Doesn't stealing someone's idea for an app/innovation and respinning it into your own implementation count as IP theft?
IIRC the Winklevoss twins got paid handsomely as a settlement for Zuckerberg stealing their idea for Facebook. Granted, they were very rich and well connected so that helped.
Apple could pay this guy off, but apparently their executives have decided he is not a sufficient PR problem or time expense to merit a payoff yet.
Are you sure about that? Obviously, you mean outside of the patent framework and the concept of infringement, so never mind that.
There is law against executing someone else's idea which is public, and over which they have no patent.
What if the idea isn't public? Not that it applies in this case, but I think there is such a thing as breaking into an organization and stealing trade secrets: ideas that are not known outside of that organization, and are (consequently) not patented.
What is this law? I am pretty sure flying cars, underwater cities, space travel, etc are ideas that someone else has had, but no US court is going to stop you from executing an idea just because someone else fantasized about it.
>What if the idea isn't public? Not that it applies in this case, but I think there is such a thing as breaking into an organization and stealing trade secrets: ideas that are not known outside of that organization, and are (consequently) not patented.
The theft itself would be a crime, but an entity not involved in the theft would be able to take advantage of the trade secret without any legal liability. That is the tradeoff for not registering a patent to gain exclusivity for 20 years via legal mechanisms.
https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/connectus-secret-6...
Connect U obviously did not have proper documents stating Zuckerberg was working for them, or a non compete or anything since they were willing to settle. Hence it seems like a he said she said situation where Connect U got lucky that Facebook was going to be so huge that their agreed upon settlement amount was inconsequential to Facebook.
No, there is no such thing as IP theft. There is theft, copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and patent infringement.
Also there is Monopoly\anti-competitive behavior law, which this seems an obvious violation of.
This makes the assumption that apple hasn’t been putting deep thought into the keyboard design since before the first watch was physically built. I think it’s safe to assume there’s a 30 slide keynote filled with different designs and user study results.
He didn't invent virtual keyboards on touchscreens. I don't suspect he holds a patent in this area.
That would not be a reasonable basis for a lawsuit, since it could not be expected to succeed.
"Stealing" someone's idea to make a keyboard.
Or the discovery may uncover evidence of poor behavior. You just don't know.
Seriously folks, consumer devices are being used internally for a long time before they become known to the public. UI improvement ideas are being thrown around constantly and are logged, discussed, prioritized, etc. Just because something isn't there on launch day, or v2, v3 or v4 of the software, doesn't mean they didn't think of it or didn't plan to do it.