Apple patents "rectangle with rounded corners", takes over world.

OK, so the title is only half true.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/7/3614506/apple-patents-rectangle-with-rounded-corners

 

Pardon my french but god the patent system is fucked sideways.

 

Apple patents rectangle with rounded corners, patents 'slide to open' technology, van makers go out of business.

 

Shhh!!! Don't say that so loudly. Apple may be listening...

 

No, its ok! It's made of a rectangle with square corners and a half rounded-half square rectangle! We're safe!

 

Four.

Four is how many flat, rectangular objects with rounded corners I can count by my desk without even turning my head. Three of those are even pieces of electronic equipment, and two are portable gadgets. I can not read this story without giggling a little.

 

Aren't a lot of cookie tins rectangular with rounded corners? Oh. My. God. Apple is plotting to take our cookies!

 

Anyone check the link in my 'sig yet? It addresses some of the 'effed aspects of the patent system.

This is in no way surprising. The patent system is so broken that they cannot hope to fix it. We are years away from a new revolutionary war about stupidity like this and patenting seeds to common crops and then giving them freely to farms so they mix it in with the natural seeds and can sue anyone for infinite money for growing anything.

Anyone notice that the patent office ignored Star Trek had prior art demonstrating a computing device that was........ Rectangular with rounded corners?

*Edit* Anyone remember the Nintendo Game Boy? I guess that infringed on this idiotic patent too? How about every tablet ever made?

The patent office does not think, much less research patents anymore. They are all incompetent and should be held liable for court costs for each and every case that comes up as a result of their lack of adequate research.

 

I don't really know the first thing about the US's patent system, other than that it's among the more ridiculous modern legal institutions, but I would love to see this now being taken super-seriously by manufacturers everywhere. Major product recalls, public letters of apology from competing firms, a flurry of followup patents for cube and equilateral triangle shaped gizmos. Two months from now you walk into a phone shop and all that's left is bizarre, escher-esque contraptions that can only clip onto your belt via some sort of rope and pulley system. It's a dreary Tuesday and your ringtone sounds; your mother's favourite song. You reach to answer and the jagged edges cut into your hand. Splattered blood on the sidewalk. Fumbling. Silence. Then a cry, punctuating the clouds and one fewer invisible streams of data they cover: "CURSE YOOUU AP-PLE!"

 

I don't understand what's the use in patenting the shape, its okay with the software or technology but shapes too, I mean that is unbelievable. Visit this website

 

holy necropost, batman

I don't get why to even bother patenting something they can't use

 

Because they're d-bags, obviously.