UK judge hands Samsung win for being 'not as cool' as iPad A UK judge has handed Samsung a victory in its court battle with Apple over design similarities between its Galaxy Tab line and the Cupertinian iPad – but for a reason sure to rankle the Korean manufacturer's design department. Speaking of Samsung's fondleslabs, UK High Court Judge Colin Birss ruled, "They do not have the same …
A put down for whose benefit?
The judge is handing Samsung a victory and very likely taking the piss out of Apple at the same time.
How are Apple supposed to appeal this? Are they really going to say 'Er - actually, you're wrong, and Samsung's tablet really *is* as cool as an iPad?"
Does anyone see that happening?
I wonder if it's really quite a clever way of dealing with the issue.
How is the Samsung design innovative?
Tablet format - Check
Touch Screen - Check
Button to press - Check
Stable OS - Check
2 more buttons to press - we just innovated boys!!!
Apple have not, despite Samsung's claims, stifled innovation, in fact I thought the point was that Samsung hadn't been particularly innovative, and that Samsung were stating that they didn't need to be because the design is ubiquitous?
If Samsung had been innovative with their design, like making it oval shaped with five large buttons (as a ridiculous example), then apple would have had literally no case!
Should apple be able to lay rights to the design? No, but let's not pretend this is about innovation. Innovation is not the upgrading of your tablet with an 8MP camera, or adding a HDMI. Samsung want to win this patent war so they can sell tablets that look like iPads, no more, no less.
For the fabulous 2007 tablet designs, that were oh so good before apple see:
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/news-headlines/4969-ces-2007-oqo-unveils-model-02-tablet-pc-samsung-releases-q1p-ssd-umpc-medion-umpc-coming-january-30-a.html
Typical fandroid didn't bother to read the comment, we have the fanbois and fandroids arguing over shit again. As I said I didn't think Apple should be able to lay claim to rights to a rectangular screen with a button. However the commentards here stated that the litigation and apple are holding back innovation that I don't get may be I am missing something.
The innovation is in the software surely, the hardware is what Samsung have copied (and I dont blame them), and then added a little and charged less for, great, the reason why the hardware was blocked at all was apple could "show" that the hardware looked close enough to their design that you non savvy user wouldnt notice.....
Thanks for posting the link, I couldn't be bothered proving my obvious point, as it has been done so many times in these forums.
The fact remains, I can get 20 down votes for stating a provable fact, simply because there are so many APPL haters here. Whether people like it or not, Samsung copied APPL's design, as have many (not all I might add) since. Why? Bacuse these companies are too talentless to have come up with something unique, distinctive and functional themselves (there are exceptions, but I dare not mention Sony for fear of garnering an extra 20 downvotes). This fact will not be altered by the 20 downvotes or the next 20 or the next twenty.
Dweeb
Having now read both your comment and what the Judge said in detail I have to say that I think that you are certainly correct in your interpretation. What on earth are Apple going to say now? "The device from Samsung is as good as our iPads and equally as stylish so please ban them"? I think that His Honour has been very clever indeed - tongue was undoubtedly firmly located in his own cheek and not up Apple's cheeks, in contrast to some other judges we have heard from during the last year or so.
personally, i think what apple would say now, is something along the lines of "ok, great, they're not as cool as us. that has absolutely nothing to do with copyright infringement, since we dont copyright 'coolness' - just all the other features, that they've copied. can we get a real response now please?"
seriously folks, much as its fun to hate on apple, a legal response that asserts that 'not being as cool as the original means you cant get done for copying it' is a bit of a rubbish one in a host of situations. (i assume its a copyright thing, i've not been paying too much attention really.)
It's a put down to Samsung, the judge implies the Samsung, even though from the same 'family' of tablets, it not as good as the mother and father of tablets.
Negative advertising campaign for the iPad against the Samsung.
It's like you and your mate going out with two sisters, only you got the ugly one and your mate is pointing it out to you and everyone else in the room.
Should a fanboi judge be allowed to adjudicate?
"an Apple spokesman told Reuters. "This kind of blatant copying is wrong and, as we've said many times before, we need to protect Apple's intellectual property.""
Just how much intellect does it take to make a rectangle with one button on it ?
This judge has said what many of us have been saying for a long time, there is plenty of prior art on tablets and similar devices. How Apple can claim theres is any different I can;t understand. Now the OS etc then yes there is a case for copyright of how it looks and feels but again a patent should not be allowable for it.
Apple are doing all they can to stifle all other companies from doing what they have and that's take something done before and doing it better.
What we need is for someone like the EU to make a law that stops companies from going to court to stop sales of a product on such pathetic reasons as swipe to unlock etc and to punish those who bring a court case that has no real basis but to try to block to face legal penalties.
As for the USA let them stew in their own mess and let us the rest of the world stop this so that innovation can again be the main reason to buy a product and not because someone is the last man standing having blocked what may be something better due to say a patent for something totally unrelated to phones or tablets that was granted 15 or so years ago when windows still ran on dos......
The European Commission has already indicated that it views this kind of lawsuit and patent/trademark tourism as a possible barrier to trade in the single market. It's certainly possible that this might lead to only being allowed to make a single case in the whole of the EU with some safeguards to stop companies seeking out favourable courts as they apparently do in America.
I can see some of the silliness being moved to the WTO as has happened in the airline industry.
Simplest solution: allow summary judgment on patent issues. So Apple and Samsung go to court, Samsung argue at a preliminary hearing that 'actually, slide to unlock (or whatever) isn't patentworthy', and if the judge agrees then the patent is invalidated right there and then. If all relevant patents are invalidated then that obviously opens the door to summary judgment on the entire claim.
Ideally there'd then be a separate appeals system for the patent. So if Apple wants to argue that the relevant patents are valid then they can go and do that at their own cost, entirely on their own. If a higher court holds them as valid then they can come back and reintroduce them to the main claim. The main claim can be stayed at the request of a patent holding party for the duration of the patent-related appeals process.
Net effect: if you go to court on a flimsy patent, expect to have to spend your own money defending just the patent while whomever you sued carries on as usual.
I guess patents would have to be extremely simple before most judges would venture that far but at least it would move the centre of the debate.
Rather than summary judgement, I'd say that for every pound, dollar etc that the plaintiff spends on lawyers, he should be obliged to lend exactly the same amount to the defendant for payment of the defendant's legal costs. If he wins, repayment of the loan is added to other damages. If he loses, then he loses the right to repayment of the loan as well as any other costs awarded against him.
The result would be that no company (typically a small company) would feel obliged to settle out of court for lack of sufficient finance to match the plaintiff's legal muscle. Patent trolls would probably disappear.
It wouldn't have made any difference to this case and there's no reason why it should. Samsung and Apple both have deep enough pockets to afford armies of lawyers out of their petty cash.
""an Apple spokesman told Reuters. "This kind of blatant copying is wrong and, as we've said many times before, we need to protect Apple's intellectual property.""
Just how much intellect does it take to make a rectangle with one button on it ?"
Haaaaaaaa Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Ohh fuck soooooooo funny!
"Apple, as might be guessed, disagrees with the ruling. "It's no coincidence that Samsung's latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad," an Apple spokesman told Reuters"
Yes, because they're part of the same family of devices. Honestly, didn't the Apple spokesman pay attention in court?
Tablets are so bloody minimal in essence anyway.
A screen, a bezel/frame ... and a back side, corners, a button or two.
These are basic elements of the constuction of the device - necessary for it to exist. It also applies to the monitor I have in front of me.
If you reduce your design to the most minimalist version of a concept, then, philiosphically, you cannot patent it or claim ownership over your implementation of the device without also effectively claiming ownership of the ENTIRE CONCEPT of such a device, which is of course ludicrous.
If Apple want design patents, they should add stuff - create stuff - not reduce something to it's constituent elements and then arrogantly try and claim ownership of them.
That's exactly what Apple want to do. If the corporate justice system gave them everything they wanted, Apple would ensure that they were the only source of any form of computing device on the planet. It's nothing to do with innovation and everything to do with absolute, megalomaniacal control of the information industry and all the information processed thereby. It's why they invented the "walled garden". It's why they invented the concept of remotely installing and deleting information on a device that you've paid for and thought you owned. Apple don't want anyone to own anything except themselves.
That's why I have zero tolerance for them and their fanboi supporters.
It's been established that you cannot patent or copyright the external shape of a car exhaust pipe. That's because only one shape can fit underneath any particular model of car, and therefore there is no freedom to do anything different.
The same, surely, for a pocketable tablet. The overall design is dictated by the pocket.
We may have been spared such lawsuits back when the clam-shell mobile first appeared on the scene, because there was such obvious prior art. The Star Trek communicator. They couldn't make a working one, but the overall design was still obvious.
Make it as an ellipsoid, or a square, or a ... and I am not completely sure about this idea they are pocket sized or shaped, the samsung is designed like it is because the iPad is a successful design shape, it would be a way bigger risk to make it a different shape or style. Far easier to make it exactly the same and cheaper.
No, all tablets are shaped like they are because that's the size and shape screens are made. For viewing material on a screen, a rectangular shape is the most convenient shape for the screen, any curves around the edge would be wasting space.
Everything beyond that is based around how small you can make the electronics to fit behind the screen and the interface requirements of the OS.
I have a Dell Axim x51v (bought in 2006, with a 2 year old design), it required hardware buttons to interact with Windows Mobile, but beyond that it's design isn't a million miles from the iPad or how about a Dell Latitude XT, announced in 2007? Looking at only the front surface, when set in tablet mode - how different is that from the iPad?
The claim is that they look the same from a single view-point and not too close to read the name - you could do much the same with the side view of a Jaguar XK8 and an Aston Martin DB7.
> No, all tablets are shaped like they are because that's the size and shape screens are made.
Are you sure? From what I know of the technology there would be no great difficulty in making TFT screens oval or triangular or any other shape without concavities. The electronics to drive such an odd array would be more complex, but hardly impossible. If there were any massive demand. There isn't. Do you think an oval phone would score any cool points over a rectangular one?
Pockets are rectangular. The larger things that go in pockets, like wallets and phones, are rectangular. A round one would be wasting space in the corners, and would have certain other drawbacks, like rotating in the pocket so you couldn't immediately know top from bottom.
"We may have been spared such lawsuits back when the clam-shell mobile first appeared on the scene, because there was such obvious prior art. The Star Trek communicator. They couldn't make a working one, but the overall design was still obvious."
Well, in that case ST:TNG had the PADD which isn't that far removed either...
"These are basic elements of the constuction of the device - necessary for it to exist. It also applies to the monitor I have in front of me."
Indeed. I did once have the misfortunte to witness someone say of a large flatscreen TV, "It looks like a giant Ipad!" Yes, something that is basically a screen looks like something else that is basically a screen. It hurt my head to hear someone saying that a screen looks like an Ipad, rather than an Ipad looking like a screen...
No doubt if the Apple TV rumours ever turn out to be true, people will be falling over themselves to say how Samsung, LG etc copied Apple, even though they were making TVs for years before.
UK High Court Judge Colin Birss is really making US Judge Lucy Koh look rather silly now. Obviously the idea of prior art, and being of a pre-existing family of devices is lost on her. Someone hadn't done their homework!
In other news, the US ban on the Nexus has also currently been over-turned. Overall a good day for the consumer.
I wouldn't say silly, the different outcomes are easily explained.
Read page 8 to see how Judge Birss took the advice of the Court of Justice of the European Union (PepsiCo v Grupo Promer) to look at both devices from the perspective of an informed user. This is a user that is "particularly observant", with "high degree of attention", "knowledge of the design corpus" and can "conduct a direct comparison of the designs". As he says this is also different from the observer used for trademark law.
He adds "I was struck by how similar they look to the Apple design when they are resting on a table. They look similar because they both have the same front screen. It stands out. However to the informed user (which at that stage I was not) these screens do not stand out to anything like the same extent."
The US court doesn't consider an informed user so, like in Judge Birss's first observation, they found the designs to be too similar.
Which user profile reflects a typical buyer? That's left as an exercise to the reader.
At the risk of appearing to be a troll, I'd suggest the informed user is the one that doesn't buy the Apple product. Whether they buy a Samsung product, a tablet made by another manufactuere, or no tablet at all instead, is another matter entirely.
Interesting that the advice to judges from the Court of Justice of the European Union is framed in that way. It is also interesting that implicit in that advice is the acknowledgement that judgements delivered in the absence of such a perspective are delivering it from a lowest common denominator consumer point of view. By that I mean that if it is possible that a significant number of The Transcendent Order of the Ignorati might be fooled then it is accepted (currently in the US at any rate) that the defendant is in breach. It does of course offer an amusing picture of a fantasy courtroom somewhere in the US (or in Germany given some of the judgements that have been handed down there) where Apple lawyers are questioning prospective jurors (if juries were used in such cases - I said it was a fantasy courtroom :P) "do you have difficulty tying you own shoelaces without a diagram? No? Rejected, next candidate!"
And this'd be the same Judge Koh that used to work for the company that did legal work for Apple? (though attempts to discern if she actually worked on Apple IP legalese hasn't met any response from attempts to contact the company apparently).
Even so, there's a strong appearance of familiarity between Koh and Apple, and it's odd that she was allowed to make rulings on this and not excuse herself.
Flour, sugar, chocolate powder, margarine.
mixed up, chucked on a baking tray, and left to slightly overburn/overcook. It was rock hard solid slices for pudding, often served with the aforementioned pink custard (yeuch).
As kids, we'd bend cutlery trying to cut the stuff, and as were were all young 'uns at the time, I recall a few kids losing teeth (that were wobbly anyway) to it.
I still maintain;
C64 > Spectrum > Amstrad.
(though the Speccys Amstrad made weren't that bad eventually).
Speaking of Amstrad, there is the interesting story of the Penpad.
All the time Apple were developing a portable computer with handwriting recognition in secret (the Newton), Amstrad were developing the Penpad (the same principle if more primitive).
Amstrad genuinely had no idea what Apple were up to until late in development and got their product to market first by a couple of weeks.
Can you imagine the fuss if that happened today? Apple would have had Amstrad in court quicker than you can say "You're Fired" regardless of how rubbish either product was.
Although I would have loved to have seen Margaret Mountford in action against the ambulance chasers at Apple!
Spectrum better than the Amstrad? I'm afraid I have to disagree with you there. Despite being made by Siralan, the Amstrad was better for a number of reasons:
- More memory (64k or 128k versus 48k)
- Built in cassette / disk drive versus dodgy external one requiring you to hit the pause/stop button at the right time.
- Far superior graphics, as opposed to the monstrosity that was the Speccy's attempt at handling more than 2 colours. The Amstrad had higher resolution / colour depth, using up a full 16k of its memory.
- The speccy had a power supply you could cook eggs on, the Amstrad CPCs had an internal supply which produced very little heat.
This'll be the test case cited next time a leading clothes label have a go at Primark for ripping off their designs.
"Summing up in the case, Lord Justice Rupert Farquhar said that whilst there were clearly striking similarities between Armarni and Primarni clothes, the later are invariably made of polyester, worn by chavs and sold in outlets situated inbetween a Stella-stocked cash-and-carry and a KFC..."
Are clearly his words went WELL beyond what he should have said. It's also clear what hardware he owns...
What he (and every other Apple fanboy fails to grasp), that simplicity is a double edged sword. Yes the iPad may be simple, but it's simple for a reason, because it's aimed at simple people to achieve simple things.
In other words, it's a V-Tech for adults with special needs. You can't actually do anything useful on them, beyond what a £50 supermarket tablet can do.
To cut your argument down to its essence: "Dear everyone who does anything on the internet, I'm afraid that you are a simple person with special needs. Lots of love, AC"
Newton said: "Truth is ever to be found in simplicity"; I guess Newton's works on maths, physics, philosophy, etc, were just aimed at simple people to achieve simple things?
>I guess Newton's works on maths, physics, philosophy, etc, were just aimed at simple people to achieve simple things?
Its an appropriate analogy - Apple is very much the Newton of today....
'if I have seen further it is by publishing the work of others...' is the quote that best sums him up.
No, the point may have been: it's a great device and well-designed but there are limits as to how much a "simple design" can be protected.
The judge has come close to damning Apples "magical and revolutionary" device by faint praise and diplomatically thrown the case out.
The original judgement:
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Patents/2012/1882.html
includes these words of wisdom
"17 Samsung pointed to differences between the lists of features relied on by Apple in the various parallel proceedings. I did not find analysing these differences to be a profitable exercise."
and
"44 The term "handheld computer" is the Art 36(2) indication of the product in the Apple registered design. Whatever the correct definition of the relevant product is in relation to the Apple registered design, I would be surprised if it included an Etch-A-Sketch."
"They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design."
I am glad of that! I hate Apples simple, single button design.. I like having a menu and back button on my samsung devices!
"The overall impression produced is different."
Yep thats true, With Apple I feel that they think I am a child, with Samsung I am treated like an adult, I am old enough to change batteries, I can handle more than one button, and I do like being able to add storage myself.
the question may be whether you can dismantle, replace battery and reassemble it using a normal techie's toolkit and a bit of Googling, or whether it's designed to be tamper-proof or unrepairable (which in my book ought to be illegal except when there's a strong health and safety reason).
I don't actually know.
While not a fanboi of Apple nor Android, I'm beginning to form an affection for the judge given his past record on the Andrew Crossley scam and now this.
I certainly appreciate his outspoken remarks in his decisions that seem to go well beyond the usual stale, forensic style of most official court decisions.
never been my idea of a technical resource.
This guy's advice seems as unreliable as David Pogue - the alleged wife beater who lectures at seminars against violence to women (he was arrested and charged) - of the New York Times whose present bed warmer is a woman employed in the California tech PR business.
Talk about bias, or maybe the judge is so dumb he can only handle simple things.Like powdering his funny wig,
Are Apple claiming their customers are complete halfwits?
Sure, there're a lot of lookee-likee products out there, and the average dumbass might go "ooh shiny" at anything from a first edition Kindle to the latest iPad. Thing is, though, the smarter ones out there - the sort of well to do client both companies ought to be trying to lure (esoecially Apple) ought to be highly annoyed at the suggestion that they couldn't tell a Samsung from an Apple. Certainly anybody who has actually used such a device ought to know it well enough to be able to tell them apart.
You win the award...
Its more like Apple saying we have designed a porsche, all the details the shape, etc, and samsung come along build almost exactly the same car, change the engine to a Mercedes engine and leave the badge off
Your average buyer comes along, looks like a porsche, has a decent engine, and is about 2/3 the cost.
Is this a problem? apple thinks so because they are taking their customers, me? I dont think it matters much.
Apple's reps are being awfully incautious with their language, aren't they? From what they seem to be saying in the article, they aren't saying "We believe Samsung copied the iPad," but flatly asserting "Samsung have copied the iPad." Are they allowed to do that before the judge has ruled in their favour? Assuming it goes Samsung's way after all the appeals and cruft, could they countersue for corporate slander or somesuch?
It's like bitching about paper backs looking similar.
Oh for fucks sake, "Our paper back has a picture of a cowboy and they copied it - they have a picture of a partly naked man...in a cowboy hat and jeans..." Piss and moan the Apple copy righters...
And and the front of ours has writing on it... and so does theirs...
And it opens to reveal pages and an index in the front - of fucking chapters for christs sake...
They copied us... "
The judge should have given the whining shits a public flogging in the town square for being whining arseholes.
Not that the people in Apple "never copied nuffin guv" either.
Even on popularity, it's worth noting that the absurd amount of hype _preceded_ the Ipad even being announced, let alone released, so was not directly due to anything that Apple did. Once they'd got so much vast free advertising, they clearly had advantage over all the previous tablets (e.g., media players common in 2009, or the first Android tablets actually released from Archos before Apple), not to mention the advantage of being the only ones available in shops, and most of the media producing "apps" for Apple, but for no one else.
If it was the case that consumers looked at a row of tablets on a shelf, and picked Apple, then that would be fine - but it's sad that popularity was never decided like that. There's yet to be a fair fight in tablets - once other tablets are covered by the media and available in shops, then we'll see how the market turns out. Long term, I hope that Android gets the coverage and support it deserves.
(Also, I'd say that tablets have been popularised for years, far more so than Ipads, we just called them smartphones or PDAs. It's only the 10" form factor that only came a lot more recently. The media have recently redefined "tablet" to only mean a large device, to make Apple look like they were first, but this is not a correct usage of the term.)
I like.
"180. In evidence Apple emphasised the way in which Samsung offered the tablets for sale on the internet, with more views of the front than of the back. I do not regard that evidence as having much to do with this case. The informed user will not simply look at images of these products on websites."
Who'd have thunk it? A device intended for media comsumption through its front display and Samsung showed more pictures of the bit you would be looking at rather than the bit that would spend the majority of its working life pointed away from the user (or even hidden by a protective cover.
The Apple design
Apple did not contend that either of its famous iPad products should be used as
concrete examples of the Apple design. Neither the original iPad nor the iPad 2 are
identical to the design. Whether either of them is or is not within the scope of
protection would be a matter of debate. To use either as an example of the Apple
design would be to beg the question of the true scope of Apple’s rights.
"However, the High Court dismissed Apple’s arguments by referring to approximately 50 examples of prior art, or designs that were previously created or patented, from before 2004. These include the Knight Ridder (1994), the Ozolin (2004), and HP’s TC1000 (2003). The court found numerous Apple design features to lack originality, and numerous identical design features to have been visible in a wide range of earlier tablet designs from before 2004.
"Equally important, the court also found distinct differences between theSamsung and Apple tablet designs, which the court claimed were apparent to the naked eye. For instance, the court cited noticeable differences in the front surface design and in the thinness of the side profile. The court found the most vivid differences in the rear surface design, a part of tablets that allows designers a high degree of freedom for creativity, as there are no display panels, buttons, or any technical functions. Samsung was recognised by the court for having leveraged such conditions of the rear surface to clearly differentiate its tablet products through 'visible detailing.'
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