But Can Your Phone Make a Deli Sandwhich?

Possibly. That is if you have an iPhone and Apple has anything to say about it. According to PC Magazine, a new Apple patent application published last month describes a system by which you order something (say a deli sandwich) with your iPhone, which is then prepared and ready for your pick up when you arrive. Assuming this patent application is not merely Patent Lawyer bait, we might see some embodiment of this system this month MacWorld Expo 2008.

Although, truthfully, I am actually looking forward to the copy and paste function a little more than a ham on rye.

Brett Trout

Apple iPhone patent MacWorld

Apple Tries to Patent Your Grandpa

D@mn Kids and Their New Fangled ApplePods

According to Engadget, Apple has filed a patent application on an iPod which automatically lowers the volume level as you listen. The system keeps track how long and how loudly you have been listening to the music to calculate the appropriate amount of prophylaxis for your cochlea. Actually it just downs down the volume after a while, but what is funny about that?


Brett Trout

Apple patent ipod

Apple Gaming Patent

Although not issued yet, Apple filed US patent application number 2007/0279394 A1 on September 11, 2006. What makes this application notable, however, in that it appears to cover a touch screen gaming application, real estate Apple has typically surrendered to Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony. It is not clear what type of hardware Apple envisions for this new system. From the looks of things, it seems geared toward touch screen hardware like the iPhone, iTouch or something entirely new.

According to the patent application itself, "the manner in which input is received (or entered) can be used to determine which application should receive the input. The input area can additionally resemble or approximate the shape of a scene (e.g., game scene) to allow a person to provide input in a more intuitive way." So, depending upon where you touch the screen, or what you use to touch the screen, the application associates the action with one software application or the other.

As I have yet to hack my iPhone, here's to Apple hitting the street with portable touch screen gaming sooner, rather than later.

Brett Trout

Apple patent gaming

Rock Music is Now the Establishment

In an interview with Out-Law.com, Blur drummer Dave Rowntree notes:

“DRM [copy protection] was doomed to fail because the people who it was designed to stop, as in the counterfeiters or the mass file sharers or the people doing it for political reasons could easily bypass it [] but the people who were caught in the trap of DRM were the ordinary people who wanted to play their CDs on their computer as well as their CD recorder or who wanted to make a tape of it to put on in the car who were doing things that most people regardless of the law would regard as legitimate activities. ”

Not surprisingly, these are the same copyright concerns I voiced last November on the David Lawrence Show. Near the end of the show I stated the present iTunes DRM strategy simply was not viable and a change would happen within a year. As I predicted, Apple is now offering a non-DRM version of iTunes music and sales are climbing.

States Dave Rowntree “[The music industry has] become very much the establishment…by the time that the industry was starting to fight what they saw as the war against file sharing they really weren’t in anybody’s good books any more, they didn’t have the goodwill of the people whose behaviour they were trying to control.”

Look for more music providers to quickly follow suit or become non-players.

Brett Trout

downloading copyright DRM Apple

Apple Out of the Frying Pan

Apple and Cisco have dropped their hotly contested lawsuits over the iPhone trademark. The companies have agreed that they both can use the iPhone trademark anywhere in the world. The companies have also agreed to investigate "opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security, and consumer and enterprise communications."

I am not privy to the exact terms of the agreement. Were I to hazard a guess, however, I believe the terms of the agreement could be paraphrased something akin to the following:

We know Cisco filed for a trademark on iPhone in 1996. Cisco. however, may not have actually sold an "iPhone" in commerce until December of 2006. We could both fight over the iPhone trademark for the next ten years. Although that would indeed facilitate our outside trademark lawyers being able to finally put those down payments on that majestic archipelago just off the coast of Greece, it would not really do Cisco or Apple much good. Wherefore (we say stuff like that because we are lawyers and assume you expect us to justify our hourly fee by being at least a little cryptic) both parties agree that a lawsuit would be bad. Therefore, in return for both parties dropping their respective lawsuits, Apple agrees to slip Cisco a sweetheart deal with regard to the iPhone gravy train.

Realize, of course, this is merely my own speculation, based upon nothing more than my own belief, opinion and whole cloth. It strikes me however much like the recent settlement in the Iowa Microsoft case settled right here in Des Moines. Companies are finally realizing litigation eats up a lot of the pie. It is often better to have a small piece of the huge pre-litigation pie, than the entire post-litigation pie (purple-fingered lawyers in the corner notwithstanding).

But wait; it is not over yet. Now Quantum is warning Apple of a potential patent lawsuit. Quantum has warned Apple that if the iPhone proximity detection feature works like Quantum's patented device there could be trouble. Whatever happens, I just hope they put the trial on Youtube so I can stream it through on my new iPhone.

Brett Trout

Cisco Apple Quantum iphone trademark patent

Big Apple Takes a Bite Out of Des Moines

Hollywood actor turned Des Moines bartender, Clint Curtis has been livening up Monday nights in Des Moines with his iPod Mondays. Every Monday night for the past two years a few dozen iPod owners have gathered at the Des Moines bar “The Lift” to share music and knock back a few brews.

Not wanting to do anything untoward, Curtis contacted Apple about using the name and sent Apple regular iPod Monday updates. Curtis received no response from Apple despite the fact, according to Curtis, that iPod Mondays have helped sell more iPods than any employee at the entire West Des Moines Apple store.

Everything was going well, Apple selling iPods, Curtis enlivening Des Moines nightlife, music lovers having fun. Then some trademark lawyers decided squashing an iPod evangelist was more important than customer good will. Apple representative Pete Alcorn fired off a cease and desist letter to Curtis demanding that he not use any variant of an Apple trademark in association with his weekly Des Moines meetings.

Unless Curtis hits the lottery, I doubt he will have the resources to test the merits of Apple’s position. Just chalk it up to another hip company turning on its loyal fans. Kneeing the little groupie in the neck seems to undermine the most recent Apple ad campaign - at least a little.

Maybe one day I can be big enough that I can afford to bully my loyal customers. Here’s to crossing my fingers that this trademark attorney never gets that big in the britches.

Brett Trout

iPod Mondays Des Moines Apple Clint Curtis

Apple to Pay Bloggers $700K

Bloggers are journalists – at least according to a California appellate court. Last year its judges ruled that affording the writings of bloggers lesser protection than other types of journalism would undermine the very purpose of the First Amendment. Mac News Network reports that, earlier this month, a Santa Clara County Court ordered Apple to pay $700,000 in legal fees associated with the bloggers’ defense of Apple subpoenas. And they paid it!

Apple’s subpoenas demanded the names of the individuals responsible for leaking information to the bloggers relating to an Apple product named “Asteroid”. The award includes a 2.2 punitive multiplier, apparently to encourage Apple to lay off future bloggers. Even though last year’s ruling declined to use the word “blogger,” the decidedly “pro-blogger” opinion prompted Apple to promptly pay the award and dismiss the underlying lawsuit – albeit without prejudice. A timeline of the case can be found here.

Brett Trout

Apple PowerPage Apple Insider Free Speech First Amendment