For everyone in this thread, you must truly watch this documentary if you want to truly see the harm in this ruling, its not a fanboy vs fanboy outcome, its another dangerous precedent in the patent madness in software.
Huge problem with software patents in general and the precedent that is set in this case. This ruling will be problematic, especially since I have to develop software for use in the US. It's allowing broad ideas to be patented and to stand rather than the implementation, code and underlying technology behind it, which in every other industry is okay. It's like McD suing every burger joint in existence for creating a production line food creation restaurant. It used to be that you could only copyright code to protect software, but the system was broken. A little more on the history of this: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radi...atents-attack/
As an outside observer who doesn't use either of these phones and really doesn't have any invested interest in either company other than knowing that they both make very good products, there are a few questions that I have to ask.
The most pressing question is how someone can determine the financial implications of any of these patents. How can someone essentially say what the damage done by Samsung using a pinch to zoom interface on their product was?
The other question is what patents are actually being discussed from my understanding there are patents on things like rounded corners which is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard to things such as pinch to zoom - which if it was patented by Apple (I didn't say invented, but patented) should be cause for financial compensation, I do think that a billion dollars is an absolutely stupid number though.
As an outside observer who doesn't use either of these phones and really doesn't have any invested interest in either company other than knowing that they both make very good products, there are a few questions that I have to ask.
The most pressing question is how someone can determine the financial implications of any of these patents. How can someone essentially say what the damage done by Samsung using a pinch to zoom interface on their product was?
The other question is what patents are actually being discussed from my understanding there are patents on things like rounded corners which is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard to things such as pinch to zoom - which if it was patented by Apple (I didn't say invented, but patented) should be cause for financial compensation, I do think that a billion dollars is an absolutely stupid number though.
Exactly, by contrast HP paid less for Palm and that was for a patents, employees, product lines, production, the WHOLE company. One of the bad precedents this ruling has set is that patentable material is now probably worth far more than a corporation is itself. This will lead to legal armageddon and even more lawsuits through the appellate courts, decrease in innovation and drive up consumer costs. Last check I found that IP related costs make up 25% of phone costs vs. 10% a decade prior. This will probably increase in the near to immediate future.
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The purpose of a patent is exactly that to help protect the company who gets the patent to prevent others from using that technology.
The question of whether Apple should have been granted the patents when some of this was prior art is a separate issue, but I believe this case would have invalidated the patents if it was felt that is the case.
The jury decided in short time that the patents were legit. I wonder if they even bothered to check. I mean they already made blatant mistakes as is, and were told to go fix them.
Exactly, by contrast HP paid less for Palm and that was for a patents, employees, product lines, production, the WHOLE company. One of the bad precedents this ruling has set is that patentable material is now probably worth far more than a corporation is itself. This will lead to legal armageddon and even more lawsuits through the appellate courts, decrease in innovation and drive up consumer costs. Last check I found that IP related costs make up 25% of phone costs vs. 10% a decade prior. This will probably increase in the near to immediate future.
Suddenly Google paying $12.5 billion for Motorola isn't so crazy.
So Samsung has a patent...number 711, that involves multi-tasking while playing music. Aren't all iPhones capable of this? Why wouldn't the jury award damages to Samsung if they can award damages to Apple over something so simplistic and stupid as a rounded edge?
I think once it was revealed that Samsung was offered the ability to license stuff from Apple but chose not to their goose was cooked. Especially given that A) Microsoft secured licensing rights from Apple even though their their products bear far less resemblance to Apple stuff than Samsung's did; and B) Samsung has since been willing to pay a per phone royalty for Microsoft for infringing on patents.
And as for people talking like $1 billion is some ridiculous sum, Microsoft took in $800 million in the last quarter alone from licensing royalties from Samsung and HTC smartphones. If Samsung had actually licensed Apple's technology, they would've spent a lot more than $1 billion.
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Jury member says emails between Samsung execs talking about incorporating certain iPhone features into Samsung phones is why they got busted.
Quote:
"Well, there were several. The e-mails that went back and forth from Samsung execs about the Apple features that they should incorporate into their devices was pretty damning to me. And also on the last day they showed the pictures of the phones that Samsung made before the iPhone came out and ones that they made after iPhone came out."
So Samsung has a patent...number 711, that involves multi-tasking while playing music. Aren't all iPhones capable of this? Why wouldn't the jury award damages to Samsung if they can award damages to Apple over something so simplistic and stupid as a rounded edge?
I'm not familiar exactly with the details of it, but given that it was filed after the original iPhone was released, I would assume that Apple's music implementation which has remained largely unchanged isn't in violation. I suspect the patent's scope is more limited than what you're suggesting.
I think once it was revealed that Samsung was offered the ability to license stuff from Apple but chose not to their goose was cooked. Especially given that A) Microsoft secured licensing rights from Apple even though their their products bear far less resemblance to Apple stuff than Samsung's did; and B) Samsung has since been willing to pay a per phone royalty for Microsoft for infringing on patents.
And as for people talking like $1 billion is some ridiculous sum, Microsoft took in $800 million in the last quarter alone from licensing royalties from Samsung and HTC smartphones. If Samsung had actually licensed Apple's technology, they would've spent a lot more than $1 billion.
While it might seem reasonable for licensing you have to look at the patents themselves and the terms. When the validity of the patent itself is questionable and the terms of the license insane would you license? Lets take a step back for a second and look at the patents themselves, Apple was demanding licensing fees for non-essential design patents at a rate three times higher than the rate Samsung asks others for industry essential patents. No matter how you look at it, that's not right.
I pretty sure Microsoft has a much more solid patent portfolio from a defensive perspective and it is fair for them to leverage it. This encouraged Apple to cross licensed with them to avoid MAD so the terms are much more fair and reasonable. This is not the case here.
The notification bar, and how Apple copied it. Isn't Motorola/Google suing Apple right now? Once the patent gets approved, I guess Apple will have to pay a lot more in damages considering how many phones have iOS, and infringe on the patent.
This is why Apple talking about being original and all that crap is so bloody hilarious. They copy as well.
like Apple scrambling to play catchup to Android on certain features -- with the pull down notifications being a key such feature. That feature is standard on my Android phone and has been for some time, and it looks almost identical to the Apple iOS implementation.
Patent has been pending since 2009. I guess Google will have to Apple the patent office on this one to get it approved.
The thing that's funny to me is that Samsung could have just used stock Android, gained a lot of nerd love, which spreads to mainstream love (ie, how Android grew in the first place) and gotten into far less trouble with Apple. Instead they came up with TouchWiz, which I'll be the first to admit, seemed designed to mimic the iPhone. So I think they deserve some lumps there.
Also, if Apple had patents from a technical/code perspective about multi-touch or whatever, and Samsung stole the technology, that's one thing. But the "idea" of multi-touch, it seems like common sense, so why would someone have thought to get a patent on it? The same goes for slide-to-unlock, and of course "a rectangular phone with rounded corners." These are just obvious incremental advancements in technology. To me its like AMD running to the patent officer for a patent on "the idea for 2ghz CPUs" once Intel had hit the 1.7Ghz mark. Slide to unlock is the worst though. Its just a virtual representation of common real world behavior. Can video game makers patent every virtual behavior within the game? Patent "A method for reloading a virtual gun by pressing R"??
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According to juror Manuel Ilagan, it was clear after the first day of deliberations that the jury was mostly in agreement. Speaking to CNet, Ilagan cited specific pieces of evidence that helped sway the decision Apple's way, including internal Samsung emails. "The e-mails that went back and forth from Samsung execs about the Apple features that they should incorporate into their devices was pretty damning to me," he explained. "It was clear there was infringement," he added.
"We didn't want to give carte blanche to a company, by any name, to infringe someone else's intellectual property," he told the publication during an interview. Hogan also said that Apple's requested damages — more than $2.5 billion — had been too high because it was questionable that the company had truly lost iPhone sales at the hands of Samsung when Apple faced manufacturing issues of its own.
While it might seem reasonable for licensing you have to look at the patents themselves and the terms. When the validity of the patent itself is questionable and the terms of the license insane would you license? Lets take a step back for a second and look at the patents themselves, Apple was demanding licensing fees for non-essential design patents at a rate three times higher than the rate Samsung asks others for industry essential patents. No matter how you look at it, that's not right.
I pretty sure Microsoft has a much more solid patent portfolio from a defensive perspective and it is fair for them to leverage it. This encouraged Apple to cross licensed with them to avoid MAD so the terms are much more fair and reasonable. This is not the case here.
In addition to this, didn't Apple ask for something stupid like $20 to $30 per decide whereas Microsoft was paying a fraction of that price?
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In addition to this, didn't Apple ask for something stupid like $20 to $30 per decide whereas Microsoft was paying a fraction of that price?
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Apple wanted $24 per phone from Samsung, though I suspect that could've been negotiated downwards if Samsung was actually interested in licensing.
It's not like that's unheard of. Samsung and HTC are both paying Microsoft $10-15 per phone and Samsung wanted Apple to pay $15 a phone to license their patents.
