Patently Stupid
Posted by CJD on November 9, 2012
A while back there was a heated discussion here at Voipfone Towers about whether it was true – as was rife across the intertubes – that Apple had patented round corners on their iPad.
I reckoned that there would be some truth in the thing, but that is would be far more of a subtle argument than the was being presented. The other view was that it was an April Fool’s day hoax that had entered mythology as correct.
Well there was a grain of truth in it and Samsung was ordered by a judge to pay Apple over $1bn in damages as a result of infringements on their patents – which included some cosmetic design details, but that was not, of course the material part of the claim.
I say “of course”, because it would be really stupid to believe that anybody could patent round corners on a rectangle wouldn’t it?
Well stupid has come to town and the US patent office has this month allowed a specific patent just for that.
I kid you not – here’s the full listing:
And innovations as great as this one have many fathers (and mothers); this flight of pure genius was invented by:
Akana; Jody (San Francisco, CA), Andre; Bartley K. (Menlo Park, CA), Coster; Daniel J. (San Francisco, CA), De Iuliis; Daniele (San Francisco, CA), Hankey; Evans (San Francisco, CA), Howarth; Richard P. (San Francisco, CA), Ive; Jonathan P. (San Francisco, CA), Jobs; Steve (Palo Alto, CA), Kerr; Duncan Robert (San Francisco, CA), Nishibori; Shin (Portola Valley, CA), Rohrbach; Matthew Dean (San Francisco, CA), Russell-Clarke; Peter (San Francisco, CA), Stringer; Christopher J. (Woodside, CA), Whang; Eugene Antony (San Francisco, CA), Zorkendorfer; Rico (San Francisco, CA)
You may have noticed Steve Jobs’ name in there – what a shame he didn’t live to see his greatest achievement.
Don’t get me wrong, the iPad is a wonderful bit of kit and a great design, but patenting a round corner????
