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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."
Or... payback's a bitch.
... 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
Someone bruise your apple?
Good times when devices get a battle on technological specs, features and UI, not on tribunals.
How do you pick the bully when you are discussing enormous multinational consumer electronics companies using the legal system to try to disrupt their competitors?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
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!!!!!
"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.
No, I never got past the "You must be at least this arrogant to enter" sign at the Apple Store entrance.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
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.
You are wrong, my friend, wrong. Samsung runs the country.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
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 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...
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.
It's worse if you allow a competitor (who is also a customer) limit your ability to do business.
Sometimes it's better to ignore bullies. But this is a bully bullying a bully. And this bully, in Korea, is treated as royalty. This bully's bully has the war-making backing and influence of their government. If you think the influence of business over government in the US is bad, you haven't seen what Samsung's influence over Korea is like.
I believe what tends to happen in cases like this, where there is such disdain for the patent mess and the general notion of competition by litigation, is people tend to dislike the perceived aggressor the most.
Apple is clearly the perceived aggressor, having started the litigation in this scenario. And Samsung is seen as defending itself. Had Samsung instigated this particular fight, they would be "rooted against" so to speak, excepting a certain anti-Applie contingent that will always hate and root against Apple even if they're giving away food to starving people in third world countries.
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.
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...
Could you cite your source please?
Apple has 18% of the global smartphone market share. Samsung is very close to that, with 17%.
Stealing design of a rectangular device with rounded corners is shameless indeed.
I wonder, why does one need a Fab to steal that...
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.
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?
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...
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.
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.
Uh huh. iPhone - 2007. LG Prada - 2006.
"LG Electronics has claimed the iPhone's design was copied from the LG Prada. Woo-Young Kwak, head of LG Mobile Handset R&D Center, said at a press conference, “We consider that Apple copied the Prada phone after the design was unveiled when it was presented in the iF Design Award and won the prize in September 2006."
If you look at photos of both, with Prada's tablet like look and large capacitative touch screen, it's pretty clear the iPhone is just a rip-off.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
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?
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?