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Apple Sues Creative
boarder8925 writes "Apple is counter-suing Creative, claiming it has infringed 'four patents in its handheld digital players.' The suit was filed the same day that Creative filed suit against Apple. 'Creative proactively held discussions with Apple in our efforts to explore amicable solutions,' a spokesman for Creative said. 'At no time during these discussions or at any other time did Apple mention to us the patents it raised in its lawsuit.'"
Please, let the patent cold war already erupt into a huge patent suing everyone vs. everyone. I know you wouldn't like to see the lawyers take a couple billions away on this, but that will be the necessary sacrifice to make everybody see how bad trivial/software patents really are.
As soon as Sun sues Microsoft, Microsoft sues IBM and IBM sues them all I will sit back and have some popcorn (btw. do lawyers companies have stock options?).
When I read that Apple didn't discuss the patents Creative is infringing on, I thought why should they? Like any sane thing to do is show all the cards you're playing with.
Jonathanjk.com
Creative needs to be more innovative and come up with products that sell like Apple's, otherwise they will just try creative lawsuits to make a profit.
Apple apparently has very good lawyers, people that try to sue them for a piece of the pie usually lose.
No more half-baked ideas on how to sue Apple, just get back to your core products and innovate!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Now, with this new development, even if we did find a few nickles, since we're no longer an active business, we can't even go after these people because there's no rubber mallet to beat them with anymore ....
So don't bother innovating folks. You'll just get eaten alive.
'Of course I've got lawyers. They are like nuclear weapons: I've got em 'cause everyone else has. But as soon as you use them they **** everything up.'
-- Danny DeVito in Other People's Money
Creative's BS soundcard driver install process, and Apple's general loutishness drove me away from both companies. Why would I support someone who made me jump though hoops just to get the 'drivers only' installed for my soundcard? Why would I buy an over-priced, under-featured music player just because the 'interface is awesome!'? It's not so awesome...not the Apple Price Premium awesome, that's for sure.
This should be fun to watch.
Blar.
The day a large corporation falls at the hands to a patent infringement case will be a day to remember.
At the moment its just like this big school yard fight and they give each others black eyes by hurling stones in the playground. Though, at the end of the day its the lawyers who are making the real money... the corporations just get the satisfaction of temporarily wounding a competitor.
The real loss is when companys get downsized as a result to these legal games and hardworking employees cop it in the ass.
This is the same Creative that used patent extortion against ID software. These guys are one step removed from SCO. I launched my personal boycott of creative products that day.- on-creative-patentn/
http://3dgpu.com/archives/2004/07/28/john-carmack
Anyone using dubious patents to extort as a buisness model deserves to get crushed. I wish ID had played hardball against these slimeballs.
Can one of you Web 2.0 coding geniuses build an app which would give os a nive graphical representation of who is suing who? One where you can mouse over the arrow between the circles representing companies to see what the suit is over?
It would help make some sense of this, and we could look for patterns to bet on who would sue who next.
At this point I'm betting just in time for presedential elections in 2008 it will be bad enough that some candidate can use "I will reform patent law" as a campaign promise.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
I like creative's players....
....*BUT* after working in their north american web development/eCommerce team for almost 2 years, I can tell you this: management is a mess, pay is bad, and they will try anything to sway competitors and market share.
ever since sound cards have become commodity, Creative has slipped in revenues (for the most part). their products are decent enough (IMO) and affordable, but I think their whole legal and marketing team needs to be axed.
the counter suit from apple? i am certainly NO apple fanboy, but if you play with fire (creative), expect to get burned.
You obviously do not understand a term called "Corporate strategy".
Of course Creative is still making stuff. Only an idiot would assume they are not. They, however as a company, decided to sue apple to either 1) quash competition and make more money, or the more likely 2) have apple pay them a settlement and negotiate a juicy licensing deal.
This strategy has obviously backfired, as apple had aces in hand, and now will just cost both companies money instead of one profiting at the other's expense.
My comment was in the light of they should have just stuck to thier product as a profit source instead of this ill advised legal misadventure.
You say you want a revolution....
Perhaps because Apple wasn't planning to sue?? When you are sued, you are effectively forced to countersue. If Apple hoped to settle "amicably" and in good faith, then threatening Creative wasn't the way to go. Once creative has actually sued, the entire matter changes and at that point, there is no benefit for Apple from being "nice".
Think like this. Creative had an argument with a defenceless girl; then suddenly creative pulled out a knife and tried to mug her. "Unfortunately" it turned out she was a self defense instructor with a gun in her handbag. Do you really feel sorry for Creative?
Since when is it the patent holder's responsibility to warn others that they are infringing on their patents?
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... well, there is no USPTO infringement fairy that will bless you with +5 protections, send out the federal Mafia to "collect," and present you with a fat check all Ed-McMahon-ny. It's all you. You are the driving force. You decide how much you want to spend defending the patent, or you walk away and lose it. Walk away ONCE and you can never really go after anyone else for that patent ever again.
Um, all the time?
You need to actively defend your patents. No one more than you can tell if someone is infringing. Do you expect the overburdened patent office to review every new competing product for you -- you know, all those ones that AREN'T trying to compete on patents (they've filed for ZERO) but instead are beating you up on price using your patented methodology? Do I sound bitter from experience? Hmm
The first thing you do is notify them, usually through a lawyer. That is you and not the gub'mint doing the notifying. When they are non-responsive you up the ante legally. It is still you pushing the issue. Remember, a lawyer is your agent and their job is to THREATEN legal action initially. Lawyers don't actually enforce, you know. That's cops (or feds) and they need a pointy stick (big ticket obvious infringement in the million$) before they'll move on your behalf. Do I sound bitter from experience? Hmm
If you never noticed the infringement happening
Is this the ultimate correct legal path? I don't know. Is it the way things usually work? Yup. It is cheaper and faster to negotiate outside of a real legal battle. Why go expensive and nuclear if you can get licensing first? The whole point of the patent is to make money off it, and not lose all your ability to do business by defending it, after all.
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
Many inventions which are vital to the world are often trivial to reproduce but cost millions of dollars and thousands of hours of time to actually invent (drug technology falls in this arena).. The alternative to the granting of patent protection is that such inventions would never exist in the first place because nobody in their right minds would invest money in such development.. In your world, I hope you never get cancer, because there wouldn't be 10% of the available treatment or research done that has been done because drug companies are protected by patents..
The purpose of Patents is to make sure that innovation actually happens and innovative products actually become available to the public domain.. They do this by making an avenue where inventors can publish the details of their inventions, get 20 years to control their inventions and profit from their hard work, and then have the details become public domain.. In a time when there was no patent law, inventors had no way to safely share or even produce their work, because they would be undercut by people who didn't need to pile all the time and money in the act of actuall inventing it.
As much as patents are designed to place a disadvantage to consumers, in reality consumers would be worse off if inventions couldn't be patented.. 20 years of catering to those who actually do the work to invent something is a good trade-off against the thought of such things not ever being invented in the first place.
While the resulting litigation is a pain to those who do a lot of R&D, it is their ultimate responsibility to ensure that what they are working on is not already protected - details of patents are publicly available.. If you don't take time to look and act accordingly, you deserve to get your ass handed to you in a lawsuit.