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Apple is going to be banned forever in my home and if my work place gets apple products i will not touch them


the court was bought by apple


the one who gave me a -1 is an apple retard!

Edited 2012-08-25 00:27 UTC

Well, I don't see Google or Samsung on Capital Hill demanding an end to software patents, so it's hard for me to feel sorry for either of them. When you are a willing participant in a fight and get the shit kicked out of you, well... sucks to be you.

This is simply a case of big companies doing what big companies do. Samsung is going to appeal this, and of course it will drag on for several more years, and tech blogs will continue to be polluted with this incessant bullshit.

Apple is a patent troll

LOL, Apple actually makes products. But speaking of being heavy-handed with patents, we all know that Microsoft makes a lot of money on Android sales for this very reason. So when I've seen Windows users/Xbox 360 owners screaming about 'boycott Apple!' today as a result of this verdict, the irony isn't lost on me.

For the record, I do not own any Apple products.

Apple doesn't make anything at all they do not own factories!

The one who voted my comment down prove me wrong!

Edited 2012-08-25 15:04 UTC

"Well, I don't see Google or Samsung on Capital Hill demanding an end to software patents"

A valid point re: Samsung, not so with Google.

I was very surprised that Samsung didn't follow Google's lead (in the Java/Android case) and ask the patent office to invalidate Apple's patents in advance of the trial. If they truly are invalid, as many people thing, then a re-examination would invalidate them. The tactic worked very well for Google - and happens outside the truly ludicrous time restriction on arguments in the court room.

The only reason I could come up with for Samsung not challenging the patents in that way is that they didn't want the same to happen to theirs.

Bingo! Samsung lawyers were so preoccupied with all-or-nothing approach, that it bit them in the ass. They could have gone the "narrow down patent claims" route, but they only wanted invalidation.

1. Maybe finally, the justice system will realize that too much energy is spent on these patent trials. Maybe the pressure will build to lobby for more sensible laws, hopefully restricting patents in time, also depending on whether they are being used, and to deny "obvious" patent applications.

2. The whole situation was brought upon the world by Microsoft blatantly cashing in on (a) PCDOS, and marketing MSDOS instead; (b) "copying" (and getting almost everything wrong in doing so, but that's a different story:) Apple's user interface. Formally, they couldn't be blamed, because neither PCDOS nor the MacOS GUI were properly protected at the time, and Microsoft cleverly negociated contracts that turned out to let them get away with the whole thing. In order not to fall in this trap again with the iPhone et al., Steve Jobs told the world: "and boy, have we patented this..."

You're not really making a whole lot of sense there. PCDOS was bought and paid for. That deal was all above board.

And Microsoft didn't get away with coping the WIMP paradigm, Apple took MS to court and won (and that's ignoring the fact that the whole thing wasn't even Apples invention to begin with)

Edited 2012-08-25 14:05 UTC

Won? Seriously? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corp...

Hmm weird. I'm sure I remember reading that Apple had won at the time. In any case it was still Xerox's innovation to begin with so Apple's claim to it is tenuous at best.

It's funny how things have since done a U-turn now though - GUI designs were dismissed back then, where as now even more tediously obvious ideas like rounded corners are upheld. Like sharp corners on a device that you're going to poke next to your head and stuff down the tight pockets of your jeans are a great idea....

Edited 2012-08-25 20:14 UTC

Not sure where you read that. Apple quite famously lost that case, though the ruling relied in part on Microsoft having a contract.

I agree it's upsetting to see the same company in the same court bringing almost the same claims and seeing the law changing enough to let them win.

You make no sense whatsoever. PC-DOS was just a branding of MS-DOS, when used on PCs sold by IBM. PC-DOS was made by Microsoft.

And about that "desktop GUI look and feel" (which Apple took from Xerox) lawsuit against MS - notably, Xerox sued Apple on the same charges, too, at the time.
But it's quite hypocritical to allege that MS stole the GUI from Apple, while poitning out it was quite different (logically, that's what "getting almost everything wrong" would really imply)

Sorry for not having quotes right now but Google did say numerous times it was against software patents and also it never used them offensively.

I have not nor will I ever buy an Apple product. I was going to add or a Microsoft product, but then I remember I actually bought MSDOS 6.0 many years ago.

No Apple or MS operating systems in our household. My desktop runs Ubunttu, my wife has a Linux netbook and an Android tablet. We both have dumbphones. I was thinking of buying a Sumsung Android phone. This decision is encouraging me to do so.

Boycott Apple products! Death to Apple!

Edited 2012-08-25 02:37 UTC

I wouldn't be surprised if the Android tablet manufacturer actually pays Microsoft because of Linux patent FUD.

The fact that Samsung fails to provide me with an Android 4.1.1 update for a Samsung Galaxy S (released March 2010 - slightly over 2 years old) has resulted me take their mobile phone products of my list of possible options in the future. See, unlike YOUR post, mine is actually based on something empirical, their crap software support and not like your basis which is nothing more than chucking a hissy fit like a 6 year old getting told that they're not going to go to McDonalds for their birthday.

There is a lot of empirical evidence that Apple is not a company I want to give money to.
The one that bothers me, and has a personal impact, is that they got an EU wide ban via the German judicial system.

Actually the Galaxy S update fiasco is have apparently more with design fail than Samsung malice. Eventually even CM project have refused to maintain v9 port for the device after couple of unsuccessful attempts.

Hmm, I'm running CM9 release (not RC, a release) on my Galaxy S and I could run CM10 nightly if I wanted. Not sure what you mean by "refused to maintain" and "unsuccessful attempts".

I was thinking about Nexus One. My bad

Melin said: Apple is going to be banned forever in my home and if my work place gets apple products i will not touch them...

I agree!

I will NEVER buy an Apple product. The company has stifled innovation.

However, the US Patent system is the real villain here. Patents for rectangles should never have been allowed.

Australia has both patents and registered designs, the rectangle boxes may have been a registered design (I don't know how, but...) but NOT a patent.

What is ironical here is the fact that Apple got its post Apple ][ start by "stealing" Xerox patents when it developed the Lisa and then the Macintosh.

Regards,
Peter

Edited 2012-08-27 07:05 UTC

You may need to re-read your history (or I do, given fact checked sources).

Xerox gave Apple ( Steve Jobs + a team of engineers with notebooks.. to be specific) permission to tour the facilities, take notes and use ideas. Apple gave Xerox a lump of shares.

I have no love of Apple but the "Apple stole from Xerox" myth needs to die.

You are the brainwashed one. The percentage of the millions of people who use Apple products who even read websites like these or are aware of software patents and the like is minimal. Most people don't know about the smartphone wars or any of this litigation. Plenty of people use Apple products and are not "brainwashed". The "brainwashed" are a vocal minority of fanbois.

It's like calling every windows user brainwashed by microsoft. Saying that is insulting everyone who has ever used a computer. It's a silly joke at best.

nope i was a apple user for many years and when steve jobs came back i switched to pcs

OMFG....case closed....the rocket scientist indeed.

fossils like you shouldn't say anything

Well, it so happens that most "rocket scientists" don't use Apple - in one fairly visible project, there are ~100 consumer-grade PCs on the ISS ...and zero Macs.

i do not believe that you are a linux lover you are a appletard

See the thing is patents on software itself is ridiculous.

Code is written, writing is protected by copyright.

Code in many ways is really just mathematics, and math is not patentable.

I am not a lawyer, but can't you only patent methods and implementations? Not ideas? Correct me if I am wrong.

Edited 2012-08-25 00:33 UTC

And what do you think a patent does?


You shouldn't have to license "bounce back" and "pinch to zoom". It is like paying for the same work over and over because that one company was the first to patent it. These ideas didn't come from a vacuum; they were around for years before Apple used them.

And what do you think a patent does? "
A patent also protects against others independently doing the same 'invention' and going to market with it.


That's why you can only successfully uphold a patent when it is decided by the Proper Authorities that your invention is really novel.

Ok. 25 years. You may have heard of such a thing as mathematical logic? Thus, you are technically right, code is not mathematics. Code is mathematical logic and a bunch of other subdivisions of mathematics.


So yeah.... We are better off protecting general concepts, that don't bother disclosing the actual algorithms.

Also, there is no such thing as a software patent. We call it a software patent, because it references a process that is performed by a program code. All "software patents" are in their essence vague process patents.


I would agree with 3 points:
A) Full disclosure - source code mandatory!
B) Either copyright or patent, not both. The two deal with different types of IP.
C) Software patents don't need 10-20 years to recoup R&D costs, so 1.5 year protection term.(That was 2 years 9 months ago, that is how fast the industry changes)

B) perhaps copyright should also mandate (future) disclosure of source code: placing it in an escrow being a condition for copyright protection - so that PD can have any real meaning.
( http://www.osnews.com/permalink?528221 )

Of course, the way things are going, copyright might become essentially perpetual, hence it wouldn't even matter...

Code == Logic. Math == Logic. Therefore, Code == Math.

*ALL* software is math.

Write some code that ain't, and SOMEONE can make a mathematical formula to describe it.

--The loon

I'm not sure how you down-voted. Even as someone who does not agree with software patents, you present a perfectly rational point on why the USPTO is so broken in general let alone with regard to technology.

Patents cover the underlying methodologies embodied in a given piece of software, or the function that the software is intended to serve, independent of the particular language or code that the software is written in. Copyright prevents the direct copying of some or all of a particular version of a given piece of software, but do not prevent other authors from writing their own embodiments of the underlying methodologies.

Software code is not "math".

Take Excel, for example. How was it created? It was constructed. It wasn't derived like a math formula. Nor is Excel some mathematical equation that existed in the abstract, just waiting to be discovered by a mathematical genius. Excel is a machine that was put together like any machine, only it's made out of bytes rather than steel/wood/plastics/etc. And machines (that is, the ideas behind them) certainly ARE patentable.

P.S.
What is the "you can't patent math" thing based on anyway? Why, for instance, would one be able to patent a chemical formula but not a mathematical one? Is it just because math is totally abstract and doesn't exist in "nature", but only exists in the minds of intelligent beings, and therefore nothing mathematical can be considered to be created/invented, but only discovered?

I ask because it seems that much the same could be said of chemical formulas. Chemistry, unlike math, does indeed concretely exist in nature, but I could see where one might argue that all chemical formulas already exist in the abstract, just waiting to be discovered, therefore chemical formlas can't be patented since they're discoverd rather than created/invented.

Seems arbitrary to say that math can't be patented, and I've not heard anyone actually rigoursly argue that proposition; I've merely heard the proposition asserted as an axiom as if there's no need to back it up at all.

Anyway, as I said above, I don't think the "math can't be patented" argument applies to software to begin with, since I don't see software as "math", but I do wonder about the whole "you can't patent math" thing to begin with. Seems like begging questions to me.

I only care from a philisophical standpoint. I don't really care in a real/practical sense. However, if a company spent billions of dollars on math research and discovered some mathematical formula that solved the world's energy problems, maybe that company would be justified in getting a time-limited patent to reap some return on their investment. Though it's likely that the discovery would be more along the lines of physics rather than purely absctract math. Maybe applied math should be patentable, but not purely useless abstract math? Or maybe math can't be patented, but the way one might apply it is patentable? :p

They're not. You can build a total barrier to whatever market you got covered by patents.

The only exception is when you (or one of the former patent holders) signed away this right - for example in exchange for the patent to be added to some standard. That's what "FRAND" is about.

I understand your wish for people to innovate, but are you saying that a case which validated software patents is going to spur innovation when all software patents have done so far is hurt innovation?

I tend to place more credence on people who are willing to risk money instead of shooting off their mouths. I doubt the venture capital firms in Silicon Valley agree that software patents deter innovation.

This might be a surprise to you, but venture capitalists don't really care about overall progress - they care about capital, money, and only for them.

This is bad for innovation.
Not that Samsung was not copying Apple design (they obivously were heavily influenced by the iphone), it is bad because ludicrous software patents were validated. Any software developer knows that all software patents should be invalidated. But really? Pinch to zoom? Are you kidding me?

I'm a software developer and I don't think all software patents should be invalidated.

Media compression codecs for example can take millions to create and are difficult to protect under copyright.

But slide to open? Hmmmm no. My glass door slides to open. You can probably find video games that used all of these Apple UI patents before smartphones existed.

I also think caps are a better answer than elimination. Part of the problem has been that Apple has purposely asked for unreasonable fees with the expectation that no one will pay them. Microsoft charges a buck in many cases and caps out at a million, at least for the ones I have seen.

But.. but.. Apple USE IT FIRST! Apple is THE INNOVATOR! Others just COPYING! /s

Copying a good idea helps everyone won't you think?

Would the world be a better place if every device had a different way of zooming in?

so every time you develop software you need to be hot clicking the patent search database to make sure you aren't infringing on some patent for any reason?

I'm not a friggin lawyer, I just develop software and I never intend to be a lawyer.

Edited 2012-08-25 07:32 UTC

You're assuming that the case was based on each small copying - it wasn't, it was the over all thrust of what they were trying to achieve. It wasn't a situation of implementing a couple of gestures with the GUI looking entirely different or a couple of applications that have similar layout but it was the cumulative effect of when all this copying was combined you had what you saw. Again, it is one thing to take a couple of things and add it but it is entirely a different matter to create more or less a clone. Btw, notice that other Android vendors aren't being sued? Why not sue ZTE or Huawei who pose a greater threat with their low cost Android devices that are popular with carriers? it seems people are ignoring what is happening in the Android world and some how believing that Samsung equals Android - it doesn't equal Android nor is it some sort of 'representative' of Android either.

Thanks for this comment by the way - feels like a bit of balance that this site needs.

It's a tough situation. Samsung is not the good guy here - they are just a big corporation that is making money on someone else's creativity and hard work.

I'm okay with patents. I understand how they can be abused and am very wary of that. New developers and inventors need to be encouraged... but they need to be encouraged to develop something new. I think companies who create have a right to win and protect those new ideas. And yet, when you create something new, you got to expect that people are going to figure out a way to duplicate your stuff eventually... if it's profitable.

At the end of the day, no one innovates by first thinking about patents - they think about ideas, solving problems, and enhancing people's lives.

You can't enhance people's lives if you're not allowed to distribute the product.

Hasn't it been shown, time and time again that most of these patents are just plain obvious ?

There is no benefit for patents on obvious things, I'll go so far to say there is a big disadvantage to the market to have those patents.

It does not encourage innovation, it actually slows down innovation.

I was going to spend time and energy to give a reasonable response, and then I realised there is no point.

How is taking a large sum of money away from Samsung and giving it to Apple "good for consumers"??? What benefit do consumers get out of this at all?

How does creating an environment where implementing obvious UI conventions could cost you a Billion dollars benefit the tech industry???



Addiction to cloning??? Are you f*cking serious? Half the silicon in an iPhone is made by Samsung... They make tons of stuff, most of it things that Apple doesn't even think about making. Even giving you the benefit of the doubt due to this court decision, saying Samsung is "addicted to cloning" is extreme hyperbole.



Does Apple have patents on stylish Ads? What about having a gadget store - did they patent that too? What difference does it make if they copied things like that - everyone copies from successful businesses. The problem is you think that there is something wrong with it.



You see copying... I see progressive refinement. You can't have the later without some of the former.

I suppose you think that we would all be better off if Apple had won their "Look and Feel" case against Microsoft? Do you think things like BeOS, Gnome, KDE, etc. would have ever existed in that alternate reality???

Hell, the entire PC industry was CREATED through willfull, blatant copying! You do realize that modern Macs are now decedents of IBM's original PC platform don't you? Apple didn't seem to have an moral objections to willfully copying that...

You want to see things slow down to a snail pace??? Make doing patent clearances on software become a financial imperative. Slow down? More like stop dead.



Gloat all you want - I guess the verdict gives you the right. But I predict this shit is going to get a lot messier before its all said and done.

There is one ray of light in this decision: A lot of software companies who thought they could stay quietly on the fence concerning software patents are going to start rethinking their positions now...

Hmm, more like everybody loses including Apple. Apple more than anyone as will be clear in 5/10 years.

[q]Hmm, more like everybody loses including Apple. Apple more than anyone as will be clear in 5/10 years.

If you are correct you can make a lot of money by shorting the Apple stock.

Now, get out of that RDF and look at the business reality. No matter how Apple fans and clouded-judgement-Mueller spin it, the matter of fact is that it boils down to Apple Gets $1 Billion From Samsung —> Nothing Changes.

Samsung already moved on from their old designs, so it's already irrelevant for them.
And an important and surprising part here, is that Galaxy Tab 10.1 is not infringing!


http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-24/apple-gets-1-billio...

Fuck you Apple fanboy.

An absolutely brilliant retort, bravo! Your brilliance has come shinning through.

Well it does have the advantage brevity. I routinely end up writing 300-500 words to say the same thing when replying to that guy...

The problem is that the jury just asserted a number of bogus patents despite obvious prior art in a very painful ways. The verdicts says much about US legal system and how it works as a protectionism engine.
The true damage is not the money Samsung has to pay now but indiscriminate amount of FUD that has spread over the industry.
How do you know you your shapes are and rectangles are enough not-apple like? The risk is to big and the result will be apple tax paid voluntarily by any touch phone manufacturer with resulting price rise definitely pushed down to the consumer. $1bil is peanuts compared to that. I personally feel ripped off by Apple and US now, as the prices abroad will definitely be affected by this.
I believe the right thing Samsung should do now is to go directly to ITC. Or simply withdraw from US market and focus on elsewhere. It's no longer reasonable to expect fair competition rules in the country.
And no it's not even remotely Android related (unless you take the line of thought that MS astroturfers spread), these patents may hit producer just any touch based communication device, be it MeeGo, BB or Tizen.

What patents is App.net violating?

Unregistered trade dress.

I think a lot of people are very uneasy about the similarity of App.net (including the devs themselves). They are even using Bootstrap (open source, created by Twitter) to make this thing.

One reason many would give is that Twitter is changing from Twitter used to be to something else. App.net is then more of a clone of what Twitter-used to be, not what it is. (Weak argument, I know.)

The most important point however is that app.net is intentionally a "dumb pipe". That is, the most important function is to hold data, and app.net is completely ok with you not using their website. Normally it’s horribly economically to be a dumb pipe, but since people pay for app.net it actually works out.

I also think you can look at app.net more as this data-pipe, and that the Twitter-like thing they are building now just happens to be an example that runs on it. The dream of the devs is to create this plattform people can build apps that use it for plumbing (sort of like Heroku, but on a much higher level). Being a plumb this way is very much opposite of what Twitter is today.

the UI? sure... the back end? absolutely not. It is a system that allows developers to build systems on the internet and their private networks that use an API for messaging....like Twitter used to do.

Listen to the App.net interview they had on TWIG a few weeks ago to understand what is going on with it.

The App.net API is different than the Twitter API, so no copying there.

The goal of App.net is pretty much the same, which I guess is what you are calling a copy. However Apple isn't saying nobody else can make a phone, they just have to make it look different (the Trade Dress stuff). The software patents, I hate the idea of them, I hope that they go away, but sadly they have them and they were violated.

Pinch to zoom, for example, though, can you honestly not think of some other way for that to work? It is 100% impossible to do it any other way?

From that point of view Apple/Samsung is not the same as Twitter/App.net. App.net set out to provide the same sort of service as Twitter but do it in a different way. Samsung set out to provide a product that mimicked that of Apples. That is the difference.

Of course, there are other ways to do it, and it is being done in other ways very successfully.

However, that is not the point -- the point is that Apple did not invent/originate that multi-touch gesture (nor any other gestures), so Apple has no valid claim to the feature. It does not matter whether or not Samsung tried to copy Apple -- Apple did not originate the technology.

The non-Apple prior art is staggering in this instance (as it is in most Apple instances). I won't bother to link the decades-earlier multi-touch items. Suffice it to say, pinching to scale items came about around 1983. For a more recent citing, in July of 2004, Nintendo applied for a patent for multi-touch on handheld devieces: http://www.joystiq.com/2006/02/26/patent-application-reveals-ninten...

Note that Nintendo was granted the patent in February 2006, over a year before the Iphone was released. "Multi-touch" certainly included pinch-to-zoom in 2004-2006, so, in keeping with Apple's methods, Nintendo should sue Apple sh*tless for stealing "their" handheld technology.

Apple doesn't validly own the rights to 99.95% of their technology (nor designs), so they cannot rightfully claim that someone is stealing "their" IP by "copying."



No. The difference is that in the Twitter/App.net instance, Twitter might have originated protected features that Apple is using without rightfully compensating Twitter, but in the other instance, Samsung is using obvious and/or long established technology/art that Apple also uses -- Apple did not originate any of the technology/designs.

Edited 2012-08-25 05:55 UTC

Oh... FFS! '915 Claim 8 is not pinch to zoom. Neither did they claim that they own pinch to zoom. They claim that they invented the idea that you can have gestures and scrolling on the same device.

Perhaps it would be best to direct this bit to the fellow fanboy OP who stated (as clearly quoted in my response):


Fanboys need to get their sh*t together.



Well... that is an "revolutionary" concept. Certainly, no prior art exists for such an earth-shattering Apple brainf@rt... er, I mean... brainstorm.

Perhaps it would be best to direct this bit to the fellow fanboy OP who stated (as clearly quoted in my response):

Pinch to zoom, for example, though, can you honestly not think of some other way for that to work? It is 100% impossible to do it any other way?

Fanboys need to get their sh*t together.

They claim that they invented the idea that you can have gestures and scrolling on the same device.

Well... that is an "revolutionary" concept. Certainly, no prior art exists for such an earth-shattering Apple brainf@rt... er, I mean... brainstorm. "

As the "fanboy" in question, I am not a fanboy. The only thing I am a fan of is logic... sorry to burst your bubble.

Please show where I claimed anything other than there is likely more than one way to do zooming.

There's also more than one way to do steering in cars, but something like steering wheel is obviously most sensible, all besides the ~wheel are stupid (at least before the era of autonomously driving cars)
You know, that "logic" at work...

Android APIs are very different from iOS. The case was about look and feel of the UI.

That is an interesting question, unless the jury was blind there is no possibility of mistaking an S class device with an iPhone.

Funny thing is, they could even if they were blind. Simple check, does it have a wide Apple docking port? If yes, it's an iPhone. If it's a MicroUSB, it's a samsung. Not too difficult, and there are other tests too. Is the back made entirely of glass? Is there a battery compartment? You get the idea. Even a blind person wouldn't mix these up, speaking from experience.

Didn't jaiku happen at the same time? Unless Twitter patented micro blogging, its doubtful they have any come back. Also, you need to differentiate between form and function. An Android phone can present a similar interface to an iOS device. That's not the crux of the case. What the case proved is that Samsung went beyond that, into the realms of wilfully copying a specific design. If you need that explained, it's obvious why you had such a biased outlook on this case. I've stood in a phone store and compared Samsung and Apple phones side by side. It didn't take much effort to see how much influence Apple had had on SOME Samsung phones. I'd never claim all, but some were stupidly similar.

I say this typing on a Nexus 7. I'm no zealot. I use both iOS *AND* Android.

I don't use either Twitter or App.net so I have no idea what the answer to your question is. I suggest that if Twitter thinks App.net infringed they should take legal action, it's the best way to decide these matters. The last thing anybody should do is ask people like us.

If something that trivial has been bugging you for weeks, you definitely have a problem. Dude, it just doesn't matter.

Not exactly.
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/08/22/drance-apple-samsung
He thinks Apple is right, but he doesn't like the idea of patents being validated in such a big way.



Not really.
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/08/22/tent
He's more apprehensive and questioning, though since every other post out of him is complaining about what Twitter's turning into, I can see why he'd be hopeful about a replacement.



I don't personally know anything about App.net, but if Twitter has any applicable patents, I affirm their right to sue. And if they do sue, I expect Gruber will take a side based on facts and reason, rather than shouting about idealism or engaging in the blind loyalty so many like to accuse him of.

As for Apple and Samsung, their devices are only "clearly different" if you're already well versed with the particulars. There are people who can tell the year and model of a car from hearing the ignition across a parking lot, and there are people who would be at a loss to tell a Mazda from a Bentley when they're looking right at the back where the badges are. If you know for sure at ten paces whether you see an iPhone 3GS or a Samsung Galaxy n, then you're much closer to the former category.

The Apple-Samsung jury was made up of people specifically unlike you and me, because knowledgeable people have already made up their mind.* That's why experts speak as witnesses rather than sitting on the jury. The jury was shown iPhones, Galaxies, Lumias, and HTCs, and, like any reasonable person without prejudice, they concluded two of the things were too much like each other, with a very long list of specific charges to affirm or reject.

There are (or were) smartphones out there that are (were) *really* different from the iPhone. Lumia is one. Any Android with a keyboard is plenty distinctive. The Pre was incredibly original and had so much potential, until Motorola and Verizon tag-teamed it and Apotheker put a bullet in it. Even HTCs, Motorolas, and LGs all have distinctive and varied bezel styles. Compared to any of these, Samsung's stuff is a very close, meticulous copy. Combined with the fact that Apple managed to dredge up a document showing that Samsung's engineering goals were based specifically on iPhone functionality, the conclusion was inevitable. Samsung's stuff is not "clearly different" unless your clarity has had some very specific training.

* "The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him." Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You

"There is the notion that mathematics is discovered rather than invented. If something was already there, how you patent it?"

That is what I think about DNA/gene patents.

Actually a trial was recently held in South Korea and it was perhaps actually even-handed compared to this one:

http://m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/news/apple-samsung-found-guilty-s...

In fact, if the US trial had come out similarly, there might have been the occasion to review the patent mess that even some supporters of Apple say constrain and perforce drive how the company acts.

how would you feel if you made a game and someone cloned your game and it looked almost exactly the same, and people started buying it instead of your game.

thats what samsung did. they made their product look like a popular product to steal sales from apple. They didn't have to make their stuff look so similar to apples stuff... they didn't have to, but they did.

that being said 1 billion is probably too much of a penalty. i doubt apple lost that much money because of samsungs actions. but i do believe that some sales of samsungs phones is because they copied the look and feel that apple's phone popularized.

"i doubt apple lost that much money because of samsungs actions"

That isn't what fines are about, fines are meant to prevent you from doing it again (or at least I hope that is the point).

Going by the Final Jury Instruction No. 35, fines are exactly about that:

"The amount of those damages must be adequate to compensate the patent holder for the infringement. A damages award should put the patent holder in approximately the financial position it would have been in had the infringement not occurred, but in no event may the damages award be less than a reasonable royalty. You should keep in mind that the damages you award are meant to compensate the patent holder and not to punish an infringer."

The jury obviously though "screw the instructions, we know better: let's punish them", as shown by the jury's foreman declarations:

"We wanted to make sure the message we sent was not just a slap on the wrist," Hogan said. "We wanted to make sure it was sufficiently high to be painful, but not unreasonable."

Edited 2012-08-26 18:17 UTC

Maybe this is normal for patents ?

As in: maybe patents are the exception.

Edited 2012-08-26 22:59 UTC

You must not go shopping often.

Yeah because there are so many stores that look exactly like that. Please, your bias is really showing.

Get your fact right! Apple is copying Linux for appstore (and none linux folks felt unhappy about that). Too green to comment, eh? Do you think all universe centered in Apple? Meh!

Are you new here or just trolling? ...because, if you were a regular, you'd already know that Google isn't being sued because Microsoft found it easier to buly Android hardware-makers into paying license fees and the Samsung v. Apple Jury was carefully chosen to make sure they know nothing about the technology they're judging.

I don't know about you, but I certainly wouldn't trust a medical decision if the doctor was chosen for being the most ignorant one available.

Edited 2012-08-25 01:10 UTC

Blame Samsung for screwing up patent invalidity case.

Apple stores are a rip-off of Sony stores.

But like most Apple fans you probably think the tech world started in 2006.

Silly Jerkface, Apple invented brightly lit stores with laptops on display. Before Apple people bought laptops in dimly lit alleys. Sony's Tokyo stores never existed and Tokyo probably isn't real either. Stop making stuff up.

Did you just reply to yourself? Looks like you forgot to switch accounts, there. Now get out.

No it was on purpose, I had been modded below zero by Apple fans.

I'm not defending Apple here; I certainly had hoped the trial would go the other way. But I have to admit I've seen a trend in the Korean market towards copying Western design. Take Kia and Hyundai cars, for example. Every time Honda makes a change to the Accord's headlights and tail lights, the following year's Hyundai sedans take on a similar look. There is a Kia car that is a cartoonish mashup of Jaguar and Mercedes sedans as well. In fact, I'd say the only Kia/Hyundai vehicle that isn't a blatant copy of a Western design is their minivan.

That's not to say that I think Samsung copied the various iDevices with all of their products. In fact, I'd say that there are several HTC phones that would be easier to confuse for an iPhone. The fact is, it's difficult to get away from the rectangular, black-bordered touch screen design when it comes to something you're going to stick up to your ear and talk into. Until Google improves the Project Glass hardware to the point that a phone is integrated into the frame, we're going to be stuck with slabs of plastic, glass and metal for a while yet.

Paper. Moveable metal typeface. Gunpowder. Porcelain. Pasta.

The West has spent hundreds of years since the Early Modern Period ransacking the world for substance as well as style.

Time to give back a little, cut a little slack?

Do we have Brevik supporters in da house; history a little difficult to take?

The serious point being that ideas and intellectual goods flow, move, evolve, become hybrid, adapt and become therefore resilient due to figurative intercourse between cultures. Without such dynamic interplay there's stagnation.

The same goes for biology; just try keeping that Herrenrasse corralled for a few generations - you'll soon have physiological weaknesses and a marked falling off of adaptability.

There is only ONE optimal solution to any real world engineering problem. There is only ONE practical design for any sub-type of car (small hatchback, large sedan, SUV etc). That is why all the vehicles in any segment look similar.

Kia cars are designed in the USA. They are not copies of anything western.

Please reread my post. I'm not talking about general shapes or functional designs, I'm talking about those little touches that normally make it easy to distinguish one make from another. You're not going to look at a Ford Fusion and a Honda Accord and confuse the two; there are distinctive flourishes that make each car stand out and speak its designer's language. Now, take a 2008 Accord and a 2009 Hyundai Elantra. They have nearly indistinguishable front fascias. The 2009 Hyundai Sonata goes even further back; its tail light shape, size and angles are almost exactly the same as the 2005 Accord, to the point that you have to be close enough to see the swooping "H" symbol to know it's a Hyundai.

Not quite true. From Wikipedia: "The Namyang Design Center, located in Hwaseong, South Korea, serves as Kia's primary design facility. The facility, which is shared with parent company Hyundai, is located on over 3.3 million square meters of land and serves as the central hub for engineering work encompassing the entire design process, from pre-design studies, prototyping and extensive track testing, full-scale wind tunnel aerodynamic testing, to crash testing." (emphasis mine).

Anyway, I have nothing against Kia/Hyundai; indeed, ever since Hyundai re-released the Accent I've been interested in driving one, as well as the 2012 Elantra redesign, but my current needs and financial situation dictate that I stick with my older, paid-for truck and SUV.

Carmakers very rarely copy each other. The common styling cues are usually because manufacturers frequently hire outside designers. These designers then recycle their own designs for different models.

A well known example of "copying" is the Puegeot 404 and Austin Cambridge A60 from the early 1960s. They look almost identical because both were designed by Farina.

While I say - Screw Samsung for copying iOS in their horrible TouchWiz.

The jury just validated two really, really, broad claims that Nexus S(vanilla Android) infringes. But based on the speed of their deliberations, I doubt that they even bothered checking the patents.

'381 Claim 19:

Which is document bounceback/end of document, that vanilla Android on Nexus S does not IMPLEMENT!!!

'915 Claim 8

A patent to allow scrolling with one finger and "magically" detect(not disclosed how, thus any implementation infringes) that it's more then one finger to identify gestures.

The Apple stores are based on Bauhaus principles dating from the 1920s. Bauhaus is in turn heavily based on much earlier styles.

If you bothered to learn any design or architectural history you would realise that ALL of Apples products are highly derivative or even blatant copies of existing designs.

Nonetheless they could make their phones look modern without copying apple directly. Apple design comes from the history books, and from their designers own sensibilities, and from research and development.. samsung's designs appear to have come from apple. And that's why they lost this big time.

samsung's designs appear to have come from apple

Up close they are nothing alike. Samsung phones have a micro usb connector, unsealed cases, removable batteries, removable storage cards etc. No Samsung phone has a glass back.

Try to come up with at different way of doing touch scroll gesture. Good luck.

Clearly you don't have eyes. Hard to judge these things when you're blind.

Looks more like a Telstra store.

It's quite obvious that they were in a hurry. Why? They found Nexus S to infringe on a claim that it does not implement...

I say with no shame that I buy and enjoy Apple products - I own an iPhone, a Macbook Pro and have purchased iPods in the past. I guess I'm a dirty "whore" as well. :-)

Still, I had really hoped that both Apple and Samsung had not come out of this unscathed. I feel this patent warfare is turning into a situation of mutually-assured destruction where all but the wealthiest businesses in the world will be able to release anything, and when they do they'll be watered down and neutered in order to avoid infringing the patent minefield.

It's telling that Gruber hasn't commented on this yet. I suspect even he sees a grey-cloud behind the silver lining.

Oh there's no question that this decision sucks balls for the industry as a whole, and especially for the consumer (though they won't notice for a while).

The intellectual side of me wants to crawl into a 3D-printed hole with an old AMD laptop running GNU/Hurd and a picture of RMS hanging on the wall, connected to the local AMPRNet via my home-built TNC and 2-meter radio.

The practical side just kicked the hell out of the intellectual side and will continue to use Windows 7, a Samsung Nexus S and an HTC Arrive, an Xbox 360 and an iPod shuffle.

I am with you there; having only signalled my disgruntlement with certain aspects of Linux this week, what with this debacle and also having come into some adandoned SSF desktop tech, I feel a bit of an anti-consumerist, anti-commercial wave coming on...

I think the real problem is, even if all people who understand the industry a bit and think the same would stop buying from these manufacturers the impact for the manufacturers would be hardly significant.

But, I do think it would be a significant amount of buying power which could be used to fund other companies/project which do want to do the right thing.

Just look at what the FreedomBox Foundation adchieved:

"The fundraising drive was set up on February 17, with the goal of getting $60,000 in donations in 30 days, but it has exceeded that—and quickly. As of this writing, there are more than 650 supporters who have donated over $64,000 in just five or six days."

Won't purchase another Apple product. Will no longer recommend Apple products to anyone. This is a sad day in tech. And to think that there are people out there that read tech media and are still cheering for Apple in this case makes me want to throw up. THe fact that you can write code that is completely different from Apples code and still get sued by apple is ridiculous. Software programming just got a LOT more expensive for the small guy. Will do every thing I can to recommend alternative products. NO MORE Apple products.

So only small struggling companies should be allowed to protect their IP?

Apples factories are some of the best in the tech industry...

Apple doesn't own any factories now, do they?

Oh you mean the Chinese factories that everyone is using? Sure, they're good but there's just one problem; they're used by everyone and not owned by Apple.

Apple checks on the status of the factories where their products are made. They don't have the ability to check on the factories that others use. This probably means some of the factories used by others and Apple have improved because of Apple's due diligence.

What kind of fairy tale have you read this in?

WSJ, Business Week, WIred, CNET... But don't take my word for it, look it up yourself!

Apple only did it after pressure from the public, these factories are used by all the other phone manufacturers too.

The public is the one that is wrong here, they should have said it to all producers of phones and probably anything coming out of China.

FRAND licences have nothing to do with Apple and everything to do with the suppliers providing hardware for their phone - Qualcomm being that supplier of mobile phone chips. Sorry, but to claim that Apple has to licence AGAIN after paying indirectly through Qualcomm would be akin to Fraunhofer IIS coming to consumers demanding payment after Microsoft had already paid royalties to Fraunhofer IIS to licence the software in the first place. Sorry but Samsung is nothing more than double dipping on the patent system and quite frankly for you to bring up this as an example of Apple having to licence its own technology shows a complete lack on how the patent system actually works.

Standards patents aren't difficult to be designed around. They HAVE to be granted!

(This was supposed to be in reply to TechGeek above.)

Edited 2012-08-25 02:02 UTC

I think you make some good points but I don't see this backfiring at all.

To most consumers this is all background noise. Corporation A wins money in court from Corporation B. Whatever.

In a few months it will be:

The new iPads are here! The new iPads are here! I am somebody!

No one gave a shit about Apple factory workers killing themselves. People would rather read about a pig that likes to drink root beer.

I am not so sure; at one time here in the UK, the 'Murdoch Empire' seemed to be unassailable. Now the very family is apparently tearing itself apart and disagreeing vehemently in public.

I would not understimate a similar tipping point here.

The Murdoch Empire doesn't have software inertia.

Even if Apple becomes uncool to the hipster crowd that still leaves a massive swath of tech company apatheic consumers that have already bought tons of stuff on iTunes and have no interest in switching. Then there is all the iTunes exclusive business software that was written while Microsoft was asleep at the wheel. This Christmas we will see the iPad mini which will cut a hole into the $200 Android tablet market. Android tablets still don't offer as smooth of an experience so without a strong price advantage I don't see much changing.

Apple isn't going anywhere and will actually seem like a safe bet to Wall St. once the POS known as Windows 8 fails on the market.

Oh and I'm a .NET dev with a Samsung phone, not an Apple fan at all.

Phones and tablets have a two year lifespan. The software inertia is essentially worthless.

The API lasts longer than two years. The Android game selection is still quite inferior compared to the iPhone. I wish this wasn't the case but it is.

The Murdoch children are the products of three different mothers. That is why they are fighting.

Now that I hadn't grasped! Thanks for the enlightenment.

I think then I should not have used the illustration as the basis for the argument itself that I was trying to make: i.e., that at one point Murdoch seemed to have politicians in his pocket, and that the 'dumb' public would continue to buy his newspapers.

Then along came the Milly Dowler (RIP) hacking case, and the 'dumb' public suddenly have enough, and Murdoch, instead of playing the putative puppeteer of politicians, is hauled up in front of Parliament and ends up closing down titles, etc.

My argument: nobody before that hacking incident would have predicted this downfall.

I think something similar may well hapen here.

The Murdoch family have been tearing itself apart for years - the daughters don't want to have anything to do with the father, the son I have a feeling just hangs around in the hope that the old geiser dies and leaves him with the crown jewels. The cold hard reality is that no one actually likes him - people only hang around in a hope of getting any of the scraps left over when he dies.

Yes, as said, I inadvertently gave misdirection to my own argument :-s

Whether or not the children have been squabbling for years prior to Murdoch's debacle, there have been two essential Murdoch periods in the UK

1) Untouchable
2) Disgraced

Moving from 1) to 2) didn't take that long.

Personally if I was a politician I would take over all their businesses, deport him and his whole family from the country and ban any media created by organisations linked to him from being broadcasted in the United Kingdom. People like him have served no beneficial purpose to the good of society and thus his removal would only help but to improve the discourse, especially around politics where it seems sensationalism and conspiracies have replaced rational discourse.

Tend to agree in spirit. Influence hasn't been exactly salubrious.

Be careful what you wish for ...large portion of that lovely bunch would likely move back to Australia; dangerously close to NZ

Though generally, it's a bit of a shame that he took down with him one long-published newspaper, IIRC (even if it was rotten in its present state - still, it could be certainly salvaged, keeping the tradition alive)

Perhaps it is not representative but look at the comments regarding his story on the BBC News site, highest rated first:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19377261

I doubt all these are tech enthusiasts of the sort that would delve much but they seem to have understood the gist, and Apple isn't coming off well at all.

Er, you might find it informative to actually read a little past the 'branding puffery', important though it is, part of the judgement.

Sorry it seems I have to assert some obvious things:

Branding is an important part of a business. It's not puffery. It's integral to the identity of the product and its experience.

Branding is very difficult to get right, it's very expensive to make and protect and easy to counterfeit.

Brands have equity and their values happen to be billions of dollars.

Trade dress as an important part of branding is important and when someone creates a product that resembles your product, while they had millions of choices to create it in a different way, it's illegal and immoral.

With all due respect, dismissing and belittling branding as puffery, just shows how shallow is your understanding of business,product positioning, markets and commercial innovation.

Except that's not what happened. It would be more like if Nike hadn't gotten any trademarks and this mike company went and registered some and then sued Nike and won.

Not the first graphical, touchscreen PDA (Palm's Zoomer was the first), and by far not the most successful - it was a major flop.



A laptop.



Overpriced (compare to the Amiga) less capable version of Xerox' work. Game changer for sure, but hardly innovative.



Invented and built by Kodak and Fujifilm. Digital photography is older than Apple itself.



See Macintosh. The only successful homegrown operating system Apple has ever built, which they completely neglected for years until they became the laughing stock of the industry.



Fantastic device, but in the end, just a music player.



Fantastic device, but as a heavy former PDA user, kind of 'meh'.

Apple in a nutshell: great devices, made possible because of industry progress and copying others. I actually applaud that - it's just that Apple believes it should be the only one allowed to stand on the shoulders of giants.

You dismissed all these great products which many of them were pioneers of new markets (not primarily technologies) and defined new categories. Very good.

I've totally forgotten about the new markets and innovative product categories that samsung built in the fields of microwave oven, refrigerator, flat screen TV, dvd player and even wristwatch and oh, who can forget those "magically" 30$ digital frames?

The problem is -and I'm doing my best to be very respectful to you Thom and be fair-, with all due respect, there is a lack of understanding the distinction between product/market innovation and technological innovation on your side. And that's why you fail to understand why Apple (and designers like me) are angry and why samsung is guilty (And playing like a spoiled brat and pretending that it doesn't understand what it's done either)

Samsung pattern of business has been always like this: piggy backing on other pioneered markets, SONY in TV, American manufacturers in home appliances and now apple in Smartphones and tablets.

There is a difference between "standing on giant's shoulders" and "Piggy backing by copying the trade dress".

It's OK that they like to enter new markets to gain more profit, but they could do it like what Microsoft did with windows mobile. Nobody is angry of Microsoft because it's getting into multitouch Smartphone market because, a) they were trying to do these things on the phone and tablet since windows 3.0, b) they are doing it with Nokia, a market and technological pioneer in this field and c) they went their own way in defining every aspect of their product.

Imagine, if microsoft+nokia were first to introduce to the market instead of iPhone. Now, guess how would Samsung phones look like? Of course, they would look like exactly like a lumia. And Microsoft and samsung were in court instead of apple. And Samsung would say :"Microsoft can't assert the right to monopolize square tiles, they are at war with innovation". Come on.

Since this is the internet, I will happily fact check for you:
- Tablets - not a new market, thus Apple isn't a pioneer by a long shot
- Smartphones - not a new market(they didn't even expand it that much), thus Apple is not a pioneer by a long shot

Or do you have your own definition of "pioneer"?

Being born in 1975 does not give you a right to move goalposts.

Edited 2012-08-25 15:51 UTC

I completely agree with that statement. Do you not understand that it completely invalidates everything else your wrote...

Apple DID achieve market success first with this "class" of product (ie. multi-touch tablet/smart phone). It certainly matters because their headstart paid off in spades, their sales show it... That first to market advantage paid off enormously for them.

Seriously, I respect their ability to make good products. I have some of them. Good for Apple! I'm glad they made a fortune - they deserve it.

Now why the f*ck should that preclude other companies from making similar products and trying to compete with them??? Apple already got the benefits of their advantage - and then some. How does giving them an unfettered monopoly on an entire category of product benefit anyone other than Apple?

I don't see what them making refrigerators has anything to do with this.



None of these are original ideas. Good products perhaps but not original ideas.

My reference to refrigerator making of samsung was to indicate that they have no product philosophy and are just after profit in every field other companies pioneered. They create mediocre products in every field under the sun from microwave ovens to DVD players, digital cameras and even wrist watches.

So it's very funny of them to warn us of apple smothering "innovation".

Apple products were not technically original of course, but many of them are commercially innovative (i.e. they created new markets and product categories, by putting together existing technologies)

The misunderstanding is Samsung pretends it's about technological innovation (which it's hard to justify apple is technologically different or innovative), but the real debate is about stealing ideas not in the field of pure technology, but in market innovation, product positioning, trade dress and design.

FYI in addition to $1.05b from Samsung, the afterhours trading has pushed $AAPL’s market cap up by about another $10b.

In addition to $1.05b from Samsung, the afterhours trading has pushed $AAPL’s market cap up by about another $10b. You're betting on the wrong horse.

Yep. That is why they threw out their old OS and took the "immitator" as their base for OS'es.

Also, it would be really nice if software patents that Apple refuses to license aren't ridiculously broad. (see the two out of three claims posted above)

<sarcasm>
So in general, I agree that giving Apple a 17 year monopoly on any touchscreen device that can perform single finger scrolling and multi-touch gesture detection is an absolutely positive thing for the tech industry. Oh, did I mention that the actual method of detecting multiple touches and determining that it's not a scroll is not relevant and not disclosed?
</sarcasm>

In the 90s Apple realised they couldn't compete on technology. They switched to being little more than a design company selling generic PC hardware (in pretty cases) with a BSD-based operating system.

As a longtime Mac OS X and Windows user (not just them, but that's what is relevant now, as the post I'm replying to is about Apple innovation) I can't agree with this statement.
Until the Retina MBP was released, Apple had not offered its users a usable way to scale the GUI independently from the screen resolution, apart from tinkering with AppleDisplayScaleFactor, which was unsupported and resulted in visually breaking the UI of every single application you used.
Even now on the RMBP it is just doubling^2 the pixels for every element or scaling old resolutions to fit a panel on which you cannot distinguish individual pixels anymore. A sort of workaround if you speak about scaling the GUI.
On every other Mac you had a hell of a bad time trying to change font dimensions with third party applications, only to find that most of the font-related settings are hardcoded and cannot be changed.
The Windows way was far easier and more effective - as in Gnome and KDE - even if it is not proper interface scaling.
There was no freaking working way to scale the GUI on Mac OS X and I've been hating this for years, so please, don't tell false tales.

Sadly they have not said that. If, on the off chance I am wrong, please point out where they said that. I am hoping I am wrong :-)




The unlawful suppression part, assuming you are talking about how Samsungs lawyers tried to introduce evidence too late in the trial, that is not unlawful suppression, that is following the rules.

Wow, dude, read and then think about what you read before you speak. Otherwise you wind up sounding pretty dumb ...

No, it didn't. SCOTUS said that abstract ideas that are not otherwise patentable don't become patentable just because their expressed in software. None of the Apple patents in question represent abstract ideas; their all very utilitarian in nature.

Moreover none of the trade dress patents are in any way 'abstract ideas'.


No it didn't. The only thing the 'suppression of evidence' that you are talking about would have impacted would be the trade dress part of the suit of which Apple only won for the 3GS.

Even if that whole trade dress piece gets tossed it would have only limited impact on either company (what's a few hundred million to these guys).


Did you even bother to read which patents Apple is asserting here? Because if you did you would understand how totally stupid that statement is.


Apple is 'killing itself' with a 48% y-o-y growth. I am sure Tim Cook cries every time he looks at that number.

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Apple is 'killing itself' with a 48% y-o-y growth. I am sure Tim Cook cries every time he looks at that number.

Apple is getting absolutely slaughtered outside North America. The iPhone market can't exist without massive carrier subsidies. Hence the frivolous lawsuits.

Apple did much better than anyone else in the picture last time they were "dominated" internationally ('81-'84, Microsoft rose to dominance under DOS, not Windows) and weathered the storm for 15 years to lead the next wave.

Would you really wager that there is any other player in the game (particularly any that are not Google) more likely to outlast a 15-20 year storm of dominance by another platform than Apple?

Are you like trying to convince yourself or someone else here?

1) Apple earns almost 60% of it's IPhone revenue from international sales.

2) International iPhone sales are the growth driver, while NA sales are slowing as the market saturates.

3) Apple's primary lawsuits are all in US. Software patents and trade dress patents are much weaker outside the US and so - other that the circus in Germany - really have no tangible impact on international sales.

But feel free to believe whatever helps you sleep at night.

]{

Sounds impressive, until you do the actual math:

40% of iPhone revenue comes from the US, so 4.5% of the world's population is responsible for 40% of iPhone revenue. This means that the remaining 60% comes from 95.5% of the world's population. This is an incredibly skewed division - it means that a small sales drop in the US can easily have harsh repercussions for bottom line. No spreading of risks here - all eggs in one basket.

Now do the actual math based on the actual population size of the smartphone and/or tablet markets for US v. international rather than raw population.

Now do the actual math based on the wealth of actual population size of the smartphone and/or tablet markets for US v. international.

Oops, not so skewed at all.

You do understand that Europe alone is more populous and has a more even wealth distribution than the US right? Europe alone is a larger smartphone market than the US - add in South America, India, Japan, China, Russia, and Australia, and the US is *peanuts*.

Typical US-centric view of the world.

I am certainly aware of the size of the European market. I'm also fully aware that you are counting about 2.5 Billion non-participants (conservatively) and another 1.5 Billion low-value, economically-speaking, consumers (again, conservatively) to generate some funny math.

The veiled threat of "a small sales drop in the US can easily have harsh repercussions for bottom line" paired with the funny math is nonsense. Apple just experienced a "small sales drop" (greater than 20% growth) and is at its strongest. Economically, all of the other players are in far more precarious situations: Samsung least so (because of other manufacturing), HTC (very real risk of disappearing), RIM (do I have to say it?), Nokia (?), Motorola (no one could ever save Moto)...

To further expand on my points about the addressable market and value from its participants.

"40% of iPhone revenue comes from the US, so 4.5% of the world's population is responsible for 40% of iPhone revenue. This means that the remaining 60% comes from 95.5% of the world's population. "

Yes. Apple gets 40% of its iPhone wealth from 4.5% of the world's population by having 30% market share (greater share than any other competitor in the market, with far higher profits too) of the most important mobile market and it gets 60% of its iPhone wealth from the 60% of world that is currently addressable.

Also, and this is the funniest:

Take away America. Go ahead! Chop 40% of the iPhone out, and Apple's market value is still greater than Samsung's TOTAL mobile phone market value... profits are still 2x, or even 3x, those of Samsung's, its nearest most profitable competitor, TOTAL profits.

Sounds like an awfully fragile basket of eggs!

Edited 2012-08-25 19:38 UTC

Sounds impressive, until you do the actual math:

40% of iPhone revenue comes from the US, so 4.5% of the world's population is responsible for 40% of iPhone revenue. This means that the remaining 60% comes from 95.5% of the world's population. This is an incredibly skewed division - it means that a small sales drop in the US can easily have harsh repercussions for bottom line. No spreading of risks here - all eggs in one basket. "

It also means that Apple's iPhone growth potential outside of the US market is substantial, and places them in a stronger position to weather downward fluctuations in revenue from the home market. Of course, Apple has been walking on the high wire for decades as endless naysayers predicted their demise. My, how the worm turns.

Edited 2012-08-26 12:00 UTC

I love how the rhetoric shifts "submission" of evidence to "suppression." When Samsung was denied, it was often because Samsung was pursuing a new theory/narrative several months late, without notice. When they avoided "suppression" of evidence, the fanboys thought it shifted the case to a slam dunk -- when in reality it was weak sauce.

Android will look different in USA due to shit patent and idiot courts

Then it's a great day for innovation!

Apple doesn't innovate they litigate

In the very old days, Apple did sue Microsoft over the use of the trashcan on the desktop. Or threaten to sue, I am no longer sure how it went.

This is the reason why the 16versions of windows did not have a trashcan application.

Apple was always like this.

In the very old days, Apple did sue Microsoft over the use of the trashcan on the desktop. Or threaten to sue, I am no longer sure how it went.

This is the reason why the 16versions of windows did not have a trashcan application.

Apple was always like this. "

Back in the day, a good number of us users who were running Win 95/98/ME alongside Mac OS 7 and 8, found it fairly obvious that Microsoft's 'Recycle Bin' was a blatant rip-off of the Mac's 'Trash.' It was a running joke.

Samsung have been producing interesting products for years. There's a reason that millions of consumers consciously chose top end Galaxy devices instead of Apples despite similar price. You don't suggest they wanted Iphone and were mislead, do you?

http://phandroid.com/2012/07/31/pre-iphone-design-concepts-add-weig...

No great loss, thanks for all the fish and bye.

Everything is obvious in hindsight. I'm sure Samsung saw it as obvious when they blatantly lifted them off of the iPhone, but not a minute before.

Rather than arguing about how ridiculous Apple's patents are, I'll just point out that there should be a clause in patent laws that specifies that a year or so after competitors have started to widely use the patented invention in commercial products, if the patent holder has done nothing about it, the patent must be invalidated.

Otherwise, what you get is people silently patenting random stuff, waiting until it has fallen in widespread use, and only then asserting their patent holder rights. This does nothing more for innovation than immediate litigation, and only help companies that want to engage in downright anticompetitive behaviours such as patent trolling or achieving monopolies on de facto standards.

If companies have to litigate immediately instead, such legal backstabbing becomes impossible. They must show immediately what kind of crap they have patented, and competitors can smoothly reinvent the wheel before people have become used to the original one.

Edited 2012-08-25 20:54 UTC

I believe such a clause exists, but the period is to long for how fast everything now changes.

Interesting... I've made a similar comment about Samsung and Android.

BTW: I've been buying Apple products since the early 80's and currently have about 15 working Apple products in my house. and several hundred shares of AAPL (since ~2002, $12.22 per share when purchased .

Apple is a great American success story! If you don't like the patent system then change the patent system, don't bitch about companies that play by the same rules as every other company out there. Don't think for a minute that Samsung or Google would not have done exactly the same thing if the roles were reversed!

No big deal. Here nobody buys iPhone anyway. iPhone was not able to complete with android wrt spec and prices.

Where is 'here?'.....your mom's basement?

No problem for Apple, for now on if you buy a touch phone you will pay them whether you like it or not.
Say good bye to $100 smartphone, not in this life.

If long time ago some religion believe in earth is the center of the universe, then now, some 'religion followers' believe that Apple corps is the center of the universe.

Shut up! Don't type again. Or I'll make you can't type. I'll persuade 'that' country to patent alphabet, and 'that' country to patent using 'digit'. If rectangular can be patented, why not alphabet and/or digit.

Oh, I'll make sure you CANNOT use your vehicle, too. I'll persuade 'that dead person' to patent his rounded wheel method.

..Ever think why google persuade Samsung for the design? Cause they know in-out what 'Apple-insider' brain works. Use ur brain, pretty please?

Wise man said, 'Ignorance know no bounds', Mhm..

What a bunch of horseshit...

The irony is this is coming from an Apple supporter.

He believed this when he said it. It isn't taken out of context.



Copying (to a point) is a good thing. It is the engine of innovation - you cannot innovate in isolation. Everything is derived from something that existed before it. Innovation is coming up with ingenious ways to make things better, do things better. Jobs knew this, he practiced this, he did it better than most in fact.

Innovative != Original...

There is admittedly a line where you can go too far, I concede that, but I personally don't believe that Samsung crossed it. Im not taking about the technicalities of whether they violated patents or not - Im just talking about general principle. Of course the jury did what they did, so that is that.

But it doesn't really change the argument. Im not upset that Samsung lost the case. I personally don't care about Samsung, or Google for that matter. Im not a fanboy - I don't post here to defend companies. All of your comments are directed at some "subculture" - I don't belong to a subculture.

Copying is not wrong - it is not "unethical". Being able to monopolize a sofware method for 20 years in the technology industry, where product life cycles last maybe 10 years at best, is what is wrong. That is a fricken enternity! That is unethical!

I don't care that Apple won. I don't care that Samsung lost. But I do care that this case upheld (decidedly) Apple's 915 and 381 patents...

It doesn't matter whether or not Apple 'invented" these. It is not fair to the industry. Virtually every single multi-touch device in existence with a browser on it can be argued to violate one or both of these patents... Sure, they can be worked around with a bit of work - but that would not satisfy your argument. Subtly changing something to avoid violating a patent is certainly copying, is it not?

So what is your solution? That Apple have a monopoly on multi-touch devices until about 2025? That is fair to you? You have a device - the interface is a screen, and the only input is your fingers... There are only so many ways you can implement things, and the obvious and optimal ways are now the exclusive property of Apple, Inc. - and they don't license to anyone.

Apple certainly didn't invent multi-touch technology, Jeff Han and even Microsoft were doing things with it prior to Apple. Are you saying that just because Apple holds these patents it is fair to give them a 20 year monopoly on the entire product segment?

You think it is good for consumers for Apple to have no real competitors? If everyone else is doing something completely different... they are not competitors. You think lack of competition is good for a free market? For consumers?

The reality is that other companies are going to keep building multi-touch devices. All this verdict means (if upheld for the long haul) is that they have no choice but to work around these patents. They will suck just a little bit more than they would have had to otherwise. They will still be, for all intents and purposes, iphone and ipad "copies" in your eyes - but they will all be legal.

How does this help Apple? How does this help consumers? Apple is a billion dollars richer. I don't even think they would notice at this point...

All this does is create pain for an entire industry - one that Apple did not create and has no right to hold hostage. Everyone suffers.

Do you have a dog in this fight Tony?

Google have been vary of Apple infringements from the start. Initially G1 had even multi-tough disabled.
They also have removed over-scroll from Android. (edit: more on the subject: http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/25/3268609/how-google-has-avoided-ap...)
But the number of design and interaction patents that were validated in this trial(despite obvious prior art) is just staggering.
There's only a limited number of ways one can do zooming and scrolling on a touch device as there's only a limited number of ways you can open door or press a button. This is just a common sense, Apple can claim ownership on a common sense. Nobody in his sane minds could declare this patentable, this just madness.
There's nothing reasonable Google could do to counter madness, you know that.
I'm wondering how come in the absurdly obvious patent cases before US courts it's always the US based companies that are given the leg.

Edited 2012-08-27 12:37 UTC

The tragic part is that the only reasonable response Google could to is to fry Apple on e.g. notification centre to force it into licensing deals with its oems.
They could also see exploit some obvious search and mapping related patents against solutions Apple plans to do on their own. The problem is that this would be as damaging to the consumer as Apple actions.
This only displays how sick the whole system is.

70% of the world's computer chips is made using chip making machines from a Dutch company called ASML. In other words, without us, you'd have no computers in the first place. On top of that, we happen to be the second or third largest investor in the United States, so I wouldn't strike such a haughty tone with me, kid.

ASML likes to sue also. Ask Nikon how they feel about that. But I guess ASML is special and it's ok if they defend their patents but Apple can't defend their patents that they got legally. And we appreciate you all investing in the US, more money for us. Thanks. :-)

To para-phrase homer simpson

"Aw, you can come up with statistics to prove anything, Thom. 40% of all people know that."

Edited 2012-08-25 20:32 UTC

And most of all, we wouldn't have the Royal Concertgebouw....one of the world's greatest classical orchestras....the Netherlands is a cool place!

Though how much of that is because of Shell? (and if large part: not sure anything-oil-industry is a reason to gloat about, especially in the context of the US http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_welfare_and_ecological_foot... - fossil fuels is from where we mostly take the "surplus", for now - & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries ...or Sheel in general, WRT to Niger Delta for example)

Interesting about ASML (and... curious HQ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ASML_headquarters_Veldhoven.jpg )

Would vs. should.

Its more like, people use the term prior art without knowing what it means, or what it takes to prove it in court.

What are you referring to? Haven't seen that posted here.

The US is the only place with a decidedly victorious outcome for Apple. Germany, The Netherlands, the UK, South Korea al ended up positive for Samsung. Make of that what you will.

Actually the Neatherlands is the only place Samsung has won. They have lost 3 cases in Germany. One in France, one in Italy and they split in their own home country.

Samsung is on a losing streak, this is just the largest.

they make really good products that are better than iphone and ipad and apple knows that so they litigate

not my experience with their products, but each to his own opinion. It takes courage and risk to make something unique that is not a copy of something else. Its courage and risk that the world deeply lacks. Apple created this clone market by not opening their iphone to other providers and the international market in the beginning. When the clones appeared they changed their strategy, a little late.

they are not clones they do not look like iphone/ipad and android doesn't look like ios only a apple sect member would have that problem with their eyes

Yes because patenting code is exactly like owning a human being.</sarcasm>

This sort of comment actually sickens me when there is still real world slavery in existence and you liken some f--king computer code to someone's life.

You are a f--king idiot.

Edited 2012-08-26 10:28 UTC

Really disgusting. One only has to hope that one day people will be able to abolish software patents altogether, as they managed to abolish slavery

I don't think the OP was really intending any equivalence by saying the above but maybe simply hinting that both are simply completely unnecessary; 'owning' another human -barbaric and completely unnecessary.

it's also completely unnecessary having legislation in a supposedly free and civilised world allowing 'ownership' of formulae or pretty simple code that could can and will be repeatedly 'reinvented' within the minds of many successive coders but are 'enslaved' for want of a better phrase by the software patent holder.

I think shmerl's analogy was fair enough really(without over thinking it!) and that it is you over reacting or over analysing really -maybe trolling for a further reaction like mine perhaps. apologies if I've just fed you

OMG.

One is computer code and while it is fine we care about it, in the bigger picture comparing to something like slavery is moronic.

I'm sure slave masters were also pretty upset, and were screaming about "rights" and "property".

Comparing the two is just retarded sorry.

Let me spell it out for you. Computer are less important than real people.

Edited 2012-08-27 08:46 UTC

Comparing the two makes sense, since both serve someone's greed, and abolishing both goes against someone's strong monetary interests. The point is, those interests are against society in general.

Asking these questions is perfectly fine, but it's important to understand that there are plenty of people in the world who don't give a damn about Apple, Samsung, or the propaganda and spin produced by either company. If you ask the question, 'is it possible to select a totally unbias jury for this case?', I believe the answer to be yes absolutely, no question.

Remember, things not going the way `you` think they should is no indication anything is wrong with the jury. Many of us have our opinions, which we're entitled to, on how this should turn out. However, nobody is `right` or `wrong` in their opinion. You're either in agreement or disagreement with the decision of the jury.


Apple hasn't and can't restrict or stop anyone from being creative. Implying otherwise is simply absurd. Apple doesn't control anyone's creativity and they aren't to blame for others inability to be creative and/or original.

To suggest that Apple doesn't compete with its products is ignorant at best. Products like the iphone and ipad are wildly popular, sell like hotcakes, and it's not because people think they're inferior. Obviously vast millions of people don't. No company enjoys the type of success Apple has without providing people with what they perceive as great products. You don't have to agree with those people but disregarding their opinions doesn't make yours somehow more valid.

Additionally, you can't simply sue your way to the top. While some people believe Apple has done nothing more than cheat & steal their way to success, reality tells a different story.

Lastly, using the law to help maximize their potential is only one tool of many Apple uses, and it's not exclusive. Chances are your favorite and beloved companies have probably done it as well. Maybe some day people will wake up and realize all these companies have the same goal & same bottom line. None of them are in business `for the good of the people` and none of them should be put on a pedestal.