I think that I should....
patent any shape with round and square edges, that will teach them! I shall laugh as I collect my patent millions! MUHAHAHAHA.......
The USA patent system is a disgrace.
ice.
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 …
Yes, there's always the hope that the appeal jury will all be members of the American Association for the Blind and can't spot the previously proven blatant copying.
After all accessibility is one of the few areas not covered by Samsung's manual of copying.
Paris, as even she could spot Samsung's funny business.
It's not about simple patents. If Samsung had one design element that resembled the iPhone then that would be a co-incidence.
But they had similar looking icons, a similar shaped phone and it even had the silver trim around the edge. That's more than just a coincidence. They were even inspired by the iPhone packaging and even Nokia ship their Lumia phones in a similar box now. I know as I have owned both.
It's not in dispute that Samsung "copied" Apple.
It certainly should be! Samsung's designs may be similar to Apple's, but I can't see anything to suggest that they necessarily copied anything from the iPhone.
If you take a feature-phone design of ten years ago and say "How would I change this design to make use of new components -- such as high-resolution colour LCDs with capacitative touch input" there are only so many things that you could do, and only so many of those would be immediately familiar to end users (and therefore commercially successful). Apple and Samsung have come up with feature sets that have a fair amount of overlap, but I don't see that as evidence of copying.
The innovations that both companies have made are trivially obvious incremental developments on older UIs made possible by advances in hardware. That both companies have come up with similar designs suggests nothing more than that they are both companies with extensive experience in the marketplace who are fairly competent at designing successful products using available technologies and without showing any particular spark of originality. They haven't copied each other, but have copied extensively from everything that went before (which probably accounts for their success).
Contrast this with Microsoft who, in WP7, have done something that is definitely different and original -- and which nobody seems to like because it's so unlike what they're used to.
Still, this sort of outcome is what you must expect when you allow complicated technical cases to be decided by a lay jury. I look forward to the appeal with interest.
Blue guy with glowing eyes because most people see to think this is rocket science, but it really isn't!
"It certainly should be! Samsung's designs may be similar to Apple's, but I can't see anything to suggest that they necessarily copied anything from the iPhone."
WOW!
Really?
WOW!
Good luck finding an optician who doesn't mind dealing with complete jackasses who don't do ANY research before opening their mouths.
http://tinyurl.com/9uxzcu6
True. The verdict seemed fair, although the amount awarded was pretty high. The best thing samsung can do is go away and invent and build up its own warchest of valid patents that apple users might desire to see on iphones. That or bribe sorry lobby to have patent laws changed. What will likely happen is 25 years of appeals.
I expected the jury to be more pro apple. At least they sensibly rejected patenting basic shapes. Looking at what they upheld, they aren't vital to samsungs devices, pinch to zoom may be more desireable than bounceback, and could be removed.
As much as all the shennanigans between these two strike me as childish and pathetic, Apple did have valid patents and had them protected and had invalid ones thrown out. The system is almost working.
All that remains is for Apple to party over finally winning a 'look and feel' case ;-)
Oh, so we have an anonymous judge here, what is your jurisdiction, sir ? Have you really read those big thick books on patent law ? I doubt it ... Next !
I love this ...
PS: I love it how any comment anti-Apple gets loads of upvotes, are you bitter, my friends?
The courts basically said, all Americans are too stupid to tell the difference between an iPhone and a Samsung phone, and that anyone that bought a Samsung phone must have been tricked.
So the bigger question is, ARE all Americans too stupid to tell the difference and they thought they were buying an iPhone, or did they buy the Samsung phones because they are better?
This is a sad day for America, they showed the world how screwed up their legal system is.
"Yeah, unfortunately, a mountain of prior art isn't enough to invalidate patents such as multi-touch or rectangular objects with rounded corners..."
Just to through it out there, but could it be that the echo chamber that is the internet is wrong about the 'mountain of prior art'? I mean, heaven forfend people that do a job for a living would actually know more than the opinions of commentards...
I mean, heaven forfend people that do a job for a living would actually know more than the opinions of commentards...
Samsung lawyers and paid "experts" claimed the prior are.
Apple lawyers and paid "experts" contested that evidence.
A jury of 9 random people, not experts, paid a pittance to attend court, were the people who made the decisions and completed a 700 item form with yes/no decisions in only two days.
I neither know nor care that much about if the verdict is right or wrong, but the people who reached the verdict probably know no more than the average tech aware commentard on these forums, probably less.
but the people who reached the verdict probably know no more than the average tech aware commentard on these forums, probably less.
Replying to myself, I stand corrected based on the Reuters story.
"Hogan worked as an engineer for decades before he retired, and holds a patent of his own. He said jurors were able to complete their deliberations in less than three days - much faster than legal experts had predicted - because a few had engineering and legal experience, which helped with the complex issues in play."
(Hogan being the jury foreman)
Did you see what patent that "engineer" has? Here - http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7352953.html
A patent for a tivo or any other system that records video from a tuner... No wonder he "instructed" the jury to ignore previous art because "it was bogging us down" and to vote for punitive sanctions against Samsung even if that was clearly stated not to be done in the jury's instructions (which they didn't read, apparently).
Did you bother to read that Reuters article? It wasn't a case of the Forman giving the others instructions, it was a joint decision based on the evidence provided, testimony and examination of the devices in the jury room. They honestly thought as a griup that the prior art claims were't valid so threw them out.
It doesn't set any precidents for the forman's own patent so there is no benefit to him.
Steve, either you limited your information to apple's PR and that single Reuters article, or your comprehension skills really are low. Take a look at Groklaw's take on the subject; and before accusing PJ of being anti-apple look up what she wrote on Apple vs Psystar - here. You'll see that from what the jurors have been saying, they basically deferred to the foreman, a person who is very interested in defending idiotic patents with lots of prior art, being a holder of one himself.
The jurors also seem to have decided not to bother with previous art, as it was bogging them down, have ignored the judge instructions and awarded punitive damages, and decided on the first day that Samsung was guilty, effectively ignoring all evidence presented afterwards. In a fair legal system, this should be enough to grant a mistrial; lets see what happens in the US.
@jbernardo, oh come on, Groklaw has been about as rabidly pro Samsung in this case as it is possible to get. There is no way you can regard them as a neutral source.
Once again, the Forman gains no advantage by finding for Apple. It doesn't make any challenge to his own patent more or less likely to succeed, and he was only one of nine that had to agree that the patent was both valid and infringed. He suggested an approach for their method of deciding this, but the other members had to agree to that and come to the same decision on the result.
I'll agree that there are signs that the jury was getting sick of the whole proceeding and rushed some of the form filling, but the basic finding seems about right to me. The design patents weren't found as broad as Apple's lawyers wanted, the damages were far less than Apple were hoping for but still sizable, non of Samsung's patents were invalidated and the principles of FRAND were left intact. Not a great day for Samsung but there was plenty of evidence of deliberate copying for them to fight against. If they hadn't skinned Android then most of the software claims wouldn't exist, and Google were warning them about infringement with the Galaxy Pad.
Many of these commentards are THOSE PEOPLE that "do a job for a living". They are the relevant experts. This is the site that "bites the hand that feeds IT". You can't swing a dead cat around here without hitting someone that can probably replicate a lot of these nonsense patents with a couple lines of Perl.
It's the "legal experts" that have run off the rails and are ignoring the relevant technical details.
Patent examiners leave it up to the courts. Courts assume that the patent examiners "know what they're doing" and the whole mess blows up in everyones faces.
It most certainly is. Apple no doubt believe that they have been handed personal ownership of mobile tech space gift-wrapped. The consequences of this decision may however not end up being quite what Cupertino are expecting. Tablet space is going to get rather more complicated in the Autumn - who are they going to start suing then? Their rival then will be the "auld enemy", do Apple think perhaps that the same legal tactics will work against Redmond? This "victory" may turn out to be something very different from what they imagine. They have spent the last two - three years or so focused on abusing the judicial system to avoid competition instead of focusing on development and innovation in order to keep ahead of their rivals by that means. They may very well discover that they pay a considerably higher price for that than they had anticipated.
The could be the beginning of the end for Android. This judge has already made the comment that Apple will probably prevail before the trial started. I think it is highly probable that Samsung tablets and mob's will be banned from the US. That would encourage Apple to go after every mobile phone and tablet manufacturer in an attempt to limit choice for Americans. This could also be the death of freedom of choice for what tablet or phone you can get in the future...... an Apple product or nothing. If this ruling is upheld, Jobs won.
If Judge made comments that showed and Opinion before the case was presented it sounds like Samsung has a very strong case for appeal and expectation to do much better next time.
Despite comments above, even though the Samsung team acted like amateurs and presented it poorly (or failed to in some cases) the truth is that Apple's patents were all shown pretty clearly to be based on or copying ideas and form factors from other previously existing technology.
Christ square app buttons... not only did the case coverage show that Samsung gave examples, (HP mobile devices for example) but my old Palm, and even Windows App Icons, already had this format for the last 20 years. Look at the Register of comment icons when comment here... looks too much like apple iph*Ck phone to Apple I am sure, but to anyone else with a brain its standard computing.... Hell, books, and other media have used similar pictures for thousands of years as well
Sham of a trail... stupid decision, and yes I dislike Apple even more now than before..... At least previously their despicable behavior was reserved for their willing customers who signed up and paid for the dishonor... now they are like a spoiled kid trying to ruin it for everyone else when they loose. F@#$ apple and the horse they rode in on....this whole case was a joke coming from a company that stole and copied so much to get their riches, and the own fearless leader even made the now famous comment about good companies "stealing" ideas
I think this ruling is nuts (my view being, essentially, "a pox upon both your houses"), but I do think Apple were genuinely innovative. Just cast your mind back to how jaw-droppingly clunky phones were back before the iphone, and as for the tablet market...
That's not to say that there weren't good phones and devices back then, but the i<...> family really were game changers. the genius of Apple has been delivering fundamentally sound product wrapped in such incredible glitz that you don't notice the handcuffs being slipped over your wrists.
Paris, for the furry handcuffs.
Of course phones were crap compared today in 2006. But this was also true in 2007 and 2008. And the original iphone was crap too. It lacked loads of basic features that even other phones of the time has. Technology getting better with time is called progress. You're an idiot to say that the last 20 years of progress was good to the release of one single model in 2007.
Poppycock I say!! I had a HP ipaq little mobile PC that did much more than iphone years before it came out. My Palm Centro had similar look and feel BEFORE the iphone came out... KyoCera had a great smartphone too. and both had cut and paste when the crippled copy-cat iphone came out it couldn't even do that. Centro played videos, had office apps for word/excel etc and could surf the net.... was only missing GPS and WIFI and other models of Palm had both of those (just too pricy for me at the time).
Apple got to market with a larger screen, and it had NOTHING to do with their innovation..
Shrewd business men maybe... the flat screen companies that actually made the screens had finally got down the process for making a small good screen like that for a reasonable price... and Apple went and bought up all their forseeable future inventory... good (maybe illegal) business move, but not patentable and certainly not creative...
You really need to re-examine what was out there before making such statements... just because YOUR iphone was the first phone you saw with those features doesn't make it true for the world.
Yes, compaq had the iPaq long before the iPhone, but it ran Windows CE like many early smart phones which was basically desktop Windows cut to fit with a single point touch sensor. Apple had the Newton before that. Neither are relevant to this case, which is about multi-touch gestures and animation metaphors which are well beyond that kind of tech.
"They have spent the last two - three years or so focused on abusing the judicial system to avoid competition instead of focusing on development and innovation in order to keep ahead of their rivals by that means."
Are you under the impression that Apple can't fund their product engineers and their lawyers simultaneously? Even though this is a company worth half a trillion dollars? The idea that Apple can *either* make new products *or* litigate, but not both, is maybe just a little bit foolish, don't you think? You *do* know that Apple's engineers and their lawyers are two completely separate groups of people, right? Do you think that maybe the iPhone 5 and the iPad 3 (or whatever is in the pipelines - I don't use their stuff so I neither know nor care) is going to be delayed because of the resources that Apple has devoted to litigation?
You might perhaps want to rethink things.
Also, the reason(s) that you denominate Apple's campaign of litigation as an "abuse" is not clear. I have not seen any judges complaining too much, and I would think that their opinions are authoritative. And verdicts like this one against Samsung with its billion dollar award would seem to indicate that, far from being an "abuse" the Apple lawsuits are both meritorious and a legitimate defense of their business and commercial interests.
So you might perhaps want to rethink your opinion on that too.
Are you under the impression that Apple can't fund their product engineers and their lawyers simultaneously?
They apparently cannot, they undercut their funds on Java maintenance letting unpatched code with known exploits to linger on Mac OSX machines for many months and many times in a row. Flashback was just their luck since the consequences could have been much harsher. Apple seem to never undercut on the idiocy though.
1.
The fact that Apple continue to fund the departments in their company that you refer to does not change the fact the their corporate focus (that intangible is more important than many are willing to credit) has been substantially distracted. It is no coincidence that the work that led to the first iPhones (crucially the two "3" iterations) and later the first iPad occurred before Mr Jobs/Apple got distracted by his hatred of the Android os. I was, as I am sure you noticed referring to what we may see from here on in.
2.
With regard to my use of the word "abuse" I would think that what I was referring to was rather obvious. When a company use the law in order to attempt, in practice, to create a de facto monopoly then it can only be regarded as abuse of the law's intention if not its current letter. If this decision is upheld on appeal Apple will start to go after the other Android OEMs and judging by the outrageous demands (revealed in court filings) that they subjected Samsung to as the price for "licensing" the net effect will be to reinforce their attempts to gain the aforementioned monopoly control. That the parlous state of US IP law permits this kind of tactic does not make it any less abusive.
1) Concerning your point 1: You have no facts to cite but instead talk about being "substantially distracted" and "corporate focus" and seem to think that this verbiage means something. Please enumerate the actual observable-in-the-real-world effects that this all has. Because if it has no observable effects in the real world, then there's no reason to think that it really exists. (You need to show how things would be today if it were not for Apple's lawsuits, compared to how things are. Good luck with that.)
You have also changed *your* focus from Apple not having enough money to fund java patches, to insights into Apple's corporate state of mind. Evidently you think that if were not for Apple's lawsuits, there would be more Apple innovation and that they would have gone on to something completely different. But Apple is notorious for its paranoiac secrecy. How do you know what they are working on now? And why do you think that these lawsuits have changed Apple's development plans in any way?
2) Re: "Abuse". Apple is entitled to seek whatever legal remedies which the law allows. Apple is also allowed to protect the monopoly granted by the law as embodied in the patents (and copyrights) it owns. Apple is also entitled to assert its rights against any number of infringing or trespassing entities. I want to be sure that you understand that: Apple was legally granted and is legally entitled to enforce a monopoly on the use of its patents. If Samsung et al want to compete against Apple, they can not be stopped from doing so - but they can be stopped from using Apple's patents without permission.
If Apple's competitors can not compete with Apple, then you can agitate for an anti-trust investigation and sanctions when Apple as a smart-phone vendor occupies an position of overwhelming dominance in the market - and is abusing that dominance - but not when Apple is enforcing its right to monopolize its own patents. And certainly not when Apple is facing real competition in its markets.
And again, the most important point here is that the courts, the judges, and the law are capable of deciding what is "abuse of process". And they haven't seen fit to do so.
Nor am I familiar with any doctrine by which Apple's rights are limited or its ability to seek remedies are limited by some vague appeal to "justice" - which always turns out to be a plea to not enforce the law as enacted.
It is not as though the law says, You have 10 patents being infringed but you are only allowed to protect 6 of them, and there 10 entities infringing but you are only allowed to bring suit against 6 of them. That's just not how it works. If the law is felt to be operating in a way not commensurate with the public weal, the only remedy for that is to change the law via legislative process. And since Apple's lawsuits were deemed meritorious and their assertions upheld by a jury, the only real "abuse" here is the way in which *you* are abusing the word "abuse".
Don't waste your time, there's none as blind as those who won't see. Apple must be wrong (they didn't help their cause by trying to claim they owned rectangles) because they are doing well. Samsung used and refused to pay for some valid and non essential, non standards based patents. They didn't develop anything Apple wanted in trade. They got screwed in court. This is the way of the world.
The reason Apple won't go after MS is because MS has patents (from many many years of smartphone os and desktop os development) Apple needs and therefore they have cross licensing agreements. These are the same patents Android handset makers pay MS for already. MS can bring something to the table so Apple plays ball with them. That and Apple got burnt before sueing MS.
Theres a bunch of bitter android fans out there, hitting the downvote button makes them feel all powerful, but frankly they can't change shit. FWIW I actually have a samsung phone lol
............MS for already. MS can bring something to the table so Apple plays ball with them."
That is precisely why, IMHO, Cupertino are taking the risk of proving to have been Redmond's useful idiots come the Autumn when MS enter table space for the first in any serious sense. Until Apple started its litigation war against Android Redmond was facing a war on two fronts (although not a land war in South East Asia :-P) against two major already existing competitors in that particular market place. What Apple has potentially done is at the very least partially lame Android in advance of these events and ensure that to a greater extent than would otherwise have been the case they'll be going head to head alone with Redmond and its senior OEMs such as Samsung (!), Lenovo, Asus etc. Thanks to Apple it is entirely possible that Redmond will have considerably less effective competition from Android in tablet space in the coming year or so and will be able to focus to a greater extent than they otherwise would have been on going up against the iPad and iOS. I do not claim, of course, that this is any certain prediction of the likely fallout from Cupertino's lawyering but the "Law of Unintended Consequences" being what it is, their cunning strategy may turn out to have more than just a touch of the Baldrick about it.
To be fair. Microsoft aren't obviously copying Apple. They've been inspired by the iPhone when you look at WP7 but nothing in the OS resembles iOS. The phones OEMs make look nothing like iPhones either.
Microsoft have always looked at the competition, fixed flaws and released their take on it. That's good since it drives things forward and gets the competition to respond. What Samsung did doesn't drive competition at all since their own product hasn't improved on the iPhone visual design, it looked inferior.
In short: "Apple is entitled to abuse the system".
This has nothing to do with Android. Some of us have been ranting about the broken patent system for a long time. This is just the latest episode. Calling us "competing fanboys" won't alter the fact that we're arguing based on principle and you're just a corporate shill.
"Apple was legally granted and is legally entitled to enforce a monopoly on the use of its patents."
I don't agree. Apple have grabbed "entitlements" that were illegally granted to it by a patent office that is out of control and handing out patents that overreach the law.
The current corrupt system means that it's almost impossible to do anything about this as Apple can basically buy anyone they want in the government to back it to the hilt.
The current case involved not a single piece of illegal copying and not a single activity that Apple themselves have used when faced with innovation by other companies.
The action of Apple staff in pushing this farce through the courts is one they should be deeply ashamed of but, having seen the price they sell their shitty unreliable products at I'm not under any illusion that Apple have any shame left.
Apple have long set themselves full-face against consumers and are fighting tooth and nail to destroy open systems that allow real choice in the marketplace. They have run to the government to grant them a monopoly and protect them from competition not through any real sense of injustice (since Apple staff know that Apple is founded on copying others) but through pure unmitigated greed.
Samsung are not much better (and are making a tidy sum off ignoring the GPL in dozens of their products) but that doesn't make Apple right, it just means they're both at the same low level.
"'Apple was legally granted and is legally entitled to enforce a monopoly on the use of its patents.' I don't agree. Apple have grabbed 'entitlements' that were illegally (sic) granted "
The courts are the ultimate arbiter in this matter. Your opinion will be correct when and only when the patents in question are declared invalid. As of this moment, the patents in question have been deemed by a court of law to be both valid and infringed, which has in turn underscored the correctness of the decision of the patent office to grant those patents in the first place. Blame Samsung for their original decision to risk infringing those patents.
True but Apple isn't to blame (as much as I dislike them). Samsung etc handed it to them. If samsung et al put time, money and effort into developing features people wanted then they would be in a position to trade patent use with Apple. As it is they have little Apple needs so Apple can ask for what it wants. Samsung got greedy, it saw Android as a free meal, a way to avoid r&d and undercut apple. What it (and the other main android phone makers) needed to do was invest more in developing. Yes apple didn't help themselves with stupid assertations about owning rectangles and square icons, but they also had valid patents.
If you come to the table with very little and the other guy has a lot you want, expect it to hurt.
I'm willing to bet my full cooked English breakfast that Apple have a different team working on litigation than the one that works on spotting new technology and ideas coming into vogue so they can be 'invented' as magical new things for their followers to behold.
I can't be sure which team is the larger and best funded, however.
And it would have been the same for a different group of sheep had Samsung won.
Such fanaticism is all rather laughable, as seen by someone who'll buy either product depending on which product fits me best (rather than following some base tribalism).
I have an iPhone, my daughter has a Nokia Lumia (which I actually prefer) and I have a Samsung TV.
You might as well. What a joke of a country the United States has become. Just imagine Franklin getting sued by some guy who patented straight lines, insisting that electricity can't use wires unless he's paid.
The most hilarious part is that the few patents in the case which actually had some sort of engineering value, Samsung's, were tossed for no apparent rhyme or reason. I guess Apple's marketing team can chalk up a big win for having brainwashed the jury ahead of time.
Your definition of "all" is very odd. Anyone who wasn't a completely blind fandroid could see Samsung was copying Apple in every way they could.
Try hanging around with people who have better things to do with their lives than installing hacked firmwares on their phones.
iPhone owner here, and Android Tablet owner, also considering buying an iPad and I really fancy a Nexus 7 as well, so neither a Fandroid or iFan but instead a tech lover and personally I think you need to be completely blind and/or mental to confuse Samsung and Apple products, either on the shelf or when ordering one. It's a sad day not just for Samsung but for technology.
@CmdrX3
The problem with your opinion - and others like you - is precisely that you only consider the "tech lover" perspective of it.
Most people are not tech lovers, they are tech users. They don't know or care much about the differences between Android and iOS or who makes what tablet, beyond the ads they see.
They expect that if one thing looks similar to the other then they probably have equal functionality. By mimicking Apple's products, even down to the dock connector as in the case of tablets, Samsung creates confusion for these buyers. All it takes then is a crafty salesman or confusing display to do the rest.
One of the reports from Best Buy showed many of the returns for Samsung's tablet were from people who had thought they bought an iPad.
"One of the reports from Best Buy showed many of the returns for Samsung's tablet were from people who had thought they bought an iPad."
We cannot build our legal system or society based around the most stupid members of it. At some point, blame for something has to lie with a person's stupidity rather than with a company for not being able to do their thinking for them.
@Nine Circles
I understood the interpretation of the Best Buy reports was that people bought a Samsung Tablet thinking it was "just like an Ipad", a bit like the "Just like a Golf" adverts that ran some time back in the UK. In which case should I take my Renault back to the dealer and demand a refund because it's not a Golf?
"One of the reports from Best Buy showed many of the returns for Samsung's tablet were from people who had thought they bought an iPad"
Obviously a pretty stupid thing to have done, so then they rectify their mistake making Apple officially the preferred choice of idiots.
In some aspect I would tend to agree with you, but my point is I don't agree that Samsung ARE mimicking Apple's products, I don't think they look anything like each other. I have the Asus Transformer and the dock on it looks "quite similar" to my iPhone dock, does that mean Asus slavishly copied the dock connector. Crafty salesmen, confusing displays... c'mon. If a salesman is a bit dishonest he will be that regardless, and any store I've been in that stocks Apple products have them all in their own Apple section. If someone is planning to spend £500 on a product, the very least they should do is ensure they know what product they are picking up. According to Samsung's survey of Best Buy returns, only 9% were attributed to market confusion but most were for malfunctions. I have a feeling though that market confusion was spread over all the tablets with people buying those instead of iPads as well and not just the Tab.
Indeed, and i suspect there are people who buy Macs, then take them back when they can't run Windows apps. This effect will always happen with naturally similar products, but where one platform is more commonly used, it doesn't mean the others are copying. It just means some ppl are stupid
It would take a particularly stupid buyer to not see the difference between the words "Apple" and "Samsung".
Every flat panel TV on the market looks the same too, and yet somehow consumers manage to spot the difference between Panasonic and LG, etc., so unless you're claiming smartphone and tablet buyers are more stupid than TV buyers, I'm not sure you really have much of a case.
Meanwhile, in the UK, Judge Colin Birss not only ruled that Samsung didn't copy Apple, but even went so far as to rule that Apple must advertise that fact, by "[placing] a notice on its own UK website for six months and advertise in UK online and print media explaining that Samsung did not infringe on its patents".
Clearly there's a huge disparity between the US and the UK over what's considered an "invention", such as simple and pre-existant geometric shapes, for example.
Maybe it's time for the rest of the world to just stop operating in competition-hostile countries like the US, and let the patent extortionists litigate themselves into oblivion.
The stupidity is strong with this one. The jury said that 3 of the 20 odd devices being considered infringed Apple's design patent. The job of Apple's lawyers is to try and get the broadest interpretation possible of their patents. Samsung's lawyers were out to get them found invalid or have the narrowest interpretation. Now that they have a court ruling under their belt Apple have a much better idea of what is or is not going to be ruled in their favour. At no time have they ever shown signs of going after devices other than phones or pads with them and you've got to be insane if you think the ruling will encourage them to do so.
Gonna be a sad dayfor apple, too, because whereas i wanted to be open minded and consider buying a 17 inch mac pro in maybe a year, apple ass can kiss that revenue goodbye. Take that, apple, and count it as "your" money "lost".
I suspect the jury was tainted or biased at the very least.
There WILL be blowback...
>Gonna be a sad dayfor apple, too, because whereas i wanted to be open minded and consider buying a 17 inch >mac pro in maybe a year, apple ass can kiss that revenue goodbye.
You're now not going to buy a machine they've never made?
Unless you mean you are now not going to buy a 17" MacBook Pro. Which they also don't make any more.
Is there also a Samsung machine you wouldn't buy if they'd won? Or can we take it that you're not as open minded as you claim to be?
BTW, if you think Apple cares enough to withdraw it's claims and the $1Bn in exchange for your custom and purchase of a whole machine (and who knows even a second one in a few years!), then I have some bad news for you.
@CmdrX3:
This lawsuit began over two years ago and was in regard to Samsung's products at that time. Android was still essentially a blatant iOS clone at the time, which didn't help. Its GUI only really started down its own (visually less derivative) path with the v3.x and v4.x releases, but most Android users are still on that 2.x series even today, so Apple's point still stands.
For those who insist that software != hardware, bear in mind that Apple's design philosophy does NOT separate the two: the software GUI is considered an integral part of the entire product design. Apple are a hardware company, not a software company. Their software is just another component, like a GPU or a display panel. THAT is where Samsung's lawyers kept going wrong: assuming that laypeople could tell where the hardware ends and the software begins. That's a nerd distinction. I've had to deal with customers who genuinely believed their PC was running an operating system called "Windows Office".
As far as most non-IT people are concerned, the device's design includes both its hardware and its software. If your device is a rectangular slab of glass with a button on edge, and rows of square-ish icons on its screen, they're really going to struggle to spot the difference.
Just ask Samsung's own lawyers, if you don't believe me.
Stop artificially separating hardware and software components in a device. It really helps when trying to argue design issues. Samsung copied Apple. They've admitted it repeatedly: there's even a bloody document that says it was policy at the time to copy every feature from Apple's devices.
And Steve Jobs never, ever, made any secret of the fact that Apple had patented their research and development to the hilt. He even said as much in the presentation for the original iPad's launch.
Note, too, that Apple are NOT suing Motorola over their keyboard-dock-and-tablet Transformer devices. Nor are they going after a number of other, financially easier, targets. Because most of Samsung's fellow Android licensees are NOT just slavishly copying the iPad and iPhone. They're actually creating some original products.
*
On a completely separate note: Apple haven't been responsible for Java on OS X since the release of OS X "Lion" (v10.7, which was released in summer last year.) Neither OS X 10.7, nor the just-released 10.8 ("Mountain Lion") include a Java VM any more. The responsibility for patching and maintaining Java is Oracle's.
"Anyone who wasn't a completely blind fandroid could see Samsung was copying Apple in every way they could."
Just like Apple have copied their competitors and just like every large company from Olympus to Ford to Tampax have bought, disassembled and learnt from the products of their competitors for centuries.
The question, the important question, here is why is it suddenly bad when someone does it to Apple?
The answer is that it isn't. What's bad is the abuse of patents to protect "inventions" that companies did not in fact invent.
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"Nah, in Round 2 Samsung won't have one hand tied behind their back. We've already seen Apple's A game."
My comment wasn't facetious but based on practical reality. Samsung can appeal, but an appeal is not like a retrial. There is no more jury trials on this case. For it to get anywhere Samsung have to prove to judges their judge colleague did a bad job that materially affected the outcome.
a) Judges generally don't like criticising or overruling their judge colleagues - at least not in public
b) They don't like overruling jury verdicts unless there was some serious provable omission in the process or Samsung are able to bring something new to the table e.g. new evidence Apple should have presented or proves Apple were lying on x, y or z points.
Both of these are unlikely, so the reality is Apple do have them in a headlock and Samsung have to hope the ref will judge the wining move illegal and let them back up to restart the fight.
It is, in fact, very common for the US patent appeals court (the CAFC) to over-rule first instance findings. In a case of this complexity there are likely to be multiple grounds of appeal on different aspects of the original trial, each of which could be reversed or returned to the court of first instance to be looked at again in light of directions from the CAFC. Beyond the CAFC there is the Supreme Court, but there is no automatic right of appeal to the Supremes.
I would say the Judge having a pre-formed opinion and making comments to that effect are pretty good grounds for appeal.... the Jury foreman having personal interest in seeing outrageous patents being upheld as he holds one himself if a pretty serious conflict of interest... again good grounds for appeal. Further in the appeal process Samsung has a second chance to more clearly display the vast mountain of prior art that should invalidate these so-called patents.... further the Jury nor judge did not ever seem to weigh these patents on their actual inventiveness (i.e. non obvious) burden as they don't even need the tons of prior art to show that they way it was done (round corners, square apps on a grid, pinch to zoom etc) were all the OBVIOUS way that any engineer approaching the problem would have handled it.
No headlock here, many other cases looked worse and were Completely and utterly reversed.... remember with evil microsoft finaly lost in court and was ordered split into three distinct and separate companies.... that happened... oh wait no it didn't, because it was completely reversed on appeal.
And you can bet that Apple is really in a long term no-win situation here.... people are already starting to get up in arms in the US over paten abuse and failures... even if apple wins on appeal, they are only more likely to push for massive lobbying by both companies and citizens for broad sweeping patent reform that will invalidate such decisions anyways.... certainly a loss of battle for Samsung, but wars can be very long and tides can certainly turn.
I will NEVER buy anything to do with Apple. You CAN'T patent a tablet because it is the shape of a tablet. Apple did not invent sleek and curvy, it is TRIVIAL. No-one is confused between the devices because one has a bloody big Apple on the back, and the other is packaged in a box marked Samsung.
Screw that. If I were SOUTH KOREA I'd make it harder for Apple to buy a single resistor than it would be for Kim Jong Il to rise back up from his grave and wander into downtown Seoul, dressed only in his finest dodo-hide one-piece on the back of an albino unicorn.
But, the chaebol will not sit still for this shit. They will micro nudge that billion back out of apple by cagng up the possible alternative suppliers and by inching up the price or cost of components, and maybe even aggressively flood non usa markers with enough Samsung products to slow apple down.
I doubt that Samsung sell ANYTHING to Apple which cannot be sourced elsewhere. As I have commented previously, expect a gradual shift away from Samsung components as current deals expire.
However, if Samsung comes to the table with the right components at the right price, I doubt Apple will have any issues awarding Samsung the deal. These guys are in business, and business is business.
I suspect Samsung's status as a trusted partner with Apple is a bit corroded at the moment.
Meanwhile, I enjoy my iPad3 and think the Samsung D8000 is just the bees knees with a cool design to boot!
The separate departments of Samsung are basically that, sort of like sister companies. The processor/screen divisions will not sacrifice their profits in some (essentially spiteful) defence of the mobile division.
At least, I doubt they would, although that would be a cool gesture. United and all that.
You want Samsung to try for a breach of contract suit next? They make quiet a lot of money supplying parts to Apple, and they aren't the sole suppliers of those parts. They'd be cutting off their own nose to spite their face if they broke their supply contracts, and Apple wouldn't be inconvenienced much as most of the parts come from multiple suppliers anyway.
This was one of my first thoughts. While the components and mobile divisions of Samsung are very separate, this matter has become serious enough for the corporate head to get the various divisions to work together. It's the mobile division that's the breadwinner.
"go, ggroupies go, let's hear your whining :)"
You're a short-sited idiot if you think this isn't bad for all of us who want a healthy, competitive market with a variety of products to choose from. Even in Europe where this ruling doesn't take effect, it means that Samsung may not (probably will not) make the products that they otherwise would for any of us.
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"Time to boycott American products
No other country would get away with such blatant protectionism. In fact, I would rather hope all Android manufacturers would leave the USA and leave them to be exploited further by this pathetic hyped fashion company, as that is what they deserve."
Evidently you are not familiar with the court judgment won by Samsung against Apple earlier this week on the basis of standard-essential patents in... South Korea.
You can read about it here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/24/apple_samsung_seoul_ruling/ .
Ah, but that's not protectionism, because that came down against Apple. And we're not biased at all.
This is absolutely not a popularity contest, we have all read all of the evidence in both cases, we completely understand all the laws involved and have used our impartial thinking processes to reach the conclusion that Apple are evil and therefore always wrong Samsung were entirely correct in their position and the outcome is in no way biased because they are the local company.
As a side note, could anyone explain to me why I'm posting my unbiased legal opinions on a tech news site instead of making a fortune in the legal arena so that I can live in a solid gold house and drive a solid gold Rolls Royce?
Did you even read that article?
"Both Apple and Samsung got teeny fines and had some of their products banned in South Korea, after a court in Seoul found they infringed on each other's patents."
Both got a slap on the wrist.... and with teeny fines each. No where near what the american courts awarded apple.
I expect in the near future, you will see FRAND go by the wayside when someone does license the technology, they will make sure the license is only for the licensee and not for anyone downstream. Apple has no problem using FRAND to use GSM and 3G patents but they refuse to license anything they have. What happens when you ahve companies that hold patents for say 5G that are essential to the standard and they are not part of FRAND? When Apple says no to licensing their patents, they get told no to licensing the 5G patents.
Oh stop with whining and lying. Apple licenses quite a bit of their stuff under FRAND. You should check the ETSI database instead of posting bullshit as an AC.
FRAND patents will continue because that's the only way they can get into standards.
They'll continue to be licensed to companies implementing them into chips, as Samsung's where in this case.
This isn't as easy as you think. When ITU starts working on a 5G standard (maybe they already are?) they get a bunch of companies together who want to participate. This will cover everybody who is anybody in the mobile world, from the chipmakers like Qualcomm to phone makers to carriers. In order to participate, they have to agree to license any patents they have that get used in the standard under FRAND terms.
They can't hold back a few patents and think they'll use them to screw people later, they can't participate in the standards and try to steer them in the direction of their patents and then pull out before signing them over (Rambus tried this, look what happened to them)
So the only way you can hold a patent that is covered by 5G that you don't have to license on FRAND terms is sheer luck. Without any ability to see what direction 5G is going or being able to steer it in the direction of patents you hold, you have to just hope that you have a patent that will be covered by it, and that none of the dozens of corporations with vastly greater expertise in the mobile world are able to invalidate your patent with their own prior art.
Not saying it can't happen, but the ones who hold 99%+ of the relevant patents will already be at the table because they want to be. They aren't trying to get rich on the patent revenue, they are trying to get rich by knowing what direction the standard is going ahead of time and perhaps being able to steer it in the direction of something they already have expertise in (i.e., if they hold patents that are relevant, they already know what they're doing that area)
You're clearly ignorant of how patent pools work. A companies patented solution would't be allowed to be a part of the standard unless they commit it to the pool and FRAND terms. There are patents that become essential because the solution they describe is chosen to be a mandatory part off the standard and much more rarely there are patents that are essential because there is no other way of doing the thing in question. Qualcomm held up the 3G standard until they got much improved license terms because they held truly essential patents of this latter type. They were entitled to do so. Samsung never had any such patents. Their patents only became "essential" by virtue of the fact they were selected as the way to do an aspect of the 3G solution. They were only selected on the basis they would be licensed on a FRAND basis. They were only valuable because on this basis they were made the standard mandated the way of doing things (even though an alternative could have been adopted). To then try to wield them as weapons against Apple and to try to use them to hold up Apple kit was unconscionable and Samsung thoroughly deserve to have lost this case.
Yes that's a clear misunderstanding of how FRAND works.
Samsung isn't even a significant player in FRAND standards, they usually license the radio technology just like Apple does.
For example the Galaxy S3 uses the Intel PMB9811X baseband, and it's Intel who holds the patent licenses used in that.
This decision will have no impact on FRAND.
"Not what I'm saying... I'm saying that software patents stifle innovation... would you like to live in a world where BT held the patents to hyperlinks?"
How about living in a world where BT tries to assert patent rights over hyperlinks.... and FAILS. You'd think that that's pretty good, right?
Oh, wait, that's the world we live in....
"Oh, wait, that's the world we live in....
Not if it had been AT&T instead of BT."
Or if it had been Samsung or LG and the litigation took place in South Korea.
Sorry but the real-world examples of Samsung winning with standards-essential patents earlier this week in South Korea and BT losing their hyperlinks claims easily trump your fictitious example.
It isn't as though this is the first case that software patents have been found to be vaild. While I agree with you that software patents (or even worse, business method patents) are stupid and shouldn't be enforceable, there has to be some way to prevent what Samsung did by creating a 156 page document detailing all the ways iPhone was superior to Samsung at the time and should be copied. In every case they were copying Apple. Why not copy RIM, or Palm, or Microsoft or other Android vendors? It looks like they didn't even consider this, they believed Apple was the best and wanted to take a shortcut to matching them via wholesale copying.
Maybe we need a new class of patent that covers more the entirety of a product's functionality rather than trying to claim patents on each individual thing. Because the problem really isn't copying a single feature, if the only thing that Samsung had copied from iPhone was bounceback scrolling, I'd say it is stupid to enforce that. Even if Apple had been the first to ever do it I'd say it doesn't deserve a patent. I think Samsung's 156 page document is the real smoking gun, and shows the real problem. There needs to be something to prevent what Samsung did.
If Samsung wasn't allowed to do a wholesale copy of 156 pages of iPhone features, and had been forced to come up with their own solutions (which sometimes might be the same as what iPhone did, and sometimes might be different) then they wouldn't have got to where they were as quickly. But they'd have a product that was uniquely theirs in the same way iPhone is uniquely Apple's. And they probably would have come up with some superior solutions to the things they copied.
Take, for instance, bounce back scrolling. That's just one way to solve the problem of how to let the user know he's reached the end of a scrollable area. It could make a sound, it could light up the edge, it could produce some sort of animation, it could show the scrollable area crumpling and then springing back. I actually think the latter would be cooler than the bounceback, but Samsung never even considered alternatives, they just went for the easy route to copy Apple.
If they hadn't copied Apple and tried to come up with their own solutions to the 156 pages of problems they identified, they might have thought of the crumpling, and had something cooler than what Apple has, rather than just having the same thing Apple has. They would have come up with some better solutions in some places, worse solutions in others, but it would be an original work. Any work where there's a 156 page document showing your product's deficiencies that recommends copying a single competitor shows precious little effort was directed at coming up with better solutions.
More than that - EVERY smartphone manufacturer should simultaneously launch legal attacks against Apple using whatever patents they have in their arsenal (and refuse to license non FRAND patents to them). If they all do it at the same time, Apple might just find themselves in trouble.
Seriously, lots of future mobiles just got rather more expensive, while lawyers are busy placing calls to Ferrari dealerships. And I would say this will unleash a series of lawsuits along the line "we woz copied, m'lord", as there are bound to be untriggered patents, lying in wait for the next time.
Pay up, hoi polloi!
Let's hate hate apple and support one another by up-voting the most hateful comment about apple and fanboys. This is what ElReg's commentators are known to do anyway.
They are experts in everything, I mean, they are know it all. Visionaries, judges, lawyers, politicians, elitists and never wrong.
Get some girlfriends and be quiet for once.
"Let's hate hate apple and support one another by up-voting the most hateful comment about apple and fanboys. This is what ElReg's commentators are known to do anyway.
They are experts in everything, I mean, they are know it all. Visionaries, judges, lawyers, politicians, elitists and never wrong.
Get some girlfriends and be quiet for once."
.......Says the ElReg commentator
Samsung is already in damage control mode.
http://www.bgr.com/2012/08/24/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-design-video/
Also, look at who all were trying to stop/support Apple from behind the curtains!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-24/apple-counts-on-iphone-being-too-cool-for-u-s-import-ban.html
I'll take personal joy in watching people getting too upset about this.
Perhaps these people should get nokias for true innovation outside of apple rather stinking with cheap iPhone knock-offs that required hacks and custom Roms just to make them useful.
Presumably you are NOT an engineer who has ever had his work stolen by thieves. I *AM*, and that theft was accomplished by means of the broken US patent system.
While I don't know enough to judge on the merits of Samsung's case, I suspect that you're right -- Apple *has* got away with stagecoach robbery.
I just purchased a Samsung Galaxy SIII.
Not specifically for the brand, it just happened to be the one that best fit my requirements.
And from some time back, I will not buy any Apple products, nor actually *use* any Apple products.
Ever again.
Ever.
This lawsuit just confirms I made the right descision.
Problem is it'll get hard to avoid money being kicked back up to apple now as I'm assuming android device manufacturers accused of infringing apple patents will rather take the tens of dollar per unit licensing terms from apple that than risk being raped of legal fees,bad press, import bans and a settlement fee of over a billion dollars in a US court.
I'm going to make every effort now to avoid apple products though, not that they'll notice.
I don't get people who say:
"Samsung didn't copy Apple, unless you say that they copied a rectangle"
or
"Anyone who sides with Apple is a fanboi and therefore their opinion is invalid"
I am not an Apple fanboi, but I can still see that Samsung copied the iPhone. It's obvious. How can anyone not see it? Can someone explain it because I can't get my head around this!
I've watched the original iPhone launch video and Steve Jobs wows the crowd with the slide to unlock feature. He does it several times. I admit that sliding something to unlock it isn't a new idea (a bolt springs to mind) but it was new on a phone. When he showed the scrolling it was impressive because it was new.
Same for the touch screen. Let's face it, before the iPhone there weren't any touch screen phones. And if there were, there's no way that they were as responsive or as elegant as the one on the iPhone.
It seems like everyone has forgotten what phones were like before the iPhone came out. They were rubbish! I am glad that other phone manufacturers saw the good bits of the iPhone and copied it. It's a good thing. But denying it is like saying that nobody who made a flip phone got the idea from Motorola.
Come on! Explain to me how you think Samsung didn't copy Apple, without using the word fanboi!
Before the flip phone, there was the Communicator. Granted, sci fi props before star wars and bsg did not enjoy so much popularity, and, granted most sci fi props are props for a film or movie and not generally meant for real world mass production or practicality, but, apple did not come up with an iphone from a pure vacuum. Virtually EVERYTHING spawns from something prior.
Tooth brushes, dinnerware, shoes, sandals, hand tools, even automobiles, planes, and ships have predecessors, peers, and successors that confuse other people. Samsung, however, chose to take a bullet for the rest standing behind the floodgates.
Apple, stand by for heavy rolls --- the excitement for you is only just beginning. Anticompetitiveness and hamfisted dickheadedness or dictates whether company or country always come back to bite one in the ass.
Well, to the downthumber, chew on this! In Busan, i bought a Galaxy Tab 10.1, Korean version, WiFi. People even here ask me if it is a ipad. I open it and pull ou tthe DMB antenna, show them the double speakers, the flash, and the bouncy stuff on the display, and multiple customizable widgets and multiple desktops. Then, i point out the rectanglular rather than squarish proportions. Some nod, some walk away. Some are dazzled. Yes, it is not the tab 2, which is the stripped down version sold to the antiSamsung laws consteained public...
Yes, this is somewhat o/t since the story is phones not tablets. But, since apple got this verdicked, it will probably do a VK jig while stroking and stard heading after tablets. A true blow for consumers who prefer not to suck from apple's teet.
I was under the impression that there was Prior Art for the Slide to Unlock gesture.
Anway. given that this was really an attack on Android, albeit by proxy, and a lot of this was down to the "look & feel" of the UI, why hasn't Google stepped in to back up its licencees?
Samsung should pop across the hall and see how the team is getting on with building the Windows Phone 8 devices.
Apple didn't make the rules (Patent law in USA), it just knows how to play the game to win. Oh, yes, Apple DID win BIG!
Stock market update for Monday morning: Apple stock up around $10/share on the news.
Me? Those shares that were bought for me at around $7.00 or so look mighty good.
ranked by 2011 revenues of nearly $134 billion, Samsung Electronics is the largest IT company in the world . and Samsung Electronics is just part of Samsung Group ...
Apple for 2011 was ranked 6th with a bit over $108 billion in revenue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_technology_companies
really .. $1 billion is just not that big a deal to Samsung Electronics . sure they made much more profit already from the *infringing* products .. than they may have made with out the *copying*
cost of doing business
An additional way to look at it is something i just saw elsewhere, where someone pointed out that it only cost Samsung $1billion to become #2, considering how much skype cost ms, which probably still has not recouped costs for that acquisition.
So, this probably still is a huge win, not merely a simple win for Sammy.
But, grudges are grudges, and when apple victory strokes its way to burning Chinese competitors, it WILL learn that vengeance meted out by Chinese can be complicated, sophisticated, painful, and probably best left unstirred.
But, it would be interesting to see apple try to tapdance with China. Could have global repercussions, though....
"a drop in the bucket for samsung"
With the exception of a few large governments (a few of which are states in the USA), there is no entity on earth for whom a billion dollars is "a drop in the bucket".
Note please that the Wikipedia list which you have cited is based on annual TURNOVER - i.e. gross revenue. You will find that their NET revenue or profit is far, far less.
In fact, Wikipedia lists Samsung's profit for 2011 as $12bn, and Apple's 2011 net income as $26bn. (Note that I am assuming that "profit' and "net income" are the same and that the terminology differs only because the articles were written by different people.)
Doing the math, we see that $1bn represents 8.3% of Samsung's 2011 PROFIT and that, consequently, a fine or jury award of $1bn represents a decline in profits of that same 8.3%.
That's a rather serious matter for any commercial entity in the world.
Good point.
I was interested by comparing gross revenue to market capitalization.
(2011) revenues for some companies is round about the same as (2012) market cap, for some companies (HP, Samsung).
revenue is a few times greater than cap for some (Hitachi, Dell, Panasonic, Toshiba)
revenue is a few time smaller than cap for others (Apple Inc. , IBM, MS, Google). Although revenue trend for Apple is increasing still around 1:5 ratio.
Perhaps someone can explain it.
"The foreman told a court representative that the jurors had reached a decision without needing the instructions. "
They took two days to go through all of those decisions, to review how many weeks of testimony?....
They managed to make a decision so that they could go home for the weekend and go back to work next week.
Is that justice?
Don't be too upset. Normally a jury decision is pretty appeal proof. That quote establishes they didn't follow their instructions, the time the took suggests they didn't take the job seriously at all. This particular jury looks very challengeable and the next one will see more of the evidence on prior art.
"The nine-person jury at the federal court in San Jose, California had to consider 700 questions about each side's claim that its rival had infringed its intellectual property.
It deliberated for less than three days before coming to its unanimous decisions. …. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19377261
And is Cupertino anywhere near San Jose, and why wasn't the case heard in Taiwan, or would that have been perceived as providing far too much of an advantageous bias for the home team with justice denied being the result for the stranger visitors?
San Jose to Cupertino is 14 miles.... they're basically two parts of the same urban sprawl. So the jury are all basically "locals" when it comes to their relationship with apple. OK they were screened so they aren't directly connected but...
It would be like BMW having a court hearing with a jury from Starnberg.....
Can anyone resurrect Gene Roddenberry? Google "Star Trek PADD".
In the original Star Trek series Kirk was seen the using a PADD, a touch screen portable computer device. Fast forward 40 years and Apple release the 'innovative' iPad, a touch screen portable computer device. There isn't anything on the iPad or iPhone that was innovative, all of it had been seen before, the only thing it did was put it all together in a nice wrapper.
"In the original Star Trek series Kirk was seen the using a PADD, a touch screen portable computer device. Fast forward 40 years and Apple release the 'innovative' iPad, a touch screen portable computer device. There isn't anything on the iPad or iPhone that was innovative, all of it had been seen before, the only thing it did was put it all together in a nice wrapper."
Yeah that's obviously a total rip off. The only thing that's in danger of being compared to is an etch-a-sketch.
http://www.yourprops.com/movieprops/default/yp_4f7b554aec45a1.60052716/Electronic-Clipboard-PADD.jpg
Fail.
A judge and jury with no clue of patent law. A US firm in a US court v. A non US company.
Then there's Koh herself, who's comments from the off presented the notion of bias. How this was allowed to carry on amazes me.
And that's before we get to Microsoft & HP inventing tablets, rounded corners on phones back in the 90's and Apple using technologies in their phones invented by others. Icons, touchscreen etc all around on windows CE devices.
Hopefully Microsoft will be taking them to court soon
Maybe that's all for the appeal. The trial has been so bizarre that I wonder if maybe Koh is handing it all to Sammy on appeal, intentionally cos she's so sick of having apple lawyers parked in front of her.
Alternatively maybe Sammy have already lined up an appeal in Texas where they're investing several Bn in a chip fab they have there and might be intending to play the 'Sorry, all the money for those jobs that were gonna be created might be going to apple's wallet instead...' card
Pick your favourite conspiracy theory (or invent a more interesting one, of course)
A sad, sad day. I wonder who Apple will go after next?
Mind you, they've just set themselves up for a fall. I wonder what innovation we'll see when they release the NuiPhone later in the year? And how much of it will be features copied from Android, a trick they have some previous form for?
Oh, well, I guess life goes on.
GJC
T-Mobile for the Vivacity maybe - a dead ringer for the iPhone 4, more so than the devices from Samsung. Isn't that one made by ZTE, like the Orange San Francisco 2?
I did wonder if any of this is going to be used retrospectively against existing devices that happen to look like future models of iPhone or iPad once they are released. It's not such a mental idea, because if the "design language" of an infringing device is continued into subsequent product lines then this ruling could still be used. So, if iPhone 5 looks too much like SGS3 ...
American court and jury find for American corporate against johnny foreigner. Is the verdict right? - not sure, I haven't seen all the evidence presented in the case. Does it feel right - well no, it feels like America protecting it's own while crying and having a tantrum when the rest of the world doesn't see it their way......Just my opinion mind.
Android fans might not like it, but Samsung did blatantly copy the iPhone. They ought to have just paid the offered license fee per handset. They happily paid out to Microsoft for their patents, so why not Apple?
As to those that think Motorola's patents should now be used against Apple in retaliation, it would be quite stupid of Google to use Motorola's stuff in any way other than to defend itself. Even the Motorola acquisition doesn't give Google the war chest they would need to start that fight.
This was really about the method of working, the interface, and the look and feel, not the actual physical device (although that part has been very convenient for Apple....stupid stupid Samsung for making their case so easy). Samsung completely ripped off the iOS GUI and stuck it as a skin on top of Android, that's why they got targeted and the likes of HTC didn't. Had Samsung developed the same physical handset but the software had looked dramatically different Apple wouldn't have had anywhere near as strong a case.
Looking past Samsung other Android manufacturers will now end up paying Apple license fees, all because Samsung's copying was too damn obvious and a legal precedent has now been set. Including most likely the aforementioned Sony, who won't be particularly happy about Samsung's stupidity.
You can hardly blame Apple if another company effectively gifts them bags of cash by being so blatant.
False. This statement, often repeated by ignorant people, is no more true for the repitition.
The "Sony Style" design study was performed by a designer being paid for the exercise by Apple. It was an independent design by a designer being paid by Apple. Contending that the design was somehow a copy of a non-existent Sony phone is so egregiously wrong that it beggars belief.
"They happily paid out to Microsoft for their patents, so why not Apple?"
Apple is concerned with product differentiation, not licensing patents.
Apple is concerned with getting users into the Apple ecosystem to use their App Store and whatever else Apple has to continue to sell content etc to their users. Therefore there is no great attraction for Apple in license fees for patents that reduce product differentiation between Apple and Samsung: those license fees would need to make up for the future earnings that Apple will lose because of any given customer buying a Samsung phone and not becoming part of the Apple ecosystem and contributing income thereby.
I am not sure that Apple ever offered Samsung an license that would have given Samsung the right to use all the patents that Samsung wanted. (Actually I am pretty sure that Apple made no such offer but I could be wrong or be conflating some of these numerous lawsuits.)
Microsoft on the other hand seems to be quite happy to simply collect a royalty on every Android sold (with the exception of Google/Motorola, as the only company that has refused to take a license from Microsoft. But expect them to be compelled to do so.)
So one can not really compare the goals and strategies of Apple and Microsoft.
Apple offered Samsung a $30/handset price to license all patents in October 2010. Samsung refused the price, refused a reduced offer of $24/handset which included some patent cross-licensing, then used the ideas covered by the Apple patents anyway. That was presented as evidence in the trial.
Verdict's probably right, but the law is very wrong. Sad to see all the rejoicing from Apple fanboys, as it's shit for the whole industry and us end customers. I'm no fan of Samsung, but I hope the damages are reduced significantly on appeal. Companies must not be encouraged to take part in this shitty behaviour.
Even at this size, the damages are token. They'll neither cripple Samsung nor make much difference to Apple's balance. But they are sizeable to make other manufacturers take note. No ones going to be copying anyone in the near future, and hopefully everyone's interfaces now become more individual and innovative
Fans of either side can gloat/heckle all they want.
The crying shame is the we pay in the end. We pay for the lawyers, we pay the fines, we pay higher prices for monopolistic market shares and we pay in stifled range of tech available.
Main people who lose in these corporate wars is us.
So the verdict goes against how you hoped it would so the jury who were actually there listening to both sides are biased - of course. Samsung will of course appeal but that also means it could go against them even more.
To anyone vaguely impartial they 'copied' the design, look and feel and got what they deserve. If Ford completely ripped off a VW Golf to the point that their own lawyers could not tell them apart would you expect litigation or for VW just to say oh well... imitiation is the sincerest form for flattery and we are happy to be flattered.
So it's 1bn extra for Apple and now they will probably have to pay Apple royalties for each unit they sell.
Well, I am hardly surprised at this verdict.
The best thing about it was that Samsung got stomped on for trying to ding Apple for patents that Apple already paid for via Intel. This particular piece of nefarious behaviour by Samsung was deservedly rejected. Moto should take note as they are trying the same bullshit on Apple in another court case.
As for the software aspects of the case, well they were patented and Samsung copied. What's the big deal? They should have done something else.
"Trade dress" issues, well the iPad and iPhone 3 were copied by Samsung, right down to the connectors and packaging, not just the product. Really, how could anyone expect a different verdict.
The current Galaxy apparently does not infringe, proving that it is perfectly possible to build fabulous devices that compete on merit with Apple's products. Samsung should have done that first time around instead of "willfully infringing".
Doh
Was it any suprise really that in a court in America that an American jury found against Samsung a Korean company?
Most Americans are highly patriotic so were bound to find in favour of Apple.
The only loosers here are the American public who found in Apples favour who will now have less competition and more expensive phones as no doubt Samsung will just increase the prices of their phones in the US to make up for the $1bn they will have to pay.
Have Apple actually got any technology patents that have made mobiles what they are today (3G, wireless, battery tech, ICs etc) .... or are they all obvious (as technology evolves) software patents such as gestures, scrolling, image displaying etc?
I don't use Apple or Android devices, but it astounds me what can be patented now days, this will only stifle "innovation" . When/if Apple create a television, will they be accused of completely copying Sony, LG etc. for creating a rectangular screen with a display for video broadcasts? Will they have to pay patent royalties for using a remote control, having an on/off button and other inventions that we all regard as obvious with that technology?
Patents should be for REAL inventions not this rubbish!
Are you sure that television manufactures aren't already paying licenses to someone for remote controls and on/off switches? Just because it's obviously doesn't mean that someone didn't have to research and develop it in the past and so deserves to get paid for their work.
Anyway, it's not that Apple don't have to pay Samsungs patent license, it's that they're already paying for them via someone else who's already licensed them from Samsung. Samsung were trying to get paid twice for the same license here.
You may well be correct there, perhaps television manufacturers do have to license the basic innovations I have listed.
However, we do not hear about constant legal battles between them. Having recently bought a "smart" tv, I noticed in the shop they were all now "smart", with apps and games. It's very difficult to spot any differences between them physically, it's all about the picture.
Who has copied who in this instance, and it's obvious from the large amount of choice and healthy competition in that market that they are able to co-exist reasonably peacefully, with no 1 company claiming itself to be the inventor of the smart tv and therefore all other products are imitations and should be banned. The patenting system either works a lot better in that market, or the companies don't concentrate most of their efforts in hoarding patents, or they just don't have as many stupid software patents.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/02/virgin_epg_victory/
As an example, a stupid TV software patent dismissed in court.
As I recall, the infrared remote control was first popularized by Viewstar (through Philips) around 1980. Prudence would dictate they would've had a patent on the technology (or had license or parts from whatever firm actually invented the tech). Given that it's been around for over 30 years, I would imagine any patents on the tech have long expired.
If apple release a tv, we'll have five years of US and UK media spinning the myth that apple invented the tv. Then they'll have no trouble winning a case against Samsung for tvs, even though Samsung were in the market years earlier. That's assuming they don't already claim to have a patent covering tvs - i mean, tvs are rectangular, and the size evidently doesn't matter!
3G - FRAND
Wireless - buy an implementation
Battery tech - Li Ion, could develop own management or buy in the tech.
Multi touch - the implementation of multi touch hardware FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION CAN be patented so long as the patent references prior art AND pays any royalties due. (Or you buy the company that developed it and you hold the original patents)
Software 2 parts-
1, Software should not be patentable, it should be copyright. This allows competition through parallel developments.
2, The result of a parallel development should not end up looking like a clone of the original. That infringes on trade dress.
The most successful inventions are those that are non-obvious before development but in hindsight we find we can't do without.
a sad day for technology, and a sadder day for Apple
Every phone manufacturer will be looking at this and thinking "how do I build a phone that does'nt copy an apple product?"
And the months will roll past while the clever folks brain storm, finally word is released that some serious manufacturing deals have been signed,usually with China based slave labour plants.
And the wrapping come off at the press conference of the new 'whizzy super phone mk4' whose design style and user interface make apple's products look like they were designed by a caveman. plus its $100 per unit cheaper.
4 years later and Apple is making serious losses on its phone division and is finally put out of its misery by being sold for scrap
If that happens it would be a good thing. Tech companies leapfrogging over each other and making competitors products obsolete is exactly what drives the whole user experience forward. Why copy a market leader when you should be concentrating on bringing out the product that kills the market they dominate?
Nothing at all was awarded Samsung whatsoever cos unless I misunderstood all the claim and counterclaim stuff (there's certainly plenty of it), aren't apple still knowingly and blatantly using a Samsung patent which they have openly refused to pay anything for?
Isn't it evident even to the most 'patriotic' of juries that they must pay some amount for their use thereof?
Maybe it's a separate case - I thought it formed part of Sammy's arguments as to why apple might owe them 500M.
As I understand it that patent is related to a part that is manufactured by Intel, and because Intel have licensed the patent from Samsung the jury decided that Apple had already paid to use it by using Intel's parts.
Which probably means Intel will be jacking up the price they charge Apple on the next contract negotiation, and who can blame them eh? :-)
America the land of the free
Where a woman can sue a furniture store for tripping over a child in their store and breaking her arm, when in court it was revealed to be her own child she tripped over. The woman is still awarded a quarter of a million dollars.
America the land of the free
Where a burglar can break into somebodys house and as he is trying to leave through the adjoining garage with the TV, the door locks behind him and since he cant open either the adjoining door or the garage door. He sues the people he was trying to burgal for false imprisonment, due to the fact he had to survive for a week on dried dog food and cans of Coke. He successfully won damages of nearly 3 quarters of a million dollars.
So why are we surprised when in the land of the free, an American company sues a foreign company over patent infringement, (conveniently forgetting that they are not exactly not guilty of stealing others ideas). I would like to know why the software was patented, it should come under copyright infringement
Before anybody says I am being ant Apple or an Android Fanboi, I would still feel the same amount of injustice if it had been a unanimous desicion the other way if the court had been in South Korea, but as someone has already pointed out the case that was decided the other day in Korea found in favour and against both companies, which makes it look like there was no bias at all.
Fair enough, you know how it is when you read something and it sticks in your mind, try the following site though for other cases that have gone to court, equally as stupid. I am not saying that the UK or any other part of the world is exempt, but it seems that America leads by example in the stupid lawsuit arena
http://listverse.com/2009/01/28/top-10-bizarre-or-frivolous-lawsuits/
p.s. it may be bollox, but a couple of things strike me. One they are funny and Two out of my entire post that is all you picked up on!!!
Imagine a world where IBM PC Clones had been banned. You know, the likes of the Amstrad PC1512 that undercut IBM and captured 30% of the European PC market within 6 months back in the 80's.
At the time IBM were unable to stop the clones and today you can't even buy an IBM PC.
The fact clones were allowed was a good thing although I am pretty sure what Jobs and Co were trying to avoid was a situation where Apple become the next IBM.
In short the decision is good for Apple and bad for the consumer.
... and today you can't even buy an IBM PC.
That's because IBM decided to sell their entire and highly profitable PC business to Lenovo for a shedload of money and a large share in Lenovo itself (so, IBM's business interests do still include the making of PCs) ... something for which I find it hard to blame the clone makers.
IBM's initial decision to make the PC architecture open, and the clone industry to which that gave rise, is what led the PC's dominance in the personal computer marketplace over the last 30 years. I'd say it was a smart bit
> IBM's initial decision to make the PC architecture open
Except IBM only made that decision so that peripheral and software could make stuff for IBM machines. and in fact the BIOS was pretty locked down and proprietary. It took Compaq one year and over a million dollars (back then a lot of money) to write a clean room version of it.
IBM never intended for other companies to clone them, because unlike Google - who lives off advertising - IBM's business depends on making selling actual things. The open architecture came more out of need: IBM wanted a computer that could beat Apple quickly and the only way to do it was from off-the-shelf parts.
The fact that of the initial clone makers - Compaq, Columbia, Eagle, Xerox, HP, Digital, Sanyo, Texas Instruments, Tulip, Wang and Olivetti - only HP barely survives on the PC business, just shows how unsustainable that idea really is.
Ah, how the memories fade, apparently.
The IBM PC BIOS was locked down to such an extent that one could buy the IBM PC XT Technical Reference manual that contained, in an appendix, a complete source code listing of the BIOS for the machine.
Compaq were clever enough to ignore that, and do a clean-room re-engineering based just on the documented API. Come to think of it, I wonder why that wasn't quoted as precedent in the Oracle API case recently? I'm fairly sure that the Compaq implementation was the subject of a court case at one stage.
GJC
"IBM decided to sell their entire and highly profitable PC business to Lenovo" - I call BS on this.
I used to work for the IBM PC business and it was never "highly profitable" by any stretch of the imagination. IBM simply is not a company that can do low-cost products. Why do you think they got out of disk drives, and earlier printers, typewriters, etc.? As soon as a product is commoditised, there are not the 40%+ margins that IBM likes (more like 80% on software btw), and they will promptly exit the market.
...only because you don't agree with this decision. You'd be clamouring for jury trials otherwise. Haven't I seen you commenting on the Oracle trial?
Both sides here had an equal amount of time to convince a non-biased jury about their side of the story.
You'll be hard pressed to find anything fairer than that.
No I think they still need a Jury,
BUT the jury should really be peers of the case.. so in a patent case involving technology & design like this, the people should be in an industry where they can understand it, i.e. degree educated or 10+ years experience!
and when massive brands are involved, only people who do NOT own products by the companies in question, OR an even split.
I.E. Me, I work in IT, I have done for over 10 years, I have a BSc, and I own products from both manufacturers, and use both regularly....
Personally I prefer Samsung phones, Apples are too small for my hands and unless the jury got to HOLD every phone in comparison to an iPhone, then the rulings shouldn't stand.. as its the hand hold test that counts, not the 2d resized image test...
And pinch to zoom.. that is an OBVIOUS feature... as soon as multi-touch came out, it was obvious it would be done!!! and I remember fingerworks having it before apple, so when was the patent? surely its getting close to being expired right now??
I am just glad the UK ruled in samsungs favour over the tablets, it really was clear prior art IMHO...
Other companies have been playing the patent game a lot longer then Apple; IBM and Microsoft spring to mind... They patent some of the most absurd things, add in how Microsoft have been in the "smart phone" *cough* game longer then Apple I wonder will someone employ Apple's own tactics* against them?
MS really want the mobile market, and if one of Android's biggest players just got slapped down doesn't that make Apple a prime target?
*Using any legality what so ever to use the courts as their stick rather then just competing... Apple just shown it works, now it is a game of burning bucks and making lawyers rich...
"Using any legality what so ever to use the courts as their stick rather then just competing... "
By not protecting their IP to the greatest extent allowed by law, Apple was - and would continue - to be competing against their own innovations. It's Samsung that should be competing as opposed to imitating Apple.
And maybe in the appeal they can get a judge who allows all the evidence to be shown and a jury with the intelligence to understand it.
This verdict is wrong on so many levels. Not only are most of the patents Apple claimed either so obvious that no one else ever thought to file for them or subject to prior art, but the idea that they get off with infringing a patent just because Intel has a license is ludicrous. Unless Intel's license specifically states that the can sell licenses to other companies they can't.
'Exhaustion' doesn't mean what you think. The patent holder only gets to charge once for each *use* of their patent. Intel paid to cover the CPU, Samsung have no right to charge again for that CPU, whatever happens to it.
Note: nothing stops Samsung *trying* to sell Apple a general licence for the same patent but only actual infringement could force Apple to buy... and exhaustion == no infringement. I really don't understand why Samsung even bothered taking it to trial, it was obvious exhaustion applied the moment they revealed the patent use was embedded in an Intel component.
The rest of the case is simply a disgrace though and it's hard to believe it won't go to retrial. Meanwhile Apple have won because the injunctions will stay in place.
The only glimmer of hope is the case shone light on the collusion between Apple & Microsoft, the result of that threat 2-3 years ago to pool patents to destroy Google&Android. I see some anti-trust attention coming their way soon.
Still, any backroom deal that forces Microsoft to cripple their own software (Metro is the direct result of agreeing not to copy Apple) isn't all bad ;)
A court held in Silicon Valley and just 10 miles from Apples HQ with a jury picked from people who live in Silicon Valley found in favor of the local mega corp on most things.......
This should itself be grounds for an appeal as to have been fair it should have been held away from Apples home turf, even north California would have been fairer.
Is the consumer through a lack of choice and the patent system stifles innovation. This lack of innovation and advancement hits the economy (and thus the consumer) again. The lock-in for various services lets incumbent gouge their users, hitting the consumer again. And so on and so on.
This should be the alarm call that the USA patent system needs a grassroots overhaul and lots of patents rescinded.
Apple can copyright their design, fine. That prevents passing-off.
They can patent truly innovative ideas/technologies, not some that is simple application of a business process or an existing real-world idea to an electronic device.
Everything else? Away and swivel.
Apple is the current whipping-boy for the shitting USA patent system but MS, Amazon etc are all equally guilty.
But, of course, we have been in this situation before. IBM thought it could keep a strangle-hold on PCs, it got raped by the clones. Apple's day will come and the same thing will happen. Then some other company will try the same thing (maybe a social media one) and they will become the latest whipping boy.
The cycle will repeat until someone fixes the problem, and the problem is in the USA and their abhorrent patents system. Their cancerous rot is spreading; it must be excised before we all suffer.
You are so fucking stupid. Apple by preventing Samsung from copying its idea does not "stifle innovation" - it forces innovation. Samsung now has to compete without copying. That's where innovation comes from. You know, necessity is the mother of invention. Oh sorry, you like the rest of the Samsung supporters know nothing about that, now do you?
I don't normally respond to cowards - it's not like The Register has a real name policy or anything, so I assume that people only do it because they don't want their response tied to their profile because they know that their response is ill thought out.
But yours is so staggeringly off-base I'll make an exception.
The problem is, most of these patents are so broad or so obvious that people cannot innovate. There cannot be any progression unless it come from Apple; and Apple have no interest in such progression as once you are in their walled-garden, you are ripe for the plucking.
I'll give you one example: rubber bounce. How the shuddering hell is that patentable? Number one, it's software; that should discount it immediately. Number two, it's simply a feedback to the user through the device's response mechanism; in the real-world it might be force-feedback or something. It is not patentable!
But now anyone who tries to do any kind of user feedback that in any way looks even vaguely like rubber-bounce will have the Apple attack-dogs on their arse. This does not help innovation.
Then there's all the swipe to unlock bullcrap. Look at you hands. Look at your friends' hands. They look the same, don't they? So, and I realise this is a crazy idea, you and your friends will find similar actions equally hard/easy. Anyone doing a UI/device design will make actions easy for you and given that all hands are roughly the same, the set of answers it going to be pretty limited so everything is going to look pretty similar. And Apple has been given a patent on it! How the hell can they get a patent on something for which there is only one (or a small number) of answers? The shouldn't be able to.
Oh, and swipe to unlock? I've been doing that on my garden gate for years. It's is a known mechanism and on the phone screen it happens to be easy. Maybe you'd like it if Samsung patented "arc signature" to unlock, where you use one hand and you thumb to describe an arc (moving back and forth to enter your "pin")? Wow! Is that innovation or what? No it bloody well isn't! There's only so many answer with a set number of digits.
Innovation comes, not from brand-new ideas but from incremental steps and it's these stupid patents that stop these incremental steps. After enough steps, then you'll get a genuinely new idea and thus a paradigm shift.
Apple needs to protect it's profits; fine. But society needs to protect itself as well, and granting idiotic patents is not the way to go about it. The PC market only came about after the incumbent's stranglehold had been broken. That's a stranglehold Apple currently holds over smartphones and tablets, and it will hold us back until someone in power grows a pair and fixes the problem.
I'll give you one more example. Who invented the electric lightbulb? Edison?
Wrong. There were already lightbulbs.
What Edison did was figure out how to do it better than everyone else at the time, now imagine one of those inferior bulb-makers held broad enough patents to crush Edison, where would we be now?
Where would we be if other people if other people had not taken Edison's work and improved upon it again?
This is what overly-broad/stupid patents prevent.
This is what you wish to prevent.
Apple have had enough time to make a decent profit from there ideas, they have moved from being the "Edison" to the "shitty bulb maker"; to get a better bulb, society requires that their vice-like grip on innovation be broken. Because when the other players come in, Apple will be forced to up their game. Then the consumer wins.
And it's not just Apple; it's Amazon, Sony, Microsoft etc.
In various computer games, collision detection and user feedback are absolutely CRITICAL to the user experience. It is only SENSIBLE that such features eventually are experienced in a phone or a tablet.
In the early 90s, I helped beta test a "game" called Catz, which was spawned from Dogz. In it, the player was an owner of a newborn kitten, took care of it, groomed, fed, and played with it. As a beta tester, I had other ideas. I not only picked up the kitten/cat and tossed it to the side of the screen to watch it bounce back or walk/crawl back to me for more of that "love", I began to violently whirl it around by mouse and then released the button to see it hurled/flung into one of the corners of the screen. Every time I did it, it crashed the program. Nobody believed me, so I demonstrated it to the two lead developers, and, IIRC, the owner of the company. They were shocked as hell that it happened, but in minutes, they fixed it, and thanked me, tho my method of testing was a bit "off".
When I use my GTab and have Samsung/Android blue-fade bounce alert me that I have reached the end of desktops or movement ability, it looks kewl as hell. When I see the Gallery respond to gyro inputs as I tilt my Tab, i feel thriled to see the tiles of photos pivot in 3D beneath their album parent. I showed it to some people and they were enthralled wwith it. I don't know if it is a Samsung, Android, or another's invention, but it is kewl. I hope it is NOT an Apple-controlled invention, because it is too kewl to have stripped out of my GTab. I'd hate to lose that if I ever some day decided to upgrade or root my Tab. If a court order affected the presence of it, I would never let my Tab update as long as it was under my own physical and menu control.
(Still, I wish the GTab 10.1 shipped with a microSD slot. (Imagine all the hospitals, law enforcement, and military agencies that probably banned this model of Tab if WiFi and Bluetooth are the only easy ways to move data... No, they didn't ship easy-to-use drivers for Linux, and the windoze 7 detection demands going to the internet, something I most decidedly refuse to let win 7 do... MicroSD should not be any more a security risk than the provided data cable. Lack of MicroSD creates a royal PITA to the user not wanting to use or not able to enable it.) If Sammy had included that th FIRST time around, it would even more remove the risk of ban from the USA. Sometimes, I don't know if Sammy's actions are a "Korean thing" the result of a tech company fiendishly controlling the user experience. Next time, Sammy should mimic apple less and take fewer bullets competing with apple. Be flexibile, fluid, and listen more to the users BEFORE locking the design. That would be an improvement well ahead of Apple.)
Apple are using their lawyers rather than innovate and up their game.
Most tech companies in the past simply innovate when competitors sell their own versions of say TV with EPG, built in media ports, smart/Internet etc.
So why can't apple innovate their way to increasing their market share rather than the lawyers do it for them?
Says to me that it's because they can't innovate better than those who have been doing it for a lot longer.
All companies copy others ideas. Cars all have the same tech, tvs, computers etc etc. Don't see Ford and say Toyota in every possible court in the world because the other fitted satnav or abs brakes, rounded their dash etc etc.
Good companies take pleasure in the kudos something was their idea and move on to creating the next "must have".
The majority of patents in this case should never have been allowed to be filed due to "prior art". Patents are only for new and unique ideas.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/aug/25/apple-samsung-injunction-fine?newsfeed=true
" Apple to seek injunction against Samsung smartphones and tablets and could triple fine"
Well, it seems apple is celebrating VK day and stroking its way to spilling on tablet makers, too, now...
Maybe i will buy a samsung laptop now, to complement my gtab 10.1 with DMB??? More money apple can claim as "their" money...
IIRC, Samsumg's tablets are off the hook because they look too different from iPads. They don't have hardware home buttons (as they're built with Android 3.0 and up which allow soft button bars) and have widescreen aspect ratios (Apple's aspect ratios are more consistent with paper).
All of these most Learned here heaping such cranky disdain on the American patent law collection are, of course, most Learned and all-informed about American patent law? ....and....are also intimate insiders along the Corridors of Power at Apple?
Is it possible....gasp!...that some here have sucked up a bit too much Apple juice? .....fermented? Are they....[can't....resist.....this.....argghhhh!.....!.......(thrashing about ....struggling).....]...... a bit......cloudy? Or......have they bitten into Th' Apple and ....found......uh,oh.....half a worm?
Those of us of a certain age recall vividly being stationed in Japan in 1955-56, and that the Japanese were rampant copyists of the First Order, having had that reputation for years, and, for example, built many, many down-to-the-screws-copies of the Leica IIIC and sold then under the brand-name Canon. I bought one because they were of excellent quality with lenses (it was said at the time) perfected at the factory used for bomb-sights....a bit earlier. Canon now is premier quality.
Korea was, of course, still basically at a subsistence level, the Armistice being new.
Well, years pass, and Asian opportunism pokes up here and there in South Korea, and probes are made towards American know-how....using techniques perfected by their no longer so Imperial, but remaining imperious, former Japanese Colonial masters.
It's not in the least a stretch to assume that these Koreans adroitly snitched absolutely as much technology as they could from wherever they could for as long as they could....with elastic eagerness.
Now they make excellent automobiles and computers, just like the big guys.
Then the Apples started rolling out of the barrels. The rest is evident in the recent headlines.
the real fallout of this will be that every touchscreen device will require a completely different set of gestures to operate its basic UI.
can you imagine what keyboards would be like if every brand of device had a completely different key layout? who could learn how to type? what if every car maker was forced to use their own unique layout of automotive controls? lets see, is the brake pedal on the left or right, or is it the floppy paddle next to the steering joystick? oh dear, KARASH!
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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 ;)
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
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
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...
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.
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).
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.