Rather than cheer for one side or the other, as many seem prone to do, we should be sending a strong message that they need to stop acting like whiny children and get back to doing something productive.

Those two companies aren't the victims; we are. Rather than cheer for one side or the other, as many seem prone to do, we should be sending a strong message that they need to stop acting like whiny children and get back to doing something productive.

Why do I always get the feeling that the judges across the world are biased and pro Apple?

Failing that, the only way this system is going to change is if/when these big companies get tired of suing each other, or somebody comes up with enough money to pay the government more than these companies do.

Agreed. They should be making great products and not copying other's designs so that these legal matters don't have to proceed.

"Failing that, the only way this system is going to change is if/when these big companies get tired of suing each other, or somebody comes up with enough money to pay the government more than these companies do.

No, because patents are wrong, period.

"No, because patents are wrong, period.

You miss the point. It is impossible, today, to build a product without reproducing someone else's design somewhere*.

Strong innovation can only exist when people are building their stuff on top of each other's work.

should Apple have kept their ridiculous modal notification system in iOS 5, instead of copying Android's superior non-obtrusive notification system ?

And, for the mandatory car analogy : if a car manufacturer patented round wheels, should all other cars do with polygonal ones to avoid IP infringement ?

Make sure that the young are educated in appropriate skills and technologies and have the confidence and discipline to innovate.

Do you even realize what will happen if competition is eliminated?

idiotic intellectual property rights have become.

If you want to think clearly about the issues raised by patents, or copyrights, or trademarks, or various other different laws, the first step is to forget the idea of lumping them together, and treat them as separate topics. The second step is to reject the narrow perspectives and simplistic picture the term “intellectual property” suggests.

It has become fashionable to toss copyright, patents, and trademarksâ€"three separate and different entities involving three separate and different sets of lawsâ€"plus a dozen other laws into one pot and call it “intellectual property”. The distorting and confusing term did not become common by accident. Companies that gain from the confusion promoted it. The clearest way out of the confusion is to reject the term entirely.

Then you have an issue with a need to reform patent laws. You ought not take issue with the litigating company. It's not as if Apple's iPad was an unknown entity. With that said, any company who goes to the effort of creating a product to the degree that Samsung did they ought to also become familiar with the laws that may restrict them. When you consider that Samsung specifically used Apple's product as the model to duplicate their risk was known beforehand.

"Strong innovation can only exist when people are building their stuff on top of each other's work."

Agreed yet Samsung didn't need to mimic so exactly their competitor.

"should Apple have kept their ridiculous modal notification system in iOS 5, instead of copying Android's superior non-obtrusive notification system ?"

That question assume that copying an end-goal is the same as duplicating a product or service. Apple created a service that results in the same task achieved as that which google provides. They didn't infringe on software patents or interface concepts etc.

"And, for the mandatory car analogy : if a car manufacturer patented round wheels, should all other cars do with polygonal ones to avoid IP infringement ?"

Your analogy is far off the deep end in an effort to make my position look far off the deep end but yes they should create a different shape of wheel is a circular one is patented. Unlike wheels, tablets can be built in SEVERAL ways to differentiate themselves. The wheel's circular shape is the optimal design however the design of Apple's tablet isn't necessarily optimal. Why couldn't it's shape or color be optimized beyond that which APple created?

jackeebleu,

"The people that say things like this have never created anything. If you created something to support your livelihood or worked for someone that did you'd understand. But since you don't, oh well."


Personally I am a software professional doing original contract work for clients, and I object to software patents. Most of us do even.

"It's not only about software, by the way. For this year's science festival, a lab at my university has built a flying skateboard based on superconducting levitation. Very fun stuff, I gave them some help for taking care of the stand."

That sounds awesome, my university never did things like that, but I've seen lots of videos of things that can been done with superconductors. Do you know exactly what your lab did differently that it'd be patentable?

The patent issues may carry over into disciplines other than software, but as I am a CS guy, I morally object to making claims about disciplines other than my own. I hate outsiders telling me my business, I don't want to be a hypocrite and tell a chemist/engineer/biologist what is best for them.

It's not that I don't have an opinion on general patents, but I only have experience with software, and the cost/benefit analysis may very well be different in other fields. I personally have no way to dispute claims that they are necessary in other fields.

So you're telling me that apple should be the only one that's allowed to make a tablet?

What do you expect? that samsung and the others do round tablets for no reason than not to infringe on a stupid apple patent?

Are you forgetting the LG Prada? the design of it looks quite a lot like an iphone, samsung, motorola device.

So now samsung has to make an spherical phone that makes no sense at all?

Next you'll be telling me that everyone make weird looking laptops just because they can't look like macbooks...

Well, is not that they don't want anybody else to use their desings, is just that they want to be compesated for it.

Listen for the sounds of WP7, RIM Playbook, and WebOS being called Apple clones, and you'll hear crickets.

A duck is a duck, and a Samsung Android device is a rip-off of an Apple iOS device. It's for the courts to decide whether the law protects Apple from being ripped off.

I hope it does, because I hate horizontal monopolies and rampant copying. WebOS is neat, and maybe if there were any room in the market for actual alternatives to Apple's designs, even HP's celebrated incompetence wouldn't have been able to bury it. But alas, I'm becoming wistful.

The LG Prada indeed looks like every other slate phone, provided it isn't turned on. It even gets the honor of first to market with virtual touch key input. But in operation, it's obvious it has a slightly modified dumbphone OS, and that touch input is based on number keys and T9. It came out scant few months ahead of iPhone but was decades behind in tech and innovation.

LG had a neat idea and put a little work into it. Apple had a neater idea and put a ton of work into it. Samsung saw Apple's neat idea and put a tiny bit of work into copying it. If you're in Samsung's position, you're poised to offer the same product quality at a lower price with the same profit, because you never really had to do any work. That is, unless the law intervenes.

This looks like a MacBook: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392106,00.asp#fbid=8UBWpJzlQ3...
This does not: http://topdesign72.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Asus-laptop-best-...

It's obvious, pathetic, and disgusting all at once that Samsung's R&D is simply handed a stack of Apple products and told to reskin it in black plastic and ship it.

http://www.reddit.com/tb/kr14a

It may or may not be illegal, but either way, don't defend it.