So, after a bunch of attacks from Apple, Samsung seems to have gone on the offensive against the gadget maker from Cupertino – and big time, too. In three countries, France, Australia, and South Korea, Samsung has filed patent infringement lawsuits against Apple – with the South Korea suit being the weird one. Unlike Apple’s software patents and napkin scribbles community designs, Samsung is using actual hardware patents.
Samsung’s offensive started about a week ago in France. The French lawsuit covers three hardware patents for UMTS, one of the 3G technologies, and thus, affects the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and the iPad 1/2 with 3G functionality. “The complaint focuses on three technology patents, and not on the design of the tablets,” Samsung notes in a jab at Apple’s lawsuits. The first hearing, which will be in Paris, won’t take place until December.
The next country in Samsung’s offensive was Australia. It would appear the same patents are in question here, so it covers the same string of Apple devices. “To defend our intellectual property, Samsung filed a cross claim for Apple’s violation of Samsung’s wireless technology patents,” Samsung said. The timing of this one is interesting, since the ruling on whether or not the Galaxy Tab 10.1 may be sold or not in Australia is imminent.
The third and final leg (for now) of Samsung’s offensive is the most interesting one, since not only does this cover Samsung’s home country – South Korea – it’s also not about current Apple hardware, but about future hardware. More specifically, the iPhone 5. Samsung wants the courts to ban all sales of the iPhone 5 in South Korea.
“Just after the arrival of the iPhone 5 here, Samsung plans to take Apple to court here for its violation of Samsung’s wireless technology related patents,” a senior executive from Samsung told The Korea Times, “For as long as Apple does not drop mobile telecommunications functions, it would be impossible for it to sell its i-branded products without using our patents. We will stick to a strong stance against Apple during the lingering legal fights.”
Up until very recently, Samsung’s mostly been on the defensive against Apple’s patent and design lawsuits, so it’s refreshing to see the company go on the offensive. It kind of feels like the Korean lawsuit is potentially the most interesting one, since if they managed to score a win there, it would be pretty high-profile.
All in all, fun times continue!
Apple starting this patent war against Samsung was really foolish.
Not really. When Apple gets the Nortel patents no one will be able to build a 4g phone without tripping over one of those.
Ultimately though, Apple’s goal here is to confuse, frustrate and generally distract Samsung. Neither Apple or Samsung can really stop each others devices from actually getting to market for a substantive length of time.
A) If Apple and the other bunch gets them (see Novel patent scenario)
B) Samsung will have the license from Microsoft and Apple will have to STFU
C) They will not actually own the patents, they will co-own them
(a) Google pretty much guaranteed that by buying up a bunch of patents from the other guys and giving them to HTC. I actually think it was a given anyway because so much money was at stake.
(b/c) The terms of the Nortel deal are that Apple owns the 4g patents and the others get a non-transferable license so unless Samsung buys RIM (which is not as wacky an idea as it seems) their not going to have license to them. They will have a license for them for Microsoft Windows based phones obviously.
Share the link to the text of the Nortel deal, if you please.
[Speaking of tripping …]
Based on what? The only way Apple can use them is in defending itself against being sued for patent infringement. You still don’t understand how that works, do you?
===
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/082211-oin-wants-to-hinder-no…
In April, the DOJ limited the sale of Novell’s patents by making the patents subject to both the GPL and the OIN license. This essentially converted them into defensive patents only. Patents covered by the OIN cannot be used to collect royalties.
===
Samsung doesn’t seem to be too confused. Maybe a little too patient. Apple seems to be confusing and distracting you unless your comments don’t actually reflect your thinking and are just a smokescreen/astroturfing gambit. If you aren’t disinforming then you are sadly confused.
I sadly know more about patents then I care to admit.
You understand this passage is about Novell not Nortel right?
In the Nortel case Apple would own the patents outright. If the DOJ places restrictions on the Nortel deal those patents won’t be worth $4b and there will lots of pissed off people who hope to recoup their losses from the Nortel bankruptcy.
I suppose it’s possible the DOJ would acti in the public interest like this. I doubt it though.
This is great information but you do realize that Nortel and Novell are two different companies (and two different pools of patents) right?
Maybe Apple should just buy Samsung and be done with it. I mean hey it makes sense. Apple would get their own chip fab, LCD plants, etc. BUY EM’ and stop them from stealing from you. And i’m sorry, but anyone who can look at a samsung product that competes with an Apple product and begin to compare the accessories, even down to the packaging, and say that Samsung has not blatantly stolen, er scuse me, been inspired, by Apple is a just a bold faced LIAR.
Jackeebleu
BBC Article 22 Jul
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14238741
“Another Apple target is Samsung Electronics. The South Korean company has countersued, claiming that Apple is infringing some of its 28,700 patents held in the United States alone. ”
“A top Samsung executive told me that more than 50% of an iPhone’s components (by value) are made by Samsung. Several hundred Samsung engineers work at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino to help develop the next iPhone.”
One thing BBC got wrong and need more analysis: Florian Mueller isn’t patent expert, he is only a pretender.
USA! USA! USA! USA!
… this is not the WWF^H^H^H WWE
These patent lawsuits are such a waste of money and human creativity.
(Also, obligatory complaint about another lame patent piece getting headlined while actually news about OS’es winds up in the sidebar.)
Yes. Especially now that it is Apple that is on the defensive.
/sarcasm
Block the sale of all devices from Samsung, HTC, Motorola, Apple, Nokia, LG, Asus, Acer, Dell, Microsoft, Kodak, HP, Sony Ericson, etc……..
Since they all seem infringe on one another’s patents it does seem like the right thing to do……
Block everyone from breathing, since you might breathe in a patented chemical….
Edited 2011-09-19 23:37 UTC
Knew this would make Thom erect.
Gee I’d laugh if Apple couldn’t sell the iPhone5 here.
I’ve spent a good deal of time in South Korea – believe me, the Koreans do not take well to anyone insulting their country. And Apple, with their attacks on Samsung, are insulting a national champion. When Apple finally finds itself in a Korean court squaring off against Samsung, they are going to wish they never started this.
Edited 2011-09-20 04:19 UTC
What market share does Apple have in S. Korea?
A lot of consumers love home (country) brands. For example; the PS3 and Wii (both Japanese products) far outsell the Xbox 360 (N. American) in Japan (I think it’s still true). Does Apple have a significant market share in S. Korea to really be upset about losing the market completely?
I could imagine the PR black eye would be worse than the financial loss of the S. Korea market.
Edited 2011-09-20 05:08 UTC
I believe Apple’s marketshare in S. Korea is virtually non-existent. The reason being that doing online banking or really much of anything online there requires MSIE because of choices made over a decade ago regarding encryption. The current system basically boils down to “you can’t use the encrypted S. Korean parts of the internet (e.g. anything concerning money) without a key issued by the government” – unsurprisingly the government really likes that kind of power.
I think there is a pretty big Apple store in Seoul, but it can’t be anything other than a prestige project.
So how do you run IE on an Android phone? You don’t.
Yes, and conversely, should there be perceived bias in Korea against Apple, how do you think that will play at the home of Apple in the US? Which market do you think matters more?
To Samsung? South Korea (and Asia).
To Apple? U.S.
That’s true, no doubt.
However, if you look at it from Samsung’s perspective: What is more valuable? Kicking Apple out of South Korea and getting kicked out of the US yourself, or the status quo?
Don’t be ridiculous – You don’t defend against a company that has insider knowledge of your product line when they’re ripping it off? Because the country they’re based in has a crooked court system? Get real.
What you really have to like is that based on Samsung’s ‘nobody could make a wireless device without infringing’ statement, they would have to be able to stop global phone sales with their patent portfolio. Right, Samsung, right, and you just realized this after stealing Apple’s IP and making your own line of ‘Sapple’ products.
F*cking tossers.
Uh… exactly what did Samsung steal from Apple?
In a former life I (and Albert Einstein) worked as a patent examiner. I find it incredulous that Apple could have ever been awarded protection for those “napkin scribbles”. So goof for Samsung to fight back! Perhaps Governments could have a good look at their intellectual property laws and remove some of the stupidity that seems to have crept in over the years. And while they are at it remove gene patents.
Regards,
Peter
Perhaps Samsung fighting back is finally the beginning of this patent apocalypse that some of us have been wishing for. The tech world going on the legal variant of a pillow fight until regulators intervene and put some reason in this patent madness.
I too despise wasteful patent wars. In this case, from a government point of view, I consider regulation an expensive patch on a self inflicted wound. Just considerably narrow the portfolio of what patents can actually apply to in the first place.
Rather then waste money on a system handing out government granted monopolies (patents by definition) to every little spark of the imagination, limit the scope of what these can be applied to considerably, and not without a great amount of caution. Then you don’t have the two-fold problem of granting monopolies, then enforcing regulation to counter the effects these monopolies produce. This saves a lot of money, on the government side of things and otherwise, but even more importantly, it obsoletes the court-oriented cluster f@#$ that has resulted from a severely permissive patent system. A system that ultimately results in more lawyers, making them richer at the expensive of the rest of us – with little real value produced.
Now frankly, I’m not sure if this is likely to happen, because of the considerable power of corporate lobbying/protectionism, but I do find it to be a much more appealing approach.
Edited 2011-09-20 19:37 UTC
It’s a design patent, not a technical patent. WTF. How complicated is it? If you copy the look of a competing product almost exactly, you can get called on it. If you start selling a professional computer tower that happens to look just like the Mac Pro, do you think that should work too? How about a Gerrari that looks just like a Ferrari?
The patent system is a broken joke, about to get even worse in the US, but that doesn’t make trade dress violations part of that.
After looking at this comparison between the Samsung tablet and and the Ipad, I have to conclude that you are correct in saying that Samsung copied Apple: http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/21773_Samsung_Picture_Frame_v_iP…
Oh… wait that is photo of the Ipad next to the Samsung digital image display, which was released four years before the Ipad was first announced.
Well, of course that Samsung design doesn’t count, because, although the Ipad looks just like it on the front, the Samsung is just a digital picture display. If Samsung had put computer electronics inside that item, then we could safely say that Apple copied the external look of Samsung device… er… uh …never mind.
Even the Crunchpad prototype and final design shamelessly copied the Ipad: http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/03/crunchpad-the-launch-prototype/
Oh, wait… this article is dated a full six months prior to the first announcement of the Ipad.
What I really hate is when non-electronics companies try to steal a concept for a design and claim it as their own. Here is such an example, the Knight-Ridder tablet concept: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBEtPQDQNcI
Such a blatant ripoff of the Ipad design should not go unpunished, and Apple should… um… Sorry, but it seems that this video was made in 1994 — sixteen years before the Ipad was first announuced.
Wait, remind me, who is doing the copying?
” If Samsung had put computer electronics inside that item, then we could safely say ”
We could then safely say that it would have had a bunch of buttons and lights on the frame prior to Apple designing tablets without them. The design rights Apple has aren’t for a picture frame, it’s for a tablet.
“Even the Crunchpad prototype”
Even mockups of what the unnamed-at-the-time rumored Apple tablet might look like looked like that. Which was an extension of the iPod touch / iPhone design. Remember the ‘it looks like a bit iPod touch’ comments? Do you remember the ones where people said ‘it looks like a big Samsung media player’? Yeah, me neither.
“Sorry, but it seems that this video was made in 1994 — sixteen years before the Ipad was first announuced.”
Wow, and if Samsung made a tablet that looked like that one, there wouldn’t be a problem. That one has a lumpy bit that sticks out on the backside near the top center and has a ‘chin’ – the thicker frame on the bottom edge. That wouldn’t actually count as looking the same in terms of people confusing it with an existing product.
“Wait, remind me, who is doing the copying?”
http://deviceguru.com/files/gtab-unboxing-04.jpg
Certainly, I’ll be happy to: That would still be Samsung in this case. Look at the iPad unboxing above for an example… oh, sorry, looks like that’s Samsung’s pad including 30-pin connector for good copying measure.
That’s an interesting conclusion in light of the fact that a lot of the prior non-Apple art has rounded corners and a shiny, black, flush bezel, with no buttons/lights on the bezel. Even if one merely looks at the previously posted links of the Knight-Ridder tablet or the Samsung digital image display — no buttons nor lights show on the bezel. Not that there is an advantage (or disadvantage) to the lack of lights/buttons on a bezel.
However, you seem imply that buttons on the bezel are a disadvantage. If so, the Ipad is an inferior design to the Knight-Ridder tablet and to the Samsung photo display, because the Ipad has one of those horrible buttons on the bezel!
The Crunchpad shown in the article seems to have a few small lights on its bezel and the later Ipad doesn’t. Not sure how that would make the Ipad “a whole new tablet pardigm.” At any rate, the final version of the Crunchpad (which was released before the Ipad) didn’t seem to have those lights on the bezel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JooJoo_01.jpg
So, it’s okay that Apple took the Samsung picture frame design and merely stuffed-in different electronics, and then got “community design” protection on the copied Samsung enclosure. I see.
Wait a second, isn’t it the Apple fanboys who are constantly suggesting that what is more important than innovation is who was first to market — not who was first to show a concept.
Even so, I don’t see any links to Ipad mock-ups showing dates.
Furthermore, if Ipad mockups appeared when the final Crunchpad prototype was demoed, then, obviously Crunchpad mockups preceded those of the Ipad. Sorry, but the Crunchpad beat the Ipad to the punch.
I don’t remember those comments.
Nevertheless, the Knight-Ridder tablet and the Samsung digital picture display both preceded the Ipod Touch, and they both had rounded corners and shiny, black, flush bezels.
In addition, the LG Prada had rounded corners and a shiny, black, flush bezel, and that phone was winning design awards months before the Iphone was first announced. So, the Prada (with its rounded corners and a shiny, black, flush bezel) prececed the Ipod Touch by a full year!: http://mobile.engadget.com/2006/12/15/the-lg-ke850-touchable-chocol…
I am not sure to what is being referred as the “lumpy bit.”
However, I gather that the second assertion is that a vertically non-symetrical bezel makes the Knight-Ridder tablet completely different from the Ipad, which has a symetrical bezel.
Yes. The Ipad’s symetrical bezel is a brilliant, revolutionanry advancement in tablet technology. That’s the kind of innovation that makes Apple so great! It’s the sort of detail that makes the “Apple difference!”
Unfortunately, the Samsung digital photo display and the final released version of the Crunchpad (and about a zillion previous tablets) featured symetrical bezels.
Sorry — Apple didn’t invent symetrical bezels.
Ah, yes. Another revolutionary Apple invention — white boxes! Samsung is shamlessly copying Apple by using a white box!
Not sure what is meant by the mention of the 30-pin connector.
Remember the days when computer technology was based on open standards and interoperability was still important? But now, including a compatible connector is “copying” (though I’m honestly surprised you had the restraint to not write “stealing” instead).
And this is the “future of computing” that iFanboys are endlessly bleating about? Funny, it sounds more like the ancient history of computing. Apple’s approach with the iProducts is nothing more than an early 80s-style closed, single vendor computer system – combined with an AOL-style walled-garden for software and content delivery, thoroughly sanitized and dumbed-down to appeal to the very lowest common denominator.
The image you linked proves the absurdity of Apple’s case. It’s a screen. that’s it!
Is this copying Apple?
https://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/etch-a-sketch-121.jpg?w…
The argument of community design is retarded.
Apple did something pretty amazing, they became HUGE, RICH and well, huge again. So huge in fact that they dwarf Microsoft (aka the evil empire).
Oh, what? Wait!!! Apple are no longer the underdogs!
Apple are no longer the rebels with their shiny well designed toys. Apple fan-boys are actually storm troopers. Yes, apple is now officially the evil empire.
I know it sounds pretty Kevin Smith-ish, but you should see their faces when you lay it down like this in front of them.
It gets funnier when they start talking human engineering, UI and interfaces right before you shove Gnome3 & Unity at their faces. 🙂
As for 4g etc, I sincerely couldn’t care less. I tend to use wifi for data transfer much more than I use 3g.
That is why my relationship with Apple is a love-hate one.
While I can’t think of a laptop better than my MacBook Pro (great hardware + a fine OS), I wish that Mac prices (especially upgrades) were more reasonable, and that they gave up this patents madness.
Re prices: check this out
http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/09/19/acer.compal.ask.intel…
Seems nobody can match the Air price.
The Samsung Apple patent fight is nothing, it’s Oracle versus Google that is the big match and it looks like Oracle might win.
That link always seems funny to me, since the ultrabook coming from Lenovo next month will be USD 800.
It’s way too early to tell.
Oracle IS going to win. They not only have a case but they have a smoking gun (emails) which proves WILLFUL violation of Oracle’s patents. I wouldn’t be surprised if Oracle gets a $15 royalty per Android device sold. Which pretty much eliminates the price advantage that Android enjoyed, and allows other IHVs to diversify away from Google-Motorola to Windows Phone 7, etc.
Edited 2011-09-21 01:58 UTC
Let’s put it simply : take someone who wants a decent $500 laptop for office work and web browsing. He can buy it from Acer, Asus, etc… He can’t buy it from Apple. Why ? Because Apple only make high-end laptops. Why ? Because they make more money this way. Why ? Because Macs have a monopoly on a number of things so people will buy their expensive laptops even if they actually wanted something less expensive.
Now, from the point of view of those who just wants an Apple laptop because they have a cool OS, it just means that yes, Apple hardware is ridiculously expensive.
Upgrades? What upgrades? You mean the $30 upgrade cost for Lion? That? You want that cheaper? Really?
No, I mean hardware upgrades when you buy a Mac. Configure a Mac Pro and see for yourself.
Of all the machines to pick on upgrade prices, you pick the Mac Pro? It’s the ONE machine they have that is totally meant to be upgraded by the end user.
I’ve slapped 4 drives in, 24GB of RAM, and extra DVD burner, an eSATA card… it’s MEANT to be opened up and reconfigured. If you don’t want to do it, fine, pay Apple’s prices, but that’s really just not the machine to pick as an example.
To be fair, you’re usually better off buying RAM or drives from someone other than the large manufacturer anyway if you’re looking for the lowest price on upgrades, whether you’re talking Apple or Dell or whoever.
Suggest me what to do if you want a better CPU. Their cheapest upgrade, quad-core, from 2,8 GHz to 3,2 GHz costs 403 Euro.
As Apple is also a rather big customer for Samsung chips and components, I wonder if/when/how Samsung would start to pull the strings from the hardware side.
And pay billions to apple in damage ? Since it is unlikely that the contract contains a compensation clause in case one of the side is breaking the contract.
So, what is Apple going to do for a supplier when the current contract runs out? Who do they go to that has Samsung’s R&D and manufacturing muscle?
Well for the CPUs, they’re going to also use TSMC(*), for the other components, I don’t know, they’ll probably still use Samsung for a while: it’s co-opetition time after all..
*:
http://9to5mac.com/2011/09/15/digitimes-tsmc-confirmed-as-apples-ne…
Apple Apparently Ditched Samsung for TSMC Chip Fabrication
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple_apparently_ditches_sam…
The world economy is more than fragile – Europe and the US have huge sovereign debt problems. Innovation leading to sustainable growth is what’s needed.
But no we are going to stifle innovation – if possible make the courts declare it illegal, waste billions on buying up bogus IP and billions more in court cases. Prevent growth by if possible by legally preventing products being sold.
This is a slow train wreck – we will be lucky if our grand children don’t learn about the great depression of 2015.
Edit Further thought:
The lesson they may learn could be, the old western powers tried to prevent the emergence of the new eastern trading powers by trying to make trade and innovation illegal or illegitimately using IP to tax that trade. This lead to a depression in which the western economies shrank and became increasingly less important to the world economy; the depression finally ended when the eastern trading powers unilaterally ignored western IP and traded and innovated their way back to prosperity.
Edited 2011-09-20 18:20 UTC
The lesson may be that the Western countries that innovated allowed others to copy their products and use what was essentially slave labor to undercut and hollow out their own economies, all while their political leaders took bribes to keep their trade agreements in place. Never wanting to be outdone, the eastern powers were brought down in a war fought between India and China purportedly over water resources that was secretly planned in advance to reduce the huge surplus of males in their populations due to their policies of turning a blind eye to female infanticide.
Nobody is allowed to make anything.
Luke McCarthy said: Nobody is allowed to make anything.
Informative comment – thanks for participating, it makes us all much better informed.
Peter
Edited 2011-09-21 03:58 UTC
I really think this are very sad times.
You may see it as an entertainment, but technology competition is not as fast as it may be due to this lawyers bussines
If you didn’t think until now that Apple fanboys are a bunch of brainwashed [insert swear words here], just take a look at this sample of cleverness coming from an Apple fanboy who commented on macobserver.com:
And the rest of comments on macobserver.com regarding Apple vs Samsung “articles” are of the same type.
Edited 2011-09-23 20:41 UTC