Legal Archive

"Earlier this month Judge William Alsup ordered Oracle and Google to disclose any journalists or bloggers either has paid that could have commented on the Oracle v. Google case. Both parties responded last week - but Judge Alsup didn't think Google was completely forthright, and has asked the company to try again by the end of the week." Good to know Alsup is on top of this. Google claimed it hadn't paid any shills, but as large and powerful as the company is, I find that very hard to believe.

"The web has been alight these past few weeks with the details of the Apple v. Samsung lawsuit. It's been a unique opportunity to peer behind the curtain of how these two companies operate, as the trial seeks to answer the question: did Samsung copy Apple? But there's actually another question that I think is much more interesting to the future of innovation in the technology industry: regardless of whether the courts say that Samsung copied Apple or not, would we all be better off if we allowed - even encouraged - companies to copy one another?" This is very relevant.

This week, Samsung started its defence in the big Apple vs. Samsung thing. First, Samsung pointed towards several cases of prior art, trying to invalidate Apple patents, surely something that's going to be the theme to Samsung's case. Later, Samsung pulled its own software patents out of its a... Neck, claiming Apple infringed them. The patents are just as ridiculous as Apple's, but alas, they have to do something in the face of Apple's anti-competitive aggression. Here is Shepard under a unicorn rainbow.

" tonight Apple entered into evidence in its trial with Samsung a document showing that it offered the South Korean company a licensing deal on some of its key technologies. Specifically, Apple offered to license the portfolio of patents if Samsung would pay $30 per smartphone and $40 per tablet." $30-40 per device is a lot of money for some trivial features (rounded corners, slide-to-unlock etc). No wonder Samsung declined.

"Comparing Samsung's flagship products before and after release of the iPhone & iPad, and how Apple's intellectual property infringement claims hold up." A terrible visual guide that ignores not only Samsung's own pre-iPhone designs, but also - and worse yet - the thirty-odd years of mobile computing that preceded the iPhone. Typical of today's technology world: a complete and utter lack of historical sense. Worse yet are the claims about icons: only the phone icon is similar, but Apple did not invent the green phone icon. This is a remnant of virtually all earlier phones which use a green phone icon for initiate/answer call, and a red phone icon for terminate/reject call. Claiming this deserves IP protection is beyond ridiculous, and shows just how low Apple is willing to go.

Groklaw nails it: "In other words, 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.

Samsung's filings in one of the cases with Apple (I lost track because I have a life) are actually pretty cool. "Samsung has been researching and developing mobile telecommunications technology since at least as early as 1991 and invented much of the technology for today's smartphones. Indeed, Apple, which sold its first iPhone nearly twenty years after Samsung started developing mobile phone technology, could not have sold a single iPhone without the benefit of Samsung's patented technology." Another gem: "Contrary to the image it has cultivated in the popular press, Apple has admitted in internal documents that its strength is not in developing new technologies first, but in successfully commercializing them."

"A judge in Britain is forcing Apple to publicly acknowledge that Samsung didn't copy the iPad, according to a report by Bloomberg. A judge has ordered Apple to post a notice on its website and in British newspapers highlighting a recent ruling that Samsung didn't copy the iPad. Apple must leave that notice up on its website for the next six months." Apple can still appeal this decision, but I'm hoping it'll be denied. This is just too hilarious not to go through.

"The nation's top patent court has stopped a lower court from throwing out four patents on financial software, used to sue a bank dealing in foreign currency exchanges. The controversial opinion, countered by a blistering dissent by one member of the three-judge panel, shows that the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is in disarray about just what is patentable. An 'abstract idea' can't win a patent, but the judges on the court are in disagreement about just what that is." It seems that US judges are getting more and more vocal about the US Patent Mess. Interesting.

Judge Richard Posner, who dismissed the lawsuit between Apple and Motorola, posits his solutions to the dysfunctional patent system. "There are a variety of measures that could be taken to alleviate the problems I've described. They include: reducing the patent term for inventors in industries that do not have the peculiar characteristics of pharmaceuticals that I described; instituting a system of compulsory licensing of patented inventions; eliminating court trials including jury trials in patent cases by expanding the authority and procedures of the Patent and Trademark Office to make it the trier of patent cases, subject to limited appellate review in the courts; forbidding patent trolling by requiring the patentee to produce the patented invention within a specified period, or lose the patent; and (what is beginning) provide special training for federal judges who volunteer to preside over patent litigation." I like this guy.

Since I want to get this out of my system: here's a set of proposals to fix (okay, replace) the current failing patent system. No lengthy diatribe or introduction, just a raw list.

While our beloved readers from the United States celebrate their independence (have a good one, guys and girls), the European Parliament has just voted against ACTA with an absolutely overwhelming majority: 478 against ACTA, 39 in favour (and 165 abstentions). I'm raising a coffee to this one, kids.

So let me get this straight. Nokia claims that the Nexus 7 infringes upon standard essential wifi patents, and that Asus does not have a license. How in the name of hell is it possible that Asus has been shipping a gazillion wifi-enabled products every year for god knows how long now, and only now does Nokia notice? Wait - of course. Silly me. If you can't compete, litigate. D'oh.

Yesterday, we were treated to another preliminary injunction on a product due to patent trolling. Over the past few years, some companies have resorted to patent trolling instead of competing on merit, using frivolous and obvious software and design patents to block competitors - even though this obviously shouldn't be legal. The fact that this is, in fact, legal, is baffling, and up until a few months ago, a regular topic here on OSNews. At some point - I stopped reporting on the matter. The reason for this is simple: I realised that intellectual property law exists outside of regular democratic processes and is, in fact, wholly and utterly totalitarian. What's the point in reporting on something we can't change via legal means?