First, the patent(s) said somewhat more than that.
More importantly – RIM didn’t “have to” do anything. They settled, as part of a litigation and business risk-reward calculus.
And further, because of the settlement, there certainly was no final adjudication that the claims were “valid.”
The fact that someone settles because they’re averse to even the remote risk of a company-destroying injunction against their only business, or to the vagaries of a crazy jury, or to the uncertainties of the judicial process, or just because they are chicken, does not really have any relevance to what the positive law (statutes and controlling case law) say is “patentable” or “valid.” The devil is in the details as to how that positive law would be applied (at whatever level). This, again, does not mean that “infeasible inventions are still patentable” has any relevance, accuracy, or usefulness as a statement of what “the law” says about “patentability.”
I don’t know. I say they designed those things.
It’s like when an architect says he (or she) “built” a bridge, or a building.
I’ve worked with the people who build structures, and they weren’t architects.
I haven’t criticized DaVinci. I don’t even know if he claimed to invent anything.
He’d be more likely to paint me than to laugh at me. Even if he did, I’d probably chuckle along with him. Then I’d refill our glasses and sketch for him my wireless probes. He’d love my Fluke 787 multimeter.
Architectural drawings that I have seen contain a level of detail (as to structure, dimensions, assembly, and materials) such that civil engineers, construction foremen, and laborers of ordinary skill could use the blueprints to readily put together a structure that will not collapse when the first breeze blows on it, which will carry the intended/spec’d weight/number of cars, etc. The proof is that these structures are built based on those blueprints, and do not (generally) fall down.
If you believe that Leonardo provided a similar level of detail, such that reasonably skilled artisans could use his drawings and notes to apply commonly-available components, without undue experimentation, to achieve the claimed or sought-after result, than we can consider that Leonardo “invented” the thing in question. I have seen some of his drawings for say, siege engines (which are beautiful, and would be cool if they worked). My impression that these were more meant as the ancient equivalent of pie-in-the-sky Popular Mechanics Weapon Porn for ambitious princelings from whom he hoped to secure commissions/patronage, versus detailed and ready-to-implement invention, is bolstered by the fact that IIRC, few if any of the gee-whiz designs got built, notwithstanding the military advantages they would have presumably supplied in the feuding city state era.
True, and I never denied that. Rather, I was addressing your objection that Leonardo never built any of his inventions. From a legal perspective, that simply is not a requirement for inventorship.
Frankly, I don’t know. Once again though, I’d like to gently and respectfully remind you that that wasn’t the nature of the objection which you raised earlier.
Oh, and once again: His name is Leonardo, not “da Vinci.”
It is his name, by definition - because it’s what lots of people call him - that’s what a name is. It may not have been the name he would have answered to in everyday life, but I fully expect there are numerous examples like that.
What someone is called, is their name.
I think if you’re going to insist on being pedantic, you’d have to say the only proper way to refer to him would be as Leonardo da Vinci - because Leonardo isn’t sufficiently precise.
Regarding the OP:
Your premise is flawed – lots of things that da Vinci designed on paper actually were realized, including his innovative method of casting a large bronze horse and his mechanical means of producing instantaneous scenery changing. It’s not correct to say that he “didn’t invent anything”, if by that you mean that he only sketched ideas and never built or developed them.
Others have taken up the issue of patentability as a yardstick of “inventing”. I’ll only add that I’ve seen patents for optical ideas that simply would not work, and would be laughed out of the office today by a knowlefgeable patent examiner.
Finally, regarding this:
As an idea, I don’t know. But this is a long-standing peeve of mine. I don’t think da Vinci’s helicopter would have worked. No one has built a working helicoppter even remotely like da Vinci’s design. The thing would have an enormous amount of drag. Despite there being at least two books I’ve come across that claim that “da Vinci’s helicopter would have worked if he’d had an engine” (his sketch shows guys puashing on a capstan-like wheel to drive the thing), I seriously doubt that it would get off the ground. Not that this would keep it from getting a patent (see previous paragraph). Maybe we can suggest it to the crew at Mythbusters.
I know a foreigner that people routinely referred to as “Netu.” It was a sexual slur. It was not what he wanted to be called, nor was it what he would consider his name… yet that’s what he was called. It didn’t make it his name.
Heck, by your reasoning, if we could get enough people to call you Whistleblower Goatboy, then that would then become your name… regardless of what your parents named you or what you would accept as your name. That’s obviously an absurd assertion to make.
Now if Renaissance art historians were to come around to your point of view and consider “Da Vinci” to be his name, then I might give more credence to that point of view. Until then, I think that the informed opinion of professional scholars should bear more weight than the opinions of the uninformed masses.
All of the early sketches I have seen related to a man-driven starched-cloth-spiral arrangement. There seems to be no disagreement among anyone who knows anything that this would be as laughably unworkable as any of the many, many, human powered wing-flapping flight mechanisms proposed over the years.
Later on, Leonardo apparently recognized the energy economics that prohibited a human being from fueling his own powered flight, and proposed a couple of ideas for having a tightly-wound spring as the source of motive power for the “helicopter.” There is no evidence that he ever figured out a way to actually implement this. There is some suggestion on various websites that he might have made it work on a toy-scale model version (which the Chinese may have done centuries ago, anyhow).
Huerta – that’s interesting, but the pictures only show his helixpteron, and the text doesn’t indicate anything but the usual image of his helicopter. It does mention use of mechanical driving (which I was not aware of previously), but there’s nop indication that he ever changed his model.
Whose? DiCaprio or Da Vinci? You should really be clear and accurate. With all due respect, if you are going to be pedantic, you should spell it out, because Leonardo is not sufficient to describe which one person you are talking about especially when you insist that they fella you are talking about wasn’t a famous inventor.
Moreover, I never said it was his name, I said it was helpful to use Da Vinci so that people listening will know who you are referring to. There are lots of Leonardos. There was only one Da Vinci. And he was an inventor in addition to his many other talents.
For pity’s sake. You’re conflating multiple issues here.
I was specifically addressing the claim that “Da Vinci” was the inventor’s name. Now, you might object by saying “But he’s not the only Leonardo in the world! What about that guy from Titanic?” That’s a valid concern, but it’s irrelevant to the question of whether “Da Vinci” is truly his name.
If you want to disambiguate the two, you can always use their full names first, and then their first or last name (if applicable) later on. This is, in fact, standard practice when it comes to formal writing. You typically establish a person’s full name, after which you can use first name, surnames, nicknames, or other such abbreviations.
Not true (cite and cite). While it was not a legitimate surname during the great Renaissance master’s time, it most certainly is now. So the claim that there is only one “Da Vinci” is demonstrably false.
It may be helpful, but that doesn’t make it accurate. As I said, you are conflating separate issues.
Nobody denies that people will generally understand who you mean if you refer to him as “da Vinci.” This merely attests to the power of popular misconceptions, though.
Besides which, your argument is ultimately self-defeating. If you insist on calling him “da Vinci,” then you will also need to distinguish him from other people who legitimately bear that name. That’s why careful writers first attempt to unambiguously establish who they’re referring to. They do this by using the person’s full name, or some meaningful context, or a combination of the two. It simply isn’t sufficient justification for calling him “da Vinci,” especially since there is zero evidence that he would have accepted such a name.