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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Patent laws being abused by Apple iPhone claims

U.S. Patent Number 5,883,639 'Visual Software Engineering system and method for developing visual prototypes and for connecting user code to them' Date of Patent: Mar. 16, 1999 PHOTO: an example of a U.S. software patent, which I am named as an inventor on at Hewlett-Packard: U.S. Patent Number 5,883,639 "Visual Software Engineering system and method for developing visual prototypes and for connecting user code to them" Date of Patent: Mar. 16, 1999. See previous post Steve Jobs never acknowledged standing on the shoulders of giants (10/28/11).

Recent articles by Paul M. Barrett, "Patents: Apple vs. Samsung: The Cage Match Begins," BusinessWeek, Aug. 6-12, 2012, p. 36-37 and David Meyer, "US congressmen take on patent trolls with SHIELD Act," ZDNet.com posted Aug. 2, 2012 prompted me to write the following letter to the editor of my local newspaper:

The need to reform U.S. Patent laws can be seen in the current case of Apple accusing Samsung and others of violating the iPhone patents, despite previous testimony that these patents are invalid due to prior art invented at Hewlett-Packard in Corvallis.

Motorola described their soon-to-be-released cell phone invention in a 1982 Bell System Journal technical paper. In response, as an HP research project manager, I initiated a partnership with Motorola to integrate cell phones with already existing HP handheld computer technology.

Unfortunately, an HP corporate executive dismissed my cell phone computer idea for the sexist reason that only female secretaries answered his telephone and therefore no HP customer would be interested. Yes, I was upset by his stupid reason, but I was equally stupid to dismiss his other sexist demand that all future HP computers include a touch screen interface because only women used typewriter keyboards.

After HP cancelled my project, I personally showed a prototype cell phone computer to Apple founder Steve Jobs at a trade show in Silicon Valley while he was successfully recruiting a few key HP engineers to start up his Apple portable product line. (I was too stupid to take his job offer!)

In most countries, the above facts would automatically invalidate Apple's patents instead of allowing Apple to abuse a system originally created to protect individual inventors.
(Quoted from Thomas Kraemer, "Patent laws don't protect inventors of technology goods," Gazette-Times, Aug. 28, 2012, p. A7)

Listed below are my previous posts on U.S. Patents and the iPhone connection between Apple and HP:

Also see my previous posts on HP handheld computer and calculator history: