Apple Granted Patent for Fifth Avenue Glass Cube Store Design

[StuddedLeather]

Some of you are really chewing down on that poster but I'm sorry to say, they're right. I love Apple just like most others on this forum but it's NOT the Number 1 Tourist Attraction in the city, like some of you are making it out to be. Granted it's the first/last store you see after/before you get to Central Park and the design is unique and breathtaking. It's 24 hours so that explains the huge crowds, but you can't compare a store (Macy's Herald Square is an exception considering the history and it's age!) to something more iconic/historic like the Brooklyn Bridge.

Granted, it's a must see (in my opinion) for most people but I'm positive most people don't travel thousands of miles and cross the ocean to visit this store first. Lol.

It's probably Top 50+. but not in the same league as the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Brooklyn Bridge, Prospect Park, Central Park, etc. I can go on. . . .

Some updated links rather than that outdated Forbes mention:
http://www.timeout.com/newyork/attractions-days-out/new-york-attractions
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/13/travel/photo-map-popular-cities/
http://nymag.com/travel/visitorsguide/41788/

Top 10 cities (and their most photographed attractions)
1. New York (Guggenheim Museum)

2014 CNN. ^

Now we can move on I suppose. Pumped for the 9th!!!

 

[sillypooh]

Hasn't the construction changed since this picture? I thought it was one panel per side now... Does anyone know?

 

[gnasher729]

?!
They patented a glass cube?!
Seriously?!
I call plagiarism: http://www.wikiart.org/en/larry-bell/glass-cube-1966#supersized-artistPaintings-288973

I looked at the site, and I couldn't find any doors in that glass cube where people could enter, and no store attached to it, and it is a bit on the small side, so I'd say it's not quite the same.

What Apple is getting here is a design patent for the design of their store entrance. Samsung can put up as many little glass cubes in their store as they like, they just can't copy Apple's store entrance.

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"Apple patented the cube!!!" -youKnowWho

Now if Samsung copied this cube but gave it rounded corners, that would 99.9% be legally fine.

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I wonder if the architect and engineer had a say in Apple's patenting the cube? Or did Apple hire all their own architects and engineers the way they recently hired their own advertising employees?

But the cube may be a first for being a cube, but it is not a first for a glass structure as an entrance. Look at IM Pei's glass entrance to the Louvre.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louvre_Pyramid

It's a design patent. It's about how the thing looks. (And it must be non-functional, so if there were technical reasons why it had to be a cube and not a different shape, and why it had to be glass and not a different material, it would be harder to get a design patent). The engineers probably had to overcome some technical challenges because the glass panels are massive and must be really heavy. It would be possible that they got some patents for making buildings out of very few massive glass panels with no visible things to hold them up and without falling apart. Which is totally independent of the design patent. Or they used an obvious and non-patentable method like "you just make the panels thick enough, and they'll withstand anything".

BTW. The Louvre entrance has about 670 glass panels. It would probably look better with fewer panels.

 

[FieldingMellish]

So they patented a cube? Quick, is it too late to patent a triangle or a circle?

Boneheads working in the patent office these days will pass any and all patent submissions, regardless how questionable.

 

[chabig]

And some boneheads will comment on them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent

 

[JAT]

While some of us are waiting for updated products including the Mac Mini, Apple TV and so forth, Apple is working aggressively on projects like this?

Yep. Apple's single employee sure is busy. Amazing such a large company can have only...one employee.

 

[cmaier]

So they patented a cube? Quick, is it too late to patent a triangle or a circle?

Boneheads working in the patent office these days will pass any and all patent submissions, regardless how questionable.

No, they didn't patent a cube. They patented the LOOK of a particular structure. How it appears. It's a design patent, not a utility patent. Somewhat similar to a copyright. The design patent just prevents someone else (in the U.S.) from putting up an essentially-identical structure.