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Samsung May Try To Block Next iPhone In Europe Too
phonewebcam writes with a report in The Register about the ongoing spat between Samsung and Apple. From the article: "Samsung could try to get the iPhone 5 delayed or banned in Europe, a source has told South Korea's Maeil Business Newspaper today. The Korean giant is considering a lawsuit against the next version of the Apple smartphone due in October, in the expectation that iPhone 5 will make use of some basic telecoms technology that Samsung has patented. ... It comes a day after The Korea Times quoted an anonymous Samsung exec saying that the company would attempt to do the same thing in Korea."
"Turnabout is fair play."
Isn't it great to see someone turn round to a bully and say "no you give me your lunch money muthufucah"
Or... payback's a bitch.
May the Messier object win...
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
... Tomorrow HTC, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, LG...
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
It was as if millions of European hipsters suddenly cried out in pain, and were suddenly silenced.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
it would be great idea, but Apple and Microsoft already have "being an asshole" patent in their pool.
839*929
Good times when devices get a battle on technological specs, features and UI, not on tribunals.
This is blatant abuse of patent law and we need reform NOW. Information should be free and software patents are stupid and this is ridicul....
Wait, someone is doing this to Apple?
FUCK YEAH, it's about fuckin' time! This is awesome and I fully support this, go Samsung, FUCK YOU APPLE!! I HOPE YOU GET CANCER STEVE JOBS!!!!!
Who likes Apple, and why?!
Samsung has all the sympathy due to Apple's pathetic and strung-up attempts to block a winning competitor.
Couldn't we just agree to dismiss Apple to the garbage bin? The world would be such a better place without them, copy-cats.
They are even rivals to Microsoft and SCO as to retarded campaigns.
"Never go against a Korean...when DEATH is on the line!!!"
Choose one:
The whole situation has happened before, though. 150 years ago we had a similar war over the patents for sewing machines. It eventually led to the Sewing Machine Combination, which was a patent pool that created a 20-year cartel of four manufacturers. They were the only ones allowed to produce cutting-edge sewing machines.
Notably, the next major innovation in sewing machines (the rotary hook) sat unexploited until the combination expired in 1876 (sources here and here.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Basically, with the current climate in the patent world, no one can really produce anything as complex as a smartphone, that does not infringe on someone else's patents or design.
Or cutting off your nose to spite your face is fair play bitch. Samsung makes more money selling iPhones than Samsung phones...I would imagine it is quite a bit more profitable too.
Han is just shooting back.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Unlikely, except perhaps for Nokia, since the others are all Android phone makers and the patents Samsung is using were borrowed from Google.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
In this case I think
“You don't mess with the 800 pound gorilla!”
is more apropos. Samsung is the GE of S. Korea
Here is a list of industries under Samsung
Electronics
Shipbuilder
Financial
Chemical
Retail
Entertainment
Flash memory
Aviation
Optical storage
Mobile phones
Smartphones
Hard disk drives
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
That's not entirely true.
There are two ways sanity will get restored. One, someone in government wakes up one day and says "hey, this is a very stupid situation. I think we need to fix it so that this doesn't happen any longer!" The other is to allow and even promote stupidity to grow beyond absurdity at which point there will be no choice but t fix the problem.
I suspect we expect the second way to prevail in this case as any attempt to fix the problem now will result in massive resistance by players who presently benefit from things as they are.
I know they're just fighting Apple on the same grounds but... with all the fanboys just waiting for the newest super greatest next product from Apple, won't this just hurt Samsung in the long run?
A pissed customer may never come back.
Europe =/= Germany. Not that they didn't try, though. Apple *and* the Germans, that is.
If these are core cell patents, they would be RAND, and I can't see why Apple wouldn't have already licensed them.
Unless Samsung is trying to pull another Nokia, and that didn't work.
I can't speak for "people"; but my hope from such mutually destructive activity is that (at the cost of considerable short-term mayhem) it will make the present arrangement untenably expensive even for the incumbent patentholders. Essentially, the present patent system is hopelessly over-determined(in the sense that pretty much any action is covered by numerous broad, sometimes overlapping, patents held by multiple entities, and the cost of securing licenses for them all exceeds the value of almost any action); but survives because it is rather loosely and selectively enforced. Strengthening it will serve to bring its faults into sharper focus.
Historically, you had the patent trolls sucking blood on the sidelines, and the little guys getting squished; but a more or less cold-war environment between the major players. Some sabre rattling and money moving about; but nothing that really upset the status quo. However, if it gets to the point where entire flagship product launches can be, and sometimes are, scotched by patent complaints to any one of an alphabet soup of assorted regulatory bodies, I suspect that the pressure to change the situation will be considerably greater.
As long as the major players can use patents to their advantage, at the (comparatively minor) cost of paying off a troll now and again, the situation will not change. If the pain moves sufficiently far up the food chain that nobody can ship anything, I'm guessing that the congresscritters of the world will be prodded into action...
No - Samsung is making some money off of components, but Apple is the one getting the lion's share of the profit.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I already posted in this thread or I would mod you up.
That might be why they are aiming at the upcoming iPhone, not the present one...
Apple, so rumor has, has been reducing the Samsung slice of the BOM substantially of late(A4, Samsung, A5, somebody else, I'm not sure what they are doing for flash memory...), out of some mixture of desire to get a better deal and reprisal against a competitor. Once the slice falls below a certain level, it stops making sense to tolerate Apple's legal shenanigans in order to move more components, and starts making sense to take action to protect your ability to move finished products.
Samsung presumably sells their components at a profit....
Yes, but I'd imagine the markup is a little higher on a device you build and sell yourself...
Samsung will still be making the A5. The rumors are that TSMC will make the A6. I can see why you would dump a supplier that steals your designs. I can't see why you would dump attack a massive customer of one of the conglomerates core businesses just to prop up the mobile division.
Pretty much all of the dozens of ongoing patent lawsuits try to block imports, because generally that's the best way to do damage even if you can't ultimately win the suit (which is likely, given the propensity of settlements, not that the injuctions are much more common – the threats just make for good headlines). The only one to succeed so far is Apple's suit, which was based on design patents rather than technical patents (as Samsung's seem to be).
Afterall I didn't think Apple were suing over patents, instead it was over the fact that Samsung had ripped off the iPhone interface for the Galaxy S etc. If Samsung went back to a more standard Android application launcher they could probably get this whole sorry mess sorted. Instead they are defending their right to use the the interface that Apple developed.
I thought that the patent infringement cases were with HTC.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
Wow... I had no idea Samsung was so big.
Samsung / Apple
Apple has changed to many other suppliers for its components (the A5 chip comes to mind) so this argument is not valid anymore. Samsung stated that at first, they bent over and let Apple have their way in order to keep a 'healthy' business relation. But after the Galaxy line got blocked in the EU, generating a huge loss, Apple choosing other manufacturers over Samsung, and still acting like a small female dog over patents, Samsung has become quite angry and now Pandora's box is open it seems. I sincerely hope they destroy Apple or at least let them bleed with their childish tactics: crying that they are the underdog while suing all competition out of the market.
live by the sword die by the sword
if the judge itself is using an iphone or ipad...
...how this is good for consumers, let alone how Useful Arts are being promoted.
I'm afraid you misunderstand. Apple is stealing Samsung technology. I suppose you want real INNOVATORS like Samsung to just let thieves like Apple take their IP and blatantly use it in their own products. Don't you know, patents are supposed protect innovators!
(Tired after hearing that Android "stole" from Apple ad nauseum)
Funny to see what an absurd profit Apple makes on its customers, compared to the competition, and then have all the fanbois defend that as a unique selling point. The Stockholm syndrome comes to mind...
Seems like Samsung should just stop that contract.. and see what happens as Apple has to source flash memory from multiple suppliers to keep up with demand..
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Does not matter who threw the first punch the fact they are both hurting the consumer in doing so makes them both douchbags in my books.
Apple wasn't interested in any type of licensing agreement. They wanted Samsung's products ban. Why not return the favor? Apple wants to take a scorched earth approach to dealing with competition. By all means, give it to them.
...the only force strong enough to hold back the technological singularity!
Could you cite your source please?
Apple has 18% of the global smartphone market share. Samsung is very close to that, with 17%.
Your anecdote about the sewing machines explains why pretty well.
Cartels and imaginary property are two huge enemies of progress. What needs to happen is regulation of patent enforcement. If major show-stopper patents (or whatever legal mumbo-jumbo) like being a rectangle can be patented then you shouldn't be granted a monopoly on it. And that's no matter how long that monopoly lasts - technology these days moves forward exponentially faster than it used to.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
Stealing design of a rectangular device with rounded corners is shameless indeed.
I wonder, why does one need a Fab to steal that...
I don't want to sound like an Apple fanboy, but it has to be said that there is at least a conceptual, if not legal, difference between the suits Apple is filling against Samsung and the suits Samsung is filing against Apple. There was no smart phone that looked or acted like the iPhone when it came to market. None. There were indeed phones that provided similar functionalities to what the iPhone eventually offered and made mainstream--but there was no smart phone that was even CLOSE in operation and design to what the iPhone introduced. Now, EVERY smart phone on the market looks and operates like an iPhone. This is not innovation, this is duplication. It's as if other companies--seeing the amazing success of the iPhone-- assumed that Apple's vision of the phone was the future and then they've hopelessly tried to copy it. The iPhone was not a new class of product, like the invention of the automobile was; it was merely Apple's take on what a phone should look and feel like, but other companies have assumed that multitouch OSes, app stores, and accelerometers define what a smart phone is and not just how one company (Apple) interpreted it. This is the difference between bad artists copying and good artists stealing. Sure the iPhone stole heavily from things that were on the market, but it then took those things and made them feel new. So I don't know if there's a legal difference here (probably not), but there is a conceptual difference. Wish Samsung would figure out a way to redefine the smart phone (maybe no touchscreen!) that was unique to its brand, instead of offering what looks to average people like iOS knockoffs.
So what you're saying here is that, despite being a larger company, Apple is less diverse and requires nearly 3x the revenue of Samsung per year to make less net profit.
Samsung, on the other hand, makes basic technologies and innovations that allow companies like Apple to exist in the first place.
Gotcha.
You may wish to learn how to read.
Better read that chart again dude, seems you got some of those numbers mixed up.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Funny to see what an absurd profit Apple makes
You're right. Apple shouldn't be allowed to make any profit.
Or do you think that they should be able to, but you think that the actual amount of profit they should be able to earn should be decided by someone else, like you?
The Stockholm syndrome comes to mind...
What should we call the syndrome that makes whiny haters trot out boring, over-used, poorly-applied mems like that, phrased in a way to make it sound like they're really clever and just thought it up? Really? You were betting your see-how-cool-I-am comment on the hopes that people hadn't already seen that misplaced bit of snarkiness a thousand times already? Let me guess, you also use "M$" when referring to Microsoft, because that is just so damn inventive on your part, right?
Anyway, back to profit. Please mention the correct profit number that Apple should make so that you won't hate them. A precise number would be ideal, thanks.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Always bet on BLACK.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Quite right. I confused the headers. That's what I get for posting while half asleep.
It did strike me as a little odd that Apple's numbers for revenues were so much higher given the differentials in the classes of products the two makes, but apparently not odd enough for me to re-check that I read it correctly.
One major point of difference is that Samsung has patents on actual pieces of electronics which are required for the phones to work the way they do, which took investment in research and development to achieve. Apple has patents on rectangles with rounded corners.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
You go, Samsung.
Hey, as long as this doesn't end up affecting the cost of Samsung LCDs / RAM / HDDs, I'm actually totally OK with watching this patent war play out from the sidelines. /grabs popcorn
Can't wait.... the bitches deserve it....
And yet Apple's competitors are having a difficult time matching the price of the iPad, and the Macbook Air (with comparable quality). Maybe they're just a much more efficient company? Maybe it's a better run business to generate higher profits than their competitors? Nah, has to be 'fanbois' giving away their money...
Did I say Apple was making ALL of the profit? I just said they have the lion's share of it.
If you're not familiar with that phrase - it means Apple is getting the majority of the profit out of the deal. Samsung makes a bit of profit, but not nearly as much as their handset business has been making.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
On the other hand, have you looked at MacBook prices ever? A bare-bones 13in (i5, 4GB RAM, no discrete graphics) costs more than a loaded 17in laptop (i7, 8GB RAM, 540M, 1080p screen, Bluray drive, more hard-disk space) from other manufacturers. I've used MacBooks. Their build quality is good, but not that good.
I think the idea is that blind people are more likely to buy "no more eye for an eye" laws. The entire industry is suffering due to patents, so it's a good thing that the biggest players, who have the most power to change things, start experiencing a larger portion of that suffering.
Another good thing about what's happening, is that it's high-profile. Thousands of people can be blinded and nobody cares, but should it happen to even one single celebrity, suddenly it's important. Joe Schmoe doesn't give a fuck that it's illegal for you to encode or decode h264 without permission, but he cares that he's not allowed to buy an iPad.
You don't have to celebrate the injustice, but yes, if it's going to happen anyway, celebrate the venue in which it's happening. It's not a good thing, but it's an improvement.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
First, Apple never denied it owed Nokia RAND royalties from the beginning. The problem was that Nokia singled-out Apple for higher rates, violating the "ND" part of "RAND."
Apple settled for what Apple was supposed to pay in the first place if Nokia had honored the RAND terms. The cash payment to Nokia was back RAND royalties.
It was a complete win for Apple and a loss for Nokia, which had to pay all those lawyers and still only got the same RAND rate Apple was already prepared to pay before the suit.
Good job missing the entire point.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Why do people cite this as a positive? They're moving far less units per quarter than the others, if we're to believe the current North American sales rate Apple has such a huge markup that it's possibly double or triple the highest android on the market. In other words: Apple is ripping off customers. Perceived value or not iOS just isn't worth on a statistical level 300% more than Android. The whole reason Apple is even suing Samsung is over design because that is essentially what Apple sells. They are the Coach of the tech world, a far better purse could be had for far less but it is an issue of style over substance. I'm not a detractor of Apple either, I like the Mac OS X interface and wouldn't be against owning an iMac or a MacBook, I just can't justify paying such a HUGE premium on something that can't run half of the applications I want. I'm not even a serious power user in the IT field, I'm a professor. My department has some Mac users and some PC and I prefer my PC simply because it can see the mail server, access blackboard, access our proprietary student accounts system and give me maximum access.
They already do. Samsung is not the only memory supplier to Apple, just one of several. Killing that deal would hurt Samsung more than it would inconvenience Apple, which is why Samsung have not done it already.
In theory, in a mature, competitive industry, there should be very very small profit margins. Innovation and barriers to entry, however, can protect profit margins; as can marketing and mind share.
Apple made the first really successful multimedia smart phone, and has been reaping huge profits due to their innovation in this field (even if you think "innovation" here only means bringing everything together in a shiny package). Unfortunately for Apple, the competition is catching up (or has caught up and surpassed, depending on who you ask). This means it will be much more difficult for Apple to maintain their profit margins.
The patent lawsuits by Apple against Samsung are an attempt to maintain a barrier to entry since Samsung's products have caught up functionally with Apple's. How would it look for Apple if the iPhone5 is behind (or merely on par) to the Galaxy SII? They may be able to get away with their margins for one more iteration, but their mind share will start to falter as soon as their products are not unambiguously superior (which they have mostly been in the smart phone market up until now).
In fairness to Apple, from their perspective, they have been buying parts from Samsung who then goes ahead and makes a very similar phone on the side. It is hard to compete with your supplier, and raises trust issues since they know what you are ordering etc. Fortunately, Samsung has enough money to defend themselves from these lawsuits, and clearly the desire to launch a large scale counter offensive.
And no, I am not an Apple fanboi, my phone is actually an SII (which is a great phone, imho).
Good job missing the entire point.
Nah, I know exactly what he's saying - directly and indirectly. He comes right out and tells us that Apple's profits are absurd and that (by implication) hostage-like people who don't know their own minds on the subject are defending them. He dissaproves of Apple's earnings, and he's derisively complaining about the people who buy things from Apple. It's not exactly complicated.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
No, they really don't. Not even close.
40% and no more
Can I dictate how much you're allowed to make? Please?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
They are simply a bunch of whining crybabies that got left out of the AAPL party. Pity them... oh wait... never mind.
The thinner a laptop gets, the more complicated it gets to keep everything cool and compact. That engineering costs serious money and if not done right, the manufacturer will end up getting a huge boatload of returns.
There are heat issues, durability issues, etc.
Apple's build quality is not just good, it's the best, and Apple has the highest customer service ratings than all the other players.
But to Apple, the iPhone5 represets a massive part of their total product line. If the iPhone5 were to be blocked, it would be a huge financial hit for them and would deeply affect their share price. The fact that Apple does not pay dividends on their shares means that their share price is somewhat more volatile than shares in other companies (who do pay dividends).
By contrast, Samsung's product lineup is massive, and the Galaxy line (S, S2, Tabs) only represent a small part. If they are blocked, it would still be a financial hit, but not as massive as Apple's would be.
Samsung has market cap of $130bn and Apple of $380bn, but the latter also has $76.4bn cash reserves. Apple may make flash looking mediocre products but they know how to squeeze their clients for high margins.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
I have been wondering for some time, why Diane Sawyer of ABC world news never asked Apple to make CPU their iphones and iPads in the great US of A?
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Apple has kicked a tiger square in the balls and is about to learn why that's not a smart play.
So, who's up for applesauce?
Samsung is acting like a child. They blatantly ripped of Apple's designs and now are trying to get back at the mean old parent for taking away their toys. Remember this is a company that colluded with LCD manufacturers to price-fix LCDs and was busted by the DOJ for $3 billion back in 2007. It's unlikely Samsung will stop Apple with some obscure hardware patents.
Or cutting off your nose to spite your face is fair play bitch. Samsung makes more money selling iPhones than Samsung phones
Citation? Samsung is making a huge profit right now through their smartphone sales, whilst their profits from most other components is falling. In Q2 of this year, Samsung sold way more phones than Apple. Phone sales, right now, are top dollar for Samsung.
And if Apple's sales of an iPhone5 gets blocked, what do think will happen to Samsung's sales? Do you think they might just happen to rise even further?
What a bizarre response. If you knew what a margin was, you'd know I have no need to quote any source.
Oh, and there's no need to point out how similar 17% and 18% are. We know.
Actually I think all corporations should not be allowed to make profit, salaries should be capped as well. This planet would be a much better place to live, to bad its a pipe dream.
You answered your own question, you're a professor, use the PC to do real and important stuff when it's needed, you're not hip enough == not Apple's target market, and thats why you don't see any added value in it.
LG Prada 2006
Rectangle: check
Rectangle with rounded corners: check
rectangle with rounded corners and capacitative touchscreen: check
How... wait, wh.. why people don't understand that rectangles with rounded corners are a cornerstone design element that prevents the user from holding it wrong!? Leave Apple alone! /s
A growing profit can be much smaller than a shrinking profit, you don't need to be a mathematician to understand that.
Damn you for making a valid point. Damn you! I just find it frustrating when people get into these arguments and ignore the reality. I want Ford to make a fortune because they are my preferred car company and I like Coke over Pepsi. But do I want to pay a 300% markup on either of their products so they can stick it to their opposites? Not particularly. If anything I would rather them simply sell more at a margin so that both more people gain access and support my purely esoteric side.
Fanboys are Fanboys. But there has to be a logical end to our biased desires.
Uhm, what?
Having 2/3d of the smartphone profits with 18% market share is rather remarkable.
That's why I'd prefer to know what is the source of that info and when exactly did that happen.
But how would that information be in any way relevant to a discussion about how much profit Samsung makes from selling this or that product?
Apple's market cap: $382 billion
Samsung's cash: $300 billion.
You do the maths.
According to the poster above, we have two companies with roughly the same market share, and rather close prices (!!!) yet one of them has 2/3rd of the market profit. If that doesn't make you wonder, you may wish to learn how to think.
Apple's marked share shrank from 96% last year to 74% this year. (and that without major players like Samsung or Sony entering the market)
And it is expected to go down to 44% by 2015.
Looks good on Apple. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of bozos.
See my previous reply to your other comment. You keep going on about "2/3rd of the market profit". All completely irrelevant to any discussion about mark-ups or margins. Please deal with what's actually being discussed here, or give up.
Not talking about the lawsuits, but the blocking. Samsung set the bar.
That's what happens when a company charges monopoly rents. It encourages other companies to enter the market and price sanity is restored. Apple is addicted to those monopoly rents and is fighting tooth and nail to keep the competition out. The have the first mover advantage, but their free ride is almost over. Unless they are able to move the goalposts, they had better get used to other companies taking a share.
Yes, Chinese crap is much better than other Chinese crap. Oh, wait.
If by "not matching the price" you mean "offering a superior product for the same price", then you'd be right.
TBH I don't think Samsung are worried about being cheaper than whatever Apple has. They make products good enough to compete on their own merits. Other manufacturers have targeted the lower end.
Samsung are beating Apple by making superior products, and Apple can't accept it that they can't keep up. For a company who relied on premium revenues by selling the luxury product lines and maintaining this image it's a problem when somebody comes along and starts making clearly better products.
Working in marketing for some time, even if I'm an advertising dude (read liberal arts kind of weasel) shields you against the marketing poison. That said, I was a ragging Mac fan by the time Jobs returned but I moved on when they started to control freak everything.
Citation? Because I've had nothing but problems with Apple products, Product support and their customer service in general.
'Best' is also so subjective its not even funny.
Show me the Apple laptop I can run over with a 1/2 Ton truck and still work flawlessly.
Show me the Apple laptop with an 18 hour batter life.
Show me the Apple laptop I can run Crysis 2 on with absolutely maxed settings.
Show me the Apple laptop that cost 499.99
There really is nothing Apple does 'Best' with its laptop lines. They're not the cheapest, fastest, most powerful, most energy efficient, lightest or thinnest. What exactly are they the best at?