1. Apple Patents a rectangle

Yes, that picture is Apple’s latest patent. Notice how some of the lines are solid and others are dashed?

Dotted lines in patent drawings are used to contextualize whatever is drawn with a solid line. In this case, the solid line is a rectangle with rounded corners. Similar to an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch.

Similar to every smartphone and tablet released in the last three years.

Yes, Apple successfully patented the current design of everything it and its competitors have.

Amazingly stupid, right?

Never mind the fact that it’s even possible to patent something so broad as the shape of something. But the fact that Apple is so pretentious, so absolutely arrogant to think they own the shape of a tablet, pisses me off to no end.

It’s called competition. You didn’t invent the rounded-corner rectangle. That goes back, oh, I don’t know, a couple thousand years to the guy that invented shapes.

The U.S. patent system is broken at a fundamental level, and patents like this only stifle competition.

Luckily, the patent is so broad, it’ll be hard to enforce. But there’s still potential for abuse by everyone’s favorite patent troll.

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That’s all the news for this week! Check back next week to hear about Verizon and HTC’s joint conference!