After all the idea of "how to let the user know they have reached the top of the scroll view" can be implemented many ways. Apples is one way. LG, Samsung and HTC all have different ways.
I just hope that this madness will not come to the EU too (eg the 1-click patent was never granted here).
Protecting the hundreds of design decisions that go into making a product look and feel a certain way, against people who are willing to just basically make a copycat product that does everything the same way - that's not so absurd.
I think Samsung lost not because of one specific patent, but because of the overwhelming number of points on which they copied Apple.
Yet the individual patents are still there. If Apple decides to go after any company for implementing a single one they can still do so, and probably will.
But that's not happening, and I seriously doubt that would ever happen. We all "know" that Samsung copied Apple in almost every thing. Home screen icons, packaging, UI elements, icons, USB charger, the "Mac mini" clone (which is almost identical to a Mac mini) they made recently, showing App Store icon and icons of iOS-only apps in their booth at a conference, audaciously cloning "Smart Cover", and hundreds of other little things. Their own lawyer failed to distinguish between a Tab and the iPad! They're suing over just these petty patents because they can't sue them over a hundred un-patentable ideas that make a product great and they (Apple) has spent billions of dollars of R&D on researching them.
Every one of these was a "fuck you" to Apple. I'd do the same if I were Tim Cook or Jobs and would want to teach Samsung a lesson.
Apple made hundreds of billions of dollars even with Samsung copying them. If the patent system disappeared Apple would still make hundreds of billions of dollars, thus they would still have spent billions on R&D without the current patent system.
If you'll notice the jury also found that Samsung violated Apple's trade dress--that was the proper way to go after someone who copies the "look and feel" of your product.
Furthermore I don't care whom Apple sues, I care about the broken system that allows them to do so.
I'm not blaming apple for anything. I've used a macbook pro for the last 5 years by the way, and I only recently switched to a thinkpad running linux b/c I don't like the iOSification of OS X, not because I care whom they sue.
I want the patent system to be changed just as much as others, but I find it extremely hard to sympathize with Samsung, or not be glad about the verdict in this specific case.
Less abstractly, I think the author's point about the standardized "UI" for cars is a good one - society is better off, not worse off, as a result of companies copying each other in the auto industry. If you can drive one car you can drive them all (well...except for the automatic/manual thing). You don't need to spend three days relearning how to drive every time you rent a car. In the same way, society benefits a LOT from familiar UI design across different software companies - e.g., anyone who has ever used any mainstream desktop OS in the past 15 years or so can pretty quickly figure out the basics of any other mainstream desktop OS - they all have programs partitioned into "windows", have a "desktop" with "icons", etc. These UI elements all seem trivially obvious to us precisely because of copying, but there are certainly alternatives to all of them.
I suppose Ford should have patented the car UI and still be earning money on it today from every car sold - after all, the Model T was clearly innovation, and innovation should be rewarded with long-term rent.
(I can't believe people can actually think that way.)
You can't patent an implementation