For if Apple does get issued these two patents then we'll have a very good indication indeed that something is severely wrong with the US patent system.
The patent applications are here and here.
As The Register points out the actual idea being patented: well, there's no evidence at all that anything has actually been built. So it's purely a concept that is being patented. Further, it's an obvious idea, which usually is thought not to be patentable. And finally, there's rather a lot of prior art so it's most unlikely that it is actually new, which is the other thing that patentable technologies are supposed to be.
For, what's actually being patented is the idea of using a fuel cell to feed a battery to power a mobile computing device like an iPad or iPhone.
It would be a handy blocker, since the patent applications cover the fuel cell system, a controller, the fuel source, the interface between the fuel cell and the portable computing device, and the coupling of a fuel cell to the portable computing device. In other words, it doesn’t matter whether Apple can or can’t actually build a fuel-celled-cellphone, just so long as nobody else can, that’s all that matters.
And that's really where the trouble is. Yes, we all know about this new knowledge economy paradigm, that the value is in owning how to do things not in actually doing things. That's fine. And it's also true that such an economy needs a good patent and copyright system. But that is not the same as saying that such an economy needs the current patent system.
For example, this product I turned up with a quick google.
There’s a new mobile phone 2-in-1 fuel cell charger and battery pack heading for the mobile space in Q4 in Europe and Q1 2012 in the United States and is called the PowerTrekk from myFC, which uses a safe and eco-friendly technology with the only by-product from the fuel cell being a small amount of water vapour.
That's to power a mobile phone, sure, but it would be the height of stupidity to say that what applies to a phone is a not obvious thing to apply to a mobile computing device. And it's not just a fuel cell, it's a fuel cell battery combo as well.
The 2-in-1 PowerTrekk solution is both a fuel cell and battery pack and the portable battery pack can be operating independently as a storage buffer for the fuel cell or a ready source of power. The fuel cell can instantly charge a depleted battery without the necessity of a wall charge.
In one way we might hope that the patents aren't granted, for if they are it looks like they're of something obvious, with prior art, that hasn't actually even been built or made to work yet by Apple.
However, that's not actually enough. That Apple is paying the filing fees (which are not insubstantial sums) shows that they think there's a good chance they will be granted. And that in itself shows that there's something wrong with the patent system. It really should only be for those things that are new, operative and are non-obvious. At the moment it isn't, clearly, so some attention needs to be paid to how it can be changed for the better.
