Yesterday, Samsung used Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey — a forty year old science fiction movie about a future that is now ten years old — as an example of prior art in their ongoing IP lawsuits. Samsung claimed that the tablets shown in 2001 were prior art, and they proved that Apple didn’t actually invent the idea of a touchscreen tablet; therefore, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab can’t be accused of ripping off the iPad.
Seems like a pretty good argument. The only problem? The devices shown in 2001 aren’t touchscreen tablets at all!
Over at ObamaPacman, there’s a great debunking of Samsung’s prior art argument. You should read the whole thing, but here’s the jist: the devices in 2001 are televisions, not tablets.
How can you tell? For one, they don’t have touchscreens, and they’re showing BBC television programming. They also have banks of physical buttons to change channels.
In addition, Obama Pacman conclusively proves that in Kubrick’s film, there are no tablets. Even the astronauts are using just regular pads of paper.
In other words, Apple’s iPad is so futuristic even some of the greatest sci-fi minds of the 60s and 70s didn’t think of it. There’s no prior art here, just an attempt to obfuscate the truth: Apple invented the modern tablet, not Stanley Kubrick.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
130 responses to “Hey Samsung! Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 Didn’t Invent Tablets, Apple Did. Here’s Proof”
This is what is called “grasping at straws”. Maybe they should have gone whole hog and researched comic book archives to find something that predates the movie. Referring to Hollywood mock ups of fictional devices as prior art. Their lawyers are going to be the laughingstock of their profession.
I think patents should be granted when someone invents something that works, not just has an idea that they can never prove. I should start patenting all kinds of crazy ideas I think up.
How about a phone that can also teleport people? What about a computer that can predict your next action and just do it for you? I don’t know crap about engineering so I won’t ever make this things happen but when the hard working engineers actually do figure this out, I can just grab all the profits or at least deprive them of the exclusivity a patent offers.
I can sit here all day thinking up wacky concepts, I’m bound to score a few hits.
The patent system needs reform BADLY.
I would say the first person to make something that works gets the patent. Since technology moves fast, I would say patents on technology should last only 5 years, maybe 10 years maximum not 20. In today’s world 5 years is plenty to capitalize on an idea (and its not like your profit will stop after that, you can still continue selling it and people will probably buy anyway).
Patent laws should be more like trademark laws, where if you don’t use it you lose it. If you patent an idea you should have 1 or 2 years to bring it to market. If its not for sale after 1 year and there is no proof that you are even bringing it to market, you lose the patent. And if you can show you are bringing it to market, then you get 1 more year to do it.
Let’s put innovations in the hands of people and not let them rot in the patent office. The whole point of inventing an patenting is to reward people for innovations that advance society. An innovation that is never built never benefits anyone, nor does it profit the innovator.
I am speechless. Samsung had the balls to try an pull this one! You have a give them an A for effort – wrong as they are.
Next, they will be saying prior art because of the PADD in Star Trek TNG.
Yeah, except now, since 2001 has been disproven, they’ll probably use Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space 9 and Voyager’s PADDs (Personal Access Display Device) with the same argument :/
damn too slow :P
damn too slow :P
why do you guys defend Apple so much dont you realise that with competition apple will bring prices down and stop ripping people off so much !!!!!
wy do you defend apple….its better with competition more innovation and lower prices…or do you want to give apple more towards thier obscene 68 billion in the bank…you really are dumb on this page
Apple will most likely not lower the prices of the iPad because of competition (if there was one). Even though I think this patent war is silly, I can’t stop but giggle about Samsungs 2001 argument. They are not defending mac, they are telling you as it is.
The Samsung Ku Brick!
of course there is competition..the samsung tablet is far more superior to the ipad there is no doubt about that….apple knows that and thats why they are trying to stop it because they cant compete against the spec and features !
same reason they dont allow os x to be installed on non-apple hardware…they would lose their extortional markup on average hardware that they have now ! i own a macbook and imac both cost over $1500 each but they are nowhere near as fast and powerful as my hackintosh wich cost half the price !!!!
I guess they had not look too closely at the Star Trek PADD then, or even earlier, the slate Kirk signs off daily rosters on from the pretty young officer with the really short skirt.
Oh crap, then Facetime is just the video phone used by Dr Floyd to phone home, only to get his daughter. How did they forsee that this is exacly how kids would act on video phones 8) Idendical to the times I have skyped home wheile away on business.
However the zeroG toilet must have been running Android. Have you checked out the number of instructions and warnings on they notice before Floyds goes in?
What irony that your name is Simon! I’m calling you “Simple” Simon from now on! Apple always lowers the prices of their products when they replacement them with next generation. They never, ever raise prices! FACT! That’s why the rest are doomed & Apple will own the consumer world! They have all of the mind-share, all of the profits & soon they’ll have all of the so-called “competitions” head’s on their wall as trophies! Let the non-thinking, non-innovators have the “bottom” of the market & the dinosaur IT departments. Stop being delusional, if Apple never made the iPhone, all of these companies would still be copying RIM! When the iPhone was released, these same companies were still praising the “stylus” & predicting Apple’s failure! Apple’s taking these fool-companies down, one-by-one! HP nose-dived months in advance + NO one could’ve predicted they’d “flop” their PC business too. Thanks Mac’s & iPad’s. Look-out for Apple’s next victims! They won’t be hard to find!
Yeah, I’m a Mac fanboy, but this site’s authors are just getting more ridiculous as days go by. Apple didn’t INVENT the tablet, modern or otherwise. There were tablets long before the iPad. All Apple did (extremely well) was make them usable by the general consumer – much like they did with home computers.
As far as Samsung… those lawyers are really reaching now. I would give anything to be a fly on the wall when they came up with this defense.
Of course they’re not….. Actual, working tablets weren’t invented/created until much much later. But the idea of them is clearly present in the movie even though they are a figment of stanley kubric’s given life on the big screen. This really isn’t that hard to grasp as a legal argument.(Aardman)
co-sign! They’ll try to use any non-legal argument to win! They should hire me as their lawyer instead of wasting so-much money on these no-nothings! I can’t believe the defences they’re using! Real sad!
Nah! I think I’ll give them an “R” for retarded!
But that is how patents work! If you have an idea, why wouldn’t you protect it from someone that possibly has deeper-pockets then you & the ability to get their ideas out fast?! You’d sue if you spent years working on something, only to find-out another person is releasing it before you even had a chance to build your idea. You’d automatically assume they somehow stole your idea. Why wouldn’t you sue?
No you are the dumb stupid one if you cannot evaluate an action irrespective of your own personal biases. Referring to fictional devices as prior art is just plain stupid. If you don’t know that, then you’re as big a moron as their lawyers. Now get out of here. There’s a no-moron rule on the internet and you just violated it.
Simple Simon! It’s 2011, if you’re going to make a statement, at least research what you’re talking about a little bit before you open your mouth. Information is at your finger-tips! Take advantage of the “information-era”, instead of talking out of your a%*!
Apple’s prices aren’t more expensive. Actually, they’re typically substantially less expensive. The pricing misconception comes about because Apple offers significantly fewer options to buy less computer or a different computer and thus spend less. Apple is essentially forcing you to be kit you may not want.
Apple is less flexible…. not more expensive.
Apple didn’t invent tablets you guys are full of horseshit
This is a “look and feel” patent not an operational one.
Idiot.
Samsung got you scared eh?
This is not a legal argument. You just don’t know what you’re talking about. “Prior Art” involves the existence of a previous design, not just a mock up in a movie.
As this article demonstrates quite clearly, it isn’t even a mockup of a tablet, it’s a mock up of a future TV anyway.
Even if you completely ignore those two arguments, it looks nothing like the iPad and has none of the features of the iPad.
Samsung is wrong, wrong, wrong here. Embarrassingly so, and on multiple levels.
Really, all Samsung would have had to do is point to Star Trek Next Gen – who can forget the P.A.D.D. that LaForge and Dr. Crusher were always toting around through the ship. They most certainly were touchscreen devices, and were used to control and monitor just about any system on the ship. Even Kirk occasionally handles a tablet on the original series ( he signs one with a pen at the start of each duty shift ) It’s a great old idea that Apple just happens to have perfected..
When I worked for GRiD Systems back in the early ’90s, we had the “GRiDPad” which had both patented stylus and touch capability. It wasn’t color (nor was it particularly good), but it was a pad device. GRiD (now Tandy/Radio Shack) holds the original patents on a few things we now take for granted in the the portable computing arena — even as basic as the folding laptop computer.
You should be given an exclusivity time window, but make it reasonable. If you don’t have the resources to release the product to market in 24 months (and no one wants to license it from you) you probably won’t release it ever.
And if you do find someone who can help you release it, your patent then gets extended 5 years. So if its a good idea, then companies still have incentive to license it or buy it from you (because then they’d have exclusive dibs on it for 5 years). Where as if they just “wait it out” for 2 years, then their competitors will also be able to do it.
But what you won’t have is the ability to harass companies 15-17 years in the future for doing something you thought of many years ago but could never figure out how to really do it or make it happen.
I know stanly kubrick’s grandson – he went to my school :)
You mean an iPadd?
This is a totally bogus argument even if the screens in “2001” were tablets, which they weren’t. Apple didn’t invent the world’s first portable music player either, but this fact doesn’t entitle Apple’s competitors to rip off the look and feel of the iPod or the technology used in the iPod.
And let’s not forget that Apple started developing its own first tablet, the Newton, in 1987. Samsung’s arguments are ridiculous. How can lawyers charge so much money for such lousy advice?
As i said in a previous post, Apple didn’t invent portable music players either. This fact does not entitle Apple’s cometitors to rip off the look and feel of the iPod. Get a brain, dorkface.
” You just don’t know what you’re talking about. “Prior Art” involves the existence of a previous design, not just a mock up in a movie.”
That’s right because a design made and presented inside of a movie in 1970 can’t be considered “prior” – “art”……
Idiot.
in 1991 the iPad was on star trek it was a touch screen information giving device if anything they should have used star trek tng
YES you are correct, it is better to have competition and innovation… the only problem with your statement is that most companies i.e. samsung.. don’t care about competition or innovation. they just copy what works and sell it. I want competition, it would be great to have another player in the tablet game to see what they come up with… all these people are doing is making a screen with a cheap computer in it and filling it with android… what research or time did they put into development. Any one can do that. But to do what apple did and look at the tablet market at the time and see what was wrong and develop a new look and feel and new UI, well that is innovation. The main problem is all these other companies don’t have the foresight to see anything new.
Oh and ps, honestly you keep on posting the same thing about this and it just makes you look like you are either 14 or just some lonely dude trying to annoy some apple fans.
And pps, stop complaining about the price of products? I can not stand that argument. You said above about your hackentosh being cheaper and faster…. well good for you. I bought my mac that I use for work because I wanted the dependability of a mac. It is a super rugged machine that can get me through anything and if something does go down I have the best customer service in the PC business at my side. It is worth it to pay the little extra price.
absolute rubbish…overpriced cheap hardware that you cannot repair yourself….dont be stupid !! geez you guys are so bllnd and brainwashed !!!!!! Apple doesnt innovate anything please name a few innovations the only thing they have that differant is ios and osx which are released in stages to sell more with each version,,,,android has had all the features of the iphone 5 and ios5 now for at least 24 months so who is copying who please be honest !!!
Its like saying FORD invented the car and nobody else can use 4 wheels and engine and black paintwork !!!
…and at least when you put os x on standard components you can replace them yourself for little cost !
I just p a i d $21.87 for an i P a d 2-64GB and my boyfriend loves his Panasonîc Lumîx GF 1 Camera that we got for $38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS.I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $657 which only cost me $62.81 to buy.
Here is the website we use to get it all from, http://BídsFírst.Com
I have no bias…i love my macs and iphone but i regard them without bias for what they are not what they are not ! I had a creative Zen 20gb long before Apple brought out the ipod…and creative had a claim on apple because they stole the concept of the menu system software and jog wheel
lol but why do you suck up to apple and not take a balanced view ? theres more to the world than apple you know…
I think maybe you people should actually use a Android device before you comment…its clear that none of you have ! and Apple didnt invent the tablet…deal with it !!!!
why all of a sudden is apple scared of another company selling a simular or copied look and feel device….maybe its because their software is inferior…and they know it
why all of a sudden is apple scared of another company selling a simular or copied look and feel device….maybe its because their software is inferior…and they know it
if you don’t like Apple software, can you please explain what you are doing on a Apple centric website commenting?
i use a macbook and a imac and 2 macpros…plus a iphone but i also have 4 or 5 pc’s and linux servers….and had a android phone for 2 years….android is more advanced than ios but os xsnow leopard is my OP system of choice although there are some reservations about upgrading anything more than my macbook to lion ! Im just a realist !
Ive been a IT consultant for 25 years so I think Im more than qualified to comment on a mac website, I didnt realise that only pro apple comments were aceptable on here, I thought normal people discussed the good and bad of a subject !
OMG is that an Intel Inside sticker on the bottom right?
What many are failing to recognize in this lawsuit is that Apple is not telling Samsung that they cannot make tablets, only that they should make tablets that “look different” than Apple’s. Specs, Features, Battery life are not factors here. Nor is the perceived notions that one or the other is better.
And Simon… If Android, and Samsung etc are all “better” why are all your everyday use products Apple? You invalidate your own claims by doing what everyone else is doing… buying Apple. They must be doing something right.
Your answers are so funny to read. I hope you’re making this stuff up because it these are your real opinions you have some seriously confused love/hate values in regards to to Apple
So… why did you buy them?
Android tablets would work a lot better if they just used Green Screen technology like in the movie. Or was it Blue back then? Either way.
I hear what you’re saying. But this no different than the “Big-Mac vs. the Whopper”, or KFC’s secret recipe or McDonald’s fries! Without copyright safety, everything would be the same & no one’s IP (original ideas) would be safe from corporate-spies (Korea & China). Anyone that works hard, even if it’s an idea, should be able to protect trade secrets. There shouldn’t be a time frame on intellectual property. What’s mine is mine! It’s virtually impossible for 2 people that don’t know each other to have the EXACT same IP without some sort of espionage involved. There has to be some differences, hence the need for protection in the first place. Also, patents are expensive. For that very reason alone, defending one’s patents shouldn’t even be questioned (principles).
What they’re going for is the idea that plenty of sci-fi movies for years have shown people using touch-screen pieces of glass as computers, which is a bit of a shaky argument to begin with, but they picked a really bad example.
I use both but in doing so find android more advance in touch format, unless you jailbreak then you can add in missing functionality
Its not about who invented the touchscreen, its actually about the layout of the pad, the way it looks. because of some stupid law in the EU that you can do a drawing, and if something looks like that you can bring it to court… quite stupid….
So much beg to differ http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/…
When he tired of official reports and memoranda and minutes, he would plug his foolscap-sized Newspad into the ship’s information circuit and scan the latest reports from Earth. One by one he would conjure up the world’s major electronic papers; he knew the codes of the more important ones by heart, and had no need to consult the list on the back of his pad. Switching to the display unit’s short-term memory, he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines and noted the items that interested him.Each had its own two-digit reference; when he punched that, the postage-stamp-sized rectangle would expand until it neatly filled the screen and he could read it with comfort. When he had finished, he would flash back to the complete page and select a new subject for detailed examination.
Floyd sometimes wondered if the Newspad, and the fantastic technology behind it, was the last word in man’s quest for perfect communications. Here he was, far out in space, speeding away from Earth at thousands of miles an hour, yet in a few milliseconds he could see the headlines of any newspaper he pleased. (That very word “newspaper,” of course, was an anachronistic hangover into the age of electronics.) The text was updated automatically on every hour; even if one read only the English versions, one could spend an entire lifetime doing nothing but absorbing the ever-changing flow of information from the news satellites.It was hard to imagine how the system could be improved or made more convenient. But sooner or later, Floyd guessed, it would pass away, to be replaced by something as unimaginable as the Newspad itself would have been to Caxton or Gutenberg.Clarke, “2001”
It’s about the design, not the function. As such the concept of a device that is rectangular, flat, thin, with a display, is clearly shown by this device. Considering that Samsung’s tablets have extra buttons to the iPad too, the fact that this has some extra buttons does their case no harm.
Simon – I haven’t been in IT for 25 years like you have but i have been in it for about 14 and I have to say that I agree with some of your arguments. you are not afraid to try other products such as android etc and there’s nothing wrong with that. I personally have not owned an inferior product (Android) since the release of the iPhone for one main reason (viruses)
the other main reason to which I support apple so much is because apple truly did innovate and invent a true smartphone. if it weren’t for apple, there would only be RIM’s “smartphone”
and that is why I give them my full support – they deserve it.
I think alot of others likely take the same stance as I do.
tokyo have you used a android device ?
Jeeze, a geek show down and no mention of my favorite sci fi reference in this case?
What about the literal HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy within the Douglas Adams book?!?!?! :D
It connected to the sub etha-net to get all the galaxies information updated. Kinda like whispernet for the Kindle, hehehe or the 3G iPad! :p
Pretty positive it sounds to me like a tablet to me!
“In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker’s Guidehas already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.
First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.””The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate”Sounds like it’s the iPad with the new cover to me! and a nice message! It IS portable like a book and digital (or magic)
Oh, f****** nationalists…
If you deny Kubrick (tablet-tv) and Star Trek (tablet-just-like-iPad-is), I can’t think anything except cheap nationalism (USA x South Korea).
Yes, often, but that doesn’t have anything to do with my previous comment. My opinions regarding Apple are not at issue here as I have not expressed any. You, however have expressed many, and most are contradictory, which I find amusing.
Of course. Star Trek TNG invented tablets…
My god, you people are so Apple brainwashed.
There are so many holes in this ‘article’. I can easily shoot down most of them…
1) Apple isn’t arguing the touch screen aspect of a tablet; it’s arguing the design/dimensions
2) In our current day and age, we too use paper along side with iPads (and the like)
3) I can watch BBC on an iPad, does that make it only a TV also?
4) My android device has 4 buttons on it. How many is too many? Two?
Kubrick was a movie-making genius, and I’d bet you weren’t aware that the original cut had a scene taken out that starts the movie and gives a perspective on the story you can hardly imagine. Hint: alien exploration probe.
The point is mainly that #1 on my list knocks down the theme of this article-like blurb. Apple makes great computers and a great OS, but they are all about design, and that is the basis of why they are suing Samsung over their tablet.
And as a final ‘gotcha’, I agree with @Esoeso, Star Trek TNG probably invented tablets first. Roddenberry was definitely ahead of his time, and I think Steve Jobs would’ve agreed.
…or a “Z” for zeitgeist.
“Extortional”? The hardware lasts a hell of a lot longer (especially the battery) and an OS upgrade is only $30 (or less).
How much does it cost to upgrade windows? A quick check of their website shows $80 – $130. Oh wait, Windows practically invites viruses in, so add some antivirus software on top of that, say $50 per year, multiplied by the life of the computer. (Yes, there are good free options out there for the savvy.)
I agree that I’d like to see the prices come down a bit, tho. Thankfully they’ve listened to that market and released products like the Mac Mini.