Problems with CoverBling

[Myriam Schweingruber]

On Sat, Apr 17, 2010 at 13:58, Lukas <1lukas1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm  not a lawyer, but if patent has just been issued, shouldn't it be
> invalid, and cover flow design kept free over a prior art
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_art ?

Please do not top-post...

Unfortunately it is unlikely to be prior art on our behalf, since
Apple filed the patent on June 28, 2007 and they released the first
iPhone on June 29, 2007. it's the date of request, not the date when
the patent is granted that is valid as a grant is retroactive AFAIK,
but IANAL. I don't think we had something similar in our code before
that. Markey, do you remember when you wrote the first code of it?

For the record, they own the CoverFlow technology since 2006:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoverFlow

Of course, we could still argue that software patents are not valid in
Europe, but this is not a patent over technology, but over design, I
don't think we have a change to argue against that. The patent claim
states "CLAIM The ornamental design for an animated graphical user
interface for a display screen or portion thereof, as shown and
described.". Again, IANAL.


Regards, Myriam
-- 
Protect your freedom and join the Fellowship of FSFE:
http://www.fsfe.org
Please don't send me proprietary file formats,
use ISO standard ODF instead (ISO/IEC 26300)