Jury awards Apple $1bn damages in Samsung patent case

The nine-member jury in the closely watched patent litigation between Apple and Samsung has returned a verdict decidedly in Apple's favor, awarding the fruity firm a whopping total of $1.05bn in damages. The jury took less than three days to reach its verdict, something that apparently startled even Apple's legal team, as …

[Charles 9]

The thing was, back then, it really WAS like that in the past. However, the patent on the QWERTY layout (which was invented for typewriters so as to make sure rapidly-struck hammer arms didn't cross each other and tangle the machine) dates back to the 19th century: long expired.

Have you ever tried to drive an authentic Ford Model T? Its layout is nowhere close to the modern car layout, whose patent was granted decades ago during the dawn of the automobile age: long expired.

The problem is that the length of patents doesn't take into account the pace of product life-cycles. Technology moved so glacially back then that the idea never cropped up. Products with life cycles of five years or less pretty much have only cropped up in the last few decades. Even old vacuum cleaners have duty lives of decades, but not today's vacuum cleaners.

[Paul Shirley]

It's not just the product cycles are much shorter, for software the time to independent (re)discovery is so short patent protection serves no purpose.

That's partly because the ideas being patented right now are so ludicrously primitive they would inevitably be 'discovered' by average programmers as soon as they needed to solve that problem. Patent protection is about scarcity of innovation, encouraging sharing for the good of all. But the patents being issued aren't for innovation with any sort of scarcity to it.

More important: software is the 1st example of the 'infinite monkeys typing' concept. We have so many people writing software, sufficient of them being creative doing it that invention is a tidal flood, not a scarce trickle.

What's wrong with software patents is the failure to properly account for both those aspects, that without scarcity there's no need to protect trivial discoveries. Instead the patent offices have stampeded the other way and allowed everything, however trivial or obvious to get protection.

[Anonymous Coward]

Blind to the facts...

You lot, that is. El Reg commentards.

Apple demonstrated unequivocally that Samsung were copying iOS and the iPhone to take a shortcut to the mass market and succeeded in convincing a large number of Smartphone customers that their phones were 'just as good' by looking strikingly similar. A jury, vetted and approved by BOTH apple and Samsung found this verdict after viewing the evidence presented by both parties. No 'Fanbois' or Apple shareholders allowed.

Just as nobody else can sell Cola in a specifically contoured bottle with swirly text and ridges on it, or nobody can sell burgers in a restaurant with red and yellow and a large M in the name, or sell a bag that some rich Italians designed but without their name on it, Samsung is not allowed to make phones that bear more than a passing resemblance to the most visible and most popular phone Smartphone in the industry.

I love how you all think that this is about rounded rectangles. Swallowing the Samsung PR guff without question. This was more than a verdict on rounded rectangles. If you took more than half a second to peruse the actual evidence, it's more than that by million miles.

Fandroids hatred of Apple was cemented long before this verdict, and all the old prejudices and memes come back to the fore. Tech bloggers cant bare Apple being successful and every time Apple posts record profits, high sales, or wins in the courts, the just spew venom and hate the idea that they might actually be wrong.

[The BigYin]

Re: Blind to the facts...

You appear to be discussing copyright and trademark.

The court case was about patents.

These three things are not the same.

[The BigYin]

Re: Blind to the facts...

I'll elaborate on my last.

"Coca Cola" is a trademark.

Their bottle shape is a copyright.

Their patent is...well...nothing. But let's say making a curve bottle was very difficult, they might hold a patent on some device that allows them to make the bottle, but not on the bottle itself.

Now Apple.

"Apple" and "iPhone" are both trademarks.

Their shape, icons etc are all copyright.

Their patents are...what, precisely? They sure license a lot (Gorilla glass etc) but what is actually patentable about an iPhone?

Hardware-homkey? No, that's copyright.

Rubber-bounce? Copyright.

Shape? Copyright.

I know they hold patents on these, and that's the friggin' problem. They shouldn't because the patents should have been rejected. See my comments above.

[Charles 9]

Re: Blind to the facts...

"Their bottle shape is a copyright."

Incorrect. The bottle shape is also a trademark, as it identifies Coca-Cola vs. other brands of soft drink. BOTH the logo and the bottle are trademarked. The bottle design may have been patented in the past, but it's evolved beyond that now because of Coca-Cola's image.

Shapes and sounds can be trademarked if they are distinctive enough to identify the product. Intel's little ditty is a sound trademark, as is the RKO morse code sequence. Triangular-shaped candy bars are the signature trademark of Toblerone candy bars.

To be fair, many of these trademarks have market limitations, meaning they only apply in specific areas of the market. That's why two Cracker Barrel trademarks can co-exist. One is limited to a brand of cheese while the other is limited to a chain of restaurants.

[The BigYin]

Re: Blind to the facts...

Yes, you are quite correct. I was trying to wedge the example into the whole Coke thing and goofed.

A better example would probably have been that a Coke advert is copyright, or the tune someone wrote for the ad. Although quite why one would want to start making copies of a Coke ad except for satirical purposes beats the heck out of me.

I guess this patent-rot has been around longer than I realised, I would not have considered the shape of the bottle to be patentable. The machine that made it (assuming said device machine innovation), sure. But not the bottle, it's just a variation of a thing that already exists.

The first bottle ever made? Patentable IMHO. But I think the poor fellow would have been time barred by the time they got the paperwork submitted. :-)

I still consider many of the Apple patents to be utter bollocks.

[PaulM 1]

Samsung manufactures many iPhone and iPad components

Samsung will no longer prioritise production of components for Apple. Expect shortages of Apple products over the next year. Sell your Apple shares.

[Paul Shirley]

Apple just proved that Samsung is as good as Apple but half the price

I really hope this is 1:true, 2:spreads because its absolutely hilarious. From https://plus.google.com/u/0/114476892281222708332/posts/246srfbqg6G

"Guy: "Wait, so what they're saying is, Samsung is the same as Apple?"

Friend: "I know, right? Makes me think twice about how much I paid for my Mac Book"

Yes, Apple just proved that Samsung is as good as Apple but half the price... and the public noticed ;)

[Hans 1]

Re: Apple just proved that Samsung is as good as Apple but half the price

Have you ever used an android? It crashes all the bloody time, more than Alpha-quality iPhones a year before their release ...

[FormerKowloonTonger]

Try To Think.......

All of this gibberish right here on this supposedly techie-aware website seems to ignore the apparently unwelcome idea that all of this techie stuff is now so interconnected and intertwined and interdependent that it's only these obscenely paid lawyers who benefit from these deliberately long-drawn-out legal challenges.

Individual innovating companies such as Apple are now swimming in a sharks-tank of lurking predators. Then, nationalism and Asian "face" lurk behind all public statements. Emotions pulse.

The trillions of dollars at stake here over such self-fertilizing brainstorms of such an advertising platform as FaceBook is a terrible indication of contemporary values.

What used to be "crass" is now credo. All of this would be silly if such enormous bundles and bales of cash weren't accumulating and being transferred by .....computers.......across national land boundaries.

George Orwell, call your office

[eulampios]

Re: Try To Think.......

Individual innovating companies such as Apple are now swimming in a sharks-tank of lurking predators.

Thank you for a good laugh :) Innovated what exactly, the GNU bash, sudo, Freebsd's code? Chinese or Korean manufacturing?

[MikeCorris]

Re: Try To Think.......

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/03/apple_tablet_cows_competitors/

[Anonymous Coward]

Other Courts Of Law Have Different Ideas

Any word on how much damages Apple are going to have to pay for losing to Samsung and HTC in the UK this summer?

Did they manage to avoid having to print the full-page apology to Samsung in the newspapers the judge wanted?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-18/apple-must-publish-notice-samsung-didn-t-copy-ipad-judge-says.html

[Anonymous Coward]

Every sane company

Should just pull out of the American market until such time as their insane patents rules are changed.

[MrXavia]

So, pinch to zoom? really? like that isn't 100% obvious to ANY developer working on multi touch?

and multi-touch again, an OBVIOUS extension of touch screen technology...

My tablet connected to my pc has pinch to touch, will apple sue them next?

I just hate the US jury system, since it is not a jury of peers, or a jury of educated people, or a jury of experts, or even a jury of people who know something about the topic.. no.. instead its a jury of those who couldn't find a way to escape it, i.e. low paid & probably jobless.. Also bias, how many of the jurers owned iphones? how many other brands? Brand loyalty means a lot, personally I have purchases apple products and found them lacking...

I've not read through the whole result yet, but I will when I get a chance, but from looking at the arguments, I don't see how apple won, seriously, prior art or obvious on ALL patents from what I read...

[dssf]

Pinch & Flick

It would be kewl if it were possible to drag and shoot a Linux or windows desktop window to a tablet and from a tablet pinch and flick an app over to a desktop -- either as apps or app content. Treating a tablet as a 2nd screen would be nice, if someone would build a (reasonably affordable) dock for that.

[Anonymous Coward]

But which came first, the iPhone or your tablet? IIRC, multi-touch devices were almost unheard-of until the iPhone came along (and Apple did it by acquiring one of the tech's pioneers). Can you show concrete examples of all of the multitouch intricacies (pinch-zoom, two-finger actions, etc.) that all existed in commercial products before the iPhone came along?

And BTW, by law, juries can be taken from any stripe of the population. The only requirement is basically residence in the jurisdiction in question (as that determines which court calls you in for jury duty). The rich don't have outs unless you care to say how they do it. AFAIK, the only exceptions make sense: the disabled (for mentally disabled, it must be doctor-certified), the military, those currently attending school out of the area, anyone with relations to the judge or litigants, people with current family emergencies or recent bereavement, cloistered clergy (monks, not priests). And the "important role" excuse usually doesn't cut it except for extreme cases, as most jobs are expected to have contingencies in the event of absence. If you were a caregiver to an elderly person, maybe, but few other exceptions exist.

As for the jury, consider that BOTH sides have say in the jury selection. Samsung would've been perfectly capable of interviewing the jury prospects and excluding people they felt were too biased towards Apple. In an extreme case, you would think Samsung would've felt a courtroom too close to Apple HQ would've given Apple "home field" advantage and used that as a basis to file for a change of venue (which is not unheard of).

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung has better looking color screens than Apple

And if you can't beat 'em with innovation you beat them with the Law.

The rest is just eyewash.

Fubar... Anon' cuz I dig the mask.

[AntiPoser]

So what happens if Apple is banned from the US Market

So how will the American Market feel if Google wins it's case against Apple and those phones are removed from the market. http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/08/21/and-now-google-sues-apple/

I think every company has the right to protect intellectual capital Apple may have won and Samsung may have lost what I would like to know is what did this cost the American people....the way I see it Xerox should sue them all as it had touch screen in it's printers 20 years ago.

[Paul Shirley]

Re: So what happens if Apple is banned from the US Market

To paraphrase Apple:"It will take us 5 years to redesign the iPhone but Samsung will manage it in 3 months"

;)

[Brian Allan]

In a US court...

There will be appeals to the end of time on this verdict... not the least of which will be the question of whether a US jury can be nonprejudiced in its verdict!?