∞ Patents don't equal products

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Editor’s note: This article was written by Your Mac Life host Shawn King.

Last week, The Loop had a story titled Apple patent could prevent you from filming in some venues”. I commented on the story, as I have on other web sites and on several mailing lists, that people should relax.

[ad#Google Adsense 300x250 in story]I said, “Patents don’t equal products. This ‘technology’ is easily circumvented by your average point and shoot camera. Non-issue. Non-story.”

My friend Mike Rose over at TUAW picked up the smoldering embers of this torch and wrote “Apple’s infrared ‘camera kill switch’ patent application hits a nerve”.

But I’ll repeat myself — “patents don’t equal products.” Companies like Apple invent dozens, if not hundreds of things every year. To protect their investment in intellectual property, companies patent those ideas, concepts and inventions. You never know when something might turn into an actual product or even be sold to another company who wants the technology. Patents can equal money in any number of ways.

Most patents are applied for because a company thinks they can get the idea into a product and sell it to consumers. But some patents are there just to protect the idea itself and not necessarily because the patenting company will develop the idea into an actual product in the marketplace.

If you’ve been following Apple for any length of time or even follow a web site like Patently Apple, you’ll notice the volume of patents Apple applies for. You’ll also notice how many of those patents have not yet made it into your Mac or iOS device. That doesn’t mean they won’t, but having a patent doesn’t guarantee they will, either.

The other aspect of this non-story is what the patent actually covers.

Does anyone really believe that Apple would implement this technology? Do you really believe that Apple would risk the ire of hundreds of thousands of concert and show goers by implementing this camera blocking application? Ask yourself some questions: What does Apple gain? Who does the technology benefit? What solution does the patent solve for Apple or its customers?

TUAW tries to extend the “threat” by positing the idea that this technology could be used to quash dissent by democratic activists.

For me, it simply doesn’t pass the Laugh Test. And, even if Apple thought this was a good idea or was being paid by venue owners or third world dictators to implement it, the technology is easily circumvented by pretty much any point and shoot camera sold today.

I firmly believe this is an example of a patent being applied for simply to have the patent, not because Apple believes the technology has any real world possibilities. Time will tell but if you’re a betting man, I’ll take bets that this technology will never see the light of day.


  • John David

    Well written article that should make this clear for everyone.

    The sorry part is that it had to be written in the first place. As it’s pointed out in the article, does anyone REALLY believe that Apple would implement this? I mean… c’mon people!

    • Anonymous

      Yes, some people really believe that.

      Even people who don’t have Something Against Apple do, a few of them, because they have Something Against Corporations(tm), who are All Evil And Wicked.

      And some people are just paranoids.

      (Me, I think Apple might well license it to someone someday – for a super-HD video camera, to prevent it being used in theaters to pirate movies off the screen.

      The idea of it being widespread (“in your iPhone!”) and used “to keep us down” by The Government, not so much.

      They can already keep us down – with guns and prisons – if they wish to be sufficiently wicked.)

    • Dokmgb

      You miss the entire point of the patent process. As stated in the article, “You never know when something might turn into an actual product or even
      be sold to another company who wants the technology. Patents can equal
      money in any number of ways.” Bottom line, Apple gets the patent, Apple sells the patent, Apple makes a mint.

  • http://www.theuniversalsteve.com Anonymous

    Gaddafi paid you to write that, didn’t he!?

  • http://profiles.google.com/captain.zones Ronald Bell

    “For me, it simply doesn’t pass the Laugh Test.”

    I like that line. It reminds of of Peter van der Linden when he said something violated the Principle of Least Astonishment.

  • http://twitter.com/MikeTRose Michael T. Rose

    Hi Shawn! Thanks for the link love. As noted in the post, I also made it clear that most Apple patents do not equal Apple products.

    “TUAW tries to extend the “threat” by positing the idea that this technology could be used to quash dissent by democratic activists.”
    Actually, we did not ‘posit the idea,’ it was Save the Internet’s petition that painted that picture — which should be clear if you read our post. I spent quite a while on the phone with Josh Levy (@levjoy:twitter ) arguing this point before I wrote our post. Personally, I *don’t* believe the patent application as described would be implemented in a way that would be practical as a tool for suppressing dissent, and that’s why I called the petition that DID say that ‘hyperbolic.’

    What I *would* be concerned about: a concert venue or movie theater that implements no-photos-please zones, and subsequently there is an assault or crime in those zones that bystanders try to document with their phone cameras — and can’t. Of COURSE there are other cameras one could buy, and OF COURSE over time the market would address this problem; neither of those factors would matter for the person in that specific situation.

    • http://twitter.com/ShawnKing Shawn King

      Thanks for the comment/correction, Mike. But I’m confused. Not once in it did you call me any names…are you new to the intraweb? :)

    • http://twitter.com/ShawnKing Shawn King

      “What I *would* be concerned about: a concert venue or movie theater that implements no-photos-please zones…” Hmmm…I wonder if this is something Apple would use on their own at a Steve Jobs keynote……?

      • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

        “Oh, and One More Thing…”

        [click]

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WHFQKRUVMJSEFVO7L3UNR7OMCQ arti.fact

    I agree patents didn’t always equal products but down the road and over time some other company develops an idea and manufactures a product that some company already had a patent on, even though they might have changed the concept slightly, the company that holds the patent on the idea will want royalties on, that is why Apple is patenting their idea’s. C.T.B.

    • Fnordius

      This is also the feeling that I got, that by holding this patent Apple is scaring others away from using the same tech. You can believe that Sony would be very interested in implementing something like this, as the media end of their holdings have been bullying and domineering the tech part of the company ever since they were acquired.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WHFQKRUVMJSEFVO7L3UNR7OMCQ arti.fact

    I agree patents didn’t always equal products but down the road and over time some other company develops an idea and manufactures a product that some company already had a patent on, even though they might have changed the concept slightly, the company that holds the patent on the idea will want royalties on, that is why Apple is patenting their idea’s. C.T.B.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7XYSLNRN4R2VB4R2G4VLNLDNFY Joe

    You’re right that Apple selling a product to block photos at shows or democratic protests doesn’t pass the laugh test. But can we imagine for a moment that Apple had in mind for this idea what they said they did, rather than what The Loop and TUAW extrapolated? In other words, maybe the idea behind Apple’s patent is what’s in the patent application: the ability to add information and links for the benefit of the consumer.

    Read the patent application instead of the alarmist journalists.Might be far-fetched, might never make it into a shipping product. But can we give Apple the benefit of the doubt and take them at their word that this would be for the benefit of the consumer, rather than the RIAA or the Syrian government? Do we really have to project a dystopian worst case scenario every technology that Apple envisions? Aren’t there enough current real-world shipping technologies with dystopian potential to keep us busy?

    • http://twitter.com/ShawnKing Shawn King

      “…can we give Apple the benefit of the doubt and take them at their word…”

      I’ve been covering Apple for far too long to do that. :)

  • Anonymous

    I guess the 200 plus patents for the iPhone were/are imaginary. The dozens of patents for the iPod, iPad, the iPhone’s camera, iAd, LED display coming to the iMac before they did. Right. Patents don’t turn into products. I guess that Apple is in an imaginary court on an ongoing basis defending patents that aren’t really patents. What a silly story because idiots attacked a legitimate patent application of Apple’s. The patent covers specific encoding for not filiming specific concerts that are high profile. That doesn’t translate into hysterical leaps into not filming abuses. That said, Patents do matter and many patents come to life. I’d rather read about technologieis that Apple’s engineers are working on, even if they don’t pan out, than listen to rumor sites speculate on thin air. How may rumors come to pass? Ya, right. Point made.  

    • http://rsfinn.myopenid.com/ rsfinn

      The author didn’t say “Patents don’t turn into products”, as you suggested; the author wrote “Patents don’t equal products”, which is not the same thing.  Please read more carefully before you comment… oh, right. Internet. I forgot. Never mind.

      • Anonymous

        Now that you said “please”, how can I refuse? I get it. And in light of the hoopla over Apple’s ifrared camera patent application, in a way Shawn is trying to defuse it in a different way than I choose to. I’d rather argue what that patents actually presented versus the myth. Shawn wants to distance Apple from this controversy through downplaying the patent as something that will never happen. We see it a little differently, for sure.

        A lot of excitable people ranted about not buying the next iPhone because some looney tune left wing nut group played up middle eastern regimes abusiing their citizenry due to Apple’s technology. I would rather debate than run. Does everything Apple patents come to market. Of course not. But ideas within patents do cross polinate to other greater ideas. Provsional patents are very common and that allows Apple to combine ideas found in other patents. 

        Enough said. We just see it a litte differently, and that’s what good debates are about. An exchange, sometimes heated exchange of ideas and philosophies.  

  • Vamsmack

    Here’s a valid use case for this. For those who work in places where they deal with sensitive/confidential information and are unable to carry camera phones due to this restriction could happily carry around their iPhone in those places as the camera has been disabled while in those sensitive areas.

    Obviously this technology can be used elsewhere but it could have positive implications for businesses.

  • http://www.facebook.com/darek.rossman Darek Rossman

    Glad to find this article – had been debating with several people about the insignificance of this whole patent story for several days. The discussion really isn’t about whether or not Apple would ever do something like this. It’s become more of a theoretical discussion about technology and freedom, and the potential benefits and dangers inherent to such advancements. That said, I agree this has been blown way out of proportion.

    What’s to say this technology would only be used by media companies and oppressive governments? Any average, private citizen could acquire or create a device used to emit the IR to protect themselves from being filmed as well. So one could argue that it adds to personal privacy as much as it infringes on personal freedom. Is it a given right of all people to choose not to be filmed? Is it a given right of all people to be able to film anyone or anything the want? People sometimes forget that as technology becomes more advanced, our freedoms can and will become compromised as a matter of circumstance… but the ability of the people to defend those freedoms and adapt to new circumstances also becomes more advanced.