Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob Lister
I looked at the youtube video for the app. Then I went to the Prentke Romich website and looked at their product.
The app is a direct knock-off of the product. Maybe it works slightly differently but the app looks like they took the product and just copied it verbatim. it is really that close. blatant rip-off.
I agree with the rest of it. The Prentke Romich company is enforcing the propriety of the product by not making it portable to alternate hardware platforms like the ipad...but as the owners of the patent, that is their right. I hold no grudge against them for that. |
But, PRC isn't the originator of that idea. Using sheets with pictures like that have been used in special education for years, long before the electronic AAC devices. Only difference with AAC, it plays back a sound clip, or uses text to speech to announce what image was pointed at, instead of both parties paying attention to what item was pointed at.
Part of the problem, is that the patent is really kind of vague. This is entirely the problem with software patents, and why they're invalid in most of the world. With traditional patents, for equipment, you define a specific method for performing an action. For software patents, simply defining the actions you take, is more than good enough. The patent in question here, basically just says it is a keyboard that displays different objects, and each one represents some defined meaning, the displayed objects can change and it remembers what buttons were pressed previously to string the various meanings together for altered meaning based on context (IE, if you press a button with 3 on it, a button with a baby and press a button with pig, it can form "three little pigs" to be more coherent than 3 baby pig). Ok, you have the idea described, but no way does it describe HOW it works. If I build a machine that does the same thing, I'd more or less have to describe the how it works. I mean, I could conceivably make a patent for an idea like a program that inputs GPS sensor logging data, and displays it by having a three dimensional object move along that path overlaid onto maps. Now, It doesn't mean I'd have any idea on how to actually do it, and you couldn't use my patent as any real guide on how to duplicate it (which in a sense, for engineers is what NOT to do).