the same thing here -- they've produced a product that has a certain appearance and style they feel Samsung is making a direct copy of. Design patents can cover product packaging, and if you look at how Samsung packaged their tablets, you can see how identical the boxes are compared to Apple's.
So in summary, I have 2 main points: Apple can and should defend their design patents. The technology that Apple implemented for scrolling was non-obvious otherwise competitors would have implemented these long before Apple.