back to article Jobs' 'nuclear war' is not doing Apple any good - analyst

Apple's patent wars will start to hurt shareholders if Apple continues to pursue its lawsuits against Samsung, HTC and Motorola, an analyst has said. Kevin Rivette, a managing partner at 3LP Advisors LLC, told Bloomberg that even if Apple won its patent battles, it was playing a losing game. Legal fees aside, the " …

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  1. James O'Brien
    Thumb Up

    wow

    The first bit of sense I have read/heard in regards to this bs.

    Now how about the patent holders just develop work arounds for patents Apple holds and stop licensing anything to them that isn't covered under FRAND?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sense?

      How is that any fairer than the current situation?

      The only thing you seem to want is for Apple to be restricted instead of other companies.

      Actually what you propose is worse, since even Apple offered to license some of it's non-FRAND patents to Samsung (who refused) and actually licensed them to both IBM and Nokia.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Up

        Don't bother

        Don't bother trying to be balanced when the haters are about. You'll only get voted down. Sadly people tend to vote in the direction of their own bias rather than the quality of the point made.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Point

            Just making one

      2. Intractable Potsherd
        Meh

        OK, Probing Analyst ...

        ... since no-one else has tried to answer your point, I will.

        I downvoted you because I do not agree with your comment. You seem to suggest that other companies refusing to let Apple use their IP is a bad thing, and equivalent to what Apple is doing to other to other companies. You also seem to suggest that you approve of Apple's actions. I disagree on both points:

        1) For the other companies to shut Apple out of the playground is what any sensible group would do. I use the analogy deliberately, because Apple is the equivalent of a playground bully, taking other people's work and claiming it as their own, and even claiming that it invented the stick and that anyone using a long woody thing must pay protection money to do so. The sensible thing is for the others (who do not get along all the time but have a basic set of rules that they tend to stick to, more or less) to ostracise the bully and make him play on his own, but without any of the benefits of being in the "gang". This is the only way to restabilise the situation.

        2) Apple may be operating within the strict rules of capitalism, but no-one likes anyone that plays games by the strict rules - they tend to be people with marked personality flaws. For that reason alone I do not like Apple, and can not approve of anything they have done under Jobs' rule. That doesn't mean that I couldn't change my mind about them, but so far, Apple has not produced anything that I would want.

        I hope that helps. Happy New Year!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          +1

          anyone remember rambus?

          If you don't play nice, no-one plays with you.

      3. Daniel B.

        Probing Analyst

        "The only thing you seem to want is for Apple to be restricted instead of other companies."

        Nope, what the tech industry wants is for the bully to be punished for patent misuse. If Apple wants to use its legal rights to quash competition with its patents, the competition can easily cease to license their own patents in the same manner Apple has been blocking them.

        Other companies will be as restricted as Apple. Unless one of them actually innovate instead of doing litigation...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      work rounds cost money, a company invests a billion in manufacture then has to bin the infringing items. Samsung makes a lot of components for apple and when the cost of the law suits impinges on their bottom line they'll be a cost to apple. I'd expect Samsung to be buying other manufacturers then dropping apple's volume discount. long term it could benefit the USA as apple will have to source components from countries where the FTC won't allow cartels currently apple has enough money in the bank to go into memory fabrication the question would be if they could get a return on their investment from their sales alone. the one thing consistent about apple is that it does not return it's cash stockpile to the shareholders, I predict a partnership with foxconn and new component factories in China as apple marginalises it's component suppliers and that could be very good for apple.

  2. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. Roger Stenning
    WTF?

    Frankly...

    ...the more I hear about the inner workings (if they can be called that, rather than 'Dictation By Edict') of Apple, the less I want to see their products on the shelves. Good God, FUEL CELLS now?!

    I'm sincerely hoping the the shareholders for Apple will take their collective votes and use them to tell Apple to STFU on patents (which I firmly believe are being horribly misused in this war of stupidity), and to either become innovative again, which they were, pre-idiotphone, or to take a sodding chill pill and duke it out like normal companies, with their products, not their sodding lawyers.

    In the mean time, here's a quote to consider: "Will someone not rid me of this troublesome priest?!"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re: "Will someone not rid me of this troublesome priest?!"

      Well Smaug has gone now, maybe the cult of iDidEverything, iAmTheOnlyOneWhoCounts will fade and some sense will kick in at Apple. nahhhh, as if.

      1. CheesyTheClown
        Thumb Up

        Why change what works?

        I don't want to sound like an ass... and I personally don't like the tactics of Apple in the current market... but why would they change something that obviously works?

        Apple's business model is a brute force business model. At least as far as I know, they haven't been sending out hit men to kill off their competition, they instead use lawyers to attempt to have the same effect. Apple is extremely similar to Debeers in many ways (though they probably did use hit men).

        People call Apple an innovator. They don't innovated, they implement and propagate. They tend to mix together technologies they find elsewhere. Just look at their patent pools. Nearly all of them are about things which other people have been talking about for years. Much of it is just common sense. Yet, they patent the hell out of it. People rag on Intel and talk about how they don't do anything innovative and yet if you look at their silicon processing techniques, they are by far the most innovative company in the world.

        Apple has destroyed one competitor after another after another for years. They have done things like purchased top of class media creation application companies if for no other reason but to make sure they ship for Mac and not Windows. Instead of buying small companies with cool extensions to their products, they instead just duplicate it and figure if a law suit comes... lawyers are cheap. Hell... do you think that legal downloadable music happened using nice methods like "Please can we sell your music and take a 30% cut on it while still selling it for much less than you want even if you take the whole cut?" hell no... it was more likely "We're going to sell your music and you can try and sue us over it and never receive any money until it's settled... or you can accept the terms we lay out and we can try to renegotiate terms afterwards.". When it came to movies, Steve was on the board of Disney and could pretty much dictate to Disney Buena Vista how it would be... as a result most of the other studios hopped on board. Disney is the real lion in the battle and without them, the other studios would have a much weaker case.

        Apple is a bunch of assholes. Their business model depends on it. They get ahead because they have the brute strength to bully every other company on the planet to do what they want, how they want it done. Just look at Google trying so hard to be able to put their books online. I mean really... they can't even get through their books problem... imagine if they tried to bully all the movie owners and music owners? We'd still be forced to pirate everything.

        So... why would Apple stop their bullying practices now? It seems utterly stupid. Apple thrives on this. The real question is... how will Apple grow when there's no one left to bully? We've got movies, books, music, news papers, magazines, maps, video games, etc... I figure OnLive will start streaming video games to iPad and iPhone... show it works and it'll take Apple no time to expand iCloud for streaming video games too.

        Oh... and now they're going after the TV market it seems. They'll produce an iBrand TV.... this is just nasty to think about. Imagine a TV which needs to be upgraded every 3 year. Most of the target audience for the TV only upgraded to LCD in the past 5 years anyway. Why the hell would we want to throw away our TV sets to get new ones made by Apple when they only thing it can actually offer is what you could buy with a set top box as well?

        My guess is... it won't be long before they're offering live streaming TV through Apple... pretty much killing off the cable TV networks.

        Oh... I'm actually practically a fan boy... I have all the iThings and a few macs... I'm locked in and I just keep getting my fix by buying more of Apples crap because I love it. But I personally despise Apple as a company.

    2. Kwac
      Devil

      No

      "Good God, FUEL CELLS now?!"

      No, not now they're merely attempting to get a patent for them.

      Then, when someone has actually done all the work and produces a practical device Apple can sue them.

      An example of the MS vs Android patents was published last month (see Groklaw).

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Optional

    What really makes me wonder, is why companies that are feeling the heat from Apple continue to work with them in other ways, for example, in partnership with the 'iTV'.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Perhaps it's better to make them pay over-the-odds than to refuse their money outright? That way you hit their margins.

      More seriously:

      These massive megacorp groups have many much arms-length subsiduaries anyway - look at how Google bought a distinct section of Motorola, complete with debts, contracts and property (physical and "intellectual") - they didn't get Motorola chip foundries with that.

      Samsung display manufacture or chippery is somewhat different to Samsung mobile telephony and tablets.

      1. Zippy the Pinhead
        Facepalm

        @ CheesyTheClown

        I downvoted you strictly because of your last paragraph... You despise their business practices yet you continue to buy their products because you feel you are locked in??? Seriously? You're not locked in.. you have a choice, no one is holding a gun to your head saying buy this new iGizmo or we will pull the trigger. You can go with something that is just as high quality, as easy to use and cheaper by switching over to different products. Hell you can buy a whole suite of competitors products for the cost of a couple of Apple laptops.

        I make no bones about it.. I don't like the way they do business! I don't like their holier than thou commercials and their false claims of they did everything first. I don't like the way they delete comments off of their forums when people report issues with the products they purchased and are only looking for help. I don't like paying top tier prices for second generation level PC components simply because it has an apple sticker on it.

        So for these reasons and more I DON'T buy Apple hardware or software. Why should anyone support any company with their money if they don't like the way they do business?

        Facepalm icon because... well it's pretty obvious!

    2. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart
      Stop

      Interesting you should mention iTV, crApple fail to do any research again???? Or perhaps they have done the research and don't give a bollocks about what already exists, I can't wait until they try and market iTV this side of the pond, after all we've had ITV since 1955.

      www.itv.com

      1. Roger Stenning
        Coffee/keyboard

        "crApple"

        ROFLMFAO!

        OK, new keyboard, please ;-)

    3. B 9

      How else could they compete with Apple

      I mean if they quit working with Apple then they couldn't get inside information to steal Apple's ideas, and we'd be left with the pre-iPhone crap that ALL phone manufacturers pumped out before '07.

      1. Roger Stenning
        WTF?

        Bull, and other comments.

        Back then, the likes of HTC made phones for other companies to badge up and sell as their own; For example, the HP iPAQ hw6915 was in fact made by HTC, and released in 2006, and featured a touch screen, hardware keyboard, and looked a little like an early Blackberry - did you see BB having shitfits in court? No. And HTC made their phones too. Were they all crap? By the standards of the day, not at all. They were very innovative, even. it might, then, be an idea to hoover up those words of yours, laddie. They're making you look a little bit like a prick.

        I bloody detest fanbois. They NEVER seem to check their sodding facts.

  5. DF118
    Holmes

    See icon

    As title

  6. LarsG

    DARE YOU SAY ANYTHING ABOUT APPLE?

    Here we go again, say anything against Apple and you get down voted.

    Imagine the censorship if Apple ran the world, it would be 1984 but ten times worse.

    The worst part is that generally there is a legitimate point to be made.... But noooooooooooooo, how dare anyone say anything about Apple.

    Bunch of narrow minded, closeted pilchards.

    1. Sean Baggaley 1
      FAIL

      DARE YOU SAY ANYTHING IN FAVOUR OF APPLE?

      "Imagine the censorship if Apple ran the world"? Seriously? Do you see Apple banning access to websites when using their browsers? Do you see them banning apps because Steve Jobs' ghost personally disagrees and has stated as such via a Ouija Board?

      Seriously dude, what's with the paranoia? You do know Steve Jobs is dead, right?

      Right?

      Apple is just a fucking corporation, like every other corporation. ALL CORPORATIONS EXIST TO MAKE A PROFIT. There is nothing charitable about running a company. It's a machine for making money. End of story. The only difference between corporations is the "how", not the "what" or the "why".

      THERE ARE NO NICE CORPORATIONS. If you disagree with Capitalism at a philosophical level, you cannot like one corporation over another without being a hypocrite. If you're fine with Capitalism, Apple are no different to any other company, with the unusual exception that, for about 14 years, it was being run by a CEO who actually had a clue how to run a business.

      You do NOT get to be the head of a billion-dollar commercial entity by being a naïve, happy-clappy, tree-hugging hippy. God knows Jobs proved that: look at his early years. He was *forced out of Apple* in the mid-80s by the very man he hired to run Apple! It's hardly surprising that he decided that, if he wanted something done right, he had to do it himself. That "control freak" accusation is really more of a compliment. Sweating the details is how you're *supposed* to design stuff.

      And it's not paranoia when they really *are* out to get you! The history of Android is proof enough that Google were more than happy to shamefully rip-off Apple's iOS US innovations while Eric Schmidt was still on Apple's own board of directors! If you can't trust your fellow board members, who _can_ you trust?

      That last point makes Apple's fatwa against Android perfectly understandable.

      Like it or not, Apple _do_ have some justification for their behaviour of late. Google's lack of solid support for their Android partners, on the other hand, does not bode well.

      Microsoft have proved Apple's point that slavishly ripping-off iOS is _not_ a requirement for touch-based user interfaces, ergo, the iOS approach cannot be considered "obvious". There are alternatives; you just have to hire people with the talent and the vision.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        BUT IS HE DEAD?

        Elvis is still seen every now and again.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        IN FAVOUR OF APPLE?

        DARE YOU SAY ANYTHING IN FAVOUR OF APPLE? # Sean Baggaley

        I would ne the first.....if there was anything favorable to say!

    2. Robert E A Harvey
      Thumb Up

      @LarsG

      I quite like pilchards. Apparently they are the same fish the Portuguese sell as Sardine.

      1. LarsG

        THEY ARE...

        Bigger and smellier

    3. Red Bren
      Coat

      1984 but ten times worse

      Like 19,840?

    4. icanonlyimagine
      Pint

      Trouble is, telling the truth is something the Windows_Android retards couldn't do if it leapt out of their cereal bowl and bit them in the face. The Apple Haterz Virus feeds on envy, personal failings and low IQ to cloud the mind of the infected with false delusions about the world around them.

      1. DF118
        FAIL

        @icanonlyimagine

        If only we could all be such incisive thinkers. It must be terrible for you, forced as you are to watch us all grubbing around in the dark for your light switch of truth.

      2. Dave 15

        Envy?

        mmm, I doubt it, while I do like the way the apple pc runs windows quicker than most windows machines I wouldn't waste that much more money for that small benefit. The phone is almost as good as a S60 phone, but in many very important respects fails - call quality, camera quality, range of built in apps.

        As to windows phone - it was very good many years back when I still worked there, its still pretty damned good and in some respects better value, and like android available with more form factors which means I don't have to be an iClone to like it.

    5. Andy 97
      FAIL

      I dare.

      I am a confirmed Macbook Pro user, it's the only tool for music production if you take it seriously, but I pray for the day (and as a humanist that's not easy) that someone else makes a decent alternative.

      Apple are not the sort of company I want anything to do with.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        it isn't the only serious tool for media

        That's the kind of myth perpetuated by Apple and their faithful. Their are plenty of alternatives for professional music and video production on both Windows and Linux if you look. 'I have to have a Mac because...' is the same bullshit I hear from our 'creative' department every time they ask for a new machine. My response is if you can't use photoshop on Windows, then switching platforms to Mac isn't suddenly going to make you a photoshop genius. The same goes the other way too, if you have the skills then you should be able to transfer them. You don't look at say, Abiword and declare 'I can't type that letter as I can't use anything but Word'. Things might be in different places, menus might not be worded quite the same but the underlying functions are exactly the same and it is just a matter of finding what you are looking for. This might slow you down initially, but with a bit of practice you should be back up to speed again.

        So you might not have Final Cut Pro, or Garage Band, or Logic Pro but try Pro Tools or Lightworks or another alternative and try using something else rather than keep giving money to a company you say you don't want anything to do with. It means putting a little effort in rather than going with what you know as 'it's easier'.

      2. Dave 15

        Find that very hard to believe

        What makes it so amazingly better than anything else? Surely its not the hardware - thats not really that special - so it can only be the software? What is special about the apple music software thats missing from anything else? (just curious at this stage, but maybe we should colaborate on making a compelling program for another platform)

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    What an utterly retarded analyst! If apple sues and wins, the device makers work around the patent. Apple doesn't win. What? If the patent was for a touchscreen they'd "work around" it by going back to the old style phones. Would apple win in that situation? Of course it bloody would.

    What's happening here is they're trying their patents one at a time. At some point they might get something major to stick that could wipe out android. For now, they've got something more like 'death by a thousand cuts' building up, where android slowly loses useful features. If android phones get steadily worse to use apple will surely win!

    1. tonysmith

      The only thing is

      ...that they are fighting against rounded corners not whole touchscreen interface patents. If they did anything 'major' the other tech corps involved most probably have a much larger array of real mobile tech patents to stops iPhone in it's tracks.

      Right now is a pointless verbal slagging match - no real tech patents are involved.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Right now is a pointless verbal slagging match - no real tech patents are involved."

        Because Apple doesn't have any. Google will shortly when the Motorola Mobility action is over. Then Apple will be paying 50% of its profits to Google for the rest of eternity.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      "What? If the patent was for a touchscreen they'd "work around" it by going back to the old style phones. Would apple win in that situation? Of course it bloody would."

      The problem is that Apple doesn't own any legitimate patents. They've never invented anything.

      The iPod scroll wheel was created by Sony and licensed by Apple after Sony couldn't figure out how to use it.

      The iPad looks a bit like the Samsung tablets, probably because it is about 85% Samsung components.

      Siri was already fully developed and being worked on by the company that created it before Apple licensed it.

      1. Dave 15

        scroll wheel and patents

        Of course Apple have invented some stuff, they don't employ just idiots. The fact that the patents system has allowed them to patent the obvious and things that exist doesn't detract from the fact it will have one or two useful ones.

        As for the jogdial... Sony did kjnow how to use it, was brilliant on the Z5 and J5 phones, the UI was wonderful and easy to use because of them - far better than anything I've seen since. The browser (I worked on it) was a genuine 'fit to screen' so you could scroll up and down the page with the jogdial which was placed exactly in the right place for your thumb as you held the phone - no breaking your thumb to operate some nasty wobbly button under the screen or needing to wipe your fingers so you could prod some scratched up touch screen.

    3. Andraž 'ruskie' Levstik

      Except

      That patents expire after 20 years... And if this slow death keeps going they'll eventually run out of things to sue about while the others will innovate away from them.

    4. Zippy the Pinhead
      WTF?

      @ Chris 19

      "What's happening here is they're trying their patents one at a time. At some point they might get something major to stick that could wipe out android. For now, they've got something more like 'death by a thousand cuts' building up, where android slowly loses useful features. If android phones get steadily worse to use apple will surely win!"

      What features has Android lost? None so far! In fact the top end phones from Motorola and Samsung I believe far surpass Apple's newest model.

      You seem to be thinking in one direction only.. the other cell phone companies... you know the ones that have been making cellphones for years before Apple even started to think about getting into the cellphone business... have HUGE patent portfolios... Much larger than Apple's! And while Apple may try a 'death by a thousand cuts'... Apple could be killed by a death of a million cuts!

      Stop drinking the Jobsonian koolaid about how only Apple innovates and all the other cell phone companies steal their ideas. When in fact pretty much everything about the Apple iPhone and software has been shown to be prior art

      1. Dave 15

        A lot of the prior art - and indeed the smartphone itself came from Symbian

        and Nokia

        The S60 much derided by many is still at least as good, and in may ways better, than Android and certainly surpasses iPhone - try an N8 - great calls, wonderful camera, super videos, plays on your TV... all sorts of wonderful built in features.

    5. Naughtyhorse

      If android phones get steadily worse to use apple will surely win!.....

      2 words

      samsung galaxy

      bye bye sucker

  8. Wile E. Veteran
    WTF?

    Fuel cells?

    Didn't el Reg run an article about (Japanese?) researchers having a prototype alcohol-activated fuel cell for mobes a couple of years ago and articles about the concept several years before that?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      15 different vendors were selling tablets when Apple released the iPad. Not to mention that Apple had failed to license the name iPad so they named their product that anyway. Didn't stop them then, won't stop them now.

    2. Allicorn

      Yes, but that was here - in the really real world. Not in La-La-Land where the USPTO exist and everything is novel if it's written in long-winded over-technicalese.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apple?

    Oh! Apple! Ah yes, I remember. That trendy tech company from 2011 who sold over priced things that looked pretty. They're just a foot note now. They didn't make it after their 3rd slump into mediocrity

  10. Lars Silver badge

    Sad

    I was one of the first owners of the Apple II+, such an amazing device, not the only one, among the not so extremely more powerful and extremely bulkier mini computers.

    So I have a lot of teenage++ love for Apple, but, it seems to me that the bigger the boat grows the more it starts to look backwards trying to defend it self against competition.

    I suppose the number of lawyers at the top will increase immensely during this obesity period and looking forward will turn to locking backwards. Very much like Microsoft, and perhaps it just works that way.

    As for patents, even the nuclear arms race stopped, I hope, but this stupid patents race seems to just have begun.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So, what he's saying is...

    ...these patents were only ever worth something as a threat, rather than as a fact.

    What a surprise.

  12. boatman

    reap what you sow...

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I don't recall Jobs saying that he wanted to "stamp out" competition, just that he wanted them to compete using their own ideas without copying Apple's.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Except that Apple's ideas are generally someone else's with "but, like, really glossy and twice the price" written in biro at the end.

    2. Gio Ciampa

      A tale of two quotes...

      Steve Jobs - January 2010:

      "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40bn in the bank, to right this wrong. I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

      Steve Jobs - 1996

      "We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."

      Can't have it both ways...

  14. beast666
    Thumb Down

    Re: Optional

    Like Samsung supplying them with lcd panels, flash n stuff. Well Apple best watch out, Samsung have a huge grip on lcd supply now after getting Sony's side of the biz, I wonder if Apple might find a little increase in the prices they pay to cover Samsung against Apples attempted patent borging of everyone else?

  15. admiraljkb

    The premise of the analyst's theory is sound.

    It is only logical that the longer Apple spends on legal battles, the more unfocused they'll get. After all, Microsoft lost a LOT of ground fighting the Justice Dept instead of focusing on business at hand.

    The big thing as I see it is the pseudo patents Apple is trying (and indeed obligated) to try and enforce. Rounded corners and other distinctive design elements of the phone aren't (or at least shouldn't be) patentable to begin with. I would think that is already be covered under Trademark law. By not suing under the correct laws though, the statute of limitations will be over prior to realization of the mistake, and we'll have a repeat of their Look and Feel GUI case failure from the late 80's. :)

    1. Dave 15

      registered design

      At one time we had registered designs in the UK to stop shameless copying of what something looked like - not that it happened very much. I wish people were more inventive to be honest. I have nothing against the iPhones look - I don't really like it but it will suit some people, what I object to is all the other manufacturers thinking they must also look the same. I want a flip phone myself - one where theres a bit of plastic that covers and protects the screen when the phone is in my pocket, when the flip opens the phone call is answered, when closed its hung up, I don't need to 'lock' the device to prevent unintentional dialing or over use of the precious battery etc. etc. The old Sony Z5 was lovely, but sadly you seem to be able to get chocolate bar or touch screen devices and nothing else. My phones live in my pocket and come up against loose change and keys... and no I don't want some bulky ugly case wrapped round them (they aren't a canoe....)

  16. Andy 70
    Trollface

    whenever i see stories in the comments section...

    TLDR.

  17. DragonKin37
    Stop

    What a passionate discussion

    Reminds me of the Microsoft v Lunix v Netware shouting matches of the late 90's...History tends to repeat itself in some shape or form.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What does the future hold

    I wonder if patents become so consolidated in a few hands that anti-trust law will then unravel it all.

  19. dssf

    Some links...

    For Apple:

    http://www.gizmag.com/apple-fuel-cell-system-patent-application/20958/

    -------

    Maybe not for Apple:

    http://www.phonearena.com/news/Water-powered-fuel-cell-by-DoCoMo_id1414

    https://www.pcworld.com/article/121816/mobile_phone_fuel_cells_coming_in_2007.html

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8321911.stm

    --------

    In this one, Nokia bowed out...

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4318925.stm

  20. maccy
    Thumb Down

    Fuel cell ??

    A fuel cell, in a phone? I am sure it's passed the obviousness test, because most people would consider it obviously stupid, but really, when did just sticking two things together become a patentable invention?

    Oh, wait ...,

  21. vincent himpe

    publicity

    Cheaper to file a lawsuit and pay some lawyers than to run world-wide media campaigns.

    Media will gobble it up .

    Workarounds cost extra money and meanwhile other businesses that might want to enter the playing field will delay their product launch to see the outcome of the lawsuit..

    so its a win-win-win situation : free pub , force competiton to extra cost and delay ...

  22. candtalan
    Pint

    All of the Apple law suit fuss

    alerted me to the Samsung Galaxy Tab10.1

    So, I looked at it, then liked it, and then, bought one! Talk about unintended consequences.

    LOL

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Doesn't a fuel cell need er fuel?

    So the fruity one expects the glitterati to fill up their jebus phones with unleaded every now and then? Yeah thats going to happen...Not!

  24. Roger Stenning
    Joke

    Mind you (on fuel cells)...

    I can see one of the ElReg headlines if crApple(tm)(r) do stick a fuel cell on a phone...

    "Snap, crApple and pop! - Smalltown laid waste by faulty iCell!"

    ...remember the problem caApple (sorry, I think it's a bloody excellent name for them at the moment) had with idiotPhone batteries (and still do, allegedly)?

    Flames, because the fanbois are sure to want to string me up from a lamp post somewhere for this one ;-)

  25. General Pance

    Apple is the new Pokemon

    Gotta collect 'em all, right fanbois?

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Google stole it. Just like they steal your privacy and sell it on. Doesn't mean Google is all bad. Apple got burned by Microsoft over PC's. Apple's business model of leading the customer to new stuff requires protected space to operate. Including open web standards not controlled by a competitor. (not IE6, not Flash) So long as Apple can maintain that space, no cartel of megacorps will carve up IT as in the Microsoft era.

    The patents are just a sideshow (unless someone gets lucky), where Google has some explaining to do. Apple may yet get a benefit. Microsoft already earn revenues from Android because Google used patent IP without license. But the real battle is over search; with mobile, Google can lose their search monopoly. It's a serious fight. Google or Apple is going to get hurt.

  27. Local Group
    Childcatcher

    @Bullseyed 12/28 21:01 gmt

    "No one ... considers the number of up or down votes as a measure of a post's validity."

    OTOH, readers scrolling through the comments, might stop at a post with a decent number of votes, either up or down.

    Then you get a chance to make another sale. :-)

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