“The 2010 report, translated from Korean, goes feature by feature, evaluating how Samsung’s phone stacks up against the iPhone. Authored by Samsung’s product engineering team, the document evaluates everything from the home screen to the browser to the built in apps on both devices. In each case, it comes up with a recommendation on what Samsung should do going forward and in most cases its answer is simple: Make it work more like the iPhone.” Pretty damning. We still need to know a few things: how many of these were actually implemented? How common are these types of comparisons (i.e., does Apple have them)? Are these protected by patents and the like? And, but that’s largely irrelevant and mostly of interest to me because I’m a translator myself, who translated the document, and how well has he or she done the job?
Everybody looks at everybody, the problem with Samsung is that they looked too much making them look too much like Apple.
I dont understand what is the fuss all about as if Samsung is the first company to EVER do this in history.
It is common place, among companies I worked for, to list all the pluses and minuses of competing products to know where we stand. We used to disassemble entire engines to know what process was used by the competitors. Samsung needs to clarify this to the jury.
Even though Apple is pointing fingers at Samsung, same could be said about them “copying” mp3 players, cameras and so on.
If anything they LEFT stuff out of the iPod compared to the MP3 players on the market at that time.
They improved an experience. Samsung just wanted to make their product look more like the iPhone and only the iPhone.
It’s hard to pinpoint to what device Apple modeled their <any> device. Apple tends to take existing ideas/products and build something they think should work better. For example they took the GUI idea from Xerox, but their own GUI version was much more advanced and user friendly.
Samsung doesn’t want to make it better, they want to make it the same. Now a lot of companies do this and it’s hard to blame them when it’s easy and cheap to do and you don’t have so much money to spend on R&D like Apple, but Samsung went to extremes.
Uh, without Samsung’s R&D budget, there would be no iPhone.
Edited 2012-08-08 07:18 UTC
Then we should thank Samsung that the iPhone changed what we expect from our phones in 2007.
I dont know what you were using back then but I thank Nokia for giving me Maemo based devices.
This generalization of what everyone thinks/expects is very broad and makes me think that you subscribe to the fantasy/delusion that Steve Jobs created the iPhone out of thin air. No outside inspiration, no copying of others and so on.
It still stands the fact that companies do this all… the… time…
I was using a Nokia E90.
I don’t think Steve created the iPhone out of thin air, nor does Apple claim this. For some strange reason it’s the Apple haters/Google fans that claim Apple claims this and then ridicule it.
Apple has been working on this for years and they took a big gable getting in to the mobile phone industry.
Specs wise the first iPhone wasn’t that good at all, but it was a milestone and changed what we expect from mobile phones. This is not inventing, but innovating.
Samsung may have had prototypes that were iPhone-like, but they didn’t turk them in to products until they saw that the iPhone was a success. They then went through great lengths to mimic the iPhone and later iPad.
While Apple takes a gamble what consumers may like Samsung makes what consumer like, letting others take the risks. You can’t blame Samsung for this, but I think you can frown upon the way they did it.
Sure they can look at the iPhone, but then they should think of ways of making a product that’s better. This is innovation and this benefits the consumer.
Now Samsung and others are making more and more of the same, they just add bells ‘n’ whistles. Apple didn’t do this with the original iPhone, it even lacked a lot of bells ‘n’ whistles, but the product as a whole made it a very compelling device.
It’s the same story with tablets. There were tablets before the iPad, but they sucked. The iPad came and showed how to make a tablet people will buy and others copied. It isn’t an original product, nor an invention, but it is a winning combination of other’s technology and ideas mixed with Apple’s stuff and Steve’s vision.
Apple files the patents, so Apple thinks it invented it. End of story.
Then why did Apple file the patents?
If they don’t someone else will and sue them.
If this was for defensive purposes, they wouldn’t be suing Samsung. They are attacking Samsung, so these patents were clearly for offensive purposes.
Don’t forget Jobs’ remarks. “We patented the hell out of it.” Doesn’t seem like it fits with your interpretation at all.
Attack or defend, first you must have them. If you don’t have them you can’t do either and someone else can.
You are denying Apple claims they invented the iPhone and all that comes with it – including the frivolous bullshit. I point to Apple’s patent filings that speak otherwise.
You then move on to claiming, hey, they filed the patents to prevent others from getting it. I then point out to you that Apple is offensively suing everybody left and right, and that Jobd boasted about the patents – which directly contradicts your assessment.
Your final comment now is essentially meaningless to this discussion, so can I assume you agree with me that Apple (1) Apple does indeed claim they invented the iPhone+stuff, and (2) that Apple filed the patents for offensive purposes?
I stay by my words and won’t continue this since you’ve decided to become rude and disrespectful.
Thanks. Clear answer.
I sometimes wonder if Samsung is paying you to write bad PR about Apple.
Maybe Apple is paying him to discredit Samsung…
Well said. And its hardly the first time they do that either now is it.
Samsung has – for the longest time now – been trying to dominate every nook and cranny of the mobile phone industry. From copying the basic phone form factor spearheaded by Nokia, over the BlackBerry format from RIM (BlackJack? are you friggin serious??) up until the iOS-based devices ever since they were sourced for components for the iPhone.
If Samsung is such a large company, why do they need to copy all these formats, why is it so hard for them to leapfrog the competition to the next big thing, just like Apple, RIM and Nokia did before?
Samsung is – effectively – the Microsoft of the Mobile phone industry. And just like Microsoft, they didn’t invent anything really substantial either. Did they invent the GSM standard? No. Did they invent any of the popular mobile phone form factors? No. Did they invent feature phones? No. Did they invent smartphones? No. All they ever did was invent a couple of industry standards other vendors settled on using. Do we applaud Microsoft for inventing MAPI? Or the .doc format? All those ever seemed to have done is protecting a monopoly anyway.
It’s not just Apple haters/Google fans noting that Apple did not innovate. I was using a Palm with touchscreen capabilities when the iPhone was introduced. Too bad Palm did not patent this. I’m seeing a lot of phones use a stylus nowadays.
That seems to be the Apple way. Discount someone else’s technology and once they are gone, incorporate it as the hottest next best thing.
why Palm? Apple Newton is older than Palm
It wasn’t. A common misconception.
http://www.8bit-micro.com/tandy-zoomer-z-pda.htm
Newton development started around 1987-1988 inside Apple.
Lets back up a bit Thom — do you in general support knock offs?
Would I be OK putting up a site called O5news with grey header, white background, and subscribe to a bunch of tech stories that I repost on O5News.com. I could post around the web as Tom Holerada from O5news, maybe sign some ad contracts and get myself up in google on both strings O5news and OSNews? How about 05News and sOSNews. I could write articles on other blogs as this person, maybe get some other perks.
Since you didn’t invent white-paged blog sites about tech issues, you didn’t invent OS’s, you didn’t invent News, and you didn’t invent the name Tom (or Thom), what’s wrong with what I propose?
So did development that led to the Zoomer. Read up on Jeff Hawkins and GRiD to get the full story. The GRiDPAD was released – not developed, but actually released – in 1989.
Apple iPhone – Samsung Galaxy
O5News – OSNews
Thom Holwerda – Tom Holerada
See the difference?
Aside from that, I really have no problems with that. In fact, there are loads of sites out there like OSNews. Go ahead, the more competition, the merrier.
you know the case isn’t about the name, that’s about the only differentiation they have.
can you argue against the trade dress? they made the case look exactly like the iphone. everyone saw it then, everyone sees it now. perhaps except you?
can you argue against their own documents recommending their software go farther to mimic iOS? everyone saw the results then, everyone now sees the designers internal documents proving it, perhaps except you?
your own loyal readers have admitted to being fooled by a samsung product pretending to be an apple product. these are computer nerds, you don’t think they picked off plenty of regular constumers?
i’m with you in general for your stance on patent law abuse. but samsung ripping off the iphone and ipad is the most blatant case of rip-off-ery in recent memory, and you’ve decided to ignore the crime because the victim is apple? that’s what it seems like here.
you can’t honestly believe apple was and is full of useless engineers who do nothing but borrow others ideas? you are trying to rewrite computer history right in front of my eyes and sorry i won’t go for it.
edit– since i’m new here, i want to let you know that i go back to an Atari 400, then learning to program on a Tandy Coco, and then an Apple IIc, and i’ve had probably 50 machines between then and now, and plenty of IT experience on multiple platforms. Just FYI, i’m no spring chicken online. I got on the net at 1200bps in 1987.
Edited 2012-08-08 19:59 UTC
The Newton was not a smartphone. The Palm Treo line was.
Bullshit! Apple would have just found some one else to get parts from. Samsung just happens to have the volume Apple wants. Many companies provide components that Apple needs. In fact Samsung can’t make enough so Apple has multiple vendors providing the same things. Like the display panels from LG and Sharp.
Here is Apple’s vendor list
http://images.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/pdf/Apple_Supplier_L…
Everything Samsung provides for Apple is procurable from someone else. Samsung didn’t invent NAND Flash, nor do they have the best chip Fabs. That would be IBM and Intel.
So cut the utter bullshit Samsung love.
Edited 2012-08-08 10:27 UTC
Without its third parties, Apple would not have been able to build the iPhone. Not a single hardware part, and not a single software part, was invented by Apple. It was either acquired, ordered to be built by someone else, or just plain stolen (Apple parlance) and appropriated.
Not a single thing in the iPhone was invented by Apple. Not a single thing. Hence, it is ridiculous for Apple to complain AT ALL.
So by your logic you didn’t write this, in fact you do not exist at all
I wrote the comment. I did not invent the words, the grammar, and punctuation that make up the comment. I should not be able to patent these parts just because I put them together in this comment.
Edited 2012-08-08 10:57 UTC
How naive do you have to be to believe that Samsung exists in a Vacuum? Do you think Samsung can make Laptops without Intel/AMD/NVidia or Microsoft tech? Or viable smart phones without Google or Microsoft OS and Services.
If you believe that I have bad news for you about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy!
You have taken complete leave of your senses Thom and behaving like a ignorant child is not helping people see any point you are trying to make.
Apple’s touch screen still outclasses anything in the market even after 5 years. Why can’t any of the competitors get the same responsiveness form them? Even Samsung that manufactures panels for Apple has inferior touch screens on their products. By your rationale Samsung invented it so it should have the same product but it is not. Why does the iPhone/iPad/Macbook panels made by Samsung etc have better PPI than Samsung’s own phones/Laptops? Apple invented the tech Samsung is contracted to manufacture it. They can’t put it in their products because they didn’t invent it.
Built by LG, developed over decades by academia, small companies, and large companies like LG, Sharp, Samsung, and so on. Not Apple.
Ignoring the fact that this is clearly not true (take a look at any Windows Phone or Android phones post-ICS and JB), it’s because Apple’s software is better. Not because they invented it.
I did not claim anything like that.
Proof?
Careful there…
Apple did by FingerWorks…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerWorks
So it’s legit that they may claim patents on touch-input.
Let me rephrase that, it’s legit that they may claim to own patents that probably ought to be considered illegitimate — since they probably shouldn’t exist.
I guess you didn’t read what I wrote properly read it again. LG, Samsung etc have manufacturing arms in a process called Joint Developent Manufacturing.
This is a system where one company instead of investing in the infrastructure to build something takes and invention and jointly develops the manufacturing processes needed to produce said product. The original company still owns the IP that the manufacturing company just owns the production.
By your faulty reasoning every HP, Dell laptop that foxconn makes is actually a foxconn invention.
Please grow up and learn how things actually work.
Why is it better? Magic pixie dust? Fairies? Apple invented the techniques to make it better. Thanks for making my point.
Proof? [/q]
You made the claim that Apple didn’t invent anything the onus is on you to prove it. Provide incontrovertible evidence that Samsung/LG invented the Multitouch screens. Don’t give me not even close stuff like resistive touch screen phones. or LG Prada which was just a basic capacitive touchscreen feature phone.
” Apple acquired Fingerworks and its multi-touch technology in 2005. Mainstream exposure to multi-touch technology occurred in 2007 when the iPhone gained popularity, with Apple stating they ‘invented multi touch’ as part of the iPhone announcement,[12] however both the function and the term predate the announcement or patent requests, except for such area of application as capacitive mobile screens, which did not exist before Fingerworks/Apple’s technology (Apple filed patents for in 2005-2007 and was awarded with in 2009-2010). Publication and demonstration using the term Multi-touch by Jefferson Y. Han in 2005 predates these,[13] but Apple did give multi-touch wider exposure through its association with their new product and were the first to introduce multi-touch on a mobile device.[14] ”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch
Here are the patents related to Apple’s implementation of Multi-Touch for panels.
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/07/apple-wins-a-ma…
Unfortunately I know the response to this will be showing evidence to a religious zealot. To quote Thom’s example ” The US troops are not in Bagdad”
You just proved my point. Apple BOUGHT FingerWorks. BOUGHT. In other words, Apple did not invent multitouch – FingerWorks did (which isn’t even true, since multitouch is older than that).
Thanks for arguing my case so I don’t have to!
Edited 2012-08-08 15:53 UTC
Awe! look Samsung didn’t invent squat either they BOUGHT BOUGHT companies to expand their products.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/01/samsung-buys-nanoradio/
Google BOUGHT BOUGHT Android, YouTube, etc.etc.. I guess Google didn’t invent anything either.
Prove to me that Apple used Fingerworks unmodified in the iPhone.
Like I said it is obvious I am arguing with a child. It is best to ignore a child throwing a tantrum.
I never claimed as such, so I don’t know how this is relevant.
Funny that you seem to be the one shouting.
Samsung bought a semiconductor firm to get into semiconductors so by Thom’s warped logic Samsung didn’t invent anything in the semiconductor space, either. Awe Poo!
Companies buy companies. It would be idiotic to reinvent the wheel and pneumatic tires or spark plugs to build a car. Please grow up and learn how the world works.
Hi Thom,
I think you need to be more objective. Just because Apple did not manufacture all the bits does not mean they did not design or invent any of it.
To give you two examples, Fingerworks the company that Apple acquired in 2005 invented multi touch technology dating back to 1999, obviously later implemented in the iPhone and subsequently elsewhere.
Apple was a founding member of ARM which is now what everyone uses. Apple partnered with Acorn for that. In fact they used it in the Newton which I still have – neat device even today!
Even when you look back at the first Macintosh UI, there was a great deal of innovation there. Yes they saw the Xerox star in action, but what they built n the Lisa and Mac was a clean room implementation with many innovations, such as overlapping windows, drop down menus, windows that could have their content updated live. And you’ll love this one, the drag and drop of moving and copying files was an Apple invention as well. Xerox did not have that. There are others but you get my point.
I use all types of gear, because I’m a tech geek, I have iphones ipads galaxies and google tablets, it’s all good. But if I were in Apple’s shoes, I sure as hell would be peeved when I see some of the copying Samsung specifically have done. I think it is pretty blatant, but that is my opinion.
You are actually saying exactly what I mean: that there is no vacuum in which Apple created the iPhone. That’s the whole point. The technology world is like a language, where every individual speaker adds to the language, and over time, it evolves. We would think someone crazy if he were to patent words and grammar that make up the language and start suing people for constructing different sentences using these words and grammar. If he were allowed to do this, it would cause massive damage to a language and the arts.
Yet, that’s exactly what Apple and Microsoft are doing, and we have people cheering them on for it. It boggles the mind.
I see your point, but there needs to be a balance, and without some boundaries everyone would just copy the guy next door. I’m not an expert on patents or trade dress, but on the later I think Apple have some valid concerns. It will be interesting to see how this pans out. My gutt tells me Samsung will lose this round, at it will go to the next court. You’ll be writing about this for another 3-4 years I think!
Well, this is a jury trial, so it really could go every which way. I’m assuming Samsung will be bringing in its own experts as well, and Apple’s slick, almost too-polished performance could actually negatively affect the jury.
I’m curious.
Fine. The problem with Apple is that they seem to want to draw this boundary precisely at their front door… everything that they copy or “borrow” is inspiration and a side effect of living in an ecosystem. But any concept of theirs that anyone else uses is a stolen innovation, and, how DARE they!!
Is it really THAT difficult to see why many level-headed people object to the position that this company takes? In fact, a great question for Apple management would be this:
“Given that your company admits to ‘borrowing” ideas from the ecosystem and improving them, precisely what concepts and ideas do you admit that you’ve contributed to the ecosystem, and that we all should therefore fell free to borrow and improve?”
thom, i think you are confusing and mixing up two different subjects. One is software patents, as the “slide to unlock” stuff, which is BS and completely ridiculous as to how was that patented to begin with.
The other, which is not so ridiculous is the “trademark dress” / “design patent” (not sure which is the difference between them, could some one explain that to me? ).
the trademark dress basically says that the “non-functional” stuff of an object as colours, shapes, general design can be protected from competitor that basically do and equivalent object with the exact (or close) combination of elements. As far as i understood this is what apple and samsung are mainly discussing in the corthouse.
In that area, the technological stuff or invented it first doesn’t matter, what matter is the look and feel of the item and if the general look is so close to one another as to confuse the customer. It’s not only the green dial button or the square with the round edges, it’s the combination of all those and if the competitor couldn’t have done differently.
In portuguese flea markets / gipsy fairs 10 years ago, you could just go there and get a really cheap set of jeans “Lewis 5001” or “Leeh something” which were practically identical to the expensive Levis and Lee jeans. this is what court process is all about and what many comenters are saying to you. it’s not about the technological inventions/patents (i’m not sure if there is any software patent stuff there? ) but about the way some samsung devices were built to resemble really close apple’s, although they could have done it in a million times different, as the other android devices have been done.
just a quick anecdote. the other day i entered a technological shop and took a glance at a samsung galaxy 10.1″ (this here: http://www.businessdirect.bt.com/products/samsung-galaxy-tab-10-1-3… ) that was off. My first thought was: wow, this actually looks much more like an ipad than i thought, the black bezel, the metalic rounded rim sligthly higher than the glass. But then i picked it up. The metalic rim was actually grey colored plastic. And the back was white plastic. not whole but most of it. The grey plastic just bented to the back and suddenly it was painted white/different plastic piece.
Now can you honestly state that this wasn’t made so that the front looked really like an ipad (when disconected)? they even put a plastic looking like metal the same exact way as apple does. but then on the back they just dis-harmoniously slapped together the white back. So which is it? is it black and metal or is is white? Either samsung has the worst designers in the whole world or this was slapped together to get the look of the ipad. And that, look and feel, are protected by trademark law. You may not agree with it but it works that way.
so, separate the software patents from the trademark design lawsuits. different stuff, different reasoning, different laws.
by the way, i took a brief glance of the first pages of the document you mentioned in the post, didn’t saw anything incriminating there aparte from the slide mentioned in the article (126 – visual interaction) , but they state that the design must be differentiating enough so no harm there. everything else is mainly functional stuff as font size and placement of overlapping menus. they are functional items, so no trademark issue there. but IANAL.
So why isn’t this trial about trademark infringement then?
from this verge article: (http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/30/3199424/apple-vs-samsung-trial-gu…)
“So while Apple started off in full assault mode with a colossal list of trademarks, trade dress registrations, design patents and technical utility patents in its complaint, everything has been trimmed back for trial: all of its trademark claims have been dismissed, only one registered and limited unregistered trade dress claims remain, and the patent infringement allegations have been reduced to four design patents and three utility patents.”
[how does one get links here? ]
In other words, they didn’t have much of a case.
maybe. but i have the impression that is the judge that’s aggressively slimming the case for both parties because she’s out of patience and because she doesn’t want a million claims in her process.
You are right and Soulbender is wrong.
Often one sues the other and the other countersues. They get everything out of the closet to make a case. Then they either settle and go on their business or it comes to a trail where only the big main points remain.
If they didn’t drop all the small points the judge and jury would die of old age before they have gone through them all.
And what does it say about the supposed trademark infringements that none of them remain?
So you are saying people should not copyright works of literature because language already existed. You would then have no problem if another site just took content of OSNews verbatim and started cloning it, right? Since you didn’t invent any of the tech used to run this site or the English language itself.
This lawsuit and Thom’s comments are in regards to patents. Your comment, which is in regards to copyright, is irrelevant.
You completely and utterly misunderstood everything I said.
I did not say people should not protect the sum of their work. I said they should not be able to protect the parts of that sum if they had no hand in inventing said parts. Apple is not attacking Samsung based on the overall iPhone, because it’s pretty obvious the two are completely and utterly different. No, Apple is smarter than that, and is suing using the small parts. Apple is trying to stifle the competition using frivolous small parts – and not the sum.
In other words, your example is of no relevance. Your example would be of relevance if Samsung released the Epple yPhone S4 which looked identical to iOS and the iPhone 4S. However, that’s not the case.
In other words Samsung is smarter than to copy Apple verbatim just like any plagiarist. So you are saying if one copies parts of a literary work and changes it slightly it is ok?
Colleges these days have sophisticated programs to detect these sorts of things so Students don’t pass off other peoples work as theirs even if they lifted parts of it and changed a few things. Because doing so is unethical.
http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/judicialaffairs/integrity/plagia…
What you described Samsung doing is akin to paraphrasing. Here is what George towns honor code says about that:
http://gervaseprograms.georgetown.edu/honor/system/53503.html
In other words it is dishonorable and unethical to pass even parts of anyone else’s work as your own. Period.
You can’t be seriously saying that this is ok:
http://www.tuaw.com/2011/09/28/no-comment-proof-that-samsung-shamel…
The chargers, packaging etc look nearly identical. For once look at things objectively. If Samsung could get away with releasing a EyePhone they would.
You’ve brought up an interesting issue in relation to plagiarism and academic misconduct, but I think it’s worth looking at it more carefully.
A crucial part of the Stanford text you referenced is the following: “without giving reasonable and appropriate credit to or acknowledging the author or source”.
That’s because building on others’ knowledge is an essential ingredient in research. It’s positively encouraged, as long as references are cited.
Preventing people from building on others’ work restricts innovation. At the same time, incentives are needed, and patents were intended to balance one against the other (offering limited protection to incentivise innovation, while requiring public disclosure to disincentivise trade-secrets that are later lost to society).
The wider question here is really one of balance. Do the inventions Apple is claiming deserve protection? In other words, was the incentive of protection needed for their development, and would society have been worse off if Apple hadn’t publicly documented them?
Of course, this is separate to the issue of trademark protection and whether people who want to buy iPhones are unwittingly being duped into buying Galaxies instead. I’m not exactly sure whether Apple’s actually claiming this.
There is a GOOD reason why they call it “The Cult of mac” Thom and that is because many have bought the carefully crafted image hook, line and sinker, just as they believe the “Do No Evil” marketing BS Google spews.
Hell I’d say a lot of the hate companies like MSFT and Oracle get is their PR teams royally suck so they can’t play the game as well as companies like Apple and Google. Look at the lines around the building when a new iShiny is released, you’d think it was tickets to a rock concert being sold, no different than the mobs that knock down doors trying to get the latest Air Jordans.
In the end all this “corporation yay!” reminds me of the old Mel Brooks 2000 year old man sketch “All go to hell except cave 76!” in that these corps build loyalty like ballclubs, so you end up with people cheering the most insane things. Just look how many defended Blizzard with the screwing they gave the public with Diablo 3 for instance, or how many leap to Google’s defense when they do something nasty in their TOS.
In the end if one of these companies could boost profits by 15% by throwing you into a cage with an enraged horny silverback you’d be getting some gorilla loving before nightfall, the only question is how many other ways they’d find to monetize the encounter.
There’s more… http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13416272
Also, there’s a bit insane campaign with mass-buying and not-pirating the flawed OS8 to “help save Apple” ( http://www.forbes.com/1997/08/08/column.html ) – which back then offered clearly inferior and at the same time more expensive products.
No, they developed implementation of technologies dating back several decades: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch#History
Again, you rewrite history. Apple was among the founders of ARM Ltd the company (not only with Acorn, also VLSI) – but ARM the architecture already existed for half a decade, developed only by ~Acorn. What the joint venture provided was capital and new market.
And you’ll love this one: Xerox sued Apple in the 90s (at the time when Apple tried to argue that “look and feel” was copyrightable, in their lawsuit against Microsoft; BTW, Apple utterly lost back then, like they’ll hopefully do now)
Pray tell with all the R&D they couldn’t be screwed providing an Android 4.0 update for their Galaxy S range let a lone a crapware free version of Android 4.0 for Galaxy SII. R&D numbers don’t mean a hill of beans if there is f–k all to show for it when it comes to material output – Microsoft being the best example of pointless crap being the focus of their R&D rather than real ideas that lead to real products and in turn real profits.
Edited 2012-08-08 14:09 UTC
Pedantry excusing unethical and anti-innovative product cloning.
What will be the result if Apple wins? Samsung, and other companies, will have to produce original designs for their products. You seem to think this is shocking and awful
What will be the result if Samsung wins? Samsung will be able to basically clone any device Apple creates. You seem to think this would be a triumph for innovation.
This case is about the future not the past. The people who are almost certainly working the hardest to come up with an iPhone or iPad killer are Apple, in the same way they worked the hardest to produce a (successful) iPod killer.
I simply fail see how it can be beneficial for innovation if a company struggles to produce a disruptive product (which is what Apple did with the iPod, iPhone and iPad and which I expect them to do again in the next few years) if their efforts are rewarded with instant cloning by the likes of Samsung.
You have read the Samsung document and leaving aside your cheap and evasive smears about translation, especially since Samsung has not complained about it, what do think of it as it stands. Does it look like a road map for innovation to you? Is that the sort of tech industry you think would be good for either innovation or consumers?
of course they have them!
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2007/01/dsc_0172.jpg
otherwise we would not have this trial today
Every company in the world does this kind of analysis, no surprise here.
Apple influence is undeniable but I think they are spending a lot of energy in these stupid litigations.
More engineers and less lawyers please!
It seems that ligation get more money from the competitor than you can get from your client.
What would cars be doing if Mr Henry was like modern technology firms. Would most cars be using 4 wheels, would most cars have a stereo in the centre, would most cars have an indicator switch on the steering column. I mean come on tech companies. Imagine every industry acted like you, imagine appliance makes saying you can’t have a two slice toaster cause we did it first. Accept the copy or similarities as a challenge and improve on it or your own design.Accept the challenge or wither and die. I’ve had enough of your stifling tech advancement.
If we made the tech industry more like the car one we’d need a license before we could use our devices.
Considering the large number of idiots on-line this may not be a bad idea!
And assuming that’s about Henry Ford …he wasn’t really about introducing such kinds of inventions.
He innovated by taking scattered ideas together into a refined business model and production practices (but still not exactly new http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_line#History ), popularising and building upon some largely pre-existing concepts.
Edited 2012-08-16 00:02 UTC
It is standard practice to benchmark or even reverse engineer competing products in virtually every industry. Move on..nothing to see here.
Interesting, too, that it specifically states they should be different than the iPhone. That kind of… Deflates it all.
Like I said, I’m wondering just how much of this was actually implemented.
Sorry, but that is not true. I have worked for two fortune 100 companies in the valley (in my second now) and reverse engineering competitors products is not standard practice at all………….
You don’t always need to reverse engineer to compare competing products, but reverse engineering is fairly common. Say, about 10 years ago GPU makers were doing it to find why someone else’s chip was faster, and if it actually was and wasn’t just gaming the benchmarks.
So the company you work in has NEVER asked themselves, what can we learn from how our competitors does business to become better ourselves?
I call bullshit. This happens in your company every single day.
Thanks for some balance Thom! 🙂
As I said before – this isn’t “Apple is evil” vs “Samsung is good”.. they are BOTH large organisations with very dirty tactics and practices. If we start excusing Samsung and demonisimg Apple, we’re really not telling the real story. Neither should be given any free ride and neither should win the case. The judge is seemingly bemused they didn’t settle already and she is taking no shit from either side.
The problem is that the IT industry is largely controlled by immature sociopaths (insert famous name here). No other industry would even consider lawsuits over trivial matters like these. The first Lexus LS400 was virtually a reverse-engineered Mercedes S class clone yet MB merely smiled knowingly when it was released.
Of all the Android phones out there, it looks to my untrained eye that Samsung Phones are the most iPhonish of the Androids. My work got me a Samsung Galaxy and it felt distinctly different from the Androids I had used before (T-Mobile G1, HTC Desire, HTC Desire Z) and looked far more like what I had seen of the iPhone (I hadn’t actually used an iPhone at that point, only picked one up for the first time last week – not impressed to be honest).
Having said that, I don’t think what Apple are patenting should be patentable and so long as they are not violating trademarks/trade dress and passing it off as an Apple (which I don’t think anyone is) then copying a design language to make it easy for people isn’t a bad idea, it is good for usability, and good for a competitive market place.
I am confused as to why this site still is so Anti Apple. Apple is not on Trial here, Sammy is. And even though there is a TON of evidence that has come out showing that basically Sammy looked at the iPhone and cloned it to start their large touch screen smart phones, this site keeps giving them the benefit of the doubt.
To the point of saying the translation of the documents need to be looked at (Like the original wont be in court to be re-translated if needed)
Wow.
Uh, no. I am a translator myself, and I know just how easy it is – without knowing it – to muck up things like tenses or voices, especially with languages as disparate as English and Korean. Considering how important this document is, and looking at it from my professional experience, this is a VERY valid concern – especially if Apple translated it itself (instead of having a third party do so).
Edited 2012-08-08 11:19 UTC
I am hoping that the court would not admit the document on a “It looks interesting” basis and not check the validity of the document first.
OK Thom let’s leave the translation issue to one side and assume that if the translation is problematic then Samsung will pick that up and deal with it themselves in court.
Lets get to the meat of the issue. If we take this document at face value what do you think of it? What does it reveal about Samsung’s approach to product design? These are worthwhile questions to pose and ones you should answer.
It may seem that Samsung is on trial, but Apple sued Samsung and Samsung countersued.
The number of complaints was trimmed down and both cases combined.
Apparently there is a certain place where everybody sits in a courtroom and Samsung objected they had to take the seats of the defendants and even wanted to switch seats each time either side’s lawyer came in to action.
Despite all this we all know Samsung actually is the defendant and they copied Apple. It’s just the question if this can be proven and if it really matters if they did.
Both English and Korean text are in the document.
Between the English translation and the Korean original there is a memo from the translator (Peter Mauro Schroepfer).
If Schroepfer translated towards Apple, it’s just a matter of time before the first reactions will appear that the translation is wrong.
Which of these things actually infringes on anything Apple says Samsung is infringing upon in this court case?
We now have a report clearly stating that Samsung thought it needed to copy the iPhone. This clearly blows the “they obviously didn’t copy Apple argument?” away.
it’s OK to back down from a stance you hold in light of new evidence, you know.
I once tried desperately to translate a technical document written in Korean. I made a subtle error in detecting the charset, which lead to nonsensical translations that all revolved around various cuts of meat. Knowing that sometimes words can be used differently in different context, it took me a while to figure out my mistake. I think there are actually still some meat related comments in some of the early local commits of that code…
Nice theory but Samsung themselves have not complained about the translation being wrong. Don’t you think if it was wrong Samsung would complain?
I just don’t know if the translation is wrong or not. Nor do I know what Samsung’s response to that document is. But, yes I would expect them to complain if the translation was wrong.
http://teamcoco.com/video/samsung-denies-apples-charges-copying