Having worked on GPS stuff, recording a route for later reference is something I and my colleagues have done many a time. Can we claim some prior art on that one?

Sorry but the majority of the patents should not have been awarded. Prior art exists.

Most of these patents are pretty much unenforcable because the underlying technology has existed and what they are patenting is one possible use of the underlying technology.

Nuff said

...or are most of these (or very similar) on modern Sat Navs / PDA's?

maybe these should visit TomTom or Garmin at some point....

Shhheesss everyone says MS copy.

I herby patent a symbol to go at the end of a string of words to signify it's end I will call it a Stop Full the symbol will look like a small dot

Are the terms "invention", "discovery" and "prior art" like the term "irony" to americans - something the just don't understand?

At a rough count I can already do 3/4 of the functions Apply have "discovered" on my Nokia, with Garmin Mobile XT GPS installed on it.

Of the remaining ones I doubt I'd actually WANT to be able to do 1/2 of them (has anyone ever been THAT desperate to get a mobile phone image printed?).

but also - the Jesus phone camera is crap - why woukld you ever want to print out the poor res low quality 'photos' it takes??

you're all missing the point

if Apple didn't patent these, and then brought a product to market, some other patent troll would suddenly discover they had a patent who's description could be stretched to incorporate the production functionality.

it seems like the patent system blatantly doesn't work, the only solution is to patent everything possible yourself before someone else does. the best defence is a good offense, isn't that an american saying?

"Are the terms "invention", "discovery" and "prior art" like the term "irony" to americans - something the just don't understand?"

Not at all, but they *are* things that the US has decided should be judged in court, not by the patent office. Since I'm not a US citizen, how they manage their IP is not my business. Apple are a US company and are simply playing by the local rules.

The *real* scandal is that other countries accept them. In effect, you can bypass every patent office on the planet by paying a few cents to Uncle Sam. I do not understand why other countries accept without question something that they know has not yet been subject to any verification.

They would see a tall British inventor, me, some years ago now, walk through their front door in Cupertino and leave an envelope with details of three US patents and one Japanese patent describing a full system, not just the hand held. I am told that, as a public company, they have to place to one side sufficient funds to cover any possible claim on such potential infringement.

I look forward to hearing from them in due course.

Someone in Apple has been playing with Nokia Maps and Nokia Sportstracker then.

I hope he got his patent-filing bonus.

QUOTE

"The *real* scandal is that other countries accept them. In effect, you can bypass every patent office on the planet by paying a few cents to Uncle Sam. I do not understand why other countries accept without question something that they know has not yet been subject to any verification."

/QUOTE

Countries do not 'accept' other countries' patents (assuming that, by 'accepting', you mean 'registration' or 'enforcement').

Patents are territorial animals: a US patent only applies to the US jurisdiction, end of. Assuming it's granted of course.

Try enforcing a US patent in the UK, for a laugh. Or, for that matter, get these Apple US patent applications granted by the UKIPO or the EPO, for an even bigger laugh (assuming Apple have filed convention applications on the basis of same).

As regards the Apple filings themselves, I have prosecuted applications relating to the exact same subject-matter at least 3 years ago for another (very) blue chip telecoms company, and on the basis of the (old) prior art I battled with, am confident any 'trolling' by Apple would be swiftly and terminally dealt with by an even semi-competent defense team.

Mild gale in a thimble.

Mine's the one with the Form 1200 in the pocket

I wish this capability to edit routes were available on my Garmon GPS. There are areas along my routes that I travel where the directions take me out of my way and I'd love to have the routing in that area changed so it tells me to use MY choice of routing.