Groklaw nails it: "In other words, [Apple and Microsoft] want to disarm the companies that got there first, built the standards, and created the field, while the come-later types clean up on patents on things like slide to unlock or a tablet shape with rounded corners. Then the money flows to Apple and Microsoft, and away from Android - and isn't that really the point of all this, to destroy Android by hook or by crook? The parties who were in the mobile phone business years before Apple or Microsoft even thought about doing it thus get nothing much for their earlier issued patents that have become standards. Apple and Microsoft can't compete on an even field, because the patent system rewards the first to invent (or now, after the recent patent reform, the first to file). Neither Apple nor Microsoft got there first. Samsung
was there, since the '90s."
To illustrate: Apple is demanding $24 (!) per Samsung device for design patents, while at the same time, Apple also demands that Samsung does not charge more than $0.0049 per standards essential patent per device. This is absolutely, utterly, and entirely indefensible. And then Apple and its supporters have the nerve to claim Samsung is ripping
them off. Yes, this pisses me off, and no, that's not because it's Apple doing it (Microsoft is just as guilty). It's because this is plainly, utterly, clearly, and intrinsically
unfair.
Member since:
2005-09-21
All these companies are massive behemoths and are perfectly capable of defending themselves. It's funny how people keep pretending like Apple and Microsoft are some sort of schoolyard bullies while poor little Google and Samsung are the defenceless nerdy kids being pushed around.
Samsung and Google are both multibillion dollar companies. So what if Apple wants $24/device from Samsung? Samsung has armies of lawyers and they will fight it out and the courts will decide. Why spend all this time whining about how this or that isn't fair? It's different when big companies use their might to squash little companies, but why on earth anyone would feel sorry for Google or Samsung is absolutely beyond me.