4 most ridiculous technology patents ever granted?
Here are a few of them:
1. Amazon's one-click patent
When you shop online, you know how you can save your shipping address, credit card details etc so that you don't have to type it again for your next purchase? Your subsequent purchases can thus be done with a single click- and Amazon owns the patent for this. They even sued Barnes & Noble for having this feature in their site.
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/w
2. Pull to refresh
The pull to refresh feature present in many apps is actually patented by Twitter, which was the first to come out with this feature.
Reference: http://dcurt.is/pull-to-r
3. Making links in email clickable
All links and phone numbers in emails can be made clickable, even when the original email sent by the user didn't make them clickable links. Sounds trivial right? But implementing this can get you sued by Apple (it has already sued HTC over this patent).
The patent details here: http://www.google.com/pat
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| Image via CrunchBase |
The pull to refresh feature present in many apps is actually patented by Twitter, which was the first to come out with this feature.
Reference: http://dcurt.is/pull-to-r
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All links and phone numbers in emails can be made clickable, even when the original email sent by the user didn't make them clickable links. Sounds trivial right? But implementing this can get you sued by Apple (it has already sued HTC over this patent).
The patent details here: http://www.google.com/pat
4. Buying stuff inside an app
Yes. This is patented. Even if an app says "Click to here to buy the full version", they are "infringing a patent". Hell, Rovio(maker of Angry Birds) got sued over this by Lodsys which owns the patent.
Reference: http://venturebeat.com/20
Yes. This is patented. Even if an app says "Click to here to buy the full version", they are "infringing a patent". Hell, Rovio(maker of Angry Birds) got sued over this by Lodsys which owns the patent.
Reference: http://venturebeat.com/20
This is a list of patent infringements that Apple is suing HTC over. A few of them seem ridiculous, you be your own judge:
http://www.engadget.com/2
Tags: Apple, Patent, Lodsys, Lawsuit, Twitter, HTC Corporation, Rovio, Patent troll
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