Shazam
Take a look at the incarnations and characters from DC Comics' Shazam. Captain Marvel is the character that epitomizes the charm, innocence, and power of an older generation of comic book characters. Captain Marvel is a classic DC character right out of the Golden Age of comic books. The developers of Shazam should be on the hook for any patent infringement, not Apple. It is the small innovators/companies that see can foresee and implement product integrations and enhancements, well before the Big Guys.
Those corps often come up with a product but then fail to adapt to changing market conditions. I notice that most pro-patent people don't ever discuss the fact that the poor "small innovators" would actually *benefit* from the lack of patents in that they could leverage the work done on products by large corporations. Typically large companies are unable to see truly innovative concepts they do not derive themselves. The problem you talk about is rarely the case. The ones who actually implement something that consumers *want* are forced to cough up monies to those who filed some papers. One runs to the patent office to write down the idea, while others to iterate on implementations of the idea. But what about the case, which is the MAJORITY of cases, where the same idea is derived from multiple independent entities.
They will still make money and the true inventor will get reimbursed for their original innovation. In the case where someone 'just so happens' to have patented the same idea, that's a risk that companies should hedge against by researching patents BEFORE they go to market with an implementation. Without such a protection, an individual's idea could be implemented by a company with no implied license on the idea itself, meaning companies could steal ideas left and right. Mikey, you have about the same level of understanding of the subject as any street punk As far as I know the audio recognition technology behind Shazam is the brain child of Avery Wang: g.PDF It is this highly complicated and robust audio analysis and matching algorithm that makes Shazam possible The patent in question looks laughable to me: it does not contain any novel and unobvious technical details, just some high-level description of a consumer service As such it should not have been issued because it does not "promote the progress" YOu keep bithing about the patent system but the problem is with the US patent office Again, the "idea" behind Shazam is NOT a marketable consumer service, but an algorithm for robust audio search Of course, everything is market to you.. Having an app advertised nationally is a really good way to make people aware of it. What did this patent holder do to actually implement his idea.
Fortunately for all concerned, this is not the only web page which promotes the deeds of Captain Marvel. His plan is to hold the United Nations hostage in a bid for world domination. This adventure sees Black Adam returning to Earth, from whence he was banished 5000 years ago by the wizard SHAZAM, for abusing his powers. The reels featured animation-style art with objects positioned in different "layers" to give the 3-dimensional effect. The cartoon was apparently faithful to the style and characters of the old Fawcett and early DC Captain Marvel stories. The series ran for apparently ran for 12 episodes. In the comics run during the television series, Billy travels around the country with Uncle Dudley as his "mentor". Unsurprisingly, DC tried to promote some consistency between the SHAZAM television series and the comic. The role of Mentor was played by Les Tremayne. John Davey played him in the second and third seasons.
Jackson Bostwick played Captain Marvel in the first season. Twenty-five year old Michael Gray was cast as Billy Batson. Billy Batson became a troubleshooter, travelling the US in a van, accompanied by his guardian, Mentor, helping kids with their problems. Filmation had considered doing SHAZAM as an animated series, but elected instead to film the show as a live action show, which ran for three seasons. Filmation produced the SHAZAM television series in 1974, after their success with the 60's animated adventures of Superman, Batman and Aquaman. As a result, Tom speaks the equivalent of only one full page of dialogue as Captain Marvel, during the entire series.
Tom was apparently a superb athlete, but with a less than inspiring voice. Tom was considered by many to be the perfect choice to play the world's mightiest mortal. Tom Tyler played our hero. Only Captain Marvel can stop him.
Back in the US, however, a sinister figure calling himself The Scorpion sets out to steal the lenses and conquer the world. This weapon consists of five lenses, and each of the five scientists on the expedition takes one, so that none among them acquires the awesome power of The Scorpion.