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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 30 2012 @ 01:02 PM EDT |
| Controls have changed quite a bit over the time, and it would be perfectly
feasible to patent a particularly ergonomic arrangement of controls
with unique and inventive features.
Patents protect inventions. Copyright
protects expression.
Oracle has tried both. They lost the patent angle
because they failed to convince the jury that their patent claims applied to
Google's code.
I would be unsurprised if they lost the copyright angle
because they failed to convince the judge that the use of their APIs constituted
a violation of the protection granted by copyright. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Patrick Corrigan on Wednesday, May 30 2012 @ 01:25 PM EDT |
In the early days of the automobile this wasn't the case. Some cars had steering
wheels, some had steering sticks and perhaps some used other mechanisms
(reins?). I could not find any patents for a steering wheel, but based on
today's patent logic it could likely have been patented. I assume using a wheel
to control a valve or other device was old news at the time, but "a wheel
to control an automobile," by today's PTO logic, would likely have been
considered a whole new invention.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 30 2012 @ 03:22 PM EDT |
That's actually how cars were initially. There were all kinds of different
interfaces for steering and controlling cars at the end of the 19th century.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 30 2012 @ 06:05 PM EDT |
Those are elements of the user interface. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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