The Patent Wars Rage On: Apple Granted Virtual Page Turning, Rounded Corners Patents

Recent lawsuits have many questioning the state of the United States patent system, with many decrying its overwillingness to approve any patent application tossed on its desk with the right company's name attached to it. Just-approved patents granted to Apple for virtual page turning and rounded corners have even more people questioning the system. See the source articles below for the full story.

Source: The Verge - Rounded Corners
Source: The Verge - Virtual Page Turning

Wired: The Problem With Patents

Recent lawsuits in the mobile technologies industry have caused many to look at the increasingly evident problems with the United States patent system. Steven Levy of Wired takes an in-depth look at the patent system and explains many of its biggest problems. See the source article below for the article.

Source: Wired

Patently Absurd: Microsoft Sued for Live Tiles

Microsoft is now being sued for its Live Tiles technology used in its Zune, Surface, Windows Phone, and Windows 8 offerings by a company called SurfCast. It is odd that this suit is coming up only now, however, as several of the allegedly infringing technologies have been in the market for several years.

The Patent in question is US Patent #6,724,403, described as follows: "A computerized method of presenting information from a variety of sources on a display device. Specifically the present invention describes a graphical user interface for organizing the simultaneous display of information from a multitude of information sources. In particular, the present invention comprises a graphical user interface which organizes content from a variety of information sources into a grid of tiles, each of which can refresh its content independently of the others. The grid functionality manages the refresh rates of the multiple information sources. The present invention is intended to operate in a platform independent manner."

Nilay Patel of The Verge questions whether this patent actually covers the allegedly infringing devices, but patent laws and filings are now so vague and so unable to keep-up with the pace of technology that only time will tell whether Microsoft will pay dearly for their advances in the computing industry.

What do you think about this lawsuit? Is Microsoft infringing? Is SurfCast just a patent troll? Leave your thoughts in the comments section down below.

Source: The Verge