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posted by cmn32480 on Friday January 06 2017, @01:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the shut-up-and-drive dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

According to the latest figures available, US highway deaths increased by more than 10 percent year-over-year during the first half of 2016. One big reason? Distracted driving with mobile phones. It's a reality that now has one phone-maker in some unusual legal crosshairs.

Apple, maker of the ever-popular iPhone, is being sued on allegations that its FaceTime app contributed to the highway death of a 5-year-old girl named Moriah Modisette. In Denton County, Texas, on Christmas Eve 2014, a man smashed into the Modisette family's Toyota Camry as it stopped in traffic on southbound Interstate 35W. Police say that the driver was using the FaceTime application and never saw the brake lights ahead of him. In addition to the tragedy, father James, mother Bethany, and daughter Isabella all suffered non-fatal injuries during the crash two years ago.

The Modisette family now wants Apple to pay damages for the mishap. The family alleges the Cupertino, California-based technology company had a duty to warn motorists against using the app and that it could have used patented technology to prohibit drivers from utilizing the app. According to the suit (PDF) filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court:

Plaintiffs allege APPLE, INC.'s failure to design, manufacture, and sell the Apple iPhone 6 Plus with the patented, safer alternative design technology already available to it that would automatically lock-out or block users from utilizing APPLE, INC.'s 'FaceTime' application while driving a motor vehicle at highway speed, and failure to warn users that the product was likely to be dangerous when used or misused in a reasonably foreseeable manner and/or instruct on the safe usage of this and similar applications, rendered the Apple iPhone 6 defective when it left defendant APPLE, INC's possession, and were a substantial factor in causing plaintiffs' injuries and decedent's death.

The patent referenced, issued by the US patent office in April 2014, is designed to provide a "lock-out mechanism" to prevent iPhone use by drivers. The patent claims a "motion analyzer" and a "scenery analyzer" help prevent phone use. The reliability of such lock-out services, however, has come into question.

"The motion analyzer can detect whether the handheld computing device is in motion beyond a predetermined threshold level. The scenery analyzer can determine whether a holder of handheld computing device is located within a safe operating area of a vehicle. And the lock-out mechanism can disable one or more functions of the handheld computing device based on output of the motion analyzer, and enable the one or more functions based on output of the scenery analyzer," according to the patent.

Apple has not commented on the lawsuit, but it has said that drivers are responsible for their behavior.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Friday January 06 2017, @03:36PM

    by Bot (3902) on Friday January 06 2017, @03:36PM (#450257) Journal

    >technology exists to shut the damned toys off when you are driving. Apple has chosen not to make use of that technology.

    A patent exists. We know what patents are really for...

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  • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday January 06 2017, @05:07PM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Friday January 06 2017, @05:07PM (#450293) Homepage Journal

    A patent exists. We know what patents are really for...

    I don't think you do, and if you think it's to keep products off the market, you're wrong. Patents give a 20 year monopoly so the inventor can make money before everyone else. My eye implant is under patent until 2023, when all IOLs will be variable-focus. They would be fools to keep it out of the market (best $1000 I ever spent).

    Apple holds the patent, so there's nothing preventing them from using it. Samsung, OTOH, doesn't have the tech unless they pay Apple.

    The only trouble with patents is their expense.

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    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday January 06 2017, @06:11PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Friday January 06 2017, @06:11PM (#450326)

      >> We know what patents are really for...
      > I don't think you do

      In corporations like Apple, tons of patents are used for competitors (defensively or offensively) rather than for actual products.
      They have people on staff who try to patent any idea they can, whether it has any chance of turning into a real thing or not, because they don't want anyone else to have the patent should it be needed.
      There are legitimate patents for sure, but there's the lesson of Moto's patent trove being worth more than the company, and the sadly usual "don't fight me, I've got 6000 patents" MADness.

      • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday January 09 2017, @09:09PM

        by urza9814 (3954) on Monday January 09 2017, @09:09PM (#451630) Journal

        There's an even better argument, I think, for why the fact that some technology is patented shouldn't mean a damn thing in discussions like these: There are patents for perpetual motion machines.

        Just because a concept is patented, doesn't mean it's actually possible. Apple is claiming in their patent that it *might* be possible, *in theory*, to provide such a lock-out mechanism for a cellphone. They make no claims that it can actually be implemented with current hardware or current techniques. It doesn't exist, it hasn't been tested, there's no developer or architect buy-in, not even a single equation or database query has been written yet. But these people want a court to force the devs to implement it just because someone in management had the idea? Does that mean I'm gonna get sued for lost revenue when I can't implement the magical lottery number prediction software that my manager figured would be a great way to bring in some extra income?

        Of course, letting them be sued for not implemented something they patented but can't implement does sound like a great way to start fixing the patent system...

  • (Score: 2) by dime on Friday January 06 2017, @08:51PM

    by dime (1163) on Friday January 06 2017, @08:51PM (#450413)

    An interesting shift in the argument exists.

    It could be argued that patents are traditionally for features or things that help the inventor gain profit, but the lock-out mechanism is a safety feature, or a limitation that a standard user would not desire. Should it be allowed that a car manufacturer patent the safety belt?

    I think this tragedy is just a tragedy and our legal system is not really set up to handle such issues, but what if the phone in the case was a samsung phone and the parents are suing apple for creating a patent on a technology that is a safety mechanism and not a feature. This prevented samsung from including the safety mechanism to prevent the other driver from using google hangouts while driving.