Karl Denninger: It Is Time To Boycott Apple

This post contends how Apple has copied a design by LG back in 2001.  Apple has been really good at marketing overall.

From the Market-Ticker:

Apple likes to claim it is an "innovator" and thus files patents on various design elements by the boatload.  The problem with this claim and then the legal cudgel that it buys with these claims is that they always have been demonstrably false and now this has ratcheted up into attempts to bar obvious design features that Apple did not invent from being sold by anyone but Apple.

What has Apple actually "innovated" in? 

One thing: cult consumer behavior.  There it has indeed innovated.

The company stole Xerox PARC's ideas (specifically the Star workstation) when it came to the mouse and graphical user interface.  It did not invent any of those features -- not windows, not icons, not the mouse, none of it.  None.  Utterly none.

This was well-documented by the early 1990s.  But today, nobody cares.

Today, however, Apple claims it owns a rectangular tablet design with rounded corners and rectangles with rounded corners on the screen.  It claims to have invented this.  It claims that this was innovative and original work.  It even claims novelty and trade dress rights for the name "iPAD."

Apple is lying as the below image demonstrates conclusively.

I present to you the LG Tablet computer, called "The Digital, iPAD", with a rectangular form factor, rounded corners and a graphical user interface complete with windows, designed as a media-consumption device.  Oh, I almost forgot -- it ran Linux.

I said "ran", not "runs". See, this isn't a new item, or something you will be able to buy in the United State for Christmas.  Nor is it a copy of Apple's technology.  The facts are exactly the other way around.
When was this item invented and first made known to the public?

2001 at CeBIT. 

That's clear prior art and thus, other than a possible claim by LG as to those unique design elements, all of those so-called "unique design elements" including the name are in the public domain.

The development of the iPhone began in 2004, and the iPAD was first introduced in 2010, nine years later.

Apple has continued its abusive practices when it comes to the US and international legal system and yet the fanboi segment has shown a continued willingness to buy their products.  This is self-destructive behavior, as those who do so are not only overpaying based on the limited monopoly practices granted by patents that should have never been issued due to that prior art, but in addition they are providing Apple with the money to further abuse the legal process in the United States as well with claims of "novelty" when in point of fact there is no novelty that exists.

Apple, having duped a jury in the United States with slick lawyerly arguments now seeks to ban anything with rounded corners. 

In response we should ban Apple and tell them that they're welcome to play their games with offshoring and abuse of the patent system somewhere else -- but not here in the United States.

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=210968