{"id":1925,"date":"2012-09-05T01:00:05","date_gmt":"2012-09-05T09:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1925"},"modified":"2012-09-04T12:40:57","modified_gmt":"2012-09-04T20:40:57","slug":"apple-versus-samsung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1925","title":{"rendered":"Apple Versus Samsung"},"content":{"rendered":"

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One of my favorite Star Trek scenes is from Star Trek 4, where Scottie tries talking to the computer<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0In this classic scene, one of the basic Star Trek futurisms is on display as he tries to get the computer to respond to him verbally.\u00a0 Who actually knew that IBM was going to come up with Watson super-computer that could answer questions and win Jeopardy a couple years ago?<\/p>\n

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All I\u2019m saying is that patents on feature functionality were all thought of by either Star Wars or Star Trek in the 60\u2019s and 70\u2019s.\u00a0 I\u2019m quite dissatisfied with the current number of lawsuits happening in the mobile phone space.\u00a0 Let\u2019s face it, I don\u2019t think Apple, Samsung, Motorola, Google, etc. should be able to patent some of the things they have.\u00a0 If Apple didn\u2019t buy Siri, someone else was going to have a device that verbally responded to verbal questions within the next 2 years anyway.\u00a0 I mean, it was in Star Trek, right.\u00a0 This is not a new thought \u2013 it\u2019s 50 years old.\u00a0 In general, I also don\u2019t think you should be able to patent some sorts of design.\u00a0 Innovation is one thing, design is another, so unless it\u2019s outright \u201cplagiarism,\u201d it\u2019s a no-go for me.\u00a0 The idea that part of what Samsung is paying Apple for is a set of application icons with rounded corners<\/a> is a small bit stupid to me.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, what I\u2019m really fearful of is that patent wars could escalate from mobile devices over to HR software.\u00a0 Think about it if someone decided to patent the next great performance review.\u00a0 This is something that we\u2019ve all been complaining about for years, but nobody in the industry can figure out how to make performance evaluations more effective.\u00a0 Here\u2019s how I see a Performance Review patent playing out:<\/p>\n