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Interesting move by the Taiwanese Gov't to "alert" manufacturers of a possible patent infringement, guess they're just watching out so they don't lose out on taxes paid by those companies!

So Taiwan is warning vendors not to make knock-offs of Apple gear. Good job Taiwan - maybe they can start innovating instead of stealing.

Queue up the responses that say that a tapering wedge design is the only possible way to design a small, efficient and lightweight laptop

Maybe they could have it taper from thick on the front edge of the keyboard to thin on the back That would be "innovative".

 markbyrn, on 04 July 2012 - 07:05 AM, said:

What a BS thing to say.. "stealing" How the hell do you know they are stealing?

Yeah, other than the usual rectangular, a wedge tapering from low to high seems rather obvious. I also suspect there's some prior art, but I doubt the USPTO bothered to look. More and more, the USPTO is looking like a full-employment agency for patent lawyers.

Apple patented the triangle? Sheesh. Reminds me when the joke around town that Microsoft was patenting part of the alphabet.

There is an easy way to stop this problem Stop Copying Apples Design and design something unique! Hell the new Ultrabook from HP you could put apples logo on it and you would mistake it for a mac lol.

And for those that say that a tapered shape is the only way to make a lightweight notebook there full of it. Look at the sony viao line it was thinner than Apples macbook pro and did not have a tapered design at all. It looks nothing like a macbook pro. The new version of the high end sony is just as thin if not thinner than the macbook air overall and is not a wedge.

The new viao t series is the same thickness as the new macbook pro and is an ultrabook and looks nothing like a macbook air and is made from machined aluminum.

The wedge is a marketing form-over-function concept that costs precious interior volume and no doubt has cost the MBAir some battery life and some dongle-free ports. But its Apple cool factor probably brings in more customers. However when ultrabooks copy the dumbass wedge, it's really more copycat than cool and that's the best reason for their manufacturers to skip the wedge.

I love my 11” Air, but I don’t particularly like screwing with those damn dongles (ethernet and SD card reader), searching for airport power or having it die on the road.

 Martian, on 04 July 2012 - 06:41 PM, said:

Indeed. Apple should copyright the whole idea of form over function. It's been a main theme of Apple design since at least the old hockey puck mouse. The same goes for the absence of adequate strain relief in so many of their cables - and the absence of non-glare screens for the iMac. The wedge shaped laptop is just the latest silliness in this vein - or should I say vain? Cool? Certainly. Useful? Less than it could be - or should be. The gray UI in Lion is perhaps the worst example: Sacrifice usability in order to make the OS as un-Windows as possible.

On the other hand, Apple did take a pass on the whole netbook craze. That was perhaps the high-water mark of form over function in computer design. At least until Microsoft debuted the Windows 8 Surface tablets with all but unusably thin keyboards. So, I take it back. Apple could not copyright form over function. There are just too many companies subscribing to the principle.

Taiwanese (and other) ultrabook makers should eschew the wedge shape for more functional designs. If they want to make their laptops stand out, use the extra space in the standard rectangular form for useful features and options. Let the MacBook Air stand for skimpy as well as skinny.

This post has been edited by whitedog: 05 July 2012 - 05:21 AM

 whitedog, on 05 July 2012 - 05:19 AM, said:

Couldn't disagree more with the idea that the wedge shape is silly. The form factor for the Air is its primary feature. It is my favorite laptop ever, by far, because of the form factor. I can carry an 11" MB Air and an iPad and it weighs a pound less than my old 13" MB Pro alone. I wouldn't add an ounce to the design. I wouldn't add a millimeter to its size. It is nearly a perfect laptop. The only quibble is that I'd like the screen to have less bezel for more screen real estate.

This post has been edited by jdb8167: 05 July 2012 - 08:57 AM

When they say "stop the sale of ultrabook models" I assume they're using hypotheticals? :-)