Cheer up Samsung! You might get back $400m for copying the iPhone Samsung received good news of a sort on Tuesday, when the Supreme Court heard arguments for why Apple should reimburse the company $399m. In the latest round of a four-year fight, Samsung told the Supremes that it was unfair to be forced to pay back all the profits it made from smartphones that a court decided back in 2012 had …
Sometimes it's just because the hominem in question isn't WORTH arguing with
Exactly, since when is a Troll (supposedly a silicon life form) species part of the Homo genus? Last time I checked it was not, so using an "ad hominem" falls into the same category as personification of animals. Kind'a cute and Setton-Tompsony if you are describing a loyal and cuddly pet. I do not think it applies to a Troll though.
The VT100 was the first input/output device I used which had rounded corners.
It definitely had rounded corners
Granted, it wasn't a telephone, but with the right accessories it could select a phone number from a contacts database and initiate a call :-)
It's about far more than rounded corners. There are so many copied features in both hardware and software. The software features are more interesting, but because software is less understood harder to show.
If you think the court only got them on rounded corners, consider that the legal system in Al Capone's case did not put him away for all the crimes and murders he committed - Capone was sent to Alcatraz Island for tax evasion. That's the equivalent of rounded corners in Samsung's case.
Yep. A Coke bottle has curvy bits too. If you sell a bottle with a narrowing waist you'll get away with it. If you sell a bottle that looks just like a Coke bottle and has a Coke-looking logo on it you'll have the lawyers after you. Apple's argument is that Samsung pinched too many ideas.
My first phone definitely had rounded corners and it pre-dates the jEsusphone
"My first phone definitely had rounded corners and it pre-dates the jEsusphone"
Nice one.
From not too far away on that site, my first phone was a Trimphone, in 1981. I don't recall being offered the option of buying, as per the article, but it might have been was probably an ouch price. The waiting list for the first phone in a house was 6 months back then, so I probably ordered it before the buying option kicked in.
I chose a Trimphone because they came with a 15' lead, which meant I could cart the thing between my living room and bedroom. I was essentially paying the extra rental for a longer cable.
Scamsung is one of those companies that sees another company that has done a lot of research and development over years has success in the marketplace. So they quickly copy and make out as if the original was obvious and only developed on the back of a napkin.
Apple spent years developing iPhone and iOS. They deserve to have that effort protected from the likes of Scamsung.
Note how Scamsung is like Microsoft that made a cheap copy of MacOS. It was never as good and Windows 1 was completely pathetic. But the IBM anti-Apple people still supported Microsoft no matter how bad it was. This almost drove Apple out of business in the 1990s. Microsoft did succeed in putting Netscape out of business with its lousy Internet Explorer browser. But Netscape also made mistakes.
Apple is careful not to make those same mistakes.
Anti-Apple people can resent Apple all they like - but they are are a dying breed.
Scamsung has been exposed as a producer of ersatz products - first washing machines that caught fire, now phones. They rush cheap products to market to try to undercut the true developers of the product.
Go ahead - down vote this post, but that is denying the truth.
Oh, I have bought Scamsung products in the past. The TV failed within a month requiring replacement of the whole lot apart from the frame. The monitor I bought lasted about two years. Two out of two bad experiences.
"Apple spent years developing iPhone and iOS. They deserve to have that effort protected from the likes of Scamsung."
No they didn't. They threw it together in a few months during 2007, using standard off-the-shelf third-party mobile phone components, after Jesus Jobs was shown examples of the (superior) products HTC and E-Ten were already selling in Asia.
The rest of your diatribe is equally ill-informed fanboi raving too but I just can't be arsed. Look some stuff up.
>>"Apple spent years developing iPhone and iOS. They deserve to have that effort protected from the likes of Scamsung."
No they didn't. They threw it together in a few months during 2007, using standard off-the-shelf third-party mobile phone components<<
You are making the mistake of only thinking about hardware. It is the software and the way that people will use it that takes the time. For that reason it is your diatribe response that is ill-informed.
>>after Jesus Jobs << - diatribe
>>The rest of your diatribe is equally ill-informed fanboi raving too but I just can't be arsed<< - diatribe.
>>Look some stuff up.<< No you look some stuff up, but you won't bother, you will just continue spreading diatribe and lies.
Oh dear. Looks like I've set a right one off.
I ignored the software aspect to your rant because Samsung isn't responsible for the software in their excellent phones. That's developed by Google from the work of Sun and Linux, both of which date back far beyond the origin of Apple Inc's IOS and their "OSX" BSD distro.
Have I accidentally offended your faith? You've used the word "lies" but failed point out any error. Of course. Another thing you share with the disciples of the cult of "scientology".
Samsung doesn't even develop software.
>>Have I accidentally offended your faith?<<
No stop talking rubbish - this is a technical argument and you fail to argue at a technical level, just resorting to abuse.
And actually, OS X (now MacOS) predates Linux since it goes back to NeXT. So you can't even get things correct.
"And actually, OS X (now MacOS) predates Linux since it goes back to NeXT. So you can't even get things correct."
... Which in turn is based on the MACH uKernel with some more modern (Free?)BSD userland ...
Personally I'm glad corporations can take decent mature software and incorporate it into their products, the alternative didn't look too clever in the guise of NT 3.x... Sure Windows got better - but years of Not-Invented-Here seems to be have bitten hard in the form of 10.
I'm all for corps reaping their rewards, but equally I would like to see said corporations cut a bit of slack to imitation of good ideas though - just from the point of view of keeping the field open for innovators.
Samsung 6400 family layered package for ARM, Flash & RAM, simple to layout I/O.
Cut down OSX -> iOS
GUI bought in from fingerworks. Trolltec actually had similar.
Switch from resistive (needed for handwriting and miniaturised desktop GUIs) to LONG EXISTING capacitive touch as the Fingerworks GUI didn't need the better resolution input.
Basically catalog phone parts slapped onto an iPod.
Less features than other phones, but well marketed and killer feature was unlimited or large data from some carriers when most users paid lots per megabyte. It was the simple (bought in) GUI and the data use bundle plus Apple hype / reality distortion that made the original launch a success. Marketing, Not R&D or even the appearance which was bland and minimalist and not creative at all, copied from 1950s to 1960s products, replace a 1970s calculator front with an LCD touch screen.
@Ian Joyner; "People are learning to argue better than just spraying abuse and ad hominem attacks of calling others idiots."
The current US presidential election would suggest the exact opposite.
Also, tell that to the person who started this thread by including "Scamsung" (ho ho) in the title. I bet you have nothing but contempt for *him*.
The supreme court position may offer an effective solution to the patent wars:
Don't fix the patent system for design, software, electronic hardware, but simply remove the money from said system. There won't be a lawyer to litigate your patent case if there is no money in it. And there won't be any money in it if the patent claim value will be divided by a factor proportional to the number of relevant patents.
It'll kill the whole patent inflation issue right where the patent inflation occurs. It doesn't require any fundamental reform of the patent laws or patent office. And it'll leave the traditional patent system in place in the areas where it actually works. Sounds like a brilliant solution.
The scope of the design.
The extent to which the design determines the overall appearance of the product.
Other components in the device.
The extent to which those other components can be separated.
** Extent to which the the infringed item is frivolous, obvious or a slight variation from prior art (like rounding corners is on every hand held thing back to wax tablets and slates). Thusly a bottle can't be a registered design / patent because it's a rounded rectangle cross-section, but needs to be more distinctive, like Cola-Cola's fluted bottle.
I can never understand why some people think that because they like a product some company makes, then that company can do no wrong. Most companies have one goal in mind and that it to make more money. To get that money they will do just about anything that they can get away with, and this holds for Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, Google, and nearly every other company that exists. I personally prefer the Android interface over IOS but that DOESN'T mean that I think Google can do no wrong and Apple are the pits. Why does everyone these days seem to think and speak in Black and White when the world is all shades of grey and an infinite variety of shades of an infinite palate of colours as well. I refuse to let the companies brainwash me into only buying their products. Hence I have an IOS work phone, an Android personal phone, an Android tablet, Win7, Win10 and and Linux on my PCs and I don't have or want a smartwatch. These are just products, not your Tribe ffs. Apple came up with a design that was based on lots of prior art (see Compaq TC1000 amongst many others) and refined it. That is the nature of design. You come up with something similar but different enough to avoid lawsuits which is exactly what Google did with Android. Samsungs mistake was to not understand that the American Patent system would allow Apple to sue them for being too similar. I could care less who wins the case but the US patent system badly needs an overhaul as it is now stifling innovation.
Samsung have to kill a whole product line since it is not only defective but dangerous.
That seems not enough to shake the faith of Samsung followers who have mostly posted 'Anonymous coward' or other avatar comments here. They still accuse any pro-Apple comments of being fanbois, etc.
They prove over and over they have no idea of what is involved in product and software development, and have no idea in truth. Just trolls who like to heap abuse on others.
If you are still supporting and defending Samsung after their spectacular failures, there is something really wrong with your thinking.
It's noticeable- over and over and over again- that it's always the most obviously partisan and emotionally-invested users who assume that other posters are arguing from the same partisan viewpoint. Hence everyone arguing with something you said *must* be a "Samsung follower".
The more obviously partisan pro-Apple posts people see, the more responses countering those you're likely to get, whether or not the people replying are "Samsung followers".
If you're not actually a "fanboi", then you really do come across as one. You seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time arguing Apple's viewpoint and you refer to their hated rival as "Scamsung" (#) while later in the same thread arguing hypocritically against such low-level arguments and name-calling.
I'm sure there *are* some Samsung fanboys replying in this thread; but the implication here that most of them fall into that category says more about you and your inability to recognise your own biases and narrow viewpoint than it does about them.
(#) Have you considered teaming up with this level headed Apple not-a-fanboi and combining his witty "Samdung" with yours into the killer insult "Scamdung"?
Additional disclaimer; I'm not a Samsung owner, let alone a fanboy, and don't need to defend them when they've messed up this badly.
The initial exploding battery problem it probably would have survived; the fact that the replacements did the same thing(!) is what has- rightly- tarnished the model's reputation beyond all recovery such that Samsung had no choice but to kill it- replacement lined up or not- before its continued existence further dragged down the already-damaged reputation of the entire Galaxy line and the company itself.
Like antennagate (blame the user) and many bugs at multiple iPhone launches which were blamed upon RAN vendors until the fixes appeared in iOS release notes?
Do people also forget about iPhone 6 and 6+ bananagate and smaller numbers of iPhone batteries exploding? Yes they do.'Perfect' is always the result of the application of a small filter.
Actually, Michael, I mostly respond to the unfounded criticism of Apple and those who buy Apple. The assumption is that to buy Apple you must be a deluded fool and fanboi. I reject that notion because Apple has developed a lot of this stuff, led the industry, and made very good products. To buy Apple is not foolish fanboy stuff.
That might come across as being an Apple fanboy to some. Those who have some sort of religious faith here are those defending Samsung even though it has made some very bad blunders in moving into Apple's space because it sees Apple has established a product, a market, and Samsung wants some of that. It happened before to Apple, and Microsoft almost put them out of business.
I also write from the perspective of one who saw the industry before Apple or Microsoft were big, when other companies had much better computers than IBM, but the pro-IBM people rubbished the developments of others. When IBM failed they just moved into a hatred of Apple and aligned themselves to Microsoft.
So, actually, perhaps it is you who has " inability to recognise your own biases and narrow viewpoint than it does about them."
""Samsung ... moving into Apple's space because it sees Apple has established a product, a market, and Samsung wants some of that. It happened before to Apple, and Microsoft almost put them out of business.""
To quote the Bourne Supremacy "You talk about this stuff like you read it in a book".
'The market' was tiny (and we are talking history now, this evolution is from 8+ years ago not suddenly this summer) and grew massively since Samsung (and HTC and Sony etc) entered it, and it is this healthy competition which has grown the market so large and so profitable. Competition has served all vendors well. A single source market would be a larger share of a smaller pie. Personally I want the flexibility that Android offers (customisation and HW vendor choice) but YMMV.
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