The jury ruled in favor of Apple. Personally, I'm disgusted with the current state of the technology industry. It's a sue-happy biochemical/nuclear/dirty war right now.

How do you think this could impact the industry* (and you)?
[size=2]*and I mean "industry" pretty broadly: from the smart phone industry to the general technological industry to the gaming industry

The patent industry is simply sickening. 'nuff said.

I'm just glad that game developers mostly keep out of it. I've still occasionally had to work around patent issues in games, but it's not as common as in other tech industries (e.g. working in another industry, we once had to use plastic tape to cover a column of pixels when manufacturing the devices, because our competitor "owned" the use of the 16:9 aspect ratio in this category of devices).
The number of video game patent dramas that come to mind is pretty small -- Creative owning Carmack's Reverse, Sega owning the floating 3d guide arrow, Apple hindering true-type font adoption, DXT texture-compression not being usable on Linux, cant think of many others...

Let's not forget about the nightmare of using different formats .....

I'm deeply disappointed. I don't think the lawmakers understand the legal minefield required to make a simple device (let alone a modern cellphone). If companies can patent simple fundamental concepts, it makes consistency and user friendliness impossible. Imagine if the layout of the qwerty keyboard had been patented and would not be licensed for other devices. How could anyone type on a new device if every device had a different keyboard layout? Ludicrous.

I'm deeply disappointed. I don't think the lawmakers understand the legal minefield required to make a simple device (let alone a modern cellphone).

Of course they do.

Bankers have created a world where it's almost impossible to be without debt. You are pretty much born with it.

Lawyers have created a world where it's impossible for everything not to require their services. They have created a world of legalese, purposeful ambiguity, and fine print. The same way a programmer makes obfuscated spaghetti code that only he can understand or maintain so that everyone else needs him.

The lawyers don't care one way or the other. Both sides convinced them to go to court over this, and both sides are going to do whatever they can to milk the issue for as long as they can. The only problem for them to solve is how to maintain their constant stream of income from Google, Samsung, and Apple.

Both sides are probably locked up in a hotel room now, double tap zooming on hookers, and throwing cash around like it's a rap video.

The jury deliberated for less than three days before delivering the verdict on seven Apple patent claims and five Samsung patent claims --
[/quote]

Would be good to know what exactly these seven Apple patent claims ans five Samsung patent claims are. If they are UI-based patents, like "slide to unlock", or "homescreen design similarity", then this isn't as damaging as you might think. But if it's "touch-based input to launch apps", then it's a fundamental shake to the smartphone industry and is prettey bad.

Seems very narrow-minded about protecting US industries and about patents.

I don't think such would be possible in Europe or elsewhere! Really I feel sorry and sickening with you US guys.

I'll stop supporting Apple...

This site brings up a lot of good points: http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
(note of the obvious: It's a biased source with an agenda)

[quote name='jefferytitan' timestamp='1345868745' post='4973187']
I'm deeply disappointed. I don't think the lawmakers understand the legal minefield required to make a simple device (let alone a modern cellphone).

Of course they do.

Bankers have created a world where it's almost impossible to be without debt. You are pretty much born with it.

Lawyers have created a world where it's impossible for everything not to require their services. They have created a world of legalese, purposeful ambiguity, and fine print. The same way a programmer makes obfuscated spaghetti code that only he can understand or maintain so that everyone else needs him.

The lawyers don't care one way or the other. Both sides convinced them to go to court over this, and both sides are going to do whatever they can to milk the issue for as long as they can. The only problem for them to solve is how to maintain their constant stream of income from Google, Samsung, and Apple.

Both sides are probably locked up in a hotel room now, double tap zooming on hookers, and throwing cash around like it's a rap video.
[/quote]If you can't do better than your competitor, or even if you can, sue them for "copying" you, because that's how every good runner wins a race.

"Your honor, I have a patent on my running style where I pick my foot up off the ground this certain way, and the defendant clearly copied that and gained on me. When I turned and saw how he picked up his feet that certain way while he ran, I felt very deeply that he was copying me. Why, even his T-shirts are hardly distinguishable from mine!"

This is nothing more than a turf war.