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Samsung Tries To Ban Import of iDevices To US
tekgoblin writes "The battle between Apple and Samsung has just heated up again. Samsung has filed a complaint to the International Trade Commission to ban import of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod products to the U.S. From the article: 'Samsung, the world’s second-largest maker of mobile phones whose Galaxy devices compete with the iPhone and iPad, claims Apple is infringing five patents, according to a filing with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington yesterday. The ITC, which can block imports of products found to violate U.S. patents, must decide if it will investigate Samsung’s claims.'"
If Samsung succeeds in obtaining this ban, then that's billions of dollars they lose in sales of flash memory to Apple. Who's in charge of that outfit?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
This is just getting retarded, it's like watching a bunch of school kids bully each other then go to the teachers.
In fact, *Nobody* can produce a smart phone without infringing on *Somebody's* patents.
You want IP reform? Take EVERY infringing product off the market. Let's see congress and the Executive branch do without their Blackberries and their iPhones. It is stupid to allow the thousands upon thousands of bogus patents to be used as a patent thicket to protect a few big companies. These are NOT inventions, in the sense viewed by the framers of the constitution. Most are little minor tweaks obvious to anyone working in the industry. But the costs to consumers in more expensive products and less competition and slowed innovation is huge and vast.
It is time we limit tech patents to 3 years. But regardless of the reform, reform is needed.
Samsung sells everything to everyone. I'm sure they'd happily take a small profit hit now in order to force Apple to pay them royalties on every device they have sold and will sell. It might not work out in their favor, but it's probably worth a shot.
Not so sure about that - don't Apple pre-pay for their flash memory, and won't it be on a contract where Samsung deliver X units every Y months ? Samsung don't care if Apple can't *use* the ram, the contract is just for supply.
Of course, Samsung will lose out on future contracts if they play this game, I'm sure Apple will (ahem) investigate Toshiba's flash-ram parts next time around, but perhaps Samsung think this is likely anyhow, so if they've already burnt their bridges, why not go for it ?
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Apple has already shown they pretty much don't want to do business with Samsung in the future. Moving their chip fab and several other components to competitors.
-]Phreak Out[-
Personally, if I had a customer as insanely and stupidly litigious as Apple, I wouldn't much care about losing them.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
They are going to have a hard time finding a judge or jury who isn't addicted to some Apple product methinks.
When patents were first introduced in the UK, their length was 14 years. That was based on apprenticeships lasting seven years, and two generations of apprentices learning how to build and operate a device. If it could be argued that it takes a software engineer six months to become proficient in a programing technique then software patents should only be one year. Look and feel patents, if it takes 12 weeks to master creating that look and feel, then the patent should only be six months. Something that takes a four year engineering degree to master, gets eight years. A doctorate, 16 years. This would reduce the load on the patent office, because it wouldn't be worth the effort to patent simple things.
Not even close. Patents are a system that allows society to learn about inventions and their inner workings in exchange for a monopoly for a limited period of time. Nothing more, nothing less. The arguments are that without them trade secrets would be used instead and inventions may never be produced or lost with the death of its inventor.
Seriously, right off the bat when Apple sued Samsung the first thought that crossed my mind was "how is this going to work out", Samgung is simply going to counter sue the crap out of them. Then when it was noted that the iPhone contains Samsung parts, I just shook my head at the stupidity.
I'm sure the person at Apple that was getting pats on the back over this slick move is now picking the shoe parts out of their ass.
You know the extra delicious bit of irony with this new turn is that we have a Korean company suing an American company and filing for injunction to prevent the American company from shipping their products because they've outsource production overseas. HAhahaha. Globalization? How's that working out for you?
Of course Samsung will not succeed in obtaining the ban; it's not the goal. Everyone knows that it's going to end up as a settlement and a cross-licensing agreement, they're just haggling over who pays and how much.
Pretty much all the big players are being sued by somebody. That graphic's a little old, but it still illustrates just how messed up the patent system must be.
One of the stated strategic advantages (by Tim Cook, the COO) of Apple's cash pile is to be able to pre-pay for strategic resources such as flash RAM, and therefore reserve enormous quantities at excellent prices. He (and Oppenheimer) have said this several times in Q&A section when they're reporting quarterly numbers.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Exactly!
Also with Android devices outselling Apple devices the claim would't be true even if it was limited
to the mobile platform arena. There are 500,000 activation of android devices every day, and most
of them contain some Samsung parts, with emphases on the flash ram.
What Samsung would lose in iPhone sales blocked in the US they would easily recover
from their own phones sold in the US, as well as HTC, LG, Motorola, and twenty other
brands all using Samsung memory.
I've seen this claim posted before, but when you check out the facts its either dated
information or simply applied to a specific type of flash memory of a specific size.
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Apple just overtook Sony as Samsung's largest customer (before that Apple was #2).
And Apple's already investigating TSMC and Intel for foundry services (for their A5/A6 parts). And Intel/Toshiba would love to sell Apple tons of flash memory (Toshiba already does). Intel's probably already got the capacity to ramp up production for Apple, and can always grease the wheels with some money from Apple to build whole new fabs just for Apple.
Apple's such a huge player in the chip business, they can really distort the market if they wanted to. NAND flash prices will start to rise on the largest devices soon as Apple gears up production for the holiday season. And Samsung might be left with a bunch of underutilized fabs and production lines that were happily occupied selling Apple chips that everyone else can't make up for.
No, it won't kill Samsung, but it'll affect their bottom line hard enough with underutilized (expensive!) fabs and production lines plus loss of sales to put a dent in their financials. Plus nevermind the whole "you pissed off your #1 customer" thing that shareholders might not be very happy about.
Then again, Samsung is a huge conglomerate. Their mobile division is happy to piss off Apple - it means more sales for them. But their semiconductor division will not be so happy to lose such lucrative business and have to idle billion-dollar fabs.
If you really think that Apple didn't know they used Samsung parts, and they didn't expect counter-suits, then you really don't understand businesses in general and Apple especially.
Hmm, seems like all the patents I see Apple getting are software and design patents that can be worked around. Whereas the other big cell-phone companies like Nokia, Samsung, SE, etc, have patents that you need to license to actually, you know, make a phone.
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
Doesn't matter. They have nowhere else to go, because only Sammy can handle their orders.
Besides, just because the 20 Android manufacturers do not individually exceed Apple doesn't mean much.
They easily exceed Apple do when lumped together. If iPhone were banned from import
they would still sell elsewhere Android would surge in the US. Those phones use just as much
memory as Apple.
So Sammy wins either way.
Like I posted Android is outselling iPhone today and Android tablets are just starting
to come on line from dozens and dozens of companies.
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Every single day? Really? I doubt that very much. First of all Sunday, in many parts of the world have closed shops on that day and other parts of the world close down shops on Fridays early.
Take your silly argument somewhere else.
Go read the facts: http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/google-activates-500000-android-devices-every-day-20110629/
The tweet: https://twitter.com/#!/Arubin/status/85660213478309888
This is nothing to do with a platform war. Stop trying to make it into one.
The simple facts are that Apple has only a few device models, and an import ban hurts them in their biggest
market, but wouldn't make a dent in memory providers. What Apple doesn't sell, HTC, LG, Motorola, Sony-Ericcson, and Samsung will sell. Do you think America is going to stop buying smartphones and tablets?
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Lets see some data for such a claim.
If they really were such a big buyer they would be stuck with buying from samsung since they produce most of the flash.
Apple makes up 2.6% of Samsung's sales, Sony makes up 3.7% and Dell makes up 2.5%.
Considering the market for NAND flash is very competitive now with every man and his dog making smartphones, memory cards and solid state drives, Samsung does not stand to lose 2.6% of sales if it cuts Apple off completely as there are other customers that buy the same products from Samsung.
It seems Apple needs Samsung products more then Samsung needs Apple as a customer. Suing them and hoping Samsung is not a vindictive company could be a really dumb move.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Oh, what a shame. I am not an Apple phone user, but am considering it for my next phone, when iPhone 5 or 6 rolls around, whichever has LTE on VZW. If it had an AMOLED screen, I would NEVER buy one. I had an early HTC Incredible with the AMOLED screen, it was absolutely horrible. Sure, it looked nice if you were in a pitch black room, but pretty much anywhere else it was horrible. Out in the sun, forget about even trying to look at your phone, you won't be able to see a thing. That was my shortest owned phone, thankfully I found some sucker to buy it after owning it a month, for retail price. Besides, the current "retina" display already looks better than any AMOLED phone I've seen...
If you really think that Apple didn't know they used Samsung parts, and they didn't expect counter-suits, then you really don't understand businesses in general and Apple especially.
If you think Apple aren't betting that Samsung is not a vindictive company you dont understand law suits in general.
Apple are suing because Samsung smart phones are taking sales away from Apple phones. Apple derives over 50% of it's income from phone sales (a single product) so they've got a lot to lose if phone sales are threatened, namely their astronomical share price.
The suit was an act of a desperate company, if you cant see that you dont understand how tech business work. Those at the top dont worry about others, those who fall behind sue everyone (and that children, is how bubbles burst).
Samsung hold all the power here, if Apple becomes too bothersome, they'll just find a way to get rid of all their current contracts. Apple does not make up that much of Samsungs sales and the products they sell to Apple can be sold to many other customers (Sony, HTC, HP, Dell).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Getting into a patent war with Apple is a really bad idea. Apple's portfolio can no doubt put Samsung out of business. Payback is a bitch here.
I dont think so,
It's not the number of patents but the type that counts. Considering Apple patents everything regardless of who invented it and Samsung patents actual innovations as well as almost all Apple patents are software and involve the words "with a phone/touchscreen" whilst Samsung corp owns a crapload of original hardware patents, Apple will quickly find out how badly a patent war with Samsung will hurt.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
So what? What does it matter if Apple is ONE manufacturer and Android is many?
(First off, the only people that mention that fact is Apple Fanbois, who seem to spout it incessantly).
It doesn't matter one bit. Its totally not germane to the situation at hand. Why exactly did you feel compelled to once again pontificate that apple is one company and Android handsets are made by many?
If Apple can't import their devices Android sales will go thru the roof even faster than they are now.
Many Android producers will benefit, and they in turn will order more flash memory from Samsung,
and Samsung won't even notice any significant drop.
But lets go back and talk about those so called facts for a second.
Apple never releases their purchasing data, or even detailed sales data. Neither does Samsung. They wouldn't be that dumb.
And Apple never manufactures their own stuff. They hire it done in China. And the factories they hire produce OTHER things, Nooks, Kindles, tablets for dozens of other companies. And THEY pay for the parts, and Apple pays them back. So anyone (even the quoted URL up thread) is just speculating about where these parts are going. They probably attribute all memory shipped to Foxconn to be for Apple, yet I hold in my hands an Android tablet that was assembled by Foxconn.
So anyone claiming they have precise numbers is mostly guessing, and don't take into account the way markets work between China and Korea.
Further, since the undisputed facts are that ALL android manufactures together are out selling Apple iphones and ipads someone has to explain where they are getting all the Flash Ram. Why, from Samsung of course, since them make a lot of it. (40% allegedly). None of those manufacturers are as big as Apple, but all of them together exceed apple.
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Your original quote was that the Usa was "far and away Apple's largest market". If they don't even have a majority share of the market, it's difficult to see how they're "far and away" the largest, and in fact if the market is defined as 'the Usa vs the rest", the Usa comes out second-best.
Not sure what your marketing or sales background is, but I don't know a SINGLE International entity that considers "the non-US World" as a single market. It's almost always broken up as Europe or EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa), South/Central America, and Asia Pacific. And NONE of those markets are as big as the US market for Apple. In fact, I'm pretty sure Apple breaks their markets down that way as well.
Thus the original contention - the US is the biggest market for Apple - is correct. At least if you consider markets as Apple considers them.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The problem with concepts like "the largest" is that it doesn't convey any real information. In the chart provided with your link, the top ten are listed. Of those top ten, it appears that Apple accounts for about 20% or so. Now, there are thousands of outfits in the world that purchase these. Camera and camcorder manufacturers, car manufacturers etc. It seems quite unlikely that the top ten account for half the total market, they are quite probably a lot less.
What does this mean? It means that even if Apple is, by some margin, the largest OEM buyer in the world, they still account for a single digit percentage of the business. Assuming that the relationship holds for Samsung, Apple would therefore account for less than 10% of the Samsung business. Now, that is total. Samsung is only trying to block US imports, which is, assuming (optimistically) that the US is half the market, that the hit for Samsung will be below 5%. That is a small hit to take if you can seriously damage a significant competitor or, perhaps even better, get some of his profits as royalties.
Sigh. Apple accounts for far less than 10% of Sammy revenue, and it wasn't really Sammy who sued Apple, they counter-sued. I am not sure Apple is the smart one here. Their phone stuff accounts for half their income. If Sammy loses all of Apple's business it will mean a lot less to them than the current currency fluctuations in the markets they operate in.