Apple pays up for stealing design from Swiss Railways Apple may be willing to spend millions in court over some copyright fights, but it has learned the lessons of history and has decided not to mess with the Swiss. Last month, Switzerland's railway operator SBB took Cupertino to task for stealing the design of its clock for iOS 6's Clock app. Now the world's favorite fondleslab …
Iconic? Certainly, well built quality mobile phone I'm having a harder time with though. Especially given as the clock is only on the iPad!
If Apple didn't mind paying, they'd have done so before hand. But then I guess that's their modus operandi based on a few of the complaints against them.
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Can you actually name anything that Apple have been sued for "stealing" that isn't meant to be licensed under FRAND? It seems to me that Apple were made aware that they were using a trademarked design with their clock face and took steps to pay for its use. There's no evidence to suggest they stole the design deliberately (unless there's a 132 page document out there listing all the things they like about the clock face that they should copy).
Can you actually name anything that Apple have been sued for "stealing" that isn't meant to be licensed under FRAND?
Let's go with the Moto complaint against them, given that a Judge has ruled that Apple had a duty to negotiate, or could have used ETSI rather than simply trying to fight it out in court.
So, rather than a) pay up front or b) begin negotiating in good faith, they decided to fight in court, but continue using the technology at the same time.
So they've used the technology, patents being considered the 'property' of the holder without having paid a cent for them. I'd call that stealing (though I have difficulty accepting the idea of a patent as 'property' in all honesty.
unless there's a 132 page document out there listing all the things they like about the clock face that they should copy
Incidentally, have you read all of the document (the bits that have been made available, anyway)? Or have you just been catching the media snippets. I'd suggest you have a read and then make your mind up, it'll give you something to do whilst we wait for the legal system to work out what (if anything) the Jury actually got right!
the only reason apple have settled this quick is so that they can take a morral high ground when arguing that others copy their design.
the conversations will go along the lines of,:
"well, when it was brought to our attention that we had inadvertently duplicated a design we settled the dispute and paid a licensing fee. Now that we are bringing it to your attention that your rounded corners are the same as our rounded corners then you should do the same thing and pay us money now...."
if they had just left of the round bit on the second hand then I bet they would have told the Swiss to fuck off.... I can see it now in IOS6.001 the clock face will be changed and the money to the Swiss railway will stop.
You get a couple of lawyers (good source of hot air) and a huge feeding bag along with some rope and a lightweight basket. Position yourself and the lawyers in the basket and ask them why patents are important.
Eventually you'll have an el cheapo hot air balloon (assuming the lawyers are pro bono) which you can land on whichever high ground you'd care to gain.
Was that what you're after?
While IANAL itis accepted that unregistered trademarks do not cross scope or field of use under Swiss law, so if left unregistered the SBB would have a bit of trouble defendingthe 3D trademark of their mechanical clocks against a software application. The SBB probably were just late submitting the renewal.
If not, then apple cannot take any "moral high groung" simply because there could be not accidental use of the trademart or registered mark or copyright. With all the clearances and checking a company the size of apple or any smaller one, SOMEbody should have asked the artists or art department to declare the source or inspiration, and tondeclare at risk of termination that the work is original.
If apple did not use image matching software nor in advance consul over this, the Swiss should hold the secred aplke swiss bank account ransome, the lower its interest earnings, and threaten to leak the particulars if apple ever again so callously and brazenly hijacks the art of ANY other entity, not just a Swiss entity. Now, THAT would be "taking a moral high ground" if i can say so.
"The SBB's clocks are also notable for displaying traditional Swiss precision. All the SBBs clocks synchronize with a master time controller every minute"
If they're so precise, how come they have to resynch every minute?
At that rate, they'd be just as well to get eco-friendly Albanian gypsies to manually wind the clocks as steadily as they can (thus saving electricity), with a platform guard leaning out the window every 60 seconds to nudge the Albanian in the ribs with a long stick and signal the start of another minute.
They are synced, or at least in the past using DCF77. it's a long wave radio signal which carrier the time using a low bit rate signal.
Every minute there is a preamble of the start of a new minute. For this preamble is what the clock waits for to continue to the next minute. By running the second a little faster you can guarantee that it needs to wait, and this it will run on time.
Nowadays they don't run on DCF77 anymore, I know at least of one occasion of a guy in holland that made a transmitter that did send a different time over the same radio frequency, thus messing up the NS (Dutch Railway system, at the time) schedules of trains.
Huh, I'd have assumed they use the electric grid. We've been using that for plug in clocks for a rather long time here in the US and that's why there was quite a dust up last year when a gov't commission was putting together plans for dicking with it to see if they could improve reliability of the grid. I assume it had something to do with not making a motor out of the smallest tied in generator when it gets out of sync.
> I'd have assumed they use the electric grid.
You could have provided a link you lazy bastard.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43532031/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/t/power-grid-experiment-could-confuse-electric-clocks/
Well, anyone who uses the 50Hz signal on the power supply line to synch time for serious applications (i.e. anything else than a coffeemaker) deserves what he gets.
How many bugs has Apple had with iOS and the alarm not working correct. One bug caused many to miss meetings, planes, trains, etc. The Swiss should have demanded compensation for the theft and that Apple must not use their design.
There are many different designs of clocks, why did Apple have to copy?
I would big up Swiss neutrality in WW2 or Hitler being enraged by them, iirc Switzerland will still providing Nazi Germany with weapons and especially munitions in early 1944, they only stopped in May 1944 because the Nazis ran out of hard currency/someone else's gold.
The Americans and other allies weren't best pleased with them in the immediate aftermath of WW2.
Don't forget that the Swiss (Oerlikon) were selling anti-aircraft guns to the UK made out of German steel... Which means that UK war money was flowing into German coffers. Crazy world! They were quite prepared to sell to both sides.
Neutrality is a difficult thing to pull off. If you don't sell to either side in such a war then you go bust and your economy goes down the tubes, starvation, riots etc ensue. Sell to both sides and you're sure to be annoying whoever the winner turns out to be.
How were they doing that?
"Switzerland's trade was blockaded by both the Allies and by the Axis. Economic cooperation and extension of credit to the Third Reich varied according to the perceived likelihood of invasion and the availability of other trading partners. Concessions reached a peak after a crucial rail link through Vichy France was severed in 1942, leaving Switzerland completely surrounded by the Axis. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland
They were surrounded on all sides by Germans or German allies. How were they able to ship AA guns to the UK. Granted they may have sold/licensed the designs, but those would not have been built with german steel unless it came from captured equipment.
"If you don't sell to either side in such a war then you go bust and your economy goes down the tubes, starvation, riots etc ensue. Sell to both sides and you're sure to be annoying whoever the winner turns out to be."
Selling to the side that isn't murdering millions of people in cold blood might be a useful guideline.
(Yes, I get that they were surrounded, but I suspect that there were times that their cooperation went just a tad beyond 'necessary to avoid invasion'...)
The U.K. was trying to buy Optics from Germany for their Sniper Rifles.
It was eventually decided by Germany, that even though they needed the hard currency,
it was still a bad deal.
The German steel was likely made from iron imported from Sweden.
The important thing, is to keep out of war, and you wont do that if you irritate the 400 pound gorilla neighbour.
You can irritate up to a point, Not selling iron to Germany, would for sure had caused an invasion.
The Swedish iron was the main reason that both Churchill and Hitler invaded Norway.
On the other hand, if you bend to pressure, this will not be forgotten.
Sweden accepted German troops travelling by railway through Sweden during WWII
and that has been a stinker ever since. Much more so, than selling the iron,
which is funny, because that was much more important.
"The Arms of Krupp," by William Manchester, an interesting history of Germany's largest and most thoroughly integrated cannon and munitions manufacturer, provides some relevant tidbits on this and many other subjects dealing with Germany's relationships with other nations in the pre-war runups and post-war rundowns of that nation's history. I only read it because it detailed an extremely distant part of our family, but I re-read it twice because I believe it is an execeptional, well-researched and informative read.
> Switzerland will still providing Nazi Germany with weapons and especially munitions in early 1944
Citation needed.
While I'm not big on Switzerland in WWII [turning away Jews at the border as per official policy was a dick move], this sounds unlikely.
They would certainly accept a train of Gold from Bavaria though. Gnomes love Gold.
It seems many people don't realise the geography of Switzerland.
After the start of WWII occupied France was on the western border, occupied Austria was on the eastern border, Axis power Italy was the southern border and Nazi Germany was the northern border. Now I don't see in the circumstances that given no direct access to the outside world that they could have resisted a serious invasion for long esp.as the German border is not as mountainous as the others.
They did have a desperate plan in the event of an invasion to abandon the north and retreat to the mountains but it certainly would have been a major disaster. All the major engineering and chemical factories in the north would have been converted to German war production and the country's wealth used for German war purposes.
They had to walk a VERY fine line. Can anyone think of an alternative they would have adopted ?
"Now I don't see in the circumstances that given no direct access to the outside world that they could have resisted a serious invasion for long esp.as the German border is not as mountainous as the others."
That's just an opinion. Faced with large numbers of tanks and aircraft they would have lost the industrial lowlands- that's mine
They would have held out far longer in the mountains but probably would have been contained there only having the ability to use light weapons. I've spent a long time in the Swiss Alps and have a holiday home in Saas Fee so have some feel for the character and ability of the Swiss esp.in the mountains.
All sorts of things went on in Switzerland during WWII including meetings between Allies and Axis generals and politicians.
Oh, please. Normally I would just let a comment like this go, but the idea of Swiss individuals who keep hunting rifles at home being an ultimate deterrent to the German Wehrmacht is just silly. If Germany had really been serious and had gotten around to it, I can't help but believe the Swiss would have been swept from their land in a relatively short time. Yes, some Germans would have been killed; a helluva lot more Swiss would have been lost. Switzerland did not pose a realistic threat to German interests at that time (I will leave others to determine or argue why that was so, and what interests were involved) and so was not militarily removed. That is all there is to it. I strongly admire Swiss independence and the principles upon which it rests, and I take a back seat to none in applauding their political acumen during the Second World War. But to try to frame an argument, as the author of the linked material seems to, that its was the right embodied in the American Second Constitutional Amendment that preserved their freedom isn't worth the energy I just spent on this comment. This is why I normally let this stuff pass. . . Hopefully I just read the link incorrectly and only made a fool of myself (something I do more often than post comments).
Maybe you are not aware, that the Swiss are not neutral by their own choice.
The reason they are Neutral, is that the rest of Europe decided at the Vienna Congress
after the Naopleonic Wars, that noone was interested any longer having Swiss
Mercenaries romping all over the Battlefields of Europe.
The Swiss were simply told, that they were not allowed on the playing ground any longer.
" Of all the neutrals Switzerland has the greatest right to distinction. She has been the sole international force linking the hideously-sundered nations and ourselves. What does it matter whether she has been able to give us the commercial advantages we desire or has given too many to the Germans, to keep herself alive? She has been a democratic State, standing for freedom in self defence among her mountains, and in thought, in spite of race, largely on our side."
Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965), British wartime Prime Minister
This is just the latest in a long line of purloining by Apple and MS. It's about time victims starting kneeing these thieves where it hurts most.
Good for Swiss Railways.
As for the term "Gnomes of Zurich". I think you should be using the term "Gnomes of Singapore" as more and more Europeans avoid Switzerland as their Piggy Bank now that the US, and a few other countries, have disclosure agreements with the country.
Singapore is more independent than Switzerland and has a political dictatorship (LEE Kwan Yew is still pulling a few levers of power) and given it's key position in transportation is more unlikely to bend to the wishes of the USA.
An indication of it's affiliations is that it keeps it time synchronised with that of BeiJing which can mess with Traveller's minds.
Love it, nicely understated.
Fanta (pop drink) exists because Coca-cola wanted to supply the Nazi market with Coca-cola, but couldn't
"Fanta originated due to difficulties importing Coca-Cola syrup into Nazi Germany during World War II due to a trade embargo.[2] To circumvent this, Max Keith, the man in charge of Coca-Cola Deutschland (Coca-Cola GmbH) during the Second World War, decided to create a new product for the German market, using only ingredients available in Germany at the time"
Hmmm. If you look carefully at the two designs you'll see that Apple's designers have made efforts to differentiate their work from the SBB clock.
Almost everything is subtly different. Compare the length of the clock hands and also the way they taper on one design but not on the other. See the difference in the size of the minute marks. Note how one clock has text on the face but the other does not. Compare the thickness of the rims; and so on.
In fact the only significant similarity is the sweep (seconds) hand with the circle on the tip. And even the colour of that is an evolution of the iOS5 iphone clock icon, which is also black with a red sweep hand.
And that's without going in to the many features that both clocks share with the universal set of round-faced clocks.
If SBB reckon they own the global IP on a circle at the tip of a sweep hand then good luck to them. I'd love to see that getting thrashed out in court (especially if the defendant were to argue their sweep tip sported a sphere rather than a circle).
But, either way, for Apple the outcome's nothing but good PR. Good old Apple. What luck!
Interesting about "Hitler, enraged by the Swiss air force shooting down Luftwaffe planes that strayed across the border, ordered invasion plans drawn up, but they were never acted upon.". When USAF planes were involved in large scale bombing raids over Germany, some were shot down by Swiss anti-aircraft fire when they strayed into Switzerland usually after being 'injured' over Germany. The USA threatened to declare war against Switzerland if it continued. The Swiss immediately stopped their 'target practice'.
I always thought it was the loser who insisted on a Non-Disclosure Agreement.
"Often, the exact terms of settlement agreements are purposely not publicly disclosed. This is particularly true in high-profile cases where the defendant (Apple) is seeking to protect its public reputation. In fact, it is the norm for large companies to settle with plaintiffs for an undisclosed amount and then immediately issue a statement denying any culpability, stating the company did nothing wrong."
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