Blog Pattern Language
By Sam Martin - February 5, 2009
I’m no patent expert, but it’s clear after a little research that patent laws were put into place for two reasons: 1) they want to encourage secretive inventors to stop stashing their cool ideas under a mattress somewhere and make them public and 2) they want to rock the boat.
Apple has never been accused of keeping new ideas under wraps, but by securing their new patent for “multifunction” touch technology like pinch, rotation, and swipe, they have certainly rocked the boat.
We won’t know how or if the boat will be righted until a few million dollars are spent on lawsuits, but those in the mobile and consumer electronics industry seem to be either ignoring the issue (using the lawsuit reasoning stated above) or they have the knee jerk reaction that Apple is ruining it for everyone – that the company is reverting to Pre-Open-Source, Big-Meany Corporate status.
And yet, isn’t Apple doing us a favor by rocking the boat? The reason behind the existence of patents is sound – to spur innovation and excite competition, the argument being that if there was no payoff for new products, services, or technologies there would be less incentive to push for change and improvement. Instead of ignoring the issue or getting angry about it, companies ought to be putting their energy and resources into coming up with something new. If Apple owns “touch,” what’s next?
Blog Pattern Language
By Sam Martin - December 19, 2008
I used to do a lot of traveling. First it was to see the graves of my literary heroes like Yeats (Sligo, Ireland) and Keats (Rome) and then it became something of a sight seeing tour – you know, a more traditional traipse to museums, temples, and historic and natural wonders.
Eventually, though, I traveled just to get away – to see how far away I could get, both literally and figuratively. I wanted to feel the distance, and I wanted to become completely removed from what I’d always known, to really step outside my own culture and experience what it was like to live in Sydney, Nepal, Thailand, or Honduras.
Blog Pattern Language
By Sam Martin - October 23, 2008
In the past two weeks, there’s been at least a dozen stories in the mainstream and not-so-mainstream media about the importance of innovation in a recession. For businesses, refocusing on R&D and innovation really is a good strategy in down times. There’s plenty of historic evidence to back the claim up (the invention of farming technologies and civil engineering breakthroughs in the Great Depression, alternative energy investments in the early 1970s, and a sharpening of Internet business models after the dot com bust in the late 90s).
