On Jun 6, 2008, at 6:05 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote:
On that note, I think this may need clarification. If by "discuss
this" you mean the business, practitioner or philosophical issues
and at high level, about one company suing another over tools some
designers use and need for their work, I absolutely agree. But if
by "discuss this" you means the details of the patents themselves
as part of that discussion -- what they say, what was patented, how
it was patented, etc -- that would be different and inappropriate
for an organization that aims to support professional product
designers.
My organization certainly aims to support professional product
designers... but assiduously avoiding exposure to patents has never
been something that I or any of my clients has ever faced or even
mentioned. For what it's worth, in my entire 14-year career as a
designer of interfaces and products I've never heard of this.
What's more, perhaps some companies may wish to do the precise
opposite of the policy you describe. They may wish to study their
competitors' patents with intense and brazen scrutiny with the express
purpose of creating products that avoid those existing patents
completely. Does nobody at Microsoft peruse the many Apple patents
published on the web, or vice versa? As Jack Moffett asked, are
Engadget and countless other product blogs off-limits to professional
designers? I find that hard to fathom.
Furthermore, one could argue that this admonition to avoid exposure to
patents is a great way to stifle and restrict a product designer's
ability to design great new products. Reading and viewing technology
and UI patents is (to address another recent thread) a great source of
product design inspiration.
So...
Please grant me a punk rock moment:
I can understand Andrei's sensitivity to this (he used to work at
Adobe, a company with a history of (IMHO) patent law abuse), and in
fact Andrei invented several patents that Adobe holds today (http://www.patentstorm.us/inventors/Andrei_M__Herasimchuk/2380240.html
, patents that presumably Adobe may wish to use someday to sue one of
us for designing a product that vaguely resembles one of them.
But Jared? Dan? Do you guys really avoid ever looking at patents,
avoid discussing them at conferences or on blogs? Not even, for
example, Nokia or Apple's widely-discussed gesture patents, or Apple's
planned human interface devices?
Or are we all just playing lip service to the bullying tactics of the
big patent law abusers? Are we letting the terrorists win? Where is
the Dan Saffer who literally called "BULLSHIT" on this behavior two
years ago (http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=9101)?
I agree that this isn't an constitutional or ethically-based "It's
wrong to publish patents!" discussion, but rather a practically-
focused "the bastards will sue you" concern. But cowing to the
aforementioned bastards by stifling my ability to discuss or view
patents was never part of my vision of the happy and rewarding career
I've enjoyed and hope to continue to enjoy. And the idea of giving
those bastards exactly what they want, and allowing patent law to be
abused yet again, and allowing potentially great design to be crushed
by fearmongering lawyers, is almost impossible to accept.
For those concerned about the legal ramifications of exposure to
competitors' patents, the best solutions seem to be:
1) Quit the list.
2) Quit your company (or client).
Cheers,
-Cf
Christopher Fahey
____________________________
Behavior
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com
me: http://www.graphpaper.com
________________________________________________________________
Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
