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[–] 7 points 9 hours ago

Would be nice if the article had a link to the patent. Seems like a little journalistic effort would be worth it.

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  • [–] 6 points 9 hours ago

    Every single feature is being patented, it's ridiculous.

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  • [–] 44 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    For perspective, the watch division makes between $35 to $40 billion annually.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    By the time Apple pays this, assuming they do. They will have made at least that much in extra profits from the original $5.7 billion by investing it.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 day ago

    It would be cheaper to just assasinate the lawyers and the other party.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago (9 children)

    Its always nice to find good news in my feed

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  • [–] 17 points 1 day ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (7 children)

    How is this good news? Haptic feedback has existed since the 1970s. This patent should be invalid.

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  • [–] 14 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

    The patent is not on haptic feedback. The patent is on a very specific means of implementing haptic feedback using ferrofluids and electromagnetic actuators that it is claimed (and Apple deemed it good enough to copy, so presumably truly) allows for both a smaller implementation than typical mechanical haptic feedback (i.e. the off-balance-flywheel approach of phones of old), while also allowing for low- or zero- noise compared to "speaker or piezo" based haptic feedback.

    There are a lot of shit patents in the world, but on a surface reading at least this seems sufficiently novel that I don't see why it should be invalid. One also presumes that if Apple had any grounds to invalidate it on prior-art they would have done so.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    Even if it's like catching Al capone on tax fraud, it's still good to get the baddie.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 day ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (2 children)

    Rewarding a patent troll is never a good thing. It just means no one will be able to use haptic feedback without paying a toll.

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