|
For me I'd be bitter because the Patent Office tends to grant these sorts of things more often than not and that leads to lawsuits which leads to higher costs for us and a waste of the courts' time. The only thing I see here that could potentially be different is that "Trackball" thing. IIRC, RIM actually did win some sort of Patent on the whole scroll wheel thing. That could mean that this particular combination is something they can actually patent.
However, I'll agree that on the face of it it looks pretty much like a copy of a bunch of devices already on the market.
Having just looked over the patent app, it does reference "trackball" pretty thoroughly throughout the app. If RIM really does have the patent on trackballs for mobile devices, they can probably get this one and not affect any other devices. After all, WM devices don't use a trackball for icon navigation (that I'm aware of anyway).
-Pete
|